Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Life in the Murdock household had never been easy, nor had it ever been simple to boot. But somehow, it was perfect. At least, to you. It may have been that you were too young to really remember how things were, how everything was difficult.

To you, all that mattered, all that filtered through was that your dad loved you. That was undeniable. You remember his calloused, bruised hands, and how gentle he always was when he picked you up, or when you would crawl into his lap and lean against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. You remember his face always dotted with multi-colored bruises, and crisscrossed with medical tape and tiny band-aids. And he’d smile at you with a soft glow in his eyes, regardless of the injuries, more like he did it because of the injuries.

Looking back, you can see that he fought for one thing. And that one thing was you and Matt. He stepped into that ring so that he could provide for you both. He wasn’t a smart man, he wasn’t fueled by ingenuity. He could just take a beating. Had the toughest skin, except when it came to you two; he was just a big ‘ol softie then.

So, he took a beating for you both, and brought home the dough. It was a hard life, a lot of scraping the bottom of the barrel, and a lot of not getting what you wanted. But you loved him so much it overshadowed the poverty and adversity none of you could climb out of.

But it didn’t matter. You had your dad that put the stars in the sky and you had your brother who helped keep them there. He always did that.

Kept things for you. Made them last any way he could. The grandeur of Jack Murdock, he spun that and twisted it, and wrung it out, dried it in the sun and kept it going. He loved to read to you, back then. Before it happened.

He’d started out reading simple things to you, something with pictures and small words and big print. But you’d never really get into the story, it lacked in every way and you’d half-pay attention. Matt noticed, because Matt noticed everything. Especially about you.

So, he’d read you different things, books without pictures so you’d have to close your eyes and listen to his voice, let the words from the page dance behind your dark eyelids, and you’d have his voice in one ear and his heartbeat in your other. And you’d fall asleep, dreaming of bigger, fancier things, and deeper struggles.

Matt never wanted to let you down. He was your big brother, the second line of defense, right behind his dad, who was right in front of the world and everything evil in it. Matt was just a kid, but he was ready and willing and happy to look out for you. He was proud, honored to.

Your eyes shone with the stars your dad put in the night sky, and he spent his days and nights revolving around you, keeping them there that you might always having something to look up to. That you’d always find something beautiful within the dark.

He was ready to protect you, guard you. He was honored to.

And then he went blind. And he could no longer see the stars in your eyes, all he saw was the dark. But dammit- he still spun around you, sporadic, and off-balance, and so damn scared- but he spun and spun, and spun, doing what he could to light up your world.

It didn’t matter that his whole world had gone dark. It had never been about him. He wasn’t worried about the stars in his sky, suns could’ve exploded and he’d never notice. Because his world was about you, and anything that happened in the background, in his peripherals, didn’t mean squat.

He couldn’t read to you, not like he had. But you didn’t seem to mind. You’d sit next to him while he learned braille and you’d not say a peep. You’d just sit and watch him run his fingers over the bumps and smile when he’d stumble, a deep frown in his eyebrows.

Sometimes, you’d run your fingers over the bumps too, blinking curiously, and Matt would put his hands in his lap and listen to you breathe. He’s almost sure to this day that you learned braille before he did, because you’d ask him to read you the ‘bumps’ and he would. And he’d stop after a second, feeling something was off with the sentence, and you’d take his hand and you’d run his fingers over the braille, once or twice, slowly. And then he’d fix his mistake and you’d lift his hands to your face so he could feel your smile.

The sensory overloads didn’t happen a lot, but when they did, only you cut through the delirium and chaos. You were like light that he could hear. You were what he fashioned his life around, any direction he took was only because he had you in mind when he took it.

Sometimes, when he’s laying in bed and can’t close everything out, when his senses won’t shut down and he’s on the verge of a panic attack, he thinks of you. He thinks of your heartbeat, and your presence beside him that was a constant, and he imagines your breathing, and emerges through the fog, barely resisting the urge to grope for you in his darkness.

He hasn’t spoken to you in a long time.

Which is why he can’t find anything to say at the moment.

He knows you’re there, he can hear your heartbeat- your heartbeat. And he’s excited, but guilty, and he’s scared, but so relieved, and he’s…he’s just a mess. Because he doesn’t know how he’s done this without you.

He’s been standing here for two minutes. He knows it’s been that long because he’s counted and he’s mentally berating himself for not saying anything. Your heartbeat is steady, and it’s strong. It’s so strong, he thinks, he admires.

But you’ve always been strong.

“Matty.” You say, a crease in your forehead because he’s been stiff for a long time and silent. He hasn’t moved, not an inch from where he is at the end of his kitchen counter, gripping it hard like a vice.

He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He frowns limply with trembling lips and swipes a nervous tongue over them. Your voice. It’s so different now. You sound certain, and unbendable, and you sound like you don’t need him anymore.

You sound like there aren’t stars in your sky.

You’re worried. He can tell.

“I’m sorry.” Is what he croaks out. Not It’s good to see you, or I’ve missed you like Hell, or How was spring break? No Please plop your ass down on my couch and tell me everything.

No. He’s just sorry.

You smile at him, your expression soft, your heart more-so. “I know.” You tell him, and you do know. You know Matt only does what’s best for you, has since you were born. Sure, this time around it wasn’t anything you wanted, and it hurt, it hurt so bad.

But…

Seeing him there, in his suit and tie, his slightly rumpled shirt and well-loved dress slacks, those red-tinted glasses reflecting the light of the billboard outside-

You decide the pain was worth it.

You shrug out of your jacket, and toss it on the back of a chair. “But you were right. You bastard.”

Matt’s lips twitch with a smile, miserably short of it, but the intent is there. “I wish I hadn’t been.” He lets go of the counter, and his fingers tingle with pin-prinks and needles, but he doesn’t so much as wince. Not when you’re here.

Everything thing else fades to background noise, everything that isn’t you disappears because he’s too busy spinning around you.

“No,” You smile wanly and walk towards him, your breath and chest feeling lighter the closer you get. “You just wish you could’ve gone with me.”

He sucks in a breath. Because nothing could be truer. Wherever you go, that’s where he wants to be, but- “You don’t need me. Not anymore, not really.” He’s not whining, or playing the martyr, or looking for sympathy. He’s only stating what he knows to be true.

You’re in front of him now, he can sense your proximity, smell your shampoo and body wash, the perfume on your wrists. He can feel your body heat, and he can barely hear the words coming out of his mouth because your heart is so close.

“You needed to live your own life. Without me-“

“It sucked out loud.” You interrupt him, softly, and tilt your head up to peer into those wine-colored glasses.

He sighs through his nose, and you know he only does that when he’s trying not to laugh. God, he’s missed you. Only you could make him want to laugh when he’s on the edge of shedding tears.

“Matt,” You place a hand on his arm, and he shudders like he’s cold, so you tighten your grip and reinforce your heart. “I could’ve gone anywhere, I can go anywhere…” He swallows hard in response, and you take half a step, your nose inches from his chin, and you murmur,

“But I don’t want to. Not if you’re right here.”

The view is the same, but he closes his eyes at your words because they’re music and his eyes are useless for listening. He closes his eyes because the silence between your words snakes into the space where your bodies almost touch, and his eyes are useless for that. He closes his eyes, because behind his darkened lids he can pretend it’s all a dream, a lie.

“I let you down.” The words tumble out of him like sin-stained confession, and to him it is. A sin that he’s failed you. He can put anything under the rug like it’s troublesome dust, save this: He failed you.

“No.” You say, your voice breaking ever so slightly in teary disbelief, and you rest both your hands on his stubbly cheeks. “You never did, not once.” He sighs, shaken, and you lean forward to rest your temple against his jaw as you say,

“How can you not get it? After all these years?”

Matt’s hands find their way to your lower back, his calloused, but gentle hands that tremble minutely at your warmth and human softness. “Get what?” he asks, near the end of his rope.

“I wasn’t looking for stars, Matt. I was only ever looking at you.”

Chapter Text

He hasn’t moved. Not once all morning. He doesn’t plan on it anytime soon, either.

He hums, nosing at your neck, half-listening to read you aloud. He’s more occupied with the warmth you radiate, the way you settle into him, mold to his shape, and the way you subconsciously rub the wrist of the hand he has resting on your thigh.

He snakes an arm around the front of your stomach, pulling you closer and he buries his face a little deeper into the crook of your neck. It’s dangerous: getting this close. He could burn up, but he’s too weak to resist the gravitational pull you have on him.

Matt’s prepared to burn.

“Have you listened to anything I’ve said?” You ask him, a smile in your voice, and he sighs against your neck, content. You have a finger on the page, saving your spot, but you’re not looking at the words. You’ve made the mistake of taking your attention off the book, and putting it on Matt.

He’s wrapped up in you like a warm blanket, holding you in the right places, feeling comfy, feeling like an extension of yourself. He feels like safety and home, and you revel in it. After all, you haven’t known what real home felt like. Not since before your dad died.

Wherever you were, even if you were with Matt you never quite felt safe, you never felt that you could be with Matt the way you are now. There was always so much noise, and so many people, there was so much worry back in those days at the orphanage.

You were always worried that you two would get separated. Matt may have been the blind one, but you needed him the most. To you, there wasn’t any point in living if you weren’t with Matt. Every second of every day you spent with him, either in his room, or in the library where it was quietest.

He had his cane, but you always had his arm. Maybe he didn’t need your help back then but he always took it. But he’d take your hand, smaller than his own, and he’d hold it so tight.

Like now.

Your hand is still smaller, but it fits in his perfectly.

Matt hums again. “Yeah, I’ve been listening.” His thumb runs over your knuckles, back and forth, and he lifts his head to lay his temple against yours. “I’m always listening.”

“Hmm,” you respond, not minding the scratch of his stubbled cheek on your own. You close the book, without marking your page and pull away from his embrace just long enough to put it on the floor. When you sit up again, Matt resituates the both of you, moving you so easy you have to wonder what he’s been doing in his free time.

Has he always been this strong, you think.

Matt leans back into the corner of his couch, his body angled with corner itself, and he gets you how he wants you: half in his lap, half on the couch so he can keep an arm around you. So he can trace the features of your face with his other hand, softly, reverently.

He used to do this all the time when you were kids growing up. He was worried that he’d forget what you like. And now that it’s been so long since he’s seen you…He’s trying to make up for lost time.

Your brow. He starts there, mapping the distance with feathery fingertips, he traces your eyebrows slowly, rolling down to caress your temples. He curves along your cheekbones with his thumb, memorizing the softness of your cheeks and how they give rise to the bridge of your nose. Just one finger runs down the length of it.

You sigh in the back of your throat, cherishing the time he’s taking into this, getting to know you again. How gently, how slowly, carefully, how he seems almost worshipful about it. You’ve missed him, you’ve missed the moments like this where it’s just the two of you in your own little world. You’ve missed his touches.

They’re like a secret code of their own, it’s like he’s telling you something but in a way only you can understand. It’s like calligraphy, and painting and making music all at once.

Your eyelids sting with happy tears, but you don’t shed them. Not now, not when he’s giving you his whole undivided attention.

He taps the end of your nose playfully, and you blink at him in surprise, the thoughtful smile on his lips. You’ve never been able to hide anything from him, which is a blessing and a curse rolled up into one, right now you’re grateful. Grateful that- even though blind -he can see you.

Matt tilts his head, looking contemplative as he finishes his appreciation of you, his fingers coasting along your jaw, stopping to cup your chin. For a while, he’s stuck, holding your chin in a barely-there grasp as he ‘looks’ down at you, your own reflection staring back at you in his rosy glasses.

Maybe- you muse at your expression -he’s not the only one being worshipful.

And then his thumb traces your plump lips, softly, because the pads of his fingers are rough, and he doesn’t want to cause any discomfort. Your lips are smooth, warm, pliant, and he memorizes them the first time over, but it doesn’t stop him from indulging a few more times.

This is confession. Right here, with you in his arms, and his heart in your hands and his name on your lips.

His thumb drags down your lips, catching on your bottom one, and he hears your heart stutter. He’s foolish, zealous enough to believe it beats for him, he believes the sound it makes is his name. He leans down, his forehead pressed to yours, his hand curled adoringly around the side of your neck.

Your own hands lay on his chest, his heart beating firmly under your palms like Morse code. If only you knew what it was saying. Your fingers curl into the soft material of the jacket he’s wearing.

“Perfect.” Matthew murmurs with the cadence, and softness, the respect of one saying prayer. “You’re perfect.” This time it’s louder, stronger. It’s a proclamation dripping with honesty and adoration and who are you to crack those rose-tinted glasses?

You grin, “Compared to who?”

Matt knows you’re teasing. It’s the way you are, you’ve never been able to accept a compliment at face value. You like giving them to people, making others smile and feel worthy. But you have a harder time on the flip-side of that coin. And Matt can’t imagine why.

You’re worthy, you’re amazing, and deserve the best in the world. Unfortunately, you can only get the best that he can provide. Not nearly close enough.

“No one. No one can hold a candle to you.” He tells you seriously, but his voice is low, melodious.

Your smile twitches sad. “That isn’t true,” He opens his mouth to protest, so you reach up to cup his jaw, your thumb resting lightly over his lips. He understands the message, and takes it with grace. “You have no idea, Matthew.”

You close your eyes, and breathe a deep sigh, drinking in the scent of his shampoo, the detergent of his bed sheets. His breath is warm on your lips, light and sweet from the breakfast the both of you made- the breakfast you made while he held you from behind and draped his head over your shoulder.

You hum at him, the sound sweetly giddy. “No idea just how brightly the sun shines on you.”

Matt beams at you, and breaks away to wind you into a hug, pressing a kiss to your ear. “Trust me, I do.” After all, he’s spent all this time revolving around you; he knows just how brightly you shine.

Chapter Text

It’s much how you remember: crowded, loud, and claustrophobic, the air stagnant with booze and cigarette smoke, and just a hint of the city itself soaked into the walls. It’s the same loveable shit-hole it’s always been, and rather than fall apart with its age, Josie’s has merely grown into it.

There’s no such thing as a ‘usual table’ because the tables are perpetually full, and you just have to wait for one to clear out. The only one free is a table in the corner near the pool table and you had practically dragged Matt to it, worried that it would be snatched it up.

You’re supposed to be meeting Foggy here, as well as a woman named Karen, the secretary for Nelson and Murdock. Matt had told you the whole story on the walk here, and you listened intently, leaning into him, your arms interlocked.

You think it’s wonderful, what he and Foggy are doing. You know it must be difficult to find clients, and then to keep the business afloat considering the wealth of the clients they choose, but you also know Matt doesn’t care for the economics of the business. He just cares about the justice behind it.

“Do you want a chair?” you ask him, hand laying on his forearm as you look across the room at the high-tables with stools.

He smiles gratefully at your consideration but shakes his head, “I’m fine. Standing’s sort of nice after spending all day in an office chair.” He rolls his shoulders, toying with an ache there and you frown a little.

Not that he can tell. Absentmindedly, you squeeze his arm, and the smile he’s wearing warms a few degrees. But it slips when a burly man passes you, his heart beating fasting, adrenaline rising, and a very specific pheromone pouring form the man.

Matt reaches around you, and coaxes you flush against his side, his wrist on your hip because he has yet to fold up his cane. You ‘hm?’ at him in question, the sound quiet, but it’s practically right in his ear so he hears you.

He smiles tightly at you, but doesn’t say anything. Not for a minute or so, not until other men look away from you, when the bravado and testosterone dies down in the room. Not until he’s sure that everyone in the room understands that you are untouchable, that you are not up for conquest.

No, because no one in this shithole town is good enough for you. There’s no one, alive or dead, that’s good enough for you.

Matt breathes in, calming himself in the scent of your skin, your shampoo, the detergent you wash your clothes in, the-

Matt’s stomach clenches.

-the subtle undercurrent of arousal that hides underneath everything else.

He feels sick, momentarily. Has someone in the room captured your eye? No one seems to be nervous, or anxious, no one looking in your general direction. Your heartbeat belies nothing. It’s as steady as ever.

You angle your body towards him, just a few inches, but it makes it easier to place your hand over his chest, to feel his heartbeat. He’s been known to space out on occasion, when he’s overwhelmed by stimuli in an attempt to quell an oncoming panic attack, and you hope that isn’t what’s happening here.

“Matt, you okay?” you murmur, your brows creased in worry, and he swallows stiffly.

He puts his left hand over the one you have on his heart, and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He turns his head, facing you, and you suddenly feel something in the air change. You know he’s blind, but you swear he’s really looking at you.

The sensation, and the thought tugs at you wretchedly, and you drop your gaze to his hand covering your own, and you make out the callouses there. How did you miss them before?

As if he can sense where you’re looking, he drops his hand and tilts his head. “Brace yourself,” he says, and you break out of your reverie to scrunch your face at him. “Foggy just walked in, he hasn’t seen you-“

Matt stops himself, smiles, “He sees you.”

You look at the door and see Foggy beaming at you, he waves, all stiff-armed and high and you giggle, waving back at him. Foggy makes a break for you, shoving people out of the way with half-assed apologies, and you laugh heartily at his excitement.

You break away from your brother, but only because he’d be caught up in the bone-crushing hug Foggy wraps you in. He’s just shy of spinning you around in a circle when he remembers where he is, and disengages with a goofy smile.

“I knew you’d be back to Hell’s Kitchen, couldn’t stay away from me, could you?” He asks, a playful glint in his eye and you grin,

“No, I guess not. Finally came to my senses. Should have never turned down your offer to elope.”

Foggy breaks out in a full belly laugh, tossing his head with it, and throws an around your shoulders to pull you back in for another hug. “Well, now you’re gonna have to make it up to me.” He jokes, and lets you go to stand on the opposite side of the table.

Matt resumes his previous position with his arm twined around your waist to keep you removed from the crowd. “You two had plans to elope? The betrayal.” He teases with a good-natured smile.

You roll your eyes.

“She just rolled her eyes.” Foggy narrates for Matt, and Matt smiles.

Silently, he presses his cane into your side, and you take it from him to fold it up and lay it on the table. His hand lands on your hip, sure and firm, and he senses the discomfort, the niggling suspicion ooze from Foggy about the small interaction.

Sometimes he honestly forgets about the line in the sand. Forgets that he should care.

“So,” you fold your arms across the table, and it grabs Foggy’s attention, something Matt is relieved about. “You cut that glorious mane. That should be a crime.”

Foggy sighs sadly, dramatically whips his hair and laments, “It is. I don’t look half as good as I used to when I ride horses across a beach at sunset now.”

You shake your head with a smile, cocking your hip into Matt’s side just so it’s harder to see his thumb rubbing circles into your opposite hip. You had the seen the expression on Foggy’s face, the subtle question struggling against denial.

You didn’t want the question out there in the open, even though there was plenty of evidence to support it.

“It’s a shame,” you say with a sad frown, and Foggy nods.

“I’ll tell you what else is a shame-“ he stops suddenly, and dawns a guilty look. “I missed your graduation party.”

Matt stiffens like a board next to you, his hand on your hip tightening ever so slightly. And you want to glare at Foggy for saying something.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It was boring, and so quiet, and just-“ you wave your hand dismissively, showing exactly how you feel about the whole thing.

Foggy dimples a cheek mirthlessly, “Still…did you get my gift?” He perks up a little with his question, and you feel Matt’s hand squeeze your hip harder.

“Yeah,” You force a smile, wishing you could do something to alleviate Matt’s current state, but all you can do is- “It was thoughtful. Came straight from the heart, didn’t it?”

Foggy chuckles, no doubt recalling all the trouble he went through to acquire it. “You sound surprised. I’m a thoughtful guy, you know?”

You grin at him toothily, and open your mouth to banter back with him some more when Matt speaks up.

“Karen’s here.” His voice monotone, even, and when you turn your head, you find him already looking in your general direction.

Foggy turns, and spotting Karen, he waves at her much like he did you. He spins briefly to say, “Karen and I will get drinks, and then-“ he points at you, “-introductions.”

“Sounds good.” You reply, and he hurries out into the crowd to meet her. From this distance, you can’t make out much except that she has very pretty hair, and a nice figure.

Matt sighs sharply next to you, and you bring your attention back to him. “I’m sorry that I-“

“Please don’t start.” You interrupt him softly. “It’s fine-“

He grimaces at himself. “I missed everything. Jesus, I didn’t even send you a card or an e-mail…” He turns his head away, his jaw tight.

“You were busy. I knew that.” You try to soothe him, sneaking your left between the two of you to grasp his side.

He huffs, and lets go of you, dropping both his hands.

Busy.

Yeah, he was. Busy running around rooftops beating up criminals. Busy risking his life, busy lying to you.

He feels sick.

“Matthew…” you sigh at him, tracing your thumb over his hip-bone, but he doesn’t budge. He’s stewing. You bite your lip, retract your hand and sigh again.

Foggy and Karen are making their way over, beers in hand, and you want one now. Desperately. You know Matt will be closed off for a while, thinking over his failure, beating himself up for it, and you know there aren’t any ways past those walls. Not even for you.

She’s nice. This Karen. And witty, and she makes you laugh. You can see why Matt and Foggy keep her around. She’s lively, but she’s also strong-willed, with a very clear moral compass. But you can tell that her emotions get in the way, she has a lot passion below the surface.

The question of “Pool?” gets raised half-way through the night, after everyone’s had a few beers, and you jump on the opportunity.

“We’re not betting money?” You ask, half-teasing, and Foggy shakes his head adamantly,

“No way in Hell’s Kitchen…unless you’re on my side.”

Karen raises her eyebrows, leaning against the pool table. “She’s good?”

Foggy scoffs. “Good is an understatement.”

Karen smiles. “Girls vs. Guys.”

Foggy groans, and looks at Matt for help, but his blind friend just shrugs. Foggy grabs his beer and takes a long pull, earning eye-rolls from both you and Karen.

Foggy points at Matt. “Don’t pretend to suck at billiards, glory is on the line.”

Matt smirks at Karen’s huff of indignation, and walks towards the pool table, hand out-reached. He lets you guide him, but just long enough to get to the table.

“So, you don’t suck either?” Karen asks Matt, pretending to be mad, if the laughing lines around her mouth are indication.

“No, he doesn’t.” You answer for him, and put a cue in his hand as Foggy arranges the billiards.

Matt shoots a wan smile at you, and moves towards the opposite end of the table. You can sense him shift gears. There’s a fraction of sibling rivalry wavering over the green between you, and you grab that thread with nimble fingers.

“May I do the honors?” you say, flickering your gaze from the white cue-ball to Foggy who already looks like he lost the game.

“Go for it. Gotta keep tradition and all.”

Grinning devilishly, you walk towards the head of the table and take your position, bent at the waist, arms steady, breath even with your eyes clocked in on the cue. A breath in-

You look up, at Matt standing at the other end, stick planted on the ground, hands wrapped around the wood loosely, those rosy glasses glinting in the smoky light-

A breath out and you take your shot.

He smirks when the white cue makes contact.

From that moment on, it isn’t Girls vs. Guys. It’s Murdock vs. Murdock.

Foggy isn’t bad, and neither is Karen. But Matt and yourself are the ones picking up slack, carrying your respective teams.

The shots become elaborate, bordering on impossible because the two of you take to making the game difficult for one another instead of trying to win. Foggy and Karen, somewhere in the middle, decide to quietly bow out. Not that you or Matt notice.

It’s like chess instead of billiards, the way the two of you plan and plot.

He sinks a ball.

But just that one for a while.

You sink one.

You manipulate the remaining balls with your next shot, the 8-ball obstructing a sure shot for Matt.

He stands for a time after feeling the location of the white cue, his desired mark, and the 8, and then he huffs a sigh at you. “That wasn’t very nice.” He scolds you from his place near the corner pocket on the opposite end.

You shrug. “We’re not playing nice.”

He twitches a smile, trails his hand along the wood as he waltzes around the table towards the white cue-ball, and stops next to you. “We never really have.” He remarks thoughtfully, remembering all the games the two of you have played over the years.

“The cue?” he asks, as he leans down.

You sigh with a smug grin. “11 o’clock. Which makes your solid 2 impossible to sink, unless you want to lose the game.”

“Cute.” Is all he says before he falls silent and thinks…if he can put the right amount of spin mixed with force, and hit the wall of the table at the right angle, he can-

Matt takes his shot, the stick meeting the cue with a loud crack and the ball flies along the table, curving rapidly, spinning.

It knocks into the wall, making a sharper rotation, and you watch with a scowl as the cue sidles right around the 8 ball and slams that blue 2 right into the pocket.

“I hate you.” Is your immediate response, and Matt chuckles, standing.

“So, if I recall…I have one more ball, right? And it’s-“ He pauses, points at another corner pocket, right across from the one he just sank that 2 in. “There. I’m calling game.” He gloats lightly.

You shift closer to him. “Looks like we should’ve played for money.”

“C’mon, we’re all broke here.” Foggy interjects from where he’s leaning against the wall with Karen.

You smirk and shrug at him. “Speak for yourself.” You retort, and grab the bottle of beer Matt put down at the start of the game.

“Wait- what?” Foggy says, but you ignore him.

There’s a tiny line between Matt’s eyebrows, but he doesn’t respond. He just goes to other end of the table and takes his shot.

You eye the 8 ball, resigned, as Matt lines up with it. If he only knew how many shots you purposefully botched…you smirk around the rim of the bottle as you take another sip.

Matt seamlessly forces the 8 into a pocket, and sighs. He wonders if you know that he was trying to set up the game for your victory. But you kept thwarting that plan every turn. Honestly, he’s not sure if you were playing to win…it didn’t feel like it.

Even so-

“Well, that’s game.” You say with a false lilt of defeat in your voice, and he can hear it.

-he feels like you got exactly what you wanted.

But you typically do. If he can help it. He often feels like a puppet to your marionette, but the beauty of it is that you never make him do anything. He moves on his own, all for your benefit.

Matt’s quiet, hand resting on the edge of the table, the other loosely holding his pool-cue as your heat beats slowly across the space between you. He listens to the muscles in your throat as you drink the last of his bottle, and he quirks a small smile.

“I think I’m turning in for the night,” He says, and holds his cue out to Karen so she can put it back on the rack. Matt can hear you head over to the table for his cane, and he edges along towards you.

“What? The night is still young, many more drinks to be had!” Foggy protests with his glass raised, and Matt chuckles,

“That’s exactly the point: I’m quitting while I’m ahead.” He lets you coax his now extended cane into his hand, and then feels you hesitate to grab his arm.

You smile at Karen and Foggy. “Thanks for the fun night you guys, I’ll be seeing you all soon.” You promise, meaning to keep it. It’s been a long time since you’ve genuinely enjoyed yourself.

Matt begins walking, and your response is natural, whip-sharp. He feels your arm slip into the crook of his elbow, right where it belongs. He hasn’t let your hesitation slip his mind, he needs to mend that. But for now, he’s quiet.

The walk to his apartment isn’t long, but maybe it’s the guilt, the desire to make amends that gives the walk a sense of underlying urgency. Or maybe you know he’s going to breach the subject of your graduation and the party that he missed. Maybe you just want to dump him off at his doorstep and escape to your own apartment.

But when you’re both there on the threshold, and you’ve unlocked the door for him, he snatches your hand, dips his head down like a scolded dog and says the one word he knows you’ll never ignore. Not from him.

“Please.”

You hesitate where you are, inches from him, looking up in those reflective glasses and you know you’re going to give in. You watch yourself do it, you watch the defeat settle into your features and you slide past him into his darkened hallway.

You don’t turn on the lights, he doesn’t need them. And by the time you emerge into his quaint living room they’re unnecessary. Your jacket is still on the back of that chair, you wonder if he knows you left it there on purpose.

He’s quiet, almost silent, but you’re expecting him, so you don’t respond when he snakes his arms around you from behind. Much like he had this morning.

“I’m sorry-“

Your sigh cuts him off from the rest of his apology. “You don’t need to be.”

“It was important to you, and I missed it. I missed it all.” He argues quietly, mumbling into your shoulder, and he can feel you get irritated. But you don’t try to pull away. You’ve always been like that: afraid to hurt his feelings.

You’ve never denied him contact or robbed him of it. Like now. He knows you don’t want to be in his arms, but he needs you there, so you don’t move.

“I’m never there for you.” He hisses, features twisting in disappointment, and self-loathing, and he shakes minutely. He trembles with the poison of his failure, his muscles compromised, and he wants to hold on tighter. But he lets go and steps away.

“Oh, stop it.” You exhale brusquely. You don’t know where he gets the impression that he needs to be omnipresent in your life to be a good brother. “You’re always there when it counts. When it matters most.”

Matt scoffs, clocking in the fabric of your clothing rustling when you turn to face him. “Then tell me: tell me that you didn’t need me once-“ he cuts himself off, whether because he’s afraid to hear that you didn’t need him, or that you did and he wasn’t there, he doesn’t have time to analyze.

“I…” You lick your lips, and inhale slowly. Unintentionally, you think of all those nights that you were drowning in stress and homework, and so financially broke you didn’t know where your next meal was going to come from. You think of all the panic attacks, and sleepless nights, and you think of all the lonely nights spent studying.

“I can’t.” You admit finally, reluctant and loathe to feed into the validation of his current self-beratement.

Matt frowns, hard. But his eyebrows and his jumpy throat tell you that he’s regretful, that he’s guilt-ridden.

You smile at him faintly. “I can stand on my own, you know?”

Matt turns his head, as if he can actually see, and seeing you hurts him. “I do. I just hate that I didn’t give you a choice.” He sighs shakily, and makes to walk away, though the purpose is unclear as well as the destination because you reach out and grab the hem of his shirt.

Immediately, he’s taken back to his childhood. To the years that you both bounced around from orphanage to orphanage, and you’d…You’d trail after him, close as you could, holding onto the hem of his shirt, or one of the belt loops of his jeans.

It’s ingrained him: the need to be in front. To be the wall between you and whatever hurts. He’ll take a beating for you. He’ll die for you.

“Matty.”

His shoulders shake unbidden at the gentleness, the adoration in your tone, the sweetness that rolls off your lips when you say his name.

You move closer, curling the fingers of your other hand into his shirt, and you tug, pull at him until he’s turned towards you. The billboard paints the room in white, blue, purple and makes shadows dance. His glasses don’t reflect, the change in light is too fast.

When you’re sure that he won’t move you stretch up, grabbing his glasses in kind hands, and his breath hitches in his throat, audibly. Oh, and it humbles you, that he would let you take this from him: a wall that he hides behind from everyone.

Carefully, you put his glasses on his table, and then cradle his face in your hands. He relaxes into your touch, tilting his head just a little to brush his lips along the heel of a palm.

“Don’t hide from me,” You quietly plead, running your thumbs over his cheekbones, watching the light dance in his eyes. “It’s just another way to leave.”

He blinks, as if you’ve startled him, and then he looks down at you, meeting your eyes by some miracle, and it’s your turn to lose your breath. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll never leave you, not unless you send me away.” He means it, every word, even if the last ones are sad.

He feels it. He hears it. He knows it’s there. He can feel the whole room shift, the city dies outside, the past means nothing. All he has is here, right now.

He has his hands on your waist, not where they should be. It’s far more intimate, it isn’t appropriate, but that doesn’t mean shit to him. He knows.

There’s a clarity about this.

He knows he shouldn’t.

But he also knows you know, and that you don’t care about the line in the sand either, because you’re here too. So, he does something he shouldn’t. He leans down, and he kisses you. And you do something you shouldn’t.

You kiss him back.

He’s fine. He knew he’d eventually get here, one day. He knew his resolve would weaken. It was inevitable.

He feels your hands slide down and back to wrap your arms around his neck, to pull him closer, and fire flashes through him.

But that’s okay.

He’s prepared to burn.

Chapter Text

He surprises you. Just shows up out of the blue, in the middle of a rush, holding a bouquet of flowers as people rush around him. He asked what floor you were on, stepped out of the elevator, and then stood stock-still in the mayhem of the office.

No one payed him any mind, too busy with their own affairs and ‘dire emergencies’. It was too loud, and too much was going on, so Matt didn’t make the mistake of stepping out into the sea of suited businessmen and tight-skirted women.

It’s not until he’s stood there for ten minutes that someone says something. Really, you’ve just accidentally eavesdropped while on your way to fax some files when you hear Kelly, the company bicycle, mention the attractive blind man hanging out by the elevator.

It’s enough to peak your interest. So you leave the heavy files in your arms by the fax machine and maneuver your way through the chaos and loud phone-calls, and the heel-clicks of power hungry vixens and break through on other side, just a little out of breath.

Matt cocks his head, this way a smidge, then the other. And then he smiles toward you, unsure.

People glance your way, but none stop to watch as you approach Matt with a smile of your own, yours more amused than anything.

“Uh- I don’t really know what kind of flowers these are- the florist said-“ He breaks off to chuckle, and licks his lips, dipping his head. “Well, never mind. These are for you, I hope they aren’t ugly.”

You laugh, and take the bouquet from him. You don’t know much about flowers either, but the colors are nice. Soft blues, and purples, whites and pinks. And- you bring them to your nose -the smell is nice.

“Can I ask what it is you’ve done wrong?” You tease him, an easy-to-hear joking tone in your voice, and Matt’s smile gets wider,

“Yeah. Yeah- I realized -earlier today, that I haven’t taken you out to dinner since you’ve been back.” He explains with grievance, but he’s also still smiling.

You chew on your lip, the scent of the flowers toying with your nose, and you look over your shoulder at all your co-workers rushing here and there, and you frown. For all their bustling and urgency not, a lot is getting done. Your stress levels are through the roof, and technically speaking, you were supposed to have clocked out an hour ago.

Sighing tightly, you whirl around and grab Matt’s arm. “Why dinner? How about lunch?”

He’s taken off guard for a moment, and just sort of lets you corral him into the elevator without so much as a peep, until he’s turned around. “Don’t you have to w-“

“Nope.” You interrupt him, and stab the first-floor button with your finger so hard it hurts. “They can manage without me.” You don’t even feel sorry.

The elevator doors shut quietly, leaving you alone with Matt in a metal cage. But honestly, this is the most relaxed you’ve felt all day since you came into work at 5 this morning. Idly, you smell your flowers again, and softly smile at them, thinking the gesture sweet and cute.

Matt trades hands for his cane, freeing his right, which he slips into your left. Your fingers slide through his immediately, squeezing. It hasn’t been long. Since that night.

He doesn’t feel guilty like he knows he should. In fact, he feels like this might be the only thing he’s done right in his life.

“Do you remember…” your voice breaks him out of his thoughts and he tilts his head toward you. “When we were kids, bouncing from orphanage to orphanage- and we’d uh- we’d spend the whole first day there finding somewhere quiet that we could just…” You trail off softly, your tone soaked in nostalgia and melancholy.

Matt furrows his brows, but doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t want to interrupt your thoughts. So, he listens to your heart, your even breathing, and is somewhat at ease knowing you aren’t going to burst into tears on the spot.

You’ve hardly ever. Cried in front of him, that is. The few times that you have just about killed him. ‘Seeing’ you so distraught and broken destroyed him in ways he didn’t even know existed. Seeing you cry makes him feel helpless, but so angry. It makes him angry that people can push you to tears, that people hurt you.

He can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt you.

“Disappear.”

Matt blinks, grip on his cane stuttering. “What?” he asks, thinking perhaps he missed more of your words, and you hum at him with a lilt of laughter.

“Disappear. We always had a place when we were kids. Where’s that place now?”

Matt’s silent. Did something happen? At work maybe? Has New York already become too much for you? He jumps to worst-case scenario because this is Hell’s Kitchen. Were you assaulted?

“What’s- is something wrong?” Matt is making no attempt to not sound worried, to not be the overprotective, sometimes over-bearing brother he is.

“No,” You shake your head, and after realizing he won’t see it, you squeeze his hand. “It’s just- you brought me flowers, and I had to smile and say thank you. I had to wait until the elevator doors closed before I could hold your hand-“ you break off, knowing that he’ll fill in the blanks and find your point and while he does you watch the number on the screen change, counting the seconds you have until you’re forced to let his hand go.

Matt chuckles, and you immediately scowl at him.

“What? What about this do you find amusing, Matt?”

He ducks his head, still laughing, and pulls you toward him with your interlocked hands. “How differently we’re both looking at this.”

You squint, and stare at a button of his dress shirt. “What do you mean?”

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited, how long I lied to myself?” You huff at him quietly, the sound only a fraction heated. So, he elaborates. “I’ll take anything I can get. I’ll take this-“ he squeezes your hand for emphasis, “Or being able to put my arm around you in the dark of a cab, or any number of brief moments that we can have alone.” Matt releases your hand to slide his arm around your waist.

You have nothing to say. Mostly because you feel a smidge selfish about this. He’s just content, grateful to have you, and you’re unsatisfied that you don’t get him as much as you want. You know this is unorthodox, you know it’s wrong on a number of levels. You know this shouldn’t be happening, but after so long, after so many years of wanting it, of needing it…

You’re not giving this up. You’ve never believed in soul mates, not really. The idea that there’s one person out there for you. One soul catered and molded to fit your desires, your needs, to perfectly match your personality- it sounded too good to be true.

Until you realized it was. Because your soul mate happened to be your big brother.

And people think God doesn’t have a sense of humor.

For a long time, you merely saw him as that. Your brother. Because that’s all he could be.

And you told yourself that the love you felt for him was just sisterly love. You tried to strangle it, wrap it in velvet and force it into a box that was too small for its size.

You allowed small things because you thought you could get away with it: standing too close when you’d adjust Matt’s ties, or the ambiguity-laced touch you’d use to cradle his jaw when you’d drop a goodbye or hello kiss to his cheek.

And you’d let him get away with certain things too: his hand low on your back when he’d maneuver around you, the way he’d mysteriously land a kiss very near to your mouth which you’d let slide due to his blindness- regardless of how often it seemed to happen.

You hum, humoured, and then shake your head lightly and Matt cocks his head at the noise. “I guess I just feel like there’s a lot of wasted time to make up for.”

Matt’s lips twitch a smile, and his fingers rub little circles into your back through your starch-white shirt. He wants to argue, to say that any time spent together, in whatever dynamic, wasn’t wasted at all. He wants to say that rushing to fit in moments aren’t going to make up for the moments that didn’t happen…

But he doesn’t.

Instead, the elevator dings, and he unwraps his arm from you. “So, lunch?”

“Yeah. Where do you-“

“Nowhere, exactly…” Matt steps out first while you scrunch your face and have a reflective moment. It’s only when the elevator doors start to close that you rush out after him.

His cane is tip-tapping back and forth and people in the lobby give him respectable distance. And then when you reach him and grab his arm, some of them smile.

It’s a faith renewing aesthetic: seeing a blind man walk so sure, and then a woman taking his side with a bouquet of gorgeous flowers, no doubt from the blind man. And maybe the genuine, warm smile on his lips helps that hopeful feeling flutter in them. Maybe the quiet blush and tender looks you shoot him also help.

In any case, you’ve both brightened people’s days, inadvertently.

“Instead of dinner out, I was thinking of lunch in.” He says, that loosely goofy grin adorning his pouty lips.

You push the door open for him, New York roaring in your right ear, “What are you in the mood for?”

Matt searches for your hand, mostly he just holds his own out and makes a come-hither motion with his fingers. “Some peace and quiet.” He says as you both start down the sidewalk.

You think of teasing him, something along the lines of that doesn’t sound very appetizing, but you rest in the warmth of his hand, in his company, and let him lead you somewhere. That’s very much a description of your entire life: willfully, voluntarily, happily going wherever he does with no question or desire for a destination.

You edge closer, lacing your fingers, finding a peace and a sense of home in the roughness of his hands. Cars honk, strangers chatter, steam rises from grates, tires hiss on tarmac, the wind rustles, a dog’s collar jangles, sirens wail in the far distance-

But all you hear is the sound of Matt’s cane tapping the sidewalk, all that breaks through your bubble is the caress of his thumb along your own, all you see are the varying shades of brown in his stubbly jaw.

Your job is barely a block behind you. But already it’s farther than that, it’s ancient history because the moments you spend with Matt are eternity in themselves.

There’s humidity in the air, and you know only part of it is from the oncoming storm that’s been brewing over New York for the better part of all morning.

Matt’s hand tightens in your own.  

There’s a hush, a very well-hidden agenda in the lengthy strides you both take, the measured breath that stutters occasionally like Morse code in the seemingly meaningless seconds that make up this walk to wherever. There’s a delicate balance between impatience and mature haste and you can almost hear it in the tempo of his cane, feel it in the moment of contact between your shoes and the obscenely gum-littered sidewalk.

The echoes of city-life in alleys that you pass are like punctuation for sentences you don’t utter. It’s like little notes hidden in dark corners that speak of soft feelings and well-meaning intentions. Windows beat by, reflecting the thrum and livelihood of New York, taxies a yellow blur and all the traffic that follows.

You sneak glances, occasionally, and appreciate his gait, his aloof grace and his straight-ahead focused walk. It almost shocks you, finding yourself on his side with a wrapped bouquet of beautiful flowers, keeping time with his strides, melting into the rhythm that comes with crowded sidewalks and rude people.

It’s abrupt. The stopping. The halt at the door of his apartment.

There’s no reason for it. Not to you anyway.

But here he is, with his head slightly tilted and his lips spread in a smile that speaks volumes of a happiness you’ve only barely had time to graze with your fingertips, and he’s softly breathing, all manner of humble and appreciative but so tempered by time and hardship that he seems bigger than he is.

He doesn’t shake himself out of his reverie, he just glides on, smoothly, tugging you with him up the stairs he’s memorized. And he thinks of the contents of his fridge, wondering just how much the two of you can magic up the bare ingredients he has on hand into something palatable.

The cane is folded up and tossed on the couch, as well as your itchy suit jacket, and Matt disappears into his room to change into more comfortable clothes. You take to your surroundings, analyzing your choices of dishes from the contents of his cupboards and his fridge.

As you expect: there’s not a lot to work with. But there’s just enough.

You spread your ingredients out on the counter, and start looking for utensils and a dish to put everything in when Matt emerges, dressed so comfortably it makes you fight a yawn.

“So,” he says he walks towards you, zipping up his hoodie, “What are we having?”

You snort, and stare at the few foodstuffs you have in front of you. “Chicken and rice casserole.” You shoot a look at Matt, who has his arms crossed over the counter: listening and basically just being a lazy bum about helping you.

“You really need to go to the store.” You point out uselessly as you begin working on dinner.

“Yeah, yeah, I do.” He agrees, though you both know he’ll do no such thing unless under extreme duress or capital torture.

“It’s a wonder you haven’t starved.” You remark lightly, filling a bowl to mix everything in.

Matt smiles. “I order take-out a lot.”

You huff with a smile of your own, and don’t offer input. You just settle into the domesticity of making dinner, interspersed with light conversation and companionable silence, or the blu-bluh of sipping beer, the hiss of a new bottle being opened, or the gentle pattering of rain on the brittle windows.

Matt remarks about dinner before it’s finished, complimenting tepidly. You brush off his praise, and take the last few minutes to set his tiny table, crack open another beer for the two of you, respectively, and check on the casserole in the oven.

You close the oven door and turn to look at Matt, your hip leaning on the stove. “You have something I could wear? Feel like I’m suffocating in this get-up.”

Matt smirks in your general direction. “Get-up? A suit-jacket and skirt, that’s a get-up?”

You roll your eyes, taking initiative to head towards his room. “Considering I normally wear jeans and a t-shirt, yeah.”

Matt hears the soft patter of your feet, and can’t remember exactly when you took off your pumps. “Where are your heels?” He asks as you near him, staring blankly up towards where he thinks your face is.

“Near the door,” You reply, and stop next to him. His arm hangs over the back of his chair, limp, but his fingers twitch now and then.

He does that thing with his head, tilting, cocking, most of the motion can be seen in his tipping chin- and asks, “What’s up?” because you’re near enough that he can hear you breathe.

“Nothing, just…” Slowly, you cup his face, your hands barely grazing his scruff, fingertips feather-light as you coast up. “You don’t need these.” You murmur as your fingers find the legs of his glasses, and you carefully coax them off his nose and from behind his ears.

He chuckles breathlessly, and nods, small about it and seemingly non-chalant. But his hand finds the back of your thigh, just as you gentle as you were, and he rubs your humming skin, thankful.

You make a soft sound, run a hand back through his hair, and swipe a thumb along one of his shapely cheekbones, admiring the depth of color in his blank eyes.

Sighing, you retreat. “Shouldn’t be long. Make sure the casserole doesn’t burn.”

He follows the sound of your voice, awkwardly turned in his chair, and salutes. “No promises, but I’ll do my best.”

“That’s more than enough,” you throw over your shoulder as you slide the heavy ‘door’ to his room and disappear behind it.

Matt grins, grins like a fool now that he’s alone, and maybe, just maybe, he sighs a little. He doesn’t dwell on it, though. Because not two seconds later, he hears you make the same sound, just as wistful and breathy, and Matt relaxes bone-deep in his uncomfortable chair.

And he keeps his thoughts to himself, just as quiet as the rain, and just as tranquil as the continual rivulets of water droplets rolling down the window panes. And he makes sure the casserole doesn’t burn.

He makes sure the casserole definitely doesn’t burn. Does it get a little dry, a little crispy around the edges? Yes.

But it doesn’t burn.

In his defense, leaving a blind man to watch the food was really a poor move on your part, which he points out when you come back and take the dish out of the oven.

But you aren’t mad. The opposite, really, as you go about serving it with a smile on your face, and a genuine gratefulness as you say grace for the meal.

As you eat, Matt reflects on just how fortunate he is, all things considered.

“I love you.” He says quite out of the blue, on his way to another forkful, and he himself stops, stunned by his own words. Because before the words had a distinct flavor of that is my sister, who I love. Like a sister. Now, now they’re different.

You glance up from your chicken and cheesy rice and find him struck into stone, and you smirk a little at his uncouth declaration. The sound of your cutlery on porcelain doesn’t stutter at all, and neither do you.

“I love you. Now eat your dinner. Wouldn’t want to let it get cold after you almost burned it.”

Matt slowly comes back to something resembling human, and takes a drink from his beer to fill the seconds of his inaction, and he lets your words warm him, persuade his nervous heartbeat to something formidable.

The flowers sit in a vase on his coffee table, and they smell sweet but not as sweet as you. And he’s positive that they don’t light up the room half as well as you do.

He reflects on just how fortunate he is. And feels he got away with too much. Not that he’s complaining.

Chapter Text

It’s just one second, one tiny second that he lets his mind slip, and he pays for it. Dearly.

The pain doesn’t register, not immediately, because he knows if he loses focus again he’ll end up in a worse way and be unable to finish this fight.

His side is warm, and it throbs in time with his heartbeat, pushing blood to soak into his shirt.

It’s a tight space, cramped by dumpsters and boxes and AC units, metal staircases that hug scratchy brick walls, and there’s a lot of knives in the mix.

Seconds seem close together, closer together than usual as he dodges swipes, metal singing through the air. He hears the footstep of one, right foot forward, left scooting back over the asphalt- scratching.

One of them splashes in a puddle, the droplets cascade down, are interrupted by the man’s other leg.

A metal zipper on a jacket jingles with movement, the torso of a body twisting.

There’s adrenaline, so much adrenaline. But his mind is clear.

Matt stops the wide swinging arc of a knife, his right hand tight on the man’s wrist. A sharp punch to man’s gut- Matt hears a rib crack.

The second comes at him, overeager, and Matt drops to a knee. There’s a yelp of pain: the zealous one has accidentally stabbed his friend in his haste to attack Matt.

Matt swoops his leg in a wide circle, knocking the shoddy criminals off their feet.

Cheap metal tinkles from his right, and he rolls, avoiding a strong roundhouse kick. Matt deflects a jab, the knife whistling past his cheek.

Matt spins, and drops low to kick his leg out behind him, angled up to slam into the man’s stomach.

The wind leaves him, and he stumbles back, his grip on the knife loose.

Matt’s starting to feel the pain in his side, and decides that he needs to finish this fight. Now.

Maybe the man sees it coming, maybe he doesn’t, but the result is the same. Matt’s boot still finds his jaw, even 6’ above the ground.

And then the man’s jaw finds the ground. He’s out cold.

Matt’s out of breath, but he does the responsible thing and uses one of their cellphones to call 911 and report a mugging. He’s gone long before the police arrive, he’s gone before the cellphone hits the ground.

He books it, as well as he can, and winces through the pain. He can think of one thing, only one thing on the way to his apartment: You’re going to be so disappointed, so hurt.

Matt isn’t sure how he did it, but he forgot.

He forgot about dinner tonight. After he practically begged you to let him take you out, he forgot.

He’s been so caught up in all this bullshit with Fisk, he’s desperate for answers. He meant to only look into a lead, to just poke his head in and then quietly leave. But-

His side pulses hotly, a mild reprimand, one he’ll gladly take over your heartbreak.

-When do things ever go according to plan?

Getting into his apartment isn’t easy, but it’s familiar, and while it takes longer, he does get in. His feet have barely touched the floor before he’s peeling off clothes, tossing his vigilante costume to the floor as he hurries to the bathroom and the first-aid kit under the sink.

The clean-up is quick, just shy of reckless, and the stitching even more-so. His hands shake, because he’s thinking of you: sitting alone at a table set for two in a crowded restaurant, waiting for him. And he feels damn guilty.

He tapes the wound, slaps some gauze over it, and cautiously wipes at his face.

He doesn’t have time for a shower. So, he puts on deodorant, sprinkles himself with cologne and hobbles to his room for a change of clothes.

Matt’s hasty, almost unconcerned about his appearance as a whole, so long as he’s dressed that’s all he cares. The tie goes on quick, and for once he gives less than one shit if it’s straight.

He slips his glasses on, snatches his phone off the coffee table where he left it, and dials you, his heart hammering a mile a minute inside his ribcage.

He gets half-way to the door, bouncy in his steps when he remembers his cane. Only he can’t remember where he left it.

“Dammit!” he curses, and whirls around, striding in his living room while the dial-tone rings in his ear. He spins this way and that, and can’t find it. “Dammit!” he says again.

The line goes to your voice-mail and Matt hangs up, breath sawing out of him. His chest feels tight, and his hands are shaking, badly. And he can’t find his damn cane!

Traffic blares outside, someone knocks over trash bins, a couple argues loudly on the sidewalk, brakes squeal, someone’s tea kettle screams shrilly, a horn roars, keys clatter on a countertop, water drips like a waterfall from a faucet, powerlines hum-

Matt fumbles with his phone, re-dials you again as all of New York bombards his senses and suffocates him from the safety of his living room. The tone of your phone ringing just barely breaks through everything, but it’s all there, beneath the surface, layer upon layer of noise that he can’t block out right now.

A glass shatters on the tile floor of his downstairs neighbor, pigeons burst into flight from the roof, their wings beating into the night, a rickety fire escape squeaks in the wind, a door slams, the pages of a book flit rapidly, someone’s in the middle of a coughing fit, a pan of water boils-

“Matt-“ Is the only thing you get out of your mouth before you just stop where you are. He’s gasping into the phone, short of breath and panicked, and you bolt up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The thing about Matt: he’s never skipped out on you, for anything. After how adamantly he pushed to have dinner with you tonight you know he wouldn’t just not show up for no reason. Which is why you left the restaurant, and decided to come here.

The first time your phone rang it was buried in the bottom of your purse, underneath your keys, wallet, mace, make-up, gum, and assorted candy. You didn’t reach it in time. The second time you were in the foyer with the phone already in your hand.

You’re glad he called again.

You’re also glad you bugged him senseless a few days about getting a copy of his apartment key.

In your rush to get to him you almost trip up the stairs, banging your shin on a higher step, but you hardly feel it. You fumble the key in the door, your hands shaky-

The door sticks. Though it never it has before, and you think it’s just your combined luck- yours and Matt’s -for it to happen now.

The lock is undone, the knob is turned, so you ram your shoulder into the door, igniting a throb you ignore. It’s going to bruise, you bruise easy. No sleeveless shirts for you, for a while, anyway.

Matt doesn’t even hear you enter, all he’s aware of is the breath sawing out of his lungs, the tilting sensation of his entire world brought on by his dimmed senses. He’s vaguely aware of the phone in his hand, he doesn’t want to let it go, it’s the only thing he really has a grip on.

It’s awful. His initial response when you grab him, tender and cautious as it is.

He twists away with a panicked and startled gasp, the phone falling from his grip which prompts a sinking sensation in his stomach. He backpedals, unaware of his surroundings and falls into his couch, toppling over the arm of it to land on the cushions.

He can’t believe he’s gotten himself into this situation: so helpless and frantic and lost. He can’t find anything to anchor himself to-

Matt feels a hand a hand on his waist, and his own snaps there to pry it away. At first. But the second his skin makes contact, he pauses.

Soft, mostly, from lotion. Gentle knuckles, fingers smaller than his own, and-

His breath hitches.

They’re curled into one of his belt-loops.

He hears a voice, garbled and distant as if talking through water, but he tries to focus, tightening his hand on the familiar one at his belt.

Matt thinks it’s you. He hopes it’s you.

Power lines hum, loudly. Footsteps echo on concrete stairs, wooden floorboards creak, tumblers in a lock click, the tab on a can of soda cracks open…he hears his name.

It’s slow. It starts with his breath, a steady decrease in the speed, in the severity of each draw, his heart rate drops, a beat at a time, he notices that he feels hot from exertion, he feels the sweat at the nape of his neck, as well as the fabric of the couch on what exposed skin he has.

He feels a hand on his face, the palm warm and soft, caring and soothing, smoothing across his jaw towards his ear. Or in his hair, fingers combing through carefully, slowly.

Your perfume. He smells it, mixed in with the natural scent of your skin, and he shudders a sigh. “Y/N.” He croaks.

“Matty.” You respond quietly, your voice tight with tears, and he hears it.

Or he thinks he hears it. The city, life, everything. It’s all still so- “Loud.” He murmurs, fatigued.

You need no more data. You slip your hand under the back of his neck, not minding the damp ends of his hair. “Sit up.”

He does, with your help. It’s a little uncomfortable what with his legs over the arm of the couch, and no support for his back. You stand, just to give him room, a hand still on the back of his neck, which moves as he situates himself: it slides from his neck to his shoulder, then his collar-bone, and then up to his jaw which you cup.

Silently, he grabs for you as the city invades again, sneaks past your perfume and heartbeat and slithers through his floorboards to strangle him with its presence.

He all but tugs you, and you practically fall into his lap, your knees on either side of his waist, and his hands, his arms, are around you immediately, and steel tight. His head finds its way to your chest, an ear pressed close to listen to your heart, his fingers digging almost painfully into your back, not that you mention, or acknowledge.

And that’s how it is for the next ten minutes: him glued to you, his arms like length of rope that hold you tight, and you, all manner of soft about it with light fingertips that pet his hair, and brush his face, skim the stubble on his jaw, run nonsense patterns into his back.

It may feel slow, because nothing happens, but he finds his center suddenly. Just from one second to the next. There is no gradual, or calm, or steady descent. It’s just a ‘suddenly’.

He nuzzles against you with a relieved hum, his nose brushing the column of your throat. He loosens the death-grip he has on you.

It’s quiet. Quieter than it has been.

You lean back, glad that he can’t see your double-chin at doing so, and he instinctively raises his head. “Okay?” You ask him, your hands cradling his face, eyes running over his features, still worried.

“Yeah.” He smiles up at you, warmly, and moves his head a little  so he can feel your hands run against the grain of his stubble, scratching deliciously. “Thank you.”

You chuckle at him, breathlessly. A fraction of the desperation you felt at his episode still lingering. “You’re welcome.”

Matt’s smile twitches a little wider.

His hands on your back glide down, the fabric of the dress you wear pleasant on his fingertips, and come to rest on your thighs, where your dress has ridden up a little. Your skin is warm, akin to the warmth of bed-temperature, and it makes him think of little things: your feet in his lap as you read a book and his hands rubbing your ankles, your chuckle as you lean across the table to wipe his chin- or his jaw -off.

He thinks of the nights. The nights that you spend here. He thinks about the minute that he decides to change for the night. And then the minutes after when you change, and he wraps around you wherever you, doing whatever you’re doing, and he catches the scent of his cologne, and the familiar fabric of the shirt he just took off- and he thinks about how he always has to shift a little, give himself some space so you don’t know just how much it affects him.

He thinks of the mornings. Sometimes you’re still in bed when he wakes up, and he slithers toward you, hand skating along whatever portion of flesh he comes into contact with first. So familiar, but so foreign. Sometimes you wake, and you copy him, but you always trace his face, his neck, collar bone.

Sometimes you don’t wake.

Sometimes you aren’t there at all.

Already in the kitchen making breakfast, coffee brewing, humming along to whatever music you have quietly playing, and Matt will roll to your side of his bed and nestle into your pillow, breathing in the smell of your shampoo until you come in to practically drag him out of bed.

He doesn’t realize he’s even kissing you until you pull away, your breath stuttering sweetly. He says nothing, just smiles, and anticipates. Anticipates the movement of your hands, his ears in the crook of your thumbs, and you’re there. But not before he is.

It always starts out so sweet, with your soft kisses, and gentle presses, your quiet sounds. But his resolve never lasts, it falters somewhere around the time that you cradle the back of his neck, and settle down onto his lap as if you have no intentions of going anywhere. He can measure the sweetness from your teeth to your lips and it rattles him like he’s made of loose bolts and rusted metal and not flesh and blood.

His hands grasp your thighs harshly, pulse beating under his fingers, breath breaking between you.

He’s half a mind, only half, to pretend his propriety isn’t in tatters. He’s aware he needs to apologize for standing you up, but with you so close, your hands in his hair, your breath in his mouth-

He pretends he doesn’t have anything at all to apologize for.

Until you press a little closer and he winces. He’d forgotten about the injury on his side.

You pull away, and he attempts to coax you back, but the damage has been done.

You look down at him, at his white dress shirt, at the splotch of red blossoming near his hip and you can’t help but gasp.

Matt sighs.

“Matt, what happened?”

The question leaves you, but all Matt feels is the distance you create when you lean back to assess him. He does nothing to stop your curious hands, his own stay where they are, frozen on your thighs, his thumbs on the edge of the dress’s hem.

His shitty stitches didn’t hold up, that much is apparent. But if your intake of breath is any indication then perhaps he shouldn’t have tried stitching it up to begin with. The wound could’ve used more attention than he gave it.

“Matt.” It’s only his name, but it sounds like a million things to him. The one thing that rings clear is the demand. The demand for an answer that coats the single syllable of his name.

“You…wouldn’t believe me.” He says after a time, dropping his chin, as if to watch you toy with a button of his shirt…which you are. It’s a nervous habit of yours, to fiddle with things.

“I will. I always will. You’ve never lied to me.” Your words are strong with conviction, but your hands….your hands are holy grace, holding his face in sweet reverence, gentle persuasion, quiet absolution.

His lips part-

This is confession: with you in his arms, his heart in your hands and your name on his lips.

- “Y/N, I’m The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

And now he has a million things to apologize for.

Chapter Text

Your response hadn’t surprised him. He expected it but he was in no way prepared to face it in reality. He knew you’d explode on him, and he could take that, he did, stoically and reasonably and he bore the brunt of your anger like a true Murdock: he received each metaphorical punch you threw with a wide stance and a straight-forward gaze.

And you threw those punches damn good…until he was weary for breath, and his teeth hurt in his gums.

He expected you to leave, to slam the door so hard the vibrations echoed and burrowed into the walls. He expected your quick feet retreating down the stairs.

He expected you to explode on him.

What he didn’t expect was for you to implode afterward.

You didn’t answer any of his calls, wouldn’t come to the door when he visited your apartment, he couldn’t seem to coax an explanation or update on you from any of your friends. You had just cut him out, entirely.

He kept an eye on you, at night. He made time to make sure you were okay, that you weren’t planning on leaving. So help him, if you left….

Matt hasn’t gotten anything done. Nothing. Not a thing. 

Foggy and Karen have noticed that he’s miles away, and they’ve yet to question him about his distant, lack luster temperament. Would it be acceptable? His excuse?

No. Probably not.

He shakes his head, and rubs his temples, massaging the pounding ache there that hasn’t lessened since he revealed himself to you. He can’t focus on anything, he just keeps spinning in the revolving door of his regrets and his worry, and all the things he did wrong with you.

Matt’s read the same paragraph of the file in front of him four, now five times, and he sighs sharply.

He stands from his desk, cane in hand and offers no explanation as he leaves despite the questioning calls from Foggy and Karen.

He knows you don’t work today, and he knows you know he does have work today. So, you won’t be expecting him to show up on your doorstep in the middle of the day.

You’re caught so off-guard, mostly because you assume the knock at the door is the delivery guy for the take-out you ordered half an hour ago. Also because Matt is the first and last person you want to see for a number of reasons.

An eternity stretches out between you, unintentional. You wait for him to say something, and he waits on himself.

He picks out the meat of the situation. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you-“

“Oh, shut up.” Is your whip-like response, but it’s laden with burden, sharpened with hurt.

Matt’s features twitch at your tone, and his hands tighten and loosen around his cane. “Do you…you want me to go?” he doesn’t want to ask, but what he does want is to get back into your good graces. If you told him to he’d-…well, he’d do anything, anything, for you.

You rake a hand through your hair, and close your eyes. “…yes.” You murmur, not knowing if you’re lying. When you open your eyes Matt’s fidgeting on his feet, his throat bobbing.

He nods, the motion small and turns.

He doesn’t get two feet away before you groan out of frustration.

“No.” you swing your door open wider, and edge towards the door-jamb. “No. I- shit, I don’t want you to go.” He pauses where he is, half-turned away from you in your tiny hallway, and you realize he’s making sure you mean it.

“Just- get in here.” You order and get on the opposite side of the door so that when he finally inches his way into your apartment you can shove the door shut.

And then there’s silence again and he’s fiddling with his cane, and your arms are crossed over your chest and you’re looking at all the familiar things that litter your apartment.

Matt’s head is dipped, like he’s hiding from your simmering wrath. He’s only been in your apartment a handful of times but he’s already got it memorized. He minds little about your abode, though your neighbors are loud, and your heat pipes rattle gratingly, and your bed isn’t graced by silk like his own. He can ignore all of it, because it’s you, because this is where you live.

“Beer?” you ask him, on your way to your fridge and you don’t miss the way he starts to reach for you as you pass him, the way he consciously stops himself with a frown.

“I…yeah.” He sighs, and ‘looking’ in your general direction he folds up his cane and effortlessly navigates towards your couch. He’s relieved that you still haven’t found a coffee table; one less thing for him to bruise his shin on.

You watch him as he goes, your stomach rolling. You close your eyes as you breathe deep.

“Are you even actually blind?” the words fly off your tongue before you’ve made it to the couch, and he smiles a little.

“Yes.” He replies calmly and holds his hand out, waiting for you to put the bottle in his palm. You don’t. Not until he raises an eyebrow and makes a grabby hand at you a couple times.

“Okay,” you say, and take a sip of your beer. You settle into your couch, feet tucked under you, hands on your thighs, turning the beer slowly. “Okay,” you repeat and sigh. “Tell me.”

“Tell you?” he cocks his head, unmoving. He hasn’t taken a drink yet.

“Yeah,” you nod, mostly to yourself. “I want to know everything, Matt. Everything.”

He shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of shedding light on everything. But- this is what you want.

Whether you’ll want him afterwards, well, he can’t say. Maybe you can’t either.

He rolls his lips into his mouth, and leans forward to put his beer on the floor between his feet. And then he tells you. He tells you everything- everything -that’s happened to him since he lost his eyesight. He leaves nothing out, not one detail. Even the things he knows will be hard for you to swallow, things you may not accept: Elektra. And what happened the last time he saw her.

There’s a long pause there. A very long pause, which he gives not for himself, but you.

You open your mouth. Once, twice, close it. You watch his fingers twitch on his thigh, his legs too, and his throat bob with a hard swallow.

It’s in this very long pause that you finish your beer, and sigh afterwards, the sound weak and catchy and it prompts Matt to reach for you, out of instinct.

But he once again stops himself short, knowing that you won’t want him to touch you, not after what he just told you.

“Go on.” You quietly tell him, your voice tight.

He doesn’t verbally apologize, but he tries to convey it in his face before he continues his tale.

Matt has no idea how much time has passed, or how you’re receiving all this information. Your heart is steady, strong, it gives nothing away, and he wishes he could see, get some visual cues.

You haven’t interrupted with questions, you’ve been quiet, processing.

It’s quiet for a total of fifteen minutes when you realize that he’s done, that his story has come to a close and now you have to respond. How do you respond, though?

“I- I have no idea what to say.” You fall on the truth. “I can tell you that I’m pissed, and hurt-“ you cut yourself off with a huff, glaring at him as if he can see you.

Matt dips his head. “I know. I’m sorry-“ his hands are clasped tight between his loose legs. “That’s not what I wanted. I never want to hurt you. I want you safe. Happy.”

You adjust yourself, untucking your legs, and lay an arm on the back of the couch as you turn to sit sideways on your couch. “Matt, sometimes you’re so stupid I have to wonder how you got into Columbia.”

Matt sits up straight, and blinks a few times, his mouth hanging open loosely.

“I don’t need to be safe, kept in the dark, sheltered,” you continue, and look down at his feet, the beer bottle that he hasn’t touched. “You want me happy, but do you even know what that means? What happiness is to me?”

Matt sighs through his nose. He doesn’t. He really doesn’t. “A good book and a comfy chair on a rainy afternoon?”

You smirk lightly. “You’re a little shit. No.” your snark relaxes him a margin, but not enough to loosen the tension in his shoulders. You open your mouth-

“Pizza’s here.” Matt says, his head cocked to the side. Whether he intentionally meant to interrupt you or not is a mystery, but it doesn’t matter: you’d have been interrupted either way.

There’s a knock at the door.

You feel a thread of irritation at the delivery boy, though it isn’t his fault. He doesn’t know he’s intruding on the most important conversation you’ve ever had. The exchange is quick, with you handing him a twenty and brusquely telling him to keep the change. You’ve over-tipped him but you don’t care.

You toss the box into your arm chair caddy-corner from your couch, and Matt quirks an eyebrow,

“Clearly pizza isn’t what makes you happy.”

You stomp over to him, grumbling. “Nope, sure isn’t.”

He gets no warning. None.

You give no thoughts about the fact that he could be injured, and, thankfully, for once, he isn’t.

He knew better than to take to the rooftops this past week. His head wouldn’t have been in it.

There’s a swaying sense of déjà vu about you landing in his lap, knees on either side of his hips, and your hands- your hands on his face, gripping him firm, grounding him.

“It’s this,” you murmur, leaning in, and his breath hitches, “Us.”

He drowns. Right there, on the fourth floor of a brick apartment building, sitting on an ugly plaid couch that he doesn’t know is ugly, and he doesn’t kick for the surface. Not this time, not ever. No, he just clings to you, the anchor, and lets himself get dragged down to the depths of the ocean, where he pays no attention to the lines in the sand.

Matt feels as if little really got discussed, there are so many things he’s sure you’re not okay with, he’s sure you don’t forgive him for everything.

You break away first, to get your breath, to take his stupid glasses off, to talk. “I need you, Matt. All of you,” He hums in the back of his throat, nosing around the column of your neck, plucking kisses, nipping gently.

“Especially the part of you that you hide from everyone else.” You say, voice strong, and he stops to tilt his head back.

What you need, what you want. Yeah, he can do that. Give you those.

But what you deserve? That’s far out of his reach because you deserve a million times better than what he is. 

“I’m yours.” He promises, pressing a firm kiss to the underside of your jaw, his eyes shut. “All yours.”

Chapter Text

He meant it. From that day onward, he didn’t hide anything from you. He told you of his rooftop ventures, the small victories he acquired in the shadows of the city, and he told you of the new roadblocks he also found. He was never specific, not unless you asked for details and you hardly ever did.

You just made him promise that he’d come home alive and in one piece.

Home.

His apartment has become your new home. Ever since learning the truth you spent every moment you could spare in Matt’s apartment, hoping to catch him before he took off into the night.

It rarely happens.

But, now his kitchen is always stocked with food, and his laundry is done, and put up according to his needs. And your scent permeates his entire apartment from all the time you spend over. Your shampoo has made an appearance in his bathroom, something he noticed a few days ago when he was in the middle of shaving.

You’re constantly leaving jackets, t-shirts, and scarves at his place, and Matt thinks you try to hide them. Like some kind of game, to see how strong his senses truly are. He’s found a scarf in the refrigerator, a jacket underneath the couch, a shirt nestled into the cabinet of his clean bed things.

Once, and only once, he’s found one of your bras in his bed…tucked underneath his pillow.

It still makes him smile when he thinks about it.

Matt hears someone enter the apartment building, the lock tumbling, and it’s you. Your footsteps are slow, dragging and heavy. Matt frowns, what has you so bummed?

He grabs a beer for you, for himself, and opens a bag of your favorite chips. Those are in abundance here, now.

You huff a large sigh as you open the door, and shut it by leaning back into it where you stay a few moments to sulk. It’s been a week since you and Matt have spent any quality time together. Sure, drinks at Josie’s had been consumed a few nights ago, but that had been in the company of Foggy and Karen. And afterwards you had to go home because you were pulling an early shift the next day.

You don’t bother turning on the lights as you walk in, kicking off your heels, shrugging out of your coat, and dropping your keys on the end table in the hallway. He isn’t here, if he was, he’d be on the couch with an arm thrown over the back of it, waiting for you.

You sigh again, and think about leaving, but you know you’ll stay because being in Matt’s apartment is the closest you can get to him nowadays.

You don’t feel like making dinner, you feel like beer and beer, and maybe some whiskey. And then bed.

“Hey,” his voice reaches you cautiously as you round the corner, your head low and your eyes on your feet as you mope like a child.

You jump, gasping, with a hand over your now galloping heart as you peer into the dimness of the kitchen at him. Holding a beer in one hand, the other resting on the lip of the counter, he looks natural. Not at all out of place, considering you haven’t seen him in his apartment for close to a week.

“You alright? Seem a little…” he trails off as you near, clocking in on your footsteps and the force to them, the haste, and he wonders what kind of mood he should brace himself for.

Before, you were morose, hesitant, slow in your actions. Now you’re strong, and rushed, and overall different.

You bypass the beer and the chips and go straight for Matt like he’s a magnet pulling you in.

Your hands find the lapels his suit jacket to rein him in, to keep him close and to steady yourself. Your nerves, once dormant, have ignited now that he’s here, now that you steal his breath with your own lips-

You’re burning up. 

Matt’s never experienced this feverish side to you, this hunger you subject him to in your kisses that border on mean, as harsh and firm as they are. Nevertheless, he responds in kind, with his free hand tangled in your hair, fisted in it, and his arm around your waist, the cold of his beer bottle soaking through your shirt.

You curl the fingers of one hand into his dress shirt, sure to leave wrinkles. He’s returning your fervor, that hand in your hair almost hurts, his arm around your back is hard, and the breath that breaks between you is hot, almost hisses.

He tugs on your hair, tearing you away from his mouth, and a breathy whine leaves your swollen lips.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks against your skin as he trails his mouth along your throat, sucking, kissing, teasing border-line hurtful bites in the softest sections.

“A week.” You mutter, fingers tangling in his tie, tugging, pulling it loose as effectively as you can with your shaky hands.

“What?” He mumbles into the junction of your neck and shoulder, proceeding to suck a bruise there, one that can be easily hidden by a collared shirt.

“A week,” you repeat, tearing his undone tie from around his neck to drop it on the floor, “A week without this, you.”

He hums into your neck, and turns you, pressing you into the counter’s edge so he can put his beer down. You get your fingers in his belt loops, and pull him into you, insistent, and he’s surprised; the question’s never been raised, because there hasn’t been a need to ask it.

There’s a part of him that wants nothing more than to sink into you, to be engulfed in the warmth you emanate, to clutch you close, close enough that he can fit all his corners into your curves. He wants to drown in you, really drown.

But there’s another part of him, a part of him that he wishes he could kill. And it taunts him with questions, and his past.

How many men do you think she’s made that sound for? When you kiss her, do think she has her mind on you, or some other man from her past? How many idiots has she wasted her time on? Do you think she wonders about how many women you’ve taken to bed? I bet it breaks her heart, just like yours does when you think of anyone else kissing her the way you do. She most likely hates you, just a little, for your past with Elektra. She definitely feels betrayed-

“Matt.” You say, a crease in your brows.

He’s stiff as a board, stuck in his thoughts with his forehead laying on your shoulder, his hands gripping the edge of the counter instead of you. You’ve still got your fingers in his belt loops, but there’s no urgency anymore, there’s no fire.

Instead, there’s just worry.

“Matt,” you gently repeat, raising a hand to rest against the side of his neck, and a heavy sigh leaves him.

He stands straight, his features unreadable, and he peers down at you, his glasses glinting in the fading light of sunset. He cautiously raises a hand, careful of touching you anywhere that isn’t your face, and he brushes some hair behind your ear, following the motion by cupping your face, fingers in your hair and resting over your ear.

“I’m sorry.” He says, and drops a kiss on your forehead before slipping away, your hands dragging along him as he goes.

You blink at him, teeth in your lower lip. “Matt,” you call after him, but he keeps a straight course for his bedroom, his footsteps sure and measured, and you wrap your arms around yourself. You blink again, your eyelids stinging, and you stand there in his dark kitchen fighting tears for fifteen minutes before one stubbornly falls.

Your beers sit in puddles of water, room temperature now, and you pick his up, chugging it down.

You decide to go with your original plan: drink, drink until you fall asleep.

Unfortunately, you just end up drunk at his counter on a stool, slumped over with a half-empty bottle of whiskey to keep you company. And it’s there Matt finds you come morning, his whiskey gone, and you fitfully asleep.

Salt.

No, not salt. Merely salty.

You were crying. He realizes this on his way to dump you into his bed, and it stops him dead on the threshold of his bedroom.

He can’t understand.

How anyone could make you cry.

Him least of all.

“Shit.” He swears, hissing the syllable out between clenched teeth. “Shit.” It’s said again as he lays you down in his side of the bed that he hasn’t made since yesterday when he rolled out of it. He brushes hair away from your face, fingers feather-light in fear of waking you, and he feels how warm your cheeks are from crying,

“Fuck.”

Indeed.

He stays, sitting on the edge of his bed with his body angled towards you and a hand loosely fitted into yours. He knows that when you wake he’ll need an answer ready, and you deserve that. Only thing is, will you accept his answer, will you understand?

Matt shakes his head. You’ve accepted the most difficult part of his personality, of his life. Surely, surely, you could understand this.

It’s just-

He rubs a hand down his face, willing the worry away.

-how could you accept it if he hasn’t?

It’s been one of biggest regrets: Elektra. And since you’ve been back in New York it’s only grown to monstrous proportion. At the time, Elektra was a blessing. She was someone who knew this deadly secret about him and she didn’t care, she welcomed it. She accepted it, accepted him.

She was different too. Deadly in her own way, and enigmatic, magnetic. She had this darkness to her that pulled Matt in, in spite of his self-preservation telling him it may not be a good idea to get close.

But he did. And when he did, and she discovered his secret and approached it with excited zeal, he was done. He had been so tired of hiding, of lying about himself, and he’d been desperate to share with an outsider the whole truth of who he was, that when someone came along and discovered him he’d jumped at the opportunity.

In the back of his mind there was you. Always. He’d felt slightly sickened with himself at the time for keeping you shut out, for not telling you, for letting someone else in. But he soothed himself with a lie, it wasn’t safe for you to know about this side of him. He couldn’t risk you. Never you.

You were nearing the end of high school, on the fast-track to graduating early and you were so excited to start college, so enthusiastic about dorms, and the campus, and extra-curriculars, and being independent, finding a place to start your life. He couldn’t get in the way of that.

So, he kept his secret hidden from you, and shared it with Elektra. As well as other things. He didn’t tell her much about you. See, that was the secret he kept hidden from Elektra. You. She could accept the part of his life that was cloaked in shadow and ran with undercurrents of blood, but he had a feeling she’d never quite understand the bond he had with you. The sacredness, the pedestal he put you on, and the altar he’d lay himself on for you.

She’d never understand that. She’d never accept that.

He’d needed her, at that time in his life. So, he sliced his life into parts and kept them all separate. He’d juggle you and your schoolwork, try to convince you to switch from a full-time to a part-time job (that was a hot issue back in the day, he was, after all, supposed to be taking care of you), and force you to stay over at his and Foggy’s dorm for two reasons: to make sure you ate, and because he just worried about you. If he could keep you close, he did.

The times that you weren’t over he’d take off with Elektra, and get into her brand of ‘fun’ for the night, i.e. illegal activities sprinkled with sex. And they’d spar, which was good for him at the time because she was skilled and kept him on his toes…and it’d lead to sex. So, he had no complaints about his nights with Elektra.

And there was the simple college student portion of his life that he maintained within the company of Foggy. That was by far the easiest part of his life to keep up. It required little effort.

His life back then was a circle of lies that he blanketed with flimsy excuses he believed to be foolproof. His conscience was easier to shut up back then. Now, now it won’t leave him alone.

As evidenced here.

It isn’t necessarily that he’d taken her to bed multiple- countless -times. It was that he’d fallen in love with her. And that was- is what’s killing him. It was a betrayal of the highest order, even now it makes his heart feel like concrete in his chest as he sits besides you, unconsciously squeezing your hand.

He’s more than 110 percent sure you’ve never fallen for anyone. You’ve never mentioned any boyfriends to him, not once, despite knowing that it wasn’t off the table because you’d met so many of his girlfriends over the years.

There’s a sliver of him, a very hypocritical sliver, that shudders with irritation at the thought of you with a one-night stand. Though you’ve the right. It’s not as if Matt saved himself for you, though he sort of wishes he had.

He sighs, rubbing his tired eyes, and he hears your breathing change. You’re waking up.

He stiffens, minutely, and purses his lips as you fully emerge from your slumber and acknowledge him. He feels your eyes on him, the confusion, the hurt, the quiet question of why? that hovers in the air.

You look down at your joined hands, simultaneously wanting to let go and to hold on tighter. You glance at the clock, glaring red numbers telling you it’s still early, barely past dawn.

Matt sighs through his nose, opens his mouth, closes it, and rubs a hand over his mouth, silent.

You watch him struggle for words, and sit up, leaning against the headboard. “Is…is it me?” You ask, your voice small, and he stiffens more. “Have I done something wrong?”

And just like that, he’s scooting across the bed, stopping next to your thighs. “No.” He says quickly, firmly, and lays a hand on the side of your neck, his thumb caressing your jaw. “God, no. You never do anything wrong.”

You frown limply, staring into his blank eyes for a trace of a lie, because despite popular belief his dead eyes are very expressive. As expected, you find no lie, only apology.

“Then what is it, Matt?” you murmur, your voice ragged, and reach up to grasp his wrist.

He bows his head, hiding his face from your curious, soft scrutiny. He gathers himself, chews his words carefully because if he has to end up eating them later he doesn’t want them bitter.

Sunlight streaks the bedroom window in gentle rays of gold and pale yellow, weak and quiet, as if the sun itself is just waking up with the rest of the western hemisphere. It strikes his unresponsive eyes, lighting the brown in his eyes a warmer color, and bringing to focus the green hidden in them.

And he confesses to you. As he often does.

And you absolve him afterwards. As you always do.

“She likes you, you know?” You say with a smile, arms crossed over the counter as Matt maneuvers the rest of the oatmeal in his bowl without purpose.

He can’t focus on food with you being so near, but so out of reach. “Hm?” He’s been distracted all morning, all week. And part of it is you, you with your jovial tone and teasing comments, and home-cooked meals. And part of it is the city and its worsening condition.

You roll your eyes. “Karen.”

“I’m assuming there’s emphasis on like, here?” Matt lays his hands flat on the table, and cocks his head in your direction, curious of your intentions.

“Oh, no. I’m being complex, when I say she likes you I actually mean she hates your guts.”

Matt snorts out a laugh and shakes his head. “Yeah? She tell you this?” He stands, bowl in hand and approaches you.

It still stops you short; how he doesn’t need to ‘feel’ his way around. It’s true he has his apartment memorized, but past that the cane is more like a fashion accessory, part of keeping an image but not actually of use.

As he washes his bowl out, you turn and lean back against the counter, forearms planted behind you on the fake wood. “She’s subtle, careful. But the looks she gives you when she thinks no one is looking gives her away.” You explain, thinking back on the soft expression she sent Matt the other day when the three of you had coffee, and he ‘accidently’ took your coffee by mistake.

Matt hums thoughtfully, “You’re not territorial, are you?”

You smirk and roll your eyes, “Do I need to be?”

He smiles at you, soft and reverent, open and sweet. “Never. Nothing could pull me from you.” He states, his tone quiet but firm.

It makes your chest warm, butterflies erupt in your stomach, but….you can’t help but look at the bruise blooming around his right eye, and the angry scrape on his jaw, and you know he isn’t telling the whole truth.

He doesn’t notice your hidden mood, and how could he? You’ve never given any indication that you want him to stop, never said a harsh word about it. You just smile and listen to his doubts, absolve him of his guilt.

He leans over, puts a hand on your waist and kisses you with a smile on his lips. One of these days he’s going to leave from the rooftop of his apartment building and not come back. And you won’t stop him because it’s what he wants, what he needs. And who are you to deny him?

Your hands curl in the softness of his hoodie, knuckles testing, and you lean into him, tilting your head back before he even has a hand in your hair to move you how he wants. For once, it isn’t really about what he wants though.

It’s what you need, and you need him close, need your hands twisting in his hair at the nape of his neck. You need his weight pressing against you, bowing your spine. What you need is his breath breaking between the two of you, hissing across your lips and chin. His tongue sliding across your bottom lip makes you sigh.

“What-?” he breathes, tightening his arm around your back, rolling his head so you’re temple to temple. He listens to you draw breath, chest expanding and contracting against him.

You hum, nuzzle against him and breathe in the scent of his aftershave. “Nothing. Should I wait up for you tonight?”

“Planning that far ahead?” He drops his chin over your shoulder, runs a hand up and down your back. “I don’t know, I feel like I’m starting to get somewhere, finding an angle on Fisk…”

You force a smile into your tone. “That’s your passive way of saying you’ll be playing vigilante tonight.”

“I’m always playing vigilante,” he retorts lightly, squeezes your hips and retracts himself from your grip. Your hands linger on him as long as possible, though he doesn’t seem to clock in on the worry and fear behind your clinginess.

“You could play it a little better. You always look a peach that fell from a tree and hit every branch on the way down.”

“-Oh. Ha. Ha.” Matt rolls his eyes at you, “That’s cute, coming from someone that’s never thrown a punch in her life.”

You fold your arms over your chest and cock an eyebrow. “I’m about to.”

He grins. “I gotta go, I’m going to be late for work.” He excuses himself, nonchalant and in high spirits.

You glare at his back, “Yeah, you’d better run.” You mutter under your breath.

“I heard that.” Matt calls from across the room, and your cheeks heat in embarrassment.

-

When Matt finally stumbles through the door, wearing defeat like a brand-name cologne, the quiet of the apartment hits him like a cinderblock. But it’s a typical kind of quiet, all the appliances and running electronics put to rest much like you. You’re asleep in his bed, heartrate slow and measured in your slumber, and Matt takes care to be discreet. He’s near silent as he slinks into the bathroom and peels off his clothes, dropping them to the floor without much care.

He steps into the shower and turns it on, temperature luke-warm, not doing anything to soothe his sore muscles, but waking a sharp sting from all the scrapes and cuts adorning his body.

Tonight is one of the nights where he realizes his mortality, and has to struggle with the way it interferes with his moral desires.

He could have kept going tonight. Could have pushed himself to the point of burn out until he had nothing left to give.

But he thought of you somewhere between a dodged knife and a bruised rib and felt himself falter, no longer needing the hunt and the adrenaline and instead wanting the warmth of your skin and the smell of your hair.

So, here he is. Home, washing the night off with a few more hours of darkness before sunrise than he normally gives himself, only for the sake of his own selfishness.

He knows how you feel.

He can sense it in your hands when you cling to him, when your fingers curl just a little tighter right before letting go. He can hear it in the break of breath when you pull away from him, those small inhales, as if you’re trying to breathe him in discreetly, scrambling for any way to keep him.

He knows.

Which makes him a selfish bastard for coming back here early. Because he’s not doing it for you. Not really. But you’ll believe he is because you’re incapable of thinking he’s capable of any wrongdoing.

You’ve been asleep for a while based solely on the fact that he climbs in next to you and is able to align himself from toe to head with you and you don’t so much as stir.

He’s come home because he wants.

He’s brought himself in one piece for you. That much he admits.

He winds around you with practiced ease, burying his nose in your neck, drowning in the smell of you and the heat of your skin, tasting the flavor of you in the back of his throat on a strong inhale. He holds a little tighter, mouth parting, tongue darting out just to torture himself.

Your breathing changes, stutters, pauses-

His mouth closes around your pulse, sucks.

-starts again, sharper. And your heart quickens.

He slips a leg between your own, and your body wakes, finally.

You reach a hand back to grip at his hair. “Matt?” You ask breathlessly.

Mostly just confused about him being here, but also because-

His leg slips a little higher, parting you just a bit wider, enough to realize you have leverage- he’s given you leverage on his thigh.

“Mm,” He hums, breaking away to nip at your earlobe, “Who else?” Scratch that. He doesn’t want to know. Not even if it’s a joke.

“What are you-“ you mean to ask what he’s doing home. You didn’t expect him until almost sunrise, expected him to come home black and blue and barely breathing and in need of patching up.

You didn’t expect…whatever this is.

His hand lands on your hip, rocks you forward and drinks in the sound of your soft gasp like a man parched. “What am I doing home? Or what am I doing right now?” he asks evenly, squeezing at your hip, delighted to find you adhering to his wordless direction. “I think both of those questions have obvious answers.”

“I thought you’d be- I didn’t…” You don’t mean to finish your sentence, but you feel something should be said, even as you arch your back to angle yourself sharper against his thigh. You feel and hear him rumble appreciatively against you.

“Think later,” He quips, hand on your hip sliding across your stomach to rest at the hemline of your panties, listening to your pulse quicken, your breath catch, waiting…

Matt savors just a few more moments of the rhythm you’ve created, relishes your mounting pleasure and the way your breathing cuts in and out, abdominal muscles twitching and flexing under his hand.

And then he gives you mercy, delves passed that cloth barrier to the crux of your thighs where you’re pulsing with need and pushes you over the edge effortlessly.

You stiffen, shockwaves rocking you from toe to crown and back again, mouth open slack and breath stalled. His fingers don’t stop, even after you get your breath back and grab his wrist, a silent signal. One he ignores.

Your hips cant backward in a fruitless attempt to get away, but you’ve nowhere to go, and he grins into your neck.

“Matt-“ your voice breaks on a moan, and the sound quickens his fingers.

“I could listen to that on an endless loop and never get tired of it,” He says, peppering your stretched neck with love bites. “Let me hear it again, sweetheart,”

And you do.

You fall apart with his name on your lips and nothing else as your hips jolt and stutter and the rest of you melts into him with the onslaught of pleasure he’s brought you.

His hand rests on your stomach as you come down, as you realign with all the parts of you that you normally have control over, and he lathers you with the warmest open-mouthed kisses you’ve ever had. Until you turn your head and seek out his lips.

Now he’s soft and slow, covets, and lengthens and chases the taste of you like an addict on a high. He’s content and smug, and vindicated, and getting away with too damn much.

But when you reach behind, between the two of you, he realizes he’s about to get away with so much more.

He groans into your mouth, begins to pull away: your teeth in his lower lip stop him.

Just enough to sting, to leave behind a sensation before you let go. “I’m…sick of waiting.” You breathe, trying to catch his eyes in the dark.

He huffs a laugh through his nose. It’s sad, how far it had to be pushed before you said something. Literally until you had your hand around him.

“I gathered that much,” He has the nerve to quip, “I wasn’t planning on testing your patience any longer.”

He hears you breathe a laugh, runs a hand over your hipbone, slides under the band of your panties and holds the heat of your thigh.

“What would you like, sweetheart?” He murmurs against your temple, pushing a kiss that starts there and ends right in front of your ear.

“This,” You sigh, arching into him, “Just like this.”

Another hum, a tempered smile as he helps you out of cotton dampened with your want, and a soft sigh as he resettles with your leg bent and thrown over his hip.

Tenderly, he tests the waters, slipping two fingers into you as far as he can, reveling the clench of your walls and your own broken groan as he teases you.

He won’t make you beg, he doesn’t have the patience for that tonight. He withdraws his fingers to stroke himself a couple times, using your arousal and his own to lubricate his length as much as he can.

That first, small press of him into you is enough to steal your breath, and even he stalls for a moment to appreciate it. But he said he wouldn’t make you wait, and he isn’t going to lie to you.

Every inch is ecstasy and has you pressing back in want until he’s flush against you and pulsing in you, you could just about cry.

The first roll of his hips is such sweet promise, you’ve no issue vocalizing just how wonderful it is. He returns the sentiment in kind, making sure to find a steady rhythm, keeping the contact tight and drawing out the entry.

Slow, and heavy is how he makes love to you, head in the crook of your neck, breathing in your sweat and the scent of your pleasure, listening to your sighs and the sound of him entering you, exiting, filling you.

He feels the first tell-tale flutter of your orgasm around him, feels you battle it back, and could nearly scoff. Who do you think you’re dealing with?

He reaches around you, one destination in mind for his fingers and hears your breathing take a staccato. This time, when you quiver and shake apart in his arms he follows, groaning out your name and burying himself in you as far as he can.

It probably shouldn’t have been done like this, but he’s so good at doing the right things in such a roundabout way he’s convinced he wouldn’t have been capable of doing this the way you deserve.

“What…” you heave out a breath, reach down to link your fingers through his, “What made you come back so early?”

Matt hums, wondering how to word it. “I…” he inhales, catching the smell of you underneath the musk of sex and finds the words, “I wasn’t going to find what I needed out there.” He curls tight, fitting you against him, hoping you understand what he’s trying to say.

And you do.

After all, you know him better than anyone else.