Karedevil prompt: I loved your "Daddy Lessons" fic, so this is kinda/sorta in the same vein; Karen has a pregnancy scare but when it turns out she's not, both she and Matt are a lot more disappointed than they thought they'd be.
I’ve been putting this one off for a while, because I couldn’t quite get it right, but I think we could all use some lightness after the Defenders.
That said, there are no spoilers for it. This was mostly written before it aired, so if you haven’t watched it, you’re clear.
Please forgive any mistakes. I just finished writing it, and I’m not in a big editing mood.
Hope you enjoy.
Positive
Matt wakes up when he can’t feel her in bed by his side. After making sure she wasn’t there, he touches his alarm. Almost four in the morning.
He gets up, alert, when his quick sweep tells him she’s not in the apartment. He’s already on fight mode, scanning the place and the hallways and the streets around, when he locates her. On the roof, of all places.
He’s barefoot, his sweatpants barely on when he climbs the stairs and rushes to her. She’s fine, at least physically, but she’s crying.
“Karen”, he calls, half desperate already, when he reaches the roof. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?”
“Oh!”, she says, turning to him, placing her hands on top of his when he touches her face, her arms, looking for something. “No, I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s nothing, I didn’t mean to wake you, I’m sorry.”
“Why are you crying?” he asks, wiping her tears away, still looking for something, trying to figure it out, his senses alert to the world around them, trying to locate a threat. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry, I’m fine, I promise, I promise.”
When he comes up with nothing, he relaxes a bit, his hands still on her face.
“You’re not fine”, he says, finally. “You wouldn’t be crying on the roof in the middle of the night if you were. What’s going on?”
There are still tears coming down her face while she looks at him.
“I-”, she starts, but interrupts herself. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“I am worried. Please tell me what’s happening.”
Sniffing, she places her hands on his chest.
“Did someone come after you?”
“No, no, nothing like that. It’s… I think…”
He runs his hands up and down her arms, trying to comfort her.
“What?”
“I think I might be pregnant.”
Two things happen: first, he is washed with a warm flood of relief, because she’s not in danger. Second, he is almost paralyzed by her words, his brain going so fast it comes up with nothing useful for a good ten seconds.
“Matt?”
Finally, he sighs, wrapping her in his arms.
“Don’t scare me like that, please.”
“Sorry”, she whispers, hugging him back.
“Um…” he starts, and she moves back to look at his face. He tries to school his expression into a soothing one. “You- you think? You’re not sure?”
“No”, she shakes her head. “I’m late. But that’s not uncommon, so I didn’t think much of it at first. But it’s been two weeks, and today I almost gagged at the egg salad someone left in the fridge at work.”
“You didn’t, uh… Take a test, or anything?”
“I bought one, but, I don’t know, I guess I’ve been too scared to take it.”
Another tear comes down and he reaches to clean it up.
“You should have told me sooner”.
Karen sniffs.
“I didn’t want to worry you, maybe it’s nothing.”
“But what if it is… Something? What if you are really pregnant?”
When he says it, she starts crying all over again, and he pulls her back into his arms.
“Hey, hey, listen. It’s ok. Listen to me. We’ll figure it out, it’s gonna be fine.”
“I wanted to tell you only when I was sure”, she says, sobbing lightly, and the freaking out about to happen inside him has to wait.
While he stands there holding her, he takes a minute to think about it. If she really is pregnant, it’s not gonna be easy. None of them are equipped, in any way, to have a baby in a few months. They’re gonna have to make some changes, big changes, fast. He’s not entirely sure he knows how to do this, if he’s capable of doing this.
On the other hand, it’s not the worst thing in the world. He had entertained the idea of having a kid, years ago, but, every day a little more, he walked further away from what he thought a good father should be. Dressing up as the devil and beating up criminals was not, exactly, things that would make it safe for him to welcome a child into the world.
“Come on”, he says, kissing her temple. “Let’s go inside.”
“Do you- Do you want me to take the test?”
He pulls her by the hand and squeezes it a bit.
“Not if you’re not ready.”
“Ok”, she sighs, and his heart tightens at how relieved she sounds. “Thank you.”
He guides her back to bed, and holds her against him. Neither of them, he realizes after a few minutes, will be able to fall asleep anytime soon.
“How would you feel?” she whispers in the silence. “If I really am pregnant?”
“I don’t know”, he answers honestly after a few seconds. “It’s been a long time since I thought about having a kid.” He runs his fingers up and down her back. “What about you?”
She takes a little time to respond.
“I never thought of myself as the mom kind. I’m not sure.”
They lied there on his bed, both wide awake, thinking.
“Would you want me to keep it?” she asks suddenly. “If the test comes back positive?”
He blinks, startled by the question.
“Well. You know I’m a catholic.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, it is. But… I’d also never ask you to do something you weren’t comfortable with. I’d never force you to go through with it just because-”
“No”, she interrupts. “No, I- I think I’d want to keep it, too.”
He smiled up the ceiling, not really knowing why.
“Ok. That’s one decision down. How many to go?”
Karen falls asleep before him, and her breathing lulls him eventually. He dreams of holding things too tight, but then not tight enough.
.:.
When Karen wakes up, she is feeling somewhat better.
Knowing that Matt won’t freak out eases her mind a bit. But she should have known, what with all the meditating and the lawyer thing and all the martial arts, he’s pretty level headed.
She wakes up and he’s still asleep, his arm thrown around her, hand on her belly. She wonders if it was an accident.
What if she is pregnant? Would that be the worst thing?
Sure, she was not planning for a kid, nor was she preparing for one. At all. Her life was not, in any way, suited for a child.
How would they raise it? Where would they raise it? Would they want to leave New York? Stay in Hell’s Kitchen? Would they even be able to afford it?
“I can hear you thinking”, he says, suddenly, behind her. Glad he was awake, Karen turns around to face him.
“I’ve been doing that a lot”, she whispers back.
“Let me think with you.”
Sighing, Karen places her hand on top of his on her belly.
“Let’s say I really am. We would have to do a lot of change.”
“Like what?”
“Like… I don’t see how a baby would fit in my apartment. Or your apartment, for that matter.”
“A baby is tiny.”
“Yeah, but they come with a lot of shit, Matt. A lot of shit. There has to be a nursery to fit the crib, the clothes, the diapers, the changing station, a stroller, toys-”
“Ok, ok, I get it. There’s a lot of shit.”
Breathing deep, she nods.
“Ok, so we’ll get a new place.”
“Can we afford a new place?”
“You forget your baby daddy is a lawyer. A damn good one at that”, he says, smiling because she’s laughing at the term “baby daddy”. “Trust me, I can get us a good place. You would just have to chose a good one and I’d get it for you.”
Feeling better, she decides to agree with that. Maybe let him take the lead on some stuff.
“Ok.”
“What’s next?”
“Hmm… I guess… Would you like a boy or a girl?”
That pulls a smile out of him, honest and open, and she finds herself smiling in return.
“I don’t know. I think I’d like a mini you. A little trouble maker raising hell wherever she goes.”
“Or a mini you. A tiny ninja dressed in red, beating bad kids up. You could train him to be just like you.”
“Oh, I’ll do that either way. But not exactly like me. Hopefully we’ll be able to raise them as a normal person.”
“Normal is boring.”
“Ok. Slightly weird, just like us.”
Slowly, he makes her feel better. They could figure this out.
“What about names?” he asks while picking a tie for the day.
“Isn’t it a little early to think about that?”
“Hmm. Maybe you’re right. Which one?”
“Right hand”, she picks, zipping her skirt up.
“Would you be ok with baptizing her?” he asks as they exited the building, ready to face the day.
“I don’t see why not. And ‘her’?”
He shrugs, holding her hand as they walk down the street.
“Maybe I’m partial to a girl.”
They walk together to the bakery they usually get coffee, but, today, Karen orders tea. He kisses her goodbye when she has to turn a different corner to go to work, and it’s a little bit harder to let go than usual.
“We’ll have lunch, yeah?” he asks and she nods, sharing his need to be together, at the moment.
Lunch comes and they meet at a small restaurant near his office (the new and improved Nelson and Murdock).
“Foggy would be her godfather”, he muses while they wait for their food.
“And Claire for godmother”, she completes. “I’d feel very safe with that choice. But also… Maybe Trish?”
They eat and talk about what life would be like if they were, indeed, expecting a child.
After work, he picks her up, smiling at her when she exits the building, for once clocking out with the rest of her colleagues.
Once home, when they’re already in bed (there would be no Daredevil-ing tonight), he lies with his ear to her stomach, trying to hear something, anything, different.
“No, I can’t get anything”, he says, finally.
“Well, thank God. It would be weird if you did.”
It was close to midnight when she sits up.
“Ok. Ok, I think I’m gonna take the test, now.”
Matt tries not to pace, but she can tell he’s restless.
“I actually bought two”, she says before the time was up to the result of the first one. “Should I take it, too?”
Yeah, I think you should”, he says in a hurry and she walks back into the bathroom.
One comes out positive. One comes out negative.
Karen sits on the couch with her head in her hands, face hidden, legs shaking.
“We’ll take a blood test tomorrow”, he decides, crouching in front of her, hands taking hers from her head, making her sit up. “We’ll be fine, we’ll know tomorrow.”
She sighs, upset that they didn’t know yet, and he pulls her up for them to go to bed.
“We’ll have to figure out which schools we like pretty quick”, he says to the ceiling, rubbing her back, trying to soothe her enough for her to sleep.
“Didn’t you grow up here? I thought you would know.”
“My school was very shitty. I’d want a better one for her.”
“There you go again”, she says, and he hears the smile. “Her.”
“Mini-Karen”, he muses, closing his eyes, picturing a small little thing giving him trouble.
.:.
“Matt”, she whispers above him, a light hand on his chest, trying to wake him gently.
It almost works. He fell asleep thinking about where he would like to raise a kid, in Manhattan, a nice place with space for them to play. He grips Karen’s hand when he wakes up, trying to sit up, alert, but she presses on his chest to keep him down.
“Is everything ok?” He asks, relaxing back, still holding her hand on his chest.
“Uh, yeah. Listen. I’m not pregnant”, she says as softly as she can.
Fully awake now, he focuses on her.
“You’re not? Did you-”
“I got my period. Not pregnant.”
They stay still for a moment, that information settling in their brains and, it seems, in the room around them. After a few seconds, Matt sits up, pulling her into a hug, and she lets out a long breath, her arm around him.
“That's… That’s good, right?” He asks, feeling strange, feeling… he doesn’t really know.
“I mean”, she starts, sitting by his side, and he notices her hair is washed, she’s been up for a while. “Yes. Isn’t it? We’re not really equipped to have a kid. We never talked about it, we never even… I mean, that’s a huge step for a couple. Would we be ready for something like that?”
She lies down again by his side, and her question was immediately answered inside him: yes.
“Well”, he turns towards her, glad it was the weekend, glad they didn’t really have to get up right away. “I don’t know about you, but if I had to have a kid, I’d want it to be with you.”
She shakes her head, but that smile is there, pulling at the corners of her lips.
“Sweet talker.”
“It’s true, though.”
His forehead is pressed against hers and he runs his hand up and down her back.
Her arm around him, she moves her head to press a kiss on his lips.
“Me too.”
It’s strange. He should feel relieved, and he is. A kid out of the blue like that can be a lot of trouble, and it’s not like he doesn’t have enough of that already.
Still. That little, small, tiny part of him is getting bigger. The part that considered how nice it would actually be, to have a small version of both of them running around, calling him daddy, calling her mommy, learning how to walk and talk and then, when they’re a little older, learning to fight. He would teach her - or him - everything he knows, he would teach his kid to be better than he is, he would work every single day of his life to be a good father.
He wants to be a father.
He wants to be a father and he wants Karen to be his kid’s mother. Suddenly, he wants it more than anything in the world.
When he wakes up the next morning, he hears her in the bathroom, washing her face, but when she picks up the towel, he can smell the tears.
He’s up in a second, walking out of the bedroom, opening the bathroom door.
“Karen”, he says, and she mistakes his urgency for concern.
“It’s nothing.”
He knows what it is. He felt her running her hand over her own belly last night, felt how restless she was when she was supposed to be relieved.
“Karen, listen”. Matt grabs her hands and turns her towards him, feeling excited, feeling scared, feeling nervous that she’s gonna think he’s crazy. “Let’s do it.”
Karen blinks at him and her hands tighten around his.
“Wh-what?”
“Let’s do it. Let’s have a kid.”
She looks at him for a second or two, stunned, and then a sudden huff of laughter comes out of her, she looks away, but then looks back at him, blinking.
He wants to try and convince her. He wants to ask what she thinks. He wants to stop and really think about this. He wants a lot of things, so he does nothing. Just stands there, holding her hands, waiting.
Matt hears it when she decides. Her heartbeat picks up a bit, she bites her lower lip and leans forward, kissing him softly, a press of her lips on his.
Her fingers are still wet from when she washed her face, they’re cold as she raises her hands to weave them inside his hair. Slowly, she leans back, her arms around his neck, his around her.
“Ok.”
