Flicker into Flame
Most of Matt’s door was a forest green color. Well, a dingy forest green.
You didn’t plan on telling him this, but your first thought when you saw it was “garbage bag.”
Not that it was much nicer than yours.
Anyway.
He lived in apartment 6A, evident through the “6A” on the door in blocky, black lettering. A much dingier stripe of silver marked the door’s top quarter. Various markings and scratches and nicks littered the face of it, and you wondered briefly whether these were from drunken guests or less-than-stellar neighbors.
At this point, though, you thought your knocks might have you leaving marks of your own. You’d been on this side of his door for about five minutes, and your bag was starting to get heavy, your knuckles beginning to feel as if they might bruise.
Did he give me the wrong apartment or something?
You rapped your knuckles against the door for what felt like the third time and waited. After a minute, you put your ear to the door and could just make out what sounded like shuffling around from inside the apartment. This shuffling paused before turning to footsteps, quick and sharp, and you drew your head back as they approached.
Finally.
The garbage-bag-door swung open to reveal Matt. His face seemed slightly flushed, but he looked otherwise the same as when you’d left him in the cab to your place.
“Hey,” he nodded at you. “Sorry I took a minute there.”
You shrugged, that slight twinge of impatience fading. “All good.”
Matt nodded once more, half-smiled. He motioned backward with his head and stepped back to hold the door open for you. “Come on in.”
You smiled as you stepped past the threshold.
Walking through his hallway-esque entryway, it looked just as most apartments did. The white walls were a bit worn, and the floorboards weren’t quite creaky but were on their way to being so. You noticed, in particular, that it seemed fairly empty. Sparse. Aside from a simple bench, a scarf, shoes - there wasn’t much to look at.
I guess that makes sense.
The front door shut with a loud click as you turned the corner into the main space, and your lips parted, air floating over them in less than a gasp but more than a normal breath.
You didn’t know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t this.
Wow.
The space was expansive, with open-faced brick and minimalistic furniture giving it an industrial feel. With no lights on in the apartment, it was dark - but the windows helped considerably with that.
The windows.
Really.
Wow.
They were wide, open, teeming with brightness and colour as they drew in shades and glimmers of neon city lighting and the softer stuff of stars. Light shadows were cast here and there off Matt's furniture, turning his couch and coffee table into dissimilar silhouettes splayed over the floor, shapes in various shades of black that stretched out toward the space's darker corners.
You glanced up, and the exposed rafters of the ceiling felt light and airy - like something out of a summer cottage or a wintry cabin instead of a New York apartment.
It was dark, stark, bare in its decoration, and simple in its furnishings. The layout, though, the design - from the supposed craftsmanship of the rafters to the colourful, bright glory of the windows, the place was undoubtedly one you’d have chosen for yourself.
Talk about a nice ass apartment.
Behind you, Matt noticed your pause, your awe at his place, and laughed. “Not bad, huh?”
“Not bad,” you breathed. “Matt, this is - wow. Are you secretly a millionaire or something?”
He laughed once more. “Before I found the place, some developers next door put up these big billboards. They shine all night, right through the windows, so no one was willing to pay what the apartment was going for. Once they marked it down to a certain level, I snagged it for myself.”
The glimmer of the glass still held your attention, light hues of rosy pink, muted gray and dusky violet shifting and swirling under your vision. “Most people can’t sleep with light shining in their eyes.”
“Exactly.” Matt stepped forward, reaching a spot beside you, his head trained toward the windows, too. “See, there are some benefits to being a blind guy. I can get a corner apartment as nice as this that no one else will pay for, at a fraction of the regular price.”
You chuckled. “Might as well take advantage where you can.”
Matt nodded. His voice fell lower, softer, whispery tones out over the air. “I’ve heard the windows are pretty nice, though.” Something between wonder and wistfulness flickered through his raspy words. “Maybe not when you’re trying to sleep, but on their own,” he murmured, “I’ve been told the colours can be quite pretty at night.”
You paused for a moment.
“Yeah.”
A pang of apology lit a subtle burn in your chest as it fully hit you that Matt had never seen the swirls of hazy light shine in through these windows - that he’d never seen his windows at all.
You looked down at your shoes before glancing back up. “Yeah. They are.”
Silence fell over the two of you, both facing those glass gates to the outside but only one of you able to drink in their light. You opened your mouth to speak, hesitated, tried again - and Matt beat you to it.
“Do you want something to drink?”
“I-“ you began, turning to face him. You considered saying something about the light, about the windows, about how you wished he could see it all, too - but thought better of it. “Sure.”
“Okay.” Matt smiled. “I’ve got water, beer,” he paused, tipping his head up to the ceiling in thought, and tilting it back down to face you, “and that’s about it.”
A half-laugh breezed through you. “Water’s good.”
He grinned. “Great.”
Matt turned to grab your drink, but a question burning at the base of your brain drove your hand out to grab his arm, you fingers wrapping around the smooth white fabric of his button-down.
"Wait."
He stopped, paused a moment, tilted his head toward your hand where it lay against his shoulder. You remembered yourself and pulled it away.
"Sorry."
Matt smiled, his voice soft. "That's okay."
Your lips pursed in a shadow of a smile, breathy comfort beneath your skin. The memory, though, of your adventure with Matt on the motorcycle, was eating away at you. Specifically, that makeshift line he'd constructed between masks and skin, between day and night - as if it was wrong for one to bleed into the other.
"I just-" you started. "The other night, when you showed up at my place- I'm just confused."
His brow furrowed. "Confused?"
You bit into the inside of your lip. "About the mask thing."
Matt's eyebrows raised up, his lips pursing, parting, violet light casting shadows over his chiseled features like a new, fabric-free cover. You continued.
"Obviously we both know the truth. Why did you need me to put on the mask?"
He tilted his head, blinking beneath the glasses as his brows drew together and apart. His head turned toward the window, drawing all his features back into light, though now half of them were out of your field of view. You watched him, expectantly, and he heaved a slow sigh.
"With this sort of life," Matt began, "Sometimes it's important to keep some boundaries." He spoke as though he wasn't addressing you, but was addressing the world, the city, the day and night alike. "I get how it might seem frivolous, or silly," he half-laughed, pushing up his glasses, "but revealing this to each other - Selena, it's a big deal."
You nodded. "Trust me, I know that. I'm just saying," you gave a half-laugh of your own, "Hasn't it all been revealed already?"
Matt smiled and turned to face you once more. "I guess it's more of a personal thing."
You nodded once more, waiting a beat to give him the space to continue, on the off chance he'd be comfortable doing so.
To your surprise, he was.
"Most people only know me as Matt. Those people, if they knew all of me - I don't know how they'd react."
A string pulled inside your chest, snapped up to prick itself at the backs of your eyes, to drag your heart up to the base of your throat. The air between the two of you felt warm and cool at the same time - warm with understanding, cool with the pain you knew he felt.
The pain that you also felt within yourself.
"Same with me," you affirmed, taking a step closer to him as you thought of Ray, Seema, Jessica - even your family - and what they might think of you if they knew what you did in the dark. "Same with me."
Matt half-smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "I've had people know me for the other side, too. But, when they realized that I can't just be that part of me, that the darker half and Matt both need to exist," he dipped his head with a breath, turning his face back to the windows for the last few words, lower than whispers, softer than you thought sound was capable of being. "They couldn't accept that."
Another one of your heartstrings tugged, pulled taut, snapped. The feeling ricocheted through your chest, echoing whispers of remembered hurt through your body and mind. Your brows drew together, voice quiet.
"That must have been painful."
His laugh was sarcastic, twinged with what seemed to be memories of suffering. "Yeah. It was. And-"
"And you're afraid of it happening again?"
"I-" He started, stuttered, faltered. "Maybe. Maybe I am."
So, you thought to yourself in silent understanding, that's what the mask-or-no-mask thing represents.
It was a line between two sides, so different and yet so dependent on each other, each side fervently guarded, with any revelation risking total loss.
Behind that, it was the indescribable pain of finally letting each side free, baring every deep and dark corner of yourself, showing every part of you from sunshine to shadow - and losing because of it.
Losing because of who you are, in every sense - of who you were born to be, light and dark alike.
An identity you can't escape, and yet somehow can't be loved for, either.
You knew the feeling well.
"I get it."
Though you pulled your arms around your torso in a tight embrace - as if protecting yourself from your own hidden suffering, different and yet so similar to Matt's - you stepped even closer to him.
"I get it, Matt. I do. I've been there," you breathed, your eyes trailing to his glasses as he turned back to you, "and I think about it all the time."
Beneath those glasses, you could see his eyes shifting, faint lines of focus etched around them. He seemed to be hanging on your words, lips pursed, brow furrowed - and a wound just faintly opened in his sightless gaze, glistening a mournful red under the light of the windows.
"I know what it feels like to be left, what it feels like to lose - but you and I are in a unique spot, here."
His mouth quirked up. "You could say that, yeah."
"Yeah. And-" you paused, drawn through your own memories of love and loss, safety turning to torturous threat, the warmth of attachment running cold. "And knowing both sides of you is not going to drive me away."
Matt tipped his head to the side at your dangerous admission, and you watched his chest rise and fall with one deep breath, then another, stretching and releasing the light wrinkles in his shirt. Your parted lips felt dry and you ran your tongue over them, already overthinking your words.
You barely know this guy.
What are you saying?
But - whether it was a safe thing to think or say or not, it was the unavoidable truth.
And, sure, you hadn't known Matt for long, but the two of you understood each other in a way that - well, frankly, no one else in your life could. From what you could tell, it didn't seem that anyone in his life could understand him like this, either.
You turned to face Matt fully and he mirrored the action. Now, only an inch closer, you could feel his heat, feel it reach out to you over the moonlit air, adorned with smoke and sugar and a new sense of openness. The grip around your torso untwined, and you drew your hands down in front of you, arms relaxed, hands lightly clasped as your bag hung off one shoulder.
You felt half-unsure, shaky on this jagged edge between alliance-slash-friendship-slash-flirtation and, well, whatever level of closeness comes beyond that - but you filled your words with conviction all the same.
"This sort of life, Matt, it can be hard - but it's even harder when the greatest rule is fighting through it entirely on your own."
Matt blinked, his head moving in a nearly imperceptible nod of agreement. As you examined the glint of light off his red glasses, mapped the angles of his jaw to the curve of his lips, watched him breathe in silence as he waited for you to speak once more - your voice fell to an earnest, gentle, intimate whisper.
"Maybe we can be the exception to that rule."
The two of you stood there, apart and yet impossibly close, amid indigo-twinged light and stretches of long, black shadow. Time seemed to still, and you took a few shallow breaths, nerves roiling in your core as you waited for Matt to respond.
Wow.
Too much.
Why the fuck did I say that?
I know, I know this is a mistake - one I keep trying and failing to avoid.
Please respond well.
Please.
Matt's lips parted and the lines on his forehead relaxed. His furrowed brow settled, and his eyes - richly brown, you were almost certain - flickered with near-awe and all-around intrigue at what you'd said. Though you caught a shade of disbelief in his expression, it lasted less than a second before his lips were drawn into another slow, subtle curve.
"The exception to the rule, huh?" He asked, his tone light, soft and smiling. "Doesn't sound half bad."
The tension in your shoulders, the storm in your chest - it all faded at Matt's words.
Thank goodness.
You smiled, shrugged as a playful lilt returned to your voice. "I mean, we make enough exceptions to every other rule as it is - what's one more?"
Matt laughed, his head dipping back with the light shake of his chest, his grin bright, wide and warm. He tipped his head back to face yours and gave you a tiny upwards nod. His voice, though still soft, regained a hint of that gravelly slink you were beginning to know quite well.
"Sounds like you just want to get us into trouble."
That coy, flirty tension between you and Matt drew itself back to the surface; beneath it now, though, was a layer of fragmented warmth, a connection made of shards fusing into something more or less real.
As if beyond your control, your eyes narrowed with the teasing shine of your grin.
"And what's wrong with that?"
Matt grinned back at you. Another moment, a brief pause, and he spoke once more.
"How about that drink?"
You nodded, reaching up to your bag as you remembered the actual purpose of this visit. "Right. Of course."
As Matt strolled over to get your water, you followed him, electing to place your bag on his kitchen table. You drew out your laptop and settled it softly on the wooden, tablecloth-free surface.
Not the most sophisticated of the gadgets you’d worked with, but it did the job when you needed something simple.
“So, Matt,” you began, pulling out a chair. “This phone - mind if I ask where it’s from?”
Matt turned on his tap, cold water rushing into the glass in his hand. “It could help lead us to Fisk.”
“Well, I kinda got that, but where did you get it?”
He sighed in a low laugh. “Got it from a cop.”
"A cop?" Your tone wasn't incredulous, but you were certainly surprised. The way Matt's mouth pursed seemed as if he was expecting judgment, expecting disdain. You weren't about to give him any of that, though. “And?”
Matt turned off the tap and walked over to you, settling the glass of water beside your laptop. His expression flickered through slight surprise to relief, in a sequence impossibly subtle. “There was a man I fought. Trying to kidnap some guy. I had him on the ground, and he was talking, something about Vladimir’s brother -“ he paused, pulling out a seat for himself, “but the cops came before I could get more out of him.”
“Vladimir’s brother,” you began. “Matt, that’s Anatoly Ranskahov. One of the guys I told you about.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“What did this guy say about Anatoly?”
Matt settled in his seat, shifting his jaw. He took a breath. “They think I killed him.”
Your jaw dropped. “What?”
Killed him?
“It’s some sort of setup. I don’t know whether it was orchestrated by Fisk or the Russians, but-“ Matt sighed, tapping the fingers of his right hand along the table. “Yeah. They’re saying I killed him.”
The glass of water seemed eerily peaceful in your line of vision, clear and faultless in the dark. You couldn’t quite bring yourself to take a sip yet.
Dead. Anatoly is dead.
And they think Matt killed him?
“Why,” you started, searching for the words, “why would they-“
“I didn’t kill him, Selena.” Matt’s tone was sharp - not unkind, but stern, steady. He shook his head. “I know what I do, I know how it might look - but I don’t kill people. That’s my line. I do not go past it.”
“I believe you,” you nodded, hoping that didn’t sound like a lie, willing your heartbeat to stay steady.
And you did believe him. You did. You’d just seen so many like him, claiming to have a noble cause and falling into darkness just the same.
You walked that line, too, sure - but in walking it, you knew how easy it could be to trip over the edge.
Matt tilted his head. You continued.
“I don’t kill people, either. I couldn’t- I couldn’t do that. I’m looking for justice, not just violence for the sake of violence.”
Matt’s attention remained on you, closely, thoroughly. In your mind, you saw flickers and flashes of so many almosts - so many people who could have become corpses at your hands, bodies beneath the scrape of blades, the pierce of a bullet. You saw blood, felt it drip from your fingertips, drip down your face until your eyes were swimming in hot, thick, sticky pools of crimson - crimson through which you could not longer see what was truth and what were lies.
Remember. That was just another nightmare. Not real. Not real.
Not real.
You spoke, praying that your voice would stay calm. “I’m not lying when I say I believe you. I just know what this path can do to people.”
He clenched his jaw. “It won’t change me, Selena. It won’t.”
You eyed him for a moment, not knowing him well enough to know whether his claim would hold true - but hoping it would all the same.
“You said you understand, and you said you trust me,” Matt leaned forward, sincerity lacing his words. “If there’s anything to trust me on, it’s this.”
Searching his glasses, you found that his sincerity bled into even them, the red shining earnest truth into your eyes like a beacon of honor. You took a deep breath.
“Okay,” you nodded. “Okay.”
Matt nodded back at you, resting his elbow atop the table. “I don’t know what exactly they’re saying about me - but in any case, this guy from the other night got taken in by the cops. I went to the station yesterday to see if I could get any clues, any more information, but-“ he paused, clenching his jaw.
You leaned forward, resting your arm just in front of your laptop. Your fingertips settled inches from his, but that wasn’t the focus. Lines formed and relaxed and returned around Matt’s mouth as he searched for the right words. You watched him patiently, letting him take his time.
“These two cops were interrogating the guy,” Matt continued, dipping his head down to face his hand where it lay on the table. “He- God, Selena. He said Fisk’s name.”
Your lips parted, brow furrowed. “He did?”
“Yeah,” Matt nodded. “And they shot him.”
A heavy silence split through the room, blanketing every surface from the rafters to the floor. You felt it on you, too - a weighted blanket, hot and cold and stifling, held to you like a magnet, like your blood was liquid steel. This blanket pressed the air from your lungs, constricted the space in your chest until each beat of your heart pounded against your ribs.
“The cops,” you repeated, as if saying it out loud would somehow help connect the dots into something moral, something ethical, something lawful. “They shot him?”
Matt nodded again.
“Fuck,” you muttered. “So he’s got the police in his pocket?”
“That’s what it seems like. Not all of them,” Matt assured, “but the corruption is there. He’s got a hand in it, that’s for sure.”
You ground your teeth together, glancing over to the window, its pale violet and indigo light breathing cold into the room.
Of course he’s got the fucking cops.
This isn’t just some petty thief we’re dealing with.
“So, the phone.” Matt reached into his pants pocket and drew out an old flip phone, black and unassuming. Definitely a burner. “I caught up with one of the cops - persuaded him to give me this,” he explained, holding it up with a little shake before setting the phone on top of your computer.
You nodded, shaking yourself out of that momentary stillness.
The phone was light in your hands as you picked it up, metal traced with black lines of plastic and rubber along its outside. Flipping it open, a low-lit, green glow shone dimly onto your fingertips from the screen and the numbers on the buttons. You ran your thumb over the screen to wipe off any residue. It was already clear, surprisingly spotless for a flip phone.
“If he’s in Fisk’s pocket, there’s gotta be something we can find in here.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “Exactly.”
You clicked the enter button on the keypad, and the phone opened to a main screen.
“Not password protected.” You almost laughed. “For a corrupt cop, this guy isn’t very good at his job. Bypassing the most basic level of security.”
You turned the phone over in your hands before continuing. “Then again, doesn’t seem like it could be traced back to him. Guess it doesn’t matter all that much.”
Matt tapped his fingertips along the table again, leaning forward. “Are there any messages in there that might be useful?”
“Looking into it as we speak.”
Seems simple, with a burner flip phone - but it might not be as simple as it looks.
You scrolled through the texts - there were no contacts, no names, only strings of digits. Some texts came from the same numbers, but many were from all different sources. And most of the messages didn’t contain any words, either. Just random collections of numbers. Maybe coordinates.
So strange.
Wait.
Coordinates?
You scrolled back up to the most recent messages, urgency in your fingertips. Matt must have noticed your pulse pick up.
“Find something?”
“No, but-” you clicked open to the most recent message. “It looks like this guy is being sent coordinates. Different locations. I don’t know what they’re for, but they could be useful.”
He nodded, the lines on his forehead deepening in interest.
“Here,” you nodded, “the most recent one he got has five sets of coordinates. Five locations.”
You set the phone down and opened your laptop. After entering your password - because I’m not an idiot, unlike some corrupt cops - you entered the first sting of digits into a location search, hoping your hypothesis was correct.
With a quiet click, you hit enter.
Loading…
Loading…
A map popped up on your screen, with a red dot at an address. You zoomed in and smiled. You were right.
“They’re coordinates,” you breathed. “This one’s at 47th and 12th.”
Matt leaned forward over the table, the hand in his lap settling on his hip. You searched the next three coordinates and read the list out to him.
“48th and 9th, 42nd and 10th, 44th and 11th.”
He frowned. “44th and 11th?”
You nodded, typing in the last set of coordinates. “Yep.”
Matt clenched his jaw, the hand on his hip rising up to clasp his other hand over the table. He twiddled his fingers, chewing on his lower lip.
“Know something about that address?” You asked as you hit enter on the last location.
Matt huffed a sharp breath. “Yeah. It’s a restaurant. I saved some kid from the basement of it-“
“-a kid?” You interrupted, your focus drawn away from the computer screen.
No.
“What do you mean, a kid?”
“The Russians, they got this boy,” Matt explained gruffly. “They were holding him hostage, for whatever reason, I don’t know. I'm guessing these are where they're located, where they do their work.” He scoffed at the last word.
You nodded, working to hold down the flutters of rage that had lit up in your stomach, breathing red and yellow and orange into your gut, threatening to spill upwards into your chest. “What did they do to him?”
He shook his head. “Not much. I got him out before anything-“ he paused. Sighed. “I don’t know what they might have done to him, but I got him out.”
Those flickers of flame burned behind your eyes as you stared at Matt. “Good.”
It can’t be.
But if they’re connected to Confed Global, and if Confed Global is connected to-
Fuck.
It must be.
You turned back to your screen, hoping some sort of something could come up to quell the raging turmoil beginning to wave and water in your core.
But the last location, that last address?
It only stoked the fearful flames rising within you.
Your jaw dropped, and you zoomed in further to ensure you weren’t seeing things.
And, heartbreakingly, you weren’t.
Matt frowned again. “Is something wrong?”
“I-“ you started. “No.”
He sighed. “Selena, we’ve been over this.”
You breathed, closed your eyes, tried to settle yourself.
Tried to focus.
“Fine. The last location-“ you paused, biting the inside of your lip. “The last location is the workplace of someone I know.”
Alias Investigations.
Alias motherfucking Investigations.
Jessica.
Matt’s brows knitted together. “Are they connected with the Russians?”
You closed your eyes. “Not by choice.”
My fault.
“She was drawn into this otherwise. She’s not affiliated with the Russians or with Fisk.”
My fault.
Your cheeks burned, eyes and skin hot with regret.
“I just don’t know why this address would be on the list.”
Yes, I fucking do.
Me.
I’m the reason.
Matt chewed the inside of his cheek. “Did she do anything that could have gotten her on their bad side?”
A bitter laugh threatened to shoot out of you, but you held it in. “She’s a private investigator.” That laugh turned into a shallow breath, unstable and brittle in your lungs. “She was getting me information on Fisk’s associates.”
You looked to Matt, whose lips formed a hard line.
“I didn’t mean to bring her into this,” you tried to explain. “I thought I needed help, but I could have done it on my own, and I just-“
Matt placed a hand over yours, stopping you mid-sentence. His hand was warm, encasing your fingers and knuckles in a blanket of reassurance, and he dragged his thumb back and forth over your skin in slow, gentle strokes. Your breaths remained shallow, but something stilled within you, spinning into butterflies at the same time.
“We’ll figure it out.” His voice was low, raspy, tender. He motioned to the phone with his head, keeping that hand over yours. “Any other recent messages that could help?”
Your eyes stayed on Matt for a moment, and you were captivated by his calm expression, the sure determination in his brow. His breath was a steady, cyclical cadence, each inhale remaining deep and rhythmic. He was a vision of calm in the face of such danger, and you were briefly struck by how helpful it was for him to be this composed when you were totally, understandably, freaked out.
And for more reasons than just Jessica.
“I-“ you shook your head, reaching for the phone with your free hand, keeping the other as still as possible in the hope that Matt’s grasp wouldn’t leave you. “I’ll check.”
You looked at the messages and noticed that another recent text was sent by the same number that sent the coordinates. Opening the message, you frowned. It was another sequence of numbers.
“This one was sent by the same number, just a few minutes after the one with the locations. It’s another string of numbers, but it doesn’t look like coordinates.”
Matt nodded, pulling his hand back into his lap. You looked closer at the numbers, trying to make sense of them - and it clicked. You gasped.
“What is it?” Matt asked, his hand feeling heavy over yours - in a good way. In warm, unspoken comfort.
“It’s a date and time,” you explained, a rush of adrenaline, of fear, of pain and fury firing through your body.
“Tomorrow night. 9:00pm.”
His brows shot up. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yep,” you nodded. “Guess they’re planning something.”
Rage quelled up in your stomach like a slick poison, spreading bright and tangy fire to every other organ in your core. It raced through your bloodstream, injecting itself into your heart and streaming up the back of your throat until it burned through your skull. And, although this rage burned, you knew it would be far more useful than the tears it dried up.
This motherfucker had taken so much from you - and whether it was direct or indirect, you didn’t give a shit.
His investment could have gotten you killed.
Could have sent that little boy into unforgivable torture.
And could very well hurt Jessica.
“Well, we’ve got a time, and we’ve got locations,” Matt stated, leaning in closer to you. “Maybe it’s something that could lead us to Fisk.”
You looked to him, sure that with his heightened senses he could feel the wildfire burning behind your narrowed eyes.
“I’m counting on it.”
Slightly shellshocked and thoroughly incensed by what you'd discovered, your stomach was still doing flips as Matt walked you to the door.
"Stay in touch," he insisted, pulling the door open. "We can handle this. With what we know, with what we talked about - I think we've got a shot at managing whatever might be coming."
Although it was in vain, you nodded vigorously, your eyes fluttering.
"Yeah. We'll figure it out."
Matt gave a small, sad smile as you stepped through the doorway. You'd discussed a weak, fragile, very changeable potential game plan - which essentially involved you keeping an eye on two of the locations and Matt keeping an eye on the other three. It didn't have much to it, but it was something, at the very least.
You were about to walk further down his hallway, away from that gorgeous, gorgeous apartment, when Matt grabbed your arm. You turned back to face him, your core still lighting up at his touch.
"Selena. I-" Matt began, his train of thought cutting out. You eyed him quizzically, even as he pulled his hand back to rub it against the back of his neck.
Although your gaze questioned him, your voice was patient.
"Yeah?"
Matt took a deep breath, steadied the uncertainty in his expression. His lips quirked up as he spoke.
"I trust you, too."
You looked at him, watched an exceptionally faint layer of blush wash over his cheeks, saw his tongue flick out over his lips, brow furrowing and unfurrowing. Your heartbeat skipped, slowed, settled. A quiet, soft smile flickered over your expression.
Though the moment was a window into meaning, into depth, shades of forced lightness permeated your thoughts, determined your words as you let them out with a light laugh.
"You sure that's a good idea?"
Matt chuckled softly, but nodded, all confidence and conviction beneath his glasses. "Yeah. I am."
A blush ran over your skin, across your face, down your arms.
He trusts me.
The Devil of Hell's Kitchen trusts me.
Though you knew it before he made the statement, Matt saying those words brought a greater weight to your blossoming alliance.
Your smile wasn't wide, wasn't gleaming, but it was very much there. Soft, subtle, and imbued with words of light and peace - although a low, tumbling whirlpool had begun to swirl in your core.
His open, honest admission unlocked the door to questions that had been festering inside you for longer than you'd like to admit to yourself.
Am I the sort of person he should trust?
The sort of person who deserves his trust?
Despite your thoughts, the smile remained, warm as ever. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Matt smiled back at you, pulling his hand down to rest in one of his pockets. "See you tomorrow."
Leaving the apartment, you heard his door shut. That sound, that thud as the wall between you and him resealed, evaporated the warm and fuzzy feelings he'd left you with in his admission of trust - evaporated the peaceful, invigorating comfort you'd found within each other's pain in front of light-scattered windows and all their shadow.
On your cab ride home, your gaze remained steadily out the window in dark consideration, eyes trailing from the outlines of sidewalk vendor carts and dumpsters, over fire escapes and darkened windows, to the points where rooftops met the midnight sky.
At one particular turn, where your eyes were tracing the lines of those rooftops, you swore you saw a shadow of black soar from one building to the next.
The fuck is that?
And then, the realization:
No way.
You've got to be kidding me.
Matt is stalking my cab.
Part of you swirled with a shade of bashfulness from Matt's evident desire to protect you. Another part swirled with near-offence - doesn't he know you can handle yourself?
In spite of these contrasting feelings and the burgeoning weight of Jessica's fate heavy on your weary shoulders, you laughed.
Better him than James Wesley.
You kept your gaze upturned to the sky, wondering if - in his doubtless focus on you - Matt knew you'd seen him.
Something flicked at your chest and you frowned, your eyes bearing a subtle burn. You drew them back into your lap, watched as your fingers twiddled between each other, decisions of the past forcing their way up into your head like parasites. You lifted your gaze to land squarely in front of you, jaw set, breath forced into steady silence.
If only he really knew who he was protecting.