Okay, first thing's first. Clearly I cannot be trusted to give an accurate chapter count estimate, because I said the story would end around Chapter 40, and we're clearly not at the end. We're close! But I keep splitting chapters in two, which bumps up the count, and now it's completely out of control. Eventually, someday, the story will come to a close.

I'm sorry it's been so long since the last update. I don't really have a good excuse except that 2019 was rough. I worked a lot, with a long commute. I got my heart a little bit broken by a boy who lived above a Hollywood night club (always a bad idea) and then broken a little bit more by a girl who works in the same building as me (also always a bad idea). My depression got better, and then much worse. But I'm starting off 2020 with different meds, more therapy, and some hope that the year will be full of better choices, a clearer mind, and of course, more writing. I know this story only has a tiny fraction of the readership it once had, but know that I love all of you that have stuck around. I know I say that a lot, but at times this story has been the only thing I was any good at, and five years in I can't believe there are still readers here. So thank you!

Hope you enjoy the extra long chapter!

Almost immediately after entering the apartment, Lauren scurried down the hallway to the bathroom to pee, leaving Matt alone with Cecilia. It was far from his ideal way of spending the evening, and it would seem as though Cecilia agreed, if the unhappy sigh she heaved was any indication.

"So, you're like a public defender, or what?" Cecilia asked, sounding bored by the conversation already.

"No, actually. A private defense attorney," he replied.

"Really?" she said. "I wouldn't think Sarah could afford that. I mean, look at this place."

Matt gave her a tight smile, waiting for the predictable moment of realization. Of course, he was somewhat aware of what the apartment around them looked like—he knew it was small and a bit run down, but Sarah kept it clean and decorated—but there was no way for Cecilia to know that.

He heard her shift uncomfortably in her seat. Down the hall, the bathroom door opened and Lauren's footsteps came towards them.

"I meant—I just assumed she'd end up with some court-appointed hack," Cecilia clarified stiffly. He noticed she didn't backtrack on her slip up, which was something at least. The constant tripping that people did to avoid saying any words related to sight could wear on the nerves. "Not an actual law firm."

"My partner and I own the practice, so we can work out our own rates," he said.

Lauren slipped past them and began rummaging around in the mesh storage space behind the stroller, straightening back up with a few bags in her hands. From the smell of them, they were full of groceries. This was confirmed when she carried them into the kitchen and opened Sarah's fridge.

"Listen, I'm shoving all this food in Sarah's fridge and I don't want either of you telling her or she'll make me take it back home with me," Lauren called from the kitchen. "I'm banking on her not checking until we're gone, and then she'll have to keep it."

Matt's lips twitched, while Cecilia ignored her completely.

"Your own firm?" Cecilia said. "That's convenient. That way you get to pick and choose which criminals you help go free."

There was a crinkling sound as Lauren whipped one of the balled up grocery bags in Cecilia's direction, where it bounced harmlessly off the arm of the couch. He heard Lauren's sweater swish as she tossed her hands up in the air in exasperation. 'Leave him alone,' she mouthed, whispering the words just loudly enough under her breath that Matt could hear her. Cecilia shrugged and mouthed back, 'What?'

"I'm sure Nelson and Murdock aren't out there defending serial killers, Cecilia," Lauren said. "It's people like Sarah and Mrs. B who are cool people but…you know, have no money."

It was nice—if a bit ironic—that Lauren wanted to defend Matt's firm, but not particularly necessary. This was far from the first time Matt had heard the argument Cecilia was making; he hadn't gone through law school and then an internship at a less-than-reputable law firm without hearing a few jabs about making a career out of helping criminals.

"It's alright. It might shock you to hear that not everyone who gets arrested is guilty," Matt replied, turning his attention back towards Cecilia. "There's a reason the system requires everyone be allowed a lawyer. I'm sure if you were wrongly arrested, you'd want one too."

Cecilia's reply was a noncommittal hum. Lauren returned from the kitchen and took a seat next to him on the couch. It was strange to have her sitting within such casual proximity; in the few times they'd met, she'd kept such a careful distance from him that he'd gotten used to her standoffishness. Now she was sitting two feet away while Cecilia perched on the nearby armchair, pushing the stroller back and forth with one hand to lull the baby to sleep.

"Where'd you go to law school?" Cecilia asked.

"Cecilia," Lauren warned again. She must have sensed that her cousin was zeroing in on Matt.

"Columbia," Matt answered.

"Columbia," she repeated, sounding more interested now. "I went to Dartmouth."

Matt, who still had the bulk of his attention focused on the stairwell for Sarah's footsteps, nodded.

"A good school," he said idly. How long should he wait here before heading out try to find her himself? He had no idea where she'd even called him from.

From the low exhale of air through Cecilia's nostrils, that wasn't as enthusiastic a response as she'd been hoping for. He wasn't sure why other people who attended Ivy League schools always wanted to talk about it with him; it was what they were doing with their degree that interested him, not where they got it from. He'd witnessed lawyers from dirt cheap state schools wipe the floor with Yale and Harvard graduates more times than he could count.

"So, if you went to Columbia Law, why aren't you working for a big law firm?"

"I used to. I interned at Landman and Zack. It wasn't for me."

"Right. Well, I have heard it's a high-pressure environment. Not for everyone, I suppose," Cecilia said.

Before Matt could reply, Lauren stood up from the couch rather quickly.

"I think I forgot to bring a few things into the kitchen," she said. "Cecilia, will you help me?"

Cecilia sighed, uninterested in going along with Lauren's charade. Neither of them bothered to pretend like they were grabbing anything before going into the kitchen together, where Lauren immediately dropped her voice to a hushed tone.

"What are you doing?" she whispered fiercely.

"Waiting for your psycho best friend to make her grand entrance?"

"Don't call her that," Lauren said. "And you know what I'm talking about. Is this you flirting, or are you just interrogating him for fun?"

Cecilia's hair brushed against her shoulders as she turned to look at Matt, then shrugged.

"Both, maybe. He's cute, in a…cheap suit kind of way," she answered.

"He's also cute in the 'normal-person-who-doesn't-flirt-by-being-mean' kind of way."

Cecilia snorted. "I doubt it. He's a lawyer; they love arguing."

"Well, can you tone it down? Because right now you're just coming across as rude, and the last thing we need is for you to scare off the one private attorney who Sarah can afford," Lauren hissed fiercely.

"You really overestimate how much I care about helping Sarah with whatever legal trouble she got herself into," Cecilia pointed out.

They continued bickering, unaware that Matt could hear them, but by then he'd mostly tuned them out. He'd just wanted to make sure there was no hint of either of them deducing who he really was, and it sounded like there wasn't.

Suddenly, Matt made out a familiar set of footsteps coming upstairs, accompanied by a heartbeat he'd be able to pick out anywhere.

Finally. He felt a rush of relief that she'd gotten home safely from wherever she'd called him from, but that was short lived as he picked up on the smell of alcohol and blood clinging to her. Then the lock on the door clicked open and Sarah half-stumbled into the apartment.

The first thing Sarah saw when she opened her front door was Matt waiting for her on her couch, still wearing his glasses and suit jacket and looking oddly tense. He slowly got to his feet as she leaned back hard against her front door, trying to breathe evenly despite the sharp pain in her side.

"You're here," she greeted him in relief. She hadn't been certain if he'd been able to hear her asking to meet here. "I wasn't sure—"

"Sorry for the intrusion," he interrupted her, his voice clipped and professional. Sarah furrowed her brow at him in confusion. "I was waiting outside to discuss a few updates to your case, and your friends very kindly let me in."

He nodded his head towards her kitchen, his eyebrows going up meaningfully.

Sarah stared at him for a moment, then slowly took a step further so she could see into the kitchen, where Lauren and Cecilia were giving her confused looks.

Shit.

"Lauren," she managed to force out, her brain still struggling to reconcile the fact that the two different sides of her life were currently standing in her cramped apartment together. "…hi."

All too late, she remembered that she had made plans that night to have dinner with the two of them, a sort of trial run to show she could be a responsible friend who lived a normal life. That seemed like it was shot to hell now. And even worse, her screw up had unexpectedly landed Matt in a room with Lauren, who had met his alter ego and might very easily figure out his identity, and Cecilia, who—having never met Daredevil—was less likely to make the connection, but who posed a much greater threat if she did.

"Are you okay?" Lauren asked, her eyes wide as she took in Sarah's disheveled appearance. Luckily, the oversized denim jacket Sarah had snatched from the patio concealed the blood staining her shirt, although it didn't do much to stifle the stench of vodka that had soaked the fabric. She clutched it tighter around her, ignoring the jagged jolt of pain the movement sent through her.

"Yes—yeah—me?" Sarah said. "I'm good."

"Okay," Lauren said slowly. "Well, we ran into Matt outside your apartment and I really had to pee, so we let ourselves in. Hopefully that's…okay?"

Sarah noted that Lauren was using Matt's name, and that he'd purposefully mentioned discussing her legal case, so it seemed he'd introduced himself by his real name at least, and not by some pseudonym. She supposed that made sense; it offered a built in excuse for his presence there.

"Oh, you ran into Matt," she repeated, hoping she sounded casual. "Uh—Murdock. Mr…Matthew Murdock, my…lawyer."

"…yeah," Lauren said, looking at her like she was crazy. There was a bright flash of lightning outside, followed almost immediately by a loud boom of thunder.

"You know, the one you double booked us with," Cecilia interjected. "When you forgot about our dinner plans."

"I didn't forget," Sarah said quickly. She had, of course, but wasn't going to give Cecilia the satisfaction of rubbing her nose in it. "I...had a work meeting. It ran late."

"A meeting...in a distillery?" Cecilia asked. Lauren quickly shushed her.

Sarah kept trying not to glance over at Matt, as though pretending he wasn't there would protect him from this somehow, would keep either of them from looking at him too closely. She knew from experience that he was more than capable of schooling his expression into a frustratingly neutral one when he wanted to, so there was little point in looking to him for reactions anyway.

"So, it looks like maybe we should just try to do this another time," Lauren suggested slowly, giving Sarah a wide eyed look. "Is that okay?"

Obviously that was the smart thing to do. Send Lauren and Cecilia back home, let Matt patch her up, try again another night if Lauren would give her another chance. And Sarah really was about to agree when she caught sight of Cecilia, who rolled her eyes with a smug, knowing smirk. Like she'd known this was going to happen, had only agreed to come to see how badly Sarah would manage to screw it all up.

"No," Sarah said abruptly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Matt cock his head in disbelief. Sarah herself was a little surprised. "No, I—I just need a few minutes to talk to my lawyer first."

"Are…you sure?" Lauren asked uncertainly, and Sarah nodded.

"Absolutely. Matt, do you, um, want to step into the other room to talk?" she asked.

Matt paused, a slight tick in his jaw. "Sure."

He stood up from the chair and reached for his cane, moving slower and more carefully than usual. He paused, and she realized he was waiting for her to tell him which way to go, because as far as Lauren and Cecilia knew, he hadn't been here enough times to know. He'd never gotten stitched up while slumped in her desk chair or stretched out on her bed, or fallen asleep on her couch with her head on his chest and Donovan's blood on his hands. Every inch of her apartment had traces of Matt, and it felt strange to pretend otherwise.

"It's…just down the hall to your right," she said. Matt nodded and followed her.

The moment the door to her room was closed, Sarah slumped against it, holding on tightly to the doorknob. Her head felt like it was splitting open, and if the pain in her side wasn't grounding her so efficiently she felt as though she might float away. She'd already been on edge after the events of the evening, and seeing Lauren and Cecilia in her apartment with Matt had completely knocked her off kilter. She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing.

"I'm sorry," Sarah whispered immediately. "I—I forgot they were going to be here. Today went—" she inhaled sharply as she shifted the wrong way and the glass dug further into her. "—ow—badly."

"Yeah, I put that together," Matt replied tersely. He pushed the denim jacket aside so he could brush his fingers around the bloodied side of her shirt, stopping just short of actually pressing against it. "What happened to you?"

"Jason wanted to surprise that tranquilizer guy at his nightclub, and it was sort of a disaster. How…how long were you here with them before I got here?" she asked tentatively.

"Fifteen, twenty minutes," he estimated.

"And Lauren hasn't…?"

"Realized she's met me before?" he finished for her. "No. Not yet, at least. But she might if you don't tell them to leave so I can fix this." He nodded towards the blood seeping through her shirt.

Sarah faltered.

"No, I—I can't do that," she said that, the words spilling out before she could stop herself. Tonight was supposed to be her chance to prove to Lauren—and to herself, honestly—that she could offer some shred of stability and normalcy. There had to be something she could do to still salvage part of that chance. "Not tonight."

Matt cocked his head. "What?"

"It's…hard to explain right now," Sarah said. She didn't know how to explain that technically she was freaking out over something as small as being able to babysit without sounding like a crazy person. Because it wasn't really just about being able to babysit—it was about having some tiny semblance of control over her life, and if she couldn't have any control over Orion or her dad, she could at least have some over tonight. "But i-if we can just get this one biggest piece of glass out, then—then I'll be fine to keep going for a while."

"Are you kidding me?" Matt said incredulously. He tilted his head back and blew out a long breath towards the ceiling. "Look, you're hurt. Something bad clearly happened, and you aren't thinking straight right now—"

"I'm thinking fine," she snapped defensively, as though her entire body didn't feel as though it was moving at a different speed than her head.

"Are you? Because the only choice that makes sense right now is telling them to leave, and you don't seem to be offering any reason why you'd rather them stick around while you keep bleeding through your shirt."

"I know, I know I'm not making any sense to you, but just—can you help me, please?" she asked desperately. "Then I'll figure out what to do about them."

Matt worked his jaw, but beyond that he was difficult to read; she wasn't used to seeing him with his glasses on anymore, and without Matt's expressive eyes to go off, she couldn't quite tell what he was thinking.

"Fine," he said finally. "I hope you know what you're doing, Sarah."

She didn't answer.

Matt helped her gently shrug the oversized denim jacket off her shoulders, trying not to pull on the wounded area too much. He frowned as his hand brushed against something in the inner front pocket. He tilted his head.

"What is this?" he asked.

"…five thousand dollars?" she answered as the jacket hit the floor. She'd switched the envelope from her purse to her pocket as she was coming home, paranoid that with her luck the bag would get snatched before she got to her door.

His eyebrows shot up, and he opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but then snapped it closed again.

"Let's….just get this done first," he said, still sounding less than pleased. He carefully peeled the bloody fabric of her blouse away from her side and pushed the shirt up her ribcage.

"This won't feel good," he murmured, positioning the tweezers over the edge of the glass shard.

Sarah took a deep breath, flatting her palm against Matt's chest as she tried to ready herself. Matt waited for her nod, then started to tug on the jagged glass. The moment he started, pain shot through her side so sharply that she had to bite the insides of her cheeks to keep from crying out. Her fist clenched around Matt's tie and she instinctively buried her face in the front of his shoulder, focusing on him and the sound of the rain outside and trying to keep her breathing steady.

The process didn't take long—maybe a minute at the most—but it was painful, much more so than stitches had ever been in her opinion. She wasn't sure if she would need those too after all the tiny glass shards had been removed, but if she did it would be easy compared to this step.

"It's okay," he said lowly, squeezing her arm with the hand that wasn't smeared with her blood. "We're done. It's out."

Now that the most painful part was over, Matt had her sit on her desk chair and press a towel to it while he knelt next to her first aid bag and fished inside for disinfectant. She glanced at the clock on her wall; not quite ten minutes had passed yet.

"Where'd the five grand come from?" he asked.

"Jason gave it to me. Well, he gave it to Tracksuit," she corrected herself. She couldn't even remember right now what stupid thing Tracksuit had done that Jason had gotten so excited about. "As like a…work bonus type thing. Then I gave him Elliott's name, and…he gave the money to me instead."

"That can't have gone over well," Matt said as he found the bottle he'd been looking for and pressed the open mouth of it to a cotton round.

"Bad enough that he ended up pointing a gun in my face," she said. The line of Matt's mouth grew thin as his face darkened. "That was, um, after he fired a shot into the ceiling and caused a stampede, but before we both got knocked into a liquor display."

"That explains the smell," Matt said. He dabbed the disinfectant onto her cuts, and Sarah sucked in a pained breath through her teeth.

"Have you had trouble with him before?"

"Not really. No more than with any of the others," Sarah said. "But he was pissed about the money, and our drinks had just been spiked—"

"What?" Matt interrupted sharply.

"I didn't drink mine," Sarah added quickly. She glanced at the clock again; she needed to get back out to the living room. There wasn't time to explain everything right now; it would have to wait until later. "I need to go back out there."

He hovered his hand over the injury, which was now covered by the taped down gauze.

"There's still more glass in your skin," he said with a tight frown. "Small enough shards that they shouldn't irritate you too much right now, but they will if they get infected."

"Give me…ten minutes," she said. "Just to try to smooth things over. I'll figure it out."

Matt looked like he wanted to argue more, but instead he just shook his head and stood up, wiping the blood off his hands with the clean edge of the towel. Then he opened her door and stepped out into the hallway, leaving her to struggle into a clean shirt.

Sarah wasn't sure if the pain in her side was actually lessening, or if she was just getting used to it, but it only took her a minute to pull off her ruined blouse and pull on an oversized sweater in its place. Losing the shirt helped with the vodka smell, and when she glanced in the mirror on her way out of her room she actually looked somewhat normal, if a bit frazzled.

"I need to head out now," she heard Matt telling Lauren and Cecilia. She wondered where he would loiter while she tried to fix things with Lauren, and if he was going to be listening in on their conversation. She was fairly certain he would. "It was nice to meet you both."

And maybe if Matt had left right that second, the rest of the night would have gone a little smoother. But unfortunately for him, he'd barely finished speaking when there was another bright flash of lightning, and then all the lights around them went out.

No one spoke right away, and for a moment the only sound was Sarah's small table fan slowing to a halt.

"Seriously?" Lauren said. She moved towards the window, squinting out into the night; there were no lights on anywhere else either. "Another blackout?"

"Now we're stuck here until the power comes back on," Cecilia complained.

Sarah bit her lip; Cecilia was right. Blackouts in New York didn't usually last very long, but they were dangerous while they did last. Obviously Lauren couldn't be outside pushing a stroller around without any working street lamps or stoplights, and while Matt would be fine, a regular blind person would be at risk.

"I guess so," she said. From Matt's tense silence, she assumed he had come to the same conclusion.

"Do you have any candles?" Lauren asked.

"Um…maybe in the hallway closet," Sarah said. She sent a nervous look towards the shadowy outlines of Matt and Cecilia, not wanting to leave the two of them alone, but then reluctantly made her way down the hall to the closet, with Lauren following close behind.

As Sarah rummaged through all of the clutter in her hallway closet, Lauren hovered in the doorway and illuminated the space with her phone's flashlight.

"Okay, are we just not going to talk about it?" Lauren whispered, sounding exasperated.

"About what?" Sarah asked distractedly as she found a few old scented candles in one box, but no flashlight.

"Uh, him!" she said, gesturing wildly in the direction of the living room. "Are you kidding me?"

Sarah's heart sped up.

"M-Matt? What about him?"

"Uh, let's start with how dude looks like a Disney prince. Why haven't you mentioned you had a hot lawyer?" Lauren demanded.

"Oh," she said, hoping she didn't sound too relieved. "Um…I mean, he's my lawyer. That's…against some kind of rule somewhere."

"Oh, right, the rules," Lauren said. "Those things that you spend ninety percent of your time ignoring while you're at work or running around with vigilantes."

"Well, he's not my type, so…it doesn't matter."

"Oh, god. It's because you're hooking up with him again, isn't it? Your...partner in crime," Lauren whispered.

"No. I already told you there's nothing between us anymore. The kiss was a fluke."

"Then why do you do this to me, Sarah? You won't let me set you up with a date, you're not pursing anything with your horned friend, and now you won't even illicitly hook up with your hot lawyer. How am I supposed to live vicariously through you if you act like a nun?" Lauren asked with a dramatic flurry of her hands.

"Sorry to disappoint," Sarah said. She sat back on her feet and held up the candles. "No flashlights. Just these."

"Better than nothing."

Almost immediately after lighting the candles, Sarah quickly began to question if they were actually better than nothing. The tiny flames didn't add any huge amount of heat to the room, but they certainly didn't help, and the scents ended up being much stronger than she had anticipated. She sent a guilty look over at Matt, knowing he would probably get a headache if she left them on too long.

While she lit the candles, Lauren sat on the couch next to Matt, making idle conversation with him while seemingly oblivious to the discomfort radiating from him. It was a surreal situation for Sarah, who still had a searing headache and felt like she was on the edge of a panic attack. In the kitchen, Cecilia was looking through her cabinets for something.

"Surely you must have something to drink around here," Cecilia said, closing another cabinet with a frustrated slam. She was already clearly in a bad mood from having to hang out in Sarah's hot, cramped apartment, and it was only made worse by the sudden darkness and lack of even a fan to circulate air.

"I'm staying sober right now," she said, following Cecilia's voice into the darkened kitchen.

Cecilia scoffed. "Since when?"

"A few months," Sarah said defensively.

"Really? How fascinating. On that topic, do you know who I ran into at the Bulletin the other day when he was selling some freelance photos? Todd," Cecilia said. Sarah faltered, and Cecilia brushed past her, continuing her story as she walked into the living room. "He was telling a few of us about this awful date he went on not too long ago, where the girl got too drunk, led him on, and then knocked him into a street sign when he tried to kiss her. Isn't that crazy? Now there's a girl who could stand to stay sober."

The remark was like a slap to the face. Sarah didn't give a damn if Todd thought she was crazy, but it stung to know that her flashback-induced panic that night was now being used as a punchline during office discussions. Having that reaction to being kissed had been incredibly humiliating, and something she'd liked to have kept private.

"Sounds like a man with some boundary issues," Matt said evenly.

"Yeah, Todd was a total dick, Cecilia. You know that," Lauren said.

Sarah took advantage of the two of them holding Cecilia's attention to pour herself a glass of water. Her heart hadn't really stopped racing since she got home, and she was starting to feel almost lightheaded. She took a deep breath and tuned out whatever the others were saying. She could make this work, could balance both sides of her life being unceremoniously shoved together. This would be fine.

She set the glass down on the counter and moved back towards the living room. As she curled up in the chair opposite Cecilia, she tuned back into what they were talking about.

"…I finally placed why your firm's name sounded familiar," Cecilia was informing Matt. "Nelson and Murdock…you were the ones who put Wilson Fisk away."

"I think that was the New York DA's Office, actually," Matt said. "We're defense attorneys, not prosecutors."

"But you gathered a lot of the evidence against him, and brought forward the witnesses they needed."

"I suppose we did," he acknowledged.

Cecilia leaned forward a bit, and just a little too much interest colored her tone. "I heard you had Daredevil's help to do it. What was he like?"

Shit.

Sarah opened her mouth to tell Cecilia to drop it, but Lauren beat her to it.

"Oh my god, do not bring up your weird Daredevil obsession right now," she pleaded.

"He's a local public figure, and the Fisk case was a major event. It's not weird or obsessive to talk about it." Cecilia turned back to Matt. "So? How many times did you meet him?"

"I assure you, we gathered all our evidence within the legal confines of the law," Matt replied calmly. "We didn't need to give Fisk any loopholes to work with."

"But all your witnesses you represented in that case were all brought in by Daredevil himself. Seems like a big coincidence if you never even met him, doesn't it?"

"You ask a lot of questions, Cecilia. Are you a reporter or something?" Matt said. His tone was casual, but Sarah could hear the tension coiled tight underneath.

"I am, actually," she answered with a note of smugness.

"I mean…you're more of a commentator," Lauren said.

"I write for a newspaper," Cecilia snapped.

"Yeah, writing opinions," Lauren said. "Actual reporters do things like spend time in warzones or go undercover in, like, meat processing plants that are secretly using human body parts."

"And they don't do their reporting based on rumors," Sarah added. "Like who helped who in putting Fisk away. The point is he's locked up."

"Oh, that's right. I forgot you have very strong opinions on the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," Cecilia said with a smirk.

Sarah knew she should change the subject, but her tired mind wasn't cooperating with her mouth.

"Not really," she said. "Definitely not as strong as yours, considering you've build a career out of hating him."

In the dim light of the candles, she saw Matt turn his head towards her sharply. Right. That wasn't changing the subject.

"My career is built on starting a conversation about things the community wants to discuss," Cecilia corrected her. "Like the effects of having a dangerous and unhinged vigilante operating completely unregulated in the streets."

"He's not—" Sarah stopped herself. "It…it doesn't matter. Let's just…talk about something else."

"I agree," Matt said, but Cecilia ignored them.

"How about this? I'm interviewing a local business owner for my column later this week. He's a shop owner who Daredevil helped rob."

Sarah's eyebrows shot up.

"What are you even talking about?" Lauren said.

"Someone robbed this man's store the other night, so he chased him down to protect his property," Cecilia explained. "And when he caught up with him, do you know who Daredevil swooped in to help? The criminal. Not the store owner."

"Yeah, because he's not a security guard. He protects people, not businesses," Sarah said. She knew she should stop entertaining Cecilia's ideas, but she couldn't make herself do it. For all of the horrible things Cecilia had said about her, Sarah knew a lot of them were true—it was part of the reason it stung so much. But the things she was saying about Matt were actually wrong, and the exhausted, nerve-fried part of Sarah's brain latched on to that.

"So, how does he decide which thieves get beaten up and which ones get to walk away scot free?" Cecilia asked. "Just last week, a man was robbing people with a stolen gun, and he got dropped on the steps of the police precinct with half his fingers broken. Why didn't he get a nice pardon?"

"That's not the same thing at all," Sarah argued. "One of them was holding people at gunpoint, and the other was a teenage boy stealing food; there's a difference."

She saw Matt's hand tighten on the arm of the couch, and suddenly realized what she'd said.

"I don't remember reading anything about the thief being a teenager. Or that he was stealing food," Cecilia said, narrowing her eyes at Sarah in suspicion.

"I…I must have read it online. Twitter, maybe," Sarah said. Shit. How had she let that slip? Matt had told her how the store owner had chased down and nearly bashed in the head of a fourteen year old for stealing some cans of soup and a bag of brown rice. But if Cecilia didn't know those details, it meant Sarah probably shouldn't either, and she could only hope Cecilia wouldn't get too suspicious about how she knew them.

"…right," Cecilia said, still watching her. Sarah looked away from her, but didn't want to look over at Matt, so she focused on one of the candles on the table instead.

"Twitter!" Lauren interjected desperately. "I saw something on Twitter the other day! It was this great video of, uh…well, it was actually just a—a bunch of curled up basset hounds, and then they just sort of slowly…wake up, and…start their day. It was…cute."

Sarah was saved from having to respond to that by the lights suddenly coming back on. Cecilia practically jumped up out of her seat.

"Finally," she muttered before casting her eyes towards Lauren. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah," Lauren said. She sent Sarah a guilty look, as though it were her fault that Sarah had ruined everything. "Sorry dinner didn't work out."

"It's okay," Sarah said as she hugged her friend goodbye. "We'll…try again soon, right? I—I really want to see you and Noah more."

"Sure," Lauren said, but something sad in her voice made Sarah wonder if that was true. "Soon. Nice to meet you, Matt."

Matt gave what he must have approximated was a pleasant nod in their direction, but the stiffness in his shoulders and jaw dampened the effect somewhat.

Then Lauren, Cecilia, and the baby were gone, leaving just Matt and Sarah behind to deal with how the night had gone.

"Matt, I'm sorry, I—" Sarah started, then stopped when she saw him moving towards the door. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be right back," he said shortly.

He headed for the stairwell and took the stairs up the two flights to the roof. Out in the open air, he was able to widen the radius of his senses, making it easier to pinpoint what he was searching for. After a minute, he heard it: Lauren's voice, then Cecilia's about a block away. Their cab was stuck in traffic, and they were arguing in the back seat.

"…that was a disaster," Cecilia's dry voice floated up towards him. "I told you it would be. Remind me again why you want to force us to be in the same room so badly?"

"Because she's my best friend, and I care about her," Lauren said. "And you're my family, so I'm stuck with you. Am I crazy for wanting the two of you to get along better?"

"How can we when she makes everything about herself?" Cecilia asked in exasperation. "You haven't even been able to tell her you're in therapy."

"Sarah's dealing with a lot right now, okay? She doesn't need me adding another thing on top," Lauren said.

"Isn't she always dealing with some mysterious thing? I understand that the thing with her dad sucks, but how many other excuses does she have?"

"It's complicated," Lauren snapped, before her tone turned to resignation. "I'm sorry that it didn't work out how I'd planned. I…probably won't try setting anything else up."

"Good."

"Except for maybe setting you up with that lawyer," Lauren said with a laugh. "Sarah said she's not interested for whatever reason, so…"

"Sarah Corrigan's rejects?" Cecilia made no effort to hide the disdain in her voice. "How enticing."

"Listen, you're the one who's been complaining about having to go to the fundraiser alone," Lauren pointed out. "Just ask Matt to go. You get to show up with a cute lawyer, he gets to network with rich people who will probably need lawyers at some point. You both get dinner and wine. Everybody wins!"

"Oh, god. Do you know how desperate it comes off to ask someone you just met to be your date to an event?" Cecilia replied with a scoff. "Although…my boss has been getting my ass lately. He says we're getting too much feedback that I'm coming across as heartless. Says I need to seem 'less cold'.'"

"You do," Lauren said.

"Well, what's more warm and fuzzy than showing up to a fundraiser with a blind do-gooder lawyer?"

"Really, Cecilia? " Lauren complained. "I'm trying to set you up on a date so you can find someone nice, and you have to make it weird."

"I'm being practical," she retorted. "I can think someone's attractive and also understand how being seen with them affects my image."

The cab pulled forward as traffic started moving again, and Noah started to make small, whining sounds from his car seat. Matt heard Cecilia make quiet shushing noises to calm him down.

"He's tired," she said.

"I know. I didn't think we'd be gone that long," Lauren said, suddenly sounding very tired herself. The direction of her voice changed slightly, bouncing off glass now; she'd turned her head to look out the window, away from Cecilia and Noah. "I didn't think any of this would go the way it has, really."

Matt decided he'd eavesdropped enough; aside from a rather annoying conversation about his suitability as a date, nothing in their conversation indicated that they'd thought twice about his connection to Sarah or Daredevil. He inhaled the evening air, trying to calm himself down before he went back downstairs to talk to Sarah, reminding himself that the situation hadn't ended too badly.

But it could have. And if they didn't start being more careful in the future, it probably would.

Sarah's door was still unlocked when Matt came back downstairs. She was sitting at the table with a damp towel, checking the cut on her side. She looked up from what she was doing when he came in, but there was a long stretch before she spoke.

"I'm sorry. That didn't go very well."

"No."

"But it could have gone worse," Sarah tried, her voice tight. "Right?"

"Yeah. It really could have," Matt said pointedly. "What the hell was that? She baits you for two seconds, and you start telling her every detail you know?"

"I don't know what happened," she said. "I kept wanting to change the subject, and then—something different would just come out. I didn't mean to tell her that."

"I was listening when that asshole gave his police report the other night. He lied and told them his store got robbed by a full grown man, and that he was after the money in the register," Matt said. He started pacing the room without realizing, as if his mind was already trying to work out some of the agitation running through him. "So if he and Cecilia start swapping their versions of the story, she's going to wonder how you knew the real version."

"Shit," Sarah swore under her breath. She pressed her palms against her face. "I'll…figure something out."

"What, like you said you'd figure this out?" he shot back, and Sarah bristled.

"That's not fair. I panicked, okay? I—I forgot they were going to be here, and I couldn't know you'd come inside with them instead of leaving—"

"Come on Sarah, you know damn well I wasn't going to leave without knowing if you were okay," he said. "And you knew I wouldn't leave after you showed up hurt, but you decided to ask them to stay anyway. You knew what kind of situation you were putting us both in."

"You act like Lauren's out to throw you in prison," Sarah said. "She's my best friend—"

"Yeah, your best friend who despises me."

"She doesn't despise you."

"I wouldn't call her my biggest fan. She hates the idea of you even being around me."

"That's not true. She's…she's fine with the idea of us, she just had to warm up to it."

"Us? From what I heard, she's under the impression there is no us," Matt said. "Why else would you lie to her about that, if not because you knew she'd hate it?"

"No, that's not…" Sarah faltered. She was nervous, and tripping over her words, and normally Matt would feel bad enough about that to back off, but not tonight. "She's trying, okay? It's a…difficult idea for her to wrap her head around, I think."

"That's fine. I'm not going to lose any sleep over Lauren's disapproval," Matt said. "But between that and constantly having Cecilia in her ear, it complicates things. Cecilia would expose me in a second if she could, and…I can't say for certain that Lauren wouldn't do the same. Can you?"

She didn't answer for a beat. "Why are you asking me that? She doesn't know, so—"

"Because you're kind of acting like it would be no big deal if she found out, and that's alarming to me," he said.

"Of course I know it's a big deal, you've done nothing but drill that into my head since I met you."

"Well, you wouldn't know it from tonight," he retorted. "We're lucky it didn't end with both our faces splashed across tomorrow's paper. Cecilia came across as a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them."

"She's not going to jump to thinking that a blind lawyer is Daredevil—"

"You did," he countered. Sarah didn't say anything. "How'd you figure that out again? From a cut?"

"Yes," she said softly.

"Was that it? Nothing else, that alone was enough to convince you?"

"I looked you up online. Found some articles a couple of old photos to compare to."

"So, nothing that anyone couldn't look up and make the same connection," Matt said. When she didn't reply after a beat, he tossed his hands up in frustration. "One slip up and either of them could figure it out just like you did. Do you even care about that?"

"Of course I do."

"Yeah? Then you think you could give me a heads up next time you decide to hang out with a reporter who wants to destroy me?"

"I don't have to get clearance from you first before I have dinner with someone," she snapped.

Matt slammed his hand down on the table.

"You do when they're obsessed with exposing me," he exclaimed, his voice rising despite himself. His head was starting to pound, and the heady scent of conflicting candles wasn't helping. "Jesus, can you blow out those candles?"

"No," she said stubbornly. "I want them on."

Matt shook his head. "Of course you do."

"I'm sorry that you can't control every tiny aspect of my life right down to the candles, Matt," Sarah bit out.

"What—are you kidding me?"

"What? Isn't that what this all is? You're just pissed because you tried to tell me what to do like always, and I didn't listen."

"You act like I'm trying to dictate what you should wear every morning," he argued. "I told you to make them leave so we could stop you from bleeding out and keep them from becoming too interested in me, because neither of those scenarios seemed to be crossing your mind!"

"Of course they crossed my mind!" Sarah exclaimed. "But I thought I could handle it, and then I just—panicked, and—"

"You can't blame everything on that! Please be more careful than this, Sarah. Come on. Not letting me help you with the your injuries because you don't want to—what, reschedule plans with your friends for another time?" he asked incredulously. "What sense does that make? It was reckless—"

"Reckless?" she repeated. "Coming from you? You're the most reckless person I know—"

"Yeah, with a lot of things, but not with you," Matt cut in sharply. "Never with you."

Sarah opened her mouth to reply, but closed it again without saying anything. A tense silence stretched between them before Matt broke it again.

"Look, you—you're a priority for me, Sarah. I hope you know that, because I've been trying my hardest to show you," he said. "And I know that doesn't mean you have to feel the same way; it doesn't work like that. But if you could at least try to rank keeping my life's biggest secret somewhere at the same level as trying to keep your dinner plans intact, I'd appreciate it."

His tone slipped towards bitterness again near the end, the hurt sneaking through despite his best efforts to tamp it down. He didn't know what he was hoping she'd say in return. Maybe that she understood why he was so upset, that she wasn't looking at this as just another time he was blowing up at her. Or maybe just that he was important to her, too, and she wouldn't put him in another situation like that.

But instead, in typical Sarah fashion, when he really wanted her to say something she was completely silent.

"I have to go," Matt said, keeping his face carefully neutral. "I can't stay here and go in circles with you about this. I have a court date tomorrow, and I need to get ready for it."

"Matt…" The anger had melted out of Sarah's voice, replaced with exhaustion and a hint of pleading.

"You should go see Claire about the glass in your side so it doesn't get infected," he said, then shrugged his jacket on and picked up his walking stick. "Or don't. It's your life."

As he stepped out into the hallway, he could sense Mrs. Benedict hovering on the other side of her door. She'd probably been drawn to her peep hole by the raised voices in Sarah's apartment, but at the moment didn't particularly care if they'd made a scene as he slammed the door behind him and left.

Sarah didn't sleep well that night for several reasons: the pain that still seared across her side after the bleeding had stopped; the dread of going into Orion the next day to see what damage the fiasco at the club had done; and of course, the voice prickling in the back of her mind, suggesting that she hadn't been on the right side of her argument with Matt earlier. But the remnants of hot anger were still coursing through her veins, and she wasn't ready to take a closer look at it just yet. It was easier to just stay pissed off at Matt, at least for the night.

Finally, around 2:30am, she grew tired of trying to quiet her own thoughts. She got up and made her way down the hallway to the living room, where her laptop was charging on the table. Not that she currently had any internet to use it with, but she could at least start to sort through all the things she needed to spend her sudden windfall of cash on. She opened up a new blank document and started making a list. There were the big things first—her two grand in legal fines, her electricity and water bills, a new phone to replace her shattered one—and then smaller things—her internet bill, some more groceries, maybe even a doctor check up—and she tried to estimate how much each would cost.

In the middle of her list, she noticed the small WiFi signal in the top right corner of her screen lighting up, just the bottom two bars. Then if went grey again. Sarah frowned, clicking on it.

BarBrighton_CustomerWiFi

The name jogged her memory; a wildly overpriced new bar had just opened on one of the top floors of the building across the street, and they'd passed out fliers for the grand opening for weeks in advance, apparently unaware that most of the residents of the neighborhood couldn't afford even half their prices.

"Oh, yes," she whispered, standing up and bringing her laptop a little closer to the window. The signal flickered out again, and she frowned, then backed up towards the kitchen. It lit up again, this time with three bars. After some experimentation, Sarah found the only spot in her kitchen where she got nearly full bars, and it was unfortunately achieved by placing her laptop directly on top of her fridge. Luckily for her, she lived in an old apartment with an ancient, short fridge, so if she sat on the counter she only had to lift her arms up to elbow high to type on the keyboard.

"Ridiculous," she murmured, shaking her head at her own situation. Of course, once she was able to get her internet turned back on she wouldn't have to do this, but for now it worked, and for the first time in her recollection she was grateful for an overpriced bar opening in her neighborhood.

Now with WiFi to help her with her budgeting, she returned to the task, not feeling any closer to sleep than when she'd gotten up. Her thoughts kept wandering to her fight with Matt; even though he hadn't blew his lid like he had during arguments in the past, this still felt like one of their uglier fights, and she knew it was because she'd been in the wrong, taking all of her pain and hurling it at someone who didn't deserve it.

Sarah groaned and leaned her forehead against the side of the fridge.

"Am I the asshole?" she muttered.

She heard a small scratching sound from nearby, and looked over to see the mouse lingering near the bottom of her stove, looking at her with what she deemed an inappropriate amount of judgment for a rodent.

"Well, what do you know?" she muttered resentfully. "You're just a rat."

The mouse just twitched his nose in disdain before scurrying out of sight, leaving her with just a growing feeling of regret in her stomach.

Getting at least one task accomplished helped calm her mind down a bit, and she ended up getting at least a few hours of sleep that night. Which wasn't to say she woke up feeling particularly refreshed; instead she woke up with another pounding headache, and several dark spots on her sheets from where she'd bled through her bandage overnight. She frowned at the sight and made a mental note that she probably should go see Claire.

She checked her email while the water boiled for her tea; it felt very isolating to not have a phone, even if she could still get texts and video chats through her laptop. She glanced at the date in the corner of the screen. Matt had his court date today. She knew he'd been stressing about it; the other side had the power of a large and expensive law firm on their side, and that combined with a known hardass of a judge was making them nervous.

Sarah opened the messaging app that was linked to her phone, and her fingers hovered over the keyboard as she debated whether or not to send something to him. It was a small thing she'd gotten in the habit of doing when he was going into court, and while he was often too preoccupied with preparing to reply, he seemed to like it. And even if they were fighting, it felt weird to not say something for such a big case.

Good luck today, she typed out, quickly hitting send before she could overthink even that simple message. After a moment's consideration, she sent a similar text to Foggy. She could only hope they wouldn't reply, because she couldn't check her texts again until she got home from work. She'd send messages on free bar WiFi, sure, but she wasn't dumb enough to link her laptop up to anything at Orion.

Sarah arrived at work before Jason that morning. It didn't happen very often, but she liked when it did; it gave her a chance to breathe and get ready for whatever insanity he was going to throw at her that day. She checked the pile of paperwork on the her desk and tilted her head when she noticed a large manila envelope on top.

When she opened the envelope, she saw several large surveillance photos, similar to the ones of Mrs. McDermott. But these were of a woman she didn't recognize, with a short stature and a mass of dark curly hair. The note included was short:

Jason - Should help keep M.P. in line.

Sarah frowned at the photo. She wasn't sure who the woman in them was, or who M.P. was, but she made a mental note of both.

She'd been at her desk for about half an hour when a guy who looked to barely be out of his teens appeared, carefully holding a garment bag.

"I need to give this to…Jason?" he said, glancing at the name on the tag. He seemed nervous; she didn't think he worked for Orion. Probably an outside runner.

"Sorry, Jason who?" Sarah asked. It was something she did sometimes when people showed up with deliveries for him, on the off chance that someday one of them might actually have this last name on record. So far it had never worked.

"It…just says Jason," he said uncertainly. Oh, well. Worth a shot.

"Oh, Jason," she said, then pointed to the nameplate on the door behind her, which also just read 'Jason'. "Yes, sorry. I'll take it. I'm his assistant."

"Uh…they gave me really strict instructions to only give it to him."

"Well, I don't know when he's going to be in," she said. "And I don't have a key to his office for you to leave it in there."

He shifted uncomfortably, which Sarah thought was odd. It looked like all he was holding was just a suit from the dry cleaners; he got them delivered all the time without any particular drama.

"Um…usually people just leave stuff on the coat rack there," she said, indicating the stand in the corner. "But you can just come back later if you really need to."

The delivery guy checked the time on his phone and groaned. "I'm already running late, though. I can't double back."

"So, do you want me to sign for it…?" she offered. Her curiosity was getting the better of her; what was in the bag that he was being so squirrely about delivering it?

"Okay, yeah," he agreed after some hesitation. He handed her the clipboard and went to hang the garment bag on the coat rack. "But if he asks, I got here like…thirty minutes ago."

"Got it," she said as she scribbled her name on the delivery slip.

Once the nervous delivery guy was gone, Sarah immediately unzipped the oddly large garment bag to see what was inside. To her confusion, it did appear to just be a regular business suit, if significantly too large for Jason. Was he getting that crazy now that he had people scared just to bring him his dry cleaning? Did this guy bring him the wrong suit?

As she went to zip the bag back up, her hand brushed against the lapel of the jacket and she frowned. The material felt strange, like there was another layer to it. She flipped open the jacket to see the inside, and was even more confused to see a dark black lining instead of the usual blinding white silk she'd expected. When she reached out to touch it, it was a strange material: light, but very tough. It seemed familiar somehow, even though she knew she'd never seen it before.

"Beautiful craftsmanship, isn't it?"

Sarah jumped at the voice behind her, whipping her head around to see Jason standing there.

"I, uh—" she stammered. "Sorry. The—the guy who brought it was acting weird so I thought maybe he'd…spilled something on it."

But it seemed that Jason was too thrilled to see his new suit had arrived to waste time with her weak excuses. He moved closer and unzipped the bag fully, his piercing eyes gleaming as he took in the sight.

"This is gorgeous," he said. "It's not the final product, of course. This one was made for someone who no longer has any use for it; it'll take a while to tailor one to me, but I'm willing to be patient. I just needed to see it with my own eyes first."

"What's so special about it?" she asked hesitantly.

Jason gave a delighted chuckle, then reached into his inner jacket pocket. Before she could blink, he withdrew and promptly flicked open a very sharp looking switchblade.

Sarah jumped and took a step back, but he wasn't brandishing the blade at her. Instead, he held open the suit jacket and slashed at the inner lining with a level of force and glee that Sarah privately thought could only come from someone who had definitely stabbed someone to death before. But when he drew back, the jacket was fine, with no sign of even the smallest tears.

"That's what's so special," he said, grinning widely as he flipped the switchblade closed and slipped it back into his inner pocket. Sarah made a mental note for the future that he kept it in there. "Do you know how many people in the world can get their hands on a suit like this?"

It was with that question that the familiarity of the suit clicked into place: Wilson Fisk had owned a suit like this. Just like this, in fact, which explained the large size. Rumors had gone around for a long time that he was oddly impervious to weapons, but it wasn't until Matt had filled her in on his disastrous fight with Fisk at the docks that she'd learned the actual truth. She also knew Matt had hoped to get a suit of his own made out of the same material, but that the man who made them had fled town before he had the chance.

"Where did you get it?" she asked. It was probably too much to hope that he would direct her straight to where she could get one for Matt.

"I believe I mentioned that Kevin found me a brilliant tailor. I have no idea how he found him. But he did, and he even found a workspace for him where we have no reason to worry about him…wandering. This was a game changer. It was why I originally gave Kevin the five thousand dollar prize." His expression suddenly grew darker as he locked eyes with her. "Maybe I should have let him keep it."

Sarah bit the inside of her lip hard and didn't say anything. What had happened at the club wasn't her fault; all she had done was give him the address he'd asked for. But she knew that wasn't how Jason's mind worked. Was he about to lose it now that he was done fawning over his new possession?

"But…I already made him give you the cash. If I made you give it back, I'd appear to be indecisive," he said. "So spend it wisely, and the next idea you bring me better make it worth the investment."

Relief washed through her.

"Got it," she said tightly.

Jason turned his piercing gaze away from her back to the suit.

"Beautiful," he said again. "Mr. Potter is an eccentric man, but his skills are unrivaled."

The name confirmed her suspicions: Melvin Potter. Sarah barely had time to register the irony of Jason calling anyone eccentric when he turned to look at her sharply.

"You're an artist, are you not? A pianist?" he asked.

"…yes," Sarah answered uncertainly.

"Surely you must be able to appreciate the art of this suit," he said, gesturing towards it.

She furrowed her brow and turned her gaze to the suit in question, doing her best to look as though she were understanding it on some deeper level.

"Um…yes," she lied. "I—I do."

But when she looked at that suit, she didn't see art. She saw armor; armor that Matt had been needing. The only question was where the man who made the suit was being held. She knew Jason wouldn't tell her, and that he definitely wouldn't have allowed any random delivery guy to pick up the suit at the actual location. So that only left Tracksuit himself.

"Ah," Jason said, spotting the surveillance photos on her desk and picking them up to admire them. "Speaking of Mr. Potter, I should send these his way soon."

M.P., she thought. There was one mystery solved, but it still left the mystery of where he was being kept.

"Where, um…where's Tr—uh, Kevin today?" she asked suddenly.

"Kevin is in jail," Jason said calmly. Sarah blinked in surprise. "He did a…tragically idiotic job of avoiding the police. Now he's dealing with the consequences."

"Oh. And he isn't going to…mention to the police that we were there too?" she asked, wondering if she should be expecting a the familiar heavy knock of a police officer at her door anytime soon.

"No. He knows better than that," Jason said. "He'll figure his own way out of jail, and when he does, he can redeem himself by helping to deal with this…drug dealer and his poorly organized line of business. I don't know why I bothered trying to form a business partnership with that boy when taking over his entire business would be much cleaner."

The idea of having to 'deal with' Elliot Bradshaw somehow was alarming, but not something she'd have to deal with immediately. Not until Tracksuit was out of jail, at least. But if he was locked up, it meant she couldn't just follow him to wherever they were hiding Melvin Potter, and Matt wouldn't be able to get it the information out of him using his own skillset either. So what was she supposed to do now?

After work, Sarah stopped by to see Claire, who promptly lectured her on the dangers of going to work all day with shards of glass still in her side, and informed her that no, it didn't help that Sarah honestly thought she'd gotten them all out.

When she got home afterwards, the exhaustion from her lack of sleep was already creeping up on her. She ran a tired hand through her hair as she kicked her heels off and padded into the kitchen for a snack. As she entered she heard her laptop let out a ding from on top of her fridge, and a notification slid down from the top of the screen. She'd hoped to see Matt's name as the sender, but the text was from Foggy instead. It was only two words.

We lost.

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment as her heart sank. She knew they'd both been worried about this case, but she hadn't thought they'd actually lose.

I'm sorry, she replied. Then, almost of their own accord, her fingers continued typing: Is Matt okay?

He'll make it. We're going to get some consolation drinks—want to join?

Sarah raised her eyebrows, but then her phone buzzed again: For the company! Not the alcohol.

She wasn't so sure about that idea. Foggy might be happy to see her, but she couldn't say the same for Matt or Karen.

Not tonight. But I hope it cheers everyone up, she replied.

As Sarah hopped back down from the counter, she sent a glance at the pile of work she wanted to get a head start on for the week, and the mere sight of it only made her exhaustion more pronounced. She curled up on the corner of her couch, leaned her head on her hand and closed her eyes, just for a few moments. Then very quickly, she slipped into unconsciousness.

She was woken up by her laptop emitting a loud, musical tone. It jarred her awake, and for a moment she wasn't sure what it was; then she realized that must be the ringtone her laptop had for phone calls routed in through her phone. She stood up and blearily made her way over to the counter, hopping up on it to answer the call. Again, it was Foggy's name on the screen.

"Are you drunk dialing me?" Sarah greeted him.

"A ridiculous accusation!" Foggy replied, his voice bursting through the laptop speaker. He was slurring his words, confirming this was in fact a drunk dial. "Bordering on slander, you might say."

Sarah laughed and shifted to get more comfortable on the countertop. "Can I do something for you, Foggy?"

"Yes. Come out to the bar."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea. I think Matt's kind of pissed at me."

"Matt's three whiskey neats in, he's not pissed at anybody! He'd be really happy if you came."

Sarah hesitated. "I'll think about it."

And she did think about it, but not for very long. She already knew she didn't want another night of this heavy guilt sitting in her stomach. She could at least try to apologize, and if he wanted to yell more—well, that was still better than sitting in her apartment alone.

She slipped out of her pencil skirt and into a pair of denim shorts and sneakers, but she didn't want to test the newly re-bandaged wound on her side by pulling at it too much, so she left the white button-down she had worn to work, now slightly wrinkled from having fallen asleep in it. She'd been wearing her hair down to help conceal the bruise on her face, but now it was finally starting to fade and the heat outside was unbearable, so she pulled it up into a loose ponytail and was on her way.

Twenty minutes later, she arrived at Josie's Bar. It was a small, crowded establishment, dimly lit by a few weak overhead lights and the occasional neon sign. There were several handwritten signs scrawled on cardboard dotting the walls, and apparently just one bartender scowling at patrons from behind the sticky bar.

Sarah liked it. The crowd reminded her of her dad's friends growing up—his real friends, from when he'd had a job, not the ones he'd fallen in with after his gambling had taken over everything. And it was a refreshing change from the Todds of the world who seemed to have taken over every other bar in New York.

She was just starting to wonder how she was going to find Matt or Foggy in the mess of people when Foggy himself appeared beside her.

"You came!" he said, slinging one arm around her shoulder. "Let's get you a drink."

"Uh, I—"

"Shit, sorry! I keep forgetting," Foggy said. "Let's get you a—a ginger ale. Come on."

They made their way over to the bar, which was unfortunately situated directly beneath the TV everyone was focusing on.

"It's not usually this packed," Foggy called over his shoulder. "But we decided to lose our case on a night when the Mets are in the playoffs, so…"

Sarah winced sympathetically, but she couldn't reply as something happened in the game and a cheer went up from the people around her.

"Josie!" Foggy greeted the bartender, with what seemed like an overabundance of enthusiasm considering the annoyed look she was giving in return. "Your finest ginger ale, please! And I'll take another bourbon."

"No ginger ale," the bartender—the Josie of Josie's Bar, it seemed—replied flatly.

"No ginger ale?" He repeated. "How do you make—uh—uh…Moscow Mules?"

Josie leaned on the bar and fixed Foggy with a deeper glare. "How do I make what?"

"Just a Coke would be good, thanks," Sarah interjected. She looked over at Foggy. "I think those are with ginger beer."

He didn't appear to hear her, still trying his best to tipsily argue his point.

"You gotta keep up with the trends, Josie! How do you expect to attract the young and vibrant patrons of Hell's Kitchen to your bar?" Foggy protested.

Josie skimmed her eyes over the generally bedraggled and tattooed crowd in her bar as she grabbed a hose from under the bar and spritzed some soda into a cloudy looking glass.

"I don't."

She slid the glass toward Sarah, who started digging in her bag for some cash. Josie waved her money away, looking equally annoyed by the idea of being paid as she had by being greeted.

"Thanks," Sarah said, then turned towards Foggy.

"Matt and I are Josie's favorite patrons," Foggy informed her. "And now Karen, too. She acts like we aren't, but…we are."

The bartender rolled her eyes at that, but her mouth turned up slightly at the corner as she walked away. Foggy nodded his head towards two seats at the very end of the bar that had just opened up, and she followed him over to it.

"Speaking of, where are the other two thirds of your law firm?" Sarah asked as she slipped into one of the tall chairs.

"Uh, let's see…Karen is in line for the ladies room, but if I know her, she's going to get tired of waiting and just go use the men's in a few minutes," he speculated. Then he scanned the crowded room before pointing near the back. "And Matt is…over there."

Sarah followed his gaze to see Matt standing near one of the pool tables, talking to two girls who looked a few years younger than them.

"Oh," she said, then took a drink of her Coke. "I couldn't see him behind the two…beautiful blonde women standing in front of him."

Foggy tipped his head back and laughed loudly and tipsily.

"They're old clients of ours; we helped them when their landlord was being shady," he explained, then raised his eyebrows at her knowingly. "They're just catching up, Jealous McGee."

"I'm not jealous," she protested.

But weirdly, she kind of was. A small and clearly irrational part of her always thought of Matt as being her personal protector, so watching him laugh and talk with two girls who possibly viewed him in a similar way made her feel odd.

"Trust me, after losing as spectacularly as we did today, any reminder that we actually have helped some of our clients is a welcome distraction," Foggy told her. He shook his head and took a deep swig of his drink. "But he'll come over as soon as he realizes you're here. Which, by the way, is how I can tell Murdock is drunk as shit. You've been in this bar for almost five minutes now and he hasn't noticed yet."

Sarah laughed and looked around. "There's about a million people in here, Foggy. I think we can expect he'd miss picking out a single heartbeat."

"A regular heartbeat, sure," Foggy said, sliding a knowing glance her way. "We're talking about you, here."

What was she supposed to say to something like that? Sarah could feel her face warming, and she took another sip of her soda, giving herself a moment.

"Well, we're…maybe fighting right now," she said. "So don't bet on him being happy to see me."

"You guys are fighting again?" Foggy asked with a groan. He waved his hand dismissively. "It's fine, whatever he did, he'll apologize."

Sarah sighed.

"No, it—it was me this time. I'm the asshole."

Foggy gave her a look of mock disbelief. "Sarah Corrigan, the asshole? Plot twist!"

"I know, I know," she said defensively. "I told you on the phone he's mad at me!"

"We spoke on the phone?" Foggy exclaimed, squinting at her blearily. Then he snapped his fingers. "Yes! Yes, we did. That's why you're here!"

He sounded delighted by having solved that mystery on his own. Sarah just shook her head.

"You're really drunk, Foggy."

"I think you're the first girlfriend of his whose phone number I've ever had. So I have to drunk call you a least a few times, to make up for all the years I was deprived of doing so," he said.

"I'm not really his gir—" Sarah began to object uncomfortably.

"Right, right, I know. You guys are just…'figuring it out'," Foggy said, making air quotes with his fingers and causing his drink to slosh out of the glass a little. "Or, uh, what is it, 'testing—testing out being together' or some bullshit like that. You're his girlfriend. You two are dating. Just get over it."

Sarah laughed and held up her hands. "Okay."

"Anyway. My point is…Matt never mixes his love life and friendships, so I'm enjoying this opportunity. He probably never would have let us meet, but that's what that dumbass gets for getting trapped under a bunch of scaffolding, amirite? High five."

Unable to resist the tipsy enthusiasm of drunk Foggy Nelson, Sarah obliged him, high fiving his hand with a loud laugh. As she did, Matt tilted his head in their direction. His brow furrowed in confusion for a moment before he turned more fully towards them, realizing that Sarah was there.

"Aha!" Foggy said, pointing an accusatory finger towards Matt. "There's the alarm bells going off. I gotta go see if my girlfriend got lost in the women's restroom, so I'll leave you two to talk."

Sarah's heart skipped nervously as Matt made his way through the crowd towards her. He slid into the seat beside her with a questioning look.

"You chose a convenient bar to pick up drinking again," he said, tilting his head in her direction.

Sarah glanced at the drink in her hand.

"It's Coke," Sarah said. But he probably knew that already. "Sometimes people drink it without rum, apparently."

A dutiful ghost of a grin passed over his mouth, but barely. Sarah's gaze moved from his face down to the empty highball glass in his hand.

"If I buy you another drink, would that be…helpful in me apologizing, or will it just make you black out so I have to re-do the apology tomorrow?" she asked him. Matt tilted his head, his expression difficult to read behind the dark glasses. Behind the bar, Josie moved in their direction.

"Another McCallan?" she asked expectantly, already reaching for the bottle.

Matt shook his head, then nodded towards Sarah. "I'll have the same as her."

Sarah gave him an odd look; he had heard her say she was just drinking soda, right? Josie looked equally skeptical, but poured another Coke and set it on the bar all the same.

"Should you be in here?" he asked her as Josie walked away.

Sarah faltered.

"Oh. Well, I—Foggy called me, and I thought maybe..." Feeling embarrassed, she shifted on her stool, ready to hop off and leave Matt to commiserate with his coworkers. "I can go—"

Then Matt's hand was on her thigh, stopping her from getting up.

"No, I meant—" he gestured to the scene around them. "Being surrounded by people drinking. Isn't that…"

Tempting? Sarah looked around. It was tempting, seeing everyone in the bar slip into that state of relaxed carelessness that she'd always associated with having a few drinks. Her eyes came back to rest on Matt and the non-alcoholic drink in his hand. How very typical Matt Murdock to be immediately worried about her relapsing while she was in the middle of trying to apologize.

"I'm a big girl. I'll be alright," she said. "You can order a real drink. Seriously."

Matt just shook his head, bringing his glass up to his lips. "Probably about time I switched to water anyway. But Josie's water'll kill you, so…this works."

Sarah frowned at that—what kind of place was this?—but nodded. There was a short pause during which she really should have started talking, but she couldn't get herself to begin, and she wasn't sure why. Matt was always so good at this: apologizing to her and giving her those guilty eyes that made her heart melt, unable to stay mad at him for very long. So how was she struggling so much with it? Was she just colder than him? It felt like she spent half her time apologizing to everyone for tiny things that weren't even her fault, but now that she'd actually messed up she was having trouble finding the words.

"So Foggy told you we were here?" Matt said, filling in the silence for her.

"He did. I think he's too drunk to remember it now, but…" She curled both hands around the cool glass in her hands, watching the condensation that gathered on the outside. "I'm sorry about your court case."

She glanced over at him to see a grimace pass over his face. He looked exhausted, the dark circles apparent even with the flushed appearance the alcohol was lending his skin.

"The loss wasn't a surprise. They had…more money, more lawyers, and a judge who didn't seem to give a shit about our client. But it was the first loss we've had since we started the firm so..." he said. She could hear the slight slur in his voice more clearly now; he really was a few drinks in. "But we'll rally tomorrow. Start working on an appeal."

"That's good," she said quietly. "You guys will figure it out. You're good at that."

Matt nodded and took a drink but didn't look entirely convinced.

"I'm sorry," Sarah said abruptly. "You were right, I was being…ridiculous. And selfish. And…just kind of a huge bitch to you."

His eyebrows went up. "I never called you any of those things."

"No, but you were thinking it," she said. With a twitch of his lips, Matt just took a drink of his Coke, offering no argument for that, and Sarah laughed a little. "And you should have been. It's—I don't know how to…" she trailed off, then began again. "Lauren doesn't want me being alone with Noah right now. She thinks my life is too dangerous. And…maybe she's right. She spends all her time with Cecilia, and I'm scared that I'm going to get edged out of her and Noah's lives altogether. And I got it in my head that I could fix that with one night and that last night was the night, but then I screwed it up."

She breathed out a short, somewhat bitter laugh and let her eyes wander around the room. It was always easier for her to talk more openly in a packed bar; in the past it was from the alcohol, but now it was the noise of the crowd, loud enough that no one but Matt could ever hear her words; she could barely hear them herself, and it made saying them easier. "And I took it out on you, which was especially stupid because…whatever this thing is with you is the only part of my life that feels like it's getting better and not worse."

"And you were right that I made all the wrong calls last night," she continued. "And…that I wasn't being careful enough. And I'm sorry for that. I don't…want to be reckless…with you," she said haltingly, letting the noise of the crowd carry her words away.

She risked a glance at Matt, but then half-wished she hadn't. His glasses made it difficult to see exactly where his gaze landed, but he had that unmistakable expression she was so familiar with, the tilted head and furrowed brow he got when he was focused on her so intently that she felt like he could see right through her. That x-ray vulnerability wasn't exactly the feeling she was searching for right now.

The lull was interrupted by Josie slamming a pitcher of water down next to them on the table, making Sarah jump.

"Tell Nelson if he wants to keep drinking for free, he needs to go grab me another crate of shot glasses from the loading dock," Josie said.

Matt cocked his head, still focused on Sarah. "I'll grab it for you, Jos."

The bartender gave him a doubtful scowl.

"Didn't you just bust your head open taking out the trash?" Josie asked.

"I'll have supervision," he said, nodding his head towards Sarah, who blinked.

"Oh, uh—right," Sarah quickly agreed. "I'll…do that."

Josie eyeballed both of them, then shook her head and walked away.

"Was that…a yes?" Sarah asked Matt. He set his empty glass down and nodded towards the door next to the bar. She glanced around at the room full of people. They were all focusing on whoever was losing whatever sport was playing on TV, none of them paying any attention to her or Matt. She slid off her stool and made her way over to the nearby door, Matt not too far behind her.

The back loading dock was dark, illuminated only by the light spilling out of the bar in the moments they had the back door open, and as soon as it swung closed behind them they were in plunged into shadows again with only the barely visible crescent moon in the distance, a thin papercut against the flat, dark sky. Sarah found it comforting, a welcome respite from both prying eyes and her own neurotic determination to decipher Matt's expressions.

Matt leaned against it, not saying anything right away. Sarah waited, inhaling the humid night air as her eyes slowly began to adjust to the dark.

"So…do you know where these supposed shot glasses are?" she asked gamely.

She heard Matt made a contemplative noise, and then she felt his hands rest lightly on either of her arms, slowly propelling her backwards. Her lower back bumped against a crate, causing a clinking sound to come from inside.

"That one sounds about right," he noted. She couldn't see his smirk, but she could hear it clearly in his voice. She smiled a little at the sound; if he was messing with her, it seemed like a good sign he wasn't pissed at her anymore, although he could just be drunk.

The crate seemed sturdy enough, so she planted her hands on it and lifted herself up so she was sitting on top of it. Matt moved closer, standing between her legs.

"I can't believe Foggy drunk dialed you into coming down here," he said laughingly.

"Well, to be fair, Foggy said I'm the only girlfriend of yours who's number he's ever had."

It was a cowardly way of feeling Matt out; slipping the word 'girlfriend' in there when he'd been drinking, and framing it in such a way that if he pulled back, she could blame it on Foggy. Foggy called her Matt's girlfriend, not her.

Matt chuckled. "He's right; you are."

Sarah bit back a grin. "So he obviously has to drunk dial me sometimes."

His hands skimmed down her ribs, then back up underneath her shirt to linger on the bandage on her side. His thumb brushed against the clean, expertly applied edges and he tilted his head.

"You did go to see Claire," he noted.

"Mmm," Sarah agreed, her voice slightly strangled. The heat of his hand and the way it spanned so easily around her ribcage was very distracting. "I do listen when you order me around sometimes."

He let out a short, sharp laugh. "Barely."

His voice was rough from the alcohol, and he was so close to her but not yet touching his mouth to hers, seemingly enjoying drawing this out. Sarah, on the other hand, was going a little crazy. She'd wanted him to drown out the buzzing under her skin, to kiss her hard enough to draw blood so that she had something to focus on. To draw her attention away from her own thoughts and place it squarely on him, like he was so good at doing. But instead, he was taking his time, his teasing fingers barely touching her as they slid down to her hips.

She leaned towards him, wanting to get closer, but he kept her steady, his fingers digging into her hips as he held her still.

"You're not being very clear about whether or not you accept my apology," Sarah noted with some frustration.

Matt's mouth twitched.

"Well, I'm busy enjoying you being the one apologizing for once," he said as he reached up and gently tugged out the hair tie holding her ponytail up, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders.

For as intoxicated as Matt was, his hands were graceful as always as he undid just the top button of her work blouse, widening the triangle of skin that was exposed above her collarbone. He pushed the fabric aside, off her shoulder, and pressed his lips there, to the front of her shoulder, then up along the bridge to her neck.

"I'm sure it'll be your turn again soon enough," she murmured laughingly.

In reply, Matt lightly nipped at the tender skin at the base of her neck, making her gasp sharply. Her skin immediately flushed with heat, and she felt Matt's lips curve into what she knew was a self satisfied grin.

She expected him to graze his lips up until they met hers, but instead he pressed his forehead against the crook of her neck, his fingers digging lightly into her skin.

"I had a really shitty day," he admitted abruptly, his voice low and ragged from the whiskey that lingered on his breath "I'm…glad you're here."

Sarah's heart twisted, and she traced her fingers down the side of his face, unable to make out his expression in the dark. She leaned in and pressed small kisses along the long line of his cheekbone, feeling the way his skin moved as he smiled before turning and catching her mouth with his.

Suddenly the back door creaked open, a sliver of light spilling out but not quite reaching their corner. The two of them immediately broke apart as they heard a familiar voice.

"I am definitely not looking, but if you two are having sex out here instead of grabbing supplies for Josie, she's going to be pissed," Foggy called out.

Matt leaned his forehead against Sarah's, and she felt his breath against her skin as he laughed.

"Uh, yeah, I'll—I'll be right in with that, Fog," he replied, his voice low and raw, not all that different from the one he adopted as Daredevil. "Thanks."

Sarah bit back a laugh, closing her eyes. She heard the door close as Foggy ducked back inside.

"Seems like we always get interrupted by something," she said, keeping her forehead pressed against his.

"It does, doesn't it?" he agreed.

Despite the disappointment of knowing his hands were soon going to be gone from her skin, this wasn't the kind of alone time she ideally wanted with him anyway: him drunk and her sober, messing around in the back of a sketchy bar. She wanted to be alone with him in one of their apartments, with locked doors and silenced phones and long stretches of uninterrupted time.

"Go back to your friends," Sarah said. "I'm going to head home."

Matt frowned. "You don't want to stay?"

But Sarah shook her head. She'd thought about sticking around a while longer, maybe mentioning to Matt what she'd found out today about the suit. But she'd decided to hold off; there was no point in telling him now, when she had exactly zero details as to where the man he was looking for might be hidden. It would just make him dwell on it, and he had enough going on right now.

"I think I might be at my bar limit," Sarah said lightly. She slid down off the crate. "Which is weird, because my limit used to be whenever they kicked me out."

"I'll walk you home."

"No, no. Go back inside. Foggy and Karen…they need you. Go commiserate," Sarah said, although she wasn't sure how much commiserating was happening while Matt and Karen were still awkwardly on the outs. "I'll get a cab."

"Right," Matt said. Even in the dark she could just make out his lopsided grin. "Now you're flush with cash, you can take cabs everywhere."

Sarah laughed and pressed a last kiss to his lips.

"I'll see you soon," she murmured.

She made her way to the street to hail a cab, and Matt lingered on the loading dock until he heard the car door close behind her. Then he returned inside, forgetting the shot glasses altogether.

The next day, Sarah tried the only option she could think of for finding out where Melvin Potter was: going straight to the source of the information. Unfortunately, that source currently happened to be incarcerated

Tracksuit had yet to be tried, so he was only being held in a county holding facility and not a proper prison, meaning there wasn't much of a process to get in to see him. Sarah wasn't crazy about the idea of her name being on his visitor log, but she'd had to come up with enough lies and cover stories by now that she was fairly certain she could explain it away if needed.

The visitation area was similar to what she'd seen in movies: a long row of chairs lining a counter with a thick slab of glass over it, with just a flimsy plastic partition between one set of visitors and the next, mirrored by an identical set up for inmates on the other side of the glass. A guard walked a slow circuit from one end of the room to the other to ensure no rules were broken, although he looked bored out of his mind.

Sarah took a seat on the rickety plastic chair and waited for Tracksuit to be escorted to his seat on the other side. When he arrived, he—unsurprisingly—looked less than thrilled to see her.

"What do you want?" he asked as soon as he sat down. "You're lucky you aren't in here with me."

"I'm here about something for Jason," she began.

"Is he bailing me out?" Tracksuit demanded. "It's about time."

"Uh…no," she said carefully. "I don't think he's super thrilled you got caught by the police."

"What? He's pissed at me? You're the one who found that guy and his stupid nightclub," Tracksuit said sullenly.

Sarah looked at him like he was crazy. She quickly glanced behind him to make sure the guard was out of earshot, then leaned forward furtively.

"You're the one who drank a spiked drink and then shot a gun into the ceiling," she pointed out in a low tone.

"How was I supposed to know it was spiked?"

"He sells roofies and tranquilizers for a living, it's—" Sarah pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Look, that's not why I'm here. I need the address of the tailor you found for Jason. The one that makes the custom suits."

"Why?"

"The one he sent over is…damaged," she lied. "Jason hasn't seen it yet, and we need to fix it before he notices, or he's going to be even more pissed off."

For a few moments, it seemed like her plan might work. Tracksuit would give her in the info she needed, and he wouldn't mention to Jason that she'd asked for fear that he'd find out the original suit hadn't been as perfect as promised. But then Tracksuit narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously, and he leaned closer to the glass.

"Bullshit," he said finally. Sarah swore internally.

"Excuse me?" she said, trying to figure out how to double down on her lie.

"That weird Melvin dude doesn't ever make mistakes," Tracksuit argued. He pointed an accusatory finger at her. "You want him to make you something for yourself."

"No, I—" Sarah stopped abruptly as she realized that might be the best scenario she could salvage out of this situation. Even if word did get back to Jason that she'd been asking, if he thought it was just so she could swipe some fancy protection for herself, she could probably talk her way out of getting in too much trouble for it.

So instead she glanced around again, then shifted the side of her shirt just slightly to show some of the bandage on her side from where she and Tracksuit had both gone smashing into the liquor cabinet.

"Can you blame me?" she asked.

"Look, I don't care. You want to try wearing a bulletproof bra or whatever, go for it," Tracksuit said with a shrug. Sarah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I'd love to give you the address."

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, waiting for the catch. "If…?"

"If you only had something of mine you could return to me in exchange for it. Or maybe…five thousand somethings?"

Sarah's heart slowly sank. Her mind flashed to the list she'd carefully made, her plan for loosening the tight chokehold her finances had on her life right now. She'd been so looking forward the luxury of being able to have just a tiny bit of space to breathe in between debt and bills and expenses, a chance to get her head above water.

"No. Something else," she said.

"That's all I want."

"Why? Do you even need that money?" she asked, thinking of the thick gold jewelry Tracksuit wore to work so often, the multi-hundred dollar bottles of liquor she heard him bragging to other coworkers about. "I do."

"Who cares if I need it? I want it." Tracksuit leaned back in his chair with a shrug. "Otherwise—no address."

"Forget it. I'll figure out where he is myself," she said.

"Yeah, sure. No one else knows where he is but Jason. And good luck getting anything out of him."

He wasn't wrong about that, at least. Once Melvin got moved to a safe house only Jason knew, she'd never be able to find him.

Sarah stared at Tracksuit through the glass, but she wasn't really seeing him. She was seeing Matt, grinning at her and shrugging off the bruises that littered his torso. Matt, looking pale from blood loss as he tried to distract her from whatever dislocated joints or gaping wounds he had that night. Matt asking her in not so many words to value him like he valued her. This wasn't what he'd meant, but it was concrete. It was something she could do instead of just promise.

The bored guard passed by, giving them a cursory glance before his eyes moved to the next inmate and visitor.

"I don't have all of it anymore," she said finally.

"How much could you have spent in a few days?" he asked.

Sarah briefly debated telling him she had less than she did, but she didn't want to go too low and have him decide the deal wasn't worth the information.

"I have a little over four thousand left," she told him truthfully.

"Fine. I'll take an IOU for the rest."

Sarah brushed off the threat; Tracksuit at his worst was less menacing than Jason in a good mood.

"How do you expect me to get it to you in here?" she asked. "I can't exactly hand you a big bag full of cash."

It appeared as though Tracksuit hadn't thought the logistics through either. He screwed his face up as he considered her question.

"Give the money to Richard when you leave here. Once he confirms he has it, I'll tell him the address to pass on to you," he said.

"Okay," Sarah said slowly. Was she supposed to know who the hell he was talking about? "And Richard is…"

Tracksuit narrowed his eyes at her like he couldn't tell if she was joking. "You see him every day." Sarah gave him a blank look. "You just saw him smash Garrett's head into a mirror."

"Oh. You mean…?" Sarah held her hand up to indicate a very tall person with a questioning look.

"Yeah," Tracksuit confirmed with a roll of his eyes. "I'll call him later to make sure he has the money. And I'm adding the collect call fees to your IOU, got it?"

"You're not worried he'll just…keep the money for himself?" Sarah asked. It seemed like a relatively major hole in his plan.

"Uh, he's my best friend, so…no," Tracksuit said condescendingly. "I'm not."

Sarah blinked. "…um. Okay."

"So we have a deal?"

The list she'd made flashed through her mind once again. But what if this was their only chance to find this person who Matt so badly needed to find?

"Yeah. We have a deal."

As Matt landed on Sarah's fire escape that night, he had to remind himself that this was just a short visit, that it was still early and there was more he needed to get done tonight. It seemed like every time he dropped by her apartment that became harder and harder to remember.

From the second he'd realized she was at Josie's last night—the moment he heard her laugh in the middle of the crowd—he'd already forgiven her. She'd screwed up, but then she was right there, and she smelled so good and her heart was beating so fast, and he knew she'd come so they could make up. Between the alcohol in his system and the way her quick heartbeat drowned out the rest of the bar, he'd been drawn over to her like a magnet, and that reconciliation had helped power him through an otherwise miserable day.

Said magnet was currently sitting sideways on her counter, one leg dangling down against the cabinets as she drank the last bit of tea in her mug. Her laptop, oddly enough, was set on top of her low refrigerator, and she was craning her neck back slightly to see the screen. Potentially even more odd was the smell of cooking food in her oven, with no trace of it burning or being otherwise ruined. Matt tilted his head, making sure he was picking up on the entire scene correctly.

"You've got to be kidding me," she murmured lowly, setting the now empty mug down on the counter and pulling the laptop closer as she fixated on whatever she was reading. He heard her fingers run through her hair as she pushed back a few stray strands that had escaped the clip holding the rest of it back from her face. "Jesus Christ."

She'd left the window unlocked for him, and he slid it open. Between the sound of the window opening and his boots against the floor, he could be forgiven for assuming that she'd notice his presence behind her.

"Not good news, I take it?" he asked.

Sarah jumped, her hand knocking the empty mug off the counter. Matt quickly caught it before it could shatter against the floor.

"You're jumpy tonight," he noted. He carefully set the mug on the counter behind him, which was currently unoccupied by jittery women. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay. I didn't hear you come in," Sarah said, flattening a hand to her chest, where her heart rate was just barely beginning to slow.

"What are you…doing, exactly?" he asked, as he slipped his mask off and set it aside. He ran a hand through his hair, which was slightly damp with sweat.

"The building across the street just opened a new overpriced bar inside," Sarah informed him as she uncurled her leg and hopped down from the counter.

Matt cocked his head. Sometimes Sarah's explanations ran more along the lines of seemingly unrelated facts. "And…"

"And they have really strong WiFi with no password on it," she said. "So as long as I stay within, like…two feet of this exact spot in my apartment, I can pick up on their internet."

"What happened to your own internet?" he asked. "The kind that doesn't require you to use your fridge as a desk?"

"Um…you know. As far as bills go, it just isn't super essential," she said, a familiar evasive tone slipping into her voice. She brushed past him, moving towards the oven to check on whatever she was cooking. "I can always go to the library or something if I really need it."

"Don't you have a couple extra grand laying around now?" he asked, turning stiffly to follow her movements across the kitchen.

"You're moving weird," she said, studying him as she closed the oven door again. He didn't miss the way her observation also acted as an avoidance of his question. "Are you hurt?"

"Are you cooking?" he asked, avoiding her question in return.

"Yeah. The Lauren delivery service left all this food in my fridge, so I figure I should use some of it," Sarah said.

Matt nodded contemplatively.

"Not really the kind of thing someone would do if they want to edge you of their life," he noted.

Sarah looked over at him for a long moment. "Let's hope you're right."

"I noticed it smells…not burnt," he observed.

"I can cook just fine! You always just come in and distract me," she grumbled. Matt grinned at her, and he could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "Do you need an ice pack?"

He rolled his shoulder experimentally, and the muscles around it immediately seized up.

"If you have one handy," he said with a wince.

"Obviously I do. I didn't just meet you today," she said in exasperation. She opened her freezer and dug a fresh ice pack out, handing it to him. "What happened?"

"Just the usual," he said. A scuffle down near the docks had gotten a bit rough, and his shoulder had met the edge of a cement bench a little too hard. "I'm fine."

"I'm sure," she murmured doubtfully. Then she crossed over to her bag and dug around inside. "I have something else for you that might help, hopefully."

She handed something small and flat to him. His brow creased as he ran his fingers over it; it was a folded-up paper with deep indents in it from where she had bore down hard to make the letters and numbers easier for him to make out.

"An address?" he asked.

"For an abandoned dry cleaner over on 46th," she confirmed. "If you go check it out…you should find Melvin Potter there."

Matt went still as he processed the name she'd just said. "What?"

"Is that—that's the guy you wanted to make you a suit, right? The one you've been wanting to find?" she asked, sounding suddenly uncertain.

He didn't know what he'd been expecting her to tell him, but an address for Melvin Potter definitely wasn't it. A surge of exhilaration went through him.

"Yeah, with no luck at all. I've been waiting for his name to pop back up for months," Matt said. He'd had his ear to the ground since Fisk's trial, waiting for even a hint that the man who had created Fisk's impenetrable suit material had returned to town, and he'd heard nothing. He gave Sarah an incredulous look. "How did you find him?"

"I didn't," she admitted. "One of Jason's guys did. Tracksuit. I think he found him by accident, actually, but…now Jason wants him to make him a suit."

Matt cocked his head. "Tracksuit? The one who just shot up a nightclub?"

"Um…yes," she said.

"And who just aimed a gun at your face?" he said.

"…yes." There was something oddly resembling guilt in her voice.

He nodded slowly.

"Seems strange he'd just give you this information, then," he noted casually. "Especially since he should be in jail, right?"

Sarah shrugged, shifting her weight from one foot to the other in discomfort.

"I went to go see him when I realized he was the only one who would know. And then I just…gave him five thousand dollars, and that did the trick," she said, forcing out the last sentence in a rush.

Matt stilled as he processed what she was saying.

"What?" he said, letting out a disbelieving bark of a laugh. "You're not serious."

"Well…I gave him about forty-three hundred," she amended. "I already spent the rest, so now it's sort of an IOU. Or—well—that's not a good way of phrasing it, maybe. Less friendly than an IOU. There was definitely sort of an 'Or else' vibe to it? So like more of an IOU…O…E type thing I guess—"

She was rambling now, and as much as Matt usually enjoyed that, she was getting off track from the outrageously insane decision she'd made. He pressed his lips into a thin line.

"Sarah, why would you do that?" he interrupted her.

"What do you mean, why?" she repeated, reaching out to catch the fabric of his shirt between two fingers. "This might as well be made out of tissue paper for all it does to keep you from getting hurt."

"You had important things to spend that money on," he said. His voice sounded angrier than he'd expected, considering anger wasn't the main thing he was feeling right now. Surprise, frustration, and most strongly guilt were currently fighting out for that top spot. "Your legal fines, for one thing. Paying your rent, not getting your water shut off again, you had a whole list of—"

"I did spend it on something important," Sarah argued. "Do—do you think I like seeing you get torn apart every night?"

"I'm fine," he argued. "I don't get hurt that badly."

"Yeah?" Sarah shot back, then darted her hand out to press against his ribs, exactly where she knew he was still hurt from a few days prior. He let out a sharp hiss and reflexively closed his hand around her wrist, but she'd already stopped pressing, having made her point. "Right. You've said yourself that this is something you need. Isn't it?"

"I—yes, it is," he admitted. "But it's not worth you giving all that money back. We could have waited and tried another way—"

"Another way like what? Breaking into Jason's password-protected computer in his giant security camera of an office? At least this way is less likely to get me murdered," Sarah said.

Matt rubbed his hands over his face in frustration. Why did she sound so certain about this? She couldn't possibly believe that sparing him a few bruised ribs or concussions was worth giving all that money back.

"Look, I didn't have that money last week and now I don't have it again. Nothing's really changed, except maybe you can stay in one piece a little easier," she continued.

"Jesus Christ, Sarah," he murmured, dropping his hands from his face.

"Are we seriously fighting again?" she asked, her voice a mix of pleading and frustration. "First you were mad that I wasn't doing enough to protect your identity, now you're mad that I'm trying to help protect your, like, actual physical person—"

She was cut off by Matt's mouth against hers as he kissed her hard, his hands on either side of her face. The sudden movement caught her off guard, and she rocked back against the fridge, letting out a short surprised noise into his mouth.

After a second she responded, her hands sliding up his chest and over his shoulders as she kissed him back. Matt pressed her against the fridge, hoping he was conveying the mix of gratitude and frustration coursing through him, until he finally let her go and they both raggedly gasped for breath.

"You shouldn't have done that," he repeated, more softly this time, his voice uneven as he pressed his forehead against hers.

"Yes I should have," she whispered, her voice breathless. "You're…kind of a priority for me, you know. I'm just—I'm not as good at showing it as you are."

Matt closed his eyes and brushed his lips against hers one more time, resisting the urge to kiss her harder again. Being so close to her and listening to her ragged breathing immediately made his mind jump to the dock behind Josie's bar the night before.

His initial intention had just been to tease her a bit as a sort of gentle payback, but the way she'd come so completely undone by it had caught him by surprise. It was a discovery that had stuck with him long after he'd gotten home last night, and one that was prickling at the back of his mind now. But if they gave into that curiosity right now, he'd never leave this apartment, and he still had more to get done tonight.

So he reluctantly let go of her, stepping back to give her a bit of room. He didn't miss the way she leaned forward a fraction, staying in his space as long as she could, and his lips twitched. He picked the small folded paper off the counter and put it in his pocket.

"You never answered my question," he said.

"Um…" Sarah shook her head, apparently trying to get her thoughts together. "You ask me a lot of questions."

"What were you so worried about when I got here?"

"Oh. That. It's…nothing. Just a bunch of emails from Allison about the fundraiser. I'd forgotten how intense she can be about that stuff," Sarah said. "I guess she's freaking out because Vanessa's bringing her own private security people, and Allison is concerned about what that will do to the…party vibe."

"A private security team seems like overkill for a charity ball," Matt said. "It could just be paranoia from the last time she went to a public event and got poisoned."

"Yeah, maybe," Sarah said. "But it makes me wonder if she thinks something in particular might happen. Like…"

"Like Jason?" Matt guessed, his face darkening.

If Jason had something planned, there was a significant chance Sarah would be involved—although on which side of things, he didn't know. And if Vanessa was bringing her own private security in addition to what the event already had, it meant it would be even harder for Matt to get in the building quickly if needed.

"Yeah. Like Jason in a brand new bullet-proof outfit," she said with a sigh.

"You know, I didn't expect Melvin to be back working for Fisk's people again," Matt said. He rubbed the back of his neck, then shook his head. "Last time I spoke to him, he was trying to get away from them."

"I didn't get the impression he's doing it of his own free will," Sarah said. "Jason has someone taking photos of some woman and sending them to him. I don't know who she is."

Matt stopped his pacing momentarily. "Betsy."

"Betsy?" Sarah echoed. "Do…we know Betsy?"

"Not exactly. But I know she's important."

There was no way Melvin would make a suit for him if he didn't believe Matt could help keep Betsy safe—something he'd failed to do last time, as his agreement with Melvin had never gotten far enough for him to even learn Betsy's last name or address; things he'd need just to be able to find Betsy, much less protect her. But now Melvin was back in town, and it appeared Betsy was too. Matt could only assume Melvin didn't know where Betsy was being held, or if he did, he wasn't allowed to go see her.

"I…need to ask you another favor," Matt said reluctantly. "Could you try to find out where those photographs are being taken?"

"Yeah, of course," she said simply. "I'll try."

"Be careful," he added. "If it seems like someone's going to catch on, drop it. I'll figure something else out."

"Are you going to go see him first?"

"Probably," he said. "But it'd be helpful to have good news for him when I go. Text me tomorrow to let me know how it's going."

"Oh. Um…I don't really have a phone right now?" she said carefully.

Matt inhaled deeply, biting back the urge to remind her that she could have easily bought a new phone had she kept that money.

"I'll bring you one of my extra burners tomorrow night," he said instead. "Hold off on looking into those photographs until I have a way to get in touch with you."

"What, one of your nineties flip phones?" she said, sounding mildly horrified. "Oh, god."

"Don't think I'm not noticing that you're not agreeing to anything I'm telling you," he said.

"Your noticing is noted," she said.

"Sarah—"

"I'll be careful, Matt," she said, holding up her hands. "You do the same. At least until we can get you something better to run around Hell's Kitchen in."

After Matt left her apartment that night, his mind was preoccupied figuring out when he would go see Melvin, and how he would convince him to help again. It might not be easy, but with any luck he'd be landing on Sarah's fire escape with fewer injuries in a few weeks time.