Chapter Text
Marc doesn’t think twice about it at first. It starts with a phone call, the soft bzzt bzzt of his burner phone rather than the genuine ring of the Mission’s phone. Marc picks up, lazily applying the rest of the cream cheese to his bagel with one hand and letting his other hold the flip phone.
“Mr. Knight,” he says.
“It’s Daredevil, I need a favor.”
It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: the vigilante community of New York City is one that operates almost exclusively on IOUs. They’re untraceable, deceptively easy to lie about, and exploitable—meaning that they’re the perfect currency for vigilantes.
“What do I owe you for?” Marc replies. It’s often worth it to establish the true value of an IOU before discussing what matters have to be attended to. Marc is not in the business to get scammed and stabbed this weekend.
“June 12th,” Daredevil says. Then, after a beat: “2018.”
Marc knows what day he’s talking about, even before Daredevil said the year. He wouldn’t forget that kind of event, and he hasn’t forgotten that he still owes Daredevil for it. It’s a big IOU. If Marc had to guess, it’s the most valuable IOU in the whole community.
Worth its weight in gold, Steven scoffs from somewhere quiet, and then disappears once more.
“What am I doing?” It’s not worth his time arguing about whether or not he can do something, asking for a raincheck, or any of that nonsense. If Daredevil wants to cash this one in, then he cashes it in, end of discussion.
“Texas, next month to the day, 11:45 pm. We’re driving,” he says.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
The car is shitty and very obviously a car Daredevil borrowed from another vigilante at some point with a vague wave of the hand, an “I’ll get it back to you, if it’s still in one piece when I’m done” and an unspoken If not, I owe you double. The city is silent then, by some miracle, like everyone is holding their breath when Daredevil pulls around the corner in his civvies, glasses off and windows rolled down.
It’s scentless, when Marc swings open the backseat to throw his own gear in. It’s unsurprising—of course the car would be so thoroughly cleaned as to not even leave a trace of the cleaning supply. But still, there’s a care that Marc has to note Daredevil took when preparing this car. It speaks to something about him, though Marc isn’t quite sure what trait specifically. The driver’s side door opens, then slams shut, and Daredevil is standing next to him for the briefest of moments before he slides into the passenger side of the Corolla and rolls up the window. Marc steps around the car, then into the driver’s seat, and rolls up his own window.
It’s silent in the beginning. The traffic getting out of NYC isn’t too bad, but it’s still slow and loud in its own right, and so neither feel a need to talk. It’s only when they’re out of the city, crossing the bridge into New Jersey, when Marc finally says something, his eyes scraping across Matt’s face out of his peripheral vision; “You look like Mike. Without your glasses on.”
Daredevil’s response is a cold silence, leaning forward and retrieving his glasses from where the windshield and the dashboard meet and solemnly placing them on his face.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
They get gas a few hours later, somewhere in Pennsylvania. Daredevil pays for it, and Marc can't help but stare as it happens. There’s something troubling about the silence and shakiness by which Daredevil seems to be navigating as he pumps the gas and pays for it. Like he’s not sure he’s going to make it.
It should’a been you, Jake says, and Marc adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, pressing his shoulders back into the seat and straightening his arms as he does so. His hands are hot in his gloves, but he doesn’t take them off.
They’re grounding in the same way that the heady and foggy feeling of Jake sitting in the back of his mind is grounding. They keep him Mr. Knight, not just Marc, not violent like Moon Knight. Mr. Knight. The gray zip-up hoodie begs to differ, and the shakiness by which he uncaps his bottled water seems to agree.
Daredevil walks around the car, then crawls into shotgun again with a sigh. “I’ll drive again when it’s less populated,” he says, then musters a half-smile in Marc’s direction.
“Is that also when I get my briefing?” Marc says, tapping his index finger on the steering wheel as he pulls out of the gas station.
“You can have it now, if you want.”
Marc hums in response, waiting for Daredevil to continue.
“Six months ago, I started keeping tabs on this new gang lord. He sprung up randomly, and then disappeared intermittently every two weeks for about four days. A rat told me he was doing some work outside Odessa, making some special pseudo-radioactive drug or something fucked like that. I’m not sure. I want him off my streets before he can start pushing the drug,” Daredevil starts, removing his glasses once more and placing them again on the dashboard. Marc tries not to look at Daredevil’s face. It’s dark out. His eyes should be on the road.
“Why do it in Texas?” Marc says. The Why bring me? goes unsaid. The second most important fact regarding the vigilante community of New York City is that most often the real question is silent, it’s a thought, or a nod, a breathless heartless question that you don’t ask because asking is rude.
“I’m banking on him having less defenses at his Texas operation. Not exactly many superheroes to worry about down there.” He pauses, then: “Luke and Jessica are keeping an eye on his operations in New York. I picked you because you’re the only person I could drag around for a two day drive both ways.”
Is he referencing the IOU? Or a characteristic Marc himself is unaware of? He blinks a little too slowly and tightens his grip on the steering wheel as he does so. The digital clock on the console says 4:56 A.M. in a silent white hiss.
“Do you have an estimate on how many goons will be there?” Marc says.
“At least 30. Nothing unmanageable.” A beat. “Do you need to stop for the night?”
Marc tears his eyes off of the dark, dimly lit, interstate —almost deserted at this hour— and stares at Matt for a moment. The question is bizarre, disgustingly obvious, and not the type of question Marc has ever known Daredevil to ask. An ugly feeling rears its head as he looks Matt up and down for this moment, one that tells him to not ever look back at the road, to keep staring at Matt and allow the car to crash. Jake pushes back against the thought, violently, to the point where Marc feels himself losing his grip on front. He rips his gaze away from Matt, and then pulls over across the lanes of the interstate to the right shoulder, where he stops, finally, pressing his head into the steering wheel.
“Is that a yes?”
The car is silent. Matt does not make any move to ask again or to touch Moon Knight, not even when Moon Knight turns his head and looks at Matt again. “Yes,” Jake says.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
When Moon Knight wakes up, it’s light out, though the sun does not shine. It’s hidden behind a thick layer of gray clouds that make Moon Knight’s fingers ache. He flexes them and sits up, using his still-gloved hands to support him as he does so. He adjusts his jaw and wets his lips, then sighs. Daredevil is awake, the passenger seat still in an upright position.
“Did you sleep?” Someone asks.
“A little,” Matt answers. “How about you, how did you sleep?”
The question makes Moon Knight angry, and he bites the inside of his cheek to gather his response. He realizes, far too many seconds later, that he doesn’t have one. He changes the way he’s sitting so that he can leave out the passenger side door of the back seat, then stretches on the grassy shoulder of the interstate. Once he’s completed his stretching, he returns to the driver’s seat and turns the car on with another deep sigh.
“I slept okay,” Someone answers, and the fact that he can’t tell who that someone is bothers him more than usual. He cracks his knuckles, then places his hands on the steering wheel, and gets back onto the highway.
“Do you want to get breakfast?” Matt asks. “There should be a diner somewhere near here.” He lifts his left hand a little, to show that he’s holding a smartphone, which Moon Knight assumes has a map on it for Matt to reference.
Moon Knight licks his lips once more, then reaches for his water bottle and takes a sip. The clock says 8:22 A.M. with a smile and a catcall. “Sure,” Marc says, the anger dissipating a bit as the slightly warm water slips down his throat. Daredevil tosses the phone into Marc’s hands and he glances down at it, logging what exit he’s supposed to get off at in his mind before passing the phone back.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
The diner’s parking lot is nearly empty in the early morning, though the lights are on and a flashing neon sign says 24 Hours! in the window. Matt’s pace keeps even with Marc’s as the two of them approach the diner, the dull pat of their shoes contrasted with the higher click of Matt’s cane hitting the pavement. Matt is smiling, and it’s scaring Marc just a little. Steven clicks his tongue at Marc and rolls his eyes.
The waitress at the counter looks up from her phone when the bell jingles and Marc and Matt enter, her face immediately becoming as real of a smile as she can manage this early. Marc gives her as kind of a smile as he can ever manage in response.
“Hey there! You two can take a seat wherever, I’ll grab you a, uh, menu and be right with you,” She says, pocketing her phone and removing both of her earbuds. She fidgets for a moment. “Would either of you like a coffee?”
Matt smiles again, and Marc leans back —Matt’s arm, in the crook of his elbow, comes with him, as though Matt is hanging on for dear life— for a moment to look at him better, to figure out what’s up with him. “Yes, I’ll take a coffee, with cream and no sugar, please,” Matt says. The waitress looks at Marc.
“I’ll take mine black, thank you.” He steps over to the booth right next to the door, leading Matt. The waitress smiles and darts off.
Eating in a restaurant is always easiest with Daredevil. Every other hero has a deep seated issue with sitting with their backs to a door, every other hero but Daredevil. With Matt, they can sit opposite to each other, and there’s no awkwardness to it. To Daredevil, the direction he faces doesn’t impede the way he sees the world. Someone on the other side of a door behind him is seen the same way as someone on the other side of a door in front of him.
The waitress rejoins them, a moment later, holding one menu and passing it to Marc. “I’m sorry, we don’t have a braille menu,” she says, awkwardly. “I’ll be right back with your coffee though!”
Matt smiles again, still freakishly real, “It’s perfectly fine. My friend can read it for me.” Marc looks at him for a long moment after the waitress leaves again, then picks up the menu.
“It’s not laminated,” He whispers.
“I know. Just read it.”
“Breakfast foods,” Marc begins, obliging. He lists the foods quickly and quietly, then once he’s done, looks back up towards Matt. There’s something so off about Matt today, and really this whole trip. As if he’s happier than ever before, giddy like a boy at a state fair, and eerily human. Usually Daredevil isn’t like this, at least not around fellow vigilantes. He laughs and plays jokes, sure, but it almost always feels like some sort of façade.
“How much is the omelet?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll pay.”
“Okay,” he says, smiling. His smile hasn’t wavered once since they got here.
The waitress returns with their coffees a few seconds later, and sets them lightly down in front of them. “Are you both ready to order?” She asks.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
Matt takes over driving somewhere in the middle of Ohio, when the interstate is quiet and the air is fresh, though still a slight biting cold when they put the windows down. Marc considers taking a nap, for a brief moment after they trade seats at a truck stop, but Matt decides he wants to have a conversation.
Marc isn’t good at conversations. He’s patently bad at them, in a way that is not dissimilar to the way many other vigilantes are. There’s a type of learned silence that comes with being a vigilante, where you communicate with vocalizations and gestures more often than you would actual words. Sure, people talk, but half of what they’re saying isn’t really spoken. Daredevil participates in these types of conversations, he’s good at them. A master of a perfectly timed silence, or slight head tilt to carry the full meaning of what he’s been saying.
Matt Murdock is not presently obeying these unspoken vigilante customs.
“How has your daughter been?”
Marc crosses his legs and leans his head against his hand.
“She’s okay, I think,” He says.
“That’s good.” A beat. “And the Mission? I’ve heard good things about it, through the grapevine.”
Through the grapevine, Steven mocks. Who does he think he is?
“The Mission is doing fine.”
Matt nods and smiles. The conversation halts for a few minutes, then: “You seem quiet.”
Marc’s eye twitches, and he uncrosses his legs, picking his head up. The fingers on his left hand drum against his thigh. “People don’t usually make small talk with Mr. Knight.”
Another long pause. “Well, you’re not Mr. Knight right now, you’re Marc, aren’t you?” He asks. What does that mean?
“This is a job. I’m Mr. Knight.”
“But I’m not Daredevil right now,” he says. “I’m Matt. If someone asked me if I was Daredevil, I would say no.” Marc grits his teeth a little, swapping the drumming for instead a rapid tapping with his pointer finger.
“That’s different. I’m public identity, you aren’t.” The world outside the car is beautiful and calm. “Isn’t it hard to focus on the outside when you’re talking to me?”
“No. And- I’m not done, Marc. I don’t get it. You’re not on a job, you’re in a car with a friend.” Matt just keeps pushing, and it’s starting to really frustrate Marc. What’s up with him?
“Mr. Knight isn’t friends with Matt Murdock,” he hisses, then turns his shoulders away from Matt. Jake pushes against Marc, an obvious offering—one that Marc almost takes him up on before deciding better of it. He’s more mature than this.
“Is it a thing that has to do with you being, uh,” Matt stutters, searching for a word Marc can guess. But he’s frustrated with Matt by now, and he finds it almost amusing to wait for him to stumble into the word, correct or not. “A thing that has to do with you being… multiple people?”
Despite expecting it, Marc still audibly scoffs, “Really, Matt? It has to do with me being on a job. I’m not here to hold polite conversation, I’m here to save lives. Even if it’ll take twelve more hours to get there.” Matt chews on this for a few minutes as the trees and fields whisk by around them. It’s beautiful this time of year. Too bad Marc can’t seem to enjoy it.
“If you weren’t on a job, would you talk to me?”
“Everything with you is a job. We’re not-” he hesitates, “Even with Greer I don’t talk a lot. Because we’re heroes.”
“Okay. How do we bridge that?” Matt asks, chewing his lip.
“We don’t.”
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
When they get to St. Louis, Matt smiles and says— with an excited lilt to his voice— “You’re from Illinois, right?”
“I’m from Chicago,” Marc answers, glancing around at the city then at the SatNav in his lap, “St. Louis isn’t in Illinois, by the way.”
“Oh, I know. But it’s right next to it” Matt says. “I mean, part of the city is in Illinois, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But it’s nothing like Chicago.”
“How is Chicago?” Matt asks. His probing questions have returned, his annoying and new habit of trying to be nice. He’s pushing Marc’s buttons though.
“It’s a city. Just like any other.”
Jake is wriggling near the front of Marc’s mind now, egged on by the sounds and sights of the city and the talk of Chicago. Let me drive? You’re tired, Jake says. Marc wants to relent. He wants to relent very badly.
“Can you grab my black bag from the back seat?”
Matt leans back and retrieves it, pulling it up onto the console. Marc looks away from the road for a moment, figuring out which side of the bag he’s looking at, then letting his hands find the correct zippers to retrieve a lollipop from one of the exterior pockets. He shoves the bag backwards without a second look and then cracks the driver’s side window—for Matt.
“Is that a lollipop?” Matt asks, and Marc relents himself to this.
“Yes. I used to smoke, when I was in the army, and then for a while as a mercenary,” he answers, covering as many bases as he can. “Sometimes it helps, when I’m trying not to let anyone else take control.” He works his way around the word front or switch carefully, not wanting to confuse Matt at all. If there’s something Marc doesn’t want right now, it’s more ques-
“Who’s trying to take control?”
Goddamn.
“Jake,” he sighs, “you enticed him with talk of Chicago, and the sounds of driving in a city.”
“He’s the cab driver, right?”
He’s more than that, Marc thinks, and the presence of Jake in his mind seems to shrug a Who cares, it’s accurate.
“Yeah, sure.”
A silence. Someone honks their horn at someone far ahead, distracted at a green light. The digital clock says 3:48 P.M. with a laugh and a wink. “Do you want to get lunch, while we’re in the city?” Matt asks, and Marc nods.
After about half an hour of deciding on where to eat and then Matt directing Marc towards a New York style pizza place, Marc pulls the car into the parking lot and swings his door open, cracking the final bit of the lollipop under his molars as he does so. Then, he steps around the front of the car, to wait for Matt. As Marc approaches, though, Matt’s step falters and his knee seems to give out, for the briefest of moments, throwing the man off of his balance. Marc acts on instinct alone, grabbing Marc by his forearms and holding tightly, their faces closer than ever before.
Matt turns his face away, wrinkling his nose as he does so, and Marc closes his mouth in understanding. Silence, then:
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just haven’t stretched in a while,” Matt laughs, lightly—awkwardly.
“If you’re sure,” Marc responds, then releases Matt’s arms and steps to his left. His instinct is to extend his arm once more, as he had done at the first diner they stopped at, but he instead chooses to place his hand on Matt’s lower back.
“Thank you,” Matt responds.
On the way back out of the restaurant it happens again, just as they near the car, and as they stand there once more, their faces close and gripping each other as if Marc is Matt’s only lifeline, something feels different.
“I’m sorry,” Matt says. “I can still drive, if you’d rather that.”
“No. No, it’s fine,” Marc answers, his eyes dragging over Matt’s face—searching for a hidden pain. A car honks, somewhere down the road, but Matt doesn’t jump. “Are you sure you’re up for this job?”
Matt swallows, almost imperceptibly, in the half a beat before he answers, “I’ll be fine. The job is two days after we get there. We’ll have time to make sure everything’s in order at the place, and I’ll have time to stretch.” It feels like a truth, but Marc fears that somehow Matt is just better at lying than he ever has been.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
They get a motel somewhere in South Missouri, the second time they sleep on the road, after Marc harasses Matt into it.
“You deserve a bed,” Marc had said.
Matt had grumbled about it the whole way, but when Marc sees a cheap looking motel advertised off the highway —with no one around to judge them— and pulls in, he doesn’t say a word. He says thank you, when Marc pays, and he sighs happily when he lays down on the slightly-too-stiff mattress.
“Don’t forget to stretch,” Marc says. “I’ll shower first. Do you prefer hot showers or cold?”
“Cold.”
“You should take a warm one.”
A beat.
“Okay.”
When Marc emerges from the shower, no more than ten minutes later, Matt is curled up on top of the sheets on his bed, still in the clothes he’s worn since they left from New York City—though his shoes have been toed off. Marc sits down on the edge of the bed, placing an ungloved hand on Matt’s ankle, then leaning over.
“Hey.”
“I’m awake,” he whispers. It seems sadder than usual, though there’s still an excited note to the way he says it.
“I’m done in the shower,” he leans forward a little more, looking at Matt’s face. He really does look like Mike without his glasses on. And, he’s beautiful, in some ways. He scans his face once more, as Matt’s eyes flicker open and he sits up and Marc sits back.
“Thank you,” he says. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
As Matt gathers his own clothes to change into after the shower, Marc settles into his own bed and Steven weasels forward again in his mind.
My turn, tomorrow. From here until we get to Texas. I want to pick his brain, Steven says, and Marc just rolls over in the bed, burying his face into the cheap pillow.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
Matt wakes him up halfway past 1 A.M. (says the digital clock, with a scoff), sitting on the edge of his bed and shaking Moon Knight’s shoulder a little. He’s dizzy: his brain not fully one direction or another. Steven sits there, with Marc, fighting for control.
“Marc,” Matt starts, then stops, not finishing the thought. The silence stretches on.
“...Yes?”
He looks up at Matt, and in the darkness he can barely make out that Matt’s breathing seems a little labored. He hasn’t been crying though, just… Marc isn’t sure. Not hyperventilating: Marc would have woken up for that. But it’s not the normal Matt.
“I’m sorry- I shouldn’t have woken you. It’s nothing.”
If you’re sure, Marc says.
“Okay,” Steven replies, instead. “Goodnight, Daredevil.”
Matt steps back over to his own bed, and crawls in, and in the darkness, Moon Knight watches him. He’s safe. He’s going to get some sleep. It’s all going to be alright, Marc is sure of that, no matter what the feeling in his gut is telling him.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
The first thing Marc says when he gets front back is, “What did he say?” as though Steven could have done something wrong—something that would somehow harm his reputation with Matt. A reputation that Marc has been reluctant to acknowledge the existence of. He shouldn't care how Matt feels about him: they're coworkers.
“Marc?” Matt asks, tilting his head to the left, though he doesn't turn his face away from the windshield.
“Yes,” Marc responds. His mind is still fogged up, as though it’s made of windows that have been breathed upon until they're near opaque.
“We didn't talk a lot,” Matt says, and Marc breathes a sigh of relief for a reason he can't fully understand. ”He was... interested in me, though.“
He feels sweaty. His hands are still in the gloves, and Marc wishes Steven great thanks for that at least, but an itch in Marc's brain makes him want to remove them. He does.
His knuckles are chapped and his cuticles are inflamed.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know. He just kept asking me about my life.”
Marc rests his elbow on the place where the window would be, were it to be up, and then his chin on his hand. “Cool.“ Between his thumb and index finger on his left hand, he rubs the fabric of his white gloves together, before shoving them away and onto the dashboard for no real reason.
“Are you okay, Marc?”
“I'm just... a little frazzled,” he sighs. “Usually, when someone else is in charge, I'm sitting passenger. I see what they're up to. I get a voice.”
Matt swallows, then clicks his tongue. “He seemed nice.”
“He wasn't me. You didn't sign up to drive for 30 hours with Steven, you signed up to drive 30 hours with Mar-” He cuts himself off, and they sit silently for a few minutes, neither acknowledging it, until:
“I thought I was on a job with Mr. Knight?”
“You are,” Marc hisses.
(The digital clock says 6:33 P.M., its voice the sizzle of cooking flesh.)
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
They swap seats again 30 miles from Odessa at a gas station.
“We’re right on schedule,” Matt says, after Marc slides back into the driver’s seat and buckles in.
“That’s good,” he responds, his hands still gloveless as he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. It’s silent in the car for almost ten minutes, before Marc says it out of nowhere: “Thank you for choosing me.”
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
Long after the sun has set and Odessa has fallen quiet, Moon Knight and Daredevil sneak out of a cheap motel on the city borders of Odessa together. When Moon Knight first emerged from the darkness and into the streetlights’ ugly sodium lamp light, Daredevil can’t help but laugh a little.
“You-” Daredevil stops, hesitating.
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he pauses midway through the statement to giggle, “but I just realized how stupid you've gotta look. With your cape and hood, dressed in white. Out in Texas.”
Moon Knight falls still, then, steps closer to Daredevil to grab his head with one palm. “You have horns!” He says, laughing too as he shakes Daredevil a little. Daredevil scoffs with the same playful attitude and pushes Moon Knight’s hand off.
“Let’s get going.”
“Of course, which way first?”
They get shot at no less than an hour later by a goon walking back towards the train depot after taking a midnight piss.
“Jesus fucking Christ, there’s a Goddamn ghost!” The man shouts as he pulls his handgun and fires at Moon Knight. Daredevil disappears into the darkness while Moon Knight scatters away and backwards. He’s sure Daredevil is going to handle it—he’s sure he doesn’t have to worry. He climbs up the side of the depot, carefully avoiding the windows, then onto the roof.
The man fires again, wildly, and in the train depot, someone seems to open a door. Daredevil knocks the first goon out before the other man can get outside, and drags the goon up onto the roof of the depot where Moon Knight is waiting.
“Damn,” Daredevil hisses.
“Damn, alright,” Moon Knight affirms. “What do you want to do with him?”
“We don’t have anywhere to keep him, but we can’t let him go,” he says. “Shit. This is not how I wanted this to go.”
Moon Knight looks him up and down, scanning the way that his jaw is tight for a hint at how he’s feeling. “Missions go bad, that’s the nature of our line of work.”
Daredevil stays silent, lifting his head and looking around the depot. “There’s another building, I don’t know if you can see it from here, about 300 yards East.” Moon Knight nods. “I’m gonna check it out, see if we can tie him up there for now. We’ll have to expedite the rest of the job though.”
“No, I’ll go,” Moon Knight says. “The place is littered with lights, yeah? You can’t sense them easily enough.” Daredevil pauses, pursing his lips a little, then nods in assent.
When Moon Knight returns to the roof of the train depot, apparently far too quiet, even for Daredevil (though perhaps it’s purposeful, perhaps he means for Moon Knight to see this), Daredevil is sitting on the far edge of the roof, the goon’s gun in his hand and his back to Moon Knight. He fiddles with it. Moon Knight can see from here that it is loaded, that the safety is off. Daredevil spins it in his hands once more, removing his left glove and tracing his fingers around its curves.
It’s scary, for some reason.
Moon Knight launches himself up over the edge of the roof, landing fairly loudly on his side of the roof. There’s a telltale thunk of a gun hitting the ground far below in the moments immediately after, but Moon Knight acts as though he neither heard it nor saw what Daredevil was doing.
“The building you pointed out should work.”
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
When they return to the motel room, it’s silent for a very long time. Matt is smiley once more, but he doesn’t ask any of the probing questions he had asked on the drive. Instead, after his shower, Matt sits cross legged on his bed, with his hands in his lap very quietly, until just before Marc is ready to crawl into his own bed and sleep.
“It wasn’t all bad,” Matt says, though his tone of voice doesn’t match the somewhat melancholy meaning of the words.
“What was good?” Moon Knight asks, confused. It’s not that nothing went right—plenty of things, after they were done with that one goon, had gone right. And even then, they’d gotten a few good bits of information off of the goon after he had awoken. But… those were facts about the mission. They weren’t good , just facts .
“I got to spend time with you,” Matt answers. His mouth is drawn into a tight but honest smile. Marc stares at him for a long moment.
“Yes,” he answers, then crawls into his own bed and clicks the bedside lamp off. “I guess that's pretty good.”
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
They go for breakfast in town then next morning, and at the diner Marc has a realization: He doesn’t want to die. And yes, he’s not usually suicidal because he knows what happens when he dies, but this is different. Across the table, laughing and smiling is a man he knows is suicidal. A man he knows he probably cannot save. A man he’s now far too concerned about.
Marc tells himself it’s just that he doesn’t want to have to tell anyone, that without Daredevil, Hell’s Kitchen would be in ruin, that without Matt Murdock, New York City would be in ruin. But he knows now that it’s more than that, in some way. That if Matt were to die, he would grieve him, a thing he’s sure he would not do before this trip. It’s scaring him.
“Are you feeling okay, Marc?”
Marc doesn’t know what to say. Matt will know if he lies, but he must already know how Marc is feeling, no?
“Yeah.”
“That’s good. I don’t want you to feel bad,” Matt says. And it makes no sense. No one should want anyone to feel bad, but this is different. Daredevil would never say this to anyone, and Marc Spector is not friends with Daredevil, neither is Moon Knight, or Mr. Knight. They’re peers, coworkers, colleagues. Matt shouldn’t be so- so open about what he means with his acknowledgements. But more importantly, Matt knows that Marc lied about that.
Matt knows he’s going to kill himself. But more importantly, Matt knows that Marc must know.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
As they suit up that night, preparing to make sure their traps are pre-prepared for the following afternoon and to make sure they understand how many people are doing what and where, Daredevil says the unthinkable. Standing in the darkness, his hand gripping Moon Knight’s forearm, he says, “I love you.” And it all starts to make sense to Marc.
He’s going to have to mourn him very soon. On this trip, likely. Tomorrow afternoon. Daredevil is going to let himself get shot, isn’t he? Marc can’t do that, he can’t let that happen. And it’s selfish, isn’t it? It feels so selfish. Across the room, the digital clock says 11:59 P.M. with a raucous, mocking, laugh.
Why is it that the things Marc loves are always out of his reach? Something that is forbidden, something he can’t have. Something that if he were to have, the world would shut down, stop working. As if his happiness is at odds with the way that the universe works.
The rest of the night goes as planned.
⸺ ⚶ ⸺
The next day, after a very long night, the two of them decide then that it’s best to rest a while longer, to let their bodies relax and prepare for what’s going to happen at 4:30 P.M. (says the digital clock, smiling the same true smile Matt has smiled this whole trip).
Daredevil is going to die is the only thought that Marc is capable of having right now. His body is tense, and he’s not aware the same way he tends to be before a big mission comes to its zenith. He’s off of his groove. He rolls over.
“Let’s get lunch,” he offers. In the silence following, both men imagine the words together, for the last time.
“Let’s,” Matt replies.
Lunch is mediocre but enlightening. Marc realizes something, then, over that soggy burger, that he wishes he had realized before. A fact that makes sense only when Daredevil mentions very briefly Ben Urich, in passing conversation.
He wants to kill this man himself, very briefly, for a moment after figuring it out. Instead he falls silent, his heart slowing in his chest and Jake prodding at his mind. He grits his teeth to keep him out, to keep him away from front. He needs to do this alone. He needs to be mature, and to be strong. To be Moon Knight.
“Marc?” Daredevil says, but Marc doesn’t say anything in response. The rest of the lunch is silent. Daredevil only tries again once they’re in the car, but Marc still refuses to say anything. Daredevil is still disgustingly happy, somehow, even though he’s being treated to the cold shoulder.
It’s only when they approach the motel and pull into the parking lot that he finally speaks.
“I’ve never seen anyone so excited to die,” Marc says, his fingers tapping the dashboard as they sit outside the motel, idling.
“What?” Daredevil says. “I’m not- I don’t want to die, Marc.” He doesn’t look over to see if Matt is still smiling, he doesn’t want to see if the man is still so upbeat.
Marc scoffs, then turns the car off, yanking the keys out of the ignition and stepping out, not daring to look at the digital clock as he does so. He pauses before slamming the door shut, leaning over so that he can see Daredevil as Marc hisses out, “News to me.” Then he does slam the door. It’s not his business. It’s not his business.
The passenger side door doesn’t open in response, at least not until Marc makes it to the door of the motel. Only when he has the door open in front of him does Daredevil make a move to exit the Corolla. Good. Get the fuck out of that damn car.
“Marc!” Daredevil shouts, his steps quick and his cane forgotten in the car.
Marc doesn’t answer. The door to the motel swings open finally, and he pockets the key.
“Marc, please, don’t,” Daredevil says, his voice almost breaking as he stands in the doorway.
It doesn’t fucking matter what Daredevil is going to do. Marc gathers his belongings as quickly as he can, the digital clock shimmering in the corner of his eye but he does not look. “Get the fuck out of my way,” he hisses, once his stuff is collected in his arms and he’s back at the doorway. Daredevil doesn’t move, his hands shaking where they’ve come up in a placating gesture. “I said, get the fuck out of my way.”
“No- Marc, if you do this-” he starts, but Marc shoves him out of the way with his shoulder, pushing forwards into the open air. “Marc, if you do this, I’ll go through with it.”
That does make him stop, in some sick way. Matt admitting what he’s doing. What he’s done. Marc can’t believe he would cash in the IOU for this bullshit. He spins on his heel, feeling it as the words begin to appear in his chest, hot and uncomfortable.
“Love is the most useless, brainless affair in your life. Every single time you’ve attempted it, you’ve broken someone—yourself or your lover. So why are we trying here, Matt?” He yells out, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his motel key once more.
“We’re the same,” Matt says, his voice calm again.
“Don’t kid yourself. We’re more different than the Antarctic is from the Sahara.”
“Those are both deserts.”
“Let me put it this way: Marlene hates me, Karen is dead. All of our attempts at loving someone have ended in a horrific tragedy. Tell me what makes this different? What makes this not just you trying to use me for your own fucking gain.” His breath is coming quickly now, as though at any moment he may begin to hyperventilate.
“I want to try again. I want to do it right, for once,” Matt says. He sounds profoundly sad for such an evil man, though Marc can guess that this is all part of the act. The act that he’s been putting on for six fucking days.
“No, you want to die. You want to fall in love with someone who’s cursed to watch their lovers die but cannot die themselves. You want to be the subject of a tragedy like you never have before: you want to be the one dead in your lover’s arms; you want to be the corpse at the bottom of the river; you want to be stabbed to death and left to rot in the simmering Texan sun. We’re not meant for love, Matthew. We’re pledged to tragedy, but I refuse to be your avenue for suicide. Ask Spider-Man to fall in love with you.” Marc says.
It’s true. It’s the fucking truth. He’s using Marc because his curse is the one Daredevil’s is incompatible with. It’s sick.
He throws the motel keys at Matt at the highest speed he can manage, then opens the backseat to the Corolla with such anger he’s briefly afraid the door may fall off. Once his stuff is tossed in, he slams the door and crawls into the front seat.
Daredevil can kill himself, if he wants. He isn’t Moon Knight’s problem. He can kill himself so long as it isn’t his problem. So long as it isn’t on his goddamn penny.
The digital clock says 5:37 P.M., and that’s all.