Chapter Text
The Interrogation room was set to look as comfortable as it could contort itself in a few minutes. The normal bright fluorescent white light was dimmed. Uninviting metal chairs and tables were quickly swapped for cloth ones. A now furniture less corner of one of the many rooms in starks tower. Natasha sat across from the young boy with the table between them.
“You don't have to tell me everything.” Natasha said.
The kid stared to the right and slightly down. A meek “Okay.”
“We can start with names, I'm Nat.”
“James. I want Matty, can you find him?”
“Who is ‘Matty’ is he another child?”
The kid was silent beside a light scuff of his foot on the ground.
Natasha waited a moment. “How many other kids are there?”
“I don't know.”
“Ten?”
The kid shook his head.
“Twenty?”
“I don't know, some didn't make it.”
Nat went quiet. “Didn't make it?”
The kid visibly pulls further into himself. "Training is hard, some can't take it.”
“Who trained you and the others?”
"We called him Stick."
"Okay that's great can you tell me what he looked like?"
Silence.
“What were you trained to do?”
“Fight against the Hand and listen.”
Natasha had been chasing the whispers of the Hand and the Chaste. She understood there was a conflict between the two and now their willingness to create child soldiers to support their war. An all too familiar story.
“Listen to what?”
“Everything.”
“What happens if you don't fight or listen?”
“Bad Things. It's better to listen”
“You are free, your trainer cannot harm you physically anymore. I am here to help you and the other children.”
The kid looked up and into Nat's eyes for the first time “...Please where is Matty, can you help me find him?”
“Can you tell me who Matty is? Why are you looking for him?”
“Because he got out.”
“Got out of the Chaste?”
The kid nodded. "Stick said he was pathetic. But he still got out.”
There it was again. Not released, escaped, or survived. Got out. There was something almost reverent in the way the boy said it, as though getting out of the Chaste was less an escape and more an impossible accomplishment.
She leaned forward slightly in her chair. “In order to find ‘Matty’ I need more information. Do you know his full name or where he's from?”
“I never met him. Stick said Matty was tougher than any of us but weak”
“Those two things don't usually go together.”
“He got soft.”
Natasha studied him. “Soft how?”
“He cared.”
“About people?”
The kid nodded.
“Stick said that was his weakness?”
“He said Matty had what it took. But he couldn't do what needed to be done.”
Natasha leaned back slightly. "And Stick thought he was weak because he wouldn't …kill.”
The kid nodded. “Anyone who gets in the way.”
Natasha was quiet.
The boy tilted his head. “I thought you were someone else at first…when you saved me. Stick said the Devil of Hell's Kitchen would come after us and what to do if he did”
Natsha noticed the seemingly abrupt change of subject but followed along wanting to see how this played out. “What were you supposed to do if this ‘Devil’ came?”
“Take someone.”
“Someone the Devil cared about?” she deduced.
The kid shook his head. “No.” A pause. “Someone Matty cared about.”
Natasha's eyes narrowed. “Why Matty?”
“Stick said Matty is the way to get to the Devil.”
“Why would Matty matter to the Devil?”
The kid shrugged.
There was a small upturn in the boy's mouth, and he said with a tentative humor “He said Matty was a dumbass.” fake whispering the end in the way a child says something they don't think they should but do anyway.
A tiny smile was now reflected on Natasha's face to encourage him. "A dumbass?”
“A dumbass lawyer.”
Another morsel of information to put into the profile the agent was building to find this man. She had what was clearly a nickname and an occupation that fit thousands of people in New York alone. However, the connection to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was promising. The boy wasn't asking for Matty because he knew him. He was asking because in the kid's eyes Matty had done the impossible.
The kid stared into her.
“He got out.” A pause. “Maybe he can get us out too.”
Matt POV
The church was quieter after dark.
Matt sat alone in one of the back pews; his hands rested loosely against the worn wood. Candles hissed softly as flame caught the wicks. Rain tapped the stained glass, the downpour encouraging both the good and the wicked to remain indoors to escape the storm's anger. The absence of screaming or the click of metal that was a call-to-action Matt could never seem to escape. The flood drowned out the insistent noise of the city and created a contrasting quiet warmth within the walls.
He heard someone enter. Small footsteps.Their sleeves brushing a face roughly across their eyes. Matt didn't turn around and tried to give them privacy, ignoring them the best he was able.
“Please. "A girl's voice, young and shaking.
She sniffed. “Everyone keeps saying Dad's with you now.”
Silence.
“So, if he's with You...” Her voice broke. “Then you know who it did... you saw how he made us watch.”
Matt closed his eyes; fingers tightened against the pew even as it groaned in protest against his wrath. He could hear her heartbeat racing beneath the words. The uneven rhythm of someone trying desperately to keep themselves together.
“Please, I don't want him to get away with it.”
Matt's jaw tightened.
“I don't want to hurt anybody. I just...” She swallowed.“I just want it to be made right.”
The church fell quiet again.
Matt sat, listening to the girl pray for justice. He knew exactly what she was asking for. He wasn't sure God was going to answer her, he hadn't answered a young blind boy.
Her footsteps faded toward the doors. Matt remained where he was. Above him, the cross creaked faintly in the old wood. Justice. The word followed him as he stood. He didn't know if God had sent him to deliver it, but there was a man who needed to answer for what he'd done.