Hellcat

Chapter 65

3rd Person POV

Matt stood in the chapel for the first time since being brought to the church to heal. Something about it was strange to him. It was familiar but felt altered. Perhaps it was his changed views on God and His willingness to listen. But Matt listened. He stood in the doorway of the chapel, hat, and sunglasses on, cane in hand. He listened to the few people in the pews pray softly. They whispered aloud, asking God for guidance and mercy. Matt knew He wouldn't help them.

"Glad to see you up here, Matthew," Father Lantom's voice greeted him, the old man approaching from his long rest in the side garden where he had seen Allison an hour or so earlier. "I used to listen to people's prayers," Matt spoke to the old priest. "In here and out on the street. You know, people asking for God's help or justice or... vengeance sometimes. See, it's always the same. 'Please, God'," Matt quoted the people he had heard as a child. They all started out the same, asking for something from the Almighty.

"I thought that God let me hear the prayers... so that I could answer. So that's what I did. That's what I was trying to do, was trying to help people," he continued, thinking back on his life as Daredevil. The life he had tried to leave behind when Allison died. "But I am not what I was. Can't do what I used to do," he finished, blank eyes focused forward underneath his sunglasses.

"Give it time. Whatever your new reality is, you'll adjust," Lantom told him, speaking gently and with years of wisdom. But Matt didn't want wisdom. "When I heard all those prayers, all those... suffering people, I thought it was God's voice. But I was wrong. All I ever heard was people in pain. And all He ever gave any of us was... silence."

Father Lantom looked at the man before him – the boy he had helped raise – with sad eyes. "So now you believe your calling to do what you do was a mistake?" he asked Matt tentatively. "I was deluding myself," Matt answered simply. "Maybe that's a good thing to realize, Matthew. Maybe... it's time for you to stop," the old priest suggested.

"Oh..." Matt started with a breathy chuckle. "No, Father, uh... my delusion was thinking God had anything to do with it. I'm not as capable as I was, but I don't get to choose who I am," Matt explained vaguely. "I'm Daredevil. Not even God can stop that now."

Father Lantom crossed his arms over his chest as Matt began to turn away. But something in how the old priest moved brought a scent off his jacket. A scent Matt should have noticed earlier – one he recognized. He froze, turning slightly back towards Father Lantom and sniffing the air for his own sake of mind. Maybe he had been imagining the scent. It wouldn't be the first time. But the scent still clung in the air, and Matt knew who it was. She was the only person he'd ever known to smell of mangoes, steel, and copper. No, not copper – blood.

"Allison," Matt found himself whispering against his will. Father Lantom turned his gaze to Matt in confusion before realizing what happened. "She passed by on the sidewalk earlier; stopped and said hello," the priest explained to Matt, whose heart ached in his chest. Matt hesitated to ask about her. He wanted to know how she was. He wanted to know if she was okay. If she missed him like he missed her.

Before he had the chance to speak, the doors to the church opened. Matt shifted slightly, keeping himself turned away from the doors so that whoever entered wouldn't see his face. And then he was hit, like a tidal wave, by the same scent that clung to Father Lantom's jacket.

Allison entered the church, her heels clacking softly against the floor. Matt listened, judging where she ended up. Father Lantom watched Matt, who stood stiff as a board. Judging by when her heels stopped, Matt guessed that Allison was at the front of the church, closer to the pulpit.

Father Lantom was a wise man, who had lived many years under the service of God. He had seen many expressions on the faces of his parishioners. Especially pain. That was the expression he saw on Matt's face as the blind man listened to the woman he loved. He could see how much it hurt Matt to be this close to her, yet so far. He could see how, even though it brought him nothing but pain, Matt would not stop it. He would not approach her. He would not tell her he was alive. He would let her continue to grieve and believe the worst thing had happened. And Father Lantom could do nothing about it.