Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Karen's laughter spilled across the room, from the makeshift desk where she'd been typing to the bed where Matt was stretched out, giving his aching muscles a rest.

He wet his lips and savored the sound like a gourmet meal.

"We're not actually doing this," she said, but amusement curled in each word.

He smiled. "Are you a scaredy cat, Miss Page?"

"Oh, fine." She abandoned her laptop and turned toward him in her chair. "Truth."

He'd been so focused on the sweet strains of her voice that he was taken aback. "Hmm. I really didn't think this far ahead."

Matt realized, too late, that he'd maneuvered them both into a minefield. He didn't want to do anything that could puncture this rare moment of lightness under Fisk's suffocating regime. He didn't want to do anything that could jeopardize the bond between the two of them, which was deep as ever but also tentative and new again.

"Uh... who was your first kiss?" he asked quickly. That seemed like the standard kind of question, and safe enough.

"Have I not told you that?"

"If you did, I'm not remembering now."

"Okay." Karen tucked her hair behind her ear. "Um, so when I was in junior high, I had to ride the bus home every day, and I hated it. I was always dropped off last. And the guy who was dropped off right before me was my neighbor, this guy Christian, who was kind of shy but would talk more when it was just us. And one day we were in the back of the bus, just bored and goofing around a little, and I don't even know how we got on the subject, but I asked him if he'd ever kissed anyone and he turned really red, and it just happened."

"He said you tasted like strawberries," Matt said. Halfway through, he'd realized the story was chiming with his memory.

"Because of my chapstick, yeah," Karen confirmed.

"I do remember you telling me." But everything about those days was bittersweet at best now, and Matt didn't let himself think hard enough about them to recall when or where Karen had told this story before. Instead, he asked, "So was this Christian your first love?"

"God, no. I was just curious."

"Who was then?"

Karen hesitated. "Isn't it your turn?"

"I mean, only if we're playing strictly by the rules." He chuckled. "Since technically I already knew the answer, I thought I could ask a follow-up question."

"Okay. Then dare."

Matt's eyebrows went up, just like Karen's heartbeat. "What?"

"I choose a dare instead."

"You really don’t want to tell me?"

"It’s embarrassing." The temperature was rising under her skin.

"How embarrassing could it be?" Matt asked, having too much fun to play it safe. "Did you date your cousin or something?"

"Okay, city boy. Not everyone who grows up in a rural area dates their cousin."

"Not a relative, then. An older man?"

She swallowed. "Not by much."

"So nothing cradle robber-y?"

"No."

"Well, then, does he rob banks or something?"

"Or something." Karen's teeth pressed into her lower lip.

"He’s a criminal?"

"I don’t think he would put it that way."

"How would he put it?"

She took in a deep breath, her whole silhouette fiery-hot to his senses now. "You tell me."

Matt felt like he was falling, like the bed and the floor had failed and he was plunging right through them. He inhaled noisily — he had temporarily stopped breathing. "Karen."

It was all he could manage to say.

She shook her head self-consciously. "There have been other people I… cared about. But with… you and me… I realized that I’d never really been in love before. So, yeah..."

Matt sat up slowly, shifting so his feet hit the floor and he was facing her.

"Anyways, let's not make a big thing of it," Karen said, waving her hand.

It was a big thing, though, because he loved her and he'd missed her, and it had never been more clear that she was his everything.

But maybe for her, this was all past tense.

He wanted to say what was in his heart, but he didn’t know how. He was Daredevil, after all, not Truthteller.

“Hey, Karen,” he said, softly. “If I dared myself to kiss you right now, would that be okay?”

The air around him sparkled and snapped with signals from her, scent and sound and warmth. “Maybe,” she said, in a way that definitely didn’t sound like no.

But not “no” wasn’t really enough.

“All right. I’ll wait. You just tell me if the answer is ever yes.”

He heard a smile in the way she exhaled, and his own lips turned up.

“It’s a deal,” she said.

Chapter Text

"Aren't you tired of takeout?"

Karen paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. Some of the cold pad Thai noodles slid back into the container, splashing a drop of brown sauce on the table. "No?" She put her fork down and wiped up the spot with a napkin from the stack the restaurant had included with their dinner the night before. "I mean, I don't think we have the luxury. It's just part of life on the run."

"What if it didn't have to be? At least, not every meal." Matt turned away from the window, which he had propped open an inch to let fresh, cool air into the stuffy attic space that was serving as their hideout. "There's a greenmarket two blocks away."

Karen sat up straighter in surprise. "And you think we should go?"

"I miss real food," Matt said, a subtle note of pleading in his voice. "If you wear a wig and sunglasses, you'd be pretty inconspicuous, don't you think?"

"Wait," Karen said. "Not 'we.' You think I should go?"

"You were just telling me there are 'Missing' posters with my face on them plastered all over town."

"Oh my god."

"You don't have to," he said quickly.

But ten minutes later, Karen was leaving the building, her head down, her hands in the pockets of her coat, and a baseball cap covering her short, dark wig. She adjusted her sunglasses and started walking in the direction of the greenmarket.

Here she was, on a top-secret mission... to get Matt vegetables.

The market had drawn a sizable crowd, and it seemed easy for Karen to slip among the stalls without much notice, browsing the produce available.

This definitely wasn't California. And in New York, it wasn't even properly spring yet, let alone summer — the calendar had left March behind, but the thermometer told a chillier story. There were no ripe berries or vivid peppers or big, juicy tomatoes to be had.

But there were... potatoes. Carrots. And those weird white carrots, whatever they were called. Onions. Garlic. And some very early, tender greens.

Karen picked what she wanted, hunting for the best colors and sniffing what she could without spending too much time in any one place. Despite the wig, she felt almost normal for the first time in days.

Or she would have, if there wasn't a palpable strain all around her. She might be the only literal fugitive here, but she wasn't the only one on edge. Fisk had the whole city on tenterhooks. Even the sun would only stay out for so long before briefly ducking for cover behind a cloud.

After picking her vegetables, she stopped at the booth of a vendor who was selling beautiful bottles of olive oil, as well as dried herbs and spice blends. They'd need some kind of seasoning, and she wasn’t sure they had anything more in their hideout than those little salt and pepper packets.

Karen paid in cash, as she'd done for every purchase. That wouldn't seem out of the ordinary here, which was a relief. And she'd remembered to grab a canvas tote bag scavenged from the assortment of random items in the attic space. The quickest way to look out of place with the farmer's market crowd was not to have something reusable.

Her bag was filling up, so she made only one last stop on her way out of the market — for a loaf of freshly baked bread. Even her mouth watered for that one.

When she returned, Matt was waiting by the door. He immediately lifted the bag from her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked anxiously.

Karen’s heart rate spiked. "I thought so. Why? Was someone following me?"

"Not that I heard. I was just… worried about you."

She bit back a smile as she took off her sunglasses. Then she unloaded her haul onto the table. "Ta-da. The freshest veggies in New York."

Matt touched a carrot almost lovingly. "Thank you, Secret Agent Page. Now I'll take over the mission."

"What do you mean?" she asked, stripping off her hat and wig.

"I'll cook."

"You sure?"

"I've never done it with just a hot plate and an old microwave before. Sounds like a thrilling adventure," he joked. "I'm thinking soup. We're pretty limited on the cookware front, too, but I found a box with a few things." He gestured toward a beat-up old pot on the table.

"I'm excited to have a front row seat for this. Can I help?"

"You can chop."

"Gladly."

Matt started cleaning vegetables, and soon they were both chopping away. Happily, Matt's findings had included a collection of mismatched kitchen knives, though sadly, they had seen better days.

Karen relaxed into the rhythm, taking special care not to cut herself with the dull blade. "I can't remember the last time you cooked for me," she said, but she wasn't trying too hard to conjure it up. Those golden days were hard to think about, now.

"I cooked for you a lot, when you were gone," Matt said softly.

Karen's face scrunched up. "When I was gone?"

"I wasn't great at taking care of myself. So when I needed motivation to make something that was good for me, I thought about what I might make if I was cooking for you."

"Really?" She pressed her lips together.

"I tried to master some of your favorites. I make a mean curry these days, you know."

Her knife stopped moving.

"The day of the sentencing, I had my fridge all stocked. I'd convinced myself that if you showed up, I would get you to stay, and I'd cook for you. That we'd work it all out. Instead, my cutting board got a bit of abuse that night." He chuckled sadly.

Karen shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, just keep chopping. What's important is that we're here now. Together."

"As fugitives in hiding?" Karen asked, returning to her carrot. But warmth colored her words.

Matt grinned. "There's no one I'd rather be cooking dangerously with."

Chapter Text

"Wait, there's a zipper here," Matt said.

"Another one?"

Karen twisted her head around and lifted her arm as Matt pulled up the zipper at her side, from her waist up to her armpit.

"There. That’s all of them," he said.

Karen shifted her weight from foot to foot, adjusting to the feel. The fit was all off in the chest and shoulders. It was too loose through the torso, and the placement of the belt on her body reminded her of the low-rise jeans that were trendy when she was in high school.

But she was wearing it.

The Daredevil suit.

Not even ten minutes ago, they'd been sitting side by side, meditating on the floor of their hideout. The night before, Matt had taken some hard hits in a confrontation with a group of Anti-Vigilante Task Force assholes, and he was trying to speed his healing.

Karen always got self-conscious doing other things when Matt was concentrating, and he said it helped to have her next to him. So she meditated — or tried to. Her mind never really quieted for long, but she could focus on wanting him to mend.

Afterward, she could tell he genuinely felt better. They were both in a lighter mood.

The suit had been hanging up, left out to dry in the open after being cleaned.

It was a joke. A silly impulse. It started in laughter.

But now...

Looking down at herself in the weighty black-painted armor, with the little patches of red showing through like battle scars, and the "DD" on her chest that already meant so much to the resistance, it was... overwhelming.

She wasn't sure this had been a great idea.

Matt was handing her one last piece.

The mask would definitely be too big. But she'd come this far. Might as well see the whole thing through.

Karen shook slightly as she put it on.

When it was in place, she turned to look in the long, dusty mirror leaning against the wall of their cluttered space. The helmet's lenses tinted the world fire-red, but she could still see herself.

She was Daredevil.

And she looked utterly ridiculous. She saw her grin break out in the mirror, but the laugh behind it died when she caught Matt's expression next to her.

He wasn’t smiling.

Karen flushed all over, a mixture of embarrassment and guilt. She yanked the helmet off.

"Someone else wearing the suit… it's reminding you of him, isn't it? Poindexter." The name tasted bitter in her mouth. "This was stupid."

"No, no, nothing like that," Matt said emphatically, touching her arm.

Karen stopped still.

"I was just thinking..." Matt said, his voice dropping low, "of how important you've been to this. To all of it." A heavy breath left his chest. "You've been with me nearly every step of the way, even before I had the suit. Even before you had any idea. You've been my inspiration and my—my strength all along."

He took the mask from her hands and rubbed over one of the devil horns with his thumb.

"You were the one who gave me back the missing piece I needed when I was lost."

Matt lifted the helmet up and carefully placed it back on her head.

"You're Daredevil."

He smiled then.

She smiled too.

Karen couldn't see out of the mask anymore because her eyes were misting over. She blinked rapidly and squeezed words past the lump in her throat.

"Daredevil means so much to me," she said, "but believe me... you look way better in this thing."

He laughed. "Not the best fit?"

She shook her head. "Help me with the zippers."

They worked together, and soon Karen was back down to the sports bra and leggings she’d been wearing to meditate.

Matt put the suit safely away in its hiding place.

"Now," Karen teased, "how would you feel about trying on my wigs?"

Chapter Text

There were voices in their hideout.

Matt had the shower curtain gripped in his hand and was on the verge of leaping out of the still-running water to make sure Karen was safe when he heard a snatch of music and remembered.

The DVD player.

Karen had found it, along with a small collection of films, in one of the boxes stored in their temporary home.

He relaxed and returned to shampooing his hair. Of course, he couldn't help listening to the movie as he got ready for the meeting scheduled for nightfall. By the time he left the bathroom, steam curling out behind him, he was sure he knew what she was watching.

"Casablanca?" he asked, approaching Karen's place on the old-fashioned sofa.

"Yeah. Do you mind?"

"No. I like old movies," he said. "All the rapid-fire dialogue."

"I watched the first half while you were out yesterday. I can start it over if you want."

"No, that's okay. It's not my first time."

"Good, 'cause this is my favorite part," she said, leaning forward. "Humphrey Bogart just signaled that it's okay for the band at his club to play the French national anthem. You remember it was Victor Laszlo's idea?"

"To challenge the Nazis," Matt said, and he sat down next to her, captured by the enthusiasm in her voice.

"They're showing Ingrid Bergman now. Ilsa... Oh, her face. She's so worried... But her eyes are shining. She loves him so much."

"Bogie?"

"No, Victor."

"I thought we were supposed to be rooting for Bogart."

"I mean, Rick, sure, I guess, but Victor—he's in so much danger here, and he's such a badass,” Karen said. “You know, a lot of the actors in this scene were actual European refugees. And they were still in the middle of the war when they filmed it, with no idea how it would end."

"No, I never realized that."

"Oh, and there's Victor again, leading them all. He's giving them a symbol, a reason to keep fighting, even after he's been through hell." Karen turned her head toward Matt. "Sounds like someone else I know."

Matt smiled tightly, not sure he'd really earned a comparison to a Nazi-fighting resistance leader. But he was drawn into the movie even more, finding new resonance in its lines.

Karen narrated as needed as the last half-hour of the film played out — Ilsa pulling the gun on Rick to try to get the letters of transit and then falling into his arms; the tense meeting between Rick and Victor after a resistance meeting was broken up by the police; the whole scene at the airport, when Rick helped Victor escape Casablanca, and insisted that Ilsa escape alongside him.

"My mom loved this movie, so I watched it a few times when I was younger," Karen said as the credits rolled. "I always got so mad at the ending. I wanted Ilsa to make her own choice. Now I wonder... in a way, she did. Everything she did in the movie was ultimately about protecting Victor. She cared about that more than anything."

"You don't think she really wanted to stay with Rick?" Matt asked.

"I think... there's a part of Ilsa that wants to escape the horror of it all. To run away from it. She’s lost everything before, and she's afraid of losing Victor all over again. Their lives are scary as hell. But in a few months, a year…" Matt's chest grew tight at the emotion in her voice. "I don’t think she could stay away. I think she'd cross the whole world to get back to him."

Matt kept his own voice quiet and cautious. "So you think... they really do belong together?"

"Yes," she said softly. "I do."

Neither of them moved. The air around them grew heavy and the seconds stretched on, all out of proportion.

Should he say what he hoped they were both thinking? Or…

"If we don't leave soon, we're going to be late for our own resistance meeting," he said at last.

"Right," Karen said, and jumped up. "Let me get changed."

The moment was gone, popped and deflated.

But he could hear Karen humming under her breath as she got ready, and he leaned back on the sofa with a smile on his lips.

Soon.

Chapter Text

A fine spring mist was falling and clinging to everything. Clinging to Karen’s wig and the red bandana covering her face and her jacket and her boots. The mist was slowly soaking her, but Karen didn’t mind.

How could you mind the rain on a night like this?

Everywhere Karen looked, there were people. Talking and chanting and holding up smeary handmade signs.

The biggest protest the city had seen in years.

The tide was turning. It had to be.

A tremor of excitement vibrated through the crowd until it surrounded Karen on all sides, and then she was looking up and cheering too.

The figure on the rooftop was barely more than a shadow, but everyone knew.

It was Daredevil. The living symbol that had brought them all here tonight.

Resist. Rebel. Rebuild.

And she had played a role, a big one, in making this protest happen. In putting Daredevil on that roof. In making sure he was just visible enough to inspire but not enough to be a sitting duck.

Daredevil moved from one rooftop to the next, turning heads and drawing cries from below, until at last he dropped out of view.

That was Karen’s cue.

She slipped away from her post and down the next block, ducking into the recessed entrance of a shop that was closed for the night.

Within seconds, Daredevil was next to her.

“Can you believe it?” he asked, obviously as impressed by the protest as she was.

“Of course I can believe it. I believe in this city, and they believe in you.”

“And you, even if they don’t realize it." His head tilted as he listened to the shouts and chants, and he shook his head in amazement. "They’re lucky you came back. We all are.”

A tingling sensation worked its way up from Karen’s toes, warming her skin, countering the rainy chill.

“Hey, Daredevil,” she said, tugging her bandana down to her chin. “I dare you to kiss me.”

“Here? Now?” he asked.

“Are you a scaredy cat, Mr. Devil?”

He grinned. Not the Devil's grin, the one she’d seen on their missions, the one that told anyone who saw it that they had played with fire and were about to get burned.

This was a pure, sweet, charming Matt Murdock grin, the one that made her heart swell, and by the time it reached her mouth it was still stretched so wide that kissing was almost impossible.

Their lips brushed back and forth; the mask bumped lightly against her nose; their breaths puffed traces of happy laughter. Then one gloved hand touched her cheek and finally, their mouths met for real.

Their kiss tasted first like rain, like memory, but it sizzled swiftly into something new. They were older now, and maybe not wiser, but stronger in the places they'd broken before, the places they'd mended with bruised-knuckled hands.

This was their own messiest masterpiece, a bond that could not be severed, that could survive anything, even themselves, their wounded attempts at isolation and self-sabotage.

Karen knew they couldn't get carried away. They still had work to do. One protest didn’t mean they’d won the battle, and certainly not the war. But they had found their army.

And they had found each other all over again.

"Truth or dare?" Matt asked when their mouths broke apart.

"I know I started it, but we don't really have time for—"

"Just pick one."

"Okay. Truth," she chose, because what could she possibly hide from him now?

"Do you know how much I love you?"

She ducked her head at the question but nodded instinctively. She looked up at his face, at the raindrops beaded on his mask and the tenderness around his mouth. "I think I do," she said. "But maybe you could show me later?"

He leaned in and kissed her again, as if he had to show her a little bit right now, even if they were already flirting with disaster and they had to pull apart too soon.

His grin was back.

"It's a deal," he said.