Chapter Text
‘He had a breakdown, ran away, let us all think he was dead. He's apologised though.’
‘He’s been going through some stuff, wasn’t in his right mind you know. He’s better, now.’
‘No, he’s not seen a Doctor, it's Matt. He’s a stubborn piece of shit, won’t consider reason.’
None of it really cuts it.
Candace slaps him, the first time she sees him again.
Foggy had made what he'd thought was the tactical decision to tell her first, thinking it might be best to have her on their side before confronting their parents. She turns up at Matt's apartment not two hours after the call that'd broken the news, hammering on the door furiously until Matt pulls it open, rightfully apprehensive. After a few seconds of staring, jaw dropped, her hand darts up and without an ounce hesitation she honestly, truly, smacks him.
“You asshole," she hisses into the ringing silence that follows, before the dam breaks completely. "You ASSHOLE! We thought you were fucking dead, Matt!” Her words echo through the hallway, cracked and tortured as months worth of pain and misery are suddenly replaced by bright, raging betrayal. “How the fuck could you do that to us?” she demands, eyes roaming feverishly over Matt, drinking in the sight of the person she'd spent months accepting she'd never, ever see again.
It's quite a lot to deal with, for a random Tuesday evening.
Matt’s just left standing in the doorway, trying not to collapse under the the weight of his guilt and shame and completely at a loss as to where on earth he should be going from here.
With his cheek smarting and Candace's harsh breathing in front of him, it's once again hitting Matt how severe the consequences of his past year of actions are. He knows Foggy had told his family that he went missing, that the police had assumed him dead. At least (at least) Foggy and Karen had been clued in enough to have some context to be able to process the situation with. To Candace and her family though, he'd just vanished, succumbed to some terrible, unknown fate. They didn't know what'd happened to him. Probably thought they never would.
That's what he did to them. That's what he put them through.
And now he's back, and he has to face up to that.
Candace is still waiting for an answer in front of him. Matt's struggling to think of one though, jolting frantically through his practiced list of possible explanations and the ultimate problems with all of those explanations. He also can't help but focus on the fact that at least three of his neighbours are trying to listen in right now, including Fran, who’s stood watching them through her peephole.
Foggy’s at his side then, a steadying hand on his shoulder. He’d come straight to Matt’s place after ringing Candace, already suspecting this confrontation coming; he'd correctly assumed Matt might need some back up here.
Candace doesn’t let him have the chance to offer it though.
“No-“ she says, interrupting his attempt to mediate, not even sparing a glance in his direction. “I want you to answer, Matt.”
Matt swallows, opens his mouth to speak, closes it again. He shakes his head minutely, still at a loss.
Candace shoves past him into the apartment at his continued silence, seething.
“I was- I wasn’t well,” Matt does manage to stammer after her, pushing the door shut on Fran's spying with a soft snap.
It makes her spin around to face him at the words, and Matt can’t help but recoil slightly at the intensity of her anger.
“What the hell does that mean?” she demands, venomous.
“Matt’s got shitty mental health and he went AWOL?” Foggy tries to chime in weakly, when Matt still doesn’t answer.
“And that means letting us think he was dead for months?”
“Apparently, yeah,” Foggy sighs, weary.
He's beaten by the fact that yeah, he can't really defend that.
Candace just crosses her arms in response, setting her shoulders in frustration and in an attempt to hide the shaking of her hands, to try and keep up an image of intimidating fury as she faces them.
Because really she's trying to hold back from sobbing in relief.
Matt's alive.
She's really seeing him again - he's just standing there, right in front of her, in his stupid fleecy pyjamas, just like he used to.
It really is like seeing a ghost.
Not trusting her voice, she settles for a vague sound of disgust in her throat and a withering glare in Foggy's direction before stalking off to the kitchen. She doesn't think he knew about Matt being alive, but there's no way he doesn't know something more, and he's definitely keeping it back from her now.
She needs a moment to catch her breath and start processing, and to steal some of the fancy beer she knows Matt will have in his fridge.
Matt's a creature of habit, recently dead or not.
Candace doesn't stay much longer after that.
She quickly works her way through two beers, stood at a distance from them whilst half-listening to what she can already tell are weak, pre-meditated excuses, all the while unable to take her eyes off of Matt.
He looks different, that's for sure.
Haunted. She thinks he looks haunted.
She has to get some space. She needs to get away from the strange, harrowing version of Matt standing in front of her again, Foggy by his side like this whole situation is nothing out of the ordinary.
She doesn't say anything, doesn't have any excuse to give. She just drains her beer, leaves the bottle on the counter, and walks off without a word.
The second time she sees Matt doesn’t go any better, really.
It starts out well enough. They’ve talked on the phone a few times since that night, made some tentative steps in the direction of healing, even. Matt falls into the category of surrogate brother to her, and she absolutely treats him like one over those calls. She argues and yells and wrings him right the hell out, makes him apologise and explain exactly how he'll be making it up to them from here on out.
Matt submits to it all easily, knowing full well he deserves the hostility. He's stupidly grateful just to be given the chance to make things right again - he wasn't sure Candace was ever going to forgive him, after that first night.
He doesn't even know if he wants her to, really. He thinks she has every reason to never want to see him again, to never forgive him for this. He can't really wrap his head around why she does.
Foggy has to explain, (again), that 'people love you Matt, fucking let them'.
Candace does reluctantly agree not to break the news to their parents just yet - she knows that event needs to be carefully planned, no matter how rancid having to keep this secret makes her feel. Matt's disappearance hadn't been easy on any of them, but to lose someone you'd considered a son? Her parents hadn't really been the same, since Matt had been gone. Candace knows that her barging in and raging about his return isn't going to help them heal from this.
But Matt not having his god damn story straight isn't going to help them either; she's determined to get the truth out of him before he tries to bluff his way out of it with their parents as well.
Candace accepts an invitation for takeout and drinks with the two of them a week or two after Matt's return, vaguely hopeful that this interaction could be the one that finally brings her some peace.
Because despite the calls, Matt still hasn’t given her a solid answer as to why he left, or where he’s been, or why he came back.
Candace is fast running out of patience, being dragged along like this.
When she arrives that evening bearing wine and assorted nibbles she's welcomed in warmly, greeted with that toothy grin she hasn’t been able to see for months.
They eat and drink and joke and it’s almost, almost like old times.
Until Foggy chucks a hoodie at Matt from across the room, not thinking.
Matt catches the hoodie. Again, not thinking.
Neither of them notice Candace freezing in the kitchen, glass stalled halfway to her mouth.
She watches Matt and Foggy just carrying on their light-hearted bickering, like nothing insane just happened, and feels her blood turning to ice in her veins.
It takes her a moment to kick her brain into gear enough to interrupt loudly-
“He just caught that.”
It takes Matt and Foggy a moment to realise what she means. When it does click, Foggy snaps his attention to Matt, eyes going wide with shock. Matt carefully doesn’t focus on anything at all, just drops his head down and bites the inside of his cheek, thinking quick.
The silence of the room is appalling.
“I, uh- I could hear it coming,” Matt tries to explain, voice an unconvincing imitation of casual.
“Bullshit,” Candace dismisses immediately, glancing back and forth between the two of them and their poorly disguised panic. “He just launched that at you out of nowhere,” she continues, briefly meeting Foggy's alarmed gaze before turning back to Matt. “Your arm came up at exactly the right time. You didn’t even break conversation.” Candace’s stomach drops as she reaches her conclusion then, nausea rolling as she whispers brokenly: “you just saw that coming.”
“No, I didn’t,” Matt denies quickly, head still bowed.
It’s not technically lying, but even he knows it’s not going to hold up here.
“Yes, you did,” Candace counters, hushed, mostly to herself.
The more the thought is settling, the more support for it seems to be coming to the front of her mind. Other odd memories start pinging around her skull, ones of Matt moving too easily around new spaces, or of him flicking acorns at Foggy in their garden, always seeming to know exactly where his head is to aim at.
And then, of course, there’s his sudden and inexplicable ‘death’, followed by his casual reappearance. Which still no one will explain properly.
She takes a deep breath.
“I’ll throw this glass at you if you don’t tell me the truth, right now.”
Matt doesn't have to listen to her heartbeat to know she absolutely means it. Foggy sighs again at the threat and her attention darts to him. She raises the glass in warning.
“We should just tell her, Matt,” Foggy says quietly.
“Tell me what?” Candace questions, voice sharp.
Matt tuts - he knows full well that was on purpose.
“Thanks for that, Fogs,” he mutters.
“Tell me what?” Candace repeats again, moving from behind the counter to advance on them, glass still raised.
She’s hoping the show of violence is disguising how piss fucking terrified she is to find out whatever the hell she’s about to find out.
Matt drops his head into his hands, defeated. He thinks he might as well tell her, the amount of people that know about him now. He steels himself with the decision, standing up to face Candace. He tries not to be hurt by the way she flinches back at his movement.
“Throw the glass at me,” he offers simply, submitting to his fate.
Candace stalls a little in her anger as she registers the words, thrown off kilter by the request.
“Don’t fuck around, Murdock,” she warns shakily, “what aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m not fucking around,” Matt assures, trying to keep his voice calm. “Throw that glass at me, hard as you like.” He considers for a moment, adding, “probably empty it first, though.”
Candace is still stalled, uncertain.
Until she glances to Foggy again, sees him standing there watching Matt, casual as anything, like this is all fine and normal.
And still, no one’s telling her what’s going on.
She drains the glass.
With only the briefest of hesitations she narrows her eyes, lets the unhinged anger and fear and pain of the last few days come raging, boiling to the surface, and hurls the glass at Matt.
Hard.
Matt’s arm shoots out to greet it. He catches it easily.