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Jack didn’t want this.
Good Lord, of course he never wanted this.
He watches the casket be lowered into the dug out hole and cries. He’s sobbing, ugly and choked off. He hasn’t stopped crying for a week.
(Because Matty cried. Matty cried when he was sad, he cried when he was angry, he cried when he was scared or worried or uncomfortable. Matty was a crybaby of a little boy before he started mimicking Jack.)
(Someone has to pick up the pace in his absence.)
Maggie is next to him. He hasn’t really seen much of Maggie, lately. The last time he’d talked to her was right before Matty’s eleventh birthday.
Now, here she was, standing next to him as he cries and she’s crying right with him.
They’re the only two people at the funeral. Father Lantom showed, briefly, to give Matty his last rites. To pray for his soul. He couldn’t look at Maggie or Jack while he did. His voice had trembled.
(He’d known Matty since he was just a month old. He’d been the one to baptize him.)
Jack watches them shovel dirt onto the casket, the tiny casket, barely even four feet long.
It’s not fair.
(It’s his fault.)
He shouldn’t have been the one to die because of Jack’s choices. Jack’s mistakes.
(He did it so Matty could hear his dad, his old man, win. Just once. He did it for him.)
It should’ve been him. It should’ve been him , goddamnit.
(He heard the gunshot on his way home. It was too close, way too close, and Jack just dropped his bag and ran.)
He stands at the grave for a long time. Maggie leaves at some point. He reads the words Matthew Michael Murdock engraved in stone over and over again. The sun sets and all he can think is it should’ve been him .
He goes home feeling numb. He slowly and carefully boxes up all of Matt’s things. He leaves them in his room. He makes Matt’s bed (the kid could never be bothered half the time and the other half he just slept in the kitchen) and he turns off the light and he shuts the door.
Jack calls Fogwell’s next. He tells him no more. No more. He’s got enough money to support him for lifetimes. He’s done.
Fogwell is sympathetic. Says, “If you ever need anythin’, me and the boys, we gotcha covered, Jackie.”
He thanks him and says his goodbyes.
And then he drinks his way to the bottom of a bottle.
It’s only natural.
(He gave Matt some scotch, once. Just a sip. Keep his hands steady.)
Right now, his hands are trembling as his shoulders shake. He probably wouldn’t be able to walk. Probably wouldn’t be able to stand.
Yet, his mind is the clearest it’s been in a week.
( Get up, Matty. Work to do .)
Jack passes out at the kitchen table with a scotch glass half-full in his hands.
When he wakes up the next evening, he does what he should’ve done in the first place. What he should’ve done instead of boxing. Instead of sitting on his ass and watching his home , his city go to hell. When he once held a tiny future in his hands and hoped to God the world would be kind instead of making it kind.
He ties a mask around his face, wraps his hands in tape, and he gets to work.
It takes almost no time at all to find a lead.
----
He tracks down his neighbor, the squirrely one with shifty eyes who always looked over his shoulder. He follows him from the time he leaves his door to the time he steps into that dark, abandoned alleyway.
It takes two punches to get him down. He’s made eye holes in his mask, small enough to see out of but not to be recognized.
“Who do you work for?” He growls, the devil dancing in his blood, writhing beneath the surface of his skin, begging to be let out. “Tell me.”
“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about!” The kid cries.
He punches him again. And again. He feels his nose crack and pop under his knuckles and listens to his gasps and cries as blood gushes down his face.
“You broke my fuckin’ nose!” Squirrel yelps.
“I’ll break much more than that if you don’t. Talk.” Jack threatens, eyeing his fingers.
“Joey!” He breaks, finally. “Joey Dunne, okay?! Fuck !”
Jack knows Joey. Joey is the manager at the dry cleaners he passes by on his way to Fogwell’s. He’s known Joey for years. They went to school together.
He knocks the kid’s lights out. He slumps to the ground and doesn’t get back up.
Jack flexes his fists, hearing his knuckles pop as he clenches and unclenches them. They’re covered in blood. So’s the kid. He almost feels bad.
Almost being the keyword because now he’s remembering what Matty’s laugh sounded like and something boils inside of him. Something deep, deep down. Like an awakening.
He kicks the kids head for good measure. And because he wants to.
He cracks his neck and stalks off towards the dry cleaner’s.
----
Apparently, Joey’s in with the Kitchen Irish, he finds out.
He finds this out through several grey-hair inducing events over the course of the next week and a half.
First, the dry cleaner’s was full of guns, drugs, and a lot of angry Irish men.
Second, when Jack was busy breaking his fingers and kneecaps the day after he got the snot beat out of him, Joey had screamed the name of a man that might or might not exactly who he’s looking for.
Third, he gets really fucked up trying to figure out where exactly this guy is.
He barely makes it out alive. His ribs are fucked to hell, a cut above his brow is bleeding like no tomorrow, he might’ve been stabbed a little, and he feels dead on his feet but he makes it home with no one spotting him. He kicks his door closed, locks it, and promptly falls unconscious in the middle of his hallway.
He doesn’t wake up until hours later, with the sun high in the sky and his wounds all cleaned up and bandaged. He realizes something must be wrong because he doesn’t wake up gasping and crying out for a boy who isn’t there.
“What the...?” He mumbles, feeling the stitches above his brow. Neat and tight. Practiced. The wound on his abdomen (so he did get stabbed) is the same.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Maggie’s voice carries from the kitchen. She enters carrying a pan of water with a rag in it, and a scowl on her face.
“Grace,” He sighs. He’s always called her Grace. She’s never let anyone but him call her that. “You did this?”
“Well, the Kitchen Irish definitely didn’t.” She seethes quietly. She wipes his face and the white cloth comes back red, brown and black.
“How did you know?” He asks. “I was wearing a mask.”
“I found you wearing it while bleeding out into your rug after not hearing from you for weeks .” She throws the towel into the pan. “Jack, I thought you-”
“Hey, hey, hey,” He grabs her hand. “I’m okay. I’m right here, Grace.” He puts her hand on his chest, letting her feel his heartbeat. “I’d never. Okay? Never.”
She closes her eyes and takes a shuddering breath. When she’s done, she pulls away and gets back to cleaning him up. “You’re only alive because of me. Because I was here to help.”
“Yeah,” He sighs. “Thank you, really.”
She doesn’t answer with much more than a glare and a soft caress of his hand. She goes to dump the water and comes back.
“So,” She starts, sitting on the floor with her back against the couch. “You’re the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen?”
“Is that what they’ve been callin’ me?” It’s… pretty cool. He feels kinda proud that he’s been influencing the Kitchen’s organized crime so much that they’ve given him a name.
“It’s what I’ve heard. Nuns hear things we shouldn’t.” She gives him a knowing smirk. “One of the church regulars came in with all his fingers in splints and a broken leg. He kept jumping and looking over his shoulder like he expected the devil to be there.”
Jack laughs. Actually laughs. For the first time in weeks. For the first time since Matty was killed.
The thought sobers him again. He goes quiet, clenching his bruised knuckles until his nails dig into his palms. Maggie watches him.
“Why are you doing it?” She asks quietly.
He shakes his head. “Don’t pretend you don’t know exactly why.” She’s smarter than that. He knows she is.
“I want to hear you say it, then.”
His eyes remain fixed to the stucco ceiling. “It’s my fault. I gotta fix it.”
Maggie regards him carefully. “You should get some kind of body armor.”
He scoffs. “What, you think I can’t take a hit?”
“I think you can’t take many more stabbings.” She points out. “Your hands have had a rough time of it, too.”
“I’m never putting the gloves back on,” He says firmly. “I can’t. It ain’t right.”
“Okay,” She agrees. “But what about a different kind of glove?”
----
He doesn’t go out for a week. Doesn’t really do much other than drink and start going back to church. It’s hard to do something he and Matty did together, with him kicking his legs and moving his head like he was looking around.
(He used to ask Jack to borrow some money to put in the offertory, every time it came around. Always wanted to do it himself. Always wanted to be independent.)
Once Maggie comes back around to pull out his stitches, he takes some OTC pain meds, throws on his mask and the dark clothes he’s found himself using as a uniform of sorts, and goes out to find the guy he needs.
He doesn’t end up finding him. He does end up finding a young woman in need of help from an abusive boyfriend and quickly takes care of it. Takes care of a couple kids throwing rocks at a dog by snarling at them and dropping the dog off at Clinton Church.
Jack starts going out every night. He finds the guy after finding the lackey of his, the one that dug the tiny switchblade into his side two weeks ago, and breaking his legs.
Stab him again and see what fuckin’ happens.
The guy keeps screaming and crying. Jack steps on his knee a little, just to make him squirm.
It does a lot more than that. He ends up ratting out half the Kitchen Irish. He recognizes a couple names but not many. Once he’s got the information, he leaves the guy for the cops. Like throwing a bleeding fish into a shark tank.
This guy he’s chasing, his name’s Timothy Flynn. He’s a real piece of work. Dirty lawyer, regular in the gambling scene. He finds out what firm he works for and follows him home.
He doesn’t make it home to his kids on time, because Jack is now dragging him into an abandoned building by the collar of his pristine white shirt and throwing him to the ground.
“Motherfucker,” Flynn snarls in a thick irish accent, like he’s got any kind of guts. Like he’s anything but a snivelling coward. “I’ll kill you if so much as try to put your hands on-”
Jack slams his knuckles into his face.
“Bastard,” Flynn spits.
He does it again.
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck off you slimy cunt--”
Third time’s the charm.
“Fuckin’ hell! Alright! Stop!”
Fourth for good luck.
“Sh- shit! Okay, okay, good Lord, I’ll talk.”
That’s what he liked to hear.
“You know a lot about the gambling of Hell’s Kitchen, yes or no?” Jack growls.
He nods.
“Tell me who bet on Creel, in his last match.”
He laughs. “That’s what this is about?”
Jack raises his fist and gets him to flinch. He does.
“Fine, Jesus! Calm your tits!” He spits blood out onto the concrete floor. “A lot of people did. I only remember a few.”
“Tell me.”
“Shit, uh, Teddy Hayes. Ian White. Roscoe Sweeney, that guy set a pretty hefty amount.”
Goddamnit. He knows that name. He knows it. He knows it like the back of his goddamn hand.
“Tell me about Sweeney.”
“That guy? Hell, it always the hard questions. He ever finds out I ratted, he’ll get me killed like he killed that blind kiddie-”
The devil in him boils over. He’s slamming his fist into Flynn’s head over and over again as his vision goes red and Flynn’s blood spills across the cold concrete before he can control himself.
Something in him manages to stop just short of killing the guy. He won’t be eating through anything but a tube for a long, good while but Jack feels better after the fact. There’s blood dripping from his knuckles and his lungs are heaving but he feels lighter.
Jack smiles.
He realizes he split the skin on his knuckles from knocking out Flynn’s teeth.
Maybe he should start wearing better gloves.
----
Maggie’s decided she’s his primary care doctor, now.
She claims it because, “You’ve decided to be an idiot and go out beating people half to death and someone has to make sure you don’t knock out what little brains you have left.”
Jack knows it’s because she cares.
She’s got most her practice from patching him up after matches, the rest just learned at the orphanage from patching up rowdy kids.
“They’re scared of me.” Maggie tells him while dabbing alcohol over his knuckles.
“Who? The kids?” He smiles. “Nah. You’re obviously too soft. You’re sittin’ here taking care of a dope like me, after all.”
Maggie shows her unappreciation for that statement by pressing too hard and making him hiss.
“Jesus. Easy on the swabbing.”
(“ Gotta get in there. Make sure it doesn’t get infected. ”)
“Language.” She chides but eases up.
“Sorry.”
They lapse into silence. The adrenaline high is wearing off now. He’s sitting in the basement of the church, his mask in his lap, Maggie gently wrapping his knuckles in bandages.
(“ We’re Murdocks. We get hit a lot, but we always get up. Right, Dad? We always get up.” )
“I know who killed him.”
Maggie freezes and meets his eyes. Jack can see the pure fury in her dark eyes. He’s never understood how such a small woman could hold so much rage, sometimes. Other times it’s completely understandable. Like now.
(The last time he saw her this angry was when her mother had screamed her from her house for leaving the covenant and getting pregnant out of wedlock. Jack had been the one to come get her, her eyes storming and a hand clenched to her lower abdomen.)
(“I’m never going back to her,” She’d hissed to him as he wrapped his leather jacket over her shoulders. “Never. She’ll never meet this baby. Our baby.”)
(They had made up, later, after Matty’s birth, but only because she’d gone back.)
(Maggie’s mom had never met Matty.)
“Who?”
“Sweeney.” He spits the name like it’s poison in his scotch. “Fuckin’ Sweeney .”
Maggie carefully sets down her cotton swab. “He’s the one who-”
“Who told me to go down in the fifth.” He confirms. “He’s the one who put a bullet in his fuckin’ head.”
(He found him on the kitchen floor.)
(Oh, Jesus Christ, there was so much blood .)
“Y’know, I thought maybe he had somethin’ to do with it.” Jack says bitterly. “I really thought he did. But he’d done so fuckin’ much for me, he’d helped me and Matty too many times to count, so I tried to ignore it.”
“I’m going to kill him.” She’s not joking. She’s furious. Her hands are pressed into her lap but he knows thats just to hide the tremble.
“Nah,” Jack shakes his head. “You’re a holy woman, now. You can’t be doing stuff like that.”
Maggie hums. “Don’t count me out too soon, Murdock.”
----
Jack can’t find Sweeney for months.
Every night, another fight. He goes all across the Kitchen, beating down gangbangers and mafia goons alike, asking the same question.
“ Where the hell is Roscoe Sweeney ?”
Word gets out about the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Half the organized crime in Manhattan has run into him, at this point. He’s making a name for himself. He’s just not sure it’s the kind of attention he wants.
He gets approached one night, his fists smarting and a man unconscious beneath him. Not by any criminal, but by a reporter. His age, maybe younger. Maybe older. He’s got a steady voice and earnest words and is wearing his heart on his sleeve and Jack thinks maybe he can trust him.
He lets him in on the current goings on of the crime beat of Hell’s Kitchen. People get exposed, gangs broken up. A lot of people end up in jail. A lot of crooked cops, too.
Now, Jack’s never really been big on the justice system of America. More often than not it’s young men, often black young men, on first time nonviolent, victimless offenses that end up in the big bucks prisons. His own brother ended up in the big house, just because he was dumb enough to get caught with a bag of pot with his friends who had all been on parole at the time.
His pop was a mean piece of work, and if Jack never saw him again it would be too soon, but he always told him to never trust a cop.
But-- Matty loved justice. He read Thurgood Marshall like he read the Bible. Jack didn’t understand half the words that guy used but when Matty explained the quotes to him like he was five, he thought that maybe the guy had a couple good points.
So he keeps digging. Keeps exposing. Gives info to Urich, makes sure to back it up with evidence otherwise it’s just gossip. He thinks, maybe, maybe if he digs deep enough he’ll pull the roots of the tree right up and finally find Sweeney.
Things get a little wonky when Jack meets him .
He’s got it on good info that there’s a major drug deal happening between the Mafia and the Cartel at the docks. He’s already given the Bulletin the exclusive on it, Ben’ll be publishing it in the morning. Getting rid of more dangers to his city always puts him in a good mood.
He’s on the roof of a warehouse, watching as four cars pull up to a spot where a lot of guys are surrounding a shipping container. Full of coke, heroin, or opioids, he’s sure. Dangerous. Needs to be taken care of as soon as the people are.
Jack moves to climb down when he hears the sound of metal being drawn and then there’s something sharp and cold against his throat.
“Don’t even think of moving.” An old man says behind him. Jack swallows and slowly raises his hands.
“You work for the Mafia?” He asks, cause even in situations like these, Jack Murdock has never learned when to shut up. “Or someone else? Because you sure don’t sound like Cartel.”
“Someone else.” He says. “Tell me who you are.”
“What, never seen me in the papers?” He jokes.
The amusement doesn’t last long, because he’s suddenly being flipped through the air and lands on his back. He bites his tongue to keep a groan from coming out, as he’s agitated his recently bruised ribs, and looks up at the man standing over him.
“The hell?” He eyes the long katana, almost army-like uniform, and the clouded eyes. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh shit.’” Katana man scoffs.
“I’ll admit it, even though you just kung-fu flipped me or somethin’, my bad, bud.”
The guy narrows his eyes, sniffs, and sheathes his katana. “You aren’t a threat.” He states plainly. “Leave.”
“Woah, woah, woah, I ain’t leaving, pal.” Jack scrambles to his feet. “This was my spot before you came in.”
“And now it’s mine. Funny how that works.” He shoos Jack away with a hand as he perches right where Jack was. “Get out of here, kid, before you get hurt.”
Jack growls. “You wanna go, old man? I’ll have you knocked out before the third.”
He just scowls back. “Shut up, already. I told you to go.”
Instead of replying, Jack snarls and throws himself at the man.
He gets a good two hits in before the old guy realizes that he can actually throw a punch and starts fighting back.
Turns out, it’s more than kung fu bullshit that the guy knows. He does a flip, straight up outta a circus, and get Jack right in the head. He goes down heavy, blinking as his vision goes blurry and he hears a ringing in his ears.
He knows he’s got a concussion, but it ain’t like that ever stopped him in the ring.
He’s up and on his feet, fists in front, and seeing double every time he moves his head around too much. “That all you got?”
The old guy hums. “You got fire, kid.”
“Damn right I do. Get too close and I’ll fuckin’ burn ya.”
“Listen,” He says, sheathing his sword. “You seem like you have… potential. This city doesn’t deserve you. If you want a fight, something that’s far more important than beating the shit out of small time criminals, I can give you that. I can teach you how to actually fight, and not that namby pamby bullshit you call boxing.”
Jack… he doesn’t even know what to say to that. He really doesn’t. He’s starting to think this guy might be some kinda crackhead trying to swoop down and get free product.
“The hell are you going on about?” He asks, genuinely, because he is so confused. Did he hit his head too hard or something? “I ain’t going anywhere with you. Get out of my city, you crazy asshole.”
The guy scoffs. “Whatever, kid. You aren’t even worth my time anyways.”
And with that, he’s gone. Fucked right off the side of the building.
Jack rolls his shoulders and blinks hard a couple of times. Alright, then. Crackhead old blind man with a katana trying to recruit people for his personal army. Who also knows martial arts.
You know what? Out of sight, out of mind.
Jack manages to take down the drug deal and get all of the participants arrested before dawn.
----
Time passes.
A lot of time passes.
Jack goes out. Jack comes back. Maggie cleans him up and talks at him. He’s always liked hearing her tell stories, and now she’s got so many more that he wasn’t around for.
(He knows they won’t ever be the same, with her being married to God and all that. But somehow, when Matt being born had caused them to split, the loss of him has caused them to grow closer again. A tentative friendship.)
(He still loves her, Lord, he loves her. But he doesn’t think he could handle a relationship with her. Especially not now, when the dream he had of Maggie, Matt and him against the world.)
Mr. Morris doesn’t come knocking on his door every rent day, anymore. Jack just leaves the amount slid under the door in a white envelope for him to pick up. The money he got from the match is enough to keep him here for a long time. It’s still in Matty’s account, the one he made when he was a baby and watched Maggie be pulled out of the door by Lantom.
(Ain’t like he’s going to be using it.)
He doesn’t let up on his hunt for Sweeney. The son of bitch has gotta be around somewhere. And if he’s not even in New York, shit, he’ll just wait for when he is. Everything he has is here in Hell’s Kitchen, everything he worked for. Sweeney’ll come back.
Jack doesn’t pay attention to the months going by, not until he looks up and realizes that tomorrow is Matty’s birthday.
Every single molecule of rage in him becomes silent in observance. He buys a bottle a scotch, the good stuff, and sits at his son’s grave to drink himself into a stupor. He pours a glass for Matt and several for himself and sits until the sun comes up over the horizon and Jack is mumbling apologies and prayers under his breath.
He falls asleep against Matt’s headstone, a “Happy twelfth birthday, baby,” on his lips and a massive hangover coming on, sandwiched between two plots.
He dreams of Matty. He dreams of his smile, his jokes, his determination and his smarts and his almost-naive belief in doing the right thing that always made Jack feel hopeful and proud of his boy.
He dreams of Matt waiting up for him, falling asleep right at the kitchen table, waiting for him to come home.
He dreams of himself falling asleep at the kitchen table, waiting for Matty to come home.
“Love you, Daddy.” Matt says to him, four years old and pressing his cheek against his collarbone.
“I can’t see! Dad!” Matt cries for him, grasping at his shirt in the middle of the street. “Daddy! I- I can’t see! I can’t see!”
“We always get back up,” Matt tells him, his hands pressed against the red, red, red robes. “Right, Dad? We always get back up.”
Jack wakes up with a blanket around his shoulders and a bouquet placed gently next to the glass of scotch.
He hides his face and cries softly for his lost son.
He breaks his knuckles later that night, but it evens out with the amount of teeth he scattered across the pavement.
----
Ben comes to him one night in a frantic state. He’s got a fire in his eyes and is panting heavily.
“Hey,” Jack greets him amicably as he decides to not further prolong this beating. He slams the home invader’s nose against the sidewalk and knocks him out. “Urich. You need something?”
“I found him,” He says, and Jack’s turning and striding right over to him. “I found Sweeney. Heard from one of my sources. Been trying to find you all night.”
“Where?” He tries not to growl at him, Ben’s a good guy, but its a near thing. “Where?”
“He’s coming in by boat. Tonight. Down on the docks, pier 6.”
Jack is off like a bullet. He scales walls and fences and runs until he feels like he can’t anymore and he keeps going. He stops for no one, his mind single track.
He gets there just in time to see the sick son of a bitch step off the boat. He’s in a red suit and has a woman on his arm and Jack bares his teeth.
“Any sign of the Man in the Mask?” He hears him ask one of the shitheads waiting for him.
“Nah, he’s busy up north. Threw a couple gangbangers at ‘im. Won’t even hear a word.”
“Jesus Christ, finally. I thought I was never-”
Jack doesn’t give him time to finish his sentence, because he’s dropping down and grabbing the gun from his hand and throwing it into the bay. He sees red and breathes red and feels nothing but rage as he looks Sweeney in the eyes and revels in the fear that he finds there.
“Fuck!”
“It’s the fuckin’ Devil!”
He tries to get all of the guns while preventing Sweeney from booking it. It ain’t easy. A few shots fire off, most missing, one just grazing him across the arm. The girl runs, hiding in a shipping container.
Someone comes up from behind him and slams a metal pipe into his back. He hears his ribs snap and gasps, falling to the ground.
Jack feels a boot slam into his side. Another in his head. The pipe cracks against his right shoulder and pops it out of place. Someone kicks him in the stomach and he retches, coughing and gasping for air as its knocked from his lungs.
His vision starts to fade, his mind drawing blanks.
He needs to move. He needs to get up. He needs to- to-
(“ It’s not about how you fall, it’s about how you get back up.” )
(“ You gotta keep your gloves up, Dad .”)
(“ We always get back up.” )
He needs to kill Roscoe Sweeney.
He grunts, rolling onto his back and kicking at the knees of one of the goons as hard as he can. It makes him stumble and he yells as he falls backwards right into the bay. This distracts the other three and Jack pulls himself up.
The three pause, now. Jack spits a bloody tooth onto the ground, puts his gloves up, and starts swinging.
The first guy is a small, skinny little fuck. Goes down with a single good left hook to the skull. The other two ain’t so easy.
The guy with the pipe knows how to fight. He dodges easy and swings hard. Jack has a hard time keeping up, his vision blurry and body burning.
But after a few good hits, alls it takes is a feint before Jacks sweeps his legs out from under him. It’s not a legal boxing move, but hey, Jack’s gotta have some other tricks up his sleeve. He’s not in the ring right now.
Once he’s down he gets him once, twice, three times and he’s out like a light bulb being smashed with a hammer.
The other guy grapples onto Jack’s back, trying to pull him down, but he turns and slams his back against a shipping crate. The guy hits his head and slumps, but he’s still moving so Jack makes sure he doesn’t get back up.
“SWEENEY!” Jack roars, twisting around to find out where the fucker went.
Someone starts clapping. Jack is moving and slamming him into the ground before he can even process it. It’s Sweeney, he’s smiling like a fucking asshole.
“Congratulations, you damn daredevil. You finally fuckin’ found me.” He says, with his stupid fuckin’ accent and his shitty red suit that makes him want to soak it in his own blood. “You mind sharing why exactly you’ve been huntin’ me down for, what, four months now?”
Jack picks him up by the lapels and slams him back down. He doesn’t even give him time to breathe before he’s punching him. He hits him until he’s begging. Until he’s pleading with Jack to “Stop, please, God , just stop .”
And he does. For some reason unknown to Jack, he stops.
“Jesus,” Sweeney pants. “Jesus. Wh- What do you want?”
“I’m going to kill you.” Jack tells him. “I’m going to destroy you.”
“No,” He begs. “No, please, I don’t want to die. Lord, I don’t want to die.”
“You shoulda thought about that first,” He hisses and raises his fist above his head. Sweeney flinches and starts sniveling.
Jack holds it there. He doesn’t move.
Why isn’t he moving?
He could kill him to easy, right now. Just beat him until his brains splatter against the pier. Throw the body in the bay. He could avenge Matty, avenge his son.
(Would Matty want this?)
(Would he do this?)
(Are you doing it for him or for you ?)
He grits his teeth. He clenches his fist tighter. He tries to will himself to bring it down.
He can’t. He can’t kill him.
Jack screams. He tilts his head backs and screams at the heavens. He curses God and he curses himself and he curses Sweeney and he’s left panting above Sweeney, his hands trembling.
He grabs him by the lapels again, bringing him up close. “You don’t deserve death. That’s too fuckin’ merciful for scum like you. You’re gonna go to the cops and turn yourself in. Confess to every goddamn crime you ever committed.”
Sweeney looks at him with wide eyes. “And- and if I don’t?”
Jack slams his head into the ground. “I’ll come after you and every single person you have ever loved or cared about. And I won’t stop, I won’t ever stop coming for you. You understand?”
He nods frantically, blood dribbling down his already swelling and coloring face. Jack throws him down and stands shakily. “Then go. NOW!”
Sweeney scrambles away, running and looking over his shoulder as he does. Jack wipes his bloody and broken nose with his sleeve and catches his breath.
His eyes find the crescent moon, high in the sky.
He hopes Matt can’t see him from up there.
He hopes Matt’s having a good time, though. Maybe that Thurgood fella is up there too, and they’re just chatting away.
He huffs in amusement at the idea.
Jack hobbles off towards Clinton Church.