We'll Always Have Hell's Kitchen

Claire scolded herself again for doing this. She knew deep down it was a bad idea to see him again. The only thing that had kept her from making a bad decision last time she had seen him was that he was still on the verge of death and in no condition to help her make that bad decision. She thought she'd said her goodbye then. But one phone call from him—and on the day she was ready and packed to leave—brought her back to his doorstep—wearing a dress she knew she looked spectacular in—even though the effect would be lost on Matt.

Matt opened the door before she even raised her hand to knock. With anyone else, she would have said he had been watching from the window and waiting on her, but she knew Matt didn't do that; he'd probably recognized the sound of her shoes on the pavement from down the street or smelled the lavender soap she always used. Whatever it was, his amazing senses still creeped the hell out of her.

He smiled as he opened the door to her. "Claire."

The sound of her name coming from his raspy voice made her think of the kiss they'd shared several weeks ago. The kiss that had made them both want more and made them both realize they shouldn't. He looked good; the best he'd looked since they met; though, she did notice the new bruises and scrapes on his face.

"Still good at takin' a beating I see."

He chuckled. "Don't worry. This is the worst of it. Nothing to stitch up today." He waved Claire on into the hallway.

She led herself into the living room. His apartment also looked the best she'd ever seen it. Nothing smashed or disheveled. There was even a new painting on the wall. Tall and red. It reminded Claire too much of blood, and his apartment had seen plenty of that.

"So, you collect art now? No offense but isn't that a little…" she couldn't quite find a word that didn't sound offensive.

He came to stand beside her. "I thought the place could use a little color. You know, for company."

"So do I get to be company this time?" She turned to face him. "You haven't even offered me a drink."

"Beer?" He asked, walking towards the fridge.

"Sure. Why the hell not?" Claire cringed when she realized how hostile sounding that last statement was. She didn't understand why she was here, why she felt so angry towards him all of a sudden.

If Matt noticed her tone, he didn't react to it. He brought over two bottles. He expertly popped the caps with his thumb, allowing them to bounce off the window and into the trash can.

"Now you're just showing off," Claire said, smiling a little.

"Learned it from a…friend." Matt handed her one and took a drink of his. He looked thoughtful. "I guess you're wondering why I called. How about we sit down."

They sat down side-by-side on the couch. She took a minute to study his face. He actually looked…happy. Or at least happy for him. His body and face looked less tense, some of that "weight of the world" gone with Fisk being put away.

"By the way," she said, trying to break the silence, "I like your new outfit. Definitely an improvement. Still not sure about those horns though."

He smiled. "It was a…creative choice. Something to make the bad guys think twice."

"Because they think you look scary or crazy?"

He laughed. "I'm not sure. Maybe a little of both."

"Yes, Matt. You are definitely that." Claire took another drink of her beer. "So not that it's not nice to just sit and hang out for a change, but I'm leaving today. For good. I've still got a few loose ends to tie up."

"I know," he said, his face turning serious, "I heard you came back. That's why I wanted to see you." He turned to face her. "I wanted you know that you're safe now. Anyone in Fisk's organization who knew your name has been…taken care of. You don't have to leave."

Her heart skipped a beat. She didn't need to leave her home. She didn't need to leave him. But she couldn't let herself think that way. She knew it would never work as long as he needed to be the hero, as long as he might be become another martyr to add a long and bloody history.

"Matt, I can't. I've taken another job. It's a new clinic my friend Dr. Burstein just opened up. It's a chance for me to really make a difference and help people like you. Well, sort of like you." She paused to take another drink. "You've made me realize how much this city needs people who are willing to take chances. It's not far, but I won't be able to run back every time you need help now." She felt the anger bubbling up insider of her again. "I want you to take care of yourself. I don't want you to have to need me or someone like me—"

"—There will never be anyone else like you," he interrupted. "Claire, I'm sorry I ever got you into any of this in the first place, but I'm not sorry I met you. I just wanted you to know that you'll be safe now and see that I'm okay in person this time. No more stoic messages."

He was referring to the abrupt message he had left her after the bombings on the Russians. She'd had plenty to occupy her mind that night with the numerous wounded being brought in, but every time a new patient arrived, she'd looked for him, worried he wouldn't come in as a patient but as one of the many D.O.A they'd received that night.

She sighed and calmed down a little. "I do appreciate it, and you do look damn good. Well, at least good for you."

He laughed again. "So do you. I really like that dress you're wearing."

"You can see my dress?" Claire looked down at herself, shocked. "How?"

"Well, not so much your dress as the shape it gives you. When you move, I can "see" the outline, the way it hugs to your body."

Claire's mouth suddenly went dry. She had to take another drink before she could speak. "So, do you have an idea of what I look like?"

"Yes and no," he said vaguely, trying to find the words to explain. "Like I tried to explain before, I can see outlines and hints of things from movement and the air. I can tell from your features that you are extraordinarily beautiful, but I couldn't describe in detail exactly why. If it makes you feel any better, I don't know what I look like either."

"I'm sure plenty of girls have told just how handsome you are, Matt Murdock."

"Sorry. I wasn't fishing for compliments. Just trying to explain that maybe some things are more important." He scooted closer to her on the couch and took her hand. "Like how you make me smile just from hearing your voice. How I can feel the kindness and compassion in you when you treat my wounds and know you would apply that same care to any of your patients." He placed her hand against his chest. "And how the nearness of you, the smell of you, calms me and makes my heart race at the same time."

Claire didn't need superpowers to feel his heart beating under his chest. She also knew that he could feel hers without touching her—though that wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world right then. Or maybe it would. This was bringing them back to square one.

"Matt, this is not helping me leave." She tried to pull her hand away, but he brought it up to his mouth to kiss her palm, sending mild shivers down her.

He sighed, going serious again. "Sorry. I thought seeing you again would help. Make things easier. I was wrong. I want you to be happy more than anything, and I know that wouldn't happen with me."

"You can be happy, Matt. I know you think you can't give this up, but look at what you've done. I know you won't stop completely, but you can relax for awhile. Have a good time. Take a vacation."

"Claire, what if what would make me happy right now is to find a way to properly say goodbye to you?"

"And what exactly to you mean by a "proper" goodbye?"

Matt dropped her hand to his lap. "Spend the evening with me. We can talk or share a meal. Or we can…"

"We can what? Sleep together? Complicate this even more?"

"Dammit Claire, I don't know. I just know that I have spent the last weeks fighting and almost dying and losing my best friend. I've been on an emotional roller coaster which I've always tried to avoid by being this other me. But what I've realized is that I need both parts. I need that emotion to be truly who I am, to control the dark urges and that keep me from becoming like those I've been fighting against. I'm tired of fighting and falling and failing and just want some—"

"—Fucking?" Claire interrupted this time.

He laughed. "No, no that's not what I meant. I just want to be with someone who understands me. Both sides of me, and accepts both of those sides. You are the only one who has seen me at my worst and not told me to "fuck off". I want that with someone, even if it's for only one night. Even if it's complicated." He smiled at her. "Hell, if life were simple, I would have never met you to begin with. I would have never got to…"

Before Matt could finish his thought, Claire kissed him. Slowly and sweetly and passionately, she kissed him. After a few seconds of getting over the shock, he kissed her back, harder but no less passionate, lightly running his tongue over her lips.

Clair moaned and pulled back. "I still say this is a bad idea."

Matt groaned. "Maybe. We can stop now. I'll let you get back to moving your things. We don't have to…" But Claire pulled him back for another kiss, and he knew that neither one of them would stop it from happening again.

She knew it would just be this one night, this one time, but it would seal something between them. All the anger that had built up at seeing him again was what she had made of her sorrow at saying goodbye. Easier for him to see her angry than sobbing on his shoulder. But that anger turned into a different kind of fire inside her: a fire that could only be sated by showing him how she felt.

He pulled away from kissing her mouth to touch her face. He didn't so much touch her face as feel it. She held completely still as he traced his finger tips lightly over her eyes, nose, cheeks, lips, chin, and even her ears.

"Beautiful. So beautiful," He whispered. He then kissed her everywhere his finger had just been and onto her neck and the tops of her exposed shoulders. It sent shivers down Claire. She cupped his face to bring it back to hers, to look into his eyes. She was disappointed that she couldn't see what he felt reflected back.

As if reading her mind, Matt took her hand and placed it on his chest again. "Try to see how I see. Feel my heart telling you how much I want you. Listen to my breath after I've kissed you and know what you do to me."

Claire's heart fluttered with love for him, at what he shown her. She closed her eyes and traced her finger tips over his face, just like he'd down with her. He lightly chuckled, but said nothing, letting her explore. When she made it to his lips, he flicked his tongue out across her fingers, causing her to gasp. He lightly sucked them one by one, making Claire's body stir deep down inside.

She quickly replaced her finger with her lips again, this time sliding her tongue around his lips and into his mouth. Claire was satisfied to hear him moan in response this time and knew it was time to take their make out session further.

"Here or the bedroom?" was all she could manage to say.

He pulled away from her, still catching his breath. "Bedroom. More room." Before she could reply, he scooped her up in one fluid motion, that made her let out a full bodied laugh, and carried her to the bedroom.

He laid her gently on the bed and pulled his t-shirt off before lying beside her. They picked up where they had just left off on the couch, though this time their kissing was were more fervid and urgent. She ran her hands down his bare chest and felt all the scars left from the wounds he'd received over the past few months.

She pulled away from him. "Roll over," she asked, and he did so without question. She kissed her way down his chest, stopping and giving attention to each scar with gentle touches and kisses, finally knowing the body she had been caring for. He moaned in response. She licked down his abs and stopped at the top of his jeans. She undid the button and laughed as his hips jerked up in response. She slid his pants completely off touching and admiring his muscular legs as she went.

Claire climbed on top of him and pulled her dress over head, leaving both of them only wearing their underwear. His hands reached up and cupped her breasts, rolling the nipples with his thumbs, then gently pulling at them. It was her turn to moan and rock her hips against him. She could feel him very ready underneath her. He moved his hands to her waist, and with one quick movement, their positions were reversed with him kissing his way down her chest, sucking her nipples, dipping his tongue into her belly button, kissing her hips, the inside of her thighs. He sighed, and his breath blowing on to her slightly damp underwear made her squirm. He chuckled against her leg and proceeded to pull her last bit of clothing away.

He lightly touched her and explored between her legs with his finger tips. It wasn't quite sensual at first; it was more like what he had done with her face before, trying to get an idea, an image of her. Claire did her best to hold still and let him, but she was ready to scream by the time he stopped tracing her with his fingers and replaced them with his tongue. She did scream then. She cried his name and swore in English and Spanish as he expertly licked her up and down, stopping at the top each time to suck her swollen clit until she came, her whole body flushing with pleasure from her fingertips to her toes.

Matt gave one last kiss between her legs before he crawled back to her mouth, smiling that cat-that-ate-the-canary grin at having successfully eaten her. He kissed her again, sharing the taste of her sex, which she never minded if her partner enjoyed it. She wrapped her arms around his back and used her feet to try to push his boxers down. He pulled away to help her and he was finally naked, the length of his body pressed against her.

She reached between them to touch him, and his body went still. She could feel how ready he was and used the moisture off the tip of his penis to rub up and down him. He let out a shaky groan he'd been holding, saying her name.

"Can I taste you now?" Claire whispered. He only managed to nod, his eyes now closed. He rolled back over and Claire moved so she was facing away him, her upper torso pressing lightly against his abs. She stroked him a few more times before taking him into her mouth, sucking onto the head of his cock. She licked and sucked and teased, seeing how much of him she could take in, and also how many different sounds she could make him make.

She kept it up until he was begging, "Claire, wait, stop. I want to be inside you when I come." She moved back on top of him kissing him again and letting him taste his own saltiness. He pulled back to reach towards his nightstand, but Claire stopped him.

"We're good. I'm on the pill." And with that nicety out of the way, Matt flipped her over to her back and pushed inside of her.

"Oh. Fuck. Matt." Claire moaned under him as he slowly slid into her. They both adjusted their bodies and giggled a little as they found just the right position for him to sheath himself all the way into her.

He moved slowly at first, finding a rhythm, drawing cries out of her. When Claire moved her hips to meet his, he let go. He pulled her legs up over his shoulders and drove deeper into her. She admired his lean, muscular body above her as he moved. Their love making was a dance, a fluid movement of heat and bodies building towards an explosive climax. She was still tingling from her first orgasm, so it didn't take long for him to hit just the right spot over and over and bring her for a second time and make her dig her nails into his the tight muscles of his ass. As she cried out and tightened around him, it only took a few seconds for him to follow, his whole body going ridged as he finally found his release.

Matt collapsed beside her, and they both sounded like they'd just finished a marathon. And, in a way, they had, Claire thought. They had completed the dance they had been doing for weeks around each other, neither one wanting to say that final farewell, this is all it's ever going to amount to between us. With those thoughts, Claire let out a sob, the tears and anger she'd been holding back and trying to hide from him.

He moved to her, taking her in his arms. There were tears in his eyes as well. He kissed her tears and buried his head into neck and cried with her. It was the best way she had ever said goodbye to someone she cared this much for, but also the most heart wrenching.

They held each other the rest of the night, lightly kissing, touching, and barely speaking, knowing words couldn't fully express what they'd just expressed with their bodies. Wherever they went in the world from now on, at least they would have this night, here in Hell's Kitchen, where the world had started the fire for both of them to reach out to help others and to find each other.

A/N: Thanks for reading! New to fanfic writing, so please review if you liked!