what they wouldn't do | DAREDEVIL

thirty one

Stick's sudden appearance acted as a vacuum, and any trace of the teasing tension that had hung in the air was immediately sucked away. Just a few seconds earlier, Sarah's skin had been buzzing and her nerves had been enjoyably on edge—now as she stood there with Matt, both of them still dripping with water, she inexplicably felt like a schoolchild who'd been caught doing something wrong.

The man tilted his head in her direction in a manner that was eerily similar to what Matt often did.

"This isn't the same one who was lingering on your sheets last time I came to visit," he noted.

Sarah blinked in surprise; partially at the mention of what she assumed was one of Matt's old flames and partially because—while she had gotten used to Matt being able to sense things like that—she didn't remember him mentioning that his former mentor could do it as well. It felt significantly creepier coming from this old man, and she folded her arms in front of herself uncomfortably, very aware of how her wet tank top was clinging to her skin.

"It's none of your business who I spend my time with, Stick," Matt said tightly, shifting slightly so that he was placed more firmly in between the two of them. "What are you doing here? I was pretty clear last time we spoke that I wanted you the hell out of my city."

"And I went. You didn't say anything about not coming back."

"It was implied."

"Flew right over my head," Stick said with an innocent shrug. "Not all of us got the fine education you did, Matty. What are you still pissed about anyway?"

Sarah saw Matt's fist clench at the nickname. Matty. She didn't think she'd heard anyone call him that before, and made a mental note never to do so if this was who he associated it with.

"How about showing up out of nowhere after twenty years so you could mock everything about the life I've made? Then insulting my dad, lying to me about a mission, killing a child —"

"I told you already—that wasn't a child in that container," Stick explained calmly. "It wasn't even a human; it was a monster. One that needed to be taken out before it could destroy your entire precious city."

"The only monster that night was the guy who executed a kid in the name of some mystical, centuries-old war that he can never quite seem to explain," Matt said harshly.

Sarah's mouth had literally fallen open a little bit as she looked between the two men. This was not where she had expected this argument to go.

"I did what I had to do. Don't know what else you want me to say on the subject."

"And the rest of it?"

"Well..." Stick shrugged. "Don't have much to say about that either."

Sarah remembered how Matt had made some offhand joke when he was teaching her how to mediate, saying that the person who trained him was much more intimidating than he was. At the time, she had struggled to imagine someone more intimidating than the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, but now she was starting to see what he meant. Matt's was intimidating because he let his emotions get the better of him—always short-tempered and quick to throw punches. But Stick was intimidating for the opposite reason: he didn't appear to show much emotion beyond scorn as he dredged up what seemed to be a very painful history with Matt. Suddenly the blank, impassive mask that Sarah knew Matt could put on so easily made much more sense.

Stick tipped his head around, surveying the room they were in.

"I don't know what's less surprising," he said. "That you haven't found a less shitty place to do your training, or that you're so easily distracted by a girl that you didn't even hear me coming."