[For theluckygirl]

Matthew Murdock has spent an awful lot of his life considering the value of the high road. Taking it has always had a romantic sort of sheen to it — The idea, subconscious but palpable, of himself lined up alongside the saints and martyrs, broken but clean. For a very long time, that's how he imagined it — How he lived it, pushing away the people he loved with an almost religious fervor, sustaining himself on the justice of his own sacrifice. What he never accounted for, though, was how lonely this road would be in actuality.

Because he's on that high road now, make no mistake: What he pushed away has snapped back on him, leaving him alone and with a regret that tastes more bitter than self-righteous. He lives alone, he works alone, and that is all he has. There is no slipping out of windows with an ear cocked to the night, there is no creeping through the valley of the shadow of death. That part of himself he has packed away and put on the shelf. And if it feels like he's carved out part of his heart to pack away with it, well. Maybe that's just how it has to be, now.

He's in a bodega when he catches her scent from the next row over, and the longing it prompts is so acute that he has to steady himself with a hand clamped against the shelf. She has her own life, Claire, and he never would have considering seeking her out, but she stands out among the people he cares about for one trait in particular — She worries for him and makes it clear, but somehow she never makes him feel judged. Nobody else does that.

His game face is back on when he turns the corner, his basket of sad bachelor necessities looped over one arm, a jar of raspberry jam purposely held aloft as he politely clears his throat.

"Excuse me, Miss, do you happen to know if this spaghetti sauce is any good?"