Log: Matt & Wade (backdated to May 10)

[x-daredevil.livejournal.com]

Matt is up eating late night birthday cake and Wade joins him. They continue to bond and Matt reveals a lot more about his past.



Matt had no idea if sitting on the counters was allowed or not, but he did not care. It was nearly midnight and he was in his pajamas and he was sitting on the kitchen counter and he was eating cake. And it was good cake. The first Narnia book was open next to him as his fingers slid over the bumps, reading. So far, it was really good. A little old fashioned, but not bad. Wade was good at choosing books.

Walking into the kitchen, Wade paused for a moment. It was dark in there, but he could hear the clink of silverware on a plate and the rustle of paper. “Yo,” he said, trying to remember where everything was so he could check on the pizza he’d left in the fridge. Somebody’d left a stool pulled farther out, though, and he whacked his toe against it, hopping the rest of the way to the refrigerator and stifling his curses. He had a pretty good idea of who’d be reading in the dark and dropping the f-bomb wasn’t necessarily the best way to go about things near midnight.

“Yo,” Matt replied, recognizing Wade’s voice. “You okay?” he paused his eating to set his plate on the counter. “Did you smash into something? Turn on a light, jeez!” Matt slid off the counter and grabbed his cane which was propped up next to him to go find a light switch. He had no idea where they were, but if he listened carefully, he could hear the buzz of electricity if he got closer. Plus, they tended to be near doorways and he knew where that was.

His cane whacked against the offending stool and Matt stopped. “Did you trip over the stool?” he asked, touching it with his free hand, then pushing it in. He had missed it on his way into the kitchen.

“Yep,” Wade said, managing to open the fridge while balancing on only one leg as he rubbed his toes with his free hand. “What’re you doing? Don’t you have classes and stuff? And happy birthday in person.”

Heading back towards the door, Matt shook his head, running a hand up the wall as he looked for the light switch. They tended to be about the same height everywhere and a moment later he found the bank of them, hitting each little toggle in turn until they were all ‘on.’ “I couldn’t sleep. And I was eating and reading. But thanks,” he paused, thinking a moment, then headed back to where his cake was, “Can you drive?”

“Sure,” Wade said, pulling out his piece of pizza and then sitting at the counter across from Matt. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“You got plans this weekend?” Matt asked, his line of questions clearly going somewhere. “I wanna go see my dad. It’s been a while,” like, since before Thanksgiving of last year, but Matt didn’t mention that. He hadn’t really been in much position to go earlier.

“Where’s your dad at?” Wade asked, taking a bite out of his pizza. “Cause I don’t really have any plans, per se, but I might want to see my girlfriend sometime.” Try and take her mind off her missing team member. This was why Wade didn’t really do teams. Emotional attachments to people who might get offed or kidnapped at the drop of a hat were just horribly inconvenient. It was like a roller coaster or something. He liked his emotional attachments to be with people who were pretty much stuck in one spot for the foreseeable future. Like his half-pint. And Matt. And his minions.

“Mt. Hope Cemetery,” Matt replied. That was where they did the indigent and other pauper burials. The church had donated pretty much everything for the funeral, but they hadn’t been able to donate a grave. Well, at least he’d had a proper burial, the best they’d been able to do. “I don’t think it’s too far from here. It’s in Brooklyn.”

“Shouldn’t be too long a drive, I think,” Wade said, shrugging a little. “I’ll double check with the Professor before going, though. You want to try for Saturday morning?”

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Matt nodded, agreeing. Wade could have said that they were going to go right now and he would have agreed too. “Don’t think it’d be a problem. I’ve passed all my drug tests since being here,” that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t keep getting tested, but at least there was something to show for progress. He hadn’t started using again. The truth was...he hadn’t much wanted to. The urge was definitely there from time to time, but overall, he wasn’t climbing the walls for the pain meds like he had been.

“I still need to make sure it’s okay for me to take you off the grounds or something,” Wade said. “I mean, I don’t think anyone’s gonna worry I’m kidnapping you or anything, but it’s best to make sure.” And the mercenary made a mental note to keep the kid away from all things drug-related. He didn’t know how bad things may or may not have been, but it was best to just not take chances.

“Well...yeah,” Matt wasn’t suggesting that Wade not make sure it was okay, just that he was pretty sure it was. He wouldn’t’ve asked if he thought it would be a problem. “Thanks again. For the books. That’s probably my best birthday present. Ever,” and he really wasn’t exaggerating.

“No problem,” Wade said, smiling a little. His mouth was still half-full of pizza when he finished, “I figured they’d make a good present, since you like to read so much. Is that cake there? Delicious birthday cake?”

“It is. Want a piece?” Sure, Wade had pizza, but still. It was birthday cake and that made it automatically delicious, “Jan made it. Isn’t that cool?” For all he knew it said ‘screw you Matt Murdock,’ but he doubted it. And even if it did, it was still tasty.

“Thanks,” Wade said, getting himself a fork and taking a bite of cake. “Mm... it is good. This Jan girl, she bakes well. I wonder if I can commission her to make me cakes on a regular basis... or pies. Or something.”

“I bet you could,” Matt agreed, finishing up his piece. “She’s pretty nice. Older though. Well...” he trailed off, Jan probably wasn’t as old as Wade was. But still, she wasn’t a teenager. “She thinks I’m pretty cool. I think. Because she’s always doing stuff like this or whatever. She’s nice.”

“She threw Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs at me on Easter. It was awesome,” Wade said, grinning. “Maybe I can keep her on retainer or something...” He trailed off as he took alternating bites of pizza and cake. “So how was your birthday besides getting the books and the cake?”

“Nice,” candy was good, even if it was chucked at your head. “And pretty good. I mean, I had school and stuff, but I got the books from you and cake. And Jan gave me some stuff. So it was a pretty good birthday. Oh, and I gotta go to summer school so I can maybe graduate on time.”

“I saw that part of your journal entry,” Wade said, nodding. “You like reading a lot more than I ever did, so I figure you’ve got the smarts for it. Just, y’know. Apply yourself and stuff. You’ll do great.”

Matt shrugged, “My dad wanted me to do good in school. Wanted me to be someone, you know? Not just a bum like him. But...I ain’t done too good with that sometimes. Don’t matter how much I like to read if I keep fucking up, you know?” Because his problems had nothing to do with his ability to learn and everything to do with other things. “He made me read a lot, especially once I was blind. Said I had to learn to read again no matter how tough it was.”

“Your dad seems like a guy who had the right ideas about stuff,” Wade said, nodding. “And so long as you keep your head on straight, you should do alright. Just stay focused on your goals. And keep your dad’s wants for you in mind.” Not that such positive thinking had worked for Wade, himself. He was pretty sure his mom wouldn’t really like the things he’d chosen to do with his life.

Matt snorted. Oh yeah, that had worked so well for him already. “My dad didn’t want me to be a high school dropout or a boxer like him. Pretty sure I got those covered,” really, he was pretty sure his dad would hate most of what his life was now. Juvie. Drugs. Mutation. It was probably better that his dad couldn’t see all that, though really, juvie would never have happened if he hadn’t been in foster care, the mutation would have regardless and the drugs well...that was probably inevitable since he had already been addicted before his father had died. “I’ve found all new ways to screw up.”

“All new ways? What, like flirting with the chick who makes you cake for your birthday?” Wade raised his eyebrows, his tone implying just how much he was teasing.

That comment earned Wade a raspberry. “Nah. I’m pretty sure that’d be a bad idea. Even if she was into me, she’s over 18, which means it’s not legal. And I really don’t wanna have her busted for statutory, you know? I mean she’s nice,” he grinned though, amused. “But...I came here from rehab ‘cause I was addicted to painkillers. And I’m on probation too. And I got an assault and battery on my record. Went to juvy for that one,” he confessed. He hadn’t much told people about the stuff in his past. “Beat the shit out of a guy with a baseball bat. Guess apple’s don’t fall far from the tree.”

“Maybe not at first,” Wade said, eyeing the kid with something a little more like respect than teasing now. “But they can roll once they’ve hit the ground.” After all, he hadn’t turned out like his own old man - at least not in any of the ways that counted. “But it’s really nice of you, not to want to get Jan busted for statutory.” He could sort of put the pieces together when it came to Matt’s powers and the painkillers, especially when you put in the bit about the accident that’d left him. “Why’d you beat the guy with the baseball bat?”

“He was diddling my foster sister,” Matt answered, “She was older than me...he’d go in her room at night...I could hear them. It was my first foster placement, I tried to say something to her, but she just denied anything. So I waited one night, then interrupted him with a bat. You don’t do that to kids, you know? Apparently, that was not the ‘appropriate way to handle the situation.’” It was clear that Matt was quoting someone at the end. “He didn’t die or nothing. Just had to go to the hospital.”

Wade literally had to bite his tongue on the reply he wanted to make to that - it was a shame the guy hadn’t died. He also had to keep himself from offering to teach the kid how to make sure somebody wouldn’t survive. Those weren’t the sorts of things you said to a ‘troubled’ kid. “I dunno - seems like he got what he deserved, in the end. And I doubt they’ll let him foster other kids, right?” Telling the kid that doing what he felt was morally correct would sometimes get him into trouble likely wasn’t the sort of thing he was supposed to say, either. Still, it wasn’t like Wade hadn’t been dishonorably discharged from the military for doing what he felt was morally correct. Fucking diplomats. “Anyway, with all the books I’m pretty sure the Professor can get you and the translations he can probably have done for your textbooks and stuff, you probably won’t have time to get yourself in trouble too much.”

“Well, when you’re a foster kid...I got three strikes against me,” he shrugged, “Disability. Drugs. Violent. Means I got no where left to go really,” and this was depressing on his birthday. Whatever. It was appropriate for the hour, “So you know. S’just a matter of time until I get kicked out of here. It’s why I gotta get what I can while I can.”

“Dude, Matt,” Wade said, tipping his head to the side a little even as he reached over and got himself some more cake. “Just don’t fuck it up. You know... there’s rules. I’m sure they told you what they were. Don’t break ‘em. You defend yourself and other people if you’ve gotta, but there’s a lot of other people here who’d be happy to do both those things for you, I think. So that gets rid of the ‘violent’ part, probably, unless you feel inclined to just go around beating people up with your stick or whatever. That’s probably more ‘anger management’ than ‘violent’ though. And nobody’s gonna hold the blind thing against you. So strap on some self discipline and deal with the drug issue.”

“I don’t beat no one that don’t deserve it!” Matt defended himself. And he didn’t. He had only that one time, except it had been pretty major. “And I’m working on that one. Been clean since I got here. Well, since before I got here. Learning to control my powers on my own and having my room to help, that helps. A lot. Took the drugs to get rid of the migraines caused by not controlling my powers. So...yeah. Working on it. S’not like I did crack or whatever, lines of coke. I’m not claiming I wasn’t wrong, but I never did anything illegal,” well, he had tried to buy illegal drugs. But he had not succeeded. And he had never taken them. “The stuff I took, it was mine. My prescriptions.”

“I never said it wasn’t yours,” Wade said, though there’d been no way for him to know for sure. He’d take the kid’s word on it, he guessed. Trust was the first step sometimes. “I said strap on some self discipline. You’re not the first person to get addicted to painkillers and you’re not gonna be the last. All you gotta do to stick around here, from what I understand, is just don’t fuck it up. Use some common sense and you’re pretty much golden.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Matt huffed. What did Wade know about foster care anyways? He wasn’t in the system and never had been. Plus, he was from Canada! “I’m going to bed,” he stated, slipping off the counter and getting his cane. “I got class in the morning.”

“I’m gonna eat the rest of your cake if you just leave it here,” Wade said, suppressing a smile.

“Fine,” Matt didn’t want it anymore anyways. “I got too big a piece anyways,” he paused, debating saying something else. “Let me know what they say about Saturday,” he finally said. It wasn’t what he had thought to say originally, but it was important to him.

“I will,” Wade said, nodding. “And I won’t really eat the rest of your cake. That’d kinda be mean, since it’s your birthday cake and all. I’ll stick it in the fridge. Get some sleep. Have good classes."