AN Look there is just a lot in this chapter that I just adore and in like two seconds you're gonna find out why.

The next week was absolute bliss. Matt had only met with Claire once or twice over his lunch break, but the knowledge that he was allowed to see her whenever he wanted filled his chest with light. They were free to continue on however they chose. Each tiny kiss and minute brush of the hand was a pleasure after he had had to weigh and calculate and risk each one. And maybe it was because he was still reveling in the novelty of it, but Matt didn't feel the old anxiety about the different areas of his life mixing. It felt so natural, so obvious for Claire to click into his daily life.

Most of their interactions so far had been on the phone. They called after Matt got off work sometimes, or occasionally when things were slow at the office. Claire was his lovely little respite, the secret ingredient that managed to brighten his whole day. Although, she was a little less secret than he had imagined. After a week and a half, Karen popped her head into his office.

"I'm really sorry about this," she half-whispered. "I totally thought he knew."

"Knew what?" Matt asked, blankly raking through his brain to think of something that he and Karen knew but Foggy didn't.

"He's going to bring it up any second now, so just…prepare yourself," Karen continued, then disappeared with a clack clack of her heels.

Matt wondered what the hell had just happened before going back to work. A few minutes later, though, Foggy stopped in his doorway. Then Karen got up and joined him. Matt tried to ignore their obvious lurking, but after a few solid minutes of silent staring, he addressed them.

"Are you going to say something?" he prompted, not bothering to face them.

"Matt," Foggy said dramatically. "Something's been off with you. For a while now. Don't think we haven't noticed."

"Ex…cuse me?"

"You're chipper, you engage in small talk more, and—there! There it is! There's that thing that keeps showing up on your face!"

"We think it's called a smile," Karen said, fighting so hard to be serious. So much for her being apologetic.

Matt let out a huff, forcing the smile from his face. "Can you guys just tell me what you're here for?"

"Here for?" Foggy demanded, sounding genuinely indignant. "Details, Matt, details! We want the dirty, disgusting details!"

"Maybe not so dirty," Karen corrected.

Matt allowed the smile to return as he gave them his full attention. He liked that they were back to this. Sometimes it was easy to forget how tenuous things had been in the office, even after Fisk had been put away. Most days, they were a quirky but entirely functional legal team. Even though Foggy's voice sometimes fell flat defending Matt's lies, Karen sometimes smelled like a bottle of Jack, and Matt was lucky if he could take two steps without aching, things were getting better. They were all healing.

"This might go faster if you told me what it is you want details about."

"You! Person you've been phone flirting with! How! Why have we not been told!"

Claire. This was not how Matt had pictured broaching the subject.

"Y'know, maybe a bit of subtlety might have been best here, Foggy," Karen said. She was trying to sound reproving, but this was clearly far too amusing to her. Well, if nothing else could be said for the situation, at least Matt didn't have to worry about her having a crush on him anymore.

"Subtle! With him skulking about with his clandestine phone calls and—and—secret girlfriends? I must engage in subtlety when there is nothing but misdirection and betrayal on his end?!" Foggy demanded. He whirled to face Karen, arms in full gesticulation mode.

"'Subtle' doesn't mean 'betrayal', Foggy," Karen pointed out. "I mean, he was being private and probably didn't want to advertise."

"So how did you know, Miss Smarty Skirts?"

"I just noticed. I'd look over and he didn't look like he was calling a client when he's on the phone, and he's been kinda chipper. Ergo—"

"Ergo, why don't we let the accused himself speak?"

"No, no, I'm enjoying Karen being my legal representation," Matt said. "Keep going, you're doing great."

"Okay, seriously though bud," Foggy said, his voice swinging back to Matt's direction, "when did this happen? I turn away for two seconds and suddenly you have a secret lady I know nothing about? You and your sneaky phone calls, probably ducking out to see her at lunch—you're basically a grizzled film noir lead! Why don't we just call you the Maltese Falcon and have done with it?"

"The Maltese Falcon wasn't even Humphrey Boggart in that movie," Matt said, standing up from his desk. He edged past Foggy and Karen to walk to their broom closet of a breakroom. They both followed him, Foggy to continue the debate and Karen to watch. "It was a statue."

"Shut up, you know what I mean. You're Humphrey Boggart in this black and white film!"

"Foggy…no."

"Karen, take this down," Foggy said, gesturing vaguely at her. Matt shook his head as he heated water (with an electric kettle he had packed into the office and not the microwave, as it made everything taste like plastic and half a decade of cheap food). "Matt Murdock is bitter and wounded inside, probably has a drinking problem, and attracts ladies because they feel sorry for his excessive amounts of angsty grit."

"Foggy, stop," Matt told him, searching for the tea bags. "We got noise complaints last week, please."

"It's true," Karen chimed in. "Accountants upstairs were very upset."

"You're supposed to be taking notes! And don't take his side!" he blustered, handing Matt the hidden box of tea. Karen continued her amused needling of Foggy as they waited for Matt's water to heat.

"I mean, if you were to choose the Maltese Falcon, that would mean you die in the first six minutes."

"What?" Foggy spluttered. "No I—holy crap you're right. You see what level of distraction you've driven me to, Murdock? I framed us in a story where I die! Lamely! Spare me by telling me who—"

"It's Claire," he said, pouring the hot water into his mug.

"—this woman of mys—hold up, Claire?"

"Claire?" Karen repeated. "Is this someone I should know?"

"Huh? Uh…no, no, not someone you should—nurse Claire? 'She seems nice' Claire?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Oh," Foggy said. Then, "Oh."

"'Oh' what, you guys?" Karen insisted.

"Matt, uh, he…"

"She helped me when I had my accident," Matt said. He listened to Karen, praying she wouldn't renew her campaign to find out just what his 'car accident' entailed. Hopefully it didn't matter now that Fisk was behind bars.

The air shifted slightly as she turned to look at Foggy, gesturing in silent conversation.

"So…when you could barely walk…you were flirting with your nurse?" Karen asked.

Matt almost choked on his tea. That was exactly what had happened. He wasn't ready to say that out loud, though. He wasn't ready to say much about the topic, actually.

"It's really nothing so dramatic as Foggy's making it," he said once he had recovered.

Matt weathered their questions until Foggy's phone rang and he had to leave Matt's office. Matt pointedly returned to the court notes he had been reading, even though he could smell her fresh honeysuckle smell hovering in the doorway. Her interest in the subject had ignited once she realized Matt's responses were less to rile Foggy up (though there was certainly some of that going on) and more flat out evasions. After a few moments of him pointedly ignoring her, though, she slunk back to her desk.

That was not the end of it. Foggy let the issue go, though Matt wasn't sure if it was because he was satisfied knowing who Claire actually was or because he was skittish over anything Daredevil-related. Karen was a completely different story. Matt had learned from the the Fisk ordeal that she was more than a little tenacious, but he hadn't guessed how devious she could be.

She didn't mention it the next day, or the next. A week passed, and Matt let himself believe she had decided to let him bring it up. She hadn't. She had been gathering evidence.

"So," she said, striking up small talk as she poured herself a cup of coffee, "how's Claire?"

Oh hell, not this again.

"She's good," Matt acknowledged. He focused on the tea kettle, willing it to heat faster. He needed to stop making tea in the office. Their breakroom was literally a conversational kill box. Every time he stepped in there he was priming himself to be sniped with a conversation he didn't want to have.

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

"Oh, okay."

Matt poured the water into his cup before it boiled and gave up on adding sugar altogether.

"I just thought you'd been calling her a lot this week. I wasn't eavesdropping, I promise," she clarified, throwing her hands up defensively. "It's just…you get this goofy smile when on the telephone, sometimes."

"It's just a refreshing change from Foggy's jokes," Matt said. "Nothing more."

He didn't miss the way she had conveniently planted herself in front of the door. He wasn't about to rush her head on, but he also wasn't above passive aggressively invading her space and forcing his way past.

Karen let him squeeze out of the breakroom and the conversation. A couple days later, she tried again as Matt came back from Foggy's office.

"So the other day, when you said you were just calling Claire for conversation, did you mean you two aren't…?"

"No, we're not having some scandalous affair like Foggy was making it sound," he said, earning a muffled protest from Foggy's office.

"Ah-huh. So that's the official statement? What about off the record?" she asked. He could just imagine her leaning forward in her desk, tracking his every word and movement. The woman was relentless.

"Everything's on the record in an office," Matt said, trying to blind her with an especially charming smile. Karen hopped up and followed him into his door.

Matt didn't even know why he was trying so hard to cover up the fact that he and Claire were together. He was delighted by their relationship, even if it entailed little more than the occasional meal together and a quick kiss hello and good-bye (possibly because he was still a little paranoid about ruining things and she insisted on them taking their time). He just was cagey when other people tried to force answers out of him. Too long hiding secrets, perhaps.

"So you're on the record saying you don't want to go on the record and say you are phone flirting with Wonder Nurse?" she asked as he slid into his chair.

"Yes."

"That's basically saying you are, though!" Karen exclaimed. She gave a little stomp of exasperation that made a cute tak! with her heels.

"It's the exact opposite, though."

"You're impossible!"

"Okay."

Karen groaned and clomped back to her desk. Matt breathed a sigh of relief. Avoidance tactics were a tad harder without Foggy distracting himself with his own antics.

Matt skimmed the details of a new fraud case, mind barely making sense of the bumps under his fingertips. Karen had been right. He had called Claire for the majority of that week's lunch breaks. And he had had breakfast with her over the weekend. Still, they hadn't even broached the subject of meeting each other's friends. Other people hadn't really factored into their relationship. Other people typically didn't factor into his relationships, though that may have been because he wasn't the pinnacle of healthy dating habits, as Foggy was quick to attest.

Was he comfortable not introducing Claire to the rest of his day life because they had met while he was being Daredevil, or had that been his preference from the beginning?

"Hey Matt?"

"Yeah, Karen?"

"When are you going to move from secret flirty phone calls to actually taking her out to dinner?"

"Our schedules don't really line up for us to have dinner," he said absently. "Where did you put my copy of the Fallow case?"

Matt froze, realizing what he had just told her.

Dammit all to hell.

Karen didn't say anything for a moment, but he knew she was zeroing in on him. She got up and walked to his door, just as casual as could be. He could feel the triumph rolling off her. Dammit dammit dammit.

"Your schedules don't match up for dinner?"

"Karen, the Fallow case, where is it?" he asked. He couldn't shake her now, but he could at least pretend for pride's sake.

"Right here," she said, smugly plucking the folder from a shelf and dropping it into his hand.

Matt heard her swagger back to her desk, satisfied with her work. He hoped she was at least satisfied enough to leave him alone for a few days.

Claire couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as Matt finished recounting his story of Karen's mental terrorism. His secretary featured less often in conversation than the infamous Foggy, but she was proving to be quite the kick in the pants.

"So your secretary used guerilla conversational tactics to find out about us?

"That's not how I described it," Matt mumbled, taking a sullen bite out of his free range organic hippie gyro.

Claire rolled her eyes. She bumped his side as they walked down the street, the wind kicking up at their backs.

Despite the mild terror both of them had felt as they sounded out the ground rules of their relationship, things were flawless. It had been only a couple weeks since they had become official and most of their interaction had been limited to phone conversations or the occasional lunch, but Claire loved every second of it.

Just as she had expected, the good moments with Matt were wonderful. He had pulled back from the scared self-deprecation and the aggressive bloodstained flirting she had seen before. Now it was like their brief moment of sweet kisses and handmade breakfast as he tried to wash away the nightmare of Russians and baseball bats. Only, it lasted more than a handful of minutes. Claire knew that it couldn't be sunshine and honey for forever, but she was more than ready to stock pile these moments until something bad happened.

Claire adjusted her hat as she guided Matt to a bench. It wasn't quite cold enough for snow, but Claire expected it any day, and she was not about to be caught off guard (that had happened in college. Fool her once, weather, fool her once.). Matt was decked out in a sleek overcoat and thick scarf, though he hadn't splurged on a hat or gloves. Claire was still toying with the idea of using him as her personal weatherman, balancing the pros of his super senses against the cons of his bias over handling discomfort.

Matt was quiet as they settled on the bench. He mulled over his thoughts, expression turning somber as he ate his gyro. Claire made herself eat her sausage rather than pester him with questions.

Claire had sworn to herself post-relationship sit down that she would invest as much as she could to their relationship. No more half measures, no more dancing around what could or couldn't be. She would listen and wait and see what Matt needed, and then try to act accordingly. Which sometimes kind of sucked, because Matt had the habit of shutting down any time someone pressured him into doing things. So she kept her mouth shut and let Matt come to this on his own time.

"You mentioned before—when we were laying out the rules—you mentioned…meeting each other's friends?" he said, voice hesitant.

"Yeah," Claire prompted. Normally, Matt was fine distinguishing nonverbal cues in conversation, but Claire had noticed that serious topics always required a verbal response. Matt wasn't a person that knew how to do things by halves, including self-doubt. He needed the confirmation that she was listening and invested in what he said.

"And Karen mentioned it, too. So…is that something you want? Is that okay?"

Every time he suggested something new, Matt always gained an uncertain edge in his face. It was like he was double checking his judgment against hers, yet again testing the ground before committing.

"That sounds good," she said, leaning into his side.

Matt relaxed ever so slightly. Claire bit down on her distaste, stowing the conversation about whatever the hell made Matt so hesitant for another day.

"How soon are you thinking about introducing each other?" she asked.

"I don't think there's much point in waiting," he told her, a little more decisive now that he knew he was on the right path. "You've both heard a lot about each other already."

"I don't even know how to bring you up," Claire sighed. She scrolled through her list of friends. She liked them, obviously, but introducing them to Matt made her stomach tighten.

"Blind lawyer a bit much?"

"No," she said, trying to envision Nikki's smugness at formally meeting Claire's wounded puppy dog. "They're a bit much."

"We'll play it by ear, then," he said, reciting the watch word of their relationship. "But I'd like you to meet Foggy and Karen soon."

"Formally or casually?"

"Casual," he said grimly. "I'm not ready for a whole outing's worth of Foggy's comments."

"Yeah, I guess our introduction was less than stellar," Claire sighed. She ate the last bit of her sausage as she considered. In the ambiguous future she had cast for herself, meeting Matt's business partner and best friend skipped over the undoubtable awkwardness and shot straight into charming amiability. But now this was real and she had to think of it in real world exchanges. Which meant some stifled conversation as they both tried to figure out how the hell they felt about their role in Matt being Matt.

"I think you'll like Karen, though," Matt mused. "She's sweet."

"And pit bull," Claire chuckled. "Used mental assault tactics to wear the big bad lawyer man down."

Matt grumbled lightly and leaned into her side. He did that, sometimes. He never drew any attention to it, but Matt sought out the most benign touch, soft as butterfly wings. He touched her back, brushed her hand, or rested his head against hers. A part of Claire always wanted to respond and touch him back, but another part of her whispered caution. She still hadn't forgotten the open worry on his face as he asked if that sort of contact was okay. Reacting felt a little like putting a spot light on it, but not reacting felt suspiciously like tolerating his touch rather than enjoying it.

"I was thinking maybe…you could come by tomorrow?"

There was that tone in Matt's voice again. Pseudo-casual, nervous, hopeful, stressed. He had sounded the same way when he asked why she was leaving New York.

"How so? Drop by the office, or…?"

"Well, tomorrow's Friday and I figured maybe we could get dinner, so if you came by the office after work…?"

"Is this a dinner invite, or me meeting your friends?"

"Maybe a bit of both," he said, smiling like he had all the confidence in the world.

"Where would we eat?" she asked. "Fancy or not fancy?"

"Depends on the food you want. I know the owner of a great dim sum place in China Town."

"Dim sum, lose some," she mused. She was still thinking about meeting his friends. Just as she had asked, he was opening himself up to her, offering her his life bit by bit. It was equally thrilling and terrifying. It wasn't half the city exploding terror, or even Matt crawling through her window half-dead terror. It was panic, what ifs and worries flooding through her in one tiny second.

"Not with this place," Matt continued. "It's kind of a hole in the wall, but the food is phenomenal."

"Alright, I'll come for dim sum."

"I let the pun go, but the rhyming's gotta stop."

"With where I'm from? That's dumb."

Matt scoffed out a laugh and shook his head. They were quiet for another moment, then he asked, "So…you're okay, then? Coming over?"

"Yeah, sure. I don't mind picking up my hot blind date from the office."

"You're worse than Foggy with the wordplay," he sighed.

"You're gonna love having us in the same room."

"Probably." Matt checked the time, fingers skimming over his watch face. "Lunch is about over, I should get back."

"Alright. You'll text me your office address and I'll get you around…?"

"Six, to be safe," he said, standing up and adjusting his coat.

"Sure thing."

Matt leaned over to kiss her, his lips just barely catching hers (kissing, he had awkwardly explained, was not his favorite thing to do after eating). She smiled, touched his shoulder, and said goodbye.

AN Wrap me in a blanket made of these people's love and friendship and I will die happy.