(A/N: This is going to be Matt/Frank/Karen eventually. It might also be a bit long.)
It started when they still thought Matt Murdock was dead. Frank was pretty sure it never would’ve happened under any other circumstances. He probably wouldn’t have let himself want it, not really. She would’ve been better off with Murdock. Even when he’d been a bit lousy to her, well, he still wasn’t Frank. And seeing her try to cope with losing him erased all doubts of just how deep her feelings for him ran.
No, had there not been that period when Murdock was presumed dead, they probably would’ve instead reconciled eventually, and Frank would’ve honestly been glad for her. He would’ve put away all thoughts he had on the alternate possibility, the one he’d have been left to believe probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.
He was still having grave doubts of it doing so even as he nonetheless let her climb all over him as she pressed him back into her couch and kissed him the way he’d already imagined she would kiss, fierce and hungry and knowing she had him, because of course she did. It was a good thing one of them was comfortable in what they were doing. Sure, once he might have known where on her to put his hands, or just moved them without thinking. But now, they were frozen on her.
She noticed, and pulled away. “I want this,” he said hastily, because he didn’t want her thinking otherwise. “I…really do.” It was still very recent news to him that he did, but the certainty of how he felt about her had already settled around him, same as it had in the immediate days after he’d first met Maria.
Way too much of this was going to remind him of Maria. He knew that already too. It shouldn’t; it wasn’t even that he was trying to find her in Karen again, or any stupid shit like that. But for a decade and a half now, his whole sexuality had been so wrapped up in his wife it was hard for him to think about sex and love and not associate it with her. Even those girls he’d slept with before meeting her had all run together in his memory, a general history of adolescent macho idiocy and only starting to get over it at the beginning of his twenties.
Smart Karen, looking like him like she’d already figured everything out. Or at least enough of it to say, “It’s all right. You can want this and still not be ready for it tonight. We don’t have to go further than you’re good with.”
It was the kind of consideration he wouldn’t have expected, though really, he should have, when this was Karen. It was also way too much of a relief for him to protest.
In the end, they stayed on the couch and clothed from the waist down that night. Technically, Karen’s bra even stayed on, though the cups came down, and Frank has his mouth on succulent breasts, her cries of pleasure startling, but good enough to drink. It was a taste, he knew, of what he could get, if he could only stand getting it.
Later, when they were resting, but he still had his face pressed into her chest, close enough to hear her heart, another memory of Maria hit him hard. A week into their engagement, when they’d been almost the same position, except fully postcoital, and it all had sunk in at once, not just what was coming, which he’d already wanted for too long to fear as much, but just what his wife could do to him, with so much as a word, or a smile, or a breath, or, of course, more potent ammunition.
For nearly a year, that had been both the best and the most terrifying thing to ever happen to him, at least until he’d held Lisa for the first time. Eventually he’d grown less afraid of what his wife roused in him, the passion, the vulnerability, the love so overwhelming he thought it might break him.
But he’d spent two years never expecting to deal with any of that again, and now he’d been completely unprepared. Even his and Karen’s limited contact that night had been so much, and that was nothing, he knew, to what he was capable of feeling, what he had in the past, and might now again.
“Frank?” Karen whispered, worried again, as he reminded himself to breathe, to keep it together, to remind himself he trusted Karen more than anyone else still alive, that he could let this happen with her. Probably. Eventually.
Fill: Even If We're Just Dancing in the Dark 1/?
It started when they still thought Matt Murdock was dead. Frank was pretty sure it never would’ve happened under any other circumstances. He probably wouldn’t have let himself want it, not really. She would’ve been better off with Murdock. Even when he’d been a bit lousy to her, well, he still wasn’t Frank. And seeing her try to cope with losing him erased all doubts of just how deep her feelings for him ran.
No, had there not been that period when Murdock was presumed dead, they probably would’ve instead reconciled eventually, and Frank would’ve honestly been glad for her. He would’ve put away all thoughts he had on the alternate possibility, the one he’d have been left to believe probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.
He was still having grave doubts of it doing so even as he nonetheless let her climb all over him as she pressed him back into her couch and kissed him the way he’d already imagined she would kiss, fierce and hungry and knowing she had him, because of course she did. It was a good thing one of them was comfortable in what they were doing. Sure, once he might have known where on her to put his hands, or just moved them without thinking. But now, they were frozen on her.
She noticed, and pulled away. “I want this,” he said hastily, because he didn’t want her thinking otherwise. “I…really do.” It was still very recent news to him that he did, but the certainty of how he felt about her had already settled around him, same as it had in the immediate days after he’d first met Maria.
Way too much of this was going to remind him of Maria. He knew that already too. It shouldn’t; it wasn’t even that he was trying to find her in Karen again, or any stupid shit like that. But for a decade and a half now, his whole sexuality had been so wrapped up in his wife it was hard for him to think about sex and love and not associate it with her. Even those girls he’d slept with before meeting her had all run together in his memory, a general history of adolescent macho idiocy and only starting to get over it at the beginning of his twenties.
Smart Karen, looking like him like she’d already figured everything out. Or at least enough of it to say, “It’s all right. You can want this and still not be ready for it tonight. We don’t have to go further than you’re good with.”
It was the kind of consideration he wouldn’t have expected, though really, he should have, when this was Karen. It was also way too much of a relief for him to protest.
In the end, they stayed on the couch and clothed from the waist down that night. Technically, Karen’s bra even stayed on, though the cups came down, and Frank has his mouth on succulent breasts, her cries of pleasure startling, but good enough to drink. It was a taste, he knew, of what he could get, if he could only stand getting it.
Later, when they were resting, but he still had his face pressed into her chest, close enough to hear her heart, another memory of Maria hit him hard. A week into their engagement, when they’d been almost the same position, except fully postcoital, and it all had sunk in at once, not just what was coming, which he’d already wanted for too long to fear as much, but just what his wife could do to him, with so much as a word, or a smile, or a breath, or, of course, more potent ammunition.
For nearly a year, that had been both the best and the most terrifying thing to ever happen to him, at least until he’d held Lisa for the first time. Eventually he’d grown less afraid of what his wife roused in him, the passion, the vulnerability, the love so overwhelming he thought it might break him.
But he’d spent two years never expecting to deal with any of that again, and now he’d been completely unprepared. Even his and Karen’s limited contact that night had been so much, and that was nothing, he knew, to what he was capable of feeling, what he had in the past, and might now again.
“Frank?” Karen whispered, worried again, as he reminded himself to breathe, to keep it together, to remind himself he trusted Karen more than anyone else still alive, that he could let this happen with her. Probably. Eventually.