Knee High Boots on a Swing

Disconnected. Always disconnected. 

All the extra noise inside of your head faded and muted up here. There was no mask to wear, no smile to fake, no fumbling through small talk. You didn’t have to constantly wonder what to do with your hands, or if your nervous laugh came out a little too often, or if you were talking too softly. You didn't have to explain or make excuses for yourself up here, you simply existed.

It’d never been lost on you that the only place you felt comfortable was somewhere that left you quite literally looking at the world from the outside in–sitting on the top of your apartment building staring down at Hell’s Kitchen below. While time stood frozen for you, everyone else was out there living their lives as time moved forward for them. Falling in love while on a date, or falling asleep after a long day of work. Drinking away the sting of heartbreak, or celebrating the excitement of a wedding proposal. Catching a flight for a business trip at the airport, or bringing a baby home for the first time.

Not you, though. It'd been months since you'd last gone out and celebrated anything with anyone, or felt as if there even was something worth celebrating. You had two best friends, but both of them were busy with their own families and reaching milestones that you felt like you’d only get to dream about. Occasionally you’d get invited out to grab drinks with your co-workers, and you'd awkwardly accepted a few times, but you knew the invitation was only ever given out of politeness and not a genuine desire for your company. Because that's what happened when you were the strange girl–you were never truly wanted. 

You didn’t fit in anywhere.

Growing up, you’d often wondered what was wrong with you. With the way you felt among your classmates, you'd always known that something was off with you even if you didn’t exactly understand why you were different. Now that you were older and more self-aware, you’d wondered how life could’ve been different if whatever that thing inside of you that was missing didn't separate you from everyone else. Maybe if your brain didn’t function the way it did, you wouldn't have spent every night for nearly the past month sitting on the ledge of your apartment building contemplating succumbing to gravity. Maybe everyday wouldn't be a constant game of pretend, a game which left you exhausted from a lifetime of playing it.

This world wasn't made for people like you. 

“You're crying.”

He materialized straight out of the shadows of the night itself, an odd feat he managed to accomplish every single time he visited you now that he was wearing his old black suit. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen had been iffy on the details about what’d happened to the other one that offered more protection, but you were too polite to push for details. 

He melted out of the darkness without a warning, returning tonight like a stray cat seeking out your company. He’d spent every single night sitting on the ledge of your apartment building with you as you stared down at the city, oddly showing up ever since that very first night you’d decided to sit up here. He came without fail except for last night, but last night he’d sent his surly friend in his place. 

“You're back,” you greeted him.

Daredevil lowered himself down to the ledge with a fluid grace you’d never achieve as he crouched to sit. Your eyes remained fixed on the lights of the traffic moving along the street below as he casually tossed both black booted feet over the side of the building and took his usual place next to you. The familiar and heady scent of his sweat mingled with the faint tinge of exhaust fumes and something slightly sweeter as you absently reached up, fingertips gently wiping away a few of the tears you hadn’t noticed snaking wet trails down your cheeks. 

“Of course I’m back,” Daredevil replied in that gravely tone, pitching his voice a little lower and huskier than its natural register. “I apologize for my absence last night, but I didn’t leave you entirely alone.”

A soft snort met his apology. “No, you sent your friend, Frank,” you said, hand lowering to your lap. “An interesting choice of company.”

“I imagine he gave you reason number five?” the Devil inquired. 

Almost a week ago, Daredevil had decided to personally undertake what you deemed an absurd initiative to bring you what he called Reasons Not to Give Up. You’d flatly dubbed them Reasons Not to Go Splat, but he wasn’t particularly fond of hearing you call them that. 

So far he’d brought you a handful of fragrant daylilies from one of the nearby parks as a reminder about the beauty in nature, which you’d found entertaining since he’d illegally plucked them himself just for you. He’d also shared a recording on his cheap flip phone of a cellist he greatly enjoyed overhearing practicing at night, and a slice of what he claimed was the best pizza in all of Hell’s Kitchen–which he hadn’t been wrong about. He’d even brought you a ridiculous rubber chicken that looked like the Statue of Liberty and sounded like a foghorn, and it’d brought the biggest smile to your face in months. 

Last night when his friend Frank had come to join you along your spot on the rooftop, he’d brought you the comfort of not being alone–or so he said that's what Daredevil forced him to say. Though Frank had also brought you a slew of interesting and highly amusing complaints and anecdotes about his nights out with Daredevil, which you’d enjoyed surprisingly just as much as his company. 

“You really don’t need to keep doing this,” you told him. Watching one of the city buses as it slowed to a stop at a red traffic light, you wiggled your bare toes in the open air. “I know you have far more important things to be doing than sitting with a weird stranger on a rooftop every single night. Don’t you need to sleep?”

“You stopped being a stranger a long time ago,” the masked man told you. “Besides, you’re not weird. And no, not really. I don’t have the best relationship with sleep.”

“You and me both,” you muttered.

Out of your peripheral, you caught sight of something moving towards you, and the smell of sweetness tickled your nose. Glancing down, you saw the Devil’s gloved hand gently nudge your right arm with a little plastic to-go container. Inside of it sat a single red velvet cupcake topped with a perfect glob of chocolate frosting with two little devil horns peeking out of the sides of it.

Teeth sinking into the flesh of your bottom lip, you felt a grin threatening to break out across your face. He’d brought you a Daredevil cupcake. There was a bakery a few blocks from your apartment that had nearly been broken into the other week, but Daredevil had stopped the attempted robbery before the culprits had caused much damage to the storefront. In honor of his valiant efforts protecting the business, Delia’s Bakery had made Daredevil cupcakes special in the days since. They'd even been featured in a small article in The Bulletin.

“Your namesake cupcake?” you questioned. “You brought me a Daredevil cupcake?”

The Devil’s covered head cocked to the side, the black fabric of his mask hiding most of his face as your gaze flicked up to him. The wide grin on his pretty mouth was contagious, and your lips pulled free from your teeth until you were smiling stupidly back at him. Somehow he always managed to disarm you.

“Is it?” he playfully asked. “I couldn’t see what I picked out earlier.”

You rolled your eyes at him, having endured the repeated blind jokes that he’d made at his own expense ever since he’d revealed to you the shocking surprise that Daredevil was actually blind two weeks ago. It’d stemmed from you explaining to him that you were autistic and how the world felt so full of everything that it often overwhelmed you–the bustle of people, the rush of cars, the tall buildings closing in on you, the bright lights of the city giving you headaches, and the constant noise and onslaught of smells mixing together. It was an entire ordeal for you to leave your apartment and manage all of that while trying to act like you were just like everyone else, and it weighed on you every single day. A simple trip to the grocery store risked a panic attack some days.

You’d expected Daredevil to judge you after you’d revealed your big secret to him–that you were on the spectrum. You assumed that he’d suddenly look at you like there was something wrong with you, or that he'd talk down to you like being autistic somehow meant that you’d abruptly dropped a significant chunk of intelligence and were now the equivalent of a child. That was usually what happened when you admitted you were neurodivergent.

But he didn’t do any of that. Instead he’d revealed a secret of his own. He'd confessed that Daredevil was blind. Not only that, but apparently an accident when he was young had blinded him yet enhanced all of his other senses, meaning he also struggled with overstimulation in a way that sounded like absolute torture to you. He’d assured you that he’d long since learned how to manage his heightened senses and how they could sometimes overwhelm him, but it meant that he also understood how you felt.

You'd never met someone else who could relate to you like he did. You liked knowing that he understood what it felt like for your chest to tighten and your heart rate to accelerate just because there were too many voices in a room, or that sometimes it was difficult to breathe just because you were cramped in the corner store checkout line between shelves and people. Your friends never understood even if they tried, but Daredevil did.

“Here,” he urged, nudging you with the plastic container again. “Reason number six.”

“Diabetes?” you joked.

“No,” he said. “The simple pleasure of enjoying something you like.” He tipped his masked head at the container as you awkwardly accepted it from him. “I remember you mentioning the other week that you have a fondness for red velvet cupcakes. I thought you might like this one.”

Throat growing tight at the small, thoughtful gesture, you gingerly held the little plastic container in one hand as your other gripped tighter onto the rooftop’s ledge, keeping you balanced. The prickle of tears burned at the back of your eyes sharp enough for you to notice the sting as you stared down at the lone cupcake, the sugary scent of vanilla and cocoa settling over you. Before you could blink it back, another tear snuck its way from the corner of your eye, slipping its way down your cheek and dripping off the tip of your chin before landing on the lid of the container with a quiet splat.

“What is it?” the Devil pried.

Sniffling lightly, you tried to dismiss his question with a swift shake of your head. Your emotions sat like a ball lodged in the back of your throat, and you quickly felt yourself becoming swallowed up by the intensity of them. You didn’t understand why he kept coming back to visit you every single night, or why he’d sent his friend when he couldn’t make it last night, or why he kept bringing you all of these little, thoughtful gifts. 

The only thing that made sense was that Daredevil felt responsible for you because you lived inside of Hell’s Kitchen. He protected the entirety of this part of the city, and you assumed that must’ve included those tempting fate on the edge of a rooftop. 

Yet his visits had become increasingly confusing to you. You’d started to think of him as a friend, but you knew that was stupid. He was a masked vigilante who patrolled the streets and protected its people. You were just some high risk idiot always dangling off the side of an eight story building wallowing in self-pity. Daredevil was your babysitter, not someone who’d call to ask how your day was or invite you out to catch up over a cup of coffee. Yet you desperately wished that’s what he could be, because Daredevil was the first person who’d ever made you feel like maybe you could actually fit somewhere for once.

He said your name softly, the sound of it barely breaking through the racing thoughts in your mind. A hollowness seeped into your chest, sucking everything into it like a sinkhole devouring your insides. Your tongue pressed firmly against the roof of your mouth as you tensed, shaking your head again at his attempt to get you to speak. You simply couldn’t.

You felt stupid suddenly shutting down like this on him, but you couldn't stop the way your mind decided it had no idea how to handle the agonizing disappointment of realizing how he probably perceived you. Tears bloomed in your eyes as your fingers tightened around the little plastic cupcake container, accidentally smooshing some of the frosting onto the lid, but you couldn’t find the words to express yourself right now. You wanted to run back into your building and go hide beneath the covers of your bed like you were six years old all over again.

If only you were different. If only you could better play at the lie that you were like everyone else. If only you really were normal instead of this chaotic mess. 

“Okay, that's fine. We don't need to talk,” Daredevil soothed. “How about I just walk you away from the ledge?” he offered. 

He slowly rose back up onto his feet beside you, moving cautiously so that he wouldn't startle you. That only made you feel even more foolish. Why the hell couldn't you just be normal? What was so hard about having a conversation? 

“Let's get up,” he said calmly, “and I can walk you back over to the rooftop door when you’re ready to go back inside.”

You nodded stiffly in assent, allowing his gloved hands to secure themselves around your upper arms. Carefully he helped you back up onto your feet, gradually turning you towards him before he gingerly guided you away from the edge of the building until he was comfortable with your distance from it. 

He kept a gentle, comforting grip on your biceps when he drew you both to a stop, almost as if he knew the exact pressure to use to keep you grounded while your mind disconnected itself from your body. Your heart erratically thundered inside of your chest, and the tears fell a little faster, steadily streaming down your cheeks as the chilly evening wind stung the wet-streaked skin. 

Normally your nights with the Devil ended with you growing tired and eventually deciding that tonight was not the night to teeter forward and play the backup plan in your back pocket for when life felt too daunting. You’d never actually frozen on him before because you’d become overwhelmed trying to process the conflicting signals he’d been sending you over these past few weeks.

“Sorry,” you bit out, embarrassed as your fingers squeezed around the plastic container even harder.

What you really meant was: I’m sorry that I’m a burden and that I’ve gone and made more of this entire situation between us than I was supposed to, I just don't know how to properly make sense of what's going on here or navigate normal social situations like everyone else. But you didn’t quite know how to put all of that into words.

“Don’t,” he urged. “Don’t apologize for who you are. Just take your time, I'm right here.”

You caught the firm shake of his masked head when he’d spoken as you stared at his black boots, your teeth gnashing unconsciously along your lower lip as your left hand continued curling and uncurling into a fist. The embarrassment alone was motivation enough for you to focus on trying to slow your thoughts just so that you could reach a point where you could tell him goodnight and dart back inside to the safety of your apartment and away from the complicated and unexpected situation here on the rooftop.  

Unfortunately, it took you five painful, drawn out minutes before you could manage that.

Matt’s fingers were casually wrapped around the inside of Foggy’s elbow as he walked, the stiff material of his best friend’s suit a scratchy nuisance against his hand, but he’d chosen to ignore the extra sensory input. His senses were focused on other things this morning as Foggy held open the door to a coffee shop that sat an inconvenient two blocks away from Nelson, Murdock, and Page.

“I really need to stop enabling you, Murdock,” Foggy mused. 

A delighted grin tugged itself across Matt’s lips as he followed Foggy inside On the Horizon Coffee, having successfully convinced Foggy to tag along with him for yet another morning visit. As Matt stepped off the sidewalk outside which currently bustled with the usual morning foot traffic, the noise inside of the small shop intensified. So did the strong aroma of coffee and a multitude of flavored syrups and sugary sweet baked goods. Foggy guided him towards the long line behind the counter to order, and Matt’s index finger tapped an impatient rhythm against the folded cane in his left hand. 

“You need to become fixated on a girl who frequents coffee shops near our place of business instead,” Foggy continued. “Or just, you know, go talk to her already.”

“I have talked to her,” Matt distractedly replied. 

Half his attention was focused on sifting through the commotion of the coffee shop, trying to search it for a trace of your presence. It was never a guarantee that you’d be sitting here drinking a coffee, but every once and awhile he’d get lucky and catch a sign of you before you disappeared for work. You often sat in the far back corner, tucked up against the window with your head bowed over a book and earbuds in your ears as you tried to block out the noise of the coffee shop.

He’d gradually begun to understand you better after you’d confided in him the other week that you were on the spectrum. It hadn’t actually surprised him at all despite how nervous you'd sounded when you’d shared the information with him. Your body had always read differently to his senses, and you weren’t the only one he’d ever picked up on that from. It was actually why he'd noticed you that first time he'd come to this coffee shop to meet with one of his clients. 

You'd sounded panicked and terrified, your body radiating unusual levels of fear for someone who was just drinking coffee and reading. He could still recall the sharp, acrid tang of it on his tongue. It'd caught Matt’s attention, distracting him from his meeting as he unprofessionally fumbled his way through it. He'd worried that something was wrong, but when your adrenaline and cortisol eventually lowered a fraction after you'd gotten absorbed into whatever book was in front of you, Matt realized it was just your anxiety that he'd picked up on.

That was how he'd found you on the top of your building. He'd recognized the uneven pattering of your heartbeat and it'd drawn him straight to you when he'd been heading home for the night. He could still hear your sad voice from that first night telling him that you’d went to the rooftop because just knowing there was another option if the world ever became too much was a comfort to you. But it broke part of Matt to learn that the curious girl he’d discovered in the coffee shop weeks ago was the same one spending her nights on a rooftop feeling such overwhelming shame over who she was that she let her teardrops quietly fall one-hundred and fifteen feet to the ground while she contemplated tossing away something so precious every single night. 

“I meant as you you and not the other you,” Foggy corrected. 

He caught onto the familiar, slightly elevated heartbeat across the coffee shop at the same time that the line shuffled forward. Foggy leaned over towards Matt, his voice lowering as he noticed exactly what Matt just had.

“Your girl is here,” Foggy informed him. “In her usual spot by the window.”

Something eased in Matt’s chest at knowing that you were here, especially after how you’d reacted to him delivering you that cupcake last night. He hadn’t meant to upset you, and he wasn’t entirely certain what he’d done wrong with bringing it. He’d hoped to hear the smile in your voice and maybe weasel a few jokes out of you along with a small laugh before you’d gone back inside for the night.

He loved your laugh. He'd become enamored with it the second he’d heard it, which he remembered had been on the third night that he’d stopped by to sit with you on the rooftop. He couldn’t remember the joke that’d pulled it out of you at this point, but he hadn’t forgotten the way your laughter had danced across the wind and echoed against the steel buildings of the city. Truthfully, it was the reason why he’d brought you that rubber chicken the other day, and he’d been rewarded with his favorite sound multiple times that night. Despite the criminals he’d fought as Daredevil on the streets that entire week, the sound of your laughter trilling through the night had felt like his biggest accomplishment.

“What’s she reading?” Matt whispered back.

Foggy shifted beside Matt, craning his neck as he tried to get a view of the cover of your book from across the coffee shop. Moments like this were one of the few rare times where he genuinely cursed his own limitations. None of his heightened senses could ever tell him what book you were so absorbed within the pages of as you drank your latte. 

“I can’t see,” Foggy said. “But she’s got purple nail polish today.”

A pleased smile stretched across Matt’s mouth as he tried to imagine you painting your nails. He wondered which night you’d done that. Had it been before or after the rubber chicken? Because he swore he'd felt the tension completely melt out of you that night. You’d relaxed around him fully, no longer giving Matt the impression that you were a second away from disappearing on him but instead warming to his presence. 

“You should go introduce yourself this time,” Foggy encouraged. “Go talk to her. I think she’d like that.”

“But then she’d know who I am,” Matt countered. 

“So? Your point is?” Foggy demanded as the line inched forward again. “Need I remind you that you once said, and I quote, ‘She’s the only one who’s ever merged both Matt Murdock and the Devil so wholly.’”

The corner of Matt’s mouth dipped downwards as Foggy repeated his words verbatim back at him. He had in fact said that exact line just last week.

“But what if she doesn’t like both sides when they merge for real?” Matt protested. “What if she doesn’t like who I am beneath the mask?”

Foggy’s hand came down with a light smack on Matt’s shoulder, the impact causing Matt to frown. He could hear the air shift as Foggy turned to face him more fully, Matt’s fingers still loosely gripping the inside of his friend’s elbow.

“Well then buddy, it sounds like you’d relate to her exact same daily struggle,” Foggy stated. As he continued, he leaned forward and kept his voice low so as not to attract the attention of the others in the line. “You said that she feels like she wears a mask whenever she steps outside her apartment, afraid of what people might think of who she actually is beneath it. I think she can relate to that better than most, man. And maybe you should actually go introduce yourself to her before she…”

Foggy’s voice abruptly trailed off, and Matt’s frown deepened as he caught the faint pull of muscles on his best friend’s face when he winced. He knew what Foggy had been about to say without him needing to give voice to it. He should introduce himself to you before maybe one night you really did lose that razor thin battle you tortured yourself with on top of your building and Matt no longer had the opportunity. 

While the city had long ago begun calling him The Man Without Fear,  Matt had suddenly acquired a singular fear that’d haunted him over these past few weeks. He was terrified that the one night he didn’t show on your rooftop might be the one night that you lost that battle. Which was why he’d sent Frank the other night, pleading with him to check on you and just keep you company because he couldn’t make it himself that evening. 

“It sounds like she could use a few friends,” Foggy recovered, clearing his throat. “Why don’t we just get a coffee and go say hello? Just a few words. Then maybe when you run into her tonight,” Foggy continued, pulling Matt forward with him as the line moved yet again, “you can give her reason number seventeen or whatever and tell her the truth. Invite her out to Josie’s with us some night after.”

Matt’s brows drew together behind his glasses at the suggestion. “You want me to invite her to Josie’s?”

“Yeah,” Foggy said, bobbing his head. “Or if she’d be more comfortable, invite her to our office for Friday Night Pizza.”

“We don’t have a Friday Night Pizza,” Matt countered.

“Au contraire, Murdock,” Foggy playfully disagreed, raising a singular finger in the air. “We always stay far too late at the office on Friday nights and end up ordering pizza while we try to cram as much work as we can into a few hours, but it always derails into Friday Night Pizza where we sit around the front desk and accomplish nada.”

A grin cracked itself through Matt’s frown. He hadn’t exactly realized it, but that did happen every single Friday night lately. It’d become so much of a routine to him that he hadn’t really noticed it was now a “thing” that the three of them did.

“You want me to invite her to the office?” Matt skeptically clarified. “For pizza?”

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed. “Karen and I feel like we’ve already gotten to know her through all your creepy stalking–”

“I’m not stalking her,” Matt firmly denied.

“–and we’ve been wanting to get our chance to meet her,” Foggy continued, undeterred by Matt’s interruption. “I think she’d fit in great with us misfits. Not that, you know, she’s a misfit or anything.”

With a heavy sigh, Matt’s head shifted a fraction over his shoulder back in your direction. He threw his senses out towards where you sat in the corner by the window, catching how fairly calm your heartbeat sounded as you flipped a page in your book. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to go over there and say hello this morning, and he’d admittedly been getting the urge to reveal his identity to you for the past few days. 

“I just think she’d round out our group,” Foggy finished. “And you’re clearly obsessed with her.”

Matt’s attention returned to Foggy beside him, the smile fading from his lips. “I’m not obsessed,” he disagreed. “I just…like her.”

“So then go do your Matt Murdock thing and stop being afraid to talk to her,” Foggy replied. “We’re not college freshmen anymore, man. Put your big boy pants on. Let’s go make a new friend today.”

“Fine,” Matt relented. “Fine, we’ll go say a quick hello. But if we freak her out, we’re leaving.”

The rush of excitement that hit Foggy the second Matt agreed was palpable in the air. When his best friend pumped his fist upwards while simultaneously dragging him towards the register to order, Matt couldn’t stop the chuckle from rumbling out. He felt lighter on his feet than he had in weeks just from finally agreeing to approach you, so he didn’t even care when he heard Foggy muttering something about Frank owing him twenty dollars for getting him to finally agree to talk to you.

All that mattered was that Matt would get to hear your pretty voice this morning.