Salt

Matt’s demeanor was a flip flop of the same circular emotions, cycling through rage, sadness, frustration, then rage again.

Stick once told him that anger was a foil for a deeper emotion, one more sinister and dangerous and that if you drowned in it you were a lost cause. He told Matt that anger was more productive and to hold onto it with every fiber of his being to keep his head clear on hostile grounds.

Matt found that to be true in this moment in a way he had never experienced before since being in a place like the Coliseum. Stick had been wrong about many things but perhaps he held some grains of truth in his words but lacked the temperament to articulate it properly. That was wishful thinking though and Matt needed to deal with the reality currently set before him.

He, Foggy and Karen were now in the grasp of the Russians who were most likely planning to pawn them off to Fisk to exterminate Matt once for all. Matt remembers the last thing he saw being Wilson Fisk’s twisted grin as he poured boiling wax onto his face. It would be a sort of poetic justice that Fisk witnessed and be the cause of Matt drawing out his last breath, he pondered idly.

Foggy no doubt was most likely floundering in this new environment, babbling in that nervous way he does when he feels threatened, while Karen would be handling the situation with much more grace. She was always strong like that, able to compartmentalize and shield herself in a frigid layer of calm in moments of seriousness. Matt envied her for that quality, and selfishly wished it for himself.

He sat and brooded in guilty silence and didn’t notice the new presence in the tent until he could feel their body heat in the space beside him. Matt flinched in surprise as the smell of magnolias and death tinged the surrounding air.

“My, my,” a new voice crooned, “What have we here, another hostage?”

Matt hummed, “Try ex husband.”

The lady next to him laughed and it was like bells chiming in the air, seductive and utterly charming. “So it’s true then? You’re the renegade daredevil? I don’t suppose you got the divorce finalized anyways, so aren’t you technically still a married man?”

Matt keeps his breathing even, not letting any emotions outwardly show on his face although he can’t restrain himself from gritting his teeth.

“Oh!” She exclaims happily, “You look so dashing when you’re frustrated. Anger suits your face well, darling- so stoic. Why did you leave?”

“We’re not married in any of the ways that count,” Matt says coldly. “Why exactly do you wish to know?”

“My day isn’t filled with much else besides being lugged behind foul mouthed men with horses, it gets old quick and there is not much else to speculate on. So why did you?”

“Excuse me for being blunt, but I see no reason why I should share my life story with another hapless hostage who is a means to an end anyways. There is no reason for us to get acquainted for it will end with one or both of us dead, and at the moment considering my connection to those here, it’ll probably be you, lady,” he growls under his breath spitefully.

The woman leans in close dragging Matt down by the front of his shirt, “You will not speak to me in such a manner again. Do we understand each other, blind man.”

It was not a question. Just a simple statement of fact and Matt could not help but nod in automatic agreement. “Yes ma’am,” he answered seriously.

Her small laugh blows softly in a cascade of mint ghosting across his face cutting sharply through the humid air. She lets go of his shirt, patting Matt’s chest firmly twice and leaning back again.

“I like you, Matthew, I can rarely say that for many people.”

Matt blanches at the casual use of his name, biting his lip and worrying it between his teeth.

The woman’s voice lowers imperceptibly and she whispers in Matt’s ear coquettishly, “May I indulge myself and tell you a secret, Matthew?”

She says his name like it’s an intimate thing, and in a way it was. It was a way that no one had addressed him in besides his father when he was very young, and Vladimir only once. Everyone else has called him Matt, and perhaps that was foreshadowing to how close they could or would be. Matt simply nods, at a loss for words, eyes drooping.

“I am only here because I wish to be. The moment I decide otherwise is the same moment I will no longer allow these brutes to string me along like cattle.”

Her lips brush Matt’s ear as she pulls away and he briefly marvels at how such simple words could send chills down his spine. Matt believed she was capable of doing no less and had no desire to be on the receiving end of her intent.

“So long for now, Matthew, the dogs have no doubt noticed my absence by now. Until next time,” she chimes sunnily, cupping his stubbled face affectionately as she stands gracefully.

“Wait,” Matt says as she opens the tent flap.

She pauses, turning to Matt again.

“I never got your name,” he remarks.

There is a smile in her voice as she says, “That’s because I never gave it to you,” and for a moment, Matt thinks she won’t tell him.

“It’s Elektra.”

And just as Matt forms a response, she Is gone and the tent is vacant once more.