morethan084 | Bitten (Closed to Matt)

Entry tags:

teleios

Bitten (Closed to Matt)

"Unfortunately this is gonna hurt, but the good thing is you won't remember it anyway."

Except in that moment she was acutely aware of just how painful it was to be bitten by not one but two people. There was a lot of things Skye had been made aware of existing, superheros having become a part of her life. Vampires though? Not so much. Until today.

She was barely conscious by the time someone found her after her feeble attempts to call out for help. Which she found herself unable to do because of Stefan's command. She heard someone rushing towards her but her eyes were barely open at that point to even know who it was.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

Matt hummed, flashing her a brief smile. When it faded, his expression shifted towards something oddly unreadable beyond obvious upset. He shook his head. "I don't know. I didn't even know it was you until you started talking. I just -- I could smell the blood."

Even without supersenses, you really didn't forget that smell. Not when it had been all over the hallway.

"...You could smell it?" Why the hell could she not remember any of this? Skye reached up to her neck, but there was a bandage covering it.

"What did it lo- Never mind." Yeah? Look like? Perfect question to ask a blind guy.

"I'm sorry you had to deal with whatever that was."

"Kind of hard to forget that smell," he said, referencing what he'd been thinking. Almost thirty years later and he could still remember what the alleyway he'd found his father in had smelled like. It really hadn't been too far removed from the smell in the hallway, earlier.

"But, uh -- " He shook his head. " -- pretty sure that wasn't your fault." He didn't think she'd woken up, this morning, and decided she needed to see what it felt like to almost die.

Skye didn't believe that. If only for the fact that Matt was now involved in this because of her. He put himself at risk.

How does she cover up her concern? By making jokes.

"You're pretty fit for a lawyer. To be able to carry me, I mean."

"You weigh, what, like a hundred pounds?" he asked as means of protest. A hundred pounds was nothing, even to a pencil pusher. Never mind the fact that, at the time, she had been dead weight, and that would have made things more difficult for anyone. He was trying to deflect, lie, cover up.

"Pfft. Yeah right. Try more like a hundred and thirty." Which, granted, isn't that big for her height.

"I could barely lift 40 pounds before..." Right. He didn't know what she did.

"I started weight lifting."

Good job. Idiot.

"Still," Matt countered. A beat and then he added, "That's not much and you're not the only person interested in staying in shape."

Or whatever it was that she actually did, now, beyond IT. He recognized, even without his ability to follow her heartbeat, that the commentary was a lie. With that hesitation there, it was hard not to.

"Right. Gotta stay in shape for all those bad guys you've got to beat up for doing your clients wrong."

If only she knew how right she was.

Matt couldn't help but laugh at that, knowing just how right she was. It would likely be less amusing if he thought she understood the truth of it, but since he doubted that, the irony on top of his relief that she was still alive made it all seem hilarious. Thankfully, he could likely pass it off as finding the ridiculousness of that mental image funny.

"Yeah, absolutely," he agreed, when he'd managed to rein it in.

Her smile faded a bit, watching his face as she shifted on the bed. Probably not the best idea, her whole body ached right now.

"Never thought I'd end up in here. Kind of become a bad habit of mine. Almost dying."

...Should probably elaborate on that.

"I got shot, twice in the stomach at close range. It was a bit touch and go for a while. But I got a pretty gnarly scar out of it."

Smile evaporating just as seemingly abruptly as Skye's had, Matt arched his eyebrows. "How the hell did that happen?"

If he had to guess, he'd say mugging, considering what he knew New York could be like, but he wasn't entirely sold on that explanation. Mostly because she'd mentioned almost dying becoming a habit. Muggings were random; no one had the bad luck for them to become habit. So, what, then? What was going on here?

Right. He didn't know about that.

"You ever heard of SHIELD?"

"A little," Matt answered, still frowning. He thought he knew, now, where this was going and was glad his instincts had been right. "They're the people behind the Avengers, right? Put a bunch of classified files out on the internet, after what happened in DC?"

Not that he'd read through all or even some of them, too busy on a number of fronts to have the time. Still, though, it had been all anyone had talked about for the near-year since their release to the public.

"Yep. Well, I work for them. Worked technically. Since SHIELD doesn't exist here."

Skye realized she should've said nothing.

"I got a little too close to the truth. Plus, the guy was just a douche."

"You work for SHIELD," he repeated, not disbelieving, just surprised, despite himself. He could have guessed that was where she was going with this when she brought them into the conversation in the first place, but it was kind of hard to imagine Skye as a secret agent.

Then again, it was probably hard to image him as a vigilante, either.

"That's -- yeah, I definitely wasn't expecting that," he finished, shaking his head faintly.

"Alright, don't sound too surprised, Matt. Did you forget the time I kicked Paul's ass for trying to steal one of your books?"

Because that compared to the training she had now.

"Pretty sure beating up a twelve-year-old is a little different than running around, saving the world," he countered. A pause followed, and then, "Speaking of. How'd you end up ... "

How, exactly, had she ended up working for SHIELD. As far as he knew, they weren't really someone you put a resume in with and hoped for the best.

"Working for SHIELD? Yeah. That's a good one too."

Buckle in, Matt.

"Long story short-ish. You know I've always wanted to find out who my parents were, right? Well, I mean, most everyone in there wanted to know, but it really got to me. After you left and I got kicked out of the orphanage, I got into hacking computers as a way of trying to find any information possible. Found out about SHIELD, and they have technology you couldn't even dream of. Got into their facility with the intentions of doing a lot of very illegal things, and, well, got swept up in it."

Breathe, Skye.

Edited 2016-06-05 00:57 (UTC)

"Well. That's ... " One way of ending up working for a now semi-secret government organization and something he wasn't sure he knew what to do with. It was a miracle, he thought, that SHIELD hadn't locked her away forever, instead. "Huh."

Never mind the fact that he'd gotten impossibly caught up in the superhero life, too. Never mind the fact that, as far as he'd been concerned, the first time he'd put on a mask, it was supposed to be a one and done sort of thing. He, too, had gotten swept up and it was a miracle he hadn't been arrested, yet.

"You ever find your parents?" he asked, when he'd gathered some semblance of thought.

She knew the question was coming, but she was still hoping he wouldn't ask it. He'd be able to hear she was upset just by the tone of voice, and the fact that she had to swallow a lump in her throat.

It's been an emotional day, okay?

"Yeah. Didn't go as I expected at all."

Matt did, in fact, catch that upset, and all at once and in response to it, he bowed his head. If anything he could or couldn't do relied on his ability to see, he'd suddenly be looking at anything but her. All things considered, he gave his very best impression of it, anyway.

"I'm sorry."

That it had ended badly. That he had asked in the first place.

"Yeah, well... When has anything in my life ever gone the way I wanted it to?" It was a poor attempt to make light of her shitty life. Not that she was the only one who came out of the orphanage without ever getting someone to call Mom and Dad. She had, at the least, found them. It just went to shit and her father doesn't even remember her now.

"Today is a pretty good example of that." Another pathetic laugh.

"What happened with your parents," Matt started, looking up at her sharply, "that wasn't your fault." He could and would guilt himself for what had happened to Jack Murdock for the rest of his life, but whatever had happened, whatever Skye thought she did wrong and whether her parents had survived the encounter or not, it wasn't her fault. He wouldn't let anyone else feel guilty for the way life seemed to steamroll everyone who had come out of the Kitchen or New York in general.

"This wasn't your fault," he added. He was pretty sure she hadn't woken up, this morning, and decided almost dying was a good idea.

Skye doesn't believe that for a second. Sure, she didn't make her mother a killer. Her father, however, she had to deal with him losing his memories in order to keep him safe. To keep everyone safe. She shouldn't have let him kill her mother, Skye should have taken care of it herself.

"Yeah, well, it's easier to deal with it being my fault than someone else's."

Matt blew out a breath, frustrated. In spite of that, however, he didn't seeming willing to continue the argument, and so he offered, "Can't say I don't know that feeling."

Maybe, when she wasn't half-dead, they'd come back to this. Maybe then, when she was feeling better and thinking straight, they wouldn't have to. He doubted the latter, considering his own stubbornness, but there was still a dim hope.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject