laters, gators !

That’s what gets you when you let yourself think about it. One foot out the door and then it’s suspended, neither finished nor undone, only held in place by the fact that your name is on a list somewhere. As an accomplice to Matt Murdock, who’s missing, and Daredevil, who’s wanted. 

You’re lying on your side as you have for the better part of an hour, staring at the measly water stain on the opposite wall. It’s shaped like Vermont, you think. At this point, whether that has anything to do with missing Karen is immaterial. 

Matt’s close to you enough that you could reach behind and touch him.

Go ahead, you think. Tell me you know I’m awake.

But you know he won’t. 

You’re not sure when exactly you stopped talking beyond logistics: there’s coffee, Karen called, I’ll be back late. Practical, reassuring things—all to spackle over addressing the elephant in the room. If there’s anything you can beat Matt at, it’s avoiding talking about difficult things.

Difficult things, being—

Foggy, who had the best laugh you’d ever heard in your life, who remembered how you took your coffee, who once broke the office’s frosted glass window with a softball. Foggy, who’s dead; Matt, who’s not, and you’re so glad Matt’s not dead that you can’t breathe sometimes, and there’s no other word for what you feel but resentment. You resent him for making you someone who has to feel this way every time he goes out. The slow strangulation of this. The fact that every time he leaves, you don’t know if he’s coming back. 

Even your unspectacular former life has become subject to rose-colored glasses as you crave to go back to an apartment with your things in it. A job. The option to get a sandwich without running the risk of getting dragged off by Task Force.

Instead, each time he comes back, you’re overtaken by such dizzying relief that you hate yourself for it. You don’t know how much of yourself is going to be left on the other side of this. 

If there is another side. 

Do these thoughts make you a horrible person?

There’s still some awareness that you’re being unfair. You know he’d undo it if he could. Analyzing it objectively would result in one conclusion: none of this is his fault. But there’s no space left over for foolishness to take over you now, which is to say—you know none of this can be undone, either. This is the life. Having allowed yourself to be hidden away in this fox den, you’ve made your choice, the price of which is this room, this silence. Vermont on the wall. 

You shift slightly, rolling back toward the center of the mattress.

“Matt,” you start. “Did anything— Was it clear?”

“Yeah,” comes the response. “Tonight was okay.”

Tonight you’re in a strange mood. Talkative rather than combative.

“I don’t know how you do it,” you say, even though you do. “Not the fighting. I mean, I don’t know how you just…” You trail off, hunting the end of that sentence, failing to find it.

Even though Vermont has fallen out of your line of sight, you wonder if Karen misses home. There were hollows under her eyes the last time she came by, when she’d hugged you long and hard before she left. Matt had gripped her shoulder, communicating something wordless and important to her. It wasn’t so much the exclusion that you felt, you supposed. What was it, then? That awful feeling? 

Being besides the point? Being pedestrian?

It’s only a matter of time until everyone comes to their senses and sees you for what you are. Burdening accessory to a mounting war. At some point, doing away with the deadwood will be necessary. 

“Sometimes I don’t,” he says, out of the blue. You remember that you’d been talking to him.

“Well, you always seem like you do.”

“I know.” He pauses to lick his lips. “I’m sorry.”

You close your eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I didn’t mean it as a– a criticism.”

“I know that too.”

What’s the point of talking when words are so limiting? So confusing? In an ideal world, you’d be able to transpose your thoughts onto him and vice versa, like a microscope slide clicking into place. Instant understanding at a blink of an eye. 

You can’t even be properly angry at him, you realize. At any time, he could get shot again, and then you’d have wasted all your time being cold to him.

Matt’s not one to disrespect you by reaching for you first though. So you close the distance instead. You press your forehead to his shoulder, and then into his neck. Bodies are so easy to fool; for a split second, all is well. The calculating static in your head is drowned out by a simpler rush of blood and emotion. Pleasing the starved animal within you: here, safe. We’re together. You feel the moment his own body melts to meet you in mutual surrender. He pulls you in and you go, his hand resting on your back. The knot in your throat clears so suddenly, and you feel yourself finally able to breathe.

There’s a Rolodex of thoughts in your head that you can choose to dignify by speaking them aloud.

Are you hurt?

If something happens to you I don’t think I’ll recover from it.

I hate that I love you this much in this life.

Instead, what you say is:

“I miss Foggy.”

Nothing new. And nothing false. 

Matt’s quiet for a long, long time. His hand stops its slow movement on your back.

“Yeah, me too,” he says. 

His hand slides off you like he’s resisting the urge to grab you back by the hem of your shirt. You hear the small sound he makes, somewhere between a sigh and a complaint. “Oh, come on,” he says, and there’s no bite to it. It’s whiny in that way that makes your chest go warm. “You were right there.”

“I’ll be right back,” you promise, already crossing the room.

“You’re lying,” he says, like you’ve done this to him a hundred times and he’s never recovered from it once.

You glance over your shoulder. “I am not.”

“You are,” he insists, voice low, the corners of it tipped toward a pout. “You’re going to forget about me. I’ll die.”

“Dramatic,” you call, stopping by the little record player like it’s a ritual. “You’ll be fine, Matthew.”

At the sound of his name, he settles back onto the pillow with a theatrical huff, but you can tell he’s listening in the way his breathing changes, in the way the room feels like it has a line drawn straight from you to him. You flip through the sleeves until you find the one you want, slide the vinyl out, set it down, and lower the needle with a careful hand.

The first crackle pops through the speakers, and then the music blooms into the space, warm and a little scratchy, like it’s been waiting all day for someone to remember it exists. You turn back toward the bed and catch him looking in your direction, head angled like he’s tracking you even without his eyes. His mouth is pressed into a line that’s trying not to be pleased, but it’s failing.

“See?” you say, walking back. “Now it’s nice.”

“It was nice before,” he replies immediately, like that’s the entire point. His hand lifts, palm up, inviting. “Come here.”

You climb back onto the mattress, but instead of settling down where you were, you scoot across the sheets and sit up, facing him. His hand finds your thigh, thumb rubbing slow circles like he’s soothing himself as much as you.

“You’re clingy today,” you say.

“I’m not clingy,” he says, offended on principle. Then he adds, quieter, like it slips out before he can stop it, “I just like you.”

Your smile turns into something softer. “That’s suspiciously close to being clingy.”

He shifts up on one elbow, leaning closer. “Sweetheart,” he says, and the word is gentle, not a performance. “I had you in my arms and then you left. You can’t do that.”

“I left to put music on,” you remind him.

“You could’ve done it from bed,” he argues, and you open your mouth to ask how exactly you’re supposed to reach across the room with your mind, but he’s already moving, pushing himself upright like he can’t take being separated by even the small distance of a few feet.

He swings his legs off the bed and stands, pausing for a second as if he’s listening to the record, counting the rhythm. Then he turns toward you, holding his hands out with a faint tilt of his head.

“You’re inviting me to dance?” you ask.

“I’m insisting,” he says, and even that sounds tender. “Come on.”

You slide off the bed and step into him, and his hands land on you immediately, one at your waist, the other finding your hand with sure confidence. He draws you closer until your bodies line up, chest to chest, and you can feel how warm he is through the fabric.

“You’re not even pretending you don’t want me close,” you murmur.

He huffs a laugh that vibrates against you. “Why would I pretend?”

The music carries on, slow enough that you don’t have to think about it, and Matt sways with you like it’s instinct. His hand at your waist shifts up and down, mapping you like he’s memorizing you again, and the other hand keeps yours anchored between you both. Every time you try to lean back even a fraction, he follows, pulling you in like the world is a little less sharp when you’re pressed against him. His mouth brushes your temple. “Better,” he says, almost to himself.

You tilt your head, trying to meet his face even though you know he doesn’t need it. “Better than what?”

“Better than you being over there,” he answers, like it should be obvious. His fingers squeeze your waist. “Better than you getting up.”

“You’re going to survive me putting on records,” you say, but your voice comes out quieter than you mean it to.

He draws back just enough to find your mouth, kissing you slow, not hungry so much as determined. His hands hold you like he’s making an argument with his touch, like he’s proving a point: stay, stay, stay.

When he breaks the kiss, he doesn’t move far. He rests his forehead against yours, breathing evenly. “Can we go back?” he asks.

You blink, a little dazed, and it takes you a second to understand what he means. “To bed?”

“Yes,” he says, like it’s the most reasonable request in the world. “Please.”

“We’re literally standing right next to it,” you point out, but you’re already smiling.

“That’s not the same,” he replies, and then he shifts his grip in a way that makes your stomach flip. One hand slides under your thighs, the other anchors around your back, and before you can protest, he lifts you easily.

You make a surprised noise, your hands flying to his shoulders as your legs automatically hook around his waist. His arms hold you like you weigh nothing, like you belong there.

Matt grins, and it’s all boyish satisfaction. “There,” he says. “Now you can’t go anywhere.”

“I could still get down,” you tell him, but you don’t sound convincing, and you both know it.

He takes two steps, turning you both toward the bed. Your bodies sway with the movement, and the record keeps playing like it’s cheering him on. He kisses the corner of your mouth on the way, quick and smug. “You won’t,” he says simply.

He backs you onto the mattress, lowering you carefully so you land on the sheets with a soft bounce, and he follows you down immediately. His weight settles over you in a way that’s warm, not crushing, his arms bracketing you like he’s building a shelter out of his own body.

Your legs are still around his waist, and he nudges closer until there’s no space left at all. His mouth finds yours again, slower this time, like he’s satisfied now that he’s gotten what he wanted.

When he finally pulls back, he stays close enough that you can feel his breath on your lips. “Happy?” you whisper.

His hand slides up your side and rests over your ribs, fingers splayed like he’s counting your heartbeat for fun. “Mm,” he hums, and he sounds calmer already. Then, softer, like he’s letting himself have it, he adds, “yeah. Much.”

The record keeps spinning in the background, crackling between songs, and Matt tucks his face against your neck as if the entire world can wait as long as you’re right here.

everything: @clxt-lamb1 @person-005 @bookoffracturedescapes @macbaetwo