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The first time Jessica woke up sprawled on the floor next to her bed, head pounding with a killer headache, she blamed it on last night's brand of bourbon, or maybe the four-day-old pizza she'd chased it down with. It felt, for all intents and purposes, like every other day this month.
A shitty client with a cheating spouse, who then refused to pay when she proved what they already knew; a strained, but earnest greeting from Malcolm as they swapped notes on their latest cases over black coffee; a stakeout from a rusted fire escape, ignoring the sounds of Christmas music blaring from the nearest open window. The snow was a layer of grey slush, the air was bitingly cold, and despite the tinsel, lights and signs decorating every street corner, Jessica was trying her damndest to ignore the whole charade.
The one outlier of the day was an out-of-the-blue visit from the devil himself, which may actually, now that she thought about it, not be quite so coincidental. Perched on the edge of the railing like a gargoyle, he could have blended into the night sky if it weren't for the way the light from a nearby window cast his profile into sharp relief.
"You really need to update your wardrobe."
Matt, to his credit, didn't look startled by her lack of introduction - Jessica tried to ignore the resulting reminder of how long they'd known each other. He gave a little shrug, his attention piercing as she watched him focus in on the open bottle of bourbon at her feet.
"It's warm enough."
"First of all, bullshit, and second of all, I can't exactly call you Red when you're still running around in that get-up. You look like you're wearing pyjamas."
"Is 'pyjamas' preferable to 'looking like an asshole'?"
Jessica stifled the twitch at the corner of her mouth, tilting her head up at him.
"You're never going to let that go, are you?"
"Nah." Matt grinned, and with the mask still on, it made the stretch of his bared teeth look almost feral.
"What do you want, Beelzebub?"
Brushing off the nickname, as per usual, Matt rested his elbows on his knees. Despite herself, Jessica was once again impressed by his unnatural sense of balance.
"Just making sure you got my invitation. I know you probably ignored it, but at least this way I know for certain it was actually delivered."
"Yes, devil boy, I got your text." Jessica scoffed, raising an eyebrow at him. "You make me sound almost anti-social."
Matt chuckled quietly.
"So you not turning up for drinks was because you were…?"
Jessica smiled, resting her chin in her hand.
"I had a better offer," she drawled, knowing by the tilt of his smile that he was rolling his eyes behind the mask. “And I’m allergic to eggnog. And Christmas carols.”
"Sure, Jess."
“Hey, it’s pretty serious. I hear the opening notes of ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time’ and I just break out in a rash, all over. It’s pretty nasty.”
“Sounds unpleasant.”
“You have no idea.” She squinted at him, watching as the bottom half of his face smoothed out again, returning to its natural ‘mysterious and brooding’ Daredevil state. “Though you can talk, you getting overtime for leaving the party early?”
He shrugged, lips quirking with the movement. Jessica watched curiously as he tilted his head to one side. She could tell by the way his expression went still and clear with focus that he was listening intently to their surroundings, calculating their chances of being overheard.
"We broke up a little earlier than planned,” he murmured, just loud enough to pick out over the sounds of the New York City nightlife. “Fog had drinks planned with some of his old colleagues from HC&B, Claire got called in so Luke went with her, Karen wanted to chase up a lead, and Danny and Colleen couldn’t make it.”
“What, were they too busy ninja-ing?”
“Ninja-ing isn’t a word, Jess. They didn’t say why, but they have been pretty busy since Colleen took over.”
Jessica turned her attention back from the apartment window opposite to the devil at her right, eyebrows raised.
“Wait, Colleen took over as the Fist? Can she even do that?” “Apparently, she can.” He turned his focus to her entirely, and even with the mask, she knew he was raising an eyebrow. “Also, if you haven’t noticed, it’s almost midnight, and most of us have normal day jobs we need to get to.”
Jessica hummed in response, and both of them went silent as the apartment she’d been watching sparked to life, light illuminating the intertwined figures stumbling through the front door and colliding with the wall. Matt made a noise under his breath that she couldn’t quite decipher, turning his head slightly toward her.
“Infidelity case again?”
“How could you tell?”
He hummed in response, and again, something shifted over what she could see of his face, too quick and too unfamiliar for her to decipher.
“Want to share, devil boy?”
The silence stretched between him as he hesitated, and the way he visibly weighed his words had Jessica’s hackles up even before the words left his mouth.
“You know you could be doing more than this.”
“What, catching cheating partners not meaningful enough for you?”
“It’s not that.” Matt raised a hand to rub at the back of his neck, the familiar gesture a little strange to see from the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. “You’re smart, Jess, and you’re good at this. It just seems like a bit of a waste.”
If she caught him physically preparing himself for her response, she didn’t let him know she’d noticed, letting him stew for a moment while she processed the unexpected compliment. Before she could figure out how to reply, he cleared his throat.
“Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you’d just decided not to show, and not that you’d managed to get yourself into trouble. Again.”
“Hypocrite,” she muttered.
Matt smiled again, in rare form for this side of the mask, this time something a little warmer and more gentle than Jessica was prepared to acknowledge.
“If you change your mind about wanting a drink, you know where to find me. I promise there won’t be eggnog.”
“Sure thing, horns.”
While she would never admit it, Jessica did appreciate the way he always took her at her word and didn’t push. Where Malcolm or others (others she could name, but wouldn’t, not when it was still fresh) might have pressed her, tried to convince her, Matt let the offer lie, taking her subtle dismissal in stride.
"Take care, Jess."
"Hey, I'm not the one running around taking on criminals in pyjamas, worry about yourself."
"I'll try not to make you worry." Before she could get another word in edgeways, he dropped off the ledge, leaving her to face the snow alone.
"Fucking lawyers," she muttered, knowing damn well he'd hear her.
It didn’t take long to get a few photos of the happy couple, but by the time she got home a few minutes later, Jessica felt unusually tired for this time of night. Deciding that the photos could wait until morning, she found herself in bed, sleep claiming her almost immediately. In the second before she went under, her gaze fell on the beaten, scratched alarm clock, noting the clock hitting 11:59 just as she sunk into the darkness.
The second time Jessica woke up sprawled on the floor next to her bed, head pounding with a killer headache, she concluded that it had to have been the brand of bourbon, and the four-day-old pizza.
It felt, for all intents and purposes, like every other day this month.
A shitty client with a cheating spouse, who then refused to pay when she proved what they already knew; a strained, but earnest greeting from Malcolm as they swapped notes on their latest cases over black coffee; a stakeout from a rusted fire escape, ignoring the sounds of Christmas music blaring from the nearest open window. The snow was a layer of grey slush, the air was bitingly cold, and despite the tinsel, lights and signs decorating every street corner, Jessica was determined to ignore it all.
The one outlier of the day was an out-of-the-blue visit from the devil himself, which, now that she thought about it, didn’t feel unexpected. Perched on the edge of the railing like a gargoyle, he could have blended into the night sky if it weren't for the way the light from a nearby window cast his profile into sharp relief.
"You look like an asshole."
Matt released a sharp bark of a laugh, shaking his head.
“Nice to see you too, Jess.”
"What do you want, Beelzebub?"
Brushing off the nickname, as per usual, Matt rested his elbows on his knees.
"Just making sure you got my invitation. I know you probably ignored it, but at least this way I know for certain it was actually delivered."
"Yes, devil boy, I got your text." Jessica scoffed, raising an eyebrow at him.
Matt chuckled quietly.
"So you not turning up for drinks was because you were…?"
"I’m allergic to Christmas parties," she drawled, knowing by the tilt of his smile that he was rolling his eyes behind the mask.
"Christmas party? What Christmas party?” Matt tilted his head, mischief reading in the line of his shoulders. “I thought we were just getting drinks.”
“Sure, devil boy. Just drinks, at your apartment, where there’ll definitely be no decorations or Christmas carols despite the date.” She squinted at him. “Skip your own party? And don’t,” she added, as he drew a breath, “try to tell me you have work on Christmas Eve, I know your doors are closed tomorrow.”
He shrugged, lips quirking with the movement.
“Everyone left early. Besides, it’s almost midnight, Jess.”
Jessica hummed in response, and both of them went silent as the apartment she’d been watching sparked to life, light illuminating the intertwined figures stumbling through the front door and colliding with the wall. Matt made a noise under his breath that she couldn’t quite decipher, turning his head slightly toward her.
“Infidelity case again?”
“How could you tell?”
He hummed in response, and again, something shifted over what she could see of his face, too quick and too unfamiliar for her to decipher.
“If you want to bring up my career decisions, don’t.”
Matt sighed, raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck, the familiar gesture a little strange to see from the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
“You’re smart, Jess, and you’re good at this. It just seems like a bit of a waste.” Waving a hand in dismissal, he cleared his throat. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you’d just decided not to show, and not that you’d managed to get yourself into trouble. Again.”
“Hypocrite,” she muttered.
Matt smiled that strange, small smile again, one she carefully ignored in her peripheral vision.
“If you change your mind about wanting a drink, you know where to find me. I promise there won’t be eggnog.”
“Sure thing, horns.”
"Take care, Jess."
Before she could get another word in edgeways, he dropped off the ledge, leaving her to face the snow alone.
"Fucking lawyers," she muttered, knowing damn well he'd hear her.
Quickly taking the photos she needed, Jessica barely made it home before passing out on top of the covers, catching a glimpse of her beaten, scratched alarm clock right as she fell asleep.
The third time Jessica woke up sprawled on the floor next to her bed, head pounding, she knew it wasn’t food poisoning or a very strange hangover. From her position on the floor, sheets tangled above her, she could almost convince herself that she was waking up from a very strange dream.
Almost.
“Fuck.”
A shitty client with a cheating spouse, who didn’t appreciate Jessica demanding payment before she handed over the folder of borderline pornographic photos; a strained, but earnest greeting from Malcolm as he watched her throw back three cups of truly horrendous black coffee; a stakeout from a rusted fire escape, trying to ignore the mounting sense of dread that had been building throughout the day.
By the time the devil himself showed up to her stakeout, Jessica was almost ready to call it quits. Perched on the edge of the railing like a gargoyle, he could have blended into the night sky if it weren't for the way the light from a nearby window cast his profile into sharp relief. Before he could even open his mouth, Jessica turned to pin him with a blank stare, knowing he’d be able to feel its weight.
“You checking up on me, devil boy?”
Matt chuckled nervously, tilting his head.
“Am I that predictable?” He shrugged, and Jessica refused to shift as she was pinned by his sudden, intense brand of focus. “Just making sure you were ignoring my invitation, and not in some kind of trouble.”
“Hypocrite,” she murmured, tasting that deja vu on the back of her tongue again. Matt frowned, apparently picking up on something in her tone that she couldn’t hear, or maybe it was the staccato of her heartbeat giving her away. Jessica watched curiously out of the corner of his eye as he weighed his words carefully, considering his approach with a level of caution he usually reserved for the most hardened criminals. (When he wasn’t deciding to throw himself at problems like some kind of self-sacrificial human battering ram.)
“Everything alright, Jess?”
“Peachy.” She ignored the way his frown deepened in response, realising a little too late he’d heard the lie. Shit, she really was off her game today, and the worst part was that he could clearly tell. It was one of the things she really didn’t like about Matthew Murdock - that attention to detail meant he noticed a lot more than she was usually comfortable with. “Shit, Mu- Beelzebub, just drop it.”
From the subtle shake of his head, Jessica knew he’d just raised an eyebrow behind the mask, and waited for him to drop the topic. Thankfully, he did - one of the things she did like about Matthew Murdock.
“Take care, Jess.”
“Hey, I'm not the one running around taking on criminals in pyjamas, worry about yourself."
"I'll try not to make you worry." He let out a bark of laughter as she sputtered, and in the split second before gravity pulled Matt out of view, she leaned forward and called out to him proper.
"The only thing I worry about is your stupid outfit,” she yelled, hearing his answering laugh echo back from the street below.
Jessica snapped the photos she needed, and raced the growing fatigue home, making it through the door and to her bed just before the darkness pulled her under. In the second before she fell asleep, she glared over at the taunting bright red digits on her battered alarm clock.
The sixth time she woke up sprawled next to her bed with a killer headache, the first thing Jessica did was grab that fucking alarm clock and throw it out her window.
A shitty client with a cheating spouse, who then refused to pay when she proved what they already knew; a strained, but earnest greeting from Malcolm as they swapped notes on their latest cases over black coffee; a stakeout from a rusted fire escape, ignoring the sounds of Christmas music blaring from the nearest open window. The snow was a layer of grey slush, the air was bitingly cold, and despite the tinsel, lights and signs decorating every street corner, Jessica was trying her damndest to ignore the whole charade.
She told the shitty client with the cheating spouse where they could shove her photographic evidence, ignored Malcolm’s greeting in favour of stalking back into her bedroom with the entire jug of black coffee, and when the sky began to darken and Christmas music began to play, Jessica poured the rest of it into a thermos, topped up the remaining half with bourbon, and made her way to a preordained meeting with the devil.
Right as Matt dropped down onto the ledge next to her, she held out the thermos, watching as his lips curled into a bemused frown.
“You can’t tell me you aren’t fucking cold in that get-up, just take the damn coffee.”
For a second, she thought he was going to push it, but was quietly relieved when he just accepted the thermos and took a sip. To his credit, Matt didn’t splutter at the amount of bourbon, just wrinkled his nose and levelled a stare that she could feel through the mask. Jessica shrugged in response, and watched out of the corner of her eye as he considered the thermos before taking another sip.
“If you’re checking up on me, don’t bother. Yes, I got your text, and yes, I decided not to come.”
Against the dreary shitstorm of what she now suspected was Day Six, Matt’s complete silence was an unexpected highlight. For once, she seemed to have caught him off-guard, enough so that he took almost a full minute to decide how to respond. Jessica refused to shift under the weight of his laser-focused attention, wondering idly what it was he was trying to analyse and how much it was actually telling him.
“You alright, Jess?” He settled on finally, and once again she found herself trying and failing to separate the layers of his expression.
“Fine.”
As the silence stretched between them, she took the shots she needed of the drunken couple stumbling through the front door of their apartment, ignoring the weight of Matt’s focus as she packed her camera back into its bag.
“You know where I am if you want a hand, Jess.” He smiled faintly, a rather obvious and half-hearted attempt at lightening the mood. “Or a drink. I promise there’ll be no eggnog involved.”
As he shifted his weight to drop off the balcony, Jessica shot out a hand, catching his wrist in the split-second before gravity took hold of him. She could see the moment his focus honed back in on her, the shape of his mouth taking on that attentive quality she quietly associated with a Doberman guarding the front door of his home.
“Jess?”
“I didn’t say shit about eggnog.”
There was a brief pause before Matt leaned in slightly, tilting his head.
“What?”
“Eggnog. I didn’t say anything about eggnog.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I fucking didn’t. We didn’t even talk about drinks.”
He paused, and Jessica watched as he ran a hand over his mouth, frowning.
“Sorry, I thought-” Matt shook his head slightly, and she could almost see his eyebrows furrowed behind the mask. “Never mind. Guess I remember a different conversation.” And shit, he could have meant last week, or last month, or last year, but she hesitated right on the cusp of her sentence; Jessica would deny until the day she died that the reminder that he’d stuck around this long was what loosened her tongue.
“What do you remember, Matt?”
She felt more than she saw the change that came over him, and after a split second’s hesitation, he stepped off the ledge, hanging on the edge of her personal boundary, the weight of the sudden shift pinning her in place. Simultaneously, she could feel the quiet, keen intelligence of Matthew Murdock, the lawyer, and the sharp, dogged focus of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
“What do you remember, Jess?”
She could hear the underlying tension in his voice, mirroring each other’s need for someone to confirm they weren’t losing their mind. After a second’s hesitation, she lifted her chin, watching as he registered the silent challenge.
“Is ninja-ing a real word?”
Slowly, his chest expanded, something in him stilling in the second before he ripped off his mask. Jessica registered the relief in his expression right before he shakily exhaled, jutting his chin out as he smiled.
“No, it’s not a real fucking word, Jess, and you’re not allergic to Christmas carols, or eggnog, or Christmas parties.”
“Thank fucking god,” she hissed, “I thought it was just me. What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know, I’ve been trying to figure that out.” Matt gently caught her elbow with his hand, waiting a split second before leading her further into the shadows of the building behind them. “I tried bringing it up with Foggy and he didn’t remember a thing, and I confirmed today that none of the others who showed up remember anything either.”
“So, Foggy, Karen, Luke and Claire all have no idea it’s happening.”
“Nope. Does Malcolm?”
“I don’t think so, he hasn’t been acting any differently.”
Matt frowned, hand dropping back to his side.
“So why us?”
“Did you piss anyone off?” At the look on his face, Jessica scoffed. “What? Out of the two of us, you’re more likely to have had a run-in with whoever did this.”
“You think someone did this to us on purpose?”
She shrugged.
“Do you have any better theories?”
After a long moment, Matt shook his head, brows pulled into that particular, pensive frown he got when he was trying and failing to Daredevil his way through a problem. Karen, during one of the few times Jessica had met her, once described it as his ‘I’m about to do something reckless’ look.
‘Every time, without fail. He gets to a point where he runs out of leads, and he just decides to put on the suit and bulldoze his way through it - usually by literally physically throwing himself at the problem, and then turning up right before dawn with blood and bullet holes all over him.’
“What are you thinking, Beelzebub?”
“It can’t have been just me, not if it’s targeting both of us. When was the last time we were around each other?”
Jessica shrugged, shifting her weight onto one foot and sticking a hand on her hip.
“Last week? I was coming back from that art museum and found you in the alleyway.” When Matt muttered under his breath, she raised an eyebrow, scoffing. “It’s not my fault you got knocked off a fifth story building and didn’t stick the landing. You even missed the dumpster, for once.”
“I don’t always-” he paused, shaking his head. “Anyway, that’s not the point. What cases have you been working on lately?” “The usual. Cheating husbands, wives, partners. I had one case that wrapped up last week about corporate fraud with a secretary skimming off the top of the accounts, but I can’t see her pulling off something like this. What about you? You get into more shit than I do.”
Matt made a noise in the back of his throat, scrunching his nose.
“Barely. It’s mostly been muggings, assault, the usual. The Irish were already trying to move back into the Kitchen, but now the Russians are making their move as well, so I’ve been trying to make sure neither of them can get a foothold. I tried chasing this one dealer with links to both, but."
Matt did that weird shrugging thing with his mouth, lips curling into a frown. He tilted his head, listening as she pulled out her phone and pressed the power button to turn the screen on.
“Have you managed to stay awake past midnight?”
“I tried last time, but I don’t remember hearing the alarm I set for twelve. I just woke up in the morning as usual.”
“I always fall asleep right before the clock changes.” Jessica sighed. “And it’s almost midnight now. We’ve got five minutes.”
Matt hummed, both of them silent for a moment.
“We’re already here, we can try to stay awake, but if-”
“When,” Jessica interjected, watching as Matt’s upper lip curled.
“When we wake up and start today again, I’ll call Foggy and Karen and tell them I’m taking the day off, and if you can put off your clients and Malcolm, meet me at my apartment. If we can figure out what started this, maybe we can figure out how to stop it from happening.”
As Jessica watched the time on her phone tick over to 11:58, she cracked a wry smile, glancing up at Matt’s face.
“Guess we’re both missing the Christmas party this time around.” He laughed quietly, shaking his head, and both of them waited in silence as the world around them faded to black.
The seventh time Jessica woke up sprawled next to her bed with a killer headache, she grabbed a cup of black coffee, chased it down with some painkillers, and after asking Malcolm to watch the office, made her way across Hell’s Kitchen to Matt’s apartment. He greeted her at the door with a raised eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe.
“I’m not sure whether I should be relieved or disappointed that I wasn’t imagining any of this,” Matt muttered in lieu of a greeting.
“The alternative is that you have permanent brain damage from your second job, but if you’d prefer ‘CTE’ to ‘briefly cursed’, I can fix that for you.” When he paused, eyebrows raised in surprise, Jessica rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I pay attention to Clare’s lectures, alright?”
“Alright,” Matt raised his hands in surrender, stepping back to let her into the apartment. “So you think it’s a curse now?”
“What’s the alternative? Joint hallucination? Brand new powers? Some kind of universal time loop that only we’re noticing?”
"Let's review the facts."
"Alright, counselor. You start. What, exactly, were you doing last night?"
Matt tilted his head as Jessica sank into the couch, arms slung over the back, hooking one leg over her knee. She raised an eyebrow as he ran a hand over his mouth, perching on the chair opposite her.
"I've been trying to stop the mafia from returning to the city. The Irish started surfacing in August; there's been a few arrests, but nothing substantial - low-level drug charges. Then the Russians started appearing last month, their uptake in the city has been a lot faster. They've been going after anyone with big debts to loan sharks and offering them a way out. I managed to find someone who was in deep, lost his job at a big firm after getting caught with a drug test."
"Shit, lawyer?"
"Yeah. He was using to deal with a massive case his firm was handling, but it started affecting his performance in the courtroom; as soon as his boss heard the office rumours, he was let go. He goes to a loan shark to cover rent, the Russians offer him a way out if he deals for them. I was trying to track him down last night." Matt sniffed. "Well, December 22nd."
"And?"
He leant back into the chair, almost as if dodging Jessica's gaze. There was something hidden between the lines of his expression, raw and rough as the ever-present, ever-healing wounds on his knuckles. When he tilted his chin down, she lost the split-second glimpse to the shadow cast by his red glasses.
"I couldn't find him. I staked out his usual bar, but he never showed."
Jessica waited for a heartbeat, impatience seeping into her voice when Matt clammed up again.
"And?"
If he was put off by her tone, or the noise she made in the back of her throat, he didn't show it, face as still and calm as the surface of a lake.
"It was Billy's."
"On 11th and 46th?" At his pause, Jessica cursed, somewhat mollified by the way Matt tilted his face out from under the weight of her glare. "Shit, Murdock, why the fuck didn't you lead with 'we were at the same shithole-in-the-fucking-wall the night before we woke up in fucking purgatory?"
One corner of his mouth twitched down and out, the only flicker of movement she could pin down.
"And don't try to bullshit me, I don't need your heartbeat shit to know you were trying to avoid mentioning it."
"Yeah, I saw you there." Matt cleared his throat, one eyebrow raised by a hair. "I talked to a woman there for a couple of hours, I think her name was Stacey-"
"Talking, huh." She couldn't prove it, but she was pretty fucking sure Matt could tell when she was rolling her eyes, his expression flattening as he turned his attention to her.
"I noticed you leaving, could tell how much you'd had to drink, and I was planning on getting out of there anyway, so I followed you for a bit to make sure you didn't end up in a ditch."
To his credit, he didn't shrink away from the anger he could probably hear in the hollow of her chest, rising in her like a red tide.
"Fucking hell, Murdock, I didn't need you to escort me from rooftops like some kind of creepy ass gargoyle."
"I didn't."
Jessica frowned, staring at him.
"Not from the rooftops."
"You know, that almost makes it worse," she drawled, pushing to her feet and moving to the kitchen. Jessica caught a glimpse of his lips curling into his frown, undoubtedly (correctly) guessing her intent, but Matt didn't say a word, eyebrows raised for a second as he turned toward her.
"I was only walking you part of the way- or I was going to, until he hit me with his car."
The sentence hung in the air between them for a moment as Jessica paused, pulling her head out of the fridge, cans of cheap beer momentarily forgotten. After a second's delay, she let out a sharp bark of laughter, grin borderline feral as she stared across the room at him.
"He hit you with his car?"
His displeasure was evident in the flat line of his mouth, working his jaw for a moment as he waited for Jessica to get it out of her system. She waved a hand at him, grabbing out a can and kicking the door closed.
"Okay, so the dealer you were tracking down hit you with his car, on the same night he didn't show at the bar where you were waiting for him." Jessica cracked open the can and kicked it back, draining half in one go before wiping the back of her mouth with a shrug. "Seems pretty suspect to me."
"What were you doing there last night, other than drinking?"
"Working a case, actually." As she sank back onto the couch, Jessica raised the can to her lips, downing the remainder before crushing the metal in the palm of her hand. "A man working increasingly long hours, avoiding questions about his job, won't tell his fiancee where he's going in the middle of the night when he gets an 'emergency call' from his boss. She wanted me to get proof that he was cheating, but the links I found to the Russians would suggest otherwise."
Matt raised his eyebrows, resting his hands on his knees.
"Your case is on Andrey Daddano?"
"Yeah. Same guy you were tracking?"
He nodded.
"Shit. What did he do?"
"I don't know, but we'll figure it out."
Running each other through their respective notes was, honestly, the most grounded Jessica had felt in days, living through the exact same cycle of coffee-client-stakeout-devil-home on repeat like some kind of mundane punishment for one crime or another. There were plenty of hers to choose from, however shitty it might be for Murdock to be pulled into her personal purgatory. But, hell, that might as well be a punishment of its own.
On the tenth repeat, she found out he'd almost taken 'Stacey, I think' home, up until he'd decided to babysit her instead. He shrugged, brushed it off, as if anyone else would have given enough of a damn in his place.
On the thirteenth, watching Andrey from across a parking lot, she'd bemoaned not bringing her usual thermos of black coffee and whiskey, and devil boy had pulled a flask from his suit without a word; offered it to her as if it was nothing.
On the seventeenth, they'd busted into a den of Russians armed to the teeth, tasted a thick layer of iron and salt on her tongue the whole time she carried him back to his apartment, woken with a plea in her throat that stuck until she saw for herself that the bullet wound hadn't carried over.
On the nineteenth, they'd sat in the dark of her office, his glasses resting on the desk next to her as they ran rapid-fire through their notes before the blackout hit and morning rolled in again.
On the twenty-fifth, she strolled into his apartment, slammed a thermos of coffee onto the coffee table, chin jutted out, the line of her mouth flat as a knife as she waited for him to turn his face toward her.
"Fuck it. Let's just do the party this time."
Matt paused, caught off guard in a way that even she rarely managed to achieve. Even when she tried. Jessica didn't care to inspect the slow curl of satisfaction in the pit of her stomach at his bemused smile cast in the golden morning light.
"What?"
"This is number twenty-five and we still haven't got any-fucking-where. Andrey is, aside from his recent addiction issues and being blackmailed by the Russians, squeaky clean. He's never been arrested, never joined a cult - or a fraternity, which is basically the same fucking thing." She smirked at Matt's low chuckle, tilting her head. "And as far as we can tell, he's never dabbled in the dark arts or studied under that one shithead doctor. He didn't curse us, the Russians didn't curse us, and neither of them have invented some kind of fucked up time machine that backfired on us, specifically. So, fuck it. Let's take one day off. It's not like we won't get another chance tomorrow."
Matt leant back into his chair, breathing out a laugh, both eyebrows raised as he shook his head.
"Why?"
Jessica shrugged, sniffing as she looked away, avoiding the hawk-like line of Matt's focus; pretended she didn't recognise the way his eyebrows furrowed slightly when he tuned in and listened to whatever it was that seemed to give her away.
"You've skipped your stupid party- what, nineteen times now?"
"Seventeen, I think."
"Which means blowing off your friends, and suffering that disappointed sigh Nelson does when he's really tired of your shit. Might as well just enjoy this one; do whatever you want, really. It’s not like it'll stick tomorrow."
He paused, licking his lips thoughtfully, mouth slightly parted as he honed in on her.
"Just to clarify, you are suggesting we go to my 'stupid Christmas party' tonight? The one you've skipped, what, twenty-five nights in a row?"
"Technically, I only skipped it seven times. The other eighteen, this asshole lawyer cancelled it so he could run around the rooftops in his pyjamas instead."
Matt laughed, shaking his head.
"If only I'd known that it would only take Groundhog Day to get you to come."
"Admit it Murdock, you set this whole thing up on purpose just to get me to come."
"Oh, definitely. All part of my master plan. It's like a surprise party, but the surprise is that we actually get you to come out of your office without going to a really shitty bar."
Jessica raised a hand to her mouth to muffle her quiet chuckle, knowing perfectly damn well that he'd hear it anyway, the asshole.
---
Karen's bright peal of laughter cut through the apartment like a firework, illuminating Nelson's warm, open smile and the curl of Matt's smile, as wide as she'd ever seen it.
Luke and Clare had excused themselves barely half an hour ago, only ever planning to stay for a little while before they got back to work. Jessica had enjoyed a very brief chat with Clare before she'd disappeared out the door, which mercifully had only included a short lecture about her health.
Curled up in the corner with a bottle of Winston, Jessica watched the three remaining friends banter like they'd done it their entire lives, a kind of camaraderie between them that she always forgot existed until she saw them together in person. For all of Matt's careful (and for the most part logical) reasoning about the dangers of his night shift, a part of her wanted to smack him upside the head for being thick enough to risk losing Foggy and Karen's presence in his life. A larger part recognised precisely how hypocritical that was, and before it could inspect the common thread between them, shoved the thought straight back into the box.
Nelson finished up his latest story about their college shenanigans, just one entry in the endless ‘embarrass Matt’ supply he seemed to possess. Matt's face was a very subtle shade of pink, unrelated to the one glass of whiskey he'd stolen from the bottle she was currently finishing. The true reason for his faintly rosy cheeks was exposed when he reached up to rub the back of his neck, a tell she'd noted back in that poorly lit interrogation room as she'd stonewalled every offer of help.
Looking at him now, it was a wonder that she'd believed for a single second that he was just a lawyer. There had always been more lying just underneath the surface, if anyone bothered to pay attention long enough to notice.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nelson turn his attention to her, immediately lowering her bottle to prepare for whatever was behind that cheeky grin he'd assumed.
"If you really want a break Matt, we could talk about one of the many stories I managed to hear working for Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz."
"Or," Jessica drawled, gesturing with the remainder of her drink, "you could make it to the New Year in one piece, Nelson."
Laughing, Foggy pointed at her, turning his gaze to Karen and Matt in turn.
"See, Ms Jones, most people are less scary when they get to know them. I think you might be the only person I've ever met who gets scarier. You're like," he paused, pursing his lips. "You're like one of those spiky fish. What are they called?"
"Pufferfish?" Karen interjected, and Foggy snapped his fingers.
"Yes! A pufferfish. You get all big and spiky when you're mad."
Matt turned his attention to her, and Jessica felt her expression flatten, shooting him a glare before he even opened his mouth.
"He's saying you're full of hot air."
"No, wait, that came out wrong." Foggy raised both hands in the universal sign of surrender, mouth working for a moment before he spoke. "You're- you're like a bear. No-"
"Stop while you're ahead, Foggy. If you don't turn up to work next week, I'm going to tell all of your clients you called a woman a pufferfish and suffered the consequences."
"Aw, come on Karen, you could at least tell them I died doing something heroic."
"Heroically stupid, maybe," Matt drawled, smirking in spite of the look Foggy shot him.
"Betrayed by my two best friends, left to die by Jessica Jones's hand." Foggy squinted, nose wrinkled. "Jones'? Jones's? Joneses's?"
"Okay, get out now. You've worn out your welcome."
"This isn't even your apartment!"
"Honestly, Foggy, it probably is about time we left." Karen turned her gaze to Jessica, and she really didn't appreciate whatever the hell it was she was picking up in that smile of hers. "It's starting to get kinda late, and there’s a lead I want to follow up."
"No, we closed up the office, remember? Take a break, Karen." Foggy tilted his head, considering. "I got an invite to drinks at this really fancy rooftop bar, you could come with me. It’s open tab?"
As they rose, discussing the finer points of the rooftop bar experience, Matt and Jessica remained in their chairs for a moment longer as she turned her gaze toward him. Seeing the unspoken question in the tilt of his head, Jessica glanced down at her phone, flicking the power button with her thumb to wake it.
"11:48," she hissed under her breath, following him as he got up to see Karen and Foggy out the door.
"Seriously, though, thanks for coming." Matt smiled, only Jessica catching the bittersweet note to the curl of his lips. "It was nice to see you guys."
"Maybe if you let up on your other job, you might actually make it into the office and see us at work." For as harsh as the words might have been, Foggy made them softer, affection warring with exasperation in the tired thrum of his voice. "Try to take tonight off, alright?"
"Alright." Jessica glanced at him, catching the very slight twitch to his smile, the both of them quietly sharing in the irony of that request. "Goodnight Foggy, night Karen."
"Night Matt," Karen murmured as she leaned forward to give him a hug, waiting a second to catch Jessica's eye before she reached out and gave her upper arm a gentle squeeze. "Night Jessica, it was nice to see you for once."
As Karen turned towards the door, Jessica took a step out of her way, putting her a fraction closer to Matt's personal space than she'd usually allow. As she did, she watched both Karen and Foggy's gaze flick to her, then Matt, then up, and suddenly both wore identical grins.
"Oh, would you look at that."
Matt seemed to catch on a fraction quicker, even before the glee in Foggy's voice made Jessica look up and see the mistletoe hanging over their heads.
"When the fuck did someone put that there?"
"It wasn't there when they arrived," Matt muttered, a sudden tension in his shoulders that Jessica couldn't quite look away from.
"What a coincidence."
"It's a Christmas tradition," Karen added with an innocent smile that she was sure Matt wasn't buying either.
"Guys," Matt started, and as he set one hand on his hip, lowering his head in a way Jessica had most often seen when he was wearing the mask, she turned on her phone screen.
11:52.
They didn't have time for this.
Fuck it.
As she moved to kiss the corner of his mouth, just enough to satisfy whatever the hell was going on before they ran out of time, Matt turned his head, and her lips brushed his.
For a moment, Jessica felt everything freeze, her gaze catching a glimpse of Matt's eyes over the top of his glasses.
Oh.
Fuck.
All four of them stood completely still for an agonisingly long moment, Foggy and Karen's identical expressions frozen in shock, Matt's flickering through several emotions that even Jessica couldn't decipher. Hell, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Intentions aside, she'd just kissed him, and he'd been completely unprepared for it, shock being the one emotion she'd managed to catch before his expression settled back into the other mask he often wore.
"Okay, um." Karen started, stopped, and caught Foggy's elbow as she plucked her coat from the hook by her shoulder. "Merry Christmas!" Grimacing faintly, she dragged Foggy into the hallway, the slam of the front door cutting off whatever Nelson had tried to add.
Rubbing a hand over her mouth, Jessica took a quick step back, carefully avoiding Matt's gaze as he stared past her left shoulder.
"Shit. Sorry." She fumbled right out of the gate, biting her lip. "I didn't mean to- uh." She inhaled sharply. "Fuck."
Fuck, since when did silence ever feel this heavy. For all the sounds of the city around them, it still felt completely still, everything else falling away as the silence stretched between them. Jessica felt the weight of Matt's distant attention, however muted it might have been by whatever was going through his head. For someone who utilised pauses in every section of his life, she'd grown used to reading his line of thought in the way each one settled, and this one bore the mark of that confused tilt of his head when he was trying to puzzle out a line of action.
As much as it wore on her, Jessica could at least give him another minute to figure out whatever the hell it was that was going on in his head.
"Jessica," he started, finally, pausing with a sharp exhale and a shake of his head. "You didn't think I was going to turn my head." It wasn't a question, but it wasn't what he was originally going to say, either, from the vague frustration she glimpsed.
"Uh, no." Jessica noticed his face turn to the line of her throat as she swallowed hard, eyebrows furrowed as they both halted on the awkwardness of the moment.
Matt took a deep breath, and as he rubbed the back of his neck, he opened his mouth to start again, but was interrupted by the shrill tone ringing through the apartment.
"What the fuck-?"
For a second, both of them tensed, preparing themselves for a fight, reflexes kicking in before either of them could recognise the sound.
"...is that-"
In answer, Matt pulled his phone out of his back pocket, silencing it with his thumb. The dull, robotic voice followed a second later.
"Midnight, December 24th."
If the silence was loud before, it was deafening now, roaring in her ears like thunder as Jessica reared back, covering her mouth with her hand. She looked up at Matt, both of them sharing a long, tense moment before she broke it for the second time.
"What the fuck? Now we don't repeat it, is this some kind of sick fucking joke?" She sank back against the wall with a bark of laughter, gesturing between them with one hand. "What the fuck did we even do, is this some kind of 'ghosts of Christmas present' bullshit? Live life, party hard, maybe have some alcohol and it'll sort itself out?"
There was something settling into Matt's expression, and as he raised his chin to put his face level with hers, across the space between them, Jessica realised that no matter which way this went, she was well and truly fucked.
"You coming to the party tonight was the only thing that changed, this time." He shrugged, and something in the gesture sat wrong, catching her attention like the red cape of a matador. "Maybe it just ran its course."
"Bullshit." Jessica wasn't actually sure why the hell she was deciding to push this, but there was something in the line of his shoulders, something in the way he turned his face away from her gaze, something in the way he swallowed that rang like a bell, reverberating all the way down. "There's something you aren't saying."
His hands clenched as he stalked past her into the living room, Matt perching on the chair nearest the window, farthest from her, his face turned toward her but head tilted in the opposite direction. There was a bitter note in the narrow space between his eyebrows, something like ash in the way his fists curled and uncurled.
"You first, Jess."
Fucking gargoyle ass-
She scoffed, trailing after him, almost collided with the couch for all the force felt in her stare. Her fingertips curled into the fabric as she inhaled, shoulders back, stopping just shy of ripping it clear from the staples.
"Me first, what."
"There's a few things you haven't been saying, either, so why don't we start with that."
"Oh, fuck off, that's one shitty attempt at changing the subject, counselor."
"You know that I can tell when you lie." He shrugged, chin flicking to one side as he ran a hand along his bottom lip. "You may not have technically lied, but you pretended that you had no idea I was at that bar last night."
"And how the fuck would you know?"
"I know you saw me, Jessica. Even if I hadn't noticed you scanning the room and stop when you saw me, I know you, and you're good at what you do. If you hadn't noticed me sitting in the same bar as you for almost two and a half hours, you'd be a pretty fucking terrible P.I."
"Oh, fuck you, what does it even matter?"
"Exactly- why does it matter? Why pretend that you didn't see me?"
"For fuck's sakes," Jessica spat, arms straight as a rod, shoulders near her ears as she hissed at him. Matt's lip curled in response, something in his face hardening like steel, the creature cast in the shadows of the windowframe entirely the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. "It doesn't matter, why do you care?"
"Because it shouldn't matter, Jessica, and I can't understand why it does!" The sentence seemed to catch them both a little off-kilter, by the way Matt's nose twitched.
"So why does it matter, Matthew?" She watched the name land, dropping into his expression like a stray bullet. Ignited like gunpowder. "Why did you try to avoid mentioning that you saw me?"
"Why did you kiss me?" He shot back, too quick for either of them to take back.
"I don't fucking know!" Something in her chest rumbled like thunder, echoing in the sudden quiet. "They were right there, I saw the time, and I just did, alright?" She bit back the 'sorry' that almost followed just in time, holding it on the tip of her tongue as she grimaced.
Matt paused for a very long moment, and right as his expression shifted, she remembered.
Oh, fuck.
He opened his mouth, hesitated, closed it, and as she watched him weigh whether to say it, Jessica bit the bullet and did it herself.
"Yeah, I know. Shut up." Dutifully, he closed his mouth again, right as he'd been about to speak. "You were talking to Stacey by then, probably because he hadn't shown."
It was almost physically painful to push past the point of no return, that particular brand of discomfort honesty often brought; something she hadn't really felt in months. Something she'd usually only felt around Trish.
"I didn't know you were there as devil boy, I thought you were just picking up some chick at a bar so I didn't say anything. Then you told me why, and." She shrugged. When Jessica looked back at Matt, her gaze fell on his hands instead, distantly noting them resting on his thighs.
He wasn't quite frowning, but there was still something tense in the line of his mouth, and Jessica could almost hear his brain working from several feet away. There was a very long moment where she thought she'd well and truly fucked things up, before Matt's eyebrows flicked upwards and he removed his glasses, setting them to one side.
"I said that I noticed you enter the bar, before you realised I was there."
"Yeah."
"I honestly wasn't interested, not really. But when she approached me, it was just after I heard you come in. She was." He hesitated, mouth shrugging downwards in a flash of a frown. "She was a distraction, honestly. It sounds kind of terrible when I say it like that."
There was something in his gaze as he looked up, just past her left ear, Jessica noted. If she didn't know Matt any better, she'd almost call it fear. Slightly, maybe; that particular blend she got right before she did something stupid like. Well. Any of this, actually.
After a very long moment, she laughed.
"Was me coming into the bar that much of an issue?"
Except he caught the deflection, the asshole.
"Actually, yeah." Matt cleared his throat quietly, head tilted. "You were also. Uh. Distracting. I didn't want you to be."
She scoffed, raising her eyebrows, and he waved a hand in response.
"That came out wrong."
"Yeah, no shit."
He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.
"I didn't want to fuck anything up, so when I noticed that I was starting to develop feelings for you, I ignored it. That didn't work, so I started keeping my distance, but then you showed up in that bar, and then we ended up in this mess. When I realised you were involved, I felt like it was my fault, somehow, and then after." He hissed out a breath, shaking his head. " When the alarm went off, I thought it really was my fault."
Jessica paused for a heartbeat, mouth parted, gaze flicking to the hallway and back again.
"You thought because I kissed you and suddenly we weren't in a time loop, you'd gotten us stuck in one because of me. Or Stacey. Or both."
"Basically, yeah." He grimaced, rubbing his forehead.
"Holy shit, Matt." Jessica turned her face to one side, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand, and bit back a hysterical laugh. "Your martyr complex really is that bad, huh?"
"Shut up, Jessica."
"I thought it was my fault, actually," she admitted, the words slipping out a little too easily this time. "Because I got drunk in the bar."
Matt tilted his head.
"What? Why would that affect it?"
"It was a distraction." Jessica paused, and watched the realisation roll across Matt's expression. "Same as yours. I just didn't really figure it out, not until earlier."
It stripped his expression bare with shock, catching him off guard again, and she really, really shouldn't think about why she always found that satisfying.
After a long moment, he leant forward, face tilted towards hers.
"So to be clear, we are on the same page here."
"Neither of us are exactly shy about one night stands, I'm pretty sure Groundhog Day wouldn't have happened otherwise."
"So this isn't just-" he gestured vaguely, searching for a way to phrase it, and Jessica grinned.
"Isn't just...?"
Matt raised one eyebrow.
"This isn't just about finding each other attractive."
"I don't know, Murdock, it's difficult to find anyone attractive in that getup you run around in."
He laughed, shaking his head.
"You're not making this easy, Jess."
"Yeah, that's kind of the point."
Visibly holding back a smile, Matt rose from the chair, rounding the couch to rest his hip against the other end, still leaving at least a foot between them. As she turned toward him, he placed one arm on the back of the couch, palm upward, expression open as he cleared his throat.
"So then you won't mind if I kiss you, just to make sure?"
"Knock yourself out."
"I mean," his lips twitched, "that's kind of the opposite-"
"Shut the fuck up, you asshole." The laugh she was trying (and mostly succeeding) to hold back hummed through her voice as she closed the distance, kissing him properly this time. Jessica felt his hand settle into the curve of her waist as Matt responded in kind, warmth seeping into her bones. He pulled back a little too soon to take a breath, holding her at bay with the weight of his hand, a gentle smile pulling at his lips that Jessica didn’t ever remember seeing before.
And shit, she really, really would have remembered.
They were both so fucked.
For once, Jessica wasn’t actually sure that she minded.