notdaredcvil:
“I was only told about a week ago that I looked like I was in serious need of a good month’s worth of sleep,” Matt said with a smile. It had been said with a tongue in cheek, a smirk on the person’s face - and that person had always been close to his heart, he wasn’t even going to try to argue that much - but Matt knew that it was the truth. He always felt exhausted, even when he was in college. Back then, though, it was an aching emptiness, something deep within him that couldn’t be satisfied. Now, it was just muscle ache, which was infinitely easier to treat, and to live with. “I’m flattered. And relieved,” Matt joked, his smile growing.
Matt raised an eyebrow when Anna Marie brought in her own experience, this time of a mother figure. “Really?” Matt asked. “What was she like?” There was something hesitant in her voice there, something that insinuated the relationship was just about as complicated with that woman as things were between Matt and Stick. He wouldn’t wish that kind of confusion on any kid, but he also knew the insane loyalty that developed even in the worst of circumstances, especially if that kid felt as if they were all alone in the world, which Matt had definitely been. “Self reflection is a good thing. Takes a long time to get used to it, but once you do, it never leaves you. It’s a useful skill to have.”
Matt, of course, knew that it was important because he implemented it in his training, which was really the only aspect of his life that he was entirely self aware in. His personal relationships were a massive question mark, his financial situation was pathetic at best and depressing at worst, and his mental health could be described in much the same way. His body, though, had never been as fit as it was, his punches had never been more targeted in their delivery, and his battle stance had never been stronger. That had to count for something, even if it was acting as nothing short of a distraction.
“That’s a good way to describe it, yeah. Maybe you should major in English,” Matt teased. There was something, though, that was refreshing about the way she spoke. The smooth cadence of southern charm, the curl of her accent around the words. Matt had always had something of a fascination with accents, with hearing the place in which someone was raised coming out in the most peculiar of ways, as if the place itself had woven around their heart. “I drove the nuns pretty crazy too. I think it’s something that goes with the territory.” Being an orphan, being a kid. He wasn’t sure which was which, sometimes. “It wasn’t a terrible place,” Matt replied. “The nuns cared, you know? They treated us all the same. That was as much a curse as it was a blessing, sometimes.”
St. Agnes hadn’t been hell, far from it. It had been the place that had solidified his faith, the single thing that had carried him through all of the most terrible moments of his life without faltering. It was what his entire morality system was based on, and what he turned to when his father was killed to be reassured that Jack was still out there somewhere, looking down on him. It hadn’t been heaven either, though, but he had a feeling that Anna Marie knew that already.
“Yeah, everybody’s got something. Josie, though, she’s an exception. She’s an astounding woman all around.” In the background, Matt could hear Josie cursing him out, and the telltale sound of a middle finger being thrust forward in the air emphatically, even if she knew that he couldn’t see it. Those were the kinds of things that made this place feel like home, that encouraged him to keep coming back. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember what it looks like. Never thought about what it felt like, back then. I guess I’m expecting a lot of a nine year old.”
Matt had always expected everything of himself and then some. If he met someone, he wanted to know everything about them, to get down to the bottom of who they were by the end of the night. If he had a case in front of him, he would work continuously until there was an answer right there in the forefront of his mind, ripe for the taking. Tonight, though, he didn’t need to push himself to impossible standards. In Josie’s, people were just people, there was no pressure placed on them to be anything different. “Too much in a good way, or a bad way?” Matt asked, a smirk growing on his face. “You’ve got it right about it being a fight, at least. Everything worth doing always is.” Matt laughed, leaning back against the table, taking another sip of his beer. “Sometimes you have to take things like this on blind faith, and a little experience,” he replied. “Foggy doesn’t know where Foggy’s head is half the time. It’s part of his charm.” Matt pretended to think about it, but then found himself nodding. “I’ll even turn my back,” he teased, knowing that would change nothing, “so you don’t feel like you’re being watched.” Impossible, considering, but joking came easily, on occasion.
Anna Marie laughed. “Sugar, we all look like that. Trust me, swear on my life,” she said, admiring the smile on his face. It was a little tough to tease out, but worth the wait. It did look tired, all of him did, but she meant it when she said they all looked that way. The whole city. Panic gave way to exhaustion, fear and fury faded to fatigue. She felt it, like this whole dimension was pressing down on their shoulders, trying to get them to bend -- or break.
Tonight, she wasn’t gonna break, lord willing and the creek don’t rise. She wasn’t Rogue of the X-Men, she was just lil’ ol’ Anna Marie, apparently a college girl with a complicated family background. She rubbed the back of her neck, always at a loss for how to describe Mystique -- the woman wore so many faces, swapped personalities like a sweatshirt, it weren’t easy to get a read on the real person beneath it all. “She’s... she’s complicated, sugar. She could be meaner than a snake in the grass, and I wouldn’t trust her far as I could throw her, but --” She stopped, biting her lip. “She was what I needed. At the time.” When anger and hate and fear was all she knew. When she couldn’t imagine a place like Xavier’s, friends like Ororo, Jean, Kitty, or Hank. People who understood what it was like to be her, but found such good ways to live with it. The Brotherhood had no room for healing, only rage, and she was plumb exhausted of being angry. “So, your turn, sugar. What was he like?” she asked, point blank, but her tone soft enough. “Reckon so,” she said, laughing a little at herself. “Still gettin’ the hang of it myself. Hope it does though,” she mused quietly.
The way he spoke made it sound like he had some experience with it. Course, growing up in the church, that wasn’t all that surprising. Anna Marie hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention during those hours Aunt Carrie dragged her to sermon, spent most of her time fidgeting in the pew counting the seconds. But those moments when everyone would bow their head and pray together, the church entirely silent except for the sounds of crickets outside -- Anna Marie knew they were all looking deep inside. Trying to find hope, trying to find themselves, trying to find God. Maybe there was no difference between the three.
Her first instinct was to deny the idea, to say she wasn’t no good with words -- but she stopped herself. “Ya think so?” she asked, turning the idea over in her head. Maybe she could ask the Professor about it, she’d loved stories as a kid. It was one of the few times she could sit still, when someone read to her. Even on the streets, she’d gone to libraries, fished books out of the gutters, hoarded them when there was precious little space in her bag. “Don’t really know what I’m doing with it all, ya know? Guess I reckoned I’d figure it out as I went along.” She laughed at the statement, agreeing wholeheartedly. “Good thing we were cute as buttons then,” she said, flashing him a broad smile. Even if he couldn’t see it, maybe he’d feel it. Smiling was about as close as she could get to someone nowadays. She tilted her head, considering what he was saying. She understood, but she’d never experienced somethin’ like that. Maybe early on, on the commune, but after that, after the commune -- she ain’t never been treated the same since. “Gotta take your lumps with your sugar,” she said finally. “That’s all ya can do, right?”
She wasn’t sure which one of them she’d call luckier. Ain’t neither of them had an easy time of it. But it had to count for something, both of them standing tall tonight, right? She sure hoped so -- it was all she had to hold onto. Sometimes she wished she’d paid more attention during those sermons. Maybe there were more answers there than she’d thought.
Anna Marie giggled at the exchange, liking Josie more and more, and she let the subject pass. There was so many other things to think about. The bar, the smell of it thick and unashamed, the sounds of the conversations around them, loud and indecipherable. The way the lights played off bottles and glasses, the reflection in his red-tinted glasses. “What was your favorite color?” she asked, leaning on her pool cue. “If ya don’t mind me askin.’ Just wondering what you were like, when you were knee high to a grasshopper,” she joked quietly. “Kids might not think about how colors make ‘em feel, but I reckon ain’t no one care more about colors than kids. Having the wrong color backpack ruined my life when I was nine.”
Everyone just seemed so at home here. Like everything was just falling into the right place, like ain’t nothing could be too weird to belong. Matt especially. On the street he’d been charming enough, but in here, he was someone else entirely. Like maybe he’d dropped some of the weight off his shoulders for a moment. “Little bit of both, sugar. Ain’t we all got an angel and a devil on our shoulders?” she quipped, laughing with him. “Now that’s some gospel truth right there, I do declare,” she said, walking towards him so she could line up her next shot. “That ain’t exactly what I’d call charm, but I’ll take your word for it.” She had to move dangerously close to him to get the right angle, but maybe that was only in her mind. Her personal bubble had gotten a lot bigger after her powers manifested. “Oh, bless your heart,” Anna Marie laughed, leaning over the table. She took a breath, then took another shot. This time, the cue ball rolled true, sending a ball into the far pocket. “There we go,” she said, clapping her hands together. “I ain’t no pushover, ya know. If you were hoping for an easy hustle, you picked the wrong girl.”
