Work Text:
“Matt,” Ro says, exasperated, as he runs his hands through her hair another time, still probing for some imaginary injury. “Matt, it’s fine, don’t worry—”
“Just let me do this, Ro,” Matt shoots back, “for my own peace of mind, okay, please.”
Ro rolls her eyes and stands still so Matt can finish his check up, biting her tongue so she doesn’t point out that she’s technically the older of the two. “Satisfied?” she asks cheekily when he steps back.
Matt doesn’t look amused. Actually, he still looks scared. He drags a hand down his mouth, and then tucks his fingers into his own hair—a nervous tick he has, she knows. She touches his elbow. “Matt?”
“It was just—too close,” he admits finally, releasing his hair.
Ro agrees. She likes their little lounge the group has taken refuge in—everybody regrouping after the scare on the carousel, making sure their own close friends are okay—but it’s not easy to forget that it’s technically the clowns’ hideout. It’s in their arcade, after all, it’s not too much of a stretch to assume they know it’s here.
They hadn’t known their numbers on the carousel. Ro couldn’t see Matt from the pole she’d been tied to, but the knowledge that he could’ve been killed and she wouldn’t have known scared her more than she wants to admit. She imagines the same could be said for him about her.
“You’re sure you’re okay,” he asks, one more time, holding her gaze.
Ro closes a hand over his, patting it with her other one. “Matt, you know I love you right? You can’t protect me from everything.”
“I can try.”
“Yeah, you could try,” she echoes, pursing her lips. “But I read that letter, same as everyone else. People have to—” Her voice cracks. Matt immediately pulls her into him. She fits like a puzzle piece in the way his arms are shaped. In them she feels home.
“People have to die for us to cleanse the artifacts,” she finishes, clenching her jaw so she won’t cry. “And I can do math too, Matt. There are eight artifacts, and ten of us.”
“Eleven if you count Mortimer,” Matt says sourly.
Ro gasps and pulls back from him. “Matthew!”
“I don’t trust him, I’m sorry.” He sees her crestfallen expression and softens. “No, I am sorry. I hear what you’re saying.”
“So you promise?”
“Promise what?”
“That you’ll be okay if I don’t survive this.”
She says it so simply it stuns Matt into silence. He stares at her, mouth open, and she gently closes it for him. “I’m not stupid, Matt. I’m smaller than everyone else, I’m not as fast. I’m not saying I’m giving up,” she says when she sees Matt going to protest. “I’ll do my best. But you and I both know that my best might not be enough, not for this.”
Matt looks increasingly more upset. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I love you,” she says, smiling at him. “And if anybody can survive this, it’s gonna be you. I want you to. So—” And she holds up her hand, pinky out, suddenly very serious. “You gotta promise.”
“Ro,” he says, with an unhappy frown, “how am I supposed to be okay with this?”
“Because I am.”
He stares, first at her face and then at her pinky, still extended towards him, waiting. Finally he sighs, and locks his own with hers. “Okay. I promise. But I’m still going to try.”
“Then so will I.” Ro hugs him, feeling like a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders. “That’s all I wanted from you.”
“Oh guys,” Joey announces from the center of the room, “I found clues that’ll tell us where the song and the spring are.”
Matt squeezes Ro once before letting her go. They rejoin the group. Joey gives her a curious look, flicking his eyes between her and Matt, but she nods at him, telling him in her own way that they’re okay. Joey doesn’t know Matt very well, she doesn’t think, but she does, and there’s nothing to fear from him.
She absolutely believes he can make it out of here alive. She just doesn’t want him to risk that trying to save her.
Joey frowns, and she gets the feeling he’s going to scold her later, but that’s okay. She got what she wanted. She can handle anything else that happens.
-
Matt’s shaking.
His smile is bright but doesn’t hide how he trembles when he clutches her close. Ro only noticed because he was the first to reach her and the last to let go. She aches for Teala but this challenge has brought her a tiny bit of hope, the knowledge that okay, maybe she isn’t the worst, maybe she can survive this if she plays her cards right.
(She doesn’t want to think about how there are still only two logical survivors, and it can’t be her if she wants both of her boys to survive. If it comes down to that, she’ll panic when it happens, and worry about it later.)
With this knowledge she figured Matt would be relieved, and maybe stop worrying so much, but instead he almost seems to be worse off. “Matt, what’s wrong?” He’d liked Teala too, she knows. An irrational pang of hurt strikes her chest. He wouldn’t prefer Teala over her, right?
That’s silly, Rosanna. Matt just has a heart too big for his body. He hurts when others hurt. She knows, because she’s the same way. That must be why he’s so upset.
“God, I hate this,” Matt growls when he finally lets go and collapses back onto the couch.
Ro sits next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Hate what?” There’s a lot to hate about this situation, but he obviously needs to vent.
“Being helpless.”
“Aw, Matt,” she says, rubbing circles into his shoulder. “You’re not helpless.”
“I am if I can’t protect you.”
Oh, this again? Ro leans back. “Is that why you’re upset?”
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, knowing he’s in trouble.
“Matt—”
“It’s just that I feel like I should be able to,” he states, and his voice cracks, so she falls silent. “It’s not like you’re weak, because you’re not, and it’s not even like I feel responsible for you. I just… I should be smarter than this, we should’ve won the group challenge and then none of us would’ve been put at risk at all, but we didn’t, and you almost died because of it, and Teala—”
“Oh, honey,” Ro says when she sees tears well in his eyes. She leans against him, fitting where she’s meant to fit, and stays there until Matt’s shaking subsides. “It’s not your fault,” she says quietly.
“I failed JC,” he answers. His voice sounds like it’s been rubbed down with sandpaper. “I failed Teala. If I fail you and Safiya, I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You didn’t fail,” Ro tells him firmly. “It’s not failure just because the other team did well.”
Matt’s quiet for a second. “It is if it means the result is someone dies.”
“Matt, you gotta let this go.” She taps his cheek until he looks to her. “You need to accept that you can’t save us all, no matter how hard you try. You’re super smart, and super kind, but you aren’t Superman.”
A corner of his mouth twitches upwards. “You don’t think I’m superhero material?”
“Oh absolutely,” Ro laughs. “Just maybe not one with super powers.”
“So I’m Batman.”
“Not that cool, either.”
“Green Arrow?”
“Not that rich.”
“Amen to that, sister,” he says feelingly, and Ro giggles. They lie there on the couch together, pulses synchronized, knowing that in another hour another one of them will be dead, but enjoying each other’s company until then.
-
Ro’s been frozen on the couch for ten minutes now. Everyone has given her a wide berth, even Joey, since Matt and Manny were taken back to get changed. She hears the lull of conversation all around her, but she hasn’t taken her eyes off the badge in her hand.
He’s not going to survive this challenge.
Everyone knows it. Matt knows it. Manny is twice his size. He crushed him in the arm wrestling tournament. Matt isn’t coming back from this.
She’s having a hard time breathing.
It’s funny, because she’d spent most of this night making sure everyone else was okay, she didn’t even stop to consider herself. Matt’s so smart, though, and such a leader, and he cares about everyone, and it just doesn’t make sense that anyone would ever vote him in. They don’t have a choice, here. She can’t vote for Joey, and she can’t vote for Matt, and she hates voting for Manny but this is what it comes down to. So it’s Manny. And it’s Matt. And Matt won’t survive this, he just won’t, and she didn’t stop to consider that she might not be okay with this and yet here she is.
Very much not okay.
Is this how Matt felt, then? Helpless? Safe on the sidelines while others go out, fight for their lives, and lose? Die? There’s anxiety climbing her throat, choking out the oxygen, as she remembers JC, remembers Roi. Remembers how she’d turned to show Teala the gem she’d recovered, only to watch her gasp out her last breath in Benjamin’s stranglehold. Dead. All her friends, dead. And another one about to be added to the list, but one she’d thought was safe, one she didn’t think she had to keep safe. Joey, maybe, he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body, he wouldn’t protect himself if he had to, but Matt?
How am I supposed to be okay with this? His words echo in her ear and suddenly, too suddenly, in dizzying clarity, she understands exactly what he meant.
“Ro?”
She blinks. Matt is kneeling in front of her. She stares, and then lets out a surprised laugh, covering her mouth. “What are you wearing?”
“It’s my superhero outfit,” Matt deadpans. “What, you don’t like it?”
Ro gets control of her impulse to giggle at this and never stop. It feels too good to laugh right now, when she really wants to cry. “No, you’re very handsome.”
He’s decked out in a white T and red gym shorts that are considerably shorter than Manny’s, proportionately. White socks come all the way up to his knee, and there’s a red sweat band tucked beneath his bangs. He does, actually, look rather handsome, though by the way he self-consciously covers his knees, she can tell he’s not exactly thrilled.
“I’m gonna die decked out like a “Workout With Barbie” Ken doll,” he responds dryly.
And just like that, the mirth evaporates. “Matt—”
“No, Ro, it’s okay.” Matt smiles, and if it trembles along the edges, it’s not her place to point it out. “I came over to apologize.”
“For what?”
“Leaving you.”
Ro sucks in a breath. Tears spring fast and hot to her eyes, and she can’t stop them. Matt reacts by placing both hands on the side of her face, wiping the tears away with his thumbs as he thinks of what to say. “You were right,” he admits finally. “I get it now. About needing the people you care about to be okay without you.”
“Matt, please don’t say this,” Ro whispers.
“Ro, we all know how this is going to play out, and we don’t have the time to waste on denial.” Matt takes a shaky breath. “So I’m gonna need you to promise.”
A laugh barks out through the sobs. “We already promised.”
“No, I promised,” Matt corrects, very matter-of-fact. “Now it’s your turn, since this is pretty much a done thing.” He holds up his pinky. “Whatever happens, Rosanna Pansino, I’ll wait for you. But you gotta promise me you’re gonna try.”
Ro stares at his finger. Part of her wants to be stubborn, or spiteful, like if she refuses then he won’t go, he’ll stay here and let someone go instead. But that isn’t how this works. She knows it and he knows. And if it wasn’t Matt, it’d be Joey.
Let it be Joey, then, the selfish parts of her argues, but it’s half-hearted and she doesn’t believe it. Matt is okay with this. She has to be, too.
So she links her pinky with his, trying to swallow the dread that’s insisting that she’s sealing his fate, giving up on him, abandoning him to fight this battle alone when she should’ve tried harder to convince him to stay. Matt takes their locked hands and kisses hers before pressing his forehead to hers.
“Be gentle, when you tell Stephanie,” he tells her with a crooked smile. “She’s still got a few months to go before Ollie’s ready to meet the world.”
“Matt…” Ro can’t even see his face through the tears flooding her eyes. She doesn’t know what to say, and just settles for a breathy, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Ro,” he says, smiling. “I’ll miss you.”
And just like that he’s gone, whisked away with Manny, and Mortimer is announcing that they’re going to be watching. Safiya helps Ro stand, guides her out the door.
Even though Ro’s been holding Matt’s badge since he’d slammed it down on the table, it’s still utterly cold in her fingers.
-
Ro gets Matt back, a few hours later. She holds him and knows that he’s different. That’s okay though, because she’s different, too. They’re both a little bit stronger. And a little bit weak.
They have each other, though. Ro doesn’t really care about anything else.
-
It’s easy to forget promises, Ro thinks as she clutches Joey’s hand, gazing at Safiya’s body, watching the blood spread from the wound in her side, spilling out onto the white carpet and staining it bright red. Matt’s kneeling next to her, feeling for a pulse, but she knows he won’t find one. This is the death the artifact demanded, and it hadn’t happened to either of the chosen contestants.
It paints a stark picture. None of them are safe. Even if they do everything right, none of them are safe.
Nikita and Manny run in. Matt rounds on them. Ro can’t hear either end of the conversation, but she knows Matt’s upset. She’s never heard him get that angry. No, it’s not anger ripping his voice like that. It’s fear. Unflappable Matt, strong Matt, Superman Matt. And he’s scared.
And he has every right to be. No one else (save for Joey, oh Joey, Joey could’ve been killed too) knows what death tastes like. Ro’s scared too. She’s scared because she doesn’t understand the rules of this awful, awful game. She’s scared because that means any one of them could die. Safiya did nothing wrong, nothing the whole night, and she’d been killed by a fluke. By a cheat.
Joey leaves Ro to help Manny and Nikita cleanse the artifact, but the loss of contact makes Ro release a low whine that only Matt hears. He’s there in an instant, helping her to sit, using his larger body to block Safiya’s from her view. “Hey, Ro, come on now,” he says, worry thick in his voice. “Talk to me, what’s wrong?”
“I thought—” She doesn’t even know what she’d thought. She stares at him. “But, Safiya—”
She’s the smartest of them, outside of Matt. She was gonna make it. It was gonna be her and Matt. Ro had thought so from the beginning, but Matt had died, and now Safiya. They might’ve gotten Matt back through cheating, but that only means they lost Saf the same way.
Matt must realize what she’s trying to say, even though she isn’t really sure of it herself. He sighs and draws her in, resting his chin on her yellow beret. “What a night, huh?” he says, as if he’s talking about the weather and not the fact that everything they knew about this game just got flipped on its head.
“I thought I was okay with this,” Ro mumbles into his chest. “I thought I was prepared, but I don’t… really think I am, Matt.”
“Me either,” he admits quietly.
“I’m just so scared,” she says, miserable. “And I can try to be brave, like you, and Joey and Nikita and Manny, but I’m just—not, I’m just not brave. I’m so scared, Matt, I’m so…”
“Wanna know a secret?” Matt squeezes her shoulder. “I’m scared too.”
She’d worry about him if he wasn’t, to be honest. “You sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Yeah, well.” He tries to smile. “Us theater kids gotta stay in practice somehow, right?”
Ro stares glumly down at the floor. “I guess so.”
“Hey.” He shakes her once, gentle and firm at the same time. “We’re still here. As long as we are alive, we have breath. We take it everywhere with us.”
She blinks. “Wow, Matt, that was super deep.”
“I read it off a fortune cookie,” he says sagely.
Ro wants to laugh. Instead she tucks her head under his chin again. Maybe this makes it easier, instead of harder. It took her off guard, yes, but maybe she needs to be. Hope is a toxic thing when it doesn’t pan out. And being okay is a lot harder than it sounds when your friends are dying all around you.
She can hear his heartbeat from here. It sounds like empty promises.
-
He has to go back for her.
He has to throw it. He has to wait. Matt pauses when he reaches the maze of wires at his feet, watching Ro, frozen in the autumn moonlight. She’s recovering from a bout of retching, looking down at her cup with such misery. Maybe he can drink it for her? The concoction was disgusting and incredibly carbonated, but he’d had practice with that sort of thing. Ro doesn’t deserve this. Not like this.
Joey completes his disc stage and moves onto bobbing for apples, but he pauses before he goes for it, watching Matt, trying to see what he’s going to do. Matt takes a step towards Ro, and this time she notices.
She takes in Manny, flying through his disc challenge, and Joey, getting to his knees in front of the barrels of apples, and Matt, trying to leave the maze of bells behind. Her eyes harden. “Matt, you promised.”
Matt stops.
How am I supposed to be okay with this?
Because I am.
He’s not ready, though. He’s not ready to say goodbye.
It’s so chillingly October outside that his tears cool immediately upon leaving his eyes as he tries to reconcile this. Ro softens at the sight of it. “You’re not Superman,” she says quietly.
“No,” he responds, heart crumbling in his chest. “I’m not.”
She smiles. He closes his eyes, then turns and drops to the ground so he can navigate the maze. He rings a bell the first time, and makes it through the second. He taps the steps that mark the end of the obstacle course with his hand, the thud of it awfully final. He’s the first to complete it. Joey comes second, and Manny, taking his sweet time, finishes third.
Ro is still smiling at him, and he finds it hard not to smile back. “Ro,” he says, cold, in more ways than one, “you’ve been the best friend I could ask for.”
She laughs. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Ro.” It sounds familiar, so he finishes it. “I’ll miss you.”
There’s no time for anything else. The box opens, revealing the amulet, and just like that, Calliope is rushing them back. She doesn’t want him to see this, he realizes. Needing some form of comfort for once, he lets her take his hand and lead him away from the clearing.
They’re at the door of Fat Man Slim’s when Ro’s scream rings out. They all flinch, but Matt feels it in his gut like the knives had driven into him, too. It’s like dying all over again. No, it’s worse.
And just like that, the last soft part of Matt seals up, hardened by the reality of life-or-death competition. He’s alone, now, with no one to care for or take care of him. But there’s one more artifact left, and he doesn’t intend to die here tonight, not again, not after everything he went through.
He has a promise to keep.