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The morning light spills lazily across the bedroom, warm against the sheets where a very much not-resting Matt Murdock is trying to get up. One hand’s pressed to the bandage at his ribs; the other braces against the mattress, trembling with effort.
“Matt,” you remind him. “You promised, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He bares a grin. “What? I didn’t promise not to move.”
“I know that look.”
His lips press together. You catch the faint, guilty smirk that means he’s pushing you to your limits before you snap.
“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, coaxing, “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Sit. Down.”
Who knew the Teacher Voice would be effective even on vigilantes? The command hits him like muscle memory; he freezes and sits back down before his brain catches up. You fold your arms, shooting him a glare. “You’re not fine, Matt. You’re barely upright.”
He tries to shrug and immediately winces. “I’ve been through worse.”
“Try anything funny,” you say dryly, “and I’ll put you in time-out.” You suck in a breath. “Say it with me: ‘I am not going out.’”
“I am not going out.”
“‘I am not going to decide I am well enough for a ‘little walk’ when my girlfriend goes to work and then end up in an alley with a mugger and a new concussion.’”
“...It’s a little early for muggings, isn’t it?”
“Say it.”
Matt smiles impishly into the distance, seemingly not having heard you. You don’t know why he won’t just lie to you—hell, that’s what you’d do in his place—but all the better for it, you suppose. He turns his head toward your voice, those unfocused brown eyes catching the light just right, turning them to gold. “You really think you can keep me down all day?”
Okay. You want to stay angry, but that smile cracks through your irritation like sunlight through fog. You still remember the shaking in your hands when you stitched him up at two a.m., the heartbeat under your palms too shallow, like a spider’s fragile skittering.
“You know what,” you say. “Fine. Get dressed.”
His brow furrows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re coming with me.”
Matt blinks incredulously, like he’s sure he’s misheard. “With you?”
“Yeah,” you say, slinging your tote bag over your shoulder. You jangle your keys. “C’mon. Get dressed, Mister, if that’s what you want so badly. You have”—you glance at the clock—“fifteen minutes before I leave without you.”
“You’re seriously taking me to school?”
“You bet.” You flash him your brightest smile. “Don’t worry, the kids have zero survival instincts. You’ll blend right in.”
You should clean up more. You know. Your classroom looks like something exploded in it—a mishmash of alphabet borders, crooked paper-chain rainbows, glitter perpetually embedded in the carpet. You’re both glad and saddened Matt can’t see just how much of a mess it is.
For the first hour, you stash Matt in the breakroom. This is partly to keep him from wandering, and partly to shield him from twenty high-decibel five-to-six-year-olds until caffeine has done its job. But it takes about three minutes for the other teachers to notice the mysterious man in the corner with the bandaged hands and movie-star jawline. They descend like curious pigeons, and within moments, he’s surrounded.
“So, you’re the lawyer?” asks Mrs. Kowalski, whose retirement countdown has been in progress since the Clinton administration.
“I am,” Matt answers smoothly.
“Do you work for one of those fancy firms?” another teacher asks. He’s leaning on the counter towards Matt like he’s in a rom-com coffee shop.
“Something like that,” Matt says, trying not to sound too much like he’s calculating the distance to the door by sound alone.
And then (inevitably) Mrs. Novak, who once told you she “couldn’t be trusted to be left in a room alone with Ryan Gosling,” leans forward and says, “You’re not married, are you, handsome?”
The pause that follows could power the city grid. Matt’s head tips just slightly in your direction, as if to check whether this is some kind of prank. His mouth opens, closes, and then ever the gentleman, he clears his throat. “Uh… no, ma’am.”
Mrs. Novak beams like she’s just won the lottery.
You sip your coffee and very generously decide that this is none of your business.
You come to collect him an hour later, and when you step into your classroom together, twenty pairs of eyes snap toward the door.
“Friends,” you announce, your voice slipping into that vibrant brightness, “I brought someone new with me today. This is my friend, Mister Matt!”
A hush falls, followed immediately by chaos.
“He’s wearing a suit!”
“Is he famous?”
“Why you got sunglasses? It’s not even sunny!”
“He looks like he’s from the government.”
Matt’s mouth twitches. He raises a hand in a small wave. “Hi, everyone.”
You set a chair beside you, trying not to laugh as he navigates the forest of sneakers and rolling crayons. His cane rolls lightly against the carpet, a rhythmic sound that hushes them faster than your voice ever could.
“So,” you say, sitting on the rug, “today’s circle time is going to be a little special. Mister Matt is blind, which means he can’t see with his eyes”—you tap yours for emphasis—“the way we do. He’s going to tell us a little about what that’s like, and how he does things a little differently.”
Several hands shoot up at once.
“You can’t see anything? Like, nothing nothing?”
“Do you got a robot dog?”
“Do you watch Bluey?”
Matt takes it in stride, amused. “No, no robot dog—yet. And I can’t watch Bluey, but I can listen. I use my ears, my nose, my hands… and sometimes I just remember how things feel. Like how you know where your bed is when the lights are off.”
A collective “ohhh” sweeps through the group.
He lifts his cane lightly. “And this helps me find things in front of me so I don’t trip.”
“Like a hockey stick!”
He smiles. “Something like that.”
“Do you bump into stuff?” another asks.
“Only when the furniture sneaks up on me.”
Giggles ripple across the rug.
“How d’you eat spaghetti?”
“Very very carefully,” he says solemnly, which earns another round of laughter.
Then, a small voice asks, “But how can you read to us?”
You jump in, delighted. “Because, my friends, some books have braille. That’s a special kind of writing you can feel with your fingers.”
A chorus of little oooohs rises. You take the book from your bag—The Very Hungry Caterpillar. You had glued Braille labels on its pages one evening, just to test out Matt’s new label printer. You hold it up for effect.
“See, you know how we use our eyes to look at letters—A, B, C? Well, braille has letters too! They’re made of tiny bumps you can touch instead of see. So people who can’t see with their eyes can still read stories and signs and labels and everything else.”
Matt tilts his head toward you, smiling fondly. He takes the book. “Ready to see if I can keep up with your reading level?”
“Think you can handle it?” you tease.
He runs his fingers over the thick paper, smirking. “I’ve handled hungrier clients.”
The kids gather close, cross-legged and fidgeting with excitement. Matt clears his throat, and when he starts to read, his voice seems to fill every corner of the room. Low and even, it’s rich with rhythm that makes every syllable and pause sound deliberate. Perfectly timed.
“In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf…”
You’ve heard him speak in his courtroom voice. You’ve heard him speak in the quiet drawl of late-night confessions. This is something else entirely. It almost sounds like poetry, his words slow and warm, like honey. The class falls silent, spellbound. Even the usually restless ones sit still with their eyes wide, breathing in sync with the story.
When he reaches the part where the caterpillar eats through the fruit, the kids finally join in, shouting out the fruits in chorus.
“One apple! Two pears! Three plums!”
Matt laughs softly, his shoulders shaking. It is real laughter, not the weary kind you’ve heard too often. It fills the little room like sunlight.
He reads on steadily, the lilt of his voice weaving through the children’s bright interruptions. (“He sounds like a nice Batman.” “Yeahhhh!”)
And when he closes the book at last, there’s a heartbeat of silence before the room erupts into cheers. Tiny hands clap wildly, mesmerized by the “magic trick” of Matt being able to read without seeing. Someone shouts, “Again!” and Matt chuckles under his breath, the faintest flush creeping up his neck.
Thankfully, snack time arrives before they can demand an encore. You set him up on a miniature plastic chair near the reading rug—ostensibly to “rest,” though you suspect that’s a lost cause.
The moment you turn your back, the kids descend on him. They surround him like puppies, tugging at his sleeves, pressing crayon drawings into his hands, proudly narrating every squiggle. He listens to each one with his head tilted just so, offering gentle Oh, really?’s and That’s beautiful’s as he traces the surfaces of their paper with his fingers.
They also seem to enjoy dressing Matt up, for the sole reason that he “can’t see” (you suspect this is a premise to the natural conclusion of “therefore he can’t stop us.”) A tiny girl with pigtails climbs onto a chair and pins an apple hairclip on his head, her tongue sticking out in concentration. The room dissolves into giggling.
Matt adjusts it carefully. “Does it suit me?”
“Yeahhhh!” they shout, chortling so hard one nearly falls over.
You manage to herd them toward their snacks, but within seconds, Matt is surrounded again. Besieged by a crowd of tiny, sticky hands and juice boxes.
“Mister Matt, I can’t open mine!”
“Me too!”
“Do mines! Do mines!”
The chair Matt is sitting on seems seconds from collapse under his large body. His long legs are folded awkwardly; his elbows tucked in tight. His bandaged hands work slowly but surely, sliding straws into foil holes found by sound and touch. Each successful “pop!” earns an impressed “whoaaa” from his audience.
You stand by the wall, biting your lip to keep from laughing outright.
Matt Murdock is a lawyer by day, vigilante by night, and now juice box technician by popular demand.
When playtime rolls around, you guide him outside to the bench beneath the brittle autumn sun. The air smells of mulch and crayons, and the playground is alive with motion: squeaking swings, sneakers pounding the pavement, shrieks of joy no jury on earth could silence.
Matt sits with his cane across his lap, head tilted up and listening to it all with a faint, meditative smile.
You join him after a round of pushing swings, handing him a coffee. His face softens instantly at the sound of your steps.
“So this is what you do every day.”
“This,” you sigh, gesturing toward the whole ruckus, “and reading the same book forty times a week.”
Matt chuckles. “This is incredible. I mean it.” He tilts his face toward you, the wind lifting a stray curl from his forehead. “It’s… peaceful here,” he says quietly. “I can hear their hearts, you know. All of them. They’re so... Light. Untangled. It’s nice.”
You don’t know how to answer that, so you just let your fingers drift until they find his, his hand curling over yours.
Then a little boy toddles up, wide-eyed, clutching something tight in his fist. His sneakers are squeaking with every step.
“Hi, Mister Matt,” he says shyly, shuffling his shoes.
Matt turns toward the voice, smiling. “Hey there, buddy.”
The boy squints, catching sight of the bandages peeking from Matt’s sleeve. “You hurt?”
“Hmm?”
“You hurt—your fingers?” he repeats, pointing earnestly.
It’s amazing how children can be so thoughtful and so observant, the way concern comes so naturally to them.
“Oh,” Matt says, leaning forward slightly. “Yeah, a little.”
The boy brightens immediately. “My daddy gets ouchies like that too!”
Matt’s brows lift, amused. You turn to him, smiling. “Matt, this is Charlie. Charlie’s dad is a boxer.”
His whole expression shifts: surprise, then delight. “A boxer, huh?”
Charlie nods, all confidence now. “Yup-yup!! He fights bad guys!”
Matt huffs an amused laugh. “That so? You know,” he leans in conspiratorially, “my dad was a boxer, too.”
Charlie’s eyes go huge. “Reallyyyy!! S’he good?”
“Pretty good, you could say that,” Matt says. “Is your daddy good?”
“Uh-huh!! He’s the toughest!” Charlie announces proudly, chin lifted. You murmur his dad’s name under your breath, and Matt nods in recognition. “Oh, I’ve heard of him. Tough guy,” he says with an OK sign—and Charlie practically glows at the praise.
Then, a little shyer again, Charlie opens his small hand. A single gold star sticker glints in his palm, bent at the corner from being clutched so tightly.
“Ummmm, this helps,” he explains. His voice has dropped into a whisper. “I give my daddy stickers when he gets hurt. S’makes him betters faster.”
Your heart squeezes. You crouch beside him and help him peel the backing loose where it’s stuck to itself.
“All right?” you say gently.
Charlie grins up at you, gap-toothed, then turns back to Matt. Carefully, with all the focus in the world, he presses the sticker onto Matt’s sleeve. It’s crooked, just above the cuff. “Feel betters, Mister Matt.”
Matt’s fingers lift, tracing the sticker’s bumpy edge, the faint adhesive tacky beneath his skin.
“Thank you, Charlie,” he says, smiling. “I already do.”
Charlie beams. The job is done, and just like that—with a “‘Kayyyy! Bye!”—he takes off toward the monkey bars, yelling the whole time.
You glance at Matt. His fingers are still ghosting over the star, and the gold gleams against the dark wool of his jacket.
By dismissal, he looks lighter than you’ve seen him in months. One of the kids has given him a crayon-colored card, all rainbow scribbles and shaky hearts, and he carries it tucked under his arm. It’s too valuable to fold into his coat.
On the train ride home, Matt sits with his head leaned toward the window, lit by the passing gold of evening.
“See?” you say, nudging his knee lightly. “Not so bad, right? They loved you.”
“Mm, they have good taste.”
You snort affectionately. “Oh, don’t let it go to your head. They’ll forget you by snack time on Monday.”
“Still,” he murmurs, his smile deepening. A pause settles between you, then he adds, “Thank you for bringing me.”
“Just had to make sure you didn’t make a break for the rooftops,” you say. “How’s the ribs?”
“Better. A lot better.”
“Good. If you ever get hurt like that again, I’m dragging you straight back to my classroom.”
Matt chuckles, fingers finding the sticker. “I should get hurt more often, then,” he jokes, and you kick his shin so hard he lets out a yelp.
By Monday, the week begins as usual. The shoes squeak, and tiny voices rise in overlapping chatter. You’ve barely settled when Charlie marches up to your desk, flashing you his famous gap-toothed smile, clutching a folded sheet of paper.
“This is for Mister Matt,” he says solemnly. “You gotta give it to him, please, thank you.”
You take it carefully, smoothing out the creases. The handwriting is large, wobbly and nearly illegible, done in thick black marker. They are the kind of letters written with a tongue peeking out in deep concentration, under the guidance of a well-meaning parent.
Dear Mister Matt, I hope your hands feels better. When I grow up I want to fight bad guys but only if they are mean to dogs. —Charlie
You laugh so hard you have to sit down.