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Intimacy boundaries are a strange thing within their group. Not that Bullseye knows how it’s supposed to be, he’d be the first to admit that he’s not sure how normal relationships work, but then again, none of them are normal in the first place. And when you have the kinda meteoric drama that only five (eight?) vigilante criminals could have, it’s easy to just… Let things happen. Oh, he’s talked to Marc about it, it’s not like it’s a hidden thing but it’s still--
Really, Bullseye thinks, it’s just weird to find himself in Matt Murdock’s lap, the ex-kingpin of crime running long fingers ( wonder if he was ever a pianist , he thinks) through his hair, the computer playing some quiet podcast about jazz or some shit that Bullseye couldn’t care for.
Even if he did care about jazz, the single fact that Matt Murdock is touching him, softly, his eyes closed and his face slack and looking relaxed , an adjective that is not a very common thread in the narrative of Murdock’s descriptors, would prevent him from being able to pay attention.
These things just happen. But he wasn’t expecting it to ever be with him . Too messy. The parallels in their lives, the things they’ve done to each other, the things they are and have become. It’d be like him and Ele--
No, no, it’s not. That different. He knows it’s different because they couldn’t kill each other, but she would have, if her morals were just tweaked slightly more sideways.
So it’s just one of those things, and Bullseye wants to relax into it, but he’s scared of breaking Matt from this reverie, of Matt realizing what he’s doing and pushing him away, spitting something at him, threatening him, anything, so he’s wide eyed and kinda staring up at him.
It’s not like there’s even that much hair, so it can’t just be a compulsion thing, like when he gets fixated and needs, needs, needs to do something with his hands and patterns come easy so patterns it is and he throws knives into circles or etches knives into wood or something . No, his hair is as short as it could be without shaving it in a month and a half.
He doesn’t wanna break the spell, but he’s better than that, now, so he shifts, just slightly, and Matt’s hand pauses on his scalp, and he furrows his brow and faces down at him, but then he continues after a moment, so now Bullseye knows it’s on purpose and he starts to feel claustrophobic in his own head, because it’s just a lot, and--
“Why’re you doin’ this?” He asks, too fast, too quick, too jumpy, but it’s either talk or spiral and freak out and probably lose whatever this is forever.
Matt gives a casual shrug, but Bullseye knows him enough know to know that nothing he ever does is ‘casual’, it just looks it. It’s carefully practiced, carefully poised, and oh-so carefully crafted from years of bloodshed both inflicted on him and by him.
“Why not?”
He says it like that’s a fucking answer and Bullseye can’t help but laugh, a harsh, ugly sound that makes Matt frown, some of that normal carefully poised tension pushing itself back into his shoulders. His fingers still.
“No, no, it--” Bullseye says, but he barely even wants to talk, doesn’t wanna remind Murdock of the mistake he’s making, remind him of who he’s currently cuddling. “It’s fine.”
“If you don’t like it, you can move over to the other couch,” Matt says, and drums his fingers against Bullseye’s scalp like this isn’t serious , and god , he wishes he could read Matt better. Sometimes he thinks he gets him, and then he goes and does something like this.
“...Keep doing it. I didn’t say to stop .” He ends up curling up closer to Matt, and Matt lets him, his fingers still idle on his head. It isn’t even much , but it’s a lot more touch than they’re used to when they’re not bloody and tired and fighting, and Bullseye doesn’t see Matt touch anyone like this unless he’s making a shitty, petty point and flaunt how good he can be to Karen.
(Which isn’t true; he’s seen how he really is with her, when they fall asleep on the couch with a shitty movie in the background, and he’s always so tender, so soft with her, curled up next to her as they sleep, and you’d be hard-pressed to believe that this was the same man that had shoved a knife in Bullseye’s arm just to make it harder for him to throw for a few weeks. How could those hands, wrapped around Karen like she was more precious to him than life, be capable of such atrocities?)
But maybe that’s part of this. Karen knows what Matt’s done. Seen it. And so has Bullseye. And Bullseye knows , at least the stuff that happened in New York, why Matt is the way he is. He shouldn’t be wasting his time thinking about the why of it, though, should just be embracing it, taking it in, enjoying it, and then Matt speaks again, and Bullseye wishes, wishes, wishes that for once Matt Murdock wouldn’t cycle through emotions like a fourteen year old who just got access to a full closet for the first time in her life.
“I assumed I would have to kill you.”
Bullseye goes still, still as can be, and wants to say something, to fill the air with words and words and words that mean nothing and don’t make sense but at least they’d cut the silence and make it so Matt can’t keep talking. But he doesn’t , because that would really piss Matt off, and besides, Matt’s clearly not done talking yet.
“When this was finished. A temporary alliance before I could be done with you and wipe my hands clean of anything related to him .”
Matt won’t say his name, anymore. It’s a curious thing. Used to, all the time, in the lead-up, in the planning, in the Execution, but now? Now he won’t say his name and Bullseye’s seen his face twitch more than once when someone else says it. He doesn’t get it, not really, but he guesses names have power, and he guesses it’s just another one of Matt’s enigmas.
“But I’m just so damn lovable and cute you decided to keep me around even after dear old Fisky died?” He asks dryly, knowing it’s the wrong answer, considering the way Matt’s nose wrinkles and he squints his eyes. But, if Murdock’s gonna play these cryptic ass games where he takes control of a conversation, then it’s Bullseye’s job to annoy him. Especially under pseudo-threats of violence such are Matt’s.
“No. I guess I just didn’t see the point in killing you, afterwards. You weren’t a threat, any longer.”
Bullseye rolls his eyes; it’s one of these arguments. Not that they don’t get to him, they do, but it seems to be one of Matt’s fixations, these weird power plays that have stopped mattering, and so long as Bullseye can keep his head about him, he won’t get pulled into it, not all the way.
He is not having drunken competitions with Matt on the roof again, not tonight.
“Gee, thanks. Really hammerin’ in the affection tonight, Murdock.”
“Do you want me to keep massaging your head?”
“... Yeah.”
“Then let me talk.”
Bullseye makes a big show of huffing and puffing like it’s all so inconvenient to him, sprawling over him a little more to make Matt’s access to him easier. It’s weird; Matt’s bony like him, but he’s tall and angular and if he weren’t so weaponized in the way he carries every single muscle, he’d look awkward, like the kid who had a growth spurt over the summer but hadn’t grown into it quite yet. But he pulls it off, makes it look graceful, predatory, beautiful.
“What I’m getting at--”
“Nuh-uh,” Bullseye interrupts, “Deal’s a deal. Keep scratchin.’”
Matt blinks, and then honest-to-god snorts in good humor, and starts back up at pulling his fingers through Bullseye’s hair, massaging his scalp, just giving him touch . Bullseye’s eyes close automatically, now that he knows it’s not some weird ploy (well, it might still be, but at this point, it’s too late to struggle if Murdock is gearing up to some villainous plot to kill him, so he might as well enjoy it either way).
“You’re so goddamn annoying ,” Murdock says, but there’s a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I really would have killed you, if he had hired you when I was still there.”
“Are these supposed to be compliments or what?”
Matt pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Just be quiet for two seconds. What I’m saying is, I won’t kill you. And I don’t want to. And... “ He trails off, and Bullseye’s always been good at putting context clues together. Can’t remember a damn thing to save his life, but he’s good at just knowing what’s happening, and he’s starting to wonder if maybe Karen put him up to this. She’s been trying to get them all involved with her weird brand of self-help and therapy groups and all that jazz, and it only makes sense it’d rub off on Matt the most, even if he absorbs it as painfully as pulling teeth.
“And,” He starts again, “I have allowed much of our relationship to be predicated upon jealousy for him . And I will not let him dictate my relationships any longer.”
So it’s still about Fisk. Except… Not really, and this is surprising, weird, surprisingly mature for Murdock. Karen definitely put him up to this. But even if Bullseye can see right through it, it hits him. If it was really silent in the room, he’d wanna scream, but the background jazz and jazz breakdowns keep the living room from being too sanitary, too isolating, and lets him keep his cool.
He twists so he’s full on in Matt’s lap, facing up at him while Matt still-- albeit haltingly, now-- moves his hand through his hair. “And so, in conclusion, petting me?”
Matt takes in a deep, deep breath, and Bullseye’s sure he ruined it, but he gets another snort, this time turning into an actual huff , so he must be doing something right. “...I guess so. I guess that’s how this is manifesting.” On anyone else, that ’d have a hysterical note to it, a fear, a tremble. But it’s Murdock, so it all sounds level and just as normally threatening and blasé as the rest of what he says.
But Bullseye knows.
“Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta not question it.” ‘Cause if they did, it’d be so easy to just lose it, go off the rails, and they’ve both done that but it’s--
They can’t do it forever, and for some reason the universe has demanded they all find some level of kinship with each other rather than normal fucking people, and this house is already a nightmare, so what’s one more night of weird intimacy?
“Mm. Perhaps.”
And that’s all there is to it. Matt goes back to listening to his podcast, even goes so far as to rewind to where he left off, and there’s just no need to keep the conversation going. Can’t pull at too many strings, lest the marionette tumble to the stage floor. Not that they’re puppets anymore, but the metaphor is crafty and Bullseye’s sticking with it, and it’s easier than he could have ever, ever imagined to just close his eyes and listen to the soft jazz refrains in the background of the living room and fall asleep on the monster formerly known legally as Matthew Murdock.