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Matt banged the door on Karen’s face and walked towards the exit.
Feeling around, she found some sort of bat and closed her hand around it, just in case - even if, she was pretty sure, it would not be of much help - when she heard the men walking in and the disturbing noises of a fight. A nasty one.
Peeking through the irregular frame and busted wood, she could see him, Daredevil, moving like she had seen before, before she knew he was Matt, with three different guys at a time.
Part of her was impressed. The other, bigger part, was scared shitless because as much as she knew he could do this, the thought of anything going wrong now meant that Matt would get hurt.
So her heart was about to explode out of her chest.
Thankfully, he could handle himself. When he had his arm around the last guy’s throat, slowly but surely lowering him to the ground while he lost his senses, Karen opened the door and stepped out.
Only to find a pair of arms around herself, a hand on her neck and a knife to her waist and a barked order, towards Daredevil, who released the other guy and started towards her.
“Don’t you fucking move! Don’t you move or I swear I’ll kill-”
A gun shot, her own scream, and she was free, the man falling by her side and at her feet, blood spilling out.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Red?!” Frank, suddenly, walking through the same door Matt’s opponents had come through, his pet shotgun swinging from his holster, peeking out of his coat while he walked.
“Frank-” she breathed.
“Goddamit! Are you incapable of spending ten seconds without killing anyone? What the hell is your problem?!” Matt was screaming back at him while walking towards her.
“My problem?”
“Are you ok?” Matt, Daredevil, Matt asked her, fingers on her face, but then away, just checking.
“Yeah, I-”
“You’re the one walking into a goddamn trap. Do you know how many of these assholes are coming up those stairs right now?”
“I can handle it!”
“And what are you doing here?” Frank’s question was directed at her this time. “Did you bring her with you to this? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“I didn’t bring her with me, we met down the street!”
Frank, now standing in front of her, looked from Daredevil to her, like he was about to scold her.
“You’re a piece of work, d’you know that?”
She opened her mouth to say something, but then Matt was running towards the door, jumping and pushing his feet on the newcomers chest, knocking him to the ground, punching him unconscious before he could catch his breath again.
“You have to get out of here. Now!” Frank barked at her while she watched Matt literally climb a wall and land behind a second man, punching him on the small of his back and kicking the back of his knees before turning around and starting with a different man, from the new group that was pouring from the door.
Frank turned around, picked his gun from his side and shot two that were advancing on Matt.
“Get her out of here!”
Turning around, he pulled Karen by her elbow towards the stairs in the back of the room and climbed with her, quickly. When they reached the door to what she assumed was the roof, he bust the padlock open with a fire extinguisher and opened it for her.
“You have your gun?” he asked, hand still on her elbow.
“Uh n-no, I didn’t think I’d need it today, I-”
“Goddamit.”
He reached behind him and pulled one, giving it to her.
“You wait here until it’s over. Somebody who is not me or Red come through this door you shoot’em. Got it?”
She looked at the gun in her hand.
“Karen! You shoot’ em in the face! You got that?”
She looked at him and nodded quickly.
“Y-yeah”
Suddenly, he had his hand on the back of her neck and his mouth on top of hers.
Her body froze and the taste of strong coffee bled on her tongue while Frank kissed her fiercely. Before she could do much more than open her mouth and slide her tongue once against his, he was pushing her outside, closing the door and running back down the stairs.
Looking behind her, Karen found a spot against a wall without any light from other buildings, where she could still see the door, but could take cover, if she needed.
“Oh, God” she breathed out.
She was shaking, she realized when looking at the gun on her hand. Breathing in and out a few times, she tried to calm her nerves.
For two minutes, she heard nothing, until another gunshot and she was covering her mouth with her hand, because “Oh God, please, don’t let it be Frank or Matt, please, please,
please, please-”
It was another two minutes until she heard something else, and her mind was running with the feeling of Frank’s mouth on hers, the strong taste of him and his hand on her neck.
She didn’t even have time-
There was another gunshot and the door was busting open again and she raised Frank’s gun, but lowered it again when she saw the red suit. But Matt was turning around again and kicking someone behind him, using the door and the wall to hold himself up while his legs raised, locked around the neck of a man twice his size and brought him down, banging the door against his head twice before kicking him back down the stairs and turning to her.
“Ma- wha-what’s going on-”
And then he was close close close, so close, hands on her face, lips on hers, urgent, hard, shallow and oh, shit, shit, shit, she was melting.
“You can’t do this, Karen, you can’t just come to places like this on your own-”
He interrupted himself to kiss her again and she felt like crying because God.
Everything was happening at once, there was no pause to think or feel or do anything.
His hand descended to the place the man had pressed the knife before, looking for a wound.
“I’m fine, I’m ok, he didn’t”, she said, the hand that was not holding the gun raising to the one that still cradled her face.
“Let’s go, come on.”
Matt pulled her towards the main stairs, and she strained her ears for noise, a sign that Frank was still fighting. But he pulled her by the hand and they climbed down, stopping briefly every time they passed a door. Matt could hear much further than she could - she knew that, now, after he explained to her all the ingredients that made it possible for him, and only him, to be Daredevil. Before the echo of their own feet faded and she could strain her ears, he was moving again, pulling her by the hand.
After he opened the door on the ground floor and ran on the hallway towards the exit, Karen’s flesh raised in shivers from the wind.
“Get a cab. Go home. Lock the door.”
“Wait wait wait”, she held him by his arms and looked at his face. He was, of course, bleeding. “What are you… And- and Frank…”
“That’s why I have to go, I have to help him.”
She hesitated and he took the gun from her hand.
“Put this in your purse”.
After she did, he caressed her hair again and pushed her gently towards the street.
“Go. I’ll wait. Go.”
Shaking, nervous, she walked to the sidewalk, into the light and raised her arm, hailing a cab.
Karen looked at him before closing the car door after herself. He waited for the car to start moving and went back inside.
.:.
She waited for two hours. Paced her entire apartment over and over again. Turned the tv on and then immediately off. Sat in silence, tried to eat, gave up, paced some more.
Until there was a knock on the door.
Karen started to run towards it before it occurred to her that it could be someone… Bad.
Stepping carefully, she stood by the door, not behind it, trying to hear something from outside.
“It’s me.”
With a start, she unchained it and turned the key to unlock the door before swinging it open.