AN I know. I shouldn't be writing YET ANOTHER Clairedevil fic. But the idea was too beautiful and tempting to say no to, so here we are.

Much love to my betas, Red Bess Rackham and ThatGypsyWriter.

"Sonnet XVII, I Do Not Love You..."

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

Matt had always been confident that God had a plan and that everything happened for a reason. Even as a child, he knew in his soul God would see things set to rights. Even after the accident, he believed.

But it was still hard not to wonder where a blind man fit in a world where soulmates were identified by seeing color.

At first, as a kid, Matt had worried about other things. There were bills, his father losing fights, learning to do everything without sight. Then some kid at school had raised the question. It was innocent enough, astute in that blunt way little kids had.

How're you gonna find a soulmate when you can't even see?

He didn't have an answer all recess. He didn't have an answer all week.

He didn't have an answer.

Matt was obsessive about researching it. Instead of loving trains or insects, Matt grabbed every book he could find, asked every adult, demanded every question. It didn't matter that no one had his illusive answer. It had become habit by then. He spent his time reading Thurgood Marshall and ferreting out stories of atypical soulmates. He craved accounts of nuns seeing rainbows after they committed themselves to God, of kids who saw color after adopting a puppy, of old men whose color lost most of its vibrancy after their wives died, only to regain its intensity when they start dating again. He didn't care about answers any more. He needed differences, because he'd figured it out quick; he'd never see. Not his father's face, not his own hands, not the reportedly worn hues of his street. He'd always be different, a third option in a world that was strictly binary. All that mattered was that he wasn't the only one.

He felt better when he met Stick. Stick didn't give a raging damn about color. He didn't give a damn about anything, other than the war.

(maybe that was what happened when you knew you'd never see your soulmate, matt thought. he resolved to meet another blind person to verify.)

He liked being with Stick because then he had purpose. Everything outside of training was about soulmates. Products were sold to simulate color, agencies catered in finding soulmates, magazines dictated how to be happy when life with a soulmate wasn't perfect. Everything was about something Matt could not have.

So he didn't go outside of training. He ran for as long and as hard as Stick said, he practiced kicks and punches until he could barely breathe, he absorbed every blow and pain because he was worth something if he did.

Not enough to get Stick to stay, but Matt never needed a soulmate, anyway. He would be fine alone. Better off, probably.

Claire didn't really care about seeing color. She figured it would happen or it wouldn't, there was no need to freak out over it (sadly, she was a minority in that respect). She honestly hated the hype and verve over finding a soulmate, the perverse pity and judgement placed on those that hadn't found their 'one-and-only' before thirty-five. It might have been the early, radical stages of her flipping off society, but hearing people freak out about soulmates made Claire's stomach squirm. Why was that the only important thing in some people's lives? What about careers, ground breaking discoveries, giving back to society? What about the sky opening up, about people having special powers, about the world going mad? Why did so much come down to finding that one special person in a planet of a few good billion?

She was fine dating people because they made her happy and not because they dyed her world by just existing. And yes, it had caused her heart to be broken far more than the average person, she admitted that. She was fine being achromic, one of those crazy people that trusted their feelings more than their eyes. After all, soulmate didn't mean 'romantic partner'. She'd known people whose soulmates were siblings, who bonded with people who spoke a foreign language, who connected with someone who could have been their grandchild. Life wasn't a simple flow chart with only two options; see color and get married and have bliss, or never see color and remain alone and miserable forever. Everything was too complex for that.

It didn't mean she never thought about her soulmate. It didn't mean she would flat out refuse to marry them if they ever did arrive. It just meant she explored her options (and trusted her own brain and good sense over 'what was supposed to happen').

Her family wasn't exactly psyched about this. Her mother fully acknowledged she could settle down with someone who didn't show her the vibrancy of a sunset or the honest crispness of the sea, but still. She thought sixteen was a bit too young for declarations of being achromic. Claire had never agreed until she found out that her boyfriend of six months had been cheating on her ever since a barista made him see the warm, muted colors of cinnamon rolls and cappuccinos.

Hurt like that couldn't be reasonable, not when people would continually choose color over black and white. But being alone and miserable couldn't be reasonable, either. Not when it was dictated by a quirk of fate and DNA.

Claire kept dating people even though her world was firmly grey. Her sister, Maribel, told her it was noble, it was brave, it was special (maribel was also pushing on forty and hadn't found her soulmate yet. she was also married with two kids and had a soulmate clause in her pre-nup that said if one of their soulmates ever did show up, the divorce would be quick and painless. claire thought this was a horrible idea). Even that made Claire grit her teeth. Why was existing, connecting, and interacting with people who weren't your soulmate so damn surprising? Why couldn't she be with just people?

She got over most of her angst by the time she got into college. It was stupid and aggravating, yes, but soulmate culture wasn't going to change. So she kept going, content with her shades of grey world view and her achromic relationships and resigned to the fact that she would be fighting these ideas until the day she was dead in the ground.

(a part of her hoped things would be easier when she finally did meet her soulmate. a tiny, tiny, tired part of her.)

Matt always considered Stick to be a direct cause for his vigilantism. Without his training, Matt would be nothing more than a blind man. Without his philosophy, he would be adrift. He learned his purpose was to fight, day after day after day. Stick's reason to keep fighting was 'the war' (whatever the hell that was), but Matt's was to keep people safe. The world was filled with filth and chaos. It predated aliens screaming down and causing havoc, even predated people who were 'special'. Things had always been corrupt and terrible. Matt just hoped he could stem the tide, a little, a bit, enough to make one life better.

And it felt good. No one tiptoed around his probably never finding a soulmate when he was breaking their teeth with his elbow. No one was guilty about having a soulmate when he was breaking their hands. No one pitied him because he was blind.

He went to confessional for that. Pride, the killer of souls, it needed to be ousted like the crime that saturated his city. And wrath, he supposed. There was too much wrath when he bruised his fists on men's bloody faces.

He imagined his sins poured out across the chapel floor on bad days, black and thick and sticking to the walls. There was something disgustingly poetic about that being one of the only colors everyone could see.

Father Lantom never criticized, though, fine man of God that he was. He simply offered advice, a hand on the shoulder, and the casual comment of perhaps life isn't just purpose or color, Matthew.

Matt was a little rattled by that, but he pushed it away. It was different for Lantom. He had both, he could say whatever he wanted. His reason to be was to guide people back to the fold, and he had the solid, earth pallet brought out by his best friend's smile (as he had told matt once, because he championed honesty flowing both ways).

Matt sometimes wished his best friend was his soulmate. Things would have been better, he felt, if Foggy had met him and suddenly saw what color his hair was, what shade his eyes were. At first, in college, Matt had been so close to believing he'd done it, he'd found them, he'd found his soulmate. The thought made him deliriously happy for a few seconds before reason caught up. Foggy would have told him if they were soulmates.

But he still hoped, thinking maybe, maybe, each day fading the fear a little further. Things felt so right with him, the Nelson clan was basically Matt's second skin. It had taken two years and half a bottle of shared illicit booze before Matt asked the question.

Foggy was quiet for a long time, his heartbeat speeding up enough to make Matt break into a sweat.

"I've always been able to see color," he said. The whiskey in his stomach probably helped get the words out, if their nervous, whispered quality meant anything. "Ever since I was a kid."

"You…what? You've…already found your soulmate?" Matt made himself smile, made himself try to not sound like he was choking. Of course Foggy wasn't his soulmate. Who could be paired with Matt, born unlucky and then rendered blind? Not even fate could be that cruel.

Foggy cleared his throat, still nervous. "I…no. Not really. At least…I guess that's a possibility, the nurse delivering me might have been my soulmate or something, but I…have always been able to see in color. Earliest memories are full of it."

Matt focused on breathing for a few seconds, his face hot. Foggy had always been able to see in color? That didn't make sense. In all of the hours and days and years of research Matt had done as a kid, he had never heard of someone being born with the ability to see color. Even after, that anomaly had never crept up on his radar. But…if there was someone in the universe who had that gift, if there was someone who had simply been born loving the world with all their might, wouldn't it have been Foggy Nelson?

It was probably some cosmic joke, Matt thought after a moment. There was no other way to explain why a man who would never be able to see anything was rooming with a man who had always been able to see everything.

"Does that—does that bother you?" Foggy asked.

"Why would it?" Matt asked, the smile feeling so false on his lips.

Foggy sighed. His words were blunted by alcohol when he spoke. "Because of some weird idea that I'm only friends with you out of pity."

The words stung, but not because Matt had thought of them. It was mostly centered on Matt's hollow fear that maybe everyone was friends with him out of pity.

"Because I'm not, Matt." Foggy shifted forward on his bed, his breath coming faster as he spoke. "I swear to you, I'm not. I just—you're an awesome guy, you know that? And I know a lot of people freak out about soulmates and base all their relationships on that, but that's never been an issue for me. So know that I mean it, deep down from my cast iron Irish gut that I'm friends with you because I'm happy being your friend."

Matt huffed out a laugh. All he could hear was Foggy's heartbeat, fast and nervous and without even the trace of a lie.

Then Foggy, in all his selfless goodness, said, "And hey, if you need me to get people off your back, I can totally say that I am your SM. We'll con the world, make everyone think I'm new to seeing teal and yellow and vermillion or something. I'll even marry you, if you wanna make it really good."

"Vermillion? Is that even a color?" Matt laughed, because he had learned jokes were the best diversion tactic. It certainly helped him justify the tightness in his throat.

"Totally is. Or…maybe that's tortillion?"

"Definitely not."

Foggy hadn't been lying just there, either. If it meant helping him, making Matt happy…Foggy would have done it.

That night, just as they were going to sleep, Matt asked another question.

"Why didn't you lie?"

Foggy was quiet again, processing through the haze of smuggled whiskey. "Because there's no point in lying, y'know? Like…say I did lie. And it's great. But ten years later, I slip up, mention that my favorite toy as a kid was orange. Then what? Tell you I lied? Lie again? That's too serious to hide, for any reason."

(matt heard the unspoken 'and it'd just hurt you more' in the pause between sentences.)

Matt grinned and made some flippant comment. A part of him wanted to tell the truth, wanted to whisper that he could hear heartbeats and smell the smuggled pizza bites down the hall and feel the pressure change when the front door opened and closed three floors down. He wanted to tell Foggy that he hadn't been right ever since the accident, to tell him he was some kind of freak.

But that felt a little more unwieldy than Foggy's secret, a little riskier to tell. And, if they kept up talking about important things, Matt knew he would probably have a complete meltdown. The whiskey was bubbling all his emotions to the surface, and he did not need that embarrassment piled on top of everything else.

That was why Matt cried after Foggy went to sleep. That was absolutely why. And maybe also because he was fervently thanking God for placing Foggy Nelson in his life.

Claire didn't know what she was doing when she helped Santino haul the man from the dumpster. She knew about the vigilante (how the hell could she not?), and she knew she was carting trouble to her front step and throwing the door wide. But what was she doing? He smelled like garbage and looked like he'd just been curb stomped. Damn that oath to help all men. Of course it had to apply to those who broke the law.

(not that she was too upset about it. she did kind of agree with his actions. a little.)

Things became more complicated the longer he was in her apartment. First, he was half dead. Then he was aggressive and resistant to hospitals. Finally, she realized that the gloves on her hands, the seams of his shirt, and the dark, dark blood on his face, arms, side…everywhere, really, were all changing. They weren't just shades of grey.

Red. She was seeing red.

Claire wasn't sure what pissed her off more: the fact that this whack job was making her see color, or the fact that her only frame of reference for color came from medical textbooks (bright red meant high oxygen saturation. his blood was not bright red. it was dark and terrifying). Of course the biggest, scariest moment in her whole life was stomped on by science.

Shit. She was seeing red. Shit, she was seeing in color. The man she was now trying to heave onto her couch, the man she had literally fished from the garbage five minutes ago, was her soulmate.

Shit.

It really didn't help that, twenty minutes later, she discovered that he was well and truly blind (no). Which meant he was one of those crazy super powered people (no). Which meant he did not know they were soulmates (oh hell no).

Then her stomach sank as she listened to Mike's story of child trafficking and Russians. Blind, yes. Crazy, yes. Super human, yes. But he was also a very good man.

Claire made herself stop thinking about it when he rifled through her drawers and promised to knife fight the Russian pretending to be a cop outside. That was probably a good call when Mike then knocked him unconscious and tortured him for information.

He was a good man (and her soulmate), he was doing this for a good reason (she had to back him up, right?), a child's life was at stake (she wouldn't be bound to a real lunatic, surely).

But she wasn't thinking about this.

Claire managed to keep up her mantra while she went to her friend's place, while she patched Mike up, while he told her the kid was safe. But after, after she locked the door and turned off the lights and went to bed, Claire burst into tears.