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sunflowersandsapphires · 6 months ago

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A Gentle Touch

Installment 1 of The Catlike Tendencies of Matthew Murdock

pairing: Matt Murdock x fem!reader

summary: Matt doesn't know how to ask for physical affection.

warnings: none that I can think of!

a/n: long story short this is inspired by my wife’s orange cat. He loves her but only tolerates me most of the time, unless I’m the only one home when he wants attention. However, he doesn’t really know how to cuddle with me since we don’t do it often so he just awkwardly lurks wherever I am until I invite him closer. It happened earlier and I thought it was hilariously Matt-coded so I wrote this. (It’s set in the Of Oak and Ivy verse because I love them, but you don’t need to read that story for this)

w/c: 2.3k

You were absolutely enthralled in the story Foggy was telling when the noise caught you off guard. A small puff of air, sounding almost like a voiceless sigh. Glancing toward Matt who was the closest to you, one look at his stony expression told you it had come from him. He was clearly irritated, despite his face being blank. You’d known him for long enough that you could tell when something was on his mind.

Maybe he’d heard this story too many times? You leaned more heavily into his arm, which was parallel to yours.

Turning your attention back to Foggy, you flinched with a laugh as he gestured wildly when concluding his story, spraying beer at you from his mostly full bottle.

“Geez, Fog. Reaching your limit already?” Matt smirked, his icy exterior fading away as you giggled beside him.

“He is, he’s all flushed. This is just like that party at the Beta house sophomore year.” You shook your head, looking at Karen with an exasperated expression. “Have they told you the possum story?”

Smiling gleefully, Karen shook her head. “The possum story?”

Both Matt and Foggy groaned, protesting and blushing furiously, but Karen was adamant. And who were you to not indulge her?

“In the fall of our second year at Columbia, Matt and Foggy got absolutely plastered on some disgusting concoction of cheap alcohol and Hawaiian Punch,” You began, rolling your eyes as Foggy gagged across from you.

“God, even the thought of it—“ The blond mime-retched.

“Yah the smell of Hawaiian Punch still makes me nauseous.” Matt shuddered next to you.

Karen stifled a giggle as you continued to illustrate just how inebriated you’d found them when you’d come to pick them up. “I was studying and had sat the party out, but offered to drive them home when Fog called me screaming at someone to chug alcohol. I figured they’d both be in no shape to get home.”

“You were correct.” Foggy nodded.

“I don’t remember anything from that night, but I assume I was the one chugging.” Matt grimaced, laughing sheepishly.

“So I drove over to the house, somehow got ahold of Matt and managed to convince him to herd Foggy and himself into my car. When they get there, they’re holding this bundle, right? I figured it was dirty clothes or something. But as we were driving home the clothes start hissing.”

“Oh, NO!” Karen cackled, propping herself up on her elbows as she listened to the story.

“Oh yes. Naturally, I ask Fog what he’s holding and he says ‘my dog’.”

“We didn’t have a dog,” Matt clarified, looking incredibly guilty.

“No you did not.” You squeezed his arm, hoping he could hear in your voice that you had no resentment over the incident. “Foggy unwraps the thing a bit and introduces it as ‘Spot’. But instead of a dog,”

“It’s a possum.” Karen finishes for you, nearly in stitches over her coworkers’ mortified faces.

“An angry one at that. I have no idea where it came from or how they managed to catch it, but there it was.” You shook your head, still amazed at their ability to wrangle the creature while piss-drunk.

“What happened to it?” Karen asked, and the men erupted.

“That’s classified.” Foggy stated firmly, lips pressed together.

“A story for another time,” Matt rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Don’t tell me you killed it!” Karen gasped, whirling to look at the out of them sternly.

“Of course not! No possums were harmed in the making of this story, just mildly inconvenienced.” You assured her. “They’re just clamming up because they can’t remember whose fault it was that it got loose in the science hall.”

Trailing off into a fit of laughter, Karen was quick to follow you as the two men started arguing, pointing fingers. Sitting back and enjoying the show, you shot Karen knowing glances as Matt and Foggy fought, no real heat behind their words.

You’d had so much fun that night, reliving one of the funniest moments of your college years, that you’d completely forgotten about the aggravated sound. Until about one month after, when you were sitting next to Matt on a bench in the courthouse.

The case he and Foggy had been working on was tedious and full of metaphorical landmines that threatened to ruin any shot your client had at escaping her abusive husband. The entire firm had been on edge, struggling to keep everything in order. Given your lack of steady employment at the moment, you’d been helping out wherever you could, and had been working this case from day one, right alongside Matt. Which is how you’d ended up beside him rather than Foggy.

The blond had flown out of town a few days before to attend an extended family reunion, leaving the rest of you to man the fort, so to speak. Usually, that wouldn’t be an issue, but Matt had been increasingly temperamental leading up to the ex parte hearing. His normal reserved demeanor had rapidly been replaced by a moody, antagonistic version of him–driving poor Karen to her wit’s end.

After Matt had incited a screaming match over a spilled cup of coffee, you’d told her to take her lunch early, giving her a couple hours where she didn’t need to walk on eggshells. The plan seemed to be working so far, Matt responding with less hostility to your persistent support rather than Karen’s eager suggestions for an aggressive approach. Something about this case had rubbed Matt the wrong way. His invisible hackles were standing on end, posture almost bristling as he sat beside you, twisting a white-knuckled fist around his cane. And, though you understood why Karen was pushing for another solution, you agreed with Matt that this needed to be handled quickly and quietly.

Scowling at the floor, Matt’s joints rolled beneath the delicate skin of his hands. His jaw was clenched, shoulders curled inward, as if he expected the judge to request a fist fight to grant the protection order. Christ, that could not be comfortable.

Carefully, slow enough to not spook him when he was in this state, you slid the pads of your fingers over the back of his hand. Prying his firm grip off the handle of his cane, you cradled his massive, calloused hand in your lap. He visibly relaxed at the touch, twisting to face you as you traced gentle patterns over his skin, careful to avoid the line of freshly healed cuts on his knuckles. Your curiosity would have to wait for now. There was no way he was in the mood to explain those.

A breathy rumble sounded in his throat, akin to a sigh but less obvious. The same noise he’d made all those days ago at Josie’s–the quiet indication that something wasn’t right.

Bottom lip jutting out in sympathy, you squeezed his fingers with your own. “It’ll be ok, Matty.”

He swallowed roughly, hazel eyes darting around behind his red lenses. You could practically see the thoughts forming in his mind before he buried them, the stress forcing him back into bad habits. Sweeping your fingers over his wrist, you studied him, satisfaction thrumming in your chest when his breath hitched. “Hey, talk to me, trouble. What are you thinking?”

“It’s not going to go well.” His voice was pitched low, angry, but there was a brief undercurrent of fear within it.

“We don’t know that.” You chastised lightly, knowing this pessimistic streak was a coping mechanism and not confirmation he’d become a nihilist.

“I can feel it. Can’t you feel it? It’s like every officer is laughing at us. We’ve already lost.” Watching Matt, the perpetual optimist, crumble at the thought of things not going the way you’d planned nearly broke your heart.

“Oh trouble, don’t say that.” Threading your fingers with his, you knocked your knees together. “It’ll be ok. Even if the judge doesn’t grant the order today, we won’t stop trying, right?”

“No but she needs legal protection now. Truthfully, she needs an armed guard.” Matt spoke bitterly.

“We can get her temporary protection.” You suggested.

“They’d never grant that for a simple DV case. Besides, those are his coworkers. Do you really trust them to keep her safe from him?” Matt scoffed, raising a brow at you.

Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you jabbed your pinky into the flesh of his palm. “I wasn’t suggesting we go to the police, Matthew. You and I both know how little good that would do.”

Deflating as he realized you weren’t being as naive as he suspected, Matt frowned. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Not everyone knows the flaws in the system.” You reassured him. “But I do. To some extent, at least.”

He hummed in agreement, but said nothing.

“What’s really bothering you?” At your insistent question, Matt’s face flashed with rage, his spine straightening as he tried to pull out of your grasp, but you held fast. “Don’t you dare, trouble. Please, talk to me. It’s eating you away, I can’t sit here and let that happen.”

Sighing harshly, Matt ran a hand over his face. “I just..this case feels different. I don’t know why. But if we can’t help her…”

“All we can do is try our best.” You reminded him.

He let out a single humorless laugh. “I suppose that’s true.”

When you let his hand drop, he made that pitiful, choked noise again.

“What?” You asked, slightly worried.

“Nothing. Just tired.” He lied, wrapping his hand back around the handle of his cane.

It was only once you were truly together that you realized what that specific sound was meant to signify.

Since you’d officially started dating, or rather labeling whatever you two had as a relationship instead of dancing around each other, that stupid noise had cemented itself in your life. It seemed like Matt was making it every damn day and it was driving you up a wall.

Not because Matt wasn’t entitled to his feelings or to expressing said feelings. But because your brain registered that the sound had a specific meaning, and you could not for the life of you translate it from a mere Matt-ism into a language you actually understood. Every little quirk and charm about Matt inherently made sense to you, they always had. Yet this little growling exhale seemed out of your reach. Not to mention, anytime you tried to ask him what was up, he shut down faster than a computer chip dunked in pool water.

Sitting on his couch as he typed on his laptop, he snarled out that sound, eyes darting towards you and away before you could blink. Brows furrowing, you peered at him over the top edge of your book. A muscle in his cheek twitched, a blaring omen that he was holding himself back from saying something.

“You ok?” You asked, nose scrunching as Matt brushed off your concern.

“Yep. Hungry.” He grumbled.

One word answers. Great start. Really breaking down his walls there, champ.

“Oh, gotcha. I’ll order something. Have a taste for anything in particular?” Setting your book across your thighs, you opened up a delivery app on your phone.

“No.”

“Okay...” You drawled, stifling an eye roll at his grouchiness. “How about that Lebanese place we liked?”

Receiving nothing but a thumbs up in response, you submit an order before Matt reached another stage of hangriness.

Once Matt had eaten half of his shawarma, he was more agreeable. Smiling and chuckling sweetly as you read him cheesy snippets of your romance novel. Crawling across the couch until you were seated beside him, you stretched over his lap to snatch a piece of pita bread for your plate of hummus. Matt blew out a breath, tickling your ear as he grunted. Now that you were close, you could hear the shrill, whimpering undertone. Hidden, nearly silent, as if the growl was to compensate for the whine, to conceal it.

Craning your neck towards him, you planted your free hand on your hip.

“Alright. Out with it.”

“Out with what?” Matt gave his best ‘befuddled’ impression, but you saw past his feigned innocence.

Snorting, you prodded his firm chest. As your finger connected with his solid pec, he whimpered again, this time almost moaning. Something clicked.

“Matthew Michael Murdock,” You gasped. “You are not making that sound instead of asking to cuddle.”

Blushing furiously, Matt dipped his head, ashamed–though he made no attempt to deny the allegation.

Laughing incredulously, you tossed your plate aside and settled into Matt’s lap, threading a hand into his hair. “You are a ridiculous man.”

Matt rumbled happily, leaning into the touch until his head landed against your chest. Clutching his face between your palms, you trailed soft touches over his cheeks, around his ears–scratching tenderly down his neck when he practically melted beneath your fingertips.

“You could’ve told me that’s what you wanted, all this time…” Shaking your head, you planted a kiss atop his thick hair. “Why suffer in silence?”

“Didn’t want to force you. It’s been different. Since..everything.”

Snuggling in close, you maneuvered his chin with two fingers, kissing him deeply. His stubble brushed over your skin roughly, making you smile. “You can always always ask, trouble. No need to be a martyr with me.”

“Sorry,” Matt murmured against your lips, chasing your mouth with a mournful noise as you pulled away.

“Don’t be sorry. Now come here.” Tugging him on top of you, you laughed brightly as he squirmed over you, finally relaxed when his face was tucked against your neck. “That’s it. Better?”

“Much better.” He whispered, going limp under your touch as your fingers stroked up his back.

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