Matt's kiss with Sarah was far from the most romantic setting one could think of, though it was strangely fitting for the two of them.

He was still in his Daredevil costume, a layer of sweat and dirt clinging to his skin and dried blood lining the creases of his gloves. There was a large, deep bruise radiating pain across his thigh from where he'd caught a baseball bat earlier, and he was bleeding somewhere midway down his back. They were arguing on the rooftop of her father's building, and he had just given her a series of half-assed recycled excuses for the way he'd been acting. Explanations about isolation and duty—things that Stick had drilled into his head, words that didn't feel like his own even as he said them. The only truthful things he'd said so far were his confession that she was the only bright part of his nights—something he maybe should have made sure she knew before things got this complicated—and, of course, pointing out that he was solidly a part of the life that she rightfully wanted to leave behind.

And then she'd kissed him, caught him completely off guard in that way she somehow always managed to do. All those times he'd nearly kissed her and then held back, not wanting to step over that line and ruin things, and now she'd gone and blown past it herself. When it came down to it, he knew this probably was a bad decision, and he suspected she did, too. Crossing this line would just be piling another complication on top of the already dangerous and fragile situation they were caught in. He knew in the rational part of his brain that he shouldn't kiss her back, but that was so much harder to remember when she was hovering on tip toes in front of him, the warmth of her hand still splayed against his chest and the scent of her citrus shampoo saturating the heavy summer air around him.

Matt could feel her breath skating across his jaw as she waited uncertainly for what was probably only for a few seconds. He felt the tiny, nearly imperceptible shift as she started to pull away, and then before he knew what was happening his hand was on the back of her neck and he was kissing her, more roughly than he probably should have—but really, he shouldn't have been doing any of this, should he? That thought lingered somewhere in the back of his mind, vastly overshadowed by the distracting counterpoint that Sarah tasted like mint and green tea with a slight, sweet hint of honey.

His hand slid down to her waist, where the breeze drifted lazily between her skin and the thin fabric of her t-shirt, picking up all of the scents that he had grown so used to around her, but which were now a little darker and heightened by the heat that flushed through her skin.

Sarah's fingertips ghosted across his neck and jaw, her touch maddeningly light against his skin in contrast to the intensity with which she returned his kiss. Then she caught him off guard again, pressing herself closer to his chest and arching her back to seal the space between them. The last of his careful restraint dropped away, and he tightened his grip on her waist, his fingers curling into her lower back as he drew her closer to him hungrily so that her hips were flush against his own.

At some point, the normally overwhelming noise of the city had faded to a muted thrum, drowned out by both of their heartbeats hammering in his ears, so it was especially jarring when a police siren screamed by directly underneath them, breaking them both apart.

As soon as they pulled away from each other, a low panic hit him. He'd come here to tell her they needed to take a step back, that he needed time to figure out if Stick was right about them being bad for each other. And now he'd done the one thing that was going to make that even harder on both of them.

"I have to leave," he forced out unevenly. It was a cop out. He could hear the chatter on the radios in the police cars; they were headed towards a car accident, not anything he could help with. But he needed to extract himself from this situation, and he knew that was the easiest excuse, as shitty as it was.

The city was uncharacteristically quiet that night, offering Matt no opportunities for distraction from his own thoughts, so he soon gave up and made his way home. For obvious reasons, he found it difficult to fall asleep that night, his mind preoccupied with countless questions. But for all of the guilt and complexity that surrounded what had just happened, the main thing that stuck with him when he finally drifted off was the memory of Sarah pressed tightly against him, and the overwhelming feeling of rightness that had come along with it.

_____

Matt woke very suddenly the next morning, and it took him a few frazzled seconds to piece together that there was someone banging on his front door. He stumbled out of bed, his muscles protesting at the much quicker rise than usual, and he tried to get a better feel of his surroundings as he made his way out of his bedroom. It wasn't until he was almost to the door that he picked up on Karen's perfume on the other side.

"Karen?" he asked. His voice was still scratchy from sleep, and laced with alarm. Why was she here pounding so frantically on his front door at...whatever time of the morning it was? He assumed it was early; it felt like he'd barely gotten any sleep. "What're you doing here?"

He stepped aside to let her in. As she brushed past him he picked up on a heavy layer of alcohol on her breath, and he recalled that she and Foggy had made plans to go out the night before. Had something happened? Why wasn't Foggy with her?

Karen's heels clicked against the hardwood as she marched straight down the hall and into his living room. Then she stopped and turned slowly in a circle, surveying his apartment.

"Karen, what's wrong?" he asked. "Are you hurt?"

She let out a shaky breath, turning to face him. He got the distinct impression that she was bracing herself for something.

"Do you keep it here? Or do you store it somewhere else?" she asked.

"...what?" he asked groggily. He wished he'd thought to grab his glasses from his nightstand, feeling suddenly exposed without them.

"The mask. The suit, the—the whole costume," Karen said. On the surface her voice was calm and insistent, but there was a shakiness underneath that seemed to reverberate through her whole body. "Do you keep it here?"

Matt's mind went blank. So many times he had thought about telling her and wondered how she would react if she found out on her own, but now that it had actually happened he was frozen.

"I...Karen..." Matt stammered. "I don't—"

"I swear to God, Matt, if you're about to say you don't know what I'm talking about I will scream."

"...I don't know what to say to you," he finished. It was lame and unhelpful, but it was honest, at least. "How—how did you find out?"

"Foggy."

The name crashed into him, knocking the wind out of his chest. Matt knew Foggy wasn't crazy about Daredevil—or about having to keep it a secret—but he had never thought he'd actually turn around and tell Karen. At least not without giving him some warning.

"Were you two ever going to tell me? Or was this going to stay a boys club secret forever?" Karen asked. The hurt that was starting to seep into her tone made Matt feel sick. It would hurt less if she was just angry at him, or disgusted—but he'd hurt her by keeping it a secret, and this was his reminder.

"It wasn't like that," he tried to explain. "Foggy found out by accident, it wasn't something that I chose to tell him and not you."

"But you did both make the choice to keep me in the dark."

"...no. I made that choice," he said. It was important that she got that distinction, that he did this and not Foggy. "Foggy wanted to tell you from the moment he found out, and I...I asked him not to. I'm so sorry, Karen."

Karen stepped closer to him. Her posture was tense, and her arms were crossed tightly in front of her, guarded and on edge.

"Are you really blind? Or is that just a cover for what you do?"

Matt had assumed she would ask that, but it stung all the same. He hated she would jump to the same conclusion as Foggy—that Matt had been playing a victim for all the time he knew them. He was a liar, yes. That much he couldn't exactly deny. And he'd obviously concealed the extent of his other senses. But to pretend to be blind as a cover, or to get sympathy from people? That was a different level of sociopathy that he hadn't quite reached.

"I am blind," he said. "Completely. No light perception."

"So how do you do it?"

"It's...complicated," he hedged.

"Then dumb it down for me," she said icily.

He turned away from her, putting a few steps between them and raking a hand through his hair as he decided where to start.

"I wasn't lying to you, that night we first met. When you stayed at my apartment," he said. He remembered sitting on his couch with her, both of them drenched from the rain as he tried to figure her out. "I did lose my eyesight in an accident when I was nine. And all of my other senses got stronger when I lost my sight."

"How much stronger?"

Matt hesitated. He didn't want to bring up the heartbeat thing yet—it understandably seemed to alarm people that he could hear something so intimate, and Karen was obviously already feeling violated right about now.

"A lot stronger. I can...smell if someone had coffee with their breakfast two days ago. Or hear if a baby is crying a few buildings down. I can feel when the temperature changes by a degree, or the electricity in the air when the street lights come on a night."

He was careful not to use any examples that pertained to Karen specifically, recalling how strongly Foggy had recoiled from him when he'd confessed just how much of everyone's lives and bodies he could read.

"You saved me that night," Karen said. He couldn't read her tone, which fell somewhere between betrayed and overwhelmed. "You followed me right from this apartment to mine."

Part of him was hopeful at that—he'd saved her, that had to count for something, some small step towards being forgiven—but he knew better.

"I heard you leave in the middle of the night," he said. "I just didn't want you to get hurt."

Karen laughed bitterly.

"No, Matt. You didn't want me to get injured. You don't give a damn if I get hurt."

"That's not true," he countered. "All I care about is that the people I love don't get hurt."

"Well, you know what hurts? Finding out that the two people closest to me don't trust me." Karen's voice wavered near the end of her sentence.

"Of course I trust you—" he began.

"Then why didn't you tell me?" she exclaimed. "You had so many opportunities—so many conversations where I looked like a fool talking about what a hero I thought Daredevil was, when he was sitting right next to me, lying to me every day."

"I thought the less you knew, and the more distance I put between you and that side of my life, the safer you would be—"

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit. This wasn't about protecting me. You don't seem to have a problem with Foggy knowing, or Sarah," she said. Matt started at the mention of her name, and as usual, Karen caught it. "She does know. Right? That's why she was so weird and secretive about knowing you. And why she didn't freak out about that cop attacking me."

Matt would have thought by now he'd stop being so surprised by Karen's unnerving tendency to figure these things out.

"She does know," he acknowledged. "But...again, it wasn't on purpose. She just figured it out."

"Right. Your friend who works at Orion just coincidentally figured out your identity. I—I talked to her about personal things, Matt," Karen said. If it was possible, she sounded even more stressed than she had a minute ago. "Who is she really?"

"She's...just Sarah," he said slowly.

"But she's involved in...whatever you're doing, isn't she?"

"For right now."

"You can't do that, Matt. Y-you can't just bring innocent people into whatever dangerous things you're doing. It gets them killed."

"I'm not going to let anything happen to Sarah."

"It's easy to say you won't let anything happen, to think that you're being careful, and then the next thing you know you're standing at a funeral wondering how you let this happen—"

Karen's voice broke off as she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

Matt paused, giving her a moment to get her breath back.

"...are you sure we're still talking about me and Sarah?" he asked softly.

"Yes," Karen said, but her heartbeat skipped. He knew she was probably thinking of Ben right now; he and Foggy had never quite been able to convince her that Ben's death wasn't her fault. But he didn't bring it up, or mention any other secrets Karen might be keeping to herself. Whatever she'd been carrying with her for months now, there was no way he could call her out on it right now without being a hypocrite.

He spoke as calmly as he could despite his pounding pulse, hoping to diffuse the situation. "I know this is a lot to process, and that you might not approve of what I'm doing—"

"I have no problem with what Daredevil is doing. I think I've made that clear. Hell, maybe more people should be fighting that hard," Karen said. "It's not Daredevil I'm pissed at, it's Matt Murdock."

Matt paused. What could he even say to argue that?

"I...can't blame you for that."

Karen shouldered her purse, which she had angrily tossed on the chair upon entering. "I'm going to go. I need to wrap my mind around all this."

Matt stood with his head bowed and his hands on his hips, listening to her walk away.

When she reached the front door, he called after her, "Karen. I...I really am sorry."

Karen's silence was telling.

"I wish I knew if you meant that," she said finally. Then there was the sound of the door shutting, and Matt was left still half-stunned in his living room. On the other side of his bedroom door, he heard his phone ringing.

"Foggy. Foggy. Foggy," the automated voice announced. Matt strode over to the phone and fumbled with the screen to answer it, but his hands were shaking and he couldn't get the screen to recognize his gesture. It went to voicemail.

"You have five missed calls from: Foggy Nelson," the voice informed him in her stilted tone. He must have slept right through the first four calls.

Matt resisted the urge to fling his phone at the wall in frustration, instead tossing it on the bed where it landed on the soft sheets with an muffled, unsatisfying thump. It was probably best that he wait a few minutes to cool down before calling Foggy back, so he left the phone there and went to take a shower, dread and anger still coursing through him.

_____

Across town, Sarah woke up much more peacefully than Matt had. Her eyes opened before her alarm went off, and she had a full fifteen seconds of sleepy contentment before she remembered what had happened the night before.

Oh, goddammit.

She had kissed Matt. Of all the ways she could have responded to that conversation, she had chosen to kiss him. And worse still, he had very much kissed her back. If he'd pulled away, told her that he wasn't interested? She could have handled that. She knew he wasn't the type to hold it over her head, and they could have both just pretended like it hadn't happened.

But instead he'd responded in kind, kissing her with a bruising intensity that had left her lips swollen afterwards.

And then run off. Probably to avoid her for another, like an asshole.

Grumbling, she felt for her phone on her nightstand so she could text Lauren.

'Call me if you get a minute? I need to vent,' she typed out. She hit send, then as an afterthought she added, 'It's Leonard-related, so don't be judgy.'

Her phone rang roughly ten seconds after she sent the second text.

"I'm never judgy," Lauren greeted her. "How dare you?"

Sarah ignored her. "I wasn't sure if you'd be up this early."

"Oh, I don't sleep anymore. Sleep is a precious memory from my distant past," Lauren informed her matter-of-factly. "But right now Greg is giving Noah a bath, and I'm dying to talk about something to do with grown-ups. Because lately all I get to talk about is which diaper delivery services are a scam and which nursing techniques are best and I think. I might. Explode."

"Oh. Um...well, I don't know if this counts as grown-up. Think more...middle school drama?"

"I'll take it," Lauren said immediately. "What happened?"

Sarah stared at her ceiling, figuring she'd jump right into it. "I kissed him. Up on my dad's roof."

"Why do you sound so miserable about it?" Lauren asked. Then she inhaled sharply. "Oh, my god, you pushed him off the roof."

"What? No," Sarah said, squeezing her eyes closed. The last thing she need right now was to be reminded of her horribly embarrassing date with Todd.

"Oh. Okay, good. Sorry. So, you kissed him, and then..."

"He ran away."

"What?"

"He just...backflipped off the roof and went running off. He acted like he was chasing down some sirens, but I think he just wanted to leave."

"What?" Lauren said again, even more incredulously this time. "Who runs away after a kiss? Unless it was really bad. And you're not a bad kisser. I've kissed you. You're a great kisser."

"I know," Sarah said indignantly. "I'm not worried about that. The kiss itself was..." Her mind flashed to Matt's hands on her waist and in her hair, insistently pulling her closer to him. She cleared her throat "...it—it was fine. I'm more worried that I crossed a line and now he's going to avoid me even more than he already was."

"He's been avoiding you?"

It occurred to Sarah that she hadn't actually filled Lauren in on what had been going on. She tried explaining it, leaving the part about Stick and where they had run into him deliberately vague and focusing instead on what he had said to her on the roof.

When she was done, there was ominous silence on the other end of the line.

"So...just to recap: Dude wouldn't talk to you for like a week, and then showed up just to tell you that you're a big problem because he cares about you too much?" Lauren said, sounding about as far from impressed as one could get. "And then you responded by...kissing him? Sarah."

Sarah winced. Lauren was only voicing the very same things Sarah had just been so irritated about, but it sounded worse coming from her. "Well, when you put it like that it sounds..."

"Like he's being confusing and manipulative?"

"You said you wouldn't be judgy," she reminded Lauren.

"Well, obviously I lied. I'm constantly judging. You know this."

"Alright, I'll give you confusing," Sarah conceded. She supposed 'confusing' was part of the package when you got involved with an affection-starved vigilante with anger problems. "But as for the other part...I think it's more that he's being manipulated by this old mentor of his, and it's just sort of...just getting passed along to me. I'm worried about him. I mean, I'm pissed at him for being an idiot, but I'm also worried. It's...it's a weird combination."

"You are so much more understanding than I would be in your shoes."

"You should have seen him when this guy showed up, Lauren," Sarah insisted. "It was like he was freaking out and shutting down simultaneously."