Work Text:
Whenever Karen got asked what her favourite time of year was, Christmas never even flitted through her mind. Depending on who was asking, and how interested she was in remaining in the conversation, the answer ranged from the dismissively-inane “Springtime is nice”, to the tongue-in-cheek “Anytime I don’t feel that I am being boiled alive when I go outside.” Of course, temperature and humidity levels were concerns only on the public surface, although the height of summer was a real ordeal in the concrete and steel canyons of New York. The real point of differentiation for her lay in the “where?” and the “when?” and, even then, Christmas would’ve only been the answer when she was a knee-scabbed and precocious five-year-old growing up in Fagan Corners. Back then, like most children, she was self-centeredly enchanted by the promise of a night when she would be allowed to stay up at least an hour past her bed time, followed by a morning of magically-appearing presents. In those days, she had bought into the false festivity of the plastered smile on her mother’s face, just as she had bought into the idea of Santa Claus.
By the age of ten, though, Karen was well-aware of the truth behind that smile: the nervous twisting of hands and the flashfire of unexpected anger; the lamplight in the living room late into the winter nights, and the shadows under the eyes deepening the tiny crevasses. Every Christmas felt thinner to her, like a worn stage decoration. And after her mother’s death … well… They still made an effort. They decorated the diner, cooked the Christmas ham, spent money they could not afford on gifts for each other, and smiled, all the while pushing out of their minds what they lacked. Or, maybe, that was just her, and, maybe, that was why she was so good at it – at shoving the sadness and futility out the door and focusing on what she still had, and, when that failed, going out and finding something that was a reasonable facsimile of what she wanted. Like cocaine. Like Todd.
She told some of this to Foggy, and, no, it was not in response to an asinine question like “what’s your favorite time of year?” They were just chatting, meandering drunkenly from topic to topic without direction and in the comfort of friendship. The subject of Christmas was just a natural follow-up to Foggy’s tales of suffering that his waistline and tolerance for puns were subjected to at each Nelson’s clan gathering. When he found out that Karen has not had, what he termed, a ‘proper Christmas’ – one on which you emerge bruised to the bone from hugs, jovial elbow-jabs and shoulder-punches – he was determined to fix this unacceptable state of affairs. Karen, like Matt, now had a standing and binding invitation to the Nelson Christmas Dinner. She had wondered during that glorious (and boiling) summer of Nelson and Murdock, whether the still-far-away Christmas would be more than just a façade, more than an endless exercise in positive thinking.
When that year’s Christmas came, it found her in front of her laptop, in Ben Urich’s old office (she could never truly think of it as her office), trying to pull the thread of optimism out of the twisted tangle of regret, love and fury, and weave it into a message of hope and redemption for all the residents of Hell’s Kitchen. Including the bruised and bloodied Devil; including the ruthless Punisher. Maybe, even, including herself.
She hung onto that ridiculous hope for all of the next year, despite being told that it was a delusion. She forced herself to keep believing and keep hoping when she shook with terror, when her sins returned to her - multiplying, infecting and taking more lives. She took her sins and shaped them into a warning – the only hopeful story she had left in her to tell. She wasn’t delusional enough to believe that her words stopped Matt from killing Fisk, but, whatever did, he returned to her, and to Foggy, with his soul wounded and scarred, but not torn to shreds.
So – she kept hoping, kept looking for that silver lining. She cherished every sign that they were healing, reforging the ties of friendship, while helping their cautiously-returning but no-less-desperate clients. She silently celebrated every divulged secret, every off-handed insight into Matt’s life as Daredevil, which he permitted. She was too cautious in her hopefulness to read much into the fact that it was her, more than Foggy, who he confided in. She didn’t care, as long as it was helping him keep his internal balance; as long as it kept him close enough that they were still family; as long as he trusted them enough to reach out if something went wrong.
He was doing OK. They all were. Until he broke his forearm in the early days of December, barely three weeks before Christmas. He told them that it was a stupid mistake, a needed wake-up call from over-reliance on memory, from taking the state of the roofscape for granted while focusing on the pursuit of his quarry. The break was a good one, as far as they went: a clean fracture, without any shifting of the bones or tendon damage. There was no need for surgery - the prospect of which, Karen could see from his tightly-set face and pale lips, greatly disturbed Matt – but he was sentenced to, at least, four to six weeks in a cast. Four to six weeks of forced Daredevil inactivity.
The effects were visible almost immediately: the tension along the line of his shoulders and in his jaw, the almost-preternatural schooling of his face, the progressively-clipped “I am fine”s that he gave whenever she or Foggy asked.
Karen had seen this before, in their early days, when he still hid his true nature - he was never as proficiently subtle in concealing his emotional pain as he was with the physical injuries. The most he was willing to admit now was his concern over the prolonged absence of Daredevil from the streets, and the probable emboldening of the criminals. He shrugged then, as if showing them his acceptance of the situation. Neither Foggy, nor her, fell for it. They knew he seethed in his helplessness, while rebuffing all of their efforts to try and distract him in the evenings.
Foggy mostly focused his fears on Matt trying to “daredevil” with a broken arm. He told her the story that Matt told him - of saving a woman from being hacked to pieces by her enraged boyfriend - and the potential cost of him taking a night off. Karen remembered the woman. She remembered hearing of (and cheering at) the fate that befell the boyfriend, and shuddered at the implication of Daredevil not being there to prevent the murder. Those same implications were present now, and, while she absolutely would not put it past Matt to do something so reckless as going to battle with a plaster cast, she did believe that Matt would not risk putting on the mask with such a conspicuous marker on his body. Not to protect himself, of course – Matt was incapable of thinking in those terms - but because even he could calculate the value of being around for the long term, versus the short term benefits of being out on the street now and risking the local thugs connecting Daredevil to the blind attorney with a broken arm.
It seemed that her logic proved correct. Matt’s face remained bruise-free, his cast – pristine, and his mood was sinking further into despondence as the days crawled their inexorable way towards yet another Christmas of false cheer.
She couldn’t stand it this time. Not just for her sake - she was used to making herself busy enough to mask the loneliness – but for all of their sake's. They survived, dammit! Matt survived! Against totally incomprehensible odds! It cost them dearly - in friends, co-workers, pieces of themselves – but Fisk was behind bars, and Poindexter was … somewhere and broken beyond all repair. If there was a time to, at least, acknowledge the miraculosness of it all – it was now.
She mounted the steps to Matt’s top-floor apartment late in the evening of the 22nd and knocked with a sure hand backed up by a deep breath. His head was tilted down when he opened the door; his eyes were hidden by the glasses, which she was sure he put on as soon as he heard her footsteps on the stairs. She saw his frustration - the pressed lips covering the gritted teeth - and reminded herself that trying to control her heartbeat in his presence was as futile as his own attempt to conceal his mood with a too-polite, “Karen? What brings you here?”
In the past, she may have lost her nerve, but his living space was now more intimately familiar to her than he was, so she brushed past him and walked down the hallway without waiting for his invitation. She turned around, eyeing his deepening frown.
“Get your coat, Matt. I want to show you something.”
In better times, her words would’ve likely resulted in a blind joke being thrown her way. Now – he simply stood in front of her, his thumb running over the index finger of his left hand poking out of the cast.
“I have a lot of work to do, Karen.”
“No you don’t. I asked Foggy.” She hadn’t, but was certain enough anyway.
He didn’t call her on the lie, offering a clipped truth instead, “This isn’t a good time.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Please?”
He stood, fidgeting, scowling, and Karen was glad that gambling was not one of her usual vices.
He turned almost abruptly, as if truly in response to an unseen coin toss, stalked over to the coat hooks and snatched a jacket, proceeding to the door without pause.
Karen followed with another deep and shaky breath.
She flagged a cab that took them across to the Central Park, and dropped them off on the corner of East Drive and 65th. Matt didn’t ask any questions on the way, choosing to sink into himself next to her.
She led the way up a glittering pathway among the thick fluffy banks and spindly branches towards a bench, and sat down, waiting for him to unbend his pissed-off shape enough to sit stiffly next to her.
“Is it quieter here?” Karen asked.
He turned his head towards her, eyebrow arching over the glasses. She could hear the voices herself – people enjoying their strolls during the clear moonlit night, occasional shrieks from the direction of the ice skating rink. But that wasn’t what she was asking.
“There may be a pickpocket about. A woman is saying she is missing her phone.”
“Can you… do you need to hear… what’s going on?”
The tension in his posture dropped the temperature of the already-frigid air.
“I want to hear,” he bit out, “The cost to others. If I make another stupid mistake.”
Karen blew out a cloudy breath and rubbed her gloved hands together. Another high-pitched squeal and a burst of giggles drifted towards them - direction hazy in the blanketing snow. Well, hazy to her anyway.
“Is that all you hear?”
“What else am I supposed to listen for?” His tone was so irate, Karen was surprised he asked the question at all. She probably had a couple of minutes, if that, before the last of his patience vanished and he would disappear with it – either to catch a cab to his apartment or melt into the side alleys and stalk back to his territory on foot.
She desperately wanted to ask him if he heard the sorts of things that helped get her through these Hallmark-staged weeks without losing herself in alcohol. But now, in the reflection of moonlight shattered by the mirrors over his eyes, her problems seemed so petty in comparison to the weight he chose to bear. She brought him out here – into this cold space of relative peace - to remind him of the people he had helped as a lawyer – some of whom lived on his block and whose Christmas preparations and familial joys he must’ve been able to hear. He could take comfort in knowing that he had a hand in bringing at least some of that gladness and certainty to people’s lives … But then, he probably blocked all that, out of his basic sense of propriety. Despite Foggy’s grumblings, she never knew Matt to indulge in curiosity but has seen him, on more than one occasion, reach for headphones with an almost desperate jerk of his hand and stream music, even as she knew he preferred silence for the task at hand.
Her mouth seized shut but, unexpectedly, he spoke, “It is worse – out there – at this time of the year. Happens every Christmas. More muggings, men hitting their wives, their girlfriends,” he smirked, “or the other way around. Children beaten for the least cause… Drug overdoses. Murders. Suicides… It’s the time we are supposed to celebrate the birth of the world’s Savior, but, around here… there’s only the kingdom of Herod.”
Perhaps she should’ve gotten him a better set of headphones, Karen thought miserably.
“I am sorry,” she whispered.
Matt turned his head towards her, “Why? It’s not your fault.”
She wondered how or if he sensed her bitter lip-thin smile. “I dragged you out here with this idea that…” she felt heat rising in the skin of her face, despite the numbness seeping into her hands and feet, “… maybe, just reminding you of… that what you hear, isn’t all there is to Christmas? To other people’s lives? To your life? But … It may work for me. Sometimes? It was presumptuous to assume that it’s a one-dose-fits-all drugstore painkiller.”
“You saying I should be… more grateful?”
“No! I am saying I am.”
He was frowning again, stark shadows cutting into his brow, but now there was more confusion on his face than annoyance. Understandable. She wasn’t making much sense to herself either; her carefully compartmentalised thoughts fell from their tidy pigeonholes to mix with the emotions that she had swept under the rug months ago…
“I am saying, I am glad we are doing what… we are doing. With the firm. Fighting the good fight again. And that you are… doing what you do at nights. I worry about you, Matt. We both do, but… I think I get it. Maybe not completely, you know? But I get that when you can’t do this, even for a short time… it’s not like taking a holiday. And it’s not something that you can just… think away. I am just glad you are here, Matt. Alive. That all of us are … I try to focus on… on the good things, when I can…”
She kept her eyes on the glint of his glasses, fighting the temptation to speak to the folded hands in her lap, so she saw the settling of his jacket as his spine curved and the tightness within him unwound just a smidge.
“So, why’d you bring me out here?” A genuine question by the sound, not a demand for an explanation.
Karen huffed out a laugh, “Snow. It’s fresh… I read somewhere that, when it’s all fluffy like that, it dampens the sounds? And we are away from the Kitchen …”
Matt nodded and she could see the subtle curve of his lips. Her naïve attempt to fix him seemed, at the very least, amusing to him.
“I used to do this when I was a kid. Snuck out from St Agnes at night. It could get… pretty bad in there. This time of year, particularly. Too many kids remembered what Christmas was like before. And, those who didn’t… it was like they knew they were missing something anyway. Made them angrier. So… yeah… sometimes I …” he licked his lips before squeezing out, “ran away. Ended up in the Park often.” He paused and she saw the mist he exhaled, but then his lips quirked up again. “Snow didn’t help much, but the lack of people, and the distance… yeah, that did.”
She could not forego such a rare opportunity to keep peeking through the window into his past, “Did you miss Christmas… with your Dad?”
“Tried not to think about it,” he shrugged, “Stick… he taught me not to… waste my energy.” Matt’s fingers fidgeted and plucked at the jacket’s fabric. “But… yeah. I did.”
Karen could feel tiny needles in the corners of her eyes, “What did you miss the most?”
“Just… him. He wasn’t home often in the evenings. Training mostly, and the bouts, and… whatever side jobs he could pick up, to keep us afloat. Christmas though… we used to spend the day together. Always. Just the two of us. He even tried cooking a proper Christmas ham once,” Matt huffed out the ghost of a laugh and it dissipated into the moonlight. “He sucked at cooking, but... he did his best. I gotta believe he always did his best, even when …”
Another pause; lips pressed together again. Karen was afraid to move, watching Matt shake his head, dismissing whatever words were on his tongue.
“… The nuns – they tried hard to make Christmas a special day, but… there were too many of us.”
He shifted to lean against the bench’s back. Karen watched his still features carved out of darkness and moonlight – too melancholy for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, too austere for a neighborhood defense attorney. The whiteness of the cast blazed against his soot-grey jacket sleeve; fraying threads of the covering bandage shifting in the air like loose feathers, drawing her eyes towards the gently-curled fingers, the thick and calloused knuckles. Karen swallowed, finding herself desperate to get away from some abysmal thought knocking at the edge of her mind.
Matt turned and tilted his head towards her again – a movement that was now as clear to her as if he asked what she was thinking – and the incipient illusion was gone.
She spoke the first thing that came to her, chasing away the vision with words, “Maybe we could do something this year… at St Agnes? Just to lend a hand? Maybe make it just that little more special for the kids.”
He raised his brow again, “What did you have in mind?”
“Well… maybe we could ask Theo to donate a few hams and try our hand at cooking them for their Christmas dinner?” Her grin turned mischievous, “Or… if we are aiming to make the day a really memorable one… I bet the kids would think it really cool if Daredevil came to visit them on Christmas Eve?”
At that, he actually guffawed, “Karen, it’s a Catholic orphanage, celebrating one of the fundamental events in the Church’s calendar, and you are suggesting for Daredevil to play Santa Claus?”
“Well, it’s not like you have the horns anymore,” she giggled with more than a little relief. “Anyway, we can ask your… uh… Sister Maggie for better ideas if you don’t like mine. Were you… going to see her on Christmas?”
“Yeah. I was going to stop by the church.”
That nonchalant response made her grin even harder and she looked down to her lap, forgetting that, with him, hiding her face made no difference. It was why she missed the movement of his hand, which unerringly came under her chin to tilt her face back up. His face was gentle now, the chiselled ethereal lines were gone – he was just Matt again. Matt - whom she thought she had lost, even when she knew he was not dead; whom she missed dearly these weeks, as she helplessly watched his struggle. Matt - who was now leaning down to softly touch his lips to her cheek.
He straightened up, his eyes drifting down to where her heart thumped under her skin.
“Focusing on the good things…” he whispered.
Her throat closed for a moment and she felt the prickling in her eyes again, so she could only stupidly nod. He was still smiling though, and for the first time since she was a child, she found herself truly looking forward to Christmas - and to the next year, and the next.
She took his hand, tugged him to his feet, and led him down the path back towards the Kitchen, with its tapestry of violence and tears, broken bones and unpaid bills, all held together by the threads of love and friendship and unconditional support... all those good things they chose to weave for each other every day.