Daredevil Prompt Post #11

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Comments

Fill: Positive 1/?

[(Anonymous)]

This is based on many conversations with many people of many different incomes. I've talked with people who chose abortion and some that chose adoption and some that ended up with a surprise baby to add to their life. A friend of mine is a lawyer who actually did bring her infant in to work with her for several days when other childcare wasn’t available. Most details of the pregnancy are based specifically on stories I have been told or have told myself.

Thanks for the prompt, OP. I have so many feels to throw around on all of these subjects. I worked a full schedule while pregnant and my wonderful coworkers always made it quite clear I was not allowed to be in any position where I might be harmed. People routinely put themselves in position to be headbutted or kicked to keep me safe while we all tried to work together.

Positive

Frank had been gone from her life and Manhattan in general for four weeks when she realized.

Usually Mattie paid very close attention to dates. She didn’t have lunch dates with Foggy or drinks with Karen to dictate into her calendar app. For a while she didn’t have any court dates. She didn’t bother taking Sundays off from her new job as a public defender. The courts weren’t open and the clients tended to stay home but she liked the cramped stinking office better when there was no one else’s heartbeat to clutter up the place. Mattie’s coworkers thought that she was a workaholic going through a divorce. She hadn’t bothered to correct their gossip.

She and Frank had never even talked about their relationship. The mere fact that the two of them were having sex with no sort of commitment at all left her feeling that Father Lantom didn’t need yet another vice that she wasn’t going to give up. As he had told her again, ever so kindly, there wasn’t any help in confessing a sin unless she had truly repented. If she was sorry she had hurt someone, he was glad to hear it, but the confession rang false if she planned to go out again and hurt someone else even in defense of an innocent.

She heard too many innocents to ever let herself rest.

A week before she realized, she had started the awful process of moving apartments. A few of Frank’s crowd had started scoping out her apartment. Her perfect apartment with the pleasant acoustics and open space was far more visible than his usual safehouses. A few local low-grade criminals had seen the Punisher going into her building a few times. She didn’t think anyone would connect Frank to Mattie, but with everything that had happened in her apartment, she liked the idea of a fresh start.

Moving was stressful enough that she blamed that for a delayed period. The foreman treated her as if she was an idiot and then tried to claim that the cash she handed over for moving supplies wasn’t enough. (Moving supplies had been listed quite clearly in the original contract as something that the company would provide. The foreman should have brought tape and dropcloths and whatever else it was that they wrapped her things in. Apparently her original company’s subcontract clause was used for far more than the moving agent claimed.)

(She was a damn lawyer and all she did was use her money-scanning app to prove that all of the damn bills were 20s. She was too tired to fight. She was going to give $200 as a tip but instead she carefully counted out the $160 he demanded for his crew’s use of tape.)

She realized that her period was two weeks late the same day she felt an odd flutter in her own abdomen. Mattie’s period tended to come every 30 days heralded by an ache in her breasts and then the smell of old blood and shed lining. Occasionally she would end up a week late and always ended up wondering if it was worth it to sneak into a Planned Parenthood or some similar clinic for the free pregnancy test. She could afford the test easily. Reading the thing, though… not one of her abilities would let her know if it was one stripe or two. An online search just found many other blind women frustrated by the lack of accessible options. Someone had made a USB pregnancy test but it didn’t have an audio option.

It was a Monday. She excused herself early and ignored the chatter from her coworkers. The pushy man who wanted to ask her out kept pestering the others to ask if she’d told anyone else about a date. She pretended that she was too far away to hear and found herself walking into one of the tiny crisis centers. She walked past Planned Parenthood when the smell of old blood and hospital disinfectant left her shivering. If she needed more than a pregnancy test, she knew where to find their front door.

She refused to give her name. For once, Mattie let the cane do all of the talking. The woman at the desk read Mattie’s mood well enough to offer a pregnancy test and no further commiseration.

Peeing in a cup probably wasn’t much easier for a sighted woman. Mattie was generous enough to imagine it might be just as disgusting with the way that the tiny cups they used were in no way useful to protect hands from splashes. She set the cup on the paper towel-topped stand that the woman had narrated and washed her hands very thoroughly.

The test was positive. The volunteer was stammering that they could write down a few websites, or perhaps just tell Mattie what to look up later, as they didn’t have any pamphlets in Braille. If she read Braille, that is, the volunteer had rocketed on in a kind voice climbing in pitch.

Mattie was quite sure the test was positive. The woman’s heartbeat had been true as a metronome before she became nervous. Mattie also was starting to be quite sure that the strange flutter somewhere between her hips was a heartbeat. The little heart was going double-time compared to Mattie’s own constant thrum. If the rhythms synced up just a little more, she could have the precise beat for Cohan’s You’re A Grand Old Flag.

Mattie walked home with the flutter of a heartbeat ringing through her ears. She had always been so careful. She hadn’t liked the way that her sense of taste changed with the progesterone-only pill and estrogen had been even worse. After that experience, she hadn’t been willing to try the depot shot when the symptoms would likely last for months. She had settled for being mostly celibate with a strong insistence on textbook use of condoms. Considering she’d only had two partners total before Frank, it hadn’t been an issue. Frank had been just as particular as she had. It had been such a relief at the time. She hadn’t had to explain that he couldn’t just “put the tip in a little” before getting a condom on. He hadn’t tried to negotiate for different rules. He had grunted agreement and that had been one of the only topics never up for debate.

If she wasn’t trying to imagine a lifetime of staying far away from Father Lantom and Saint Agnes, she would try to find someone who could contact him.

Mattie ended up at home with the kettle on before she realized that she wasn’t sure what she could do. If she took ibuprofen, would that end things? If she did end up as one of the many people who had a miscarriage, but one of the few who had taken a body-blow to the abdomen…

Her new apartment was smaller and cozier. She still felt cold. Wrapping herself in her softest blanket didn’t leave her feeling any more secure. She had chosen this apartment for the alleyway. She had a unit with a terrible view. Her windows on both walls of the corner unit looked out over alleys and other apartments. The landlord had been remarkably tactful in mentioning that if she was sensitive to low amounts of sunlight, a full-spectrum light was the recommendation from other people in the back corner.

She had moved here to let Daredevil be even harder to predict. She had easy access to several buildings she liked best. She would be a bit farther away from the precinct to give herself more time to lose any surveillance from the police. She had intended to be a one-woman operation against injustice and here she was in her apartment wondering if an accident would be so bad. She wasn’t meant to be a mother. Her father had done his best, and she would always adore him, but she’d never been able to consider him as an adult. He was gone and it didn’t seem fair to judge how much he had sacrificed to keep her in books and papers. She could just picture her mother, though, spending years mailing an envelope with a check and no note to Saint Agnes.

Mattie’s mom was a sister now. Mattie was still too angry to know just which stage her mother might have reached, but Maggie hadn’t been able to take her vows until her unwanted daughter was eighteen.

Maggie had postpartum psychosis. Mattie would be at risk for the same. Her father had always protected him from the rumors while he could but not even his protectiveness could cover her hearing after the accident.

Mattie couldn’t raise a baby alone as a laywer. She knew the better option was to end it and then to take her lumps. She would willingly swear off ever having sex again if it meant that she wouldn’t be trying to argue with a heartbeat that Mattie was not in any way going to be a mother. She would swear off having sex with anyone that wasn’t Frank anyway, really, because she was the biggest idiot on the planet and she had ended up attached. She was in love. She knew he killed and she knew that he never would replace Maria or their children. She still was in love and she’d been enough of an idiot to offer that a gun safe would fit in her closet. She’d made space and reorganized her court clothes so that her apartment could be a partial safehouse. He had shouted, she’d yelled back, and it ended with him screaming that he wouldn’t balance her checkbook and her yelling that if she could manage her own billing hours she could count something more than bullets in a clip.

Her screenreader read out articles in a drone. The few resources she could find specifically meant for blind would-be parents had awful caveats. She was financially stable for once, which checked one box, but that was because she had lost the one friend she had left. Elektra was dead and Mattie had her college roommate’s money and clothes and jewelry instead of a friend.

Foggy had been quite clear. So had Karen. Neither of them would count as ‘close network of friends’ that all of the articles mentioned. Frank was gone and she wasn’t sure how on earth anyone tracked down the Punisher when he went to ground. Claire… well, if Claire ever was going to be a friend, Mattie couldn’t only call her when she needed help.

Too many of the sites meant for the blind assumed that she was a married, stable person with no other medical issues and no laundry list of enemies. Their advice was meant for someone else.

Mattie was still floundering days later when there was yet another fluttering heartbeat in the office. One of her coworkers had managed to fit something in the corner between her desk and the wall.

“Sorry, Mattie,” Rachel called out before Mattie’s cane could touch the new addition. “I brought Miles in to work with me today. My parents were going to watch him but my mom fell and broke her hip. He’ll be old enough to go to daycare next week.”

Mattie remembered the chatter. “How old does he need to be for daycare?”

“Eight weeks,” Rachel replied. Her voice sounded distorted in a way not explained by the way that she had a baby cradled against her chest. “Isn’t that right?” she cooed at Miles.

Right. Mattie remembered now, everyone seemed to make faces at babies. Even the most reserved teenagers at Saint Agnes had made the same ‘baby faces,’ and Sister Mary Anne had said that Mattie did just as well. That would explain why Rachel’s voice shifted in an out of more adult inflection.

“Was there something in my way?”

Rachel paused a moment. “I’m trying to figure out the least rude way to let you know how much room I’ve taken up. It’s a rocker. It folds out into a tiny cradle, basically, and after Miles nurses and gets a fresh diaper he’ll be out like a light.”

Mattie reached down carefully. She could feel the fabric over plastic pipes and a gentle push sent the full device rocking.

“My mother-in-law swore by this and she was right. I’m going to try to get some work done and I can rock him with my foot,” Rachel said before shifting her weight. “I am sorry about the inconvenience. I brought in a diaper pail, too, so that it won’t smell quite so bad with the old diapers.”

Mattie’s lips twitched into a smile before she realized that she had missed the smell. “I grew up in an orphanage. I missed babies, I think.” The smell of formula going in and out of several babies had been overwhelming but it had been one of her favorite chores. A few sisters had made sure to look up tricks for successfully changing a diaper while blind but mostly they let her stay away from diaper duty. Mattie had been one of the best at soothing the colicky little ones back to sleep. Most of the younger babies had been adopted out quickly but she’d always liked sitting in a room where all non-infants were meant to be quiet.

“Want to hold him?” Rachel offered. “As long as you don’t have a cold. My pediatrician said that once he’s two months old then I can worry less about him having a fever.”

Mattie reached out and had a baby gathered against her chest before she’d quite decided. He was too young to burble much at her but he did smell good even past the soiled diaper. When she handed him back to Rachel, though, she could feel the blip in his heartbeat.

“Anytime you need a cooldown after a rude client, Mr. Cuddles in on the case,” Rachel promised. There was a smile in her voice. “Aside from the times where he just yells while I try to figure out what he wants, but well, hopefully he’ll be a good guest here.”

“He’s less likely to use profanity than most of our clients,” Mattie said drily. “They yell and sometimes we never know what they want.”

Rachel giggled and carefully stepped her way back to her chair. “Exactly. By the way, if anyone tries to give me heck for nursing at my desk, I’m planning to loudly quote the full text of relevant laws at them. Then point out that everybody else has coffee and snacks at their desk after wowing them with legal recitations.”

“Just point them at me,” Mattie said. She had only met Rachel the week before. Their desks were close together but Mattie hadn’t wanted to talk to most anybody, even her new work neighbor. Mattie had been lost in her isolation and Rachel had been frazzled at reading through the notes that had piled up during her maternity leave. “If anybody gets offended, I can do my best confused face and tell them I don’t see anything objectionable.”

Rachel laughed. She didn’t even make the reflexive pause some did, wondering if it was okay to laugh at the blind woman’s blind joke. “I will try to work that in if you’re not busy,” she promised. “Hey, so. I know you like your privacy, but you looked a little upset yesterday. Are you okay?”

Mattie might have made another decision if she hadn’t noticed the way that even a seven week old baby knew his mother. If Mattie completely failed at being a parent… well, maybe there would be a family tradition in appealing to Saint Agnes. There were more options later. Her mailed Braille copy of the parish bulletin frequently listed information for couples looking to adopt a child.

“I think so,” Mattie said. “At least I think I’ll get there.”

Re: Fill: Positive 1/?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh my god you're amazing. I was not expecting this to be picked up so quickly, but I'm very touched that you found inspiration. A nice surprise indeed!

Just as your fill is based on the experiences you and your friend had, the idea canr in part because of a friend's circumstances last year (she has a lovely daughter now), so this was something I hesitated on for a while. You're doing an excellent job and I'm eager to see where this will go as it continues.

Re: Fill: Positive 1/?

[(Anonymous)]

A!A:

I do have a LOT of feels about surprise pregnancies making life difficult. I was in a secure enough situation that my employers were very kind about all of my needs and I had hella BAMF health insurance. I was remote from friends/family though for a training program, though, so that made it harder. I had a few friends in similar circumstances. I tried to bring in talks from friends who did choose to terminate pregnancies but based on your prompt and canon Murdock stubbornness I feel like she would find a way. I'm actually still figuring out some of the end-game but the rest of it was just going its own way.

(My surprise baby is adorable and mostly behaves herself, but toddlers are a force of nature.)

Re: Fill: Positive 1/?

[(Anonymous)]

Wow. I'm glad things worked out for you and your daughter as well, and it definitely reassures me that you're going into this with real-life knowledge and experience to draw from, as that means your fill will be as realistic as possible for MCU-based Mattie without going full-out Miller-level grimdark ridiculousness in the process. I'm very happy that the endgame is undefined for now and entirely at your discretion, part of the reason I prompted instead if writing is that I wasn't sure how it would end in my own vision. That and rl problems are keeping me busy. Good luck, take your time and enjoy!

Re: Fill: Positive 1/?

[(Anonymous)]

A!A here, I'm back! I was on vacation but good news, it involved way too much driving. I like to puzzle out snags in complicated plotlines while I'm driving to help keep me awake.

And yes, this will be very real-life focused. I hope people don't get too turned off that abortion wasn't a more prominent option here, but I feel like people get to make a choice. Someone that chooses to continue with pregnancy is going to talk in very typical language about babies and think about their fetal human AS their baby. Coping mechanism for having fetal humans snap-kicking you in the intestines.

UGHHHH GRIMDARK also in Miller there's like a 95% chance she would've been a prostitute by now. Some of his stuff is actually pretty decent (hi Matt Murdock! You're a great exception!) but some of it makes me want to throw things. If you want to see one of the most beautiful and prolonged anti-Miller-and-ilk screeds EVER, and if you like Catwoman, Cat-Tales is the best. Catwoman-centric reaction to DC nonsense as it goes down.