Hello lovely! I’m relatively new (I’ve actually lurked for almost a year but that’s okay) I’m not sure if this was ever discussed but I’m curious if Matt and Ciro will ever accept each other or at least see eye to eye when it comes to Jane and, yknow, stop threatening one another. I just want dad and (future) husband to get along.

It is absolutely fine to lurk, and thank you for coming to say hi!

I can say that while they'll always be kinda snarky at one another, they will come to accept each other, yes! Their clashes are particularly bad rn because they're two cats who haven't been properly introduced jane you're supposed to let them eat on either side of a door so they can exchange smells and then wave a feather toy for shared enrichment still working out how their two pieces can fit together. Ciro's obviously always gonna have the murder-y bit and Matt is going to have the 'I put people like you in jail' bit but as they take time, they'll start to find all the ways they get along like coffee, and loving Jane, and silk sheets, and capability for sarcastic comments, and various forms of violence, and good food, and mini matt, and the fact that matt is a feral catholic dumpster diving ninja disaster orphan child and Ciro has a tendency to adopt those.

They just gotta get there first. And they will! Mostly because everyone is going to get character growth in this fic, and that includes Ciro.

I’ve been rereading TRT and I was wondering, what were the colors of Matts and Readers threads throughout the timeline? Like, did it first start out green? or were they always on the yellow/orange/red scale once they got to know each other? Also, I can’t remember exactly but in the beginning reader mentions a few times that Matt reacts when she opens her threads. Why was that? Does it have something to do with his sense? Obviously in later chapters he can actually experience the thread world with her so is that what’s happening there?

Also thanks for the pain with that one shot!!! I cried! I have to know, does reader stick around to try and build up a new relationship with Matt or is she gonna go with her gut and flee?

Oooooh, good questions! Ok I can answer some of these!

Matt/Reader's thread timeline: so something I haven't ever had the chance to truly touch on (and probably won't, so it's fine to talk about), is Matt almost always forms a little green thread with people he saves, even if they don't interact with him. Sometimes those threads go away over time, sometimes they get bigger, sometimes they become yellow (say, if someone realizes it's the Devil that saved them and starts worrying about him). So it did start out a little green thread, and that was all from Matt's end, and pretty quick after talking to this strange, wooden-duck carrying, snarky, knife-carrying woman on the roof, cause he just kinda liked you and wanted to keep you safe while you were doing Whatever It Is you're doing. HOWEVER - as we saw over the course of that first night, the Devil is... really, really fucking likeable. He protects you more than once, he helps save James and gets him help, and there's the realization that he has abilities too, so he understands. By the end of that first night there was indeed, a tiny yellow thread, glimmering and pale and very, very fragile, but it was definitely there. It's partially a play on the red thread soulmate trope, the idea that you and him are so damned compatible that you just kind of naturally bond with each other, you click. (Matt even had a moment of, 'oh no' that first night, a vague awareness that he could get... really tangled up in this if he let himself and if you were open to it).

Matt reacting when Reader opens threads: UUUUUUH, hm, ok, so we're going to start getting into this in TRT now that Reader's going to explore poking around Foggy's thread, so some of this I can't answer just yet, BUT... I will say Matt picking up Reader's third eye opening and her messing with threads does in fact have something to do with his heightened senses. <3

I cried writing the one-shot if it makes you feel any better. That was some grade-A angst. 😂 So what I see happening - Reader sticks around for a time, mostly because Ciro tells her to these people know so much about her and she needs to do damage control, in her mind. She has to figure out what they know, how much information they have about her (a LOT as it turns out). Matt just kind of... isolates, he's absolute broken by the loss, grieving this person who is and isn't gone. Eventually, she decides to leave, because she's essentially back to, 'red threads are bad, and I made a mistake before'. She gives back Matt's key, his shirts. Packs up her stuff, gets ready to leave with Ciro. Who... tells her to investigate the thread, just once, before she leaves. And what she finds... is a half-empty riverbed, full of stones and memories - not her memories... but Matt's, of her. She finds 8 months of memories with her, of love and affection and trust, and she sees she truly did love him, and that he loves her. And pieces of it start to come back. Not all of it. But enough. Enough to remember how she felt. Cue heartbreaking (cause Matt is Not Doing Well) and romantic reunion. Some of those memories never come back, not really. But that's alright, because Matt remembers. And that's good enough to build on. <3