( His face remains largely impassive while she flips her shit at him; neither judgmental nor angered nor dismissive. Just stoic, stone-faced, and still. She can get as much of that out as she wants to, and yeah, he doesn't disagree with her in the slightest. Straight white asshole men never have to worry about the cops like other people do, and they're the last people to ever face the consequences for their actions — if they ever do. Don't think he's not wholly aware of that, and that it isn't a motivating factor for why he puts a bullet in so many of them. The Kitchen Irish, the Dogs of Hell, the vast majority of Fisk's men, entire segments of crooked cops and feds, a disproportionate amount have something glaringly obvious in common. The system's doing a lot more work with other demographics, and it sure is some absolute bullshit.

He gets the desire for optimism. The beautiful want for a better place, but — )

It's not. It's worse. And this isn't me trying to piss on your parade, kid, this is me trying to keep you alive. You realize if that asshole turned the knife forty-five degrees and stabbed instead of swiped, you'd be dead right now? You want that? You wanna die? Because it's a hell of a lot easier than you think, and that's what's gonna happen if you decide being naive's more comfortable than being real. There's no room for wishful thinking in this place, you need to swallow that pill now.

( If he has to be the cold bucket of ice water that acts as her wake-up call, so be it. He can live with somebody hating him for that. He can live with that shit all day long. )