Chapter Text
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know if I’d see you again,” Father Lantom said when he found you curled up on one of the pews. You had fallen asleep in Clinton Church again, though it wasn’t because you were high.
You had a backpack with you, filled mainly with clothes. You had used it as a pillow.
You didn’t look at him as you sat up. It had been months since you were last there when you ran away from Father Lantom because of your personal failings and a man wearing clothes you didn’t like.
Father Lantom waited for a moment, not expecting an explanation but giving you an opportunity to speak if you wanted to.
You didn’t. Not right then.
“How about some coffee?” he asked when he realized you weren’t ready. “It’s always a little cold in here this time of year.”
At the time, you couldn’t explain why tears started pricking at your eyes. Later you knew it was simply because of him , his kindness and understanding. His ability to see and welcome you in despite everything he didn’t know about you.
You nodded and followed Father Lantom through the church, clutching your backpack to your chest like a safety blanket.
You said fewer words than the last time you were there. Once again, you wanted to run, only you didn’t have anywhere to run to.
“You said…” you started, filling the silence that had fallen between you. You nervously licked your lips while Father Lantom, with the patience of a saint, waited. “You said you knew a shelter I could go to?” you finished, still unable to look at him.
“Can I ask why you need it this time?” he asked softly.
You started picking at your empty paper cup. You would eventually rip it to shreds throughout the rest of the conversation.
“I got kicked out of my apartment. Lost my job.”
“How did that happen?”
You were a little ashamed to say you glared at him for that.
“How do you think?” you spat. Father Lantom only raised an eyebrow at you and stared, waiting. You looked away, back down at the remnants of your cup. “Showed up high,” you mumbled, heat flooding your cheeks.
Father Lantom nodded, then said, “There’s one thing I need to know. Do you want to keep getting high?”
A million thoughts went through your mind. Would he refuse to help you if you said yes? For all your talks with him, your addiction was carefully avoided. Would they even take you in at the shelter if you kept using? Probably not.
… Did you want to keep using?
That thought held you frozen despite the sweat collecting on your skin. Your fingers twitched, already itching for the next high.
“No,” you answered eventually, only lying a little. An addict always wants to keep getting high. “I need…” You didn’t want to say it. You’ve been down that road before, and it never ended where anyone wanted it to.
Who’s to say it was going to work? That Father Lantom wouldn’t tire of trying to help you when you inevitably used agin.
But even still, some part of you kept wanting to try, to find that light that could keep you going—keep you sober. At the time, you wondered if Father Lantom would be that light.
“I need help.” Your voice was so quiet you weren’t sure if he even heard you. Keeping your head down, you started at the pile of paper on the floor that used to be your cup.
A hand on your shoulder made you flinch, but you didn’t pull away.
“That’s the hardest part,” Father Lantom said, leaning close. “I’m proud of you. Now, let’s see about getting you a place to sleep, hm?”
If he noticed the tears that sprung up at his words, he didn’t comment on them.
The shelter Father Lantom sent you to wasn’t much—none of them really are—but it was something. A roof over your head at the beginning of winter, a place to sleep, bathe, and there was food you didn’t have to pay for.
It was, by comparison to what you were used to, heaven.
The were a couple of essential stipulations that you had to stick to if you wanted to stay. One, if you were gone for more than a night, you lost your bed and would have to go through the process of being admitted all over again. Two, and probably the most important for you, no using on-site. There was no rule saying “Don’t be a drug addict,” but getting high in the building, risking harm to yourself, and potentially affecting others’ sobriety couldn’t be tolerated.
You wanted to be clean for Father Lantom more than yourself. You were never good at doing things for yourself. But the first couple of days in the shelter were the hardest.
You told yourself that he hadn’t asked you to stop and wouldn’t even know if you did if he didn’t see you in that state. You decided to use the last of your stash in an alley, promising an imagined apparition of the priest that you would do better. You had to block out the echo of his voice telling you he was proud. You didn’t remember where you were when the drug found its way into your veins, just that you made it back to the shelter to claim your bed, wiping what had to be tears from your face.
The next day, you went back to Clinton Church. Shame filled you because of what you did, but still, you made yourself go. Father Lantom had said there was something else he wanted to speak to you about, but it could wait until you were ready.
Homeless, without a job, and newly fresh out of drugs, you were as ready as you would be. And if you didn’t like what Father Lantom had to say, well… you’d run away before. You’d do it again if you needed to.
He waited until you had a cup of coffee in your hand, sweetened with a particular creamer you suspected he kept on hand specifically for you.
“You thought about what kind of job you’d like?” he asked as soon as you sat down. You wondered if he somehow knew what you did the night before and was choosing to ignore it or if he genuinely had no idea. You don’t know which you would have preferred.
“I’m doing great, Father. How are you?” you grumbled into your cup to avoid telling him that you hadn’t, in fact, even thought about looking for a new job. You suspected he knew you hadn’t. That you likely wouldn’t if you weren’t pushed.
Other people had tried pushing you before, and it had never worked. But then again, they had pushed you about the drugs. Something so every day as getting a job didn’t affect you as much as you feared it might. And you did need one. As generous as Father Lantom had been, you knew you couldn’t stay in the shelter forever—and you didn’t want to.
You want your own place. Or, if not your own, somewhere without…the kinds of people you’ve been around for the past few years.
So you let Father Lantom talk to you about a job, so determined in the beginning to make him your light, willing to follow his guidance on the off chance it might stick this time, that he might be the one you need to get and stay on the straight and narrow.
You thought about how, him being a priest, you finding sanctuary in a church, it would have been more appropriate for your light to be God or Jesus, but you’ve talked to ghosts in your head before—that only made you want to use more.
“I know someone who has a bigger penchant for helping lost souls than I do,” Father Lantom told you when you asked if he knew anywhere that’d be willing to take someone like you. “Now, he’s a lawyer—”
“Why do you think I need a lawyer?” you hastily interrupted, sweat already making your palms slick.
Had this all been some sort of setup, you wondered. Had Father Lantom’s kindness been nothing but a lie?
Coffee cup still half full, and wanting to trust the man before you, you stayed in your seat, though your shoulders were around your ears and body tensed.
“Do you need a lawyer?” he asked, genuinely wanting to know. You’d never told him about that part of your life. He had no idea what you did or didn’t get up to when you weren’t falling asleep in churches.
You shook your head, looking away. “No, I don’t, I just… I’ve never heard good things about lawyers, ya know?”
Father Lantom gave an understanding nod. “Well, trust me when I say Matthew is one of the good ones.”
That was the second time you heard that name.
Your memory was hazy, unsurprisingly, but the name tickled something at the back of your mind. You managed to recall the last time you heard his name.
When you ran away. When you couldn’t stand Father Lantom’s care.
The blind man in the suit.
The memory made your skin itch for various reasons, but you pushed it aside, trying to put your trust in the man who had called you his friend.
More than once, you questioned if you made the right decision that day.
You could never come up with an answer.
A week after that conversation with Father Lantom, you met Matthew Murdock, officially, for the first time.
“Matt,” he said when Father Lantom introduced you. He didn’t hold out his hand, and you didn’t offer yours—not that he would have seen it if you had.
You didn’t like touching people on a good day, and you certainly didn’t want to be that close to someone you couldn’t trust. All of Father Lantom’s assurances about Matt hardly fazed you. People acted differently around priests than they did addicts, after all.
Not touching him also meant he wouldn’t feel the sweat on your palms. Actually, in a fucked up way, you were glad Matt was blind. That way, he couldn’t see the hollowness of your face or the sweat on your brow.
You had been good. You hadn’t used since the night before you spoke with Father Lantom about whatever job Matt was offering you.
You vomited in a trash can at the shelter that morning, still felt the bile in the back of your throat while waiting for Matt to show up. You were glad Father Lantom wasn’t making you stand while you waited, instead letting you sit in one of the pews so you could try to hide how much your body was shaking.
But worst of all, you were irritable.
“You’re not going to make do weird shit, are you?” you asked, the words pouring out of your mouth, wanting to get this done as quickly as possible so you could go back to bed.
You never asked, but Father Lantom must indeed have put in a very good word for you because Matt took your surly question in stride. In fact, he laughed.
“Depends on your definition of weird,” he said, grin spreading wide across his face.
You didn’t laugh.
His smile quickly dropped, and he cleared his throat.
“How do you feel about live chickens?”
That took you aback. “...chickens?”
“We do a lot of pro bono work. And those who want to pay but don’t have the money find…other ways to show their appreciation.”
The chickens and other ways of it all were, admittedly, off-putting. Matt told you later he hadn’t realized how he sounded during your informal interview.
“What do you do with the chickens?” you asked, afraid of the answer.
“My partner’s family owns a deli. They know a butcher who gives them a discount, and we have a deal to keep every other chicken.”
The man was odd, to say the least. He didn’t give you serial killer vibes, but at the time, there was something about him. A sort of recognition that brushed the back of your mind. Later, you would tell that you always knew his secret.
He never believed you. But then, it wasn’t the actual secret you sensed about him.
After the chicken conversation, Matt lured—led you to his law firm’s office. You threw Father Lantom one last, possibly distressed, look, but he simply gave you a soft smile, whispered, “You’ll be fine,” and gently pushed you out the door.
“Karen does a bit of everything for us,” Matt explained on the walk. You thought briefly about asking if he needed your arm, but you still didn’t want him touching you. And besides, he navigated perfectly fine on his own; you weren’t going to force help on someone who didn’t need or ask for it.
“But you’ll mainly be an office assistant. Scheduling appointments, keeping track of case files. Things like that,” Matt continued. “Karen can stay for a while, so she’ll be able to teach you everything. And even when she goes to work for the Bulletin, Foggy and I will help you keep your head above water.” He smiled again, trying to make you feel welcome, comfortable.
You only gave an annoyed grunt in return.
You were rude, but you couldn’t help it. Your head was pounding, and you wanted nothing more than for the day to end. You knew you should have been better behaved. Should have been more grateful for the favor Matt was doing by giving you this job, but it was hard to focus.
The first few weeks after stopping always were.
And it spoke more to Matt’s character with his willingness to put up with you. He was like Father Lantom in that way. He never asked about your addiction or the problems it caused. He simply let you be, taking what you were willing to give and overlooking the more questionable actions. At first, at least, but that’s for another time.
At the office of Nelson & Murdock, you scowled more than you smiled, though you really did try. You met Foggy and Karen, though you spent more time with Karen.
At one point, she just…looked at you. It was after you gave a particularly biting response of “ I know ” when she tried showing you how to do something on the almost out-of-date laptop that served as the office computer. You could tell she was ready to say something, but she paused. You didn’t meet her eye or see the recognition flit across her face as she examined you. But you could guess she knew something based on how her demeanor changed after that.
She was very kind and patient with you, more so, you suspect, than she would have been with someone else who didn’t appear to care they were handed this job. It was probably because she…saw you that she didn’t convince Matt and Foggy that you couldn’t handle such simple appearing work.
At the time, you hated it. Irrationally so.
All of these people were being too kind. Too friendly. Foggy had tried joking with you, but it only made you turn away, unused to someone trying to include you in the joke rather than making you the butt of it.
You had only just gotten used to how Father Lantom treated you like a person after the better part of a year knowing him. You couldn’t fathom anyone else sharing his proclivity of not judging someone like you, baggage and all.
You wanted to vomit again throughout Karen’s training session, but it had nothing to do with the withdrawal.
It felt like an eternity before the end of the day came around. Matt walked you out of the building while Karen and Foggy stayed behind. Your paranoia told you they were picking you apart now that you were gone from the small office, their kindness was a facade, and their true thoughts about a junkie trying to work at a law firm would come out with you out of earshot.
“I hope it wasn’t too much for you today,” Matt said. “First days can be…rough.”
The only thing rough about it was you, but you weren’t admitting to it then.
You scratched at a particular spot on your arm and were thankful you didn’t have to look Matt in the eye.
“Why did you give me this job?” you ask, ignoring Matt’s question, his gentle handling of you. You needed to know if he really was as good as Father Lantom had said or if he was just putting on a show for the time being, just waiting to kick you to the curb as soon as he could say he gave you a fair shot, but you were too fucked up to stay on with them.
Matt was silent for a moment. “I trust Father Lantom. Trust what he sees in you. It was more than enough for me.”
How easily he said that word. Trust.
You didn’t know what to do with it or who to give it to. You were only just starting to place yourself in Father Lantom’s hands.
And then there was Matt Murdock after hearing God knows what about you—maybe nothing, maybe everything—allowing you in so easily, trying to make you feel welcome.
It made you want to run.
It made you afraid to disappoint him.
You wanted to ask what exactly Father Lantom saw in you, but the words were stuck in your throat. You couldn’t bear the thought of someone saying something kind about you where you could hear.
Aware of your struggle, Matt said, “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a bad person.”
Your breath caught in your throat, and your mind screamed to run. With your heart pounding, you took an automatic step back.
“Are you coming back tomorrow?” Matt asked softly, making you pause your retreat. No pressure or expectation in the words, giving you the opportunity to turn him down, and fuck, you were scared. First Father Lantom, and then Matt?
You almost didn’t know what to do, the silence stretching as you tried to find the words.
“Yeah…,” you whispered. “Yeah, I’ll be back.”
Matt smiled, and it was so bright.