Chapter Text
His mother played piano, he thinks. Maybe. Matt remembers the sound of it, afternoons at the parish, down the street from the apartment they used to live in on West 56th street. He used to play in the pews, opening up the big, big books of psalms and following the notes with his fingers. They were the wrong ones, he had no idea what his mother was playing on the parish piano, but it didn’t matter.
Matt remembers music filtering through the apartment on West 56th street, bright and airy. Barefeet on the linoleum, bright pink toenails, as she danced. She loved the sound of music. All of his early memories are filled with it.
The music stopped when she left; but his father still walked him to the church on West 56th street every week for mass. He doesn’t remember when he started playing himself; maybe six, or seven. The lessons gave him a place to be while Battlin’ Jack worked at the docks.
In school, they had music too. He liked it a lot. He liked how he could read the sheet music and hear the sound in his head before he was even playing.
Then the lights went out and for a while, the sound stopped too.
His dad made him play. Well, that’s not the entire truth, but originally Matt said no, when Father Patrick asked him to play. Because it had felt like pity. Then his dad had chewed him out when he got home from work on the docks, late, for saying no to the Father.
Matty, when God asks you to do something, you do it. He’d been bitter; ten and a half and a year without seeing his dad’s face. He told his dad that Father Patrick wasn’t God, that wasn’t how God worked.
Yes he is, Matty. Jack Murdock used the voice he only used when he was speaking the most serious of words. It’s the same voice that told him it was going to be alright. Or to take a shot of whiskey because he didn’t want his hands to shake when Matt stitched up the cut above his eye. Father Patrick has the Holy Spirit in him; he helps us talk to God. And so if He’s asked you to play that damn piano, you’re playing the damn piano, alright?
Matt can still make the walk home – to the new apartment, the one up to it in his mind. Third building from the corner store. Six steps up the stoop. Railing stronger on the left side than the right. Keys into the first hole, then the second. Turn them left (left and you’re in, Matty). Door on the right, seven steps in from the main entrance. Two key holes.
His dad made him play because it was better than the alternative: Matt doing nothing, Matt alone in their new apartment while he worked or trained. And because it was part of Jack Murdock’s ‘Anything You Could Do Before You Can Do Now’ initiative. And, for the most part, it worked.
Then Jack Murdock died, bloodied in the street. Matt couldn’t even identify him, based on the state of his face. It’d taken dental records. And Stick - never dad, never a name other than Stick - didn't like music.
Matt didn't play music again for a long time.
It happened because his roommate - Foggy, with the long hair and the bright, rich laugh, who smelled like hemp soap, whose mother wanted him to be a butcher - wanted to get laid.
It was 2008. Being in a band and having shaggy hair was cool. And they went to Columbia. All the girls were obsessed with the boys from SVA, with skinny jeans and degrees in cartooning. They all listened to Fueled By Ramen and had internships at Alt Press. Foggy needed an edge. The edge, he'd decided, would be an acoustic guitar he bought from Josie at the bar for twenty-four dollars and seventy-six cents, everything Foggy had on him at the time.
And, Christ, it sounded awful. Steely and sharp and so off key it created an entirely new scale and key. Matt had finals. He was going to die if he couldn't study in his own dorm - he hated carting all of his Braille readers and recorders to the library. And Foggy certainly couldn't play on the quad, or else he'd have the very opposite of an edge.
“Foggy,” Matt said, exhausted, exasperated. He turned from his seat at the desk they'd shoved under the sole window. “Foggy. Is that thing even tuned?”
“How should I know? I've never played an instrument in my life,” Foggy said, sounding just as exhausted, exasperated. He groaned. It was followed by a hollow rattle, the ping of a few strings, as Foggy set the guitar down. “I played baseball as a kid.”
Matt didn't think baseball and musical skill were mutually exclusive talents but he didn't mention it. Instead, he sighed, extending his arm. “Here,” he said. “I played piano, as a kid. Maybe I can I figure it out.”
He didn’t have to see to understand the expression Foggy made in reply. He could hear it in the inhale of Foggy’s breath – like a quiet, “Erm?”
“Pitch’s pitch Foggy,” Matt said, tilting his head a little. He made a grabbing motion with his hand, gesturing out for the guitar. “I don’t think a guitar’s as hard as tuning a piano. And besides,” he added, with a smile in the direction of Foggy’s bed, “I could use a break from these logic sets.”
In the end, it took the better part of two hours and several trial and error Google searches. But he did it. It’s nice, sliding his fingers over the strings, plucking out sounds and notes from the air. It’s different than the piano – it’s all strings, no keys acting as middleman.
Two weeks later, Foggy starts dating a girl from his Punjabi class and sells Matt the guitar for six dollars, a bottle of Jameson, and a copy of Matt’s logic sets.
Jessica doesn’t actually know what the fuck the kid at the bar is doing, talking to Claire. He’s very animated, gesticulating wildly. The girl next to him has her head in her hands. She looks like she wants to sink into the barstool she’s in and then down through the floor. Jessica’s been there.
Claire, however, looks two inches past mildly annoyed. It’s in the arch of her eyebrow, making the lines of her brow more furrowed. Her mouth sets into a thin line.
“You think she’s good?” Jessica asks Luke, a solid and warm mass next to her. It’s January. Even inside the bar – The Chaste, because apparently the owner has a hilarious sense of humor – it’s chilly. She lowers her whiskey (fourth of the night).
“Claire?” Luke asks, low, laughing. “She’s alright. You know she keeps a bat under the bar.”
Jessica pouts. She’s a little rowdy, with the whiskey running hot through her. She could use a good fight to settle the heat in her limbs. Though, she thinks as she spares a glance to Luke, there are other ways to deal with the frantic energy in her bones.
When she looks back to Claire, she’s got her hands up in defeat and she’s nodding towards… Jessica and Luke’s table.
Oh no, no, no, no.
The kid makes eye contact and he’s – oh, fuck – grinning when he starts to walk towards them. Jessica stiffens and tightens her grip on her glass. She’ll need another round soon. And fast, considering how the kid’s booking it across the bar towards them.
“Hi,” he says, too goddamn cheery, as he pulls out the chair at the end of their table. Jessica and Luke watch him from their positions against the wall. He sits on the chair backwards. “I’m Danny. I live in your building.”
Jessica knows her neighbors because they hate her. (Except for Malcolm, who has very strange ideas about privacy.) So he must be talking about Luke’s place. Which is weird. Really weird.
“O-okay,” Jessica says, incredulous. She gives the kid her best what the fuck face. Luke’s doing a good glower next to her.
“I – “ the kid opens and closes his mouth. “You both play really well. I’ve been hearing it for weeks. I’m in the loft above yours.”
Jessica opens her mouth to snap. Luke puts his hand on her knee – real subtle, she’ll get him for that later – and leans forward. “Thanks,” he says, low, steady. “Though you could have just left a note.”
Danny flashes a smile that Jessica’s pretty sure he thinks is cute. He’s familiar, for some reason. A weird thought nags on the back of her head. She focuses on that, pulls thread, and lets Luke take over the conversation.
“I have a band,” the kid says. He's wearing a weird expression - it's far too serious for him trying to hype his band. “And I’m looking for people like you, to be in it.”
Oh, Christ shitting fuck. Jessica snaps back into the conversation. “People like us ?”
Danny gives her a bewildered, startled look. “Musicians!” he backpedals. He looks a little overwhelmed. Jessica wants to take a drink but honestly? She's too fucking stunned. “Talented musicians.”
“Oh you've gotta be kidding me,” she says, rolling her eyes. She gives Danny another quick study. Scraggly beard; white; mid-twenties; curly mop of hair that can only be described as artfully disheveled; sweater worn in too oddly placed spots to be anything other than pre-distressed . “How many people are in your band?”
Danny’s face falls, a little. “Uh, just me.”
Jessica laughs.
Here's how it happens. Danny tells Luke he could use a drummer like him. Luke chuckles, low and rumbling and makes eye contact with Jessica. She smirks back around her whiskey (number five, delicious and warm).
They agree that Danny can swing by, next time Luke and Jessica play.
“Claire, god, you should have seen his face, ” Jessica says, cackling as Claire pours her another whiskey. Luke is beside her, nursing a beer. Trish is on her other side, her hand warm on the small of Jessica’s back. She's drinking a gin and tonic. She smells like jasmine.
Behind the bar, Claire laughs. “Please tell me you didn't beat him up too bad,” she slides the whiskey over to Jess. She tips it towards Claire before she takes a sip. “I actually like his girlfriend. She's sweet.”
Luke chuckles and shakes his head. “There was no violent force,” he says, the corners of his mouth quirking up. Jess loves it when he allows himself to be a smart ass. She hooks her ankle around his. “Only shame when he realized I don't play drums.”
“‘Oh, oh, I didn't realize I'm so sorry - he - I - you just - hit so hard ’, Jessica mocks, dropping her voice into a ridiculous parody of Danny’s intelligible accent. “Christ.” She takes a long drink from her whiskey. “He's an idiot.”
“So I'll take it Danny's band isn't happening,” Claire says, wiping down the bar. It's a Tuesday night in December. It's pretty empty, save for the old drunk in the corner. Jessica’s kindred spirit. She reminds herself to send him a drink.
Trish laughs. “Oh no,” she says, shaking her head.
Jessica flashes her most effective shit-eating grin. “We joined. We're going to shame him into quitting music forever.”
Luke rolls his eyes. “We're going to help him figure his stuff out, and then leave once he's got a good foundation.”
“We’re going to shame him into quitting music forever,” Jessica repeats, nodding.
Claire sighs, leaning back against the bar. “Well, so long as you have a plan.” There's a pause, pregnant enough that Jess knows Claire is considering something, behind those dark eyes. She watches as Claire reaches for a glass, begins wiping it out with her rag. “You guys gonna need a guitarist?”
Matt likes his Thursday afternoons at the food pantry. They're usually quiet. Sundays after mass are busier, usually, which is fine. They have a big after mass brunch that most folks turn up for, and they have to process the donations from mass itself. It's good. But Thursdays are better.
Thursday it's just him and Claire, half shooting the shit and half doing actual work, like making up the baskets that Claire’ll deliver on her way home to different parishioners, who can't get out to the church on West 36th street. Sometimes Father Diego will come by, ask Matt how his law school applications are going, ask Claire for any good stories from the ambulances.
Matt can tell, however, that today Claire has something on her mind. He's drinking stale coffee, sitting at the card table they have set up. Claire’s too quiet, the knife falls on the cutting board heavier than it usually does as she cuts up a tomato. She's making a large batch of Spanish rice for the Meals on Wheels deliveries tomorrow.
“What's going on?” he asks before he can think better of it. “You sound upset.”
“Oh,” Claire says, sighing softly. “It's - I'm not upset.” She sets the knife down. Matt can hear her shifting, the creak of the counter as she leans against it. “Just trying to figure out how to ask you something.”
Matt frowns. That doesn't sound particularly good. He forces himself to turn his head towards her, so she can see the frown full on. (Sometimes he forgets; that he's not looking at people when he talks to them.) “You could just ask me,” he says, careful. Maybe a little curious.
“I - it's not really a question,” Claire replies. “Some of my friends from the bar are starting a band. They need a guitarist. I think you should audition.”
His frown deepens, just for a moment before he chokes out a laugh. Something twists around his chest at the word band, constrictive. He touches the tattoo at his wrist superstitiously. A snake eating its own tail. “You know I'm blind, right? I don't think that's very conducive to being in a band.”
“That hasn't stopped you before.” Matt doesn't need to see to know she's raising an eyebrow at him, incredulous. She knows he's lying through his teeth. Stupid tattoo. It's because she'd asked about it. He hadn't been able to keep the story from tumbling out of his lips.
There are footsteps as she pushes off the counter. The scrape of the legs of a chair against the floor as she sits down across from him. “I think it could be good for you,” she says, quieter. “Get you out some.”
“I get out plenty,” Matt returns, defensive. “I'm here, right?”
Claire’s sigh is very, very loud. “Matt, you're twenty-seven and volunteering at a church food pantry.”
“So are you,” he mutters.
“Well I'm thirty, we’re allowed.” It's gentle, an easy tease at her own expense. She smells like antibacterial lotion. It's strong. She must have just gotten off a shift. “Your life ends when you turn thirty. You should do something fun with your last years.”
That draws a laugh out of him. “I already did the band thing,” he says, finally. “It didn't work out so well.” That's the understatement of a lifetime.
“Well this time the people are different,” Claire says, firm. “I trust them, for one.” She touches the back of Matt’s hand, reassuring. Her fingers are a little dry, it must be work. He makes a note to get a bottle of lotion, to put next to the sink here. It'd probably be weird if he just gave her some. But he could be sneaky about it.
“Secondly, I'm worried about you,” this Claire says quieter. Matt winces. “You could use some more friends, Matt.”
“I have plenty of friends,” he snaps back. He's frowning a little. Claire doesn't need to do this - he doesn't need any more friends. He has Foggy. He has Claire. And Clint. That's enough.
“You have two, Matt.”
“Three,” he corrects, “I have Clint.”
“Clint is a dog.”
As if on cue, he whines under the table at Matt’s feet. He reaches down and scratches behind his ears. “Clint has feelings too, Claire,” Matt replies. It's a bad attempt at humor.
She sighs again. “C’mon, don't tell me you don't miss playing.” Her foot nudges his, reassuring. “I see that wistful look you get at camp.” Matt can hear the smile in her voice; it makes something warm resonate in his chest, at odds with the panic that curls in his throat at the idea of playing guitar in a band again.
But - the problem is that she’s right. St. George’s does a summer program for neighborhood kids in the summer; it’s where Matt met Claire. He’d needed something to do, the summer after he graduated college, while waiting for his internship to start in the fall. She’d cornered him after mass one day - we need a music teacher for the summer program. Our old one just moved to Florida. I know you play piano for the latin mass. You’d be doing me a huge favor.
She’d sounded nice; pushy, maybe, but nice. And Matt didn’t really have anything else going on. And she didn’t bring up his blindness. It didn’t matter to her.
His blindness didn’t really matter to the kids, either. What mattered was the no one wanted to learn piano . They wanted to learn something cool. Like the guitar.
Matt’s not sure the kids really learn how to play, but he can at least get them through the scales on Foggy’s old acoustic with the Fueled by Ramen sticker on the back. But, Claire’s right. It's nice to have an excuse to play. Even if it's not exactly the same as running through his own music with -
It doesn't matter. He's not joining another band. It's just not happening.
“Claire,” he cautions. “I'm fine, really.” Matt smiles for emphasis. He's really fine. He doesn't need more friends and he doesn't need a band. He can play in his loft just fine. Maybe even for Foggy, if they're drunk enough and he asks nicely.
“Uh-huh,” Claire says. She sounds like she thinks he's lying. He's not, which stings - maybe a little. “Well. I emailed you the Facebook event for tryouts. They're at the bar. Maybe you'll change your mind.” He can hear the way the corners of her mouth turn up. It shouldn't make him feel warm, that she wants for him so badly to do this, but it does. Matt's not sure what to do with that.
Drink about it, probably.
Danny Rand loves dogs - that's the first thing Matt learns about The Defenders. He makes a beeline for Clint at Matt’s side. Clint, like all good dogs, is thrilled at this discovery and promptly rolls over for belly rubs when Matt wanders into the bar on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.
Luke Cage shakes his hand. His grip is stronger than his dad’s was. It's impressive honestly. “Claire mentioned you might stop by,” he says by way of hello.
Matt feels his neck flush. He rubs at the heated skin. “Uh, yeah,” he manages. “She's good at forcing me to do things.”
Luke’s chuckle is warm, friendly. Matt is surprised by it. He's taller than Matt is, he thinks, from the way he'd shaken Matt’s hand, by the way his breath hits Matt’s cheeks. “That's Claire,” he agrees. “She's a good friend.”
Matt nods. “Yeah,” he breathes, something curling in his stomach like nerves. But they're nothing compared to the frantic energy in his hands. He adjusts his grip on his cane, fiddling with the loop of leather at the end. He hasn't played in front of people in years.
“Nice glasses,” a dry, gravelly feminine voice says from behind Luke. “Fashion choice?”
Matt barks a laugh, just as Luke says, “He’s blind, Jess.”
“Oh, fuck.” She sounds surprised, a little guilty.
“I -” Matt opens his mouth to speak.
“Wait, you're blind?” Danny Rand says, incredulous.
“Danny, you're literally playing with his dog,” Luke says, barely a fraction of annoyance leaking into his smooth, low voice.
“Oh, uh, shit - I'm sorry, I didn't -”
“It's okay,” Matt says, loud. Forceful. Christ, he hates this bit. This is why he didn't want to come. This was a goddamn stupid choice. Maybe one of the dumbest he's made in a while. But now he's here and he's got to finish this because these are Claire’s friends he can't just leave. He'll have to make it through this and then be utterly unsurprised when they don't call him back. It'll be fine.
He can feel three sets of eyes on him. Four, counting Clint. “Really,” he says, and laughs, cracked with a hairline fracture of bitterness. “It's okay.” He pauses, but when no one else speaks, he clears his throat. “Uh, I can just - where should I… uh -”
“Table on your right,” Jessica says, completely even and level-toned as though the last five minutes haven't just happened. Which is nice.
Matt taps out with his cane, free hand questing for the back of a chair. When he finds it, he finds the table. He leans his cane against the chair and swings the guitar case off his back; sets it on the table and opens it up.
“There's an amp set up on the stage,” Jessica continues. “You know Claire, so you've been here before?”
Matt nods. “Yeah, a few times,” he answers, pulling his guitar over his body. He adjusts the strap, just for something to do with his hands before he finishes replying. The nylon is starting to fray. He should probably get it replaced. “I can get up there.”
Clint, who has never been trained a day in his life, bumps the back of Matt’s knee helpfully. It takes him a minute but as he climbs up onto the raised platform - barely high enough off the floor to call it stage - Jessica asks if he'll need help plugging into the amp.
“I'm alright,” Matt says, shaking his head. He taps out and finds the amp.
Danny’s whisper is low, but Matt’s ears are very good. “Are you sure about -” There's a thump. “Ow.”
“Don't,” Luke’s low timbre replies.
“Uhm,” Danny says. Jessica is drumming her fingers on a table. “Whenever you're ready?”
Matt takes a deep breath, sends a quick prayer to St. Jude (I know I'm a lost cause, just get me out of this in one piece? Please?) and does a quick slide through a scale, just to settle his nerves.
And then he closes his eyes and runs through a song that's not packed with too many memories. He doesn't sing. Just plays. It's easy to find the old notes, to remember where they connect with others, to slip into another song. It's like boxing. Weave, weave, weave. Land a hit. Land another.
Matt slips into a cover, just something easy. He's never auditioned for a band. He doesn't know the etiquette. He's blind and exposed in too many ways. But the song is familiar enough that someone begins to drum along on a table, soft, quiet.
He laughs when he starts to hear Danny’s voice catching on the chorus. It's just enough encouragement to make Matt feel looser, warm. He's okay.
When he stops playing, cutting the last note just as rough as it should be, Danny laughs. “Holy shit, I haven't heard that song in years! Three Cheers was my shit in middle school.” Matt tries not to wince. He’d been in high school when that album came out. Foggy burned it for him off Limewire, because Stick would have never let Matt have it…
Matt tries to force those memories out just as Danny says, “How did you learn to play like that?”
“I'm blind, not deaf,” Matt returns. It's a little short. He feels bad as soon as he says it.
Except Jessica laughs, a bright cackle. “God, kid, you gotta shut up. Let the grown ups handle this.” There's a thud - maybe a chair settling. Or boots on the floor.
“Well, Murdock, you were definitely the best we've heard all day,” Jessica says. She’s got a hard edge to her voice, even when she sounds mildly pleased. Matt likes it. “You got a phone number?”