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Matt wasn’t sure this day would actually come.
He knew Peter was going to go to college, shit, he knew it from the start. He had thought logistics and payment and scholarships and all of that. He had thought about college campus tours and the idea of goodbyes.
As Peter’s senior year dragged on, the reminder that Peter was actually leaving and moving to another state lingered in the air. But he and Peter didn’t talk about it.
As Peter was asked constantly about schools and majors and future careers, he’d always look at Matt and give a small smile, as if to say, “let’s ignore this until it actually comes up.” Matt was okay with it. He was more than okay with it.
Foggy and Karen called it repressive behavior, Matt called it putting it off.
Tony, to Matt’s annoyance, was ecstatic about Peter going to college, his college as a matter of fact.
“I’ll show you around where Rhodey and I roomed at, and where we stashed all the basketballs in my junior year as a prank, and which cafeterias have the best food!”
Matt wanted to push Tony down the stairs.
Foggy and Karen called it resentment, Matt called it Tony pissing him off.
The thing that bothered Matt the most was how uncomfortable with feelings he was. Sure, he could know what someone felt based on their body movements and the beating of their hearts, but the thing he could never figure out was his own.
So, when the day finally came to drop Peter off at MIT, Matt decided not to think about it.
He didn’t think about it when he helped Peter pack things up into boxes the week before, he didn’t think about it when he helped Peter and Happy put said boxes into his dorm room, and he didn’t think about it when Peter was putting his stuff away.
Matt almost wished that Tony didn’t have an important meeting so he could cut the tension a little bit.
Tony was adamant about coming, but he couldn’t get out of the meeting.
“Pep, it’s Peter! I have to go!”
“Tony, it’s King T’Challa. You can’t go, I’m sorry.”
“Fuck. I call dibs on orientation!”
So Matt was alone at dropping Peter off. Well, sans Happy, Tony’s apparent butler/driver. Honestly, he could never really get a read on Happy. With his grumpy demeanor and general distaste of his life, Matt couldn’t put a finger on him like he could with other people.
But Happy had long gone, with a quick goodbye, and a plea to never call him.
Matt was standing against the door frame, cane in hand, listening to the sound of Peter contemplating where to put his lego death star that he and Ned had built a few years back.
Ned would come later to drop his things off at the dorm, as the two were rooming together (they somehow figured out a way to room together despite very different majors - Peter chalked it up to Tony’s influence).
Matt could hear Peter buzzing with anxiety, and didn’t know what to do about it.
“So, uh,” Matt cleared his throat, “I’m sure you and Ned have big plans for tonight. Parties and all that.”
Matt wasn’t naive enough to believe that Peter would stay the same sober kid he’d been during high school, but he really hoped that he wouldn’t be one of those kids that went too crazy with alcohol and drugs because they had been deprived of it before. So, essentially Matt during his college years. Years of pent up Catholic frustration and sobriety resulted in Matt blacking out most of his four years.
“Oh, well, Ned and I are planning on christening the dorm room and marathoning all the Star Wars movies and eating junk food,” Peter said with a cheery smile. Matt cocked his head and let out an awkward cough.
“Um, kid, I, uh, that,” Matt stumbled on his words, a blush appearing on his face, “that doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
God, help this kid.
“Oh, I know. Ned insisted I call it that. Poor choice of words, I guess,” Peter shrugged, giving out a laugh that cut the tension a bit.
This should’ve made Matt less melancholy, less regretful and resentful.
It only made him more miserable.
It reminded him that moments like these, the times that reminded Matt of how much he really cared about Peter and that he had a family, was coming to a close.
He was being dramatic. He knew he was being dramatic. Foggy and Karen told him as such in the weeks leading up Peter’s departure. It didn’t make it any less shitty, though.
“Well, I should be going. Don’t want to be late for the train,” Matt said, walking towards Peter.
“Oh, yeah,” Peter said through faint disappointment and sadness that made Matt want to bang his head in a wall.
This was it. This was the big goodbye. He wasn’t ready. Fuck, he wasn’t ready.
“Have fun tonight. With Ned,” Matt said, trying his best to appear hopeful and happy. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.
“Yeah.”
There they stood, inches away from each other, in a small room that smelled too much like artificial wood and plastic, neither of them intending to make the first move.
“You’re going to do great, Peter. Really. And, I…” Matt trailed off, focusing his attention on the ground, his hands fisted in his pockets like a pouting child.
“I’m going to miss you, too,” Peter said, giving Matt a bone crushing hug.
Sure, that too.
As he wandered the halls to leave the campus, he listened in on other students and parents saying goodbye. He noted how all of them said I love you to each other.
That was something he failed to say. He couldn’t say. Stick was somehow still in his mind, even after all these years, like a parasite. His ideology crawled through his veins, poisoning him. Caring is weak. Loving is weak.
He bathed in self pity throughout the train ride. He let melancholy and dark thoughts and emptiness wash over him. He didn’t think he could get through this.
Foggy and Karen would call it “same old Matt dramatics” and Matt would tell them to fuck off.
His kid was leaving him.
His kid was moving on.
His kid.
Fuck, his kid.
Matt thought about his empty apartment, of the small remnants of Peter that was left behind like his favorite teas and his Star Wars and Avengers mugs, and it almost brought Matt to tears.
He couldn’t bear going home tonight.
Matt let his legs carry him in the city, his brain fuzzy and delirious. He found himself sitting in a pew at his church, his retractable cane in his lap, and head on the cold wood.
It was times like these that he wished Father Lantom were still here.
He heard the heartbeat of Maggie and didn’t bother looking up as she sat next to him.
“I thought I’d see you today,” Maggie said, her voice quiet as to not disturb the other three people in the church.
Matt turned his head sideways and stared at her with what Foggy coined as his “puppy dog look.”
Peter had the same look, and unfortunately not even Matt was immune.
“Come on,” Maggie said, getting up. It took Matt all the strength he had to get his legs to follow her. He felt so heavy and fuzzy, it was like the time he got hit with five tranq guns.
Matt followed her into a back office and leaned against one of the walls. He heard the click of a machine that boiled water and the clinks of the glass mugs Maggie grabbed. He closed his eyes as Maggie set up the tea, his fingers in a death grip on his cane to ground him to reality.
“I felt the same way when you left,” Maggie said over the loud hissing of the machine.
“Irrevocably empty inside?” Matt joked, but neither of them pretended like it was one.
“It gets less lonely,” Maggie said, switching off the water. She poured it into a mug and handed it to Matt.
“You barely even spoke to me when I was a kid. Other than scold me constantly, we didn’t talk much,” Matt argued, taking a sip of his tea.
“It was too hard,” Maggie shrugged.
When Matt was younger, he sometimes wondered what traits he got from his parents. Not knowing his mother, he had to fill in the blanks. He certainly got his stubbornness and integrity from his father, but Maggie? He got her tendency to shut people out because he thought it would save them in the long run.
Years of abandonment and neglect resulted in Matthew Murdock to have trust issues.
Add a blind man that treats you like you’re worth something before brutally berating and calling you weak for loving him, and then you really can’t trust anybody.
But as cliche and totally Foggy-esque to say, Peter was his light.
Shit, who the hell has he become?
“A parent,” Maggie said.
Matt, who didn’t realize he said that out loud, avoided her gaze and took a long drink from his cup.
“What tea is this?” Matt asked.
“Vanilla caramel black tea.”
“It reminds me of something that Peter would buy and then drink all in a single day,” Matt smiled fondly.
“What you did with Peter,” Maggie said, placing her cup on the counter, “taking him in, is commendable and brave. You’re a great father.”
Matt wanted to shake his head, and vehemently argue against that word, but he couldn’t. Not tonight.
Instead, he took another sip of his tea and shut his eyes.
He and Maggy didn’t share any more words that night, instead she let him stay until he was ready to go.
*
As Matt walked in his apartment, he got hit with the overwhelming reminder of Peter.
It took all he had to walk across the living room to get to his bedroom, and not go into Peter’s room.
He’s going to be okay, he’s responsible, Matt thought.
But he wasn’t really worried about Peter, per say, rather what would happen to him. Of how his relationship with Peter would be affected.
Was Peter going to come home one break and be a completely different person? Was he going to be against everything he had originally stood for? Was he suddenly going to grow up in just a semester and decide he doesn’t want to play son and father with Matt and Tony? Was he going to leave Matt, just like…
Just like everybody else.
Foggy and Karen would call him paranoid. Matt wouldn’t disagree.
Foggy and Karen would call him childish. Matt wouldn’t disagree.
Maggy called him a great father. Matt fucking disagreed.
“Oh, Jesus,” Matt groaned, pushing back his glasses to rub his face.
It was too quiet in his apartment. He was half hoping for Peter to rush in with his bags and say that he was just going to commute to school.
But that was bullshit. Matt knew that was bullshit. He was happy for Peter, he really was. Peter was growing up! Doing all that shit that he deserved!
It didn’t make it any easier for Matt.
He should’ve told Peter he loved him. He should’ve let him in. He should’ve… fuck, he should’ve done a lot of things.
He wished he could be better. He wished he could be the parent that Peter deserved, but he didn’t know how to fucking do that.
He poured himself a scotch and layed down on his silk sheets, preparing himself for a massive hangover tomorrow. Foggy would understand. Matt hoped Foggy would understand.
Matt didn’t want to be alone.
Foggy called him.
Matt wanted to be alone.
“Foggy?” Matt asked in between gulps of alcohol.
“Hey, how’s the empty nesting going?” Foggy asked, over the sounds of shitty garage music and the clanking of pool balls hitting against one another.
“Fantastic, I just learned four new hobbies. I’m converting Peter’s room into a craft room,” Matt said, his voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Do Karen and I need to come over and make you forget about it?”
“I’m doing just fine on my own,” Matt said, getting up and pouring himself another drink.
“Well, alright. Let me know if you need anything.”
Matt hung up and layed back down on his bed, and shut his eyes. He was drifting in and out of sleep when his phone rang, the electric voice shouting out PETER.
“Kid? Everything alright?”
Please don’t be alcohol poisoning. Please don’t be the hospital. Please don’t be Ned asking about blood types.
“Yeah, I just,” Peter stopped himself, letting the background noises of lasers and Ned’s snoring fill the void.
“How was movie night?” Matt asked, changing the subject.
“Ned fell asleep after Episode II,” Peter laughed. Matt shut his eyes at the sound.
“Not eating too much crap, I hope.”
“No, just the right amount,” Peter said, but Matt could hear even from the phone that he was lying. He smiled.
“Hey, Matt?”
“Yeah, Pete?”
“Thank you. For… taking me in and being there for me,” Peter said, his voice heavy, “I love you.”
There it was. The words that Matt was too scared to use. He’d say them to his own father sometimes, but even he knew then that the Murdock boys weren’t too good at emotions. Hell, not even his own mother was good at emotions.
He never thought he’d ever hear those words again. He never thought that someone would actually care as much as Peter cared for him.
The past three years that Peter’s been living with him has changed him for the better. He became Matt Murdock again, not just Daredevil. He became someone that he actually liked.
He shut the little voice that resembled Stick’s saying that loving was weak. He shut his own childhood fears away, and reminded himself that he had a family. He had something that would last. He was afraid, but he was ready.
“I love you, too.”