Chapter Text
Matt reaches her as she’s coming off shift during one of the dark hours between the time the bars close and the bakeries come to slow life. February – so far – has been a long slog of colds and flu and overdoses. (Thanksgiving to about January third are at least enlivened by tales of family feuds and poor decision making skills in regards to exercise equipment.) (But there’s hope. Valentine’s Day is coming up.)
She’s been discussing her upcoming time off with a couple of similarly tired coworkers when her phone rings. She doesn’t need to look at the display to know who’s calling – even after so many months of silence – but her eyes find the information nonetheless. He’s never been saved as anything but a # in her contacts, both to protect him and remind herself of what he does. Not that she truly needs the reminder. He and his alter ego are still occasional grist for the media. More to the point she still has ‘bangers, and dealers, and who knows what else show up in her ER with bouquets of bruises blooming under their skin.
“That’s not a happy face.” Shoshona is preparing to work a double and gets to it with nothing more than that observation and a commiserating glance. Melly teases her about boy troubles while she bundles up. Claire makes indeterminate sounds that aren’t exactly agreement but aren’t disagreements either. Because she’s going to take the call no matter how her heart pounds and her chest seizes up. She’s made promises to him, and he’s made promises to the same city whose wounded pass through her care. She’ll answer because sometimes he’s responsible for the wounds but more often he’s the reason directing them away from the weak and vulnerable.
(They’re bound together by conviction and belief as much as they are by coulda-should-woulda-beens.) (Things could have been so easy for them if they hadn’t been so damn complicated.)
“Hello?” Her coworkers leave the locker room but she still finds herself turning away from the door, lowering her voice, seeking more privacy.
He’s silent at the other end of the line long enough that she starts worrying about blood loss, but before she can repeat herself (before she can call his name in a tone that would reveal the depth of that worry) he says, “I wasn’t sure you would pick up.” His voice is dull and hesitant, but thinly underlaid with the dark humor that’s as familiar to her as the sight of blood smeared across his skin.
It’s a relief. It’s a frustration. He pushes and pulls at her just as he always has.
“I told you I would.” She hopes tone and words are as neutral as she imagines them to be.
Has he neglected calling her because he hadn’t believed her? Was he so easily thrown off balance by her (as she was by him) that he would have doubted the sincerity of her offer, he who heard the truth and reality of everything?
“You did.”
If her words had given nothing away, then neither do his.
“So is this a test run,” (and she doesn’t let herself consider what or who he might be testing,) “or is there something I can help you with?” (She’s already heard the pain in his voice. If he lies to her now she might have to think twice before picking up again.)
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
Claire breathes in and breathes out slowly, part of her counting down from ten and part of her wondering if he thinks there’s a good time for her to worry if he’s going to bleed out before she can patch him together. “Is this a blind thing? I’ve done some reading. Sleep-wake disorder might explain how you’re able to stay out all night.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that –” His voice hitches. “That might be it.”
Bittersweet. That’s probably the right word for how this feels. “What do you need, Matt?”
“I need a second opinion.” The hints of humor are gone, replaced by the weariness that’d been present in him the last time they’d spoken.
“About?”
“I think I dislocated my shoulder.”
+
He’d promised he wasn’t bleeding, so Claire goes directly to his apartment without stopping for her first aid kit. The streets are quiet by city standards. The air is cold and wetly chill in a way that settles in the sinuses and bones and the joints of the fingers. She jogs up the stairs to his apartment, hoping to warm herself, to get blood moving through her hands again before she has to set them to his skin.
A key to his apartment still hangs on her key ring; it’d been presented to her with the same practicality as that damned burner phone. Maybe at one point there’d been some unspoken expectation of it being used for more than house calls, but as those must be long gone she taps at his door softly before letting herself in.
“Matt?” She dumps her scarf and heavy coat on the bench at the door, not because she imagines this will take long, but for the ease of movement.
“Up here.”
The answer is unexpected to say the least, but Claire moves farther into the apartment, turning on lights as she goes. Not only will she need enough light to see the possible dislocation in question, but the stairs to his roof have always struck her as an accident waiting to happen.
She’s getting ready to lecture him when she gets far enough up the stairs to see him.
“Hi, Claire.”
Her heart beats harder as his lopsided smile clashes violently with the scowl sculpted into his helmet. It’s…disturbing. More than the glassy eyes and – oh god, those really are horns – on their own.
“You’re the one who wanted me to get body armor.” He sounds pleased with himself, as if he’s been waiting to show off to her for awhile now. (Or been wanting to share the blame for this with her.) It’s enough to get her moving again despite the uneasiness caused by the visual clash of emotions he currently represents.
“Yes. Body armor. But this is…”
“Is it really that bad?” He sounds almost disappointed.
“It’s…unnerving.” She crosses over to him and crouches down next to where he’s slumped against the wall. It’s hard to see anything through the semi-rigid fabric. “I imagine it’s perfect for scaring the crap out of street thugs though.” He’s holding his left arm close to his chest with his right hand; maybe he’s still in his uniform for something other than shock value. “Can you take the helmet off?”
“It’s easier with two hands.”
And that’s probably as close as he’ll come to admitting he’s incapacitated. Claire can’t hold back her sigh. (Isn’t sure she wants to. He deserves to know her thoughts on the matter but actually voicing them would probably be a waste of breath.)
“Okay, Captain Obvious, can you tell me how to get it off?” If he’d been able to get undressed on his own, if he’d been wearing the black fatigues instead, would he still have called her?
How many new scars does he have?
“It’s tight, but it just lifts off.”
He talks her through stripping the upper part of his uniform off piece by piece. There’s enough suppressed gasps and winces from him that she doesn’t really need to conduct a visual examination to confirm his suspicions, but this is the game they play. She tells him things are bad, he pretends they aren’t, she gets a second chance at lecturing him when he undoes all her work.
(It’s an exhausting game that’s no fun for either of them.) (Though perhaps…)
Maybe I just like the sound of your voice.
(…perhaps in the past Matt had done what he could to spend more time with her.)
Instant red flags. She pushes that thought away, shoves it as deeply into her subconscious as she can.
He’s wearing a very familiar black shirt under his armor; there’s no way she can manipulate it off him without it hurting. However, it’s tight enough that on or off doesn’t really matter. The swelling is clearly obvious, as is the misshapen shoulder joint.
Her hands are firm as she guides him into an upright position, giving her better access to the joint just to be thorough. This time he can’t quiet muffle his groan. “What does the pain feel like?”
“Uh… It tingles. Like pins and needles.”
“Any other pain I should know about?”
“My neck doesn’t feel so great.”
“Cramping? Muscle spasms?”
“That one.”
She carefully guides him back so that the wall supports his weight again. “Okay, how did this happen?”
“Caught something heavy.”
She sighs. “That’s not really how it works.” They’re going to have to go in and get this fixed, which means they’re going to need a suitable explanation for how this happened, because the body tells. A dislocation from full body contact is different than from a car accident which is different than from being slammed to the ground.
“I caught something heavy that was falling from a roof. While I was also falling from a roof.”
A wrenching jerk might do it. “Mmm… Did this ‘something’ walk away in better shape than you did?”
He nods, a faint grin on his face.
She sits back on her heels and rubs her hands over her eyes. “Okay. So was this jerked out of place or did it happen when you landed?”
“The first one.”
“That must have sounded pleasant.”
His nose wrinkles up and he laughs weakly. “You’re the only one who says things like that to me.”
Is that why we haven’t spoken for three months? “Matt, you need to go to the hospital.”
“Claire…”
“You can’t avoid it this time. I mean, sure, we could do the cool-tough-guy-movie-star act –”
“Haven’t we had this discussion before?”
Yeah, he doesn’t go to a lot of movies. She gets it. “The point is, I could pop the joint back in, pack you in ice and leave you with a new bottle of anti-inflammatories… But dislocations are tricky. You could be fine, or it might dislocate again the next time you’re vaulting over a fire escape, and body armor isn’t going to do much to protect you from massive internal bleeding and/or breaking every bone in your body if you fall twenty stories. I’m not going to be responsible for that. So if you want my help it’s going to include a trip to Metro.”
Matt’s quiet for a long time, probably weighing his bad choices. He doesn’t have the leverage to do the job himself, and she doesn’t think his friend would be willing to help him out with this one. But she gives him the time to come to that conclusion himself.
“Will you come with me?”
She’d expected the request, but hearing it… It still makes something inside of her go still and soft and want to be considerate of him in a dangerous way. But she’d made her decision when she’d come at his call. “Of course.”
+
They make the short (but somehow harrowing) trip down the stairs together, Matt bracing himself against her shoulders, her arm around his waist less for balance and more because feeling how his body moves helps her compensate for his injury. Once they reach the main level she lets him go to his bedroom unaided while she fetches his first aid kit from the kitchen. (She is focused. She’s not here to look around and judge the changes he’s made to the place.) (Though it is nice not to come in and see a battle zone.)
His kit is…she hesitates to call it a relic, but she’s pretty sure it’s just that. Maybe not in the most literal religious sense, but it’s obviously a remnant from another time. Something in the same class as the green glass mason jar with a wire clasp that currently sits on her bathroom counter and holds cotton pads. (Something found in the back of one of her nan’s cupboards and taken home on a whim, but no less important for that.) It’s cool against her palms, lighter than any decently stocked first aid kit should be, but that’s Matt: either he’s not hurt enough to bother with it or he’s hurt enough to call her.
A groan from the bedroom catches her attention. She glares in Matt’s direction and calls, “You’d better not be taking off that shirt without me,” knowing he’s attempting to do just that. Her fingers flip the kit open; at least he’s got safety scissors. (But then, he’s the kind of guy who’d stitch himself up if he thought he had to…for whatever reason.)
(Pride. They’re both of them so damn proud. She supposes that’s as valid a reason for the last months of silence as any. Certainly less…personal.)
(God, she’s here to keep a promise, not rehash what went wrong with their aborted happily-ever-after.)
Matt’s holding his arm again and apparently waiting very patiently for her when she walks into his bedroom. “That shirt isn’t coming off without a fight,” she says, setting the open kit next to his bed. She’s watched him peel versions of it off enough times to know that there’s no way she wants to try to get it over his head much less his shoulder. “I hope you have spares.”
“You’re always trying to get me undressed,” he complains with an attempt at a smile, but his voice is short not with pain but with the discipline of holding it back.
“Yup, you ought to report me to the ANA. Hold still.” Perhaps she takes unnecessary care in cutting the shirt away, but it gives her time to look him over. There’s some fading bruises along his ribs that are easy enough to pick out, but no new scarring.
Not that the old scars aren’t hard enough to look at, but it provides an even more impersonal explanation for his radio silence. (He hadn’t needed help is very much less personal than he hadn’t wanted her help.)
She doesn’t know why she’s still looking for answers to questions she’s not going to ask. They – their strange relationship – is nothing but misfires and missteps with a little bit of nursing on the side.
“All done?” Matt sounds hopeful as she strips the tattered remains of his shirt off his right arm.
Not by a long shot. He’s still wearing half his armor. “Whoa, there Raphael. You’re still armed and dangerous.”
“Was that a Ninja Turtles reference?”
“Totally.” She observes the complicated looking boots, the fitted pants. “This is going to go easier for you if you lie back.”
“That’s what all the girls say.” He grimaces as he follows her instructions. “I’m sorry. That was…a dumb thing to say.”
Since his apology is directed at the ceiling Claire doesn’t respond to it. “Brace yourself. I’m going to get these boots off.”
It takes several minutes but Claire manages to get him stripped down to his underwear. On the job experience helps her get him re-dressed pretty quickly: athletic socks and drawstring sweats go on first, as long as she’s got him on his back. Then she sits back on her heels and surveys his kit again. It isn’t exactly equipped with a sling…not that she’s surprised. But there’s plenty of rolls of gauze; it’ll do until they get to the hospital.
“Calling a timeout?” Matt’s voice is rough; there’s sweat at his hairline and his abdominal muscles are rigid.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and looks him over; stretched out on his bed like that all she really wants to do is tuck him in and go home. (He’s at his most dangerous when he’s unfocused and in pain. That’s when she most wishes she could cater to him.) “Sorry. Time to immobilize that arm.”
This time his groan is purely theatrical.
+
He looks like a cut-rate mummy by the time she’s done, but between the gauze and the t-shirt she pulls on afterwards she’s fairly confident that his arm is immobilized in the way she wants.
“Easy…” She helps him stand up, pushing up against the hand he braces on her shoulder to keep his balance. “Okay. I’m going to call a taxi. Grab some shoes and a jacket.”
“Sure thing.”
She’s on hold with a taxi company she’s seen dropping people off at the hospital this time of night…morning…when Matt comes out of the bedroom, sans shoes, but with his boots and pants clutched awkwardly to his chest. She watches him from the corner of her eye as she paces back and forth. There’s a… (She’d call it a shed if it were outside, but since they’re inside she supposes it’s a closet.) There’s a closet built against the wall, an odd quirk of architecture that, if she’d thought about it, would have assumed held maybe a broom and a vacuum cleaner. What it actually holds is a battered steamer chest and a crucifix on the back wall.
He grunts as he kneels down in front of the chest; she watches with narrowed eyes as he opens the thing up and moves a tray aside with his one good hand. He packs everything away slowly, then pushes himself to his feet and heads towards the stairs.
“Yeah, the address is…just a minute.” She presses the phone to her chest and hisses at him wordlessly. It’s strange enough that he pauses, reconsiders a trip up the stairs when he’d needed help getting down them. It gives her time to finish giving the company his address and hang up.
“Com’on, get some shoes on. You can clean up later. The taxi will be here any moment.”
He doesn’t say anything but she can see the refusal on his face.
Fine. Fine. They have too many flights of stairs to navigate to waste time on this. So she trots up the stairs and gathers up the discarded pieces of his uniform and brings them back down.
Matt blocks her before she can step off the last riser. “Let me.”
“Matt, I can do it –”
“No.”
Fine. She bundles everything up inside the jacket and hands it over so it’s easier for him to carry. “I need you to get ready to go.”
“This won’t take long.”
She watches him carry his load back to the closet. Watches him kneel down again and carefully stow everything away. Watches him close the lid of the trunk and bow his head and cross himself.
It’s the last that makes her look away. Matt’s a complicated man, always has been. But watching this seems…intrusive.
Going to the door Claire slowly pulls her coat back on, tucking her scarf into one pocket. (Helping Matt down the stairs is going to keep her warm enough.)
She doesn’t need Matt’s overdeveloped sense of hearing to track his progress across the room. His footsteps are heavy, uneven. By the time he gets to her she has his coat ready in her hands. He makes a face as she closes it around the arm already pinned to his chest by so many layers, but she ignores it.
“Brace yourself on my shoulder.” Maybe to make up for his earlier stubbornness he follows her instructions, leaning on her while he slips his feet into battered and grimy tennis shoes. He grabs glasses, wallet, and keys from nearby and she stands aside as he closes his door behind them.
“Okay.” She gets his arm settled again as they approach the first flight of stairs. There’s more layers between them this time; it’s harder to judge each microshift of his muscles as he adjusts for his injury. “Instead of telling you to take it easy four hundred and twenty-seven times, I’m just going to tell you that I will not be taking a fall on these stairs for you, and you’ll probably need surgery if you go without me. So just…let me set the pace.”
“I’ve always let you set the pace, Claire.”
Hesitating might throw his stride off so she doesn’t stop walking, but ohhh… She’s not going to touch that comment. He might believe that’s true. And it might be if he hadn’t pulled the emergency brake on their relationship long before she had.
But like she’s told herself multiple times tonight…that’s not why she’s here.
+
“Middle initial?” Claire’s left hand is chilled from where she holds a disposable cold pack against Matt’s shoulder. Her right hand simultaneously holds down his admittance form and attempts to fill it out.
“M.” He’s not exactly slouched in his seat, that’d probably hurt too much. Instead he’s slightly curled in on himself, fingers worrying at her scarf where it’s half-fallen off her neck and draped itself over his lap. Since she’d had to strip off his coat to make the most of the cold pack, she hadn’t moved it.
Matthew M. Murdock. She glances at him (still pale and drawn from the trip here) but dutifully fills the information in. Address she’s got. Phone number… “Daytime phone?”
He’s quiet for a long time, as if he didn’t hear the question, but she can see his eyebrows are knitted behind his glasses. “Were you gonna fill in a nighttime phone number?”
“Not the one I have.” She taps the point of the pen against the paper. “Am I going to have to twist your arm? I mean, I’m kind of in this HIPAA grey-area, but we are in my place of business. I think I can refrain from stealing it.”
“That’s not…” Matt’s fingers fall still for a brief second in her peripheral vision before they start twisting in the double weight knit of her scarf, fingers spearing through the weave as if to keep her in her seat. “I’m not trying to hide it from you.”
Of course he isn’t. Because there’s about fifteen secrets she’d need him to open up about before they got anywhere near trading things like straightforward contact info.
“I didn’t say you were.” Just that it was clear she wasn’t meant to have it. “I’m just filling out the form. I’m going to need your social security number too.”
“Well, that’s just too much. You’re clearly out to steal my identity.”
“No offense, but I doubt your bank account is worth my time.”
“I’ll have you know that the law firm of Nelson and Murdock hasn’t accepted baked goods in lieu of payment for…at least a week.”
“Okay, well, now that I know a peach pie might be on the line I’m going to have to use my key to sneak into your apartment more often.” And she still has no number. He might not be trying to hide anything from her, but she’s clearly creeping too close to his real life for his comfort. “Do you want me to call your partner? I mean, we’ll still have to get this form filled out, but if you’d rather have him here than –”
Matt rattles off his phone number before she can finish the offer, quickly, as if speed can make up for hedging around the matter. As if hedging around the matter is something he feels he needs to make up for.
(God damnit, they are such a…disaster.)
His hand is fisted in her scarf. The only way she’s leaving is to leave it behind with him.
She wets her lips and looks down at the form. “I…might have missed a couple of digits there.”
“Which ones?”
“Just start from the beginning.”
+
“ER’s always take this long?”
Claire strokes Matt’s hair back from his face before dropping her hand back to his neck where she’s massaging the muscles to ease the spasms. The steady pain is clearly taking it’s toll. “We got here right before shift change for the admin folks. They’ll get through the backlog here in a few minutes.” After turning his paperwork in she’d switched sides, encouraged him to let her take some of his weight. “Besides, you’re not actively bleeding.” He’s probably heard the ambulances coming in, but she’s better at assessing what she hears beyond the doors.
“Uhhh…Claire?”
She tilts her head and looks up. “Hey, Sho.” Her coworker has stopped in front of them, a small stack of charts in her arms and a curious expression on her face.
“This doesn’t look like a vacation.”
“I’m not expected anywhere until dinner tonight.” Next to her Matt stiffens against her shoulder; she can’t restrain him without hurting him so she lets her arm drop to rest along the back of his chair.
Shoshona looks at (evaluates) Matt, looks at Claire. Points at Matt and then makes the old phone-to-the-ear gesture which she emphasizes with a comically emphasized grumpy face. Claire rolls her eyes and nods.
“Well then. Let’s try to move this along. What are you two in for?” Sho’s a good nurse, even a couple of hours into her second shift. She can see how Claire’s wrapped him up. “Dislocation or separation?”
“Dislocation.” She looks at Matt who’s stayed quiet through all this. “I mean, I think. I don’t have x-ray fingers or anything.” She’s watching for it so she catches the smile that twitches across his face like a wild thing looking for shelter.
“Alright. Well, let’s get you settled in somewhere.” Sho nods her head towards the bays. “Unless you’re clocking in for this.”
That’s an option. But there’s nurses here. Good nurses, people she trusts to do their jobs. What Matt needs right now is…not a nurse. “I’m going to sit this one out, I think.” She stands up and slides gentle hands under Matt’s good arm. “Com’on. We’re getting bumped to the head of the line because I look tired.”
His throat convulses as he swallows whatever sound of pain is inspired by getting to his feet. “Lucky me.”
“Don’t you forget it,” Sho calls over her shoulder.