Work Text:
Karen let out a moan as the alarm on her phone started giving off its incessant beep, quickly reaching over to shut it off. She looked over at Matt, who was taking the pillow out from under his head and putting it over his face. He had had a later night than usual, resulting in neither one of them getting much sleep. Karen had managed to drift off a couple of times before he got home, but never for very long. He had come into the bedroom before heading for the shower to reassure her he was ok; the first aid kid she had set on the nightstand actually not necessary for once. But she had been able to tell from his voice how exhausted he was. He had been going out every night lately, and it was starting to catch up to him.
She gently put her hand on Matt’s chest as she sat up.
“Are you ok?” she asked him softly as he moved his hand to rest on top of hers.
Matt adjusted his pillow so his mouth was free. “Yeah. It was mostly a surveillance night, but it took a lot longer that I thought. And then I ran into some assholes attempting a robbery when I was finally on my way home”.
Karen brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed it.
Matt took the pillow off his face and slowly sat up.
“Did you get enough sleep?” he asked softly.
Karen considered fibbing, but quickly realized there was no point. “Not really.”
Matt brought a hand to her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Matt winced; he hated that he kept her from getting a full night’s sleep, but knew there wasn’t a lot that could be done about it. He sighed, bringing his hand up to her forehead, gently brushing back strands of her hair with his thumb. Soon after they had moved in together he had managed to convince her to go to bed when she got tired rather than falling asleep on the couch, and while she did listen to him, he knew she never fully relaxed until she knew he was home safe, not to mention the numerous times she had to get out of bed to help him tend to his wounds.
Karen leaned in, touching her forehead to his, hoping to relax him. She never cared about not getting enough sleep, all that mattered to her was that he was home safe.
“I’ll start the coffee.”, she said softly as Matt nodded and sank back down onto the mattress.
Karen got out of bed, grabbing her robe that she had left on the chair and putting it on as she left the bedroom. She passed by the window, yawning, when something outside caught her eye and she stopped dead in her tracks, letting out a small gasp.
“Karen? What’s wrong?” Matt called out, panic evident in his voice as he practically sprinted out of the bedroom.
Karen smiled as she shook her head, continually amazed at the tiniest sounds Matt picked up on.
“Nothing’s wrong, honey. But I cannot believe the amount of snow we got! I haven’t seen this much snow since I lived in Vermont.”
Matt came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“Was it snowing when you got home?”
“I think it was, but I was so wiped I was barely paying attention”, he said placing a kiss on her shoulder.
Karen continued to stare out the window, still not believing what she was seeing.
“The city is actually shut down. There’s literally no one outside. I never thought I’d see that” she mused.
“I guess we get a snow day, Page”.
“I think you’re right, Murdock.”
Matt unwound his arms from around her waist, grabbing her hand and leading her back to the bedroom. They climbed back in bed, both asleep in a matter of minutes.
****************************
Karen woke up and grabbed her phone to look at the time. It was a little after 11:00. She had gotten four more hours of sleep, and already felt a million times better. She looked over at Matt, who was still sound asleep, and smiled. She didn’t want to wake him; for as often as he got after her for not getting enough sleep he needed it even more than she did. She typed a quick email to Ellison, letting him know that she wouldn’t be coming into the office.
She smiled as she read his quick response “No shit. The entire city is working from home today.”
She put her phone back down on the nightstand and settled back into bed. She sighed, thinking it would be nice if she maybe didn’t do any work at all today. It was unlike her, but the article she was researching was going nowhere fast. The story she was chasing had to do with a suspected cover-up in the mayor’s office. Her anonymous source seemed to have disappeared off the face of the Earth; she had made several efforts to follow up over the past week and had gotten no response whatsoever. She was getting beyond frustrated with the whole thing, and thought how nice it would be to take the day off completely. Neither she or Matt had taken a true day off since Christmas, which had been almost two months ago, and Karen was starting to realize that they could both really use one.
Eventually, Matt stirred next to her and she watched him open his eyes.
“What time is it?” he mumbled as he turned to lay on his side, extending his arm, his hand coming to rest on her stomach.
“Almost 11:30. How are you feeling?”
“Much better”, he said, closing his eyes.
“Matt?”
“Mmmm?”
“How would you feel about taking a proper snow day? We already have an excuse not to leave the apartment, so how about neither one of us does any actual work?”
Matt opened his eyes. There were a lot of things he needed to do today; he didn’t have any court appearances or meetings with clients scheduled, so at least the snow wouldn’t affect anything on that front. But there were plenty of things that he should be working on, snow day or not. There were a couple of opening statements to draft, as well as listening to his notes from the latest pro bono case he had taken on. He opened his mouth to say as much, but stopped to really consider Karen’s proposition. A true day off sounded like heaven, especially after the night he had. Yes, he had things he needed to do, but it would all still be there tomorrow.
He searched under the covers for her hand and laced his fingers through hers.
“How scandalous, Miss Page”, he teased her.
Karen smiled. “I know, but how often do you get a true snow day after you’re done with school?”, she asked. “I think we should take advantage, Murdock.”
“That sounds perfect”, he said, and Karen grinned from ear to ear.
“So tell me, how exactly would you like to start this snow day?”, he asked, suggestively raising his eyebrows.
Karen smiled as she leaned in and kissed him.
“Hmmm…I’m sure I can think of something”, she murmured, moving her hands down to the bottom of his shirt and started to tug upwards. He lifted his arms as she finished pulling it off of him, before moving her hands down to start working on getting his boxers off. She got them halfway down before Matt interrupted her, taking her arms and raising them up so he could take her shirt off, and she smiled as he threw it clear across the room. Karen wrapped her arms around him as Matt shifted so he was on top of her, both of them smiling in between kisses.
“I think we should start every day like this” he said nuzzling her neck and Karen laughed as he moved down to start removing her pajama bottoms.
***************************
“Ahhh…I totally forgot about that! That was the result of crashing my bike when I was nine.”
They were still in bed, naked, limbs tangled together, Matt running his hand up and down her arm. His fingers had come to rest on a tiny scar on her elbow that he had noticed before, but somehow always forgot to ask her about.
“This kid on my street-“ Karen started
“Name?”
“Jake Burton. Anyway, he kept bragging about how no one had as good a bike as he had. He would not shut up about it. So I challenged him to a race.”
Matt laughed, instantly imagining the scene and a young Karen Page not putting up with any bullshit. Some things never change. “So, what happened?”
“I beat him by a mile. But I got a little too overzealous before we reached the finish line. My tires spun out and I flew off the damn bike. I came away with that scar, and I scraped my knees pretty badly too. But it was worth it.”
Matt smiled as he lifted her arm so he could drop a kiss on her scar.
“Please tell me he went to get help. Or at the very least acknowledged that you won”.
“That would be a no on both counts. He rode away as fast as he could.”
“Where does this idiot live? Daredevil might have to enact your revenge all these years later.”
“I honestly have no idea. His family moved away not long after that. I like to think it was because he couldn’t face me again after his defeat”.
“Oh, I think that was definitely the reason”
“Right?” Karen said, laughing as Matt pulled her on top of him and kissed her.
*****************************************
“You do realize there won’t be any cookies at all if you keep eating the dough, right?”
Having skipped breakfast entirely, they hadn’t realized until their stomachs started growling while they were still lying in bed that they were well on the way to skipping lunch as well. Rummaging through the cabinets, Karen had found a bag of chocolate chips, which gave the urge to make chocolate chip cookies. But Matt was eating all of the dough.
“You are no fun, Page. Eating the dough is the best part” Matt said, taking a spoon, filling it with dough before gently cupping her chin and bringing the spoon to her mouth.
Karen took in the spoonful of dough, giving a little moan of pleasure.
“Alright, you may have a point, Murdock. But seriously, we have to stop, I actually want cookies” she laughed as she tossed him an apple.
“Eat this to tide you over” she said, quickly rolling what was left of the dough into balls and putting them on the cookie sheet. But Matt was too quick, and he grabbed three of them before she could put the sheet in the oven, giving her the grin he knew she was helpless to resist.
“Remind me next time to make a double batch” she muttered.
*******************************************
“How long did it take you to learn this?” Karen asked him.
“Couple hours” Matt answered, trying and failing to hide his smirk.
Karen laughed as she swatted him on the arm.
She had asked him soon after they had started dating if he would teach her how to read braille. He had given her one quick lesson, but it had been a little over a year ago now. Their busy schedules had quickly put her lessons on the back burner.
“Well, I’m sure you picked it up much quicker than I am. I feel like I’m never going to get this.”
“Remember, you always want to move your finger from left to right in a cell, not up and down.”, he told her, putting his hand on top of hers and gently guiding it over the page.
They sat side by side for another hour, Matt helping and reminding her along the way. Karen made him promise her lessons would be a once a week thing going forward. Matt happily agreed, loving how committed she was to learning about this part of his world.
**********************************
“I really wish you hadn’t said pizza because now that’s all I want”, Matt said, nibbling on a cookie.
They were discussing what to have for dinner and Karen had casually mentioned how good pizza would taste. It was the perfect meal for a snow day.
“Do you think they’re open?” Karen asked.
“We could call and find out. The plows finally made their way here a couple hours ago.”
Karen got up to peek out of the window. “The sidewalks don’t seem too bad anymore either. But I’m almost afraid to call. Because if they’re closed you realize we’re going to have to settle for something really boring to eat. I think about all we can have are frozen dinners.” Karen said, nevertheless picking up her phone to dial their preferred pizza place.
She almost couldn’t believe her ears when someone picked up.
“Paisano’s” a gruff voice answered.
“Oh my God, you guys are actually open?” she blurted out.
“Apparently so”, the voice on the other end barked.
Karen rolled her eyes. The family that ran the restaurant was definitely not well versed in the “be nice to your customers” concept. But the pizza was so good, it was well worth it
“Can I get a large pepperoni?” Karen asked and confirmed her phone number and delivery address.
“Success!” Karen exclaimed as she hung up the phone and went back to join Matt on the couch. She took the opposite end bringing her legs up and smiled as Matt grabbed her socked feet and brought them onto his lap. A comfortable silence settled over them as they waited for their pizza. When the extremely crabby delivery guy showed up Matt gave him a generous tip for coming out in the snow.
“Maybe they’ll be a little nicer the next time we call if they think we’re good tippers.” Matt said as he brought the pizza over to the table.
“That may be wishful thinking, Murdock” Karen told him as she grabbed plates, napkins and a couple of beers.
They dug into the pizza, polishing off the entire thing.
******************************************
“All right…show time. What are you in the mood for?”
“You tell me, Page. You’d know much better than I would what a good snow day movie is.”
Karen had been somewhat appalled at her boyfriend’s lack of movie knowledge when they had first started dating. Top Gun and some of the Brat Pack movies were about the only ones he was familiar with. She had made it her mission to educate him on everything that he had been missing. They tried to have a movie night every couple of weeks, a tradition that started even before they had moved in together, but they had both been so busy since the holidays this would be their first one since Christmas, when she had introduced him to It’s a Wonderful Life. Karen loved getting to rewatch her old favorites, but she loved showing them to Matt for the first time even more. And while he had been somewhat skeptical at first, Matt eventually found himself genuinely enjoying their movie nights, and was thrilled when Karen suggested they watch one tonight.
Karen started going through her DVD collection, stopping when she came to one of her absolute favorites.
“Oh, have I got a treat for you, Murdock. I can’t believe I haven’t made you watch this already. Terrible job on my part. The Princess Bride.”
Matt smiled. “That’s the one you and Foggy and Marci wouldn’t stop quoting at brunch that time.”
“You will soon find out why. This is one of the most quotable movies ever made. Trust me, you will love this.”
Matt smiled as Karen put the disc in her laptop, setting it on the coffee table and curled up against him on the couch. If nothing else, he knew he’d enjoy it simply because Karen obviously loved it so much. He grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around them.
Karen was thrilled as the movie went on that Matt seemed to be loving it as much as she did. She noticed his eyes tearing up when Westley and Buttercup were reunited at last, and again when Inigo finally avenged his father’s death.
When it was finished, she took the disc out of her laptop and looked at him.
“OK, what’s the verdict? You liked it, right?”
“Liked isn’t a strong enough word. That movie is incredible. Excellent choice, Page.”
“Yay! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I knew you would. Anyone who doesn’t love The Princess Bride has not seen The Princess Bride.”
Matt laughed. “I think I can safely say that is a true statement. Hey….”, he mused.
“What?”
“Can we maybe watch this one again on our next movie night?”
Karen smiled from ear to ear.
“As you wish.”
******************************************************
“You have no idea how much I needed today”, Matt said as Karen climbed in bed next to him.
Matt turned to his side and propped himself up on his elbow. Karen adjusted the covers over herself.
“You and me both, Murdock”.
“Thank you for today, Karen. Seriously. I never would have thought to take a real snow day.”
Karen beamed at him, which he could always sense. It never failed to make him melt.
Matt leaned down to kiss her as she ran her hand through his hair. He moved to lie down, snuggling up next to her, head under her chin as they both wrapped their arms around each other.
“Mmmm…can we do this again tomorrow?” Matt murmured into the nape of her neck, only half joking.
Karen kissed his forehead. “I wish.”
They didn’t go to sleep for a while. They stayed cuddled together, murmuring softly to each other, teasing, talking about what the rest of the week had in store, both eventually falling asleep with smiles on their faces.