#praise the code | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

foxmurdock · 24 days ago

Text

Soft Spots and Solar Flares.

Paring: Matt Murdock x GN Reader Summary: Acts of service is your primary love language, but it starts to feel like more than that, when it comes to your friend Matt Murdock. Tags: Blood and injuries, mild angst, hurt/comfort, um reader has questionable healthy boundaries for themself? Denial of feelings, no use of Y/N word count: 2600 A/N: This is my submission for @mattmurdocksscars Writing Challenge , Thanks for letting me participate and congrats on 2.5k followers!

“Oh, You're a saint.” It was that exhausted, raspy mutter from your study partner as you had placed a dinged up thermos in front of him. Just a simple expression of Matt’s gratitude as you plopped your bag and books on the table across from him, before uncapping the thermos. The gentle murmur from him as you poured crappy dorm coffee into paper cups you’d snagged from the residence hall’s kitchen.

The glossy wooden library table contrasted sharply with the scuffed surface of the container holding several ounces of hot coffee. There hadn’t been time for you to make the run to your usual cafe, so you had opted to brew some yourself. You had to boil the water using the microwave in the residence hall’s kitchen but you were too worried about other things to care. At least you had been able to use your french press brought from home to brew it and your favorite honey to smother the bitter flavor from the poor water quality.

It was the start of your undoing.

You prefer tea.

But it was just one little change. It was a simple thing to do that brought a little relief to Matt.

But that one single adjustment turned into a recurring action.

You scraped up a bit of extra money to buy a kettle, keeping it in a cardboard box with your french press and your honey. You started to buy coffee grounds instead of tea bags, even though it was a bit more expensive.

But every time you earned a smile from him, there was a rush in your system. You would study his reactions when you tweaked something. You’d adjust the ratio of honey and creamer in the coffee, eye Matt over the rim of your flimsy paper cup, and ask him how it was. Matt would always tell you it was good, but your gaze flicked over his face, looking for the details you needed. During all of your time together, in between classes, late night study sessions and early mornings scrambling to finish projects, you had developed a proclivity for reading the little details of Matt's body language.

A wrinkle in his brow, when he lifts the cup closer to his lips, pausing briefly before drinking, likely means you got the water temperature wrong, and the brew is too bitter. If his nose twitches right after a few swallows, then you probably put too much honey in, but if his lips twitch instead, just after the first sip, then you got the balance right.

It's like a small sugar high every time Matt murmurs thank you in that soft rumble, or if you succeed in doing something that makes him smile. You can almost feel your brain lighting up, the neurotransmitters sparking off in your skull like fireflies on southern summer nights, especially if he tacks your name on to the end.

Even the slightest bit of approval from him fills you with a warmth that you grow to crave. What started as simple acts of fondness became much more.

So you make adjustments. Changes and silent accommodations that start going beyond tweaks to Matt’s coffee.

Your time with Matt and Foggy in college had given you time to perfect that, but after graduation, you don’t get to see him almost every week with a curated cup, so it snowballs into other things.

Once your little group transitions from struggling college students to slightly less struggling adults, you start meal prepping, making a few extra for Foggy and Matt. It isn’t enough for a whole week but enough that you can casually say that you happen to have extra for them, without it appearing like you had done it on purpose.

When you take the food you made, still wrapped tight in foil, out of your bag and place some in Matt’s hand with a little quip about him needing a better meal routine, or he won’t last, he gives you that soft huff, the one that's not a full laugh, but a breathy, boyish chuckle.

“I’ll survive another day, thanks to you.”

Sure, it’s just Matt’s dry humor, thrown at you in deflection of your good intentions, but you can still hear the soft gratitude underneath. It sweeps up the fireflies in your brain, swirling them around on the gusts of his gratitude, sending them sailing on summer air, further rewriting the chemical configuration of your thoughts.

“Let me know if you like it?” you murmur in parting, turning to leave the office with a soft smile, acting like there isn't a sunset lodged in your ribcage.

Life becomes hectic. Between internships, finding a firm to work under, and making sure rent is paid on time, you don’t get to interact with Matt the way you used to. The space you made for him in your soul will ache sometimes, and when you stare out of your streaky apartment window, with twitchy hands and a knot in your gut, you wrack your brain for other things you can do for him.

You went to law school together, but they became defense attorneys, and you took a different path, meaning your work and clientele don’t often overlap. Any opportunities to help Matt there are lacking, so there’s not much you can do there to contribute. You do meet with them at Josie's to catch up after long weeks of work and life. It’s how you get introduced to Karen, and get enough updates that don't break privileges on some of the cases they pick up after starting Nelson and Murdock. Your stomach twists sometimes, and you have to shut down the part of you that wishes you had joined them in starting up their firm.

You would have had more chances to be useful to Matt then.

Instead, you sip your drink and offer occasional input or jokes with them, for work or just for fun, and pretend like you aren’t in knots over the choices you made.

Sometimes Matt joins you, but it becomes increasingly common that he skips out on meeting up, so you see him less, and the ache, the need, burns through that soft spot in your chest, expanding it by increments, then cooling rapidly and leaving jagged obsidian edges every time Karen and Foggy walk into the bar, without Matt trailing in behind them.

You love seeing your other friends of course, and you feel almost guilty each time the disappointment hits you. You have to dig claws deep into your mood to keep it from dropping and tell yourself it’s just because you miss seeing all your friends at once, and nothing else. You should put more effort into being a good friend to Foggy and Karen, wanting to be fair to them, especially when Matt skips out on them too.

Matt would want you to look after them when he can’t.

That’s just one more thing you told yourself when you were helping a drunk, heartbroken Foggy up to Matt’s apartment, the grief of what happened to Elena Cardenas driving his desperate need to help and make positive changes in the city that you all love. You recognized it in Foggy, and it's one of the many things that fostered the kinship in you with both him and Matt a long time ago. So when he insisted that he needed to go talk to Matt after you left Josies, you didn't protest.

But the changes that came out of that night weren't positive. Finding out Matt’s secret life threw so much off-kilter, and the only way you could find balance was to make yourself useful while you floated in the divide that was driven between your friends.

You can’t say your perception of him didn’t shift some when he gave you a vague breakdown of how his senses work. Your initial reaction held some panic of course, but that instinct to help him just flared brighter, overriding everything else at that moment.

You just cleaned up the blood from his skin, not asking if it belonged to Matt or someone else. He would try to insist he could take care of himself, but you were just as stubborn. He would sigh out your name when you showed up at his door with a whole bag of medical supplies, but even with the slight tremble in your fingers as you pressed gauze to a fresh wound on his side, your voice was steady and insistent.

“Let me do this.”

You keep the ‘for you’ off the end of your plea. As ridiculous as it may be, when you’ve gotten his literal blood on your hands, adding that one extra part just felt too intimate.

Your first aid skills are lacking, but you add it to the list of things you can change or improve. It has grown a bit extensive, after learning the depths of Matt’s abilities and senses, but you don’t mind.

This gives you more opportunities to try and help.

You hate that it's because Matt gets hurt that you have these chances, but that just drives you harder and makes you want to be better, to improve.

There are multiple courses you can take, both online and in person, so you start doing that. You commit to it in between your caseloads, and responsibilities. You mix it in with planning meals out for the new week. Lunch for you and then go drop some ‘extra’ off at Matt’s place, using it as a chance to take stock of what condition the previous week has left him in, and nudging him to let you check him over. You feel the familiar buzz of light through your brain when Matt thanks you for the food while you change out some bandages for him.

The new changes to your routine have been enough to sustain you, so you aren’t expecting the tap on your streaky apartment window on a random weeknight. The video on your laptop about how to pack a wound is paused, and an unread case file slips off your lap, as you sit up, twisting in the direction of the sound.

Your already fast pulse spikes a bit at the silhouette of The Devil in your window, perched on your fire escape.

“I thought I was the one who made the house calls.” You try to keep your voice light; even though you know, he can hear the loud drum of your heartbeat from seeing him like this.

It's not common for Matt to come to you first. Not unless he truly needs something, and even then it’s still rare for him to ask.

Apparently, he does need help because he doesn’t quip back at you, and your face drops when you hear him murmur your name, low and pained. You go to pull him in through the window, not even thinking about anything, just burning with that ever present need to help him.

Matt hisses when your hand lands on his arm, and when you yank back, there's a dampness on your fingers. You try not to panic, but your heart still lurches as he pushes his way inside your apartment, your now bloody hands still hovering. There aren’t any words, no scolding him, or a barrage of questions. You just help him to your couch, which Matt all but collapses onto.

Your mind flashes back to the night you and Foggy had found out Matt was The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, bleeding out and half dead in his apartment, and, when everything finally came into focus, how terrified you had been. Not of Matt, but for him, of the possibility of losing him.

You can’t.

You try to steel your nerves, even as you smear bits of Matt’s blood on the handles of your bathroom cabinet while yanking out the first aid supplies you’d stashed away. This is what you’ve been practicing for, isn’t it? It’s why your social media algorithms are full of recommendation videos on wound care, and why you get random ads for trauma kits. It’s been weeks of cramming in as much knowledge as you can.

Because you need to be useful. You have to make sure that Matt stays okay.

You return to where you left him, supplies dropped on your coffee table, placing yourself beside him and assessing the damage. He’s got a few deep gashes on his upper arm, and a nasty laceration on his torso, and when you help him out of the slashed up black compression shirt, you can already see multiple red splotches that tell you he will have some ugly bruising soon.

Setting to work quickly, Matt has to talk you through some things, which doesn’t make you feel very confident, but you force yourself past it. What you feel isn’t important right now, you need to do. You can’t say who flinches and winces more at the moment, you or him when you start stitching up the cuts on his body. Your pulse never fully settles, and there is so much blood. On your hands, cloying your senses. It’s what you blame your watery eyes on.

You focus in and manage to get him fixed up, cutting the last thread in the final stitch in his skin, leaning back to stare at your work.

Your lack of experience glares back at you, bright red and bloody, etched in Matt’s skin and you feel your breath start to come faster through your nose, eyes stinging further with every blink.

But then that soothing rumble hits your ears, and there's a gentle touch on your arm. Your eyes jump from Matt’s abdomen to his face as he pulls your attention out of your anxious mind with a soft murmur of thanks.

“The kit I used for trial stitches didn’t have all the blood.” this is all you manage to respond with, feeling stupid as soon as it’s out of your mouth.

Matt gives a ragged huff, his mouth twitching along with the little touches on your arm, small circles of his thumb rubbing lightly on your skin.

“I can tell you’ve been practicing." he says in something that's slightly too soft to be teasing.

Like you’re the one who needs soothing. Maybe you do. Of course, he can tell.

Maybe you need just a little more. Usually, you don’t ask Matt for more, and only accept whatever gratitude and reassurance he willingly gives you, But you can’t get your pulse to slow down enough, and your eyes keep dropping back to the black thread poking out of his skin.

“Did I do good?” you question, trying not to fidget with your fingers as you rest your hands on your lap, feeling so exposed that it almost burns. You don’t know why it feels so different tonight. Is it because he came to you first, this time? You've cleaned up Matt’s less severe injuries and had some blood on you, But this feels like more than just the nerves of doing something for him that you've only practiced. It’s gone beyond just simple accommodations now. This time you’ve left marks in his skin.

You’ve adjusted his body with shaky stitches, and you need to know if all your effort has been enough.

‘You always do good.” Matt murmures, his warm hand finding your fidgety, still slightly sticky fingers, and holding them gently.

“You're honestly a saint, with the way you keep looking out for me.” he tells you, voice subdued with pain and exhaustion from his bad night.

You would argue, because you feel like all you do is the bare minimum of what he needs, but his touch, his words, it sends up that flare, the embers in your chest catching on the spark of Matt’s affection.

While you can’t agree with his statement, you wonder if the glowing feeling in your heart, in your soul, is what a saint feels like, set alight by the simple action of service. You don’t know. The only thing you’re sure of, as Matt slumps back on your couch, leaning his tired head on your shoulder, is that you will let the light that he ignites in you, burn you up if it means keeping him warm.

#matt murdock x reader #matt murdock x you #matt murdock x gn!reader #matt murdock hurt/comfort #daredevil #matt murdock #x reader #paws trembling because I never post my writing #almost went for smut but decided on whatever this is #this is for the gays and theys who are a little praise starved neglected dog coded and in love with Matt #fox's fics

150 notes · View notes