Ұ - for jessica to comfort matt after witnessing an emotional meltdown:
She was still sober. Sitting in a bar, sure, but she hadn’t touched a drop of liquor. Mostly she’d come for the familiarity, though this particular place, Josie’s, wasn’t one of her usual haunts. She just wanted to be in a place that made sense, dim lights, rings on the rickety tables, the smell of booze and sweat in the air.
She hadn’t expected to see him. Matt Murdock, alone at a corner table. And she hadn’t expected to find him trembling, his hand clenched tightly around a beer, his dark glasses obscuring what she knew were red, swollen eyes.
“Hey,” she muttered, sitting down across from him before she could think better of it. The old protests were screaming in her head -- that Trish was better at comforting people, always had been, always knew what to say, while Jessica struggled to find words that weren’t laced with bitter, sharp poison. But Trish wasn’t here anymore, and they both felt that acutely.
He didn’t say anything, just hunched over his drink. Toying with the bottle more than drinking it, and she’d done that enough times herself. He looked... wrecked was the only word she could think of. Exhausted, utterly spent, and he moved gingerly, like maybe there were bruises blossoming under his clothes. She didn’t question it, though she burned with curiosity.
“Rough night?” she asked, but still no response. Murdock just sat there, trying so hard not to implode or explode, trying to pretend maybe that she wasn’t even there. She bit her lip, then reached out her good hand, brushed the back of his where it was still clenched around the beer.
“In this city, they’re all rough,” she said, sighing lightly. “I get that. Between alien invasions and superfreaks and the goddamn Syndifuckers --” She stopped, inhaling sharply. “I’ve been there, Murdock. Know what people tell me? That talking helps,” she said, carefully nudging the bottle out of his grasp. Pushing it away from both of them. “Which is a load of bullshit. Talking makes me feel like crap, and if it makes you feel like crap, then we don’t have to talk. But if it doesn’t...” She trailed off, tapping her fingers along the worn-down table. “I’ll listen. Better at that than I seem,” she said quietly.
She didn’t know him. Could barely guess at what had made brought him to this state, crying softly in the corner of a bar and hoping no one noticed. (Or maybe hoping the right person would, and would say something to make it right. She wasn’t that person.) “Where’d you grow up?” she asked suddenly. “The street name. The block you grew up on. I -- sometimes that helps me,” she murmured, stilling her fingers. “When it gets to me, and my heads swimming and everything feels like it’s teetering on the edge of bullshit, dangling over this precipice... I remember them. The places I grew up, back when shit still made sense. Main Street, Birch Street. Higgins Drive, Cobalt Lane.” She said the mantra with a practiced cadence to her words, a gentle rhythm she’d perfected over the years.
“You’re a good person, Murdock,” she breathed, eyes flicking up. She only saw herself, reflected back in those dark glasses. “Whatever happened, I know that much. Because only good people beat themselves up like this. Only good people let themselves feel this much.”
