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There’s thunder overhead and a heavy pour when they get to her place. Her back presses up against the front door, his hand finding purchase on the wooden beams beside her, his lips a mixture of rainwater and salt. He partly shields her from the downpour as she fumbles blindly through her purse for the keys, the lone, flickering porchlight above them casting his silhouette across the front lawn like a demon from the dark, surely a metaphor there for the less… distracted times.
The rumble of thunder breaks their kiss, a powerful flash of lightning illuminating Californian palm trees swaying in the wind and a reddened gleam off the carbon plates of Matt’s specialized suit, a brief, visible flare of knife scratches, chipped surfaces from bullet marks, and whatever other old, attempted wounds remain.
Jen finds the key eventually and opens the door. Shoes kicked off at the entrance, another flash of lightning, and she catches his outline by the doorway, rainwater lit up like blood across his darkened frame, deviled horns and an empty, red slit in his mask where eyes should be. Another strike of lightning, thunder follows, and she sees red, red, red, the color of hellfire and death, of blood and the Devil who comes in the night to collect.
She understands it, then. His moniker. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She had laughed at it previously, finding it a bit too edgy and on the nose, but it’s a lot more apt than she had thought, even terrifying up close in the dark.
And yet, as Matt approaches her, as their lips hover inches apart, as she breathes him in and tastes the rainwater on his lips, as his mask peels away and her hands knot into his hair and his calloused fingers curve her jaw and angle her chin towards him, Matt feels nothing less than human, radiating gentleness and warmth and laughter echoing from his throat to her own as they hear the comical squelch, squelch, squelches coming from his wet boots.
They break apart so that he can remove his shoes and toss them aside in a wet flop. A soft click follows as Jen turns on a nearby lamp, nothing too bright, but enough for her to see him up close, full of warm shadows and sharp angles and the lines in his face and the flecks of hazel in his eyes. His hair looks weirdly soft in the touch of lamplight, whatever product he had previously used to hold it up had washed away in the rain, and some of it now falls against his forehead, all poofy and sudden urges to reach out and smoothen them back across his hairline.
Then off come his gloves, the latches, the hidden compartments and batons and clasps and zips. It takes Matt a full minute to shoulder off the top portion of his suit, which falls heavily to the ground with a loud thump, revealing its innards lined with hidden plates and protective kevlar.
Something in her chest flutters at the sight of his pale skin, at the lean lines of muscles and the mortal woes of a man without unbreakable, gamma-radiated flesh; he has scars, more than she can count at a single glance, more than she can likely see in the dim lights. She recognizes some of them from her time at the DA’s office, a mishmash of knife cuts and bullet wounds and dark bruises where ribs had broken again and again before healing fully, like a painting drawn over a hundred times, scars healed over and scars anew.
The reality of it sinks in for a moment, terrible, terrible, and it breaks her heart a little.
Matt, on the other hand, doesn’t quite seem to care at the moment. He pulls her back into his arms, his breath warm against her skin, his tongue coaxing her lips apart as he tastes her, as he makes little hums of pleasure like music to her ears.
They stumble through the dark, and she pushes away from him to remove her shirt, the elastic suit that Luke had designed for her; a sexy striptease, she intends, but of course it has to tangle on her earrings, the elastic material suddenly stretching and pulling over her face like she’s being choked out by a plastic wrap in a mafia flick. The more she pulls, the worse it gets, a testament to Luke’s design, and she almost trips over her own legs and falls, if not for Matt’s hand suddenly sliding behind her, holding her in place.
“Ow, wait, shit, fuck,” she says. “What the fuck.”
Matt’s laughter is warm, reverberating through her chest and lighting a ball of heat down to her toes. “Hold on, hold on, I got you,” his fingers run up the sides of her arm, searching along the seams until finding and freeing the tangle.
The shirt is tossed aside, and Matt’s face comes back into view. “Hey, you,” she says, full of smiles because oh boy is she glad to see him.
It’s also when she realizes how close they’re standing. His chest is inches from hers, and she instinctively runs a finger down the front without thinking, kind of like seeing condensation on a window in front of you and drawing a heart, or something like that. Except instead of a window, it’s all lean muscles, warm skin, and heartbeats visible underneath her fingertips. He shivers too, and something about that just turns her on so much more.
“Whoa,” she says. “Holy shit.” His pecs are like solid steel. Like she would break her own fist punching them as regular-ol-Jen. “Are you allergic to carbs or something?” she blurts, because almost getting murdered by your own shirt isn’t enough of a mood-killer. She’s suddenly very self-conscious of her own flabs, and the fact that she can still see, on the couch behind him, that half-finished bag of chips she was stuffing her face with before Eugene’s call. “You’re like… annoyingly fit. Go grab a soda from the fridge or something.”
The corner of his eyes crinkle in amusement. “What can I say? I enjoy gymnastics,” he shrugs, as if that answers everything, as if the sudden imagery of him in tights swinging across the ceiling like some Cirque du Soleil showman isn’t going to pop straight into her prefrontal cortex and haunt her dreams for the next few months. Maybe not the worst sleep paralysis Demon/Devil she can think of.
She tries to run her fingers down his abs again, but he catches her this time, snatching her wrist out in mid-stroke. Then he tugs, and she’s falling into his chest, and whatever else banter in mind quickly dissipates, and all that remains is the feel of his body against hers, the weight of his shoulders bearing down like a mountain due to their height difference, and the feel of his hands skating along the curve of her waist, pulling her closer towards him.
His nose grazes against hers, an intake of breath against her lips before he kisses her again, this time with an intensity that sends a thrill down her spine, that—as much of a cliché as it sounds, causes her to go weak in the knees. He kisses her over and over, like he’s savoring her, like he just can’t get enough of her, and his hands are moving too, past her hips down to her butt and squeezing through the elastic fabric of her shorts, and his fingers are so thick and warm and she’s so sensitive and holy shit there’s no shame or subtlety in the way her body is responding to him because she’s burning up and dizzy and she’s arching into him, making involuntary little whines into his throat while her hands make little grabby motions at his chest, like she’s trying to grab onto a collar to pull him closer but only finding more muscles and flesh.
In some ways, Jen’s reminded of that time when she joined her firm’s monthly get-together hiking trips, where she’s quite literally on the cusp of death not even halfway through, breathing in that same, death-bed ventilator hiss-y way and she’s thirsty as hell because she’d forgotten her water bottle on the bus and Nikki’s nowhere to be seen and she doesn’t know anyone else well enough to bum a sip of water from their bottle in this post-pandemic climate and… well, the point is: she’s breathing in that same hiss-y out of breath way, she’s also on the cusp of… not death, no, more like on the cusp of coming without him actually touching her there yet, and she’s also thirsty as hell, and obviously not for water.
She doesn’t even feel them move, and suddenly she’s pinned up against the wall, her arms pinned to the side, his thigh slotting between her legs, like a strategic chess move ten steps ahead before she even knows what game they’re playing, because she’s suddenly aware of that ache between her legs, aware of how wet she is, and when she tries to squeeze her thighs together, he’s there, friction, friction, friction as her mind goes blank, as his mouth descends down the side of her neck, sinking heat and teeth against collarbone, and the shift in their position means she’s immediately aware of how hard he is pressed up against her stomach through the leather of his pants, the sudden imagery of David Bowie in Labyrinth filling the empty spaces, because whoa did that man do it for teenage-Jen back in the day.
She feels him unclasp her bra, which falls into the darkness between them, his palm replacing the feel of fabric, skating down the curve of her breasts, his fingers catching her nipples, causing her to gasp at the sudden stab of sensation, her body instinctively rocking against him, her thigh rolling across his groin, the hard imprint of his cock jutting against her knee, and the growl that comes from his throat in response reverberates through her from skin contact, a growing sense of want and urgency and need and desperation she isn’t quite sure is from her or him or whatever else weird, scientifically unproven sexual osmosis is going on between them right now. All she knows is that she really, really wants to feel him inside her, and she has never wanted anything that bad and she—
That’s when she notices something in her peripheral vision.
The plushy sitting on the bedside table.
Something freezes over in her chest. Ice cold. Almost completely burns out the heat within her.
Fuck.
It’s the prize Josh had won for her at their carnival date. At the rigged shooting games where he probably paid four to five times the cost of the toy itself in tries, and she remembers how hard he was concentrating, how badly he had wanted to win the gift for her just because she randomly pointed out how cute the toy was, and she remembers thinking to herself, then, “Hey, I think I really, really like this guy.”
In retrospect, it's really quite inappropriate to think about Josh while she’s with Matt. And obviously she doesn’t want to, not after Josh quite literally ghosted her after sex, and not with Matt quite literally in front of her right now.
So, she tries to look away, to block out that annoying little plushy, to concentrate on something else—and she sees the couch, sees that little spot of wine stain near the armrest.
The stain that came from when she spilled wine all over Arthur’s shirt. Arthur, the pediatric oncologist who was perfect in almost every way (for fuck’s sake he treats cancer in children), who was also so, so infatuated with She-Hulk, and yet the different way he had looked at her the next day when she was regular-Jen, when the awe and excitement in his eyes were replaced with uncertainty, disinterest and… worst of all, disappointment.
Arthur isn’t a terrible person. He laid out exactly why he didn’t want to continue with their relationship, and it’s more from misunderstanding than not, unlike Josh, who straight up ghosted her or the guy who yelled at waiters or that weirdo with the fetish and way too obvious toupee. Still, Arthur’s not exactly the person she wants to think of right now.
So, she closes her eyes. Tries to focus entirely on Matt.
“I’m Jen. Not in hulk form. Just Jen! I made breakfast.”
“Yeah I’m gonna go.”
She can’t get the way Arthur had looked at her the morning after, out of her mind. She’s seeing bits and pieces of all of them now. Arthur, Josh, a dozen other Tinder dates, all those men and mistakes in her life, and it’s suddenly giving her pause.
“Whoa,” she says, suddenly looking to her right, at a spot in the room no one else perceives, at the universe, so to speak, not of her own. “What the fuck is happening,” she asks the invisible audience. When did her home turn into a nest of mental trauma, emotional baggage, and an insecurity pileup of epic proportions? “Am I about to have a panic attack seconds before amazing sex? Because that is totally not cool.”
She shakes her head, tries to focus back on Matt, on the way he’s touching her, the way he’s kissing her, the way he feels pressed up against her; Matt, who is every bit the opposite of those men, who…
Is he though?
The thought gives her pause. She barely knows him, and she had thought Josh and Arthur were great too.
Matt must have read something in her body language, because he’s no longer touching her, there’s an inch of space between them now, growing wider by the second.
He’s a step away. Two.
She sees it in his face, too, and in the shadows his face overlaps with Arthur’s, full of disgust and disappointment and-
Somehow Matt finds the light switch. The shadows warp away, Arthur’s face disappears, and in its place all she sees is kindness and concern and all the patience in the world she doesn’t deserve.
“Jen?” he asks. “Are you alright?” His head tilts forward, like he’s trying hard to listen, to find an answer between the sudden, nervous beats of her heart. “Was it me? Did I do something-… if you’re uncomfortable with-”
“No, no, oh god no,” she breathes the answer more than speaks it. “It’s not you. You’re amazing.” There’s a weird awkwardness between them now, and she’s instantly regretful of it. “It’s just…” she squeezes her eyes shut, thinking maybe it’s not the best time to unload all her issues onto him right now, so instead, she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Do you want me to change?”
“Change?” he asks. “Are you cold? Do you want to put on something warmer?”
“No, I mean… transform.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Hulk-up.”
He blinks. “Uh?”
“Some people prefer that.”
“In like… a sexual manner?”
“Yeah.”
He does a small double-take. His brows furrow. “I… I don’t know. Well, what do you prefer?”
Jen.
The answer comes immediately to mind. It’s who she is, anyway. Who she’s been the last thirty-something years. But then she also thinks of the way people look at Jen. Like she’s invisible, like she enjoys speaking louder, working harder, putting in more effort than the rest just for attention, while the truth is that she has to do all that just to be seen.
And she thinks of the way people look at She-Hulk. At the awe in their eyes, the pure happiness and excitement when she just crosses their path. She thinks of her invulnerable skin and perfect hair and flawless skin. She thinks of how safe she feels walking alone at night and not caring what other people think of her, how she’ll never have someone ask, “Are you feeling unwell?” just because she slept for only twenty-minutes after an all-nighter and hadn’t had the chance to reapply her makeup.
And she thinks of herself again. Of the way Arthur’s eyes came to the realization of who she was. Man, that guy really did an unintentional number on me, huh? she thinks.
“She-Hulk’s pretty cool,” she says, and she means it, but if she’s being honest, She-Hulk’s been getting all the attention lately and Jen’s just…
There’s a slight hitch in her voice, and she’s pretty sure he heard it too.
He’s quiet for a moment, before he says, “Jen’s pretty cool too.”
“Yeah, right,” she makes a noise like a derisive snort. “Jen can’t even reach the top shelf without help.”
He laughs, and the sound of his voice warms her up again, and makes her want nothing more than to jump back into his arms, to press her face flat against his neck and hear it straight from the source.
“What?” he asks. “You don’t agree?”
“I mean… you do know that She-Hulk can punch through a steel door, right? Is invulnerable to bullets? Can lift a school bus with a single finger?”
“Yeah, and Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walters was part of the team that brought down the Torino crime family; she’s part of the crackdown which eliminated seventy-five percent of the Sinaloa Cartel’s human trafficking operation through the Port of L.A; she’s the person who represented the whistleblower who exposed Nihia Corp’s illegal human trials; and plenty, plenty more, and she did all of that before becoming the She-Hulk.”
There’s an annoying smile on his face now. Like a smug son-of-a-bitch presenting a closing argument on a case he absolutely knows he’s going to win. “She did all that without powers. So yeah, I think Jen’s pretty cool.” Then he smiles. “Unless you count the power of the Law. But what is that compared to punching through steel doors, right?”
She sniffs and looks away, momentarily forgetting he’s blind and pretending to tug at a knot in her hair so he can’t see just how much she’s smiling too. Her cheeks are burning up and surely she’s flushed pink all over, and not just from the foreplay. “How do you know all that?”
“Basic opposition research? I mean, we were on opposite sides of the courtroom less than twenty-four hours ago. You mean… you didn’t do your due diligences? Were you that confident of a landslide victory?”
“I… umm,” she swallows audibly. “May have been a bit overconfident. See? That’s why I don’t like being hulked-up all day. It gives me over-confidence issues.”
He laughs. “Well, I rest my case. Jen’s totally a bad-ass.”
She’s laughing too. “Shut up. You’re only saying that cause you can’t see me right now. I’m an absolute mess.” Which is objectively true. There’s still bits of dust and debris sticking to her from when she broke into the Lilypad. It’s been a long night.
“Okay, Jen,” he takes a deep breath, then offers his hands to her, palms open. “Come here, then. Show me what you look like.”
Jen remembers a Saturday morning cartoon she watched as a kid. It’s about a young girl who discovers a mask that turns her from a meek bookworm into a popular cheerleader who also fights crime and uncovers school corruption like the illegal candy trade and talent show saboteurs (it’s a kid’s cartoon, okay?). It’s her favorite show growing up, being as relatable as it was, and it gave ten-year-old Jen the hope that she can someday find her own mask that gives her the same confidence, the same courage she never had. (season two of the show planned to show the audience that it wasn’t the mask that gave her powers, but the protagonist herself the entire time, but it was cancelled after one season due to the animation firm being a front for money laundering.)
Sometimes, she thinks that’s why she’s so reliant on the She-Hulk, even during non-physical situations. It’s a powerful mask, too, giving her confidence in situations she never would have dared face, even though she’s no longer as naïve. Hard to be in her previous line of work, when the only people wearing masks coming across her desk as the Deputy District Attorney were criminals trying to hide their faces before shooting up banks or robbing gas stations.
Still, she doesn’t let most people see the “real” her these days. The Jen without the mask.
She steps towards him, and they meet at the center of her apartment. His hands are still open towards her, so she pulls them upwards, nesting her face into his palms.
“How do I show you?” she asks.
He just holds her there for a moment, his fingers warm in the chilly air. “Like this,” he whispers, and his fingers curve around the side of her face, his thumb ghosting across her cheek, her nose, down to her lips. They linger on the edge, and she sees his own parting in response, his tongue a roll of red in the dark.
He’s like a blind cartographer, mapping her in the only way he knows how. It’s not entirely sexual, the way his hands cup her face and stroke her cheeks, but his touch is featherlight, the rain is gentle outside, the room is warm, and they’re so close she can feel his breath on her skin, and everything else just adds so, so much more to the intimacy of the simple action.
She finds herself closing her eyes, too, feeling her own senses heightening, wonders if this is how it feels for him? Darkness and all physical sensation. His thumb comes to a rest below her ear, warm and just… there, and he pulls, lightly, like he’s drawing a cup of water from a river stream. He pulls again, and she’s closer to him still, their mouths not quite touching, but dragging warm air across her own.
She shivers, full of goosebumps and anticipation, and yet in the darkness, still isn’t prepared for when his lips brush against the side of her jaw, and she gasps, the sensation like a jolt of electricity, as sharp as his movements are soft. She feels the edges of his lips quirking into a familiar smirk as he kisses her, as he coaxes her mouth open, as he breathes and forms her with his hands.
It's like her mild freakout had never happened. Like they’re returning to normalcy, if normalcy is the hottest make out session she had ever experienced in her life. Because if anything else, she’s even more into him, more into this, now. She sinks into his chest, and she feels one hand running down the back of her spine, the other curling around the base of her neck, sliding into her hair.
She’s not expecting it when the yank comes, hissing as her neck is bared to him, as he kisses the exposed spot and sucks on the flesh and an undeniable clench shoots down her core and aims straight between her legs at that sudden, sharp stab of pain. “And what does that do?” she grunts. “How does that help you see me?”
“It doesn’t,” he hums, before tilting his head forward, kissing down the space between her breasts. He stays there, just listening. “Just testing a theory.”
“What theory?” she asks, her heartbeat going faster.
“That you like it when I take control.”
Jen has always been particular about her space of work. The table has to be clear, the stationary neatly arranged, and of course, no food within a five-meter radius of her legal notes and court documents. It’s about respect, she thinks. Their work is important, and their workspace should reflect that. The courtroom is a holy place, and if she has to desecrate the hallowed space by bringing decrees covered with tomato sauce because Lee just wouldn’t stop eating microwavable spaghetti while he’s working, then sue her for being a bit of a stickler for the rules.
That being said, she feels like an absolute hypocrite when Matt carries her over to the coffee table, her arm knocking over her legal briefcase, and she’s vaguely aware of the notes and court documents she finds herself lying on. There’s something she wants to point out to him about this specific image, of how they’re definitely in contempt of court for where and what they’re doing this on.
But all that disappears as he kisses down her clavicle, his teeth sinking around a nipple, causing her spine to arch up against him, her legs parting as he slides between her. She tries to sit up, but he palms her back down, his hand heavy over her heart, the other into the waistband of her shorts, the specialized version able to withstand the sudden, increased mass of hulking; a quick tug, pull, and they’re off too.
That’s when Jen remembers what she’s wearing underneath. What she has to wear as the She-Hulk: essentially a pair of granny panties, the kind that doesn’t tear when she hulks up. There’s also the matter of hygiene. They had spent the last few hours out, from their initial clash at the parking complex to the fight at the warehouse and the hours sweating in the heat while waiting for the detectives to take down her statement after Luke’s rescue.
Point being: she’s sweaty, she’s feeling quite the opposite of sexy, she probably stinks because Luke’s so much of a genius that the suit’s not only uninflammable but also waterproof which prevented the rain from washing the day’s dirt and sweat away, and most importantly, she’s wearing the kind of underwear only caretakers should see at the end of her short-lived life before she dies of utter embarrassment and shame.
Her legs clench shut, more self-preservation and instinct than not, but he’s there, fingers peeling her thighs apart, spreading her shame wide. She makes a small whine, “Matt, maybe we should shower firs-”
He kisses the inside of her thigh, not seeming to care about any of it. She feels the warm flush of heat as he breaths upwards, as his intake of air goes faster and faster, like he’s excited, like he’s a wolf at the start of a hunt and she’s the poor rabbit with her legs spread wide open.
Then a finger pulls the fabric aside, a shiver as her cunt is exposed to the cold air; he makes a strangled noise, a sound caught between hunger and pleasure, and she’s suddenly aware of the fact that oh my fucking god if he can smell jet-fuel across the room, and can tell the make and model of the henchmen’s weapons from the smell of gunpowder, he can abso-fuckin-lutely smell how wet I am and—there’s heat as his mouth closes over her clit, a ripple of shoulder muscles as his fingers slide inside her—and everything hits her at once, and she’s immediately seeing stars, stars, stars, her hips buckling against his face, hands running into his hair as he grunts and moans and fingerfucks an orgasm right out of her.
Jen would like to think she’s a posh climaxer, the type of distinguished lady from her regency era novels who would sigh as they come and dab their foreheads with a flowery handkerchief and sip a cup of tea afterwards with not a strand of hair out of place.
She’s had plenty practice in the past; the keeping her “poise” part, at least, since living with four other roommates while in law school requires a certain modicum of subtlety while engaging in certain masturbatory thoughts of getting swept up in Steve Roger’s arms.
In reality though, or, more specifically, with Matt, she slams her head back onto the table with so much force she knocks the lamp right off, her vision immediately blurs and she’s not sure if it’s from the orgasm or an oncoming concussion; her hands squeeze so hard into his scalp she’s suddenly terrified of hulking up and accidentally crushing his skull, and when she inhales, tries to apologize, gets saliva down the wrong pipe, sending her into a coughing fit that has Matt sitting up next to her and giving her soft pats on the back until she’s able to breathe normally again.
Also, there’s something salty on her tongue which she suspects is blood from how hard she bit her lip.
In conclusion, maybe not the most dainty climaxer after all.
She shifts into She-Hulk for a second before turning back into Jen. The bruise on the back of her head is gone, and so is the cut on her lips.
“Did you just…” Matt asks.
“Yeah.”
“Very useful,” he smiles, and that’s when she sees his face again, his jaw sleek with her wetness, his eyes darker than before, like the storm clouds outside, his breath still hitching, and he’s looking at her, seeing all of her and not at the same time.
Maybe it’s because she transformed into She-Hulk for a second. And maybe it’s because She-Hulk is an absolute horndog. But Jen has never wanted anyone else so badly ever in her life. Her entire body shakes almost in anticipation, and that one orgasm, as powerful as it was, was absolutely not enough, not even close.
Matt seems to agree. Because he’s kissing her again, lifting her into his arms and carrying her over to the bed. She sinks into the cushion, and a small, sensible part of her mind realizes he’s doing so out of consideration from how hard she had knocked her head against the coffee table.
The realization flushes warm down her chest, and she rolls up against him, pressing so hard against his erection she feels like she’s bruising. She reaches out, feeling him through his pants, enjoying the way that vein in his throat pulses in response.
“I want you,” she says, and that, your honor, is the truth and whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
His fingers wrap around her wrist. “No.”
“No?”
“Not yet,” he grins, his mouth darting past her own, heat and tongue drawing against her earlobes, his fingers sliding down between her legs and pressing against her clit. “I want to make you come again.”
She wants to protest, to scream OBJECTION! But his fingers start moving in slow, almost lazy circles, with just enough pressure, and his teeth sinks into the side of her throat, and the words just don’t exist anymore, neither in her mouth nor her brain. All she makes out are her own sobs and moans echoing in her head, the grip of his hand around her breast, and she’s crying out, coming over his fingers again.
Then he’s between her legs, tasting her even before she recovers, and it’s almost painful from how sensitive it is, but she squeezes her eyes shut and rides through the feeling, knowing just how much better it is going to feel when he finally enters her.
His tongue moves back to her clit, her head rolls back, and she feels his fingers sliding inside her cunt, then back through her folds, gathering her wetness before slipping between them, and from the corner of her eyes she sees movement in his shoulders, the flex in his biceps, and she hears the slick sound of flesh between the bedsheets.
Is he fisting his cock while eating me out?
Because holy fuck that brings her over the edge again, her fingers digging into the bedsheet while her toes twist so hard in opposite directions it almost gives her a cramp.
Then he’s leaning over her, his eyes misting over with lust, and she sees his cock hanging in the space between their bodies, the tip dragging a line of pre-cum up her thighs, the head pushing against the side of her clit. It hovers near the entrance, almost pushing in, when she suddenly grips onto his arm. “Wait, Matt. Fuck.”
He blinks. Takes him a moment to respond. “Yeah?”
“I’m not on… Condom. Do you have a condom?”
His eyes flicker, his face squeezing in a mix of concentration, like he’s fighting through a thick fog to get to logic. His head tilts in the direction of where he had dumped his suit. “Are you… are you asking if I bring a condom out with me when I’m crimefighting as Daredevil in the night?”
“Well, do you?”
A sheepish look settles over his face. “…Yeah.”
He retrieves his wallet and pulls out a condom. “Look,” he says. “Before we do this, I feel like I have to explain myself.”
“You don’t, really,” she grins.
“Okay, but I feel like I have to,” he waves the condom around. “Because this implies I’m sleeping around all the time.”
“Do you? Sleep around all the time?”
“That..." he coughs. "I plead the fifth."
She laughs. “It’s fine, Matt. It’s not like we’re about to enter into a relationship.”
“Okay, but just to clarify. It’s been a while for me. This is from a while back. I used to be in a relationship with someone who’s… let’s just say quite spontaneous, and is turned on by knives and putting criminals in the dirt.”
It takes her a moment to catch his meaning. “Oh my god. Are you saying it’s like a ‘partners’ thing? Like you were working with another superhero and then afterwards you guys kinda just fuck on the roof or something?”
“I wouldn’t really call her a superhero, but… yeah,” he scratches his head with another sheepish smile. “Something like that.”
They stare at each other for a moment, all flushed cheeks and synced breathing, and then she makes a “come over here” motion at him, which for some reason, he sees, the “echolocation” of his never once failing to impress her.
He’s between her legs again, just there for a moment. She hears him put on the condom, and she feels his cock for a second, resting hot and heavy on her leg, and in the next, it pushes hard against her clit, and she starts to shake, starts to whine; she’s getting wetter again and fuck it’s embarrassing because he’s not even inside her yet and she’s about to come again and-
He leans over her and she sees a flash of silver. A cross, of all things, hanging from his neck. A catholic cross and a Devil suit. Hmm. Somewhere, a therapist is going to have a field day with that one.
-then he’s inside her, and she gasps at the sensation, at the wash of heat that burns her up from within. He doesn’t move, not yet, and she stares blankly up at him, her lips parting, gasping lightly for air.
“You okay?” he asks, one hand sliding beneath her back, to easier hold her with. The other reaches for her head, brushing her hair back, placing soft kisses in the space between her eyes.
“Yeah,” she whispers, the response feeling somewhat inadequate, because what else can she really say?
When he finally starts to move, he takes his own sweet time, controlling his hips in small, timed thrusts, like he’s searching for something inside her; it’s slow and lazy, as if they have all the time in the world, as if this isn’t just a small escape from all the harshness out there waiting for them; like he’s trying to remember her, like he’s trying to map her into his very senses.
He builds her up slowly. Like a ball bouncing against gravity, reaching a certain peak in the sky before falling back down to Earth, but with each bounce gaining momentum, going higher, faster, building, building, building. When she comes the first time, she almost locks up around him, her legs squeezing against his ribs, her fingers digging so deeply into his back she’s bound to leave marks; she’s vaguely aware of how hard she’s biting into his collar, but he doesn’t seem to mind the pain, doesn’t seem to mind how much time she needs; all he offers is his lips pressed into her throat, a mumble of, “That’s it, Jen, that’s it,” searing right into her skin.
He fucks her through it all, all the while mumbling things into her skin that causes her mind to go blank, to lose all sanity except for the feel of blood pumping through her veins, the tension in her body stretched tight like a coil about to snap, and there's a vague sense of awareness that—from the sway of the cross as he fucks her into the bed—he’s definitely got a hell of a dirty mouth for a Catholic boy.
“Show me,” he suddenly says.
“Show you?” her words come out slurred, like she’s drunk, or, well, fucked-drunk.
“Show me what you look like when you come,” he says, a hand curling into the side of her face, his palm flat against her cheek, his thumb brushing past the crinkle in her eyes. “Don’t hold back, let me feel it,” he says, as he starts fucking her harder, his hips smacking into her, the friction of his groin against her clit causing her eyes to lose focus, to roll. She feels his muscles tightening beneath her fingertips, and as she looks up, she sees his eyes squeezed shut, sweat running through his brows, his breath coming in short, hard pants like he’s just trying so, so desperately to hold himself back.
And so she doesn’t. She chases that release, her hands reaching between them and seeking out her clit, her hips buckling back against his. It doesn’t take her long before another orgasm rolls through her, sparks flying behind her eyelids as she makes a mess around his cock, as she nestles and moans into the heat of his palm wrapped around her face.
She knows he's close too, so she mouths his name into his palm. Doesn’t say it out loud, just puts her own hand over his and repeats the words with the movement of her lips, letting him feel it like a brand on his skin while she fucks him right back with her hips, Matt, Matt, Matt like a prayer, and it isn’t long before he groans, his entire body shuddering forward as he buries his face into the crook of her neck, as he grinds down against her and finishes with a final thrust.
He collapses beside her afterwards, blinking, staring at the ceiling, his hair a wet, sweaty mess. His head turns towards her, and she sees that familiar, warm smile as he reaches out to her, as he takes her hand in his and kisses all over her knuckles.
“Was that too much?” he breathes softly. “I think… I think I might have gone overboard a bit at the end.”
“No, not at all,” she says. “That was… perfect.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jen looks past him, at a strange spot in the air. “That was great,” she mumbles, her cheeks warm with a smile, as if to an audience only she perceives. “Maybe I’ll make him breakfast in the morning.”
“Mhm?” Matt looks at her. “Did you say something?”
“No?”
He looks at the spot, at the screen, so to speak, and his brows furrow, like he’s sensing something there. Then he blinks, looks back at her and shrugs. “Must be the wind.”
Jen wakes up to an empty bed the next morning. She doesn’t get to make him breakfast because Matt’s already gone. But when she finally finds the strength to pull herself out of bed, fighting both the gunk in her eyes and the fact that her legs are barely working, she finds that Matt had already made her breakfast before he left.
There’s buttered toast, a cup of coffee in the mug, eggs and bacon in a covered pan over the stove, still warm. She smiles. Can’t help it, really.
Then she notices a note on the table, with only a single word: VOICEMAIL.
She checks her phone. Two messages.
She plays the first, and Matt’s voice comes over the speakers, warm like she had felt the way it’d burnt into her neck the night before.
“Hey, Jen, sorry about leaving so soon, but I got a call from Foggy— that’s my partner, and—” there’s a short pause, like he’s thinking of something. “Partners as in best friends and co-owners of Nelson, Murdock and Page, not partners as in ‘a superhero partner thing where you kinda just fuck on the roof afterwards’ kind of thing, not that he isn’t a good looking guy, and not that I haven't thought about it... but anyway.”
She laughs, reminded of when he’d explained why he had a condom in his suit.
“Anyways, there’s an emergency with one of our clients: long story short, guy’s in the hospital after singlehandedly taking out a cartel branch on his own, so the other branches sent a whole bunch of assassins after him and he kills them all with… let’s say some very specific hospital tools not meant for killing people. So, Foggy’s got me on an earlier flight and I have to go clear things up with the authorities and hope the hospital doesn’t sue. And… well, you seemed so peaceful sleeping I just didn’t want to wake you up. So yeah. That’s why I left early.”
The message ends.
She plays the second one. It’s sent a few minutes after the first.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I really enjoyed last night. I hope you did too. And if I’m ever back in L.A or if you’re ever out by New York, I’d love to take you out for dinner. Or hey, if you want to skip that and get straight to the point,” he laughs, and his voice comes softer, mixed with the ambient noise of what she assumes is the airport behind him. “I wouldn’t mind that either.”
She immediately sends him a message when the voicemail ends.
“I had fun. I can’t stop smiling.”
She waits for a second, then adds in a bunch of emojis too, cliches and desperation be damned. Then another message a few minutes later. “Wait, you can see this, right?”
His response comes after an hour.
“Dictation software, Jennifer. Welcome to the twenty-first sanctuary.”
Another text. "Fuck. Century*"
There’s a devil emoji at the end too.
Right next to a blushing smile emoji.