Work Text:
Matt's lying in bed, counting the heartbeats in his building, when he hears footsteps on his fire escape. They're too soft for a human, and the heartbeat that belongs to them is light and fast. A cat, he thinks, rolling over and willing himself to fall asleep. He doesn't need to hit the alarm clock to know it's after three a.m., and there's a court date tomorrow. No sleeping in. None of which means he can turn off his mind.
He leans back on the pillow with a sigh and lets the sounds flood back in: the steady drip drip drip of the leaky pipe across the hall, Mr. Munoz snoring a floor above him, and the cat on the fire escape. Its breathing is slow and labored, and its feet drag slowly across the metal planks. It's hurt.
Matt wills himself back to sleep one last time. It's an animal, not a child or a defenseless tourist or a man with a gun to his head. Are all the injured felines of Hell's Kitchen going to become his responsibility now too? No, no they are not. The ones on his doorstep though...
Well, it's not like he can sleep anyway.
He braces a hand against the sore spot on his ribs and heaves himself out of bed with a little groan. There's not much in the fridge, but the milk is new. Well, newish anyway, he decides after an experimental whiff. Fit for feline consumption, and probably still okay for his breakfast cereal tomorrow. What do cats eat anyway? he wonders, passing a hand over the mostly barren shelves. There are eggs, but he draws the line at making an omelette for a cat. He pushes a mysterious tupperware further back on the shelf. It's been there for a month, so whatever's inside is probably lethal by now. His hand brushes against a greasy carton of Chinese take-out, last night's sweet and sour chicken. Probably not cat food. Underneath it is a styrofoam container of carnitas. He'd planned to take them in for lunch tomorrow, but who's he kidding? He's not going to get a lunch break. Might as well feed it to the cat.
The cat doesn't run when he opens the window to the fire escape, although its breathing quickens. He can hear it panting in the corner, its fur rustling against the bricks. There's a tang of copper in the air, subtly different from human blood but still unmistakable. He puts down the bowl of milk and the dish of meat and reaches through the open window for the first-aid kit on the kitchen counter. He's stopped bothering to put it away.
When the cat is repaired to the best of his ability, he crawls back through the window and falls asleep on his couch, listening to it lap up the milk. When he wakes up, both dishes are empty and the cat is gone.
***
Matt doesn't think about the cat again. Well, okay, he thinks about the cat occasionally. He checks for it when he climbs up the fire escape after a night out, and sometimes he listens for its breathing when he can't sleep. Never mind that he probably couldn't distinguish it from the hundred-odd stray cats that prowl around the neighborhood.
That doesn't stop him from getting out of bed a week later when he hears cat feet pitter-patting on the fire escape. This time, he has decent food in the apartment -- Foggy had taken one look in the fridge and made him go to the supermarket -- and he pops open a can of tuna and puts it on the window ledge. Rationally, he knows there's no way to be sure it's the same cat, but he's certain that it is. Its gait sounds more regular than before, but still a little slow and unsteady. The faint tang of copper still hangs in the air, the scent Matt associates with slowly mending cuts. He runs a gentle hand over the cat's flank, expecting it to dart away, but instead it moves its body sinuously under his hand.
***
Matt could ignore the cat if it weren't so thin. Sometimes it's waiting on the fire escape when he comes back from his late-night neighborhood patrols. When it twines itself around his ankles, he can feel the ribs beneath its skin. He also almost dies when it tangles itself up in his feet when he's already limping and injured. He swears and collapses onto the metal floor with an impressive thud, and then he hears Mrs. Zepeda's light click on next door. Fucking cat, he thinks, and he sneezes when its whiskers brush across his face. Is he allergic to this thing too?
"Is somebody out there?" Mrs. Zepeda yells. "I'm calling the police!"
He hears footsteps approaching, and he heaves himself through the window just in time -- well, he hopes it was just in time anyway.
"It was just me, Mrs. Zepeda," he calls, pushing back his mask. "Sorry to disturb you."
She mutters something about how he ought to be more considerate, and he sags against the living room wall. If he got caught because of a cat...
And of course, it's still sitting on the window sill, waiting for its can of tuna. Matt can hear its tail whooshing softly through the air. He ought to hiss at it and shoo it away, but he remembers going behind his father's back to get groceries from the church food bank. It had only happened once or twice -- but that was enough to learn how much it sucked to need food and not be able to get it.
No need to add hypocrisy to his list of sins.
He puts a can of tuna on the window sill, and the cat surprises him by ignoring it. Instead it rubs its head back and forth under his palm, purring softly. Now he can feel that half of one of its ears is missing. There are jagged scars under its fur, and he feels a snaggle tooth jutting out of its mouth when he scratches its chin. He's starting to think the cat likes him when it rolls over onto its back. He reaches out to scratch its belly, and it promptly sinks its claws into his skin.
He pulls his hand back and slams the window shut hastily. Stray cats, not traditionally man's best friend.
***
Karen grabs his hand when he comes into the office the next morning.
"What happened to your hand?" she exclaims, running a finger over the scratches. Her skin is cool and smooth against his, except for the little callous where she holds a pencil. He adds that to the list of sensory impressions that make up his mental picture of Karen.
"Nothing," he says hastily, pulling his hand back. "Cat scratch."
"You got a cat?" Karen asks. Her voice is high-pitched and happy in a way that he hasn't heard in, well, he'd rather not think about how long.
There's a little shift in the air and a blast of citrus shampoo as she turns to face Foggy's office. "Foggy, did you hear? Matt got a cat!"
"I- I don't have a cat," Matt protests. He's useful to a cat. That doesn't make it his.
Foggy's walking toward him, smelling like coffee and aftershave.
"That's great, Matt," he says, clapping him on the back. "That's so...human and functional of you."
"I don't have a cat," Matt repeats.
"Is it a stray? Did you start feeding it?" Karen asks, the smile still in her voice. "What's its name?"
Matt frowns. "It doesn't have a name. It's a cat, Karen."
"Okay, so you're not completely human and functional yet," Foggy amends. "But hey, progress is progress."
"I'll help you think of a name," Karen says, her voice reproving. "What color is -- oh. Um, what does it...sound like?"
Matt doesn't need to see Karen to know that she's wincing. He uses the opportunity to disentangle himself from the two of them and start backing toward his office.
"You're not getting out of this that easily, Matt," Foggy says. "Karen's coming over tonight and naming your cat."
Why do his friends care this much about a cat he doesn't even own? Are they really that worried about him? Yeah, they probably are -- or Foggy is, at least.
"Name the cat if you want," he says, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It won't make it mine."
***
"The cat might not be here," Matt says, opening the door to the apartment. Sometimes it disappears for days, and it doesn't actually live on his fire escape.
Karen snorts. "Nice try, Matt. Are you trying to keep me out of your apartment? Are the shattered remnants of your coffee table still strewn across the living room floor?"
Matt runs his fingers along the wall till he finds the light switch and flicks it on, feeling a touch defiant. The living room is clean again, though not by his own doing. Foggy had shown up a few weeks ago with a broom and a dust pan, muttering something about new beginnings. Are you sentimentally attached to these shards of wood and glass, or just too damaged to clean once in awhile? By the way, I am in no way resentful that I have no idea what happened in here.
"What do I see on your window sill? Could that possibly be your cat?" Karen asks, sounding triumphant.
Matt follows the sound of her high heels click-clacking across the room. The fabric of her skirt rustles softly as she walks, and Matt guess it's one of the loose and flowy ones instead of the tight pencil skirts she sometimes wears.
Karen stops in front of the window, and he hears the metal-on-metal creak as she slides the lock back. Matt wonders idly if cats are a thing that women like, or if Claire might stay longer next time if there were a cat in his apartment.
Matt feels a whoosh of air as the window opens, and then Karen gives a soft, horrified gasp. "Oh my god, Matt, this is your cat? He looks terrifying."
Terrifying? Matt hadn't seen that one coming.
"It went the distance," he says, thinking of the scars under its fur and feeling a touch defensive.
"Not it, Matt," Karen corrects. "He."
"Good to know," Matt says. There are certain pieces of information that you don't want to discover by touch alone. The sex of alley cats is one of them. "What color is it?" he asks, mostly to stop Karen from making an awkward apology for not realizing he couldn't tell the cat was a boy.
"He is orange," Karen says. "I think. It's hard to tell under all the dirt. And his eye is yellow."
"His eye?" Matt asks.
"There's only one of them." Karen pauses, and Matt hears her fingers tapping against the window sill. "Are you sure you want this cat, Matt? We could get you a different one. You know, one that doesn't look it's killed people."
Matt clenches his jaw. He can feel his teeth grinding together. "I don't want a cat, Karen. I've said that already."
Karen shifts suddenly. He can hear her clothes rustle, her shoes sliding against the floor. "Oh god, Matt, there's blood on your fire escape. Where did that come from?"
Matt tenses. He's been bleeding a lot less since he got the suit, but last week, he'd taken a hit right in the nose. It was sloppy of him -- Stick would've been disappointed -- and there had been a lot of blood.
"Oh god, there' s a dead rat," Karen says with a little shriek. Matt hears her hands flapping in the air. "Does he bring you a lot of dead rodents?" she asks, sounding faint.
"How much is a lot?" Matt asks. Mrs. Zepeda had complained about a dead pigeon yesterday. Privately, Matt had been impressed; a pigeon seemed like a formidable opponent for such a scrawny cat.
"Okay, if he brings you dead animals, he's definitely your cat," Karen says. "He's not so bad, I guess. He seems friendly enough. Maybe we could name him after a pirate. Or there have to be some good one-eyed literary characters. Here, let me google."
Matt can feel a vein pounding in his temple, the first sign that his temper is about to go. He doesn't know why he feels so angry, but it's something to do with the way Karen insists on referring to the cat as a he instead of just an it.
"It doesn't have a name," Matt snaps. "It's just a cat."
Karen swallows. "You don't have to get angry, Matt. It's okay to have a cat."
"Why does this matter to you?" Matt asks. His voice is louder than it should be, but he can't seem to contain it.
"We're your friends, Matt. We worry about you. You isolate yourself, you don't sleep, you don't eat unless someone reminds you. You come into the office and act like everything's normal, but we know something isn't right."
Matt focuses on slowing down his breathing. Foggy knows why he doesn't go out at night, why he doesn't sleep. Karen doesn't. She's worried about him, which is his fault for lying to her about what he does.
"You don't have to lie, okay?" Karen says softly. "We -- Foggy and I, I mean -- know you're depressed."
She has a nice voice, Matt thinks. It's high and clear and it moves up and down because it's always so full of feeling, even when she doesn't know it. There's a moment when Matt wants to lean into the sound of it and let her say whatever kind things she wants to say, but it's not right to let her worry about him for no good reason.
"That's not what this is about, Karen," he says. He leans back against the kitchen counter, curling his fingers around the edge, and tries to figure out what to say next.
Karen laughs softly, and he turns toward the sound, startled.
"I know what you do, Matt," she says.
The edge of the countertop is cutting into his fingers, but he digs in harder instead of letting go. Karen's breathing is steady. Her heartbeat is only a little faster. She doesn't seem angry, not like Foggy had. Foggy had found out who he was and walked out the door; Karen found out and invited herself to his apartment to name a cat.
"How?" he asks finally. "Did - did Foggy tell you?"
Karen huffs softly. "I don't need Foggy to tell me things, Matt. Do you remember one day in the office, I said I'd take the masked man over Fisk any day? You smiled. You couldn't stop yourself. And then I started watching. Every day there's a story in the newspaper about a masked vigilante, you show up all bruised."
Matt listens again. Her heart and her breathing are steady as ever, and he can't find a sharp edge to her voice no matter how hard he tries.
"You're not angry," he says slowly.
Karen huffs softly. She sounds surprised. "Why would I be angry? You saved my life. I wish you didn't think you had to lie, but I'm not mad."
"You don't have to lie either, you know," he says.
This time Karen's heart does speed up. There's a little hitch in her breath and waver in her voice when she says, "Lie about what?"
"I-I don't know," Matt says. "You don't have to tell me, but you don't have to pretend everything is okay."
Karen comes to work looking immaculate. She knows how to smile and laugh and joke with Foggy. It's the little things she can't control -- the times when Matt hears her suddenly stop in the middle of typing or making copies, and when she starts again, her movements are so slow, like the air itself is fighting to keep her still. Her footsteps are too heavy when she thinks she's alone, and some days there's a slow, steady grind beneath her words, as if she's exhausted by the act of speaking. Matt doesn't have to ask how that feels. He knows.
"I guess we're quite a pair, huh?" Karen says.
She kicks off her shoes. Matt hears the scrape of her stockings against the inside of the heels, and the empty sound they make as they skitter across the floor. Her footsteps are muted as she covers the short distance between them. She covers his hand with her own, rubbing his fingers where the edge of the countertop had cut into them. Her skin is soft and cool against his, and it feels good -- better than he deserves. He wants to pull his hand back, the way he had at the office, but he can't. If he does, what will Karen have to hold onto?
"This gets better, right?" she asks, her voice wavering.
"It always has before," Matt says. He's still stuck on the part where he'd somehow slipped backward into the darkness without noticing -- but yeah, it had happened before. Sophomore year of high school, freshman year of college, first year of law school, and it had always gotten better. Eventually. Sometimes it took a very long time. He looks back toward Karen, even though it's hard to say whether she's looking at him.
"What do we do now?" he asks, even though he's the one who's done this before. Mostly, he's hoping for an answer that doesn't involve psychiatrists and pills and therapists with gentle voices saying he has a chronic illness. Or Foggy dragging him out of bed, insisting he has to go outside at least once a day, Foggy making him clean the apartment, Foggy telling him he has to go to the grocery store because slow suicide by starvation isn't an option. And yeah, now that he thinks about it, at least two of those things have happened this month already.
Karen takes a long breath. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe we do any little thing that makes us feel better, and it adds up slowly, day by day, until we wake up one morning and realize it wasn't as bad as it was before." She tightens her hand around his. "And we don't let go of the people who matter."
***
Matt wakes up on the couch. Karen's head is in his lap; his hand is resting on strands of her cornsilk hair. There's a line of empty beer bottles on the new coffee table; he can still smell the faint sour tang in the air. His laptop is still humming, though Pandora had stopped playing hours ago. Karen's heartbeat is slow and strong, and underneath it, he can hear the smaller, faster heartbeat of the cat on the fire escape.
Do any little thing that makes us feel better, and eventually it adds up. That won't be enough -- at least, not for Matt. There's a gentle-voiced therapist and a bottle of pills in his future. Assuming that he can find someone to treat the devil of Hell's Kitchen. But maybe he doesn't have to slide so far as before. Maybe Foggy will not have to drag him out of bed; maybe he doesn't have to wait for total darkness to descend before he starts to fight against it.
He stands up slowly, sliding a pillow beneath Karen's head, and tiptoes toward the window where the cat is waiting.
It -- He -- leaps onto the floor, its feet pattering softly onto the wood, and twines around Matt's ankles. He bends down and tentatively strokes its back.
Cuchulainn, he thinks. The ancient Irish hero who fought too hard sometimes, who fell down and made mistakes, but who always got up and fought on. It's a good name for a cat.