#matt murdock x female!reader
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- MATT MURDOCK FIC RECS -
(here is to my favorite lawyer by day and vigilante by night)
brief note: most fics contain canon trigger warnings (blood, violence, death, assault etc.) so please be aware of them.
main masterlist
SERIES - MULTI-CHAPTERS
please don't be mad • matt murdock x fem!reader all i need is you
↳ by @chvoswxtch (angst, smut)
matt murdock x age gap!reader
↳ by @multiharlot
15 ways to love matt murdock • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @brokebonewritings
ONE-SHOTS/BLURBS/HC'S
strawberry rhubarb • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @ellephlox (blood, torture, forced nudity)
these broken things • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @courtforshort15 (angst, mentions of murder and blood)
steal my warmth • matt murdock x gn!reader
↳ by @devils-dares (very fluffy)
discordant • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @ellephlox (angst, sex trafficking)
always here • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @blackshadowswriter (hurt/comfort, angst, nightmares)
like real people do • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @amhrosina (angst, hurt/comfort, nightmare trope, tw: panic attack, mentions of trauma and child abuse)
jealousy • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @devils-dares (jealous!matt, allusions to smut)
care packages • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @chvoswxtch (very fluffy, mentions of violence)
how sweet it is (to be loved by you) • matt murdock x afab!reader
↳ by @courtforshort15 (oh very sweet, smut, virgin!reader)
green is the color • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @courtforshort15 (angst, but happy ending, reader is insecure of her relationship with matt)
angel • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @peterman-spideyparker (so much angst :(, death)
sincerely, anxiety • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @brokebonewritings (so fluffy, i related too much)
never an ear strain away • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @amchapel (fluff, honestly i smiled a little too much while reading this)
it's in the details • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @onewholikesthings (fluff)
you are in the kitchen humming • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @shadesofsteve (veryy fluffy, a little hurt/comfort)
always so good with the kids, and kids absolutely love him • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @yarrystyleeza (this was so sweet :'))
the comfort of your relationship • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @slightlypossessed (so much fluff, i love soft fics like this)
small acts of kindness • matt murdock x gn!reader
↳ by @mattmurdockspainkink (fluff, mentions of sensory overload and anxiety)
thinking about • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @murdocksluvrr (such a cute drabble, fluff)
halo not included • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @undiscovered-horizon
more • college!matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @itwasthereaminuteago (smut, virgin!reader)
without you • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @foli-vora (so much angst, can't wait for part 2!)
bruises • matt murdock x gf!reader
↳ by @goldustwomun (angst, injuries, blood, fluff, hurt/comfort)
first of many • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @coalix (smut)
what's your middle name? • matt murdock x fem!reader
↳ by @thegingerwriter (fluff and smut)
make amends • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @honeycombstrawberry (assault, angst but fluff, hurt/comfort)
again and again • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @imaginesfordifferentfandoms (angst, blood, comfort, fluff at the end)
"i no longer know where i end and you begin" • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @mattmurdockspainkink (this was so so cute and comforting, just fluff)
tracking the devil • matt murdock x enhanced! reader
↳ by @mattmurdocksscars (angst, injuries, ex lovers)
wanting • matt murdock x gn!reader
↳ by @coalix (i LOVED this, angst but happy ending)
afterglow • matt murdock x reader
↳ by @amhrosina (so. much. angst but happy ending)
stray • matt murdock x gn!reader
↳ by @itwasthereaminuteago (fluff)
#fic recommendation#daredevil#matt murdock#charlie cox#matt murdock x y/n#matt murdock x gender neutral reader#matt murdock x reader#matt murderdock#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x you#matt murdock x female!reader#matt murdock x f!reader#matt murdock x gn!reader#marvel#matt murdock fluff#matt murdock angst#matt murdock smut
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pairing. matt murdock x gender neutral! reader
summary. you have a tendency of nightmares due to one reason or another in your life. one night, when spending the evening with matt, you have a nightmare. matt, your loving boyfriend, is straight to the rescue to help ground you.
warnings. pet name here is used as a gender-neutral time - angel. deals with nightmares, but nothing too heavy. standard religious mention given it is matt - not mainly focused and no religious imagery, just briefly mentioned.
a.n. some fluffy matt x reader while i've been having nightmares and while i'm still working on a few requests as asks - i know it's not spicy but i still hope it makes people smile
words. 1.5k (shorter side)
You recognize your childhood home; standing out on the curb and feeling small at the front of a place that now holds an eerie air to it. Something about it feels wrong, but you can’t place it. The sun is peeking out over the top of the roof, casting you into a dark shadow that adds a gloom to a place that once felt so secure and protected.
The rising bubble of anxiety in your stomach wells more and more. Deep in your gut, you can feel it. How everything feels uncomfortably silent - not so much as a passing car or a bird in the air. When your eyes lift to squint at the sky to search for clouds, you see it. The slowly sliding disk that is overtaking the sun. The star sustaining life to your planet slowly dying as it’s devoured by the endless abyss, sending the world into a quickly spreading darkness. It spills over the land and while someone else could argue it’s a solar eclipse, there is a more sinister energy to it. Evil.
You can’t breathe. Your body feels like lead when you turn to race away before you can be swallowed into the dark – despite your best efforts you can’t outrun it. You can see yourself running. Moving as fast as you can, feel your heart hammering in your chest and your lungs aching for air. You’re running for your life, but it’s not enough, it’s gaining on you–
You jump up in a cold sweat; sucking in a shrill gasp with a tremor through your body. Fingers white-knuckling the sheets as you jerk upward – confused and startled, you’re immediately brought back to reality by the familiar voice calling out to you.
“Angel? It’s me, shh... Yeah, it’s me, Angel,” your boyfriend’s voice – Matt’s voice.
“Shh, it was just a bad dream… I’ve got you, sweetheart..” His voice was rough from sleep but he'd sobered himself of his exhaustion enough to sound warm and inviting. Composed and fluid. Making himself into something stable and firm for you to lean on at that moment.
The panic of being nearly engulfed by the ebony black blocking out the sun still feels like a genuine threat. Your heart drumming in your ears and leaving you short of breath like the bumps in the car that take you unexpectedly and your stomach swoops. Matt notices the crossroads you’re at between fight or flight and tries to coax you before your body can react too harshly.
“Breathe with me, angel.” His voice is even, thick like honey as lips coast the shell of your ear. Typically it’d give you chills, but right then it feels comforting to be surrounded by someone else. Matt is sat up with you, tight against your side and arm wrapped around you. The other comes to lay his hand flat on your sternum. You feel the warmth of his palm; the weight of it feels grounding in an odd sense. A comforting pressure.
You practice deep breaths with Matt – in through the nose, out past chapped lips. Your throat feels tight, and a bottle of water is absolutely in your future.
Matt doesn’t ask - he knows you’ll talk about it when you’re ready. And given the way he’d heard your heart pounding in your chest like it was about to burst free of its cage goes to show it was an intense dream. That’s not even counting the light rustling he’d started to feel and what had initially stirred him. Could hear every struggling, quivering breath. The near silent whimpers that pulled from you. Matt is more than relieved that moment has passed; pressing an encouraging kiss to your temple.
“There you go, that’s right.. I’ve got you.” Rubbing his hand sympathetically up and down your arm from where it rests on your shoulder farthest from him. You gravitate to Matt naturally, leaning your weight into him to feel small and protected. Matt would protect you from anything; Maybe even God himself.
Tucking away, you hide against the crook of Matt’s neck. Still deliberately trying to focus on your breathing and quell the deep unease from within. His hand on your arm lifts, letting knuckles softly brush the slope of your jaw. “You’re tight, sweetheart… Can you unclench your jaw for me? Yeah, just like that, perfect…” Going out of his way to assure that you’re not holding anything unnecessarily tight.
So intune with your body, it’s one of those things that always made Matt so considerate and gentle to you. His attentiveness, to the way he goes out of his way to listen for any discomfort or unease.
By the time he’s done with you, you’re jelly in his lap. Soft sniffles from tears you hadn’t even realized you’d almost shed. You were lucky enough they only watered; no need to suffer the embarrassment of crying over a nightmare that wasn’t even all that scary looking back on it. It was just the energy it emitted. How sick it felt; an imminent doom. It was scary. After a moment of calm quiet and deep breaths, Matt speaks up. “Do you want to try laying back down, angel…? Or are we staying up?” We. Matt really was with you for better or for worse, even in little insignificant moments like these.
You swallow hard around the lump, searching for your voice: “I… I don’t want to go back to sleep. Not yet…” You don’t mean to sound so quiet or rough; Matt picks up on it and his lips can’t help but curl into a soft smile. “Sounds like you need a drink anyways… How about we make some tea? I think we still have a box in the cabinet.”
You’re out in the living room with Matt. Both of you on the couch, Matt is more towards the corner seat so he can prop his elbow up on the arm. You, on the other hand, are pressed right against his side. The plaid throw blanket from the back of the couch draped over your lap - your legs are tucked up to keep your body closed up. Leaned right against Matt, where he has an arm stretched around you. In both your hands you nurse mugs of warm tea.
Fidgeting quietly with the tea bag – steeping it to make sure it’s thoroughly flavored.
“I didn’t believe Karen when she said these teas would change our lives,” Matt jests softly with an airy chuckle, lifting to take a languid sip from his mug.
“I still think it was a sweet gift; she knows you have a hard time sleeping,” You reply quietly - the corners of your lips curling into a delighted smile all the same as you watch the liquid in your cup.
“Seems I’m not the only one, though.”
That sours your mood briefly - eyes lifting to look at Matt’s dead eyes that stare at nothing.
The lights from across the road bleed in and dance across his skin, but even in the dark you make out the dusting of freckles. His dark ginger hair is a mess from bed head and having no one else to look presentable for. No reason to comb it out with his fingers.
“Yeah, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to wake you up.” Cheek squished against Matt’s shoulder as you peer up at him.
“Don’t worry about that; I don’t ever want you to struggle alone. I’d rather lose a little sleep if it means I get to make you feel better…”
The words melt your heart. You can feel the genuineness dripping from the statement. Matt never makes you feel like a burden for your struggles; supportive and caring the whole while even if he’s not the best at doing it for himself. Who knew the Devil of Hell’s kitchen was such a sweet lover?
“...Thank you for staying up with me, then, in that case.” You amend - you’ve been trying to incorporate more positive connotations anyways, and apologizing all the time isn’t good. Thanking Matt is a better alternative.
“Always. It’s more time I get to spend with you, anyways. I wouldn’t give that up for anything…”
Matt’s fingers brush back through your hair so he can press his lips to your forehead. Tangle fingers into your hair after just to rub and massage at your scalp with his fingers. You slump against his side and the quiet evening doesn’t feel so miserable anymore with your boyfriend there.
Chit chat ensues for about a half hour. Matt tells you about the couple he can hear a few apartments over and the stray kitten they found outside and are excited to take in. You smile as you go back and forth. Both voices hushed; the calm you need to unwind again and not stay the night awake and in fear. Matt makes it easy to not be so afraid of the dark…
You both go to sleep not long after. Sleepytime tea managed to lull you back into a state of relaxation, and when Matt felt you dozing, he carefully took your empty mug from your hands. Sitting it on the coffee table, he’d then move to gingerly pick you up bridal style and carry you back to bed. Matt spoons you, crowded against your back, and arms wrapped around your waist. Nosing into your hair and always there to protect you from the things that bump in the night - even if they’re inside your head.
#Matt Murdock x reader#daredevil x reader#matt murdock#matt murdock au#matt murdock fanfic#matt murdock fic#matt murdock fanfiction#matt murdock x you#reader insert#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x female!reader#matt murdock x trans!reader#matt murdock x male reader#matt murdock fluff#matt murdock comfort#charlie cox#charlie cox fanfiction#charlie cox characters#charlie cox x reader#charlie cox fluff#charlie cox x you#marvel fanfiction#defenders fanfiction#the defenders#matt murdock one shot#matt murdock imagine
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Off the Record (Part 2/3)
Synopsis: More determined than ever to help Murdock prove a beloved humanitarian is a criminal and a fraud, you step into the snake pit.
Required reading: Off the Record (Part 1/3)
Word Count: ~26,800
Content Warnings: Swearing, sex (steamy, not smut), talks of murder, suicide, violence and misogyny.
Author’s note: I am wholeheartedly sorry for how long this took, and I appreciate all your kind words expressing excitement to read this next part. Part 3/3 is already halfway done. I had to write them concurrently to make sure the important details in Part 3 were set up here. It’ll make sense soon.
The second act of a story is the part that usually contains around 50% of the plot; this is a doozy. I hope you still find it fun to read, and I hope you hold out for Part 3 (it’s my favourite by far).
Happy reading 💜
Frank Sinatra was onto something when he called New York’s capitol “the city that never sleeps;” whether it was Thursday at eleven a.m. or Saturday night at ten, the streets bustled with life and with hurry.
Now, currently, it was right before eight on a Monday morning and you’d just paid for a coffee at the cart on the corner of the block that held your office building. As you stood off to the side of the pavement to wait for the perky barista to call your name, you pulled out your phone and did your best to avoid the masses manoeuvring around you. Something about Monday mornings made everything that much busier, more rushed, more urgent to start another week of work even though half the people on the streets nursed poorly-hidden hangovers. Your phone in your hand felt heavier than usual.
You selected the contact you meant to call and immediately started second-guessing yourself in a way you hadn’t in a long time. You certainly had reason to talk to him, considering the research you’d done over the weekend, but something about calling Matt Murdock created a mental hurdle that felt hard to overcome. Maybe because you hadn’t talked since you’d left his apartment late Saturday morning, but more likely because it’d been hard to not think about him all weekend.
That was uncomfortable - thinking about someone so much - not because you’d never thought about someone that much before but because, if you were being honest with yourself, you knew what it meant.
Deciding it would be much worse and much more obvious to not talk to him at all, you pressed on his contact and held the phone to your ear.
The phone buzzed on the bedside table and called your name over and over again in that mechanical female voice, rousing Matt from his sleep right near the end of his cycle. Half-bleary, he answered the phone.
“Hi,” he cleared his throat and propped himself up on one elbow, lending half an ear to trying to gauge what time in the morning it was.
“You’re not seriously still asleep,” you joked, looking at your watch. “Murdock, it’s quarter to eight.”
“Long night,” was all he offered in explanation, because he couldn’t really go into details of the fist-fight he’d had with some Korean gangsters near the docks.
He wondered how you’d react if he dropped that kind of information on you. To tell you what he’d been up to, how he was disrupting their crystal meth operation, how his head still ached from the elbow that’d met the base of his skull before he managed to knock the guy unconscious. It was a pipe dream, being able to talk so openly like that, so he instead turned his curiosity to musing over whether or not you could hear the smile in his voice when he’d answered your question. It had been uncontainable, really, which was an uncomfortable reality.
“Uh, what’s up?” He sniffed and sat up fully, resting his back against the headboard to keep himself upright and alert.
“I did a little digging over the weekend,” you started, then accepted the coffee after your name had been called in your peripherals. “Thanks,” you nodded to the barista and started making your way towards your office building. “Into shareholders, investors, everything I could legally get my hands on. He looks clean.”
“But we know he’s not.”
“Exactly.”
Matt had to let himself feel somewhat honoured that you hadn’t asked the obvious question. “What makes you so sure I didn’t mishear the bodyguard at the gala?”
You laughed once or twice, before answering, “Murdock, there aren’t a lot of things I know for sure, but I know you have some crazy keen perception. Far more than you let on.”
“You callin’ me a liar?” He teased with a grin.
“That was a compliment, actually,” you teased back. “Anyway, I have a bunch of files for you but they’re physical copies and not in Braille. Do you have some kind of copy-machine-type device that I can run them through to translate?”
Matt considered suggesting the obvious - send them with a bike messenger - though, since it was obvious, he knew you’d have done that if that’s what you wanted to do. “Looking for an excuse to see me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” you laughed again. “Tell me how the Avery case is going without my help?”
Matt bumped his eyebrows and let himself smile again. “Thank you, for your help. Swing by the office around six?”
“See you then,” you said, fiddling with the lid of your coffee, desperately trying to not sound like you were in any way more than a normal amount of looking forward to seeing him.
Once he bade you farewell and you replaced the phone in your pocket, you got to work on putting yourself into the zone of thinking about your job.
Your footsteps brought you closer to the building and your mind suddenly whirred with all the things you needed to get done today, all the files you’d poured over throughout the weekend, the heat of the coffee against your fingers through the thin paper cup. Then, you walked through the glass revolving door and into the marble lobby of the building which housed the offices of the New York Weekly Herald.
It was a nice office building, some may call it luxury, home to various law firms and business firms and all kinds of firms where the employees wore six-thousand-dollar suits and ate sushi for lunch every day. Your boss, the well-respected Darren Flynn, liked being surrounded by it all. The other tenants of the building didn't seem to hate on the only news agency around. Sure, there were a few awkward times you'd step into an elevator with a CFO you'd just raked over the coals in a third-page expose on a shady deal they'd invested their company's shares in, but the non-execs seemed to like you. Some would give you approving smiles when you took their bosses to task. The cynical part of you knew it was because you'd just added another strike to the ledger of someone who stood on the coveted higher rung of the career-ladder. It was better to not trust any of them.
Except the kid, Jonah.
Jonah Keen was a 20-year-old reluctant intern at his father's investment banking firm - the one that owned the top four floors of the building. Jonah hated everything about capitalism and banking (as much as one could while still actively benefitting from it). So sometimes the charismatic young lad would slip you a compliment on an article, or a piece of insider info on the world Jacobs and Keen Investments. Anything to get his mind off the numbers.
This morning, it was just you two on the elevator.
"Good weekend?" You asked, taking the careful first sip of your coffee. It was still a little too hot.
"I think I met the one," he smirked sweetly, brown eyes twinkling behind his messy sandy blonde hair. He slipped his hands into his pockets, self-satisfied. You rolled your eyes.
"You say that every other week. What's this guy like? Wait, let me guess… tall, curly hair, glasses, sparse tattoos, quotes Nietzsche. His name is Theodore or some liberal arts shit like that."
"No need to be a bitch," he joked, then clicked his tongue. "His name is Carson.” He paused, then added, “And he prefers Freud."
"These philosophy students are gonna ruin your life," you warned with a chuckle. "Hasn't anyone ever taught you about safe sex?"
"God, you need to get laid."
You scoffed a laugh, then fell silent as you tried to not make it obvious that you’d most definitely been laid on Friday night. And Saturday morning. Several times, in fact. Jonah could sniff these things out in awkward silences, so you quickly asked, "Hey, do you guys do any trading for Arthur Reynolds?"
“No, but,” he turned to you excitedly, “Izzy Reynolds recently brought her post-divorce fortune to us, so she might actually be in the office sometime soon.”
You gave him a firm look. “Don’t harass the poor woman. She’s recently divorced from one of the richest men in America. I doubt she needs a super-fan drooling over her, pestering her to sign the cover of whatever magazine she was recently on-”
“It was Vogue Japan, actually. And she’s the most iconic high-fashion model of our era.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well she is to me,” he rolled his eyes before settling them on his phone. "Oh yeah, you had the gala thing. Did you get the interview?”
"No," you sighed. "I kinda blew it. That'll be a fun one to explain to Darren in approximately two minutes." The elevator slowed and dinged for your floor. “Hey, will you let me know if any info on Reynolds comes up? Arthur, not his ex-wife.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
"Thanks Jay," you sang sweetly and stepped off the elevator, into the hallway before the internal lobby of the Weekly Herald.
The "Weekly" thing is what made the job so good; instead of rushing to get information out first, your readers, both dedicated and casual, had faith that the stories coming from the Herald were well-researched and not rushed. There was time to dig and to fact-check and make sure it was all well and good before publishing. You weren't sure you could work for one of those fast turnaround regimes. Dealing with the retractions would be hell enough without a boss breathing down your neck to find the truth in less than twelve hours. It always took longer than that.
Darren Flynn was a good boss with high standards and a penchant for not micromanaging his investigative journalists. He had a lot of faith in you, mentored you closely in your earlier years, and took care of you security-wise when some stories were looking hairy. Only once or twice had he pulled the plug, and in hindsight you had to admit he was right to do so. One of those times was with Fisk. A writer from The Bulletin turned up dead not too long after. That probably would've been you. Darren had to nearly force you to write some middle-page puff piece of Fisk's art collection after your dinner with him, just to make sure he'd stay off your scent. To thank you for the kind words you’d written about his collection, Fisk had sent a four-hundred dollar bottle of wine and a hand-written card - both of which you promptly hurled into a dumpster. Later, you cursed yourself for not saving the card to have a sample of his DNA available, just in case.
You applied your lipstick in a reflective part of the elevator's frame and made sure your hair looked perfect. Today, dressing like you dressed every day, for the first time in a long time, felt more like a convincing ruse than it felt like yourself. Once again, your phone felt heavy in the pocket of your sleek charcoal grey blazer. You inspected your black slacks and pull-on boots to make sure no coffee had dripped from the lid and stained any part of your outfit, then took a deep breath in and out before approaching the sliding glass door to the office.
As you walked into the lobby and smiled at Samantha on reception, who gave you a fake smile back, you thought about when you'd started here those four years ago. The way you dressed like a Powerful Woman On A Mission had always been following the "dress for who you want to be" rule. It felt good to wear pantsuits and red lipstick, to feel both sexy and professional. It was fun, to see people shift from not taking you that seriously to realising you were out for blood in the form of undeniable hard-hitting truth, not just out to one day become a news anchor that read things other people had written.
You had a few rules which got you through: Don’t talk shit about colleagues out loud, don't sleep with anyone you work with, stand up for the truth, stand up for yourself, and do your own proofreading.
As you walked through the cubicles to your office, you saw Darren emerging from your door. You stopped in your tracks and gave him a curious glance. It's not like you were late - you didn't have "hours," just stories. Though, you tried your best to always be here on Monday mornings as a gesture of good faith, to get emails answered, to be around for general office stuff, et cetera.
Shit. Maybe Reynolds called him and told on you.
You took a deep breath and kept walking towards your boss, opening your mouth to begin explaining why you blew it at the gala.
"Great job with Reynolds.”
Once more, you halted in place. Darren’s demeanour was sincere, his eyebrows raised behind his glasses. "I don't know what you said to him, but you must've said something good."
You squinted, furrowing your brow. “I didn't think it went that well,” you admitted. “We barely talked.”
Darren's eyebrows lowered, then a smile broke out as he shrugged and nodded towards your door. "You should check your office."
Still confused, you walked past, ignoring the stares and whispers from the mass of cubicles, nicknamed the Bull Pen, full of interns, proof-readers and lower-level writers who were either working their way up or stuck in the trenches of tiny columns on the sides of pages.
After a few steps, that confused look stayed on your face but your heart pounded hard in your throat as you caught a glimpse of what sat on your desk: one of the biggest bouquets of flowers you'd ever seen.
There must have been at least a hundred and fifty white roses in a cylindrical crystal vase sitting on top of the dark oak work table. You walked over and picked up the card poking out from between some petals. The thick, pearl-finished card contained two things printed on it, foiled in silver: a cell phone number, and the name Arthur.
You turned the card over. Nothing else.
Dumbfounded, you turned to where Darren was standing in your doorway with his arms folded and his eyebrows raised. “I insulted his taste in art," you further admitted, looking back down at the card. "This is… very unexpected."
"Maybe he liked your honesty."
"Or maybe he wants something."
"Find out.” Darren left little room for debate and then left you alone with your thoughts, several dozen roses, and the personal phone number of a man who was notoriously hard to contact.
Brain kicking into overdrive, you walked over and shut the glass door to your office. Maybe you could still see the snarky glares between the employees who you never got along with anyway, but you didn't have to hear them too.
You moved the flowers to sit on top of a small filing cabinet in the corner of your office and played with the card between your fingertips. The uncomfortable thought surfaced - rude of it actually, considering you didn't want to think about what he'd think - and you wondered if you should tell Murdock. Then, that stupid high-school insecurity clenched in your stomach and you wondered if that would be talking to him too much. What would he think if you called? You'd already called him that morning. Literally ten minutes ago. What if he thought you thought you two were something more than a hookup, or two people working a case kind of together? Why did it matter?
Promptly shaking it out of your mind, you instead distracted yourself by pulling out your laptop to answer some unrelated emails. You stayed on top of them pretty well so there were less than a dozen. But with every reply it became harder to not see the ginormous mass of petals staring at you from the other side of the room. It was also hard to ignore the card sitting on your desk, holding your golden ticket to your name on the first page. As much as you did this for yourself, you couldn’t shake the temptation of knowing you were the one to get his words on paper.
A knock at your door brought you out of a minor spiral and back to the present where your Work Best Friend was letting herself into your office.
“Spill,” Vera said, closing your door behind her and immediately walking over to the flowers to take in their grandeur. Her sleek black hair fell like silk just below her slender shoulders, her dark brown eyes gave you a stern glance as if she’d just caught you hiding something major.
“Arthur Reynolds,” you said, not trying to disguise how flat your voice sounded. Your phone buzzed and you immediately grabbed it. Just an email. You calmed the blush that arose when you realised who you’d hoped it was.
“Yeah, that much is obvious,” she gave you another look.
It was no secret you were on the Reynolds story - there was a large board in the Bullpen of every writer and their assignments. In theory, if someone stumbled upon a source, or some information unrelated to their own work, then they’d know who to send it to. In practice, it bred jealousy and contempt. You got the gist Darren didn’t mind the competition it instilled in some of the newer writers. Vera was at a similar enough level to you that you two could be friends without there being too much weird drama or resentment. Sure, sometimes one of you would get placed on a story the other had wanted, but it’s not like either of you were at fault, so you dealt with it as it came. Still, she was human, so she had to ask: “Did you sleep with him?”
It was a joke, so you gave her flat look before turning back to delete a spam email. “No. He’s off.”
“Off what?”
“Like… milk two days past its expiration date,” you winced at the bad metaphor. “Not trustworthy, hopefully harmless.”
She had to laugh as she turned to rest her back again the wall opposite you. Then, you met her eye and she saw something sincerely uneasy in it. “Woah,” her face fell. “You’re actually spooked.”
“It’s fine,” you sniffed and looked back at your laptop. “No way will Darren let me ignore all that,” you nodded towards the flowers.
“If you don’t feel safe-”
“I don’t feel unsafe,” you interjected, then gave her your full attention and stopped being rude. Allowing yourself to take in the sight of the flowers, you fidgeting your fingers in front of you with your elbows resting on the arms of your office chair. “Ultra-rich guys like him, the ones into art, tend to be big on symbolism so-” Your phone buzzed again, and you grabbed it a little too quickly. Again. It wasn’t- … it wasn’t anyone. Just a breaking news notification from the New York Times.
After catching the headline you looked back up to Vera. “Aren’t you on Stark Watch this month?”
“Yeah,” she turned a single white rose between her fingers. “Why?”
“The Avengers just ran some kind of operation in Eastern Europe,” you slid your phone across the desk and she walked over to look at the headline. “Looks like they broke into some kind of scientific research facility. A few casualties.”
She sighed. “See you in three days.” You laughed, knowing how all-encompassing these stories could be. Vera would be deep in sources and research for the foreseeable future. “When I come up for air, I want to hear all about the reason you keep looking at your phone,” she said slyly, standing and walking to your door. You opened your mouth to protect, but she turned just before she walked away and smiled cheekily, “and I want his name.”
There was no point in denial or protest; Vera was far too perceptive and in too much of a rush to stay and listen to such useless words like What are you talking about. She winked through the glass as she absconded from reality and into the world of trying to report on superhuman conflict. You didn’t envy her. You’d had a handful of run-in’s with Tony Stark, even a Martini-fuelled proposition on his part, before his assistant-turned-CEO-turned-girlfriend(?) inevitably would come in, apologise for him, and give you the card of the official press contact for Stark Industries. You’d never called the line. Granted, those experiences had been before the Iron Man Revelation.
Vera had her work cut out for her.
Still wanting to distract yourself, you scrolled a baby apparel website to send a gift to Richie. After fifteen minutes of looking through the options, very effectively distracting yourself, you ended up two onesies in your cart. Then, there was a knock at your open door and Darren stuck his head in. "What did Reynolds say?"
You paused, sat back in your seat, then met him with a blank look. You shrugged. "Haven't called him."
"Why not?"
You wondered if you should tell him about... everything. About Nelson and Murdock, about Avery and the bodega fire, the conversation, the fucking painting. Instead, you decided to hold your tongue on the details. "There's something off about him."
Darren's brow furrowed and he waited for more information.
"He has shitty taste in art," you offered lamely. Your boss looked unimpressed.
"Any journalist would kill for the chance to talk to Arthur Reynolds," he reminded you of the obvious with an unknowingly poor choice of words. You looked back at the card and sighed as Darren instructed, "Call him," before closing your office door and walking back to his own. You sighed and picked up your phone, wondering what the hell you were in for.
As you put in your wireless earbuds and dialled his number, you stood and moved across your office to look out onto the streets below. The weekend’s storm had mostly subsided but the skies remained grey with the early-mid autumn crisp. It wasn't too cold yet, though winter was starting to peek into the mornings with a chilled reminder that sleet and early sunsets would soon be here. The phone rang four times before Reynolds answered.
"I was wondering when you'd call," he laughed his greeting. "I was starting to wonder whether or not I should send another bouquet."
He was smooth, and his innate English charm brought an involuntary half-smile to your lips. "How did you know it was me?"
"Not many people have this line," he explained. You smiled again.
"Yet you entrust it to a journalist you met for five minutes, and in those five minutes she insulted your favourite painting."
He chuckled again, a warm sound. "In my position, there aren’t many people brave enough to say a truth I may find insulting. I liked your honesty."
"In that case, the flowers are a bit much."
"Duly noted," he said with a smile in his voice.
You paused, smiled, and played with his card in your fingers. "I like honesty too. Why the flowers? Why the private line?"
"I'd like to see you again. Perhaps show you more of my collection, restore your faith in my tastes."
"Are you offering me an interview?"
"After that bouquet, I suppose your boss will be champing at the bit to have you sit down with me."
The card stilled with its points held delicately between your fingertips. "So it's just business?"
"You sound disappointed," he braved a tease. You smiled and bit the side of your tongue. You blushed too. Why were you blushing?
"Not at all," you cleared your throat. "You haven't done an interview in three years. I'd be lying if I said I was in any way disappointed."
"Over dinner, then. How does tomorrow evening suit?"
"Just fine."
"I'll send a car to your workplace. Eight o’clock?"
"Wonderful," you replied coyly, hearing the satisfied smirk in his voice. Looking over at the white roses, you knew a returned gesture of good will was necessary. In a split-second decision, you said, "I’m assuming I won’t have the need for my private security.”
White roses symbolised purity. Loyalty. Innocence; Reynolds was trying to tell you he was good, he wasn't a threat, he'd never do anything to hurt anyone. In your experience, anyone who'd spend a couple hundred dollars as a gesture of their goodness was the furthest thing from it. So it was a risk, offering to go there alone, but you knew he wouldn't do anything to you. He wouldn't even have a way of knowing you were onto him. It was probably about sex. Or even just about not feeling alone. He was recently divorced, after all.
"You may bring your own people if you wish," he said casually. "Though I am more than capable of ensuring your safety."
"Your guys are probably better than my rent-a-cop," you drew and forced a small laugh. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mr Reynolds."
"Arthur,” he urged. “Until then," he signed off and you ended the call.
Your shoulders immediately dropped their tension as you did, and you breathed a little easier now that it was done. You stayed looking out the window, deep in thought. Some renegade dark clouds scattered large raindrops across the panes of glass for a few minutes before it cleared again. As the grey clouds ebbed and flowed over the skies of New York City… that sound of the rain hitting the window, the gentle onslaught hitting the pavement below, it brought about memories of feelings which flushed heat through your cheeks. With an involuntary lick of your drying lips, and a heave of a deeper breath, you thought of him. Of Murdock. Of the rain against the windows of his loft, of the billboard bathing your skin in red light, the music of the storm framing the rhythm of his skin against yours. The way his fingers tangled and tugged through your hair. His impossibly strong arms wrapping around your waist as he pulled you on top of him and-
Interview! You scolded yourself with a clearing of your throat and snap refocusing of your vision. Tomorrow night. Important interview. It shouldn’t be that easy to get lost in thoughts of someone. Arthur Reynolds. You needed to focus. So you swallowed your apprehension and returned to your desk to begin crafting your questions.
The billionaire had done a lot for the world… allegedly. Mostly things you were vaguely aware of. However, you needed to appear like an expert in him - which, you were certain he’d enjoy far too much. So you made yourself another cup of coffee and immersed yourself in the world of Arthur Reynolds.
Amidst clients, current and new, Matt found himself with an annoyingly small amount time to ponder what you might tell him later that day. All he wanted to think about was the way he could hear your smile through the phone that morning.
Some strange fondness bloomed within him when the first (real) voice he’d heard that morning had been yours. Maybe because it reminded him of waking up on Saturday morning tangled in the sheets and you, or maybe because your voice felt like something he’d gotten used to a long time ago. Which, of course, he hadn’t. But it felt right, and that was uncomfortable - having it feel so right to talk to you.
All of those thoughts and feelings had to wait. Mrs Helena Friar’s landlord was trying to evict her for not paying a plumbing bill from a pipe that was already broken when she moved in, and Matt was listening intently to her every word. It was hard, though, thoughts of you aside, because the double-mint gum she’d chewed to mask the cigarette smoke on her breath couldn’t remove the soot settled into her sweater. She fidgeted her fingers too, which was either a Nervous Thing or a Her Thing, but not a Thing that could be commented on. All that mattered to Nelson and Murdock was that there was no deception in her voice, and there was sure-fire evidence they would win this claim.
Mrs Friar was the third new client Matt had seen that day, and the last who’d been in the waiting room when he re-opened his office door late-afternoon.
You’d be here soon.
To talk about Avery. The case. Reynolds. All of it.
Based on the way you spoke earlier, Matt knew you were coming with something to bring to the table. He knew things too, but not things he could explain knowing. Because while you’d been pouring over documents and calling sources, he'd been pursuing a different route. One which ran outside the course of the law and the confines of what you knew.
Matt Murdock perused other sale offers on smaller businesses, looking for that one little store that would decline the development's big money offer just like Harold Avery did. Whether it be another small grocer, or a bakery, a barber, an Asian vegetable market - whatever it was, it had to be out there. Matt doubted Reynolds would be brash and stupid enough to order another torching, but there was a long list of ways to make someone comply. Many, if not most of which, involved inflicting pain and suffering.
Daredevil went out in the dead of night and scoped out his top pick - a thriving vegetable market owned by a Japanese couple in their late fifties. Their teenage son and daughter helped out after school and on the weekends. They had a customer base who loved them, valued their convenient location and their charming hospitality. Matt Murdock had gone in the day and was offered warm advice on the best way to roast the lotus root he’d picked up to inspect with his senses.
They were good people. With a store sitting right in prime development territory.
The Devil waited. He listened. Nothing happened for the few hours he sat atop a nearby roof in the early hours of Sunday morning. People walked past, sure, but no one stopped to look in the now-darkened windows (the neon lights had stopped humming). No one tested the doors. No one took photos of the store front or surrounding streets. No one messed with the security camera out front that had this little whirring auto-zoom whenever someone stepped into its range.
A strange scuffle on a roof a block away then took his attention, and he left his post to go break up the fight. There had been a lot of weird fights lately. A lot of talk about new people on the street with new technology. Every once in a while Matt would come across some criminal with some weaponry way too advanced for it to be of here. But it’d been that way since the Battle for New York.
The military tried their best to take control of it all but it would’ve been impossible to get it rounded up completely. It was a headache for Matt though. Literally; that alien technology emitted some low frequency that oscillated through his skull like nothing else on Earth could.
Saturday night was one of those nights. Even though he managed to remove the blaster from the gang that’d come across it, probably during a burglary, and evidently wanted to test it, that low frequency stuck in his head for a few days. That would explain the offensive throbbing in his head.
That, or Mrs Friar’s double mint gum.
Or perhaps it was the ticking of the clock in the small finance firm next door. It clicked on in the back of his soundscape, reminding Matt that every second passed was a second closer to being with you.
You finally came up for air around 5:30pm when Vera sent you a message saying she’d be here late - did you want dinner too? You checked the time, politely declined, wished her luck, and started packing your things to go.
An intrusive blush prickled against your cheeks when you remembered where you were going. A damn schoolgirl, he had you like. You wondered if he knew what he did to you. You mulled it over, overthinking it while you closed up your office and made your way down the corridor alongside the half-empty Bull Pen. When you stepped into the elevator you wondered if he didn’t know. How would he know? Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep last night.
You had no idea what came over you, so you told yourself to snap out of it, play it cool, focus on the facts, the entire cab ride over to Hell’s Kitchen.
Schools in Guatemala. Haiti. Honduras.
Charity offices in New York and Haiti.
Expanding across Central America.
All girls’ schools to address education inequality in-
“That’ll be fifteen twenty.”
After thanking and paying the cab driver, you stepped out of the backseat and onto the pavement. Standing before the few stone steps which led up to the front door of the office building, you thought back to last Thursday when you came here for the first time. You mentally mapped the wooden floors and painted doors, the forgotten swing tags under tweed chairs. This time, you told yourself, you’d gather more information. Sounds, smells, feelings- no, fuck, not feelings.
You were getting distracted, so you clutched the stack of papers against your chest, walked up the stairs and entered the ground floor of the building.
Matt sat up straighter when he heard the undeniable sound of your footfall. Perfect timing; Foggy and Karen were making noise about dinner and it would be better if they weren’t around. Fuck- no, not that you and he needed privacy… it just-
“Hey,” Karen’s sweet voice, with the final echos of a laugh from the joke Foggy just told her, resounded through his office after her fist gently rapped on the door. Matt lifted his head and smiled in response. “We’re gonna get Chinese. You in?”
“No, thank you,” Matt cleared his throat and kept it casual. “I’m actually expecting-”
“Ah, I thought I felt a chill in the air.”
Matt sighed and hung his head at Foggy’s less-than-welcoming greeting when you walked into the waiting room.
“Don’t think that’s my fault,” you scoffed. “It’s fall and your windows are hardly up to code, Nelson,” you shot back with something smug in your voice. Matt rolled his eyes but found himself fighting a smile. He heard Karen turn and try to compensate for Foggy’s icy demeanour.
“We’re just getting dinner,” she said. Matt heard Foggy let out a curt breath. “Matt said you two have a meeting?”
“In the books?” You stepped further in and peeked to where Murdock sat at his desk. He didn’t wave. “How official. You two have fun,” you shrugged off Foggy’s under-the-breath comment of relief and walked into Murdock’s office around the same time Karen had gathered her coat and rushed Foggy out the door; she, evidently, was on the same page as the more level-headed lawyer about keeping you and Nelson out of arm’s reach of each other.
“Sorry about him,” Murdock tilted his head with a sheepish grunt. You waved it off, then responded verbally too.
“Tame, compared to some other subjects of my pieces,” you placed your bag down beside the couch. It struck you immediately that you had no idea what to say first. Should you ask how his weekend was? Or if he’d heard from Avery? Had he thought about you since Saturday early afternoon, after round three, when you regretfully pulled yourself from his apartment? How his Monday was?
“What do you have there?” He broke the awkward silence first by gesturing to the papers rustling in your hands.
“Some research,” you said, thankful to let your mind grasp onto what you were best at. “Too much for me to talk you through but there might be something in here of use. You can copy these into Braille?”
Matt nodded and held his hand out for the stack. He wished he could say it didn’t matter how long it would take, he’d rather sit and listen to you read every single word. But the papers met his palm, and he took them from you.
“What stuck out to you?”
“Well…” You twisted one of your plain golden rings between your fingertips and let out a long exhale, wondering where you should start. “I’m sure you know the basic things about Reynolds, like everyone does: he inherited family money from his father’s patented products, he invested in things like clean energy and software development, he invested well, and couldn’t stop making money if he tried.”
You began pacing around the room, taking in how the floor felt beneath your feet. It gave more in certain places.
“On a trip to Haiti in his late twenties, he was made aware of the gender education gap and felt compelled to help address the problem. Since then, he’s set up four girls’ schools in Haiti, then two in Honduras, one in Guatemala. He sources all volunteers through a global recruitment organisation called OneWorld. He’s looking at some places in Mexico…”
You paused, the room smelled like cologne and fabric softener, black coffee, and that paper smell no office was immune from. You digressed with a shrug.
“… but I’d guess cartel activity would make that difficult right now.”
“What else?”
“He’s squeaky clean,” you said. Tentatively. “On paper, that is.”
“But you’re not buying it.”
“I don’t know,” you admitted. “He stopped doing interviews three years ago, after a particularly twisted piece on his marriage. He married his now-ex-wife Isabel when she was twenty-three and he was thirty-nine. Some outlets called him a creep but most of the negative press was directed towards her and he went… nuclear. His office released a statement that he wouldn’t engage with any media, in retaliation for their unfair comments about his wife.”
“But now they’re divorced.”
“Now they’re divorced,” you confirmed, nodding to yourself. “Honestly, Murdock, I don’t know where to start. All of his operations are based overseas, he has no motive to torch a convenience store.”
“Yet…”
“Yeah, I believe you,” you laughed nervously. “And I don’t trust him. I can’t explain it.”
Matt smiled, and flirted a little. “And here I thought you were supposed to be so good with words.”
“Oh, shut up,” you muttered with a laugh and an eye-roll. “You know you need me and those documents.”
“You could've sent a bike messenger.”
There was something intrigued in his voice that didn't match the unimpressed nature of his words. It brought a small smirk to your lips, hearing the way he matched your tone from a few nights before when you told him he could've just asked your size. Instead, he had to go and put his hands all over you and make you breakfast the next morning.
"I know what you're implying," you smirked wider and stepped further into his office. "I don't need an excuse to see you. I know how to ask for what I want."
"Oh, I know you do." His turn to smirk. Damn him, for looking so good in a suit. Damn him for being a lawyer and forcing you to look at his rugged features in a clean-cut package.
"Before you so rudely interrupted, I was going to say… I couldn't link any of the development companies to Reynolds," you swallowed and moved on, lest he dare assume he had some kind of upper hand in this situation. "There were a few names that came up again and again, across multiple companies. Some competitors."
"Shareholders or partners?"
"Shareholders."
"It's not illegal to have a diverse portfolio. It's not even a red flag," Matt pointed out, taking extra notice of how the room felt more complete with you in it, and how you'd walked in like you knew the place like the back of your hand. Probably because you did. Because you'd clocked every nook and cranny upon your first entry and built some kind of world in your mind.
"These names," you continued. "R. Hayworth, M. Branson, P. Patel, R. Madison..." You trailed off from rattling through the common names you remembered. "I don’t know, maybe you’ll find something I missed."
Matt had to grin at the way you'd swapped so easily from talks of pleasure to talks of business.
“What?” You challenged, seeing his smile. He sat up a little straighter and nodded his head to the machine on the cabinet against the wall behind his desk, telling you what he was going to do with the files you gave him.
“Nothing,” he cleared his throat. “That scanner transcribes from text to braille.” He swivelled in his chair to roll over and start the process.
Your eyes followed him as he turned and you noticed his collar was slightly bent up at the back. Without giving it much thought, you stepped between the back of his chair and his desk, saying "Oh, hey, your shirt..." and then took the fabric between your fingers to fix it.
Matt could hear what you were going to do before you did it, before you said it, and he cursed himself for not taking more care this morning with his tie. As much as he tried not to flinch, he couldn't help it when a few of your fingers very innocently brushed along the skin above his collar.
Your eyes and smile widened, your hands paused in place, you shot a glance to his hands. One had a stack of papers, the other was on the switch. "Payback's a bitch, huh?" You smirked and danced your perfectly polished nails along the side of his neck. He let out a spluttered, breathy laugh and scrunched up his shoulders.
"You-hou're insane," he twitched and slammed down the papers on top of the scanner and made a swift reach for your hands that'd travelled up his neck. "Hey!" He called out and flinched harder when your fingertips fluttered against the sides of his ears. You laughed, even though your revenge was cut short by his grasp closing around your wrists.
He yanked your hands down in front of him. You gasped through your laughter as the force of his pull made you hinge at the hips, bringing you forward, down to where your chin would be rested against his shoulder. Your cheek brushed against his and you pulled on your wrists, finding his hold strong and unrelenting. He turned his face towards you, and he wore an antagonised half-smirk. "Really?" You couldn’t help but look at his lips. It was impossible to not notice how close they were to yours.
You swallowed the remainder of your giggles and promised, "I was just doing you a favour."
"Mmm?"
"Mmm," you nodded, letting your cheek brush against his once again.
He felt the warmth of your skin. The deep, slow exhale through your nose. The flex of your hands in his iron grip. Your heart thudded through your chest and against his shoulder. He released one of your hands, letting it hang just by his hips - perhaps to tempt you into trying something more, or simply to test the waters to see if you were foolish enough to egg him on further - and his hand lifted up to your face. His fingertip found your lips and your heart pounded faster as your warm breath rolled against his skin. His half-smirk widened into an almost-grin.
"Do you wear lipstick often?" he asked.
"Most days."
"Not today.”
Your mouth went a little dry but you couldn't lick your lips with his hand still there. You cleared your throat, "I haven’t touched it up in a while."
"Right," he laughed, and then pressed the back of his fingers against your cheek. It licked heat against his skin. "Why are you blushing?"
"Murdock," you growled and made to stand but he didn't let go of your wrist. In an impressive manoeuvre, he turned his swivel chair without painfully twisting your wrist or waning his hold, then stood up toe-to-toe with you. Your words caught in your throat at his proximity and the damn smirk he still wore, and you took an instinctive step backwards. He matched it, forwards, and lifted his free hand to once again caress your cheek.
"Still blushing," he taunted in a low rasp. You scoffed and took another step back, he matched it again, then again. The backs of your upper legs hit the edge of his desk. "You could've sent a bike messenger."
No. No, he wasn't allowed the upper hand. He wasn't allowed to turn you into some fawning blushing girl with a crush. So you gathered your confidence, and your will to defy, you stood straight up and started pulling your wrist from his grasp with a casual indifference. "Well, if you're not happy to have me here, I can-mmm-"
He cut you off, stealing the words straight out of your mouth with a deep, decisive kiss. After kissing him back for just a few seconds, you pulled away and turned your head to the side to say, "Seriously, Murdock, I can just go."
"Stop talking," he ordered with a frustrated sigh before his lips met that place where your shoulder became your neck, pulling a satisfied breath from somewhere unreached within you.
You smiled through your heavy breath. “It’s not my fault you look hot when you’re exasperated.”
With a grunt of aggravation he wrapped his fingers around the lapel of your blazer and tore it away from your shoulders before silencing you with his lips back on yours. In the process of working your arms out of your sleeves you felt your hand knock a mug that sat on his desk. Before you had the chance to gasp, he caught it pre-disaster and lifted it away from the table.
Breathless, you narrowed your eyes as he pulled away. "How... how did you..."
"I heard it," he panted back, turning to place it on the filing cabinet alongside his own cup.
You winced in confusion. "You caught it so fast." But any thoughts of the cup soon left your mind when his fingers slipped through the gap between his top button and his dark grey tie. He slid his knuckle through the knot, loosening it with a suave ease. He, slowly, stepped back towards you. You clicked your tongue and teased, "I just fixed your collar and now you've gotta go do a thing li-... like that." The last words came out in a whisper, cause he'd given you a look that made your knees weak. It was so perfectly him: strong, playful, domineering, gratified.
He stepped his body against yours with his tie loosened. His rough hands met your waist and he used that grip to lift you several inches to sit on the table. His palms shoved, sliding you back so your knees bent over the edge. Murdock then stood between your legs and pulled you back forwards so you'd crash into him. The impact knocked the breath from your lungs, but not because of the force. You opened your mouth to speak, to say anything, to snark at him or say something sarcastic but he took of his glasses and worked his suit jacket off before you came up with anything good.
He half-grinned. "I didn't think you'd actually stop talking." He tossed his jacket behind him, landing it on the chair, and then leaned down to plant his hands on the desk either side of your hips. His closeness forced you to lean back the smallest amount. "For the record, you could've just said this is what you came for,” he poked with an almost-wink.
You scoffed and adverted your eyes, feeling your pulse racing at his proximity. “For the record, you… you can just-”
He cocked his head and took your chin between his fingers to make you face him. He couldn’t see you, but you felt like he could, so it worked all the same. “You’re adorable when you’re speechless,” he slid his hand down to gently grasp around the front of your neck, then leaned in to silence any comebacks you’d formulated. Your pulse pounded against his fingerprints, his palm, as you deepened the kiss and got to work on the buttons of his shirt. You only managed to undo three of them before he suddenly gave a low, hungry growl against your lips and hoisted you off the desk.
“Woah there,” you laughed breathlessly. A frankly undignified noise fell through your mouth and into his as your back was braced against the wall with enough force to almost be painful. It didn’t hurt. Instead, it sent a wave of carnal desire coursing through to the tips of your fingers, so you buried them in his hair and pulled him in to kiss him in a way he’d never forget.
Matt felt a noise of pleasure mount in his throat as you took his lower lip between your teeth and caressed your fingers through his hair. You kissed him with passion, your nails against his scalp sending pleasant waves of bliss down the back of his neck to make him shiver. You felt it, and you seemed to like the reactions you were able to pull, because he felt your mouth tense into a smirk against his.
The salacious struggle for the upper hand was part of the fun, and at least half of the pleasure when it came to the two of you, so he shoved you more securely against the wall and prepared his next move.
He kissed you too, eagerly. His steadfast hands stayed planted on the backs of your thighs to keep you secure above the ground. His body kept your back flush against the wall. Murdock then began, every so often, along with a satisfied deeper breath, kneading his hands further into your skin.
The contracting of his fingertips was slow and strong, just the right amount of tension to pull a groan from you too. After several fun, breathless minutes, it changed. You flinched when his right hand suddenly squeezed faster than it had before, and then the left. Murdock picked up the pace of his movements, his hands slid further down towards your knees. One particularly quick dig made your leg twitch, and made you break the kiss with a gasp.
"H-hey," you panted, letting your head fall against the wooden wall as Murdock took the chance to breathe deep against your neck. His warm exhale was starlight against your skin. You closed your eyes and smiled. But his hands squeezed again and you jolted. "Wahatch it," you scolded in a whisper.
He chuckled against your skin. "Watch it?" Then, he dug his fingers in again, this time pulsing them once or twice. You squirmed against him and kicked yourself for your poor choice of words. Then, you realised what he was doing so you decided he wasn't owed an apology.
"Muhurdock," you sniffed, then managed to hold in what was sure to be an undignified squeak when he dug his fingertips in again. You opened your mouth to protest, to swear at him, to antagonise him further, but his lips against the place below your ear made your words turn to mush at the tip of your tongue. You clutched the back of his shirt and hummed in agreement, then heard him sniff a laugh.
He wasn't done.
He suddenly dug his fingers into the sensitive muscle at the back of your legs and this time, instead of stopping after one or two second, he took to running his kneading hands up and down the length of your thighs. You yelped and immediately unhooked your ankles from around his waist. Thankfully, he had a good enough hold on you to keep you from falling as you silently writhed for a few seconds before your ticklishness got the best of you and you burst into laughter.
His warm smart-ass chuckle rumbled against your neck. You could hear and feel the way his lips were spread into a grin. As much as you were enjoying this playful side of him, he was still tickling the shit out of you, and you didn't have much control over your reactions.
“H-HEY!” You gasped for breath and tried to hold in your laughter, leaning your neck away from his lips and giving a sustained push at his shoulders. Another embarrassing squeak burst through when his middle finger found a particularly sensitive point of muscle in your leg. You slammed your head into the wall, just enough to feel but not enough to injure. Apparently, enough for Matt to stop, laugh and ask if you were alright. “I’m fine!” You urged in a higher-pitched tone that usual. “What the hell?!” You growled and squirmed even though his cursed hands had stopped. For now.
He suddenly pulled you away from the wall. The instinct was for you to wrap your legs around his waist again, so you did, as he strode over to the couch in one or two steps and placed you down beneath him. He hovered over you with a strong arm planted on the back of the seat, the other just beside your head. “Next time you try to do the whole cutesy, flirting your way to sex, it’s not gonna work out for you,” he said, voice sincere and dangerous. “That’s a promise.”
You laughed once, jaw slack from his call-out. Instead of addressing it, you cheeked, “Are you saying.. it’s gonna work this time?”
His smirk widened and regained some warmth now that he knew you were in for sure. Before you could see him break into a grin, he was kissing you, and that hand on the back of the couch was making its way towards the buckle of your belt.
The air felt thicker, warmer and sweeter as a bare-chested Murdock collapsed against you, both of you panting to catch your breaths. A smile stayed coy across your lips while the haze turned to clarity, and before you knew it you were laughing and so was he.
His stubbled jaw moved gently against yours in a move for him to press a tender kiss to the side of your neck through his chuckling. You felt his lips part to say something snarky.
“Don’t say it-”
“You could’ve sent a bike messenger.”
“I hate you,” you deadpanned and brought your arms up to half-heartedly push at his shoulders. Unfortunately, it worked. He propped himself up to hover over you, perhaps afraid the bulk of his body was making it harder for you to breath. It was, but not in any way that was unwelcome.
If you hadn’t known his gaze was hollow, you’d have called it adoring. Then again, expressions were so much more than eyes. It made your smile turn shy seeing the content look on his face. It looked like… more than just sex. And that made your stomach turn - the idea of this being more. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
He tilted his head, his lips slightly pursed in thought, his stare fixed at the place just above your left ear. His eyebrows bumped as he said, “It’s a lucky day in general.” The grin had curled into his lips before he finished the sentence. You laughed and reached up to tap his cheek once in a gentle scold, which only made him grin wider. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then flinched and went silent.
“What?” You whispered, sensing the shift in tone.
He turned his ear towards the door.
“Shit,” he whispered back, and then stuck his hand down to feel around the ground for his pants. The shift in him from exertion to urgency made you sit up and instinctively fumble for your own discarded pieces of clothing.
“What?”
“Foggy. Karen. They’re-,” he gestured with his hand towards the main part of the office, “coming back up.”
“Shit,” you agreed and rushed to put your clothes on as fast as you could. While you worked your pants back onto your legs you recalled something you’d read about blindness during your weekend research. “Where are they?”
“Coming up the stairs.” He slotted his arms into his sleeves and shrugged the white fabric over his shoulders.
You pulled the pants over your hips. “I heard the soundscape for people who are blind is like… I don’t know, an X-ray of a building.”
Evidently hearing the question in your voice, he half-shrugged and then nodded, “I wouldn’t disagree with that.”
“That’s incredible,” you admitted, throwing your shirt on and tucking it in before letting out a seethe of frustration at your intricate belt buckle.
“That thing’s like a padlock,” he commented, doing his final button, smirking sexily as he heard your buckle tighten.
“Could‘ve fooled me. You made quick work of it.”
“Hurry,” he rushed, then kicked over a shoe to you. You kicked his back, managing enough accuracy to nudge it into his socked foot.
“I’m hurrying. Hey, isn’t it supposed to be a red flag when guys leave their socks on during sex?” You teased.
“You tell me,” he slipped his foot into his shoe. “You’re the one who reads GQ.”
You pulled on your own shoes, thanking your past self for not opting for lace-up boots today, and hurriedly pulled the blazer around your shoulders.
“Your other shoe’s by- yeah,” you tried to slow your breathing and fix your hair to make it look like it wasn’t just tangled up in Matt Murdock’s fist.
Matt pulled his other shoe on and moved around to sit behind his desk, opening the computer, beckoning you to come pretend like you were looking over his shoulder, just as he heard the front office door open and Karen and Foggy step back inside.
“No, but there are some developers who have similar shareholders even though they’re competitors,” you said, seamlessly dropping into conversation. Matt suppressed his smirk as he heard you pick up that stack of papers from behind his desk and leaf through them. You pressed a few buttons on the copy machine.
“So you were saying shareholders don’t have conflict of interest, so they-”
The door to Matt’s office opened with that familiar way Foggy did it. There was no hesitation, no knock, just an air of suspicion entering with him.
“Hi Foggy,” Matt leaned back and stretched like he’d been there since his friends left. “Good dinner?”
“How does this thing work?” Matt heard you mutter and slide a batch of files into the tray to be copied into Braille.
Foggy was silent. Matt could feel the tension in the room as his best friend analysed the scene before him. The continual beeping on the printer said you were trying to figure it out, and then the subtle encouraging chime told him you did. Once the paper was in the tray, you turned to both the men.
“Where’s the restroom?”
“Down the hall, third door to the left.” Foggy’s voice came harsh and accusatory. If you’d responded to his unspoken skepticism, it wasn’t verbal or with your body language, so Matt couldn’t quite be sure. He only heard you murmur a quick ‘be right back,’ and then go in search of what you needed.
The room was silent, or, Foggy was silent, until you’d closed that front office door.
Foggy spoke slowly, in a low and dangerous question. “In the sacred offices of Nelson and Murdock?”
Matt swallowed, trying to play it off like he didn’t know what his friend was on about, but clearly something in the room had given him away.
Still, he tried. “What d’you mean?”
“Oh, come on, Matt!” Foggy called with a loud, exasperated sigh. The noise brought Karen into the room, which brought Matt’s hand to his forehead resignedly.
“What’s going on?” She demanded.
“Matt had sex with her.”
“Foggy, I-”
“In this very office.”
“Wha- really?” Karen scoffed, a little shocked. “Wait… just now?”
Matt shifted uncomfortably and adjusted his glas- oh. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. He’d taken them off to… He gave Foggy his best part-scolding, part-pleading look. “This really isn’t a conversation we need to be having.”
“Like hell it isn’t!” Foggy yelled again. “Talk about conflict of interest, Matt. Is that what you were talking about when I came in?”
“No,” Matt took the chance to change the course of this conversation. “We were talking about the research she’d done on the businesses who made offers to Avery.”
“And?”
“And she found more than a few dozen. We were going to cross-reference names, survey other businesses on the block and maybe identify Reynolds’ next target.”
“So Reynolds’ name is on some of these companies?”
“… No, but-”
“It’s a waste of time, then!”
“-Foggy, listen to me, he’s probably operating under a false name or-”
“Or maybe you heard wrong.”
Foggy doubt dropped like a bomb, releasing an awkward silence into the room. Matt clenched his jaw, trying to contain his agitation. “I didn’t hear wrong.”
“Maybe you were distracted.”
“I didn’t hear wrong.”
Locked heads and horns in their argument, the only thing that made them flinch was the sound of you reentering the premises. Matt had heard you coming but didn’t feel the need to placate Foggy before then; you knew what he could be like.
“What’s going on?” You asked upon approach.
Foggy spun on his heel to face you and say with an obviously fake cheerfulness, “Thank you so much for your help on the Avery case, but we’ll take it from here.”
Your eyebrows raised at his sudden, though not entirely unexpected, affront. “Really,” you deadpanned.
He tried to fake smile but it looked more like a sneer. “Really.”
“How are you going to talk to Reynolds then?”
“We don’t need to,” Foggy declared. “The Reynolds lead is dead. We’re going to get our client’s charges dropped based on lack of evidence against him.”
“Right,” you scoffed, then got personal. “Isn’t your client still in custody? Exactly what other leads are you pursuing?”
“That’s privileged information.”
You crossed your arms and spat back quietly. “We both know the Reynolds lead is the only one you have, and I now have a direct line to him.” You walked past him back into Murdock’s office, seeing the weight of your most recent declaration take hold. “Lucky for you, I want to take him down just as bad. So how about we do this together.”
Silence casted across the room. The air felt thicker again, but not in that pleasant way it had a mere five minutes before. Nelson’s jaw clenched and released in a myriad of seconds before he let out a big sigh through his nose.
“Am I supposed to really believe you’re here to help?” He scoffed and gave you a scathing look that stung a bit more than you’d like to admit.
Matt started to speak up from behind you. “Foggy-”
"Nuh-uh, no," Nelson held his hands up and shook his head. "We are not jeopardising our case with your- your philandering!"
Your cheeks burned but you held in any overt reactions. How did he know?! You quickly scanned the room for obvious signs as they continued with their back-and-forth.
"Foggy, we need her-"
"We managed just fine without her until now and we'll-"
“-think rationally-”
"-Manage fine now that she's leaving!" He ignored you and directed all his frustration towards his partner.
"No," the darker-haired man shook his head and stood. "I'm sorry, Foggy. No. This isn’t about any of us. Avery needs her."
Murdock sure could give a solemn and final look for someone who didn't... well, look. Nelson's defiance puffed his chest as he clenched his jaw and looked between the two philanderers he caught near-red-handed. Then, he settled. His head turned to the side in thought, and he looked back up between you two with some plan in his head.
"Fine. But we're doing this right."
He walked out of the office, leaving the door open as he went. Karen followed.
You whipped your head towards Murdock and whispered, “How did he know?!”
A confused shrug was all he gave you before Matt heard Foggy open the door to his own private work room, then shuffle around some papers, then put something in the photocopier. Matt swallowed, sighed and rubbed his temples between his fingers.
"What?" You asked, picking up on his deductions.
Matt lifted his head so you could see his flat and sullen expression. "Foggy's gonna-"
"Sign it!" Nelson declared as he strode back into the room with an air of victory, his head held high and a few sheets of paper in his hands. He slammed them in front of Murdock. You weren't too far away so you could see there was one copy which held both text and braille, and you could then see Murdock's fingertip running along the page. He paused and stuck his tongue against his cheek. Something told you whatever on the page is exactly what he'd expected it to be, and it didn't make him happy.
"Seriously?" Murdock scoffed. "This is unnecessary."
"This is the only way I allow it," Nelson said with rage just below the surface. "Sign it, or I'm handling Avery on my own."
Murdock sighed again and reached for a pen with one hand, the other finding the place for his signature. "It's a contract," he told you as he closed his hands around a blue ballpoint.
You lifted an eyebrow towards Nelson. "A no-sex contract?"
"Effectively;" Matt mumbled, and dropped: “This will make you our client."
"Your client?"
"Attorney-client relationships aren't allowed in New York," Nelson turned to you, ever-smug, crossing his arms and smiling to the sound of his friend's signature scratching across the page. "So sign the document to hire us as your legal firm,” he raised a pointed finger towards the door for dramatic effect, “or get the hell out."
"Foggy!"
Matt surprised even himself with more protective anger in his voice than he'd anticipated there would be. Maybe because he was frustrated that he was now legally obligated to not do the thing he was thinking about all weekend, or maybe because he felt like Foggy was being unfair on you; he'd never do this if he liked you, and he didn't have good reasons to dislike you. Either way, Foggy was out of line talking to you like that. Matt wouldn’t stand for it.
Murdock's defence of you surged something new in your chest, making your heart beat quicker and giving you the need to suppress a grateful smile. Still, you were unwilling to create a riff between these best friends. "It's okay, Murdock," you assured, keeping your voice low but strong. "I want to help."
So you walked over, picked up the pen and the paper, and skimmed through the basic contract. There wasn’t much to it. You read every word. Then, you nodded, silently asking yourself what the hell you were in for, and leaned over the desk to sign away the right to act on the only spark you’d felt in years. But there were lives at stake.
This wasn’t about you.
No sooner had your pen left the page did Nelson whisk it away to file, shutting the door after himself as he left.
You let out a laugh through your nose and clicked the pen shut, fiddling with it in your hands as the strange silence ebbed between you and Murdock. Perched against his desk, you watched as he let out another sigh and leaned back in his swivel chair.
“I guess that wasn’t the smartest idea,” he cleared his throat, referring to the philandering you’d just done.
A smile played at your lips. He looked kind of cute, all bashful like that. “Guess not,” you shrugged, twisting the pen around your knuckles. After letting it stew for a few moments, you added, “It was fun, though. I’d do it again if it wouldn’t get you disbarred.”
He gave a bright laugh before standing up and grabbing the copies from the printer behind him. “Good to know,” he said so quietly, it may have been just to himself. Still, it made your cheeks even warmer. “Hey, what did you mean when you said you had a direct line to Reynolds?”
Oh.
Matt’s face twitched into a frown when he heard how you reacted to his question. Your heart started beating faster, anxiously, your breath stopped for a second or two before it sounded like you were making a conscious effort to measure it. There had been a pen twirling gracefully between your fingers but it was now still and- ah, you put it down. You stood, away from his desk, so he turned and let you see the displeasure on his face. He got the gist that you saw his look, because you tried to sound casual and unbothered when you told him what had transpired that morning.
“He got in touch with me.”
“What?”
"In the form of about a hundred and fifty white roses. Delivered to my office, along with his phone number. He’s granted me an interview tomorrow night. Over dinner.”
Matt’s jaw tensed, he tilted his head towards the ceiling in exasperation. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Delivered to my office,” you repeated. “There’s no way I was getting out of meeting up with him after that bouquet was paraded through the Bullpen, right in front of my boss."
“He’s cornered you into it,” Matt scoffed. “It’s a trap. How on earth could fall for it?”
“I didn’t fall for anything,” you argued back. “You think I don’t know what he’s doing? He chose white roses for a reason, Murdock. What exactly do you think is going to happen to me? The entire staff of the Weekly Herald knows I’m going to dinner with him, he- he’s not gonna do anything.”
“Who knows, hmm?” Matt let out a frustrated huff, then shook his head before letting it hang. “You’re smarter than this.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” you snarked, now having lost your patience. “You know, I thought you’d be happy about this, considering it’s maybe the only chance to clear Avery’s name?”
“Harold Avery is my responsibility,” Matt’s jaw set in stone, his right hand met his hip. He lifted his head and cursed himself for getting you involved in this. “Let me do my job.”
“Okay. Let me do mine.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“What for?”
“Just-” Matt had to stop himself from gripping the papers too tight, lest the stack crumble under his fear which was poorly disguised as annoyance. “I’m coming.”
“No. You’re not,” you said finally. You were both silent for several seconds, then you spoke up again. Your question and tone didn’t seem to be searching for a rise from him - instead it was genuine wonder: “Do you really think I can’t handle myself?”
What a complicated fucking question, Matt thought. Of course you could. Of course you couldn’t. Of course he could protect you. Unless he couldn’t.
He could, though… maybe he- no. He couldn’t get the devil involved. Not now. Not yet.
You both ruminated in thick silence. It was a complicated question, perhaps an unfair one, and maybe you wouldn’t have asked it if your temper hadn’t flared at the assumption he thought you weren’t strong enough to do this. Then again, if he didn’t think you were, maybe you weren’t.
What- no. He’s not… he’s just a one-night-stand. His opinion doesn’t mean anything. … It doesn’t.
“Murdock,” you prompted. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes.” His response was instant, and it put your heart at ease. Wait- mind. It put your mind at ease. The heart had nothing to do with this. It was just sex. Still, you smiled softly at the papers in his hand, and you asked him a favour.
“Then trust my judgement.”
You could tell he didn’t want to. The rational side of your brain said he just didn’t want you screwing up his case, and the hopeful part said he didn’t want you to put yourself in danger.
Matt couldn’t stand the thought of you walking into Reynolds’ home. Being surrounded by his things and his people and paintings that set you on a steep edge, but you’d asked him to trust your judgement. But he couldn’t.
“I can’t.” His rough voice came from his slightly-tilted head, and your heart sank as your eyes lifted to catch the worried look on his face. “I can’t condone this after hearing the fear in your voice after you met him at the gala. How can you ask me to forget that?”
“Well, I don’t need your permission,” you sniffed, ignoring his plea. Hot tears threatened impending arrival but if he wasn’t going to trust you then you weren’t about to allow him another piece of your vulnerability.
“You’re being reckless.”
You snapped. “And I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
You stood in silence yet again, this time a new, tense, uncomfortable one. Full of so much unspoken fear, frustration, longing and a new breed of separation brought about by the paper you’d just signed. You rolled your eyes and brushed past him to grab your own files from the copier. “By the way,” you gritted your teeth as you passed him again and picked your bag up from the ground, “Since you’re the one who brought up Fisk last time,” you shoved the files in your bag and hoisted it onto your shoulder, and then your coat over your arm, “Let’s not forget his incarceration created a power-vacuum. Think about that, as you think about Reynolds. I do.”
Murdock’s face softened in confusion for a few seconds before he opened his mouth to speak, but you cut him off.
“I need to do more prep for the interview.”
Matt could hear the hurt and the emotion building in your chest, so he didn’t try to stop you. Better to err on the side of respecting your decision to leave.
Frustration swelled around your beating heart as you made a hasty exit, wondering if he was going to stop you. You hated that selfish part of you that wanted him to stand between you and the door, to not let you go, to say he cared too much to let you do something so reckless. It was a stupid, unfair internal test - some kind of defence mechanism that immature part of you set up to make him fail, to prove he wasn’t right.
But he let you go, and so you went.
Armed with your stack of files and fierce determination.
“You look like shit.”
You laughed through your nose at Vera’s sarcasm thrown from the doorway of your office. Your fixed gaze didn’t leave the small handheld mirror resting against your ajar laptop lid. Lipstick could be tricky business.
The sun had set a while ago. There weren’t that many people left in the office. Just the ones stuck on hard assignments.
“Stark Watch going that bad, huh?” You quipped back to your friend, who entered and unfolded her arms. She bumped her brow and nodded, motioning for you to stand up and show her the complete look. You obliged, fixing your hair and giving a quick view of the back of the navy blue dress.
“If I wore that I’d look like a mother of the bride,” she shook her head and refolded her arms as you turned to give her a scolding look for her self-deprecation. “You know that it’s not fair, right? That you look amazing in everything you wear?”
“Please, it’s laundry day.” You turned and checked the time. Ten minutes until the car would be outside to take you to Reynolds. “Really, though. How’s that Avengers story panning out?”
“About as well as you’d expect- oh, come here.” You, again, obliged and walked over to where she wanted to do up the clasp above the zipper on the back of your dress. She digressed. “I’m being stonewalled by Potts, the comms team has some cookie-cutter non-answer, and Steve Rogers still won’t return my phone calls.”
“He probably doesn’t know how to use a phone.”
“That’s it,” she chuckled once and you stepped away to finish collecting your things. “What aren’t you telling me?”
You paused, laughed once uncomfortably, then continued putting your things in your purse.
“Is it Reynolds, or the mystery man?”
“There’s no mystery man.”
“You’re a terrible liar-”
“Vera-” You stood up and let her see a flash of the cocktail of emotions you’d been feeling. “There’s… it can’t happen.” You turned back and shoved your hairspray and on-the-go makeup bag back into the drawer it came from. The snap closing of the drawer was a sharp enough sound that it made you stop for a second and just listen.
The way he taught you.
Car horns, office air-con, the clock in the corner, the silent scream of the white roses that still sat in the corner, Vera-
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was softer, and more grounded. You nodded in agreement and slipped on your coat, not quite meeting her eye.
“In another life,” you shrugged the sleeves on more comfortably and only then met her gaze. Some part of you detested the pity in her dark brown eyes, but you supposed only for prideful reasons. It was nice, to have a friend like her care about things like this. To notice. “You wouldn’t have liked him anyway. He’s too good.”
She let out a puff of air that sounded almost like a laugh, then reached out to fix the lapel of your coat. Vera took a step back and looked you up and down with a proud-yet-somewhat-sad friend smile. “I’m not the one who thinks you don’t deserve that.”
The only chance you had to protest was the beginnings of a severe look which was to be followed by denial, but there was something a little too knowing in her eyes. Before it got too heavy, she winked, “Don’t sleep with Reynolds.”
You rolled your eyes, smiled, and pushed past her, not dignifying her half-joke with an answer.
His ride was prompt.
A sleek, black private car with a dark interior and the undeniable scent of luxury glided through the streets, helmed by a driver who didn’t speak a word to you. Not when he opened the door for you, not while he was driving, not when he opened the door for you again. When you thanked him, his only response was a tight nod.
Before you knew it, you were on the sidewalk right before the grand entrance to the Golden Empress.
The building was fairly new in its own right, but had elements of Old American Money in its architecture, decor and branding. It certainly was an impressive building, all seventy-two stories of it, and Arthur Reynolds owned the entire top floor.
The first floor held a bar and restaurant and so was generally open to the public. Or, at least, the members of the public who could afford the extravagance of an eight-course meal and forty-dollar cocktails; getting inside was easy enough. The path was rife with good manners and hospitality and it wasn’t a mission to find your way to the reception of the residential portion of the building.
You approached the front desk and spoke to a man with dark brown hair that was perfectly in place. He was articulate and professional. He checked your ID, confirmed you were permitted into Reynolds’ property, and ushered you towards the elevators.
“This elevator is for the penthouse only,” he explained as he flashed a card in front of an RFID scanner to order the doors to open. “Only one stop. Please, ma’am, enjoy your stay.”
You half-expected him to mention the Golden Empress had a dry-cleaning service, or how wonderful breakfast could be downstairs in the cafe, or that Mr Reynolds would have a car here for you in the morning, but that would be far too presumptuous for an establishment of this caliber.
The elevator was spacious, giving just enough to look at with the dark brown patterned wallpaper that matched the feeling of the lobby and bar you passed. It was trimmed in dark wood, the carpet a rich forest green, a stained walnut-framed mirror adorned the back wall. You checked your reflection in it, and you felt beautiful. But for what? He wouldn’t know.
This is a long way up, was the tangible thought that pulled you from spiralling into thoughts of Murdock. He hadn’t called today. You hadn’t called either. You hadn’t quite figured out if you should give him a debrief after this whole thing. If you ever made it out of the elevator, that is. Seventy-two stories. Who would have thought it would take this long to get up there? You turned away from the mirror, and for a second you wished you were invisible.
The elevator came to a gentle stop and then opened towards an empty hallway. Already, it was a stark contrast from the rest of the building. You stepped onto smooth, white marbled floors. The walls were also white, sparsely fixed with a minimalist painting here, a vase there, a security camera in each corner.
Your heels clicked and echoed as you approached a set of large double doors. Before you could knock, they opened.
The first look at Reynolds’ home was like a perfectly curated first bite of a gourmet meal; there was a hint of all the flavours, and a glimpse at how they all worked together.
White marble coated the floors in a seamless transition from the hallway. A glance into the living area off to the left showed some rugs that looked too cozy to be in a place like this, but they added that touch of homeliness needed for a living room with thick angular architecture. Square pillars rose up from the ground, bordering the almost-archway from the front hall to where the room opened up to high-ceilings with two-story windows.
There was a blaze in the fire place. The whole room was warm, in noticeable contrast to the way it should feel. Clean and sterile, with that flicker of roaring flame spilling golden light across black couches and glass coffee tables.
Footsteps approached. Reynolds himself.
The way he smiled at you was warm, friendly, and disarming. But you weren’t quite without your wits just yet. His curly light brown hair was clean and styled but not perfect like the man at reception’s, and his navy blue suit didn’t look like he’d just put it on - hallmarks of a busy man who’d made time for you in his schedule. You wondered if he had more work to do after you’d left that evening.
“Beautiful home,” you greeted him with a polite smile. “Have I seen it in an issue of Architectural Digest?”
“Thank you,” he smiled back. “And no, I’d never allow such a thing.”
“Your coat, madam?” Another voice from behind you. Someone with an unsettlingly quiet step accepted your coat as you began shrugging it off your shoulders. They walked away and you met your host’s eye in time to catch him looking at the way the dress fit you perfectly.
“Did you design it yourself?” You asked, beginning to follow after he gestured with his arm off to the right. You fell into step with him and walked across the large living and entertaining room towards what sounded like a kitchen.
“No,” he laughed warmly and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Several creative minds with an eye far greater than mine answered my calls, much to my gratitude. We’ll need to have our meal outside but I’ve arranged for some heaters so it shouldn’t be too cold.”
You’ll need to?
He led you through the large, empty dining room that bordered on the kitchen and was surrounded by floor to ceiling glass windows and sliding doors. His hand met the latch, platinum watch glinting in the dim light, and he pulled the door open.
You were met with a gust of autumn air and the near-irresistible urge to ask why the hell you couldn’t use the perfectly good dining table that stood an arm’s reach away.
“I assume you’ll be recording our conversation,” he answered the obvious question as he stepped onto the balcony. You followed, this time with more reluctance, and you nodded. He digressed. “One aspect of the home I insisted upon was to place harmless signal jammers inside each wall,” he explained.
He stepped aside and revealed a beautifully laid table right next to the glass-fronted balcony wall. You smiled at the simplicity of it, and fought a knowing smile at how much it reminded you of a few dates you’d been on. No candles, though. So you supposed he had plausible deniability.
“Signal jammers,” you repeated, approaching the table in step with your host.
“No recording devices of any kind work within the walls,” he confirmed, and pulled your chair out for you.
You took your seat. “Smart,” was all you said. “Must be nice to know you can never be recorded without your consent. But what about security?”
He took his own seat with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I detest the idea of cameras inside my own home,” he gave you a sullen look. “Wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose I would.”
What was he doing in his home that he didn’t want recorded? Scandalous affairs? Shady business deals? Several untoward things, you could only assume. Perhaps it wasn’t proper to speculate.
“Thank you for this,” you said honestly. He didn’t need to know the depth of it. “I know you’re a private person and the media hasn’t always been kind to your family. I am very curious about your charitable work in Central America.”
He flashed a kind, bashful smile and sat back in his seat. A waiter who’d perfected the art of subtlety filled your glasses with water, and then placed a small starter between the two of you.
“This isn’t some expose on my failed marriage?” He narrowed his eyes in jest.
You smiled back and pulled the recording device from your bag. “Not at all.” You set it on the table, declaring it live, and clicked it on. “We don’t need to talk about any of that. Though, I’m curious to know if there was something from your past, from growing up, that set these countries in your sights. Why Haiti first?”
“That,” he began, reaching forward to pick up his glass. “Is a long story.”
Reynolds recounted his experience from nearly fifteen years ago, when he visited Haiti for the first time with his family. They’d been staying in the best part of town but he had an insatiable desire to see the parts the tourists shouldn’t. The twenty-eight-year-old Arthur paid a local a handsome sum for a dose of reality. Of the suburbs where gangs ruled brutally, the sickening sound of starvation only being overshadowed by bullets.
You asked question after question, leading him along his own story that you’d researched, looking for depth, searching for any clue that might unravel something hidden.
“Why elsewhere?” You finally asked. He raised his eyebrows through a bite of the seared chicken meal you two had been served. “Why not London?” You clarified. “Why not New York? Certainly people need help in your own backyard.”
“Who’s to say I won’t?”
“You’re beginning work here in New York?”
He paused under the guise of finishing his mouthful and you could’ve sworn his eyes narrowed for less than a second. “Not yet. I don’t currently have any business interests in town.”
There it was. There was the first obvious lie.
“None?” You raised your own wine glass with an air of innocence. “That’s unusual for a billionaire.”
“I suppose. Why do you ask?”
Just as you were about to brush it off as curiosity, the most peculiar sound reverberated through the hallway, then kitchen, then dining room, out onto the balcony.
Footsteps.
Little footsteps, approaching with a fast and young cadence and weight.
Arthur's jaw went a bit slack when his eyes landed on the source of the sound approaching from behind you. The second you saw the young boy, who could be no more than five or six, you immediately reached over and clicked the tape off.
Your host’s eyes flitted to your finger on the button, then to your sincere and solemn gaze, and as soon as you could see the thankfulness in his stare you heard the boy shout with a giggle: "Daddy!"
Arthur Reynolds didn't have any children.
At least, that's what the world thought.
But up ran a blonde-haired hazel-eyed little boy who wrapped his arms around his father's neck and grinned up and him. Reynolds stuttered for a second or two before his hand met the boy's hair to ruffle it affectionately. "My boy," he greeted in a low playful growl before leaning down to pick him up. His kid wrapped his arms again around his father’s neck, and Arthur looked at you nervously. "Affectionate wee thing," he muttered before pulling away to give his son a curious glance. "Where's Mummy?"
"She said she was on an island this week so I get to stay with you," he answered. The look on Arthur's face told you he'd no idea the boy's mother was planning it, and also that he was a strange mix of frustrated and used to it.
Could this be it? Could this be the deep, dark secret you were trying to uncover?
"Fetch Rosie from her room, will you?" Arthur called to the waiter, who nodded and dashed inside. Sitting down while turning his son to sit in his lap, Arthur gave you a glance before picking up a piece of chicken between his fingers. "Have you had your supper?" He held it out to the boy, who took it and popped it in his mouth.
"Yes, Mummy bought me chicken nuggets."
"Did she now," he sighed. "Do you tell her you far prefer grass-fed cutlets?"
"I like them both," he declared, chewing politely on the piece of meat. His accent was a mixture of American and British English, and was rather sweet. You didn't dare speak to the child directly, knowing this was definitely not something you should insert yourself into.
"Where's the restroom?" You asked quietly.
Arthur looked at you meaningfully, and his face softened. "You don't have to go."
Now that surprised you. You smiled shyly just as a young girl, late teens or earliest twenties, came onto the balcony.
"Rosie!" The boy shouted and squirmed off his father's lap.
"You've come back to play with me!" She grinned. "Let's leave your father to his dinner." He rushed over and grabbed her outstretched hand. As she led him inside, you heard the end of her saying: "Let’s get you ready for bed, Malcolm," before the door was shut again.
It was silent for a few moments as Arthur settled his chair back closer to the table and dusted his suit jacket. When he looked up at you, you raised your eyebrows and smiled patiently.
"You learn to keep a nanny on call after your ex-wife absconds to the Bahamas and leaves your child on your doorstep," he sighed, taking a swig of wine. "If she'll do it once, she'll do it again. Serves me right."
"He's a cute kid," you cradled your own glass and gave him a level look. "I understand why you hide him. The world won’t hear about him from me. That's a promise," you nodded sincerely. He smiled sadly and nodded back.
"You're not going to extort me for your silence?"
"Now there's an idea," you joked, Arthur chuckled once through his nose.
"I married Isabel for his sake," he suddenly admitted, playing with the end of the serrated knife which sat resting on his plate. "It was supposed to be a one-time thing, you understand. Then, it was twice and she was pregnant. Sweet girl from a good middle-class family, I thought, well, she'd fit in well-enough with my life and work... I'm afraid I may have corrupted her with the company I keep." He picked up the knife, turned it over once in his hand and the stuck it firmly into the table, before looking up at you and charming, "Serves me right for wanting a raucous night of fun with a 22-year-old high-fashion model."
You'd expected him to elaborate and say something like alimony, or child-support, or impromptu drop-offs but instead he said:
"I gave my child a broken family." His finger traversed the handle of the knife, and something more genuinely somber filled the space between you two. “I fear I’ve turned into everything I dislike in a father.”
“It’s not hard to tell that your son thinks the world of you,” you countered. Arthur replied to your comforting words with a mere smile. Then, he removed the knife from the table and set it down beside his plate.
“This is truly more than I bargained for, inviting a journalist into my home,” he joked.
You beamed a smile and shrugged, picking up your near-finished glass of wine.
“Since I did so generously invite you in, granting you an interview anyone in your position would kill for… might you do something for me?”
The wine ran hot down your throat as a pang of annoyance rang in your ears. Of course he wanted something. You tried to hide your disappointment, but not too much, as you swallowed that final sip and nodded. “Depends,” you looked up to lock eyes with him. His stare was intense, as always, but warm. Maybe. He hadn’t stopped smiling. He signalled for the waiter to come and top up your glasses.
You and Arthur were both silent as your cups were refilled and your plates cleared. The staff were silent. Professional. With a precision of those who didn’t tolerate mistakes. His eyes never left yours and so your stare also stayed firm. Then, you were alone on the balcony again.
He reached forward and picked up his glass. “You’re an exceptional storyteller, as I’m sure you know,” he started. Your heartbeat became noticeable but you didn’t show it. Did he know you didn’t trust him? You picked up your wine glass.
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“Oh, no need for humility,” he assured. “You carry yourself with the confidence of a woman who knows exactly what she’s capable of.”
“Thank you.”
He tilted his head in response as he sipped his wine. “So,” he looked at his glass and then back up to you. “Tell me your story.”
“My story,” you repeated, then leaned back in your seat. Maybe it was an automatic reaction to put distance between the two of you, to give you space to consider it, but he didn’t allow it to go unmentioned.
“You’re not used to being on the other side of your work.”
“Of course not.” You crossed one arm over yourself, another honest reaction. His eyes flicked to it and then back to yours.
“My, aren’t we suddenly very shy,” he teased. Your cheeks burned behind the wine glass and you gave him a bashful look, sitting up and not quite meeting his eye as you placed the glass down. You leaned forward, resting your arms on the tablecloth.
“I’ve never been accused of being shy,” you said with a small smirk. He returned that smirk, with an air of cockiness, and then placed his own glass down. “Because I’m not.”
“That’s yet to be seen,” he shrugged.
You scoffed, smiled wider, and rolled your eyes. “You’ll have to be more specific,” you egged, feeling your heart unexpectedly flutter at his undivided attention. Before you could wonder whether or not it was a bad idea, fuelled by two glasses of wine and the need to prove rich men wrong, you said, “Tell me what you want to know.”
He asked about your family and you told him, mostly. He asked about college, about journalism, and you told him. But you didn’t tell him about volleyball. You didn’t tell him about the shoulder surgery or the way it still ached when you were tired; that felt too intimate. He asked you about Fisk and your ears perked up. You told him about the dinner, about your boss refusing to let you take him to task. Reynolds laughed and made some joke about how he hoped you didn’t find too many similarities between himself and Fisk. You laughed along, and let yourself imagine the biggest secret in this man’s life was Malcolm.
“Fisk’s collection was impressive,” you conceded. “At least I didn’t have to lie about it in the article.”
“Speaking of,” Reynolds smiled and looked out over the city, then back to you.“I believe a tour of my private collection was due,” he spoke across the table while the waiter cleared your meals away. You smiled and nodded.
“That would be nice,” you agreed. “It’ll add some nice grounding to the story.”
You stood after he did, placing the recording device in your purse. Before you retracted your hand you made a split-second decision to subtly switch it back on, just so you’d know for sure if he was being truthful about the emitters built into the walls. “Where should I leave this?” You asked after you’d zipped the bag.
Reynolds signalled to another member of his staff, who came up and graciously, effortlessly, accepted the bag. You didn’t know where it would go but knew you’d get it back later. Then, you realised you maybe shouldn’t have switched it back on in case they looked inside. Ignoring that sickly pang of anxiety in your stomach, deciding to unapologetically stick to your decision, you followed your host as he stepped back inside his home.
You quickly learned that, though spacious, the home had many hallways. It was hard to believe all of this could fit on top of the building, even though the Golden Empress was titanic; it seemed to go on forever. You considered making some comment about why he’d bother to own a collection of art that was so hard to access, but thought better of it before the stained the pleasantness between you two. You followed on.
After a final left turn, you were faced with a long, slim room that somewhat resembled an art gallery. In fact, it pretty much was a gallery.
“This room was designed by Pat Laurent - a world renown gallery architect, and a dear friend,” he smiled down towards you and held an arm forward to invite you to step into the colourful world. “His expertise ensures the pieces are viewed in the best possible circumstances, and stored in the correct atmospheric conditions.”
A quick glance confirmed Reynolds certainly preferred bold colours. The collection ranged from minimalist to abstract, surrealism to hyperrealism. Still, all the colours were bold and brash and demanded to be seen. Yet, here they were, so well hidden down a maze of, dare you say clinical, white marbled hallways.
That had to mean something.
You became more aware of your breath as you walked down the aisle created by the row of flat leather chaises in the centre of the room. You looked at the pieces in the order which they were meant to be viewed. After all, who were you to question Pat Laurent and his expertise. Reynolds stayed one or two steps behind you and, notably, stayed silent.
You could almost feel his gaze dead fixed on your reactions. You noticed your heartbeat in his lack of comment… he was waiting for something.
Then, one piece in particular made your brow lower and the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. It was at the end of the line and had a few dedicated fixtures pouring white light on it from above, bringing out the intense crimsons, browns, blacks, a hint of purple peaked out from beneath the reds. Aware you were being watched, you lied with a small nod of approval. When you turned your head to look at him, he didn’t look away or hide that he’d been watching you. A smirk twitched at the corner of his lips, and he looked at the painting.
“Ophelia’s End,” he spoke the name of the work.
You looked back at it also. It was an intensely melancholic piece but, like with the rest of his collection, there was an underlying violence to it. Something painful and dreadful and downright sinister that put your nerves on edge with every slash of red across the canvas.
"One of Lind's great works," Reynolds told you as he took a few more steps to settle beside where you stood resolute. "Inspired by the untimely death of his fiancee."
You swallowed thickly as you took in the texture of the cuts of colours. "Must've been a violent end."
Reynolds hummed in agreement, then turned to walk a few, slow steps away from it. From you. Somehow, his presence was still there. Somehow, he seemed to fill the room. Maybe because it was filled with reflection of himself, his desires, his inner depths.
Your fingers found each other in front of your body and you fidgeted with one of your rings, turning it over between the pads of your fingertips in some kind of grab at reality. Instead of the metaphorical.
"How did she die?"
"A nasty fall,” he started. You heard him turn back towards you, and then approach your other side from behind. You hated how it made you feel. Once again, his art took grip of your throat. Of your breath. It didn’t seem fair, or right, that he seemed to understand that. “Too many glasses of wine and a tumble from their penthouse balcony.”
Your heart rose to your throat as you remembered the elevator ride. How long it took for such a streamlined piece of engineering. Even though it didn’t feel like it in this room, this… bunker, you were high in the sky. Almost definitely higher than Ophelia had been.
"She was drunk?" You could still taste Reynolds’ choice of wine on your lips.
"She had a reputation. For being reckless."
You looked closer at the painting and knew that Reynolds could see what you saw; there was nothing reckless and accidental on this canvas - even though it was made to look that way. The "random slashes" of paint had clean edges, clean starts and ends. They were supposed to look splattered, supposed to look like some random event or some outpouring of emotion and tragedy in an artistic medium. But just as each stroke was intentional, without a hint of accident, so was Ophelia's untimely end.
Her death was no wine-fuelled balancing act on a balcony's edge; this painting was Lind's confession.
The threat wasn't lost on you, not for one second. Not the way you were also in the penthouse suite. How you’d eaten dinner among the skyline, inches from the edge. It was probably just for this moment. The moment when he had you alone, looking at your fate should you continue. Maybe it was all so the words could truly, devastatingly, perfectly, sink in when his low voice would challenge you from just a step behind your shoulder:
“Tell me, does a legally blind attorney really make for that good a bodyguard?"
The humourless laugh burst once through your lips before you could stop it. It was pure shock. You stuck your tongue against the inside of your cheek and directed your glare towards the uppermost part of the painting. Gathering all the confidence in you, you said, “You’d be surprised.” You turned to face him, finding him far closer than you would’ve liked. His hands were still clasped behind his back and he looked down at you curiously, victoriously, as you continued. “Some people are more perceptive than you’d think.”
He narrowed his eyes the smallest amount, then tilted his head in thought. You didn’t dare break eye contact with him. He knew about Murdock. How much did he know? You obviously couldn’t ask him. Part of you wasn’t even that surprised, considering how many resources a man of his wealth might have. Still, here you were in his home, surrounded by his paintings, and you felt like you were looking over a very steep edge. Or, balcony. Now that he’d all but explicitly threatened to kill you and make it look like an accident.
That same charming smile broke out across his face after you gave him nothing to read. “It’s getting rather late, don’t you think?”
You watched his expressions for a few seconds, waiting for any sign of discomfort on his part. It didn’t come. So you nodded, not breaking your stare. Maybe you let your look linger. Maybe you played with it a bit. Maybe you were trying to gauge how tempted he could be, or appear to be. Still, nothing came. So you smiled and said, “I’ll call a cab.”
“No need,” he said, then turned and started walking away. Confounded, you started after him. “A car is outside. I look forward to reading your article.”
Idiot. You’re an idiot.
That’s what you told yourself over and over again as one of the house staff wordlessly led you back through the maze. Your bag was returned with your coat, the door opened for you, the elevator called. With a large slash across your dignity, you decided you hated Arthur Reynolds.
What just happened?
There were too many emotions slamming through your nerves, piquing every alarm bell you’d honed over the years. How could you let your guard down like that? The colours of the rooms and moments you were in all blurred together as your fight and flight responses were triggered. You had to get out of here.
Focus, just… focus.
You began trying to gather the pieces, to make sense of it all, to process why he was able to surprise you like this. You went in on high alert and he still came out with the upper hand. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Weaving through the lobbies, past the scents of the bars full of heinously expensive drinks, under chandeliers, past mahogany desks, under the cover of dim light, you got the hell out of the building as fast as humanly possible.
After scurrying down the front steps you were flagged down by the same driver as earlier. “Ma’am!” He called as you almost walked past. It was the first time you heard him speak. His accent was Hispanic. Thick and heavy.
You turned to him and got close enough to be assertive. “Where are you supposed to take me?” You demanded, chest heavy with anxiety. He furrowed his brow and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. You looked between his eyes for any sign of malice, then your eyes flicked down to his coat. No obvious signs of a gun. He was confused. You took a step back. “No.”
“Ma’am,” he said again, and went to open the back door. You shook your head and walked away.
“No!” You called over your shoulder, and walked over to the rows of taxis lined up to take people home. You opened the door of a random car, but not the one closest to you. The address of your office building fumbled through your lips as you shut the door behind you.
As soon as the taxi began moving you removed the recording device from your purse. It was still on. Your pulse pounded deep in your stomach as you pressed the stop button. You’d need to download the file to your computer in order to play it back but at least you’d know for sure if what he said about the jammers was true. It would be best to check tonight, while your memory was still fresh, just in case your conversation on the balcony wasn’t taped - you’d need to write down everything you could remember so there could still be an article.
Fuck. The article.
You leaned forward on your elbows and placed your face in your hands, telling yourself to keep it together. But he got inside. He got past your walls. All it took was the smallest amount of vulnerability on his part and you were eating out of his hand and off his stupid thin plates. You kicked yourself for the way you’d hung on his every word. The genuine interest you had. The way you actually thought he trusted you when he let you stay around his son.
He’d played you. Effortlessly, it seemed.
You sniffed and sat back up, looking out over the streets ablaze with Manhattan nightlife. It all became a blur through the windows of the cab. There was some tinny jazz playing through the radio. The driver was humming along. The seats had that new-car smell but- oh, yeah, that was definitely just an air freshener. Your fingers found the fraying seam of the seat cushion and you focused on everything this little world could tell you. Like he taught you.
Him. Murdock.
Suppressing any thoughts of calling him at the first sign of trouble, you paid and tipped your driver before exiting the cab and swiping into your office building. The recording device was still clutched in your fist. You held it tight but carefully as the elevator rose. Your fingers felt fixed to the thing but it was too risky to peel your eyes away or be driven off-course, so you ignored everything and everyone from the moment you stepped off the elevator to when you reached your office.
Your footsteps were heavy and decisive alongside the Bull Pen. Conversations halted when some people noticed that hard and determined look in your eye but no one dared to say a thing. Vera’s own glass-sided office was on the way. She was so immersed in her own work that she didn’t notice you marching past. You didn’t have time to explain anyway. You shut the door to your office and didn’t even put your bag down before opening your laptop and plugging the recording device in.
It took a painstaking amount of time to download the file. In reality it wasn’t more than a few minutes but it felt like hours. You paced, and ruminated, and kicked yourself over and over again for being so naive as to get surprised by him. This didn’t happen to you. Threats, sure, but not threats that caught you off-guard.
As you were trying to pinpoint the exact moment when you let your guard down, the computer dinged to signal the file had been transferred. You almost tripped trying to get to it.
You pulled your chair close to the desk, the arms of it clunked against the wood and shook the furniture but you clicked on the file to open it and inspect the shape of the wave forms. From the start it looked like standard dialogue audio - what you’d expect from a conversation - and towards the end it suddenly went flat. Not nothing, no, just… flat. Hovering the mouse over the file, you scrubbed the listening point until just before the line went flat.
There was the tell-tale muffled jingling and clicking of a bunch of things in a bag. In your purse, where you’d put the switched-on recording device before following Reynolds back inside for a tour of his gallery. Someone moved and carried the bag for a few seconds, there was the sound of footsteps, and then static. Just… static. A solid, steady-state white noise. It wasn’t overpowering anything - it’s all there was.
Reynolds hadn’t been lying about the walls and the signal-jamming devices.
You smiled, almost uncontrollably, because you knew what it meant.
“Hey,” a knock on his office door pulled Matt from his thoughts. If Foggy, who’d knocked, had asked what got him so focused, Matt probably would’ve pulled some random case file name out of his head and rattled it off. He’d have felt guilty about it later, maybe, but it had become second-nature to lie to his best friend after all that time he lived a double life without Foggy being none the wiser.
“Hey,” was all he replied. Foggy was silent at the door and Matt got the sense he had something on his mind, so he raised his eyebrows.
“It’s late.”
“It is late,” he agreed.
“You going out tonight?”
Matt listened for a second and determined that Karen hadn’t come back after she’d left an hour ago. He and Foggy were alone.
“No,” Matt shook his head. “Not like that.”
“Really? Cause you’ve got this look on your face like you want to hit someone.” Matt raised his eyebrows again and Foggy sighed. “It’s me. I’m the one you want to hit.”
“I’d never hit you, Foggy.”
“You’re pissed about the contract.”
Matt sighed and sat back in his seat. Yes, of course he was pissed about the contract, but it’s not like that was the whole story, so it wouldn’t be right to blame Foggy entirely for his current state. “Sure… but It’s not just that- She’s…” He sighed again and took off his glasses to rub his eyes.
“Infuriating?”
“Yeah.”
“A total pain in the ass?”
“That too.”
“And you can’t stop thinkin’ about her, can you?”
Matt didn’t respond, which was a response in itself. He held a thick silence in tandem with his best friend. Foggy wasn’t going to apologise - Matt knew that he wasn’t sorry for what he’d done. It’d been the right call.
“Looking out for people is who you are, Matt.” The strap shifting over his shoulder told Matt that Foggy was ready to leave. Of course, as always, he had to drop some profound last word. Allow it to marinate while they were apart, so maybe they were joined by some thoughts. “Has it ever occurred to you that she’s not the kind of person who wants to be looked after?” After letting out a long exhale, Foggy tapped the doorframe once and said, “Night, pal.”
Matt listened as he left. All he could hear was the silence of his phone, which still hadn’t said your name.
Your one-bedroom apartment was small but you had no complaints about it. You’d had alright experiences with roommates, though after sharing a home with particularly pedantic graphic designer named Mindy for an agonising year, you swore off sharing your living space. Even if it meant you’d be confined to a studio apartment with a cockroach problem for all of eternity. Thankfully, your job paid well enough and you got enough freelance gigs on the side, that you could afford a modest one-bedroom place just outside Manhattan.
It didn’t take too long to get home, unless it was rush-hour. Late on a Tuesday evening, less than ten minutes after leaving your office you could be walking in the front lobby of your building.
It towed the line between cramped and cozy, leaning towards cozy thanks to the furniture an interior-designed friend from college helped you find and arrange. The hardwood floors and high ceilings were added bonuses of the clean, relatively pest-free space. The kitchen had been renovated right before you’d moved in so it now featured a granite countertop island, polished gold fittings and brand new plumbing which hadn’t failed you yet.
Most importantly, it was yours.
So on nights like tonight, when all you wanted was a place to feel safe and settled, it greeted you with open arms when you put the key in the lock and pressed forward inside. Immediately setting your bags down on a stylish wood and metal table that sat beneath a barely-used key hook and a large mirror with a vintage golden frame, you locked the door behind you, switched on the lights, and made your way to the fridge to pull out a half-finished bottle of wine and take a swig directly from it. Unnecessary dishes be damned. Take that, Mindy.
After another sip, you set the bottle down and made your way to your room to throw on a comfortable set of sweats and get to work on writing out your thoughts. You picked up your clutch on your way and fished in it for your phone, checking to see if anyone had called between the cab and now. Or, not anyone. Him. He still hadn’t.
An instinctive hand met the light switch just inside your bedroom as you pushed the door open even further. The warm white light filled the room and something in your peripherals immediately caught your attention. You looked up, then dropped your bag from shock as that now-shaking hand flew to your mouth.
It took everything in you not to scream.
Matt turned his cellphone over in his hand and wondered if it had lost charge. He knew it hadn’t, but he wished a dead battery was the reason you hadn’t called. Maybe you were still there. With Reynolds. Maybe you would be there for several more hours. What if you stayed until the morning? Matt put his phone down so he wouldn’t crush it, and he tried to stop torturing himself with the far-fetched thought.
As if it were a lesson in ‘a watched pot never boils,’ the moment he placed his phone down and began wondering if he should don his bulletproof suit and break into Reynolds’ penthouse to find you, the device vibrated harshly against his desk. His heart beat harder and his hand was around the phone less than a second after the first declaration of your name.
“Hi,” he answered, trying to sound casual and unbothered. Instead of greeting him back, your voice sounded rattled.
"A-are you still at your office?"
Matt planted a hand on his desk and stood to his feet. "What's wrong?"
You were silent on the line, trying to form the words to explain the horrifying scene before you, not really understanding how you would even begin to describe the horror show you'd been met with when you walked in your bedroom door.
"Uh… Reynolds. He- he had someone break into my apartment."
"What?! Are you hurt?"
"No," you breathed out, feeling that familiar grip around your windpipe the longer you looked at the gift he left you. "I- um, I wasn't here.”
“Good, good,” you heard him sigh in relief. "Did they take anything?"
"Nuh-no," you stuttered, crouching to pick up the bag you’d dropped and slowly back out of your room. "It's what they left that's the problem."
There, right in front of you, above the white comforter you settled into each night, hanging from the wall with all her beauty and pain finding her resting place above your bed, was Ophelia's End.
It took a hell of a lot of convincing on your part to make sure Murdock didn’t jump in a cab and race through the streets to meet you. He was unwilling to let you be alone after you said you’d explain more later. In order to stop him from doing anything rash you agreed to meet him at his office and keep him on the line until you were there. You couldn’t say you were mad at the overprotectiveness, since your heartbeat was still racing dangerously.
His low, grazed voice came through the line every minute or two. “You still there?”
You’d feel an emotional smile pull at one side of your lips, and reply, “I’m still here.”
You threw a haphazard selection of clothing into a night bag, along with your toiletry pouch, all the while trying to simultaneously avoid and desensitise yourself to the painting which hung above your bed. It was sickening to have it so close. It was unnaturally large and it demanded attention, yet, until now, had stayed hidden in the depths of Arthur Reynolds’ penthouse abode. Laurent was right. It looked better with the proper lighting.
“What’s happening?”
“Almost done. I’m still here.”
It all happened so fast. Your mind was racing and attempting grabs at concrete thoughts while your subconscious took care of what needed to be done. Before you knew it, you were out on the street hailing a taxi with several bags in your hands. You were still in the navy dress from dinner and the straps of the heels were beginning to become noticeable. Murdock was still on the line when you slid into the backseat, even though you two weren’t talking much so he wouldn’t distract you from doing what you needed to do.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah. Still here.”
The cab was mostly silent except for the reggae playing through the fuzzy car radio. Towards the end of the ride, the driver made eye contact in the rearview mirror and said, “All dressed up, ma’am. Somethin’ special on tonight?”
You smiled kindly and shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Well you have a good night now,” he nodded in thanks for the $20 you put in his hand with a small mutter to keep the change. Then, you were once again outside the offices of Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law.
You took a deep breath, which you then held in your chest as you saw the front door of the building swing open and Murdock emerge. His look of both worry and relief was stark under the light from the lampposts bordering the stone staircase up to the front door. Laurent would think this light suited him. He released a tense breath and lowered the phone from his ear. You also relinquished your breath and took steps towards him, immediately feeling meek and out of place.
“I’m sorry, I-”
“Don’t apologise, please, it’s-”
“-I didn’t know who else to call,” you rushed to explain as you ascended the steps, trying to justify why he was the safest person you knew - someone you, in fact, barely knew. You finally stood on the landing before him and let your shoulders drop their tension.
Matt listened to result of the myriad of things which were currently making your heart race. He didn’t expect to feel the way he did; relieved, that you felt safe enough to find shelter in him again, to have you standing in front of him alive and in-tact, albeit scared out of your mind in a way you were yet to fully admit with words. He gripped his walking stick and used his other hand to reach out, find your shoulder and then slip his hand behind it to usher you inside, through the hallways, up the stairs.
“Tell me everything.” He finally said as you two made your way into his private office inside the firm.
You threw your bag down on the floor and then slumped down onto his couch. That couch. The lights were off, obvious as to why, but enough light from the clouded street lamps siphoned through the windows, through the blinds, casting lined shadows across the floor. You looked up at him. Passing cars and filtered light from nearby windows peeked through gaps and danced across his face in something striking and beautiful.
He was beautiful. In any light, and in none at all.
You stood up in front of him and resisted the urge to kiss him, though the gentleness of the moment dared to lull you into a trance.
“We had dinner,” you started. Matt listened as your fingertips played against each other. You were wearing a different perfume tonight and this all felt so different from a mere few nights ago. Yet, he still had that inexplicable desire to pull you into his arms. To feel your skin beneath his fingers and your pulse beneath his breath.
Foggy was right to make him sign that possibility away; Matt could feel the magnetism of your attraction and knew you were both craving a distraction.
“It was fine,” you said honestly. “He was a gentleman. Charming, polite…” you trailed off and bit the inside of your cheek. “We talked about his work, his charities, his passions. He asked me about mine. It felt natural,” you admitted. Murdock was silent, prompting you to continue. “He then asked to show me his art collection and there was this one… Ophelia’s End,” you sighed, feeling stupid. “Olivier Lind painted it after his fiancée fell to her death from their penthouse apartment. The police ruled it an accident but he just got away with it because he’s rich and they couldn’t prove anything.”
Matt felt his brow lower. “So he showed you a painting,” he repeated.
Indignation rose in your chest at his question. He’s a lawyer, you reminded yourself. He’s gathering facts. He’s not questioning your… is he? “Yes,” you sniffed. “A painting that depicted a murder made to look like an accident.”
“And this is the only painting he showed you?”
“No, he-” You folded your arms across your chest. “No. But it was the one he made a point of.” You saw Murdock’s forehead knit in confusion. He was clearly trying to work out why this was such a big deal. So you finished the puzzle. “It was hanging above my bed when I got home.”
His demeanour changed in an instant. All his doubt, dissipated. He stood taller and his jaw rippled as it clenched tight. He stepped past you and placed an iron grip on the door handle. Your hand was on top of his in a second.
Now… this was interesting. His instinct was to act. He was capable of acting.
Strange, for a blind man to hold so much confidence in a movement to do something he shouldn’t be able to do.
“Murdock.”
He heard the way you said his name, and it was a challenge. Your hand on top of his felt more like burning curiosity than an attempt at stopping him, which made him remember what you knew. More, remember what you didn’t know. His instinct to go, to take action, had been noticed. Of course it had. Of course you had.
Something conflicted was brewing beneath his skin. You could feel it in the way his grip around the door handle waned. He turned his head, his face only inches from yours. His upper arm was tense, pressed against your chest, but then relaxed and fell to his side. He didn’t move to step away, so you didn’t either. There was helplessness in him. He wanted to protect you, but he couldn’t. Could he?
A million excuses for him to leave rolled to the tip of his tongue and he swallowed them all. He wanted to protect you, but he couldn’t do so without letting you in.
“You’re staying with me.”
“I can afford a hotel,” you said. “I didn’t come here for that.”
“For what?”
“Sex.”
“Who said anything about sex?”
“Well, what else would it be?” You shot back. It didn’t feel right to direct everything you were feeling at him, but he was here, and he should know the kind of person you were. Not the person who deserved his help or kindness.
“I pulled you into this mess,” Matt breathed out, holding out his hands before dropping them in defeat. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
“No,” you shook your head. “It was my decision to get involved. No one makes me do anything.”
“That’s for sure,” he let out a tense breath, and you cracked a sad smile. You leaned down to pick up your bag, still conflicted about leaving.
“I’ll be okay.”
You shifted your bag on your shoulder and watched as he stood silently, mulling something over. Half-expecting him to argue further, you reached for the door. The handle was pulled from your fingers as his hand planted against the frosted pane and forcefully shut the door with something just shy of a slam. You turned to face him, partially boxed between the wood, his body, and his arm.
“Is this what you wanted? Hmm?” He demanded. You opened your mouth to speak, but he continued. “For me to prove I care? For me to stop you?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Bullshit.”
Pricks of blush sprung up beneath your cheeks as you swallowed and took in a shaky breath. “We can’t do this. You could get disbarred.”
Matt’s demeanour softened, he licked his parted lips, “It’s not-…” and he sighed as he took in the question, the hurt and the fear in your words. Matt’s heart ached at the lingering thought that it may have been far too long since someone asked for your company for any other reason than sex. What was worse, he got the feeling you felt like you didn’t deserve any better than that.
Your turned your head a little when the hand planted on the door you were backed against slid down and met your shoulder. He slipped his fingers under the strap and relieved you of the bag, tossing it off to the side. Your heart quickened as he took a step closer, already feeling the peace of his closeness.
Well, if he doesn’t care about his law licence… you thought as you anticipated the feeling of his lips on yours and his fingers tangling through your hair. You didn’t come here for that, but at least you’d be able to feel his strength and safety around you tonight.
He stepped closer, but he didn’t kiss you.
His hand moved across your shoulder to cradle the back of your neck, his other slipped over your waist and travelled up to the centre of your back as he pulled you into him. If you’d had any words, you were sure you would have stuttered them out. He was just... holding you.
Slowly, you wrapped one arm around his waist and leaned forward, onto your toes, to slip your other arm over his shoulder. He held you tighter, letting out a deep breath through his nose as you held him closer in turn.
The comfort was immeasurable, the feeling of it all somewhat overwhelming. Armoured cars, private security packing heat, a four-star General for a father and self-defences classes all paled in comparison to the indescribable safety found in a dark law office, wrapped in the arms of Matt Murdock.
You knew you were in trouble in so, so many ways. Yes, there was a billionaire who threatened to kill you but here you were falling hard and fast for someone you felt a million miles away from. Even though you could hear his heartbeat, you couldn’t shake the feeling that so much of him was hidden from everyone. Hidden from you.
“I’m a little scared,” you whispered your half-confession against his shoulder.
He squeezed the back of your neck before splaying his hand and running it down your back. “I know.” He pulled away, and you instantly longed to step forward and back into his arms. The saving grace was the hand he placed at your jaw, his stare focused on a place just below your eyes. “Stay with me. Just for tonight.”
Matt knew he needed you tonight. If you weren’t in his apartment he‘d put on that suit and Reynolds’ face would end up like something he could only imagine would grace one of his disgusting gallery walls. Not unlike the one hanging above your bed, warning you to tread carefully. He felt the urge to kiss you, he could hear your pulse begging for it, feel your eyes on his lips, but it didn’t feel like the right time.
“Okay,” you whispered, then cleared your throat and nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Matt nodded back and then knelt to pick up your bags. “Let’s go.”
Sleeping separately didn’t feel necessary considering the somber cloud that’d fallen over you both on the ride back to Murdock’s loft.
You, with the threats and the questions. Him, with the pining and the answers. Ironically in sync, you two wrestled in tandem with your inner desires and better judgements, doubting and hoping this could one day come to fruition.
It was an easy break from thoughts of Reynolds and his impenetrable reputation, to reminisce on mere days ago when you thought Murdock’s air of mystery was a facet of his charm. But you’d never liked the mysteries no one had ever solved. The cold cases - they made you angry. They made your teeth grind and set you on the edge of your seat. You avoided them like reasonable people avoided the plague.
You had the terrible feeling that Murdock would be your cold case; the thing you looked back on in thirty years as the cypher you never solved. It was sure to haunt you worse than any threat could.
His sheets were still as soft and they smelt clean, fresh and inviting. They cooled your skin as you slipped into them, and they quickly warmed by the pleasant glow of two bodies expelling their heat, energy, and final waking breaths. His, at least. You couldn’t quite fall over the ledge.
So after what felt like several hours of his steady breathing nearly lulling you into something resembling readiness to sleep, you cut your losses and turned your thoughts to the files in your bag that you’d left on his couch.
The cold hardwood bit at your feet while you snuck as quietly as possible out of his bedroom. Your eyes had adjusted so there was no need for any lights, especially since the neon billboard across the alley had apparently been reserved for some drink brand all through the night. It wasn’t too erratic in movement so it was almost pleasant to have the purple light pouring through the windows.
It was easy to get lost in, as was the research you started doing on your laptop. You poured over facts you’d already read, and-
"Can't sleep?"
You flinched in place when his voice pulled you from your trance. “Jeez, Murdock.” Placing a hand over your wildly beating heart, you then sighed and pushed the hair away from your face. "Guess not."
He knew better than to try convincing you to come back to bed, or to at least not attempt to hide your worry from him, but he knew that was a useless course of conversation. The only way you'd be back there is if he threw you over his shoulder and forced you to abandon the laptop he'd heard you clicking away at. Which, if he allowed his mind to wander, he's pretty sure you'd enjoy a little too much. Another time. Certainly not now.
"Coffee?"
"No, you..." You sighed and hung your head, doing your best to not let your lack of sleep turn into a whip that would crack in his direction. "You should go back to sleep. Don't worry about me."
"I have a contentious relationship with sleep," he said, crossing the living room and into the kitchen. Your gaze followed him as he did, and you squinted a bit.
"You slept just fine on Friday night."
"I was a little worn out," he remarked with a smart lilt to his voice. The one that told you he was fighting a smile. You? You didn't fight your smile as well as he did. "Don't get me wrong, you're exasperating, but not to the point of exhaustion."
"Exhaustion?" You laughed. "That's a strong word for Friday night."
He half-grinned as he pulled a french press and a brown paper carton bag of ground coffee onto the bench. He had an electric kettle, which you didn't see all too often, but maybe it was safer for someone like him. Then again, nothing about him made you feel like he was in any way less able than you. If anything, definitely more able.
Instead of addressing your quip, he asked you what you were doing.
"The painting he put in my apartment is worth over six hundred thousand," you told him. "I obviously don't want the painting and I certainly don't want to pay taxes on it."
"New York doesn't have a gift tax," Matt explained as he poured a ballpark amount of coffee into the glass plunger.
The second you mentioned the painting, he heard the way your heart began to beat just that much faster. Fair, considering the freshness of the shock. But there was more. Something sinister tainted the air. He heard the unmistakable sound of your nervous swallow, and the undeniable care with which you tried to conceal your anxiety.
"Is a threat a gift?"
Matt would have laughed at the humour you tried to put into your voice - at the way you tried to make it seem like a lighthearted joke - but he’d read enough cases, sat in enough courtrooms and met with enough women to understand how many of them used an edge of humour in an effort to not come across as dramatic.
So he lowered his voice and answered your question. The water in the bottom of the kettle began a hissing bubbling in his peripherals. "Assuming you didn't exchange any funds while you were there, anything he could misrepresent as a payment or even a partial payment for the painting, you're in the clear. And six hundred thousand dollars richer."
"Hmm," you chuckled once, then shook your head. "Maybe it was a bribe. I'll see what my accountant says.
To you, the room may have been relatively quiet. To Matt, he could still hear your heartbeat, your unsteady breathing, the water was coming to a boil now, Mrs Gonzales was asleep but she’d left her TV on. Again. That leaky pipe in apartment 312 still hadn’t been fixed, your finger moved so fast around the trackpad, the wooden chair creaked as you adjusted and- ding! The kettle was done.
Matt left you to your distractions and let the water and coffee combine in that magical way. He wondered what to say. He knew what he wanted to ask but he wondered if it would be too far. Then again, you’d never seemed like a closed-off person. Not to him, anyway. Which didn’t seem fair to you, that here you were sitting at his kitchen table less than thirty feet away from a trunk in the closet that held New York’s greatest secret since Tony Stark revealed he was Iron Man through a mouthful of cheeseburger.
He walked over slowly, then placed the cup down beside your hand. He heard your head tilt up, no doubt with questions of where his walking stick was and why he even bothered with it. You didn’t ask, though, so maybe you assumed he knew his home well enough to fare without it. Perhaps it was a lie of omission to not tell you. So were a lot of things.
You watched as Murdock took the seat next to you with an unspoken question written all over his face. “What?” You asked softly, sliding your hand around the mug.
“Will you describe it to me?”
You raised your eyebrows. “The painting?”
He nodded. “I want to understand. What you saw. What he said.”
And so you told him the lead-up. You told him about Ophelia. He heard your fingers swipe around your laptop as you recounted some article on her “accidental” death, and then you explained the gruesome art of it all.
“The base of the canvas is a dark, grainy, grey. Like asphalt. It wasn’t hyper-realistic but you’d know what it is if you knew the story. The perspective was a birds-eye view, like someone painted it from above. But there was this… this movement to the piece that could only be captured by someone who watched the scene unfold. Lind doesn’t deny he was there, so that makes sense.” You’d said that last sentence in a voice barely above a whisper.
Against better judgement, Matt reached out and placed his hand over yours. He heard your heart pound for one or two seconds, and then settle. Relax. Because of him. Oh, he was in trouble.
“Then, um- …the colours,” you started regaining your composure. It was nearly four in the morning. You hadn’t slept. He didn’t blame you for your faltering words. “Dark reds and browns, splashes of this grotesque off-pink and flecks of shattered white. Some muted purples. All of it… flayed. Like a beautiful thing broken open. Like a final act of destruction. He wanted to destroy her. He didn’t even let her die as herself. You’d think that such a scene would emit chaos but it didn’t- it… it was so clinical. Ordered and intentional. I’d bet my new six-hundred-thousand dollar fortune that Lind murdered Ophelia.”
Matt squeezed your hand when he heard your mouth curl into a wry smile at the mention of your small windfall. It was a grasp at some kind of humour, or a lightening of the mood, but it didn’t feel right. And it didn’t feel like you.
“He knew I’d know what he was saying, I know it sounds crazy,” you rushed to justify yourself. “I know it sounds dramatic.”
“You’re afraid,” Matt said to you. You scoffed and then let out the rest of your breath.
“A little,” you conceded. “But more than that, I’m angry. I’m fired up, and all I want is to wipe that smug look off his face and every last dollar from his bank account.”
Murdock squeezed your hand again and then took a sip of his own coffee. The hand holding yours was strong and steadfast, warm and dependable. You were then faced with the uncomfortable reality that you did not want him to let go.
So you did, before he could.
You wrapped your hands around your mug and took a sip of the fresh, hot coffee. It was perfect and invigorating, the ideal companion to the fire now stoked in your belly. “We can do this,” you declared. Murdock tilted his head and you caught a glimpse of those dangerously inviting brown eyes of his. “He wouldn’t threaten me if there was nothing. People don’t go to those lengths if there’s nothing to hide. He showed his hand.”
Matt’s stomach flipped with the idea of you staying involved in this, even after Reynolds made it obvious he could get to you in your sleep. There was no sign of wavering in your ironlike statement, however, so he knew it was a choice between working alongside you or working against you. At least if he was by your side he had a better chance of keeping you safe. That was much more favourable than posting the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen on a nearby rooftop to listen for any threats.
So he said, “Where to from here?”
“I keep digging, you keep trying to get Avery acquitted.” He heard your smile grow with the realisation that he wasn’t fighting you. “We can do this, Murdock,” you said again, this time he could feel the way you truly believed it.
He half-grinned. “You have a nice smile.”
You were silent for a moment, perhaps collecting yourself and trying not to blush. “Shut up, you wouldn’t know that,” you muttered, drawing the mug back to your lips.
“I can hear it,” he motioned to his own mouth as he smiled. “In your voice. It’s nice.”
The hot coffee jarred your senses once again, as did the pulse of abashment which swarmed through your chest and into your cheeks. You cleared your throat as you set the coffee back down and gave him a level look, since apparently he could hear your expressions. “You shouldn’t do that.”
He smiled wider, his voice still soft. “Do what?”
“Saying things like that will get you fired.”
He chuckled and held his hands up in surrender, quietly satisfied that you were just as frustrated by the inability to act on your desire as he was. Maybe it wasn’t fair to flirt with you and tempt your resolve but he had the feeling you’d be doing the exact same in no time.
You noticed your heartbeat, the way you felt drawn into his atmosphere and the sudden dryness of your mouth. Fuck, this would be hard. But how much more amazing would it be to finally have him once you’d won. If he still wanted you then. Hopefully. Though, since he’d just opened the door for skirting the lines of temptation, maybe you’d flirt back and make it hard for him too.
Desperate to end the moment before it became too difficult to turn back, you turned back to your computer and clicked on the waiting tab that held a record of the owners of Ophelia’s End. “Let’s see who he bought this from,” you cleared your throat. “There’s an ownership directory and maybe there’ll be a hint in who he doesn’t business with so...”
You’d actually stopped breathing when you trailed off. Matt’s senses pricked. The shift of the energy in the room brought the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. You’d seen something, and you were putting a piece in place. After several seconds, he couldn’t bear to not be let in.
“What?”
“Ophelia’s End, he… I think bought it under his ex-wife's name," you said. “First name of the most recent buyer is Isabel.” You scrambled to open a new tab. “I know she took his name and used it when she broke into the socialite side of high fashion, cause everyone knows her as Izzy Reynolds but- fuck. Here!” Your finger jutted at the screen. Murdock’s eyebrows raised. "This directory of ownership says it was purchased by Isabel Branson. That’s her maiden name."
Matt froze. You froze.
If you'd had hearing as good as his you were sure you would've heard the cogs in your heads turning at a break-neck speed.
That name.
"Branson."
You said it at the same time.
Then, you raced to your bag on the couch and pulled out the stack of files you'd made to copy at Nelson and Murdock's text to braille printer. Leafing through in the mix of dim lamps and purple light pouring through from the neon billboard, you started taking out the pages with the last name Branson on it.
"How many?"
"Four so far. Make it five. M. Branson."
"I thought her name was Isabel."
"They have a son named Malcolm."
"What?"
"It has to be him."
“Wait, they have a child?”
You grunted as the papers slipped and shuffled. “Yeah.”
"And you didn't think to tell me this sooner?"
"I just found out during dinner when the kid came bursting through the door," you muttered, laying down three more pages each with a company invested in by M. Branson. "I told Arthur I wouldn't say anything. He keeps his kid hidden for a reason."
"Arthur?"
"What, is that a problem?" You challenged, pausing to underscore your annoyance. Now was not the time for this conversation. "That I call him by his first name?"
His fingers around his mug twitched, as did his jaw. "You don't call me Matt."
"It's not that deep," you sniffed, continuing to leaf through the pages until you'd gotten them all. “Eleven,” you breathed out, looking at the stack in your hand before tossing it down on the table by which you stood. “Almost a quarter of these companies and it’s Reynolds investing as his son. Why? Why wouldn’t he put his own name on these shares?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tax evasion? Hiding assets? Money-laundering?” You ran your hands over your head and then let them both drop to your side. “This is something, right? Tell me it’s something.”
“It’s strange.”
You huffed, then shook your head. “Okay, well I’ll take that. Thank you,” you dripped sarcastically. “What can we do?”
There was a clear and obvious answer at the forefront of Matt’s mind. The more he tried to come up with another solution, the more it seemed like the only viable option. He listened to you pace around the living room, both of you deep in thought. He longed to jump inside your head, to calm you, to hold you again and say it would be alright and he could handle it from here. But there was no way you’d back down, so he had to say it out loud.
“Fisk,” he spoke with reluctance. You turned to him. “He’ll need to be brought down like Fisk.”
“I agree,” you replied slowly, remembering the fanfare of Fisk’s trail mere months ago. “But we’ll need hard evidence to convince the state to charge him.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Your brow lowered in thought. If not by the law, then- “Then what-”
Then, you realised.
Your head shook before you could stop it. “You can’t mean…”
He elaborated and confirmed your suspicions. “You said yourself there was no way the cops brought down Fisk without Daredevil.”
“Yeah, but-”
“We could leak information to him.”
“How?”
“Put the word out on the street.”
“How?”
He cocked his head and smirked wryly, trying to bring a little humour into the situation himself. “Not all my clients are innocent.” You groaned in discontent and shook your head. Your mind raced to list every possible thing that could go wrong with this plan. Murdock kept talking. “There are several people who owe me a favour, I could-”
“No, Murdock,” you winced and planted your hands on the back of his couch. Your hands gripped the worn leather, your body and mind conflicted by your knee-jerk defiance. You turned around to face him, to reason with him, “If he’s out there in back alleys beating the shit out of people to get dirt on the richest man in New York, how long do you think it’ll take for it to get back to Reynolds that someone else is onto him?”
“He won’t link it back to you.”
“I’m not worried about me; he knows who you are too.”
“What?”
You scoffed a sarcastic laugh, rolling your eyes as you remembered Reynolds’ words. The scoff was to distract yourself from remembering the chill that ran down your spine when: “He asked how good of a bodyguard you could be, considering you’re a visually impaired lawyer.”
“You can say blind.”
“Do you know Daredevil’s identity?”
Matt didn’t know whether his heart wanted to beat wildly or grind to a halt, but he felt himself noticeably flinch at your unexpected question. Which is maybe why you asked it like that. Suddenly. He exhaled slowly, picking up on the way you were keenly watching. He closed his eyes and he heard the beginning of the words form deep in your bones where you held your most sacred truths. Even though he already knew it was your sentiment, it scathed something delicate and new to hear it said out loud:
“I don’t want to know who he is.”
He turned his head away you. He couldn’t bear to show you his face, not completely anyway. He laughed sadly and let the sound of a minor car collision two blocks away bring his face more away from you, more towards the city he made an internal oath to protect. “I thought you wanted to know everything.”
“Not this,” you whispered. “I can’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know what the line is.” You took a gentle step towards him, and twisted the knife. “The line between vigilante and criminal has always been blurry.” You turned the blade again. “I don’t know how many people he’d have to hurt for me to turn him in, knowing what Fisk would have people do to his family. That shouldn’t be up to me.”
“Why would it be?” He turned to face you, betrayal lacerating his voice.
You looked at him. Really looked at him. Did he really not understand? This man who could hear your deepest fears in the shallowest breaths and feel the pain of long-past torn muscles beneath your skin - how could he not understand?
“Because that’s what I do. It’s who I am. I reveal truth, I don’t hide it. I… I thought you-”
“I do understand.”
“I thought you agreed. I thought the truth mattered to you.”
He clenched his jaw. “It does.”
“More than anything?”
Matt opened his mouth but just sighed and shook his head in confusion, shrugging along the way.
You pressed him. “What could be more important?”
Matt was confronted with the urge to unleash the reality of all he’d ever done into your open arms. To argue through disheveled justifications that every lie he’d ever told to was to protect and preserve life. Life, was more important than truth. In order to protect life, compromises must be made. Examples must be made of those who’d dared to threaten it.
How could you not understand that?
This woman who’d burst into his life full of uncompromising, unapologetic tenacity. How many hours of sleep had you already lost to his problems? How much longer would you stay, obviously unsatisfied by his apparent unwillingness to let you in?
It scared him to know that he would tell you everything if that’s what it took.
He’d open that chest in the bottom of his wardrobe and place that bulletproof mask in your hands. He’d guide your fingertips over the ridges, over the scales and horns. All his secrets, so willingly spilled through his fingers would seep into your skin and you’d understand. He’d help you understand.
He’d help you know.
Therein lay the problem. Here, as he wanted nothing more than to hold you in his arms, to breathe in the desire you felt and the peace you gave and took, he knew there was half of him you never wanted to know. So as recompense for all the truth he’d never be able to give you, he answered your question with resolute honesty.
What was more important that truth?
“Justice.”
The single word landed softer than you thought it would. Maybe because you were prepared for it. You could hardly say it was disappointing or surprising, considering his career path. Still, you hadn’t pegged him as the type to sympathise with vigilantes. You sighed and closed your eyes before rubbing them roughly, feeling your fatigue creep into your peripheral vision and your legs start to sway you where you stood.
Sensing you were on an brink, overtired and wired, Matt stood up from the table. The wooden chair scraped across the floor, bringing your gaze to him. He walked over and tentatively reached out, finding either side of your upper arms. He felt you shake your head, obviously knowing what he was about to say.
“No,” you said.
“You should try to get some sleep.”
“No,” you said again, shaking your head once more.
He didn’t give any signs of annoyance, anything that would antagonise or patronise you, he just said, “Please. There was a threat on your life, you can’t pretend everything is business as usual.”
“People have threatened my life before-”
“I can feel your fear.” His voice was a low rumble travelling through you. “The way you’re holding your tension.” You relaxed your arms, but you supposed that just proved his point, so you opened your mouth to argue. He continued, “I can hear it in your voice. The conflict. It’s different this time. Why?”
“Because I… I actually started to trust him and I-”
You stopped thinking about pulling away and lifted your head to look up at where he wore a good and decent disposition. And it hit you like a ton of bricks.
You trusted him. Murdock.
And that was the problem.
Trusting someone too soon is exactly how you got a convulsive canvas stretched above your bed. Letting your guard down is how a fucking painting was allowed in to terrorise your mind. That never would’ve happened if you’d reminded yourself that the people you investigate shouldn’t be trusted. But here you were, prone. Distracted. In his house and under his hands, yet again. Allowing him to feel intimate things like skin and fear. All of these feelings were a dangerous distraction.
Thank god for Nelson and his stupid contract.
Beginning to bury thoughts of “what if” and “maybe one day,” you started to shift the narrative. To build the world that would protect you. You reminded yourself that, when it came to Murdock, the questions were quickly outweighing the answers and you got the feeling he wasn’t willing to balance the scales. Whether that was because of you or him didn’t matter.
What mattered, in this world, is that you could feel a cavern of well-kept secrets below the surface of his skin. You could hear it in the words he avoided. You’d tasted everything unsaid. What a fool he was, to teach you to observe and to build the world with more than just sight. Because now you knew: his world was impenetrable. Fortified by a lifetime of making the decision to lay brick after brick of a wall so high maybe he thought it would reach his God.
“He fooled me,” was all you said to finish your sentence, before hardening your stare so you could feel yourself regain control. “Besides, you just gave me caffeine,” you reminded him with a dry laugh, then pulled away to walk past him. Your shoulder brushed his as you made the steps to take your place back at the table. The chair legs scraped against the wooden floor yet again, and you began to get back to work. “I’m not stopping until I figure out what he’s up to.”
There was a shift in the atmosphere between you two. A cool emptiness left hanging where you once stood right next to him.
Matt listened for a few moments to see if you’d change your mind. There was no hesitance behind your decision. Instead, there was something more determined. Like how you sounded the first half a dozen times you’d met each other.
Maybe you could sense the wall he’d put up to protect his other self from falling prey to your deductive skills, and maybe you’d taken it as a sign that he wasn’t being honest with you. He wasn’t sure. Whatever had happened, sometime between Monday and now, you’d decided that he’d gotten too close.
It wouldn’t be fair to question why you were pushing him away when he was keeping half of himself hidden. Your entire life was about the pursuit of truth, digging for facts, uncovering the hidden realities of everything and everyone you encountered. If he were to believe the best in your capabilities, which he did, he’d have to assume you could feel the devil in him even if you had no idea what you were feeling.
So he took his seat, picked up his documents, swallowed his languishing, and wondered if Arthur Reynolds had any idea what was in store for him.
It seemed unthinkable that someone could even dream of taking down a man as powerful, loved and revered as Reynolds. He was sacrosanct. Supposedly untouchable. Yet, there you were.
The laws of nature and of paradox dictated that if an unstoppable force exists then an immovable object could not. You told Matt you would not stop until Arthur Reynolds had fallen from grace, and you told the truth.
So Reynolds would be moved.
Hell, he’d be destroyed.
#Matt Murdock#matt murdock x you#matt murdock fanfic#spicy Matt Murdock#matt Murdock x reader#marvel fanfiction#off the record#enemies to lovers#enemies to forbidden lovers#journalist!reader#female!reader#matt Murdock x female!reader#really long fic#Daredevil Netflix#daredevil x you#daredevil x reader
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OPEN LETTER TO FANFICTION WRITERS ON ACCESSIBILITY; PLEASE READ.
first of all, thank you for spending your time, seldom acknowledged and definitely deserving of a compensation you are not receiving, to entertain us. i’m speaking on behalf of more than just blind readers, but everyone. you’re sick as hell.
i’ve summoned you to provide some information you may not already know. i know a lot of you like fonts. especially those who cross post their work on wattpad. i admire any and all acts of aestheticism to a degree, and can understand the desire to use them. (blind folk, sorry y’all. momma’s making a point.) 𝔰𝔱𝔲𝔣𝔣 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰, it’s cute. 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 is a little cuter to me, if i had to choose. or maybe 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈?
now, sighted folk: if you’re on mobile, i implore you to participate in a little exercise for me. select this text and scroll through all the copy/paste/define/‘search the web’ options until you get to the speak portion. if you need to change a setting for your phone to do so, would you mind? i’d really appreciate it.
please make your phone read aloud part of my post, and be sure to include any bits with those super cute fonts. 𝕚’𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕖𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕗 𝕞𝕪 𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕒, 𝕣𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖. 𝕚 𝕙𝕠𝕡𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕔𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕝𝕪, 𝕚 𝕕𝕠𝕟’𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕠 𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕢𝕦𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕓𝕪 𝕥𝕪𝕡𝕠𝕤 𝕚 𝕔𝕒𝕟’𝕥 𝕤𝕖𝕖.
whether you participated and discovered it for yourself or you thought this was a crock of shit you’d rather not sniff, i’ll tell you! screen readers cannot dictate words using those fonts. at least, on a majority of devices. not mine, or any of my mutuals elsewhere.
you do not have to change your behavior on my behalf, but please be aware that fonts limit access to your work.
blind readers do exist, i exist, and i am bound by the same feelings of dogged longing that make other sad horny bitches read angsty, smutty, father-wounded nonsense.
thanks for making it this far. i really hope my sincerity is being conveyed, reading makes me so happy and i’m not the only person on this app who relies on accessibility settings more often than not. do with this information what you will, and have the day you deserve!
#matt murdock x reader#thomas shelby x reader#elijah mikaelson x reader#klaus mikaelson x reader#matt murdock smut#fanfic#bucky barnes x reader#din djarin x reader#x reader#gender neutral reader#reader insert#writers on tumblr#ao3 writer#writeblr#female writers#writerscommunity#blindness#visual impairment#accessibility#accessible art#tasm!peter parker x reader#smut#ethan landry#matt murdock#bucky barnes#peter parker#miguel o'hara#foggy nelson#frank castle#good omens
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taste
pairing: matt murdock x fem!reader
summary: matt just wants a taste.
warnings: swearing, explicit sexual content (minors dni)
a/n: it’s thanksgiving here today, and despite my mixed feelings about this holiday, I am thankful for all of y’all. so, here’s a little treat from me to you bc I haven’t shown our favorite human disaster some love in awhile. 🖤
word count: 1.1k
Matt lost track of how long he’d had his head buried between your thighs. Your hair was still damp from your shower earlier, fresh notes of citrus and green apple lingering on the silk sheets. That coupled with the crisp sandalwood of his own cologne from the worn Columbia shirt of his you had stolen to bed intertwined with your own distinct scent lit a fire of desire within him. He’d discarded a layer of his black suit with every silent step he took descending the staircase that led up to the rooftop door.
It had been a bad night, and Matt’s inherent Catholic guilt was at an all time high. So, he positioned himself exactly where he thought he belonged.
On his knees.
Matt held your soft thighs in his rough, calloused hands, his warm tongue lazily tumbling over your swollen clit over and over again. He slipped his tongue through your soaked folds much like he had the first time he had really kissed you; when a sweet kiss good night had ended with your back firmly pressed up against your front door and the two of you panting into each other's mouths.
Angelic pleas for mercy had sounded from your lips in various intervals, but your greedy fingers continued to tug him just a little closer by tight grips on his chestnut strands. Neither one of you seemed to be able to quit the other. Matt’s nose was nuzzled against your public bone, and his plump lips were wrapped around your clit, alternating between suckling languidly at a pace that made your eyes roll into the back of your head and dragging his tongue up and down the length of your entire pussy meticulously.
Every time you let out a desperate chant of his name and rolled your hips up in a needy way in search of more, Matt groaned loudly and moved his own hips in tandem. He had been rutting against the mattress for God only knows how long now, the front of his briefs completely soaked from the weeping slit on the head of his throbbing cock. He’d never been so painfully hard in his life.
But Matt didn’t feel like he had earned a release yet.
Despite the several tangy coats of your arousal on his tongue, he wanted more. He needed just a little more.
Just one more, he told himself, then he’d finally let himself fuck you. But right now, he was exactly where he wanted to be. Face nestled against your pussy, feeling your heartbeat pounding against his welcoming tongue, smelling the scent that was uniquely you right under his nose, hearing the verbal reassurances of how much you needed him, and how badly you wanted him.
Praises of his name and confessions of love slowly lifted the self imposed weight that laid heavy on his chest like cement. If an angel like you believed the Devil deserved Heaven, then maybe he did. You didn’t ask for his penance, but he wanted to give it. He wanted to be worthy of being the man you made him feel like he was.
Matt ignored the ache in his jaw, and he whimpered against your core as his briefs snagged against the sensitive head of his cock just right. He wasn’t gonna last long. Not with the heavenly aroma of you surrounding his senses completely, the sweet sound of your pleasure hitting his ears, the thrum of your impending climax thundering against his tongue.
He never wanted to come up for air. If this was how he was going to die, drowning in the tidal wave of your gratification, then he’d die a happy man.
Matt used his index and middle finger to spread your slicked pussy apart, eagerly swirling his tongue around your pulsing nub before switching to flicking the tip of his tongue back and forth across it like a metronome. God, you were so warm and soft, and so fucking wet. He couldn’t tell where his saliva ended and where your own essence started, but he didn’t fucking care. The only taste he wanted seared into his taste buds was yours anyway.
He delved his tongue as deep within your cunt as he could, fucking you with it sensually while his nose bumped against your overstimulated clit repeatedly. You were close again. He could tell by the hitch in your breaths and the quiver in your soft thighs that were enclosed tightly around his head.
Matt never felt like he deserved you, so he made it his personal mission to make sure he earned you.
As soon as another wave of your candied tang drenched his mouth and dripped down his stubbled chin, Matt exploded with a pathetic whimper, feeling his own sticky warmth coating his lower abdomen and the tops of his thighs. The only reason he pulled his face away from your cunt was because you weakly pushed at his shoulders with your trembling hands.
“Fuckfuckfuck…Matty…I can’t. I-God, I need a minute-“
The breathless pants sounding from your lips were an elegant symphony to his ears. He closed his eyes while resting his head on your smooth thigh, trying to catch his own breath. For several minutes neither of you said anything, just laid there tangled up in the sheets together, basking in the afterglow of pleasure.
All of a sudden, Matt sensed a shift in you. He heard your eyes flutter open, and felt the way you shifted your head off the pillow to peer down at him in curiosity.
“Matty…did…did you-“
“Yeah.”
He didn’t bother hiding it. He wasn’t ashamed. He’d be pissed when the cloud of lust currently fogging up his brain eventually cleared and he realized he ruined yet another set of silk sheets, but right now, he was too satisfied to give a shit about anything other than this moment with you.
A melodic giggle immediately erupted from your chest, and Matt squeezed your thigh teasingly in retaliation which caused you to squeal.
“Hey! I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s actually quite flattering that you enjoy having your head between my thighs so much that you can come from that alone.”
“Sweetheart, you could make me come just by reading our grocery list.”
Another round of angelic giggles fell from your lips, and a quiet whine of disapproval sounded from Matt when he felt you shifting in bed. Much to his dismay, you moved your soft and warm thigh away from under his head, which caused him to purse his plush lips in a pout. But before he could even protest, you were gently pushing him onto his back and brushing your lips against the shell of his ear.
“Maybe I’ll test that theory later, but right now, I’d rather make you come with my mouth in a different way.”
tags: @yarrystyleeza @little-miss-dilf-lover @avengerstower-houseplant @mars-rants-a-lot @topperthornton @hailey-murdock @neverlandcity @charmedkim @queenofthenoobs @stilldreaming666 @mattymurdock1021 @bubuslutty @thyme-in-a-bubble @ninejlovebot @purrrfect @pennylovey @firesunflamed @oscarisaacsleftknee @messymissy @dark-academia-slut @strawberry1042 @utterlynuts
#matt murdock#matt murdock x you#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x f!reader#matt murdock blurb#matt murdock smut#daredevil#daredevil blurb#daredevil smut
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Jealousy
Pairing: Frank Castle x fem!reader (Matt Murdock has a tiny role too)
Summery: You’ve been casually sleeping with Frank for a while now, but you decide you need something more stable and go on a date with Matt (who you don’t know is Daredevil). Frank shows up on your date to show you who you belong to (maybe in a public bathroom 🙊) and to show Matt to back off 😈.
Warnings: Explicit (minors dni!!!), semi public, unprotected piv, oral (m receiving), little bit of praise kink (good girl, attagirl), little bit of degradation kink (slut, whore), dirty talk, tiny bit of exhibition kink, sort of cuckolding Matt. Think that’s it, feel free to let me know if I missed anything!
Author’s note: This idea was stuck in my head for so long and I finally finished it! I hope you guys like it. I would love to hear what you guys think, so reading notes will make me happy! And if you really like it, please reblog so others can enjoy as well. You’ll make my day and it’s completely freeee.
Disclaimer: English is not my first language ✌🏼
Masterlist
You’re sipping on your second beer while you chat and laugh with Matt. After working together for over a year now, he finally asked you out.
Matt is a good guy. He’s everything you should want in a man. Reliable, kind, not a murderer on the run for law enforcement that most people think is dead... You mentally kick yourself for thinking about Frank while on a date with Matt. There’s no future with Frank. You shouldn’t want him. You need someone more stable in your life, someone like Matt.
“You okey?” Matt asks sensing your mind is elsewhere.
“Eh.. Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. You were saying?” You ask, shaking your head as if you’re shaking the thoughts of Frank from your brain.
“That this new client is really gonna make a difference for Nelson and Murdock..” He continues talking, but your mind drifts again while you look around the cozy, dark bar at all the people who decided to get drinks tonight. There’s a few couples, a group of co workers who look like came straight from their office jobs, a few middle aged men at the bar that you feel safe to assume are regulars and then your heart stops for a second as you see him.
Frank Castle is sitting at a table by the window, sipping on a beer. Your eyes widen when you make eye contact and he nods at you as a way of saying hello. You wave back almost nervously. How is he out here in public?
“Want another beer?” Matt asks, bringing your attention back to him.
“Eh, y-yeah, thanks.” You say. You’re so glad that your date is blind and didn’t see your interaction with the criminal he told you to watch out for.
What you don’t know is that Matt has already sensed Frank from the moment he entered the bar. He has been noticing his smell on you for the past months as well and it doesn’t sit right with him. It’s part of the reason he asked you out tonight, to get your attention away from the other man.
You grab your phone while Matt orders your drinks and hold it up to Frank to show that you’re gonna text him.
You: What are you doing here? What if anyone recognizes you?
Frank: Don’t you worry about me, sweetheart.
Frank: Saw you go in here with that lawyer guy..
You frown at your phone. Is he.. Jealous? It’s the first time you’re on a date since you started seeing him, but you didn’t think he would mind. It’s all been pretty casual between the two of you.
Frank: Looks like a date..
You look at him and he raises his eyebrows to urge you to answer him.
You: It is.. Matt is a good guy. He would be good for me. Reliable, available..
You look at him and see him scoff as he reads your text. You know it was a low blow. The only reason Frank is away most of the time, is to make the city a saver place.
Frank: Yeah? That what you want? A good Christian boy?
You: Yes.
You lie and Frank knows it. You should want a guy like Matt. Matt you could bring to Thanksgiving dinner with your parents and your mom would, for once, not be disappointed in you.. But you and Frank both know you like the danger and excitement of your little arrangement way too much. For months now, Frank comes to your apartment on a regular basis. You have amazingly intense and kinky sex and have the best conversations while eating takeout afterwards. Sometimes he stays the night and sometimes he leaves while you fall asleep, but either way you’re left alone until the next time he has a night to spare.
Frank: So full of shit.
Matt comes back with your drinks before you can write a reply, but you scowl at Frank.
“Thanks.” You say taking the drink from him and smiling extra brightly, to convince Frank you’re having fun.
“Sorry it took so long, was very busy at the bar.” He says, holding his glass up to toast with you.
“Oh don’t worry about it.” You say as you touch his glass with yours before you glance at your phone.
Frank: Did you let him fuck you?
You: Not yet..
You look over at him and he scoffs again as he reads your message
Frank: Think he can fuck you like I can?
You gasp when you read it and you see Matt frown. “Something wrong?” He asks.
“N-no.. Just need to go to the bathroom for a second.” You say. “Excuse me.”
You don’t go to the bathroom. You walk straight to Frank and sit down next to him. “What the hell, Frank.” You hiss.
He just looks at you. “Tell me.” He finally urges. “Think he’ll fuck you like I can? Cause I don’t think he can.”
“Oh please.” You scoff. “Think very highly of yourself, Castle. I think Matt will manage just fine.”
He laughs dryly. “Just fine, huh.” He says. “Think I do just fine? Well I remember that differently, sweetheart. I remember you begging, crying out my name, barely being able to walk..”
“Stop that, Frank.” You hiss through your teeth. “I’m trying to give this thing with Matt a chance. I need something more serious in my life than just some good dick every once in a while, okey.”
“Oh now I’m just some good dick, hm.” He chuckles through his nose and looks to the side before looking at you again and licking his lips. He places his hand on your bare thigh, right at the edge of your dress. “You look good. Got all dressed up for your little date, huh.”
Your breath hitches at his touch. And your stupid body reacts instantly to his. “Y-yes..” You say.
“Got something pretty underneath it too?” He asks, fingers toying with the hem of your dress.
You swallow thickly. “No..” You say honestly.
“No?” He asks in disbelieve, knowing what you have in your collection.
“No, I’m not wearing anything.” You say smiling teasingly. “Felt like doing something risky for my date.” You like to make him jealous. It feels good to know that he wants you and doesn’t want another man to touch you.
He growls a little. “You gonna let him get under this dress tonight?” He asks.
“I might..” You say.
He grips your thigh tightly and leans in so his mouth is at your ear. “Let me remind you first..” He says. “Of what you’ll be missing if you do that.” His lips connect to your neck and he slides the tip of his tongue over your pulse.
“Frank..” You whimper, you brain clouding over. Why does he have to have this effect on you?
“Bathroom.” He rasps. “Now.”
Your eyes widen and you look at Matt. He looks unfazed as he drinks his beer, his back towards you. You know this bathroom. It’s beat down, broken lights and mirrors, graffiti everywhere and it has multiple stalls, so there’s no way you can get away with this without anyone noticing. “I can’t, Frank..” You sigh.
“I said. Now.” He says. You almost moan at his demand and get up. “Attagirl..” He says as you walk toward the bathroom, your feet moving on their own accord.
You can sense him following you closely. He pushes you into the bathroom and slams you with your back against the door to barricade it before crashing his lips on yours.
He lifts you up and you wrap your legs around him. Your dress hitches up to your hips and you moan in his mouth as he rolls his hips into your, basically bare, core. “Hmhmm.” He hums and he breaks the kiss. “That’s what you need, huh?”
“Frankie..” You whine a little, but you know he’s right. “But-“
“Shh shh shh.. No buts.” He says and lifts your dress up more so it bundles at your waist. You feel your naked folds against the rough material of his jeans and you moan loudly. He snakes one hand between your bodies and slides his fingers through your soaking slit. “Fuck..” He mutters to himself. “That for me or for lawyer guy out there?”
“Y-you, Frank.. You..” You say, your voice breathy, as he starts rubbing circles on your clit.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He grunts. “Pretending to be a good girl, but you’re just a little slut for me..”
“Frankie..” You moan, sounding desperate, but you know he’s right. “Please..”
“Hm? What’s that?” He rasps against your throat. As he presses on your clit harder.
“Oh fuck..” You pant. “Frank, p-please.. Need more..”
“Oh yeah? That slutty hole needs to be filled?” He asks. “Why don’t I get Murdock to do that for you, huh? ‘M sure he can help you out.”
“N-no!” You gasp and grab onto his shoulders desperately.. “Need you, Frank.. Need your cock.. P-please!”
He growls and mutters something under his breath while unbuttoning his pants. You can barely hear it but it sounds like. “Hear that, Red.” You frown but get pulled out of your thoughts by Frank slamming his cock inside you without warning.
“Oh my.. Fuck!!” You cry out, fingers digging into his shoulders. You keep forgetting how big he is.
He growls loudly. “That’s it, take it..” He says as he starts thrusting right away, not giving you any time to get used to the intrusion. “Tight fucking pussy.. So wet for me.”
There’s a knock on the bathroom door that you can barely register. “Taken!” Frank rasps loudly, giving you a particularly hard thrust that makes you cry out loudly.
“Y-you’re so bad..” You whine. “T-they can hear us.” You add in a whisper.
“Let them..” He says. “Let them hear what a whore you are for this cock. That you let me steal you away from your date and fuck you in a public bathroom.. ‘S because you belong to me, hmm?”
“Frankie..” You whine.
“Right?” He growls through gritted teeth.
He’s never been this harsh, but you’ve also never been this aroused and you can feel your orgasm building up fast. When you don’t answer him, he pulls out. “Nooo, don’t stop!”
“Say it..” He growls and rubs the head of his cock against your clit.
“Ohhh.. I-I’m yours, Frankie! P-please!” You moan.
“That’s right. Mine.” He growls as he sinks back inside you.
Your eyes roll back in your head and he starts fucking you with deep, hard strokes. “I-I’m gonna cum..” You pant into his shoulder. “Please don’t stop..”
“Good girl, cum on my fucking cock.” He rasps, never losing his rhythm.
You cry out when you explode around him and immediately know that no man can ever top this. You’re addicted to Frank Castle, even with all the hassle that comes with him. “Fuckkkk!”
“That’s it, attagirl.. Can feel you squeezing me..” Frank talks you through it.
“Oh my god..” You pant as you come down from your high.
“Think I’ll send you back to your date with me dripping down your legs, hm, how ‘bout that?”
“Noo! Please don’t!” You chuckle.
“No?” He asks shaking his head with a smirk on his face. “Better get on your knees then.” He adds and he pulls out.
He lets you down and you quickly get on your knees. You don’t care about how dirty the floor is, you need this right now.
His cock, wet from your juices, glistens in the dimmed lighting as he holds it in front of your face. He’s rock hard, the veins are pulsing and his balls look heavy. He’s definitely close.
You ‘open up’ when he tells you to and he slides in as deep as he can until you gag. “That’s it.. Attagirl..” He mutters and he slowly starts thrusting into your welcoming mouth, one of his hands resting comfortably on the back of your head, the other pushing the door closed above you. “Look at me..” He orders and your eyes shoot up to his. “Gonna make sure that if that fucker tries to kiss you, that he knows you belong to another man. Cause this fucking mouth’s mine too, hear me?” He growls, speeding up his thrusts and making you gag again.
You make some sounds to agree with him, not being able to talk. “Fuck.. Gonna give you my cum.. Fill up that pretty mouth..” He groans loudly and his hips stutter while you feel his load land on the back of your tongue.
You gently suck his softening cock to get every last drop before letting him slip out and swallowing the proof.
“Fuck you..” You sigh as you rest your head back against the door.
He chuckles silently. “That good, hm?”
“Shut up..” You smile lazily.
“Still think he can give it to you like that?” He asks as he tucks himself back into his pants.
“No.. Don’t think anyone can, Frank..” You say honestly. “And I hate you for it. You ruined me..”
“Should have warned you for that.” He says smiling down at you smugly. “Gonna get up?”
“‘F you give me a hand.” You say and he helps you get up on your shaking legs.
“Fucking Frank.” You curse as you look in the mirror. Your hair is messy, your makeup messed up and your dress is all wrinkled.
He chuckles. “Go end this date, I’ll be waiting in your room for round two.” He says slapping your ass and leaving you in the bathroom to freshen up.
“Thank you for your patience.” You hear him say to someone on the other side of the door.
Your eyes widen and you pull your dress down just quick enough for two women around your age to walk in.
“‘M s-sorry..” You mutter without looking at them. They don’t say anything, just disappear into the stalls.
You quickly try to salvage what you can and hurry back to your table.
“I-I’m sorry, Matt.” You say sitting down.
“You okey? You were gone for a while.” He asks.
“Ehm.. N-no, I don’t feel so well. Think it’s best if I go home.” You say as you put on your jacket and grab your purse.
“You sure?” He asks, frowning a little, and you get the feeling the question is about more than just you going home.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“Shall I walk with you?”
“No, that’s okey. I’ll eh, I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.”
“Alright.” He says looking a little disappointed.
“Bye.” You say, hugging him and hurrying home.
To Frank, once again.
#frank castle x female reader#frank castle#frank castle smut#frank castle x you#frank castle x reader#the punisher x you#the punisher smut#the punisher x reader#the punisher#matt murdock#daredevil
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Call Me... // Matt Murdock x Reader
Summary: You're the Devil of Hell's Kitchen's favorite late night nurse, but he's been avoiding your fire escape since an unfortunate accident. You both miss each other just enough for some emotions to slip through the cracks. You don't even know his name, but you'll settle just to know he's alright.
TW: blood, canon typical injuries, kind of hurt comfort, Matt's a self sabotaging martyr as usual, kinda sunshine!reader??? maybe if you squint
Bolded line is from a prompts list from several months ago so I lost the link. If it's yours let me know and I'll link it!
"I haven’t seen you in weeks… I’m worried you’re in another dumpster somewhere. Just call me back…please?" You whispered harshly into the phone’s receiver, burner cell jammed between your ear and shoulder as you fumbled with your keys.
It was true. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen hadn’t graced your apartment in weeks after three months of near nightly visits. At first it was serious stuff, stab wounds and splinted bones. It took two weeks for him to crack a joke. But once that stone cold exterior cracked, it was shattered. He was kind, sweet even. Every few visits, he’d bring by supplies to replenish your kit and, usually, with a bottle of wine in the bag. Emergencies turned to what he called ‘urgencies’- wounds just barely deep enough to justify stitches and dislocated joints. Which then turned into stopping by at the end of his nights for a ‘check up’, where he took advantage of your central heating, warm beverages, and warmer presence. Then, some Yakuza jackass appeared on your doorstep three weeks ago, fortunately your devil hadn’t been far behind. He took care of him, and you figured the thug, now minus fifteen teeth, would have a hard time telling anyone where to find you. Nevertheless, you found the ‘available apartments’ section of the newspaper taped to your seventh floor window. That had been the last night ’the devil’ had paid you a visit.
"Anyways… I guess I'm asking for a sign of life? Something? Please? Bye." You pleaded, voice kinder this time as you managed to finally unlock the door and slip inside. Locking the knob, deadbolt, chain, and newly installed jam that had been mysteriously delivered not too long ago. With a huff, you discarded your keys, and bag in the entry way before delving deeper into your dark apartment, flicking lights on as you went.
"You really need to start locking your windows." A deep voice sounded as you rounded the corned into your living room. Heart jumping to your throat and stomach dropping, you let out a yelp as instinct took over. The familiarity of the voice didn’t register as adrenaline flooded your system.
"SHIT!" You shrieked, flinching backwards so fast that the hallway runner rug caught under your feet, sending you careening into the wall. Without thinking, you put the Yankee’s starting pitcher to shame as you pitched your phone at light speed towards the voice. Of course, the shadow effortlessly caught it.
"Shit!" The intruder mirrored at your fall, and it was then that you realized who it was. As you collected yourself a slew of curses slipped out, looking into the dim living room to find the Devil of Hell’s kitchen slowly rising off the couch, he was already sans black shirt and mask, "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you."
"Yeah, well, mission failed." You muttered, pressing a hand to your chest as if that would still your pounding heart. Slowly, you finished your shuffled into the living room, flicking on the overheads as you went. "Shit, you could have called. Sit back down."
You could have used the heads up, the gash across his chest looked serious, and not in the cute excuse to see each other way ’serious’ had meant last month. He breathed a sarcastic laugh, tossing your phone back to you before producing a shattered burner cell with a… bullet hole?
"You have a funny way of saving my skin when I least expect it." He tried a cheeky smile. You rolled your eyes, picking up your pace as you retrieved your first aid kit from under your kitchen sink, "Consider this a sign of life?"
"A sign of barely alive, more like." You answered, rounding back around the couch to sit across from him. Harshly pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and splaying out an array of supplies both his lap and yours. "You’re unbelievable. Almost a month of no contact and then you just appear and leak blood on my couch."
"I’m sorry." He breathed, face angled to where your knees now touched. You rolled your eyes, ripping into a packet of gauze and setting to work dabbing the blood. And he sounded sorry, pitiful even, looked it to. His unseeing eyes stared straight past you and yet somehow straight through you at the same time, mouth settled in a puppy like frown. He told you once that he was catholic, and you now wandered if that’s why he was so good at looking guilty.
"If it wasn’t for the newspapers, I would have thought you were dead." You drove your point home, with a small voice, too angry to be a whisper and yet too concerned to be a hiss. The evidence of his activities was written across his bare torso in older cuts, new and fading bruises, and a couple of bandages that he’d obviously applied himself, "And you’ve obviously been busy."
"Figured out how the Yakuza found you. Handled it. Didn’t want to lead anyone else back here." His explanation was strained, pushed through gritted teeth as you applied antiseptic to the largest, freshest gash. You cooed small apologies, irritated as you were with the vigilante, you hated being the source of his pain. You picked up a suture kit, quickly threading the needle.
"Well, as far as excuses go, that’s not the worst." You muttered, half joking and half touched he’d go through this for you. You’d known he was a walking martyr from the moment you’d met him, but still. He’d taken the beatings so you’d sleep safe.
That was something else, "Lean back, gotta stitch you up."
He complied as you stood, using your shoulder to nudge the floor lamp so the light was better for you. Even then, you position on the coffee table wasn't cutting it as leaning forward cast a shadow over his chest. Neither was kneeling in front of him, as the gash was too far up his chest for your position to be adequate. You muttered a quick apology as you flitted around him, trying to find the best place to plant yourself. Beside him on the couch might work, but you’d be straining to hold yourself up at that angle and keep your hands steady.
Bloody-knuckled hands found your waist with amazing precision for a blind man, easily lifting you and placing you over one thigh after he spread his legs a bit wider. He held you steady, angling his eyes to the ceiling to give you the broadest view of his chest. One of your knees pressed into the couch cushion between his legs and the other pressed into the outside of his thigh, caging the his black-clad thigh between your own like a seat. If your weight bothered him, he gave no indication. He did however turn his ear ever so slightly towards you and smirk ever so devilishly, "How’s that?"
"Very convenient, thanks." You forced your voice to be flat instead of the breathlessness you felt. Stupid charming vigilante. To his credit, it gave you the perfect access without blocking the light. And if you got to feel ever twitch of his insanely muscular thigh between yours? Added benefit. The devil, even bruised and bleeding, was insanely warm and smelled like something out of a terribly sinful romance novel. The manly small of musk and sweat should have been revolting, but the way it mixed with a fading aftershave would have been distracting if you weren’t so focused on the drip of crimson down his toned abdomen. Before your train of thought could derail again, you gave a quiet warning watching your patient steel himself before you began running the needle and thread through the torn skin. Other than an initial hiss and the clenching of his fists against your waist, he went silent as you worked.
The two of you sat in an almost tense silence. He could feel how close your face was to his chest, the waves of breaths washing over his skin, the smell of shampoo in your hair faint enough to know you’d put off washing it, the sound of your heartbeat slowing back down after he’d gotten you excited, the slight sound of your teeth worrying the inside of your lip. He knew he shouldn't be here, Claire could have patched him up, probably would have if he asked really nicely. He probably could have if he really tried, but he’d just missed you. Between Fisk and the Hand and the law firm… everything was messy. You were still simple and sweet and far more caring than he thought he deserved, a balm just to be near you.
"Could you talk to me?" He asked, so quietly you almost missed it in your focus. You tied off another knot, seeing him wince.
"Hmm?" You hummed, pausing to look up from the half stitched wound. His eyes lowered to your face, his clenched hands at your waist loosening to rub the fabric of your shirt between his fingers. You always wore such soft things, he wondered if you’d be so soft underneath. You took opportunity in the pause to wipe some of the blood from his skin.
"I’ve missed your voice, even if you want to yell at me or be upset with me, just let me hear it." His voice was like a prayer, so sincere it made you shift on his leg. What was in the holy water at his church?
"I’m not going to yell at you, honey. I’m not going to kick a man when he’s stabbed." You shook your head, rearranging yourself to get that optimal view again, grazing a gloved finger over a purple bruise on his ribs, "Besides, someone beat me to it."
He chuckled at the lame joke, leaning his head back against the back of the couch again as you began stitching once more. Instead of scolding him, you caught him up on all the details and minor drama that he’d missed over the last few weeks. The funny things and annoyances from work, things your family had sent you, what your friends had been up to, your opinion on current happenings in the city. He listened to you like it was the most interesting thing he’d heard all year, chiming in with questions and quips of his own. You’d missed his voice too, not that you’d boost his ego by telling him that.
"There." You finally finished, tying the last stitch and taping a bandage over it. The vigilante under you didn’t make a move to leave, instead his hands kept you still on his lap. You breathed a laugh, moving on to everything else. You removed the old bandages, giving half healed wounds a thorough cleaning. You applied comical Disney bandaids to the more minor cuts on his hands and were even brazen enough to kiss his split knuckles. The vigilante seemed to preen under you attention as you cleaned and applied Vaseline to his busted lip. As if it was too good to be true, his lip twitched downwards as his eye brows furrowed. His face angled away from yours, his unseeing eyes falling on the window he’d come through.
"You know, the burner phone's been broken for two weeks now. Took the bullet not too long after the yakuza paid you a visit. Couldn't bring myself to throw it away, a little piece of you." He admitted, a pitiful smile twitched up before pulling downward again. He groaned, starting to shift you off his lap, “I shouldn’t be here, it’s not right.”
You allowed yourself to fall to the cushion beside him, but snatched the black shirt away from him before he could make a move for it. He’d been too busy letting his hands linger on your waist.
“Why not?” You asked sternly, tucking the shirt behind your back as if the vigilante in front of you couldn't probably drop you six ways to Tuesday if he wanted to. Not that he could ever consider raising a hand to you, “You got hurt, I patch you up. Seems right to me.”
The devil tensed, first leaning away and then leaning really close. His freshly bandaged fingers tapped your knee as if to emphasize his point, “I don’t deserve this kindness. And even if I did, if I could, if I was good, I would stop coming here so you could live in peace.”
You were a silent for a moment, wanting to make sure your response was exactly how you wanted it to come across.
“The third time you fell through my window, you told me that if I ever wanted to be left alone, all I’d need to do was change the candle I keep by the window.” You recounted his words. You hadn’t known about his senses at the time, he was still cryptic and mysterious. But you’d never changed the candle, buying new ones of the same scent when it would burn out, “You warned me what might happen. You gave me an out, one that I continuously chose to ignore. You did everything in your power to protect me when that choice had consequences. That was good, because you are good. And good people deserve kindness. You put too much on yourself, honey.”
As you spoke, you laid your hand over his on your knee, giving it a slight squeeze to convey your own point. The crimefighter listened to your voice, your heartbeat, the quickness of your breath, finding no deceit and even if he didn’t believe you words, it was nice to hear them. Your kindness washed over him, letting him relax for just a second before he shook his head, laughing sarcastically to deflect the dangerously sappy emotions you stirred. You called him honey like it was his name, and part of him wondered that if you knew his name if you would still call him honey.
“You barely know me, sweetheart.”
His own nickname slipped out by accident, usually just something he called you in his head when he allowed fantasies about telling you everything, coming home to you as the vigilante and the lawyer, seeing just how far your good grace could take him. His lips quirked up in time with the uptick of your pulse and the way your breath caught for a moment.
“I know enough to know you deserve some good.” You whispered earnestly, reaching up to graze the Star Wars bandaid you’d stuck across his the cut on his cheekbone. Almost instinctively, he leaned into the touch. You smiled softly, maybe you’d both missed each other a bit. The combined concern for the other and the time between his last visit making you both a little sappy, or at least more honest about it, So, you breathed a laugh, making another lame joke just to earn one of those chuckles you loved so much, “Besides, I know you well enough to have your blood on my hands.”
But he didn’t laugh, instead, he pulled his face from your palm, his own bandaged hands taking your bloodied gloved hands in his own. Gently, he pressed your hands together, your loose fists creating almost heart like shape as he pressed reverent kisses to each bloody hand. The vigilante was kind always, flirty and joking, occasionally flirtations bordering on something else. But this? This was different, it was new. Intimate. You’d almost feel like a voyeur for watching the scene if it you weren’t playing a starring role. Your mind flashed to those romance novels you’d thought of earlier, this put all of them to shame. So much so that your hands started trembling against his lips.
He held them tighter, but not in a constrictive, cage like way. More in a ‘let me hold you together’ kind of way before gently peeling the dirty gloves off and, again, kissing your clean hands underneath. His face angled to yours, nothing but sincerity lacing his features.
"You know my blood better than my own heart does.”
“God…” You whispered, letting your head fall against his shoulder, your nose nudging his collarbone and your eye lashes fluttering against his neck. His stubbled cheek fell to the crown of your head. You cleared your throat again, "I know your blood, but not your name. For someone I care so much about, that’s kind of sad.”
It was the first time you’d ever admitted it out loud in such certain words. The vigilante ran gentle hands up and down your arms, silent as a million thoughts went through his head. You heart was racing, not from lying, but in anticipation. Despite your racing pulse, you seemed almost totally at ease with you skin against his, one of your hands pressed to a bandage on his ribs and the other holding purchase at the waistline of his black pants. Nothing sexual, just the perfect place for your soft hand to land.
Despite the million thoughts, he really had two options. Keep his secret, and keep you at an arms length, to keep things sweet and simple and not too deep. Or. Let you in a little deeper, he'd swim oceans to keep you afloat. Enjoy your sweetness, even if things were complicated. He kept still, holding you as gently as you had touched him, a promise to himself that he could be gentle and soft, just as he could be lethal and ruthless. Two sides of a balanced scale.
Your heart had slowed down again, the soothing motion of his hands on your arm lulling you. You had been worried about his response. You’re confession had gotten too real, you were worried he’d jump out the window and disappear again. And you’d be left with nothing but bloody gloves and the thought that maybe you’d just imagined the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
"Matt.” His voice was quiet, just barely above a whisper, “You can call me Matt. Just don’t stop calling me."
#matt murdock x reader#Daredevil x reader#matt murdock x you#daredevil x you#daredevil x female reader#matt murdock x y/n
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If you are complaining about male reader x (male character) fics as a fem aligned person, you need to suck it up, 75 if not 85% of the fics posted on tumblr are for fem reader x male characters, and you’re complaining over the one male reader fic?!?!? Get over yourself.
So stop crying and go do something useful like re-blogging or commenting nice things on mlm fic blogs.
Also stop tagging male reader if your fic is clearly not for male reader, you look like a moron.
#male reader#x male reader#miguel o'hara x male reader#gay#marvel#matt murdock x male reader#frank castle x male reader#marc spector x male reader#female reader#Hispanic male reader
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A Moment of Serenity
Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader
Summary: Matt comes home from a rough night as Daredevil, only to experience one of the most intimate moments of his life.
Word Count: 1k
Warnings: None! A whole lotta feelings though!
a/n: This is inspired by that one reddit post called, “My girlfriend washed my hair today” and it’s one of the most Matt Murdock posts I’ve ever read. There’s not a lot of dialogue which is out of my comfort zone because I love being chatty! But anyway, I hope all my “someone give Matt Murdock a hug” gang enjoys!
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It was late at night. You must have fallen asleep on the couch waiting up for Matt to make sure he got home okay after his night out as Daredevil. Your eyes slowly opened and you took a minute to adjust to the bright light from your phone. 2:27 am. God, he’s never out this late. You started to collect yourself from his couch and walked to his bed wrapped in his soft plaid blanket. You were almost to the bedroom when you heard the rooftop door open and felt a bit of the cold breeze of late autumn air.
“Hey,” you spoke barely above a whisper. Your voice was soft, probably due to the fact that you haven’t spoken in a few hours. You looked up at Matt adorn in his red Devil suit. His chest slowly rose and fell as he made his way down the stairs. He didn’t speak. Just gives you a small smile as he removes his gloves and cowl. He sat down on the stairs to remove his boots and you made your way over to him to caress his face and kissed his forehead. Usually when Matt kept to himself after a long night, that meant he didn’t want to talk much. Which, you respected. If you were out bloodying gang members and other sorts of criminals, you wouldn’t want to talk about it either. You stepped back as he stood up to move towards his closet and noticed Matt wincing in pain as he reached towards the back of his suit to unzip himself.
“Oh, here, let me help you,” you put the blanket on his arm chair and made your way over to him to the back of him to unzip his suit. You peeled the suit over his shoulders so he didn’t have to lift his arm or move his body much.
“Thank you,” Matt whispered to you. You hated seeing him in pain. You immediately noticed his new scrapes and bruises on his ribs and back. He stripped down to his underwear and put his suit back in the trunk and pushed it into the closet and gently shut the doors.
“You’re welcome,” you said back to him as Matt made his way over to the bathroom. You heard the shower start. You listened to the shower door open until you made your way to the bathroom as well to join him. You undressed yourself and opened the shower door to be met with a very mopey Matt. He reached for the shampoo as you grabbed it from his hands.
“Let me do it,” you said to him. You moved yourself so now your back was hitting the water and Matt’s back was facing the tiles. You squeezed some of his shampoo in your hands and you started to lather it in his hair. Matt’s eyes fell shut and his shoulders slumped a little at your touch. He needed this. You can tell he had a really bad night. He wasn’t angry at you, he was more so angry at himself. Cursing himself for not putting somebody in a coma tonight. Matt’s hands were resting on your waist as you massaged the shampoo deeper onto his scalp. His eyes were shut as he was fully indulged in you. Listening to your steady breathing and heartbeat helped him with nights like these.
You took the shower nozzle off the holder and began to rinse Matt’s hair. Your gaze was soft on him. Admiring the beauty he holds. God, he’s so beautiful. You were so lucky to have him. You used your fingernails to lightly scratch his head. He let out a soft moan chased by your name. You put the shower nozzle back and grabbed his body wash. Lathering it up in your hands, you begin to massage Matt’s upper body, being careful around his new injuries. You trailed gentle kisses along his shoulders and chest.
“I’m sorry you had a shit night, Matt,” you expressed to him as his empty gaze fell upon you. His eyes were glossy. Almost like he was fighting back tears. “Are you crying? Am I hurting you?”
“No,” he scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m just so used to people who are cold with me. I’m not used to this kind of thing.”
“Oh,” you were caught by surprise. Matt was always so kind and gentle with you. He understood your feelings more than anyone ever could. You can’t imagine how anyone could be cold to him.
He cupped your face, your eyes met his. You and Matt have been intimate with each other but nothing came close to the intimacy you two are sharing right now.
“I love you. So much. I am the luckiest man alive. You take such good care of me, and I don’t think there are enough words in the English language to express how much I am in love with you,” Matt said directly to your face. Tears stung your eyes. You always knew Matt felt this way about you, but you never heard him say he was in love with you. You blinked away any tears trying to escape your eyes and Matt’s lips met yours with such delicacy and care. Like he was handling a rare flower.
You pulled away, “I always knew the Devil had a sweet side,” you slyly said. “I love you more than anything in this world, Matthew. You deserve every single ounce of love and care I give you. Even though your brain makes you think otherwise.”
Matt kissed you again, and again, and again. Until he was peppering kisses all over your face. He kept on reminding you how much he loves you. You had a feeling he wanted to spend the rest of his days with you.
You two finished up the shower and made your ways to bed to go to sleep. You climbed into the sheets after brushing your hair. You laid your head on Matt’s chest listening to his heart as you both drift off to sleep.
#matt murdock#daredevil#matt murdock x reader#daredevil fic#daredevil x reader#daredevil x you#daredevil x female reader#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x you#matt murdock fanfic#this goes out to all my touch starved girlies
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List of Installments for All These Years
Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader
Warnings/tags: 18+ for this series; contains emotional hurt with no comfort until the final installments, angst, pining, friends to lovers, slowburn, and eventually smut [Comfort now exists in this series!!]
Summary: You met Matthew Murdock unexpectedly at Columbia University and you couldn't deny that there was an instant attraction–for you. But for Matt, you became as close of a friend to him as Foggy did. As the years pass by, your feelings only grow for your best friend, but all you can do is watch as he dates and sleeps with every other woman on campus and eventually in New York City but you.
Installment List
Part 1: "Saturday Night"
Part 2: "Of Drinking and Dishonesty"
Part 3: "Betrayal"
Part 4: "All the Broken Pieces"
Part 5: "Graduation"
Part 6: "The White Whale"
Part 7: "So Close Yet So Far"
Part 8: "Planting a Seed of Thought"
Part 9: "A Truth Revealed"
Part 10: "The Weight of Grief"
Part 11: "Last to Know"
Part 12: "Considering the Offer"
Part 13: "Breaking the News"
Part 14: "Day Late Friend"
Part 15: "What If...?"
Part 16: "The Death of Miscommunication"
Part 17: "Bridging the Distance"
Part 18: "A Series of Firsts"
Part 19: "Coffee, Brunch, and Hotel Rooms"
Part 20: "This Isn't Goodbye"
Part 21: "The Sound of Your Voice"
Part 22: "Declarations and Desire" {Coming Soon}
#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock x you#matt murdock angst#matt murdock x f!reader#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock series#matt murdock fic#matt murdock fanfic#matt murdock
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|| 21. Praise Kink ||
KINKTOBER MASTERLIST
Matt Murdock x female reader
Warnings: dirty talk, fingering, Matt's fucking voice oh jeeesus fucking kerrrriiiiist.
Author's note: this is dedicated to all my praise kink good girls, you know who you are ;)
If you enjoy my writing I really appreciate comments and reblogs!
You quickly hide your face into your pillow to stifle a gasp as Matt’s fingers graze a featherlight trail down the front of your panties.
“It’s okay sweetie, you can be as loud as you want” he smiles softly and continues teasing you through the fabric. He hears you shake your head against the covers, still suppressing any noises that might dare escape you at his touch.
“No Matty, it’s embarrassing....
“It’s just us, no-one else can hear you…” Matt replies, trying to help you relax.
“but you can hear me!” you squeak nervously as Matt hooks his fingers over the waistband of your underwear and pulls them slowly down your legs.
“Of course honey, but it lets me know if you’re having a good time.” he reassures you, warm hands stroking up your calves.
“Matty, you know if i’m having a good time, you can sense it other ways, you're just teasing me.” you huff, but you let him open your legs further apart anyway and he shuffles up the bed to sit on his knees in between them.
“I'm not teasing sweetheart, I promise. I love hearing you, it’s extremely sexy.” he purrs, and you wriggle as he slowly slides his hands up your inner thighs towards your center.
“No it’s not.”
“Baby, all your little noises you make when you’re enjoying yourself, it's the hottest thing, but I'd never want you to feel uncomfortable.”
You exhale a wavering breath, barely a sound at all, as Matt strokes two of his fingers gently between your wet folds.
“Mm, was that a small noise maybe? Think I might have heard something just then…” a grin slowly spreads across his face.
Your body shudders and your hips jump as he coats his fingers in your arousal, just teasing at your entrance, spreading your slick up and down. He can tell you’re biting at your lip and holding in a gasp. He dips them inside you just up to the first knuckle feeling how you open up for them.
“That feel nice sweetie? You can close your eyes if that helps?”
You turn your face into the pillow again, squirming and nodding silently, closing your eyes as your breath hitches. He pushes his fingers in a little more and it’s so good, it’s what you need.
“Can you tell me if this is okay? If you like it?” he pushes them in even deeper and you huff out the breath you’ve been holding onto.
“Yeah it-it’s…okaaay…” you manage to say as he smiles warmly and keeps on gently pumping the two digits in and out of your pussy.
“Oh that’s good sweetheart, can you tell me how it feels when I do this?” He’s curling and rubbing against the front wall of your cunt and you start to writhe on the bed.
“Y-yesss… feels good, Matty.”
“Good girl! Oh you’re such a good girl for telling me what you like…”
Your hips rock up against his hand in response to his praise and you’re getting wetter as he keeps going, the slick sounds growing louder as he keeps on gently fucking you with his fingers.
“Sounds so fucking good sweetie, can you hear that? How turned on you are? So gorgeous, you’re doing so well for me baby.”
You let out a tiny ‘mmf’ as Matt slides his free hand up your side caressing your breast and flicking his thumb over your hardened nipple as he plunges his fingers in deeper.
“And this? Is this okay angel?”
You arch slightly off the bed, your legs falling open wider and your mouth doing the same. “Uhh…s’good!”
Matt can’t stop smiling. “You’re being so damn good for me, you know that?”
“Matty…” you whine, small gasps every time he presses into your g-spot.
“What is it, tell me what you need, princess?”
You’re thrusting your hips back against his hand now, feeling a tightening in your belly.
“More, please, Matty…”
“More? You want another one of my fingers in you sweetheart?”
You whimper and nod as he slides a third digit in alongside the others, the coiling feeling in you continuing to grow. “There you go… that's it."
“Mmn!”
“Oh that’s so, so good my love, you sound so fucking sexy… can I make you cum, angel?”
The deep, silky tone of his voice is driving you insane and you find you can’t hold anything in anymore.
“Uhuhh… Matty please, yes… make me cum, oh it feels soo- please make me cum!”
“Anything for you sweetie.”
Matt keeps the rhythm of his fingers steady sliding his other hand down to rub on your clit with his thumb at the same time. You’ve still got your eyes screwed shut, your breath loud and labored and interspersed with your rising whines. All you can hear is Matt’s gently guiding voice and the filthy sounds from between your thighs. You moan as you let yourself enjoy the pleasure you’re feeling, getting louder as it builds and builds.
“Open your eyes for me darling, look at me,” You obey and immediately can see his cock straining against his pants. “See what you’re doing to me? That’s all you and your fucking sexy little noises baby, making me so hard for you.” He feels your pussy walls start fluttering. “Mm you’re close aren’t you baby, will you tell me?”
“Fuck, oh yes! So close, oh god it feels so good- uhh, m’gonna come… you’re gonna make me come, Matt- oh, oh!”
Your back arches up off the bed and you're orgasming with the loudest and hottest moans that Matt’s highly sensitive ears have ever heard as he keeps on stimulating you, staying in perfect synchrony with your wild thrashing movements as your cunt squeezes around his fingers like a vice and you flood all over them as you come for him.
When you're finally spent, he ever so gently pulls his fingers out, licking up all of the taste of you, then he scoops you up in his arms and holds you close to him, placing a soft kiss on the top of your head.
“That’s my noisy girl, so good. How about we find out how loud you get when I fuck you, hmm?”
Follow up is here!
Hi! If you enjoy my fics please consider reblogging, it means that others get to enjoy them too! I also love to hear if there's anything in particular you liked, please comment! Thank you so much for reading 💕
#kinkwasthereaminuteago#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock smut#daredevil smut#matt murdock x f!reader
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Steal My Warmth
summary: matt lets you use him as a pillow.
pairing: matt murdock x gn!reader
warnings: none! fluffy fluff here
wordcount: 379
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The way Matt loved you was devastating. He ached when you weren’t near, and when you were he found his fingers were always reaching for you to come a little closer. His hands always found themselves wrapped around your midsection, the extra skin letting him steal an abundance of warmth and softness from you.
When you’d asked him if you could slip under the blanket with him on the couch, he told you you didn’t have to ask as he peeled away the thick fluffy cover.
“C’mere.” You try to slot yourself between him and the couch but he pulls you to lay on him directly, your head sinking into his chest as he tucks you in.
“Cozy?” You nodded, feeling his fingers caress your skin, his touch sliding lower and lower after starting at your waist.
“Watch the hands.” He laughs, pressing a kiss to your forehead. He clicks resume on his podcast as you get comfy on his chest and scroll through your phone. Quiet domesticity takes over the apartment, your even breath mirrors his as the two of you soak in each other's presence.
“It should be a crime to be this soft and warm with that much muscle.” You say, poking his abs. He chuckles, pulling your body closer to his.
“Feel free to come steal some warmth more often.” You nuzzle further and he gasps at the feeling of your cold nose pressing against his bare chest. Your eyelids grow heavy and you glance up to Matt, who was listening to his podcast. He looked at peace, his fingers still moving, albeit slowly, across your skin while your head moved up and down gently from his breaths. You smile, your eyes shutting more and more as you finally succumb to sleep with comfort personified who is Matt Murdock.
His attention is drawn to you only when your phone lands face down on his skin, the glass screen chilling his body. He brings his hand up to thread through your hair, dull nails gently scratching at your scalp. With his other hand he pauses his podcast and drops his headphones to the ground quietly. He moves your phone away and pulls the blanket up a bit higher to cover your body.
“Sweet dreams, my love.”
#matt murdock#matt murdock fluff#matt murdock fanfic#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock x you#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock x gn!reader#matt murdock x male!reader#matt murdock x male reader#daredevil#daredevil fluff#daredevil fanfic#daredevil x reader#daredevil x you#daredevil x fem!reader#daredevil x female reader#daredevil x male!reader#daredevil x male reader#daredevil x gn!reader#marvel#marvel fluff#marvel fanfic#marvel x reader#marvel x you#marvel x fem!reader#marvel x gn!reader#marvel x male!reader#matt murdock comfort#dev writes
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𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐛 — 𝟏
⟢﹒ pairing : matt murdock x vigilante!reader x frank castle
⟢﹒ summary : you’d met them, became their teammate, and the one night you got severely wounded, they took you to their place to patch you up.
⟢﹒ content warnings : i am not a doctor nor do i have any knowledge on how to take care of wounds like that properly so very inaccurate patching up session, mentions of blood, wounds, mentions of needle (to saw reader’s wound), afab!reader, stubborn reader, but stubborn frank, no use of y/n, not proofread
⟢﹒ word count : 7,2k
⟢﹒ note : this is the first part of a 2shot where the second part will be a smut with hunter/prey dynamic ! have a good read <;33
⟢ next part : here
The clouds were brown tonight, covering the inky blackness of the sky like a mass of cotton gathering up the streetlights of Hell's Kitchen. Everything seemed to be reflecting off a lake, the puddles of rain from earlier in the day having settled on every rooftop in the city in a myriad of mirrors.
It was quiet, abnormally quiet even. Hell's Kitchen wasn't exactly your typical idyllic holiday destination; on the contrary, it was the place to flee if you had the chance. Crime had its patch on every street corner, and not a single day or night went by without something happening.
But now, nothing. No problems. No calls for help. Just the calm of an evening.
Sitting on the edge of a roof, your legs dangling boredly in the air, you listened to your little radio set beside your thigh, hoping that one of the police stations would report a problem. But everything was peaceful.
It had already been a few months since you had taken on the attire of the night, taken on the role of vigilante in Hell's Kitchen, and every evening you found yourself chasing crime out of town like a broom sweeping dust out of the way.
It wasn't necessarily an easy rhythm. After an already long day at work, you usually tried to get some sleep before starting your patrol. You'd realised that although there was no particular time for crime, most of them started after midnight.
But it was already one o'clock in the morning and there was nothing to report. You wondered whether perhaps you were doing your job as a vigilante too well. If you did, this kind of evening was set to happen, because if you did eradicate every crime all at once, there wouldn't be any left for later. The bitter reassurance that, unfortunately, crime, born since the dawn of time, would only die with men, gripped your heart.
The pace of it all was sometimes exhausting, but the advantage of all this was that you weren't really working alone any more. At first, the idea of joining forces with anyone to bring justice to the world of night seemed complicated, for several reasons.
Firstly, coordination: having team-mates implied having a certain connection so that even without words being spoken, everything ran smoothly.
And secondly, attachment. An environment like this where every night can be your last if you don't keep a minimum of vigilance can prove destructive. It would be too painful to lose an ally, and even more so if it was your turn to leave and they found themselves grieving.
But colleagues - no, partners? Friends? Whatever, the allies you found on certain nights were probably the most resilient human beings you'd ever met, to the point where the very thought of them dying was impossible. After all, when you're working with two people who have both withstood a bullet to the head and who are sure of themselves, you can't help but feel safe - or very small and miserable in their presence.
You had met them on patrol when the sounds of banging and groans of pain could be heard in an alleyway. Immediately, you had split the sphere of your personally modified Bolas and had helped in the fight after observing the side you had to take. Recognising criminals had become like a sixth sense, but above all you had recognised Daredevil's outfit in the semi-darkness and the silhouette that appeared to be that of Frank Castle.
You were familiar with the work of both of them, had seen enough of their appearances in the newspapers and heard their actions on the radio enough to know that the two men fighting the dozen or so others below were none other than these two.
You had helped them, immobilising a man here, strangling a man of the thread of your bolas there, while the two acolytes were both taking part in the fight. It was only at the end of the latter that the barrage of questions began.
"Who are you?" was of course the first question Matt asked.
"Who do you work for?" was the first question Frank raised, naturally.
It didn't take too long for you to explain that crime was swarming around the city like cockroaches in a dirty carpet and that you wanted to clean up just like them.
Frank was suspicious, Matt was calm, and you were sweating buckets, dreading their every reaction. They weren't exactly idols to you, but you had great respect for them.
It was when Matt agreed that you were sincere and that there was nothing to fear about you that Frank relaxed a bit, without letting go of his grouchy and suspicious attitude. You'd assumed at first that Frank wouldn't appreciate such a radical change of routine that included bringing a new member into the evening vigilante group, but Matt had assured him that having one more person would allow them to be more effective.
And soon, you'd be meeting up from time to time in the evening if you were lucky enough to bump into each other.
First, you didn't reveal your identity immediately. There was a kind of silent agreement between the three of you on the subject. Of course, Frank's identity was no longer a mystery, but Matt's remained particularly anonymous for a long time.
Once enough trust had been established for Frank not to grumble at you at every given occasion, you were officially introduced.
You learned that Matthew Murdock was a blind lawyer with very heightened senses, and that Frank Castle lived with him, taking on a series of remote jobs under a different identity since his name was not really known in a very positive way.
You didn't see each other outside of work, often too busy with your own lives to find time to see each other, even if you didn't discuss your free time... at first anyway.
You had exchanged phone numbers, in case an emergency arose and you suddenly needed help. Your exchanges were very cordial, sending addresses or locations when help was needed or to investigate something suspicious.
The first much less professional encounter was on a more turbulent night than the others, when you were cut badly on the leg, flank and arm, with an additional cut to your lip from a punch.
According to Matt, your costume was similar to the one he wore when he first started as Daredevil. Dark clothes, something to hide your face and combat boots, needless to say that with just these to cover you up, you were extremely vulnerable.
When the fighting stopped, you didn't even have time to wince in pain that Matt was already beside you with a glove off and removing his helmet as Frank observed the situation.
"How bad is it?" Frank had asked, tilting his head to the side as the fabric covering your body darkened with blood.
"As bad as it looks to you and feels to me," Matt sighed as his fingertips brushed the skin of your side.
"It's all right," you assured them, moving slightly away from Matt and his touch, "really, it's fine."
"Are you sure? You look like you can barely walk properly." Matt had asked, obviously knowing that no, everything wasn't all right.
Probably because he'd used that speech over and over again himself, that and the simple fact that your body looked like a cute little pinocchio with a nose extended to its ears.
"Yeah yeah, no big deal - argh!" you started before Frank put his hand on the gaping wound in your arm. “Hey!”
"No big deal, eh? If it was no big deal ya wouldn't be reacting like this."
"It's nothing, really."
You had no idea if you sounded convincing… well, from the look on both their faces, you weren’t. Frank crossed his arms over his chest, looking you up and down as he bit the inside of his cheek.
You felt tiny under his gaze like that, barely lifting your eyes to look into his. There was a dark insistence in his stare, and you could tell he was frustrated, only whether it was about you or the situation in itself you weren't sure.
"What d’you say Red ?" he said after seconds that felt like minutes.
You turned to Matt, his gaze fixed as usual on a point in the void. But that didn't stop his eyes from being expressive, and the rest of his face reinforced them. You watched in the half-light the way his jaw muscles twitched in the lamplight and your heart fell in your stomach.
"Our flat is closer to here than hers," was what he ended up saying.
Your heart went right back up your chest as you blinked fast, frowning at the sentence he had so casually said.
"I'm sorry, what?" you asked, "how do you know I'm-" but you didn't finish your own sentence before starting the next, "you followed me all the way to my place?"
Matt put both hands on his hips with a sigh, biting his lower lip before finally answering.
"We had a bit of a scare the other night when you were cut on the shoulder. We just wanted to make sure... that you got home okay."
Your lips parted in surprise, shifting then from Matt to Frank, who was looking at his feet as if the ground was far more interesting than anything he had to say at the moment. You weren't sure how to feel about that.
In a way, you found it strange that they'd followed you home without telling you anything about it, but Matt with his keen senses would probably have known where you were sooner or later. Besides, it was well-intentioned, and the sudden thought that they cared about you - no, about your state - was surprisingly heart-warming.
"In any case," Matt continued, clearing his throat, "ours is a lot closer than yours, and in your current state, you could do with some treatment when you get there."
"I'm not planning to stay the night, am I?" you laughed nervously.
"Why not?" said Frank, raising his eyebrows and his shoulders in one gesture.
From now on, victory would go to the one with the most convincing argument.
"Well, I've got work tomorrow," you began, already thinking about the pain you'd have to endure in the morning when you woke up.
You could still feel your warm blood clinging to your clothes, and the sensation was becoming increasingly unpleasant.
"Say you're unwell, isn't far off the mark," Frank replied, pointing with a lazy wave of his hand at your body.
"But I don't have any clothes to spend the night in." You retorted, although the argument was easily contradicted by Matt's remark.
"We'll lend you some, it's no big deal," he assured you.
"I don't have a toothbrush," you retorted, as if that couldn't possibly be of any importance in this setting.
"We're not Cro-Magnons, we have backup ones," Matt laughed softly.
It was becoming a little more complicated to come up with relevant arguments. The blood loss was making you dizzy, weak, and preventing you from standing properly without grimacing every second while focusing all your attention on each cut and the intense burning sensation it gave you.
It wasn't so much that you didn't want to go, because on the contrary you found yourself enjoying their company more and more. It was simply the fact that...
"I'm afraid of imposing myself on you and bothering you." You said, looking away.
You were colleagues up to now, people who shared a common interest in justice, and you didn't mind their company. Only, you'd added to the mix completely unexpectedly. They'd already been working together before, even living together. You didn't know a great deal about their private lives and here you were, the millstone, getting hurt in the middle of a patrol and not being able to make a move without everything hurting.
You turned towards them again. The look on Frank's face was like the typical reaction of a human being who has just witnessed the greatest absurdity of all, while Matt's mouth was half-open in surprise. It almost seemed to you that saying that simple sentence had been a mistake.
"That's it, you're coming with us," Matt confirmed.
"Definitely," Frank affirmed as he approached you and placed one of his hands behind your back.
"Hey wait-" you had no say in the matter, though, as Frank's second hand came up behind your knees and lifted you off the ground.
Your hands barely grasped the back of his neck, wincing as you writhed in pain. You wouldn't have minded being carried. The fatigue of the evening weighed on each of your limbs as if they were full of lead.
You knew how to walk, one step in front of the other like most, and the suddenness of being lifted so easily into the air felt funny. You couldn't help fidgeting, caressing the hope of finding a position more comfortable than one that made you feel every inch of your skin open to the night air.
"Stop movin’ like a chicken ‘bouta have its throat cut," Frank grumbled as the two of them started walking.
"Put it on the ground and the chicken will calm down," you breathed through clenched teeth of discomfort.
"It's not a very long walk, I promise." Matt reassured you.
You huffed, clutching the collar of Frank's jacket to prevent yourself from squeezing the back of his neck too hard and getting another remark. You were torn between the uneasiness of the stir he made with every step, which you felt in every wound, and the new comfort you found in the embrace of his arms.
You felt so... safe that way. And not just with Frank, because you felt the same sense of tranquillity with Matt. They were both involved in your life in such an unusual way and they still managed to make you feel comfortable.
You'd never been so close to him, snuggled up against him and held in his strong arms. As close as you were to his body, you could smell him. A mix of cool and warm.
He carried the smoky but crisp scent of the night, the fresh but dark air, like the smell of a just-cut apple leaving its cool scent on the blade of the knife that has just sliced it. And all of this was strangely relieving.
Your eyes drifted to his neck, which was inevitable considering how close you were to it. Your gaze focused on his Adam's apple, ready to be covered by his perpetual stubble, letting your eyes slide up to his marked, strong jawline. You weren't in the habit of observing someone so closely, especially when that someone was handsome.
The journey across his face continued, passing from his full lips, to his nose bumped by the many blows he must have received in the face, to conclude this pleasant silent voyage with his eyes. Beneath a pair of stern eyebrows were two onyxes, shyly illuminated by the few street lamps on the deserted streets you were travelling through. You had seen them turn black like those of a shark that had smelled blood.
If you didn't know that look would never be meant for you, you'd be afraid of them.
You'd spent enough time with them in combat situations to know that their rage alone could bring a man down with a look. You hoped you'd never have to pay the price of it.
But this close, you didn't feel in danger, although the very idea that such dark eyes of vengeance and bitterness and death might pass over yours made you shudder.
“You’re staring, little one,” Frank remarked, his gaze never wavering from the path in front of him.
Too embarrassed by your own behaviour, you nestled your head on his shoulder, resting your forehead on it as your neck and cheeks heated up. You felt a little foolish as you felt your heart beating frantically between your ribs, and the very idea that Matt could undoubtedly hear it made you want to be swallowed up by a hole in the ground and disappear.
When were you going to get to that bloody flat where you would - hopefully - never again have to be so close to one of them without your thoughts getting carried away ?
Your wishes were granted, as you soon found yourselves standing in front of a door that Matt habitually opened, letting Frank go first as he pressed you closer to him to get through the doorway. With a single breath, his scent invaded you more and more until, for a few moments, your thoughts were focused on nothing but him.
The sudden closeness of him made you feel your cheek brush against the nape of his neck, cool in the night air, but enough for your own skin to heat up slightly.
Internally, you were slapping yourself in the face. Now was not the time to let yourself be bewitched by your colleagues, although the fact that you would be spending the night with them would intensify those thoughts.
Your reflections kept you prisoner enough that you didn't realise until you'd climbed the stairs that you were about to enter Matt's flat. No... their flat.
This reality dropped into your stomach like a heavy stone. They're together, so don't try or think anything that might disappoint you. Tonight... It's just business. It's just help they're giving you, that's all it is.
Perhaps it was a cruel lack of affection that made you repeat all this to yourself, but whatever the case, your inner monologue gradually died down as your attention was drawn to the inside of the place.
It was big, really big for a flat, and for a moment the idea of Matt and Frank being rich occurred to you. It wasn't until Frank moved further into the living room that your eyes fell almost painfully on the neon lighting that illuminated the whole room.
And the more you looked, the more the charm of the place intensified. Of course, the neon had to be a problem. And yes, the walls had faded wallpaper and cracked paint. And maybe the windows could have done with a bit of a wipe down.
But the cosy atmosphere the flat had was delightful. The warmth that greeted you as you entered was gentle and reassuring. You noticed that there was little smell in the flat, nothing too strong at least so far.
"On the sofa, she's already lost enough blood for the evening," Matt pointed out as he left for his kitchen.
Ah, right, Matt's senses, you almost forgot. The reason for the absence of perfume or overpowering scents in their flat was surely that it could prove abrasive on his olfactory sensitivity and generally on his senses.
Frank didn't hesitate for a moment, gently lowering you onto the leather sofa, which you felt sink under your back. The sudden change of position made you wince and whimper, the pain of your wounds hitherto camouflaged by your comfort in Frank's arms resurfacing to inflame your skin.
Frank watched you for a moment, frowning as he observed with serious eyes the dark stains that soaked through the various fabrics of your outfit. Without a word, he walked away, and a few seconds later Matt appeared in your field of vision, a bottle of amber liquid in his hand.
"We're going to need you to take off your top and trousers, do you think you can do that?"
The heat rose to your cheek, making you realise that with those wounds on your body, it was inevitable that you would end up naked if they wanted to do anything to help fix you.
You pressed your teeth into your lower lip, keeping it prisoner for a moment and grunting as the gesture made you reopen your little wound.
"I'll try," you croaked, trying to unclench the hand that had been glued to your side until now.
The bleeding seemed to have eased, the blood slightly caking to your hand as you pulled it free with an exhaled whimper. The sudden contact of air on your skin felt like an icy slap, your chest rising and falling rapidly as you tried to calm yourself.
Your head tumbling back on the comfortable leather, you tried to get your hands to the sides of your T-shirt, pulling at the fabric. The material rubbed against your gaping wound, and you gritted your teeth as you breathed heavily.
Matt swallowed, clenching his jaw before kneeling in front of you.
"I can help you, if you don't mind," he offered, his hands coming to rest on your ankles as he began to remove your shoes.
Your reflex would usually have been to say no, your determination to achieve everything on your own without help from others blocking such opportunities. But the more you thought about it, the more the taste of resignation grew in your mouth.
At the rate you were going, getting undressed would take a considerable amount of time, time that Matt and Frank could probably have spent doing something more interesting than helping someone like you. So you gave in.
The blood from your split lip spilled back into your mouth, your tongue running over the cut and burning you. Wrinkling your nose in pain and breathing through your teeth, you nodded vigorously as you readjusted yourself on the sofa.
Matt sat up straight on his knees and faced you, his hands first feeling the leather of the sofa to find your thigh. He gently skimmed along the fabric, his hand brushing the wound on your thigh and making you grunt slightly.
"Sorry," he murmured softly. "The bleeding seems to have stopped," his confirmation letting his hand travel up to your waist.
His second joined in, avoiding the path of his twin again, and finding the sides of your top.
"Can you put your arms up for me?" he asked softly.
You swallowed, chewing the inside of your cheek as you took a deep breath. Then you did the seemingly impossible by lifting your arms. Your shoulders felt like they were made of lead, and your whole body seemed to be made of nothing but aches and pains.
When the fabric and movement rubbed against the wound on your arm, which you had barely raised, your hand instinctively came to press against it, letting a small, contorted whimper escape from your lips.
Matt let out a sigh, but he didn't seem exasperated or annoyed, more concerned or sharing your pain. Just then Frank came back into the living room, a first aid kit in hand as he came up beside you.
"We're going to have to cut your shirt off," Matt warned.
You sighed, feeling deeply incapable. When did taking off a shirt become so complicated? Every cut on your body was starting to burn severely, and you felt like throwing yourself into a lake of ice water to soothe the pain.
Frank pulled the scissors out of the kit, sitting down next to you and letting the sofa sink beneath him.
"We'll get you a new one," he promised as the cold kiss of the scissor blades touched your skin for a moment near the wound on your arm, bringing a short-lived respite.
Frank tugged at the fabric to pull it away from your skin, then after a few scissor strokes tore the material of your t-shirt as if it were paper with a sharp tear.
The cold skin of his fingers, still covered in the cool of the outside air, came to rest on your skin, and it was as if night met day, as the moon touched the sun with its fingertips, illuminating each of its craters and cuts.
Meanwhile, Matt unbuckled your belt gently, unbuttoning your trouser button at the same time and pulling on the fly until his fingers brushed the birth of...
"Sorry about the whisky but we didn't have anything else," he said apologetically as he took hold of the edges of your trousers.
"Aren't you guys sponsored by first aid kits at this point?" you asked through clenched teeth.
Waiting for Frank to move the scissors away from your skin, you raised your pelvis so that Matt could slide your trousers down more easily.
"There hasn't been any disinfectant in any of them since last night," he explained with a small smile.
The scene was strangely intimate, Frank's hot breath spreading across the back of your neck as he cut off your shirt, and Matt's hands sliding your trousers down your thighs.
You couldn't help but let out a grunt as the fabric of your pant leg brushed against the wound on your thigh, though Matt was doing his best not to cause you any discomfort, whispering small apologies as he did so.
You then realised the context of all this, and the heat rose to your cheeks when Frank threw the last shred of your old T-shirt somewhere in the background: you were in your underwear in front of them.
For a moment, their fingers on your body felt much less professional. The passage of their digits over your skin left behind a trail of sparkling powder underneath.
Placing a towel under your thigh, Matt indicated to Frank the bottle of alcohol which he uncorked.
"This might sting a bit," Matt advised just before Frank started pouring the cool liquid over the wound on your arm.
You stifled a muffled gasp, your thighs trembling slightly from the heat of your wounds. Matt's face scrunched up, his hands resting on your thighs in the hope of easing your pain or distracting you from the excruciating sensation you were going through. As for Frank, he didn't seem to give a damn, his face filled with his constant annoyed neutrality.
You had wondered several times whether Frank hated you, or whether it was difficult for him to stand you. Whatever the case, he didn't seem to have you in his heart. Maybe it was mistrust, but whatever the reason, he seemed irascible towards you.
He continued to pour the contents of the bottle quite generously onto your side, your eyelids closing so tightly that you felt you were seeing stars. You gritted your teeth so hard that for a moment they cut off your hearing, then released the tension.
"It's almost done," Matt murmured in the hope of encouraging you.
Frank ended up cleaning your trembling thigh. You brought your hand, closed into a fist, up to your mouth, biting the skin of one of your fingers to channel the pain.
Your head jerked back, breathing heavily as tears welled up in the corners of your eyes. The worst had undoubtedly just passed.
You heard them rummaging around in the kit, and as you straightened your head, you saw them pulling out needle and thread.
"No pain killers," you managed to say as your mouth felt almost pasty.
Frank chuckled, preparing the needle properly.
"Gotta get this done first, no painkillers for your princess ass now."
You let out a half-sigh, half-laugh.
"Silly me to assume you'd care." you mumbled, already feeling the discomfort from the alcohol on your gaping skin soften.
"It' all be over soon," Matt asserted, his thumb running over the skin of your thigh.
"And I who was looking forward to living in agony for the rest of my life,' you breathed.
Frank brought one of the armchairs closer to the sofa, needle in hand.
"Gon try and be gentle, softy." he added, the little nickname making you scoff.
"No, Frank, being gentle isn't your area of excellence. You shine mainly in murder and mutilation."
He raised his eyes to yours, still red and wet from your previous pain and reflecting the famous 'gentleness' he had shown in his actions. He frowned, but this gesture was unexpectedly accompanied by a smile mixing surprise and amusement, stretching his face in a way you'd never seen from him before.
He brought the needle up to your thigh, grasping the skin with his large hand as firmly as gently. He pierced it, making you wince at the sensation.
"Just gonna pretend I didn't hear that," he finally said, his concentration seemingly unwavering.
But the simple idea of saying this when this same man was stitching you up at the moment only enchanted you for a short moment. He had a needle in his hand that he could very well stick anywhere but in the wound that needed to be closed. And although it was an immensely small needle, you were well aware that anything can become a deadly weapon if you have the will to use it.
So you said nothing, letting that little irritation fade away as you let yourself be stitched up. The pain was bearable in the end, nothing too horrible. It was better than going home and cauterising the whole thing with your straightening iron.
Now that the pain was more bearable, your attention eventually drifted to something other than that feeling, and more to the rest. The feel of their fingers on your body brought a whole new sensory experience, causing a warm cloud to settle in your belly.
Matt straightened up, your thigh already missing the presence of his hand on it. He sat down beside you, his fingers brushing your arm without injury.
"Your lip's cut," he remarked.
"It's not the worst thing on the menu," you laughed nervously, immediately regretting your gesture as your smile stretched your lip and reopened it again.
He fumbled for the kit, taking a cotton ball and grabbing the bottle to soak it in.
"Here," he said, his hand coming to take your chin tenderly and turning it towards him.
He pressed the wet cotton to your wound, and you hissed as your nose wrinkled in pain.
"It might sting a bit when you drink," he murmured.
The proximity gripped your heart, Matt's face close enough to yours that you felt his breath hit your skin gently and evenly. You tried to calm your racing heart in your chest, swallowing as you let him finish disinfecting your lip.
You took the opportunity to watch him more closely, to see the way his stubble ran gracefully across his jaw, the way his brown eyes watching the empty space were full of softness, the way his lips, which you were used to seeing outside the mask, were full and pink.
He seemed incredibly gentle, and if you didn't spend some nights a week in his company fighting crime, you'd never have bet he was fighting like the devil himself: unleashed, full of rage, the taste of revenge and the desire for a better balance blinding him beyond measure.
"You'll take our bed," Matt said, Frank just finishing stitching up your thigh.
You immediately frowned, your lips parting.
"Since I'm on the couch I might just stay on it," you laughed nervously as Frank moved to the wound on your waist.
His hand grabbed your hip and pulled you to the edge of the sofa, looking up at you:
"Sit straight and still," he says in a tone calm but firm enough to convince you that he wouldn't repeat that command twice.
You straighten up slightly, letting him come and stitch up the wound in your side.
"Of the three of us, you're clearly the one who needs comfort and rest the most, not us," Matt continued, placing the now useless cotton wool on the table.
"I can assure you that I've rarely been on a sofa as comfortable as this one," you added.
You'd invite yourself into their home unannounced, they'd take care of you, and on top of that they'd make you sleep in their bed while they slept elsewhere?
"Do we really have to drag you there?" asked Frank, tugging at the thread.
"And let me squirm and ruin all your previous efforts on my wounds?" you huffed as you looked into his eyes, a muscle near your eye twitching as Frank continued his work. "I'd ruin your sheets, that's really not necessary."
"Listen-" Matt started, but you stopped him.
"No," you assured him, turning to him, "and anyway I can already feel sleep stalking me."
Frank breathed in as he opened his lips to speak and contradict you again, but you stopped him.
"Really," you assured him, "I'll take the sofa."
Frank bit his cheek in irritation, obviously not so happy to know that someone in this town shared being so stubborn. He turned to Matt, who also didn't seem to be enjoying the situation any more than that.
"Alright, but there's no way I'm going to hear you complain as soon as you wake up, is that clear?" finished Frank as he tied the thread over the cut in your abdomen.
"Scout's honour," you sighed.
As Frank started your last cut, Matt got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass. He filled it with water, while you and Frank seemed to be engaged in a stare-down between two obstinate, stubborn people.
"Thanks Matty," you thanked sincerely, taking the two delicious items in your hand.
He seemed surprised by the nickname, a nervous chuckle forming a smile on his lips.
"I'll grab you some clothes," he replied as he left for their shared room and began the process of changing his costume.
You placed the tablet on your tongue, then brought the glass to your lips. As promised, it stung. A cloud of red diluted on the contact with your lips, and as you observed it you wondered how you would justify it to your boss.
You sighed, reminding yourself that you should email them first thing in the morning to let them know you were absent. All you had to do the next day was explain that you'd been attacked in the street for stealing your bag, but you'd managed to get away, and that in a state of shock you didn't feel like coming to work the next day. This would probably do.
Frank finished stitching you up fairly quickly, and when he cut the last thread he still looked at you with that annoyed look he never seemed to shake off.
"Thank you, Frankie" you thanked, using the nickname in a more playful tone than you had with Matt.
He let out a single sharp breath from his lungs before getting up and leaving in his turn for the bedroom, from which Matt emerged in much more... normal clothes.
It was the first time you'd seen him in civilian attire, in a simple hoodie and jogging bottoms. Your eyes went wide, your mouth half-open for a moment, and you had to blink several times to pull yourself together.
"Here," he said, placing the pile of clothes next to you on the sofa. "Do you think you can stand this time?"
Now that the adrenaline had worn off, and everything else didn't burn as much as if hell itself had invited itself under your skin, you tried to stand up. You wanted to avoid any sudden movements, but eventually, with a bit of effort, you managed to straighten up and start pushing on your legs to get up.
Your knees trembled slightly from the stress and everything else that had gone with it during the night, and just as you thought you'd be sprawled out on the floor in the next few seconds, tasting the parquet floor, Matt grabbed your arm and pulled you towards him.
"Hey, take it easy little fawn, we don't need you damaging your nose on top of everything else," he laughed as he steadied you, letting your legs wobble a little more before you felt comfortable enough to stand.
Your whole body hurt like hell. And no wonder: in addition to your various cuts from the evening, your body was dotted with clouds of bruises that would make all the blueberries jealous of their colour.
"Let me help you," he finally smiled gently as he picked up the T-shirt from the pile.
He helped you into the top, taking care not to let the fabric come into contact with your freshly stitched skin.
"I'll need to borrow one of your shirts tomorrow when I leave," you said with a small smile, "mine's had a bit of a problem."
Matt laughed softly as he poked his head into your top. " May it rest in pieces."
You laughed softly at his little joke, slipping the rest on and feeling his hands roam over your covered skin, the size of the t-shirt far too big for you and reaching the top of your thighs.
Matt lowered himself to his knees in front of you, and you looked down at him as he rolled up the sweatpants so he could slip them around your ankle, guiding your hand over his shoulder so you could find some support.
The vision was heady, taking hold of your heart like an intoxicating scent you want to chase down so you can bury your whole face in it and never leave. You wanted to run your fingers through his hair, to let them get lost in its meanders, to let your nails graze his skull before tugging lightly on it...
But you pulled yourself together, the thought once again creating a warm cloud in your lower belly as he straightened up and pulled the fabric up your legs, his fingers brushing your skin as if you were a statue forbidden to be touched.
"You're gonna have to see that with Frank though," he said as he tied the two laces around your waist, "it's his shirt."
That's how the same smell you'd first smelled when you were in his arms came back to mind, but you remained stoic, preventing yourself from grabbing the collar of the shirt and bringing it up to your nose.
"Challenge of the year," you sighed, smiling though, "thank you. For all of this."
"That's normal, it would be a shame if our partner found herself unable to exercise," he reassured you.
The word sent a shiver up your spine and into your cheeks.
"Red?" called Frank from the bedroom.
"Coming," he answered over his shoulder before turning away from you.
You sat back down on the sofa, tiredness beginning to weigh heavily on your eyelids. You lay down, the multiple events of the evening knocking you out more easily than any sleeping pill.
You had no trouble falling asleep, even with the neon lights on, even without a blanket, and even when the two of them came back into the room.
When you woke up, your back felt like it was sinking into a cloud. The surface you were lying on was soft, and when you turned on your side, your hand came to rest on a material that was not at all like the leather of the sofa: silk.
You propped yourself up gently on one elbow, observing the place you were in, and that's when you realised: they'd moved you into their bed while you were asleep.
"Bastards," you muttered, and bit your cheek to stop the little smile forming on your lips from breaking out.
A funny feeling sprang up in your heart, making it light and rosy. But that feeling quickly faded as you sat up straighter and your whole body ached. You felt like you'd just come out of a washing machine, all tossed and turned.
You stood up, trying to stretch but stopping immediately when the pain from your stitched-up cuts threatened to reopen. You didn't want to mess up their clothes, you'd probably never forgive yourself if that happened.
You came out of the bedroom and found Frank and Matt talking in the kitchen. Matt turned to you, sending you a smile.
"Good morning," he offered.
You were limping lightly, and bent slightly, walking slowly towards them through fatigue and pain.
"At last the groundhog graces us with her presence," Frank grumbled, turning to you.
"Am I rather not a sleeping beauty ?" you returned with a smile, "I wonder if sleeping beaty had a breakfast date when she woke up. I mean, look at me this is such a tempting offer," you said as your posture could easily have been a cross between an old lady and a pregnant woman, leaning on your hip, alternating between the curve of your back and the arch of it, making your whole body crack into a grimace of relief.
But surprisingly, they both smiled at your joke, and the awkward silence you might have expected or the abrupt change of subject to move on never came. But that didn't stop you from apologising on the spot.
"I'm sorry, I don't want my words to sound inappropriate, but I know that you two... well, you're..." together was the word you were looking for, but your fingers pinched the bridge of your nose.
Try again, you thought. You'll end up rowing champion if you keep paddling like that. But Matt immediately reassured you.
"There's nothing to worry about, and besides, on my side you have to be forgiving when you don't have the 'pause' button."
Right, you thought, even though the heat was rising to your cheeks and neck enough for your cool hand to come and rest on it, massaging it nervously.
"I find you singularly witty, Red," Frank said, arms folded across his chest.
Of course, there was nothing new under the sun about Frank. His sharp tone brought you back to solid ground in no time.
"How are the wounds?" he asked as he turned to you, his eyes lingering for a moment on the fact that you were wearing his shirt.
"Very well," you assured him as you lifted the sides of your shirt to show the one on your side and the one on your arm, turning back to him, "I think the blue really brings out my eyes, don't you?"
He smirked, and you couldn't quite work out whether it was genuine annoyance or amusement. It all seemed a bit too perfect, and that's when it hit you.
"Fuck!" you exclaimed, looking for where they'd put your trousers where your phone was.
"What is it?" asked Matt.
"My boss," you said, searching the hallway and finding your trousers there, "I didn't tell him-"
"We called him this morning," pointed out Frank.
You stopped in your tracks, turning back to them.
"You what ?" you questioned.
"We called him," Matt informed, "we told him that we were close to you and that after you were mugged last night in the street you decided to stay home for the day out of shock."
"You-"
"It's all sorted, you don't need to worry," Frank grunted, taking his drink in hand, surely in search for you to shut up and let him enjoy his morning cup of coffee.
You stood there like a houseplant in the middle of the living room, and Matt invited you to take a seat for breakfast. Bemused, you took a seat and the three of you ate and chatted for a while.
Matt mentioned taking you to see a guy he knew so that he could cover you up with something other than such a simplistic and obviously flimsy outfit that could put you in danger again.
And after breakfast, you left at the same time as Matt, who was leaving for work. You said your final goodbyes and went your separate ways.
Little did you know the proximity of last night would change many things.
⟢ next part : here
#mads ☾⋆｡☁︎ ﾟ#matt murdock x reader x frank castle#frank castle x reader x matt murdock#frank castle x matt murdock x reader#fratt#fratt x reader#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock x you#matt murdock x y/n#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock imagine#matt murdock fic#matt murdock fanfic#matt murdock fanfiction#matt murdock#daredevil#frank castle x reader#frank castle x you#frank castle x y/n#frank castle x fem!reader#frank castle x female reader#frank castle imagine#frank castle fic#frank castle fanfic#frank castle fanfiction#frank castle#the punisher#my writing
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Matt Murdock || Masterlist
Find Me On AO3
⤹ NAVIGATION.
🫀 -> comfort for the aching hearts
🔥 -> Smut/explicit sexual content (18+ MINORS DNI)
🌻 -> Fluff
💧 -> Angst
🪐 -> All fics set in the universe of my longest and ongoing work Foreigner's God
⤹ ONE SHOTS:
☽ Sleep [matt murdock x reader] 🫀
✑ she can’t sleep and he’s there to make sure she’s alright.
☽ Costumer Service [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥🫀
✑ after a rough day at work, you lash out at your boyfriend. matt being matt, he makes it his mission to give you what you need to relax.
☽ Late Night Talking [matt murdock x fem!oc] 🌻🪐
✑ eliza has the weirdest questions on her mind in the middle of the night. three times she wakes up matt to answer her questions and the one time matt wakes her with an important question.
☽ Spiders [matt murdock x fem!reader] 🌻
✑ matt finds a spider in the house and he refuses to kill it so his girlfriend has to step up to do the job. she hates it as much as he does.
☽ Long-distance [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥 🌻
✑ Matt buys you a long-distance remote vibrator so he can play with you while he’s away – but there is a twist! He has one too, and he wants you to play with him while he plays with you. All over the phone, no touching. You can’t say no to that offer.
☽ Gifted Kid Burnout [matt murdock x f!reader] 💧🫀
✑ she’s exhausted, burned out and he wants nothing more than to help her.
☽ Stay Quiet [matt Murdock x f!reader] 🔥
✑ porn without plot in which Matty fucks you in the office (and Foggy gets traumatized for life)
☽ For You [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥
✑ request: prompt 78 — loss of virginity (exactly what the prompt says it’s gonna be)
☽ Pointless [matt murdock x female!oc / matt x reader] 🌻 🪐
✑ song fic based on Pointless by Lewis Capaldi — a glimpse into how Matt views their relationship. (Part of the FG series, but no names are used)
☽ Ease The Pain [matt murdock x reader] 🔥🌻 🫀
✑ Matt helps to ease your period pains.
☽ Daddy Issues [matt murdock x reader] 💧🫀
✑ you flinch when Matt raises his voice for the first time and he learns about your daddy issues. Not the sexy kind.
☽ Angel On The Roof [matt murdock x reader] 💧 -> TW: SUICIDE
✑ Mental illness is silent until it isn’t, but then it’s often too late. Or, Matt accompanies a troubled stranger home on a couple of occasions, not realizing what he’s truly feeling until she’s already lost the battle against her own mind.
☽ Angel On The Roof (Your Version) -> Request; TW: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE AND SELF-HARM but with a happy ending!
✑ What if Matt’s word did manage to talk you off the edge and you find a way out of the dark hole that is depression? This is ‘Angel On The Roof’ from your POV with a happy ending.
☽ Useless [matt murdock x reader]
✑ Matt finds you during a depressive episode and he takes care of you. 💧🫀
☽ Promise Me [matt murdock x ofc] 🪐
✑ Foreigner’s God One-Shot — tender moments shared at night
☽ Good Boys Deserve To Be Taken Care Of [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥
✑ Matt looks good in the mornings. He always looks good, but the object of your attraction lies a bit lower this time, and you want to worship him like he deserves. (Or, an ode to Matt’s beautiful ass and the attention it deserves.)
✑ Part 2 to this can now be read here.
☽ Are You Okay? [matt murdock x reader] 🫀
✑ Sometimes it takes just one question or one person to make your shitty day less shitty.
☽ Back To December [matt murdock x reader] -> Request 💧 TW: DEATH
✑ Everything and everyone eventually slips through Matt Murdock’s fingers, and he doesn’t manage to save you in this one. (Hurt/ no comfort)
☽ Narcissist [matt murdock x reader] -> Request 💧🫀 TW: DOMESTIC ABUSE
✑ Trying to catch a break from your abusive boyfriend, you find yourself seeking refuge and a drink at Josie's in the middle of the night. It's where you bump into Matt Murdock, a charming stranger with the promise of a night of fun. After taking you home with him, it doesn't take him long to discover the dark nature of your need to escape.
☽ Honest Mistake [matt murdock x reader] -> Request 🌻
✑ After a night at Josie's, Foggy spends the night. When Matt wakes up the next day to kiss you good morning, he soon realizes that it's not you who is lying next to him but rather Foggy himself.
☽ Tupperware [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥
✑ A conversation about kitchen supplies takes an unexpected turn…
☽ Matilda [matt murdock x f!reader] 💧🫀
✑ You tried moving on from your past, but some things still haunt you. Matt is there to comfort you and tell you that sometimes, it’s okay to just let it go, even if it’s your family.
☽ Brother [matt murdock x sister!reader] l -> Request 💧
✑ After an argument with Matt about something that seems so stupid now, you get kidnapped by a human trafficking ring and he has to save you, his sister, before something worse happens. He finds you battered and bruises, but at least you’re alive. (This is solely x sister!reader, nothing more)
☽ WORDLE [matt murdock x ofc] 🌻 🪐
✑ Eliza and Foggy play Wordle, and it soon turns into a very competitive game.
☽ Please, Be Okay [matt murdock x reader] 🫀💧
✑ When Matt doesn’t answer your texts or calls like he usually does, you start to expect the worst…
☽ You’re Losing Me [matt murdock x reader] 💧 -> Request
✑ Based on “You’re Losing Me” by Taylor Swift. You and Matt have a fight and you throw him out of the bedroom with a decision to make. The question is just, is he going to give up on you and prompt you to leave or will you two manage to fix what’s broken?
☽ Feisty [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥 -> Request
✑ Matt decides he has to show you your place after you two have an argument.
☽ Sub Space [matt murdock x f!reader] 🌻🔥 -> Request
✑ After particularly rough sex with Matt, you find yourself lost in sub space and he takes care of you.
☽ Slipping Through My Fingers [matt murdock x teen!vigilante!reader] 💧 -> Request (Not a ship fic!) TW: Death.
✑ You get caught by yours and Matt’s enemies and he can’t save you.
☽ Naughty Girl [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥 -> Request
✑ Messing around with Matt at work leads to an unwelcome interruption and your naughty side coming out, which Matt is not happy with…
☽ Cruel Revenge [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥 -> Request
✑ Matt decides to mess with you at work this time when Foggy and Karen come to visit… (kind of a part 2 to Naughty Girl)
☽ Sweeter Than Fiction [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥 -> Request
✑ You decide to learn Braille and buy a rather… unconventional book to put your knowledge to the test, and Matt gets suspicious about why a book gets more attention than he does (and gets you wet)
☽ Just Let Me Love You [matt murdock x f!reader] 💧🫀
✑ You're struggling with your body image. Matt comforts you.
☽ Focus [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥 -> Request
✑ Matt blindfolds you after you ask him to show you what it feels like to experience an orgasm blind.
☽ Is It Over Now? [matt murdock x neutral!reader] 💧
✑ inspired by “is it over now?” by Taylor Swift. Matt cheats on you and you deal with your thoughts. Slight Frank Castle x Reader and Elektra x Matt. (Warning: Matt slander. This is from the POV of someone who had their heart broken. Beware.)
☽ New Year’s Day [matt murdock x neutral!reader] 🌻
✑ Inspired by many Taylor Swift’s discography. You recount your relationship with Matt as he asks you an important question on New Year’s Eve.
☽ Sensory Deprivation [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥 -> Request
✑ You help Matt focus after the world gets just a little too much.
☽ Up Against The Wall [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥
✑ PWP. You and Matt do it against the window after you pissed him off. That's it.
☽ Unicorns Need Love Too [matt murdock x f!reader] 🌶️ (semi-spice)🌻
✑ You’re ovulating, and your hormones are not taking it easy on you. Matt is there to help. Kind of. He’s a little shit.
☽ S.M.S [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥
✑ Soft Morning Sex with Matt Murdock.
☽ Interview With The Vampire [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥🧛💧
✑ You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. (…) As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.
⤹ ON-GOING SERIES:
☽ Foreigner’s God [matt murdock x fem!oc] 🪐 🌻 💧 🔥 ⇛ official tag is #foreigner’s god, if you want to search my profile! you should find all the chapters, previews, snippets, thoughts, etc. listed in chronological order.
☽ Total Eclipse Of The Heart [matt murdock x f!vampire!reader] 🔥🩸 ⇛ Part 1, 2, 3… ⇛ DARK FANTASY (dead dove do not eat) so you know what you’ll sign up for when you click the link. this shit filthy as hell. read at your own risk.
☽ Do No Harm [matt murdock x f!reader] 🌻 💧 🔥 ⇛ Doctor!Reader, slow-burn series
⤹ HEADCANONS:
☽ Going on vacation with Matt Murdock [matt Murdock x afab!reader] 🔥 🌻
✑ what it would be like to go on vacation with our dear Matthew and his heightened senses (he really loves us in this one)
☽ Totally random Matt Murdock headcanons that keep me up at night [matt murdock x reader] 🔥 🌻
✑ some headcanons (6, to be exact) that keep me up at night
⤹ THOTS & BLURBS:
☽ Going to Fogwell’s with Matt… [matt murdock x f!reader] 🔥
☽ Switch!Matt thots [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥
☽ False God By Taylor Swift Thot [matt murdock x reader] 🔥
⤹ EVENTS:
☽ Kinktober 2023 (Matt's Version) [matt murdock x afab!reader] 🔥
☽ Lizzi’s Valentine’s Special & Follower Celebration -> Introducing: The Vault 🔥 🌻 💧
#matt murdock#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock x you#matt murdock x oc#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock x gender neutral reader#daredevil#daredevil x reader#charlie cox#reader insert#matt murdock smut#matt murdock angst#matt murdock fluff
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Pinky Promise
~ This definitely ended up longer than I meant it to be but no regrets, Matt is so adorable in this.
~ Fluff, Angst but not really? More like play fighting. Reader is referred to as Matt's girlfriend but other than that gender neutral. WC: 1,939
~ Matt tells you he's Daredevil
You have been filled with anxiety all day after a text from Matt. This morning he asked you to come to his apartment as soon as you could after work. He wouldn't say anything else about it, just that it was very important.
Matt has a habit of not believing he deserves good things. Throughout your relationship, you have done everything in your power to prove him wrong. But still, when he says he needs to talk to you, about something really important, your mind falls to the worst-case scenario.
“Matty, I'm here.” You announce as you walk into your boyfriend's apartment.
“Oh hey, sweetheart.” He greets you at the door, as he always does. He is the perfect gentleman.
“Hi.” You let out, trying not to let your anxiety be too obvious. “What did you want to talk about?”
He opens his mouth to say something before immediately shutting it again. “I ordered some food. It should be here anytime.”
“Is there a reason you're trying to change the subject?” He grabs your hands and leads you over to the couch. Sitting down, he pulls you down onto his lap.
“No, I'm just letting you know. I know how you get about your food.”
“Mhm. And is that the only reason?”
“I have to tell you something.” Oh no. You know what this is about. This day had to come eventually.
“Okay, what is it?” You let out a soft sigh. It wasn't hard to figure out once you got together.
“I don't want you to be mad at me.”
“Matt I won't get mad, I promise.”
“How do you know?” His eyes show you how worried he is.
“Because I love you.” You grab his hand and lean into him more. “And unless you're about to tell me that you cheated, I won't be mad.”
“What! I would never!”
“I know, baby. It was just an example.” You almost laugh at the surprised expression that covers his face.
“Well, you know how I became blind.” He begins.
You were right, he's about to tell you he's Daredevil. Yes, you already know. For two reasons. One, a blind man can't do everything he does, the way he caught you when you fell on one of your dates, or the way he knows where things are without being told. Two, Foggy. He didn't mean to tell you but you had your suspicions and you may have tricked Foggy into secretly confirming for you.
Foggy has no idea what he said allowed you to know the truth and you never told him so he wouldn't feel bad about accidentally exposing his best friend's secret. You're not proud of it but your curiosity got the best of you.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Uhh, it did more than make me lose my sight.” You weren't able to confirm anything about the accident but if Matt is Daredevil then something had to have happened for it to be possible.
“What else did it do?”
“It heightened all of my other senses.” You squeeze his hand to encourage him to continue. “I can hear things from very far away and smell things better than normal.” No shit.
“How much better?” As much as you already know, there are a lot of specifics you still don't understand.
“I can smell what you have eaten all day, I can hear your heart beating and I can tell when you're making a face.” That's a lot more than you thought. “I can hear everyone in this building and mostly tell what they're doing.”
You immediately scramble off his lap.
“Did I weird you out?” The lace of sadness in his voice breaks your heart.
“No it's not you, I'm just weirdly aware of myself now.” You assure him. You don't know how to describe it like you're going over everything you did in the day to try and figure out what Matt can tell.
“You don't have to be, sweetheart. You're not the weird one here.”
“Matt, you're not weird. You're perfect. You can't control what happened to you or what it caused these senses. I don't know. You can smell me and hear me? It's just a lot.”
“That's not even the part I'm trying to tell you.”
“Matt, I have to be honest with you. I know.” You whisper.
“You know?” He asks in shock. “Know what?”
“That you're Daredevil.” Your voice grows even quieter.
“What? How?” He exclaims, standing up to meet you.
“I don't know. One day I was just thinking and kinda put it together!”
“When?” His voice booms around the small apartment.
“A few months ago. There was this clip of Daredevil on the news and he looked so familiar so I started thinking about the injuries you get, how you disappear at night, how you can catch me when I fall. It became really obvious and then..” You stop your rant, not wanting to expose Foggy. Even though he had no idea what the conversation was about, you still feel terrible.
“And then?”
“I may have tricked Foggy into confirming it for me.” Matt’s face quickly shows anger and disbelief. “I swear he has no idea I know anything, he didn't mean to confirm anything.”
“Why didn't you just ask me?” Is he serious right now?
“Because you never would've told me! We've been together for almost a year now and you're just now trusting me with this! I'm the one that gets to be pissed right now, not you!”
“Okay you're right I should have told you but I was just scared that..”
“No.” You hold your hand out and interrupt him. “I swear Matt, if the next thing you say is that you were protecting me, I will beat your ass.”
“That was one of the reasons, yes.” You step forward, fully intent on keeping your word. “Let me explain.” He smiles and pushes you away.
“Fine but it better be good.” You cross your arms and raise your eyebrows to show how serious you are.
“I wasn't just worried about your safety, I was worried that you would feel different about me. Maybe even leave me.”
“Matt, I love you. And I know you doubt yourself but I would never leave you for that. You could kill a million people and I wouldn't leave you.”
He gives you a very concerned look. “That's not good, we need to talk about that.”
“Eh.” You wave him off. “We need to talk about all this shit,” You move your hands over his body. “All this self-deprecating shit you do.”
“Oh well, I'm so sorry for believing you deserve the world.” He says as sarcastically as possible.
“Exactly. Think more like that.” You nod.
“I'm not gonna do that.”
“We are getting off topic.”
“Is there more to talk about?” You can tell he's worried about you knowing the details.
“We are one month away from our first anniversary and you're just telling me this now, that's not okay Matthew!”
“I know! I didn't want to wait this long but the more I thought about telling you the more I thought about losing you and I can't handle that.”
“Wait so why did you want to tell me today? Are you okay with losing me today?” You half-joke.
“No, because Karen told me if I didn't she would, and I know you should hear this from me.”
“Yeah you're right but this needed to happen forever ago!”
“I'm so sorry I didn't tell you, sweetheart, I know I should've. But out of curiosity, when would've been the best time to tell you?” He asks sincerely, sitting back on the couch.
“Why? Want advice for your next girlfriend?” You can't help but tease. Sitting back down on his lap.
“I'm never gonna have another girlfriend.”
“Oh yeah? And you're sure about that?”
“What does that mean?” He asks in fake concern, used to your teasing antics.
“I don't know. What do you think it means?”
“This isn't funny.” He says while he laughs. “I can't tell if you're mad at me or me.”
“Oh, I'm very mad.”
“About me being Daredevil?”
“No, Matty about you keeping it from me. What you do for people in danger is amazing. I love that you use your senses selflessly. I mean I hate the fact that you get hurt in the process but clearly, you can handle yourself.”
“You don't know how relieved I am to hear you say that.”
“I'm glad I could help. But seriously the next time you keep a secret like this for that long, we're over.” You make eye contact with him as you say this, needing him to know you're not joking.
“I promise I won't.”
“Good! Now onto that not having a next girlfriend thing?”
“Ugh, do we have to?” He leans back, making you yelp as you fall into him.
“Yes, we have to. I want to hear you say it.”
“It means I want to marry you.” You giggle at his words.
“I knew it, you're obsessed with me.”
“Does that mean you want to marry me too?” He asks hopefully. You almost feel bad for your next words.
“Hmm. I'll tell you next year.”
He runs his hands over his face. “You are not funny.” He says that but you can see the smile he's hiding.
Before you can respond, the doorbell rings. Perfect timing. “You keep a secret, I keep a secret.” You shrug and head to answer the door.
When you go back to the couch and set the food on the coffee table, Matt pulls you into him once again.
“Someone's touchy today.”
“Just happy you're not trying to beat my ass.”
“I would win.”
“Oh definitely.” You feel him smile on your neck. “Are you gonna make me wait another year to propose?”
“Sorry baby but you know I don't marry someone before the second year.”
“You're killing me y'know.” He groans loudly in your ear, making you lean away from his ticklish breath.
“Maybe your next girlfriend will marry you before the first anniversary.” You yelp again as he pulls you even further into him, using his strength to make sure you're as close as possible.
“Sweetheart you are the last girlfriend I'll ever have.”
“Oh, I know I am.”
“Oh god, what does that mean?”
“It means if you ever have another girlfriend I'll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“Haunt me? Are you dead in this scenario?” He asks in obvious confusion.
“Yes because I'm never gonna let you leave me.”
“I'm beginning to think you're a little crazy.”
“Crazy about you.” You wiggle your eyebrows.
“That was terrible.”
“That was amazing, I'm a great flirt.”
“Yes, you are.” He chuckles, in that amazing deep voice. “I'm sorry for not telling you sooner.”
“I'm sorry for not asking you directly and using Foggy.”
He holds his hand out to you, sticking out his pinky.
“What's this?”
“A pinky promise.”
“Oh, a pinky promise with the devil.”
“Stop that, I promise not to lie to you again and you promise to ask me things instead of tricking poor Foggy.”
“Okay fine. Pinky promise.” You link your finger with him.
“I love you.”
“Aww thank you.” You laugh at his surprised expression.
“Say it back.” He whines.
“I don't wanna.” You can't hide the smile on your face.
Matt takes a second to stop himself from smiling before making the biggest, most dramatic frown.
“Fine, I love you too.” You break out in giggles as he tackles you.
#matt murdock my beloved#matt murdock fluff#matt murdock imagines#matt murdock one shot#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock fic#matt murdock imagine#matt murdock reader insert#matt murdock x f!reader#matt murdock angst#matt murdock fanfic#matt murderdock x female reader#matt murdock fanfiction#matt murdock fics
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hi um so this is like my first time making a request, like ever. I’m not even sure if this is where I’m supposed to put a request. So I’m really nervous but this idea has been in my head for weeks and I need it to be brought to life? Idk but can I request Matt Murdock with a sort of shy reader? Where he tells her about his abilities and daredevil and everything (established relationship) and she doesn’t really care as long as he’s safe but she has something in her mind and he notices and keeps asking and basically she has a question about his senses, specifically his taste and idk if you know but Matt can canonically know ALL of the ingredients of anything just from a taste and she basically wants to make him taste a bunch of stuff and tell her the ingredients of it so she can make them? I know this is probably WAY too specific so feel free to completely ignore this, I just wanted to get it out.
hi my darling!
so I actually read this request right before going to the grocery store, and while I was looking through produce, it made me think about how matt would absolutely know which produce was the freshest and which ones to avoid. I kinda mixed that in with your idea about being able to tell exactly what ingredients were in something, and I hope this is close to what you were looking for! <3
warnings: tooth rotting fluff and matt being a lil shit
word count: 1.3k
lemons.
“Not that one.”
You hand instantly stilled over a lemon that your fingertips had already grazed over. Glancing at Matt over your shoulder, a crease formed between your brows while you looked back down at it.
“What do you mean? This one is perfect-”
“It’s not ripe enough.”
“But…it’s so yellow, like sunshine yellow.”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Matt’s lips when he felt the way your own pursed into a bit of a confused pout. It was something you always did when you were intensely focused on something, and he found it endearing. Reaching his hand out, he used the pad of his thumb to smooth away the furrow that had creased in the middle of your forehead, and his soft smile curled up into a light smirk catching the flush of heat that immediately coursed through the tops of your cheeks.
“Well, I’m sure it’s a very pretty lemon, but it doesn’t taste ripe.”
Ever since Matt had told you the truth about his vigilante identity and his abilities, you’d had countless questions. You wouldn’t voice them at first, almost as if you were afraid to cross some invisible boundary that Matt might have, but he knew you, and he knew how to dismantle that shy exterior of yours. From the moment the two of you first met, you had been overly polite and accommodating about his disability, but not in a way that made him uncomfortable. You didn’t walk on eggshells around him or call any extra attention to his blindness. In fact, the way you interacted with him was so seamless, it was almost like it came second nature.
If you guys were grabbing coffee with Karen and Foggy, you would automatically place the raw sugar packets within his reach because you knew he preferred it to the artificial sweeteners. If the four of you went to check out a new lunch spot, you always called ahead to check if they had a menu in braille and made sure Matt was given one. There were so many little things you did to make him feel included and normal. It was part of why he fell so hard for you.
You never asked about the origin of his blindness, and even after he opened up and told you about his accident, you were reserved with your questions. He could tell you were curious, and he wanted you to ask. He wanted you to know things about him. You were a bit of a wallflower, and Matt could always feel you silently observing him, but he wanted you to understand him. He quickly realized he would have to flat out grant you permission to be nosey, and so he did.
Out of everyone he had revealed his Daredevil secret to, you had taken it the best. He didn’t know if he would ever get over the surprise of just how well you handled it. You didn’t get angry or yell at him. You didn’t call him a liar or a traitor, or ask him if he was faking his blindness; all reactions he expected. You just sat there in pure confusion, and you were silent for so long, Matt was panicked that he’d sent you into a state of shock. When it finally settled in that it wasn’t a joke, your brows knit together, and Matt could feel the way your face contorted into an expression of irritation when you flat out asked him if he was crazy. The memory of that night never failed to make him smile.
“Um…well, I mean…not in the traditional sense-”
“Matthew, what the hell are you thinking running around on rooftops, going after guys with guns and knives with…sticks? How do you even do that?”
“They’re batons, actually. Look it’s hard to explain, but I have heightened senses that help me-”
“Are those super senses going to keep you out of prison? Because that’s where you’re going if you get caught. What was the point of going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for law school if you were just going to wind up a prison cell for doing backflips off buildings in your underwear?”
“Heightened senses. And it’s not underwear. Underwear is comfortable.”
There hadn’t been a hint of anger in your voice. Annoyance, sure, but mainly concern. All you wanted was for Matt to be safe, and he did his best to assure you that he would be. Matt went into as much detail as he could to help you understand his abilities, and the more comfortable you got with asking him things, the more you learned.
Like how he could tell exactly what ingredients were in the lemon bread at the cafe down the street from your apartment that you loved so much, which was currently the reason behind your little trip to the store at the moment. All it took was one bite of the bread, and he knew exactly how to replicate it.
Apparently he could also tell when lemons were at their peak.
Reaching into the pile of lemons, Matt grasped the one that was in perfect condition to him and held it out towards you. Taking the lemon in your hand, you gave it a light squeeze, noticing that it was firm to the touch but easily gave into the gentle force of your fingers testing its density.
“Feel the rind.”
Following Matt’s instructions, you brushed your thumb along the bright yellow rind. It was smooth to the touch, and somewhat glossy as it nearly reflected the brightness of the overhead lighting in the grocery store.
“It’s shiny.”
Matt chuckled at your response and lightly nodded his chin in your direction.
“What else?”
“It’s smooth.”
“It’s perfectly ripe. The zest on this one is the freshest. It has the most flavor, and the right amount of juice.”
Arching one of your brows, you stared up at Matt curiously while still faintly squeezing the lemon in your hand.
“You can tell how much juice is in this just by touching it?”
A grin stretched across Matt’s lips, showcasing his dazzling teeth and causing indents to appear in his cheeks. His thick brows rose slightly above the rim of his crimson glasses.
“Are you doubting me, sweetheart?”
“No I’m just…still trying to figure out how you do…what you do.”
A bashful twinge of heat coated your cheeks once again, and Matt thought it was adorable that you diverted your attention back to the lemon shyly to avoid his gaze even though he couldn’t see your reaction. He reached out to tenderly brush his knuckles along the warmth in your cheeks while he smiled in your direction.
“I’ll try to do better at explaining. Now c’mon, we have more ingredients to get. You know, I think this bread is gonna turn out so well, the one at the cafe might not meet your standards anymore.”
The confidence in Matt’s voice caught your attention, and you couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your lips. Sometimes you forgot that your boyfriend was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen that everyone was so afraid of. If only they knew that he spent his Saturdays sniffing out ingredients at the grocery store like a bloodhound to help his girlfriend recreate the recipe for her favorite lemon bread.
“You know, if you didn’t love law so much, you could’ve made out like a bandit in a baking competition.”
“Oh I would’ve won with my sob story of being a blind little Catholic orphan alone.”
“Matthew!”
Matt snickered at the disbelief in your tone, but he could also detect the way the edges of your lips twitched, like you weren’t sure if you should laugh at that or not. Snaking his arm around your waist, he pressed a light kiss to your forehead and gently nudged you in the direction towards the spice aisle.
“Come on, we need flour.”
tags: @yarrystyleeza @little-miss-dilf-lover @avengerstower-houseplant @mars-rants-a-lot @topperthornton @hailey-murdock @neverlandcity @charmedkim @queenofthenoobs @stilldreaming666 @mattymurdock1021 @bubuslutty @ninejlovebot @purrrfect @pennylovey @firesunflamed @oscarisaacsleftknee @ameliaswife @vane28282 @kmc1989 @messymissy @dark-academia-slut @strawberry1042 @utterlynuts
#matt murdock#matt murdock x you#matt murdock x reader#matt murdock x female reader#matt murdock x fem!reader#matt murdock x f!reader#matt murdock fic#matt murdock request#daredevil#daredevil fic#daredevil request
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