( matt doesn't stop her from taking his hands and pulling them into her lap. he turns his hands a bit to get his fingers around hers. he looks away for a moment, not because he's emotional but he doesn't know exactly where to start when it comes to his father. )

He was a boxer. No one hugely famous or that you might have heard of but he did good for himself. They called him Battlin' Jack Murdock and he was exactly that: a fighter. He didn't always make the best decisions —

( but matt knows why he'd made some of the choices he did. he sighs. )

But the things he did, he did for me. So I'd have a better future than he did. He made me study all the time because he wanted me to not struggle and he did things that I didn't always like because it meant I'd have some money for the future. He was...good. He was good.