11
“I think we should get Peter baptized.”
Upon further reflection, Matt decided this may not have been the best greeting to use on his friends. Claire and Luke turned their bodies toward him so quickly, he felt the air part like a curtain. And Jessica—
“You asshole.”
He felt her when she barreled into him, knocking him back on the heels of his dress shoes. The persistent chill of her hands seeped through his jacket and despite her firm grip on his biceps, the frost took the burn out of his reopened shoulder wound.
Matt kept still, waiting for Jessica to make the next move. But she stayed uncharacteristically silent, fingers tense on his arms, and gave Matt what he assumed was a rather aggrieved look.
“So no baptism?”
“Fuck you. Where have you been?”
Luke stepped forward. He was holding Peter who, up until Matt’s abrupt arrival, had been gnawing on the sleeve of Luke’s tee shirt. Matt could sense the damp of the fabric, how it tugged heavily across Luke’s impenetrable skin. He almost felt bad. Then he remembered that Luke and Jessica used to fool around, and suddenly Matt was okay with Luke being covered in baby spit.
“Got held up.”
“ Got held up? By what? A common thief with a pistol in a brown paper bag? This isn’t funny, Matt.”
“I don’t joke about baptism.”
“Why are we talking about baptism at all?” Claire interjected. “You were supposed to get back before Jessica. You didn’t. We were worried. Explain.”
This unsettled Matt. Having people worry after him.
He wasn‘t always ignored or forgotten — There was his dad, who’d come home from fights bloody and bruised and reminded him to do his homework. Then Father Lantom, whom Matt caught on more than one occasion praying on the steeple during a cold New York night, refusing to retreat into the warmth of the chapel until all of the orphanage children were in their beds. Then Elektra, who encouraged Matt to take as many hits as he dished, but fretted when he wouldn’t answer her calls because he was sleeping off a common cold. Foggy left their dorm door unlocked if Matt wasn’t there by the time he went to sleep, because he knew he always forgot his keys. Karen — Matt never knew someone in stilettos could climb the stairs to his loft so quickly. Then Claire, who found him in a dumpster and let him sleep off a concussion on her couch.
Now Jessica, who showed how much she cared in biting remarks and sideways glances and furniture moved just a few inches to the side so the edges lined up and Matt could memorize an even path around it. And Matt liked to think Peter would notice if he disappeared, if only because he no longer had someone who let him grab at their nose with his sticky little hands.
At some point or another, for whatever reason, all of these people were concerned about Matthew Murdock being safe. So why was he still so taken aback by it when they said it to his face?
“I had to take a different route home. Double back a few times.”
Jessica’s hands didn’t move, knuckles staying bent, blood forced away from the peaks from the pressure of her hold. But Matt felt the way her shoulders knotted at the implication of him having to change a very carefully laid out plan. “You were followed from Jeri’s office? How’s that possible?
“Technically, I should be a very easy person to follow. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.”
He doesn’t know why he’s joking around. About any of it. Since when does he kid about things like this?
“Sorry,” Matt said. “I’m sorry.” Nobody asked what for, apparently taking the apology for what it was, so he kept going. “I found him. Or he found me, I guess.”
The only heart rate in the room that didn’t skyrocket was Peter’s. He was too young to understand how bad this was. He was also too distracted by Luke’s shirt sleeve to care.
“He clocked you?” Luke asked. “You’re sure.”
The absurdity of the interaction flooded back, the fact that so many people and places had to align for any of this to have happened. It’s an elevator, of all places, where Matt met the man trying to ruin and end his life. “He addressed me directly. As Daredevil.”
Claire huffed. “You’d think a guy dressed as Daredevil and assaulting a blind man in public would draw more attention.”
“We were alone. And he wasn’t dressed as Daredevil.”
“Then how did you—“
“It was Agent Poindexter. The voice…” Matt was going to add the smell — the sting of too much antiseptic, skin scrubbed clean of natural oils — but people tended to get weird when he talked about scents. “And his wrist,” Matt said, info for Jessica more than anyone else. “Still injured.” The bones creaked like an old chair. He really needed to get it properly set and bound or it would never heal right.
“That FBI agent from the Fisk case?” Jessica asked. “Seriously? Another dirty cop in this city? Should have known Fisk would revert to old methods when the litigation path didn’t work out.”
Matt scratched at the stubble on his chin. He’d let it go the last few days, too worried about the general chaos of his life to bother with a trim. He was getting dangerously close to goatee territory. “The cops never weren’t dirty. Poindexter started all of this when he attacked that subway car, and again when he killed Ben Urich and his family. The Agent was meant to physically force Daredevil-me out, and the lawsuit would take care of real-me on the books. It was always a two part plan. But I don’t think Fisk saw both sides of it failing.”
“So the Feds aren’t on our side and Fisk will probably walk,” Luke said. The frustrated grinding of his teeth echoed around the inside of his mouth. “Should have guessed.”
Peter finally decided he’d had enough restriction and pounded on Luke’s shoulder with flat palms.
“Ow, ow, okay little man, I get it! Mom and Dad, okay if I put him down?”
Nobody responded, and the silence keyed Matt into the fact that Jessica is mom and he is Dad. These are decisions he had to help make now. Can Luke put Peter down?
Was the floor clean? It’s a mostly unused church basement, so no. Were there potentially dangerous objects lying about? There’s splinter-producing wooden crates and concrete angel statues with sharp edges, so definitely yes. Was there anywhere appropriate for a baby to hang out? Peter’s playmat was over by his folding crib, but it was two-by-two feet and if the kid could crawl up a wall, he could definitely crawl away from the only adequate floor space for a baby to be placed.
Jessica waved a lazy hand. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
Matt gaped at her. If any of the nuns saw him, they’d have told him to close his mouth before he caught flies.
“He’s got a danger sense, Matt. It’s not like he’ll be sticking fingers in electrical sockets.”
“The floor is filthy.”
“So’s the ceiling of your apartment, probably, but he’s crawled there already.”
“ Oookay , yep, didn’t mean to start a domestic dispute. Here.” Luke managed to detach Peter from his arm and passed him over. Peter took the trade off with as much grace as a baby could — whining at the loss of contact with Luke and then immediately forgetting about it as he realized whose arms he landed in. Matt blew a raspberry against his pudgy cheek, and he could feel Peter’s belly bounce with breathless laughter.
“The baptism,” Claire said, not unkindly, “Why does Peter need to baptized?”
Claire, ever the pragmatist, keeping everyone on track despite the fact that she was just as enamored by a cute baby as anyone else. Matt could hear the way the muscles of her face twitched, the slide of her lips over her teeth as they stretched taught. She was smiling and trying not to show it.
“This is all a little more complicated than just Poindexter being a cop.”
Luke, having found himself suddenly empty handed, started poking around at the various statues. One held an empty offering bowl that someone had used for the storage of glass Christmas tree ornaments. Luke’s impenetrable skin sounded different than a non-powered person’s, rougher and more dense as it passed over the surface of one of the glass spheres. If Matt had to appreciate something about having Cage around, it was the ease with which Matt could read his movements. It was easier to track a brick’s movement through open air than a balloon’s — compared to the flimsy, watery cells of a regular human, Luke was made out of microscopic cement. “What,” Luke said, voice still aimed toward an angel’s stone face, “Knowing Fisk infiltrated the Feds isn’t bad enough?”
The collar of Matt’s shirt was choking him. He popped the first button and felt no relief, then started attacking the knot of his tie, desperate for a breath, and it caught Peter’s attention. The baby started pulling at the cloth with vigor and Matt resigned himself to having that tie torn to shreds. Whatever. At least he’d get some air. “He, uh, knows I have a kid.”
“So we’re acting as superpowered babysitters. We knew that.”
Jessica stayed quiet and stiff, like she was thinking. She had a way of understanding Matt that few others did. Maybe it was because they were both emotionally stunted assholes with so many misshapen feelings that they couldn’t fit them anywhere but their fists. It spoke to how far they’d come that Jessica Jones was suddenly contemplative. “Right. Fake Daredevil knows. But no one else does.”
By the time Foggy found his cellphone, he’d already missed the incoming call.
The damn thing was buried under the mess of his desk; open files and dog-eared legal reference books and an embarrassingly tall stack of empty, soggy paper coffee cups. The last few days had gotten away from him — maybe the nights, too — and it took all he had to stay focused at work and not stew about how his best friend, the mother of his friend’s child, and said child were living in a church basement because there was a psycho Daredevil impersonator trying to kill the real Daredevil, and probably his family, on the orders of Wilson Fisk, a criminal Matt was supposed to have caught and jailed over a year ago at the (supposed) expense of his life.
When did these become things he had to worry about? Maybe Foggy’s parents were right. He should have just been a butcher. Salami rarely fought thugs in the name of justice and tried to get itself killed. Him and salami would have a calm, caring friendship.
Not that Matthew Murdock didn’t care, because he did, but he didn’t show it by being the main component in a deliciously savory sandwich. He showed it by disappearing for days on end, being the worst wingman ever, and giving Foggy a key to his loft under the pretense of access in an emergency, when in reality Matt knew Foggy just liked to wander and sometimes found himself on Matt’s couch when venturing into the real world was too much.
Foggy’s phone, which he eventually located between the creased pages of yesterday’s Daily Bulletin, was blinking with a voicemail notification from Karen. He didn’t listen to it — her voicemails were never informative, just her poking fun at how he can never answer her calls because his phone is lost — and called her back straightaway.
She answered on the first ring. “Have you checked the group chat?”
“Which group chat? The Holy Trinity?”
“ We really need to change that name. Matt thinks it’s sacrilegious. And no. The bigger one.”
“Matt’s Baby Mama and Friends ?”
“ We also need to change that one. But yes. Have you checked it?”
“No, I’ve been working. Is something wrong?”
“They’re holding a baptism for Peter.”
It took Foggy a moment to think this over, and another moment to still not understand. “So? Matt’s like, super Catholic. If you ignore all of the vigilantism and sleeping around and Battery accusations, this isn’t surprising.”
“ But that’s not why he’s doing it, Fog. You really need to check the group chat more.”
“Matt doesn’t text anything he thinks could get him arrested. Its Vigilante One-Oh-One. I couldn’t have missed anything.”
“ It was a text saying to call him so he could explain everything.”
Since when do his friends want to call him this often? He can never get them to answer their phones and now, when he’s got a well paying job and clients and a boss to report to, now they want to talk? “Seriously, Karen, I have a meeting with Hogarth in five minutes. Can you give me the short version?”
“Fake Daredevil caught Matt in his civvies.”
The phone almost slipped from where it was wedged between Foggy’s shoulder and ear. That was enough to stop his frantic search for his steno pad. He really needed to get better about digitizing his notes. “You’re joking.”
“ It’s that FBI agent. Poindexter.”
“Dirty cop. Always a dirty cop, when it comes to Fisk.” Now that he had a free hand, Foggy could use it to pinch harshly at the bridge of his nose. “So what do we do? Why the Baptism? I get that Matt turns to religion in hard times, but—“
“Okay Fog, listen to this.”
“Holy shit. He looks ridiculous.”
It took Matt a few days to get Peter’s baptism pulled together, a couple more for Karen to sweet talk her boss at the Bulletin, and another few to wait for Sunday Mass. Jessica had no reference for how long these things usually take, so she didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned that everything was falling into place so quickly.
She was sure that whatever Peter was wearing was both hilarious and upsetting in equal measure. It was a mess of a thing, composed of piles of yellowed fabric that probably used to be white, and it almost swallowed Peter under its many layers. Lace trimmed the hems, the collar, and worst of all, the edge of the puffy bonnet tied around Pete’s head of wispy brown hair.
Pete himself didn’t seem to mind, content to rub a piece of tule between his tiny fingers, never mind the fact that Jessica couldn’t even count all of his limbs through the dramatics of the outfit.
“It’s traditional,” Matt said, frowning. He traced Peter’s nose from the bridge up to the top of his smooth forehead, then used it as a guide to straighten the bonnet. “I wore this when I was baptized.”
Jessica felt scalded. She couldn’t seem to navigate her unfamiliarity with religion without stepping on Matt’s spiritual toes. “Oh. You did?”
“Well, I mean, not this exact one. This is a hand-me-down Father Lantom dug out of a charity box. But my dad showed me a baby picture back…You know, back then. It’s a bit fuzzy, but I know I was wearing one of these.”
“You have got to show me that picture.”
“No way. You’ve got enough blackmail material as it is.”
“Why are we talking about blackmail in the House of the Lord?”
Father Lantom appeared beside the ambo, seemingly out of thin air, looking as holy as ever in a strikingly white alb. The white-equals-purity concept so prevalent in many religions was not lost on Jessica - it was a way to separate the godly and the godless, the delivered and the doomed. A lack of sin, and the degree of it possessed by the wearer of the garment.
Despite that understanding, Jessica was sort of sick of it. The line between right and wrong had always been blurred for her and just about everyone else. Morality was subjective, sin wasn’t sin if you didn’t believe in it, and Jessica wasn’t sure what to believe when it came down to the condemnation of any one thought or action. She often found herself on both sides of the divide, and she knew she wasn’t alone in the indecision. So what gave any one person or practice the authority to decide?
“Only talking about blackmail in the holiest of ways, Father.”
Matt’s smile was stiff around the edges, like always. But there was a thread of truth woven within the softened lines of his eyes, just barely visible around the edge of his dark glasses. Familiarity in banter with Father Lantom, like he’d had years to get comfortable laughing at him and being laughed at in return. Respect in every jab, going both ways.
Jessica thought he smiled like that at her, sometimes. Was it ridiculous to think so? That when they talked, and laughed, and smiled, and even when she was holding Peter, the tilt of his chin was still toward her. Those soft, unseeing eyes were aimed at her, and he was at ease, and it was like they knew each other for ages before that one day and that one hookup and that one building collapse and that one ten month stint where Jessica thought he was dead.
Father Lantom descended the steps, bowed at the bottom, and turned to both Jessica and Matt. “Mom, Dad, I think we need a last minute chat.”
The tremendous creak and squeal of old hinges echoed around the nave, and Jessica saw the main doors being propped open for the upcoming mass. A few early arrivals flitted in and took seats in the pews.
Father Lantom used a gentle hand to pull her and Matt in closer. With a bowed head, he said, “You must understand, Matthew, this will not be a traditional baptism.”
Matt’s chin dipped. “Yes, Father. I know.”
“I don’t know whether or not you both intend to raise this child in the eyes of God. And Miss Jones, I mean no offense, but I get the sense that living a Catholic lifestyle has not been, and will likely never be, your intention.”
He was right, of course. But Jessica wasn’t one to admit when someone else was right. “Never say never, Father.”
He seemed to be utilizing well-practiced patience, pausing with pinched lips. “Many would say performing such a bastardized version of the Baptism is sinful.”
Jessica didn’t have many clear feelings toward that. Matt, though, looked a bit abashed.
“That being said. I’d like you both to know I’m glad, and honored, to have been trusted with it. I intend to do what I can to protect your child.”
Jessica wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to that — other people caring. Other people putting themselves on the line for her son, and by extension, her.
The pews were filling, churchgoers greeting familiar faces as they took their spots for the upcoming service. Jessica tried to think back all those months ago to before Born Peter, before Alive Matt, and during one of Pregnant Jessica’s most vulnerable moments. In this church, in a front pew, Jessica sought a moment of refuge. She listened to rain beat against the stained glass windows and wondered if she’d ever crawl out of the hole in which she fell.
And then Matt’s friends were there, whispering a few rows back, mourning their friend who never actually died, and they marked the point in time that would begin the circle of Then and Now.
Father Lantom guided Matt and Jessica to that exact front pew, left them to sit on the worn wood.
Foggy and Karen stumbled down the main aisle, just in the nick of time, Peter’s godparents and babysitters and his Then and Now.
She is there. They are here. It all comes full circle.
Karen never thought she’d be a godmother.
She still wasn’t one, technically. At least not in the eyes of the Catholic Church. Not actually being Catholic sort of complicated things. But the principle was there — Matt and Jessica sat her and Foggy down and told them that if anything happened to either of them, her and Foggy would be their ideal picks for stepping in and making sure Peter was cared for.
It wasn’t lost on Karen that both Matt and Jessica had no surviving family, or that their circle of friends was barely a shape. They didn’t have many options to start. But this time a few years ago Karen would have been sleeping off a cocaine-induced haze on a trailer’s fold-out bed in rural Vermont, so going from being that to being somebody Matt and Jessica could trust to care for their child was major personal growth.
She reveled in the satisfaction of it as she and Foggy stood behind Matt and Jessica at the baptismal font, an entire church of witnesses present to seal the holy deal. It would have almost been beautiful if any of it was genuine.
Every creak of a pew or squeal of a door hinge had Karen craning her neck. The old church’s ceilings were high, jumping across each other in graceful arcs, and it would be easy for someone to hide in their shadows. Her and Foggy were debriefed by Matt before the baptism — there were only two entrances, the main door being the most obvious but the back door being a potential surveillance weak point. Luke Cage was on standby outside, doing hopefully nonchalant circles around the building exterior and keeping an eye out for anything untoward. But he was just one man, and Benjamin Poindexter was a threat in every sense of the word, and Karen was still, above all else, scared.
Karen zoned out for too long and only tuned back in when Peter howled like he’d been dropped. They’d removed his bonnet and there was holy water dripping off of his smooth forehead, out of his dark hair. Cold water must be one of his sensory upsets, because it set him toward a bout of hysterics so profound Karen saw Matt wince. Peter’s sobs bounced off the stone walls and back at the gathered crowd. Karen heard a collective aww from a few of the patrons and a yikes from one of the people sitting close enough to get the scream in full force.
Matt’s hands twitched up, presumably toward his ears to muffle the sound, but he refrained from drawing unnecessary attention.
“Well,” Father Lantom said once Peter was calmed enough to continue, “at least we needn’t worry about the lord hearing our prayers, yes? Peter has us covered.”
The rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch. Karen and Foggy remembered their lines, a convincing We Are thrown in between bits about devotion and carrying a burning light, and Karen was free to return to her pew and stew in her nerves for the rest of Mass.
There was a rhythmic tap, soft thuds on tile, and Karen looked down to see the heel of Jessica’s boot bouncing against the floor. To anyone else it may have appeared intentional, a way to soothe the fidgety baby sitting on her legs. Karen knew better.
“Do you feel like something’s wrong here?” Karen asked Foggy, whispering and leaned in close as to not alert patrons in nearby rows.
Foggy’s expression went contemplative. “Other than the fact that we just swore to be godparents in front of a priest who knows we don’t talk to god except to curse at him?”
Karen pinched his arm. “Fog, c’mon. I’m being serious.”
“I don’t know, Karen. I’m not at church often enough to tell if something’s out of sorts. Father Lantom said this was an average Sunday turnout.”
Father told them baptisms usually meant a larger mass crowd, as extended family and friends joined the usual attendees for the express purpose of seeing the event itself. This would obviously not be the case for Matt, Jessica and Peter, and was the main reason Karen convinced her editor to let her have a last minute spot on the community pages of Sunday’s Bulletin. A family photo — a surprisingly good one — with Matt and Jessica bracketing Peter on a park bench. Proud parents Jessica Jones and Matthew Murdock would like to accounce the baptism of their son, Peter Matthew Jones, taking place this Sunday at Clinton Church in Hell’s Kitchen.
A simple spread with minimal detail, meant partially to reveal to the public that Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock were connected through more than just some harrowing news stories and a similar postal code. Meant mainly to tell the world that Peter existed at all, seeing as between the single parenting and lack of relatives, Jessica hadn’t done much socializing.
Foggy gathered her hand up in his and squeezed. “The plan will work, alright? Pete will be fine, and…And it’ll all work out.”
Foggy was a tactile friend, all bear hugs and excited shoulder taps, and from anyone else Karen may have hated the contact. But she remembered how often those hugs saved her, kept her from shaking out of her skin, and relished in it. She did the same thing over a year ago when her and Foggy started coming to Clinton Church, not to worship, but to be as close to Matt as they could get without having a headstone by which to kneel. He’d squeeze her hand then, too, in the candlelight, beneath the moonlit glow of stained glass, and Karen believed she might make it through all of the bullshit they’d been eating by the spoonful.
She decided to believe him again.
“It’s just saying thank you and shaking hands.”
“Why don’t Karen and Foggy have to stay? Shouldn’t they be here too?”
“Foggy was called away by Hogarth. Some big emergency. And Karen’s outside with Luke.”
Jessica was tempted to call Karen back in, simply for moral support. “I don’t know these people. What am I thanking them for?”
“Being here?”
“This is Sunday mass. They were already going to be here.”
“Then for sitting through the baptism. It adds, like, twenty minutes to the usual routine. Because of us they’re going to be late to Sunday post-church brunch.”
Jessica knew the flat look she gave Matt would have gotten her a scolding from Trish. Jess, it’s not polite to look at people like you want to deck them. “Well heaven forbid.”
“What a beautiful family you have. Oh goodness, look at that face.” An unfamiliar older woman materialized within the narthex, where Jessica and Matt had been instructed to line up and receive well wishes from patrons as they left mass. The woman was shaking her hand with her right and pinching Peter’s cheek with her left. Peter wriggled away from the touch and tried turning his head into Jessica’s shoulder, but the ruffled sleeves of his baptism outfit blocked his escape route. He sneezed when they tickled his nose, and the woman cooed. “Looks just like his father. Not that you’d know, Matthew, but he does. I swear it.”
Matt must have felt Jessica’s blood boiling, because he stepped in before she could open her mouth. “Thank you, Miss Henderson. That’s very kind.”
They stood for what felt like hours, grasping shaky hands and offering generic thanks. Some people seemed sincere, happy to encourage a godly life for a young child. Others were obviously just nosy and wanted a chance to ogle at the result of Matt’s extramarital transgression up close. Especially so considering none of them had seen Matt in months or even knew Peter existed.
The plan was working, then; Peter was gracefully pushed into the public eye. At first he was a metaphorical ghost, exposed to few outside of the familial unit, and it created easy hunting grounds for Poindexter. But now Pete was known, and cherished, and adored, and if Poindexter was going to go for Matt, or Peter, or even her, he needed to know there’d be consequences.
No more spontaneous attacks in dark subways, or killing whole families in the dead of night. The subway victims were real, but many. It’s hard to personally mourn when you don’t even know everyone’s names. Ben Ulrich and his family were famed in their own way, but at the end of the day Ben was a faceless byline, the true perpetrator of the Ulrich family murders was kept under wraps, and his surviving daughter was legally a minor and her testimony was left out of the newsreels.
Peter, though. Presented before an entire congregation, family photo glaring at NYC en-mass from the pages of the New York Bulletin. Keeping the Jones-Murdock family fresh and endeared in the minds of the people. Using the media to push publicity for himself and against Daredevil was one of Fisk’s last remaining lines of defense, which meant twisting and manipulating it to their advantage was Matt and Jessica’s only remaining method of attack.
So Jessica would do it. She’d shake a million hands, sit through a million hymnals, if it meant there was even a minuscule decrease in the amount of danger hovering over her son.
The excitement of the day was wearing Peter down. By the time the receiving line had died down he was dozing in Jessica’s arms. It always amazed her how peaceful he appeared in sleep, even more so when compared to how decidedly not peaceful he could be awake.
“He really does,” Jessica conceded. “Look like you, I mean.” Murky hazel eyes, the slant of his tiny nose. “It pisses me off.”
Jessica’s gaze stayed on Peter, but she felt Matt’s warmth as he sidled up next to her. When he spoke, his breath brushed her cheek. “That he looks like me?”
“That people tell me he looks like you. I carried the kid for nine months and you’re gonna say he looks like his dad? Fuck you. I already know that. You don’t have to remind me.”
Matt slid a hand onto her shoulder, thumb swiping back and forth from the edge of her dress collar to the bare skin of her neck. It was making her angry, and happy, and made her uncomfortable, and feel more safe than she’d felt in years. It was also making her feel a scary third thing she shouldn’t have felt while holding her son or standing in a church.
Matt carefully undid the ribbon holding Peter’s bonnet in place, then slid it off to expose a tremendous case of hat hair, still a bit damp from the baptism. “I don’t know. I think he’s like you in a lot of ways.”
“Name one.”
“Well, for starters, he’s got a wild attitude.”
“Say that again and you guys won’t look alike anymore. The resemblance will fade once I break your nose.”
“And the way he talks.”
“I wouldn’t call what he does now talking.”
“You know what I mean. He’s vocal, but only when he cares to be or has something to say. Otherwise he’s a silent observer.”
Even then, Peter was looking up at the two of them. His eyes darted between her and Matt as they took turns speaking.
“And he loves so, so deeply. And cares so much, about everything, but doesn’t want anyone to know. Because knowing means admitting defeat against your own humanity.”
Jessica’s tongue felt like sandpaper. She tried swallowing, gathering some spit in her mouth to push a retort, but she ended up choking instead. “He’s a fucking baby. You couldn’t..You couldn’t possibly know that.”
“I know you. I like to think I do, at least. And he’s yours. You made him. You’re a part of him, which means he’ll be just like you. A silently bleeding heart.”
“How was it?” Luke was posted up in the church’s back garden. He sat atop an aged brick wall and stared across the street at a hyper-modern office building, empty for the weekend except for the bored looking security guard at the desk just inside the glass front doors. “The baptism.”
He turned to watch Karen’s approach. She was oddly agile in heels, hardly stumbling as she traversed the uneven brick paving of the walking path. The crooked, washed out headstones marking poorly tended graves jutted out of the ground at dangerous angles, but Karen simply stepped around and over on her way to hop up on the wall next to Luke.
He’d have taken a lap around the lot if he had more time. He was fascinated by old church cemeteries like this, the random spattering of people buried on the property and promptly forgotten about once the surrounding area developed. Graves from the late eighteen hundreds surrounded by convenience stores and idling taxis. Not another soul buried there for decades, these people and whatever remained of them alone and cold below. The grass grew thicker, the weeds grew over, the mounded dirt of their plots flattened by time, and suddenly it was a garden. A place for new life to grow. How was that true when all of the living happened outside the garden walls?
Karen got comfortable on the stone ledge, legs crossed beneath her skirt. “Adorable. For the most part. Pete’s got lungs like no other, so the screaming was sort of unpleasant, but otherwise it went well.”
“You think it worked? Will it be enough?” Enough to keep Poindexter at bay, enough for Fisk to decide the publicity risk isn’t worth it, enough for Jessica and Matt to be able to move out of the church basement, enough for any of the hard parts of their lives to soften, even just a bit.
For a moment, Karen just looks at Luke. It makes him want to pull his jacket tighter over his shoulders. The first time he saw her was in that dismal breakroom at the police precinct after Midland Circle. She was crying into Foggy’s shoulder after finding out her friend wasn’t coming home, and Luke couldn’t pull his eyes away. Him and Matt weren’t the most compatible members of the Defenders, but their presence in the group meant they had some of the same goals – most notably, to save New York and the people within it. Matt did save his friends, but at the expense of himself.
“I don’t know,” Karen said, and Luke appreciated the honesty. “I hope so. I don’t know what else we can try. Fisk is everywhere in this city, and Matt isn’t leaving.”
Luke couldn’t imagine Matt Murdock anywhere other than Hell’s Kitchen. Not unless he had no other choice. “Then let’s keep hoping.”