4721/BlackSky: If You Could Only See

BlackSky: If You Could Only See
Date of Scene:	22 June 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	After the confrontation with Luke, Jess and Claire at Josie's Matt and Elektra try to enjoy a stolen moment.
Cast of Characters:	Daredevil, Elektra
Tinyplot:	Black Sky

---

Daredevil has posed:
If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me...

If You Could Only See - Tonic


They'd put it in words.

They'd never done that before, uttered those three powerful words: I love you.

Oh, they'd expressed the sentiment, said, 'I love that about you' or similar but those three words had always eluded them, except for tonight.

Elektra had been braver than Matt, she'd said it in front of Luke and Claire, and left it out there. Matt had been more cautious, saying it when they were alone, with only Josie to hear if she wasn't too busy grumbling about broken glasses and splattered pizza. He still meant it. He meant it in all the ways they'd said it without words too, ever since that night at Fogwells, when he dropped the act and it changed nothing about them. That night set him free and gave him one person he could shake off the chains of his pretend life and be fully Matt Murdock with someone. It touched him in ways he didn't think he could explain to someone who hadn't lived it.

When she'd left, he convinced himself it was the freedom he loved, not the woman who turned the key, but now, having her back in his life and being anything but free he knew one thing, it was her, it was always her. The thought left him staggered with the surety of it even as his inner cynic smirked at the timing of that revelation.

If only it had been earlier.

But it hadn't, they had to live with the world they got not the one they wanted. At least, not until a solution could be found.

Matt let them into his apartment. The lights were off but the living room was lit by the strobing pinks, blues and greens from the billboard across the street. Inside the door, he turns and considers Elektra as the light behind him turns to red. Normally, if they'd followed their pattern, they'd be laughing, or arguing even as they kissed their way across the room to his bed, but tonight felt different even though he still wanted her.

Smiling wryly, letting the cynic out, he says, "You know, we have the shittiest timing, right?"

Elektra has posed:
It was different. All of it seemed so very different - and not just because they'd said those words. There were so many other factors playing into it, including the fact that for once they both seemed to have accepted the inevitability of their emotions for one another, even if there was no way to make their relationship work.

She smiles at the neon lit room, and declines to turn on any other light.

"Well, one of us does, at least," Elektra teases lightly, still holding onto his hand. "Why now, though Matthew? Why after all the times we could have been here, does it have to be now?"

It's a partly rhetorical question, and one as much for herself as for him.

"So much wasted time, and now what we have is dictated by stolen moments."

She doesn't quite say it's unfair, but a shot of that runs through Elektra's frame before being discarded as something she can't control or fix, and as such not worth expending any of their precious time upon. "I do love, you, you know."

How many times had she stood in this very room trying to tell him with every fibre of her being and failing?

How was it that Stick saw it so clearly?

Daredevil has posed:
Matt can feel her smile by how her posture changes and that and her hand holding his makes him smile in return. A rare thing, something like contentment showing on his lips.



He laughs as he turns his comment back on him and he closes the distance between them so heâs standing right in front of her, looking eye to eye if he could see, but he takes off his glasses all the same, tossing them to the bench at the side of the entryway.



âStupidity?â Matt offers as an answer with his smile taking a wry tilt. âMaybe stubbornness, Claire isnât right about everything, but she might be right about that when it comes to me. I try to think about why it was so hard to just say those words or invite you back here, but I donât have answers, It seemed impossible before, but it doesnât now, Iâm not sure why.â



His own posture and expression shows his anguish at the wasted time, moments given over to stubbornness and pride.



âI know, Iâm always going to hate myself for wasting our time like that, but if stolen moments are all we haveâ¦â



He lets that trail off his smile becoming bittersweet when she says the words again, âI know. I love you too, Elektra,â he says, he leans in to kiss her, slow and tender his fingers wrapping around her own.



âSorry, I didnât say things sooner,â he says as their lips part again.

Elektra has posed:
"I can't argue with that," Elektra murmurs of his 'stupidity', though there's a smile as she says it, removing most of the sting that it might otherwise have.

Her hands come up to cup his face, so that when he kisses her, it's with equal tenderness that she returns it, her mouth a slow blessing and a prayer against his own. "Maybe stolen moments are all we get," she agrees. "It doesn't make them any less."

Her sighted eyes look into his sightless ones. "You weren't the only one who didn't say it, Matthew. I could have, just as easily. Again, I stupidly thought that actions were enough. That you'd understand."

Not that her most recent choices had all been actions - certainly agreeing to head the Hand hadn't been an action he could understand to know how she felt, or was trying. But the others? Perhaps those.

Certainly the pro-bono fund.

And if not that, the Hugo Building spoke volumes - it had been conceived and created without any word or attempted input from Matthew.. Foggy had shown her the site, but past that? The idea had been solely hers. The antithesis to how she moved in the night.

A reflection of the chances he gave people every day.

It didn't quite say that she understood his path, but it was close. Maybe as close as she could get.

"We've never danced," she says suddenly. Quietly. Aware that their bodies are a hair's breadth apart and that the inevitable also spoke of the end. Willing to draw things out just that little bit further.

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

The question an irony given himself, and the neon pulse of his living room.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt chuckles wryly, "You don't have to agree so quickly," he says with amusement writ on his features.

The amusement shifts to contentment in the moments before the kiss his lips bestowing the same blessings, and the same prayers against her lips as hers lay upon his.

"You're right, we should take advantage of them when we get them, these moments," he says. It still pulled at his heart, the unfairness of it. Certainly, after all they'd been through they deserved more than moments. But feeling it was unfair wasn't going to change things.

There is an exhale of a laugh, "The thing is, now, once we've said it, I can see it in your actions. The fund, the building, how you're trying to change and help people like Marcus, but before, I don't know, maybe there's something to the whole, I'm stupid theory."

There is a small moment of regret there too, for not seeing it for or for not seeing all of what she had been doing. He'd known what she was doing was some kind of redemption as well as at least initially a message, but now he could see clearly what that message had truly been. It made him hurt for not seeing it, but he manages, to keep those thoughts at bay as the topic turns to dancing.

"We haven't," he agrees. "Sort of ruins the act," he says meaning the whole bind thing. Before he laughs, genuinely at her question. "Me? Never," he says. "But I guess the question is, do you want to? Dance with the devil that is."

Elektra has posed:
"Of course," Elektra replies lightly. "Though we're lacking music."

Still, it doesn't prevent her from moving to some unheard tune. Not quite leading, but adding to the suggestion that they dance. That it isn't the formality of it that matters so much as the intent and the act much like her gestures with the pro bono fund and the Hugo building.

"We won't have so many of these moments to come, you realize." There's no way around that. At least none she can see. A few that might be stolen, tucked away between other things while others are looking in different directions. But ultimately, few and far between, and definitely stolen.

"And not so much stupid, Matthew, as viewing the world through the lens you know." She shrugs, letting hm turn them, leaving her bathed in the violent orange light of the sign across the street. "I haven't precisely given you reason to believe anything otherwise. I'm not certain I knew it myself when I embarked upon the projects. The fund, perhaps. I knew I wanted to have a reason to be near you. The other.."

That one she has no answer for other than she'd felt the need. She'd needed to counter all the other measures her life had taken, to let herself believe that maybe she could be what he believed in her. And, ultimately, it had spoken of her love for him. An act larger than words, and even so, too small a gesture, given she was unable to give up the life she led.

Elektra wasn't sure they countered one another anymore, but she knew she was glad she'd done it. That there would always be this bold gesture standing in concrete, measuring out his belief in other people's ability to change.

In short, it was a monumental statement.

Daredevil has posed:
"That's not a problem," Matt replies, following Elektra's lead. "Remember that song from college?" he asks. "That one when you stayed over at my dorm," the memory of the song and that night brought a smile to Matt's lips. "That's the one playing in my head right now."

Indeed the formality, the logistics, didn't really matter as much as the intent, they could manage the rest between them.

Feeling daring, he gives Elektra a little spin, if she let's him then pulls her back into his arms. "I know," he says of these moments. "For now, I think I can live with them. If this is all we get then we damn well better make the most of them hmm?"

Though for all his bravado there was a lingering sadness in him, the fact that this would be all they got, moments, stolen or otherwise.

"Still feel pretty stupid," he admits, as they turn bathed in the light from the sign. "You were telling me you loved me and I shut the door in your face." Though despite the genuine regret in his tone, he manages a ghost of a smile as he remarks, "And I thought I was blind before..." he gives his head a shake. "Anyhow, I'm glad I can see it now, Elektra, the scale of it... I honestly don't know what to say for once," the last bringing his expression back to something more serious.

Elektra has posed:
The spin is executed with an easy grace, as much as if she'd expected it. Mostly likely she read it in the slight changes in his posture. Fighting really wasn't all that much different than dancing, and they'd done that before.

They'd never danced, though. Not that she could recall. It seemed sad that when things couldnt possibly work for them, that they'd only just now do these things that other couples took for granted. Though they werent a couple, Elektra had to remind herself. If nothing else, the conversation at Josie's that evening had made that clear.

That, and Elektra was beginning to suspect what a colossal mistake she'd made by accepting the offered truce and taking up the mantle of the Fist that Ruled the Hand. At the time it had seemed an answer. Now? Now it seemed a sentence. There was no way to leave, and the war she thought she'd ended simmered in the background behind her. There was still something they wanted of her, and she had no clue what.

Not that knowing would save her.

Not that she could tell Matthew that.

Instead, she smiled, and hummed a few bars of the song in question...

Then she hushes him. "No words, Matthew. At least not recriminations. We have tonight. Why waste it on regret."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles as Elektra executes the spin flawlessly and comes back to him. She'd read his moves and he'd read hers, it was very much like sparring. Reading the subtle signs and responding in kind. Just a lot less hurting and blood.

Well, so long as they danced /well/ anyhow.

He savoured the moment as they danced, even as his mind took to darker paths. Lamenting the future they'd been denied. He could feel a hollowness creeping into his chest at the thought, the ache of losing her even with her still there in his arms.

He blinked and tried to force those thoughts away as she chastised him gently for wasting this moment with regrets. He manages a grin, "Hi, I'm Matthew Murdock, we must not have met yet," he jokes lightly. Of course he'd dwell on regret, he was self-aware enough to know that about himself.

He paused to let her hum, then as she broke into song he did the same, missing the first line but coming in with the second.

~Then maybe you would understand

Why I feel this way about our love

And what I must do

If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says

When she says she loves me~

"You know there's a certain irony to this being our song," he remarks with a crooked smile moving on from recriminations for a moment. "Besides me missing how much you really do love me, I mean."

Elektra has posed:
"It was easy enough to miss," Elektra says quietly. "It wasn't like I took out a billboard to announce it to the world."

Except she had in some ways done exactly that. Only now.. not then. Back then

"We were different people then, Matthew. Young. Stupid. Impetuous. Certain we both were right and had all the answer, when in truth we had nothing."

She smiles as the sung words filter through and around her. "They think youre nuts, you know. Loving me. Your friends, that is. They might be right."

Daredevil has posed:
"No, just a building," Matt says of how'd she shown him her love.

Though they were talking about the past. She was right about how they were back then, "True, maybe we weren't ready to say it back then. We were still dealing with our pasts in a way that didn't let us."

Which was true enough on his part, even in college his life was littered with death and abandonment and he would have gladly stolen a dozen cars or missed all his classes rather than say those three words.

"You're probably right, but they don't understand," he says, "You were the first person to really see me, Elektra, the first person not to turn away," at least not at first, but by the time they separated, she'd already changed his life and left her mark. It was not an easy mark to erase or forget. "So, to right now, I don't care. They can make their cases when I see them next."

Elektra has posed:
There's a soft laugh from Elektra. "Dangerous ground for a lawyer. But somehow I think youll do fine."

She shrugs lightly. "I didn't realize it was you when I started it. But to look at it now - all the measures I took. All the considerations.. It's like you walked the halls with me, pointing out all the things you ever said to me about grace and second chances. Im not sure I ever listened then."

And then she smiles. "Why would I have turned away, Matthew? I hardly had a leg to stand on then. Less, now. I think you got to see yourself, then. There was so much freedom we had. And now?"

Another of those shrugs.

"I'd stay clear of Claire for ahile. It might not be beer next time."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles as Elektra laughs, turning her, his hands resting on her hips as he even gives her a little lift. "The confidence is appreciated," he says with a warm chuckle.

Elektra's words about the project softens his smile, "Glad what I said made an impact, I can't remember everything word from words, but I know I wasn't always kind when I talked about that stuff with you, so, I am glad some good came from it," he offers before he adds, "But the scale though, I am still a bit awed."

"Knowing what I know about you now, no reason, but at the time it had happened so often I came to expect it, so, I figured as soon as I said something to make it real, that would be the end of us," he says with a sad and apologetic smile. "Anyhow, if we'd been smart we'd have run then and lived that life we always joked about, the houses all over, the kids..." he smiles at those thoughts.

They were straying back into dangerous ground and so the bit about Claire brings a welcome upturn of his lips. "Yeah, glad I can hear her place from up here," he says. "Safer that way."

There's a pause of a moment or two, then he says, "Since we're talking about regrets, I do have one I haven't mentioned before," he says lifting a hand to rest against her cheek. "I've never seen your face," he says. "I've always regretted that. I only ever see it in how other people react to it."

Elektra has posed:
"I don't seem to recall agreeing to a houseful of kids," Elektra arches a brow. "I'm not really the domestic type, Matthew. Can you imagine me raising children?"

She shakes her head, body still swaying in time with his.

"I've seen and done too much for that. Even if I hadn't, I think Stick burned that out of me."

His hands fall upon her cheeks. "How others react to it? And you see it, Matthew. You've touched it often enough. It's nothing extraordinary. Just a face."

Daredevil has posed:
"I never said a houseful," Matt counters with a cocky smirk. "I mean, I'm Catholic, but not /that/ Catholic," he says.

He shakes his head with her. "Well, I could see nannies doing it? Close enough right?" he jokes lightly before nodding more solemnly. "And yeah, I imagine, he's not really the nurturing type," he says with a trace of bitterness in his tone.

He offers a nod then, "Yeah, pulses quicken, heads turn to take a second look, it's like ripples in a pond, even if you can't see what made them the signs are there to see," he explains. "And I know it, but I've never seen it. I don't really talk about it, but it's one of the few things I miss about my sight, I've never really seen all the people in my life."

Elektra has posed:
"Ah, but you have," Elektra contradicts him. "You turned your head like that the first moment you knew I was in the room. I could feel it. My back to you, fingers brushing along my wrist until they tangled in the silver there, letting each bracelet fall one by one, and you stood there, watching me like I was the only person in the room."

"You've always seen me, Matthew. I'm still that woman."

Then she laughs again. "And this nanny, is she having the children for me, too? You may not be that Catholic, but I may be that adverse to bearing a child."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles at the memory. She was right about how she'd stood out that night, how it was like the rest of the room had fallen away and there had only been the two of them. He could all but hear each clink of those bracelets, coupled with the sound of her breath and the gentle hum of her finger tracing the rim of her martini glass.

"You make an impression," he remarks with a smile. "And true," he says of seeing her. He didn't see her face, but he did see /her/. It didn't make the other bug him less, it always would, but the strength of that memory brought a smile to his face.

He leans in and kisses her then, briefly but with feeling, and he's still smiling as he pulls back and his hands sink back to her hips.

He laughs with her, "That might get complicated," he says with a grin. "Guess we'd have to skip the kids, but I'm going to have to insist on all those houses we talked about."

As if Matt cared about material things at all.

Elektra has posed:
"Impressions are just another weapon, Matthew. But I knew you were there." She, too, smiles at the memory. "I didn't expect what I found. I'm sure Stick didn't expect that either. You were an object lesson. Maybe some last minute attempt to drag you back in. I don't know. He didn't say. And when he discovered the truth?"

She shrugs, still swaying in time with his motions. "We disagreed on how things should proceed. So I walked away."

Away from pretty much anything and everything she had known since she was a child. Oh, she didn't walk from the lifestyle. Or being a killer for hire. But there had been something about Stick that had been a shelter and security in her life, much as he was also all the tensions and the pains of it. Without Stick, Elektra had had to forge a new self.

And still she hadn't been able to escape him. She heard herself say over and over that she'd thought her actions in taking the truce would stop that war of his. That somehow she'd found the answer

No, Elektra had run from Stick, but shed never escaped him.

And then there was this..

"I have the homes, if that's all you wanted, Matthew. I always had them." Knowing full well he meant the excitement and thrill of living free. Taking what they wanted. Including homes that weren't theirs. "It would have been so easy to take you away from all this and give you all that.. I never did tell you who I was then, did I?"

Daredevil has posed:
Matt sways in time with their inner music. "Well, impressions are another one you're skilled in using," he says with a smile. "You got me in the first couple of seconds."

The idea of being Stick's object lesson earns a snort. "Watch out, if you leave the life you might become a successful law student?" Matt jokes, knowing full well his career path was not likely to be on the list of failings Stick sent Elektra to observe.

The fact that she walked away over him has him blinking. "How long were you with him?" he asks trying to gauge the scope of the sacrifice. But he could already imagine how hard it must have been and his hold on her grows tighter.

Matt shakes his head, "We could have lived in a bachelor's suite in Queens for all I cared, Elektra," he says. "As long as I had you and we were free."

Elektra has posed:
"Liar," Elektra says smoothly, and with a laugh upon her lips. "There were too many differences between us, Matthew. You know well the reasons why we broke up. Where we lived wasn't one of them."

She's quiet as she thinks over her reply to the other. "Stick and I disagreed before you and I did. Once he found out I loved you, I think he thought I would finish things then. Do what he wanted. Bring you back into that war of his or something. I don't know. Things changed."

There's another of those negligent shrugs. "Does it really matter when?"

She hadn't done what Stick asked. Demanded. She'd walked away. And then walked away again when she couldn't be what Matthew wanted, either.

It was an old story.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt offers a weak smile at her laugh. "I know," he says of why they broke up. In that moment he'd been so certain of his reasons, but now faced with the prospect of losing her, he found they all seemed so pointless.

Leaning his head against hers, Matt listens as Elektra lays out the timeline in vague terms. When she's done he lifts his head, "It matters to me. How long were you with Stick and when did you leave?" he asks, knowing he was straying into painful ground.

Elektra has posed:
"Of course it would matter to you," Elektra says softly, something of wryness to her tones. "You won't like what you hear, though."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt continues to hold Elektra close even as he replies with a similar wryness to his tone. "Try me."

Elektra has posed:
"Well, you can't say you weren't warned," Elektra tells him. Though it smacks of deflection - he knows her well enough.

"I was young when my father was murdered. By then he was the only family I had. For a time I did what all angry young things did. I lashed out at anyone and anything that was close enough for me to hit, bite, or spit at."

She almost smiles at the memory. Almost.

"Stick found me then. I was still training - private lessons. He took those over and took me away. I suppose some might say he adopted me, though that never was how it was put across. I had guardians and privilege galore. And Stick."

"I burnt my rage in his training. And then I learned to bury it. To bury everything. There was a war, he said. We were going to win it. But we couldn't be like everyone else. That was how we kept losing.."

She sighs. "Must we Matthew? Go on, I mean. Isn't this enough?"

Daredevil has posed:
Matt listens to Elektra without comment at first. He was struck by how similar her tale was to his own. The murdered father, the rage, Stick showing up at just the right time to tutor her. While there were differences, like having money, they hardly changed the core of those similarities.

He smiles faintly when she does, talking about how she'd lashed out at anyone close enough. He'd been there. There's a frown at Stick adopting her, and a nod at how he never phrased it that way.

"Sounds like him," he says in his first comment at the story.

Nodding as she goes on, he says, finally, getting to the heart of it, "So, by the time you met me, he was all you had wasn't he?" he asks.

Elektra has posed:
"Something like," Elektra agrees. "Too old for governesses, and I don't think you could call the bevy of lawyers and business associates and advisers much of anything but sycophantic. Not," she goes on, "That I'd call Stick much more than that. He had his own agenda."

"And when he found out I wasn't about to bow down to it, we parted ways. The rest, as they say, is history."

Daredevil has posed:
"Jesus," Matt curses softly. "Elektra, I had no idea."

It was like learning the Hugo Building had been made as a message to him all over again. The magnitude of the gesture, to give up all she knew for him.

Only it didn't work out and in the end she'd given it all away for nothing.

His first impulse is to apologize, to try and somehow make things right. He only owned half the blame but that half was enough to drown him in regret. He carries on through, "Do you regret it?" he asks. "Choosing me?"

Elektra has posed:
Elektra tries to make light of it. After all, wasn't it as Stick had taught her? Emotions got in the way?

She'd walked away from what he wanted into the arms of another man who has his own agenda for her.

Didn't they both think they knew the right of it?

Except she'd loved Matthew.

Perhaps she could admit that in some small way she'd loved Stick too. Not that he'd have thanked her for it.

But it in the end love was only part of the reason she'd walked away.

"I chose me, Matthew. You just happened to have been something I wanted." Downplaying it all to the end. It was as pointless now as it had been then.

They could love, but they couldn't have one another.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt turns her again, then as she comes back to him he says, "I'd say the question still stands, but I think I know the answer," he says of regretting her choice. He could imagine her regretting choosing him but not herself. "Glad I was part of that, part of what you wanted."

"And that you chose yourself," he says with a tight smile. "I think I did the same when I fell in love with you. I was on my own, but I spent most of my life living by others rules, trying to fit in. You helped me see it didn't always have to be that way. That I could be more than that, be me."

He puts a hand against her face, his way of 'looking into her eyes' letting her know she was the only thing in the room that had his attention. 'Thank you," he says. "For that, for the building, for loving me. I know I've made a mess of everything, maybe we both did, but I am glad you're part of my life."

Elektra has posed:
When his hand touches her face, her eyes close. Feeling him in the same manner that he sees her. The world narrowing down to just that touch upon her cheek, and how even with her eyes closed she can feel him. Smell him. Sense only him.

Trained to be always aware of her surroundings, all Elektra knew at that moment was him.

"I never regretted choosing you," she says softly. "Not even once."

Daredevil has posed:
He lingers in that touch, letting all of the sensations that were Elektra in, reveling in them and letting them leave their mark behind.

The soft words reach him and he replies. "Haven't regretted it either, then or now."

In truth there had been moments, after they'd parted ways in college where he'd believed he did, but that had been anger in the moment and didn't last. She'd changed his life, saved him, showed him it could be more than it was, he'd never regret that or the love it built between them.

He leans in and kisses her the subtle shifting of his touch providing warning before his lips press tenderly to hers.

Elektra has posed:
The kiss might be tender, but it also signals an end to this portion of their evening.

"You might regret it if Claire has her say in things." The words are surprisingly fond, given the other woman's extreme dislike of her. "But what she doesn't know of tonight won't hurt her"

And so saying, Elektra takes Matthew's hand, and leads him off to his room where different sorts of conversations are best had. Equally without regret.