Chapter Text
Maggie was in the chapel, lighting votive candles, when she first heard.
“Maggie,” Father Paul Lantom said. There was a softness in his voice, something strained and hesitant that always presaged bad news. “Can we talk?”
Maggie lit the last candle and blew out the lighting taper, watching the thin strands of smoke rise up like a prayer. “What’s wrong?”
Paul knew better than to try to hedge around it. “It’s… it’s about Jack Murdock.”
The stick in her hand twitched, but other than that, Maggie gave no sign that the name had rattled her. “Oh?”
They avoided talking about him, at least outside of confession. It was easier that way. Easier to forget her sin, the old self she’d left behind with the baby in that tiny apartment. Paul had even transferred her from regular church business to the orphanage; scheduled her masses for the early mornings, long before the Murdock boys came in. Avoiding her former life was a simple matter of habit at this point.
“You may want to sit down,” Paul said.
Maggie lowered into a pew, raising her eyebrows, and Paul sat beside her. “You’re scaring me.”
“Jack was… working for someone. Someone dangerous.”
He’d heard about that in confession, Maggie supposed. She frowned. “And?”
“And apparently his boss wasn’t too happy with him.” Paul took a deep breath. “He, uh…”
Something cold skittered like an insect up her spine. “What is it?”
Paul reached over and grabbed one of her hands. “He’s… dead, Maggie. Shot down in the street.”
Maggie blinked.
Her body felt distant, blurry, like she was looking at a picture of herself taken from far away. “Oh,” she said.
Paul hesitated for a moment, then pressed on. “And the kid—”
“Matthew,” Maggie said automatically.
“He’s coming here,” Paul said. “To St. Agnes’.”
Maggie closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “I see.”
“Now, I’ve already made arrangements with St. Patrick’s, and they’ll be ready to take you by the end of the week—”
Maggie raised her eyebrows severely. “What are you talking about?”
He looked nonplussed. “I assumed… you’d want a transfer.”
She brushed out a wrinkle in the skirt of her habit. “Well, you know what they say about assuming.”
Paul paused, then moved closer to Maggie and dropped his voice a shade lower. “I know how painful this is for you—”
“I take care of lost children, Paul,” Maggie said. She looked up at him, giving him as steely a gaze as she could muster. “That’s my calling.”
Paul raised his hands in surrender, then sat back in the pew. She could feel him studying her, even as he tried to look nonchalantly around the chapel. They sat in silence for a moment or two. Maggie kept her gaze on the heavy crucifix hanging above the altar.
“I can be there, if you want,” Paul said. “When you tell him.”
Maggie looked at him sharply. “Tell him?”
“I… uh...” Paul sighed. “Look at me, assuming again.”
Hot shame rippled through her, and she looked away. “He’s just lost his father. Knowing… about me… would only confuse him.” She shook her head. “There’s no need to tell him.”
Paul raised his eyebrows. “I would argue there’s great need.”
Maggie stood up, her hands moving automatically to the cross she wore around her neck. “I’ll care for him, like I do all the other children.” She took a long breath, then released it slowly. “But I’m not his mother.”
It was nearly dinnertime when the police brought the boy to the church. He was clutching the cop’s arm, letting him guide him, his white cane held vertically and unused in front of him. Black glasses obscured his eyes, and he kept his lips thin and stiff. If he had been crying, he was hiding it well.
It wasn’t so long ago that the boy had lost his sight. It was the first time Jack had called since she’d left them. She hadn’t answered, of course, leaving that task to Paul. He’d delivered the news to her later.
She’d almost seen Matthew that day. Late in the evening, when Jack had gone to meet with a lawyer about damages, Maggie had entered Metro General Hospital. She’d made it all the way to Matthew’s room, where she’d looked in through the little window of his door.
He was asleep, she’d been pretty sure, but he stirred fitfully. As she watched, his hands crept up to his bandaged eyes—as though, even in his sleep, they pained him.
She’d almost gone in. Almost.
Now, Matthew stood before her, unmoving, so small under the high vaulted ceilings. As Paul spoke with the police, Maggie knelt beside Matthew—reaching out a hand toward him, then thinking better of it.
“Hello, Matthew. My name is Sister Maggie.” And she waited, looking for some sign of recognition.
There was none.
“Hello,” Matthew said finally, his voice flat.
“In a few minutes we’ll take all your things next door. That’s where all the children live,” she said. “There’s a playground, plenty of snacks and toys—cassette tapes, too.” She’d almost said ‘a television.’ Shaking off her embarrassment, she smiled at him, hoping that it would carry into her voice. “And I think we might have some records still lying around.”
“Okay.”
“We’re all a family here,” Maggie said. The words felt weak, tasteless and grainy, in her mouth. “We take care of each other. And we’ll take care of you.”
“Okay.”
Maggie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m… so sorry. About your father.”
Matthew’s mouth twitched, but other than that, he gave no sign that he had heard her.
She thought of a million things to say: it was all a part of God’s plan, Jack had been called into the arms of the Lord, dozens of scriptures and psalms and hymns—but looking at this round, cold little face, every platitude felt hollow.
“Come with me,” she said eventually. She took Matthew’s little hand, guided it to her arm, and led him to the orphanage.
Matthew was quiet and calm all through the evening. Meeting the other children, finding his bed, exploring the space, the boy was far more collected than Maggie had expected him to be. A tiny soldier, a fighter, like his father.
It was during her nightly rounds that Maggie heard it.
Pausing by the 8-to-12 year-old hall on her way back from the baby room, she heard a soft, choked sob. Stifled, as though someone was pressing their face into a pillow. A single sob—then another—then another—
And then they dissolved into a muffled wail that their pillow did almost nothing to hide.
It was Matthew, Maggie was sure of it. She’d barely heard him string two words together, didn’t know his voice yet—but who else had so much cause to weep?
She walked down the hall to his room, then pressed her hand against the door, hesitating. Later he’d share a room with one of the other boys; for this first night, though, he had the room to himself. It gave the new children some time to acclimate; better for them, or so the policy claimed. Listening to him now, though, Maggie disagreed. She’d never heard a sound more lonely.
Pressing her palm against her cross necklace, she uttered a silent prayer and pushed open the door.
Matthew sat bolt upright at the sound, frozen like an animal who’d spotted a hunter. “Who—who’s—”
“It’s Sister Maggie.” She softened her voice as much as she could. Maggie was the disciplinarian in this place; the no-nonsense, steely woman without sentiment. The tough-love nun, as it were. But that wasn’t what Matthew needed tonight. “I’m just checking in.”
She flicked on the light switch and studied the boy’s face. Tear tracks cut through his cheeks, and his complexion was red and blotchy. His eyes were red, wide, gazing sightlessly somewhere past her shoulder.
He had her eyes, she realized with a jolt.
Matthew hastily wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m okay.”
“Hmm.” Maggie perched on the edge of his bed. “Allergies?”
“Yeah,” he said, grasping onto it like a life preserver. “Really bad. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. Matthew felt around on the mattress for a moment before locating the corner of his blanket, which he pulled up to his chin.
Maggie watched him for a while in silence. He was stiff, motionless, though she could see in the minute movements of his face that he was trying to gather himself together. It reminded her of Jack, the way he’d be after a bad match, pretending that his ribs weren’t broken.
“You know,” she said eventually, “most kids struggle their first few weeks here.”
He sniffed but didn’t answer.
“A new place, new people, new sounds and smells…” She set a hand on Matthew’s knee. “It’s natural to miss the way things used to be. Natural to miss your family.”
A fresh surge of tears welled in Matthew’s eyes, and he hastily wiped them away. “I said I’m okay.”
“I know you are. You’re very brave,” Maggie said. She lifted her hand a little higher, brushing the boy’s bangs out of his eyes. “But you know, you don’t always have to be brave.”
He sucked in a shuddering little breath.
“It’s okay to be sad, Matthew. It’s okay to be afraid.” She left her hand against his face for a moment, brushing away a tear, then dropped it down to the mattress. “That’s why I’m here. The Lord called me to… to feel it with you. Mourn with those that mourn.”
“Is that a scripture?” Matthew asked.
“Somewhere in Romans, I think.” She studied his exhausted, worn little face. “Are you having trouble sleeping? Because we have medicine for that. We don’t want to overuse it, but these first few nights—”
“Nightmares,” Matthew mumbled.
Maggie fell silent again. She didn’t have to ask what his nightmares were about. According to the police, Matthew had found the crime scene last night, had pushed past the cops and held Jack’s broken, bloody face in his tiny hands.
She wondered how long it had taken him to wash his father’s blood away.
“I understand,” she said quietly, standing up. “Let me get you a sleeping pill.”
She turned toward the door, but before she could take a step, Matthew reached out and caught her arm—so quickly, so easily, she forgot for a moment that he was blind. “Don’t—don’t leave!”
“Matthew?”
“Please—just—” He let go of her, then wrapped his arms around his knees, curling into a ball. “Stay with me.”
Maggie swallowed hard, staring down at this strange, lonely child. Finally she pulled the desk chair closer to his bed, setting it right beside the headboard. She sat and guided Matthew back down, laying his head against the pillow. “I’ll stay as long as you need.”
“Just for a little while,” Matthew said. He didn’t close his eyes, but gazed sightlessly at the ceiling. “Just tonight.”
“Anything you need,” Maggie said. Matthew’s hand was upturned above the blanket, looking so empty, so searching. She hesitated, then picked it up in both of hers. “I’m here.”
She stroked her thumb along the back of his hand, keeping his fingers caught in hers, until his watery eyes finally closed and sleep passed like a dark shroud over his tear-stained face.
#####
Flashing red and blue lights lit up the broken fragments of the church walls, casting flickering shadows over the rubble. Father Cathal bent down to pick up a broken piece of a statue—what looked to be the left side of the Virgin Mary’s face. He looked into her eye for a moment, then gently set it back down.
The cops seemed largely uninterested in what had happened, not even blocking him from entering the crime scene. “Gas leak,” they’d announced; now they were loitering around the edges of the church, lazily kicking at the rubble, barely even watching as the firefighters put out the remnants of the fire.
They’d hardly even looked over Maggie’s body before calling in the coroner to take her away.
Father Cathal watched the coroner’s car disappear into the darkened streets, until the red taillights turned down a new road and blinked into darkness.
Nausea surged through him. He felt as though he were on a ship, lurching and tossing as wave after monstrous wave lashed against the hull. Maggie—his friend, his colleague, his sister in Christ—dead. Unthinkable. Incomprehensible. He’d gotten the rest of the church evacuated before the blast, thanks to Karen Page’s directions; the children were saved from the hostage crisis, and being taken in by the mosque down the street. But these victories were cold and gray as he thought of Maggie’s body being zipped into a black bag.
He glanced over at the cops still at the front of the church. Neither of them were looking back at him, absorbed in a conversation with each other. None of the police had done more than a cursory interview with him, and the militia weren’t on the scene at all.
Maggie had told him a little about Fisk, and Matt Murdock had kept him somewhat up to date on the danger. But seeing it with his own eyes—in the rubble of his home—
He turned his back on the police. He would go to the rectory and see if any of his belongings had survived, and then leave. He’d already made arrangements to stay with Father Jordan at St. Patrick’s.
Taking his first careful steps over a fallen brick wall, he caught sight of the confessional—singed black, partially obscured by a fallen beam. As he watched, the door swung shut.
Frowning, he carefully picked his way over the ruins and peered in through the latticed screen. A dark, shadowy silhouette was just visible from the floodlights the cops had put up.
Father Cathal was fairly certain he knew who was in there.
Crossing himself, he opened his side of the confessional and stepped inside. Then he peered out through the lattice, making sure the cops weren’t looking in this direction.
“Are you hurt?” he eventually asked, looking over at his parishioner.
The figure in the next booth was silent.
“You saved the children,” he continued. “God bless you. I can never thank you enough for that.”
The parishioner took a long, deep breath. Father Cathal leaned closer, straining his ears to listen. The man’s breath was unsteady, as though he was struggling to lift some great weight.
“Matthew.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Matt said finally.
Father Cathal bowed his head and took a deep breath. “I know that you’re hurting right now—”
“I’m going to kill Wilson Fisk.”
The walls, the seat, the tiny patterned holes in the screen were all coated with plaster dust. The smell of ash and charcoal was overwhelming, clouding out Father Cathal’s thoughts. He swallowed hard. “Matthew, it’s natural to be angry. But revenge is not the Lord’s way.”
Matt was silent.
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world—well—blind.” He winced, slightly embarrassed at the phrase, but pressed on. “We must follow in His footsteps, walk where He walked. We must trust in His justice, not ours.”
Still, Matt was silent.
“Sister Maggie is at peace,” Father Cathal said, desperately. “She is perfected in the Lord. He carries her in His mighty arms, as He carries us all. And we… we…”
He sighed, leaning back against the wood. What was there to say? What reason did Matt have to listen to him at all? Deflated, he peered back through the screen.
The shadowy figure in the next booth was gone.
Father Cathal stood up and gently opened his door, squinting at the ruins of the church. The police were still milling around the entrance, firefighters were still shifting rubble, and the flashing red and blue lights of the cop cars cut through the darkness.
But the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had finally abandoned his church.
Father Cathal looked up through the broken roof to the starless sky. He crossed himself, and he prayed.
#####
J. Jonah Jameson managed to make it two whole blocks before he vomited.
Straightening, wiping his moustache and mouth, he kicked a stray newspaper over his mess, then leaned against the brick wall of the alley and tried to catch his breath.
Fisk was not who he pretended to be. And if Jameson was honest with himself, he’d known that for a while now. But to blow up a church—to murder a nun—
He held his camera in his shaking hands, half-tempted to throw it away and pretend he’d seen nothing. It would be easy enough to return to Fisk’s office, make some excuse as to why he’d sent someone else to the hostage crisis.
But Fisk was smart. He’d know Jameson was lying. He’d investigate, set people to tail him, track down exactly where Jameson had been and when. And if—no, when—he found out that Jameson had followed him, when he learned what Jameson had seen…
The walk back to his apartment was longer than it had ever been. The militia patrolling the streets seemed doubled in number, and the two or three tanks he passed looked like moored warships. He kept his camera tucked into his coat, and glanced back over his shoulder as he walked.
Fisk was a mobster—that’s what Marci Stahl kept saying. And the rumor mill too; that had been going around for years. Jameson was a journalist, after all. He’d done his research, he knew the allegations from back before the blip. But they were easy enough to ignore when there were other menaces around, like Spider-man and Daredevil. And when the money was this good… Fisk’s mobster past had seemed like a crazy conspiracy theory.
Jameson made it back to his apartment, looked over each shoulder, then slipped inside and closed the door. He locked the deadbolt, and then the chain. He double-checked the locks. Then, indecisive, he walked to his bedroom and set the camera inside of his safe. Double-checked that lock, too.
If Fisk got away with it, one way or another Jameson would make it onto his shit list. He knew too much. Eventually he’d be wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of the Hudson. And on the other hand, if everything came out—if Stahl won the election, and Fisk was tried for his crimes—
Would New York find Jameson complicit?
He walked back out to his kitchen and rummaged around in a drawer for his box of cigars. He’d been trying to cut back lately—lung cancer, and all that—but he did feel that he’d earned this one. He slipped one out of the box and put it up to his lips. Tried to flick the lighter, but couldn’t—he was trembling too hard. Tried again. Lit the cigar. And, shaking, took a long, steadying drag.
He needed protection, that was the first thing: physical and legal. Maybe he could work out a deal; submit the video as evidence, then testify against Fisk in exchange for clemency. And maybe the police could protect him in the meantime, keep him squirreled away somewhere that Fisk’s men would never find him—
Jameson’s hands went cold. The police were Fisk’s men.
He needed someone who worked against Fisk. Someone with integrity, if such a thing existed in this city. Someone who might be willing to help Jameson, if he could offer them the smoking gun he had hidden away in his safe.
He took one last drag from his cigar, then crushed it out in his ashtray and leaned against his counter, burying his face in his hands.
J. Jonah Jameson needed a lawyer.