Chapter 3
A week into living with the Bartons and Matt could hear Stick’s disapproval growing in his head every moment he spent with them watching a movie or just talking. It wasn’t entirely Matt’s fault, though, as Clint was very persuasive when he wanted to be. But Matt couldn’t deny that having a somewhat normal life felt refreshing even if he did miss Hell’s Kitchen.
They ate together and watched films; neither of them had to work and he didn’t have to wait up for them to come home like he had with his dad before…
Matt hated to admit it, but the only complaint he had was that he was beginning to really miss Hell’s Kitchen. He even found himself missing the sounds that he would listen to at night. The quiet was really refreshing and he didn’t miss some of the things he would hear during the hours of darkness, but, on the other hand, he was still finding it difficult to sleep without anything to listen to. He knew it was just because he wasn’t used to it, however every night he was more convinced that living in the city was so much better.
In all honesty, Matt was surprised at how little the Bartons annoyed him having spent an entire week with them without much of a reprieve. Any time they left the house, they asked Matt if he would go with them, clearly nervous to leave him alone, and he had accepted every time, unable to turn down an opportunity to go somewhere new.
Living at the orphanage had meant few chances to get out and around the city, and never alone. Being blind did nothing to help his cause on that front. So, it was a nice change to have gone somewhere 5 times in a singular week.
He also wasn’t officially enrolled in the new school until the end of the following week. Luckily, Matt knew he wouldn’t fall too far behind despite missing 2 weeks. His ability at school had always made his dad proud. He’d always wanted Matt to use his brain and not his fists. Stick knew what Matt’s fists could do. That still hadn’t been enough to make Stick stay, though. Then again, his dad wasn’t here anymore either.
Matt shook himself out of his thoughts. They wouldn’t do him any good, no matter the truth behind them. For now, he had Clint and Laura and when if they decided adoption hadn’t been the best option, he had the orphanage. He was fine.
Again, Matt had to pull himself from his thoughts as Stick’s voice mocked him for being sloppy. Clint and Laura were going out that afternoon without him. It was the first time they hadn’t asked him to go with them and, further than that, they’d explained to him that he couldn’t go with them as it was something to do with their old jobs. He’d been given no more information than that which led him to wonder what they had done for work before. His thoughts didn’t dwell there for too long, though, as he was excited to have so much space completely to himself.
Opportunities to have time alone had never presented themselves at the orphanage unless he shut himself away in his room, but even then, he would still hear others in the rooms surrounding him. After they had eaten lunch together, Clint and Laura departed, though not before being certain Matt had their number memorized for any emergencies. Matt then waited until he could no longer hear their car as it drove away before making his way outside to explore properly.
A barn sat beside the house, holding a run-down tractor and other random items scattered around. Matt took a moment to scan the barn with his senses for anything interesting but didn’t find anything other than a baseball and glove on one of the shelves. That wasn’t an option, though. It wasn’t often that a blind child asked to play catch.
Moving on from the barn quite quickly, Matt wandered around the edge of the house, finding nothing of interest. The next nearest thing to the house was a lone tree standing not too far away, with something hanging from its trunk. Getting closer, Matt remained unsure as to what hung from it. The object was round and seemed to have been ripped in places. Reaching out a hand to feel it, Matt realized that the cuts were from arrowheads. Something else that Matt couldn’t ask to do.
Having toured the outside, Matt returned to the house, eager to start on what he had originally planned to do. He stuffed clothes into a cloth bag before securing up high in the dining room, leaving it swinging in the air. His bare feet soaked up the cold wooden floor and he slowly started to bounce slightly on them. Matt raised his fists as he’d seen his father to countless times before and set to work on his makeshift bag.
Throughout his session, Matt focused on his technique, for once letting Stick’s voice into his thoughts freely.
He rained hits down onto the bag with his hands before adding kicks into the mix and beginning to move around the bag, dodging every now and again. Nothing would help him like training with Stick, and even fighting people around the orphanage helped him more than this, but at least he was able to get some sort of practice in.
If he was honest, he wasn’t completely sure why he continued. For a while after Stick had left, he continued because he believed Stick would return for him one day, so he had vowed not let himself slip. That was until he finally realized that Stick wouldn’t come back for him. Since then, he guessed it was anger that kept him going and the fact that hitting something helped. More often than not, however, he would end up hitting someone as well.
Fights at the orphanage never landed him in too much trouble thankfully. No one wanted to admit it had been the blind kid that had left them bruised and scraped.
Sweat beaded his forehead and dripped from his chin, which brought his attention back to his surroundings after having been mindlessly attacking his makeshift punching bag. With his attention now focused on what was around his, Matt’s hearing latched onto a car engine slowing down outside the house.
Hurriedly, Matt grabbed the punching bag and rushed it upstairs as he listened to the engine stop and Clint and Laura’s voices approach the house. “Never thought I’d see the day that he’d willingly share information with me,” Clint said.
“Rebuilding the entire thing must be taking it out of him. Or he’s been drugged,” Laura joked.
“I would not want to be the man to try and drug him,” Clint casually informed Laura.
Keys scraped against metal as they were put into the lock and turned. Matt had stashed away the bag under his bed until he would have time to put the clothes away. Currently, he was halfway through getting changed as he thought it would be quite difficult to explain why there were sweat patches dotting his clothing.
“We’re home!” Laura called up to him.
“Hi!” he called back.
He hoped he didn’t sound too out of breath. As quickly as he could, Matt finished changing and grabbed one of his books for when Clint would knock on his door. Half a minute later, Clint was knocking on his door and Matt had allowed him in. “Everything alright while we were out?” he asked.
“Yeah, everything is fine. How was it?”
“It was so boring,” Clint lied, his heartbeat spiking as he spoke, “we had to listen to some awful speech about the company before we could do anything else.”
Matt nodded along to Clint’s lies. He told them with such ease that you’d think he’d been doing it for years. Even his heart gave away less than someone’s usually would. “Oh, and don’t forget we have a friend visiting tomorrow. I don’t know when she’ll get here but we just don’t want you to be at all surprised by her arrival.”
“I’m sure after another 20 or so reminders it will finally sink in,” Matt smirked.
“Very funny,” Clint remarked.
Matt could tell he was smiling, however.
After dinner that evening, Matt was in his room, book open and actually reading it this time while Clint and Laura were doing the washing up together downstairs. “I really think we’re making progress,” commented Laura.
“So do I,” Clint agreed, “he can be very sarcastic, by the way.”
The Barton adults often did this when Matt was upstairs; they constantly had conversations about their ‘progress’ with Matt. He felt like he should find it annoying but, at the same time, he knew they only did it because they did want to get closer to him.
“D’you reckon he’ll like Nat?”
“Clint, everyone likes Nat. But yes, I do. I think they’ll get on really well, actually.”
“And she can help us?” Clint asked in a tone that suggested he knew what the answer would be.
“If she thinks we need to know anything, she’ll tell us. You can’t use your best friend to psychoanalyze your newly adopted child, Clint.”
“I know,” he sighed, “it would just make it easier. She’s so much better than me.”
Matt’s attention had been completely drawn away from both his book and the conversation downstairs. Psychoanalyze him? He wasn’t sure he wanted someone trying to dig around in what he was thinking. At least it gave him more information on Nat, though. He guessed that she was some sort or therapist.
Therapists were not Matt’s favourite people. He’d had a couple since moving into the orphanage. One close after his father’s death, another when the nuns noticed him getting angrier and a third about a year beforehand after the first two hadn’t worked. They never would, either. Matt couldn’t tell them everything. He couldn’t tell them about how it was his fault that his dad was dead, that he’d overheard everything and gotten his dad to win that fight. He couldn’t talk about Stick leaving because no one knew that Stick had ever really been there. Therapy would never work for Matt Murdock as he couldn’t talk about anything.
That night, Matt fell asleep fairly early and drifted off into a plagued rest.