Chapter Text
Alias Investigations smelled like old paper, cheap bourbon, and rain.
Jessica sat at her desk, boots kicked up, watching a drop of water crawl down the outside of the window. The city blurred beyond the glass — neon, shadow, and static. Somewhere out there, people were sleeping. Somewhere else, people were dying. And she was here. Waiting.
She took a long pull from the bottle in her hand. No glass tonight. No pretense. Just dull the nerves and try not to think about what tomorrow would bring.
Behind her, the office door creaked open.
“Nice of you to show up,” she said, not looking back.
Matt’s voice was soft. “You said to meet you here.”
“I say a lot of things. Doesn’t mean people listen.”
He didn’t answer. Just stepped further into the room, footsteps quiet as breath. She could feel him behind her before she heard him — that always-freaky Daredevil radar or whatever the hell he used to sneak up on people.
Jessica finally turned to face him.
He looked tired. Not just physically — though the bruises blooming along his jaw said he’d had a long week — but soul-tired. Like he was holding something he didn’t want to admit was already slipping through his fingers.
“You ready for this?” she asked.
Matt tilted his head slightly. “Are you?”
Jessica snorted and swung her legs down from the desk. She stood, facing him across the mess of her office — files half-open, empty bottles on the floor, rain hammering harder now against the windows.
“I’ve been ready to die since before I met you,” she said. “But sure, let’s call it ‘ready.’”
Matt took a step closer. “This doesn’t have to be suicide.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “You mean that hole in the ground run by undead ninjas isn’t going to be a walk in the park?”
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile.
Almost.
But it didn’t reach his eyes.
And that’s when she saw it — the thing he was trying not to say. The kind of quiet you only carry when you’ve already decided something.
“You’re not planning on coming back,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
She walked past him to the file cabinet, pulled it open, and fished out a fresh bottle — mostly full. She popped the cap, took a hit, then held it out to him.
Matt shook his head. “You know I don’t—”
“You might want to make an exception,” she said, her voice low. “If this is goodbye.”
That shut him up.
He didn’t take the bottle, but he didn’t leave either. Just stood there, that constant storm behind his eyes.
Jessica looked away first. The room felt too small. The air too tight.
“You didn’t have to come here,” she muttered. “Not tonight.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because if I didn’t…”
He trailed off.
She turned to him. “Say it.”
Matt took a step forward. Then another. Until they were standing so close she could smell the rain on his coat and the blood he hadn’t cleaned off his hands.
“If I didn’t come tonight,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “I would’ve never forgiven myself.”
Jessica’s breath caught.
She didn’t want to do this. Not now. Not with everything hanging by a thread.
But Matt was looking at her like she mattered. Like she wasn’t just the drunk, the mess, the last resort. Like for one second, she was the only thing that made sense.
He reached for her — slow, gentle — and touched her face like it was something fragile. She let him.
“You’re not fragile,” he said suddenly, like he could hear her thoughts.
“Don’t do that thing where you read me like a book,” she muttered. “It’s annoying.”
But she didn’t pull away.
She leaned in.
So did he.
The kiss was nothing like she expected — not rushed or desperate, not a grab-and-go before the end of the world. It was slow. Reverent. Like he had all the time in the world, even when they both knew he didn’t.
Her fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt. He pulled her closer like she was something he needed to memorize. She teared away at his shirt. Tracing his scars with her index finger.
She slowly broke away from the kiss, as she held Matt's hand and led him to the bed.