Archive of Our Own

Josie’s is packed with bodies and noise when Karen arrives. She is fashionably late, having changed her outfit three times and almost texting Foggy to cancel about four. She hates birthdays, especially her own. But Foggy is a lover of every holiday and spending the evening at Josie’s is a tradition (his words, not hers). Even Matt with his quiet off-centred gaze had urged her to come. 

So, Karen came. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a flowery blouse she would normally wear to the office, hair down and a little wind-swept. It’s not surprising they have beaten her here, already occupying a table near the pool games with three glasses waiting. Matt has ditched his suit jacket and tie, dressed in the blue shirt he wore to the office with the sleeves rolled up to expose those arms of his that do things to Karen’s sanity. Foggy is still dressed to the nines, tie and waistcoat giving him a more grown up air. He has cut his hair recently - Karen thinks it’s a post-break up thing - but she likes it. It frames his face and the addition of the neatly trimmed beard makes him feel warmer when he laughs somehow. So much is changing these days, she feels like she is standing on thin ice that’s about to crack. 

She has about a millisecond of thought when she thinks about slipping back out the door before realising Matt probably already knows she is here and would probably follow her out and then she is at the table, smiling and slipping into the chair they have saved for her.

In truth, birthdays with Matt and Foggy aren’t bad. Karen hasn’t liked them since her mom passed but she has never told them that so they aren’t to be blamed for the insistence that she celebrate.

“The birthday girl!” Foggy beams, a little too jolly for a Thursday night in a crammed Josie’s.

She eyes Matt cautiously, “How many has he had?”

“Let’s just be thankful Josie doesn’t have a karaoke machine otherwise we would be getting a charming, but tone deaf, rendition of Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

Karen snorts, “That’s his song?”

“That song is a classic!” Foggy insists, “But forgive me for wanting to celebrate the birth of one of our founding partners.”

Sometimes Karen can’t believe that’s her. Nelson and Murdock and Page. That she found a home in this city that seems to take far more than it has any right to. The city that took Ben. That took Elena. That had tried to take Matt. 

She grabs the scotch in front of her and takes a sip, smooth and warm as it goes down. Foggy is clearly sparing no expense tonight. 

“Thanks, Foggy.” She replies, happy to see him happy after the weeks of Marci depression he has been wearing like a second skin around the office. Foggy and his big heart. Karen would go to war to protect the goodness in him, knows Matt would as well.

They were both a little worried about the initial spiral after the break up. Karen knows Foggy spent weeks on Matt’s couch, refusing to collect his stuff from his apartment with Marci because it felt too final. They both would bring him back dinner, luring him back to them with jokes and his favourite foods and the good bottle of scotch Matt keeps hidden under the sink. They spent days like that, all squished onto Matt’s old couch, sharing a blanket and basking in Foggy’s horribly cheesy taste in movies. 

She has never felt closer to either of them. 

They have never felt more like family. 

Foggy pulls a messily wrapped flat present from his bag and slides it over to Karen with a coy smile, “From both of us.”

“We agreed no presents.” She says despite the smile on her face. She asked for no presents, technically neither Foggy or Matt agreed. Karen should have known better than to think they would listen.

She tears into the brown paper with care, the rowdy bar pressing against her temple like a brick wall as she lifts the plaque up. It’s beautiful, tarnished gold to match their office sign but this one is all for her.

Karen Page

Investigator 

She is speechless for a moment, fingers tracing the letters on the small plaque. That’s her. This is who she is now. Thanks to them.

She has come a long way from the ghost of a girl in Fagan Corners. 

“It’s for your office door.” Foggy tells her, “I’ll put it up first thing tomorrow.”

Karen doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t quite trust herself not to cry so she leans over and grips Foggy’s hand tightly. She hesitates a fraction longer before reaching for Matt’s as well.

“I love it.” She tells them, the truth as incessant as a toothache, “I really love it.”

She loves them. Her boys. 

Foggy and Matt beam, “I told you!” Foggy tells him with a laugh, “Matt joked about writing it on a napkin instead to keep up the tradition.”

“I would have loved that as well.” She points out.

“This felt more permanent. That's what we are now, the three of us. Permanent.” 

The weight of that word hits her like the first signs of the flu in October. It knocks Karen back with the force of it, the intention of it. Permanent. This life with them. This city. She feels it in her veins like electricity.

A home, she thinks. 

God, when did that happen? When did Foggy and Matt invade her heart and lay claim to it?

In truth, it was probably about five minutes after they met in that police station but she isn’t going to tell them that. 

“We need shots.” Foggy calls, already getting up from the table despite the fact none of them have finished their drinks yet.

Matt laughs as the chair scraps across the floor when Foggy stumbles. He disappears through the weave of bodies, making his way over to the bar between the masses.

Karen bites her lip, her gaze drawn back to the plaque before her. The thoughtfulness of the gift. 

“You know I could make an excuse with Foggy. Tell him you felt sick, if you want to duck out.” Matt offers, his voice soft and cautious as he leans closer to her, resting his arms on the table.

Karen catches the reflection of the door in the red lenses of his glasses, “Am I that obvious?”

“Maybe only to me.”

Something inside her lurches. He doesn’t mean it to allude to what they were, what they might have been, but that is where her mind goes. That’s always where her mind goes when Matt says things like that. 

No, Matt reads her because he can hear her heartbeat and smell the prickle of discomfort at the back of her neck. He probably knew how she was feeling before she even entered Josie’s. 

“No, this isn’t such a bad birthday.” She tells him, “I just…”

“You don’t need to explain.” 

She is thankful for that lifeline, “I am glad you and Foggy are here though. The sign is perfect.”

Matt reaches over, his fingers tracing the indentation of her name with a wistful look, “Do you think you could hold that thought long enough for another present?”

She smiles, “I thought this was from both of you?”

“It is.” Matt replies, “But I also had something else in mind.”

“Okay.”

Matt is another thing that has been changing. The ease of his touch, the laughter, the softness in him that Karen wasn’t sure he would ever find again after what happened. She finds herself studying it sometimes, cataloguing the ways he is familiar and the ways he isn’t. He embraces them now, with everything he is, and Karen can see it. The way Matt reaches towards them rather than leans away. The way he reaches towards her, subtle and honest, with the shape of hope in his heart. 

He pulls back and Karen looks over her shoulder to check on Foggy. He has made it to the bar, shouting his order over alongside a dozen other people. When she turns back to Matt, a small present box is waiting in front of her. White with a navy blue bow.

Karen eyes it for a moment before she pulls off the lid, peering inside. Unlike the plaque, this present isn’t wrapped beyond the box and she feels her heart pick up speed as she reaches inside. She hates that Matt can hear it as well as she pulls out the string of plastic red chilli pepper lights, slightly tangled but instantly recognisable.

“Matt.” 

She is thrown back to a lifetime ago, back when she didn’t know he was Daredevil and he made her feel like something too precious. A date that started with disaster and ended with the best kiss of her life.

She knows these lights, would know them anywhere. She once described them for him, over Indian food and nerves. 

The fairy lights from their restaurant. The ones Karen told Matt were her favourite thing about it. Magic, she had said, watching his smile match her own. 

He remembered. She doesn’t even know how he found them to give to her but her fingers run over the little plastic chilli peppers and she feels a surge of something that feels like hope in her chest.

“I wanted to give you something I knew you would like.” He tells her softly, “Something that meant something good.”

It means too much, she wants to tell him. It feels too close to the boundary they have drawn for themselves as friends.

When she looks up Matt is wetting his lips and Karen wants to run.

“I don’t…” she breathes, tries again, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Karen, are you okay?”

She doesn’t know how to answer that,  doesn’t know what any of this means. 

“Matt, why did you get me these?”

“I… I want you to have a piece of that night. That perfect night. I wanted you to remember that I can be good, Karen. I can be the guy you trusted. The guy you…”

“We agreed to be friends.” She cuts him off, feels herself folding in half with every word, “I would trust you with my life, Matt.”

He looks hurt for a moment, “Then why do you still avoid me when it’s just us?”

“You know why.”

And he does. He has to because Karen’s heart is a traitor and Matt is too perceptive not to pick up on it.

She nods to herself, “We can’t.”

“Because you don’t trust me?”

“Because I am still trying to find a way to forgive you.”

Matt recoils in his seat, “I deserved that.”

He does and he doesn’t. This thing with Matt has always been complicated. The crowd behind her grows rowdy, a broken glass she thinks is causing the attention. She focuses on Matt’s face, the slight tilt that makes him look softer. 

Karen sighs, “I just… our feelings can’t come into it. I won’t survive you breaking me again, Matt.”

“I never…”

“I know.” She insists, “And I love this gift. I love that you thought of it, that you remember. But it doesn’t change anything. Friends is all I can do right now.”

“Friends.” He agrees, “Always.”

Reading him doesn’t come easy to her. She isn’t him, can’t read his heartbeat or decipher the smallest waver of his voice. Karen believes him though, knows he will accept it if this is all she has to give.

It is.

The heat in the bar swells as Karen puts the lid back on the box, putting it inside her bag so Foggy doesn’t see it. Matt listens to her do it as his fingers play with the glass he has reached for.

“I do trust you.” Karen tells him, “I see how honest you are being. How hard you are trying. But you and me and Foggy, it’s too important to risk. No matter how much I want to.”

She watches his throat bob as he swallows, “Me too.”

And that’s the thing about pain, she thinks. It’s not a killer but a lesson and Karen’s lesson from loving Matt Murdock has been this: she can’t lose him. Even if that means only having him in boundaries and rules and careful measures. 

Even if that means she has to close herself off to the bubble of something more in her gut that fizzles like champagne when he is near. 

“It was the best night of my life.” She tells him quietly, “I’m glad I have something to remember it by.”

Matt smiles and for once, Karen wishes she could listen to his heartbeat instead, “I am sorry, Karen. For everything after.”

“I know.” She smiles, wanting to reach out and not trusting herself to do it, “That’s why I would rather have you as a friend then not have you at all.”

“Do you worry one day it wouldn’t be enough for either of us?” He asks softly.

Karen takes a sip of her scotch, “Every damn day.”

II

She is in the office when she gets the call, a mountain of paperwork over her messy desk and three cups of coffee that have already gone cold. Karen picks up the phone without looking at the number, too caught up in her work and the lead that feels so close she can practically taste it on her tongue.

“Karen Page.” She answers, already highlighting another sentence in front of her with a yellow highlighter that smudges the black ink.

“Karen.” The sheriff’s cold voice creeps down the phone and suddenly she is a screw up again, bleeding onto fried eggs and holding onto the world by her fingernails. 

She stops highlighting, feels the dread curling in her body, “Sheriff?”

“He’s gone, Karen. Heart attack at the diner last night. It was quick.” 

Her fingers grip the phone to her ear so tightly it digs into her skin. Her father. 

Her father is dead.

A tremor goes through her without her permission and Karen gets to her feet because she thinks it might help ground her as the sheriff talks about arrangements and plans as if he is merely having a conversation about the weather. He asks her if she is coming up like he hopes she’ll say no.

But her father is dead. The words make sense but not when they are put together like that. 

Her father who Karen loves, even if she hasn’t always liked him. Who never loved Karen like he loved Kevin and probably didn’t like her much either. She was too much like her mom. Her grief too raw and her anger too palpable for him to stomach. 

She is biting at her nails, a habit she hasn’t done since she first arrived in Hell’s Kitchen. 

“It might be best if you don’t come.” He is saying, “Folks still remember and it will be hard for you. I can sort everything, Karen. I give you my word.”

Everything. Her father. The diner. Like Karen’s whole life hadn’t once been sorting those things. 

Like she hadn’t given up her promising future to take care of her family. Like she hadn’t sacrificed everything to keep them from drowning. 

Because all Fagan Corners will remember is the junky with a bad attitude.

She is shaking, she isn’t sure when it started and she is acutely aware she hadn’t said anything yet. Hasn’t acknowledged him.

“When… when is the funeral?” 

“I’ll let you know but you don’t have to come back, Karen.” Comes the reply, “He would understand.” 

He wouldn’t want her to goes unsaid. Karen thinks about the time she called home, looking for a safe place and her father had denied it. Her father who couldn’t even look at her when she left because he didn’t want her to see the relief in his eyes. 

Her father who silently wished it was Karen who had died, not Kevin. Karen doesn’t blame him for that, she wished for it too.

But now she will never have the chance to fix it, to show him what she has made of her life in Hell’s Kitchen. To reassure him she isn’t a screw up, she was just lost but now she isn’t. Foggy and Matt found her. 

He probably wouldn’t have listened, he never did before. Always too busy buying shit they couldn’t afford and hoping Karen could fix the problem. Offering her Karencakes like a replacement for her mother.

Guilt surges through her like a river bursting its banks because he is dead and Karen is still holding so much anger and resentment in her bones that she thinks they will snap from the weight of it. 

Her father, who once taught her how to flip pancakes before she could ride a bike.

But that version of him had been dead a long time, buried with her mother in the tiny cemetery in town.

Karen never stopped waiting for him to come home, now he never will. 

Her legs give out and she sees the floor surging towards her as her breath stalls and all she can do is brace for an impact that doesn’t come.

Suddenly, impossibly (or not for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen), Matt is there. Strong arms are around her as they guide her to the floor, Matt’s heartbeat against her back as Karen lets out a strangled sob that is more of a whimper than a bang. 

That’s what her grief is now, that’s all she has left. Weak and pathetic. A soul too tired of grieving people to do it again.

When you lose as many people as she has there is nothing but a gaping hole that used to be savage and raw. Karen is used to loss, the shape of it, the taste of it. 

She isn’t used to having someone catch her though. 

“I’ve got you.” Matt’s voice is gruff against her ear, familiar and comforting, “I have you.”

The phone has fallen, Karen can hear the distant tinny voice of the sheriff calling her name. Matt’s arm reaches over her for it, the smell of coffee and chalk from the old gym he loves.

“She’ll call you back.” He hangs up the phone and pulls Karen tightly against his chest as he arranges them on the floor of her office so her face is pressed against his white shirt and his body is bracing her through the tremors.

Karen hates it. Hates how comforting she finds it. Hates how desperately she clings to Matt.

“How much did you hear?” She asks although she knows the answer. Her fingers are on the collar of his neatly pressed shirt, wrinkling it as she anchors herself to him like he can save her from her grief and her anger and her loneliness. 

Matt’s lips are pressed against her hair, “I tried not to hear any of it. But your heart practically screamed at me. I didn’t mean to.” 

So, everything. 

She works on controlling her tears, keeping them silent and small. If Matt realises what she is doing, he doesn’t comment but his arms stay around her and for a moment Karen can pretend it’s simple between them.

One friend comforting another.

The heartache of baggage they both carry that Karen pretends has been lost at an airport, something she tries not to think about ever but especially not right now. 

“When my dad died, I was angry.” Matt tells her softly, “At the world. At God. At him mostly.”

“Matt…”

“Let me, okay?” He sounds so vulnerable she can’t find it in her to stop him, “It’s okay to feel it, Karen. It doesn’t make you a bad person to have conflicting emotions about him.”

But she is a bad person. She has been for a long time and Matt, as screwed up as he is (and he really is), will never match up to her mistakes. He’s never killed anyone. Karen has.

And she didn’t kill her father. She knows that. But she can’t help but wonder how much stress it put on his heart when Kevin died, when he disowned her because it was the wrong damn kid.

Karen pulls back from Matt, suddenly worried about tainting him with her hands and her skin and her bullshit. 

“He always fried the eggs in butter. I told him a thousand times it wasn’t healthy but it was how he had always done it. I used to hate that.” She tells him softly, “I used to hate a lot of things.”

“And now?”

“Now, I don’t think I know how to be in this world without a family, without roots. I don’t know how I define myself when I’m not the daughter he hated. The one he was always so disappointed in.”

His glasses hide his eyes behind red lenses but Karen knows the look Matt is giving her. Broken and aching and hollow. 

“You have family, Karen. You have us.”

But she’s the last Page now. That family plot in the cemetery in Fagan Corners getting bigger with the wrong damn people.

All of it is so wrong.

She wants to scream or cry or throw up. She wants to fight someone.

She wonders if that is how Matt feels, if that is why he goes to work with bloody knuckles and a rage he hides so well during the day beneath crisp suits and easy smiles. 

She wants to ask him but a part of her is scared of the question.

“Matt, we need to get off the floor.” 

“We can stay here as long as you need.”

Karen is too exhausted to leave his arms, “Foggy finding us like this would be bad.”

Because this is too intimate for friends and that’s what they are. They agreed. They drew lines in the sand and walls against each other. 

Friends.

Good friends.

Great friends.

But friends. Full stop.

Matt softens, “Are you going to go? To the funeral?”

“I don’t think I’m welcome.”

“I’ll go with you.” He offers, leaning back against the wall of her office, “So would Foggy. If you want us to.”

Karen tries to imagine it. Showing Matt and Foggy where she came from, the diner and the house and the places she used to score drugs. She tries to fit the pieces together. Their Karen, that Karen. Matt knows of course but Foggy doesn’t and Karen doesn’t think she can take the look in his eyes when he sees the bloody beating heart of her. 

The way she found love in the wrong people because they made her feel more wanted than her own family. The way she abandoned her dreams for bills they could never pay and got further away from the person she wanted to be with every pill and line she snorted. 

She shakes her head, “Let me think about it, okay? I don’t even know when it is.”

His shoulder brushes against hers as Karen settles next to him on the floor of her office, the wall against her back and the heat of him searing into her side as she untangles herself from him.

This Karen, not that one.

Matt grounds her without even trying, the softness of his silence and the strength of him at her side. 

“Karen, I…”

“Don’t okay, whatever you’re about to say, please don’t.”

Matt is silent for a moment, his hands on his thighs as he nods mutely to himself, “Okay.”

“Do you think it will ever come easily to us? Being friends?”

“It’s not the friends bit we are struggling with.” Matt points out, “It’s the rest of it we are leaving unsaid and pretending doesn’t exist.”

And the truth hurts but Karen wants a little hurt right now. She wants something that feels easier than her dead father. This argument is well-worn and fits against her ribs snuggly. 

“We agreed.”

“We did, Miss Page.” He replies, “I just didn’t expect it to be this hard.”

Karen wants to say a thousand things. Wants to tell him that this is his fault. He broke them with his lies and his ‘death’ and his goddamn need to cleanse the world with the blood on his knuckles. She wants to tell him she didn’t expect it to be this hard either because honestly, how can she still have feelings for a man who has hurt her so badly.

It would be so easy. Crashing against him like a shipwreck, weather-worn and battered. Letting Matt soothe her, letting him give her something other than this guilt and loss that is an iceberg in a quiet ocean. 

God, she can practically feel it. 

But that wouldn’t be fair to her or him and Karen knows that Matt might well have the power to destroy her but that power goes both ways. It’s why he came back, it’s why he is trying and Karen never wants him to stop. 

She settles for silence because it seems safer. She understands now why it’s Matt’s default. The vulnerability he is waiting for, she can’t surrender. Not like this. She cannot let him see her fall apart because he will want to comfort her and Karen knows she will let him. 

That slippery slope only gets more slippery the longer they do this. 

They are still sitting on the floor side by side when Foggy comes back with their lunch order and one look at her then Matt has him abandoning the sandwiches and taking up his spot on Karen’s other side, squished between her and the filing cabinet. 

She knows they are having a silent conversation over the top of her head but Karen lets them, thinks that might be easier than making her say it. She hasn’t yet. Wonders if she ever will.

But Matt and Foggy ground her, warm against her sides and solid. Karen breathes easier. She ignores the way she wishes she was back in Matt’s arms in favour of muttering “shit” under her breath every few minutes like it can hold back the dam inside her.

Foggy has always been a good buffer for the things she and Matt leave unsaid and right now, Karen needs them to stay in their neat little friendship box because she needs to figure out how to say goodbye to her father. How to go back to Fagan Corners. 

Karen needs to figure out how to deal with the loss of something she never had and now never will. 

At least that is something she is familiar with. 

III

The sound of her phone is what jolts Karen awake. It’s incessant and far too loud in the quiet dark of her bedroom as she groans, flopping over in bed to reach for it. The cold air nips at her skin as she throws an arm out of the covers with the intention of silencing the call and throwing the phone across the room.

It’s the name on her screen that makes her freeze, eyes squinting at the brightness and the glow of the four letters. Matt.

Karen answers it before it can end, “Matt?” She breathes into the speaker, sitting up in bed as her mind spirals into a thousand different directions.

“Are you home?” His voice is quiet but she hears something in it, a harshness like he is gritting his teeth.

The clock on her beside table reads 2:13am, far too late for him to be calling, “At two in the morning? Where else would I be?”

“I’m at your window.” 

“What?”

As if in answer, she hears the gentle tap of gloves on glass at her bedroom window and Karen can dimly see the silhouette of horns through the thin material of her curtains.

She is already getting out of bed, flicking on the bedside lamp as she goes which douses the room in a golden light. The phone is forgotten in the mess of her sheets as she rushes to the window with her bare feet.

Daredevil is waiting for her on her fire escape, face hidden by the mask but Karen zones in on the blood of his split lip and that’s enough to have her wrenching the window up so he can slide in. The snow has been falling hard for days, winter stealing around the city like a fist. It makes his blood redder against the dazzling white surrounding him. 

He knocks over the small plastic plant on the windowsill that used to sit on her desk at The Bulletin and that’s how Karen knows he has more than a split lip. Matt wouldn’t have made a mistake like that if he wasn’t in pain.

“What happened?” She gasps, surging forward to help him like this is an everyday occurrence.

It absolutely isn’t. Whilst she knows Matt is Daredevil and accepts it, he still operates on keeping that side of his life to himself. The suit feels rough and bulky against her palms as she slides her shoulder under Matt’s arm and helps him stand.

He accepts her help without protest, another bad sign, and favours his right leg in a way that makes Karen wish his damn suit wasn’t red so she could make out where he is bleeding from.

“Gunshot.” Matt grits out, “You were closer than my apartment. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry for getting shot?”

“For waking you up.”

“Always wake me up.” Karen grits out as she guides him over to the edge of her bed and forces him to sit. Matt does heavily, grunting at the pain. The light is better from there and Karen can see he has tried to pack the wound with the fresh snow from outside, the mess of it dripping from his thigh onto her carpet in a watery pink that will definitely stain and ruin any chance of getting her deposit back from her ogre of a landlord.

She swallows and tries to force her heart to calm down, “Christ, Matt.”

“I got the bullet out. It wasn’t deep.” He tells her, “I can do the stitches, I just need some help wrapping it up until I get back to my apartment.”

God, Karen wants to slap him. Wants to point out every damn thing that’s wrong with that statement like he failed a pop quiz.

Instead, she reaches for the helmet, gently pulling it off. Matt lets her, his face sweaty and hair a mess when he is revealed to her. His unfocused gaze is on her chin, but she can see the awkwardness of it. He hates that she is seeing him like that.

And if there is one thing Karen Page knows about Matt Murdock, it’s that he spooks easily. 

So, she goes into survival mode with him, “I have a first aid kit in the kitchen. I’ll grab it and then we can work on getting this suit off, okay?”

His shoulders relax a fraction of an inch, “Trying to get me out of my clothes, Miss Page?”

It feels familiar, achingly so and Karen clings to it, “I just want to steal the suit and sell it online. I’d make a killing.”

Matt laughs, pained and breathy but it’s genuine. It seems to settle him as much as her.

The first aid box is a new addition to her apartment, brought on a whim with Matt in mind although Karen won’t admit that to him. It’s still in its cellophane wrapper when she pulls it out from underneath the sink, her gaze catching on the little red chilli pepper string lights that glow softly from where they are stuck to the underside of her cabinets. She is quick to remove the cellophane before taking the first aid kit back to Matt so he doesn’t ask questions.

To help fix a gunshot wound to the thigh. Shit. Karen needs new friends.

It’s only as she is rushing back to the bedroom that she wonders if Matt has noticed she’s only dressed in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of underwear she has had for years, little boy shorts with the elastic wearing out.

Nope, she can’t think about Matt thinking about that.

Fuck. 

When she comes back into the bedroom he has managed to take off the tactical boots, opening the top half of the suit with its hidden zip Karen didn’t notice before. It pools around his waist, bearing his naked torso to her view in a way that makes Karen think what she is wearing is the least of their issues.

“It’s an all in one.” He tells her, “I might need some help with the bottom half.”

Karen thinks the universe might be laughing at her.

She nods although he can’t see it and sets the first aid kit down beside the bed before crouching in front of him and guiding his hands to her shoulders, “You’ll need to stand up.”

He seems to stop breathing, gritting his teeth as he does so, his fingers barely tightening on her shoulders as he stands and Karen works the suit down past his hips, his ass and the top of his legs. Matt tries to help as much as he can, letting Karen peel the suit away from the wound with barely more than a hiss of pain.

Once the suit is gone and he is back on the edge of the bed, Karen reaches for the first aid kit, surveying the contents and pulling out what she thinks might be useful.

Maybe she should suggest to Foggy they take a first aid course together.

“You’ll need to clean it, then if you have steri-strips to hold it until I can stitch it that would be helpful.” 

She draws her bottom lip between her teeth, “Okay, I can do that.” She replies, finding the steri-strips and the wipes.

“Karen… thank you.”

“What are friends for?” 

The wound is a mess of red, blood still trickling down his thigh as the snow melts. She starts by cleaning it, padding at the edges with a cotton swab to clean out the rest of the snow before she disinfects it.

Matt has his eyes closed, apparently trusting her to do this but he must be in pain because Karen can see him swallowing thickly every so often, hands curled into fists against her comforter.

“Talk to me.” She tells him, her pile of bloody cotton swabs growing next to where she kneels on the floor between his legs.

Matt looks surprisingly vulnerable in her space, wearing nothing but his black boxer briefs and a handful of bruises. The silver cross hangs low against his chest. Karen is struck by how beautiful he is, even like this. Especially like this.

“What about?” He asks softly, head tilted to the side as she rips open the wipes to clean the wound.

Karen hums, hair tickling his right leg as she works on his left, “Anything. What happened?”

Matt lets out a sigh, “Gang fight at the docks, they had kids held there. For labour I think. I got them out but when I went back for the guys, the fight had already broken out. I broke one of their jaws when I got hit in the leg.”

“Jesus, Matt.”

She focuses on his blood, the trickle of it dripping onto her carpet, the way it stains her hands. He is always going to flirt with danger like this, she knows, always going to let this city use and abuse him to save who he can.

Karen admires that as much as it fucking terrifies her. 

Matt dips his head forward, “The kids are safe though. Brett is handling it.”

Karen adds another bloody wipe to the pile, “Thanks to you.”

“Doing the right thing is easy, Karen.” He hisses as she touches the wound, abs flexing in response, “The fight is something I have always understood. It’s simple in that way, one move to the next to the next. It’s not the worst thing.”

She rubs her forearm over her brow, the room growing hotter now as she reaches for the steri-strips to help close up the skin temporarily, “What’s the worst thing?”

Matt pauses as if the question catches him off guard and he is deciding how honest to be. Karen wants to point out the intimacy of their position, the way she can see the snug fit of his boxers against his muscular thigh, the hair on his leg matted with his own blood.

He seems to reach the same conclusion.

“This.” He breathes, “Letting you see it.” 

Karen frowns, “I’m the thing you’re afraid of?”

Matt looks crestfallen, “I know how to take a punch, Karen. I know how to avoid bleeding through my shirts and how to pretend I’m not in pain with bruised ribs but this? Letting someone see me after the fight? I don’t know how to do this.” 

She can understand that in that twisted Matt logic way she has come to start deciphering. It must be difficult for him to be open with her after hiding it for so long. Knowing this is all she wanted from him before when he was too scared to give it. 

Karen doesn’t think she would have been ready for it then either. They were both keeping secrets. 

But Matt is vulnerable like this. More than ever. Battered and bloody, the idea of rejection on top must be terrifying. The idea that she will recoil from this part of him even now. The reality of it is as stark as the snow outside. 

“So, why did you come to me?” 

“Do you really want to know?”

She places the first steri-strip over his skin, working it to hold the wound closed. He is giving her an out, she knows, realises that they are at the boundary line of something they both have been trying not to step over.

But Karen is covered in his blood now and she is staring at more of him than she ever has. It feels like something tentative and fragile and she wants it desperately.

“Yes.” She replies softly, “I want honesty.” 

“Because I don’t want to be the kind of man that lets the fight win and nothing else. I dress anger up as retribution or justice or protection more often than I can count and I know it’s because I’m scared. I’m scared of what this city is becoming. I’m scared of what I might become. I’m scared of letting you see that and realising it’s too much. You want honesty? There it is, I’m scared. All the time, Karen.” 

“Of being vulnerable?” 

“Of loving people so much that they become targets.” 

Her breath catches in her throat, her hands shake over the next steri-strip on his thigh and she feels something dark and warm curl up underneath her ribs and refuse to fade away. 

“Too honest?” 

“A little.” 

“You asked.” 

“I know.” 

And she did ask. She needed to know because this Matt, the one who has committed to being her friend, is someone she loves. Someone who feels familiar and new at the same time and Karen finds herself thinking about him more than she would like.

More than she knows is appropriate for their friend code. 

“I lose everyone I love, Karen. Same ending every time no matter what I do. How hard I fight or bleed or try.”

“You haven’t lost me or Foggy.”

Matt sighs, “Not yet. But the thought of that day coming terrifies me because I don’t know how I will survive it. Not you. Not Foggy. You’re too precious to me. You always will be.” 

She hears the hitch in his voice, sees the rise of his chest as he tries to hold it back. Karen sets the last steri-strip in place on his thigh and surges up onto her knees, bringing her forehead against Matt’s firmly.

He shudders for a moment before she feels him weave his hand through her hair to cup the back of her neck and hold her to him. 

It feels like a wave, washing away the line in the sand but Karen allows herself this one selfish moment with him because Matt is bleeding and she is scared and there is too much between them for this not to get messy. 

“I wish you had told me back then.” She says softly, feeling Matt’s other hand slide over her back as she screws her eyes shut and tries to commit the solid presence of him to memory.

“It’s my biggest regret.” He replies, words ghosting over her lips as Karen threads her hands at the back on his neck, playing with the chocolate brown hair there.

“Matt…” she trails off, knows a hundred reasons why they need to stop. Knows where this will lead if she lets it. 

The ache in her is a physical thing, as sharp and bloody as a gunshot wound.

“Karen.” The way he says her name feels sinful. Like a prayer and something helpless. Something that makes Karen want to run.

But she can’t think about running when Matt is holding her like she is worth all the blood inside him. Like she is precious and revered and loved.

Like she is so much more than his friend.

His lips brush over hers, a kiss but not quite, Karen feels the softness of them and the way they chase her own when she sways backwards. Not pulling back, just too shocked to stay still. She tastes the blood on them, metallic and sharp on her tongue. 

Matt feels warm and solid and alive with her, every part of him surrendering to her willing hands.

She wants him. Desperately. 

Karen knows she can’t have him. Not like this. Not when he is bleeding and she is shaking (when did she even start shaking?) and the weight of everything they could be is pressing down on her like dirt over a coffin.

She pulls back and Matt lets her.

He lets out a deep breath that tickles her cheek and Karen lets her hands fall to his shoulders.

“I’m sorry.” He says, those eyes of his too expressive as he dips his gaze towards her racing heart, “I shouldn’t have…”

“No.” She replies, “I wanted you to.”

“Then why did you stop?” Not an accusation but curiosity, like he is trying to understand her as much as she is him. 

“Because I’m afraid too.” 

Matt’s hand slips from her back, fingers finding her hair to push the locks back behind her ear, “Of what?”

“Of you.” She admits, quickly amending her statement when she feels him shut down, “Of us. Being friends is easy, it’s safe. But this… I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

He nods, softening, “Nothing with us is easy, Karen. Being your friend is a daily battle of pretending I don’t want you or I’m not searching for you in the room before anyone else. It’s pretending I can’t hear what my voice does to you or the way your heart picks up speed when I make you blush.”

Karen lifts her forehead from his, resting a palm over his heart instead because she has realised Matt needs connection for conversations like this. He needs grounding. Her fingers are stained with his blood, as if she has been ripping his heart right out of his chest.

“What are we going to do?” She asks softly, more to herself than to him because if Karen understands one thing with absolute clarity now it’s that she and Matt are on a collision course. 

Friends for now. Friends until they collide into each other.

Friends until they are ready.

“We wait.” Matt tells her, “If you aren’t ready then this doesn’t happen.”

“And if I’m never ready?”

Matt looks pained, “Then I’ll be a better friend.”

She wants to laugh. Or cry. Or sleep for sixteen hours, preferably without the image of Matt in just his boxers on her damn bed.

“I’m not asking you to wait, Matt.”

“I know.” He replies, “I want to do it anyway.”

She wonders if she could actually win an argument with him or if the lawyer in him has already thought of every defence to this conversation already.

Maybe she would be better equipped if her lips weren’t still tingling from the feel of his. 

“God, why did you have to be half-naked while you tell me that?” Karen asks, releasing her grip on him to settle back on her knees, “It makes this harder.”

Matt gives her a charming smile, “Maybe I’m trying to distract you?”

“That’s not going to make me forget this conversation.”

“Do you want me to blame the blood loss tomorrow to make it easier?”

She laughs, retrieving a dressing pad and some bandages from the first aid kit which is smeared with bloody fingerprints.

“Just promise me next time you drop by, you’ll bring a change of clothes.” 

She places the pad over the wound before she starts wrapping it up tightly, listening to Matt’s guidance on the best way to do it.

“Karen, if we’re breaking rules tonight, you should also know that I’ve been trying to work out what material your underwear is since I arrived.” He tells her, “I’m not the only distraction here.”

Her cheeks flame, hands stumbling over the dressing although she gains momentum quickly, “I’m not answering that.”

Matt’s smirk is devilish, "Something to think about.”

Karen finishes up, tucking the end into the wrapping so it stays in place, “I don’t think friends think about each other in their underwear as much as we do.”

“That sounds like an example of very responsible friends, Miss Page.” He replies, “We didn’t make an agreement on being responsible.”

“No, Mr Murdock. I guess we didn’t.” Her smile answers his own although he can’t see it, Karen knows he can definitely tell.

IV

Thomas is fine. He is nice. Well dressed. Polite. On paper, Karen should consider their date a success. He asked her questions and listened to the answers, he let her ramble about Nelson, Murdock and Page for far too long and insisted on paying the bill after dinner.

There was a time Karen would have killed for a date like that.

Before Matt Murdock.

Because that’s the thing that Karen can’t shake. The constant reminder that she is on a date, but not with Matt. 

Thomas with his blond hair looks all wrong across the table from her. He is tall but Matt is taller. His voice is soft whereas Matt’s has a hint of gravel underpinning it that does things to Karen’s body. 

He isn’t Matt and that, Karen realises as they are walking away from the restaurant together, is exactly the problem.

The city is quiet around them, a few stragglers making their way home from a late night in the office or dinner at one of the many restaurants advertising menus on the sidewalk. Karen feels the cool air against her short sleeves and wishes she remembered her coat which is hanging on the hook at the office.

That probably should have been a sign she wasn’t into this. She hadn’t even bothered to dress up, still in her pencil skirt and light blue blouse she wore this morning. Matt had brushed up against her as they made coffee and had commented on the softness of the blouse which had made Karen blush because only he would notice something like that. 

God, she needs to stop thinking about Matt when she is on a date.

She refuses to think about the fact she went on the date to try to stop thinking about Matt in the first place. To remind herself of their boundaries, their friend code and that he isn’t the only man for her.

“I had a nice time tonight.” Thomas smiles, running a hand through his hair.

“Me too.” Karen says as they approach the corner, stopping so she can turn left towards her apartment.

She is about to thank him for dinner when he shocks her with his next question, “I live over on 3rd, I have a bottle of wine in the fridge if you fancy it?”

Karen blinks, feels something unpleasant curl in her gut. He is asking her over, presumably with sex in mind.

When he first asked her out at the grocery store, flirting over the last packet of dark chocolate on the shelf, she had been taken back by his quiet charm. It didn’t scream confidence but something genuine. The question from him throws her, especially when it is the furthest thing from her mind. 

“I actually have an early start in the morning so I should head home.” Not a lie but definitely a polite version of the truth.

Thomas seems to pause for a moment before responding, “Oh come on, don’t be like that. It could be a fun evening.”

“It was. Now, it’s over.” 

She sees the change in him like a switch. As if he never considered her saying no, as if he was sure this was a done deal.

“Come on, Kare!” He laughs to cover up his disgruntled reaction, “Come have a drink with me.”

It’s a little too pushy for Karen’s tastes, a little too insistent for a first date. The confidence of the statement, the easy laugh as if he feels he is owed this. So different to how she thought of him when they first met. It never entered his head the night would end any other way, she sees that now.

Karen feels her heart pick up speed with her anger, “No, thank you.”

“Oh, so you’re one of those girls.” He replies and it pisses Karen off he says girls rather than women, “All tease, no pay off?”

And this is why she hates dating. Because there are far more men that think they are owed something from women than there used to be. Because men like him feed off intimidation and fear and cannot understand a no if they don’t want to hear it. 

He takes a step closer to her on the street as if to try and intimidate her with his size. Karen wants to laugh because she has Daredevil on her damn speed dial and a gun in her purse. 

He picked the wrong woman to target. 

“Actually I’m the kind of girl that hates pushy men.” She says, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder, “Goodnight Thomas.”

She turns to go, the traffic lights further down the street turning amber. A warm hand slips around her upper arm with a tight grip and spins her back. Her body bumps into Thomas in a way that makes anxiety prickle on her tongue.

Danger, some innate biological instinct tells her. That response all women find as they get older and more weary.

She could run if she has to, thinks she can make it down the street to the shop she knows might still be open on the corner. Without her permission, her hand is reaching inside her bag to feel for the handgun she never leaves home without.

“You little…”

“Get your hand off her!” 

Karen’s whole system floods with relief, her eyes darting to the figure rushing towards her. 

Matt.

Not Daredevil.

Plain old Matt Murdock, looking vengeful and pissed even with the cane in his hand and the glasses hiding his eyes.

Thomas startles, releasing his grip so she stumbles back. Matt is already there, her back bumping against his arm as he steadies her with one hand.

Karen doesn’t want to know how he could tell Thomas had grabbed her but she feels the instant relief from Matt’s presence that she doesn’t even try to hide. 

She’ll take the devil as her saviour any day over the guy pretending to be an angel to get her back to his place. 

“You call your bodyguard or something?” Thomas sneers, “This is none of your business, you’re actually ruining our date so if you don’t mind…”

“I do actually.” Matt’s voice is venom laced with the promise of pain. A little bit of the devil bleeding through his words. 

“Matt.” Karen warns but he ignores her as he steps closer, pushing Thomas back a little to give her space.

Karen’s hand releases the grip on her gun, one hand instinctively grabbing the back of Matt’s jacket to hold him back.

“You her boyfriend?”

“I’m her friend.” The word sounds like a swear word, brutal and wrong, “And I don’t appreciate you grabbing her.”

Karen wants to point out he shouldn’t have been able to know that when he is just Matt Murdock but doesn’t think now is the time for a conversation about his secret identity. 

“Matt, please.” She tries, “I’m okay.”

“Relax man, she isn’t worth it anyway.” Thomas is scowling now, realising Matt isn’t about to brush this off.

Karen can feel the anger radiating off her horned saviour (minus the horns tonight), heat and tension curling over his shoulders and down his spine. 

“What?” Matt snarls, stepping even closer to him, “You listen to me very carefully because if you ever try to scare a woman like that again, you will wake up with your jaw wired shut. If you ever try to come near her again, you’ll be drinking meals through a straw. That’s a promise.”

“Matt!”

Matt backs off, stepping backwards as Thomas smoothes out his jacket, “Nutjob.” He mutters, already retreating with the fear in his eyes that he probably hoped Karen would have in hers.

She watches him go, knows Matt is listening to the sound of his retreat before he turns to face her.

“Are you okay?” He asks urgently, one hand cupping her cheek as if to convince himself she is safe.

“I was fine.” Karen says, her heart calming at his touch but her annoyance flaring at the complete disregard for his own secret persona.

“Is that why you were going for the gun in your purse? Don’t lie to me and tell me you weren’t scared, Karen. Not when you know I can tell.” 

“This isn’t… I’m not yours to save, Matt. I can save myself.” 

“You shouldn’t have to.” 

She sighs, knows she won’t win this argument with him. She never does when it comes to her safety. Karen wipes her hand down her face and allows herself to feel the comfort from having him so close.

“I’m glad you turned up when you did.” She confesses softly, “How did you magically appear like that?”

Matt’s smile is soft, “I was working late at the office. Didn’t realise the time. I was on my way home when I heard you.”

She nods, knows somehow he will be able to tell she has done it, “I’m okay, Matt. I promise.”

“You’re still shaking.”

“It’s cold out here.” 

Before Karen realises what he is doing, Matt is juggling the cane from one hand to the other so he can slip out of his black jacket and offer it to her. Karen wants to protest but she is cold and it smells like him, the aftershave he wears everyday.

She slips it on, holding back her sigh of pleasure at the warmth of it.

Matt smirks like he knows, “Can I walk you home at least? Please? I need to know you get there safely.” 

“I don’t need you to.” She replies, “Although I’m not ready to give your jacket back so I guess you can.”

“Thanks, Karen.”

His hand slips around the top of her elbow, letting her guide him left in the direction of her apartment, “This okay?” He checks as they cross the street.

Karen hums, “He didn’t grab me that hard.”

“He shouldn’t have grabbed you at all.” Matt’s voice is steel, “It might bruise. I could hear some of the smaller blood vessels break from the grip.”

That’s not something Karen has heard before, the fact he can hear bruises forming on her skin. She tucks his jacket more firmly around her frame. 

The city fills in their silence as they walk. Somewhere further down music is streaming from an open window, laughter spilling out onto the street as they pass. Karen loves Hell’s Kitchen like this, with the yellow glow of the street lights and the hum of energy that clings to every corner.

Matt seems content by it as well, letting Karen lead him towards her apartment building with slow steps. If he feels the cold, he doesn’t show it but very so often she feels his thumb stroke over her arm through his jacket almost on impulse and she has to remain herself this is not anything more than a friend walking her home.

What doesn’t help is that this night reminds her so much of another one, one from years ago when it was raining and her heart was a bird beneath her ribcage at Matt’s proximity alone. 

Karen comes back to that night often in her mind, wonders what it would have been like if he came in. If they made it to her apartment, her bed. 

She shakes the thought off as they cross the deserted street, Matt’s face deep in thought.

They make it to her apartment too soon, and this too feels like an echo of a different night. Karen wants to kiss him, wants him to kiss her but the thought scares her so she chases it away. 

Friends, she reminds herself.

Just friends.

“Can I ask you something that’s probably too personal and absolutely none of my business?” Matt asks, letting go of her arm to grip his cane with both hands. She loves him like this. Soft and open, the city he loves so much enveloping him in shadow but also in the ebb and flow of the street.

Matt Murdock was made for Hell’s Kitchen. Made by Hell’s Kitchen.

Her palms feel too warm, “Okay.”

“Why did you go on that date tonight?” 

She can see he has been wanting to ask it since he found her. Knows the question, a thousand variations of it, have been churned around in his mind along with some darker thoughts about Thomas that Karen doesn’t want to think about.

The wind blows her hair against her cheek, “I don’t know. I couldn’t think of a reason to say no.”

It cuts, Matt’s face becomes a mask behind his glasses and all she wants to do is take back her answer. They are so fragile these days. Glass shattering under her feet no matter where she stands with him. Ice breaking over a frozen pond. 

“Yeah, I thought it would be something like that.” There is no accusation in his tone and for some reason that hurts more.

Karen knows this is a moment she will come back to again and again. A decision to either be brave or retreat.

Flirt with the devil and see if he flirts back.

“I was comparing him to you.” She admits, the bravery sour on her tongue, “The whole evening, I was comparing him to you.”

The grip on his cane gets tighter, knuckles white as bone presses against skin, “Karen.” A warning maybe or a plea.

“I know.” She laughs, “I should probably be in therapy.”

Matt reaches out a hand towards her face, fingers following the curve of her jaw to her chin, “I wanted it to be me.” He admits roughly, “The second I heard you and realised you were on a date. Listening to him trying to get you to go back to his place… I was jealous then I heard his adrenaline spike and he became pushy and I….”

Her heart becomes a thunderstorm she knows he can hear. She holds still, so still it makes her muscles ache but something is happening in the fabric of friendship between them. A knot, a wrinkle, a tear.

Karen should go inside.

Matt should go home.

“I didn’t kiss him.” She feels it’s important he know that, despite the fact his fingers are still on her skin, skimming down the column of her throat now to her collarbone and she is struggling to form a coherent fucking thought.

Matt wets his lips, pink against the dim light, “I know.”

“How?”

“I can taste the wine off your lips. You must not have liked it because you only had a few sips. You ordered the mushroom ravioli but I can’t sense him on you. I would know, Karen.”

She swallows against his fingers, “Fuck.” 

Sometimes she forgets about his senses, the scope of them, the way he can probably tell she is turned on by that and her eyes keep drifting to his fucking mouth.

“What are we going to do, Matt?” She asks softly, feeling his fingers ghost along her skin before he pulls back.

“You’re going to go inside, I’ll head home. We’ll see each other at the office tomorrow.” He answers simply despite the fact his voice is an octave too low and she thinks he could snap the cane in two without a thought.

Embarrassment floods her system, “You don’t… Oh god, I thought…I overstepped.”

“I want you, Karen.” Matt cuts her off, “Desperately. But not like this. Not with another man’s hands leaving bruises on your skin and a date that I didn’t take you on.”

That does nothing to help her breath but she manages to choke out, “You can’t say that and expect me to just go upstairs.”

“You have to.” He insists, “Because this, us, crossing that line has to be your decision. If you invite me up, I won’t be strong enough to say no and I don’t want you to regret anything in the morning because of this.” 

Fucking Matt Murdock and his moral code.

Karen loves him for it and wants to slap him in equal measure.

“Okay.” She agrees softly because she knows he is right. Everything in her head is churning and she needs a beat to think this through. She can’t kid herself into thinking they can sleep together and it will mean nothing.

But no one ever said she had to play fair. Matt certainly wasn’t.

“Goodnight, Karen.”

“You don’t need to wish me a goodnight, I definitely won’t be sleeping.” She tells him, leaning forward to kiss his cheek, “But don’t worry, I’ll be thinking of you.”

Matt chokes as she pulls back, moving to the first step of her apartment building, “Christ.” He utters, as if asking for a goddamn break from God.

“Goodnight Matt.” She replies sweetly, “And I’m keeping the jacket for now.” 

She knows Matt listens to her climb the stairs and disappear through the front door. Knows he will stand there until he can hear her in her apartment with the door locked.

Karen also knows she won’t be the only one suffering from their friend code tonight and that makes her practically giddy. 

She doesn’t give Thomas another thought.

She gives Matt Murdock plenty.

V

What’s funny is that Foggy is much more of a menace to their friend code than Matt could ever be. Karen thinks he is placing bets on the mess of their lives for sport. Foggy loves them, she knows that, but he is a meddler so Karen shouldn’t be surprised when he strolls into the office one morning with three tickets in his hand to the annual charity gala downtown and insists they all go to “drum up some wealthy clients.”

“You know, the type that actually pays the electric bill.” He prompts before informing them black tie is not optional and he expects them both to be there by seven.

Karen is too stunned to protest. Matt loses his argument pretty quickly.

She soon finds out why Foggy suddenly cares about charity galas and black tie. Kirsten McDuffie is stunning in a silver dress that falls down her body like a waterfall of diamonds and Karen watches Foggy’s jaw drop at the sight of her when the three of them enter.

They know about his crush of course. Kirsten is gorgeous and smart and one hell of a lawyer which means she is Foggy’s type entirely. Matt claps him on the back with a surprised laugh.

“So, we’re here to be your wingmen?” He asks softly as Karen takes in the opulence of the room, the sea of colours and the flutes of champagne hovering above her eyeline by waiters with trays held aloft in their hands. 

“You two are here to dance and be charming and get us some clients.” Foggy amends, “And maybe be my wingmen.”

Karen nudges him with her elbow, “She’s too smart to be seduced, Foggy.”

“Ah that is where you have miscalculated my friend. She hasn’t seen my charms up close yet.” Foggy replies, smoothing out his jacket, “Us Nelson’s have a way about us.”

“Your brother offered every beautiful woman free salami for an entire summer when he first started working at the butcher’s shop.” Matt points out, cane in one hand as the other squeezes Foggy’s shoulder.

“Okay, point taken but she’s a lawyer. I’m a lawyer. I’ve got this.”

“You have got this.” Karen replies, eyeing the way Kirsten is working the room with the grace that tells her she must have attended hundreds of these.

She is going to eat Foggy alive.

The music around them swells, the string quartet in the corner of the dance floor starting a new song that gets more couples moving towards each other. Karen watches it all with discomfort prickling at the base of her spine. This is so not her scene.

Heavy drapes have been hung from the ceiling giving the ballroom an air of warmth. The golden light of the chandelier in the centre making dresses sparkle and the whole thing feel like a fantasy so far away from the Hell’s Kitchen outside with its dirty streets and gang wars

Karen needs a drink. She needs several.

Foggy throws an arm over both hers and Matt’s shoulders, drawing them into a three-way hug. He squeezes them tightly before releasing them and then he is off, moving towards Kirsten McDuffie with a purpose and a confidence no one should possess without alcohol.

God, she loves that about Foggy.

Her heels are already killing her feet despite the fact they aren’t that high and Karen chose her most comfortable ones after settling on the dress she did to give her a bit of armour. The dress itself is beautiful, the type of thing she never thought she would have cause to wear. Floor length and deep, rich green. The colour of a forest of pine trees or glass bottles of expensive champagne. The fabric floats around her ankles, swishing as she walks in layers of light tulle, silky soft to the touch. The neckline itself is conservative enough, a vee with little straps that sit delicately over her shoulders. It’s the back that is meant to catch attention, open with a scoop of fabric the rests just above the dimples of her lower back, leaving her skin exposed to the room like a blank canvas. Karen isn’t sure she knows how to wear a dress like this despite the fact she knows she looks good in it. There’s an art to it, a confidence that doesn’t fit a woman who knows the feel of blood on her skin and a gun in her hands.

Matt’s face swims into her view, he is devilishly handsome in his black tux and white shirt, red glasses firmly in place. He has ditched his cane somewhere and is extending his hand towards her with a boyish smile Karen hasn’t seen in a while.

“Shall we, Miss Page?” He asks, the tone of his voice betraying his playfulness.

Her cheeks heat, her heart picking up speed in a way she prays Matt will ignore.

“Dance?” She utters as if he is speaking a foreign language.

Matt chuckles, “Those are our orders.” He replies, “Besides, I promise if we dance they will be too busy looking at the blind man tripping over his feet than you. I can feel your discomfort.”

Karen tries to not prickle at that, “I’m not… this dress is…”

“You are stunning, Karen. I don’t need sight to know that. Every man in here is having a heart attack when they look at you. A few of the women too.” 

She almost chokes, eyes the tray of champagne floating a few feet away before dragging her eyes back to Matt’s outstretched hand.

Slipping her hand in his is pure impulse but Matt threads their fingers together like it’s the most natural thing in the world as they make their way onto the dance floor and Karen finds them a spot with plenty of room.

Are they really going to do this? Slow dance at a ball when she isn’t wearing a bra? 

She should have told Foggy she was sick.

Then Matt is in her space, holding up their joined hands against his chest to pull Karen closer. She forgets how to breathe. Forgets how to speak. Numbly her fingers find his shoulder, feeling strong muscle through his tux and the smell of him as their heads become inches apart. 

Matt’s hand comes to rest respectfully at the middle of her back. Rough calloused fingertips finding endless smooth skin. Her skin. Karen’s heart tries to break out of her chest. Matt freezes.

“Karen.” He whispers between them, hand splaying wider as if to double check his information.

She steps back, he follows her and then they are dancing. Karen isn’t sure if she was meant to be dancing or retreating but Matt makes it seem so effortless that she lets him take over and follows his steps as his hand sears a brand into her skin.

“Your dress is backless?” He asks, fingers against the notches of her spine.

“I realise that.” She bites out, the breeze around the room making goosebumps erupt over her skin in a way she knows Matt can feel.

As if in response, his palm smoothes up and down her back to create some warmth through friction. She does feel suddenly warm but for an entirely different reason. Karen’s breath stalls in her chest but he doesn’t dip too low, stopping as her spine curves inwards slightly before flaring back out.

His hands feel far too good on her skin, tracing the curve of her like it’s his goddamn job and he graduated with honours.

“Jesus.” He mutters, pressing her a little closer to him, “That explains the heart attacks from the other attendees when you walked in.” 

Karen bites her lip as the music shifts around them, the violin coming in sharp and haunting as Matt sways them. Over his shoulder she catches eyes with a guy dancing with a stunning woman in blue. Karen doesn’t like the look he is giving her so she rests the side of her head against Matt’s and closes her eyes. He feels the shift in her because of course he does, curling his arm tighter around her body. His fingers slip inside the edge of the fabric at her ribs, just enough that Karen feels like every sensation in her is driven from that one point of contact.

She doesn’t pull back. Matt doesn’t either.

“What colour is your dress?” He asks, low against her ear so her hair tickles against her skin as he speaks.

“Green. Dark green.” She replies, her tongue feeling too heavy in her mouth.

“It feels incredible. Like silk but not as cold?”

“It’s Italian, I think.”

She can feel Matt’s smile against her ear as they dance. No flashy moves or separation between their bodies of any kind. Matt shuffles his feet, guiding her in a small rotation but seems unwilling to let her go any further.

The heat of him is a blanket and Karen pulls back to look at his face. Open and content… she wonders what she would see behind his glasses. What affects her dress is having on him.

All she can think about is his damn fingers against her ribs, possessive and a little too sensual for a public place. A little too bold for their friend code.

Karen doesn’t want them to leave her skin.

Matt’s hand slips back into the proper place as if worried she is uncomfortable with him. She isn’t, and that is entirely the problem. 

The rest of the room spins on, no idea that Karen is currently spinning out. Here, in Matt’s arms, in a dress that lets him put his hand on her bare skin. Karen isn’t sure if this is heaven or hell, maybe she should attend Matt’s church and ask his priest.

“You’re tense. Do you want to stop?” He asks, fingers loosening against hers where he is holding them against his chest.

Karen startles, squeezing his hand, “No.”

Apparently that is all Matt needs because she is pulled into his solid warmth again as they sway, one song bleeding into another.

She spots Foggy over the edge of Matt’s shoulder. He is at the bar with Kirsten, laughing about something. It’s good to see him laugh. Maybe he will get lucky tonight while Karen goes home to a microwave meal and their latest case. She frowns as Kirsten slips Foggy something (her room key?). Foggy looks triumphant as he unfolds it. A ten dollar bill. He pockets it quickly before bringing his champagne flute up to Kirsten’s to clink.

Okay, that is… weird.

Matt’s breath ghosts along her shoulder and it pulls Karen back into his orbit. His lips are inches away from her skin and she can’t help imagining what it would feel like to have them on her, soft and warm and intoxicating.

Imagining those hands taking her dress off, exploring every inch of skin he can find…

God, she needs to get away from him. Matt is far too tempting for his own good and Karen feels like she is high in his arms. Her world spinning with Matt as her anchor, his solid presence. His hand is lower now, little finger against the curve of her spine in a way that makes Karen shiver, not from the cold but from his proximity.

She is so fucked.

“Karen, are you…”

“We need to stop dancing.” She tells him, doesn’t want to know what his heightened senses have deduced from her. 

Matt doesn’t let go, “Why?”

She laughs, “Because this is dangerous, Matt. The friend code definitely wouldn’t approve of this.”

“Dancing?”

“It isn’t just dancing and you know it.” She insists, begging him to be stronger than she is because his hand is branding her and she is pretty sure she is about to melt against him.

Matt swallows, nose brushing hers as the song slowly comes to an end, “Is that such a bad thing?”

For a moment Karen forgets about the friend code. She forgets about their history and her hurt. She forgets about the people surrounding them and the fact her dress is fucking backless. She forgets about everything except how much she wants him. 

Right down to the marrow of her bones and the black spots of her soul.

She wants Matt Murdock like a sin, like a confession, like a religious rite.

And she absolutely cannot have him or want him like that because they have a code. 

“We need to talk.” She says urgently, breaking away from his far too sensual hold on her to tug him off the dance floor. 

Matt follows her, letting Karen lead this time until she moves them away from the crowd and into the first private place she can find. She all but shoves Matt inside, quickly following him and locking the door behind them. 

“Karen, this is the men’s bathroom.” Matt tells her, standing in front of her with a look of confusion on his face.

“We needed to talk.”

“In the men’s bathroom?”

She wants to scream.

“What the hell was that?” She asks, very calmly and with only a hint of accusation.

Matt’s brows furrow, “Was I that bad at dancing?”

Karen scoffs, “Don’t play that bullshit with me, Murdock. I know you pay attention to everything.” 

She isn’t sure whether it is the use of his last name or the slightly hysterical note to her voice that has him nodding like he has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I didn’t mean…” He sighs, tries again, “Fuck Karen, I’m trying here but do you have any idea what kind of torture it is for me to know every man in that room wants to take you home?”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

Matt gives her a self-deprecating smile, “Their adrenaline rises, their heart rate too. Testosterone floods every pore like we’re in a high school gym. I know.”

That makes her speechless and she crosses her arms in front of her chest while she recalibrates her argument because fuck, she’s the problem?

“So you were what? Marking your territory?” She spits the last word at him with all the disgust she has seen him use as Daredevil.

His voice drops, “Of course not. I got caught up… Not wanting you is not something I can do, Karen. With you in my arms like that, wearing a dress that is seared into my brain without me needing to be able to see it… you drive me crazy.”

This is bad. This is very bad because this means that Matt wants her too. Matt is struggling with this as well.

Karen should have worn sweatpants and a t-shirt.

“Okay, so dancing is off the table.” She whisper-shouts with a sweep of her hand slashing through the air, “Friend code amended to include no dancing.”

“It’s not the dancing.” Matt matches her tone, “Or the dress.” 

She squeezes her eyes shut, “We aren’t talking about this.”

“We already are.” 

“No.”

“Karen, we’re still attracted to each other.” He cuts across her, “We still want this.”

This is why all the stories warn people against making deals with the devil. Karen is sure this is going to be her downfall but Matt looks like sin in a bow tie and she can still feel the phantom touch of his hand on her back.

She has never felt this desperate and out of control.

“So what? We give ourselves a free pass for tonight and get it out of our systems?”

 She isn’t being serious, is she?

God, which part of her body is in the driver seat tonight because Karen needs to have stern words with it. 

Matt recoils like she has slapped him, “What?”

“All this pent up lust or attraction or whatever it is.” She replies, “We exorcise it, then we go back…”

“You think that would solve it? That we’d get over wanting each other, having feelings for each other with one night?” Matt asks harshly, “Because I can say with absolute certainty that one night with you will never be enough. Not for me.”

Karen knows that’s true, knows she has dreamt about it too long for one night to be able to build a defence against him.

Maybe they are both screwed up. Maybe they will both drive each other insane with this thing between them until one of them breaks.

“It wouldn’t be enough for me either.” She confesses in a rushed whisper, “God, I cannot handle this.”

“Handle what? A dance?” Matt asks, “I’m not trying to seduce you into letting me fuck you in a bathroom with over a hundred people outside.”

She has never heard Matt talk like that. Never heard him so strung out and dangerous. More of the devil than Matt Murdock bleeding through. It does things to her, makes her feel too hot and achy and impossibly attracted to him in a way she brought him in here to avoid.

Karen presses her thighs together.

Matt’s breath hitches, “That isn’t helping.”

Fuck him and his heightened senses.

Someone outside is banging on the door, complaining about the wait but Karen ignores him. Matt does as well. 

“Karen?” He asks softly, tilting his head to track her movements.

“No.” 

“You can’t just shut me out.” He replies.

“Watch me.” 

Matt sighs, “Tell me what you want me to do here. I can’t ignore my feelings or yours but if you want me to leave then I will. You have to talk to me, Karen. That should be the first rule of the friend code.”

She wonders if she can send him to steal her an entire bottle of champagne but remembers she doesn’t actually like the taste of it and getting drunk probably won’t make this situation better.

She tucks her hair behind her ears, then untucks it. The bathroom is drafty and making her feel far too cold. Matt is patient as he waits her out, like she is pacing the walls of a cage she has put herself in.

“I still have feelings for you.” She tells him, settling on honesty because she has always demanded that from him, “I hate the friend code.”

Matt nods, “Me too.”

“But we need it.”

“O…Kay.” She has lost him she knows, so Karen takes a step closer, dropping her voice lower to explain.

“We could do this. We could give in and I could let you take me home and everything that follows.” She breathes, trying not to think about it because she needs to stay focused on her argument, “But tomorrow, I don’t think… Matt, I…”

He seems to understand now, “You’re not sure how you would feel about it.”

“Yes.” She replies, “No. I wouldn’t regret it but it would open up a whole can of worms about us that we have never been very good at.”

“What are you saying, Karen?”

“I need some time.” Matt’s mask hides his reaction well but Karen knows his mind is working a mile a minute, “Because I think I could love you, Matt and it terrifies me. So, we can’t do this right now. Not like this. As much as I want to. I need to breathe, to think.”

He moves closer, invading her space but not touching her, “You can have all the time you need.”

“You are allowed to be angry with me about it.” She points out softly.

“How can I be angry when you have just given me hope that one day we’re going to be okay?”

Karen feels herself soften, “It’s not a guarantee.”

“No, but I’ll take it anyway.” Matt replies, “Because I know I love you, Karen. I never stopped. But I only want this if you feel the same way. I think that’s the only way we can get it right.”

He reaches up to touch her cheek with the pads of his fingers when she finds her voice, “You can’t be friends with someone you love, Matt. That’s a complete violation of the code.”

Matt smiles, “I’m using it as a guideline. Besides, we both know we don’t just want to be friends. The code is kind of a joke at this point.”

The fist at the door grows more insistent and pulls Karen out of their bubble, “Wait, you did not tell me that when we are in the bathroom.” She groans softly, hitting him playful on the shoulder.

“You dragged me in here.”

“God, I hate your smug face.” 

He laughs, “I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

“I’m going to get a drink. A large one. You will stay on the other side of the room for the rest of the night until Foggy lets us go home.”

“Whatever you want, Miss Page.”

Heat pools into her stomach, “I’m starting to understand why you go to church so much.”

Matt is a menace to her health and wellbeing.

He lets her go though and Karen slips out the door with her head low and a muttered apology she doesn’t mean to the guy waiting outside. She pointedly ignores the wide-eyed stare she gets in return when she leaves the men’s bathroom with Matt following a few seconds later.

She passes Foggy on the way to the bar for her well-deserved drink and sees Kirsten hold out her hand to him as if waiting for something.

“That is not a post-sex buzz, Nelson.” She hears Kirsten say, “I want my ten dollars back.” 

Karen distinctly hears Foggy’s palm slapping against hers as she orders a large scotch and forces herself not to question that whole exchange.

She really doesn’t want to know.

Matt to his credit stays on the other side of the room, mingling with clients as ordered but she does catch him zoning out whenever she walks within several feet of him on her own mission to spread the word about Nelson, Murdock and Page.

She does a shot every time she thinks about Matt’s confession and by the end of the night her world is fuzzy, her body warm and Matt, like a gentleman, puts her in a cab with Foggy rather than him.

She sort of loves him for that. 

VI

Karen is getting really fucking tired of people shooting at her. It’s becoming some sort of cosmic joke at this point and she really, really, doesn’t find it funny.

Neither does Matt.

A lead gone wrong had led to her stumbling into a trap on her latest case that had ties to the Kitchen Irish, Karen thought she knew what she was walking into. Next thing she knows, she is on the floor with Daredevil covering her body and gunshots ripping her nerves to shreds. The bulk of his suit pressing into her as he cages her head between his arms and acts as her shield for the bullets he can’t withstand either.

Karen has never known fear like it. The idea he could die protecting her. The fact she could lose him, really lose him, without telling him how she really feels.

Too much time dancing around their code and their feelings and Karen feels it like a punch to the gut because fuck, would Matt really die for her?

She doesn’t want that. She just wants him to live.

She will never not be thankful for Matt at times like this, when he manages to save her before she even knows she needs saving. When she sees the potential of their partnership in stark neon colours. She puts the pieces together but Matt gets the results. 

They both leave without a scratch on them although Karen is shaking and Matt is angry. The whole thing feels like Poindexter in the church or the Bulletin and Karen feels sick.

“You’re staying at my place tonight.” Matt tells her, not a question but a statement.

Gratitude rises up in her, “Okay.”

Being alone right now is not something Karen can even think about and as messy as it is, the safest place she knows right now is with Matt.

Which is how she finds herself standing in his bathroom, freshly showered and wearing his clothes. She smells like his body wash and his shampoo which does nothing to soothe her frayed nerves but his shirt is the softest thing she has ever worn (it always has been) and she can hear him shuffling around in the kitchen as he waits for her. 

This, Karen thinks, this is what she wants. 

Matt insists she take the bed which really doesn’t help her sanity because the sheets are blissfully soft and smell like him so she is basically drowning in essence of Matt Murdock. He leaves her for the night, heading back to the couch with a pillow and a blanket and Karen has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from saying they could share.

That is a slippery slope if she ever saw one.

She is sure Matt is hiding on the couch because he doesn’t want her to see if he has nightmares, doesn’t want her to see the anger still clinging to his skin and the fear lacing his every word.

But the nightmares don’t find Matt, they find Karen instead.

She wakes up gasping, phantom hands around her throat and the sound of a ghost bullet ringing through her ears. Her hands are shaking so bad she knocks the water on the bedside table over in her haste to reach for it. Then she gives up, stumbles out of bed because there is a gun in her purse by the door and she needs to feel the weight of it in her hand to calm down.

She needs to stop feeling powerless.

Heavy footsteps echo around the otherwise silent apartment as she leaves the bedroom in a frantic rush, eyes zoning in on the direction of the gun even in the dim light. She doesn’t think to keep quiet in her haste. 

“Karen?” 

Matt startles her, she had momentarily forgotten where she was or that he was there. She freezes, Matt moving to sit up on the couch and lean over to flick on the lamp next to it.

The room fills with light, soft and golden, and Karen feels her world tilt a little back to normal at the sight of him.

“Nightmare.” She grits out, crossing her arms over her chest because she is standing in Matt’s shirt and her underwear and it feels a little too intimate even if he can’t see her, “Sorry I woke you.”

“Always wake me.” He tells her, echoing words she once said to him.

Karen doesn’t soften at them, the cords of tension like the crescendo in a song, steadily building inside her body.

“Come here?” He asks, softly. One hand outstretched towards Karen in invitation.

Her ears are still ringing and her eyes dart towards her bag again. Matt clocks it and is off the couch in seconds, “You don’t need it, Karen.”

She laughs humourlessly, “I was shot at today, again. I think I get to decide that.”

Matt’s hand on her arm is gentle and steadying, “You don’t need it when you have me.” He corrects, “Do you honestly think I would let anything happen to you?”

Biting her lip, she studies his face. His gaze lingers on her chin but his eyes are earnest in his promise. Karen knows he wouldn’t. Knows Matt would paint the city bloody for her. She drops her arms to her sides and draws in a shuddering breath, “Fuck.”

His fingers find hers, palm ghosting down her arm until they are laced together, "Will you come and sit with me?”

Letting it be her choice and Karen knows if she chooses to head for her gun now, he will let her despite the fact he hates her carrying it. 

Karen nods, knows Matt is aware she is doing it and lets him pull her towards the couch he was just laying on. He shoves the blanket aside as she sits, pulling her legs up to her chest. Her toes are a dark blue, she forgot she had painted them a few days ago. Before.

The couch cushions shift as Matt settles next to her, his skin warm against her arm. Karen hadn’t noticed he was just wearing a pair of grey sweatpants, scars on display but now it’s all she can think about.

“You should have had the bed.” She tells him, “I don’t think I’m sleeping tonight.”

“If you’re not sleeping then neither am I.” He replies like it should be obvious. 

He adjusts himself to her. Puts her in charge and lets her gravity pull him in. This is the power he gives her, Karen realises, not a gun in her hand but this quiet surrender that says he trusts her.

“You would think I would be used to it by now. Getting shot at. It’s becoming a common thing these days.”

“I don’t want you to have to get used to it.”

Karen knows that but she can’t help think there are some things Matt can’t protect her from. The inevitable of a bullet in a city like Hell’s Kitchen being one of them.

“I dreamt it was Wesley.” She tells him, nails digging into the skin of her legs as she holds them to her chest, “He was the shooter. He was coming after me and I ran but it was a dead end. You were there but you couldn’t reach me. He had me cornered and I…” She trails off because her nose is prickling in a way that tells her she is about to cry and she doesn’t want to do that with Matt.

He shifts closer to her, “Come here.”

This time he pulls her to him, those strong arms guiding her against his chest for a hug. Karen goes, letting herself be wrapped in his embrace, letting herself find comfort in something good.

She doesn’t know how she managed to be straddling him on the couch, Matt’s arms tight around her as she buries her head into the crook of his neck as she presses her thighs to the outside of his like some kind of emotional koala.

Matt holds her tightly, the feel of his heart beating against her chest helping her match her own breathing to it.

“I’ve got you, Karen.” he says softly, “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

And she believes him because Matt is holding her like he would shield her from the rest of the world if she asked. The warmth of him chases away the nightmare from her mind and Karen lets it.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers against his neck and thinks she feels him shiver in response.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

Matt squeezes her, “Wesley was self-defense.”

“Yet I still carry a gun in my purse, Matt.” She points out harshly, her nose cold against his shoulder.

“I don’t love it, Karen but I do understand it.” He replies softly, “Owning a gun doesn’t make you a bad person. Going out with the intention of using it does.”

She sniffles softly, “I am a bad person, Matt. That’s why this keeps happening. Some kind of karmic justice. ”

He pulls away then, forcing her to lift her head and Karen only sees worry in his face, not disgust. 

“No. You’re not a bad person, Karen. This isn’t justice, karmic or otherwise. You care deeply about people you barely know, you go to work everyday to help them when no one else can. You put yourself in danger to do it because you know it’s the right thing to do. That is who you are, Karen Page. Everyday.”

Her hand cups his cheek and Matt leans into it, “Is that really what you think?”

“It’s what I know.” He tells her, “Jesus, Karen, sometimes I think you’re braver than I am.”

“You’re literally Daredevil.”

“I fight because it’s easy. But you, you ask people for the truth and they give it to you without any bloodshed. You listen to their stories and you don’t judge them.”

“I never knew you thought about me like that.”

Matt’s forehead finds hers as he brings her hand up to his chest, fingers splaying over his heart, “It’s one of the reasons I fell for you.”

Karen is acutely aware of their position now, the intimate nature of it. She can feel the material of Matt’s sweatpants against her thighs, every scar on his body within reach of her fingers.

Her heart skips a beat. Then another.

“Did Brett charge that asshole?” She asks, resolutely ignoring the ache inside her.

“Yes, we gave him enough evidence that the legal system will do its job.” Matt replies, “Foggy is handling it. He also told me to tell you he is making dinner for us tomorrow and will be very offended if you don’t eat it.”

That earns him a laugh.

Karen’s breathing evens out for the first time since she woke up.

Matt’s gaze remains soft.

“This is one of the reasons I fell for you.” She admits, fingers trailing over one of the scars on his chest, “The way you always know how to make me feel everything is going to be okay. I’ve never had that before.”

The air around them shifts, changes, thickens and Karen doesn’t mean to shuffle against his lap but she does without thinking which leads to Matt’s hands snapping to her hips to keep her in place.

In embarrassment she pulls her arms back, breaking the lingering hug that definitely lasted too long to be friendly. She doesn’t get off his lap and Matt makes no move to make her.

“Do you have nightmares?” She asks, gaze drifting down to the scars on his chest.

Matt swallows thickly, “Yeah… Normally about you or Foggy.”

“Not someone hurting you?”

“The best way to hurt me is through you.” Matt tells her, “Even my subconscious knows that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re very apologetic tonight, Miss Page.” His smile is kind and a little playful, “But I knew the risk when I left you both and I knew the risk when I came back. I’m right where I want to be.”

Karen glances down at their tangled limbs, “Really?”

Matt laughs, thumb stroking over her hipbone through her borrowed shirt, “I’m pleading the fifth on that one. I’m already in enough trouble.”

She returns his smile and god, it feels good. The ease between them, the understanding. It’s like they found the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle and everything just clicks into place.

“Probably wise, Mr Murdock.”

“What about good dreams?” He says, “Tell me about those instead?”

Karen pauses, looking down at the way his neck is stretched up towards her, tilted against the back of the couch. Karen feels a surge of want, heady and intrusive.

“I can’t tell you about those.” She responds finally.

“Why not?”

“Those ones have you in as well.” It’s as close as she feels brave enough to be while sitting in his lap.

Matt clears his throat and she knows he understands her meaning by the sure grip he has on her waist, “Oh.”

“Oh.” She echoes, seeing his cheeks flush a little.

“And that would definitely violate the friend code.” He replies.

“Which we agreed not to do.”

“We did.”

Karen can feel the heat of him beneath her, can feel his own want from her spot on his lap.

They have been dancing around for months. Karen has never seen him look like this, so unfiltered. Has she crossed a line by sitting like this, by sharing that confession?

Does she care?

This thing they are dancing around, that has threatened to break a hundred times, a thousand, over something as small as a look. Karen knows it will break. Feels it in her bones, her chest, her soul. 

And she is ready for it.

The realisation strikes her in its simplicity. She wasn’t before but she is now. Because Matt has been consistent and honest and present. He hasn’t lied to her since he came back into her life, in fact he has been gut-wrenchingly honest.

He has waited. He has respected her choices. He has never left any doubt in Karen’s mind that he wants her.

She is moving before she thinks about it, her hand travelling to fully cup his cheek so she can guide his lips to hers.

The kiss is soft, delicate, the flutter of a breeze on the hottest summer day. She feels Matt hesitate, answers his hesitation with surety. Karen kisses him with every boundary broken on her tongue, every doubt offered to him to destroy.

When Matt understands, the kiss changes. He takes charge, tilting his head to deepen the kiss and pulls her close enough that Karen can feel every line of him she has denied herself for so long.

When they pull apart, she is breathless and Matt looks dazed.

“The code.” He utters, almost like a question.

“Fuck the code.” Karen responds, her lips closing the gap between them again. 

This time she kisses him with reckless abandonment, leaves her fear and her doubts and her indecision in the rear view and focuses on the feel of Matt beneath her.

He is far too handsome, strong and lithe, the scrap of his stubble over her chin sending shivers down her spine. 

The kiss is heated, changing from slow to frantic in a second and Karen isn’t sure who is leading it anymore. All she knows is her veins flood with want and one simple thought is all she can manage.

More.

Of this, of him, of them.

Her hands lock around his neck, fingers carding through his hair as Matt nips at her lip and his hands slip under the long hem of her shirt, skating up her smooth skin.

The decision to roll her hips against him isn’t so much a decision as something that Karen simply needs. She is want and feeling and Matt. Like he is holding a match and all Karen wants to do is burn. 

“Karen.” He whispers against her lips as he pecks at them again, his voice like gravel, “Wait.”

She ignores him because honestly haven’t they waited enough? How much more waiting can they do before they both spontaneously combust?

She kisses him again, feeling Matt’s hands tighten on her skin when her hips move again.

Matt pulls back, breathing hard as he rests his forehead against hers, hands still touching her.

“What?”

“I need you to think about this.”

Okay, she is going to slap him. Him and his catholic guilt might be the death of her.

Is this really what she is signing herself up for?

Karen pulls her head up, purposely shifting in his lap in a way that makes him groan, “I am thinking.”

“You said you weren’t ready.” Matt points out, “You needed time.”

Always a goddamn hero.

“I don’t need time, Matt. I just need you to stop talking.”

His eyes are glassy, lust-filled and staring at her throat where it feels like her pulse is pounding.

“Karen, listen to me.” He almost begs, “I need you to be sure because we agreed one night wasn’t going to work. I need to hear you say it. I need to know there is no confusion about what this is.”

The roll of her hips is a little cruel but Karen can’t help herself when he feels that good, “This isn’t… Matt, I want you. I’m sure.”

“For more than just this?”

God, he really is doing this?

Karen nods, “Yes.”

This time when she moves, he helps guide her, helping her find the friction she needs in his lap and the speed that works for her.

Matt isn’t how she thought he would be. He isn’t possessive but he is intense. He is constantly touching her skin, kissing her. He seems to catalogue every sound she makes and when he finds one he likes, he makes sure she makes it again.

They are more compatible than Karen let herself hope. Matt commits the shape of her to memory with his hands and Karen explores every way she can make him unravel.

He doesn’t try to take her clothes off, fingers exploring the edges of her underwear at her hip. His stubble catches on the neck of her t-shirt.

Sex has never been this sensual for her and he isn’t even inside her.

Karen thinks she might pass out.

The intensity gets her to where she wants to be quickly, on the edge of release with nothing more than Matt’s hands on her skin and the friction of their hips together. One of his hands ends up at the back of her neck, following her through every movement with the kind of touch that feels like a promise. 

When the heedy build up crashes over her, Matt’s lips are fused to hers as she swallows every gasp and sigh of his name like a secret.

The aftershocks make her shudder, her legs numb and tingly and her neck raw from his stubble.

He didn’t finish, she knows he didn’t but he looks absolutely wrecked beneath her and a thin layer of sweat covers both their skin.

“Not enough.” She pants, trying to catch her breath, “I want the code completely destroyed.”

Matt laughs, “Trust me, I’m not thinking about the code right now.”

“We have to move for round two. I can’t feel my legs.”

She feels warm hands slide down to them, rubbing his fingers back and forth over them like he is trying to get her blood flowing again.

Karen sighs happily.

“Do you still want this?” He asks, almost shyly considering how hard he is beneath her.

It’s almost like he is the one with doubts, not about them but about her. About what this means to her.

He just gave her one of the quickest and most intense orgasms of her life without taking off a single item of clothing and now he wants to check in. It’s so Matt, she wants to drag him to the bedroom. 

But she understands it. Knows that he needs to make sure now the immediate high she was chasing is dissipating that she is still sure. 

Words have always come naturally to Karen, she once made a career out of them and now she realises that’s what Matt needs. The emotional link to the physical attack she has launched on him. Because he is still Matt and he would never forgive himself if he hurt her, would never forgive himself if she had regrets about this change in them.

Karen knows Matt would have committed to just being her friend for the rest of their lives if that’s what she wanted, his own feelings be damned.

She also knows he would let her play this off as fear or adrenaline if she needed to. Would pack away his feelings for her like packing up files at the office if Karen changed her mind.

Because Matt Murdock loves her, body and soul and she understands there is nothing he wouldn’t do for the people he loves.

Even if it hurts him.

Especially then.

Her lips drop to his forehead in a delicate kiss and Matt’s hands squeeze her almost desperately like he is worried she is about to disappear.

“Matt, listen to me. I didn’t plan on this happening tonight. I was scared but not just because of getting shot. I realised something afterwards, that if I died today…”

“Karen.”

She pushes on, “If I died then I never would have got to have this with you. I never would have known what it could be like if we really gave it a chance. I want that, Matt. I want that chance.”

“You know I will give you anything you want, right?” He tells her roughly, “Anything, Karen.”

“I just want you.”

“That’s going to take me a minute to get used to. I never thought I’d get that chance again. Not after everything.”

Her heart beat is loud to her own ears but she guides one of Matt’s hands to her chest, to feel it even though he can hear it better than she can, “Am I lying?”

A pause, “No.”

“And you want me too?”

“Karen, you are all I want.”

“But you’re scared?”

“I just don’t know how to trust myself with you. How to convince you that I will get it right this time. It’s important to me that you know that.”

She smiles, “I don’t want you to be perfect or something you’re not, Matt. I want you exactly as you are.”

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He asks desperately, “How much I want you?”

His lips find hers this time, soft and passionate and playful in a way that has Karen remembering the flutters of her last orgasm and desperately wanting another.

“I’m all in, Matt.” She says when they part.

Matt’s smile is a constellation, “Me too.”

“Good, because we have some things to take care of.” She grounds herself against him to prove her point and Matt definitely gets the message.

He lifts her like she weighs nothing in his arms, Karen’s legs locking around his waist as a giggle escapes her. Matt’s hands are on her ass, walking them to the bedroom like a man on a mission.

“The couch wasn’t good enough?” She teases as he sets her down on the mattress and quickly joins her.

“Not when I want to commit this moment to memory.”

Karen has absolutely no complaints about that. 

They fall into sync in a way that leaves no room for doubt. Matt kisses her like he is making unspoken promises into her skin and Karen is removing his clothes in answer, taking every promise with one of her own.

She becomes feeling and sensation and this bubble in Matt’s arms. She feels the bedsheets soft against her skin, the weight of Matt over her. Firm lines and warm muscles. 

Karen doesn’t think she will forget the feeling of him inside her for the first time, the gasp from her lips or her name from his. She doesn’t think she will be able to give this up now, when Matt is with her so completely and the city outside bleeds through the windows in a blur of lights. 

Sex with Matt is a religious experience. Or as close to it as Karen will ever get. He responds to her body in ways she can’t articulate. Seems to know what she needs before she knows herself.

They move together, wrapped up in bedsheets and each other and so much warmth Karen is sure they are on fire. Matt’s stubble leaves trails off it everywhere he kisses her. His hand on her thigh hiking her leg higher on his hip.

She is far too close when his hand finds hers against the mattress, fingers curling together as her vision starts to dance with stars.

When they fall, they do that together as well. Matt’s name tumbles for her lips like a plea, a prayer, a confession and Karen isn’t sure where she ends and he begins.

Only that they are together and that is right.

Afterwards, Matt has her curled up in his arms, fingers trailing down her spine in soft movements that make her tingle.

“Promise me you’ll still be here tomorrow morning.” He says softly, lips against her hair.

This open vulnerability in him is new.

Karen’s leg is slung over his thighs, fingers mapping out doodles against his stomach, “Where else would I be?” She hums, “You’d be able to tell the second I tried to leave the bed.”

She doesn’t miss the way he holds her a little tighter, “I want to take you on a proper date.”

“I’ll be here, Matt.” She replies, turning to kiss his chest, “I’ve never had a breakfast date before.”

“Then that’s about to change.” He insists, “Breakfast dates are about to become our tradition.”

She laughs against his skin, “Can this become a tradition too?”

His hand splays low over her hip, “Definitely. Sex then breakfast.”

“Even if it’s during the day?”

She can practically hear his smirk, “I love breakfast for dinner. Or lunch. Or a midnight snack.” He punctuates each option with a kiss like the lawyer he is, negotiating a deal to win his case. 

“We’re going to need to stock up on croissants. I’m not done with you yet.” She tells him coyly, fingers teasing lower on his stomach.

“I can take an ‘I owe you’,” He says, hand tipping her chin up so he can press their lips together.

Karen presses her body flush against his, “I’m going to need several.”

“I know a good lawyer.”

After that, they don’t do a lot of talking but when Matt finally lets her leave the apartment for breakfast, she can barely contain her laughter as he orders several croissants, pancakes, bacon, fresh fruit and a spinach omelette that Foggy would be wrinkling his nose up at. 

And if she walks into the office after leaving Matt to get a change of clothes with several bite marks on her skin and stubble burn prickling in very sensitive areas, well, she decides that’s worth ruining the friend code for. 

The devilish grin on Matt’s face tells her he wholeheartedly agrees.