CHAPTER 15: TRAINING DAYS
Three weeks blurred together in sweat and bruises.
Fogwell's Gym became my second home. Tuesdays and Thursdays at eight, plus Saturday mornings when Matt had time. The schedule was brutal—work during the day, training at night, then home to collapse into bed and do it all over again.
My body was changing.
Not dramatically. Not obviously. But the soreness that had crippled me after my first session became manageable. The stance that had felt alien began to feel natural. When I threw a punch, my hips turned with it instead of fighting against it.
"Better," Matt said, circling me as I worked the heavy bag. "Your form is cleaner. But you're still telegraphing."
"What do you mean?"
"Before you throw, your shoulder tenses. Your weight shifts. Anyone with training can read it." He moved behind the bag, holding it steady. "Again. Don't think about the punch. Just throw."
I threw.
"Better. Again."
Punch after punch. Matt's corrections came rapid-fire—drop your elbow, rotate your hip, keep your chin tucked, don't hold your breath. Every session revealed new flaws in my technique, new habits I didn't know I had.
"You're not a wall," he said for the twentieth time. "Stop taking hits. Move."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
The progress was real but frustrating.
After three weeks, I could throw a proper punch. I could maintain my guard. I could move around an opponent without tripping over my own feet.
But I still couldn't land a hit on Matt.
"Half speed," he said, dropping into a stance. "Standard sparring rules. No takedowns. No submissions. Just striking."
I nodded, raising my hands.
Matt came at me like water—fluid, effortless, impossible to predict. His punches weren't fast, weren't hard. Just perfectly placed, slipping past my guard again and again. I'd see an opening, throw, and he'd already be somewhere else.
"You're thinking too much." He circled left. I pivoted to follow. "Combat isn't chess. You don't have time to plan three moves ahead."
"Then what is it?"
"Instinct. Reaction. Pattern recognition." He feinted right; I fell for it. His palm tapped my ribs—gentle, but the message was clear. "Your body needs to learn responses before your brain gets involved."
"How long does that take?"
"Years." Another feint, another tap. "If you're lucky."
I didn't have years. I had whatever time remained before Fisk noticed Karen's investigation. Before the Russian war spilled over. Before someone else sent thugs to my apartment.
But I couldn't tell Matt that. Couldn't explain the urgency without revealing things I couldn't reveal.
So I kept training. Kept failing. Kept getting back up.
It was all I could do.
Saturday afternoon, three weeks in.
The gym was empty except for us. Sunlight filtered through grimy windows, catching dust motes in the air. I sat on a bench, dripping sweat onto already-stained floorboards while Matt handed me a water bottle.
"You're getting better," he said. "Slowly."
I laughed despite myself. "High praise."
"It is." He sat beside me, close enough that I could feel heat radiating off him. "Most people quit after the first week. The training is tedious. Painful. Humbling. You've stuck with it."
"I don't have much choice."
"Everyone has a choice." His head tilted—that listening pose I'd learned to recognize. "Why Hell's Kitchen, Roy? You could live anywhere. Invest anywhere. But you chose here."
The question I'd been waiting for. The one that didn't have a safe answer.
"When I was growing up, I watched this neighborhood decline." A lie wrapped around truth—I'd watched it on screen, not in person, but the emotion was real. "Good people being squeezed out. Crime moving in. Nobody doing anything about it."
"And you thought money could fix it?"
"I thought money could help. Training could help. Being present could help." I stared at my bruised knuckles. "I don't know how to fight crime. Don't know how to be a vigilante or a hero or whatever. But I know how to write checks. How to support people who are doing the actual work."
Matt was quiet for a long moment.
"There's a man," he said finally. "Someone operating in Hell's Kitchen at night. You've probably seen the news reports."
My heart rate spiked. I forced it back down. "The masked vigilante. The 'Devil.'"
"Some people think he's a criminal. A psychopath. A menace." Matt's voice was carefully neutral. "Others think he's doing what the police can't. Taking on the criminals who slip through the cracks."
"What do you think?"
"I think..." He paused. "I think there are different ways to fight for a neighborhood. Not all of them legal. Not all of them clean. But sometimes, when the system fails, people have to step outside it."
The irony wasn't lost on me. Matt Murdock, sitting in his father's gym, talking about vigilante justice while wearing the same body that spent nights beating criminals bloody.
"That sounds like you speak from experience."
"Maybe." He stood, stretching muscles that probably ached as much as mine. "Come back Thursday. We'll work on your footwork."
"Matt." The word came out before I could stop it.
He paused.
"Thanks. For this. For teaching me." I gestured at the gym, the equipment, the weeks of training. "I know I'm not exactly natural talent."
"No," Matt agreed. "You're not."
"Then why bother? You could have said no when Claire connected us. You could have given up after the first session."
Silence stretched between us. When Matt spoke again, his voice was softer.
"Because I know what it's like to feel helpless. To watch the people around you suffer and not be able to do anything about it." He turned toward the door. "You want to protect Hell's Kitchen. That matters more than talent."
He left without another word.
I sat in the empty gym, breathing in decades of sweat and history, and thought about the man who'd just walked out.
Matt Murdock. Lawyer by day. Vigilante by night. A man who'd chosen to stand against the darkness, no matter the cost.
I wasn't like him. Didn't have his skills, his training, his years of preparation.
But I had resources. Connections. A growing understanding of my own strange abilities.
Maybe that was enough. Maybe it had to be.
Thursday evening, I arrived at Fogwell's early.
Matt was already there, working through forms on the center mat. His movements were beautiful—precise, flowing, the kind of skill that came from decades of practice. I watched from the doorway, not wanting to interrupt.
"You're early," he said without turning.
"Wanted to get extra practice."
"Good." He finished his sequence and faced me. "Tonight we work on not telegraphing your strikes. And Roy?"
"Yeah?"
"You're getting better. Slowly." A pause. "Come back Saturday. We'll work on your defense."
Something warm spread through my chest. Not pride exactly—I was still objectively terrible. But acceptance. Recognition.
Matt Murdock was starting to see me as something other than an obligation.
It was a start.
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