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Smart Money on the Skinny Bitch

Summary:

Matt and Elektra open up ringside. All it takes is a little mescal and childhood angst.

(Or, the AU where they're ordinary boxers trying to make a go of it. Featuring Filipino!Matt.)

Notes:

I'm kind of picturing that this is the AU where instead of recruiting kids for Super Secret Ninja Organizations Stick is just a boxing coach? IDK where this stands as far as canon goes.

Elektra has a less wealthy background here, and has an American nationality.

Filipino Daredevil is a very important concept I have a lot of feelings on that I might dish out more if it wasn't 2 AM.

Title shamelessly ripped off from a Sense8 episode.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

"Mateo Miguel Muñoz?" Elektra takes a long swig from the bottle of Del Maguey she's dug up from the bottom of her gym bag. "That's a hell of a lot of "m" for one man."

"You should have heard my old man. After my mom-" long pause, choking gesture that Elektra files away- "after that, he wanted to move back and raise me around family. I dodged a bullet on that one, almost became Mateo Miguel Muñoz, the Manileño." He wrests the bottle from her hands. "Who drinks mescal."

He takes a longer sip than he's ready for. The alcohol tastes like liquid smoke and burns his throat. He comes up sputtering and hacking, filled with the distinct sensation of choking on a campfire.

Next to him, Elektra smirks, and while he can't see it- his radar has never been good enough to provide detail like that, only the instinctive outlines of shapes, bodies- he can hear the soft hiss from her teeth. One of the many details that makes up Elektra Natchios, from the smell of Mexican liquor and those cheap potted orchids from Garden Exchange to the raised embroidered letters of the hoodie she wears between matches: K-H-M-E-R-I-C-A-N.

And that constant amused hiss, as if the world is a stage created solely to entertain her.

"You stayed?"

"Yeah, after the accident. There are a lot more braille books in English than Tagalog."

- oOo-

She leans back and exhales, longer, louder, almost forlorn in a way that he knows she tries to hid behind her walls of ice and fire. He doesn't know what she comes from or who she was before Stick took her under his wing, but there's some kind of symmetry to their pasts. ("You get me?" she'd asked when they first met, before they even knew each other's names and yeah, Matt kinda did.)

"Now you're just a boxer from Hell's kitchen with a death wish, an inhuman pain tolerance, and a ridiculous number of Pinoy Pride jerseys."

"You can blame Foggy for that one."

She gives him a long, appraising look. He's cut at different angles than most of the pretty boys and girls that Elektra fools around with, but damn if it isn't a nice view. The boxer thing is doing him all sorts of favors, and she notes the Filipino sun and stars on his shorts, wonders if he explicitly picked it out or if its something Foggy bought him as well.

She fixes the wraps on her knuckles and pulls herself up, dragging Mateo with her back to the center of the ring.

"You're that, and the dumb arse who thought he could beat me at my own game."

"We've barely stopped." But he's smiling, testing the floor, because she knows he likes this game as much as he does.

"We've barely started. Ready for Round Two, Mateo?'

Notes:

Thanks for reading! I'm really feelin these two right now so leave prompts in the comments or on my tumblr at @tsarinazoya