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Four steps past the front doors, a floorboard creaked and Matt struggled not to cry at the sound. He’d forgotten the rotten floorboard was there and, while it was concerning the last guy who owned the place hadn’t changed the floors since Matt was nine, the stupid noise was damn near comforting. The gym smelled the same. The chemicals used on the floors, a lemon scented cleaner, was the same. The cleaners were using too much, though, and his nose twitched as the smell enveloped him.
He folded his staff up and loosely held it at his side. Matt didn’t need it; he knew the layout of the building better than his apartment. He traced the walls with a light brush of his fingertips, fighting back a smile with every bump and groove he found. There had been a dent in the drywall when two guys had started a fight outside of the ring and landed a heavy punch. One guy had broken his hand and the gym owner had filled the dent with cheap spackle. Matt could feel the outline of where it was and grinned when he realised just how uneven the filler was. There was a fingerprint in a top corner.
It was the fighting ring that stopped him in his tracks. The stage stood solitary in the hall, leaving Matt as the only onlooker. His father had prayed about the outcome to his fights enough to make it an altar to Jacks legacy, the entire gym a church that Matt had worshipped since he was born. Much like an actual church, guilt bubbled up inside of Matt and clogged his throat with unshed tears.
The deed to the plot weighed heavy in his suit pocket and he wavered on his feet under the urge to buckle his knees and drop to the ground at his choice to carry it.
-
Matt was still a lawyer; he even liked to believe he was a good one. It had been one of his cases, as a matter of fact, that had given Nelson, Murdock & Page the pay check to allow him to purchase the gym. He’d hired a manager to actually run the place, planning the fights and dealing with the finances, but he still had the keys to the building.
He’d had a double motive in buying it. The most obvious being his father, Battlin’ Jack Murdock, the infamous prodigy gone too soon. When he’d died and Matt had been taken into the orphanage, all of Jacks things had been donated to charity. The gym, and a ratty old sweatshirt Matt had smuggled out of the bin bags, was all that he had left of his father. The sweatshirt had lost the smell of him after the first wash but the gym was still alive with his spirit. It was if Matt could lose himself in the atmosphere pretend the ghost of his father was standing behind him.
His second reason and the one he’d refused to admit to anyone but Foggy, and that was only after drinking half the bar at Josie’s, was how his skin itched with the urge to step into the ring himself. He’d carried so much rage in him since his father’s murder and it had grown tenfold since Stick stole the rest of his childhood and trained him as a weapon. Matt needed a release, and there was no punching bag quite like an actual punching bag.
He trained late into the evening, when the gym was practically abandoned. Harley, the manager, had stopped bothering to leave all the lights on for him and was glad to save money on the electrical bills. It was just the single flickering light fixture from the hallway that illuminated Matt as he moved. On a bad day, he’d punch the bag off its chain. On a worse day, his feet wouldn’t make a sound as he darted forward in what would have been lethal hits, reverting right back to Sticks teachings. He hated it. Hated how having that power at his hands felt, and loathed the way it made him feel better afterwards.
It was one of the ‘worse’ days that Matt drew in his first witness. He’d been lost in the motions, tearing relentlessly into his second punching bag of the evening, when the squeak of a rubber sole against waxed floor caught his attention. He stopped and angled his head towards the noise, still facing the gently swaying bag. Its chain creaked and Matt breathed heavily as his lungs caught up with the rest of him.
“I thought I’d be the only person training this late.” A gruff voice spoke from the doorway. They were holding something, a duffle bag most likely, and tossed it carelessly to the floor. A switch flicked and the stranger’s heartbeat, which had quickened briefly in fear, returned to a steady beat.
Matt could imagine how he had looked. Foggy had told him that he moved in a way that was inhuman, too fast and smooth to be normal. To catch him in the midst of a months’ worth of bottled-up fury, only catching glimpses with each flicker of a cold light bulb, he must have looked like a ghost.
“I keep odd hours.” Matt shrugged and flexed his hands at his sides. He could smell the coppery scent of blood, assuming he’d messed up his knuckles at some point in the haze “This is the only time I get the chance.” A lie, he had just grown tired of people standing in his way, saying he was ‘too fragile’ to be there. He was blind, not made of porcelain.
“You a professional?” The man walked closer.
Matt turned around and tried not to sigh in irritation when he felt the guy notice. He hardly bothered wearing his red-tinted glasses when training, they only got in the way, and had left his unfocussed and directionless stare on full view.
“No.” He huffed and pushed his sweaty hair out of his face, hating the feeling of it clinging to his skin “My dad was, he taught me.”
“He must have been a beast then.” The stranger hummed and stood a few steps away from him. Matt didn’t need his sight to feel the mans gaze studying his body “The name’s Frank.”
Matt held out his hand in good nature and the two shook. The man- Frank, allegedly- had a strong grip and callouses covering every inch of his hand. The faint waft of gunpowder and cologne stuck to Matts hand as he pulled away.
“Matt.” He moved to his left and crouched, hands fumbling for a brief second before finding his water bottle and the towel he’d folded next to it. Matt took a long drink and splashed some water on his face, letting the coldness drip down his warm face before wiping it away “I’ve never seen you around, are you a regular?”
“I joined recently, only moved to the area a few weeks back.” Frank turned his head as Matt walked away, unashamedly staring at him “Haven’t had the chance to find a proper fight here yet.”
The words carried an unspoken question, a challenge. Matt smiled and gently placed his bottle back on the floor, rising up to stand “I’m a bit rusty but you won’t be able to find anyone else here tonight.”
“Eh, I think you’ll do.”
Matt showed up to the offices the next day with a nasty bruise across his ribs and a busted lip, grinning ear to ear.