Pride

Being poor and disabled were some of the many issues that had caused Matt to cling to his freedom and to cling to his maturity; he had always had far too much of a fight in life to remind people that he was capable. He didn’t want people to think he that he needed to be taken care of and he hated to admit on any occasion that he was wrong. He worried that the people he loved would react with distain for him and find even his now prestigious job to be a mockery if he ever accepted anyone's help. Possibly that’s why he had been so blown away by Natasha’s words to him that stormy night that she appeared in his home again.

“Come here, Matthew.” She had ordered as he walked in the door, exhausted from his nightly fights with his own “clients” and dripping with rain water. He had walked to her side without any questions, listening to the steady beat of her heart to guide him to her side. She was the one person who could hide anything from him and that was both a blessing and a curse. He could smell her henna and her expensive perfume as he came nearer and when her hand grabbed his tie, he was only mildly knocked from his reverie. “I was thinking about us, baby.” She whispered to him.

He smirked at her, assuming a fantasy was going to be shared and leaned close enough to kiss full warm lips; he could taste Tab soda and lipstick in the kiss. It had been a long time since they had been together and the scent of her was mesmerizing. “What did you think?” He questioned, his voice as confident then as it had been only an a few hours ago in front of the judge. He wasn’t used to being tongue-tied around her and he probably would never have been if she hadn’t had such a startling reply now. “I think that you’re a cocky brat who needs someone in control of you, Counselor.” She had whispered and he could hear the smile in her accent.

He had stuttered then, shocked words combining into meaningless sentences as he tried to figure out just what he wanted to say. It didn’t matter, she pulled him down onto her lap to face her and she kissed his lips gently and tenderly. When his hand came down he could feel smooth silk stockings under his fingertips. “I know you. Night after night, you come home huffy, frustrated and unable to let go.” There was that moment when he wished he could argue against her; she wasn’t there every night but she was still right. “You go to your room and you punch the bed and you tear at your hair and throw a fit. You think your friends do not hear your cries for help, and you think that no one knows.”

It looked like those prayers that his bitterness would leave him were for nothing, because now he was bitter over his own bitterness. How could she have known this? “So I think we should try this out.” She finally finished, letting one of her delicate hands cup his flushed face. She slipped her fingers up to his glasses and removed them, the smooth tips of her nails brushing against the scars surrounding his eyes. She looked up into his misty white eyes and simply admired her old partner that way, watching his full trembling lips as he began to move. He nodded his head in a shy motion of consent; he didn’t know if he could talk with the tender way she was touching him but he wanted her to keep speaking to him because he had missed her so much.

She rearranged him so quickly then that his heart was racing before he even realized that she had laid him across her knees. He could feel her shifting to make herself comfortable and he tried to protest this kind of game while her hand forced him back down across her lap. “Now, sweetheart…” He started, swallowing and trying to find his words, voice still as smooth as ever. “Don’t you think this is a bit much?” Without so much as a response, she slid her fingers into his belt to hold him still while the snapping sound filling the room suggested she had folded his white-cane. He knew deep inside of his heart that he was supposed to be struggling against this more than he was but he also knew he would always take what she gave him.

Natasha wasn’t the usual woman, not one to put up with his tantrums or his sins for the sake of his money. She didn’t respect him like his secretary and she didn’t long for him like his ex-wife; the Black Widow didn’t care that he graduated magna cum laude and she didn’t care that he was Daredevil. Matt gritted his teeth as her hand whistled through the air before it landed against his backside; it had been a long time since this had happened to him. Her hand came up and down in a steady rhythm and he trembled as he tried to keep himself still for her. He couldn’t even fight against this, not when he had already kissed her. “You’re being so good for me now, Matthew…” She mused as her petite hand stung his backside, hard even through the cloth of his pants. “Why are you not this well behaved all the time?”

His bratty and often egotistical nature was getting the best of him because Matt could only think to reply with “Because I don’t have to be.” Natasha laughed and rested her palm against his backside, tapping her fingers against him as she spoke; it was reasons like this she missed him so much. “Well, Counselor Murdock, let me assure you that from now on…you do.” He swallowed as she stood him up again, speaking softly “What do you mean?” He was shaking slightly as she unfastened his belt and pants, bring them down to his knees silently before she bent him over the arm of the chair she had sat in. The last time she had touched him like that they had been trying to make it work one last time; but he hadn’t been separated then and it had ruined them even more.

“I mean that you will have strict rules from now on since you are always so hard for me to control. If you don’t listen to me, I punish you. But you know, I am not like your precious church, you’re going to live through my hell before you can escape it.” Natasha explained and Matt groaned, closing his sightless eyes tightly and bringing his fists up against them. He was going to regret this night, he knew it but for whatever reason he also craved the firmness of her words just as much as her closeness. He had loved her for her strong dominate nature, for her powerful qualities and he knew she didn’t see him as weak; that was why she was treating him like this now. She would have had no interest in dealing with a man that had already been broken in.

The whistle through the air was different now but all too familiar and Matt struggled as hard as he could to get away this time, struggling against her hand pushing him down with real interest. This was one of the most humiliating moments of his life, and he didn’t want to accept what was coming. His own white-cane came down sharply and he was too startled to worry about the tears that already trickled down from his eyes. He inhaled breathily, and she began to scold him, reddening his skin quickly with the guide as she did. Every word was punctuated with the sting of his cane to his backside and he had to force himself to stop moving away from the punishing slaps. Nothing was more prominent than the whistle of the fiberglass and the burn of the cane on his skin. She was speaking then “You have some of the worst habits of any kind of worthwhile hero that I have ever met! You are a chauvinist, a liar, an adulterer, and also you are a child.”

Matt cried softly as she continued to bring his seeing-aide up and down across the backs of his legs. He realized now that what she was punishing him for was everything that he had done till now, and she was trying to make that clear to him. He had destroyed himself piece by piece ever since they had split apart and the hot burn of the white cane was only reinforcing what he already knew. “You lie to us all about how you feel, you lie to the priest about your sins, and then you lie to yourself, Matthew. I know that it kills you that you’ve fucked a bride on her wedding night just for kicks and it kills you that you’ve broken a man’s arms in front of his son to make them obey. But what really kills you the most is that you know that you’ll do it again, you know you don’t regret your mafia connections.”

He wanted Natasha to be wrong, he wanted to say that he would never do those things again or even that he didn’t care that he had but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to lie to Natasha now, not when he was begging God to let her stay with him finally. “I’ve seen how you treat women, Matt, and I have seen how you treat yourself. You hate what you do to them but you just can’t stop. Why is that?” She demanded now and the pain of the cane was replaced was her hand again, laying down firm slaps across his stinging backside to assure that he wouldn’t sit without remembering this for a long time. Tomorrow the trial would be excruciating to continue and she knew it, she relied on it even, he had to know that he couldn’t go on like this. “Because they always leave me in the end!” He gasped finally.

He was choking on his own sobs; pretty red hair disheveled and shoulders shaking when she switched to the cane one last time. Daredevil wasn’t capable of taking this amount of pain without showing it, no matter how much he pushed it all away. He had cried after fights sometimes, the sounds and the feelings so overwhelming to him that he couldn’t take it. She knew how much harder it was for him to stand this with his heightened senses and she pushed because she also knew this breaking point was what they both needed to move on. “I’m not going to leave you again.” She whispered, and she stroked a hand down his back. “Do you trust me?” She inquired and he nodded, hand still holding tightly to her ankle.

Natasha stopped finally, rubbing her lover’s strong back as he finished crying. She pulled him up into her arms finally, heart speeding when she saw how easily he accepted her affection still. “It’s okay Matt,” She whispered as he clutched her tightly to him, tears soaking into the silk strap of her ‘civilian’ dress. “We’re going to be okay now…” She could hear his heart beating rapidly and she let him go when he finally pulled away, running his sharking hand across his damp face. He turned his face up to the ceiling then as if somewhere during this his version of sight had come into play, and now he had to avoid seeing her.

“I’m going to take a shower,” He said softly and calmly, though his breathe was still faster than it normally would have been. He wanted life to be ‘normal’ between them again, like it once had been back when Natasha was his “little princess,” and he wanted to lie down beside her every night like he once had. But the pounding of his head was overwhelming and the shame of letting himself go so far in front of her was back. Despite his attempt to keep his pride, he still forced himself to speak. “Please, don’t leave?” he requested.

“Not anymore.” Natasha promised and she smiled; she had found a way for this to continue. Their relationship could remain what it had once been; impassioned, dangerous and lustful. Because this time, Natasha knew she had found a away of keeping her man.