Title: Loggerheads 

Paring: Matt Murdock & Sister!Reader

Warnings: mentions of crimes, blood, injuries (only minor!), alcohol & drinking, and sibling disputes. 

Spoilers: yes, for Season One Daredevil. 

Dedicated to: Ultimate_Reader10 who asked for this aaages ago and I'm terrible and kinda...forgot about it? Aaah please forgive me!!

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In the evenings, you'd try to get as much done as possible. Case files, house chores, working the job off hours. Being a police officer in Hell's Kitchen was hard, but being a Murdock? Double. Mostly because it was your name, your blood that boiled under your skin; you couldn't just wake up one day and decide to not be ______ Murdock. Especially when you had your little brother Matt to take care of. As for being a police officer? It was Hell's Kitchen! It was like crime was asking to be caught on camera phone. So, you took long nights, worked all the overtime your body could handle, and tried to keep an eye out for your Matt.

He hated being mothered. Even before the accident, when you'd take care of him, coming home from being punched up at school, and Dad after one of his days in the ring, they didn't like feeling as powerless as to need help. Weird concept, seeing how the Murdock boys had the Devil in them – and the Devil sure liked to stir up some hell.

It was a Thursday evening – no, it was the early hours of Friday – when you were supposed to be sleeping beside an ill-gotten date (you'd locked him up earlier the evening for fraudulence and money-laundering) when you figured out that your brother was the anti-police vigilante running around in kids' pyjamas kicking butt and being kicked in the butt.

That was when you broke.

"Matthew Michael Murdock, you open your door!" You yell, beating on the door as if your fists could fell it. With your fury, you could probably do it.

There was a shuffle, and the door your fists had made dents into opened, revealing the face of your little brother. He was only a year younger than you, and all through school until the accident he'd insisted on being as independent as he could be, trying to mimic Dad. But now, by the look of his face, he'd turned into the both of your father – his face was bruised, stitches and puckering colour littering his skin, a black eye and fat lip forming.

"I fell over," he lies.

You know it's a lie, because that's your job. You're a police officer, and basically, the lie detector of the squad downtown. You knew when the perp was talking out of their ass, or honestly, or off-track to the subject. You give him a big smile – even if Matt can't see, you know he can sense your teeth being bared in sarcastic joy.

"Bullshit." You push past him, making way into his apartment. "I know where you go at night." The door closes, and he feels his way into the living area. Your eyes scan over the dimly lit room – nothing is out of place, not even the trash compactor, or the shelf of glasses, or his braille bookshelf. "Daredevil?"

You watch as he hesitates. "Who?"

You laugh. "I'm not an idiot. I'm the one who figured out first that you can see a bit, remember? Matt, you can't just run around the city and whack-a-mole the bad guys! You're – you're a lawyer! You've got prospects, I'm a cop, I can take care of these people!" you cry out.

Matt moves, and settles upon his couch slowly. From the way he moves, you wonder if he's hurt his ribs, or maybe his collar bone.

"How long have you known?" He whispers.

You shake your head, and move toward his kitchen. If there was anything you knew about your family, it was that Murdock's always had whiskey on hand, and one spare for cleaning up wounds. Sure enough, there's a bottle in the cupboard, and taking two glasses, you sit opposite your brother on his coffee table.

"Three days," you sigh. "Ever since you-you helped Ms. Page, and Daredevil helped the same woman." You pour the drink, and press it into his hands, making sure that his fingers are around the cup before letting go. "I'm only a little mad, Matt."

He stiffens; even if he's a piñata of broken bones, he's ready to fight. "You have no right to be mad." His tone is almost a warning. "You're not my mother, ________."

You nod. "Yeah. I have a right! You signed away all rights for me to be not mad when you started dressing up, and ending up in dumpsters! This is the same thing as prep school all over again, except these guys have guns, and knives, Matt! And," you take a deep breath, and taking this time to drink your glass like a shot, continue, "Just because I'm not your mother doesn't mean I don't care."

He softens. "________-,"

You shake your head. "Shut up. I paid for you to go to freaking law school, Matt. I made you make something of yourself. I pulled strings for you to get this place, often enough, to make rent for the office you have with Nelson downtown." Your voice is dangerously low; all your cards are on the table, for him to know. "I'm sure not sorry for caring for you, Matthew, but when Dad died, he left me to take care of you."

Matt makes a noise. It sounds something halfway between a moan, and an exclamation, and looking up from your hands, you see him holding his ribs. Called it, you think.

"Don't tell me you've turned into a nut-job who doesn't want to go to hospital." You sigh.

"I – my phone," he whimpers. "Claire. Call Claire."

Reaching into his pocket, you fish out his phone, and scrolling through, find a woman named Claire in his contacts. "I'm guessing you want me to call her? Please, Matt, tell me she's not for a booty call. You need medical help." Chuckling, "Both for the body and inside your head."

He cracks a smile. "She's – a nurse."

By the time you've called her, and Matt's talked her into coming to patch him up ("On my night off! I expect a big present this Christmas, buddy!" she protests), you've made sure Matt is positioned as so he can breathe as much as his body can handle, and that you have another drink in your system. Thank Tony Stark for his insistence for new subway tunnels around the city.

"Sorry I was mad coming over," you down your next drink, glancing to your younger brother. You're not sure if he's being less irritating with every drink, or you're becoming more drunk. Either way, the Murdock siblings are not at loggerheads as usual. "I know I'm not Mom."

Matt makes a noise. It isn't bad like the one before; it's more like a hum of acknowledgement.

"Sorry I brought her up. I know you're just doing what you think –," he takes a big gasp of air, "is right."

You make a noise too. "Just promise you'll call for me when it gets too much. We're good people, Matt, really. Even if we are the ones with guns on our belt." You feel yourself teetering back, and grab onto the lip of the coffee table before you fall off. "You gonna let me crash here tonight?" You ask him, and hearing a knock, you rise to answer the door, albeit shaky on your legs. "That must be Claire. She's more of a hero than you, coming to patch you up at odd hours," you muse, crossing to the door.

As you open the door, you are met with Claire. You take in her dark hair, and glowing skin, and let her into the apartment your brother has. By the time she's patched up Matt, you're feeling sleepy – probably not all from the alcohol – and have taken residence on the other couch, eyes lowered, ready for sleep to take you.

A thought crosses your mind before you're off to the land of nod – you'd gotten it done. The hard-to-do thing that was on the to-do-list of yours for the last three days after you figured it out. Confronted Matt. Check. It wasn't like you were your brother's keeper...more like caretaker. You had to be the guardian angel who'd swoop in and avenge who'd try to kick his ass. In the evenings, you'd try to get as much done as possible. Case files, house chores, working the job off hours. Being a police officer in Hell's Kitchen was hard, but being a Murdock? Double. But being the sister to Matt Murdock wasn't just a hard job. It was the best job you could think of being given.