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Long after the ceremony – sparsely-attended, a fact that curls her chest with sorrow – is over, long after Foggy, the Priest, even the little old lady who hoovers behind the alter, have all left, someone slides into the pew next to her.
She knows who it is without having to think about it. She’d never bought the idea that someone could have their own scent, had regaled it to the silliness of tacky romance novels - but his jacket always presses out waves of leather and gun oil and so, of course, she knows it’s him without even needing to look up.
‘I was just about to leave,’ she manages, after a long moment.
‘Looks like I got here just in time.’
Oddly (unfairly, perhaps), she’d expected Frank to be brash and uncomfortable. But his voice is hushed in the wide space around them, reverential to the hallows of religion and mourning above and around them.
He shifts, and his arm brushes against hers. The motion doesn’t seem deliberate, but it’s comforting nevertheless.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t come to the funeral, but – you know.’ She dips her head. She hasn’t managed to look at him yet. She knows she’ll have to eventually but part of her wants to delay the reality of his presence here.
‘It’s okay.’
She stares down at her knees. He feels so overwhelmingly big next to her – was he always that big? They’re the same height – she’s maybe even a little taller – but today she feels so tiny, a barely-there person wrapped up into a too-big coat.
A fraction of movement blurs through her periphery and it takes a moment to process.
Her hands are clasped together on her knees, fingers trembling, and for a moment, Frank had shifted as if to hold them. As if to offer comfort.
A hand rushes to her mouth. Trying to contain a sob.
‘Karen –’
It’s unfair, really. Because she hadn’t cried when she and Foggy had realised in precinct, the comprehension of his death sweeping through her stomach like a sickness the moment Matt failed to walk in through that door. She hadn’t cried at the too-small obituary in the paper for Matthew Murdock the lawyer, hadn’t cried writing up the death of Daredevil for the Bulletin, hadn’t cried getting dressed this morning, all in black, hadn’t cried in the funeral –
But now, with Frank sat beside her, it all pours out. A spilling over of grief, messy and white-hot and awful. There’s an odd, cracked sound - horrible, like an animal in pain. It takes a moment to realise it’s coming from her, from the pit of her chest.
After that, the movement is instantaneous; Frank envelopes her without question, holds her tightly, desperately, a string of mumbled reassurances poured into the top of her head, her hairline, her temple.
And when she is done, when the grief is, though not gone, at least abated for now, she leans back into the pew and still, still, can’t look up at him. Embarrassed, now.
He doesn’t let go of her hands.
‘I’m sorry, Karen,’ he murmurs. ‘I know –’ he pauses, and she finds herself appreciating it, finds herself grateful that he takes the time to sort through his thoughts, find the words. ‘I know you loved him,’ he finishes, gently.
She inclines her head. Neither an agreement nor a denial.
He lets go of her hands, finally. Leans back in the pew so that his body language mirrors hers. Fingers wrapped together in his lap, head tilted up to the high church ceilings.
He looks across at her.
She looks back.
--
(A year later and he’s gotten used to mornings in her apartment. He will arrive infrequently in the early hours of the day, usually covered in blood or in need of stitching up.
Even more infrequently, he will stay for breakfast.
She goes out for the paper, because it’s a Sunday and they like to share the supplements. He reads the arts and culture section whilst she reads politics and crime. She returns, today, with orange juice and croissants that he grumbles about but eats nevertheless, and the table is bathed in early-morning sunlight and Karen has pastry flakes stuck to her fingers and when he looks across at her from over the top of the paper his stomach flips strangely.
Except, then, he has to watch all the colour drain from her face. He stands immediately, instinct flinging him upwards, chair clattering noisily behind him. Is subjected to a bemused, distracted stare.
He realises then, almost immediately, that she’s not scared of anything. There’s no presence, unseen to him, invading the apartment, no immediate threat.
She’s just furious.
Wordlessly, she pushes the paper across the table towards him.
HAS THE DEVIL OF HELL’S KITCHEN RETURNED?
And there he is. A blurry little figure atop a rooftop, indistinguishable to most, but –
But to someone who knows him.
Knows him as well as Karen does -
Well of course it’s Matt fuckin’ Murdock.
He glances up, but she’s disappeared. He hears a muffled curse and a dull thud. Sort of like someone punching a wall.
-
Later, when he’s patched up her knuckles and patched up the hole in her wall as best he can, they sit out on her fire escape, her legs swinging over the edge. He’s further back, leaned against the brick. It’s uncomfortable and his ass is numb but it’s where she’d led him so he’d followed, of course.
‘I never loved him.’ When he doesn’t respond she turns, and the derision must be punched in bold type across his face, because she starts up; ‘I –’
‘You’re mad, it’s okay –’
‘No,’ she insists, loud and cross, ‘no, Frank, I…’ She breaks off, glances back to the sea of high-rises and city streets below, carefully finding her words. Finally, she pieces them together and turns back. ‘I loved him. But I was never in love with him.’ She pauses. ‘Do you understand?’
He doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to see the difference. Wants to insist that he doesn’t believe her, because it’s easier, easier than –
Than hoping.
But she’s staring across at him, eyes fiery and huge all at once, and he can’t pretend that he doesn’t see it. Because of course he does.
So he nods, and she nods back, all clenched jaw and determination, and turns back to the city before them.
-
The next Sunday, as they share breakfast again (eggs this time, cooked by him, a little rubbery but still good) Karen reads the sports section. She likes basketball, he tells him, and he responds that he never knew that about her. Crime and politics lies abandoned under her plate.
And he allows himself to hope.)