daredevilkink | Prompt Post #4

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It isn't anybody's business but her own.

Still, Claire wonders if she should've told him, after. And if so, how?

She's a smart woman, a woman who isn't afraid of pleasure and knows how to safely enjoy the things that she wants. She's a nurse, for crying out loud; she knows better than most what can happen when people aren't safe, when they're not given the information to know their own bodies. Kids aren't anywhere on her long-term plans, but she has to admit that when she looked down at that very distinctive double pink line, her racing heart wasn't just from fear.

There was hope, there, too. A tiny little flicker of a flame, the kind of foolish hope that children have when they're told fairy tales, when they're still young enough, innocent enough to believe them.

And then on beyond then, when they are old enough to know, but still cling to the might-have-beens that give them wonder and joy.

Pregnant.

Shit.

Kids aren't anywhere on her long-term plans, and even if they were, Matt's definitely not the one she wants to have them with. Except--here it is. The truth of it, the foolish hope. And then, moments later, the cold, harsh clarity of what she knows is the right thing to do.

Her life is busy enough as it is without her late-night calls to come suture up a masked vigilante. And when she and Matt did what both of them had wanted to do, she hadn't had any regrets about it. Claire wasn't foolish enough to harbor any illusions about whether or not he'd give up his... career sounds too legitimate of a word. Hobby sounds too frivolous, like he's out late at night, yarn-bombing the bike racks. He's not going to give it up because he doesn't want to. She knows she cannot ask him, cannot force him, wouldn't want to do it even if she could. A younger Claire, maybe, would've gone down that bitter road. A younger Claire has known and seen the effects of wishing and hoping.

People don't change.

And, in the end, the choice is easy enough to make.

It's a relief, when it happens. Even the pain of it, the cramps and the aftermath. She's early enough that it's easier to think of it this way. She takes some Tylenol, and asks for a few days off at work. Thankfully, she doesn't need to give an explanation. It's her choice, and ultimately she's so, so grateful to even have the choice, the privacy, the freedom to do what she knows, in her heart, is the right thing to do. She's seen the women who come in to the ER with various gynecological complaints, and she's seen the fear on their faces, the desperate hope that they won't tell the husband, the boyfriend, their father... No, Claire thinks: This is my choice.

Later, much later, after she's broken things off with Matt, she's stitching him up from a particularly bad looking fight. It's dark in his apartment--it's always dark in there, but she points a lamp down at her work and tells him again that he needs to get some kind of body armor. He's quiet tonight, subdued, probably from blood loss. She always wonders how he can take so much pain, not just the physical but the weight of the burden he carries.

Then he turns his head and she swears he can see her, see right through her.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

She feels a chill go down her spine and she knows that there's no use pretending she doesn't understand his question. Absentmindedly, her hands spread out slightly, on the bedspread, on his skin. Matt feels warm to the touch; she wishes she could tell if his heart, too, is racing. Slowly, she looks down, licks her dry lips, and tries to form an answer.

"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to know."

Matt clenches his jaw, making the muscles in his throat, his neck work. Claire's really not in the mood for a lecture tonight, or any kind of moralizing, or persuading--although she knows that his beliefs are dear to his heart. This was a possibility that they'd never discussed. 'Which is why,' she thinks wryly, 'I made the choice I made. There's so much unknown, so much left unsaid.'

"Can I ask..." His voice sounds raw, full of restrained emotion. "Can I ask what happened?"

"I'm not pregnant anymore, Matt." She says, feeling weary, older than her years, suddenly. "There isn't really anything more to say than that."

He lays back against the bedspread, eyes fixed on nothing, and Claire wonders if she still sees the world in flames, in a moment like this. At length, he shifts again.

"I'm sorry."

Claire blinks. "For what?"

"For everything." He sighs. "For the way I... treated you. Treat you, still. And I know it wasn't my right to know... anything about you, even that--"

"Matt--"

"I never wanted to take advantage of you."

He turns his sightless gaze back to her face, watching her mouth, listening, waiting for her reply.

Claire doesn't know how to respond to that. Instead, she wets one of the sterile gauze pads from the stack and begins to clean up the dried blood on his skin as gently as she can. If it hurts, he doesn't react.

"If I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't have answered the phone."

"I know that." He smiles softly at her. Then the smile fades. "Whatever happened, Claire... I'm sorry if you had to... be alone."

"Would you have come?"

The question comes out more bluntly than she intends, and she can see that it shocks him. She realizes, then, that he doesn't know how it happened. Or maybe he just doesn't want to ask. Both of them find comfort, she knows, in their little self-deceptions. They play at being more than they are, but at the end of the day, he's a man, laying pale and cooling in the night air, his body pushed beyond the limit. God, she thinks, he looks so thin now. Claire wonders if this is nothing more than slow suicide, penance for some unnamed sins she hears hidden in his voice.

When he speaks, his answer shocks her.

"Yes." He says, calmly but firmly. "Yes, I would've come."

It's only later, when she's cleaning up the wrappers and replenishing her supply bag back at her apartment, that she realizes it's the closest thing to 'I love you' he's ever said.

This is heartbreaking and awful and perfect.

T__T all the feels!

Very powerful and angsty, and true to the characters. I've been thinking about filling this prompt myself, but I don't think I can write anything that's as honest as this.

Okay, first of all, you DD writers are the fastest mofos on the planet. It would've taken me like three weeks to write something this long.

Secondly, this is freakin' amazing. It's so simple and much more mature than what I was anticipating. It's sad and sweet and not at all insulting in any shape or form. I love this, thank you for writing it.

Thank you so much for your feedback, it means a lot that you feel this was worthy of the prompt. <3

That was perfect....

Prompt Post #4

FILL: inspired by the dark heart prompts above

Re: FILL: inspired by the dark heart prompts above

Re: FILL: inspired by the dark heart prompts above

Re: FILL: inspired by the dark heart prompts above

OP here

AuthAnon here

Re: FILL: inspired by the dark heart prompts above