6271/Black Sky: After the 'Party'

Black Sky: After the 'Party'
Date of Scene:	24 January 2019
Location:	New York City
Synopsis:	Matt and Elektra end up back at Matt's after the final fight with the Hand, where Elektra begins the slow process of learning who she is and will be, while remembering who and what she was.
Cast of Characters:	Daredevil, Elektra
Tinyplot:	Black Sky

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Daredevil has posed:
They really hadn't talked about where they were headed when they left the warehouse. All Matt had asked was to linger long enough to know his team and the hostages were safe, the rest, he'd sort out later, he'd earned that much of a break.

Not that what he was doing was so much a break. There were so many questions he wanted answers to, things that needed to be worked out, it was likely to be taxing, but it was needed and wanted.

As it turned out their steps took them across the rooftops to his building and Matt let them in the top door of his appartment, the lights of the billboard still flooding the place with dawn yet to break on the frozen, sleeping city.

Once inside Matt takes off his cowl, leaving his eyes and face bear. "Welcome back," he says. "Not as fancy as a stolen car, but it's a place to talk," he jokes, calling back to both the words she'd spoken at the warehouse but their first meeting as well.

Elektra has posed:
"I still say you can't prove that car wasn't mine," Elektra says with a faint smirk.

She'd been happy enough to go with Matt because she didn't know where else to go. Adrift, and still without the full faculty of her past memories, all she knew was she wasn't the weapon of the Hand anymore, and that this man had been part of that. She imagined the rest would work itself out somehow.

Their flight across the rooftops once the battle had been ended, so to speak, had been silent. They'd shared no words until they reached his apartment, and once there, she was overcome with a feeling of fullness and warmth.

"I remember parts of that meeting. Sitting there, bored, knowing I was waiting for something. And then you. So many images of you."

Her shoulders rise and fall with the inexplicableness of it all.

"We could stollen a car," she jokes in return, of their current state. "Would it have been so bad, all things considered?"

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles faintly. "Well, it's not like I could read the registration," he jokes watching her in his senses. As before she was different, but still somehow her. Like how she had fragments of memories she carried fragments of sensations that were the Elektra he knew. It was strange but he had faith things would get better. He had to, Elektra had come back from the dead.

He brushes his hand against hers, "Come on," he says leading the way down the stairs. "And yes, we could have stolen a car, but we didn't," he says. He doesn't comment on if it'd be bad or not and just pads from the stairs to his closet to open it wide.

"What else do you remember?" he asks her as he opens the chest to hide away his costume.

Elektra has posed:
Her hand curls, fingers to her palm, as his hand brushes against his, her lips still carrying that faint, amused smile. "Things come and go," she says quietly. "A lot of memories of you. Some of Stick. My childhood. They seem very vague somehow. Distant. But more than before."

She follows him down the stairs, and watches as he undresses. "I remember this. You after a night out saving people from criminals they'd never meet but on the pages of a newspaper because of you. Us. Sometimes arguing." She pauses as she speaks, head tilted to one side. "It's a new memory, this."

Daredevil has posed:
The curling of the fingers is met in turn, a brief intimate gesture of the affection he had for her that hadn't waned despite everything. The description of what she remembers earns a frown from Matt, it was sympathy, "I could only imagine how confusing that must be, Elektra," he says, enclosing her hand in his for a moment. "If I can help bring it all back together, I will." Then throwing caution into the wind he leans in to brush a kiss against her lips before he leads the way down the stairs.

Matt strips off the suit, then, crouching he folds it up and puts it away, it was a rote action, so even while he faces the closet, his attention is almost fully on Elektra. He smiles, "A lot of time, arguing," he says. "And other times very much not." It was always fire for them, either anger or passion, there was very little dull middle ground. He stands, clad in his boxer briefs, fresh bruises and cuts from tonight's battle visible on his skin as angry red welts or lines of the same shade.

"And which is a new memory?" he asks as he pulls on a pair of sweats.

Elektra has posed:
The kiss is easily stollen, the act leaving Elektra contemplative as it, too, draws memory to her. It's the memory of him undressing that she speaks of, though.

"This," she says simply. "You standing here removing your outfit. Folding it. I know it isn't new between us, but until this moment I had not thought of it."

Again with the negligent shrug, though she does look somewhat perplexed by the fact of memories that are not static.

"You're hurt," she murmurs, noticing the marks. She likely bears her own from the flight, but not so many, nor such depth, as his. "We only ever argued about one thing." That she was certain of.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles faintly after the kiss, like his sense of her, it was different but at the same time familiar.

Matt shares Elektra's confusion about the nature of memory. "Sounds like things will come back as you settle back int your life," he says, or at leaat that was his understanding of it. How the act of changing had put her mind to remembering the times past where she'd watched hm do the same thing.

Sweatpants on, he ties the cord off, then comsiders his wounds, they stung but none of them felt like they were bleeding or all that serious. "I should be okay, how about you?" he knew she could heal before, but somehow he hoped that the change of heart changed her body as well, that as she reclaimed the woman she was she'd become that woman again. Though there was nothing to base that on but his hopes.

"We did," he say coming over to join her, he'd left his hoodie laying negligently on the couch. He bends to pick it up. ""We argued about killing," he says studying her carefully to see what sort of reaction that gets.

Elektra has posed:
Elektra considers her body, and the places where the few hits she'd taken had landed were. They were nothing but memories, unlike his wounds. She might have relcaimed her identity, but she was still, in so many irrevocable ways, still what they had made her.

"I healed," is her simple reply. Then nods for what he says of their arguments. "She.. I needed to. So much of who and what I was, was entwined with the killing. From childhood, even. I think he meant well.." Stick "..but it does not change that it was little better than them."

She says these things without harshness or judgement. Merely a simple stating of fact.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt wears his feelings on his sleeve, the faint flash of an unsettled look at the mention of healing. So much for that hope.

"Must come in handy," he jokes rubbing one of the cuts on his arm. It wasn't deep., the armour had taken care of most of it, but it hurt like hell now that the adreneline in his system had run its course. He pulls on the hoodie anyhow, letting the overlarge garment hang loosely on his lean frame.

He nods, he knew how much killing had been a part of Elektra's life. "And now? Is it still a part of who you are, or did that die when you were reborn?" he asks.

Elektra has posed:
"I died, Matthew," Elektra tells him simply. "I can't change what was done to me. Only who I am."

She thought he knew that. His disappointment was understandable, but not a thing she could fix. His rubbing his wounds is watched. "I could wash them," she offers. Answering his question with a careful, "I don't know who Elektra is anymore, Matthew. I was reborn to kill, and if you wish to know is it still a need, I do not know."

He's given a helpless little look - a shift, perhaps, from past Elektra who was all controlled emotion. Or maybe she only lets down her guard for him. Regardless, the guard is dropped. "Could we not argue tonight, of all nights, about that past?"

Daredevil has posed:
"I know," Matt says sadly. "It's just a lot to wrap my head around," he says before making a wry little noise. "Yours too I am sure," he says realizing if /he/ thought it was hard to get a grip on what must it be like for her?

Her question draws him out of his thoughts. "Huh?" he asks, catching up. "Oh, my wounds, sure, do you remember where things are?"

His medical kit was where it always was in the bathroom and there were some more basic supplies in the kitchen like antiseptic wash and gauze. Matt was never a boyscout but he lived by their motto: be prepared.

The helpless look is felt through her body language, muted for the lack of deeper visceral reactions, it was like looking at her through fogged window, he could get the broad strokes of her reactions but the details were lost to him. "Sure," he says with a nod. "We should be celebrating, you're back, you're free."

Elektra has posed:
Whether Elektra remembers or not seems to be moot as her body memories of the place remain, evidently, she traversing his apartment with the ease of one who had been there as often and as intimately as she had. It isn't long before she returns with the first aid kit. "We should really let Claire look at these," she murmurs softly, directing him to a seat so that she can tend to him.

Once he's seated, she gathers up a bowl of warm water and a cloth as well, to wash the wounds before dressing them.

"I'm back," she agrees, though she's not so quick to echo is 'you're free'. "I'm as free as I can be," she says finally. "I am what I am. As long as the Hand exists, they will be an enemy. I do not know that is truly freedom. But.."

She gives a soft smile, and downcasts her eyes as she dampens the cloth in the water, her voice low and sultry as she speaks, "I am myself now. It is different than what I was. Thank-you for that. For allowing me that freedom."

She stops, body motionless to add import to her words, "It made the difference. Of all the things that there were to define my choice, that made the difference."

Daredevil has posed:
Even as he sits with his back to the kitchen, Matt 'watches' Elektra gather the supplies with a sense of satisfaction, and hope, remembered, even if it wasn't conciously, it was enough for now, he'd pray for the rest.

"I'll be fine, besides, you're not going to yell at me," he adds with a tired smile. He lets her wash him, offering no resistance, turning without being urged to let her get to them each in turn.

"That's as free as any of us are going to get I think," Matt says of the Hand. "The Hand won't forget what we did tonight, but, we beat today and we'll beat them again if we have to. Besides if I know the Chaste they'll make the most of the Hand's defeat."

It would mean blood, but Daredevil wouldn't stop them. He'd learned to accept the war was going to keep going if he wanted it to or not, he couldn't make other people's choices for them, all he could do was make his own. Elektra had taught him that.

"I owe you some thanks as well, you made me see I was trying to make choices for other people, it doesn't work, people need to do what they do for their reasons. But I am glad it made the difference, you're worth having back, Elektra, and I'm glad it's on your own terms."

Elektra has posed:
Elektra's lips remained curled over that enigmatic smile of hers. "I could yell at you," she says patiently as she begins to wash the wounds. Much is only bruising beneath the blood, but there are enough cuts and scrapes to go around. "Though I think she might take offense if I took her role."

She takes her time with the washing, gentle as she goes.

"No. The Hand will not forget," Elektra agrees without particular intonation. "They do not, however, overplay their hands without reason. Madame Gao will let us think she is nursing her woundsd, but she will be back. I would expect those who remain are losses to her. Expediently spent while the rest retreat and regroup. The ones who survive..."

Elektra pauses, cloth in the bowl as she considers both his back, and her thoughts.

"I'm glad you saw that," she says quietly, deciding the bathing is done and setting the bowl aside, drying her hands and his flesh with a small towel before starting on dressing the wounds that remain. "I wish to be my own person. I have been other's for far too long."

Daredevil has posed:
There is a snort from Matt. "Probably not," he says of Claire's reaction to Elektra poaching on her preserve. "Besides I am not in the mood for yelling right now."

He'd been through hell, the last thing he needed was more fire. He just wanted to be happy in a victory for once.

"More than likely, odds are good Shredder will take care of the stragglers, either take them out or make them part of the Foot. But that's a battle for another night, as is Gao." Part of his brain was already thinking, trying to get ahead of the plans of his enemies for once instead of reacting to their plans. But that too could wait at least a night.

Stick would be disgusted.

"You're right," he says. "And yeah, the last thing you needed from me was my trying to make choices for you, I am going to try and keep it that way, Elektra, but if I slip up, let me know. It's going to be a hard habit to break," not just where Elektra was concerned but all of his friends, Elektra's words had opened his eyes to just how controlling he had trtied to be. The great Matt Murdock, passing judgment on everyone, knowing what's best. "I've been an ass for awhile now."

Elektra has posed:
Elektra chuckles softly, her fingers a gentle touch along his wounds as some get ointment, and others steristrips to hold cuts together in place to heal. "Well, I could point out how true that was, as I recall it, but I think there is a place for finding new paths and carrying on as we wish to be."

"Though I suppose I should try to make some peace with Claire." Her memory floated with bits and pieces of the other woman's hostility towards her. In part for her position with the Hand, but equally for who and what she, Elektra herself, was. "I do not know how to mend those fences. Or it it's possible." But if a woman raised to be a perfect weapon could stand on the cusp of her Destiny and deny it, not once, but twice, there was hope.

"Be kind to yourself, Matthew. You were as much a product of the acts that shaped you as I am. Was," she corrects. She isn't sure what she is now. "And perhaps we leave our enemies to themselves for an evening. I think we've earned that luxury, yes?"

Daredevil has posed:
The gentle minstrations are a balm all of their own. It had felt like forever since Elektra had died and her presence was denied to him, feeling her touch now felt like a miracle. It was a miracle, one he planned to appreciate.

There is a wry chuckle from Matt. "True, huh?" he asks though without heat. "And yes, seems like a good time for new paths. It feels like an ending and beginning all at once." Which it was in a way.

"Claire will come around, this time the ninjas aren't associated with you, but it'll likely take time, all of that shook her I think, made her gunshy about this whole vigilante business," he says or at least that's how it seemed to him. He tried to keep her at arms length with his affairs of late, sparing her the ninja party of the last few months as much as he could manage.

He wasn't sure how he ended up the way he was, it felt cheap to lay it all on Stick, his father, the orphanage, even if he was willing to let Elektra off for the exact same influences; Matt was always his harshest critic. "We'll see," he says of being kind to himself. "But yes, we've definitely earned that luxury," Matt says turning his head to Elektra and smiling. "So, your first evening back to being you, what would you like to do?" he asks.

Elektra has posed:
"Very true," Elektra agrees, her lips a smug pursing as she finishes up with his wounds. "It must be that Catholic thing." There's a laugh that comes with that, as it couldn't possibly also have some doing with Stick's help in Matthew's upbringing.

Not that she knows it, or has a memory that would inform that thought, but Stick's methods had shifted after his failure with Matthew. Her Stick was both a tougher, more emotionless, and softer Stick. He might never have shown his feelings, but they caused him to be tougher on the girl she was than perhaps rightly necessary, while simultaneously caring more about her outcome than he rightly should. So much so that instead of killing her himself, he left so many things in her hands, from the time she left him in outright rebellion, to her decision to kill herself before the Hand could have her.

Like Matthew, it had shaped the decision she ultimately made. Stick may still have always wanted to choose her future, but the lingering memory of 'the daughter I never had' still rang in her ears. It had set those first doubts in motion. The doubts Matthew had solidified.

"Another thing to worry about another day," Elektra says of Claire. "There is enough to worry about for one evening than settle all things tonight." In truth? She didn't want to settle things. She wanted to luxuriate in the feeling of learning who and what she was. Not decide in reaction to a perceived situation before it happened.

When he asks what she might like to do, there's a chuckle from the woman. "Steal a car?"

Daredevil has posed:
There's a snort from Matt and the man grins, "Wow, stealing my jokes, your memory really must be coming back," he says before chuckling. And she was right, Stick certainly had a lot to do with those traits. He'd been uncompromising but his words had been counsel and choices rather than orders. 'Matty do you want to lay on the floor and cry all day or do you want me to show you how to kick some ass?' and if Matt was honest with himself, he applied the same to those around him, questions and choices that weren't really either.

Matt nods, more than happy to worry about rebuilding the bridges burnt with Claire another night. Like Elektra he too just wanted a night where his choices weren't shaped by outside forces, by wars, by duty to his friends, to anything but his own heart.

Elektra's suggestion has him laughing and he turns to lean in and press a kiss to her lips. "Careful with those suggestions.," he says as he leans back again. "I'm Catholic, you know how we are about following people who come back from the dead."

Elektra has posed:
As he leans back, Elektra's arms come around him, embracing him, her cheek lain on his shoulder, "Fairly religious about it, if I recall," she says quietly. She, too, had memories of grand Orthodox churches flashing in her head. Spires that were more interesting than the droning chants and the incense that filled the air. And later, the less physically impressive, but no less spiritually demanding pursuits of various Eastern persuassions. Death, and death cults, played heavily ubitquitous across religions if viewed through the right lense.

"We could steal one of my cars. If they're left." She knes Matt had inherited her estate, but beyond that, she had no clue what had become of it. And with that realization came another: what did she have left. In her death, and chosing her own life, it had been something she hadn't considered. Too late now that that bridge was burned, but still. "Could I stay here tonight?"

Daredevil has posed:
There is a smile from Matt, both for Elektra's joke and the cool feeling of her cheek against his shoulder. "True," he says taking her hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze. For Matt the church was defined by Holy Cross Cathedral and it's community, he never went anywhere else for services had no other contact with the church as a whole. It felt like home, and it had been with St. Agnes being right next door, it was familiar smells, voices, and words. It was a little corner of a chaotic world that made sense.

His smile becomes a grin, "Yeah they're still left I haven't touched any of them., don't drive much," he jokes lightly. He could when he needed to, but stop lights were a bit of a problem. "Your penthouse too, by the way, I couldn't let it go yet and Kosmo said the market was bad anyhow," he says pulling a face thinking of how he was going to explain all this to Kosmo, that was another 'tomorrow problem'. Her question is met with another squeeze of her hand, "Sure, as long as you want," he says without hesitation.

Elektra has posed:
"As long as I want," she repeats. "I don't know how long I want. I feel like I should find myself. But those things aren't mine anymore. They became yours. I remember that."

She laughs, remembering as well, one of the other gifts she'd left. "Darcy. I gave her some money too. I thought she would either laugh at it, or curse me. I wish I could have seen that."

"What do people do, Matthew? People who come back from the dead to nothing they were left? I don't know where to begin."

Daredevil has posed:
Matt lifts her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. "We can take it a day at a time, but tonight, you're welcome to stay," he assures her, trying to offer her a shelter, it seemed the least he could do.

"You gave them to me, but you're back, they're yours if you decide you want them," he says. "Though if I could keep the gym..." he smiles when Darcy is brought up. "I missed it too, Jen took care of all of that, would have been something, not sure if she spent any of it yet. "Though you're probably right laugh or curse seem the likely options. Do you think you'll go see her?" he asks.

As for that much larger question Matt ponders it a moment before speaking. He knew something of this, he's never died, but he'd lost his sight and then lost his father in short order which had been close enough. "I think Stick would say start with gratitude," he says, not that Stick had phrased it that way, he'd asked Matt if he'd been born blind, or if the truck that spilled chemicals in his eyes had killed him, pointing out he'd had nine more years of sight than Stick did and that it had been a miracle that Matt had lived. "You were dead and now you're back, not everybody gets that chance, after that, you feel your way along, find the things that are important to you and fight for them. That's how I came back from this," he says gesturing at his eyes. "I know it's not the same thing, but it's as close as I've got."

Elektra has posed:
"Of course I'll visit her," Elektra murmurs on a laugh, of Darcy. "She might be angry. But I think I would like to see her again. She always seemed to like who she thought she saw inside. Not the expectations of others. She didn't know I was rich when we met. I was just Elektra."

Another laugh. "I think I enjoyed that, fooling people who didn't know who I was. Letting them discover, or not, that I was rich. Am I still rich, Matthew? Can you just give it back to me?" She isn't sure. She isn't sure that money and all the trappings she'd left behind should be reclaimed. Then again, even she, in all her newness to whatever she was, and the slivers of memory that kept sliding back and forth into and out of place, knew that her physcial presence would be seen as Elektra Natchios, and if she were here.. she obviously could not have died...

"What would we say? Regardless.." A pause, her head turned to press her lips to his shoulder, even as he's kissed her fingers. "Gym? Where we first.. where I made you admit who you were. I remember that. You thought yourself clever lying to me. And I was right. I never knew at first why Stick wanted me to meet you. He never said. But I remember that."

And what had happened because of it as well.

Daredevil has posed:
"She seems like that type, no judgements," Matt agrees. He's liked that about her too. It made her easy to be around. She was who she was and she let you be who you were too. "Well those nipple studs might have given away that you had money," he says remembering that story with a smile. "From what Darcy was describing the night the three of us we're in Josie's they sounded expensive." Of course, Darcy being Darcy, she'd offered to let Matt feel them, while they were in her nipples.

"You do like playing with expectations," he admits. That had been their game too the first night, oh, he'd known she was rich, but the game then had been to see past that and see that Elektra was more than another spoiled debutant at some tight-ass party. "And sure I can give it back," Matt says. "The Hand has been in the papers we just have to say they were after you and you faked your death to escape them, which is almost the truth. There will be questions, but I can help you navigate them," he says before he catches himself. "If you want to go that way I mean."

There is a smile as she presses her lips to his shoulder. "That's the one, I bought the building as a base of operations," he says before getting lost in the memory of that night. "You saw me like nobody else did," he says. "It's when I fell in love with you." He turns to brush her cheek with his hand. "I still love you, Elektra," he says, "I always will" he leans in for a kiss as slow and tender as what he feels for her.

Elektra has posed:
"She knew then," Elektra admits. She remembers Darcy showing her an Amazon page wishlist, and later, she thinnks.. commissioning something to suit the woman herself, not what she, Darcy, could afford. It was one of those games she played, as Matthew rightly saw. Challenging expectations. Being smug when people were surprised with what they found.

"It would be easy enough to solve," comes the slow admission. "But do you want to give it back? I wanted you to be free. Finally free of all the things that you said kept you back from doing what you truly wanted and believed in. I couldn't do it in life, but my death was such a simple thing. It was so easy to see the answers, then, when there was nothing left to lose."

And it had been. Things were so clear then. It had been her final gift to him - the freedom to be who and whatever he wanted. To never let lack of money, or circumstance dictate his desires.

"I think I started to love you when we stole the car. I knew I would when you lay me out in the middle of the ring. Defiant. Exposing yourself that way. I don't think you trusted me yet, but I knew you would. I knew like I always knew. I knew you would."

And he had. for all their arguments and fights, and times when he called into question who and what she was, Matthew had always trusted her. Right from the first.

"I saw you," Elektra says simply, "Because you wanted to be seen." It felt like nothing other than the truth. Her head lifted for the turn of his, to meet that kiss with a tender slowness in kind, tasting and experiencing what it was to love this man now that she was nothing more than herself.

"I have always loved you," she agrees.

Daredevil has posed:
Nodding Matt lets things with Darcy lie as he moves onto the bigger questions.

He understood the intention of the gift, to free him, to let him live how he liked, but it hadn't worked that way, it gave him new responsibilities a company, trying to live like the one-percent, while feeling entirely separate from their world. Kate had been a good guide and a good sheild but that world still felt alien. That said he never really tried to use the money for much, just the gym, there had been a war on and he didn't have time for much else. Now though....

"I don't need it for me, but maybe the firm," he says. "If something can be worked out., but really, Elektra, the money is yours if you want it back, at the very least you should take Kairos. I know what it meant to you."

Matt smiles, "Yeah, that was pretty good," he say of stealing the car. "And to be honest the way you took me down at the bar was pretty hot," he admits, it had been like a prelude to their fight in the ring, both coming into thing expecting one thing and finding something else. It had given them both what they'd craved, the unexpected.

"You're right I wanted to be seen, I was desperate for it, nobody had seen me since Stick," there was an irony in that he doesn't remark on. "And you're right I trust you Elektra, I alwasy have," he says before letting himself get lost in the tenderness of that kiss, learning what it was to love Elektra now that she was back.

He smiles at her agreement and lifts her hand to his lips and kisses the palm.

"Should we go to bed?" he offers quietly. "The cars will still be there to steal tomorrow."

Elektra has posed:
"I think.." Elektra murmurs, listening to him talk about her money, and what her efforts to free him had accomplished, "that perhaps I will free you again. It was never meant to be something that bound you Matthew. I should realized you were you, and you'd treat it with the same serious obligation you do everything." There are vast notes of fondness in those words. "The gym is yours. I should have thought of that myself." There were so many things she should have thought of if she'd had more time. "And perhaps I will support your efforts more openly now - that is if you can accept my money."

She laughs, the sound rich in the air, much like her amusement when they'd first met. "You fought signing those papers so hard. Maybe the only time you didn't trust me. Foggy fretted. I admit, at first I was going to blackmail you into it." She does remember that. There is a darkness, and the lingering memory of anger to that thought. She remembers how desperately she wanted - needed - Matthew to see her when she'd returned, until she realized that he never would. At least not if she were so desperately trying to get his attention.

Once she'd stopped trying to get it, once she'd made moves to take away all connection to the acts, was when she actually found those first tastes of freedom. And not just because they allowed her a life counter to what she was doing with the Hand, but because they came without any obligation except to herself.

It had been empowering and powerful.

"I didn't want you then," she tells him of at the bar. "And then we stole that car.. which I still will not admit wasn't mine.." Another of those laughs as she remembers. Being close to him was evoking so many things and filling in so many missing spaces of what had gone before. "I knew then I wanted you. But it wasn't until the gym that I knew I had to have you. How badly I wanted you. You had no clue who I was, or what I was, and you didn't want to swing. Not just because you were blind." So many tropes at play there. "I think of all the foreplay I have ever had, that might have been the best."

Which draws her to pull back and regard him carefully. The weary look of him. Those sightless eyes. The relief that was painted through his body language that his gamble had paid off. "Except maybe for tonight's. I think I would like to see what we might write tonight. That is if you're certain you don't mind waiting a little bit to steal that car?"

Daredevil has posed:
Nodding, Matt says, "It's a failing," he says of taking things too seriously. For so many they'd see the money as a blank cheque a chance to do whatever they wanted, with Matt he'd seen the money as an obligation to do good and the company as a whole new section of people depending on him. "Thank you," he says when she speaks of freeing him and for the gym. "And yes, I won't fight the money this time."

He takes a breath remembering those fights. "I was still angry with how we left things, I had convinced myself you were this evil force in my life drawing me down into darkness that I had to resist you. He shakes his head. "I was stupid. But I'm glad you opened my eyes." A beat. "So to speak."

"If I said I didn't want you from the first moment I was aware of you, that'd be a lie, but that was the point right? The lure to get me to talk to you?" he asks. It had worked, the sound of those bracelets, her sigh, the sound of her finger on the rim of the glass and he had been hooked. It wasn't even fair. There is a chuckle at the refusal to admit they'd stolen someone else's car. The smile that comes with the chuckle remains, "Yeah, wasn't looking to fight you there, but then you swung and I swung back. Not that I was really tring until you told me to get you."

Those had been their words back then, 'get me', at first he didn't understand her, thinking it meant fighting her there in the ring, though as she used it more later, he came to understand, it meant get her, understand her and he thought he had. There is a grin, at the words that follow, "Yeah," he muses "It wasn't bad." which may be the understatement of the year.

The grin becomes one of those rare unguarded smiles, the onese Matt saved for those closest to him. "I'd like that too," he says of what they might write as he stands up and offers her his hand, laughing. "C'mon. I think I can manage."

Elektra has posed:
"Get me," she muses, remembering the words. "I think you did. I was well and truly got."

Rising up, she takes his hand. "He never intended this, you know. Stick. We fought over you. I refused to make you into what he wanted. I know I made you promise to listen to him at the end. I was desperate. I needed.."

She heaves a sigh.

"I was so afraid things wouldn't fall into place. I needed them to. I needed to know things would be okay. That what I was doing was the right thing for once in my life." A frown mars her brow. "I was wrong. It didn't work, did it?" Except, in the end, it had. "I see all their faces, when I shut my eyes. Everyone I desperately tried to gather to do what I couldn't. I'm not sure if I wasn't the coward Stick thought I was. I just couldn't see any other way that didn't end up with this war carrying on."

Her words come from a low, dark place of memory she doesn't want to admit she has. Those last desperate days leading up to her death where one wrongly played card would have ended it all, and put everyone on the island in danger. "She gave me a sign of respect. Did you know that? At the end, before she killed me. I drew blood." There's a faint smile with that. "I didn't want to die, Matthew. And there I was, drowning in my own blood, alone, and afraid.. and you were there. Somehow you were there.."

She takes a long breath, and exhales, clearing it from her system. "It was a gamble bringing you all there to Kairos. It was the last and only thing I could truly say was my own, but I needed you all to come. I needed you all to hear and listen."

And then he's smiling at her and she smiles back, her hand sliding easily into the calloused grip of his, the roughness of her own a complement to it. "You might get tired of me," she teases, then leans into him. "Oh, Matthew. I have missed you." Letting him lead her off to the bedroom.

Daredevil has posed:
"I think so too," Matt says of getting her, he had in all the ways he could. He understood her, and she understood him, it was something more than either of them had anticipated.

"I know," Matt says. "And it worked out, Stick and I found a way to work together, even with the killing, to bring the fight to an end," he squeezes her hand bringing it close to him. "We won."

He listens then, he knew who she'd picked to deliver the final blow and the mention of drawing blood is met with a nod of understanding, it was a feat few could boast of. He wondered what Shiva would think of Elektra being alive, he doubted she was a threat, her work had been done and she'd given that sign of respect. "You earned it by the sound of things, made her work for it."

He lets go of her hand to pull her close to him. "I know you didn't I didn't want you to die, I knew it was what had to happen but I didn't want you to go..." he had felt helpless holding her feeling her go, but unable to stop it. He strokes her back, through the rigid protective cloth of her costume. "But you're back now, all of that, it's in the past. All that matters is you're back." The words were as much for him as for her.

Though despite the seriousness of their words it's easy to slip into smiles as their hands clasp again, "Not likely, I trust you to keep things interesting," he says to her before giving her hand a kiss. "And I missed you too," he says as he lets their hands fall as he leads them both away.

Elektra has posed:
"Interesting," Elektra laughs, softly, her blue eyes twinkling, "Oh, I intend on keeping things interesting. Besides, I do believe you have to earn me again. Isn't that how this works?"

He was right about the rest of it. Things had, against all odds, worked out. Maybe not the picture perfect ending she'd hoped for, but as long as she was still what the Hand made of her - Black Sky - there could be no other. Certainly they would try to eliminate her, in order to raise another in her stead, but as long as she remained, she *was* Black Sky, and they had lost.

Both sides had, technically, but she was aligned with her allies now, and not the Hand. Or would try to become so. And while she would not fight as one of the Chaste, she would fight for them as long as they stood for all she'd died to put into motion.

"Matthew?" That amused lilt in her voice taking on the cadences of the fight in Fogwell's. "Get me."