Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hell’s Kitchen lay before him, flickering and alive, an inferno. His inferno. His world on fire; flashes of heat and sound, buzzing electricity, beating hearts, the acrid smell of sweat and cigarettes and the taste of blood on his lips. It was something between heaven and hell—a purgatory. The domain of a prowling, hungry devil. 

Or… it had been, once. 

Matthew Murdock crouched like a gargoyle atop a water tower, just a few rooftops away from his apartment, and tore the ruined glove off of his hand. It was slashed through completely. Soaked in blood. He’d been clumsy tonight; dizzy, Josie’s rotgut swill still coursing through his system. He’d caught the edge of a knife in a fight on 45th. Not the worst injury he’d ever received; not even in his top fifty.

And nothing like the injuries he’d inflicted tonight.

Matt had left the asshole bloodied and whimpering, with a fractured wrist and a concussion he’d be nursing for days, and zip-tied him to a chain-link fence. The cops would find him within the hour. And the woman he’d been attacking was safely in an ambulance, halfway to Metro General by now.

Unconsciously, Matt ran his tongue across his lip. Copper blossomed over his taste buds, hot and sour and sharp. It wasn’t his blood. He shivered, torn between disgust and a terrible delight, and the devil inside him rumbled softly. Pleased.

A sharp twinge of guilt knifed through him, and Matt hastily crossed himself.

He wasn’t Daredevil. Not anymore. This was just… a fluke. 

There was a reason he’d gone back to his black suit; a reason he’d never returned to the horned cowl and red body armor. Daredevil was a figure for a time long past—a time before Thanos, before half the universe dying and resurrecting in some perverse sort of judgment day. Daredevil was insignificant, really, in the grand scheme of things. What could he do against aliens? Against gods and monsters and cosmic nightmares? That’s what the Avengers were for. The world, it seemed, had outgrown Daredevil.

Matt clutched the gaping wound in his hand and hissed in pain, thinking again of tonight’s fight. The spiking heart rate of the woman as Matt had pushed away her attacker. The thudding war drum beats of fists against flesh, against bone. The sound of distant sirens; the wailing of a city mired in misery and crime. 

He couldn’t ignore the pleas for help. Not when they happened within his domain. He fought; he bled; he prowled in the darkness. But he did it as himself . As Matt Murdock.

Be careful of the Murdock boys… they got the devil in ‘em.

Matt crossed his legs and closed his eyes, sending out his focus along the city; like hands, running over an enormous braille map. He listened to the tipsy giggles of bar crawlers, scented heaps of garbage and rats’ nests. And he tasted the ozone on the air, the metallic sting of a storm moving in. Still distant, but rolling steadily forward. Powerful, if the low rumble of thunder was any indication. Rageful, even.

After a moment he turned his focus north, toward his own apartment, where Karen Page was sleeping fitfully in his bed. She murmured something in her sleep, and in spite of himself, Matt smiled.

There were a few places that Matt frequented on nights like this; safe spaces where he could survey his city. The cross above Clinton Church, the rooftop of Fogwell’s Gym, the fire escape behind Nelson and Murdock… but invariably, when Karen stayed over, Matt found himself here; perched on a water tower, only a few buildings away.

Where he could sense her. Hear her, smell her. Feel her. She and his city, both at once.

She slept over more and more these days. And, as hesitant as Matt was to say it—fearful of jinxing it, of ruining it the same way he managed to ruin everything else in his life—she belonged there. He could sense it in her posture, her gait, even the tonal gradations of her voice. She felt safer at Matt’s place than at her own. Happier. She was home there.

Matt angled his head toward the apartment. She was still mumbling softly, the silk sheets rustling as she tossed restlessly beneath them. It sounded like she was having a nightmare. She was on the verge of waking; she’d find the bed empty, and she would panic. She slept better when Matt was next to her. 

Guilt began to simmer in his stomach, and he stood up. If he hurried, if he leapt across the rooftops and through the rising wind, he could make it back home before she woke up. He could slide in bed next to her and bury her face into his shoulder before she even realized he was gone. And they’d sleep through the impending storm together.

As he stood at the lip of the water tower, one foot dangling over the edge, Karen woke up.

He heard her lurch upright, slightly breathless. She whispered his name—and again—reaching for him across the empty silk sheets. She was panicking, he knew, but trying to suppress it; reassuring herself that this was normal. That this was the life she’d chosen, the life Matt had given her. Trying to swallow down the primal fear and pain that came with loving the Devil.

That fear was his fault. Her pain was his fault.

His burner phone began to buzz in his pocket. He fished it out and flipped it open, pressing it to his ear.

“Go back to sleep, Karen.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, voice still thick with sleep. “Did something happen?”

“The usual,” Matt said. “Nothing too—”

“Injuries?” She was shuffling around the apartment now, slipping into her shoes and grabbing her purse. “Need the kit?”

Matt hesitated. “It’s not bad.”

There was a soft huff of humorless laughter. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Really, not bad. Stings a little. It’ll heal fast.” He wiped some of the dripping blood onto his pants. “Go back to bed, please. I’m on my way home.”

“Too late,” Karen said. And he could hear the click and lock of the apartment door. “I’ll come to you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” she said firmly. “Stay put, I mean it.”

Matt hesitated, then sighed, biting back a small smile. He held up his hands in mock defeat. “Okay, okay.”

And she hung up before he could say anything else.

Matt hesitated on the edge of the water tower for a moment, shifting from foot to foot, wondering if he should go to her and guide her back to the apartment. But Karen was a force to be reckoned with, he knew. She wouldn’t be deterred from a path she’d set out on, whether that path was meeting Matt on a water tower at 2:00 in the morning, or baring her teeth in the face of hardened criminals. It was best to accept it and deal with the fallout later.

Even if that fallout was as simple as protecting her from the rain when tonight’s storm finally, inevitably, came.

It didn’t take long for her scent to reach him; apple blossom shampoo, spearmint toothpaste, hints of Josie’s Bar and Grill. The slightly dusty smell of Matt’s apartment. And beneath it all, the intoxicating scent of her skin. Warm, somehow; bright, but subtle. A little like summer dandelions. Like sunbathed earth.

Matt took a long breath in, suppressing a shudder of pleasure, and focused on tracking her walk through the streets. 

She was shivering, hands jammed into the pockets of one of Matt’s Columbia hoodies, but she moved quickly; and in a matter of minutes, she was entering the building below him. He listened to her quick ascent up the stairs, then the click and push of the rooftop access door. She made her way slowly across the rooftop—hands held a bit in front of her, too dark for her to see much—and came to a stop at the base of the water tower.

“Matt?” she said softly. “I know you’re up there.”

“You’re cold,” he said, a little louder so she could hear him. 

Karen shivered as if on cue. “Then you’d better warm me up. Where’s the ladder?”

Matt stood and walked down to the lip of the tower. Then he dropped off the edge, catching himself at the last minute, his fingers clinging to the rusty metal. He shimmied his way along the edge until he got to the ladder. It was halfway up the ground; probably hadn’t been used in weeks. Matt hadn’t bothered with it earlier tonight, preferring to climb silently up the side.

He found the bolt holding up the ladder and released it. It screeched, shrill and ugly—Matt resisted the urge to cover his ears—and came to a clattering halt on the cement at Karen’s feet. She immediately began to climb, putting her bag into her mouth as she made her way up to Matt’s level.

About halfway up, she slipped.

Matt knew it before she did; he caught her by the arm before she even realized what happened. He hoisted her up higher, catching her around the waist, and she yelped in surprise—her bag plummeting toward the ground.

Matt caught it around his foot and slung it up toward himself, catching it with his free hand.

“Showoff,” Karen muttered, her heart rate spiking. Matt laughed and pressed his face into her neck, planting soft kisses at the corner of her jaw.

When they were both safely atop the water tower, Matt sat down and pulled her in close, running his good hand along her arm to try and get some warmth back into her goosebumps skin. “You’re freezing.”

He could hear the muscles in her face tightening slightly as she frowned. She reached for his injured hand. “You’re bleeding.”

Matt shrugged. “Barely.”

“Stitches?” 

Matt hesitated for a moment, focusing on the gash across his skin. Already the pain was receding, the bleedings slowed to a crawl. “No. It’ll heal.”

“Are you lying to me?”

He grabbed her hand, pressing it to his chest, and ran his fingers along the bumps of her knuckles. “I’m all right, Karen. Promise.”

She was still for a moment, feeling for his heartbeat. Her fingers twitched slightly against his chest. Matt was sure she couldn’t really feel his pulse, but the touch seemed to comfort her. After a while she nodded. “Still, you need a bandage. I brought the kit.”

Matt tilted his head, listening as Karen rummaged through her bag. It was small, easily concealable; she often had it on hand. Made sense, he supposed, given his nighttime profession. It was nothing compared to the one he kept at the office, let alone the industrial-sized kit back at home. Still, it was something.

“Roll up your sleeve,” Karen said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said, snorting, and obeyed. Karen assessed the wound for a minute in silence. She wasn’t really a nurse; had very little practice. Still, though, after years of involvement with the Devil, she’d picked up a few tips and tricks. Enough to get by.

She dug through the kit until she’d found an alcohol pad, and tore it open with her teeth. Then, with a gentle squeeze to his wrist, she passed it firmly along the wound in his palm. He hissed at the sting—softly, so she couldn’t hear it. She was so thorough, so careful, and far more gentle than she needed to be. Really, he thought, the first-aid was more for Karen’s peace of mind than his. But he didn’t mind it; not with her soft fingers passing over him, her hot breath raising the hair along his arms. The intoxicating smell of her skin and the reassuring pattern of her heartbeat.

Something tingled along his skin—electricity, he thought. And sure enough, a low roll of thunder sounded just a moment later; still a few miles away, but moving closer. It was loud enough, anyway, for Karen to hear. She looked up at the sound and shivered.

“You should go home. Before the storm hits.”

“I’m fine, Matt.” She set his hand in her lap and reached for the kit again, pulling out a bandage and fiddling with the wrapper. “Not like the rain’s ever been a problem for us, anyway.”

He knew what she was remembering.

It was raining when she first saw him; not as Matt Murdock, but as the Devil. The raindrops were sharp, rageful, like shards of ice slicing along his skin. The world was a maelstrom of sound; thunder, drumming, the powerful rush of water, as he fought off her attacker. As he bled. As he caught her scent, the fearful pounding of her heart, beneath the chaos of the storm.

Or perhaps she was thinking of another time; their first kiss, maybe, just outside of Josie’s. Not the Devil that time. Just a man, and a woman, and breathless smiles as their lips met through the sluicing rainfall.

“No,” he said softly. He pressed his face into hers, running his nose along the contours of her cheek before catching the corner of her lips into a soft kiss. “I guess not.”

She smiled into his lips, her breathing a little unsteady, her heartbeat picking up slightly. Then she hesitated, wanting to kiss him more deeply, perhaps. Pull him closer. But after a moment, she shook her head a little and returned to the task at hand.

As she opened the bandage, Matt turned his focus back toward the empty apartment just a few buildings away.

She didn’t live with him, not yet; but she spent most nights there anyway. The bed was probably still warm. He wanted to take her back there; to gather her into his arms and carry her across the streets of the Kitchen, to place her softly upon the mattress and climb in after her. He wanted to run his fingers along her shoulders and her spine until she fell asleep again. Warm against his chest. Happy. Safe.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked her after a moment or two. 

She kept her head down, focused on Matt’s hand, though he could hear the muscles tightening in her forehead, like she was raising her eyebrows. “You’re one to talk.”

“You were tossing and turning for a while,” he said. “Talking in your sleep. Mumbling.”

“Hmm.” She carefully placed the bandage onto his palm.

“Nightmare?” he said softly.

She pressed her palm over the bandage, holding it tight against his skin. Warmth flooded from her hand into his body, like she was pouring steaming water directly over his skin, and Matt suppressed a shiver.

“You spying on me?”

The corner of his lip quirked up. “And if I was?”

“Then I’d say it’s a normal Tuesday for Matt Murdock,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice as she crumpled up the bandage wrapper and shoved it back inside the kit. “That’s why you’re up here, isn’t it?”

In response, Matt shifted to sit behind her. He situated himself until she was seated between his legs, her back pressed against his chest, warmth radiating like a sunbeam where their bodies connected. From this position he could feel her heartbeat more than hear it; as though it wasn’t hers, but his. Pounding through his veins, along his skin, pumping fiery blood throughout his entire body until his skin felt feverish.

“You can talk about it if you want,” Matt said. He brought his arms up and wrapped them around her. “The nightmare.”

She reached up and clutched at his arms, holding him just a little tighter than usual—like she was worried he would slip away. Then she took a long breath. “Wouldn’t help.”

“Kevin?”

She shook her head. “Wesley.”

Matt tightened his grip and leaned forward until his chin was resting on her shoulder. “You’re safe,” he said. “Fisk—he can’t come after you. Not anymore.”

“That’s not really what I’m worried about,” she said.

Matt knew it; knew it all too well. Understood the guilt she was feeling, even if he himself hadn’t crossed that line. Some days were better for her than others; sometimes she’d go weeks without talking about it, weeks of restful sleep and happier days. Every so often, though, it came back to haunt her; visions of blood, of bullet holes and slumped over bodies, cold warehouses, raging monsters, and the cement heaviness of guilt.

He closed his eyes and nuzzled his head a little further into her neck, trying to offer her some sort of distraction. It seemed to work a little. Her breathing grew more steady, anyway.

“So, what was it tonight?” she asked after a while.

“Mugging.”

“You’re not usually this worked up over a mugging.”

“There may have been a few,” Matt said grudgingly, his body tensing. “And… an assault.” He took a shuddering breath, the taste of blood on his skin overpowering him for a moment. The taste of blood, and the thudding drumbeat of his heart as he he punched the man, over and over and over…

Let the Devil out. 

Karen made a soft sympathetic sound and pulled out of his grip, turning around so she could face him fully. She took his hands, playing idly with them for a moment, then leaned forward until her forehead was pressed against the black fabric of his mask. “And you still say Daredevil’s ‘retired’?”

“He is,” Matt said firmly.

She lifted a hand and wrapped it around the back of Matt’s neck, catching one of the hanging strips of fabric that tied the mask to his head. “So the black suit and mask ensemble is… what? A fashion statement?”

“He’s retired, not dead,” Matt said. And he set his jaw. “I can’t just do nothing. Not when I can hear… the things I hear.”

“I know,” she said, still playing with his mask. “It’s who you are… the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.” She hesitated, then ran a finger underneath the edge of his mask, tracing over his cheekbones, his nose. And, after a beat of hesitation, she shifted it up until she’d revealed his eyes. “I just… I don’t know why you can’t call it what it is.”

Her hand halted then, cradling his face. Matt leaned into it and closed his eyes.

“Daredevil was a symbol,” he said. And he was; a warning, a guardian, keeping the city on the path of the righteous. Like a warrior from God, he cast out the demons of Hell’s Kitchen. He sought out the source of rot, of corruption and evil, and he purged it. Now, though, in a world so utterly transformed… with demons so much stronger than before, so unknowable…

What could he do against the threats that the world faced now?

“And a symbol can’t save this city,” he finished. “Not anymore.”

Karen ran her thumb back and forth over Matt’s cheek and took a breath. He could tell she wanted to argue with him; but she seemed to sense the futility of it, and leaned forward, catching his lips in hers.

And as she did, the storm broke over their heads.

Karen gave a startled laugh as the first of the raindrops hit, light and icy against her hot skin. She leaned further into Matt, running her nose along his, biting her lip as she gazed at him. Matt laughed too, a soft huff, and reached up to run a thumb across her brow, wiping away some of the streaming rain. And he hovered over her lips—waiting for her to lean in to meet him.

And she did.

“I love you, Karen,” Matt said after a moment; soft, a little breathless. Thunder sounded overhead, insistent and rolling, and electricity tingled along his skin. He picked up her hand and traced the outline of her fingers. He opened his mouth to say something else—and a sudden wave of emotion swelled inside him. The magnitude of it made him tremble. Words were inadequate. He took a small shuddering breath and closed his eyes. “So… so much.”

“I love you, too,” she said, laughing softly against his mouth. And, uninterested in being apart, she resumed the kiss. The rain drummed against the water tower, almost singing; a strange metallic melody. The smell of ozone and rust was a steady note underneath it all, but not enough to overpower the intoxicating scent of her. 

After a few minutes she hummed softly then turned back around, settling against him, picking up his arms and wrapping them around herself. He buried his face in her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of their head. And they sat together in silence for some time.

The rain began to soften, settling into a steady drizzle, the faint droplets like the tingle of static along his skin.

Matt took a long, centering breath and gathered his focus; letting it settle beyond the rain, beyond the heat of Karen’s body against his. And he surveyed his city once again. He knew, vaguely, what it looked like; remembered the sight from his childhoods, on muggy nights when his dad would bring him up to the top of Fogwell’s and sit with him under the twilight sky. The city sparkled, he remembered; it shimmered and shivered, in the heat and in the cold. The skyscrapers stood like solitary black ghosts in the darkness, silhouetted, and glittered with yellow and white lights.

It looked, he remembered, like a starry sky.

Somehow, though, it was even more beautiful now; fiery and smoldering in his “vision,” his world on fire like something from beyond this life. Something waiting for him after. And even now, blind as he was, he could “see” the city as his father had shown it to him—pockets of heat and sound, pinpoints of life within the city; sticking out in his mind like stars across the dark cityscape.

He opened his mouth, intending to describe the image to Karen, and paused. She was breathing slowly and evenly against him, her heart beating steadily. She was so peaceful. She was… asleep. Matt let out a small, disbelieving huff of laughter. Here, even in the rain, in the cold of the city, she had fallen asleep against his chest.

Somehow—impossibly, miraculously—she felt safe with him. Safe enough to sleep in the devil’s arms, in the middle of the night, in the rain, far above the swirling danger of Hell’s Kitchen… she trusted him to keep her safe.

He swallowed. He didn’t deserve this. This strange, swelling, beautiful, maddening, safe, peaceful, warm, fiery, quiet, roaring, reverent love. 

He burrowed his face into her hair, trembling, losing himself in the smell of her, the feel of her. He shouldn’t have this. And yet, somehow, he did. 

“I’m going to marry you,” he whispered. She stirred slightly in her sleep, giving a small hum of contentment. He laughed, a little shaky, and pressed a kiss to her hair.

At home, hidden in the chest where he once kept his Daredevil suit—in the chest with his father’s old boxing gear—was a small velvet box. A gift, a family heirloom, he’d inherited from his father. A silver ring, a small diamond. A future.

“I’m going to marry you,” he repeated.

He let her sleep for a few more minutes. But the rain picked up again, and she began shivering in her sleep. He gently nudged her awake. She stretched against him, sighing, and he pulled his mask back down over his head and helped her to her feet. He guided her down the ladder. And, splashing along the puddled pavement, dreamily through the chill spring rain, they walked home together.

#####

Peter Parker landed heavily atop his apartment building, the sticky strings of his web still floating featherlike in the early morning air. The sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon; a soft white glow that crept like a cloud over the cityscape. He took a long breath in. There was something nice in it; crisp and bright, hints of rain from last night’s storm, and high enough above the grime of the city that he could imagine, for a moment, that Queens was actually pleasant.

He’d been patrolling through most of the night. Queens wasn’t generally too rough of an area; still, though, there was never a shortage of things to do. Helping drunks get home safely, stopping petty thefts, helping old ladies cross the street…

Okay, maybe he didn’t do that in the middle of the night. But the principle was the same.

Either way, Peter was exhausted. 

He crept down the side of the building and slid open his window, dropping with a thump to the floor of his cold studio apartment. He took a deep breath and looked around himself.

It was the same as he’d left it; his sewing machine littered with scraps of red and blue fabric from a patch-up job he’d been working on, an empty can of Spaghetti-Os on the counter, and a stack of bills on top of the fridge that he’d been doing his best to ignore.

And, piled haphazardly on his bed, a stack of job applications.

He was quickly running out of money. And he didn’t have a whole lot of job options; after the fiasco with Dr. Strange, all his records had been wiped. His high school transcripts. His social security number. His birth certificate. And besides that, jobs were hard to come by these days, in the chaos after the blip. Especially for someone as unqualified and scattered as he was.

He was a few months behind on rent, and growing desperate.

Peter crossed to the pile of cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, which he used in lieu of a closet. He rummaged through them until he found a shirt and pants that were unwrinkled—or, at least, less wrinkled than the rest—and put them on over the top of his Spider-man suit. Then he crossed to the kitchenette and opened up the fridge.

Half a brown banana. An opened carton of yogurt. A quarter block of moldy cheese and a styrofoam box of two-week-old Chinese takeout. Peter sighed, ignored the rumbling of his stomach, and closed the fridge again.

He figured he’d hit the pavement today and try to pick up a few more applications. And maybe stop for a coffee—he had just enough coins for a small cup from his favorite place.

He grabbed his keys and his thin wallet, then paused in the doorway, looking at his few treasured possessions sitting on his windowsill. A LEGO Palpatine, an empty coffee cup, and a small black shard of glass from a broken Dahlia necklace. Then, straightening his posture a little, he left—through the door this time, not the window.

45 minutes and a subway ride later, he found himself outside a sad, stooping little coffee shop on the borders of Hell’s Kitchen. The bell tinkled in a weary sort of way as he let himself inside.

“Welcome to Bean’s Corner,” came a very bored-sounding voice from behind the counter. Peter’s heart stuttered. It always did. He heard that voice several times a week; that’s why he came here, after all. And still, the sound of it sent shivers of longing down his spine.

“Morning,” Peter said, fishing out a wallet. And he snuck a glance up into her face.

MJ was leaning forward, cheek resting in one hand, drumming black fingernails along the countertop. She wasn’t even looking at Peter, her gaze instead somewhere over his shoulder, like she was thinking about something else. 

She’d been working here for a few weeks now, and she seemed to like it even less than her last place. Peter did, too. The last place had been a lot closer to his apartment. Still, she was worth the extra half-hour. The sight of her face, just hearing the dry monotone of her voice, was worth it. Even if his heart cracked a little every time he saw her.

He grabbed a fistful of change and dropped it onto the counter, carefully counting it out. “One black coffee, please.”

She shot out a hand and slid the change toward herself, dropping the coins one by one into the register. Clink. Clink. Clink. Then, sighing, she turned around and started pouring his coffee. Peter dug through his wallet until he’d found a couple spare dollars, and dropped them into her tip jar.

So, he’d say to her. If things were different. It’s been a while since we’ve talked. Really talked. I’ve missed it. Oh, you don’t remember me? Right, right—let me remind you. I’m Peter. Peter Parker. Your boyfriend.

And I’m also Spider-man, if that’s at all relevant.

Yeah, see, there was a whole thing with Dr. Strange, crazy magic, this goblin guy—but it’s all over now. Everything’s taken care of. The only thing left, really, is to talk to you. You and Ned. To tell you all about it and get you to remember…

You remember? You remember me? It’s all coming back?

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I know I should have—I was just scared, I guess. Thought you might not remember. And I thought, you know… it might be dangerous. Given what I do, all the people I piss off… I was scared. Scared for you.

But you remember, MJ, you remember—and everything’s okay now—everything’s perfect—

MJ turned around, coffee in hand, and set it on the counter. Peter swallowed and looked up into her face, giving her a hesitant smile. She returned it, though it didn’t look all that genuine. 

“Thanks,” he said. 

“Yeah.”

He opened his mouth to say something else, but—like he usually did—he caught sight of the scar on her forehead. A tiny white line, cutting through her eyebrow; a scar she’d received in the fight at the Statue of Liberty. Because of him.

She’d been lucky to escape with her life. Lucky that the scar was the only souvenir she’d kept from that fight.

Lucky, honestly, that she’d forgotten him.

Trying to suppress the nausea rising in his stomach, Peter grabbed the coffee and took a sip. It was pretty terrible—but, again, worth it. “I’ll, uh… see you around,” he said. 

“Yep.” She waved him off half-heartedly, already turning away. Peter closed his eyes, nodded, then turned and walked back out of the shop. Feeling better than he had this morning—and, at the same time, feeling much worse.

He spent the rest of the day wandering from place to place, trying to find a job; bookstores, restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores and delis. Joe’s Pizza was promising, though the pay was abysmal. And, according to their website, The Daily Bugle was looking to hire a photographer. He had little experience, though; and besides that, the thought of working for J. Jonah Jameson made him want to puke.

So, after a long, unproductive day, Peter made his way back to his apartment.

He planned to drop off his civvies and patrol as Spider-man for a while. A night of fighting off criminals, of helping the city, would probably lift his spirits. Besides, he was itching to get back on the trail of a gang he’d been working lately. He’d caught a bunch of Russian guys a few nights ago, passing weapons, talking about some sort of shipment. Drugs, Peter assumed. He figured he could spend some time tonight tracking them, maybe follow the chain and find out who the leader was.

He opened the door to his apartment, and found that someone had slipped a letter under his door. Nonplussed—who would be writing to him?—he bent down and picked up the letter, ripping open the envelope as he straightened.

Dear Peter Parker,

RE: Notice to vacate

This letter serves as formal notice of eviction pursuant to the terms of your rental agreement for the premises located at Wilbur Heights in Queens, NY. It has come to our attention that you are in violation of the terms of your lease agreement due to non-payment of rent.

As a result of this violation, you are hereby required to vacate and surrender the premises to the landlord no later than 30 days from the date posted. Failure to vacate the premises will result in further legal action. 

Peter stopped reading, a tinny sort of ringing in his ears. His mouth went slightly dry. He swallowed, hard, and looked up, staring around himself—at this sad, stupid, ugly, cold, shitty apartment.

An apartment, apparently, that he couldn’t even keep.

“Great,” he said to himself. He laughed unsteadily. “That’s—that’s awesome. I’m gonna be homeless. I’ve been to space, and I’m about to be homeless.”

It wasn’t fair. Damn it, it wasn’t fair. He was Spider-man. He spent his nights, gave up his sleep, his blood, his very skin for this city—and now the city was leaving him behind, kicking him while he was down. It wasn’t fair, it was bullshit. 

He skimmed through the rest of the letter, but it devolved into incomprehensible legalese. A headache started pounding behind his eyes, which compounded the aching of his empty stomach, which sent flares of pain back up into his head, on and on and on. He needed someone else to look at this—someone who could translate it, could maybe help him fight it.

If he wasn’t broke, he’d probably hire a lawyer.

A lawyer…

Peter frowned, a memory stirring somewhere. He didn’t have a lot of experience with this kind of thing—but he’d met with a lawyer once, just a few months ago. He was blind, Peter remembered that much. What was his name? Matt something. Matt Murdock? Yeah, that was it—Matt Murdock—

His eyes widened as he remembered. A shattering glass window. A brick. And lightning-fast reflexes, faster even than Peter’s… tingle.

In all honesty, Peter hadn’t thought much about that moment since it had happened. He’d had other things on his mind; world-ending things, life-changing things, deaths and losses and things forgotten and a life to rebuild. The mystery of his weirdly cool lawyer had sort of faded into the background.

He shook his head. It didn’t matter; he didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer anyway.

Still…

Aunt May was the one who had found Mr. Murdock, Peter was relatively sure. He thought harder, straining to remember, to push past the lump of grief in his throat and think practically. May had hired a lawyer she knew, someone she trusted, to protect Peter from the sharks circling him. She knew Mr. Murdock… through F.E.A.S.T., maybe? Through her charity work? She’d talked to Peter about it, sometimes, the work she organized there—offering food and shelter, help with unemployment and childcare…

And free to low-cost legal services.

Peter reached for his phone, navigating to the abandoned F.E.A.S.T. webpage. Sure enough, Matt Murdock’s name was there, under a long list of resources and referrals. And next to him, his law partner: Franklin P. Nelson. Maybe Peter could find their office, and visit tomorrow morning. They might be able to give him some advice, or at least refer him to someone who could help. Another quick Google search brought him to their simple, outdated-looking website:

Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys at Law.

#####

Matt could smell Foggy before he heard him; the hours-old over-priced cologne, the cheap beer he’d drunk last night at Josie’s, the droplets of sweat he’d accumulated on his five-minute walk from the subway station. That, and the box of powdered donuts he was carrying. The air around him shifted as he opened the door, and the floor vibrated as he walked jauntily inside.

“You’re in a good mood,” Matt said, not bothering to remove his hands from the stack of papers in front of him. “Marci have something to do with that?”

“Always does,” Foggy said. “Morning.” 

He dropped the box of donuts onto Matt’s desk, and Matt felt a few specks of powdered sugar settling onto his paper. He brushed it away, the braille bumps tingling along his fingertips.

“Have a donut,” Foggy said, brandishing one in front of Matt’s face.

Matt wrinkled his nose. “You’re getting powdered sugar all over my suit.”

“Relax, it’s not like you can see it.”

“I can feel it.”

Foggy rolled his eyes (something Matt couldn’t sense, but he knew Foggy well enough to imagine it) and ate the donut himself. “Morning, Karen,” he called, voice muffled through the pastry.

“Hey, Fog.”

Karen was in the next room over, in a small office space they’d dedicated to the investigation side of the firm. She split her time most days; unwilling to leave her work at The Bulletin, but equally as invested in the work they did here. She was juggling more than most—and still, handled it with an ease and a grace that sometimes left Matt breathless.

“Want a donut?”

“Save me one for later,” she said, poking her head out of the doorway. She paused for a minute, and her heart rate rose just a little, the temperature rising slightly across her skin. She was looking at Matt, biting her lip. Smiling at him.

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward, and shook his head, returning to the documents in front of him.

Foggy looked back and forth between the two of them, his mouth stretched into what sounded like a wide grin. He knew what Matt was planning. He’d helped Matt plan it, actually. Matt had spent a few hours in his apartment last week, more nervous than he’d been in years, lost and uncertain how to proceed. He was new at all this, to be perfectly honest. He’d dated around, sure, but only casually. His one real relationship had been with Elektra, and that had been… less than healthy, to put it mildly.

What he had with Karen was different. Almost sacred. He couldn’t afford to mess it up.

So Foggy was more than happy to help him through it; planning the date, picking out Matt’s outfit, helping to organize the restaurant and the music and everything. It was only a few weeks away now. Foggy was almost as excited about it as Matt. 

“So,” Foggy said, dragging a chair from the corner of the office and setting it up next to Matt’s desk. “What’s on the docket today?”

“Not much.”

Foggy groaned. “We’re going to go out of business, Matt. I’m serious. Us, the badasses who took down Wilson Fisk— twice —we’re gonna be bankrupt.”

Matt sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “The blip really screwed us.”

“You can say that again.”

Before Thanos had snapped half the world away, Nelson and Murdock were swimming in clientele. Clientele, but not money. Matt, much to Foggy’s chagrin, focused the firm’s efforts almost entirely on the underprivileged; the tired, poor, huddled masses that made up the majority of Hell’s Kitchen. They didn’t pay much—pastries and fruit, mostly—but there was a satisfaction to that sort of work. A middle finger, as it were, to people like Wilson Fisk; people with money and privilege and enough power to crush New York City under their boots. Each downtrodden client Nelson and Murdock took on was another poke in Wilson Fisk’s eye, and Matt was satisfied.

But that was before the blip. Now, people had other things to worry about. Stranger things. The city, state, and even federal government had bigger fish to fry than the woes of a neighborhood like Hell’s Kitchen.

“So what now?” Foggy asked. 

Matt leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers along the desk. “I’ve put in a request to the DA, to see if he has any backlogged cases. I know he’s overloaded lately.”

“Blake Tower,” Foggy muttered derisively under his breath. “Great.”

“In the meantime,” Karen said, coming out of her office, “Maybe we could all organize some of the old case files. This place is a sty.”

Matt smirked. “I don’t know, looks fine to me.”

Foggy opened his mouth, confused, then scoffed, punching Matt lightly in the shoulder. Karen, meanwhile, crossed to a large filing cabinet near the door and pulled the top door completely off its track, bringing it over to Matt’s desk and dropping it with a loud thunk.

“Let’s read through them, reorganize, see if any of these need any follow-up,” she said. “We’ve got them alphabetized, but I think sorting by date might be better.” And, when neither of them moved, she crossed her arms. “Come on! Get moving!”

Matt and Foggy groaned, but acquiesced, digging through the files. 

Within minutes the office was bustling, a haze of sound and activity. Scratching pens, the screech of the braille printer, the rustling and shuffling of paper and occasional bad joke from Foggy. Karen was right; it was an unorganized disaster. Still, they steadily made their way through; and within an hour or so they’d made it halfway through the alphabet, all the way to the P’s.

“Page” was the first one in that drawer. Matt ran his hands over it fondly. Karen had been their very first client; it was how they’d met.The circumstances had been… eventful, to say the least; Karen, framed for murder, and almost strangled by the prison guard at the jail—all under the orders of Wilson Fisk. He’d never forget the traumatized lilt of her voice, the scent of salt as she held back tears, her trembling fingers and the war drum pounding of her heart.

From the very beginning, she’d put her life into his hands—both as Matt Murdock, and as the Devil. She’d trusted him, instinctively. Trusted him to care for her. To protect her.  

“Taking a long time with that file, buddy,” Foggy said, and grabbed it from him. “What’s this one?”

Matt cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s, uh… Karen’s file, actually.”

Karen looked up, her heartbeat spiking slightly, but she didn’t say anything.

“Lovesick freak,” Foggy snorted. “It’s a murder case. Not a photo album.”

“Not like a photo album would do much for me anyway,” Matt said, irritated, and yanked the file back. He set it aside to reminisce over later and reached for a new one. 

Then another. And another. He flew through them, partly to distract himself and partly to mask his slight embarrassment. Paine. Palmer. Parish. Parker.

As he hastily skimmed through this last one, he stopped confused.

He went over it again.

“What the hell?” he murmured. He laid out the entire file in front of him and started from the top—thoroughly scanning his fingers across it, line by line, page by page. He had to have missed something; had to have skipped over something by mistake.

The file was… wrong, somehow. Baffling. Almost corrupted.

He ran his fingers over the braille at the top: a name, familiar, tinged with a touch of loss. May Parker.

He’d worked with her for a while, helping out with F.E.A.S.T. when he could. She’d died months ago; he’d read about it in the news. Heard the bomb go off, actually, even from his apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. She’d died in an explosion in Long Island, the circumstances of which were still under investigation.

This file, though… was unrelated to all of that.

“What’s wrong?” Foggy said.

Matt shook his head a little, some sort of hazy confusion still fogging up his brain. “What?”

“You have a look on your face.”

“I don’t have a look.”

Foggy set down the file he was looking over and folded his arms. “It’s the same look you get when you’re about to rush off in your suit. It’s your—” He put on a gruff, mocking tone. “—‘I’m gonna fix this city and everyone in it’ face.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “I don’t have that face.”

“Yes you do,” Karen said, looking up from her own stack of papers. She placed a warm hand on his arm. “What’s going on?”

Matt hesitated, then passed Foggy the mysterious file.

“I, uh… can’t read braille.”

“It’s a case we took a few months ago,” Matt said. “Dated here at the top. And it sounds like everything’s wrapped up, loose ends tied… we got paid and everything. A case in Queens, with May Parker. Do you remember?”

“May Parker… why does that name sound familiar?”

Karen pulled up a chair next to Foggy. “She ran F.E.A.S.T., right? And she died a few months ago, in that bombing. I wrote a piece on it for The Bulletin. ” She craned her neck to look at the file in Foggy’s hands. “I forgot we took a case for her.”

“So did I,” Matt said. “Even now, I barely remember any of it.”

“May Parker…” Foggy said. “Now that you say it, I remember. A little. But what was the case? What’s the chief complaint here?”

“Give me your hand,” Matt said. Foggy, nonplussed, held out his palm. Matt guided his fingers over the bumps on the page. “Look here—May Parker. Non-disclosure agreement. Charges of criminal neglect. And down here, first-degree homicide.”

Foggy felt the paper a little more. “There’s a lot of blank spaces on this sheet.”

“Exactly,” Matt said. “Whole paragraphs missing. Sentences cut in half. And a name, too—whoever else was involved with this case. ‘May Parker and…’ the rest of it’s gone.”

“Like it’s redacted?” Karen said.

“More like… erased.”

Foggy frowned. “First-degree homicide? That’s huge. How is so much of it missing?”

Karen took the document too, and Matt guided her fingers over the strange blank sections. “It makes no sense,” he said, deftly moving Karen’s wrist along the page. “It never went to trial; May Parker wasn’t even the chief defendant here.”

“Who was?”

Matt took the document back and scanned it over again. “No one. That’s what’s missing.”

Foggy paused for a minute, and Matt could practically hear the wheels in his head turning. “There’s something else there,” he said, nodding. “You’re right. It’s like, I remember, but I… don’t.”

“So none of us remember,” Matt said. “And this paper… erased. You can’t really erase braille.”

“They sell braille erasers,” Foggy said helpfully.

“I’d still feel the impressions. This document, this mystery defendant—it’s just… nothing.”

The three of them were silent for a few moments. Karen searched through the stacks until she’d found the corresponding printed copies. A quick look revealed that the sighted copy, too, was erased. Corrupted.

“There’s no reason to dwell on it,” Foggy said slowly. “Obviously, it’s a mystery that’s gonna drive us insane… but I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it. I guess flag the file, keep it on hand in case something comes to mind. But for now…”

“Back to organizing,” Karen agreed, though she kept out the Parker file—carefully placing it into a folder and sliding it under the door to her side office. Matt tried to join them, but found himself reeling; his head aching slightly, as though overstuffed. As though there was something inside it—something hidden behind a brick wall inside his brain. Some memory, some sort of knowledge… locked away.

He did his best to shake it off, and returned to the task at hand.

They worked for another hour or so before Foggy declared that he was losing his mind and needed a break. So, while Karen and Foggy headed to the kitchenette to brew another pot of coffee, Matt crossed to his desk and sat on top of it. Then he closed his eyes, trying to clear his head. Centering his focus, gathering it in, smoothing out the wrinkles through meditation. To try and get his mind off of that strange file.

He caught the sound of three flies in different corners of the room, scraping their legs together. He could feel the subway rumbling far beneath them, six different trains at varying speeds rushing through a labyrinth of tunnels. He tasted nicotine drifting up through the vents, someone smoking in the office below them. 

And footsteps on the staircase outside, heading for their door. Whoever it was sounded light, young; probably just a kid.

“Karen, there’s someone at the door,” Matt said. Karen nodded and moved closer, hand hovering over the knob, waiting for a knock.

“That will never not be creepy,” Foggy said, shaking his head.

The knock came, and Karen swung the door open. “Nelson and Murdock,” she said brightly. The kid nodded, his shoulders hunched slightly, his heart beating a little fast. “Come on in.”

He stepped through the doorway. He was short, Matt could tell, but strong. His gait seemed confident. And there was something to his scent—under the laundry detergent and coffee smell, a hint of something like… latex, maybe. And beneath it all, a scent Matt recognized well; dried blood. Antiseptic. The smell of healing wounds.

“Matt Murdock,” he said, standing up, holding out his hand. 

“Peter,” the kid said. He stepped forward and shook Matt’s hand; Matt was struck by the strength in his grip. “I heard, uh… this was a good place to go if I have a problem.”

“Who told you that?” Foggy asked, shaking Peter’s hand too.

Peter paused, like he was thinking. “Word gets around,” he said eventually. “I heard some people talking about you in my building.”

Karen guided Peter to a chair. He sat in it, tense, as though waiting for it to collapse beneath him—waiting for something to go wrong. After a minute, he pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “I’m getting evicted,” he said, handing it to Foggy. “Sorry—I don’t have a braille copy or anything—”

“How old are you, Peter?” Matt said.

“Seventeen. But I’ll be eighteen in a few months," he added quickly. His stomach growled suddenly, loud enough that Matt was sure even Foggy and Karen could hear it.

“Damn.” Foggy passed Peter the box of donuts; he grabbed one and tore into it as though he hadn’t eaten in days. “Shouldn’t your parents be dealing with this?”

“They’re dead,” Peter said through a mouthful of powdered sugar.

“Guardians? Relatives? Friends?”

Peter shook his head, already eyeing a second donut. “I’m kind of on my own. That’s why I need help; I thought you could send a letter or something. I know you help people without a lot of money, and I just—I need to fight this eviction.”

Karen turned to look at Matt. Though he couldn’t see her expression, he knew what her face must look like—eyes wide, brows high, mouth downturned in worry. Then she turned back to Peter. “You’re a minor. How did you even rent—”

“The blip,” Peter said. “People think I’m five years older than I am.”

Matt seriously doubted it. The kid was young—sounded even younger than his measly seventeen years. Still, there was something in his ease of manner, his resourcefulness, that was reassuring. He seemed like someone who could take care of himself, even if he did need a little help at the moment.

Foggy took the letter and got started with the braille transcription. Matt, meanwhile, cleared his throat. “Well, Peter, we’d be glad to help you. There’s currently a city-wide eviction moratorium—”

“I don’t know what that means,” Peter said, voice muffled through the donut.

“It means it’s illegal for your landlord to try and evict you," Matt said. “It’s a temporary measure that was put in place after the blip. Tell us a little about yourself, and we’ll see what we can do. Karen, you want to take notes?”

“On it,” Karen said. She grabbed a legal pad and clicked her pen.

“So, where are you living?”

“Wilbur Heights, in Queens.” He was still staring at the donut box. Foggy handed Matt the newly-printed braille copy of Peter’s eviction notice, then sighed loudly, passing Peter another pastry. He tore into it with gusto.

“And your legal name?”

Peter’s heartbeat spiked slightly, and he took a quick breath. Almost like he was reassuring himself. “Peter Benjamin Parker.”

Parker. 

A Parker from Queens. He could sense Foggy and Karen looking at him, clearly thinking the same thing. Matt tilted his head, considering him. “You wouldn’t happen to know a May Parker, would you?”

Peter was silent for a moment, his heart now beginning to pound. 

“Peter?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. “What was the name? May Parker? Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Thump THUMP thump.

He was lying.

“Why?” Peter asked.

Matt hesitated, frowning. “It’s… nothing. A case we took a few months ago—I was just curious.” He adjusted his red glasses, trying to reign in the surprise on his face. “So, Peter. Are you going to school?”

“No. Another blip thing. I think my records got lost or something.”

His heartbeat stuttered—lying again. Matt frowned. “So what are you doing? Do you work anywhere?”

“No. I’m getting my GED, though.”

“How did you get an apartment if you’re unemployed?” Foggy asked. Peter swallowed.

“I… may have fibbed a little on my application,” he said. “Am I gonna be in trouble?”

Foggy snorted. “If you do, I know a couple good lawyers.” 

Matt ran his hands over the eviction notice. “And you’re being evicted for unpaid rent?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I sort of… ran out of money.”

Karen turned to look at Matt, biting her lip. Matt pretended not to notice this. “Well, we can send your landlord a letter, and remind him of the moratorium. In the meantime, though, you’ll need to find a job. Our help can only do so much.”

“Yeah, I’m—I’m working on that.” Peter shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Matt, Foggy, and Karen all watched him for a few moments. After a beat Karen crossed her arms and stood up. “Matt, Foggy. A word?”

Matt grabbed Foggy’s arm and let him walk them both across the office, but before Karen could launch in the spiel he knew was coming, he cut her off in a whisper. “No, Karen.”

“Look at him! He’s just a kid!”

“What’s going on?” Foggy asked. Matt sighed.

“Karen wants us to hire Peter.”

Foggy sputtered for a  minute. “Wh—no—Karen, we don’t have the money for that!”

She scoffed. “You hired me the first week you were in business. And you were a lot worse off then.”

“And, may I remind you, you were supposed to work for free. Look how that worked out for us.”

Peter coughed slightly and reached for another donut. Matt cocked his head in his direction, listening for a moment, then turned back to Karen. “Your heart’s in the right place—and I love you for it—but we just don’t have the money.”

“Give him my pay!” Karen said. “I have my work at The Bulletin to fall back on. He can be my replacement.”

“And what? Not have you around anymore?” Foggy sounded scandalized.

“Obviously I’ll still work here. I’ll just be… pro bono.” She turned back to look at Peter, hand on her chest, then reached for Matt’s face. “Please,” she said softly.

The battle was lost already. He was powerless against Karen.

With the Kingpin safely behind bars, he was finally free to share his life with someone; with everyone. Foggy, Sister Maggie… and Karen most of all. He could freely explore what it was to love someone, and to be loved in return. Karen’s love wrapped around him, protected him, like the mask he wore in the shadow of night. And she was so wonderful; compassionate, brilliant, stubborn…

Infuriating, sometimes. Matt listened to Peter’s heartbeat, quick and nervous, and closed his eyes. 

“I mean, I’m okay with it if you are,” Foggy said after a minute. “We could use an intern. He can take care of the rest of that mess.” He nodded toward the mountain of paperwork still sitting on the floor.

“And he’s a Parker, from Queens,” Karen said. She gestured her head back toward the mysterious file she had slipped under her office door. “You can’t tell me the mystery isn’t tempting.”

“We can’t pay much,” Matt said finally.

“Is that a yes?”

Matt sighed, but he couldn’t help a small smile. “It’s a yes.”

She grinned at him and moved closer, catching his chin and tilting his head toward her. And she kissed him—long enough for Foggy to make a disgusted sort of noise. Matt laughed, patted him on the shoulder, then stepped past him. He faced Peter directly and cleared his throat.

“Mr. Parker,” he said, and Peter looked up. “How would you like a job here at our firm?”

Chapter Text

Peter settled in so quickly that within a week, Matt could hardly remember a time when he hadn't been there. He wasn't very punctual, knew very little about law, and was—frankly—extremely disorganized; but Matt had to admit that Peter was a bright kid. He learned quickly, and he seemed to share Matt's zeal for justice. All in all, he wasn't a bad employee to have around a law office.

And yet, Matt had a strong suspicion that Peter was hiding something. Something huge, even beyond whatever was going on with the May Parker case. After all, Matt was well-accustomed to evasiveness, hiding, lying; he'd been doing it himself for years. He recognized it easily in Peter. Peter gave so little information that it felt like pulling teeth trying to learn anything about him; all Matt knew for certain was that Peter was doing something risky. He came into work most mornings with fresh wounds, stiff muscles, and the smell of city alleyways. 

Maybe he was in trouble with someone, got in too deep with some criminal element. Or maybe he was just prone to getting in fights. Either way, he was hiding something—and Matt was going to find out what it was.

Especially if it might provide some sort of insight into that mysterious Parker case.

It was more than that, though; he felt some sort of responsibility for the kid. Like he was a younger brother, or perhaps a nephew. He'd burrowed his way into their lives so fast, so easily; he was so damn likable. So affectionate and funny and bright. Matt felt a sense of protectiveness for him that he usually reserved for Karen and Foggy, maybe Sister Maggie. Perhaps it was because Peter was an orphan. After all, so was Matt.

A week after he hired Peter, Matt showed up a half an hour early. He wanted to look over the documents from the May Parker case again. He couldn't help running it through his mind; over and over again, he sifted through the sparse details that he remembered. This May Parker, she'd been in trouble for something... something that Matt had, for whatever reason, felt a strong connection to. He remembered so little about the case himself, but he remembered how he felt. It was like he'd identified with the case somehow, so strongly that he'd taken it on without a second thought.

And yet, the case itself was out of his reach. Like his mind was coated in Teflon, and the memories just slipped away.

There was a shuffling behind the office door. Peter was just outside, carrying a few cups of coffee stacked high. He balanced them well—almost as easily as Matt, which was saying something considering what his senses had done to his sense of balance. Another mystery to add to the ever-growing Peter Parker pile.

Peter struggled with the key in the lock, then finally opened the door. "Oh, hey, Mr. Murdock. Coffee's here—at your twelve."

Matt nodded at him as Peter set the cup down on his desk. "Thanks, Peter." And, already grimacing, he took a sip. Peter always brought the coffee from the same place. Matt knew what to expect at this point. "Listen—no offense, but this coffee—"

"It's awful," Peter said, sighing loudly. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Why not find a different place?"

Peter's heart sped up a little, and his face flushed with heat. When he spoke, his voice was a little higher than usual. "No reason."

Matt grinned at him and took another sip, wincing as it went down. "Is it... a girl, maybe?"

"What? No! No. Shut up." Peter dropped off the other coffees on Foggy's desk. As he moved, Matt caught a taste of copper in the air. Some wound on the kid's back had reopened. It smelled fresh. Sure enough, as Peter moved around the office, he walked a little gingerly—just enough that Matt could notice. 

Matt closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing harder. 

Sounded like a large wound, somewhere along Peter's left shoulder blade. He focused harder—it would be so much easier to assess if he could get his hands on it somehow. Still, even from here, Matt could tell it was bad. Seemed pretty deep, like he'd been slashed with a knife. Matt was reminded suddenly of his fight with Nobu, and hooks that whirled through the air and tore apart his skin. Peter's wound wasn't quite that bad, but it wasn't great. Definitely needed stitches.

He wanted to ask Peter how he'd been hurt--to interrogate him, to stitch him back together—but somehow, he didn't think Peter would be amenable to that. Best to go at it a roundabout way, then.

"So is it the barista, then? You have a crush on the barista?" He tried to keep his voice nonchalant.

Peter didn't turn around from Foggy's desk, and instead pointlessly shuffled some papers around. "If I say yes, will you stop asking me about it?"

"You're not embarrassed, are you?"

"No," Peter said hotly. 

The teenage infatuation was practically radiating off him. Peter walked to his own desk and started opening drawers like he was looking for something, but he was very obviously just trying to hide how flustered he was. This was as good an opportunity as any, Matt decided. When someone was flustered, it was much easier to get information out of them. Easier to tail them. 

"Well," Matt said, standing up and extending his white cane, "I want to have a word with this barista. This coffee is terrible, and I think she should know that."

Peter's head jerked up. "What?!" he said, panicked. "No, Matt—Mr. Murdock—please don't—"

"You can lead me," Matt said. He crossed to Peter and grabbed his elbow. "Show me where you get your coffee."

After some groaning, pleading, and not-so-veiled threats, Peter eventually agreed to walk Matt down to the coffee shop. It was a long walk, clear on the opposite side of the Kitchen. No wonder the coffee was always cold. There were at least a dozen closer cafés Peter could have chosen, but he was clearly attached to this specific shop.

As they walked, his heart began to speed up. Not in nervousness, Matt thought—or at least, not just in nervousness—but in excitement, too.

Finally, they stopped in front of a stooping gray café. The smell of mildew and rats was so strong that Matt had to hold his breath for a few moments, sending his focus somewhere further away so the stench didn't overwhelm him. 

"Here, okay? We're here. Can we go now?"

"Let's go inside."

Peter dragged his feet, but eventually led Matt inside. It was practically empty; no one here but the barista behind the counter. Peter's heart rate sped up drastically as they moved closer to her. Matt tilted his head. It was too fast; more than a simple infatuation, or even love. This was a different sort of feeling altogether. It was like Peter was afraid, somehow. Sad, maybe. 

"How can I help you?" the barista said. Her voice was flat, low, like she couldn't be bothered with speaking to them. Like she would rather be anywhere else.

"I was wondering if you could tell me what's in this coffee," Matt said. "My intern comes here every day for some reason--walks a mile out of his way. I figured there must be something really special about this coffee, if he loves it so much."

Peter's face was burning hot. Matt grinned, relishing in the teasing in spite of himself.

"Oh yeah—Peter Parker, right?"

Peter froze, his heart rate spiking drastically. "You..." He swallowed. "You know who I am?"

"Yeah, I mean... you're kind of a regular at this point," she said, shrugging. "A black coffee, then? Or, two?" She started brewing it without waiting for his assent. Peter was frozen, still staring after her, and Matt could feel his heartbeat slow slightly. He seemed to slump, like he was crushed by something. Devastated by something.

Matt stepped up to the counter. "He keeps coming back here, every day," he said. "He's obsessed with this coffee. You spike it or something?"

"Mr. Murdock!" Peter hissed.

"Uh... no? It's just... coffee. Cheap coffee."

"Yeah, it's cheap," Peter said, sounding relieved. "That's why I come here."

"Ah, it's cheap ," Matt said. He turned back to Peter and grinned. "That makes sense. We don't pay a whole lot at our firm, do we, Pete?"

"Pete?!" Peter said, irritation rising in his voice. He hissed, "Can we go? Please?"

The barista was laughing softly. Matt smiled at her, and listened to her heartbeat. It was a little fast, too. Not nearly as dramatic as Peter's, but it was clear that she liked the kid. "What's your name? I can't read your name tag." He gestured vaguely to his red glasses.

"Uh, MJ," she said.

"That's a lovely name," Matt said. He reached around and felt around for Peter, then patted him genially on the shoulder. "Don't you think it's beautiful , Peter?"

"Mr. Murdock!" Peter sounded like he was going to pop a blood vessel.

It was time to go, Matt thought. He'd humiliated Peter enough. and now that he was flustered, it was time to find out where he lived. What he did every night. He patted Peter on the shoulder. "I'm going to wait outside, Peter—I can find my way, don't worry. Come meet me when the coffee's done." He handed him a ten to pay for the drinks, then left the café and stood on the sidewalk. He faced away from the door and pretended he wasn't listening to their conversation. 

“Sorry about him,” Peter was saying. “He thinks he’s funny.”

“It’s fine,” MJ said. “Don’t worry about it.” She seemed to be waiting for Peter to say something, but Peter was silent, his heart pounding. Matt knew he wanted to say something, was dying to say something, but he only waited for his coffee, picked it up, and walked outside. 

Peter punched Matt in the arm.

“That was so not cool.”

“Relax, Peter,” Matt said, rubbing his arm. Peter’s punch was surprisingly strong, given his size. “It’s just teasing. Besides, I think she likes you.”

“No she doesn’t,” Peter said, and Matt was surprised to hear the dejection in his voice. Not normal teenage angst dejection, but sorrow built out of something much stronger. 

Matt rubbed Peter’s shoulder consolingly, trying to hide his confusion. “She does. I can tell. Besides, you’re working at a law firm now. That’s impressive, girls like that.”

A car squealed loudly and honked nearby, and Peter, distracted, turned around to look at it. Matt crossed himself, asking forgiveness for what he was about to do. Then, he slapped Peter’s back, hard, in a fatherly sort of way—right on the giant wound.

Peter screamed and dropped to his knees. Matt feigned surprise. “Peter! What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing—ah—” He hissed in pain.

“Clearly it’s not nothing,” Matt said. He led Peter to a nearby alley and leaned him against a brick wall, and Peter, disoriented, didn’t question how Matt could tell where he was going. “You have an injury? Let me feel—ooh.”

The wound had reopened and Peter was bleeding through his shirt. He was shaking his head, obviously trying to shake off the pain. “Peter, let me help you. Take off your shirt.”

Peter argued for a minute, but eventually slipped out of his shirt. Matt gently felt at the wound, wincing at the blood on his fingertips. “Peter, that’s terrible—what happened?”

“I… fell.”

Matt let the stupidity of that statement hang in silence for a moment.

“You fell. And sliced open your back. You want to explain to me how that happened?”

Peter’s heart sped up; he was clearly thinking of a quick lie. “I fell against a wall. And there was… a nail sticking out.”

Matt knew better than to argue about this. Instead, he reached into his breast pocket, where he’d slipped Karen’s miniature first-aid kit. “You want me to stitch it shut for you?”

“You…? But—you’re blind—” 

“Astute observation,” Matt said. “My dad was a boxer. Taught me to stitch him up when I was a kid. I learned how to do it by feel alone. Lots of practice, Peter.” He shrugged. “I hear I’m pretty good at it.”

Peter seemed extremely hesitant; still, though, he was wincing, and his mind was clearly still on the conversation with the barista. He didn’t seem to have the energy to question Matt’s story. 

“I—if you’re sure—”

“Unless you’d prefer to go to the hospital?”

“I… can’t afford that.”

“Yeah. I know. Thread this needle for me.”

Peter acquiesced, holding himself very stiffly—clearly bracing himself for an extremely clumsy first-aid job. He seemed hesitant to object any more, perhaps out of fear of offending Matt. Which worked for him.

For his part, Matt forced himself to fumble, moving far more slowly than usual as he traced out the contours of the wound with his fingers.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of the shape. Hold still, this is going to hurt.”

Peter sighed and shut his eyes tight. “It’s fine. Just go.”

Matt nodded and began to stitch Peter up. He had become adept at this as a small child, when his father would arrive home broken and battered from his time in the ring. He’d grown accustomed to the feel of broken skin, of jagged edges and reopened scabs. After all, his father almost never won a match. He was knocked down, over and over… but he always got up to fight again.

A trait Matt had inherited.

He worked in silence for about ten minutes or so, careful to keep up pretenses, feeling around with his fingers to reassure Peter that he knew what he was doing. To Peter’s credit, he hardly winced or moved at all. He was tougher than he looked, clearly accustomed to pain. After a while, Matt took a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the wound, sopping up some of the blood and clearing the area a little. 

“There you go, Peter. I think you should go home for the day. That feels pretty nasty.”

“What? No, it’s fine. Honestly, Mr. Murdock, this is just a scratch. I’ve had much worse.”

Matt raised his eyebrows, but Peter didn’t elaborate. 

This was interesting. Peter wasn’t lying when he said that. Matt wondered what other kinds of injuries this kid had sustained, if he could handle this one with such ease. He hardly seemed fazed about it; he’d only really reacted when Matt had slapped the wound directly. This kid knew pain, and he knew how to handle it.

“Even so, Peter, you need to change your shirt. And you seem like you could use a rest. No—” he said, when Peter opened his mouth to argue. “—it’s all right, take a paid day off. I’ll walk you home.”

“No!” Peter said quickly. “I… I’m fine. I can walk home just fine.”

“Peter, you’re really hurt…” 

No. He wasn’t. Already Peter seemed back on his feet, full of energy, ready to face anything.

“It’s only two blocks away. I’m fine, I promise. You’re busy, go back to the office. Unless—do you need me to walk you back?” He said, uncertain, gesturing vaguely to Matt’s cane. Matt pretended he hadn’t noticed this. 

“I can make it back on my own. I’m more worried about you.”

Peter pulled his shirt back on. “Don’t be, Mr. Murdock. I’m fine, I promise. I’ll take some Tylenol, get some bandages, and take it easy, okay? Just—go back to the office.” 

And Peter turned around and walked away without another word. 

Matt recognized that evasiveness, that guilty tone in Peter’s voice. That had been his modus operandi before Foggy had learned his secret identity. Whatever the kid was hiding, Matt knew it must be eating at him. Hurting him—mentally and physically, if the wound on his back was any indication. 

Matt clutched his cane harder, the knuckles on his hands whitening a little. It was time for a little… investigation. 

#####

Matt waited until Peter was a block or so away before following him. He had a vague idea that he would tail Peter to his apartment, take a look at the area, see what kinds of things he got up to when he wasn’t at work. Get an idea of how he lived, any hints to what he was hiding. He could practically hear Foggy’s voice in his head: “You’re such a creep, Matt. Privacy, remember?”

To an extent, he supposed Foggy was right. But then again, Peter was only seventeen. He didn’t have a mother or a father. No friends. No one to help him.

No one except Matt.

Matt stayed close enough to Peter that he could still smell him, hear him, sense the vibrations in the air as Peter moved around—but far enough that Peter couldn’t see him. He ducked around people walking by, avoided bikes and police on horses and panhandlers. Everyone was so wrapped up in their own business that no one had time to wonder how a blind man had such an easy time getting through the crowd. 

Peter had walked way farther than two blocks; he must have decided not to go home. Matt sped up, determination rising in his chest like it hadn’t since his days in the suit. Maybe this was it; he was about to find out what Peter was hiding.

Suddenly, Peter began moving very erratically—looking behind him, as though he knew he was being followed. Randomly turning, walking in new directions. More than once, Matt had to duck behind passersby and into alleyways. Did he know Matt was following him? How could he tell? 

“Out of the way!” someone screamed. A man on a bicycle, out of control, speeding right at him. Matt, so focused on Peter, didn’t register this until the bike had run him down. He hit the cement hard.

“Oh my—I’m so sorry! Geez, I—let me help you—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine—”

By the time Matt had waved the crashed biker away, Peter was long gone. Matt cursed. He’d still be able to follow him, to follow the trace scent of his body spray and coffee, but it was a lot harder now.

How had he disappeared so fast? It was like he’d vanished, like he’d leapt out of—sight, so to speak.

Matt clenched the cane harder and turned his head around, focusing, doing his best to pick up any scant trace. Any sound, movement, smell, taste even… he picked the most likely direction and sped that way. He caught traces of that terrible coffee going down an alley, then another, then another. And then—he was on the trail once more. And Peter was close by, behind this wall—

Matt moved around the corner cautiously.

Peter was here, but he was… different. He stood differently, more confidently. He was wearing a new outfit, some sort of synthetic, rubbery material, and a mask. Peter’s heart was beating fast with excitement, and Matt could smell the adrenaline through his skin.

“Hey guys,” Peter said. Matt, surprised, focused past him to see who he was talking to. 

In his relief at finding Peter again, he’d tuned out everything else, the smells, the vibrations. He’d missed all the signs.

Peter had walked into what looked like some sort of deal gone bad—possibly a gang. No, definitely a gang. Matt breathed deeply, inhaling the tangy scents of gunpowder and steel. Six men were standing with guns pointed, straight at Peter’s head. 

He recognized the smells on these men, their stances. The way they breathed. The packets of heroin they carried in their pockets. They were human traffickers, drug dealers, killers; they had once been very influential in Hell’s Kitchen’s underbelly. These were members of the Russian mob, the ones who used to work for Wilson Fisk—the ones he thought had been extinguished completely before the blip.

They were ruthless. They were deadly. 

And Peter had no idea.

Damn it! Damn, damn— Matt ducked down and tossed away his cane and glasses. He pulled off his jacket, leaving just a white button-down underneath. From his jacket pocket, he pulled out his black mask. He usually kept in on hand, just in case—though it was rare for him to use it in the middle of the day.

Of course Peter had wandered into something this dangerous. He seemed like the kind of kid to attract trouble. Matt had to get in there before the kid got seriously hurt—

Punch. Grunt. Whack . And a laugh, a delighted, unabashed laugh. Matt recoiled, shocked, and shook his head, clearing his mind to focus more intently on the scene before him. 

Peter roundhouse-kicked one of them in the face, and the guy went flying backwards, slammed against the wall, and slumped to the ground, unconscious. “In broad daylight guys? Seriously? Come on, you criminal types usually work at night, right? Am I crazy here?”

The others began shooting wildly. Peter had no problem dodging; it was as though he had a sense for it, an innate knowledge of where each bullet was coming from and how to get out of the way.

“Aw come on, don’t be a baby,” Peter taunted one of the guys—the new leader, it seemed, bald-headed and huge. Baldy, enraged, launched his fist at Peter’s face, connecting hard. Peter reeled backward, then bounced back, shaking it off easily.

“Hey!” He launched himself at the guy, clinging onto Baldy’s back. He began punching the man’s face from behind, over and over, and Baldy was flailing—powerless to stop it. “That! Was! Not! Very! Nice!”

“What the hell!” Matt breathed. 

From the far end of the alley, one of the Russians had pulled out his phone. “Alleyway off 7th,” he hissed into it. “Backup. Now!”

Matt went to stop the guy, take his phone away, but Peter beat him to it.

A long, sticky sort of fluid substance shot from Peter’s wrist, attached to the guy’s phone, and then swung back. Peter held the phone in triumph, then smashed it on the ground. “Ha! Nice try.”

Holy shit.

Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

“You thought you could call for backup? Come on! Fight me yourself, like a big boy,” Peter was saying. Matt could hear the triumph in his voice—but Peter was wrong. The guy had been successful. Backup was on its way. Matt focused his mind and could hear them, only a few blocks away, running closer and closer, hurling obscenities as they pushed through a shocked crowd. 

He shook off his absolute shock at Peter’s secret second life, and stepped out from behind the wall. 

Peter looked up at him. His heart rate spiked—in anger? In excitement?—and launched himself at Matt. he threw punches like an experienced boxer, but with an enhanced strength that, Matt supposed, must come from his superpowers. He cursed as one of Peter’s punches connected hard with his jawbone.

“Stop! Ow! Spider-Man, I’m here to help.”

“Yeah right,” Peter said. Without looking behind him he shot out a blast of web fluid, essentially gluing one of the guys to the wall. Then he kicked Matt in the stomach. Enraged, Matt held back the urge to clock him.

“No—” He grunted, trying to shake it off. “Seriously—reinforcements are coming. That guy, he called backup—”

Matt could feel the temperature in Peter’s face lower as the blood drained from his face. Clearly, Peter could handle this inept group. But if backup was coming, he’d have a harder time. Even Spider-Man couldn’t take on the full Russian mob. Not in the middle of the day. Not without risking significant casualties.

Peter, heart still pounding, paused for a second and tilted his head at Matt as though considering him, trying to place him somewhere. “Wait… I know you!”

“Do you?”

“Yeah! That costume. You’re the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen! Right?”

“Uh—”

“Yeah! You’re—Daredevil! Oh man, nobody’s seen you since the blip! Where’ve you been? Weren’t you the guy that took down the Kingpin?”

Matt closed his eyes, breathing deeply to quell the pain. Man, that kid could pack a punch. “Been keeping a low profile, kid.”

“I’m such a huge fan. Watched you all the time back in high school—that’s how I learned most of my moves! Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m here with Daredevil!”

“Listen, backup is coming, now—we have to get out of here.”

Peter laughed. “No way! The two of us together? Aw, man, this is sick! We could pound these guys. Just absolutely destroy them!”

Matt paused as the footsteps from the reinforcements grew closer and closer. There were fifteen at least, all armed. There was no way the two of them could take them all. Not without prep. They had no time. “No. I know these guys. I’ve fought them before. You do not want to get mixed up in this.”

“Oh please,” Peter said. He landed a kick on another one of the gang who had tried to sneak up on him from behind. Energized, he bounced up and down a little, fists raised. “I’m a superhero, I can handle it.”

“No. You don’t know, you don’t understand. These guys, they used to work for Fisk—”

Peter laughed. “Come on. Wilson Fisk? I fought Thanos, dude.”

“This is different,” Matt said, desperate. The footsteps were growing closer and closer. He had to get Peter out of here, now. “You had hundreds of heroes fighting with you then. And you still lost the first time!”

Peter didn’t seem to have a response to this. He turned around and began pummeling another of the gang, who seemed to be trying to launch a sneak attack.

“It’s not just one gang, P—Spider-Man. It’s a web, a whole network of guys. They are evil. Worse than Thanos in a lot of ways. These guys are serious.”

“What do you mean?” Punch. Kick. Matt whirled around and cold-clocked a guy who’d tried to sneak up on him, sending him reeling backward.

“Murderers. Human traffickers. Torturers. Their old leader used someones ribcage as a prison shank.”

Peter gagged.

“They’re not playing around, kid, we have to get out of here. Can you swing us away? Somewhere far.”

“What, and leave these guys on the streets? If they’re as bad as you say, then—”

It was too late. The reinforcements had arrived. A group of fifteen or so men, burly, scarred, seething with hot rage, stood at the entrance to the alleyway. In a quick moment that felt like an eternity, everyone in the alley froze, staring at each other.

“The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” one of the reinforcements whispered. “The rumors were true—he’s—he’s back.”

The whispers went through the crowd like the sound of a hissing wildfire. 

“And he’s with Spider-Man!” 

“Okay, time to go,” Peter said.

But it was too late. The bald one—the leader, it seemed—moaned, then picked himself up and got unsteadily to his feet. “Kill them both.”

Matt and Peter readied their stance, steadying their feet as the onslaught came.

It was a blur of fists and bullets. Matt wrestled a gun from one particularly burly Russian and knocked him over the head with it, relishing the thud as the man dropped—motionless—to the ground. Peter at one point webbed a trash can and swung it around, taking out three of the Russians at once. Matt was amazed. This boy, this child , was taking on the Russian mob without a trace of fear.

In the chaos, Matt tried to focus his senses the way Stick had taught him. Tried to filter out the unnecessary noise, the smells, everything that wasn’t to the exact purpose. The Russians were as bad as he remembered them. It had been years; he’d taken them out long before the blip. And yet they’d regrouped, somehow, under new leadership. Matt tried not to think what that could mean. After all, if the Russians were back on the streets…

Peter and Matt had taken out at least nine men, but the Russians kept calling more and more backup. It was as though they had limitless resources, an army of men at their disposal. Matt listened to Peter, to his breathing, his heartbeat. He was still going as hard as ever, but Matt could tell he was tiring. Sweat was beading on Peter’s face under his mask and he strained with each punch he threw.

“We have to get out of here,” Matt said. “Now, Spider-Man.”

For once, Peter didn’t argue. He nodded as he kicked a man far away from him, knocking him into two of his comrades. “Hang on.”

“What do you—”

Matt didn’t have time to finish the sentence before Peter barreled toward him, grabbing him around his waist and slinging a web into the air. It connected with a building high above them, and Matt found himself soaring through the air, the hot summer wind blowing on his face. He’d heard that Spider-Man had enhanced strength, but experiencing it this way was something else. Peter was carrying him through the air as easily as if he were a toddler.

It was disorienting. Away from the ground Matt had much less use of his senses. He could no longer feel the subways rumbling yards below, or sense the footsteps down each of the blocks. Instead, he was limited to the very close sound of Peter’s heartbeat and the screech of the wind in his ears.

“Get us down,” Matt shouted over the wind. “A rooftop or something—quick.”

“Are you crazy?” Peter screamed back. “We gotta get as far away from those freaks as we can!”

“I have to know if they’re following us. Land somewhere, now.”

Peter didn’t argue. He swung them onto a nearby rooftop, and Matt’s feet hit the ground hard. He stumbled away from Peter, trying to keep down the vomit that threatened to spill from his mouth. He had never been a fan of air travel.

With his feet planted again, Matt could feel the city, could hear its blood and veins, the people that stalked its streets. He could hear thousands of New Yorkers, going about their day. He smelled the city’s breath, the stench of asphalt and stale hot dogs. He could hear shopping, and eating, and arguing. He felt the subway rumbling beneath his feet. He heard whispers and screams and dogs panting—

Matt was overwhelmed. He stopped and took a few deep breaths, centering himself, bring his mind back to the task at hand.

“What are you doing?” Peter asked. Matt didn’t answer, trying to return to his meditation. “No, seriously, what are you doing?”

“Listening. Be quiet.”

“What could you possibly hear up here?”

Matt didn’t answer. He focused harder, straining his ears for the Russians, for the words “Spider-Man” or “Daredevil.”

And finally, after a minute or two, he heard them.Three blocks away, the gang was reconvening. Matt squeezed his eyes shut. He held his breath, trying to block some of his other senses so as to focus more clearly on the men far below. With a few more deep breaths, he was in the middle of their conversation.

“We’re going to have to change the drop-off location,” one of them was saying, in English. “Spider-Man knows. We wanted to alert you, since you’re in direct contact with the buyers—”

“That doesn’t matter! None of that matters! Are you stupid?” Another one was saying, terror and anger intermingling in his voice. This one was not Russian; his accent was British, and Matt had a strange sense of familiarity. That voice—where had he heard it before? 

“That’s not just Spider-Man,” the British man said. “That was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He’s back .”

“So?” the Russian said. “This is not the first vigilante—”

There was a popping sound and a scream, as though someone’s arm was being twisted terribly. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

As the Russian screamed, something clicked in Matt’s head, and he remembered suddenly where he’d heard the man’s voice before. He was Felix Manning, the right-hand man to—

“When Mr. Fisk finds out about this—that we lost to Daredevil—he’ll kill all of you.”

Matt froze. He clenched his fists until his nails were pressing thin red prints into his palms. The city—the subway, the cigarettes, the shouting, the exhaust pipes—all faded away into a wash of seething, searing, all-encompassing red .

Wilson Fisk—somehow—was free again. Free… and back in power.

“Hey, Daredevil—you okay?”

Matt wrenched his mind back to the present moment, taking a deep breath before turning to Peter. “We need to go somewhere safe. Somewhere no one knows about. Now. Any ideas?” 

The office wouldn’t be safe. Neither would Matt’s apartment. After all, Fisk knew Matt’s secret identity. He couldn’t risk waiting at the office, not when there was a chance—however small—that he would send out mercenaries to kill Matt and whoever else got in his way.

“I may have a place,” Peter said slowly. “But—listen, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Where is it?” 

Peter scuffed his feet on the ground. “It’s… my apartment.”

“That’s not secure!”

“How would you know?” Peter said, sounding offended. “It’s safe! No one knows who I am.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Matt said. He knew only too well how difficult it was to conceal half your soul from others, how impossible it was to keep such a secret away from his friends, his loved ones.

“Not a soul,” Peter said. “No one would look there.”

Matt agonized over it for a moment, but the longer the two of them stayed there, the higher the chance that Fisk would find them. The apartment would have to do. Matt waited and listened for the Russians again. Only when they had moved outside the scope of his senses did he turn back to Peter. “We can’t let anyone see us sneaking in there.”

Peter paused for a moment, apparently trying to make a decision in his head. “You’re right, the suit’s a little obvious. Stay here; I’m just gonna grab my clothes. I left them in that alley.” And before Matt could say anything, Peter leapt off the building and shot a web at a nearby skyscraper. The whistle of his swing was shrill in Matt’s ears.

Within minutes, Peter was back, carrying a lumpy bundle in his arms. He landed with a loud thump on the rooftop. 

“Close your eyes, man.”

“I… what?”

“I’m changing. Close your eyes.”

Matt raised his arms in surrender and turned around. Peter took a few minutes to change, then turned back. He was surprisingly open about his identity; not so much as a baseball cap or a pair of sunglasses to try to hide his face from Matt. “You gonna take off your mask, dude? It’s kind of a dead giveaway.”

“The mask stays on,” Matt said shortly. Peter just shrugged; then, looking carefully at the alley below to make sure it was empty, he flicked a web and swung them both onto the ground. They would walk the rest of the way.

In half an hour, they were sitting inside Peter’s empty apartment. The scent was musty and old, like mold was growing in the corners. Very little furniture adorned the room. Matt sat on Peter’s bed, and the threadbare blankets were like sandpaper to his enhanced senses.

“You’re pretty cavalier about your secret identity.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked. He was rummaging through his small refrigerator.

“I mean, you took off your mask without a thought. You’re fine with me… seeing your face.”

“Yeah! I mean, come on, you’re a superhero too.” He shrugged. “I’m not gonna tell randos on the street, but hero to hero… I think it’s fine.”

Matt thought that ‘superhero’ was a bit of a stretch, but he felt it pointless to argue.

“I know you’re not gonna reveal me,” Peter added. “Besides, it’s not like you know who I am—oh, speaking of. I’m Peter, by the way. Peter Parker.” He held out his hand.

Matt sputtered. “You can’t give up your whole identity, are you stupid?”

“What?” Peter said, sounding a little stung. “It’s not like you know anything about Peter Parker anyway.”

Matt rubbed his temples, frustration bubbling up in his stomach. “You can’t know that. Maybe I do.”

“Believe me,” Peter said, and suddenly there was a hint of bitterness to his voice. “No one knows who Peter Parker is.” He handed Matt a Coke from the fridge.

“You got anything stronger?” Matt asked, rubbing his temples.

“Um, no? I’m only… nineteen.”

Matt snorted. Liar.

There was silence between them for a few moments, which was just as well, because Matt’s mind was racing. He stood up and began pacing back and forth. Word must have reached Fisk by now that Daredevil was back. And not just that—Daredevil was working with Spider-Man. That made Peter a target. 

“Are you sure—absolutely sure—that no one knows who you are?”

“No one,” Peter said, cheerfully. He took a swig of his Coke. “Just you. And I trust you! You saved me back there.” He paused. “Do you… uh… wanna tell me your real name?”

“No.”

“Come on, man, I told you mine!”

“That’s your problem,” Matt said. “The less you know about me, the better.”

“Oh please, I can handle myself—”

“No!” Matt said. “You’re a target already; Fisk’s men saw you with me. I’m not going to make it worse.”

Matt crossed to the window, peering out, breathing in the muggy summer air. Somewhere, hidden in the depths of Hell’s Kitchen, Wilson Fisk was probably living in luxury, building up an empire, counting down the days until he could crush Matt’s skull in his huge fists. He would destroy anyone and everything in his path to get rid of Daredevil. Peter wasn’t safe. Karen and Foggy weren’t safe. The danger around him was rising like water, and for a moment Matt saw the three of them drowning in it.

“Peter,” Matt said, “You have to tell me exactly what those men were doing when you found them. Why did you go after them in the first place?”

“I got off work early—I work at a law office, by the way—”

Matt could kill this kid. 

“And I’ve been tailing this group for a while, you know? Usually they meet at night. I see them around Queens sometimes. But I overheard some of them talking on my way home. It was so weird—so outside of their usual M.O.” 

The rumors are true, one of them had said. The Russians had heard that Matt was back on the streets. They were operating in broad daylight…

Trying to lure Matt into the open. Prove that he was back.

“They were talking about a shipment, and they mentioned something about avoiding the cops, and how the buyer was waiting. I didn’t understand most of it, you know, because… Russian… but a few of them were speaking English. I heard enough. Something about their boss getting a new line of income? I don’t know, I assumed they were talking about heroin or guns or something.”

“They weren’t.”
Peter paused, and Matt could sense the confusion in his silence. “What were they talking about, then?”

Matt took a deep breath, recalling scenes in his head from several years before the blip, when Matt had first learned who Fisk was. Scenes of women and girls packed into trucks, screaming; children abducted from cars; teenagers shoved into boats, to be sent overseas. 

Peter seemed to read Matt’s silence. “That bad?”

Matt began tightening his mask, which had slipped a little in all the swinging.

“They used to work for Fisk—I guess they still do.”

“Isn’t Fisk in prison?”

“Not anymore,” Matt said. He moved closer to Peter’s window, listening carefully for any sign that they’d been followed. “He must have used the blip to start over in prison. Bribing guards, threatening the inmates—you have no idea the kind of power this guy has.”

Daredevil was retired—he wasn’t supposed to be around anymore. The world didn’t need him anymore. But with Fisk free…

Peter set his coke down with a clink, and Matt could feel the slight temperature variation in the air as a drop of condensation slid down the metal. “I mean, he’s just a guy. How bad could he be?”

Matt pressed his hand into his ribcage, feeling for the vibration of any broken bones rubbing together. He hadn’t even started to inventory all his injuries from the fight yet. “Bad. He uh…” He winced. That rib was definitely fractured. “Decapitated a guy with a car door, once.”

“Holy shit,” Peter whispered, and Matt was relieved to sense the terror in the kid’s voice. Finally, he might take this seriously. “We gotta take this guy down.”

“No. We aren’t going to do anything. Fisk is way too dangerous for you.”

“Oh, come on! I’m Spider-Man! We can be a team, work together! I’ve missed being on a team, I really have.”

A vague recollection came to Matt’s mind. “Oh, right—you were an Avenger.”

“Briefly,” Peter said.

Matt stood up. He had to go find Karen, and Foggy. He had to make sure they were safe. He had to find out where Vanessa Fisk was, where Wilson Fisk was; he had to get all the information he could—

He had to stay far away from Peter’s house. His safe place.

“I have to go,” Matt said. “But listen to me, Peter. This isn’t your fight. These guys are dangerous. They are merciless. I know some of the guys you fight,” he said, holding up a hand when it seemed that Peter was about to interrupt. “They’re bad, yes, but they have morals—a code of honor, if you will. Not Fisk. When he was last in power, he owned everything. The mayor, the NYPD—even the FBI. He can take you down, destroy everything and everyone you love, without laying a finger on you.”

“But we—”

“I mean it, Peter. Stay away from Fisk. Keep your head down. Don’t go looking for him. Or me,” he added. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I’ll know if you go after him.” 

“Oh, come on Double D, please—”

“Stay safe.” He paused, tilting his head. “And change the bandage on your back, you just bled through it.”

Peter started. “How did you know—”

“The copper, in the air,” Matt said. “I can taste it.” And he opened the window, swinging his legs over until he was sitting halfway out of the building. “Goodbye, Peter.”

“Wait—”

Matt dropped down onto the fire escape and ducked into an alley. In less than a minute he was out of Peter’s line of sight, listening to the kid’s confused sputtering as he shut the window.

Chapter Text

Five years ago, Wilson Fisk had his fists around a prison guard's throat when the guard crumbled to dust between his fingers.

For a wild, crazed moment, Wilson wondered if it was his doing—if he'd somehow gone too far, tapped into some sort of destructive power he didn't know he had—and by the time he came to his senses, he looked up to see dozens of dust clouds, the particles drifting to the ground all over the prison yard.

The chaos was immediate. First there was the screaming, the panic and disbelief. Then there was the fighting. The inmates that were left believed that this was their chance; dozens of men made a fun for it, bolting for the fence. The guards, in a confused panic, shot down the escaping prisoners as the screaming grew louder.

Wilson, meanwhile, carefully wiped the dust off his hands onto a handkerchief he kept in his pocket. Then he sat on a bench and watched the madness unfold.

Two days later, Wilson Fisk nodded to the prison watchmen as he strolled through the prison gates, white suit intact, his father's cufflinks securely around his wrists. The guards nodded solemnly at him as he left, as though in salute.

Kingpin was back.

He spent the first year of his (admittedly boring) freedom trying to track down Vanessa. As far as he could tell, she had been traveling overseas when the blip happened, acquiring art in Italy for her gallery. After months and months of searching, of bribing local politicians for information, of threatening police officers and laymen, he still came up empty. This was in the early days of the blip, when there was a desperate attempt at some semblance of civilization; the days where half-dead governments still tried to keep records. Census-takers across the world were working themselves into exhaustion trying to chronicle who had survived and who had not. And yet, millions were still unaccounted for. Wilson couldn't be sure what happened to Vanessa. She'd been in hiding, a continent away—it was nearly impossible to track her down.

Finally a year and three weeks to the day since Thanos snapped away half the world, one of Wilson's underlings—he couldn't remember the name now—reported back from Europe. The man had found her, tracked down her records.

She was among the dead.

As the words left the underling's mouth, Wilson saw himself kissing Vanessa, caressing her. She smiled at him, and he saw her turn to dust in his hands, in his lips. Enraged, he grabbed his underling. He snapped his arm at the elbow. He slammed the man's head over and over into a nearby brick wall, relishing each crack in his skull, imagining it was the mad Titan in his hands instead. But when that nameless man slumped to the ground, blood leaking from his ears, Wilson felt emptier than he had before. He was a boy again, a frightened boy with a hammer. 

There was blood spatter on his father's cufflinks. Wilson wiped them on the dead underling's jacket. Vanessa would be disappointed he was wearing them again. And yet—and yet—

There was a satisfaction in them. A relief. A comfort in their familiarity, in their brutality.

The next four years were spent in near isolation. He had an inkling of faith in that group of insane vigilantes, the Avengers; most of the population did. There was a worldwide belief that eventually, someday, the blip would be reversed and the lost masses would find their way home. The idea of a permanent loss was inconceivable. Of course their loved ones would return.

Of course Vanessa would return.

In the meantime, Wilson built-up his empire again. In the chaos following the blip, it was easy for him to leverage his release. On the books, he was still officially in prison. He was still guilty of countless crimes. But in reality, he was living in luxury; a beautiful penthouse in the best part of Hell's Kitchen. Rent could have been free—after all, there was no way to enforce payment in this sort of half-society—but Wilson paid his landlord anyway. Paid him generously. It was worth it to earn the man's loyalty. You never knew when he might be useful.

It was easy to pursue power and influence in those intervening years. After all, that meddling lawyer—the monster who had come between he and his wife, who'd destroyed his wedding day, who had beaten him all those years ago—Matt Murdock was dead. He was dust in the streets, Daredevil was long gone, and there was nothing standing in Wilson's way.

Daredevil was gone. And Vanessa... 

Love is the perfect prison, he had once told Agent Nadeem. You can build a prison of stone and steel, but you merely present the prisoner with a challenge... but love, love is the perfect prison. Inescapable.

And what a prison it was. Before the blip, he had allowed himself to be locked away, desperate to keep Vanessa safe. To keep her free. The federal prison was not his cell; no. His heart was. 

And yet, what is a prison with no walls? With Vanessa now turned to dust, but his love as ardent as ever?

This prison, now, was in ruins.

In the smallest, ugliest part of himself, the part he would never acknowledge, there was a hint—just a hint—of relief. Without the threat to Vanessa’s safety… without Vanessa… his brutality was unchecked. His violence and power gave him a force he’d never known, even at the peak of his pre-blip power. He had no one to protect. He had no one to lose. He was without weakness.

Without love, this prisoner was free.

But what was the world without her, if not another prison?

So he locked that part away, the part of him that reveled in his power, in his freedom. He would choose weakness, every moment. He would choose prison. He would choose Vanessa.

He contacted the remnants of the various gangs he'd worked with in the past. The Russians, the Chinese, the Irish. All mobs of considerable size, considerable means, even in this shattered society. He curried their favor. He slaughtered their enemies. He provided them with all the money they'd need to carry out their business. He prepared his underground kingdom for the day his queen would return.

Five years after a man had crumbled to dust in his hands, Wilson Fisk was more powerful than he'd ever been. He was ready for Vanessa. He was ready for his wife.

And suddenly the world began turning agin. The dust re-formed into living bodies, with voices and smiles and heartbeats. The system was overloaded. It was stuffed full. There wasn't enough house, enough food; planes stalled around the globe, people stuck in places they were no longer welcome. It was chaos incarnate, which was the climate Wilson Fisk preferred to live in. None of the newly-returned officials cared about his disappearance from prison. None of them cared about Vanessa's past crimes. Wilson should have been able to find his bride and live openly with her once again.

And yet—and yet—if everyone had returned, then Matthew Murdock must be alive once more. No doubt he was sitting pretty in his pathetic little law office, waiting for the smallest hint of Wilson Fisk back on the streets. As soon as Murdock heard Wilson was free again, he would hunt him down.

He didn't dare reveal Murdock's secret identity. All those years before, when Daredevil had landed him in prison, he'd threatened Vanessa. Sweet Vanessa. Beautiful Vanessa. Compassionate, understanding, brilliant Vanessa. Murdock had threatened to reveal her crimes—to throw her to the wolves, lock her away—if Wilson uttered so much as a whisper of Daredevil's true identity.

And so here Wilson was now, almost a year after the blip, a continent away from his beautiful wife and powerless to bring her home—lest Matt Murdock find out about his rise to power.

It had only been a month since his assistant had found Vanessa, living in a refugee shelter in Italy. This wasn't unique; millions of people who'd blipped back found themselves stranded. And yet, the thought of his wife in these conditions—dirty face, empty belly, surrounded by the heat of dozens of strangers, yet completely alone—

It filled him with sorrow. It filled him with rage.

Wilson held his cell phone, waiting for the call he was sure would come. Vanessa called every morning around this time. And sure enough, within a minute or two, how phone began to vibrate. He swiped it open and accepted the video call. 

And there she was: the light of his life. The reason for living. His prison. His refuge. Dark, thoughtful eyes; chestnut hair; lips full and red, curled into a rueful smile; a look of sweet concern upon her face.

"Wilson," she said softly, and Wilson's eyes grew hot, itchy, as though he were about to cry.

"Vanessa." 

"You look upset, my love."

He smiled at her, wistfully, knowing the happiness had not yet reached his eyes. "It's nothing that seeing you can't remedy."

She smiled back at him, that crooked, impish smile, and Wilson felt true happiness begin to seep in.

"Tell me about your living conditions," Wilson said. Vanessa sighed and waved her arm vaguely around her. 

"It's fine, Wilson. It isn't very luxurious, but... it's better than most, I think."

"Please, Vanessa—let me send you some money... just enough to get you somewhere comfortable, somewhere safe... until I can bring you home."

"No, Wilson. It isn't safe for you. You're in prison, remember?" Wilson was silent. "If the money were traced back to you, I'd never be able to come home. I'd never see you again. Never hold you again."

"But Vanessa..."

"It isn't terrible. I eat three times a day. I enjoy the Italian sunshine. I'm free to leave whenever I want; I can go anywhere..."

"Except here," Wilson said, and a bolt of rage ran down his spine. It wasn't safe for Vanessa. Not yet. Not until he'd cleared his name—and more importantly, hers.

Vanessa would never be safe until Matt Murdock, Karen Page, and Foggy Nelson were dead.

Vanessa closed her eyes for a minute and breathed deeply. Wilson was enchanted, watching her. "Listen to me, Wilson," she said. "Perhaps I could come anyway. I've read the newspapers; no one has seen Daredevil since the blip. Perhaps he never came back, perhaps he died."

"No," Wilson said. "He's alive. He's running his law firm again."

Vanessa was quiet for a moment. "Then perhaps he's quit. Maybe his vigilante days are over. Wilson... let me come home..."

"No." Wilson let the firmness of his tone hang in the air. "I can't risk you, Vanessa. Not with Murdock. When he finds out that I'm out—and he will—he'll send you to prison. I can't have that, Vanessa. I can't let you suffer like that."

"I'm suffering now," Vanessa said. "I'm so lonely, Wilson..."

He wanted more than anything to travel to her, to start a new life in Europe. And yet—he couldn't tear himself away from this place. Hell's Kitchen was a part of him, and he was a part of it. The city ran through his body like blood, like oxygen. Without the city, he was not himself. He was nothing.

"Wilson," Vanessa said. "You can take care of Murdock. You can kill him."

"I can't," Wilson said, and the words were acid on his tongue. "He's too powerful, Vanessa. You remember our wedding night..."

A broken jaw. Hands coated slick with blood. Red spatter across a white painting. There was a finality in each punch Murdock threw; a surety. Murdock beat him. He would always beat him.

"Then kill his friends," Vanessa said softly. "Miss Page... Mr. Nelson..."

"I can't," Wilson said again. He was shaking with rage, with despair. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and when he spoke, there was an unsteadiness to his voice that frightened him. "Murdock... made it very clear. If I go after them... if I so much as threaten them... he'll turn you in to the FBI."

"Then send someone else after them, my love. Murdock doesn't have to know you're behind it."

"He'll know. He always knows." Wilson was growling now, and he clenched his fist. The force of it cracked the screen of his phone, and Vanessa's face split into a thousand pieces. "I... I don't understand how. But I've heard reports. The people I've sent before, they tell me things. Murdock can spot a lie. It's inexplicable... but he can."

"But—"

"I cannot risk it! I cannot risk you!" Wilson shouted. "There is nothing we can do! I'm trapped... we're trapped, the both of us..."

A checkmate. A prison.

Vanessa was quiet for a long time. When she finally spoke again, her voice was measured, soothing, like she was singing a lullaby. "This won't be forever, Wilson. You'll find a way around it, you always do. We'll be together again."

Wilson allowed himself a moment of silence, and in that silence Vanessa was in his arms. She was so strong, so solid. Her warmth permeated his skin and thawed his heart, sent fire into his veins. But when she spoke again, his arms were suddenly empty, and the room was colder than before. 

"In the meantime, my love, do what you do best. Watch, wait. Learn what you can. Be patient, Wilson. Be strong."

There was a knock on his penthouse door. Wilson's eyes shot up to Vanessa's, the dozens of eyes staring at him from the cracked glass, full of sorrow. "I have to go," he said.

"Then go, Wilson."

"I love you."

"Oh, Wilson, so do I."

They stared at each other in silence for a moment before another knock sounded. Wilson felt the rage building up again. Seeing this, Vanessa hung up.

Wilson stormed to the door, flinging it open with such force that the handle dented the wall. "What?"

"Kingpin, sir, I have a report."

This was some new assistant; a low level cop pulled from the precinct. Wilson's eyes flashed. "Well? Get on with it."

"The Russians were meeting today with new clientele—the traffickers—"

"Yes, yes, I know. And?"

"They were interrupted... by Spider-man."

Wilson blinked. He fingered his father's cufflinks, thinking. Since when was Spider-man interested in street-level crime? From his recollection, Spider-man usually dealt with world-level threats. He was an Avenger, or had been at one point.

"Continue."

"Sir, he—he wasn't alone."

A thrill of foreboding ran across Wilson's body. He knew what the man was going to say, knew the name that was falling from his lips even before he said it.

"Daredevil's back, sir."

Wilson snarled. His heart beat in his chest so loud he could almost see it behind his eyeballs. He pictured the slim frame of Matthew Murdock between his fists; so small, so weak—yet strong enough, somehow, to win. To always win.

It wasn't until Wilson tasted blood that he realized he'd been punching his assistant, so hard that blood spatter was streaked across Wilson's face. He blinked. He stood up straight and dropped the man to the ground, where he slumped, unconscious. He would live. Perhaps. Or perhaps not. 

Wilson closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the blood off his face.

He couldn't pursue Murdock now. He would lose again. But perhaps... perhaps it was time to pay Spider-man a visit.

Chapter Text

“Coffee’s still terrible, Peter.”

Peter jumped and started to cover his phone before remembering Matt couldn’t see it. Then he glared at him.

“If you’re gonna drag me back to the shop—”

“Just teasing,” Matt said. He set the coffee down on the desk and returned to a stack of paperwork, running his fingers along it. “What are you working on?”

Peter sighed. In all honesty, he hadn’t been working at all. He had an enormous stack of cases on his desk that he was supposed to file alphabetically, and cross reference, and some other nonsense. Instead he had his phone out, quietly scrolling.

He was going through each of the major New York papers—even the Daily Bugle , although he didn’t really trust anything J. Jonah Jameson said—looking for mentions of Daredevil. Yet ever since the blip, there were no mentions of the masked vigilante. It was as though he’d completely quit. So when had he started again? And how had he known where to find Peter?

“Just—looking up a legal term,” Peter said. “Did you need something?”

Matt was silent, his head tilted slightly in Peter’s direction. It unnerved Peter, the way Matt seemed to stare at him sometimes; as though he could see him. More than that—see through him. Peter felt the hairs on his arm raise, though whether it was his “Peter Tingle” or just a blast of cold air, he couldn’t be sure.

There was a jiggle at the doorknob, then an impatient knock. Peter jumped up to open the door. Karen Page and Foggy Nelson spilled into the room, their arms loaded with at least a dozen grocery bags.

“What’s all this?” Peter said.

“Supplies for the office. Give us a hand?” Karen said. Peter quickly took eight bags in one hand—then, realizing that no normal person should be able to carry that so easily, he dropped a couple on the floor.

“Oops, sorry,” he said, and scrambled to pick up what had fallen out. Tomatoes, cheese, bread, granola bars—all sorts of things that didn’t seem quite right for an office space.

Matt stood. “What’s it all for?”

“Oh, you know…” Karen walked the bags to the office kitchen and began unloading them. “You stay at the office so long every day. I thought we might as well keep some food here for you, Matt. Make sure you get a few meals in. And, you know, if anyone else gets hungry…” Karen glanced at Peter, then pretended she hadn’t as she hoisted a bag of frozen chicken nuggets into the freezer.

Peter reddened. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday.

It wasn’t that the pay here was bad; it was miles above the zero dollars he’d been making before. Obviously. But living in New York was expensive. And the blip had sent inflation through the roof. Besides, he didn’t have time to shop. Not when he spent his evenings as Spider-Man.

He’d meant to swing by the store yesterday, but on his way he’d passed an empty warehouse that set off his “Peter Tingle.” Gang activity, of course. The city was overrun with it these days. He’d dropped in and busted up some kind of weapons deal; thrown some punches, kicked some ass. Webbed up a few of the leaders as the rest fled. Child’s play, really. After all, he’d fought freaks like the Green Goblin and Electro. Weird Albanian dudes selling AKs? That was nothing.

Well, almost nothing. He’d gotten a nasty cut on his torso from a particularly brutish one with a knife. Peter absentmindedly scratched at it.

That was a mistake. The cut immediately opened again and started bleeding again. He winced.

“You feeling okay, Peter?” Matt said.

Peter looked up. Matt’s head was cocked in Peter’s direction, a shrewd look on his face that made Peter more than a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah—fine,” Peter said. After a minute or so, Matt returned to the paperwork on his desk. 

Peter exhaled. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. Wanting to avoid any more conversation, he put in his earbuds and stacked a couple particularly hefty case files in front of him.

Then he opened up the police scanner app.

He had a vague idea that he might get some leads on where the rest of those Albanian guys had gone. The police had arrested the ones he’d left for them, and according to the scanner last night, they were actively searching for the rest of them. It should be easy to subdue the rest of them, he thought, especially with the leaders out of the way. 

The scanner blared in his ear as he stacked file after file. Nothing of note so far—a couple drug busts, some street racing—

A crackle. “Be advised, potential altercation, six thirty tonight at the warehouse on 19th…” The Albanians. That was where he’d fought them last night. “...suspects to be considered armed and dangerous—”

“What are you listening to?” Matt asked suddenly. Peter jumped.

“Uh… Taylor Swift,” he said.

“Nice,” Foggy said, coming into the room with a couple microwaved burritos. He handed one to Peter. “T Swizzle.”

Karen followed him and sat on the edge of Matt’s desk. “Pretty sure no one calls her that, Foggy.”

“I do. I’m somebody.” Foggy bit into his own burrito and hissed. “Ah! Hot!”

Matt was sitting very still, staring—for lack of a better word—in Peter’s direction. Peter had the sense that he wanted to say something else, but before he could, Karen turned to him and lightly ran her fingers along his arm.

“So… we still on for dinner tonight?”

Matt tore his head away from Peter. “Want me to pick you up?”

“Pretty sure you can’t drive.”

Matt snorted. “Yeah. Still on. Six o clock.”

Karen smiled at him and fiddled with his lapels, and Peter felt a twinge of something in the pit of his stomach. Sadness? Jealousy? Pining? All three, maybe. There was something in the tenderness of Karen’s face that reminded him of MJ, in those quiet moments where she was opened herself up to him. He remembered the look in her eyes when she’d come to him after Aunt May died, the softness of her touch as she drew him into an embrace. 

Matt stood and wrapped an arm around her waist.

“You better show up on time,” Karen said. “You can’t go anywhere without stopping to…” She paused. “Without getting distracted.” 

“Objection.”

“Overruled, counselor.” She tugged at his tie. Matt laughed and kissed her forehead.

Foggy mimed throwing up. “Ugh. This is a workplace.” He waved a hand at Peter. “You’re making the poor kid uncomfortable.”

Peter laughed, a little awkwardly, and stood up. “Actually, it’s five. I’m heading out anyway. See you tomorrow?”

Foggy groaned. “You’re leaving me alone with these two?”

“Sorry,” Peter said. He grabbed his bag and his phone, and before anyone could say something else, he was out the door—already undoing the buttons on his work shirt, revealing the red and blue pattern of his suit underneath. He was still thinking about MJ, and the knot in his stomach was growing tighter and tighter.

A little Spider-man-ing would be a nice distraction.

#####

Matt waited for Karen underneath the awning of the restaurant, breathing in the metallic scent of the rain, listening to the drops thunder against the pavement. Rain so often frustrated him. It was overstimulating. It was distracting. Yet tonight—the rain was like the guiding arm of a friend, taking him back years in time, to the moment Karen first kissed him.

She had been so beautiful in the rain. Or—she sounded beautiful. She felt beautiful. He remembered it so clearly; the trembling of her breath. The heat radiating off her—a cloud of red in the middle of the deep blackness of the cold city. The vibrations of a single raindrop, tracing its way down her arm… and Matt’s finger tracing it back, up to her neck, her jaw, her cheek… then her lips on his, and everything else… silence.

He didn’t mind the rain then. He didn’t mind it now.

A taxi turned onto the street. Matt shifted his head a little, turning his ear closer to the sound. That must be Karen. And sure enough, the cab pulled to a stop in front of the restaurant. Karen stepped out onto the sidewalk, popping open an umbrella.

Matt, as usual, pretended he didn’t know she was there until she gently touched his arm. “Hi,” she whispered, and leaned in to press her soft lips against his.

“Mmm. Hi.” He raised a hand to her head, running his fingers through her long hair. “You switched toothpaste.”

“Yeah, I thought I’d use something a little less strong.”

“Thoughtful of you,” Matt said. He leaned in for another kiss, but Karen pulled away—and when she spoke, he could hear the teasing smile in her voice.

“Ah ah ah, we’re already late.” She took his hand and placed it on her arm, leading him as she would any other blind man. Matt smiled, taking in the sound of Karen’s heels gently splashing against the rain-spattered sidewalk. 

“Oh—Matt, it’s—”

“What, Karen?” They’d walked through the front door of the restaurant. Karen’s breath caught in her throat, and she turned to face him.

“Did you do this?” 

Of course he had. Matt had set this up weeks ago, booking the entire restaurant for the evening. He’d asked them to lower the hanging lights until they dangled inches above their heads. He asked for candles, for music, for white wine. The owner had been a little confused. This was a casual place, one of the cheapest in the city. But this place, this hidden gem, was where Karen had brought him for their first date. 

For the first time, in this place, he’d felt so normal. Karen had loved him in his ordinariness, long before she’d seen his abilities. In this run down restaurant, years ago, Matt had let himself be . No Daredevil here. No blindness. No identity even. Nothing but a man and a woman and the smell of the stars…

“Did you do this, Matt?”

“Do what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar,” she said, so softly that no one else in the world could have heard it but Matt. “It’s lovely.”

She walked him to the only table and guided him to a chair, then pulled up her own. A waiter took their order and gave them a bottle of white wine. The air was warm, awash in the taste of spiced curry, Karen’s floral perfume, and the dusty smell of rain.

Matt picked up the bottle and Karen guided his hand to the glasses, helping him pour. As if he needed it. He smirked at her and didn’t need to sight to see her smile in response.

“So. What’s the occasion?” Karen asked. Her heart rate rose—and Matt realized that Karen knew exactly what they were doing here, exactly what Matt was going to ask her.

“What? I can’t just take my girlfriend out somewhere?”

“Not like this,” Karen said. She leaned forward and grabbed Matt’s hand, running her thumb over his scarred knuckles. “This place… it’s begging for a special occasion.”

In his pocket, heavy as iron, was a small silver ring. In his mind he was sliding it onto Karen’s warm finger, kissing it into the skin of her hand.

“Describe it to me,” Matt said.

Karen laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You know what it looks like.”

“I know how it smells … but I want you to tell me what you see.”

Karen took a quick breath, swallowed, and looked around her. “Well… the room is bathed in yellow and orange light. It’s like the whole place is glowing. You’re glowing in it, Matt.” Matt grinned. “The lights are shaped like chili peppers—but you knew that—lots of green and red, and the tablecloth is a soft beige. And it’s all reflected here…” She ran a finger along the rim of his glasses. “May I?” 

“Yeah,” Matt whispered, and Karen gently removed them. 

“Now it’s reflecting in your eyes,” she said, running her thumb over his brow.

“Karen, I…” He swallowed. Father Lantom had once said that Matt was a man without fear—but that wasn’t true. This was fear, a strange desperation and wishing. He knew what Karen’s answer would be, and yet…

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been, with you,” Matt said. “I… I just… I need you to know that.”

“Me too,” Karen said.

“You—you are everything… to me.”

Matt could practically feel Karen’s smile stretch across her face. She picked up his hand again and began absentmindedly playing with his fingers. “What are you trying to say, Matthew Murdock?”

And suddenly Matthew heard a voice, a voice he hadn’t heard since before the blip. A voice in his head, low, calculating, menacing. 

The voice of Wilson Fisk. 

“Yes, Mr. Murdock,” Fisk said. “Tell her. Tell her you want to yoke her to you. That you want to put her in danger for the rest of her life.”

Matt’s fingers twitched.

“What I’m trying to say… is that… you should order the masala,” he said. “Waiter?”

And Fisk spoke again, as loud as if he were standing right behind them. “You know I’ll come for her. Her and Franklin Nelson. And when they die, Mr. Murdock, it will be upon your head .”

The waiter came to take their order.

“Matt?” Karen said. “You wanted the house special?”

“What? Um—yeah,” Matt said. In his lap his empty fist clenched around his cane, so tightly he thought he was going to break it. Karen leaned forward, resting on the table. 

“I’ve told you what I see. It’s your turn.”

Matt laughed a little, trying to stem the rising rage, the guilt, in his throat. Fisk was watching them, he would always be watching them, just waiting for a chance to destroy them all. “I… don’t see anything.”

Karen lightly smacked his shoulder. “You know what I mean!”

“Yeah, I do. Um…” He closed his eyes, letting his mind roam the city around him. “I can smell the leather taxi seat on you, and the cologne of whoever sat here yesterday. I can hear the neon lights buzzing, I can feel the vibrations of the rain outside…”

“And me?” Karen whispered. “Tell me how you see me.”

Matt fingered at the ring in his pocket. “You are… you…”

“Yes?”

“There’s a warmth around you,” Matt said. “Like a beam of sunshine coming through a window. And…”

He heard the voice of Fisk once more. “That window will shatter, Murdock, if she marries you. I’ll destroy it. And the walls that surround it. It will all burn.”

“And,” Matt pushed on, clenching his fist around the ring, “When you breathe, I can hear your lungs… like wind through a tree…”

“I’ll cut it down,” said Fisk.

Matt’s breath hitched in his throat. How could he do this to her? Bind her to him, to the Devil, to a life of constant threat and fear? 

This wasn’t love. It was selfishness. It was greed. He could never have her, should never have her.

“Listen, Karen, maybe we should…”

There was a sudden movement. Matt stood, hair on his arms standing up, as a nearby waiter suddenly tripped and fell, spilling a glass of wine into Karen’s lap.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m so sorry—”

Karen stood up, wiping the wine from her arms. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it, just—” She turned back to Matt. “Hold that thought, I’m going to clean up a little.” 

The waiter walked her to the bathroom, still sputtering apologies.

But Matt was barely listening. He was rigid, cane tight in his clenched fists. There was someone else here, someone who had just come in. Matt was too distracted, too nervous about the proposal, to sense him entering. 

This man who had snuck in so quietly. This man who had tripped the waiter.

“Dreadfully sorry,” the man said, sitting down in Karen’s empty seat. Matt recognized that accent, that cold voice. “If it’s any consolation, the white wine was the right choice. Much easier to get out of clothing.”

Felix Manning. Fisk’s right hand man. Matt twisted the cane in his hands, his knuckles whitening. 

“Get the hell out of this restaurant,” Matt growled.

“I only just got here.” Felix crossed his legs and swiped at a droplet of spilled wine on the tablecloth. “I hear the curry is to die for.”

“Don’t make me ask again,” Matt said. The chef and hostess were both in the kitchen. The waiter was helping Karen clean off her dress. They were alone, he and Felix. He could take him right now, could slam his skull against the wall and knock him out cold.

“I won’t stay long,” Felix said calmly. He pulled his phone from his pocket, gently turning it back and forth in his hands. “But I’m here on assignment. My employer wants a word with you.”

Fisk .

Matt could hear the pumping of blood beneath his skin, could feel the searing heat of his heart. “What does he want?”

“Ask him yourself,” Felix said. He pressed a few buttons on his phone and Matt could hear the ringing, the click of an answer, the low tones of Wilson Fisk on the other end. 

“Give him the phone,” Fisk said, and Felix obliged, handing the phone over. Matt lifted it to his ear, trembling with rage.

“We had a deal, Fisk. You stay the hell away—”

“I am not going to hurt Karen Page.” There was a barely-suppressed rage in his voice, in his breath. “Or Franklin Nelson. No, Mr. Murdock. I am simply giving you a warning.”

Matt willed the blood in his veins to stop pounding. “About what?”

Fisk chuckled, and the blackness shrouding Matt’s eyes seemed to glow red for a moment. “I understand that you have begun to work with Spider-man. Is that true?”

“Listen to me, you—”

“Spider-man is in danger.” Fisk spoke slowly, carefully, each word a precise measure of practiced calm. “A high ranking member of the Albanian mob was arrested thanks to your friend; federal agents are closing in on the rest of them. The Albanians are out for blood. I have it on good authority that they are planning a hit on Spider-man tonight, somewhere in this city.”

Damn it. Damn Peter. He was so careless. 

“Why should I believe you?” Matt said. His fingers inched nearer to the mask he had folded in his pocket.

“You tell me, Mr. Murdock. I heard you have a penchant for detecting lies.”

There was no heartbeat over the phone receiver. Only Matt’s, only Felix’s. The wait staff. Karen in the bathroom. An orchestra of heartbeats… but not Fisk’s. Matt pushed his hair back, breathing slowly, lowering his heart rate. Fisk sounded genuine—but then, he always sounded genuine. Wilson Fisk was a master manipulator, a liar of the highest order.

But he knew when telling the truth could be advantageous.

“Why are you telling me this?” He could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

“Because… I’m a changed man, Matthew. A rehabilitated man.”

“Like hell you are.” 

“Hmm,” Fisk said, with a small chuckle. “It’s quite simple. The Albanians want me dead. I want the Albanians dead—or at least, taken care of. But if I send anyone after them, I’ll incite a gang war this city hasn’t seen since before the blip. It wouldn’t be… prudent… at this time.”

Matt laughed, fists clenched so hard his fingernails were tearing into his palms. “You think I’m going to take out your competition for you?”

“Of course not. But… I know you. You wouldn’t let your friend die. That isn’t who you are, Mr. Murdock .” 

He spoke Matt’s name with such acid, such fire. Matt was reminded of the rage in his voice the last time they fought, the animalistic screaming, the certainty of either victory or death.

“You want me to show you where Spider-man’s hiding,” Matt said. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I would lead you to his home?”

Fisk was silent for a moment. “Then let Spider-man’s death be on your head.” 

Matt cracked his knuckles. “What do you want with Spi—”

A click. Fisk had hung up.

Matt whirled around. He would beat the information out of Felix, find out exactly what Wilson Fisk was doing—

But Felix had disappeared. In the distracting haze of red fury, Matt had let a lead slip through his fingers.

He ran a hand through his hair, the room spinning around him, focusing his mind as calmly as he could. Stretching his senses through the city streets, he heard heavy rain, boots on pavement, the blare of car horns. And there—sirens. He focused harder. 

Police—two of them, getting into their cars two blocks away. Their radios screeched: “Shootout at a warehouse on 17th. Possible bombing. No known suspects at this time. Spider-man reported at the scene—”

Matt hurled himself over the table, plates crashing to the floor. He pulled his mask over his face as he ran, bursting out of the restaurant doors and into the muggy rain. That warehouse was only a few minutes away, but with the Albanians on the scene—that might as well be days. 

Peter was fighting them alone.

He jumped into an alleyway, up onto a windowsill, a fire escape. Then he was on the roof, where he could feel the city for miles. Where he could run freely, unnoticed. 

The spicy smell of the restaurant faded away as he ran into the unfeeling night.

Forgive me, Karen . 

#####

Felix Manning , read the caller ID on Wilson’s cell phone. He let it ring once—twice—three times—before picking up. “Tell me.”

“He’s on his way, sir,” Felix said.

“Did he say anything?”

“No, sir. He just ran. He seems rather desperate, if I may say so.”

“In what way?” Wilson asked. He stood and crossed to his window, looking out upon the winking lights of his city. The rain streaked across the windowpane, sending shattered light across the marble floor of his penthouse.

“It was the look on his face, sir. When you first mentioned Spider-man, he seemed—not frightened, per se, but…”

“Protective,” Wilson said, thoughtful. Good. This was good. A desperate Murdock, a protective Murdock, was more easily manipulated.

“Exactly.”

“And Karen Page?” Her name was like stone in his mouth, dragging him deep into an ocean of pure hate. An image crossed his mind—a friend, riddled red with bullets, slumped over a chair in a dark warehouse. The edges of Wilson’s vision blackened and he breathed deeply, collecting himself.

“She’s gone, too, sir. Actually, she was a bit angry when she left. Shall I have her followed?”

“No,” Wilson said quietly. The time would come when he would snap her arms at the joints and crush her skull into pulp—but that time was not now. “I want all your resources on Mr. Murdock.”

“Sir?”

“I want everything you can get me on the two of them. This Spider-man—I want you to find out who he is. I want to know why Murdock cares so much for him.”

“Certainly, sir,” Felix said, and fell into silence.

He would wait to be dismissed before hanging up. He would wait all night if he had to. Satisfied, Wilson placed his phone on speaker and set it down on the windowsill. The sound of the rain was like the rattle of faraway gunshots as he crossed his penthouse. He was drawn, magnetized to this spot; not consciously aware of what he was looking for until it was right in front of him. 

He stared, awash in a sea of pristine white, at the painting hung above his fireplace.

Rabbit in a Snowstorm , it was called. He recalled the first time he had seen it, layers upon layers of milky white, in Vanessa’s art gallery. It was the first night she had spoken to him.

People always ask me, how can we charge so much for what amounts to gradations of white? I tell them it’s not about the artist’s name or the skill required, not even about the art itself. All that matters is, ‘how does it make you feel?’

The painting stared back at him, and for a moment Wilson was reminded of mirrors, one facing the other, reflecting back into each other until everything was lost in a sea of jumbled fractional images.

It makes me feel alone.

In the intervening years the painting had become a symbol of their desire, of their loneliness, of their love. But now… the symbol was destroyed. 

No—not destroyed. 

Transformed.

On the bottom third of the canvas was a spatter of watered-down red. No matter how many restorationists he had taken it to, none of them could remove all of the blood. With his fists, Daredevil had painted the canvas scarlet. Wilson’s blood had transfigured the piece into something new. Something ugly.

Vanessa didn’t think so. When he told her the stain was permanent, she said the painting had merely gained new meaning. It was a relic now, of their love for each other, of his sacrifice for her.

But not to Wilson. To him, it was a reminder—a warning. Matt Murdock would return. He would not leave them be until the entire painting was saturated in hot, bright, rageful red.

“Sir?” Felix said.

“ Quiet !” Wilson let his shout hang in the air for a moment before returning his gaze to Rabbit in a Snowstorm . He saw Matt Murdock in that painting. He saw his father. He saw himself. He stared at the canvas until the rain slowed to a soft drizzle.

“You may go,” Wilson said. 

Felix cleared his throat. “May I ask—sir—”

“ What ?”

There was an electric current of fear in Felix’s tone now. “What sort of information are you looking for in regards to this Spider-man—”

“Anything, Mr. Manning. Anything and everything.”

“But sir—if I could understand the end goal, the plan, I might be able to—”

Wilson drew in air, his chest swelling like a thundercloud. “Get me information, Felix! Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, sir,” Felix said, and Wilson was pleased to hear the tremor in his voice.

“You may go,” Wilson said again, and Felix hung up.

The painting called to him once more. Wilson took a seat in a chair, facing it. He watched the swaths of white as the rain began once again, crescendoing into a deafening, deadening roar.

#####

It was easy at first. These guys were losers, they were easy. Peter held them off long enough to warn the few nearby civilians, and once the area was clear, he got to work.

Really, he was in his element. Zooming up the walls, yanking Albanians around with his webs, launching them backward with the sheer strength of his punches—

But there were always more of them, piling into the streets. These gys were organized. They were relentless. And, Peter was quickly realizing, they were ruthless. Before long he was retreating more than advancing. And he was tiring, fast. Supervillains he could take; one and done, usually. Maybe four at the most. But these guys… they were incessant.

“You should know,” Peter said desperately, knocking one of them to the ground, “police are on their way.”

The man spat. “Do you think we’re stupid?”

“What do you mean?” Peter said. He webbed the man’s hands to the pavement, frighteningly aware of the advancing concourses around him. 

“We got guys luring the cops away right now.”

Two more of the gang stepped forward and landed a series of brutal blows. Peter leaped backward, sticking to the wall, the wind knocked out of him.. This was bad news. He’d been counting on the cops. Still, there was time to retreat, come up with a game plan—

And that’s when the bomb went off.

Peter’s vision went white. A screeching sound flooded his ears. He felt a blast of fire scorching his arms, singing holes in his suit. In the chaos of light and smoke, the hairs on the back of his neck tingled. From a few feet away, he heard the click of cocking guns.

This was how it was going to end. Not the Goblin, not Mysterio, not even Thanos. A group of ordinary, non-superhuman thugs with guns and bombs.

There was the tingle again, and he knew without seeing; there was another bomb somewhere. But in the aftermath of the first one, Peter was trapped in slow motion, moving through glue. He tried to run. He couldn’t. 

He sank to his knees. 

In the last moments before everything went black, he thought of MJ. He thought of Ned. He thought of Aunt May, and wondered if he was about to see her.

A guttural shout. The sound of fists on flesh. Guns clattering to the ground. 

Something lifted him. Was this dying? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. 

A blast. A roar. 

His head burst with pain, and the world melted into white—red—black.

Chapter Text

As Matt rushed the limp body of Peter Parker to the Clinton church, he focused half his attention on the streets around him, making sure that he wasn't followed. Thankfully, the streets were practically empty, silent but for the ambient noise Matt was accustomed to. The other half of Matt's focus was on the boy's heartbeat. It was steady. It was strong. Even so, Matt's own heart was in his throat until he burst into the basement of the church.

Sister Maggie was waiting there for him. She silently lay Peter in Matt's old cot and began cleaning his wounds with hydrogen peroxide.

Matt ripped his mask off, pressing the base of his palms into his eyes, stemming the building headache from the massive explosion at the warehouse. "Thanks, Sister."

"It's what we do," Sister Maggie said, though she didn't sound particularly happy about it. "Are you going to tell me what happened or am I supposed to pretend this is normal?"

Matt leaned against a dusty statue of St. Agnes and winced. There was a crack in his ribcage; he could hear the scraping of bone, could feel each vibration of the fracture when he breathed. "He tried to take on the entire Albanian mob by himself." Peter's heart was still steady, and growing stronger. Matt crossed himself. Thank God. "He's stupid, he's reckless, it's like he wants to get himself killed—"

"Sounds like someone else I know," she muttered. "I need to check his eyes and see if he's concussed."

"He is."

"Even so," Sister Maggie said. "Hand me that flashlight. It's above the sink."

Matt picked up the flashlight but paused before giving it to her. "It's important that his identity is safe. If you have to take off his mask..."

"Do I look like an idiot, Matthew?" She snatched the flashlight from him and grumbled as she carefully began rolling up Peter's mask. "I'm not going to tell anyone. How long have I kept your secret? Ungrateful little—"

As she lifted the mask all the way off, Matt heard her heart pound faster.

"Matthew!"

"Yeah."

"This is a child!"

"I know." Upstairs the choir began to sing, and Matthew let himself get lost in the sound for a moment or two. Their voices swelled inside his chest, reaching through his bones, his blood, his skin, like a salve. "Can you help him or not?"

She scoffed. "Of course I can. You've put me through a whole lot worse, remember?"

"Yeah. I know. Is he going to wake up anytime soon?"

Sister Maggie threaded a needle, her hands steady despite the trembling in her voice. "Hopefully not before I'm done stitching him up."

"Good. If something changes, just give me a whisper."

"Why? Where are you going?"

Matt rummaged around in a box shoved haphazardly under the rusty sink. He was pretty sure he'd left an old suit in here. "Upstairs."

"For Mass?"

"Is that a problem?" He shrugged on a suit coat. "How do I look?"

"Like hell," she said. "Let me clean you up, at least—"

"I'm fine, Sister." He fished out an old pair of sunglasses and placed them over his face. "Thanks." Before she could say anything else, he headed up the stairs, clutching at his ribs.

It was easy to slip into the back undetected. This chapel was a refuge, a haven. A welcome distraction from the whirling thoughts in his head. As he stepped inside, the smells and sounds enveloped him like the embrace of a long-forgotten friend. The earthy scent of yesterday's incense and the quivering heat of the candles drifted around him as he took a seat.

Father Cathal was giving a sermon. Matt liked him. He was no Father Lantom, but there was something very calming about his no-nonsense persona, the way he accepted Matt's Daredevil-ing at every confession despite his clear discomfort. His voice was steady, slow, as he spoke from the pulpit.

"The Psalmist tells us to refrain from anger, to forsake our wrath. It is our duty as children of God to quell the rageful voice of the Devil in our hearts..."

Matt closed his eyes and rested his head against the back wall. His father had brought him here since he was a baby; in fact, this was the pew they'd usually sat in together. He could imagine the smell of his leather boxing gloves so clearly. He could see his father's face, looming large and beaten as it had before Matt had gone blind.

He found himself grateful, not for the first time, that his father hadn't lived to see Matt as the Devil. It would have broken his heart to see his boy, bloodied and broken, screaming for justice with no one to hear...

"Still," Father Cathal said. He could hear the priest's heart rate rise slightly as he turned to look at Matt. "We are also told that the servants of the Lord are sometimes called to execute His wrath upon the wicked. Let us look to the example of the Lord God himself. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple; in righteous anger He drove out the sinners. And yet—" Matt could feel the father's eyes boring into him— "Only moments later did He pour out His compassion and love upon His people. He healed the blind man in the same breath that struck down the sinners."

Nice, Father.  Subtle. 

"So what is anger, then, if not a tool in the hands of the righteous? The apostle Paul..."

Matt shifted his focus to the sound of the heartbeats in the room and let himself be consumed in the ambience for ten minutes or so. He hadn't come here consciously; hadn't even given it a second thought when he lifted Peter into his arms and carried him from the wreckage. In truth, he rarely set out to find the church. But tonight, like so many nights, he'd suddenly ended up here, as though drawn by some strange magnetism. He found comfort in its familiarity.

Even if he regularly skipped out on Mass.

It was time to go. The smell of incense and wine was a little too strong; Matt's head was pounding, not yet recovered from the explosion. He stood quietly, moving his cane before him, and walked out of the chapel.

Outside, he made his way up to the roof. He crouched on the carved stone, arm absentmindedly slung around the large cross that adorned the steeple. In the cool night, distanced from the overwhelm of the church inside, he could finally clear his head and think properly. This was far from the highest point in the city, but it was—like in Matt's own life—an epicenter. From here he could smell, he could feel, he could taste the streets, all laced with the scent of the earlier rainstorm. The bars. The junkies. The jaywalkers, even. The city was laid out before him like a map he could peruse at his own leisure.

Matt pulled his black mask from his pocket, letting it air out in the night breeze. It did a great job of hiding his identity, but damn could it accumulate sweat.

The choir below him began singing again. He felt the vibrations of it in his toes. He could hear the creak in Father Cathal's elbow as he crossed himself, could taste the wine and communion wafers in the air.

And he could hear the praying.

This was nothing new, of course. Matt had been listening to parishioners' prayers since he was a child. Ever since the accident, he'd heard the voice of God in those whispers. He'd made a promise, a vow: Matt would be His soldier. He would answer prayers for Him. That was, after all, why God had given him these abilities. Matt never doubted that; in the intervening years, he'd found some spiritual fulfillment in his vigilantism. In answering the prayers. In beating up abusers, rapist, corrupt cops. He had been the voice of justice, the very instrument of God.

But the prayers these days... these were new, strange, and Matt didn't know how to answer them. He didn't think he could. 

"Please... let James return to me, God... he blipped so far away... he's stuck in India, he can't get back..."

"I lost everything. My home. My marriage. My children. The snap destroyed everything... Fix it, Lord, please..."

"Thanos killed her. I know it... why else wouldn't she have come home? He had something to do with it... Please, God, just help me understand..."

Matt so rarely felt helpless. But in this age of gods, aliens, and witchcraft, he was out of his element. He'd always been a street fighter, after all. These otherworldly problems, these supernatural disasters, he was entirely unequipped to handle. All he could do was help pick up the pieces.

Matt took a deep breath and carefully guided his mind away from the whispered prayers. There was nothing he could do for them, not now. It was time for him to clean up a different mess, an unintended consequence of Thanos' snap.

Because that's what it was, Matt knew it. How else could Wilson Fisk have reconstructed his cruel empire, except in the chaos left in the wake of the Infinity Gauntlet. 

Infinity Gauntlet.  What a ridiculous phrase. Matt was really starting to miss the days of good ol' drug trafficking and street violence.

Enough. He was getting distracted. The real question was why Kingpin was coming after Peter. He'd warned Matt—so that he could tail him, get some intel on spider-man... but for what? And was he behind the Albanians, like he was the Russians? It was so hard to tell over the phone whether or not the Kingpin was being truthful.

He had to be behind the Albanians. There was some sort of planning, some sort of machination going on. There always was.

"Matthew..." came Sister Maggie's whisper, several floors below. Matt turned his ear toward the sound. "...he's awake..."

Matt pulled the mask back over his head and dropped himself down to the ground and through an open window. In just a few moments he was back in the basement, listening to the relieved heartbeats of both Peter and Sister Maggie.

"DD!" Peter said, sitting up, then winced.

"Don't call me that."

Sister Maggie forcefully pushed Peter back onto the cot. "Lie down."

Peter hissed a little in pain. "Sister... um... Sister Maggie was telling me she raised you. I didn't know you grew up in an orphanage."

Matt whirled to face her. "Did—did you—"

"Relax, Daredevil. I didn't tell him your name." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Dumbass."

"She could, though," Peter wheedled. "Come on. Hero to hero."

Sister Maggie snorted at the word 'hero.' Matt ignored her.

"You're an idiot," Matt said. Peter opened his mouth to interrupt, but Matt raised a hand to stop him. "No. You're an idiot. Why the hell would you go after the mob like that? Without help, without a plan—"

"I don't know, they're just dudes—"

"It was a trap. How could you not know that? Damn it, Peter!"

Peter slumped backward. "I didn't think—"

"Yeah, clearly," Matt said sharply. Sister Maggie turned to look at him and he sighed, rubbing his temples. "You're going to stay here until you're healed. This place is safe. I used the bomb as a cover, so no one followed us."

"You can stay here as long as you need," Sister Maggie said kindly. Matt snorted. She had not been so kind a few years ago, when he'd been the one half dead in the basement.

Peter began moving his arms and torso carefully, like he was test driving a car. "Won't be too long. I heal pretty fast; something I got from the spider bite."

"Daredevil heals quickly too," Sister Maggie said, wetting a rag and wiping a spot of crusted blood from Peter's cheek.

"Whoah. I didn't know you had actual powers," Peter said.

"I don't. I meditate for that," Matt said shortly. He really didn't feel like getting into the intricacies of his abilities with this kid. "What do you know about the Albanians? Why are they after you?"

Peter shrugged. "I just sort of walked in on a weapons deal, kicked some ass. I thought that was the end of it. Guess not, huh?"

"Does Wilson Fisk have anything to do with it?" 

"The Kingpin? Not that I know of—" Before he could say anything else, Sister Maggie shoved a couple pain relievers into his mouth and forced a cup of water between his lips. He swallowed, coughing.

"And the Russians? Were they working together?"

"I don't know. What's the difference between those guys anyway?"

Matt sighed, accepting a couple pain relievers from Sister Maggie. "The Russians work for Fisk. That much we know. The Albanians, though..."

"We?" Peter said, his heart rate rising. "We? Are we a team now?"

"No."

"Come on! We've worked together twice now!"

"I wouldn't call tonight 'working together.'" Still, Peter had a point. At least temporarily, until he could find out what Fisk wanted with spider-man, he was stuck with this kid. Matt pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking, before he sighed and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "Put your number in. This is for emergencies only. If something comes up, I'll be in touch."

"You have a flip phone? Yikes, dude."

"Some people still use them."

Peter scoffed. "Like who?"

Matt raised his head to the ceiling, half wishing it would collapse down on them just to shut the kid up. "People who don't like technology. Older people. Visually impaired people."

"Oh. Yeah. I think my boss uses one."

Matt made a noncommittal noise and took his phone back. "Listen to me, Peter. You cannot go back to your apartment. Wilson Fisk is after you, and if he learns your secret identity, things are going to get ugly. Is there anywhere else you can live in the meantime? You can't stay in the church forever.

Peter was quiet for a minute. "Well... I guess I could ask my boss."

"What? No. Not him."

"You know Matt?" Peter said, surprised.

Damn. "Yeah, I—we've crossed paths. Murdock and I worked a couple cases together." Matt could practically hear Sister Maggie's eyes rolling. "I know his law partner. Franklin Nelson, right?"

"Yeah, but—how did you know I worked there?"

"I did my homework on you. Listen—" he plowed through Peter's confusion. "—I know this Nelson guy. He's a better bet, go ask him." Matt stood up. He'd have to go let Foggy know. He was really starting to regret hiring Peter as an intern.

"O...kay," Peter said. "But—"

Matt was already halfway out the window. "Call if you need something, Sister."

And before either of them could say anything else, he was out in the night air, back atop the roof of the cathedral.

With his legs dangling in front of the stained glass below him, Matt sighed, relieved. It was nice to get some distance from the overpowering smell of blood. Peter would smell like a hospital for at least another week.

He opened his phone with the intent to call Foggy—but before he could, as though Foggy had some sort of telepathic ability, Foggy called him. Matt braced himself. 

"Hey Foggy."

"What the hell, Matt!"

Matt rubbed his temples. "You talk to Karen?"

"She's pissed, man.  You stood her up."

"I didn't stand her up. I..." He fell silent.

"Left her alone? In the rain? To pay the bill? On what was clearly going to be a proposal?"

Matt licked a stray drop of blood that was running from a cut in his lip. "Foggy, I have a favor to ask."

"Oh. Great. That's exactly where this conversation needs to go."

"Foggy, Peter's going to ask if he can stay with you. I need you to say yes." He waited for Foggy's response, but Foggy said nothing. "Fog?"

"Is this some kind of Daredevil thing?"

Matt sighed. "No. No, there was... a shooting in his building, and he doesn't feel safe anymore. He asked me first, but I could let him see—you know, the suit and everything..."

"So it is a Daredevil thing. Great, Matt. I thought your psycho life wasn't going to be a problem anymore."

"So... you'll let Peter move in?"

Foggy sighed, so loudly that even over the phone, Matt's hypersensitive ears were ringing. "Well I'm not going to say no to a scared kid."

"Thanks Foggy. Uh..." Matt paused. "Is Karen there with you?"

"She just left. She had some words, buddy."

"Yeah, I can imagine. I'll talk to you later."

"Go apologize to Karen!" Foggy said as Matt hung up.

Karen. Matt took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, pushing down his guilt—and, somewhere even deeper, his relief. Karen was safe, away from him. At least for now.

The image of Wilson Fisk crouched down behind him, his voice intermingling with the racing thoughts in Matt's head. "You never asked Miss Page your question. That's good, Matthew. Perhaps the only heroic thing you've ever done."

Matt shook his head, guiding his mind away from Fisk, away from his rage. With a deep breath, he sent out his focus like spindly arms along Hell's Kitchen's streets. He felt footsteps, smelled wads of gum. He heard snatches of conversation; "Pick up Mom from the airport—" "—tried the shawarma yet?" "—hospital bill's on the table—"

There. A hint, just a quick snatch of what sounded like Albanian. Matt tuned out all the other sensory details flooding in and gritted his teeth, placing all of his focus on that one conversation six blocks away.

If only he spoke Albanian. 

But if he could hear a word, a name, something familiar, he'd have a lead.

Something something  in Albanian... something something... there. "Spider-man."

Matt grinned, his heart picking up with the thrill, the rush, the chase.. Even as the imaginary voice of Fisk echoed in his ear again— "Yes, Mr. Murdock. Run away. She doesn't need you."

"I'm not running," Matt said out loud. Then he leapt from the cathedral, rolling onto a windowsill, an awning. He soared through the black night, from rooftop to rooftop. His feet splashed in the scant remains of the rain. His nose was filled with the cold, coppery, delicious smell of a fight—a victory—to come. 

He'd missed this.

He hadn't really... Daredeviled... since the blip. There wasn't much of a need. People were rebuilding their lives; he was rebuilding his life. And besides, Fisk was behind bars, or so he'd thought. Matt had been content to stay in his office, working cases. Spending time with Foggy. Falling in love with Karen. But even so... there was something about the chase, the fight, that had left him incomplete all this time.

Aha. There they were. The Albanians were on a rooftop, above an apartment less than a block away from the destroyed warehouse. There were only two of them; Matt could take them in his sleep. He waited, the sound of heartbeats like thunder in his head, then launched himself at them.

He kicked the closest one in the chest, and he flew backward and hit his skull against a pipe with an echoing clang. The man dropped to the ground, knocked out cold.

Matt turned to the other one. He could hear his quickened pulse, could smell the fear on his breath. He smirked.

The Albanian tried to run, but Matt was faster. He grasped both of the man's hairy arms behind his back, tight in the iron grip of the Devil. "Hello, asshole."

The man spat. "Let me go!"

Matt squeezed tighter, clenching until he knew finger-shaped bruises would be forming. The man cried out in pain.

"You mentioned Spider-man. What were you saying?"

"This isn't your fight—I actually like Daredevil—come on, man—"

Matt swept his leg underneath him, kicking him in the back of his knees. The man dropped to the ground. "Try again."

The Albanian was silent, and Matt twisted his arm. "Ah—he had our leader arrested—it was payback, that's all—"

Matt crouched down until his lips were almost touching the man's ear. "And Fisk. What does he have to do with it?"

"That bastard?" He spat again. "We don't work with him."

"You're lying," Matt said. And yet... the Albanian's heartbeat was steady. He was being truthful.

But that couldn't be right. Fisk had to be behind this. 

"What does Fisk want with Spider-man?"

"How should I know? Ahh—" he choked as Matt closed his hand around his throat. "We got nothing to do—ech—with Fisk! We—gah—want him dead as much as you do."

Matt paused, thoughts racing. Fisk had to be behind the Albanians—he had to—

But the man was telling the truth.

Matt let him go and the Albanian dropped to his hands, face against the pavement, gasping.

"Stay away from Spider-man," Matt said, turning away. "Tell the rest of your little club. You even whisper his name, and I'll come for you."

"Okay—please, just—"

"Get the hell out of my city." Matt stepped off the rooftop.

He swung down a lamppost and screeched to a halt at the bottom, feet solidly on the pavement again. Then he sat, back agains the brick of the alley, and listened to the man above him run away. The Albanians weren't working for Fisk—it was all just chance, just bad luck, that Peter was caught up in their fight.

Then why the hell was Fisk getting involved?

Chapter Text

Peter returned to the office a week after the warehouse explosion. It took a lot of explaining, but he was eventually able to convince his bosses that he'd been in a minor car accident—thus, his black and blue face. Karen in particular seemed very concerned. She spent a good ten minutes fussing over him before Matt had gently stopped her.

He followed Foggy home after work. He felt stupidly like a duckling following its mother, trailing behind him along the sunny New York streets, but Foggy didn't seem to notice his embarrassment. He'd been surprisingly amenable to Peter's moving in. "New roomie!" He'd announced at the office this afternoon, shaking Peter's shoulders genially. "You'll love it. It'll be just like Matt and me at Columbia. Man, those were some good times..."

In truth, as embarrassed as he was—pretending to be a scared child, too timid to live on his own—Peter was looking forward to having a roommate. The quiet loneliness of his old place overwhelmed him sometimes. He remembered, with a pang of regret, the plans he'd made with Ned and MJ. To live together in Boston, spending their days in class and their nights building legos and watching Star Wars...

He didn't bring any of his old things. Daredevil had been very clear that his apartment was off limits. Peter didn't mind; it wasn't like he was leaving a lot behind anyway. He'd return for everything when Fisk was taken down—when he and Daredevil took Fisk down together.

"Marci's okay with it," Foggy said, ushering Peter into his apartment for the first time. "As long as you don't make a mess. She's really uptight about that."

Peter stopped at the threshold and stared, amazed. This was a huge apartment, the kind that Peter assumed was only available to the ultra-rich. Enormous sunny windows, pure white furniture, weird post-modern light fixtures on the ceiling; it all gave off the impression of wealth. Of sophistication. Neither of which applied to Foggy.

"How do you—"

"Afford it?" Foggy snorted. "I don't. I mean, I did once—I was a big time lawyer at one point, it was awesome—but Marci pays the bills these days."

Peter nodded slowly, still gazing around him. It made him think of Happy's apartment. Sudden images of his Aunt May flooded his mind like an avalanche; May smiling, May scolding, May embracing him... May, broken and crushed beneath piles of rubble...

He swallowed, blinked fast, trying to quell the sudden rise of grief.

"Guest room's the furthest on the right. I haven't had a chance to really prep it for you or anything, but Matt said he'd help us set it up. He should be here by now..." Foggy checked his watch. "I'm gonna call him."

"No need," came a voice from outside the door. Peter opened it to find his boss standing beside a stack of three enormous boxes. "Hello Peter."

"How did you get that up here...?"

"Doorman guided me," Matt said.

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, a little sheepish. "Sorry. We should have come and helped—"

"No need," Matt started to say, but Peter picked up the top two boxes and began walking them back to the guest room. Foggy took the last box from Matt, who sighed.

"An Ikea bed?" Foggy said, groaning at the label on the box. "Marci's gonna love that."

Foggy and Peter dropped the boxes on the bare floor with a resounding thud.

"I'm on a budget," Matt said. "Open it, let's start putting—"

"Peter and I can do it," Foggy said quickly, glancing at Peter. "We know you want to help, but..."

"I can't see the instructions," Matt said, irritated. "Fine. I'll just sit and watch then, hmm?"

"You've been a ton of help already," Peter said guiltily. "Thanks, Matt."

"Although you could go get us some drinks," said Foggy with a shit-eating grin. Matt's jaw clenched and he looked a little like he wanted to deck Foggy, but he left the room anyway.

"He's fine," Foggy said, in response to Peter's unasked question. He ripped open the box and dumped out the pieces, sifting through the pile until he'd found the instructions. Then he rolled his eyes. "I hate the Swedes."

Peter took the paper from him and began sorting the pieces as Matt came back, carrying a lemonade and a bottle of beer.

"At your 12:00," Foggy said. Matt nodded and held the lemonade out to Peter, who took it. Then he turned around to Foggy and opened the bottle. He held it out for him, but as Foggy's fingers grazed it, he pulled it back and lifted it to his own lips.

"Sorry, Fog, last one," Matt said as he took a swig. Foggy silently flipped him the bird, then grabbed a bag of screws.

"So. Peter." Foggy sat back against the wall and ripped the bag open with his teeth, immediately spilling it everywhere. "A shooting in your building, huh?"

"Yeah," Peter said, burying his head in the instructions. "Pretty scary stuff."

"Hmm. With all the psycho vigilantes around here, you'd think that wouldn't be a problem."

"Maybe they're busy," Matt said evenly, taking another swig of his beer. Foggy began searching the floor for a screw. Matt bumped a stray piece with his cane—on accident, surely—and Foggy grinned. "Aha. There it is."

Matt felt his way across the room and sat on the floor, pulling an enormous braille novel out of his briefcase and getting lost in it.

It took a couple hours to put the bed together, not in the least because Foggy kept getting flustered. But eventually, the flimsy twin was constructed and set against the wall, furnished with an old gray mattress they'd dug out of Marci's storage. Foggy's face was coated with a dull sheen of sweat, and he looked more than a little irritated as he picked a splinter out of his palm. "I've gotta go pick up Marci," he said, already walking out. "You two can finish up without me, right?"

He left before they could answer.

Peter lifted the other boxes up onto the bed. Inside one was a bed set, a lamp, and some basic toiletries. The other contained a number of hand-me-down suits.

"They should fit," Matt said, touching the box to feel what Peter was looking at. "Foggy tells me we're about the same size. He also tells me you dress a little too casually for a law office."

Peter pulled out the top suit. It was thin, gray, a little frayed, but still much nicer than anything Peter wore these days. "I... don't know what to say. Thanks, Matt."

"You've got another box coming. I'll bring it to the office tomorrow." He patted his shoulder. "It's nice to have you back, Peter. We're going to need you; things are about to get busy."

"Really?" Peter said. He sat down on the bed. Matt swept his cane briefly, tapped the bed, and followed suit. "Why?"

"Foggy made a deal with the DA. She's sending us all their backlogged cases. It's a good thing, really; we haven't had work this steady since the blip. I hope you're prepared to spend all your time in the office for a while."

"All my time...?"

Matt adjusted his glasses. "We'll pay you overtime, of course. But it's going to get pretty hectic, maybe for the next few months. You're not going to have much time for anything else."

Peter was suddenly very aware of the Spider-man suit under his clothes.

"I mean, yeah, I can do some overtime," he said. He swallowed, trying not to sound petulant. "But I've got... stuff... I have to do."

"Like?" Matt said. There was a steely edge to his voice, so uncharacteristic that Peter hesitated.

"Uh," he said. "Volunteer work. I like to try to help out around the city, you know."

Matt's jaw tightened, and when he next spoke, Peter could hear the restraint in his voice—as though he were choosing his words very carefully. "I get that, Peter. But this isn't a good time. I'd rather have you in the office; the city's dangerous these days."

This job will keep you from doing something stupid,  his tone seemed to imply. Peter felt resentment rising in him.

"Yeah, I know. That's why I'm moving in with Foggy. But honestly, Matt—I can take care of myself—"

"Clearly not," Matt said. "Foggy described your face. Sounds to me like you got in over your head with something—"

"I told you, it was a car accident!"

"My point stands," Matt said shortly. "Listen to me carefully, Peter. We need you at the office. Everything else is going to have to wait." He took a breath, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. "I'm trying to help you."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks." The resentment inside him rose higher. First Daredevil, now Matt Murdock. Everyone seemed to think he was a little kid. Like he needed constant supervision. One little blunder with the Albanians, and everyone was treating him like he was made of glass—even his boss. "You don't have to worry so much."

Matt snorted. "Of course I do. You're just a kid—"

"And you're not my dad!"

The room was silent. Matt's lips thinned, his hands tightening around his cane.

Peter swallowed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine, Peter," Matt said. His voice was hard, inscrutable. He stood, brushing his cane on the carpet as he headed to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I didn't mean—"

"Have a good night."

He left.

In the sudden silence of the bedroom, Peter felt a strange emptiness—and a hidden glow of bitterness inside it. Since he'd met him, even before Dr. Strange's spell, Matt had been so kind to him; so helpful, so compassionate. Of course Peter had to ruin it.

But then again... he thought back, anger rising, on Matt's tone. Disapproving. Patronizing.

Peter was reminded suddenly of Tony Stark, his brusque concern, his distant care... He felt a swell of some unknown feeling in his chest. A lump rose in his throat and his mouth began to twitch. He clenched his fists. He was not going to cry. Not here, in this strange new place. Even if no one could hear.

He had better things to do, Matt's admonition be damned.

Peter, glancing out the door to make sure Matt really was gone, unbuttoned his shirt. The smoothness of his spider suit underneath soothed him. It invigorated him. He traced the black insignia, shrugged out of his sleeves—

His phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number; no need for Peter to guess who.

If I see you in your suit, I'll kick your ass,  it said. Then another: Keep your nose clean.

Peter resisted the urge to throw his phone at Foggy's nice bright wall, instead throwing himself back onto his bed. He landed harder than he intended; with a loud crack, the cheap frame split. The mattress sunk through and hit the floor.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut and pummeled his pillow. This was so stupid. He was Spider-man! Not a powerless little boy. His entire body trembled, energy building, desperate to move—to spring—to act. He had to do something. Anything. And yet, he'd effectively been grounded. He thought of Daredevil's stupid masked face, and his boss' stupidly calm tone—and felt strangely humiliated. As though he'd been stripped of all his powers, super or not.

He needed to get out of here. Even if he couldn't be Spider-man right now. Peter knelt to the floor and webbed the cracked bed frame back together—then, remembering that he had a roommate now, covered the evidence with the empty boxes. He'd fix that later.

On his way out, he left a thank you note for Foggy, a nicer one for Marci, and locked the apartment door behind him.

Moments later he was out on the summery air. And even though the walk was tedious compared to the rush of web-swinging, he had to admit there was something invigorating about being out in the streets. The grime and life of Hell's Kitchen, mired in the larger chaos of Manhattan, was like stepping into a teeming ocean. He was quickly consumed by it. Unnoticed. Invisible. The anonymity of being surrounded by uncaring strangers—as much as it devastated him—was freeing in some ways.

Without thinking about it, he suddenly found himself in front of MJ's coffee shop.

He hadn't even realized he'd walked this far. In a daze, he peered in the window. Through the tinted glass he could see her, bored in the late-afternoon lull, drumming her painted black fingernails on the countertop. She looked up and caught his eye. 

She waved, smiling that half-smile Peter remembered so well.

He swallowed, ran his fingers through his hair, and opened the door.

"Hello—"

"Oh shit, what happened to your face?" She said. 

Peter reached up and and gingerly touched one of the swelling bruises along his eye. "Oh, yeah—right—"

She was staring, eyebrows raised, like she thought he was insane. "Jeez, do you need... like... a bandaid? An icepack?"

"No, it's mostly healed. It's just in the ugly phase." He sat in one of the stools along the counter. "It looks a lot worse than it is."

"Well it looks like you went through an industrial shredder."

Peter laughed, then grimaced at the mental image. "Can I get a coffee?"

"The usual?" She said, turning around, still glancing back at him. The look of concern on her face was gratifying. It was maddening everywhere else—but in her brown eyes, it was like a gift. "So... what happened?"

"I got hit by a car," Peter said.

She stared at him, open-mouthed, and didn't notice herself overpouring the coffee until it spilled onto the floor. She shook her head and brought Peter his drink. Confusion and concern were etched onto her face, even as she tried to cover it with a neutral expression.

"Looks like a semi," she said after a minute. "You break anything?"

"Just a rib," Peter said. Actually, he'd broken three, but they were mostly healed thanks to the radioactivity in his blood. "I'm fine, really." And when she didn't look convinced, he laughed. "I mean, I can cross that off the bucket list, right? Get run over and live to tell the tale?"

"You're crazy," she said, grinning.

"Yeah, I know."

She squinted at him, like she was trying to see past his skin and into his bones, his blood. He cleared his throat nervously and took a sip of the scalding coffee to avoid her gaze.

"Listen, Peter..." She said his name as though it were a riddle she was trying to unravel. A thrill ran across his skin; he'd missed hearing his name from those lips. She raised her hand to her necklace, tracing its shape absentmindedly in her fingers, and Peter recognized it with a start. 

The broken black dahlia—the first gift he'd ever given her.

"Peter..." She started again.

"Yeah?" He said, tearing his eyes away from the necklace.

And suddenly she looked a little nervous. She took a deep breath and glanced down. A stray curl of hair fell across her face, and Peter had to resist the urge to brush it away. "I don't know if this is weird, or inappropriate... but I was thinking..."

Peter's heart sped up. "Yeah?" 

She blew her hair out of her face, and Peter bit back a smile. She was flustered. Awkward. There was something endearing about it; he so rarely saw her that way, even before Dr. Strange had erased him from her memories. "I wanted to ask you last week—you know, you come in here every day—and I feel like we kinda know each other..." Her words came out in a stilted jumble, like they were spilling out before she could stop them. 

"Are you trying to ask me out?" Peter said.

"No!" MJ said. Then— "Yes...? Is that okay?" 

"It's—" Peter couldn't pinpoint the feeling in his chest. Excitement, apprehension, joy, a twinge of sadness at the thought of starting over— "It's more than okay. Um... coffee?"

"Anywhere but here," MJ said. Peter laughed.

"Okay... Saturday? Maybe 10:00?"

She nodded, that half-smile creeping back onto her lips. "It's a date." She leaned forward, like she wanted to say more, but a shout in the back from her boss stopped her. Irritation flashed across her eyes. "Listen, I gotta go..."

"It's okay," Peter said, a little breathless. "Thanks for the coffee." His hands, wrapped around the cup, were trembling slightly.

"See you Saturday. Or—tomorrow, I guess, for your coffee—"

"Yeah." Peter grinned. "See you then."

"And ice your face!" She shouted from the back as Peter opened the door, the tingle of the bell above the door as bright and quick as his heartbeat.

Who cared if Matt thought he was a little kid? Who cared if Daredevil grounded him? He had a date with MJ. A date with the love of his life! Peter Parker was going to get coffee with Michelle Jones, and the world was right-side up again—if only for a moment.

He would cast Dr. Strange's spell all over again, he thought, just to see that nervous smile on her face again.

#####

Karen impatiently tapped the return key on her keyboard, willing her email to load faster. The wifi in the Bulletin offices was notoriously bad; she suspected it had something to do with the added security measures after the attack. It had been years, but the staff still remembered as though it'd happened last week. 

She normally did her Bulletin work from home—or, rather, from the law office of Nelson and Murdock—but in all honesty, she didn't feel much like facing Matt. Not for a while. She'd gone to the office just long enough to welcome Peter back—the poor boy looked like he'd been dragged under a bus—but seeing Matt, so calm, filled her with the kind of rage she supposed he dealt with every day as Daredevil. He'd hardly even spoke to her; it was like nothing had happened. Like they hadn't even gone out at all.

So back to the Bulletin it was, at least until Matt decided to come down off his pedestal of isolation and talk to her.

She was working on some fluff piece; something about the addition of a new subway rail to accommodate the blip refugees. Nothing particularly interesting, but it gave her something to put her mind to. She had plans all over the city for the afternoon: interviewing the city council, having lunch with the secretary of the GRC...

Avoiding Matt...

A knock sounded, and he bearded face of her boss, Mitchell Ellison, peeked through the doorway.

"Karen? A word."

She nodded and he entered, but didn't say anything. Instead he glanced around the office, taking in Ben's old pictures and knick knacks, the framed articles on the walls. Finally, he leaned against the edge of Ben's old desk and looked Karen in the eye.

"Before you say anything," Ellison said, in the tone one might use to settle a horse, "just know that I'm asking this because I trust you. You're the only one who can do it justice." 

"Okay?"

"And I know it's going to be hard, but you're the person for the job. The only person for the job. You can humanize this story."

Karen raised an eyebrow, nonplussed. "What do you want?"

Ellison sighed and fell silent. Then he raised his hands as if in surrender. "Here," he said, handing her a manilla file folder. She took it, surprised at its weight. It was stacked at least an inch thick. Karen, a little alarmed, opened it and looked at the photo on top.

She immediately dropped it to her desk.

"There's no way in hell!"

"Karen... calm down."

"No! No way, I am not writing about Ben Poindexter."

Ellison put his hands into his pockets, his eyes taking on that steely glint he got whenever Karen argued with him. "Yes you are. I'm your boss, and I say that you are."

"I'm already working on a piece. The subway thing—"

"I gave it to Jimmy," Ellison said.

"You do realize I'm incredibly biased? Shit, Ellison..." She raised a hand to her forehead, trying to calm herself. "He tried to kill me!"

"He tried to kill all of us," he said shortly. "In fact, if I recall correctly, you're actually the only one who wasn't hurt. So you're the least biased reporter here." 

Karen fell silent. She could have argued; Poindexter, after all, had targeted her specifically. He had hunted her down, to Matt's church, to murder her. All on the orders of Wilson Fisk. Ellison knew all this, though; and when his mind was set on something, he never changed it.

"Listen," he sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard. I know the story makes you want to..."

"Puke?" 

"Yeah." He nudged the folder closer to her. "But you have to admit, it's a good story. This bastard's been in a coma since his fight with Kingpin. Hell, even after he blipped back, he stayed under. But now that he's awake—"

"Hold on," Karen said. She set her hands on her desk, trying to steady herself. "He's... he's awake?"

"Yeah," Ellison said. "It's all in the folder. Karen, he's going to stand trial."

Karen was silent. The idea of that psychopath in a courtroom, suited up, waiting for the verdict of a frightened jury, flooded her with an emotion she couldn't quite place. Fear? Vindication? 

He pressed on. "Are you really telling me you don't want to cover it? You don't want to tell the world he's finally going to rot in prison?"

Karen opened the folder back up. The glossy photo of Ben Poindexter stared back at her, wearing Matt's old Daredevil suit. The picture was blurry, probably snapped from a cell phone in the chaos of an attack. The Bulletin attack, maybe. Or the one at Clinton church. A smirk was plastered onto his face, lifeless and cold. Sometimes Karen still dreamed about that face; the sharp jaw so chalky white against the dark stone of the red-lit cathedral, the arrogant cock of his head when he hurled the baton... the laugh when he impaled Father Lantom, the force of his throw sending Matt's baton deep into the priest's stomach...

"It shouldn't be too hard for a world class reporter like you."

"Shut up," Karen muttered. She began leafing through the files. Medical records, X-rays, police reports, behavioral slips, receipts. Everything the FBI and the Bulletin  had been able to dig up on him since childhood.

"Here's the plan," Ellison said. "You're gonna interview the warden. You're gonna interview his doctors. There are some eyewitnesses no one's heard from yet, you'll cover those... and then you're going to the hospital, this week, to interview Poindexter."

Karen opened her mouth to protest, but Ellison cut in. 

"Don't worry, he's locked up. There's 24/7 police presence. And, word is, this guy's lost his memory. You'll be safe, I promise."

Karen shook her head, resisting the urge to laugh in frantic disbelief. "I can't believe I have to go talk to this psychopath."

"It's just another job, Karen," Ellison said. "I mean, come on, you covered all the Punisher stuff a few years ago..."

"That was different," Karen said. Ellison just gave her a little sympathetic smile, tapped the manilla folder, and left the office.

Great. Maybe Karen should have stayed at Nelson and Murdock today, after all.

She opened up the file folder again and took out the stack of papers, laying them in front of her like mahjong tiles. Most of this she had seen before; she'd been interviewed by the police in the immediate aftermath. She'd gone over most of it with Matt and Foggy, too, commiserating with them in their grief, their rage. 

There were, though, a few new items. Eyewitness reports from the year he was paralyzed; statements from politicians, from talk show hosts. A few newspaper articles offering nicknames for him: One-Shot, Hitman, Sniper...

And one nickname that was recurring. Page after page she turned, she found the word popping up again and again like a flashing red light.

Bullseye.

There was another knock on the door and Karen jumped, her heart in her throat. Outside the office window was the face she most wanted to see—and the last one she wanted to see. Matt Murdock, wine-red sunglasses glinting in the fluorescent light, had his forehead pressed against the window. She glared at him, then remembered that, despite his abilities, that was something he couldn't see. "Come in," she said, and added in a whisper, "ass."

Matt raised his eyebrows but came in.

"Karen, I need to talk to you."

"I'm kind of busy, Matt, so if you don't mind..."

He sighed, ruffling his fingers through his hair. She noticed a couple new cuts on his forehead, roughened scabs on his knuckles. She had the urge to go to him, despite her anger, and cradle his face in his hands. She wanted to trace those new injuries with her fingers, to soothe them, to clean and bandage him. She suppressed the impulse and swallowed, pointing to the chair. "Sit."

Matt did so, folding up his cane. "About last week..."

Took him long enough. "Yeah, well, it's forgotten, so..."

"I know when you're lying."

Karen laughed bitterly. "Oh right, of course. Well, listen to me: I don't want you here. Am I lying now?"

"No," Matt muttered, and he at least had the decency to look a little ashamed. He leaned forward as if to say something, then winced, clutching at his ribs. 

"What happened?" Karen asked, in spite of herself.

"I thought you wanted me to leave."

Karen narrowed her eyes. "Keep testing me, Murdock. I dare you."

Matt sighed. He took off his glasses, setting them on the chair next to him, and Karen's hand flew up to her mouth. 

She should be used to this by now; she was Daredevil's girlfriend. Granted, it had been a while, but she had seen him bloodied and broken hundreds of times. And yet, she could never get used to it.

His eyes, tender and unfocused, were shrouded in purplish blotches. There was a peeling scab underneath the left one, and his eyebrow was oozing blood. Matt smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm okay."

"I didn't say anyth—"

"Your heart rate," he said, and he rubbed a hand over his bruised eyes. "It rose."

Karen was silent, nodding to herself and pressing her lips into a thin line. She folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling, anywhere to avoid looking at his face. "Did this happen when you left—"

"I'm sorry I abandoned you, Karen. It was a shitty thing to do." He rested his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together as though in prayer. 

"Yeah, it was," Karen said. "You going to tell me what happened? I mean, you look almost as bad as Peter..."

She froze. Matt winced, though at his pain or at her, she couldn't tell.

"Matthew," she said slowly, "Was this about... I mean, is Peter in dan—"

"This isn't about him, Karen," Matt said wearily.

"You know I'm not stupid," Karen said. "He gets beaten up the same time as you do? Don't give me that car accident bullshit. You're both bruised to hell, and you're suddenly..." Like the old Matt, she wanted to say. She took a breath and released it slowly, trying to calm herself down. 

"It doesn't matter," Matt said. "I don't know... exactly what's going on with him. But he's living with Foggy now. Don't worry."

"You know that doesn't actually help, right?" She said. Matt smiled ruefully.

She hated this; this was the old Matt, the secretive Matt. He was hiding something, something big, and that was something he'd promised never to do again. He wasn't supposed to lie. Not to her.

He was quiet for a minute. Then he took a few steps closer. His face, brooding, bloodied, anguished, seemed almost to glow in the dimness of the room. He furrowed his brow and closed his eyes. He looked tormented, lost somewhere in his mind. Somewhere not even Karen could reach. She rose to meet him, a little breathless. Her heart rate rose. She knew Matt could hear it, could feel it, which only made it beat faster.

"Karen..." he said.

He crossed past her desk and took her face in his hands, pressing them into her skin, running his calloused fingers along her lips. Her jaw. Her cheekbones. He was searching for something in her face, desperate for something. She shuddered. "Matt..." she breathed, so low that only he'd be able to hear. The faintest ghost of a smile played on his lips at the sound of her voice.

And then he was kissing her, so soft, so tender, that she forgot for a moment that he was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. She forgot he was Matt Murdock. He was her love, her joy, a single steady heartbeat knit together with her own. He wrapped her hair around his fingers, hands warm and steady. She could feel the flutter of his eyelashes against her skin and the earnestness of his lips—

He broke away. He had that look on his face, the one that Karen knew too well. This was old Matt. Lonely Matt. The guilty, the self-excoriating Matt she thought had been locked away, along with Wilson Fisk, all those years ago.

"You should stay away from me," Matt whispered. And yet he moved closer, picking up her hand in his and pressing it to his chest. She could feel the faintest whisper of a heartbeat beneath his shirt. "I'm not good. Not for you."

"Don't give me that," Karen said, heat rising in her face. "I've heard it before—"

"I mean it," Matt said. "I was... stupid. I was selfish, thinking that I could have this, that we—" his voice broke. If she'd had Matt's abilities, she was sure she'd be able to smell tears welling up behind his eyes.

"Matty..." She pushed away but held his shoulders, steady, and looked into his half-closed eyes. "Stop this."

He swallowed. When he spoke again, his voice was low; a whisper, a growl. Rage and fear rolled into a seething tone of hatred. "Karen... he's back."

Karen felt her throat clench, her heart drop into her stomach. "Who?"

But she knew who. Only one man could do this to him, could wrench his self-hatred out of the dark ocean of his heart and up to the surface. There was only one man in Hell's Kitchen who could destroy the Matt she loved. One man who could replace him with this shell of rage, of destruction.

"Wilson Fisk," Matt whispered. "He's back."

Karen closed her eyes. Her thoughts were like buzzing wasps inside her skull.

"It's okay," she said, not believing it. She moved closer to him, clutching at his arms, but he pulled away. "It's okay, Matt. You put him away before. You can do it again—"

His breathing was shallow, ragged. His voice cracked. "I thought you'd be safe with me, Karen."

"No, Matt. Don't do this. You can't make this choice for me—"

"I thought," Matt pressed on, dogged in his path of self-exile, "the devil was behind me." He closed his eyes and turned away, picking up his glasses from the chair. He slipped them onto his face, shrouding his eyes, his hands steady despite the wavering in his voice. "But he's not."

He turned back to her one last time, head tilted. He was drinking her in, Karen knew, was looking at her, memorizing every sound, every taste, her touches and her scents and her movements. Then in a rush he grabbed her suddenly, embracing her, his head buried in her shoulder.

And in that embrace was the vulnerability, the fear, that Karen craved so desperately from him. In that single moment, her Matt—her Matt—was breaking the surface of a turbulent ocean, desperate for air, for sunlight—

And then he was gone, the office door closed behind him. She listened to the sound of his cane tapping, growing quieter and quieter.

Karen squeezed her eyes shut. She clenched her fists and opened them again. Her eyes welled up and she laughed bitterly, dabbing at them with the hem of her sleeve. Happy Matt, self-assured Matt, that had always been too good to be true. Like a hazy dream on a late Sunday, the illusion melted away, and the darkness of her office encroached in on her. She sank into her chair. She dropped her head into her hands.

In typical Murdock fashion, he'd spoken as obscurely and ambiguously as he could. She wasn't sure if she could call that a breakup, if Matt had ended things. She wasn't sure if Matt even knew what he wanted. The odds were high that it was a subconscious cry, a scream, for help. 

She remembered the words of Sister Maggie, years ago, earnest and hushed. When someone in need tries to push you away, you have to find the strength to hold on tighter.

Karen was not good at that. Had never been good at that.

She glanced down at the papers on her desk, and the stony face of Ben Poindexter looked back at her. Her heart beat red behind her eyes.

She screamed, swiping her arm across the desk and scattering Poindexter's file across the floor. Then she slumped to the ground, laughing and crying all at once. It was a good thing Matt couldn't see. If he had seen Ben Poindexter on her desk, if he knew Karen was about to entangle herself in his destruction again... Karen imagined the seething rage on Matt's face, the clenching of his jaw, the terror hidden behind the fury. 

She took a minute to catch her breath. She hadn't even realized she'd lost it. She forced her heartbeat to slow, using the meditation techniques Matt taught her. She knew he had heard her outburst, knew he could still hear her heart. She took another deep breath. The beating slowed. Another. And another.

Finally, her pulse returned to normal. She sniffed, standing up and crossing to her office window.

Stories and stories below, Matt Murdock stood on the pavement, face turned up in her direction. She knew he had waited; he was making sure she was all right. She loved him for that. She hated him for it. He could sense her at the window, she knew; his head dropped, and he swept his cane across the pavement in front of him as he began to walk away.

"I never thought the devil was behind you," Karen said aloud. Far away Matt froze, ear tilted toward her. "He's a part of you, Matt. I love him too."

Matt was still for a long moment, and Karen imagined that she could hear his heart beating. Steady, certain, soft. It beat in sync with hers.

He resumed walking. Karen watched him until she could no longer see him, his departing shadow long and lonely in the setting New York sunlight.

Chapter Text

Matt hadn't been lying when he'd told Peter about the new workload. Sure, he'd used it as an excuse to keep the kid out of trouble; but the fact remained, there were dozens and dozens of case files to go through. Clients to meet. Self-defense, medical debt, loan defaults... after a week of the new caseload, the words swam through Matt's head like a frantic shoal of fish. He could hardly makes sense of it anymore.

It had been two weeks now since he'd saved Peter from the Albanian mob; and in that time, the city had grown quiet. Serene. Matt didn't trust it—both the Russians and the Albanians, stopping all business? And not a word, not a whisper, from Wilson Fisk?

Across the room Foggy dropped his head to his desk. "I hate Blake Tower."

"Who's Blake Tower?" Peter asked, stapling a few pages together.

"The reason we're working on a Saturday," Foggy said, voice muffled by the papers on his desk.

"He's the district attorney," Matt said. "He assigned us all these new cases." He shuffled a few papers on his desk and ran his fingers over a braille contact card, pretending to read—but really, he was listening in the direction of Karen's office. She'd come in early that morning, taken a stack of cases that needed sorting, and locked herself in her office without so much as a word to Matt.

She was blasting heavy metal music in her earbuds and wearing too much lavender perfume; both of which he loathed. The smells and sounds were so strong they hurt—a fact Karen knew well. She was sending him a very clear message.

"Matt? Matt?" Foggy was saying. Matt shook his head to clear it.

"Yeah. Sorry."

"I was just asking if you were the one who ran the F.E.A.S.T. lawsuit last year?"

Matt opened his mouth to answer, when he heard the sound of someone's heart rate rising. He tilted his head, surprised.

It was Peter. The temperature of his face was dropping slightly—he must be getting pale. He was tense, staring straight down at his desk, carefully avoiding looking at either Matt or Foggy.

"What are you talking about?" Matt said, ears still trained on Peter.

Foggy looked back at his paper. "Uh... looks like some asshole one-percenter was trying to sue F.E.A.S.T. headquarters; something about lowering the property values in his neighborhood."

"Do you have a braille copy?"

Foggy handed a file to Matt.

He ran his fingers over the top page, thinking. The group had been gaining a lot of traction last year with everyone displaced by the blip. He searched his memory. He'd done quite a bit of pro bono work for them; he remembered a few cases very clearly. And for a while, he'd worked closely with a woman there... he racked his brain.

Foggy crossed his arms. "What exactly does F.E.A.S.T. stand—"

"Food, Emergency Aid, Shelter and Training," Peter said.

Foggy laughed, sounding impressed. "Damn, Parker. You should go on Jeopardy or something."

Parker.  That was it. May Parker. The same woman in that case from months ago—the case with all the intrigue, the mystery. The case none of them could remember.

Matt cleared his throat, still monitoring Peter closely. "You know, I think I did take that case. I used to work with one of the leaders there—May Parker, I think her name was."

Peter's breath hitched, imperceptible to anyone except Matt.

"Right..." Foggy said, sounding thoughtful. "The lady from the mystery case. Weird, right? Peter, did we ever tell you about that?"

Peter stood so suddenly he hit his leg against the desk. "Actually—sorry, if you guys don't mind, I'm gonna take my lunch break."

Matt raised his eyebrows. "It's 9:30."

"I have a date," Peter said. "I planned this a week ago—didn't think I'd be working on a Saturday. Can I go? I'll be back in an hour."

Matt listened to Peter's heart. It was pounding fast, but steady. He wasn't lying; he really was going on a date, not heading off to engage in any Spider-man... activities. Still, Matt could sense Peter's distress. He could tell in the way the kid held himself, the elevated heart rate, the slightly raised pitch of his voice. Something in the conversation about May Parker was eating away at him.

"A date! Nice," Foggy said. "What's she like? Tell me she's hot, man." Matt shot him a look of disgust, which he ignored.

"She's... she's cool," Peter said, heat rising in his face. He grabbed his messenger bag.

"So that's why you dressed so nice today," Foggy said. "In Matt's old suit, no less. That's good; his sense of style got him lots of ladies back in the day." 

Matt snorted, and Foggy flashed Peter the "OK" sign.

"Is it the girl from the coffee shop?" Matt asked, and Peter's temperature rose even more.

"Can I go?" He said, sounding irritated.

Matt suppressed a smile and nodded. Peter swept out of the office and shut the door behind him with a resounding thunk.

"Young love," Foggy said, putting his feet up on his desk. "I remember those days. Marci and I though, we have something different. More mature, if you know what I mean."

"Ew, Fog."

"And you!" Foggy said suddenly, feet landing on the floor. He dropped his voice lower, probably to keep Karen from hearing them. "What the hell is going on with you and Karen?"

Matt returned his attention to the sound of Karen typing next door.

"I... I don't know."

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Matt said slowly, "I don't know."

Foggy scoffed. "Please, Murdock. Do you think I'm stupid? The last couple weeks, you two moping around the office, refusing to talk to each other—it's almost as bad as Elektr—"

"Don't," Matt said shortly.

Foggy looked over at Karen's closed office, then stood and leaned over Matt's desk. "Listen, man, every time you break her heart, I'm the one picking up the pieces. Do you know how much time she's spent at my place just complaining about you?"

"Yeah. I can usually hear it."

Foggy shook his head. "The point is, usually she comes over to tell me all about the shit you put her through. But not this time. Whatever happened between you two, you hurt her bad. So bad she doesn't even want to talk about it."

Matt's jaw clenched, his hands twisting around his cane. He wanted nothing more than to burst through that office, to lock Karen in a soft embrace—to kiss her fingers, her cheekbones, her lips. But as he pictured her, lovely as moonlight, the image rippled and faded. Matt's head swam with Karen's face, melting away until nothing remained but the ever-sharpening, bloodied face of Wilson Fisk.

"Whoah, dude," Foggy said.

Matt suddenly realized he had snapped his cane in half.

"It's fine," he said, his breath shallow and uneven. "I go through three of these a week."

"I always wondered," Foggy said. Then he crouched down closer, whispering. "Matt, I don't know if this is some sort of... hero thing, some self-sacrificing thing—but whatever it is, it's bullshit. You love Karen. She clearly loves you."

"It's not that simple, Foggy—"

Inside her office, Karen stood. She packed her laptop and a thick case file into her briefcase. Matt listened to her for a moment, focusing harder, feeling the vibrations along the floor as she moved... and he realized with a start that she was carrying her handgun in her bag.

She walked out of her office and waved at Foggy. "I'll be back later. I'm on assignment from the Bulletin." She slung her bag across her shoulder.

"Why do you have your gun?" Matt asked quietly.

Karen swallowed and folded her arms. "I don't think it's any of your business, Matthew."

Matt stood. He took a few tentative steps toward her, then stopped. "I—just want you to be safe, Karen."

"Yeah, well." Karen opened the front door to the office. "I can look after myself."

Matt rubbed his forehead. "Will you at least tell me where you're going?"

"No, I don't think I will." She stepped out into the hallway. "And don't follow me."

The door fell shut behind her. Matt followed the sound of her heartbeat, her footsteps, all the way down the stairs and out onto the street.

Foggy whistled. "Smooth. You gonna follow her?"

"Did it sound like she wanted me to?" Matt said dryly.

"No, but if she's packing..."

Matt adjusted his glasses. He took a deep breath, trying to relax the tensity in his shoulders. "Then that's a good thing. The city's dangerous these days. She can handle herself, Foggy."

"Yeah?" Foggy said. "Then why's that vein practically popping out of your head?"

Matt wasn't listening. He stood and crossed the room, opening the door to Karen's office and stepping inside. There were papers taped all across the walls, strings connecting newspaper and photographs. All of it was carefully organized, perfectly in place, laid out like a map. All except a single paper on the floor.

Matt picked it up. It was glossy, smooth; probably photo paper. Karen must have dropped it on her way out.

"Foggy?" He said, leaving Karen's office. He stopped in front of Foggy's desk and held out the paper. "What is this?"

Foggy took it from him, leaning forward in his chair, and froze. He was silent, staring fixedly at the paper in front of him. Matt could hear his breath shallowing, his heart rate rising.

"It's..." He took a deep breath and looked up. "Matt, this is a picture of Ben Poindexter."

The name hung in the silent office for a moment.

Matt could feel the tightening in each ligament of his hand as he clenched his fists. He jammed open a drawer his desk and pulled out a spare cane, then rushed to the door. Foggy didn't bother to ask where he was going.

Out on the streets, it was easy to track where Karen had gone. The smell of her perfume left a trail as noticeable as if it had been painted purple on the streets. He clipped along, cane moving so fast that people walking by him had to jump out of the way. She'd gotten in a taxi here... Matt walked faster. The taxi had turned here, and then here... He walked even faster, hardly even using his cane anymore. She had stopped at this light—and then—

The hospital. Karen had gone to Metro General. Matt hailed a cab, and within minutes was bursting through the front doors of the hospital.

He'd forgotten how much he hated it here. The smells of sterilizing chemicals, congealing blood; the gunfire sounds of MRI machines and the creak of shifting bones; the taste of saline and copper in the air—he stood, immobilized, in the entryway until a well-meaning nurse walked up to him.

"Do you need help, sir?"

"Yes—it's my friend, I'm looking for—"

"What room, hon?"

Matt took a breath, trying to drown out all the smells and isolate Karen's lavender perfume. "I don't know, she... she's a reporter. I think she's here to speak to—"

"Oh, you must be talking about Ben Poindexter. That was your friend then, the pretty blonde one?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Oh—right, I'm—sorry, that was—"

"Could you just tell me where she is?" Matt said, the muscles in his face taut and rigid. The nurse scrambled to the front desk and shuffled through some papers on her clipboard.

"Right," she said. "Okay, she's on the sixth floor. But you can't go in, there's police and guards everywh—"

"Thanks," Matt said, walking away.

"Do you want me to guide you?"

Matt was already halfway across the lobby, cane clicking loudly against the tile floor. "I'll be fine."

He got to the stairwell and almost threw his cane away, almost rushed up the stairs with abandon; but he could hear the electrical buzzing of security cameras, the footsteps of hospital patrons making their way through the stairs and hallways. He forced himself to slow, clinging to the rail as he climbed the six stories to where Poindexter lay.

He burst onto the floor. "Karen!"

And there she was, at the very end of the hallway, sitting in a chair outside of a well-guarded room. Matt caught his breath and focused all his attention on the room behind her. Inside, lying prone on a bed, handcuffed and chained to all four corners, was the once broken body of the Bulletin attacker. Father Lantom's murderer. The false Daredevil himself.

Benjamin Poindexter.

"Matt?" Karen said, staring. "What are you doing—"

Matt started to run to her, but two burly security guards stepped in front of him. "You can't be here, sir."

"I'm not—just let—I'm here to talk to the—"

"He's with me," Karen said, rushing up to them. The guards stepped back and Matt fell past them, almost into Karen's arms. "What the hell are you doing here?" She whispered, placing his hand on her arm. She pretended to lead him as they walked back toward Dex's room.

"Me?" Matt said, voice almost trembling with rage. "What are you doing here, Karen? This—this is exactly what I was talking about—"

"I'm on assignment, Matt! And you can't tell me what to do."

"Karen." He closed his eyes, trying to settle his anger. "This guy tried—he almost—"

"Killed me. Yeah, I remember." He could practically feel her icy glare. "Like I said, I can take care of myself. Dex is safe now, okay? He's locked up; there's police everywhere." She moved closer and dropped her voice, looking past Matt at the guards. "I know you can sense him back there. Does he seem dangerous to you?"

Matt turned his head toward the heavens, wishing ruefully that God might intervene, might strike Dex dead in the hospital bed next door.

"I'm not yours to protect," Karen said. "You made that very clear."

"What do you want me to do, Karen? Pretend that everything's fine, that you being here doesn't—doesn't scare the hell out of me?"

"Pretend whatever you need to; just leave me alone. I have work to do."

Matt opened his mouth to argue further, when several ambulances pulled into the lot six stories below. The screaming sirens blocked out any other sound for a moment. Matt squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus past them. There were at least five ambulances and three cop cars; doctors and nurses flooded outside to meet the sudden rush of patients. A flurry of vibrations rattled his feet as paramedics wheeled stretcher after stretcher inside.

Matt listened closely.

"Bombing victims," a cop was saying to a nurse. "All from an apartment complex in Queens. We got no idea what happened, but there's gonna be a dozen more over here in a minute—"

"Matt?" Karen said. "What's going on?"

"Just a minute," Matt said. He tilted his head further, praying the bombing wasn't where he thought it was.

"Which apartment?" The nurse said. "I got family in Queens—"

"Wilbur Heights, on 34th," the cop said.

Matt drew in a breath, reeling. Karen pressed closer, alarmed, wrapping an arm around his shoulder to steady him. "What is it?" she said.

That was Peter's apartment. Somehow, somehow, the Kingpin had found Spider-man.

He agonized for a moment. Leave Karen here, with Dex? Or leave Peter to deal with Wilson Fisk on his own? His thoughts were poisonous, laced with hazy red guilt. No matter what he did—no matter the precautions he took—everyone he loved was constantly on the precipice of sharpest danger. He clenched his fists until his fingernails drew blood in his palm. Loath as he was to leave Karen, she was right. She could handle herself. Dex was under control, he was sedated. 

The Kingpin, on the other hand...

"I have to go," he said. He ran back down the hallway, back toward the staircase.

"What's going on?" Karen called after him.

"Be safe, please!" Matt yelled, already in the stairwell. He pressed downward, practically flying, barely keeping up the pretense of his cane.

Please God,  he prayed, crossing himself. Keep Karen safe. And Peter too. Lord, please—help me keep them safe.

#####

On the pavement outside the office, Peter let the cool sunlight hit his face as he composed himself. Thoughts of Aunt May were still swimming in his head, dredging up the sleeping grief in his chest, and he wanted this day to be happy. This was, after all, his first date—well, his second first date—with MJ. It had to be perfect.

He texted MJ the address—a little shack on the edges of Central Park—then carefully smoothed out the wrinkles in Matt's old suit. He ran his fingers through his hair. He smelled his breath and, recoiling, popped a mint.

On instinct, he double-checked that he had on his Spider suit underneath.

Then, hope and anxiety bubbling up inside his chest, he hailed a cab. Within minutes the streets and skyscrapers and faceless masses were racing by, as quick as his thoughts, until the car came to a halt outside the greenery of Central Park.

MJ was already waiting for him. She caught his eye and waved, smiling her crooked smile.

He jogged over to her. She looked him up and down, laughing a little.

"Wow. You're, uh... overdressed."

"Yeah... right..." He nervously tugged at the hem of Matt's old jacket. "Sorry, I'm just coming from work."

"You're working on a Saturday?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "It's been pretty hectic this week."

"Oh, that's right," MJ said. "You're a lawyer."

"Definitely not," Peter said, laughing. "Just an intern." He fell silent for a minute, just looking at her. This was the first time he'd seen her outside of work since that day on the Statue of Liberty. He remembered that moment so vividly; her face golden in the rising sunlight, the frazzled curl of her hair, the desperate way she'd kissed him as Dr. Strange's spell took effect.

"I already bought the coffee," MJ said. She handed Peter a cup. "I figured you'd want the usual."

"Thanks," he said. "How much do I owe—" MJ cuts him off, rolling her eyes and smiling, and began walking into the park. Peter grinned and followed.

They strolled around for half an hour. Peter wanted to stop to feed the ducks. MJ wanted to watch a group of picketers. They crossed by the carousel and the zoo, which interested neither of them.

In truth, Peter was barely aware of what he was saying to her, preferring to lose himself in the sound of her voice. She was telling him about herself, things he'd known for years. She loved true crime and conspiracy theories. She went to Midtown High. She was the captain of the Academic Decathlon. She was not a people person.

"What about you?" She asked after a lapse in which Peter was silent, just drinking in the sight of her face.

"What about me?"

"I don't really know anything about you. Just that... you really like coffee, and you can apparently walk off getting hit by a car."

Peter laughed, a little nervously. "There's not much to tell, honestly. I'm a... blank slate. An open book."

"Where did you go to school?"

"Er... out of state."

"...Okay," she said, when he didn't elaborate. "What do you like to do?"

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. "Lots of stuff, I guess. I really like science. Oh, and science fiction; I'm a big Star Wars fan. And, uh... I do a lot of volunteer work."

"Like?"

Peter shrugged. "I, uh... help clean up the city. Sometimes I help with crime prevention stuff. Just... whatever I can find."

MJ raised her eyebrows. "That was vague as hell, Peter."

I fight monsters,  he wanted to say. I swing around like a spider and get beat up. And MJ, I get the most amazing views of the city. You wouldn't believe it. When you're on top of the Chrysler building at sunset, all the buildings reflect the sun. They glow like stars. It's like the entire city falls away, and you're just drinking in the sky. I used to bring you with me, MJ. Once you got over your fear of heights. We kissed up there in the sunlight...

"What are your plans for college?" Peter asked.

MJ sighed, and Peter was surprised to hear a hint of something sad in the sound. Disappointment, perhaps. Discontentment. "I'm actually getting ready to move to Boston. I'm going to MIT."

"Wow," Peter said, pushing down the lump that was rising in his throat. "That's... amazing. Congrats."

She slipped her hands into her pockets. "It'll be... I think it'll be a good thing. I've never been out of the city much. And I'm going with my friend, Ned; we're gonna be roommates. And—" she said, turning to him. She closed her eyes and took a breath. "I'm coming back here on holidays. And in the summer, I think I'm gonna stay with Ned's family. So I'll still be around. You know. If we wanted to..."

"Go out again?" Peter said, a smile playing on the corner of his lips.

"Yeah," MJ said. "If you don't mind waiting."

"I don't mind," Peter said. "And Boston's not that far." But it was. Boston was a whole world away, a whole galaxy away. Peter wouldn't see MJ every day, so Boston might as well be on the moon. "Maybe I could swing by, visit you from time to time."

MJ smiled at him for a minute, then bit her lip. She turned away, frowning slightly, as though she were trying to remember something. Her fingers wrapped around the necklace she wore. The broken dahlia, the necklace she seemed to wear every day.

"I like your necklace," Peter said, a little breathless. "Where'd you get it?"

Her frown deepened. "It was a gift, I think. I can't remember; it feels like I've always had it. But—yeah, it's a black dahlia. Like..."

"The murder?" Peter said, and MJ's eyes brightened a little. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but seemed to think better of it. She shot him a little smile.

"Yeah. Like the murder." She fell silent again, this time staring at the ground as they walked.

"You okay?"

"Listen." She furrowed her brows. "Do you ever... do you ever get the feeling you've forgotten something? Something important?"

Peter felt his heart beat faster. "Yeah, sometimes."

"it's like..." she stopped walking, and Peter searched her face. Her eyes looked lost, adrift in a stormy ocean. "I know it sounds crazy. But sometimes it just feels like... like a part of me just disappeared. Just vanished. Like there's something missing, or something's been... erased. I can almost remem—" She squeezed her eyes shut. "This is stupid. I don't know why I'm telling you this."

Without thinking, Peter grabbed her hand. It was soft, warm, like a summer wind made solid. She tensed for a minute at the sudden touch. Her eyes shot up to look into his. 

"It's okay," Peter said. "I think I know what you mean."

"Like something's gone," she said, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. Peter could almost see a memory forming, deep behind her brown iris—like a dawning comprehension. An understanding. "It's like something... wants to be remembered..."

The black dahlia glinted in the sunlight, and Peter thought he'd be blinded in its brilliance.

"I don't think it sounds crazy," he whispered. "MJ, I..."

I'm what's lost, I'm what's forgotten, you're missing from me too, I want to tell you, I want to tell you, I want to tell you, MJ, I feel that ache everyday, I have to tell you...

The hairs on Peter's arm stood up. A thrill of foreboding ran down his spine.

He whirled around in a daze. There was nothing here, nothing to set off his tingle. Only laughing families and ice cream vendors and ducks.

His phone suddenly rang. Unknown umber.

Peter smiled a quick apology to MJ and answered the call. "Hello?"

"Peter, did you go back to your apartment?" 

The voice was low, gravelly, angry. Daredevil. Peter pressed his lips together as a rush of excitement made its way from his chest to his fingertips. Finally, maybe, his grounding was over.

"Oh, hi, Da—uh, hi." He glanced back at MJ, who was still staring at him, that look of lost confusion like a veil over her face. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "No, I didn't go back. Why?"

"Are you there now?"

"No, I'm on a date..." He shot MJ a quick smile. "What's going on?"

There was a heavy breath on the other line, like a sigh, like Daredevil was relieved. "Okay, Peter. Stay there."

"No!" Peter said, a little too loudly. MJ raised her eyebrows and he lowered his voice again. "What's going on? What happened at my apartment?"

"Stay where you are," Daredevil growled, and hung up.

The tingling feeling was getting stronger. MJ watched with concern as Peter tried calling the number back; he was sent straight to voicemail. Again, and again. He closed his eyes. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. He had to go to his apartment. He had to find out what was going on.

"MJ," he said finally, moving closer to her. "I'm so, so sorry—"

"Is everything okay?"

Peter blew out a frustrated breath. "There's... there's something going on at my apartment, some kind of emergency. Could I get a raincheck?"

MJ raised an eyebrow, smiling a little. "You're gonna run out on me?"

"No! I... yes. I'm sorry, I'm not sure what's going on—"

MJ held up a hand to stop him. "Go. You can make it up to me, okay? You pick the place next time—but just know, if you choose somewhere lame, I will judge you forever."

Peter grinned. "Yeah. Okay." He bit his lip, hesitated, then rushed forward and planted a kiss on her cheek. "I really like you, MJ."

He dashed away, leaving a stunned MJ running a hand over her cheek.

"See you Monday," she called after him.

Peter ran faster than he'd run in weeks. When he was out of her sight, he ducked behind a cluster of trees and tore off Matt's old suit, revealing the red and blue Spider suit underneath. He slipped his gloves and web shooters on. He pulled the mask over his head. Then he burst through the greenery and cut across the lawn.

He flung a web, connecting it to a tree above him. This was much harder than swinging through the city; he was much lower here, unwieldy, crashing through obstacles with a clumsiness that would have had Tony Stark absolutely rolling. He swooped across the park, scattering the ducks and games of bocce.

And finally, he was back in the landscape of glass and steel he loved so well. A web connected with a skyscraper far above him and he flung himself upward. The hot morning air whooshed past his ears, drowning out every thought but the thrill of the chase ahead. His heart swelled. There was danger, there was excitement, there was fear. A fight, an adventure, was waiting for him.

And of course... there was another date to look forward to.

#####

"Raise your arms and stand with your feet apart," one of the guards said gruffly. Karen complied. The guard roughly patted down her legs, her torso, her arms. "Your briefcase," he said, holding out his hand. Karen gave it to him. He rifled through for a moment and pulled out the handgun.

"I have a permit for that," Karen said.

"Don't care." He took it out and handed it to his partner. "You can't take it in there. You ever see this guy in action? If he got hold of that gun, he'd get out and this whole hospital would be dead in an hour."

Karen swallowed. "Okay."

"You got ten minutes in there. Do not touch the prisoner, do not give him anything, do not move past the red tape on the floor. Is that clear?"

She was reminded strongly of her meeting with Frank Castle, in the height of the hysteria surrounding the Punisher's crimes and subsequent trial. She nodded impatiently. "Can I go in, please?"

"It's your funeral." The guard flipped through his keyring, found the right one, and unlocked the door.

Karen pushed past him and went inside.

The room was white, windowless, and cold. The walls and tables were surprisingly stark; Karen had rarely been in a hospital room without seeing a scattered collection of get-well cards and flowers. There was an ominous emptiness to the room. It felt more like a prison cell than the jail she'd spent the night in when she'd first met Matt.

The steady beeping of a machine told her that Ben Poindexter was awake. He was stable.

She looked down at him and jumped. He was staring at her, unflinching. Smiling.

"Hello, Karen. It's nice to see you again."

The door clicked shut behind her. Karen took a steadying breath. "They told me you'd lost your memory."

"I did," he said. Karen took a few steps closer, stopping just short of the line of red tape on the floor that circled his bed. Dex looked weaker, thinner, more sallow than the last time she'd seen him—but he was alive. So very alive. His hands were chained down to the bed, as were his feet, and a strap crossed his chest to keep him from sitting up. "The cop out there told me who you are. I hear we've met."

"You tried to kill me," Karen said. The harshness of her tone bolstered her, and she stood up straighter.

"So they tell me."

She crossed to a chair and pulled out her notepad. Then she clicked her pen, scrawling the words Ben Poindexter—Hospital Interview across the top. "I'm here to write a story for the Bulletin. Our readers want to know if you're rehabilitated."

Dex smiled. "Who needs rehabilitation? My mind's an empty canvas." Then he sighed and settled deeper into his bed. "Physically though, I'm rehabilitated. I was paralyzed. Now I'm not."

Karen scribbled on her notepad. "How?"

"They replaced my spine," he said. "While I was in my coma. This here? It's all adamantium."

"Adamantium?"

"It's like... a super metal," Dex said. "Like vibranium. It's strong. Practically unbreakable."

Karen's head shot up. "What? Why would they—"

"It was an experimental procedure. The doctor figured no one would put up much of a fight when he was using New York's most hated man as a guinea pig." The muscles in his jaw clenched. "Who cares if something happens to former Agent Poindexter? If he dies, he dies, right? No loss."

Karen clenched her fists. "Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?"

"I don't expect anything," Dex said. He closed his eyes.

Karen was trembling; not with fear. With rage. She moved her chair closer and lowered her voice. "No one feels sorry for you, Mr. Poindexter. Least of all me. You came to my place of work. You murdered my colleagues. You stole my—" she broke off. "You stole Daredevil's suit and hunted me like an animal." Dex turned his head away. "You killed a priest in cold blood."

She remembered cradling Father Lantom in her arms, sobbing as he gurgled out his last words through the blood pouring from his mouth.

"It was hell," she whispered.

Dex slowly turned back around. He looked blankly into her eyes. "I'm sorry," he said slowly. "That sounds really hard."

Karen closed her eyes and pressed her pen against the paper. "What do you remember? Anything at all?"

He sighed, an ease and contentment in his voice that made Karen want to close her fists around his throat. "I remember killing people. Lots of people."

"And?"

"I remember working for someone. Someone important; they told me it was a guy named Wilson Fisk. But I don't remember who that was. I don't remember who anyone was." He turned to the right, staring at a cup of water resting on a table outside of his read. "Could you hand me that cup?"

"No." She scribbled a few more words on her pad. "You don't remember people? Names? You don't remember why any of this happened?"

"Just images," he said, licking his lips as he stared at the water cup. "I remember a red suit. And a church. And..." He turned back to Karen, smiling. "I remember the rage."

"Do you remember anything about yourself? About who you are?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "I'm thirsty. The water—"

"Ask me again, see what happens," Karen said. Dex glared at her, and an icy thrill rained down her body.

"I remember what I can do," he said. "If I had that pen you're holding... I could throw it straight through your throat. You'd bleed out in seconds."

"I don't doubt it," Karen said shortly. "Anything else?"

He closed his eyes. "Actually, I remember a lot. You know, from... before."

"Before?"

"When I was a kid," he clarified, and fell silent.

Karen knew better than to push. She'd been a journalist for so long now; this was her skill. Her game. She knew exactly when to needle, when to pry; more important, though, was knowing when to pull back. If you asked the right questions, and if you provided silent at the right time, some people would tell you anything.

And Dex... it was like he was cut open, down the middle. Like the thoughts inside him would spill out if he just leaned the right way.

"I was an orphan," he said. His eyes were still closed, but Karen could see them moving behind his eyelids, like he was watching a film play out in the blackness of his mind. "I had no one—except my coach. I was killer with a baseball. But he was..." he breathed deeply. "He wasn't enough. I killed him when I was nine."

Karen stopped writing for a minute and stared at him. "That... must have been traumatic." She was reminded of a young Wilson Fisk, standing over the body of his father, a brain-spattered hammer clenched in his fist.

And then... a young Matthew Murdock. No weapons, no corpses... but an angry, blind child with bloody knuckles and enough rage to carry him across a vast ocean of grief.

"It was all right," Dex said. "I had a therapist for ten years. She took me through the worst of it. Told me I needed a North Star, someone to keep me on the right path. Someone to stop my... urges."

"What urges?" Karen pushed.

"Skinning cats," he said. "Burning houses. Stalking. Killing."

He said it so easily, so openly. Karen found her body tingling at his tone, his lack of feeling like an ooze of slime creeping across her skin.

"You think I'm crazy."

"Yeah, a little bit."

"But I could control it," he said. And suddenly he was earnest, desperate. He clenched against his restraints, his muscles tense, his eyes wide. "I'm telling you, I had a handle on it. I worked with a therapist. I... built a life. I was safe."

Karen scribbled on her notepad. Her head was buzzing, thoughts racing, like a thousand rushing rivers spilling into one ocean. "So what happened?"

"I—" he slumped back against his pillows. "I don't remember."

He was dejected. Lost. He closed his eyes.

And in the bed he was only a little boy, orphaned and alone, throwing a baseball. A little orphan boy, unable to love, unable to feel. Abandoned by everyone he knew. Drowning in a sticky lake of black rage. She was revolted. She was frightened. 

She was strangely sad.

For a moment she hesitated, her entire body tensed and ready to flee. Then she took a breath, walked to the table, and picked up the cup of water. She inched past the red tape on the floor until she was standing over his bound body.

"Open."

Dex opened his mouth, surprised, staring unblinking at her as she pressed the cup to his lips. He drank for a minute or so, and the revulsion and pity stirred in Karen's stomach like writhing snakes. 

"Mr. Poindexter," she said quietly, backing away and setting the cup back on the table. She raised her notepad. "You're about to face trial. What... what do you think should happen to you?"

"I don't know," he said. "What do you think should happen to me?"

"I..." Karen trailed off, torn.

He opened his eyes suddenly, the icy gray as stiff and unyielding as stone. He stared at her as though he were holding her tight in his gaze; a grip of rage, of possession, of disdain; like he was grasping at her arm hard enough to bruise fingerprints onto her skin.

Karen took a shuddering breath. She remembered the scene once more; his silhouette dark against the dim Bulletin office, pointing a gun just past her head and exploding the skull of the man next to her.

"I think you should rot in prison," she said finally. "I think you should never live to see sunlight again."

He smiled coldly. "You don't think I should get the chair?"

"The chair isn't used anymore. But..." she bit her lip. "No, Mr. Poindexter. I don't think you should die."

"Why not?"

"Because..." She heard Matt's voice in her head, as clear as if he were standing behind her. The words he'd spoken, so softly, as they worked to defend Frank Castle.

It's not our decision who lives or dies. That's up to God. 

Karen didn't believe in religion. She never had. But... she believed in Matt Murdock.

"Because you're sick," she said. "Not insane, not... I mean, you're still culpable. But... you shouldn't—you shouldn't die."

Dex chuckled humorlessly, a single breath of air through his nose. "You're the only one who thinks so."

"What do you mean?"

"No self-respecting lawyer's gonna take my case. I'll get the shitty public defender, and I'll fry." He seemed strangely calm about it.

Karen squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stem the rising tide of revulsion and shame at what she was about to say.

"You're... you're saying you need a good lawyer?'

Chapter Text

Matt crouched atop a building, a full block away from Peter's apartment, and surveyed the scene. From here he could feel the heat of fires, could hear the creaking of weakening steel. The splintering of charred wood. He was pretty sure there were at least a few civilians trapped in the building—but it was hard for him to sense anything past the smoking chaos.

There were twelve men on the street below. Matt focused on each one. A few of them were cops; the rest were shouting in some European language. He was reasonably sure it was Russian. Yes... he listened carefully. Definitely Russian. He knew very little, but he'd picked up just enough from his last encounter with them. The Russians were here. And the Russians worked for Fisk.

"We got orders to stay clear," one cop was saying to another. His tone was hushed, secretive. Matt angled his head in their direction. "Block off the area, but don't go in. The boss has some business going on."

"How are we supposed to clear—"

"Ted and Johnson, they're clean. We gotta lure them off somehow."

Matt's breath hitched in his throat. He'd thought—he'd hoped—the days of Fisk muddying the police force were over. He thought both the NYPD and the feds had been cleaned out years ago.

Apparently not. Not while Fisk had had the last five years to get his greasy fingers back into New York's law enforcement.

One of the dirty cops scuffed his feet on the ground. "They're gonna be suspicious."

"Then call in another bombing and lead them away! The boss wants space for the Russians to operate."

Matt clenched his fists and pulled the black mask over his head.

He dropped down into the alley and crept upon the scene, hiding in the shadows as one of the dirty cops ran to the rest of the officers.

"Just got a call from dispatch," he was saying. "Shots fired on 46th, reports of another bomb. Probably another branch of the Russians. You guys gotta get over to Midtown. Go! Me and Hardy'll stay here and round up these bastards!"

And in minutes the area was cleared of all personnel who might have had any inclination to fight against Fisk.

Matt snarled. He'd have time for the dirty cop later, time to investigate, to interrogate, to hurt. Right now, he had a more important job. He slipped around the edges of the scene until he was feet away from the burning building, out of sight of Fisk's men.

His heightened senses were flooded; the heat seared his skin as surely as if he were in the middle of the flames. The smell of smoke and chemicals and sweat burned away at his nose. He swallowed and kicked in a window, ducking inside.

"Hello!" He shouted. "You have to get out—follow my voice—"

There were three civilians on this floor, and two more standing four floors above—or maybe five—Matt couldn't tell in the chaos of sensory overload. It was as though he were in the middle of a heavy snowstorm. His senses were clouded, foggy, overwhelmed by the scene around him.

He heard some distant screaming from overhead as a floor collapsed. "I'm coming!" He shouted. "Hold on—"

There was a whoosh above him, a crash of shattering glass. Matt's head shot up at the sound. Cutting through the haze of smoke and wood was the smell of synthetic rubber and Peter Parker's cologne.

"I'm here, I'm here," Peter said.

Matt coughed. "I told you to stay put!"

"No can do, my guy," Peter said, dropping down onto Matt's level with a thump. "Not my style. How can I help?"

There was no time to argue. Matt was about to pass out from the searing heat that rippled across his sensitive skin. The smells were eating away at his nose. He was almost seasick from the vibrations and movement around him. "There's five people in here. Three in the lobby—" he coughed again. "Two somewhere above us—"

"I'm on it," Peter said, sounding concerned. "You don't look too good..."

Matt bent over, trying not to vomit, forcing his mind to focus on the moment at hand. "Does anyone know you're here? The men outside—did they see you come in?"

Peter scoffed. "Nah, man, I'm more subtle than that."

"Why are they here? Why are the Russians after you?"

"I don't know—they couldn't have found me, I've been so careful—"

"Damn it, Peter." Matt said. "You must have done something—they found your apartment. That means Fisk knows. He knows where you live, who you are. He's gonna come for you, and I don't know what he wants with you yet, but—"

There was an enormous boom as a support beam cracked several floors above them. Matt fell to his knees, his ears ringing. Peter dragged him up. "Let's talk about that later. You go and... beat up some dudes. That's kind of your thing. I'll handle the rescue."

Matt couldn't argue with that. He took a few deep breaths, doing his best to tamp down the overwhelm, and stepped back into the cool air.

The smells and sounds were still oppressive, but they were manageable. Out in the open he could get his bearings. He set his feet strongly against the ground, remembering the way his father used to stand in the ring. From his pocket he pulled out rolls of boxing wrap and carefully wove the gauze around his fingers.

Just ahead of him was a Russian. He was a little removed from the others, surveying the damage to Peter's building. Matt cracked his knuckles, shook out the tensity in his shoulders, and crept behind him.

He pulled his cane tight against the man's throat, choking him.

"Why this building?" He growled.

"Ghkk—"

"A little louder."

The Russian elbowed backward, catching Matt in the stomach. Matt doubled over, then pulled the cane tighter. The man let out a high-pitched whine. Matt decked him on the side of the head, splitting his knuckle against the man's temple.

"Bombing buildings in broad daylight now? Got the cops on your side? You've come a long way since the Ranskahov brothers."

"Go to hell," the man managed to choke out.

Matt surveyed the street in front of him as he waited for the man to lose consciousness. None of the other men seemed to have noticed. That was good. He could interrogate them next, since he was getting nowhere with this guy.

He sent his focus forward, sharpening it, honing it, past the chaos of the burning building and onto Peter. He was on the sixth floor, carrying three men on his shoulders, and picking up a small child. "It's okay! I promise, it's gonna be okay! We're gonna get you out."

Damn, he was good at this.

The Russian man slumped to the ground. Matt let him. He was never going to talk, anyway. It was time to try the others.

He doubted any of them knew what Fisk was up to. But if he could get a hint, a whisper, of where Fisk was—where he was hiding—maybe Matt could confront him. Could remind the Kingpin of the deal they'd made on his wedding day.

A few yards ahead, two Russians spotted him. They waved their arms angrily and ran at him, guns clenched in their hands, knives in their pockets. Matt kicked one in the chest and he went tumbling, the gun soaring out of his fingers. Then he grabbed the other and twisted his wrist. The bone snapped and the man screamed, dropping his gun to the pavement.

"Nice try," Matt said. He pushed him to the floor and put his foot on the man's chest. "What are you doing here? Why this building?"

The man said something in Russian. Matt was reasonably sure it was something vile.

"Okay," he said, and he put all his weight onto the man, pressing him into the asphalt. "You let me know when you're ready to breathe. In the meantime, just listen. What does Fisk want from this building? What's he looking for?"

"Erkkh—please—"

"Not gonna cut it." Matt jammed his foot down harder and the man groaned.

"Ghrchk—the Spider-man, he's looking for—ahck—Spider-man."

"Tell me something I don't know," Matt said. He bent down closer. "What does Fisk want with him?"

"We don't know," the man managed to gasp out. "He—he tells us—nothing—"

His heartbeat was steady. Matt lifted his foot, and the man slumped down, too weak to fight.

Matt listened carefully. The other Russians and the dirty cops didn't seem to have noticed anything. They were all the way on the other end of the street, conversing loudly, poised almost as though they were waiting for something. Matt let them be for a moment and searched the scene for Peter.

The boy was standing on top of the building, five civilians huddled around him. One by one he swung them to the ground. Matt listened to his urgent whisper: "It's not safe here. Get as far away as you can. You're gonna be okay."

Peter looked in Matt's direction and ran over. Matt could smell his adrenaline spiking, the salty taste of sweat, the sound of an invigorated heart beat. "You okay? You good?" Peter said, panting.

"Been better," Matt said. "Peter—"

"Hold that thought," Peter said. "Now that everyone's safe..."

And before Matt could say anything, Peter shot a web to the top of his building and swung himself up onto a ledge.

He was in his own apartment.

Confused, Matt tracked his movements. He was running haphazardly around the place, grabbing just a few items from his desk before leaping from the window and whooshing through the air. He shot another web onto a building above Matt's head and swung toward him—"

"Smotri! Up there! Spider-man!"

"Shit!" Peter whispered. He landed heavily next to Matt.

"What did you do?" Matt focused his senses on Peter's pockets. There was a picture frame. A couple broken pieces of glass—perhaps some sort of jewelry. And, of all things, a Lego. "What was possibly worth going back in—"

"I don't have a lot, I wanted to save a couple—"

"Peter, you stupid—"

The building groaned and creaked as the group of Fisk's men began running toward them. There seemed to be more than before. They must have called in reinforcements. The muscles along Matt's body tensed, bracing him for the fight to come. He listened carefully. They were heavily armed—and worse than that, heavily armored. This was not going to be an easy fight. He grasped Peter's shoulders.

"Okay. Best option is to split up. These guys are gonna be a lot harder if they group together. You go that way, see if you can lure a few of them to follow you. I can take out most of these—"

"On it," Peter said. He shot a web at the asphalt, ten yards ahead, and used it like a slingshot to launch himself at the Russians. "Hey guys! Over here!"

Matt raised his fists. He tilted his head. These guys were bad, sure, but between him and Peter, taking them down wouldn't be too much trouble...

Something was wrong.

None of them were following Peter. They hardly even turned to look at him, instead advancing straight onto Matt. Adrenaline flooded his veins. Ten, twelve, fifteen. They marched steadily on, as though they'd been ordered to fight him off.

Matt quelled the rising questions in his head and sharpened his focus to just the immediate scene. He drowned out the rest of the world. There was nothing else in his view, his vision of composite sensory images, but the sea of violence he was about to swim into.

#####

Peter flew past the Russians, heart pounding in his throat, fingers itching for a fight.

It never came.

Instead, the Russians moved right on toward Daredevil. They glanced at Peter, and some of them even looked a little afraid; but they didn't touch him. They didn't even make a move in his direction.

"Hey! What gives?" Peter yelled. "Fight me!"

They ignored him.

"What, are you scared? Fight!"

They circled around Daredevil, blocking him entirely from Peter's view. Peter could hear him, though, grunting and yelling. He heard the drum-like sounds of flesh on flesh, bone on bone, the musical cries of pain. He tried to fight through them, to get back to Daredevil, to get the Russians away from him—

There was a prickle on the back of his neck. The hairs on his arm rose.

In a daze, Peter turned around. It was like the world was zeroing in on a specific spot, like a camera lens focusing on a single element of a photograph. He found himself following it, that strange instinct, that tingle.

It grew stronger.

Daredevil would be okay. He could take those guys... but there was something, something, calling out to him. A danger. A threat.

He followed the tingle all the way to the other end of the street, to an alley just north of the burning building.

"Mr. Parker."

The voice was low, urgent, controlled. Peter whirled around. In the shadows of the alley stood a bald man—an enormous man. A behemoth. Peter was strangely reminded of Thanos; this man radiated sheer power. He was dressed in impeccable white, standing as calmly and elegantly as if he were in the lobby of an opera house.

On instinct, Peter shot a web at the man, binding his hand to the wall.

The man smiled and ripped it away, pulling some of the brickwork with it. Peter's jaw fell open.

"Mr. Parker," the man said again. "We have not been introduced."

"How do you know my name?" Peter said slowly.

"My name is Wilson Fisk," the man said, pulling at the sticky webs still on his hand. Peter's neck tingled harder. He didn't understand it; this man had freed himself so easily. Peter's web fluid was strong, designed to bind fast anything it came in contact with. But this man, this Wilson Fisk—

Wait.

"Fisk?" Peter said.

The man inclined his head. "So you've heard of me."

Peter felt his heart racing. "You're—you're the Kingpin—how do you know who I am?"

Fisk stepped closer, a placid smile stretched across his face. "I'm not here to kill you, if that's a concern."

"I asked you a question!"

Fisk drew himself higher, carefully lacing his fingers together. "There were reports of Spider-man working with an enemy of mine—your friend." He nodded in Daredevil's direction. "From there, it was only a matter of keeping my eye on him. The way he rushed to your aid, I assumed that Spider-man must be a friend of his. A friend in his real life, not this..." he gestured at Peter's suit. "...costumed life, this fantasy."

Peter frowned. "I don't know who Daredevil is."

"I tracked everyone in his life," Fisk continued. "The name Peter Parker kept coming; I assumed it must be you. I had to test my theory."

Peter's blood pounded in his ears. "You bombed my apartment—to test a theory?"

"I am not here to hurt you," Fisk said.

"Yeah? What about the people who died in this building? What about the people sitting in the hospital right now? What about—what about the Russians? Call them off!" He pointed at Daredevil, still desperately fighting off a horde of angry men.

Fisk inclined his head again. "Necessary evils, Mr. Parker. My men are on orders not to kill your friend; they are merely a distraction. We can't have him interrupting our conversation. As for the tenants of this building..." He looked up at the flaming rubble, the flickering light casting writhing shadows over his face. "I understand my methods seem unorthodox to you. But rest assured, those who were killed will not die in vain. Their deaths will provide the impetus to clean this city. To fix this city. It is upon their graves that I will carve a glistening wonder out of this den of filth. Their sacrifice will mean far more than their lives ever did."

In that phrase, Peter heard the voice of Dr. Strange. He remembered the sneering faces of the villains he'd fought so many months ago. He balled his fists. "Fix this city? What are you talking about?"

"Look around you," Fisk said, his voice growing louder. "All this chaos, this ugliness. Hell's Kitchen has always been a place of suffering. And now that half its inhabitants have returned, misery and crime are running rampant through the streets. This city needs a leader. A savior. Someone to raise it up from its filth and shape it into something beautiful."

"And that man is you?" Peter said. he took a step closer, hoping Fisk would back away.

He didn't.

"I am in a unique position to effect change," Fisk said. "I am a man of means, of power. I am the only one with the vision to relieve the city's suffering. And yet..." He closed his eyes, and the muscles in his face began to twitch. "Your friend would have me imprisoned. He would rather the city mire in squalor than shine under my influence. I need him... removed. And that's where you come in."

"Like hell," Peter said.

"I'm not asking you to kill him," Fisk said. "No, your friend and I made a deal long ago. I can't touch him. I am merely trying to... work around him, as it were. I think you could help me with that. You see, Mr. Parker, I have my hands in every office of the city. The politicians, the police, even Wall Street. But the one sphere without my influence... is the life of Daredevil."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Fisk said, his chest swelling, "I need someone close to him. Someone to distract him, to pass along information. I need a man on the inside. And that man is you, Peter Parker."

Peter laughed hollowly. "Sorry to disappoint, but like I said—I don't know who Daredevil is."

"I find that hard to believe." 

"Believe it, buddy," Peter said, and he began to do calculations in his head—tracking the alleyway, mentally noting the best places to leap from, the best angles to sling webs. How best to incapacitate this man. "Even if I knew, there's no way in hell I'd help you."

Fisk smiled slightly, but his face was trembling—twitching—as though there were a caged animal inside of him, clawing to get out. "Tell me, Mr. Parker... why is it that there are no records of you existing?"

"What?"

"No birth certificate, no social security, no school records. All I could find was a signed lease and a job listing. It's as though you're invisible. As though you never existed."

"Yeah, so?"

"So," Fisk said, clenching his fists, and Peter realized his knuckles were turning white. "Perhaps you could be of use outside of your dealings with Daredevil. Tell me, Peter. How did you wipe your slate clean? How did you clear your ledger?"

Peter stayed silent. If he timed it right, he was pretty sure he could swing above Fisk and land above him. If he could just get the drop on him, if he could land a few super-powered hits, this guy would go down. Easy.

"Tell me," Fisk said again.

Peter shrugged. "Wizards. Magic."

Fisk closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. "This is not a time for games, Mr. Parker. Perhaps you want something in exchange for your help. I can offer you protection."

"Protection from who?" Peter said. "You?"

"There are dangerous elements in this city," Fisk persisted. "You may not need my protection. But there are others, aren't there? Others who are more... vulnerable."

A stream of ice shot through Peter's veins. He froze. "What are you talking about?'

"There is evil in the streets," Fisk said. "There is darkness. I deal in the lowest dredges of humanity, Mr. Parker; you've seen it. The Albanians nearly killed you. And my own men, the Russians... they can be so unpredictable. You do not want them anywhere near your friends. Those... few that you seem to have."

Peter clenched his jaw.

"What is that young woman's name?" Fisk continued, raising his eyebrows. In the flickering light from the burning building he seemed to grow, looming over Peter like a menacing planet. "The barista you visit so frequently... Michelle Jones-Watson, I believe?"

Peter was still, silent. Fisk seemed to read something in his stance.

"Yes..." he said, softly. "That's her. She is important to you; I can see that. And she, Mr. Parker, is vulnerable."

"Is that a threat?" Peter said softly, blood boiling under the surface of his skin.

"An observation." He twiddled with the cufflinks on his wrists. "Danger prowls the streets each night. There are monsters in the shadows. It would hardly be a surprise if such a defenseless young woman were to disapp—"

Peter launched himself at Fisk.

He was hardly aware of himself, of the flailing of his body. The movements of his fists, his legs, the flailing shooting of his webs. Rage pumped through him like blood—rage like he hadn't felt since he'd nearly killed Norman Osborne. Rage like he hadn't felt since his Aunt May...

"Say her name again," Peter said. "I dare you." He split his knuckle on Fisk's jaw.

Fisk snarled. His eyes clouded over. With an impossible agility, disproportionate to his size, Fisk leaped at Peter and slammed him into the brick wall of the alley.

"I don't want to make an enemy of you, Peter," he yelled, pulling him back and slamming him into the wall once more. "I'm not here to hurt you!" As if to emphasize the point, he pressed his forearm into Peter's neck, pinning him to the wall, dangling him several feet above the ground.

Peter felt his airways collapsing. Panicked, desperate, he wriggled a hand out and shot a blast of web fluid directly into Fisk's face.

The Kingpin screamed, pressing his hands to his eyes, and Peter dropped to the asphalt. 

"You threatened MJ," Peter panted, standing up and clenching his fists again. "I won't let you hurt her."

He took a heavy step toward Fisk—

With a loud thump, Daredevil dropped down from a fire escape above. He stepped between the two of them, spreading his arms to shield Peter from the Kingpin's fiery gaze.

"Get away from here," he whispered. Peter, surprised, whirled around. There was a pile of groaning Russians on the street where Daredevil had been fighting just moments ago.

"Whoah—that was fast..."

Fisk stood up straighter, wiping a spot of blood from his lip. "You."

"Me." Daredevil said. There was an undercurrent of weariness in his voice. "We had a deal, Fisk."

"How could I forget?" Fisk said dryly. As if on instinct, he and Daredevil began to circle each other, prowling. Peter braced himself to jump in, to interrupt, to help—but before he could, Daredevil held out a hand to stop him.

"I'll inform the FBI about Vaness—"

"Spider-man was not a part of that deal," Fisk said. His eyes glinted, his hands balling into fists. "You go to the FBI, Daredevil..." he said the name with a sneer, like it was rotting in his mouth. "...and you know exactly who I will kill. We are at a stalemate, you and I. Neither of us can touch the other."

"What do you want with Spider-man?"

"Let's not play games," Fisk said coldly. "What I want with Peter here is none of your concern."

Daredevil yelled, enraged, and leapt at Fisk.

He landed a swift punch to his temple; Fisk reeled back for a moment, then took a heavy swing. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen leapt away—but not fast enough. Fisk's swing caught him in the stomach. He staggered.

Peter watched, frozen, as they caught each other in a blur of fists and bone and blood. They were screaming; rageful, primal. There was skill in Daredevil's fighting, but exhaustion, too; a weariness that frightened Peter. Clearly worn out from his fight with the Russians, Daredevil was little more than a rag doll, flinging his body blindly at Fisk. His movements were heavy. Sluggish.

"Stay away from him," Daredevil panted, his voice wavering slightly. "You want Vanessa safe? You want her free? Stay away—"

Fisk's entire face twitched at the mention of Vanessa. His nostrils flared.

Peter's neck tingled. A sense of horror, of danger. On instinct, he stepped forward, eager to help.

"No!" Daredevil said, flinging Peter out of the way. And in that moment of distraction, Fisk closed in on him. He picked Daredevil up, holding him above his head as though he weighed nothing.

"You will not hurt Vanessa," he screamed, more animal than human, and he slammed Daredevil's head against the brick wall of the alley.

There was a sickening crack, and Daredevil fell to the ground, moaning. Peter yelled as Fisk stood above the man, breathing heavily, a manic smile stretched across his wide face. He raised his foot and brought it hard down against Daredevil's face.

Crunch. "We." Crunch. "Had." Crunch. "A deal."

Pleasure etched itself across his face as he kicked, the alley echoing with the sound of breaking bones. Beneath the black mask Daredevil's face began oozing hot blood. Peter felt sick.

"Stop it!" Peter screamed. "You're killing him!"

At the word "killing," Fisk stopped. He seemed to remember suddenly where he was. He stepped back and took a deep breath, his mouth still stretched wide, though in a smile or a grimace, Peter couldn't be sure.

Fisk kicked Daredevil one last time, rolling him toward Peter. "Take him, then. I'm finished."

He began walking briskly away, a ferocity and a strange panic in his step. Peter stood to follow him—

Daredevil groaned wetly. Peter watched Fisk disappear into the shadows, then dropped to his knees beside him.

"Oh shit, oh shit—it's okay, you're gonna be okay—"

Daredevil's teeth were stained red with blood as he opened his mouth. "Peter—"

"The hospital? Should I call an ambulance? Or—no, probably not... oh! The church, where you took me?"

Daredevil nodded weakly, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Like he was gasping for air. The black mask was darkening, soaking up an alarming amount of blood from the man's face. It was bad. It was really bad.

Peter felt panic drape over him like a heavy blanket. "Okay—okay—um—I'm gonna swing you to the church—but maybe—"

First aid. First aid. Damn it, why hadn't he paid more attention in Boy Scouts?

"You're bleeding bad," he said. "The swinging's gonna make it worse—I'm gonna try to stop the flow before we go." He waited for Daredevil to say something, but the man only groaned. "I'm really sorry about this," Peter said, carefully grabbing the edges of the black mask. "I'm sorry—I'm just gonna check the damage—"

"Peter, no..." Daredevil weakly raised an arm, clutching at Peter's hands.

"It's okay, you can trust me, you're gonna be okay," Peter said, more to himself than Daredevil.

He carefully rolled up the edges of the mask, wincing at the wet spongy sounds it made as it separated from the man's battered face. Slowly, carefully, he peeled it away from the shattered nose, the oozing red skin...

Daredevil moaned again, his bare face flickering in the shadow of the burning apartment. His brown eyes, unfocused and wide, stared past Peter into the dusty blue sky.

Peter froze.

"Mr. Murdock?"

Chapter Text

It had been thirty minutes since Matt had rushed out of the office, and Foggy still hadn't heard from him.

Of course not. Why would Matt bother to fill Foggy in on the situation? It wasn't like Foggy was scared shitless, worried that his friend—both of his friends—were out of their depths, potentially getting involved with one of the city's deadliest psychopaths. It wasn't like Foggy had a stake in his well-being or anything.

Foggy called Matt. No answer. He called again. No answer. Again.

Straight to voicemail. Either his phone died, or Matt was being insufferable.

Why choose just one?

Foggy rubbed his hands over his face, wishing for the millionth time that he'd decided to be a butcher instead of a lawyer, then picked up his phone to call Matt again. But before he could, the phone began buzzing.

Foggy's heart leapt into his throat. Karen, read the caller ID. Foggy swallowed and answered.

"Karen. What's going on—Matt ran to find you, he's freaking out—"

"Yeah, I know," Karen said. Her voice was a little unsteady, but she sounded fairly calm. "Everything's fine, Foggy, it's just... um..." She sighed. "How fast do you think you could get here?"

Foggy was already putting on his jacket. "Where's 'here'?"

"I'm at Metro General. I just interviewed—"

"Ben Poindexter?" Foggy said, balancing the phone on his shoulder as he shut off the lights and locked the office door behind him. He took the stairs two at a tie, panting into the phone as he made his way outside. "Kinda figured, after seeing the photo you left behind."

"Damn it," Karen said. "So that's why Matt came running."

Foggy was already out on the street, hand outstretched to hail a cab. "What's this about? Karen? Why are you—"

Karen hung up.

Sure. Why not. Why should any of his friends bother with normal human interactions?

In the cab, Foggy caught his breath and tried to calm his racing heart. Karen was almost as bad as Matt. She had a knack for getting into danger, for seeking out trouble. Her fearlessness, admirable as it sometimes was, often crossed the border into recklessness. And then further into full-on stupidity. She and Matt were a good fit for each other, honestly; sometimes Foggy felt like the only sane person in the entire office.

Well, him and Peter. Poor kid.

At the hospital, the receptionist pointed him in Karen's direction. Foggy took the stairs, cursing his bad Nelson knees, and stopped at the entrance to the sixth floor. Here he was scanned, patted, and briefed by a very angry-looking security guard.

"Foggy," came Karen's voice. She appeared from behind the security guard, looking a little paler than usual, but determined nonetheless. There was a steely glint in her eyes—Foggy hated that look. "Come here, we need to talk."

"It's Poindexter, isn't it?" Foggy said, reluctantly following in Karen's quick footsteps down the hallway. "I thought this guy was in a coma."

"Yeah, well, he's awake now," Karen said. She led him far down the brightly lit floor, almost to the very end of the hall—out of the guard's earshot. "He's... he's in pretty bad shape."

Foggy raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, I heard he was paralyzed."

"He's not. Well, he was...  but not anymore. But I'm talking about his mind. His mind is in bad shape."

"Well, we knew that already."

"Just—listen." She pointed at the door behind them, ostensibly where Dex was being treated. "He's lost his memory; he doesn't remember me, or Matt, or even Fisk. All he remembers is his terrible childhood. It was... bad, Foggy. I think he's sick. I mean, really sick."

"So?" Foggy said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Matt had a shitty childhood too, and he turned out..."

He hesitated. Come to think of it, putting on a devil suit and punching the living daylights out of people every night didn't seem like "turning out fine."

"So," Karen said, nervously twiddling her fingers, "I... think that..."

The door behind them opened, and Blake Tower—New York's District Attorney—walked out. Karen looked immensely relieved. "Mr. Tower. Why don't you explain?"

Foggy blinked. "What is going on?"

Tower inclined his head and held out his hand to Foggy, who ignored it. "Good morning, Mr. Nelson. I came here to speak with Benjamin Poindexter—it was just good luck Ms. Page happened to be here. I have a proposition for your firm."

"Hell no," Foggy said, already sure of what he was about to say.

Tower straightened himself and pushed the glasses further up on his nose. "Mr. Poindexter is in need of competent legal representation. I realize your firm is overloaded with cases right now, but this is a matter of some urgency. I'm inclined to believe that the office of Nelson and Murdock is the best-equipped to handle this particular case."

Foggy narrowed his eyes. "Cut the shit, Tower. What are you trying to say?"

Tower sighed and lowered his voice. "Look. This guy's obviously a monster, I get it. But he needs a fair trial, and the public defender isn't going to do anything for him. Not with a case this important. The entire city wants him dead; a little like the Frank Castle case, if you recall."

Foggy and Karen glanced at each other, clearly remembering the disaster that was the Punisher trial.

"I came down here to talk with Poindexter about it, and was just lucky enough to meet your associate here. You and Murdock have a reputation for taking on cases that other firms are too scared to touch."

An uncomfortable silence settled between the three of them. Then—

"I think we should take it," Karen said.

Foggy scoffed. "This guy deserves to rot in prison. I'm not gonna help get him off."

"Not get him off." Karen took a deep breath. "Just soften the sentence; like we did for Frank. I just don't think he should get the death penalty."

Foggy frowned. "New York doesn't have the death penalty."

"No," Tower agreed. "But the federal government does. For heaven's sake, Poindexter was a federal agent who went rogue. He murdered dozens. He was directly responsible for aiding and abetting in serious governmental corruption through the use of targeted homicides. The feds are out for blood."

Foggy sighed. "I mean... I don't like the death penalty any more than either of you do... but if anyone deserves it, it's Benjamin Poindexter."

Karen crossed her arms, that steely look behind her eyes again. "Foggy, you don't know—you didn't talk to him. He's really... he's disturbed. He's sick. And don't get me wrong; he needs to be in prison for the rest of his life. But..."

"You can't in good conscience let him die," Foggy said, rubbing his temples. "I can't believe we're going through this again. What did Matt say about it?"

"I haven't told him yet."

Foggy frowned. "He was here, wasn't he? I mean, he left the office like an hour ago."

Karen sighed. "Yeah, he was here for a minute, but he left to go... take care of something." She glanced at Tower, then lowered her voice a shade. "It sounded urgent."

"Oh," Foggy said. He also looked at Tower, who was frowning curiously at them. "Well, I'm sure he'd agree with you about this whole thing. So... hooray for me."

"You'll take the case, then?" Tower said.

Oh, how he wished he could be in a butcher shop, cutting up glazed ham. He glared furiously at the ceiling for a minute, agonizing.

"Yes. We'll take it."

Tower held out his hand once more, and this time Foggy shook it. 

"Good. That's good. My office owes you one, Mr. Nelson. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need my help with anything."

He strode down the hallway, a little too quickly, clearly relieved to be getting away. Foggy wished he was going with him. There was an air of unease in this hallway; a sense of danger. Even with Dex behind a closed door, Foggy could feel him out here in the hallway—meaning, rageful, skillful. Deadly.

When the clicking of Tower's heels faded away, Karen and Foggy sank into a couple chairs lining the wall. Foggy turned to her, his voice barely above a whisper. "So where did Matt go? What's going on?"

Karen laughed dryly. "Like I know. He just ran off without saying anything, like he always does."

"That's a classic Matt move." He leaned forward, dropping his head into his hands. "He's more on edge lately, isn't he? Something's going on with him. But he's not talking to me about it."

"Yeah, me neither." Karen closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. She looked exhausted. This was worse than her dangerous steely look. Foggy reached out and softly patted her arm. "It's like... it's like the old Matt's back, Foggy. He's so..."

"Self-loathing? Depressed? Angry?"

"All of the above."

Foggy sighed. "Sounds about right."

"I mean," Karen said, a little louder, "I thought he'd talk to me about it when he's ready. But he's so... secretive, all of a sudden."

"Yeah... Matt and secrecy are a killer combination."

"I just wanna shake him. I just wanna shake him and make him talk to me. I mean, he's been so happy lately. Ever since Fisk was put away; even before he blipped. He's been so... content. So safe. That's the Matt I love, Foggy. But all of a sudden..."

"Did he break up with you?"

Karen blew a strand of hair out of her face. "I don't know. He was really ambiguous about it. You know. 'I'm bad for you, I'm too dangerous, I have to protect you...' I mean, come on! I can protect myself! I went up against Fisk on my own! I—" she broke off. "—I handled myself just fine against James Wesley."

"You're a certified badass," Foggy agreed. "Matt knows that; it's just his Catholic guilt coming up again. That—and he's an idiot. He'll come to his senses, Karen."

"You wanna say that under oath?" Karen muttered. Foggy snorted.

"Come on. Let's go talk to—ugh." He took a deep breath. "Let's go talk to Dex."

He slung his arm over Karen's shoulders in a quick hug, then stood and knocked on Dex's door behind him, his heart pounding so loudly he'd be willing to bet Matt could hear it, wherever he was.

Maybe not. He wasn't sure exactly how Matt's abilities worked.

"Mr. Poindexter? We're coming in." He waited for a response, but none came. He nodded resolutely at Karen, pushing down his uneasiness, and opened the door.

Benjamin Poindexter was restrained on a hospital bed, as cold and brooding as he remembered him. In an instant Foggy was back at the Bulletin office, with Dex in the red suit throwing a baton at his face. To kill him, presumably. He'd been a picture of strength, of power, of deadly precision and rage.

Now, though, he looked...

Pathetic.

He was sitting up in his bed, ankles and right arm chained down; next to him, a nurse drew blood from his unrestrained left arm. She easily pulled the syringe out of his skin and covered the injection site with a cotton ball. Dex's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his jaw clenched.

Above his head a housefly loudly buzzed; landing on his ears, his hair, his shoulders. He twitched at the sound. Foggy thought he looked crazed; mad; like the noise of it was driving him insane.

"Nurse. Kill that damn fly."

The nurse, empty syringe still in her hand, swatted at the fly. It flew near the open door where Karen and Foggy stood, buzzing as loudly as a hornet; Dex's nostrils flared and a muscle in his cheek jumped.

"I said kill it!" Dex said, jerking against his restraints.

When the nurse ignored him, Dex growled and snatched the syringe from her hand—quick and strong as a bolt of lightning. With a deadly, calculating stare—eyes wide and bloodshot—he threw the needle.

The syringe whipped through the air, steady and quick as an arrow. The force of the throw pushed it through the wallpaper and plaster. It imbedded itself in the wall—right next to Foggy's ear.

The fly was pinned beneath it.

For the first time, Dex seemed to notice that Foggy and Karen had come in. He smiled at them, his eyes empty, the crooked curve of his lips like cracked glass.

"So. You're my new attorney."

#####

In the dim electrical buzzing of the church basement, Matt dragged himself awake. It was like he was being pulled by the arms from a pool of hardening molasses. Painful. Slow. Lingering.

He was aware first of the hovering presence of Sister Maggie above him, sponging away the blood and viscera from his face. Then he was aware of the pain. His nose had been broken, though Sister Maggie was doing her best to put it back into place. His eyes were swelling. His jaw was dislocated; he could hear the dull shifting of the bone against his tendons. He was bleeding badly from at least twelve different places.

He definitely had a concussion, as evidenced by the fact that his "vision" was shaky, fuzzy, unsettled.

The vague shape of Peter Parker sat at the base of a statue of Saint Francis, all the way across the room. As far from Matt as he could get.

"...Peter?"

"Don't talk for a minute," Sister Maggie said, firmly putting her hands on his jaw. "This is going to hurt. Open your mouth." Matt complied and she reached inside, placing her thumbs against his back teeth as she cradled the lower half of his head.

With a sudden jerk, she snapped his jaw back into place.

Matt shouted in pain and pushed Sister Maggie away. She sighed quietly, a maternal sound of relief.

"Good to see you've got some fight in you," She said dryly. Her face was cold, indicating that she was probably pale, but her voice was steady. "Roll your jaw for a minute."

Matt did so, opening and closing his mouth and listening to the subtle clicking of his teeth. "Thanks."

"It's not like I have anything better to do," she said sharply, pulling a needle and suture thread from a medical kit at her feet. "It's not like I have an orphanage and a church to run."

Matt shook his head. "I'm sorry." 

"Besides," she said, a little softer, "It's not the worst state I've seen you in."

"Geez," Peter breathed. Matt heard the setting of Peter's jaw as he clenched it, the pounding of his heart as he looked at the broken and bloody state of Matt's body.

"Peter, I—thanks. For bringing me here."

Peter didn't answer.

Sister Maggie passed the needle through a gash of skin on Matt's chest, and he hissed in pain. She ignored this, steadily weaving the needle in and out of his skin, pulling it tightly together, gently dabbing away the blood as she worked. After a minute or so she tied it off expertly, snipping the ends with the scissors she kept in her industrial-grade first-aid kit.

"You've gotten really good at this."

"Not as good as your nurse friend, I dare say. What was her name again? Claire? Maybe you should ask her next time instead of interrupting my day." Her voice was brittle, dry, but there was a tenderness in her touch that Matt couldn't help but lean into.

Peter shifted on the statue, desperate to say something, clearly restraining himself from losing his temper. Matt closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the agonizing scratchiness of the cot. He really wished they'd invest in nicer sheets. With his senses, this was like resting on sandpaper. "You want to say something, Peter?"

"Are you actually blind?" Peter blurted out.

Matt snorted. "That's always the first question. Yes. I'm blind."

"Then how—"

"The same reason you can climb on walls," Matt said. He tried to empty his mind, as much as he could while carrying on a conversation, hoping the focus and the meditation would help him heal faster. It usually did.

"You..." Peter hesitated. "You got bit by a spider?"

"No—ah—" Matt grimaced as Sister Maggie poured some hydrogen peroxide over a particularly nasty cut on his knuckles. "I have... special abilities. Like you."

"What abilities?"

Matt sighed. He took a minute or so to be present in his body, to take note of his injuries, of the steady beating of his heart, the filling and emptying of his lungs. "When I was a kid, I was in an accident. Some chemical waste spilled in my eyes."

"And that blinded you?"

"It's complicated."

Peter stood up and started pacing. "What does that even mean?"

"It means I lost my eyesight, but... there were compensations." It was really hard to focus on his healing meditation with Peter stomping up and down the floor, heart pounding, agitation palpable on his skin. "My other senses were enhanced. That's how I do what I do."

"What, so you're fighting based off... smells?"

"And taste, and touch, and sound."

"How does that work?" Peter said.

Sister Maggie placed a pad of gauze and a roll of medical tape into Matt's hands. He took it from her and carefully set it against a gash in his side. "it's hard to explain. It all sort of just fits together. Like a puzzle. It's like a... a picture, for lack of a better word. Not in my eyes, but in my mind."

"So you can see." 

Matt rubbed his eyes. "No—are you even listening? It's not visual. It's just—I just know things."

"Like what?"

Matt was reminded strongly of an identical conversation he'd had with Foggy, years ago, long before he'd taken down Fisk the first time. "I know you haven't washed that suit in a week. I know you have a piece of glass and a Lego in your pocket.

Peter jumped a little, imperceptible to anyone but Matt.

"And he can listen to heartbeats," Sister Maggie said. She picked up a basket of bloody rags and bandages, balancing it on her hip as she headed out of the basement toward the laundry room. "He can tell if people are lying." 

"Thanks, Sister," Matt said as she left.

"Wait—what?" Peter said. "So—so you've known every time I lied to you?"

Matt sighed. "Yeah. Sorry." This was a sore spot for people; it was better not to sugar-coat it.

Peter stared at Matt in silence for a while, as though he were waiting for something.

"That's it," Matt said, a little anticlimactically.

Peter crossed his arms. "What about the fighting? Did you get super strength or something? Or speed, or... I don't know, extra durable skin?" He paused, taking in Matt's injuries. "Maybe not that."

"No—no—just the senses."

Peter was silent for a minute. Then he sat back down on the statue, absentmindedly running his rubbery mask through his fingers. "You knew I was Spider-man the whole time? And you've still been treating me like a kid?"

Matt groaned as he propped himself up onto his elbows. "You are a kid."

"Yeah, well, this kid saved your butt today, so..."

Matt shook his head, testing the pain levels behind his skull. Bad, but not unmanageable. "Fisk wasn't going to kill me. And I've survived a lot worse." He paused. "But thanks."

Peter stared down at the floor, tracing his foot around the stone beneath him. He seemed to be considering something. "What do you mean, Fisk wasn't going to kill you?"

With a painful heave, Matt slowly raised himself into a sitting position. Then he took another full minute to just breathe, to meditate, to foster the healing and the rejoining of his body's cells.

"He knows that if he kills me, Foggy and Karen will go straight to the FBI. We have some solid evidence against his wife. She—ah—" Matt adjusted some medical tape that was holding a cut in his face together. "She ordered the murder of Ray Nadeem, years ago. If Fisk goes after any of us, we turn in Vanessa and she goes to prison."

Matt sensed Peter's mouth stretching into a frown. "So... do they know you're Daredevil? Karen and Foggy, I mean?"

"Yeah. They do." Matt sighed. He could picture their reactions to his current state, their horrified silences as they took in the scars and the wounds all over his body. Neither of them—Karen especially—deserved this. "We should probably tell them that you know about me. They sort of... we sort of work together on anything Daredevil-related. Usually."

"They're your guys in the chair?"

"What?" 

"Nothing." Peter stared up at the ceiling for a while in silence, and Matt took the opportunity to focus on his breath. His pain. He let the sensations of his body flood his brain, focusing on each one in turn, taking inventory of his wounds. He honed in on the weaving healing of his skin and the slow, imperceptible rejoining of bone. Matt had spent years practicing this. He'd trained under Stick to use his sharp focus, to cultivate strength and healing from within.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," Peter said finally. We're friends! I mean, you're my boss, but you're a friendly boss."

"I don't just go around telling people, Peter. I don't think you understand the importance of a secret identity."

"You have no idea," Peter muttered, clearly forgetting that Matt could hear.

Matt raised his eyebrows. "No idea about what?"

Peter's head jerked up, his heart rate spiking. But he stayed silent. His temperature was rising, trace amounts of adrenaline running through his veins as he thought. He considered. He agonized about something.

Matt laid back and closed his eyes. The pain was bad, but he would get through it. He could think of at least six different encounters worse than this one. Fisk had been pulling his punches; he was pretty merciful, all things considered.

Peter suddenly stood. "The brick! I forgot!"

Matt raised his eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"

"I watched you catch a brick from behind—it was crazy—I didn't understand, but now..."

Matt frowned. "I think I'd remember if I—"

"No, you wouldn't." Peter took a deep breath, his heart pounding, and pulled a stool next to Matt's cot. "Listen. As long as we're sharing secrets, there's something you should know. It's... I want to clear the air, put everything out in the open. So. Um..."

"What?"

Peter twisted his hands together. "We've actually known each other since November. You took a case for me—and my Aunt May. When everyone thought that Spider-man killed Mysterio."

"That makes no sense," Matt said. "I'd remember that. And—how would anyone prosecute Spider-man? No one knows who you are."

Peter took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Okay. Listen. This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to hear me out."

Chapter Text

In the vast emptiness of his penthouse, Wilson allowed himself to breathe. He carefully washed Murdock's blood from his fists, relishing the swirl of scarlet in the running water of his kitchen sink. He removed his white jacket. Perhaps the dry-cleaners would be able to get the stain out. Probably not.

Felix Manning was standing against the wall, next to Rabbit in a Snowstorm, waiting for instructions. Wilson ignored him, focusing instead on regaining his composure.

He should've have lost his temper. He shouldn't have lost control. His recklessness could be dangerous for Vanessa.

Then again... Murdock, despite his flaws, was a man of honor. Fisk had not broken his end of the deal—the Devil of Hell's Kitchen was sure to keep his.

Trembling, Wilson dried his hands and picked up a crystal glass. He ran it under the tap, letting the soft whisper of the running water soothe his racing thoughts. He pressed the glass to his lips. The cool water, sullied with the sediment and filth of his city, invigorated him. It revived him. It grounded him. Each sip invited the city into his body; he belonged to Hell's Kitchen. Hell's Kitchen belonged to him. 

Finally, he turned to face Felix.

"Mr. Manning."

"Sir?"

"Go and fetch our correspondent," he said, dabbing his lips with a handkerchief. "It's time."

Felix inclined his head and strode to the door, stopping with his hand on the doorknob. "Of course. And would you like me to request a camera crew as well?"

Wilson closed his eyes. "Yes, that would be best. Thank you."

Felix left the apartment and the click of the door echoed in the lonely silence of the sitting room. Wilson pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He ran his fingers along its length, the buttons on the side, before unlocking it and pressing tenderly on his beloved's name.

The line rang for only a moment before Vanessa answered the video call.

Her face was flushed, lovely, heroes shining. Like she'd been waiting all day to speak with him. Like she was overjoyed at the sight of his face. Wilson would never understand it; her devotion, her care. She smiled at him, her lips pressed together like she was suppressing a delighted laugh. "Wilson."

"My love," Wilson said, his trembling lips forming a soft smile. "Are you well? Are they taking care of you?"

"As best as they are able," she said. "And you, Wilson? I can see you're troubled."

"...I am," Wilson said. Of course she could see it. She was so perceptive. Like always, she'd studied his face like she studied her beloved artwork; combing through its layers for meaning, for emotion, for questions. Searching the lines and shapes, the fulness and the emptiness, for hidden messages. "I've just returned from an... encounter."

"With Spider-man?" She asked. He'd told her of his intentions before he'd gone to meet with Parker.

"More than that. I was... interrupted. By the Devil of Hell's Kitchen."

Vanessa drew in a large breath, and Wilson could see the strain behind her eyes; she was so careful to keep her face measured, clear. "Murdock."

"Yes," Wilson said. "I'm afraid the entire encounter was a waste. Spider-man is not going to be of use to us; he's devoted to Murdock. And what's more, he's under Murdock's protection." He clenched his fists. "I'm sorry, Vanessa. I hoped—I'd hoped he could help me bring you home."

Vanessa was quiet for a minute. He could see the thoughts behind her eyes, tumbling over and over, smoothing, polishing, like stones in a river. "We should keep an eye on Parker anyway; it never hurts to have more cards at play. He might still prove to be useful."

"How?"

"Any connection is significant," she said softly. "The more connections Murdock has, the more cracks in his armor."

She was right. She was always right. Wilson stared at her for a while, imagining the tenderness of her skin against his fingertips. "Of course," he said finally.

Sh smiled at him, and they sat in silence for a minute or so, just studying each others' eyes. In the hallowed stillness of this moment they connected across space, across time; she was here with him now. She was in his arms.

"Wilson," she said, and there was a hesitancy in her voice. The illusion broke and she was trapped in his phone screen again. "I've been hearing things, reading things..."

"Yes?"

"Is it true that... that Benjamin Poindexter is awake?"

Wilson stood straighter, stricken at the hint of fear woven into her voice. "I'd meant to tell you—I wanted to break it to you—"

"He is awake, then?"

Wilson nodded, eyes closed. "Yes. He is awake. My sources tell me that he's safe now; his memory is damaged, apparently beyond repair. He remembers nothing of either of us."

Vanessa looked thoughtful.

"He's preparing to face trial," Wilson added. "From my understanding, the DA is trying to save him from the death penalty."

An image flashed behind his eyelids, as vividly as if he were watching a film. Agent Poindexter, clad in Murdock's red suit. Dangerously broken away from Wilson's control. A deadly rage in the lines of his face, the moving of his body. The vicious force behind his arms as he threw batons, champagne flutes, shards of glass at  his beloved wife. Vanessa, saved—in a cruel twist of irony—by the Devil of Hell's Kitchen himself.

Had Poindexter had his way, Vanessa would be nothing but bones and melting flesh under the earth.

"I can have him removed if it will make you feel safer, my love."

Vanessa allowed herself a small smile. "If his memory is gone, there's no need."

Wilson reveled in the warmth of her compassion, her kindness. Her mercy, even for a man who had sought to kill her in ways as myriad and terrifying as they were brutal. She had a forgiving heart, a loving heart. Wilson didn't deserve her.

And... perhaps he could find a use for Poindexter. It would be a shame for a man of his particular skill to go to waste.

Vanessa furrowed her brows suddenly, staring closer at Wilson's forehead. "Wilson, you're bleeding."

Wilson reached a finger up. A laceration from his fight with the Devil had opened up; nothing major, nothing even requiring stitches. He carefully wiped away the spot of blood with his handkerchief.

"A gift from our friend Mr. Murdock," Wilson said, a quiet anger seething under his voice like a current of electricity. "But don't worry; he'll take a lot longer to heal than I will."

Vanessa swallowed, nodding. She looked like she wanted to reach through the screen, to cradle Wilson's head in her arms. "Well... if all goes according to plan... he won't hurt you again."

Wilson nodded, drinking in the sight of her concern. "Yes. Felix is bringing me our correspondent now. This city is on edge, Vanessa; it's on a precipice—Spider-man made sure of that when he killed Mysterio. With the apartment bombing this evening, and Daredevil's reputation for brutality... perhaps we'll be able to tip the scales in our favor."

"Of course we will," Vanessa said. There was a note of triumph in her voice, intermingled with her tenderness and longing. "The city will love you, Wilson. They'll love you, and they'll let me come home to you."

"That's all I want," Wilson said. "That's everything I want."

Vanessa smiled at him again, the warmest smile he'd seen from her since he'd gone to prison. "We're so close, my love. Just remember that." She paused. "Listen, Wilson—I would love to keep speaking with you, but... I have to go."

Wilson blinked. Vanessa usually wanted to stay on the phone with him all evening; often, they'd sit together in silence, going about their individual obligations, not even speaking—just enjoying each others' loving company. 

She'd never been so quick to go before.

"Of—of course," Wilson said slowly. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine, Wilson. I love you. More than anything." She pressed her fingers to her lips, as though in a kiss, then ended the call.

The penthouse was lonelier than before. Eyes burning, he turned to face Rabbit in a Snowstorm, letting its oppressive emptiness envelop him as the minutes wore on.

A knock sounded on his door. That would be his media contact; the man he'd send Felix to find.

This man would be the key to his success in the coming weeks. The court of public opinion, he had come to find, was far more important than a court of law. Wilson stood, straightened his cufflinks, and strode purposefully to the door. Then he took a measured breath and opened it.

J. Jonah Jameson, New York's most controversial journalist, stood outside.

"Mr. Fisk," he said. "Great to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine," Wilson said, inclining his head. "Please, come in."

#####

Matt was silent for a long time after Peter finished explaining; so long that Peter was starting to feel like he was on trial, awaiting a guilty verdict at the hands of a solemn jury.

It had taken the better part of the evening to explain everything; the sun had gone down, and the night sounds of the city were beginning to filter through the stone walls into the basement. Throughout the whole explanation, Matt remained quiet, stone-faced, carefully controlled. It was—Peter couldn't help but think in courtroom metaphors when Matt was involved—his lawyer face. The face he used when addressing the jury. Peter had only seen Matt in court a handful of times, but he knew; it was the face he used when he was calculating.

Matt was trying to decide if Peter was lying.

"So," Matt said finally. "Magic... and wizards?"

"I know it sounds crazy," Peter said. He hazarded a quick glance at his boss, trying to gauge his response—when he noticed that a cut on Matt's cheek had reopened. It looked deep. Painful. The blood slowly oozed down the contours of his face, but he didn't seem to notice. Or care. Without thinking, Peter jumped to his feet and pressed a spare piece of gauze into Matt's cheekbone.

Matt nodded and took the gauze himself, waving Peter away. "It does sound crazy."

"You have to believe—"

"I do believe you, Peter," Matt said. With a pained groan, he carefully raised himself into a sitting position, clutching at his side. "I can hear your heartbeat."

Relief streamed down Peter's body, as though someone had poured a bucket of warm water over his head. Someone—finally—someone knew. Matt Murdock knew. No more secrets. No more hiding. He couldn't believe how lighthearted he felt.

"You don't think I'm crazy?"

Matt sighed, a half smile forming at his lips. "Stranger things have happened. Aliens in New York, Thanos killing everyone with a glove—hell, Karen was just telling me there's someone calling herself the Scarlet Witch now. Your story is crazy, but... it's believable."

Peter wrapped his arms around himself, trying to quell the strange rise of mixed emotions. "I... you believe me. You really believe me."

Without turning or even feeling around for it, Matt reached behind himself and grabbed a bottle of Tylenol. Quick, assured, easy. "Pass me the stitch kit," Matt said, popping a couple pills. "They're in the first aid box, second cupboard above the sink. And..." Matt cocked his head, quiet for a couple seconds. "The sutures fell out. There's a packet on the floor, Maggie must have dropped it."

Man, that was unnerving. Peter was gonna have to get used to that. He quickly grabbed the supplies and passed them over.

"Thanks," Matt said. Then he sat up a little straighter and carefully removed one of his bandages. Beneath it was a nasty gash; it looked like he'd been slashed with a knife. Probably one of the Russians. The wound was bleeding profusely—raw, open, deep. Peter drew in a horrified breath before he could stop himself.

"Stitch broke open," Matt said.

"Do you want me to—should I go get Sister—"

"I got it," Matt said, and snipped open one of the fresh stitches. Peter felt a little queasy as he watched Matt peel the broken suture out of his own skin. Even as a vigilante prone to injury, Peter had never been overly fond of medical... stuff. He had to look away when Matt began pushing the needle in and out of his skin, weaving his own flesh back together like he was nothing more than a torn rag doll.

Matt seemed to know what Peter was thinking. "I've had worse," he said. He was quiet for a minute, and Peter listened for the snip of the scissors and the rip of another bandage being opened before turning back around. Matt was now mopping up some of the excess blood off his skin and the bed beneath him. Peter nodded, swallowing down his nausea.

Matt paused for a minute, like he was searching for something to to get Peter's mind off of the queasiness. "You know," he said, finally seeming to settle on something, "that case has been driving me crazy. The May Parker—your case. Half the braille was just gone. Figures that wizards were behind it." He chuckled a little, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Peter didn't respond. For all the explanation he'd given Matt this evening, he hadn't gone into detail about what had happened with Aunt May. He wasn't... he wasn't up to it. Not yet.

Matt seemed to sense Peter's tension. Sighing, he shifted his legs until he was sitting up on the very edge of the cot. "What's important now is Fisk. What did he want from you?"

Peter sat down heavily on the base of a pillar. "I don't know that he really wanted anything. Information on you, mostly. I think he was just trying to find out how we were connected. Although—" Peter paused, remembering. "He was really interested in my... lack of identity, if that makes sense."

"What do you mean?"

"He said he was researching me, trying to find out who I was—and all he could find was an apartment lease. And, obviously, my job with you. He asked me why I didn't have a birth certificate or social or anything."

"And?" Matt said, suddenly very focused. "What did you tell him?"

"The truth," Peter said, shrugging. "It was all because of a wizard."

Matt laughed, then immediately winced in pain. "So," he said, rising shakily to his feet. Peter stepped forward to help him, but Matt seemed just fine on his own, in spite of his many injuries. He clung onto a statue of the Virgin Mary to steady himself. "Fisk is interested in erasing his identity."

"Why, though? I thought his identity makes him more powerful. People hear 'Wilson Fisk' and they're afraid."

Matt frowned. "Mob bosses, sure. But what if Fisk is looking for a life outside of all this? What if he's trying to start over so he can build up power somewhere else? Somewhere... public."

He took a few experimental steps, unsteady, but determined. He seemed like he was trying to test his body; to take inventory of every inch of skin, of muscle, of bone. Peter watched, amazed. Matt was sweating from the concentration, blood dripping down his bare chest, waves of agony running through his face with each step. Even so, he seemed to have a strange amount of composure despite the pain. Or perhaps because of it.

Bloody and broken as he was, Matt Murdock could clearly walk off a lot of shit.

Peter tore his eyes away from Matt. "Either way, Fisk is gonna come after me now. He knows that I'm working with you, and he's really, really angry."

Matt closed his eyes and leaned against a pillar. "Sounds about right."

"So... what do we do now?"

Matt sighed, carefully stretching out his arms, wincing. "First thing, I think you should start bringing MJ by the office a little more. I want to get to know her."

Peter blinked. "Wait, what?"

"I can't see how you look at her, but... it's pretty clear she's important to you. Your heart beat rises every time you talk about her. You..." Matt smiled a little. "You love her."

Peter felt the heat rise in his face. Matt crossed the room until he reached a makeshift punching bag hanging from the ceiling; probably something he'd installed years ago. He tried a few quick punches as he spoke, clearly testing his strength. He was unsteady, but pretty nimble all things considered. 

"If Fisk's having you followed, he's going to go after her. It's what he does. So if she hangs around the office a little more, I could get to know her routines, her patterns. I can protect her a lot better if I know everything I'm up against."

"You... you want to help me protect her?"

He hit the punching bag again, hard. "Fisk threatened to hurt her; I'm not going to let that happen. We have to look out for each other."

Peter crossed his arms. "We? What happened to me being 'just a kid'?"

"You are a kid. But..." he leaned against the wall, readjusting the bloody boxing wraps still strung around his knuckles. "You're a very resourceful kid. I've been underestimating you."

Peter grinned in spite of himself. "So does this mean I'm not grounded anymore?"

Matt actually laughed aloud at this—which quickly turned into a yelp of pain. He clutched his ribs. "Ah... shit... give me a minute."

He slid down the wall until he sat, cross-legged, on the floor. Still clutching at his ribs, Matt closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply. In just a few minutes, his face went from contorted and pained to calm, smooth, measured. He was like a statue, carved into a stony position of pure focus and energy.

Peter took a few hesitant steps closer. "Uh... Matt? You okay?"

"We can continue this conversation later," Matt said, his eyes still closed. "Give me an hour, I need to meditate."

"Oh, right... your healing thing," Peter said, frowning. "So, is that... like... a superpower?"

"No," Matt said shortly. "Just—go do something else for an hour. I'll meet you outside and we can head back to the office."

"The office? You're in no condition—"

"I'll be fine," Matt said. Then, softening a little, "I don't want to put the church in any more danger."

"You're gonna be fully healed in an hour?"

Matt, eyes still closed, gave him a half smile. "No. But I should be able to walk back to the offices nd that's all we need."

Peter scoffed. "You made me stay here for a week! And I wasn't even hurt that bad."

"Yeah, well, you're a kid. I know, I know—" Matt sighed. "A very resourceful kid. I already said that. Maybe if I'd known you had... super healing... I would've let you go home faster."

Peter narrowed his eyes. Despite Matt's carefully neutral expression, he could see the pain in his face. His skin was blue and purple, slashed across with streaks of harsh red; he clutched at broken ribs, winced when he breathed. He looked hurt. Bad. Like he'd been dragged behind a semi.

"Don't you think..." Peter took a deep breath. "Don't you think you should stay here? Sister Maggie can take care of you. I mean, you're really, really—"

"I can handle it on my own."

Peter got the sense that Matt said that a lot.

"Well... okay," Peter said hesitantly. "I'll leave you alone."

Matt didn't respond, instead beginning to breathe more deeply. He tightened his lips, smoothing his face and his stature until he looked almost relaxed. It was like he was sinking into the floor, into another world. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

That  was a superpower Peter never had. He didn't have the focus required. Aunt May used to try to encourage it; she thought meditation would help strengthen his "Peter tingle." It never worked, of course, but that didn't stop May from pushing for it. She pushed for anything she thought would make him stronger. Would make him better. Happier.

Peter pushed down the sudden swell of grief and began exploring the space.

The last time he'd been here, Sister Maggie had barely let him leave the bed. And he hadn't been all that interested anyway. But now that he knew this was where Matt had grown up—he was suddenly very intrigued.

The space was mostly used for storage; there were filing cabinets, bags of rosary beads, a washing machine. Waterlogged boxes and scattered boxing gear were intermingled with saint statues and reliquaries. Peter had never been religious, so none of it was familiar to him.

He wandered into a back corner, partially closed off by a few shelves full of bibles and nuns' habits. Hidden in the darkness was a cot, a desk, and an old pair of boxing gloves.

Matt's old room, maybe?

No, no. Matt grew up in the orphanage; he'd learned that from Sister Maggie the last time he was here. This looked more like a healing spot. A recuperating spot. Somewhere Matt stayed when he was hiding from Wilson Fisk, perhaps.

Glancing back to see if Matt was looking at him (then realizing how stupid that was), Peter shuffled through a few things on a desk next to the cot. An old pair of glasses, a rosary, and a thick stack of books written in braille. Peter picked up the top book on the stack and ran his fingers along the title, wondering what it said. He opened it, absentmindedly feeling the bumps on the page, admiring the tiny shadows they cast. Like the sheet had been sprinkled with pepper.

"My bible," Matt said from his spot on the floor, as if answering a question.

Peter jumped and slammed it shut. "Sorry." 

He wandered the space for a few more minutes, bored, then moved closer to Matt's frozen form. "Uh... Matt? Sorry to interrupt."

Matt sighed. "Yes?"

"Do you have any old clothes down here?"

"Why?"

Peter shrugged. "I figured I'd head upstairs, get out of your hair. But I can't walk through the chapel as Spider-man, it'd cause a riot."

Eyes still closed, Matt pointed to a box on a high shelf. "I've got some old suits in there. Take what you need."

Peter webbed the box and brought it to the floor with an enormous crash. Matt winced, and Peter felt instant regret. Loud noises were probably torture on his sensitive ears. "Sorry!" He whispered, and pulled out an old suit.

In a few minutes, Peter was upstairs. Mass was long over by this point, but Sister Maggie was sitting in a pew near the front of the chapel, her face reflecting a soft red from the light of a dozen candles. In fact, the entire chapel was bathed in red light. Peter thought the effect was more somber than reverent, almost ominous. He shuffled his way up the aisle and sat next to her. "Hi again, Sister Maggie."

"Peter. How is Matthew doing?"

"Meditating. I think I was getting on his nerves." He snuck a closer look at the nun. She looked pained, exhausted, hardened. No doubt incredibly annoyed at the fact that there was once again a superhero lying half dead in her basement.

Sister Maggie rolled her eyes. "He's not exactly a ray of sunshine, even on his best days."

"Yeah. I mean, he almost got killed before he told me anything about himself. He's not the most open guy."

"Matthew is... not an easy man to talk to," Sister Maggie said. "He so rarely reveals anything about himself; even to me. But... he cares about you, Peter. I can tell."

As embarrassed as he was by this, Peter had to admit that it felt nice, knowing someone cared about him again. Even someone as gruff and uninviting as Matthew Murdock.

"You remind me of him," Sister Maggie said. Peter turned to stare at her.

"What?"

"He told me a little about you last time. I think he wanted to make sure that I knew exactly who I was taking care of. You're both orphans, dedicated to justice, a little too hardheaded for your own good..." she gave him the side-eye. "But good boys, both of you."

Peter supposed that technically he was an orphan... but he'd always had Aunt May. He'd never had to suffer, to go without love, without nurturing. Matt, on the other hand... his childhood sounded like something out of a Dickens novel. He tried to picture Matt as a little boy, blinded and angry, with nothing but the company of other disenfranchised children...

"What was he like growing up?" Peter asked suddenly. "I mean—were you here, when he was at the orphanage? I can't imagine him as a kid."

Sister Maggie took a breath and leaned back, staring at the illuminated stained glass window above the apse in front of her. "He was a good boy," she said slowly. "Angry, of course. Bitter. But... he's always been like this."

"What, brooding?"

She snorted. "Dedicated. He got that from his father."

"His father?"

She seemed lost in her thoughts, like she was looking through a keyhole into another world. "Yes, he was a bit famous around here. And just like his son—a boxer, angry, fighting, stubborn as an ass." She glanced quickly at the crucifix hanging on the wall and crossed herself. "They had the devil in them, those two boys. Always fighting to push them over the line. But Matthew... he's tried so hard to be good, to keep the devil at bay."

Peter found himself thinking suddenly of the Green Goblin, and his fight at the Statue of Liberty.

"It's easy to lose yourself in the rage, when you're doing what Matt does. What you do." Sister Maggie glanced at Peter. "But Matt... he restrains himself. He's come close to making some terrible mistakes, mistakes that would take him over the edge and away from us. But..." she crossed herself again. "Thank the Lord it's never come to that."

The Goblin's eyes were flashing at him, laughing at him, and May's body was bleeding beneath his feet. And they were fighting again, on the fallen copper shield, in the cold Atlantic waters. Peter wanted to kill him, wanted to plunge the blades deep into Osborne's body. He wanted to watch the breath leave his body, the light leave his eyes. 

Sister Maggie must have seen the look in Peter's eyes, because she gently put a warm hand on his arm. "He always finds his way back to the light," she said. "As we all must."

Peter nodded, swallowing.

"Why don't you just sit here for a while?" she said. "The chapel's a good place to think. And reflection is always good for the soul." She stood up, straightening out her habit.

"Where are you going?"

"I have an orphanage to run. A hundred other Matthew Murdocks, you know." She sighed. "Hopefully they won't be as much trouble when they grow up."

She gave him a final pat on the arm, and Peter was left alone in the wide emptiness of the chapel.

He stayed mired in his thoughts for a while, fighting to get the laughing face of Norman Osborne out of his mind. It wasn't until he felt the sharpness of the broken glass in his pocket that he was able to tear his mind away from the Goblin.

He pulled it out, watching the facets glitter in the candlelight. It was a glass petal broken away from a black dahlia necklace—the one he'd given MJ back before Mysterio had revealed his identity. He thought of her face, of the sorrowful look in her eyes when she'd last kissed him.

Fisk was after MJ now. And even with the combined forces of Spider-man and Daredevil protecting her, Peter couldn't help but wonder if MJ was better off without him.

Of course she was.

Peter was just too selfish to let her go.

He followed this train of thought for almost an hour, lost in the faint smell of incense and the flickering candlelight of the apse in front of him. Beyond the stained glass windows was the sound of sirens, the stench of Hell's Kitchen at night. He wondered vaguely how much of it Matt was aware of, trapped behind the stone walls of the church.

Probably a lot.

His thoughts clouded his mind so completely that he didn't notice the silent form of Matt Murdock walking up the aisle behind him. 

"Peter?"

Peter almost jumped out of his skin. "Geez! Matt! You—I'm gonna have a heart attack!" He took a second to catch his breath. "Are you... are you good? Ready to head back to the office?"

Matt ignored this. He sat down next to Peter, his glasses glinting wine red in the candlelight. "I've been thinking. Dr. Strange and the whole... multiverse thing, I get. But what I don't understand," he said, angling his head toward Peter, "is why you were so... cavalier about your secret identity."

"Cavalier?"

"Casual. Nonchalant. Hell, Peter, you practically threw your mask away the day you met Daredevil."

Uncomfortable, Peter remained silent. 

"It seems to me," Matt continued, speaking as gently and slowly as if he were addressing a congregation, "after all the trouble you went through to erase your identity, you wouldn't just... tell a stranger who you are. Even if that stranger was another—was someone like you."

"It's more complicated than that," Peter said.

"So tell me."

"It's..." Peter sighed, turning the necklace shard over in his hand, wondering if the one MJ was wearing caught the light the same way. "Before I was... erased, I had people to protect. My secret identity was a way for Peter Parker to live a normal life. But now..."

Peter could hear the bitterness in his own voice, the rage, the loneliness. He recoiled at it, even as he leaned into it.

"Now, Peter Parker doesn't exist," he said. "I figured... there's no point trying to keep it secret. At least, not from another hero. Peter Parker doesn't have anything to protect. He has—I have—" his voice broke. "I have nothing to lose."

Matt sighed deeply, shifting in his seat. He removed his glasses, toying with the hinges, then turned back to Peter. It was almost like he was staring at him.

"I know that makes me sound..." Peter said, then fell silent.

"Depressed?" 

"I was gonna say cynical," Peter muttered.

Matt nodded a little to himself, thinking, then moved closer to Peter and held out his palm. "May I?"

Nonplussed, Peter handed him the necklace shard. Matt turned it over in his fingers, feeling each line and face, the leftover warmth of Peter's palm. Peter took the chance to study him a little more closely. He'd never seen this side of Matt Murdock before; hell, he'd never even seen the man without his glasses until today. Matt was usually so closed-off, so laser-focused and serene. But now, in this dim chapel light, there was a strange vulnerability in his face. His eyes, unfocused and glazed, carried a sadness behind the irises. His face was worn, weary. This Matt was soft, sorrowful, rageful, all at once. A night and day difference from the self-assured lawyer Peter had grown accustomed to.

"I've never... I..." Matt started, then sighed. "I can't say I know what you're going through, because I don't. But... I know what it's like to feel this way."

He handed him back the necklace shard, and Peter slipped it into his pocket. Matt twisted his hands around his cane and continued.

"Years ago, just before the blip, I... I let everyone believe I was dead, Foggy and Karen, they—they had a funeral for me. I think—" he took a long breath, struggling. "I think I wanted to be dead. My—someone I loved died. I wanted to die with her... but I couldn't. I survived. And I was angry; even after I healed, I stayed here in the basement. For months. I couldn't face the world."

An image flashed across Peter's mind; Matt, broken far worse than he was now, curled up in the stony darkness of the church, shut away from his own life.

"I survived, but... I died anyway. Matt Murdock was gone. I told myself... that only the Devil remained." He laughed humorlessly. "I had nothing. No one. I got reckless, Peter. I didn't care what happened to me. But if there's one thing I learned..." his jaw clenched. "There is always, always something to lose."

Peter mulled this over for a moment, but anger and resentment were rising in him fast. He felt like he was going to vomit rage all over this chapel. 

And suddenly, without warning, bitterness splashed itself across the canvas of his mind. 

"Where were you? When all those villains came after me—where were you?"

"I—what?"

"Where was Daredevil," Peter said slowly, "when all those crazy villains were attacking? I know you don't remember Peter Parker fighting them—you didn't even know me back then—but it was all over the news. Isn't Daredevil all about keeping the city safe? Well, where were you when Spider-man was fighting alone?"

Matt frowned. "Supervillains aren't really my expertise, Peter. I'm more of a street-level guy. I figured the Avengers would step in."

Peter swallowed, hot anger rising like bile in his throat. "Yeah, well, they'd didn't. And now my Aunt May is dead."

He could feel his own heart beat, pounding like a terrible earthquake in his ears. He knew Matt could hear it too, that he was drowning in the angry drumming of Peter's heart.

"She died," Peter said, "because of me."

"That's not true."

"How would you know?" Peter said, standing up suddenly. He paced the aisle for a moment. "You weren't there. She died in my arms, and it was my fault. It was my—" he broke off, swallowing down the grief once more. Matt stood too, though he was stationary, just tracking Peter's distracted, frantic movements.

"Elektra died in my arms," he said quietly.

Peter stopped pacing, turning to look at him. "Elektra?"

"Yeah, my—" Matt closed his eyes. "A friend of mine. It wasn't my fault, but... it felt like it."

Peter blinked rapidly, remembering the earnest look on May's face at the end, her last charge to her only nephew. "She told me, just before she died..." he took a shuddering breath. "She told me that with great power, there must also come great responsibility."

Matt cocked his head, considering this. "Wow. That's... she was a wise woman. I'm sorry I didn't get to know her better."

Peter was silent.

"She'd be proud of you," Matt added softly, and Peter hastily wiped at his eyes.

"Thanks."

Matt took a few slow steps toward Peter and reached out to grab his arm. "You've been dealing with this for months, all on your own. This is all so... so beyond my understanding. Peter... how are you not falling apart right now?"

Peter sniffed, turning away. "I'm fine."

"You're not."

"I said I'm fine!" The vitriol in his voice surprised him. He wanted to say something more—to get Matt off his back, to hide behind a wall of anger, of nonchalance. "I'm fine—I'm—"

"You're not," Matt said again, and he crossed the few steps between them and pulled Peter into a tight hug.

And suddenly Peter was sobbing, his head buried into Matt's shoulder. He smelled the coppery scent of drying blood, heard the pain in his unsteady breathing. He felt the tightening of Matt's arms as he held him, the way his Aunt May had cradled him and loved him and cared for him his whole life. Here with his boss, his confidante, his friend... Peter felt safe. He felt home.

"You're not alone anymore, Peter," Matt said softly. "I'm here for you, as long as you need me."

Peter sobbed shuddering, into Matt's arms.

"You're not alone," Matt repeated. "You're not alone."

He whispered it, like a refrain, like a prayer, until Peter almost believed it.

Chapter Text

It was past midnight, but the electric lights at Nelson and Murdock were buzzing. Matt could hear them all the way from the end of the block.

He froze. Someone was in the office.

"Matt?" Peter said.

Matt held a finger up to his lips. There were two heartbeats in the office, the sounds of breathing, of shuffling paper, of pacing footsteps. He tried to identify the intruders based on scent, but he was overwhelmed with the smell of dried blood from his own body. It drowned out everything else.

He angled his head toward the window, tuning out the sounds of the city street.

"We could try the M'Naghten rule, anyone looking at that guy could tell he was crazy—"

Matt breathed out slowly, relieved. It was just Foggy. And Karen too, probably. Of course it was. Matt was being paranoid, irrational. He was a little embarrassed at how long it had taken him to identify his own best friends—but then again, he was badly injured. He'd give himself a pass, just this once.

Karen cleared her throat. "I picked up his medical records at the hospital."

The hospital. It felt like at least a week since he'd left Karen outside Poindexter's room. This had been one of the longest days of his life. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to calm himself down.

"Matt?" Peter said again.

"It's okay," Matt said. "It's just Karen and Foggy."

"Yeah, who else would it be?"

"I don't know, Fisk's men maybe?" he said sharply, then sighed. "Sorry. I'm just—we can't be too careful." He unlocked the building and let Peter in, closing and dead bolting the door behind him. Then Peter helped him limp up the stairs. Matt wished, not for the first time, that they'd rented office space in a building with an elevator. He could go after the landlords with a lawsuit, easy. He was an expert on ADA laws, after all. But... Matt had bigger things to worry about than a subpar building.

Matt knocked on the office door and immediately the heartbeats inside the room jumped. "It's me," he said quietly, and there were two relieved sighs.

Foggy opened the door. "Don't scare me like that, Matt, I—" his voice caught in his throat, and Matt could feel the temperature drop as the blood drained from Foggy's face. Presumably a reaction to Matt's beaten visage.

"I'm fine," Matt said in answer to a question unasked, and pushed past him. "Peter and I just wanted to come here and regroup before going home—"

"Peter's with you?"

Peter waved. "Hi."

Karen, heart pounding at the sight of Matt, rushed over. "Your face—what happened?" Her voice was trembling as she reached out a hand and caught his chin, studying the bruises splashed across his jaw.

"Peter's apartment blew up," Matt said, gently removing Karen's hand from his face. "I was with him and—"

Foggy choked. "Holy shit—are you okay? How did you... get out?" His head shot back and forth between Matt and Peter. "Did, uh... did someone come and save you guys, or..."

"Foggy, he knows," Matt said, trying not to listen to the soft whisper of Karen's movements and the tender concern in her breathing.

"Know what?" Foggy coughed. "I don't know anything. What do any of us know? I don't—"

"I know he's Daredevil," Peter said.

Matt tilted his head in Peter's direction, waiting for him to say something else—to reveal his own secret. But Peter stayed quiet. Matt bit back a smile. Loath as he was to continue keeping secrets from his closest friends, it was worth it if it meant Peter was learning to be a little smarter about his own identity.

Foggy sputtered for a minute, looking between the two of them. "I—wh—" he took a deep breath. "Well, it's about damn time. This place runs a lot better when everyone's on the same page. And, hey! Now I have someone new to complain to about your vigilante bullshit! It's really aggravating," he added in a stage whisper to Peter.

Peter made a noncommittal noise and pretended he had to tie his shoe.

Karen was biting her lip, still staring straight at Matt's face, her heart beating like the wings of a powerful bird.

"I'm okay, I promise," Matt said softly.

"Why were you there in the first place?" Foggy asked. "I thought Peter didn't want to go back there."

Matt opened his mouth to lie, but Peter beat him to it. "I, uh, needed to grab something. But I was a little freaked out going there on my own—"

"For good reason, obviously," Foggy muttered.

"—so Matt came with me. But it's okay. I promise, it's okay."

Karen wrapped her arms around herself and finally turned away from Matt. Now that it was clear he was all right, despite all appearances, she seemed to be calming down. And... closing herself off from him. Matt hated that, hated it more than anything. But he couldn't blame her for it. After all, he was the one who told her to keep her distance.

"Those don't look like explosion injuries," she said, the slight tremor in her voice undercutting the tone of accusation. "No burns."

"No," Matt said. "The bomb didn't hurt me."

"This was a fight, wasn't it? Someone was beating you."

Matt crossed to the kitchenette and rummaged around in the freezer until he'd found an ice pack. Wincing, he pressed it to his jaw. The sting of the cold was a nice change from the dull ache that he'd been dealing with all day. "Give you one guess who," he said wearily. 

There was silence, and the horrific implications settled over the office like a dusting of snow. Karen pressed a hand to her mouth and Foggy sank heavily into his chair.

"Fisk?" Karen said, clearly already knowing the answer.

Peter nodded. "He blew up the building, and then he—" he turned to look at Matt, then quickly looked away. "Then he attacked Matt."

Foggy opened his laptop and typed in a few words; within seconds, he had a news livestream open. The electronic sounds of sirens and shifting rubble in the background almost drove out the reporter's voice. Matt put all his focus on her voice alone.

"There's no word yet on the motive or the perpetrator, but all residents in the area are encouraged to be on high alert for any suspicious activity. I'm here with Captain Michaels of the fire department. Captain, I'm told you have news on the recovery and rescue efforts?"

"Yes ma'am, I'm sorry to report that we've found three more corpses in the wreckage. They're being transported to the Metro General morgue as we speak."

"As I understand it, the survivors from earlier today are still in critical condition. Is there any word on the—"

Matt squeezed his eyes shut. "Turn that down, Fog, my head's splitting."

Foggy acquiesced, turning it down to the lowest volume he could without turning it off. Still incredibly loud to Matt, but better. Easier to tune out. He sighed and gingerly lowered himself into his desk chair, pressing the ice pack so hard into his face that he could feel it leaving imprints on his skin.

"So," he said, trying to keep his voice light, "why are you two here so late? You smell like the hospital, I assume it has something to do with Poindexter."

"Nice deduction, Jessica Jones," Foggy said. Matt snorted.

"Who's Poindexter?" Peter asked.

Karen sighed. "It's a long story."

"Listen, Matt, I..." Foggy's heart was a little fast, but it was steady. "There's no easy way to tell you this, so I'm just gonna come out and say it. We... are taking on Dex as a client."

"What?!" Matt shot to his feet. He immediately regretted it, yelping in pain as the fractures in his ribs shifted. "Why—why—why would we do that?"

Karen pushed Matt down into his chair and placed the ice pack firmly back into his hands. He hadn't even realized he'd dropped it. "Blake Tower came and asked us personally," she said. "Dex is facing the federal death penalty, and Tower thinks we're the only ones who can give him a fair trial."

"So," Peter said, "This guy is... bad?"

"He's a psychopath," Matt said. "A psychopath! He stole my suit and framed me for murder—for mass murder, might I add. And he almost killed the two of you!" He was yelling now. "He's psychotic! He's unhinged!"

"Exactly!" Foggy said. "Unhinged. Listen, he needs to be in prison, no one's arguing that point. But with Dex's level of crazy? The death penalty's totally unethical! That's what we'll prove in court."

"Besides, aren't you morally opposed to the death penalty?" Karen said pointedly.

"That doesn't mean I have to be the one to represent him." Matt leaned back in his chair, glaring furiously at the ceiling. He breathed for a minute or two, forcing the rage back down into the pit of his stomach where it simmered, like a pot of water on the cusp of boiling. "This is an insane conflict of interest, Foggy."

"Yeah? Good luck explaining that to Tower without outing yourself as Daredevil."

Matt rubbed his temples, his glasses digging into the bridge of his nose. He wanted to respond—but of course, there was no argument. He gritted his teeth. "I'm getting really sick of fighting people and then defending them in court."

"Hey, this is only the second time," Foggy said. Then, glancing at Peter, clarified: "The Punisher was the first."

Matt moved the ice pack along his jaw. As sickening as the prospect was, it did seem like they had a pretty good case for softening Poindexter's sentence. No jury in their right mind would sign off on the idea that Dex was sane. Especially if Matt could get some witnesses testifying to Fisk's manipulation; the way he fostered Dex's instability, systematically removed every good influence from his life, murdered the only person Dex could rely on...

"Okay," Matt said. "Okay. We'll take Dex's case."

"Well that's good," Karen said icily. "Because we don't need your permission and we already said yes."

Matt felt himself reddening. "Oh—yeah, of course, I—yeah."

She went into her office, closing the door a little harder than was necessary.

The room was silent for a minute, the awkwardness between them almost physically tangible, before Foggy sat on the top of his desk and balanced a legal pad on his knee. "Okay, Peter, I'm gonna fill you in. Benjamin Poindexter is the craziest son of a bitch you'll ever meet, maybe even worse than Fisk."

Matt tuned him out and took a moment or two to close his eyes and just settle into the familiarity of the space. Foggy's voice, the shuffle of papers, the ticking clock on the wall; stale cigarettes from the office above, the rumbling vibrations of the subway below... all a familiar chaos, with Matt, Foggy, Karen and Peter nestled in the middle of it all.

For the first time today, Matt felt safe.

He turned his attention to Karen in her closed office. She was pacing, scribbling notes, pinning things to the wall. She'd been so concerned, so loving and frightened when she'd seen his face... but her anger toward him had won out. Of course it had. He deserved it, he knew that. Karen deserved better. She would always deserve better. And yet... Matt couldn't help but notice the way she always fell back into tenderness, despite the tension between them. Love was beneath it all; a love that shamed Matt as much as it enlivened him.

He took a deep breath and braced himself against the desk, pushing himself to his feet. The pain in his fractured ribs bolted through his body.

Peter was right; it would have been better for him if he'd stayed in the church. He healed faster there, better there. Something about the combination of Sister Maggie's ministrations and the serenity to meditate; it facilitated healing. Wholeness.

But he couldn't risk it any longer, not while he was a target. Not after what happened to Father Lantom.

"What do you think, Matt?" Foggy said, and Matt jumped.

"Uh... yeah. Sounds great."

Foggy sighed, probably rolling his eyes. "You weren't listening at all, were you?"

"Give me a break, I'm injured."

Foggy snorted. "Here's what we're thinking. We don't really want to run the risk of Dex remembering any of us. I mean last time he was up and about, he tried to kill Karen and he impersonated you. Me, on the other hand? Not so much. Well..." he paused. "I crossed paths with him, but it was never personal. And Peter's never met him at all. So the two of us are gonna handle all direct contact with him."

"What? That's—that's insane, Foggy. I'm not sending the two of you to face that psycho alone."

"It's fine! I'll protect Peter, no worries." Foggy grinned. "I'll break out the ol' fisticuffs."

"Fisticuffs? Do you even hear yourself?"

"If he remembers something, he might lose it and go on a rampage. So the less he sees you two—" Foggy points first at Matt and then at Karen's office. "—the better."

"So I'm just getting completely overruled today."

Foggy shrugged. "We'll stay away from the hospital as much as we can and communicate with our client as little as possible. You know. Like the world-class lawyers we are."

Matt ran a hand underneath his glasses, rubbing his swollen eyes. "I don't like this, Foggy. If something gets out of hand, and I'm not there..."

Under his breath, quiet enough that Foggy wouldn't be able to hear, Peter whispered, "I'll take care of him. Don't worry."

Matt didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. But—he hated to admit it—Foggy was right. The more time Dex spent with him or Karen, the higher the chances he could get triggered somehow. And the last time Dex was triggered... it was ugly. It was brutal. 

It was deadly.

Foggy would have to take the lead on this—and who better to protect him than the friendly neighborhood Spider-man?

Matt took a deep breath and stepped out from behind his desk, bricks of tension and guilt building up in his chest. "Just... please be careful." He crossed to Karen's office and stood next to her door. "You guys should go home. It's late."

"Ditto," Foggy said, while Peter said, "We're just gonna get a few details worked out, and then we'll leave. Are you going to be okay?"

Matt didn't answer either of them. He knocked on Karen's door.

"Karen?"

"You need something?" she said, her voice that familiar mixture of irritation and concern.

He slipped into her office, shutting the door behind him and muffling the sounds of Foggy and Peter's resumed conversation. "I, uh... yeah. I wanted to apologize. For running off this morning."

Karen didn't look up from the papers on her desk. "Yeah, well, I'm used to it."

"And I wanted to tell you what Foggy just told me. You and I are going to stay away from Dex and let them take the lead with all communication." He gestured vaguely in the direction of the Amin office. "Since we have a lot of... history with him."

"I know. That was my idea."

Matt raised his eyebrows. "Really? You're usually first in line for danger."

"I'm not stupid, Matt. And I'm not reckless, either. Not anymore." She tapped her pencil against her lips, studying the papers laid in front of her. "It's not about trying to save ourselves; we're minimizing the risk of letting him loose on the city."

"Fair point."

She picked up a piece of paper and studied it closer; however, Matt could sense the minute tilting of her head as she stole glances in his direction. Her heart was fast. She was biting her lip so hard Matt could taste a little blood in the air. "Hand me that thumbtack?"

Matt silently passed it over, and she used it to jab the paper to the wall.

"What are you doing?"

She was quiet for a minute, looking around at her office. The walls were covered with papers, with sticky notes and strings. It probably looked like something a serial killer would put together; or like something out of A Beautiful Mind, if the audio descriptions of that movie were any indication. "Putting together a timeline," she said. "It helps to draw connections. Up here, I've lined up all his incident reports." She pointed at a long line of papers tacked up high. "And down here, traumatic incidents in his life. These ones here? All orchestrated by Fisk. I think it directly connects with some of his crimes."

"Sounds about right," Matt muttered, touching a piece of string connecting one of the incident reports and one of the traumas. "It's good. It's a great idea, Karen. I just... I..."

She folded her arms, watching him.

"I know you can handle yourself," Matt said. "You've proven that a thousand times. But I just—I can't help but—"

"You're worried." She sounded as amused as she was irritated. "That's pretty obvious. I mean, it's why you broke things off with me."

"I didn't—Karen, I'm not—I don't want to break—" He had the words rolling around in his head, but he couldn't catch them, couldn't arrange them.

Karen was silent, waiting for him to continue. He took a deep breath.

"I just think," he said finally, "that with Fisk and Poindexter back in our lives... it's dangerous, Karen. I can't—I can't lose you."

She was quiet for a moment, studying his face. Despite himself, Matt basked in the soft melody of her breathing; like a choir singing far away. A hint of song, of passion, backed by the rhythm of her heartbeat. He felt the heat of her face, felt the quiver of the air around her lips as she twisted them in thought.

"Karen..."

She closed the distance between them and reached out to touch his cheek.

"Love is always a risk," she said quietly, tracing her thumb along the contours of his face. The heat of her fingers seared across the bruises along his cheekbones. It danced lightly across the scabbing cuts and his torn, bloody skin. Then she closed her eyes and parted her mouth slightly. Her lips were inches away from his, and Matt could feel the pounding of her heart more than he could hear it, sending a waltz-like rhythm along his bones, his veins, as she pressed into him.

He thought suddenly of Elektra, and of May Parker; of broken bodies, faces forever frozen in pain. He thought of himself and of Peter, hearts cracking, listening to the soft whisper of their loved ones' final breaths...

"Love is a risk," he repeated, closing his eyes.

She ran her fingertips along a cut in his jaw. "You're bleeding again."

Matt hadn't even noticed.

With a loud crash, Karen's door flew open, and the indignant form of Foggy Nelson stood in the doorway. "Matt! You never told me—oh." He paused. "Am I... interrupting something?"

"Not at all," Matt said, gently pulling himself away from Karen. "What didn't I tell you?"

He followed Foggy back into the main office, Karen following behind. Peter was sitting at his desk, staring fixedly at a paper on his desk and pointedly not joining in the conversation. 

"It's all over the news, buddy. They're saying you and Spider-man were at the scene. You know Spider-man?"

"Uh, yeah," Matt said slowly. "I met him a while back."

"And you didn't think to tell me?" Foggy threw his hands in the air. "Dude. Spider-man is the coolest Avenger; I've said that for years."

Karen snorted. "I thought you were a Black Widow fan."

"No, I said she's the hottest. Spider-man's the coolest." He turned back to Matt. "So, what's the deal?"

Matt carefully kept his face angled toward Foggy. "Yeah, we're, uh... we're kind of a team now."

Peter ducked his head. If Matt had to hazard a guess, he'd say Peter was smiling.

"That's cool as hell," Foggy muttered. Matt pressed his lips tightly together, trying not to smile himself.

Karen crossed to Foggy's laptop and turned the news up a little louder. Sure enough, the reporter was going on about the two of them, and a couple eyewitnesses that had placed them at the scene.

"It's about time you got some super friends," Foggy was saying. "I'm not saying I don't like Jessica Jones and Danny Rand, but they're a little intense. You need someone to lighten you up a little."

Matt raised his eyebrows. "What about Jen Walters? She's pretty easygoing."

"Yeah, but she's in LA," Foggy said, waving his hands dismissively. "Doesn't count."

Matt focused his attention closer on Foggy's laptop and the news show. "This is the first time we've seen the two vigilantes together," the reporter was saying. "In fact, this is the first time we've seen Daredevil at all since the blip. Eyewitnesses claim that Hell's Kitchen's favorite vigilante has abandoned his iconic devil suit in favor of a less conspicuous black costume; however, it's clear that despite what he's wearing, this masked man is the Devil we all know and love."

"Wow," Foggy said. "Flattering, Matt."

"Spider-man, of course, is a figure of major controversy. Ever since his clash with Mysterio, the public has been very vocal about their mixed feelings toward this insect-based vigilante. Is he a hero? Is he a murderer? Well, that all depends on who you ask. Reports say that—" she cut off. "I'm sorry, but it seems we have breaking news. We're turning now to an interview between reporter J. Jonah Jameson and the convicted criminal, Wilson Fisk."

His name hung in the air like a sword, poised to strike. 

Matt felt his breath catch in his throat, heard the sudden spike in heartbeats around the office. He clenched his fists until his nails pressed crescent indents into the tender skin of his palm. 

The voice of J. Jonah Jameson, blustering and arrogant, rang through the office. "I'm told you have some thoughts about that tragedy in Queens tonight."

"Yes," came the stilted, careful voice of Wilson Fisk. "This city has suffered long enough. In the time since the Avengers facilitated the return of half the population, New York City has become a haven of crime and misery. Look at our streets, our parks, our homes. We are living in fear. Our safety is threatened daily; this bombing is only the beginning. This city is sick, Mr. Jameson. And I want to help."

"You want to help?"

Foggy rushed to the laptop and turned it up as loud as it could go. Matt's ears ached, they pounded, but he focused even harder.

"I'd like to announce a donation, as a token of my deep sympathy for the victims of this terrible crime. Not only will I pay to rebuild this apartment, but I will be paying the residents' rent for the next year. These poor people have suffered, and anything I can do to ease their burden... it's nothing to me."

"You heard it here first, folks. A generous gift from a generous man."

Matt felt heat rising in the pit of his stomach, seeping upward through his lungs, his heart, his throat. 

"In addition, I am donating twenty million dollars to F.E.A.S.T., and seventy million to the Global Repatriation Council. These admirable organizations do more for New York than the Avengers ever did. These people, Mr. Jameson... these people are the real heroes. They work, tirelessly, to relieve the suffering of this city."

"Heroes indeed."

"We've had enough of the superheroes," Fisk continued. "Super-soldiers, magicians, men in iron suits... they believe that they are above the law. They believe themselves to be gods. They operate with complete impunity, never questioned, never doubted. I hear that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and Spider-man were seen at the bombing today?"

"That they were," Jameson said.

"We've been told they were there to save the people—but what have they really done? There's a dozen dead, countless more injured. Why should we believe that they were there to help? Why should we believe that they weren't involved in the crime itself?"

Peter made a choking noise.

Matt imagined Jameson nodding vigorously as he said, "Right you are, Mr. Fisk. I've said for months now; these vigilantes need to be held accountable. After all, we have solid reason to believe that Spider-man was behind the tragic death of Mysterio. Perhaps Daredevil is just as deceptive, just as sinister as that Spider-menace."

"Yes," Fisk said, and his voice rose. There was passion, there was fury, and yet there was an eerie sense of control as he spoke. "It was Daredevil who imprisoned me so unjustly, years ago. He manipulated the public and the law; he used his violence to frame me, to stop me from making a difference. But no longer. I want to make this city a better place, Mr. Jameson. Daredevil has stood on my way for too long; but no more."

"What are you saying, Mr. Fisk?"

"I'm saying," Fisk said, and Matt imagined him drawing himself higher, looking regally into the camera, "that I need your support. All of you, admirable citizens of this shining city. As of today, I am officially running for the office of the Mayor of New York City." 

Without thought—without reason—without control—Matt swept his desk clear. He screamed as the papers and pencils and braille reader clattered to the floor. The sound of war-drum heartbeats pounded like hot blood in his ears.

"And under my jurisdiction," Fisk continued, and suddenly he was in this very office—looming behind Matt, threatening, smiling— "we'll clear away these criminals once and for all."

Chapter Text

The next morning, Peter woke much earlier than usual. He'd spent the night tossing and turning, images of Wilson Fisk spinning around in his head and keeping him awake. Fisk, his hands like meat tenderizers, pummeling Matt's face. There was a viciousness in him that Peter had never seen before; not in the Goblin, or the Vulture. Not even in Thanos. Wilson Fisk—the Kingpin—had no mercy.

He spent a few minutes stretching out his sore muscles. All the fighting yesterday left him feeling like he'd been hit with a ton of bricks—though, it had to be nothing compared to what Matt was feeling. Peter had escaped the confrontation relatively unscathed. As awful as it all was, this was a good opportunity. Matt was totally out of commission. It was time for Spider-man to take charge.

He dressed for the day—his Spider-man suit first, then his office suit. He tied one of Matt's old ties around his neck—red. Of course it was red. Matt was nothing if not on theme. Then he wandered out into the living room.

Foggy and Marci were on the couch, Marci cuddled into his arms, half asleep. Foggy, though, looked wide awake. He was staring daggers through the TV, which was on mute. Peter glanced at it. J. Jonah Jameson looked like he was screaming behind his desk, and the subtitles read a bunch of garbled nonsense. Vigilantes... menaces... Fisk is the only one who can help... our city needs Wilson Fisk... Fisk this, Fisk that. Peter was starting to get a tingle of fear, of hatred, whenever he heard that name.

"Peter!" Foggy said, a little loudly, jolting Marci awake. He smiled sheepishly at her. "Sorry, babe."

Marci grumbled and pushed herself off him. "I'm going back to bed, Foggy Bear." She gave Peter a sleepy wave as she wandered down the hall and back into the room she shared with Foggy.

"She has the day off," Foggy said, nodding in her direction. "How are you this morning? Following the news?" He gestured to the TV. "It's only been a day, and already Fisk is the talk of the city. Disgusting. How many people do you think he's blackmailing to get these endorsements?"

Peter wasn't really listening. He glanced past Foggy's shoulder to make sure Marci was all the way out of the room. "Listen, Foggy... we have to keep Matt distracted. He's still super injured, but—"

"He's gonna try to be a hero," Foggy said, sighing. He walked to the kitchen, pulling a box of cereal and a bowl out of the pantry. "I was thinking the same thing. He's still hurt, he's gonna get his ass kicked."

"Exactly," Peter said. "Which is why another hero needs to cover for him—at least until he's healed. But no worries; I hear Spider man's going to take the lead on all the Fisk stuff."

"Wait—how do you know that? Do you—" Foggy froze, cereal box halfway upside-down over his bowl. "Do you know Spider-man too?"

Peter hesitated for a minute. "I... yeah. I know him. I—I take pictures of him, sometimes. For the internet. You know, news sites, gossip pages, stuff like that."

Foggy grinned, cereal box forgotten. "No way. Spider-man is the coolest. Dude—do you have pictures of him right now?"

"I don't—it's really—"

"Come on, you've gotta have pics. Lemme see."

Peter swallowed and pulled out his phone swiping over to the camera app.

He'd developed the habit of taking pictures sometimes, webbing his phone up in unique places. It was cringey, embarrassing—but who else could take photos in the Statue of Liberty's nostril? Or falling from the top of the Empire State? He had to have some kind of hobby, especially now that he didn't have anyone to hang out with anymore.

He took a quick inventory to make sure there were no unmasked photos, then reluctantly handed his phone to Foggy.

Foggy swiped through the pictures, eyes wide. There was Spider-man doing bunny ears behind a busker. Spider-man pretending to high-five a lion in the Central Park Zoo. Spider-man flexing his muscles in front of a mirror.

"Wow," Foggy said, delighted. "Spider-man's kind of a dork."

"Okay," Peter said quickly, grabbing his phone and stuffing it back into his pocket. So we're agreed? Spider-man's gonna take care of all the hero stuff for now, and we need to keep Matt busy elsewhere."

Foggy resumed pouring his cereal. "Poindexter's case will distract him during the day; I mean, we're totally swamped. But at night? That's another story."

"Could we ask Karen to keep him busy? Maybe she can take him on a few dates."

Foggy snorted. "Not likely. Have you seen those two lately? Moping around, dodging each other... it's a whole 'will they/won't they' situation. A real Ross and Rachel thing..." he paused. "Do you even get that reference? It's kinda before your time."

Peter didn't bother to dignify that with a response. "Okay, if Karen's out... do you want to keep him distracted? I don't know, take him to—"

"Boys night out!" Foggy said, grinning. "You got it. Matt needs cheering up anyway."

Good. Good. That was taken care of. Foggy would bully Matt into taking care of himself, and Peter could do what he did best. He was itching to get back into the fray. He smiled to himself. It was Daredevil's turn to be grounded.

"You heading to the office? I'll go with you," Foggy said.

"No!" Peter said quickly. "I'm, uh... I'm gonna go check in with Dex. Make sure he's up to date with everything going on."

"Good idea," Foggy said. "I can go with you, if you want—"

"No, you go take care of Matt." Peter already had his hand on the front door, turning the knob. "I'll see you later."

"Text Spider-man 'hi' from me!" Foggy said as Peter closed the door behind him.

Once he was out on the street, Peter found his way to a relatively secluded alley. He crouched behind a trash can and peeled his suit and tie away, stashing them into his bag and webbing it to the wall. He'd come back for his stuff later. Then he grabbed his phone and called Matt.

"Morning, Peter." Matt sounded exhausted, pained.

"Hey Matt," Peter said, pulling his mask over his head. "Listen—after what happened yesterday, I think it's probably best—"

Matt sighed loudly. "If I lay low for a while and let you take the lead?"

Peter paused. "Uh... yeah."

"It's the smart play," Matt said. Peter could hear him moving around over the phone, probably getting ready for the day. "There's not much I can do right now."

Peter blinked, surprised, as he put on his gloves. "Yeah... uh... I didn't think you'd agree to that so fast."

"Despite what you may believe, I do have a modicum of self-preservation." Matt paused for a while, like he was thinking. "There's really nothing we can do to stop Fisk. Not yet—not like this, while he's so public. So you're going on a recon mission, Peter. Recon only!"

"You got it," Peter said, grinning. "Info, spying... piece of cake. I'll be like a fly on the wall. Or a spider."

Matt was silent.

"Eh? Get it? Spider on the wall?"

Matt sighed deeply. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to track down some of the Russian mob—just the mob, don't go anywhere near Fisk—and you're going to do some spying. Follow them around, don't engage, but maybe see if you can find any leads."

"Anything in particular I'm looking for?"

A long pause, then a sigh. "No. Just... gather as much information as you can. We're just shooting in the dark until we can find some sort of weakness."

"Well," Peter said, carefully laying the trash-can lid over his bag to deter any thieves, "I hate to break it to you—but I don't speak Russian. I mean, I could interrogate them, get them to explain themselves in English..."

"No! Don't engage! You can record them with your phone and we'll translate later—"

Peter scoffed. "That makes no sense. How will I know what to record? For all I know, I could be listening to their... I don't know, their dinner plans or grocery lists or something."

"It's all we can risk right now, Peter."

Peter frowned. "I thought you said you trusted me?"

"I do, I just—"

"You need to relax," Peter said. "If we're going to work together, then you need to let me do stuff my way. Okay? I was an Avenger. I know what I'm doing."

There was another long pause. Peter held his breath. Then— "You're right. Do it your way. Just... please... be careful."

Peter grinned. Finally. "Okay, great! I'll track down some intel, and you get some rest. Be a regular lawyer for a while. I got this."

He hung up before Matt could change his mind.

Just a few minutes later, Peter was swinging in the air. An unbridled joy swelled up in his chest. Yes, Fisk was gaining power. Yes, Jameson was stoking fear and resentment in New York. Yes, Matt was beaten and broken. But here, now, in this heart-dropping, vertigo-inducing moment—Peter was alive. As he reached the highest arc of each swing, time seemed to slow down. He felt suspended in the air, like he was flying, before he fell—before he caught himself—before he swung himself into the sky again. This was living. He was struck by an awareness that he was living in his own world; the only one in this universe who could feel this way. Alone in this strange, wonderful flight.

He turned his mind back to the task at hand. He could go after the Russians... he would do that eventually. But for now, he had a better lead.

He soared through the Hell's Kitchen skyline until he found his way to a seedy alley, near where he'd first encountered the Albanians ages ago. Long before he'd met Daredevil. They hated Spider-man, sure—but if Matt was correct, the Albanians hated Fisk even more. It was worth trying to track them down.

He had no real reason to hope that the Albanians would show up here again, but... it was the best idea he had. If they'd met here once, perhaps they'd come through again. Maybe he'd catch someone passing through, on their way to a hideout.

He crouched on a fire escape, behind a trash can, holding his breath against the smell. He waited for almost half an hour. In that time he let his mind wander, remembering the rush of fighting with Daredevil, his clashes with supervillains... he daydreamed about MJ. Their life before Dr. Strange's spell. Their life after. Their last date, so quickly interrupted, and the wonderful prospect of another.

"This way, idiot," came a gravelly voice far below him. Peter shook his head, clearing it, and turned to look below him.

Two men were walking, looking carefully behind them. Like they were trying not to be followed. They were rough, cautious, angry. "Alteo's waiting, he won't wait much longer—these are dangerous times—"

Hmm. 'Alteo' could be an Albanian name. Peter squinted, trying to get a better look at them. They seemed vaguely familiar; for all he knew, they could be the same guys he'd fought before. Maybe.

"With Fisk as mayor, we'll all lose our heads—"

Aha. That was enough for Peter. He swung himself over the balcony and landed on the ground, jauntily and easily as if he were made of rubber.

"Hey guys," he said, flashing them a quick wave."

The two Albanians in front of him whirled around, their eyes flashing black. "You! I'll kill you!" one of them said. Peter laughed and danced around the man, shooting a quick succession of webs at him until he was stuck to the alley wall. Then he turned to the other man.

"You wanna be next, or can we just talk?" he asked cheerfully.

The man webbed to the wall said something in Albanian—probably a swear word—and Peter shot one more small web over his mouth.

"So," he said, turning once again to the other Albanian. "Let's chat."

The man spat on the ground. "We won't speak to you. We remember what you did to us—"

"What, put a couple of you in jail?" Peter rolled his eyes. "What do you expect, dude? I'm a superhero, it's nothing personal. Besides, we both have bigger problems."

The Albanian crossed his arms, looking nervously back at his friend glued to the wall. "What... what problems?"

"What do you think?" Peter said. "Wilson Fisk."

The man took a deep breath, clearly trying to conceal his anger. "Why should we care about Fisk?"

"Come on, buddy, I know you hate him," Peter said. "I hate him too. And you know what they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Can't we put our issues on hold for a little while? Just until Fisk is gone."

The man scoffed. "Gone? You can't kill him. We've been trying to take that bastard out for years."

"Not kill him!" Peter said, doing his best to sound both shocked and scandalized. "I'm a friendly neighborhood Spider-man! I don't kill people. Besides..." he shrugged. "You and I both know, if Fisk gets killed now, he's just gonna be a martyr. A politician, calling for superhero reform? Killed by a superhero? Jameson would have a field day. We'd have a dozen new Fisks popping up within a week. No, buddy," he said, leaning against the wall nonchalantly, "we're just gonna put him back in prison. Easy peasy. No harm, no foul. Er... other idioms."

"You think Fisk will go quietly? He'll kill you before he goes back to prison."

"Right," Peter said. "So... safety in numbers? We can work together on this. There's a ton of you guys—add me and Daredevil, and we're practically an army! Right?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "Not if you keep putting our men in prison." He sounded angry, but Peter could see his face softening a little.

"I swear," Peter said, putting his hand over his heart, "if we can work together on this, I'll put my civic duty on hold. I won't go after any of you guys until after we kick Fisk's ass."

"And after that?"

"Well," Peter said, shrugging, "we can all beat each other up to our heart's content. This is just a temporary arrangement."

The man spat on the ground again. "If Fisk weren't on the loose, I'd kill you right now—I'd slit your throat, I'd paint the street with your blood—" he paused, considering him. "—but you're right. This isn't the time for games. Fisk is a much larger threat than Spider-man."

"Ouch."

"If we worked together... what would the plan be?"

Peter sighed and threw his hands in the air. "That's the thing—er, do you have a name, or should I just keep calling you 'buddy'?"

The sighed. "Call me Roel."

"Roel. Great. Here's the thing; any plan we might have had went out the window with Fisk's new political career. Bad, right? But here's the good news. We've got a blank canvas. We're starting from scratch! We have time to formulate a great strategy, gather info, find a weakness, and then... well... kick ass!"

Roel looked like he was really regretting ever coming into this alleyway. "That's a shit plan."

"It's not a plan—but I'm desperate. Can't you tell? I'm coming to you guys for help."

Roel glanced behind him at his friend webbed to the wall. They raised eyebrows at each other for a minute, then Roel turned back to Peter. "What do you want us to do?"

"You guys would be my eyes and ears," Peter said. "There's a ton of you, you're like rats! In a good way—I just mean, you're everywhere. You're sneaky. You can gather intel, tail Fisk and all his associates. See if you can find out who he's paying, who he's blackmailing, how he's getting power. We're gonna find a weakness, and we're gonna hit it hard. And, I mean, come on. All of us, against one man?"

"And the Russians, and the police, and probably the feds and half the New York Senate," Roel said.

"Yeah, okay." Peter sighed. "His sphere of influence might be a little... out of our league. But Daredevil's taken down this guy before. We can do it again."

Roel was quiet for a minute, staring at the ground. "I'll have to run it up the chain," he said finally. "Get my boss on board."

"So you'll do it?"

Roel grunted. "How am I supposed to get in touch with you?"

Peter held out a gloved hand. "Give me your phone."

Roel hesitated, but finally acquiesced. Peter swiped it open and put in his number. He labeled his contact with two emojis—a spider and a man, because Peter was nothing if not subtle—then handed it back. "That number's to a burner, so don't get any ideas. You're not gonna trace it back to me. But... yeah."

He couldn't believe his luck. He hadn't really thought the Albanians would go with it; it was a total Hail Mary. And yet... here they were. Peter turned to leave. "See you around, Roel—and don't worry, those webs will dissolve in an hour or two, your friend will be fine."

"What do you want us looking for?" Roel called after him. Peter was already climbing up the wall. He hung, one foot and one hand stuck to the brick, and looked back. 

"Start with the politicians," he called. "City council, borough presidents, anyone you can think of. One of them's gotta be in Fisk's pocket. Good luck, boys!"

Before Roel could say anything else, Peter climbed up the wall and ducked out of sight.

Here on the rooftop, he was safe for a minute or two. He'd go check on Dex in a little while—but first...

He pulled out his cell phone and pulled up MJ's contact info. It was a picture he'd taken of her ages ago, long before Dr. Strange's spell—MJ, skin glowing in the sunset, her dark eyes sparkling like the broken dahlia necklace she wore, a hint of impish joy in her smile.

Hey MJ,  he texted. Sorry about the date yesterday—didn't mean to cut it short. There was a work emergency. But I had a good time—he erased that. But I would love to go out again—he erased that too. He hesitated. He'd never been very good at texting, never been great at the whole "asking girls out" thing. Even on second dates. Well, second second dates.

When are you going to Boston? He finished off the text and sent it.

She responded almost immediately. 

Work emergency. That sounds exciting. Heading out in three weeks. 

Three weeks. That was so little time.

Do you want to hang out again sometime? I'm flooded with work this week, but my boss said you could come by and hang out at the office if you want. He paused, then sent another. He's pretty cool, you'd like him.

Hanging out with a bunch of lawyers? Sounds like the height of excitement.

Peter grinned ruefully. Yeah, it would be boring... but Matt wanted to get to know her. He needed to, if he was going to help Peter keep her safe.

We have a pretty mean vending machine outside the office. Corn Nuts on me, he texted. 

It took her a few minutes to respond. As stupid as it was, Peter was nervous, his heart in his throat. 

Then—I'm in. Today okay?

Today! He was going to see her again today! He almost dropped his phone as he scrambled to type. I can pick you up after your shift?

No need. Yesterday was my last day.

Peter blinked, surprised. What happened?

She took even longer to respond this time. I figured since I'm only here for a couple more weeks, I'd rather spend my time with people I actually like. 

Oh?

Peter could almost see the wry smile in her words as she texted him. Yeah, like Ned. And, you know. You.

A smile spread across his face, so wide it hurt his cheeks. Underneath his mask, he probably looked like a model for a toothpaste commercial. Okay, I have to meet with a client first. But I can meet you there, around 4:00? We could go get dinner after if you want.

OK.

Two letters, as basic and inscrutable as could be. But Peter knew MJ well enough to know what she was really thinking. She was trying to come across as nonchalant. As uninterested. Which meant she was into it.

See you then, he texted her. Then he jumped off the rooftop, whooping, and swung his way through the streets all the way to Metro General.

#####

Matt's hands twitched. He itched to pick up his cell phone, to call Peter and find out what the hell was taking him so long. Actually, what he really longed to do—if only his cracked ribs and concussion would allow it—was to follow him, to put on his mask and leap out the window. He wanted to parse out where the kid had gone, and beat up anyone who might have lain a finger on him.

As luck would have it, there was no need. Late in the afternoon Matt caught the latex scent of Peter's suit, masked by his work clothes, and heard his light, quick footsteps. And someone else was with him... Matt angled his head in their direction. The faint scent of day-old coffee. Curly hair that caught the wind. On the street below was Peter and his girlfriend—or, the girl who had been his girlfriend, then forgot about it, and now... was maybe dating him again?

Thinking about Peter's complicated love life was making his headache worse. Matt let his attention drift back to the witness statements he was perusing.

"Peter!" Foggy said, moments later, as Peter opened the door. "You're back! And... you brought a... friend?"

"This is MJ," Peter said, and MJ gave a halfhearted wave. "I—Matt said it was okay if she hung out here—"

Matt gave Foggy a quick nod, then walked over to the teens, smiling. "MJ. I believe we've met—the barista, right?"

"Yeah," MJ said. "Peter's told me a lot about you." She shook Foggy's hand, then Matt's. "He tells me you're pretty cool."

Matt raised his eyebrows, and was amused to feel the heat rising in Peter's face. He grinned.

"Well. We're just glad to see Peter has friends outside of this office."

"Matt!" Peter hissed. Matt didn't have to see him to know he was glaring.

"You talk to Dex?" Fogy said, passing a stack of paperwork to Peter. 

"Yeah, I did," he said, rifling through the papers. "He's all up to date with the case so far."

Matt was still, focusing in. Peter's heartbeat was steady, truthful. Matt smiled to himself, a little ruefully. It was impressive. Peter apparently had enough time to deal with the Russians, visit a client, go on a date, and do some office work. All in a single afternoon. Loath as he was to admit it, Peter clearly had a much better vigilante/personal life balance than Matt did.

"He's really creepy," Peter added, and turned to MJ. "He's the guy I was telling you about—the serial killer dude."

"Eh... more of a spree killer. Legally speaking." Foggy stapled a couple papers together. "Listen, Peter, do you mind staying late tonight? MJ's welcome to stay too, if she wants... but Karen's at the Bulletin, and I need someone to look over these depositions. Matt and I are going out."

Matt frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, man. I'm taking you to a movie. You know you need a break."

"You want to take me—a blind man—to a movie?" 

Foggy scoffed. "Don't give me that, Murdock. Blind people go to movies all the time. Didn't you and Karen go see a rom com last month?"

"Yeah, but—"

Peter coughed quietly. "Hey, um... could we use Karen's office? She's got Dex's timeline up, it would probably really help..." 

There was something hidden in the tone of Peter's voice. Maybe he wanted to give Foggy and Matt some privacy, so Foggy could scold him for something Daredevil-related. Or maybe he wanted privacy for himself and MJ, and they were about to go make out in Karen's office. Matt wasn't sure which option was more irritating.

"Sure," Foggy said. "Go right ahead."

When Peter and MJ were safely closed in Karen's office, Matt sighed and crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. "What's this about, Fog?"

Foggy turned to make sure the office door was really closed, then dropped his voice lower. "Listen. Don't take this the wrong way... but... Peter and I both think you need to take some time off from the Fisk stuff."

"You two are ganging up on me?"

"The last time Fisk was gaining power, you got..." Foggy sighed, and when he spoke again, there was a genuine fear, a tenderness in his voice. "I was scared for you, Matt. You—you weren't yourself."

"I know," Matt said softly.

"I don't want that to happen again. I just think maybe, since there's nothing we can do right now... let's take a night, go have some fun. Right? Get distracted, paint the town red, get away from all this... psycho killer bullshit."

Matt closed his eyes. He didn't like to think of that time, those months after Elektra died. As Fisk made his moves on the city, Matt lost himself. He'd been adrift, stranded in a stormy sea; without friends, without faith, without life. He'd been no more than a shell, an empty vessel for despair.

He took a deep breath and forced a smile onto his face. "Okay, Fog. You're right."

"Wait—did you just say I'm right? I'm right?"

"Shut up."

"A momentous occasion! Murdock admits, finally, that Franklin Percival Nelson—get this—is right about something."

Matt threw his pencil at Foggy, and it bounced off his forehead.

"Okay, okay," Foggy laughed, scrolling through his phone. "Let's see... you thinking comedy? Drama? Probably not action, you get more than enough of that..."

Matt sighed. "Does it have to be a movie? I know—" he threw up his hands. "Yeah, I know. Blind people go to the movies all the time. But I just prefer—" he cut off, pressing his lips tightly together.

"Prefer what?" Foggy frowned. "What, like... concerts? Or... no. Please no..."

Matt opened his mouth and closed it again, suppressing a smile.

"You're shitting me," Foggy said. "You're shitting me, Matt. Theater?"

Matt shrugged. "I can't sense pixels on a screen. But people moving around? I can actually follow what's going on."

Foggy walked behind Matt and picked up his cane, tossing it over. Matt caught it without turning around.

"They have those audio descriptor things," Foggy grumbled. Matt laughed, unfolding his cane and slipping his wallet into his pocket. 

"It'll be good for you. Expand your horizons a little."

Foggy extended his arm and Matt grabbed it. They walked out of the office together, Foggy still protesting quietly—but he sounded relieved, happy to get them both out of the office. He was right, Matt had to admit. A distraction would be good. The longer Matt sat in the office—beaten, useless, rageful—the likelier he was to go do something stupid. 

On the sidewalk outside, Foggy pretended to lead Matt toward the subway station. "I can't believe this. I can't believe you," he said. "As if you weren't already enough of a freak—let's add 'theater kid' to the mix."

Matt laughed, sending shocks of pain through his ribs. "This is why I never told you, Foggy."

"This might be worse than your... other double life."

Matt grinned, relishing the smells of the New York streets and the white noise of the city. "Give it a chance. We won't go for the hard stuff yet; no Beckett, I promise."

"Freakin' nerd," Foggy muttered, and Matt was pleased to hear the laughter in his voice.

A couple hours later, after a cheap takeout dinner at the park and a quick stop at the ticket booth, Matt and Foggy were sitting in the nosebleed seats of Rogers: The Musical. It had some terrible reviews, but they were the cheapest tickets available on such short notice. Matt took in the excited whispers of the actors backstage, the shuffle of playbills, the chemical smell of stage makeup and hundreds of different perfumes.

Foggy was still complaining as the electric lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up the overture. 

The musical opened on Steve Rogers, circa 1943, singing a melancholy tune about how he wanted to be a hero. The actors danced their way through World War II, through Rogers' disappearance and the founding of the Avengers. 

It was terrible.

Maybe it was the irony of a secret vigilante watching the lives of superheroes put on garish display, or perhaps it was the violence and brutality being depicted as jaunty tap numbers—but Matt quickly began to feel sick to his stomach.

Sometime after intermission, when the Battle of New York began onstage and Rogers proudly sang "I can do this all day," Matt finally had enough. He turned to Foggy, meaning to ask him if they could go to the movies after all—

But Foggy was enraptured, mouth agape, heart pounding almost to the beat of the music. He didn't even seem to remember Matt was with him.

Well, fine. Foggy could enjoy it on his own. Matt quietly moved out into the aisle, brushed off the usher who tried to assist him, and tapped his way out into the theater lobby. Then out into the relatively quieter streets. Then he wandered. Aimlessly, he tapped along the city nightscape until finally...

He found himself, once again, outside his home. 

The Clinton Church loomed above him. He stood just below the big stained glass window, wondering if it was casting colorful shadows where he stood. He wondered if the choir singing inside were bathed in red light, if they looked the way they had when he was a kid.

The streets in this part of town were relatively empty at this time of night, and Matt reveled in the solitude. Crossing himself quickly under the stained glass image of the Virgin Mary, remembering the way she had smiled down on him when he was a child, he ducked into the side alleyway and began climbing up the church wall. He gripped the bricks and window ledges, knuckles white, until he finally stumbled his way onto the shingled roof.

Damn, it would be nice to have Peter's powers.

Without thinking about it, he settled into his usual spot—right below the cross—and just breathed. He meditated. He focused on his ribs, willing the cells to regenerate, to weave bone back together, to heal. He listened to the deafening sound of his heartbeat, felt the rush of hot pain across his skin. He could follow a pulse through each vein if he tried, could follow the movement of a single drop of blood throughout his whole body.

Try as he might, though, he couldn't keep his mind from wandering.

Unbidden, the image of Wilson Fisk crouched down behind him. Matt could almost feel his breath on the back of his neck. Could hear the smile behind his words.

"I'm not just free, Mr. Murdock. I'm thriving."

Matt took another deep breath, willing the image of Fisk to dissolve. It didn't.

"If I take this city," Fisk said, "how many people will suffer? How many people will die? How many souls will be lost, because you were too much of a coward to stop me?"

Matt clenched his jaw. "I did stop you."

"For a time," Fisk said, and Matt imagined him standing, pacing behind him. "But you knew it wasn't going to last. You knew it, Matthew, and you let me live anyway."

Matt twitched, then took another breath. "I don't kill."

"Ah yes, your soul," Fisk said. "Unsullied by the blood of another human being. Is that what you think? That you'll reach salvation because you didn't snap my neck?"

The choir below reached the zenith of the chant. Matt didn't didn't speak Latin, didn't know what they were saying—but he imagined their words as fingers, tipped with salve, dressing the wounds on his body. His soul.

"Let every man, woman, and child who dies at my hands..." Fisk began, then raised his voice higher. Matt winced. "Let their blood be on your head."

The smell of crusting blood and stitching filled Matt's nose. His ribs ached with each breath. There was nothing but the pain, the swelling and the searing, the agony of Fisk's own handiwork. Matt clenched his fists.

Fisk crouched down once more, his face so close to Matt's that he could imagine the heat coming off it. "And there will be blood, Mr. Murdock. When this city is in my hands... there will be more blood than even you can atone for."

Matt screamed and jumped up, lunging for the image-Fisk—

And stumbled through him, falling onto the shingles, grasping at his aching side. This ghost Fisk, this vision, it shifted. It twisted. The image of a broken-necked Wilson Fisk, lying dead at his feet, seared itself across the canvas of his mind. 

Matt crossed himself, then again, willing the mirage to break, to melt; willing his heart to pump blood over it, to wash it away—

There was a set of footsteps on the fire escape, and Matt jumped. He reached for the mask in his pocket.

But it was only Sister Maggie. She was carrying a first-aid kit with her, as well as a bottle of whiskey. He heard the sound of her silver crucifix rustling against her habit—a sound synonymous with his childhood, with care and tenderness. He let out a relieved breath.

"I heard footsteps, and knew you'd be the only one stupid enough to be up here," she said. "Sit, Matthew. Let me check your stitches."

Matt let out a breath, shuddering a little. "Sister... sorry. I didn't mean to disrupt—"

"You didn't disrupt Mass," she said. "No one else cares enough to listen for footsteps on the roof. Shirt off."

Matt complied, and Sister Maggie was silent as she took in the sight of his torso. He could hear her heart rate, stuttering a little at the sight of all his scars—both old and fresh, whitened and scarlet.

"I'm impressed," she said finally. "You didn't pull any stitches. Maybe you took your head out of your ass after all and decided to lay low."

"Yeah," Matt sighed. "Maybe I did."

She removed one of yesterday's bandages, damp with stale blood, and brought out a cotton swab doused in rubbing alcohol. Then she handed him the bottle of whiskey. "Drink this. You're too tense."

He was reminded suddenly of his father, of Jack Murdock giving him a sip of whiskey when he was only nine years old. He remembered his weary eyes, his easy manner, the permissive smile on his face as he coaxed Matt into stitching up his boxing wounds. And now, Sister Maggie—Sister Maggie Murdock...

Matt took a deep breath as, in his mind, his surname settled onto Sister Maggie. Like a bird, coming home to roost. Like a circlet placed on a bowed head. He tried not to think about it most days, tried to keep things as they were when he was a child... but in moments like these, moments when she was so parental... 

His mother was so much like his father.

He took a swig and coughed. "My—my dad gave me whiskey once, when I was nine years old."

"So you've told me." She swiped the cotton swab across one of Matt's wounds, and he hissed at the sting.

"You're not going to criticize his parenting?"

She didn't look up at him. "I don't have any grounds to condemn him, Matthew." She ripped open a new piece of gauze and placed it carefully over the laceration. "Do you want me to?"

"No," Matt said quietly, and closed his eyes. Sister Maggie ran a careful finger over the bruises and cuts on his face, efficient and quick, checking for anything that didn't seem to be healing properly. But all seemed to be in order. She took the whiskey back from Matt, taking a swig herself, then sighed.

"What are you doing here? You didn't come to talk to me, or you'd have used the front door."

"No, I, uh..." Matt tugged his shirt back on. "I come here to think sometimes."

"About?"

Matt laughed dryly, bitterly. "What do you think?"

Sister Maggie was quiet for a minute. Matt knew what she was thinking, what they were both remembering; the dark days of Fisk's last return to power, the loss of Matt's faith and his identity, the mangled bodies of dozens dead at Fisk's command.

"I thought..." Matt said. "I hoped Fisk was gone for good."

"The devil isn't so easily defeated," she said, then snorted. "You should know that, Daredevil."

"Ha."

They sat in silence for a minute longer, then Sister Maggie moved closer to him and dropped her voice lower. "So what are you going to do this time?"

"I don't know. I could send him back to prison, but... it won't last. It never lasts." His heartbeat was accelerating. "Nothing ever works with im. I've tried everything... except..."

"Except?"

Matt swallowed. "Someone has to stop him. And I think... I think I'm the only one who can."

Peter's voice ran through his head. She told me that with great power, there must also come great responsibility.

"There are others like you, Matthew. More powerful than you. Why don't you let them—"

"This is my problem, not theirs," Matt said. "If I let them kill him... I'll be responsible for it. For their sin."

"That's not how any of this works," Sister Maggie said.

Matt was barely listening. "I know I'm damned if I kill him," he whispered. "I thought I'd made my decision, years ago. He keeps his life, and I keep my soul. But now... if he gets what he wants, countless people will suffer. They will die."

And suddenly the image of Fisk was back, looming over the two of them, casting a strange, cold shadow over the entire rooftop.

He turned to Sister Maggie, taking in the tiny movements of her face and the reassuring sound of her heartbeat. "Do you think..." he crossed himself. "Do you think it would be worth it? One soul damned, in exchange for an entire city?"

When she spoke, her voice was carefully controlled, neutral—but Matt could hear the slight flutter of fear, of concern, behind it. "Are you asking me as a nun, or as your..."

The word "mother" hung, unspoken, in the air.

"Both," Matt whispered, surprised to hear himself say it. And, unbidden, his eyes began to sting. He took a deep breath and turned away from her. "It doesn't matter," he said finally, standing and walking toward the edge of the rooftop. "There's nothing I can do yet anyway. That... decision... is weeks away. Months. I'm sorry I brought it up."

"Maybe you could talk to Father Cathal about it inside. Come and take confession, it would do you some good—"

"Not tonight." He prepared himself to jump onto the window ledge below.

Sister Maggie sighed. "At least come inside and use the front door like a normal person."

Matt shook his head. "Goodbye, Sister." He dropped down, landing hard on the ledge below. Then onto a fire escape, then a lamppost. Then the street.

He could hear the creak in Sister Maggie's elbow as she crossed herself, the aggravation in her voice as she whispered, "Stubborn ass." He waited until she'd made it safely back inside before walking the twenty minutes back to the theater, where Foggy was waiting for him, sporting a brand new T-shirt he'd bought at the Rogers: The Musical gift shop.

And then he found himself in his apartment, in his bed, lying awake—a broken-necked, dead Wilson Fisk floating through his mind, killing any chance he had at sleep.

#####

Peter and MJ were silent inside Karen's office, listening to the muffled voices of Foggy and Matt outside. Peter couldn't understand them; could hear little more than what amounted to varied tones and inflections. It sounded pretty interesting. Damn, it would be nice to have Matt's abilities.

After a minute or two, the main door to the office shut and Peter could hear Matt's cane tapping down the stairs and, presumably, out of the building.

"So..." he said, turning to MJ. "This is... where I work."

MJ nodded, crossing her arms and looking around, eyes wide. "This office is... kind of insane."

The walls of Karen's office were covered in papers, sticky notes, red yarn—all strewn together in a sort of tormented chaos. It was a little freaky. Karen had a system to it, Peter was sure. That lady was smart as hell. But, to Peter... it was inscrutable.

"Like a serial killer wall," MJ said. "Literally, I guess." She moved closer to a photograph tacked near a stack of police reports—a crime scene photo from Dex's massacre at the Bulletin. A close-up on a body, broken-necked, a handful of pencils jammed into his throat and a dent in his skull. In the background, unfocused, were at least six other bodies.

"It's cool," MJ said.

Peter laughed, a little nervously. "So... uh... do you want coffee? We've got coffee, I can—"

"I got it," MJ said, opening Karen's door and crossing into the kitchenette. She began haphazardly opening cupboards and drawers, looking for mugs. "I'm kind of an expert at this point. It's a real accomplishment."

Peter spread out the deposition papers on Karen's desk, grinning. He listened to the sounds she made. Clinking mugs around, walking back and forth, humming tunelessly. He'd missed this, he realized; the familiarity of it. Sure, the romance and the kisses... he'd missed all that too. But this—the everyday living, existing beside one another, simple and routine and ordinary... his heart had ached for it.

She re-entered the office with a couple mugs of coffee. Peter took his, lightly brushing her fingers as he did so, and felt his heartbeat speed up. They sat on Karen's desk, staring at the wall together.

"So," she said. "Tell me about this guy. All you told me is you're defending a crazy murderer."

"Right," Peter said. "His name's Benjamin Poindexter. I don't know if you remember him; about a year before the blip—"

"Poindexter!" MJ said. "Yeah. I remember all that going down. Big true crime fan, remember?" 

Peter nodded. "Right. Well, he's been in a coma for years, but I guess he's finally out of it. And... we're defending him. Or—well—Matt and Foggy are defending him. I'm just here to alphabetize stuff. And pour coffee."

"Not anymore," MJ said, taking a sip. "I can handle that."

Peter grinned. "I don't know, I feel like your talents are pretty wasted on coffee..."

She raised her eyebrows over her coffee mug.

"I just—I mean—" Peter said, feeling the heat rise in his face. "You'd be way better at all this crime stuff. You're so smart—way smarter than me—" he broke off, flustered.

MJ laughed. "I mean, I am pretty smart. But... so are you."

He was caught suddenly by the gleam of laughter in her eyes—like a sparkle of light glinting off a windowpane. Like a flash of sunlight just before it sets behind the city skyline.

"Yeah... so," he said, voice cracking a little. "So we're just going through the papers. Check the dates on the timeline, here open the wall, and then any dates in the statements themselves. And then if you want to write a sentence or two, just summarizing it—do that with a sticky note. It'll be easier to flip through later."

They spread out the depositions on the floor and got to work. It was a thankless task; cross-referencing dates and places, checking for inconsistencies. Tedious, really, except that the case in question was regarding one of New York's most notorious killers of the last decade.

MJ certainly seemed to be getting a kick out of it.

"What a psycho," she said, skimming through a statement from a key FBI witness. "I can't believe you talked to him."

Peter shrugged. "He doesn't remember anything. Lost his memory after being in a coma for so long."

MJ put the paper down and stared up at Karen's timeline on the walls. Peter followed her lead. From down here, the red yarn connecting everything looked like veins, dripping blood across the crime scene photos and police reports. The totality of Dex's crimes struck Peter suddenly. He was silent for a minute or two, staring up at it all.

He'd fought the world's most notorious villains. Insane scientists, strange and mysterious and uncanny. But this man, Benjamin Poindexter... was beyond that, somehow. Not magical, not enhanced. Just a man—with enough rage, enough pure power and chaos, to find satisfaction in the corpses he produced. To find pleasure.

A man who killed just for the sake of killing.

A still from a security camera was pinned at the top of the entire timeline. Poindexter, in Daredevil's red suit. Even in the grainy screenshot, his eyes were expressionless. His face was carefully controlled, almost entirely neutral—except for the ghost of a cold smile on his lips.

Peter had read about all his crimes; horrific, nauseating, every one. And yet, the scene he found himself coming back to—reading the reports over and over again, turning over in his mind like some strange winding spool of thread... was the massacre at the Clinton church. Matt's church. Dex had been sent to kill Karen Page; that much was clear in all the witness statements. He'd been sent to kill Karen, to imbed a flying baton into her chest, and Daredevil was barely able to stop him.

An image flashed across Peter's mind—MJ, blood dripping from her mouth, clutching at a baton lodged deep into her body. Her eyes, meeting Peter's, as she whispered something—something Peter couldn't make out. A soft hand, reaching out to touch his face, as she slipped out of this world.

Peter shook his head, his heart pounding so loudly in his ears that it drowned out all other sound for a moment.

A soft hand on his arm.

"You okay?"

He looked up. MJ was staring at him, her head angled, eyebrows raised. He nodded, willing the image of dead MJ to leave his mind, and forced a quick smile onto his face.

"Yeah, I—I'm good."

"You don't look too good."

He stood up, shaking, avoiding her eyes. "I'm fine. Really. Just, uh... the stress, you know?" He began pacing. "With me moving into a new place, and this job, and things with my boss... and then you're moving to Boston, and I just—"

"You're stressed about me moving to Boston?" She stood up too.

"I... uh... did I say that?"

"Yep."

And suddenly Peter was babbling, unable to stop himself. "I just—you're really cool, MJ, and I'm sad that you're leaving... not that I think you should stay, or anything, because you have your own life, and honestly you're so talented and smart that MIT has to have you, even if I can't—not that I mean—not have you, not like a possessive thing—I just mean that... I'm gonna miss you, and that's stressful, you know, but it's okay, because it's worth it... I really like spending time with you, even if it's only for a little while—"

"Peter," MJ said.

"Yeah?"

She leaned in suddenly and kissed him.

"Shut up," she said.

And the dead MJ was gone, replaced by that sunrise-glow MJ—the MJ on the Statue of Liberty, kissing him goodbye. And then another MJ, on the rooftop of his school, embracing him, calming him, in the chaos of his revealed identity. And yet another MJ, in London, broken necklace in hand—shy, nervous, hopeful. Kissing him for the very first time.

"I... uh..."

"I like you too," she said. She leaned forward as if she were going to kiss him again, then stopped just short. Eyes closed, lips parted, she took a deep breath. "It's... it's weird. I know we've only just started seeing each other. But... this just feels..."

Peter closed his eyes, too, moving closer. Touching his forehead against hers. "It feels..."

"Right," MJ said, and pressed another kiss onto his lips.

Peter trembled, his stomach soaring and dropping as wildly as if he were swinging on a web through the city. "Right," he agreed.

She looked at him for a minute, just smiling, then leaned in once more. And this kiss was softer. It was slower. Like she was testing, exploring, trying to remember something. Peter wondered if she felt it—the familiarity of their lips together, the way they fell into each other. Like the shards of her necklace, broken pieces coming together so perfectly, so easily.

He reached a hand up to her face and cradled it, pulling out of her arms slightly to stare at the way her cheek fit into his palm. To wonder at the beautiful roundness of her face, the softness of her eyes and mouth.

She had found him again. Like she said she would.

She didn't remember him... but she'd found him anyway.

"Boston's only four hours away," she said. "I could come back on the weekends."

"I'd like that," Peter said, breathless. And she grinned, pulling him back. They kissed again, and again. Impatient and joyful, perfect and enchanting. It was wonderful. It was familiar. It was home.

The depositions lay forgotten on the floor.

#####

A month passed. A month of chaos, desperation, and—most importantly—distraction. Karen was worn thin, exhausted, but she found some comfort in the commotion of it all. Between Dex's case and the rest of the heavy workload Nelson and Murdock had taken on, Matt was busy. He was distracted. There was no time, no space, for him to ruminate on Fisk; and the less Fisk was on Matt's mind, the safer he was.

No, ruminating on Wilson Fisk was Karen's job now.

She split her time, as she always did, between the law office and the Bulletin. And the Bulletin was almost as chaotic and busy as Nelson and Murdock these days. It seemed like they were the only newspaper in town not in Wilson Fisk's pocket; the only voice of dissension in the city-wide narrative of Fisk's 'heroism.' Ellison had assigned Karen most of the Fisk coverage. She was, after all, the paper's most knowledgeable source on the Kingpin's criminal enterprises. 

And yet—despite Karen's best efforts, the Bulletin's voice was quickly getting lost in the noise of the city's idolatry. As the weeks passed, as Fisk grew steadily more popular, the Bulletin grew less and less relevant.

Fisk's adoring media coverage, she knew, was spearheaded by J. Jonah Jameson at the Bugle. After his insane smear campaign on Spider-man, back when Mysterio was killed, he'd amassed an intensely loyal group of followers. They were more than willing to accept J. Jonah at his word—that Wilson Fisk was the best man for the city. That he was a victim of vigilante violence. That Daredevil and Spider-man were the real villains. 

After all that, it was only too easy for Fisk to pay off the rest of the city's newspapers, to buy or blackmail  endorsements from New York's elite.

It wasn't fair. The city was so easily bought, so easily placated. In only a few years, New York had entirely forgotten about Wilson Fisk's atrocities. they were only too ready to accept him as their new hero. Current polls showed that he was in the lead, far outstripping all his opponents. The Bulletin was the only publication willing to criticize, to condemn. And how much longer before they were stopped—either by Fisk himself, or by his legion of adoring fans?

All she could hope was that Fisk would step out of line somehow; would make some public mistake, an exploitable weakness that they could target to bring him down again.

Still, bleak as things were in the city, it had been weeks since she'd last seen the office so... alive. Matt seemed determined to keep his mind on Poindexter's case, and he was in his element. Lawyer Matt was prime Matt. He was so assured, so focused. He spent hours every day, prepping difficult legal maneuvers, going over strategy with Foggy, practicing his opening statement and test-running witness examinations with Peter and his girlfriend, MJ

Over the last month, MJ had spent nearly every day at the office. The way Matt explained it, Peter was lonely. He needed her there. Besides, MJ was a great worker, happy to help out whenever she could.

The two of them raised morale around the office very quickly. There was a youthful energy, a playful sweetness about them that made the drab little firm feel very lively. Karen found herself watching them together sometimes, marveling at their little loving gestures. The way Peter smiled at MJ when she wasn't looking, the way MJ played with her necklace whenever Peter spoke; the little affectionate shoulder-bumps as they flipped through depositions and law code books together. Hidden kisses and whispers, carefree and joyful.

She just wished some of their happiness would rub off on Matt.

He remained distant, closed off. Distracted from Fisk, sure, but still determined to keep away from Karen. Sometimes she caught him—not watching her, but listening, his head carefully angled in her direction. He looked so longing, so desperate. She ached for him, a tug in her chest connecting her heart to his. She missed their time together. She missed the smiles and the kisses. He was here, in the office, but she missed him.

The month had flown by; this dizzying, busy, longing, tense, distracting, chaotic month. And now, they were only a night away from Benjamin Poindexter's trial.

Foggy left to go home sometime around 9:00, Peter and MJ drifting out not long after. Karen and Matt, though, stayed later, working silently at their desks until it was nearly midnight. Karen was lulled almost into a stupor by the sounds of Matt's typing, the muffled voice of his text-reader in his ear, the clicking of his refreshable braille display. His soft, heavy breathing.

She was supposed to be packing up all their documents, ordering and preparing them for the trial tomorrow. Instead, though, she found herself staring at a list page on her laptop, going over the names of Fisk's most high-profile supporters. Maybe when this trial was over, when Dex was locked safely in a prison and away from death row... maybe Matt could take to the streets in his mask again. Maybe he could get some information out of these people. There were at least thirty-one on the city council, eight on the state senate. Talk-show hosts and elite journalists. Daredevil could get them to talk, to tell how much money Fisk was paying them. Or maybe turn state's witness, testify that Fisk was blackmailing them, holding their lives and families hostage. Daredevil could root out the corruption at its very source.

She remembered, suddenly, the first glimpse she'd ever had of him—of Daredevil. When he'd burst into her apartment, saved her from an armed assailant. When he'd beaten and bled for her, caught the edge of a knife for her. She remembered his dark silhouette, hazy in the night rain, the intensity in his husky voice...

And she remembered Matt, his Daredevil helmet in his scabbed and bleeding hands, eyes hidden in the darkness, telling her his most dearly-kept secret...

Matt, sharp and mysterious in the strange shifting light of his apartment window, taking in the sounds and smells and feel of her, more thoroughly than if he could see her...

Matt, under the chili-pepper lights of their favorite restaurant, strangely vulnerable, smiling, afraid, loving; waiting to ask her a question... just before running out, leaving her alone in the city rain, alone in her thoughts. The last time she'd seen him before he'd built up the concrete wall around his heart.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't hear Matt enter her office. He knocked softly on her open door, and she practically jumped out of her skin.

"Shit! Matt! You—you scared me."

"Are you okay? You seem... pretty distracted."

Karen nodded, hugging her arms across her chest. "Yeah, it's just... a lot, you know? But it'll all be back to normal soon."

Matt moved further into her office, leaning on the edge of her desk. "You should go home. We have a big day tomorrow."

"So should you," she said, standing. "You're on opening."

She closed her laptop and began walking past him, meaning to grab her bag, when Matt gently caught her arm.

"Your heart... it's pounding, Karen."

"Yeah, well, you scared me. That's all." She started to move again, but he didn't let go of her arm. She shivered at the touch of his fingers on her elbow. "I'm okay, Matt, I promise."

"It was pounding before I came in."

Of course it was—while she'd been thinking, remembering. She looked carefully at Matt's face, the mostly-healed bruises on his cheekbones, the light scars on his jaw.

"It's still pretty fast," he added.

She moved a little closer, biting her lip, and gently pressed her hand against his chest. His beating heart faintly pulsed against her fingertips.

"So's yours."

He took a quick breath in, raising his hand to cover hers. His palm was warm and calloused against her skin. The corner of his mouth twitched—in a smile or a frown, she couldn't be sure—and she reached up her free hand, sliding his glasses off his face and gazing into his soft, vacant eyes.

"Karen, I—"

"Shh." 

She drank in the sight of him for a full minute, silent, feeling the flutter of his quick heartbeat. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Where did you go, Matt?"

He closed his eyes. "Karen... Karen, I... I can't."

"I miss you," she said. "Where did you go?"

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Karen knew his thoughts, as surely as if he were speaking out loud. It's better this way, Karen. It's safer. If I stay... you'll get hurt, and I'll crumple, I'll break. I can't lose you.

Besides... men like me... don't deserve happy endings.

"I don't need your protection, Matt," Karen said. "I just need you."

He hesitated, and in that moment, Karen pushed forward, pressing against him.

She pressed her lips to his, hot and insistent, relishing in his unsteady breaths. His heart beat powerfully against her hand; thud-thud. Thud-thud.

She closed her eyes, pulling back, resting her forehead against his. "I'm not going anywhere, Matt. Never."

And this time it was Matt that kissed her, clinging desperately. Like a drowning man searching for air. He wrapped his hands around her waist. Karen smiled against his kiss, opening her eyes and looking up into his face. It was so soft, so vulnerable; like a shell, cracked open to reveal something soft inside. She ran a thumb over his eyebrow, his cheekbone, his jaw. And then she closed her eyes again, her lips still caught up in his, melting into his embrace—

The office door clicked open.

"I think I left it on Karen's desk—" The voice cut off, and Karen whirled around.

Peter and MJ were frozen in the doorway, staring at the two of them. Biting her lip, Karen pulled herself away, shivering in the sudden absence of Matt's arms around her.

Peter cleared his throat, very uncomfortable. "Sorry—I just, I left my phone—"

"Sorry to interrupt—" MJ said. 

"It's fine," Karen said. She picked up her bag, careful not to look at Matt, and slipped it over his shoulder. "We were just leaving."

Peter, looking incredibly embarrassed, grabbed his phone from her desk as Karen and Matt both slipped out into the main office. "Sorry again," he said.

"Get some sleep," Matt said to Peter. "We have a big day tomorrow." He was silent for a minute, and Peter was too, staring at him; there was some sort of unspoken communication between the two of them. Karen frowned, confused.

"Good luck tomorrow," MJ said, waving. Then she and Peter walked out of the office.

Karen's heart was still pounding at the memory of Matt's kiss—the kiss she'd been missing, the kiss she'd been longing for. The kiss too-soon interrupted.

Matt held open the office door for Karen and she slipped out past him. In the instant they were both in the doorframe, Matt caught her hand. For the briefest moment, their fingertips intertwined. 

"Good night, Karen," he whispered.

"Good night."

She slipped her hand away from his and walked away, wishing she had his abilities so she could listen to his heartbeat until she was safely home.

Chapter Text

Peter woke suddenly to the buzzing of his cell phone. Groggy, bleary-eyed, he picked it up. A smiling photo of MJ filled the screen. He settled back into his pillow, grinning at the image of her face as he combed his fingers quickly through his hair, and answered the video call.

"Good morning," he said, his voice still husky with sleep.

"Hello Sleeping Beauty," she said. "Figured I'd try to talk before you head into court."

Right. That was today. Peter sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Glad you called," he said, and yawned. "Hold on, I'm gonna get changed." 

He set his phone facing the ceiling and stepped out of view of the camera. MJ made a little joking, disappointed noise, and Peter flushed bright red.

"So," he called from across the room, stepping into his Spider-man suit. "One more day until you're in Boston."

"Yeah," MJ said, suddenly very quiet. Peter was disheartened—but also a little pleased—to hear the dejection in her voice. MJ didn't want to leave him. "One more day."

"I could skip court," he said. "We could spend the day together. You know, go to a museum, a fancy restaurant—a real date."

"No," MJ sighed. "You've been working your ass off for this trial. But... tomorrow morning? You could come see me off at the train station."

Peter slipped his dress shirt on over his Spider-man suit and tied a red tie around his neck. "I'll bring flowers. Black tulips, obviously."

"Obviously."

"And maybe a calendar. I'll circle all the holidays and long weekends—you know, so you don't forget to come back."

"Sounds useful."

Peter shrugged on his suit jacket, carefully arranging the lapels. Then he picked up his phone again. MJ was smiling, soft and subdued, a little melancholy. "Really," Peter said. "I'll skip work. I'll quit my job. We can go to Boston together."

She snorted. "No, you have to go. I need all the juicy trial details."

"Yeah, okay," Peter said, sighing. He tucked his Spider-man mask and gloves into his pocket. "I don't think it'll be that interesting, though. From what Foggy's told me, big trials like this are never as cool as they sound. It's just a lot of minutiae."

"Still," she said. She was quiet for a minute, and when she spoke, there was an ounce of hesitation in her voice. "Do you think... it's right? Defending someone like Poindexter?"

It was something that Peter had found himself thinking about, too. Uncomfortable, he shrugged. "Someone has to do it, you know? I mean—" he ran his hands through his hair, trying to formulate words. "He deserves to rot. But... it's our job to represent him. It doesn't really matter what we believe; it matters that he gets a fair trial." The words were rote, practiced, the way Foggy had explained it to him a dozen times.

Sun was beginning to filter through the window, glittering off the steel spires and glass panes of the Manhattan skyline. Somewhere, Dex was being suited up for trial. Somewhere, Matt was practicing his opening statement. And somewhere, this morning, Wilson Fisk was amassing power—swelling up to a towering shadow over the city.

MJ raised her eyebrows. "You really think it would be okay to let that guy go free?"

"Matt and Foggy don't think we'll win," Peter said. "I mean, there's no way. There are videos, dozens of eye-witnesses. All we're trying to do is soften the sentence. Present a good enough case, and maybe he won't get the death penalty." 

"You just don't want him to die," MJ said. "I get it. That's one of the causes I protest sometimes."

Peter grinned, remembering their high-school days—MJ's hyper-political T-shirts, her slogans, her debates and chants and ideals. It was one of the things he loved about her. She was so passionate, so smart, so dedicated to doing the right thing. 

Peter opened his mouth to say something else, when his phone buzzed. But... no text came through the device in his hand. Confused, Peter glanced around—and realized the noise had come from his other phone. His burner phone.

Roel.

"Hey, MJ, I have to finish getting ready," he said. "Can I call you after the trial? Maybe I'll swing by, we can go get ice cream or something?"

"Sure," she said. Then, with a sardonic little smile— "Go get 'em, tiger."

"Tiger?" Peter said, laughing. "That might be the cringiest thing you've ever said to me."

MJ playfully flipped him off as she ended the call. 

" Tiger ," Peter muttered, chuckling to himself as he picked up his burner phone. He flipped it open—Matt was right, flips were pretty convenient for this sort of thing—and checked his texts. Sure enough, there was a message from Roel.

Meet me where we talked last time. I have some info.

Peter's heart soared. This was perfect. He hadn't yet told Matt about the whole 'working with the Albanian mob' thing. But now... he figured Matt would be more amenable to the idea if Peter had some actual results.

He checked his watch. 7:30. It would be cutting it close; the trial was meant to start at 8:30. But for dirt on Fisk? Worth it. He texted back— On my way :-) —then crept out of the apartment, careful not to alert Foggy and Marci, grabbing a couple muffins from the kitchen on his way out.

Minutes later, he was on the rooftop above the alley, still in his dress suit. Roel was waiting for him, alone, several stories below. Peter hesitated for a minute, then slipped his Spider-man mask on. He didn't have time to completely suit up—not if he was going to look nice for the trial—but it was better than nothing.

He dropped loudly to the ground behind him.

"Roel! Buddy! How ya been?"

Roel whirled around, squinting. "Why... why are you..."

"Dressed like this?" Peter said, gesturing vaguely to his suit jacket. "Listen, man, the Spider-stuff doesn't exactly pay the bills. I gotta look good for my day job."

Roel raised his eyebrows. "Huh. Okay."

"Want a muffin?" Peter asked, holding one out. Roel eyed it suspiciously, seeming to debate in his head, then grabbed it. "It's banana nut," Peter added. "Fruit, protein, and carbs—all part of a balanced breakfast."

As Roel chewed the muffin, he looked suspiciously around the alley. Peter sighed. "Listen, dude, I already scoped out the place. No one's following, no one's listening. So... whatcha got? Why did it take you so long to get back to me?"

Roel swallowed a bite of muffin. "It's not easy, getting my men into place," he said. "You have to earn people's trust, forge lots of documentation. It's more an art than a science."

"Okay," Peter said. "And? Any news?"

"Word on the street is, Fisk's doing everything by the book." He crossed his arms. "I got a couple guys in the city council office, a few scoping out the state senate. Apparently, most of the people endorsing him... they genuinely like him."

Peter scoffed. "Probably because he's paying them crazy amounts of money."

"No shit." Roel rolled his eyes. "But it's all 'donations' and lobbying. So it's not technically bribery. Skeevy, sure, but... not illegal."

Peter blew air out into his cheeks, thinking. "Well, that's not helpful. But... you have something else, don't you? You wouldn't have called me out here just to tell me that."

"No," Roel agreed. He took a big bite out of the muffin, chewing it slowly, thoughtfully. "There's three or four city councilors who are scared shitless of Fisk—but they're endorsing him anyway. In fact, my guys tell me those are the ones pushing the hardest. The scared ones, they really want him elected."

"Great!" Peter said. "So, blackmail, right? Threats? We can get Fisk on that. What's the deal?"

"Well, that's the thing," Roel said, dropping his voice lower. "As far as we can tell, Fisk isn't behind it at all."

Peter frowned. "So... you're saying there's a third player somewhere? Someone completely unconnected wants Fisk in office—bad enough to commit a felony?" 

"Exactly."

"Who would do that? Risk prison time to get someone else into office? That makes no sense."

Roel shook his head. "No, it does make sense. Listen. With the Kingpin as mayor of New York City, the criminal underworld will basically have free reign. Drug rings, human traffickers, embezzlers, you name it—they'll all be operating under his protection." He crumpled up the muffin wrapper and threw it to the ground. Peter bent down and picked it up.

"Don't litter, Roel. That's trashy."

"What?"

"Get it? Trashy?" 

He waited for a moment, arms outstretched, but Roel only stared at him in stony silence. Peter sighed. "Okay. Well, then, I guess that's the new objective—we've gotta figure out which mob boss is behind it. You're pretty well-acquainted with all the criminal rings around here... is there anyone you know who's really pro-Fisk right now?"

"Of course," Roel said. "The Kitchen Irish, the Yakuza... hell, I think we're the only ones who aren't kissing Kingpin's ass. But... everyone's still reorganizing after the blip. I don't think any group has that kind of power. Not anymore."

Peter thought for a minute. "Well... do you think Fisk knows about it? That there's someone trying to get him elected?"

"He's got to. It's pretty obvious. But I don't think he knows who it is."

"What makes you say that?"

Roel shrugged. "I got a guy infiltrating his security detail. From what he tells me, Fisk's surprised by all this. He didn't expect those particular senators to go to bat for him. He never planned for it."

That made sense, actually. If Fisk stepped one toe out of line, Matt would go after him—him and his wife. So of course Fisk was playing it clean. But the question remained, then... who was out there, powerful enough to blackmail and threaten high-ranking politicians? And who wanted Fisk's mayorship that badly?

Peter glanced at his watch. He couldn't stay any longer—if he was going to make it to court on time, he had to leave right now. Still, his thoughts and questions chased each other around, dizzying and hazy. He shook his head.

"Okay, here's the plan," he said. "Keep tailing the Kingpin. From everything Daredevil's told me, Fisk has some compulsive need to be in control—so he's probably tailing this third party even harder than we are. If he finds out who it is, then we'll find out—and we can head the whole thing off. Right?"

Roel shrugged, looking uneasy. "I guess so."

"So just keep doing what you're doing," Peter said, leaping up onto the wall and climbing toward the sky. He turned back around and gave Roel the finger guns. "Thanks, buddy. You're the best."

Roel grunted irritably, though his expression seemed a little softened. Peter grinned and climbed out of sight.

#####

As Karen led him up the courthouse steps, Matt clutched her arm tightly, trying to gain some sort of composure. The entire place was a madhouse—an ocean of screeching car horns, cop whistles, sweat and ink and screaming. Hundreds of reporters, photographers, and protesters were swarming the court, eager to be a part of the trial of the century. It reminded him, nauseatingly, of Frank Castle's trial. The memories of that particular time of his life, combined with images of Dex's massacres and the faint tingle of fury at the thought of defending him—all of it flooded his head, blocking out all other thoughts.

Karen must have seen the pained look on his face, because she rubbed his arm gently. "It's okay, we're almost inside."

Matt nodded, gritting his teeth.

He felt marginally better inside the walls of the courthouse. The chaos of the outside was muffled by the walls, sure. But more than that—this was a court. A place of law, a place of order. This was his territory. Karen led him across the lobby to where Foggy was standing. Matt angled his head, taking him in; his heart was steady, his suit was crisply pressed, and he stood with a certain self-assuredness. He was impressive. The best lawyer Dex could have asked for.

“You get a new scarf, Karen?” Foggy asked. “Looks good.” 

"Where's Peter?" Matt asked.

Foggy frowned. "He was gone by the time I left the apartment. I assumed he was already here."

Before Matt could respond, the courthouse doors flew open again and a sound of frantic footsteps echoed around the marble hall, accompanied by the faint scent of Spider-man's synthetic latex suit—hidden beneath layers of fabric. "I'm here! I'm on time, I promise—"

"Hi Peter," Matt said. He leaned in to give him a quick pat on the arm, and whispered, "Everything okay?"

Peter nodded. "Later," he breathed, quiet enough that only Matt would be able to hear.

Matt frowned, curious, and nodded back.

Foggy and Peter headed into the courtroom to start setting up. Matt turned to follow them, when a voice called out from the other side of the lobby. "Karen!"

Karen turned around, and Matt followed. It was a voice he vaguely recognized; someone he'd probably listened to from far away, but not someone he'd ever met before. He racked his brain, trying to remember—

"Morning, Ellison," Karen said. Ellison walked over to them and gave Karen a quick hug. Then he turned to Matt.

"You must be Matt Murdock," he said. Matt held out a hand and Ellison shook it. "Karen's told me so much about you."

"Likewise.” 

"What are you doing here?" Karen said. "You don't usually come out for stories like this—I thought you would've sent Jerry or something."

"Jerry's a schmuck," Ellison said. "I need my best reporter on this case. And unfortunately for me, my best reporter can't cover it because she's actively involved in the defense. So... if you want something done right, do it yourself." He shrugged, then turned back to Matt. "Great work on all that Fisk stuff, by the way. Karen told me all the details. Without you and Mr. Nelson, we never would've got that son-of-a-bitch behind bars."

Matt laughed bitterly. "Hell of a lot of good that did."

Ellison sighed. "Well. All this was bound to happen sooner or later. Some guys... they're not going to stop until someone stops them."

Karen turned to look at Matt, and he could hear her heart rate rising.

Ellison continued. "According to the latest poll, Fisk's practically a shoe-in. That Daredevil guy should've taken him out when he had the chance."

Matt's jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything. Karen, heart now racing, jumped in. 

"We took him down once with the law, we can do it again. Guys like that... they make mistakes. They have to, doing what they do."

"I guess you're right," Ellison said. "For now, we just have to do what Fisk does. Watch, wait... find a weakness and hit it hard. Eventually, someone's gonna turn up some dirt on him. Or, who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky." He laughed, a little harshly. "I hear Daredevil's back in operation these days. Maybe he'll kill Fisk and this'll all be over."

A ghostly Wilson Fisk materialized behind Matt. He said nothing, didn't even move—only smiled.

Matt's fingers twitched. "Well, it's great to meet you, Ellison," he said. "I'm gonna head in—"

Karen moved to take Matt's arm, when Ellison cleared his throat. "Just a second, Matt, if you wouldn't mind. Can I get a quick word?" He turned to look at Karen, staring at her for an extended beat; Karen froze, then bit her lip and walked over to the bench just outside the courtroom doors.

When she was out of earshot, Ellison moved closer to Matt and crossed his arms. "Karen Page means a lot to me."

"Uh, yeah," Matt said. "You mean a lot to her too. She talks about you all the time."

"She's practically family," he pushed on. "She's been through a lot, you know. Isn't close to very many people. But... she loves you."

"I know," Matt said softly.

"And you've hurt her," Ellison said, his voice taking on a steely tone. "I've seen what that does to her, when she's hurt. It isn't pretty. And I know it's not my place..."

Matt closed his eyes. 

"...but I don't want to see that happen anymore."

Matt took a deep breath. "Is there something you want from me, Mr. Ellison?"

Ellison tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling for a moment, before finally looking back into Matt's face. "I just want you to promise me... that you'll take care of her. Or if you can't do that, then cut her loose."

The ghost Fisk moved behind Ellison, sneering. Agreeing. Matt's knuckles whitened around his cane. 

"I understand," he said evenly. "If you'll excuse me."

Ellison nodded. "I just care about her. That's all."

Matt couldn't fault him for that. Couldn't fault him for any of it. He unfolded his cane and tapped across the lobby to where Karen was sitting—blushing, if the temperature of her face was any indication.

"Good luck today," Ellison called after him, sounding at once resolute and apologetic.

Karen took Matt's arm and whispered furiously. "I'm so sorry—he's just really protective—just ignore him—"

Matt was barely listening. He nodded, his jaw clenched. Ellison was right. Of course he was right. 

The ghostly Fisk followed them into the courtroom, gliding noiselessly across the tiled floor. He raised his hands behind Karen, poised over her throat. Matt swallowed hard.

He wallowed in his thoughts for a few minutes, hardly aware of the courtroom filling with spectators. Hardly aware as Karen and Foggy whispered at each other, shuffling papers, reaching into briefcases and scribbling notes. He noticed, vaguely, that Peter seemed a little quieter than usual. A little more thoughtful. But then again... so was Matt.

Enough. That was enough. Matt had an opening statement to run through. He felt around the table for the stack of papers, touching the braille along the top of each sheet until he finally found the packet marked "Opening." He absentmindedly ran his fingers through the pages; he'd memorized this two nights ago, had practiced it in his empty apartment all night yesterday. He didn't need to go over it again, not really... but it was better than thinking of that image-Fisk who was tilting his head above them all, smiling, hands scarlet with their blood…

The spectators began filing in, a few pool photographers and reporters lined along the back wall, Ellison among them; rows and rows of victims and families, all the courtroom regulars. The bailiff, the court reporter. And finally…

Two security officers frog-marched Benjamin Poindexter into the courtroom. He was shackled at the ankles and wrists, which clinked loudly with every step he took. He smelled stale, guttural, like the jail he'd just come from. He'd been living behind bars for two weeks, ever since the hospital had finally discharged him; fully healed.

He'd healed quickly, tirelessly—fueled, if his medical reports were to be believed, by the experimental adamantium fused into his spine.They set Dex in a chair and chained him down, right next to Karen. Matt shook his head, trying to clear his ruminating thoughts, and focused. He breathed deeply, angling his head toward Dex.

Dex's heart was quick, uneven. Well, that was to be expected. It was the first day of his trial; he was nervous, surely. Beyond that, though, he was practically unreadable. Matt could smell the metallic scent of the adamantium, could sense the tensity of his muscles, the slight clench in his jaw.

He was staring, wide-eyed, straight ahead. Silent.

"Mr. Poindexter," Foggy said, nodding at him. Dex didn't respond.

Matt shook his head, letting Foggy know to leave it be, and forced his mind back to his opening statement. He ran through the first few lines in his head, walked himself through the motions—

"All rise for the honorable Judge Miller."

A rustling of fabric and muscle as everyone in the courtroom stood up. The judge—a mild-mannered, no-nonsense man in his fifties—took his seat on the stand. Matt had worked with him before. He was a fair judge; tough, sure, but fair. He knew how to keep a solid handle on the courtroom. The trial could easily turn to a spectacle—but Miller could keep things orderly. Matt was sure of it.

"You may be seated," the bailiff said as the jury was ushered into the courtroom.

The judge began addressing the court, but Matt was not listening. He instead focused on each juror as they took their seat in the box. Their gaits, their postures, the temperature of their bodies. Most importantly, their heartbeats.

Steady. Steady. A little fast, but nothing beyond normal. Steady. Nervous, but normal. Steady. Steady.

As Judge Miller laid out the circumstances of the trial—the burden of proof, the precedent that was to be set, the sensational nature of the crimes—Matt breathed a sigh of relief. As far as he could tell, none of the jury had been tampered with.

He hadn't expected them to be. After all, the only person he knew with enough power to turn a jury was Wilson Fisk—and Fisk hated Dex. More, even, than Matt did. There was no reason for him to taint this trial. Still, though... checking the jury had become a reflex for Matt. He'd been through enough trials were jurors were threatened. He knew how to recognize the signs.

As the judge finished speaking, the bailiff stepped forward. "We'll now proceed with the case of the United States versus Benjamin Poindexter."

"Is the prosecution ready?"

"Yes, your honor."

"Very well, proceed."

The prosecutor stepped up, moving toward the jury box. Matt had worked against her before. She was a decent woman; principled, intelligent, sharp. Unafraid. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are here today to make a decision. A decision that, despite what the defense would have you believe, is really quite simple. Is Mr. Poindexter culpable for his actions, or isn't he?" She walked purposefully along, nodded politely at each juror.

Matt moved his focus from the jury to the spectators. In the very back, Ellison was scribbling furiously in a legal pad, along with two or three other reporters who'd been allowed in. But the rest of them... truthfully, Matt had never seen a courtroom so still. Frozen, almost. There was something lifeless about it, something eerie. Shallow breathing, tense postures. All was silent but for the sharp voice of the prosecutor and the clicking of the court reporter's keyboard.

And, of course, about a thousand other noises—but noises only Matt could hear.

"This is a case about a man, driven by greed and ambition, to commit murder. A man who sought to divide and hunt the citizens of New York. Simply put, this is a case of domestic terrorism."

He shifted his focus to the defense table. Peter was stiff, captivated. This was his first criminal trial, after all; it was a lot to take in. Then, along the table, Foggy. Calm, collected, professional. The perfect lawyer to run the witness questioning throughout the case.

Then Dex. Dex was still staring straight ahead, unmoving. His heart had calmed quite a bit, down to a low, steady thud. He didn't seem to register, or care, that he was at the center of everything today. The security officer stationed at his side stood behind him, menacing, a pistol strapped to his holster.

"The defense," the prosecutor continued, "would have you believe that Mr. Poindexter should not be held accountable. They will argue that he was suffering under the strain of mental illness and instability. But that, members of the jury, is simply not true. We will prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this man—" she pointed at Dex— "knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he was committing great evil, and he took pleasure in it."

Dex shifted a little, pulled just slightly against his restraints, and the officer bent over and began fiddling with the handcuffs—ensuring their security, presumably. Perhaps trying to make them tighter, make Dex as uncomfortable as he could.

Matt could hardly blame him. He thought of Father Lantom, and his breathing hitched. He clenched his cane tightly, closed his eyes—

Next to him, probably sensing his agitation, Karen tapped his hand. She carefully removed it from his cane and rested it on the table in front of them, placing her hand lightly on top. "Matt," she said quietly. "It's okay." She rubbed her thumb along his scarred knuckles. He shivered at the sensation. A soft surprise, like the tingling touch of snowfall against his skin. He let everything else fall away. The voice of the prosecutor, the dozens of heartbeats, the smells and the temperatures and the tastes dissolved in the reassuring touch of Karen's fingers.

"I am confident that you will render the correct verdict in this case. I am confident, ladies and gentlemen, that you will find Benjamin Poindexter guilty of every crime with which he is charged."

The prosecutor sat down and the judge cleared his throat. "Defense, if you would be so kind."

Matt nodded. He unfolded his cane and slowly made his way across to the jury box, touching the tables and podiums along the way until he was standing, feet solidly planted, facing the twelve jurors. Resolute. Calm.

He stood in silence for almost a full minute, gathering his focus. He placed it strategically; much of it on the jury box in front of him. A hint of it with Karen, Peter, and Foggy. A fraction with Poindexter. And the rest of it on himself, and the statement he had so carefully prepared.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," he finally said, arranging his face into a neutral half-smile. "You've heard, from my esteemed colleague, the charges that my client is facing. You've no doubt read the newspapers—sensationalist stories, meant to titillate, to confuse, to frighten. And it should," he said earnestly. "It should frighten you. Six years ago, this city was ravaged by a campaign of absolute evil. Of that, there is no question."

He paused a moment or so, letting his words settle like a dusting of snow.

"Of that, there is no question ," he repeated softly. "And yet, throughout this trial you'll come to understand that there is a different question to be asked. Yes, a different question will be put before you. A question of culpability."

Behind him, Foggy was nodding slightly. Peter was taking scribbled notes. Matt took another pause, then continued. 

"It's an uncomfortable question," he said. "It's a difficult question. But it is perhaps the most important question any of you will ever answer. Is Benjamin Poindexter wholly and truly culpable? And are you, members of the jury, willing to stake his life on it?"

There was a tension, an uneasiness in every one of them. He knew what they were thinking—he didn't need to listen to their heartbeats for that. These were New York jurors, men and women who had lived through all the chaos and terror, glued to their television screens as Poindexter went on a killing spree throughout the city.

"Thirty people are dead," Matt said. "Perhaps more. And there is no downplaying that. There is no excusing it. Thirty lives cut short by my client, Benjamin Poindexter; that is a matter of record. My client has never denied this, never hidden from it. In fact, he should be held accountable, to the degree of his culpability."

He raised his eyebrows and angled his head out over the jury. "But this man does not need execution. No—the evidence will show that Benjamin Poindexter is a deeply troubled, deeply disturbed, unstable man. A man who was not in control of his actions."

For a brief moment, Matt honed in on Dex, half-expecting some sort of reaction. But, no; Dex was perfectly still, head straight ahead, heartbeat as steady and monotonous as the dripping of a faucet.

"Over the next few weeks, you will be shown the cold truth of Mr. Poindexter's life. A life of tragedy." He paused. "A life of neglect and abuse." Another pause. "A life of crippling instability, uncontrollable compulsions, and paranoia."

He paused again, and the silence was like the banging of a gavel, striking against the echoing sound of his words still hovering in the air.

There was something skin-crawling, sickening, about all of this. Matt tamped down his nausea. There was a reason Matt tried to limit his defense to the categorically innocent. Every bone in his body—and, even deeper, the burning devil of rage that lived inside him—screamed at the thought of defending Benjamin Poindexter. The evil, the guilty, the culpable. 

Dex could rot in prison for all he cared. But if he died, then…

Matt stood a little straighter. "The prosecution would have you believe that my client was acting entirely of his own accord. That, although he was acting on orders, Mr. Poindexter was ultimately in control of his actions. They would be all too happy to let him die. To let him take the blame for what happened six years ago. Because if the truth comes out, then the world will see. The world will see the absolute, systematic failures—the absolute evil— that was perpetrated by members of the federal government.

"Because, ladies and gentlemen," Matt said, and he took a pause to adjust the glasses on his nose. "Mr. Poindexter is being used as a scapegoat."

There was a little bit of a murmuring, a shuffling, as the people of the courtroom turned to look at each other. 

"Yes, my client committed acts of killing and terrorism," he said. "But he was not acting of his own volition. In the months—the years—before the murders, my client was seeking treatment. He was living on his own, holding down a steady job, building up a small but strong support system. He was working to overcome the challenges that faced him. That is, until he fell into the powerful, manipulating hands of someone else."

The words 'someone else' seemed to ring like a low bell around the room, leaving a dull vibration in the air after the sound had ceased.

Matt turned around now, facing the rest of the room. "You see, if my client is executed, the world will forget that 'someone else.' The federal government wants to hide behind Mr. Poindexter, to cover up their own complicity in his manipulation and descent into madness. Yes, madness."

He was vaguely aware of an urgent whisper, somewhere in the vicinity of the defense table…

But he was too far into it now. He couldn't lose focus. He pushed all of his energy into his lawyer voice, injecting his words with sharp intention, passion. A quiet fury.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, throughout the course of this trial, you will see that this 'someone else' used my client as a puppet."

Puppet rang like another bell.

"Mr. Poindexter, for all his flaws, built careful pillars of stability in his life. Pillars that kept his madness at bay. And this 'someone else' systematically targeted each of these pillars—toppling everything that kept him stable, until my client was nothing more than a tool. An instrument of chaos and destruction.

"He cut my client off from his career, the only source of income and routine in his life."

Matt made a swinging gesture with his hand, as though toppling a tower of blocks.

"He carefully undermined Mr. Poindexter's sense of right and wrong, attacking painful memories and repressed instability to stoke the latent spark of my client's insanity."

Another swing. Another toppled block tower.

"And most despicably of all," Matt said slowly, "this 'someone else' targeted Mr. Poindexter's only friend; his 'North Star,' his moral compass, his confidante and de facto therapist. This 'someone else' tracked down, abducted, and murdered Ms. Julie Barnes."

Another swing and another topple.

And suddenly—a loud thud. A rattle of chains. Matt turned slightly toward the sound, angling his head. The noise had come from Dex.

"This 'someone else' is the one who is truly culpable," Matt said, a little unsteadily. He  focused in on the defense table.

Dex's heart was pounding . 

"This 'someone else'—this monster—"

Dex was sweating now, twitching. He began breathing heavily, chest heaving. Softly, under his breath, he whispered. "...Julie?"

Matt tried in vain to tear his focus away from Dex. "The real culprit here..."

"Someone... someone... killed Julie." Dex was so quiet that Matt doubted even the security officer standing next to him could hear.

Matt, a sense of danger rising in his stomach like acid, moved his focus over to his friends. Foggy didn't seem to have noticed anything. Neither had Karen. But Peter—Peter was tense, frozen. His hands were inching across the desk, closer to where Poindexter was sitting... as though, without realizing it, he was preparing to spring into action.

He furrowed his brow, focusing harder on Peter. There was a sharp smell of adrenaline, a strange tense stillness…

Matt sensed a strange shiver—the hair on Peter's arms beginning to rise.

The judge cleared his throat. "Mr. Murdock?"

"Right—yes—that, that 'someone else'..."

"Julie was murdered," Dex said aloud, and a surprised murmur rippled through the courtroom. He was shaking so hard that his chains were audibly clinking.

The security guard moved to put a hand on his shoulder, to calm him perhaps—

And Dex snapped.

With a wordless roar, he sprang to his feet, the chains around his ankles falling to the floor. He wrenched his hands outward, screaming, and the handcuffs snapped apart. 

But—that was impossible. Even with his adamantium spine, Dex shouldn't have been that powerful. He shouldn't have been able to break through—

Two things happened at once.

Peter jumped up and launched himself at Foggy and Karen, pushing them both out of the way.

Benjamin Poindexter snatched a ballpoint pen from the table and buried it in the throat of the security officer next to him.

Absolute pandemonium erupted. Dozens of shrieks filled Matt's ears, and the sharp smell of adrenaline and blood seemed to spike the very air as jurors, lawyers, and spectators alike began scrambling, pushing over each other. The security officer gurgled, blood pouring from his mouth, and fell to the ground. Matt was frozen in place. Muscles tensed, cane gripped tightly, ready to spring—but how could he? He was Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer. Daredevil couldn't come out, not with everyone watching. He needed a distraction—

The bailiff raised his pistol at Dex's head.

Snarling, Dex picked up a chair and hurled it across the room, where it broke with a sickening crack across the man's skull. The bailiff dropped to the floor.

"Julie's dead!" Dex screamed, picking up the defense table and hurling it out of his way. "She's dead!"

"Everyone, please—remain calm—evacuate the courtroom—" the judge yelled. Dex whirled on him, snatching a handful of sharp pencils scattered on the floor. With a brutality and a force that was almost inhuman, he threw them. They whistled as they knifed through the air.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. They imbedded themselves into the judge's skin; his throat, his eyes, his torso. He fell forward, head slamming onto his podium.

"I'm gonna get everyone out," someone whispered. Matt angled his head. It was Peter. "Go suit up."

Peter stood, dragging Karen to her feet, stepping over Foggy and pushing him up. "Let's go. Out the back door—run—" 

Spectators began a mass rush for the door, pushing and slamming into each other. Panicked, sobbing, jurors began to scramble out of the box. Dex hesitated. He whirled, chest heaving, lost in the mayhem he'd caused.

"You," he said suddenly, taking a step toward Matt. "You... you said 'someone else' killed Julie."

At the back door, Ellison and Karen were guiding the evacuation. Foggy was moving along the prosecution side, crouched down, guiding the other lawyers away.

Someone grabbed Matt's arm—the lead prosecutor. "This way, Murdock! Let me help you—"

With a shout of rage, Dex grabbed her arm and twisted it; there was a loud snap of bone and sinew. She screamed, and Dex wordlessly lifted her and threw her into a column. With a sickening crack, her head hit the marble. She crumpled to the ground, unmoving. 

Matt's blood thundered, rageful, in his ears. He swung at Dex and connected hard against his temple. Dex reeled backward.

There was a gasp from a few onlookers—those few who could see what was going on in the midst of the chaos. Panicked, Matt took a wild few swings in the empty air, trying desperately to keep up his facade.

Dex snarled and moved forward. He punched Matt square in the face—Matt's glasses snapped, and he stumbled backward.

It was brutal, painful... but clearly calculated. It wasn't hard enough to do any real damage. Nothing like what Dex was really capable of. Dex was pulling his punches... at least with Matt.

Because Matt had information.

He clutched the podium near him, pulling himself along, backing as far away from the door as he could. If he distracted Dex long enough, moved him away from the throng, Peter could get everyone out.

"You don't have to do this, Dex," Matt said.

"I remember Julie," Dex said. "Who killed her?"

Matt took a second to catch his breath. The courtroom was practically empty; Peter slipped among the last surge to exit, followed quickly by Foggy and Karen. Karen turned back one last time to look at Matt. "I love you," she whispered, trembling, before ducking out of the courtroom.

Dex grabbed Matt, shaking him so hard his glasses slipped down his face. "Who killed Julie?"

"You don't remember?" Matt said.

This gave Dex some pause. He clenched his fists and opened them again, shaking heavily. "It's... I can't... it's hazy—broken—but Julie..." He seemed to be steeling himself up. "I remember Julie. And you—you know what happened!" He picked up an overturned chair next to him and smashed it into the wall, inches away from Matt's head. "Tell me who killed Julie!"

Matt opened his mouth to say something, when the courtroom doors burst open.

"Hey, over here!" Peter screamed.

Dex whirled around, and in his distraction, Matt ran. He ducked behind the rail, into the scattered disarray of the empty spectator section.

Crash. Crash. Crash . Laptops, chairs, shattered pieces of various courtroom ephemera flew over Matt's head, against the walls, haphazardly thrown as Peter ducked and launched and swung out of the way.

Matt crouched behind an overturned table, and Peter dropped down next to him as Dex advanced heavily, shoving tables and broken chairs out of his way. 

"I told you to suit up!" Peter hissed.

"I can't—I don't have my mask—"

The crashing sounds stopped, and Matt focused in on Dex's movements. He was crouching down—picking something up—something the bailiff had dropped—

"He's got a gun," Matt whispered.

Panicked, Peter whirled to look at Dex, then back to Matt. "Okay—it's okay—I'll hold him off, you go find something to cover your face."

There was no time to argue. Matt rolled underneath a table, dodging some sort of projectile next to his head, and left Peter to fight Dex for a moment. He was nauseated—laden with guilt—how could he leave this kid to fight alone, even for a minute?

He could hear Peter jumping onto the wall, the whip of his web as he swung himself in nimble circles around Dex, spry and swift even amidst the confusion—

Peter would be okay. At least for a moment.

Matt pushed himself through the courtroom doors. Muffled screams and sobs and heartbeats moved frantically along the steps outside; but the lobby itself was empty, save for Karen and Foggy.

He threw himself at them, clutching their shoulders, desperately relieved to find them unscathed.

"Go—go—call the police. Ambulance. I'm not sure who all's dead at this point—"

"Already done," Foggy said. "We lost track of Peter—is he still in there? Can you hear anything?"

Matt shook his head. "No—I—I heard him leave in the big rush. I think he's okay."

Foggy let out a sigh of relief. Karen removed Matt's broken glasses, shaking slightly, but otherwise steady. "What do you need from us?"

"Your scarf—hurry."

Karen, understanding, yanked her scarf off her neck. Matt tied it around his eyes as tightly as he could; he was enveloped suddenly in her scent, the soft floral notes of her perfume intermingled with the comforting smell of her.

"Go. Please." Matt shrugged off his jacket and tie, giving them to her. "Be safe—I can't—I can't fight him if you're not—"

Karen grabbed his face in both her hands and kissed him. 

Hungry. Passionate. Frightened.

Foggy pulled her away. "Come home to us, Murdock," he said, as they both ran out the front door.

Stronger, steadier, Matt turned around. He flung open the door to the courtroom.

Peter was swinging himself haphazardly around the space, the courtroom a tangled mass of web fluid. "Calm down, buddy," he was saying, swooping overhead. "We can work it out, come on—"

"Where's the lawyer?" Dex was screaming. He pointed the gun at Peter. Matt heard the clicking of the hammer pulling back, the sharp cocking of the pistol—

"Hey!" Matt yelled, and both Peter and Dex whirled around to face him.

Peter laughed, sounding relieved. “Nice scarf!"

Matt stepped fully into the courtroom, fists clenched and raised. "Put the gun down, Dex."

"I fought a masked man before," Dex said, his voice wavering. Uncertain. "The Devil of Hell's Kitchen... you?"

"Me."

Dex began to breathe frantically, his chest heaving up and down like he'd just run ten miles. "I—I don't remember—but you were there, and Julie—Julie—she's dead..."

"No one else has to die," Matt said, inching forward. 

"She's dead... and I fought you... I hated you..." He shook his head, his heart pounding. "You killed her, didn't you?"

"I don't kill anyone." Matt took a breath, sharpening his focus. "And neither should you. Julie wouldn't like it, Dex."

Dex screamed, more animal than human, and raised the gun once more.

"No!" Peter yelled, dropping down from the ceiling.

Crack .

A bullet ripped through Peter's arm as he fell in front of Matt. He screamed, dropping to his knees, and Dex cursed. He cocked the gun again—

Before he could shoot, Matt hurled himself over the broken benches and chairs. He launched himself, feet first, and made contact with Dex's chest.

The gun clattered far out of Dex's reach as he was bent backward, much farther than was humanly possible. Like his spine was a letter C, curving grotesquely. He straightened himself easily, popping his neck from side to side, sneering. 

Peter groaned from back in the spectator section, gingerly pulling himself to his feet.

Enraged, Matt began to pummel Poindexter. This he could do. At long range, he was no match for Dex. Not with all his throwing and weaponry. But here, in these close quarters, fist to skin and knuckle to bone… he landed a punch so hard that Dex was flung backward onto the floor.

He closed his circle of focus tighter, narrowing in even further on the task in front of him. Dex, prone on the ground. An adamantium spine. A strange strength, a tirelessness. A heightened power and a danger. Matt took a deep breath. He remembered what Stick had taught him.

Connection. Mind. Body.

The mind controls the body. The body controls the enemy.

Focus. Focus, Matty. 

He breathed deeply and flung his fists wildly, lost somewhere between control and chaos. He put his boxing training into practice, imagining himself in the ring.

He pictured his father, his face bloody and beaten. His father, who lost almost every time. His father, who went down—but always came back up again.

He was on top of Dex now, knees pressed into his chest, relishing in the musical thud of each individual blow. The skin of his knuckles split and he grinned at the sensation. This—this power, this rage, this action —this was living.

Yes... said the voice of Wilson Fisk inside his head. Let the Devil out…

Matt faltered, bloody fist frozen in the air—and in that moment of hesitation, Dex scrambled out from underneath. As he moved away, frantic, Dex shifted something on the floor, something that made a metallic scraping noise against the marble.

The handcuffs.

Dex slowly got to his feet, touching his fingers to his bleeding face, as Matt reached for the broken cuffs on the floor. 

"How did you break out of these?" He growled.

"You... you killed Julie," Dex said—although he sounded uncertain. Matt picked up the cuffs and ran his fingers over the metal.

They weren't broken.

"Someone... unlocked you?" Matt said, standing. "Who... who...?"

The security guard, he realized suddenly—the one Dex had killed in a blind rage. Matt remembered now. The guard, so close by, fiddling with Dex's cuffs... and Matt, distracted with the case, had assumed he was tightening them…

He thought back harder.

During his opening statement, he'd heard whispering somewhere near Dex. He'd paid no mind at the time. But now…

"The guard," Matt said. "What did he say to you? Why—why did he unlock you?"

Dex's head jerked up, as though he, too, was only just now remembering this. As though he'd been sleepwalking all this time, and was slowly coming out of the stupor of blind rage.

"What did he say to you?" Matt repeated. 

But Dex wasn't listening. He turned away from Matt, breathing heavily, and picked up the gun.

Matt lurched forward, desperate to stop him—

But Dex didn't aim for him. Or for Peter, who was standing, hesitant, in the spectator section. No—Dex shot at the courthouse window.

With a deafening blast, the towering glass panes shattered into thousands of pieces. Matt covered his head with his arms as the glass rained down, a few stray pieces slicing through his shirt, his skin. Unfazed by the glass, Dex leapt from the courthouse window and into the brightly lit New York air.

Frozen, immobilized in his confusion, Matt's mind raced. Whatever that guard had said... it was something important. Something to distract him, even for just a moment, from his murderous rage.

There was a stumbling sound. Peter was moving toward Matt, dazed, reeking of sharp blood and gunpowder.

"Peter," Matt said, rushing forward. "Your arm..."

"It's fine," Peter said. "But Dex—where'd he go? What happened?"

"I don't know. But someone let him loose. Peter, when I was giving the statement, the security officer said something to Dex. I was stupid, distracted… did you hear it?"

Peter shook his head. "I was too busy taking notes. Trying to be a good intern, you know..." he laughed weakly, then winced in pain.

Matt took a deep breath, thinking. "Peter, you need to go to the hospital. Your wound doesn't seem too bad," he said, focusing for a minute on the bullet in his arm and the relatively light degree of bleeding, "but you still need treatment. Make sure Foggy and Karen know you're there, they're out of their minds with worry. Do you need help? Or can you—"

"I can get to the hospital by myself," Peter said, and Matt could almost hear the eye roll. "But—someone has to follow Dex—"

"And that's gonna be me," Matt said. He tightened Karen's scarf. "I've fought him before, you haven't. Go, Peter. Hospital. Now."

And before Peter could argue, Matt was leaping over the jury box, past the shards of the window, into the bright heat of the sunshine. 

He landed hard on the pavement, cutting up his knees on the broken glass that was strewn over the pavement. Hissing at the pain, but brushing it aside, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The smell of adamantium was faint, but unique. Distinct. Just enough for him to follow.

He darted through the crowd of paramedics and police, past the police beginning to swarm the building. He ran through a mass of news crews and onlookers, pushing past the sounds of sobbing and screaming and chatter that threatened to overwhelm him. With each step, he breathed more deeply, centering his focus, following the smell of adamantium as far as it would take him.

Chapter Text

Foggy stumbled up the empty stairwell of Matt's apartment building, his mind still swirling with the chaos and screaming of the courthouse. They were stupid, stupid, to believe that Dex was under control. That he was safe. That psycho was the human equivalent of a land-mine—and he and Matt, they'd stepped right onto it.

Matt was lucky—he was damned lucky—that Spider-man had been there to help. Foggy had seen him, swinging his way out of the courthouse after Matt and Dex. It was probably only due to Spider-man's help that Matt had made it out of the courthouse alive.

He just hoped Matt had the same luck after following Dex onto the streets.

He fumbled at his key ring until he found the key to Matt's apartment. Hands shaking, he tried—and failed several times—to fit the key into the lock. Finally, it slipped in, and Foggy practically fell over himself as he burst into the space.

"Matt! Buddy, come on... Matt! Matt?"

Silence. Everything in here was orderly, neat to a fault. The apartment looked completely undisturbed; Matt clearly hadn't yet returned.

Foggy paced, frantically running through useless options in his mind. Calling the police was out of the question. And Foggy had no way to contact any of Matt's... 'super friends.' If Jessica Jones and Luke Cage even counted as friends. No, all Foggy could do was wait, and hope, for Matt to come back on his own.

"Please... please be okay..."

Thud. 

Foggy jumped. The noise had come from the rooftop, just above Matt's apartment. A crashing noise. A falling noise. He rushed up the stairs, onto Matt's loft, his heart racing so fast he was sure Matt could hear it—assuming that was Matt who had just fallen on the roof. He pushed open the rooftop access door and was immediately blinded by the bright sunshine. He staggered for a moment, blinking, wildly looking around the wide-open space.

A loud groan came from somewhere near a huge utility box. Foggy turned toward the sound, squinting.

Apair of shiny black dress shoes protruded from behind the box, twitching slightly. 

"Oh no, no no no—Matt!" Foggy breathed, rushing over.

Sure enough, the rest of Matthew Murdock lay crumpled, barely conscious, behind the utility box. His white dress shirt was covered in blooming roses of blood, partially torn open to reveal Matt's heavily scarred chest. Karen's scarf was still tied around his face, though it was somewhat askew, and saturated with scarlet. His nose, too, was bleeding. He was gasping for breath. Worst of all—a piece of steel rebar was imbedded in Matt's torso, just below his shoulder.

Narrowly missing his heart.

Foggy dropped to his knees and pushed the scarf off Matt's forehead. His eyes were open, moving wildly back and forth. 

"Fo—Fog—Foggy—"

"Shit, Matt, shit!" Foggy tried to lift Matt to his feet, but like a rag doll, Matt slumped back to the ground. "What do I do? What can you—can you move?"

Matt closed his eyes, still gasping. "Just—give me—give me—a minute—"

Foggy was already pulling out his phone. "Who should I call? Your mo—Sister Maggie? Or maybe that nurse friend, Claire?"

Matt jerkily shook his head. "No—I'm okay—I—I—just give me a minute—"

Foggy glanced nervously around him, putting his phone back in his pocket. "Well, we have to get you inside. Someone's gonna see you out here and call the cops."

A few shaky breaths, his fists clenched like he was steeling himself. Matt nodded. "Okay—okay—just—help—"

Foggy grabbed Matt under the armpits, pulling him to his feet, and Matt slumped against him. Practically dead weight. Gingerly avoiding the piece of rebar protruding grotesquely from Matt's torso, Foggy half-carried, half-dragged him into his apartment. Down the loft stairs. Across the floor. And finally—onto the couch, where Matt closed his eyes and fell silent. Unconscious.

Foggy, panicked, felt for a pulse. It was faint, but steady. Even. Matt had fainted, but... he'd be okay.

Probably.

Damn it. Foggy was getting really sick and tired of finding his best friend bleeding and half-dead.

As Matt lay prone on the couch, Foggy rummaged through Matt's drawers and cupboards, gathering up all of his first-aid supplies. He cursed loudly, not caring if it woke Matt up, hoping that it would. He laid out the sutures, the gauze and the alcohol, the tape and antiseptic and who-knows-what-else. Everything lay in a haphazard pile on Matt's coffee table.

He knew better than to try stitching Matt up. He had no training; and besides, he was a little squeamish when it came to that kind of thing. It would be okay, Foggy reasoned—Matt was more than capable of performing first-aid on himself.

If he ever woke up.

After twelve minutes or so, Foggy was on the brink of calling an ambulance—he'd read somewhere that it was dangerous for people to be passed out for longer than ten minutes—but, to his immense relief, Matt began to stir. He moaned, shifting uncomfortably as he came to.

"Foggy... what..."

Foggy could literally feel his blood pressure lowering as Matt slowly sat up. "I'm glad you're alive, Murdock, because if you died—I would have killed you."

"That... that makes... no sense."

Foggy sank into a chair. "First aid kit's right in front of you. Do you—do you need help?"

"Just... hand me that gauze," he said, panting. To Foggy's absolute horror, Matt grasped the rebar and began slowly pulling it out of his chest.

"Ah! Matt—you can't do that—you're not supposed to remove things if you've been stabbed, pretty sure I saw that on Gray's Anatomy—" he broke off, squeezing his eyes shut, trying not to vomit at the fleshy sound the rebar made as it moved through the layers of muscle and fat.

"I know what I'm doing," Matt said, wincing. "Gauze?"

Foggy tossed the gauze to Matt as the rebar finally broke away from his skin. Immediately, blood began pouring from the wound, streaming down Matt's chest like a waterfall. The rebar hit the floor with a loud clang as Matt pressed the gauze tightly to his wound.

It quickly darkened to red.

"Shouldn't you... I don't know, clean it out?"

"Got to... gotta stop the bleeding first." Matt pushed the gauze harder against his chest, wincing. "More, please. And a bandage."

Foggy obliged, tamping down the anger that was rising in him. Matt was stupid. He was so stupid. He was gonna get himself killed, and Foggy would have a lot to answer for. And no answers to give.

"We shouldn't have taken on Dex. We never should've agreed to it—"

"It was the right thing to do," Matt said, grunting as he added a second layer of gauze. He pressed the base of his palm harder against the hole in his chest. "Could you grab a bowl... and the jug of water under the sink?" His voice was steadier, and some of the color was beginning to return to his face.

Foggy let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and grabbed the jug of distilled water. "Right thing to do? Matt, he killed two people."

"Three," Matt said. "I heard... heard their heart beats stop..." he hissed in pain as he shifted positions, pressing so hard against the wound that his entire body was shaking.

Foggy fell back into his chair, dropping his head into his hands. "I can't believe Dex tried to kill you. Again." 

Matt shook his head, carefully pulling away the gauze to see if it was still bleeding. Evidently it was, because he immediately applied more pressure. "He wasn't trying to kill me."

Foggy pointed to the bloody rebar, his eyebrows raised.

"Poindexter doesn't miss," Matt said. "He could have killed me, but he missed my heart. He missed it on purpose, Fog. He was trying to stop me, but... he didn't want me dead."

"Why would he do that?"

Matt sighed, rummaging with his free hand for a clean piece of gauze. "His memory's still fractured, but he recognized Daredevil. I think he wants to get information out of me at some point; wants me to fill in some of his gaps... but today his priority was somewhere else. I don't know. I think it has something to do with whatever that guard said to him. At the trial."

"What are you talking about?"

Matt shifted his gaze to the ceiling, wincing. "Foggy, that security guard unlocked Dex's handcuffs. He whispered something to him, too, but I didn't catch it; I was too focused on the opening statement. But whatever he said, it had an effect. Dex is out looking for something. Or someone." He sighed. "The main concern, though, is what he's going to do now that he's free. Whatever he's looking for, he's going to go on a rampage to get it."

"Because he remembers Julie," Foggy said. "Did you tell him Fisk was the one who killed her?"

Matt hissed as he switched out a soaked-through piece of gauze for a clean one. "I was a little busy."

"Fair point," Foggy said, as a trickle of blood oozed its way from Matt's nose down onto his chest.

They sat in silence for a while. Foggy watched Matt carefully, hand on his phone in case he had to call the hospital after all. If Matt noticed this—and of course he did, he noticed everything—he didn't say anything about it. Eventually, though, the danger seemed to pass; the bleeding slowed to a manageable ooze, and Foggy helped him flush the wound with water and antiseptic. Matt stitched it shut, ignoring Foggy's wincing with each pass of the needle.

On the floor across the room, where it had fallen from his pocket, Matt's phone began to ring. The tin voice of the caller I.D. echoed across the apartment: "Karen. Karen. Karen. Karen." 

Foggy picked it up. "Hey Karen."

"Foggy? What's going on? Are you with Matt? Please tell me he's okay—"

"Slow down, take a breath," Foggy said. "I'm with him right now. He's... I mean, he's been better."

"I've also been worse," Matt muttered. Foggy rolled his eyes. 

"Is that Matt? Foggy—should I come over? I'm coming over."

Foggy opened his mouth to respond, but Matt shook his head; confused, Foggy covered the mouthpiece. "What? Why don't you want—"

Matt gestured vaguely to his bloody body. "I don't want her to worry."

"A little late for that, buddy."

Matt just squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head again. Foggy sighed and returned the phone to his ear. "We're okay over here, Karen. What about you? Have you seen Peter?"

"No—I'm worried sick—he's not at the hospital, or at the office—"

Matt turned his head toward Foggy. "Tell her Peter's safe. I took care of it."

"What does that even mean?" Foggy said, irritated, holding the phone out to him. "How about you talk to her?"

Matt didn't answer, instead threading another needle and moving onto another—more minor—wound. Foggy sighed again. "Matt says Peter's safe. Everyone's accounted for. We're okay here; you should head to the Bulletin. I'm sure Ellison's out of his mind right now, he's gonna want you to cover this story."

Karen was quiet for a minute, and Foggy knew her well enough to know she was trying to come up with an argument. Finally though, she sighed. "Okay. Okay. Tell Matt—tell him I—"

"He knows," Foggy said, glaring pointedly at Matt. As though he could see it. "Talk later."

They hung up at the same time.

Foggy turned back to Matt, intending to ask another question about Poindexter—but Matt was standing, his bloodstained shirt crumpled on the floor, already rifling through the huge chest he kept in his closet. The chest where he kept his Daredevil outfit.

"Whoah whoah whoah, where do you think you're going?"

Matt pulled a tight black shirt over his heavily bandaged chest. He's still out there, Foggy. I can't let him get away."

"You're not going out right now!"

"You saw what happened the last time he was on the loose," Matt said, putting on his heavy army boots.

"Yeah, you almost died! Like, several times! You can't go after him. I mean—" Foggy sputtered, running his hands through his hair. "Look at you! You're—you're still bleeding. You got stabbed! Real bad, Matt! And I'm pretty sure you're in shock."

Matt began wrapping muay Thai ropes around his wrists—ropes that were stained brownish red with old blood. Perhaps Fisk's. Perhaps Matt's. "I take beatings, Foggy. It's what I do."

"Well, you've already done your quota for the day. Sit down!"

Matt turned to face Foggy, his face deadly calm. "I'm the only one who can go after him. You know that."

"No I don't know that!" Foggy threw his hands up in the air. "You have other people that can go after him. What about—what about Spider-man? I saw him leave the courthouse today, he could hold his own against Dex."

"No," Matt said sharply. He crossed back to the coffee table and grabbed a couple of alcohol wipes, carefully cleaning the crusted blood from his face. "No, Foggy. I'm not gonna let that happen."

Foggy crossed his arms. "Why are you trying to protect Spider-man of all people? He can take care of himself."

"I'm not trying to protect him. I'm just—" he broke off suddenly, angling his head toward the ceiling.

"Matt, I don't think you have to—"

"Shut up for a minute," Matt said. "Someone's talking to me."

"I—what?"

"Shh!" Matt hissed. He was silent for a few moments, listening hard. Then, closing his eyes and breathing deeply—clearly annoyed—he turned to Foggy. "That's Spider-man outside."

"No freaking way. What's he saying?"

"He wants to come in, he's just making sure it's safe." Matt turned his head upward. "My, uh—my lawyer's in here," he shouted. "But you can come in."

Then he sat back down on the couch, looking a little defeated.

Foggy raised his eyebrows. He rushed to the chest in the closet and pulled out Matt's black cloth mask, neatly folded at the bottom. "What are you doing, Matt?" He threw him the mask. 

"Oh. Right." Matt muttered, gingerly pulling it down over his face.

Foggy narrowed his eyes. Matt was always so cautious, treating his identity as carefully as if he were handling a delicate glass figurine. He never forgot to mask up. Never.

There was a knock at the window. Foggy whirled around; clinging to the glass, waving brightly, was a vivid red-and-blue-suited figure. "I can't believe it," Foggy whispered. "I'm about to meet Spider-man."

He slid the window open and Spider-man slipped easily inside.

"Hey, thanks!" His voice was deeper than Foggy expected; almost like he was purposefully lowering his tone. "You must be... Foggy, right? DD mentioned you.

"Don't call me that," Matt muttered, and Foggy could practically hear his eyes rolling behind his mask.

Foggy held out his hand. "I'm a big fan. You're, like, the coolest Avenger. By far."

Spider-man rubbed the back of his neck, looking a little embarrassed. "Uh, thanks, man." He looked like he wanted to say something else; he hesitated, but finally turned toward Matt. "So... Daredevil...what happened after you left the courtroom? I mean—obviously it didn't go that well." He gestured at the first-aid equipment scattered around the room. 

Matt shook his head. "He got away. I caught up with him outside a construction site just south of the Brooklyn Bridge; we fought for a while, but he got me—threw this into my chest."

He kicked the bloody piece of rebar. It rolled across the floor, clanking as it left a little blood-spatter trail behind it.

"That—he—he stabbed you with that?"

Foggy shook his head. "Threw it like a javelin. It's kinda what he does."

"Anyway," Matt said, "Dex got away. And I've just been informed by my friend here that I'm out of commission for a few days. So who knows how far he'll get. Or what he'll do in the meantime."

Spider-man stood up a little straighter. "Well... why don't I just go after him?"

"Are you kidding? He shot you in the courthouse."

"Meh, not the first time I've been shot. Probably won't be the last, either. Besides, it only takes me twelve hours to heal from a bullet wound. Give or take." He turned to Foggy. "Back me up here."

Foggy grinned. He was backing up Spider-man. This had been one of the worst days of his life—but also, kind of amazing. Almost worth the chaos in the courthouse. "Yeah, Ma—Daredevil. He can handle it. I mean, let's be real," he said, "Spider-man has actual powers."

"Yeah, I have actual powers."

Matt frowned at them, fists balled in annoyance. He turned his gaze to the ceiling, silent, angry—clearly agonizing, trying to think of an argument.

Apparently unable to come up with anything—some lawyer, Foggy thought—he pinched the bridge of his nose over his mask. "Just—just—please. Be careful. This guy, he's..."

"A nightmare?" Spider-man suggested. "Don't worry, I can handle it."

A dark patch was beginning to show through Matt's shirt. Foggy cleared his throat. "Uh, buddy... you're..."

"Bleeding. I know." Matt pulled off his shirt again and began removing the bandages, readjusting as he went. He peeled away some gauze, reapplied it, bandaged himself tighter. "I don't know where he went. I don't know what he wants."

Spider-man shrugged. "I'll just follow the trail of death and destruction. I'm sure he'll be leaving one. But first..." he hesitated for a moment. "We need to talk."

"Okay...?"

"Remember how you put me on Fisk detail? Like a month ago? I was supposed to try to do some espionage?"

Foggy nodded as though the question had been directed at him. This was a conversation he never thought he'd be a part of.

"Yeah?" Matt said.

"Well... I finally have some intel. I wanted to tell you this morning, before the... before I came to help you fight off Dex." Spider-man took a deep breath. "Okay. So. I may or may not be working with the Albanian mob."

A resounding silence fell across the apartment.

"Excuse me?" Matt said.

"That's insane," Foggy said. 

"I know, I know. But listen—they hate Fisk, we hate Fisk, it's a temporary arrangement." He carefully pushed away the first-aid kit and sat on the edge of the coffee table. "Here's the thing—I got an Albanian buddy now, Roel. He put out some spies for me. He's got guys in Fisk's security detail, in a bunch of government offices—and apparently, this mayor run? It's all legit."

Foggy scoffed. "There's no way. Look how fast he's moved up through the polls."

"That's what's so crazy; everything's legit and legal—on Fisk's end. But according to Roel, there's a mystery third party. Someone Fisk doesn't know is trying to get him elected; whoever it is, they've been blackmailing and threatening a bunch of politicians and journalists. They're pulling a lot of strings to get Fisk into office."

Matt leaned forward. "Who the hell would want Fisk elected that bad?"

Foggy began to pace. He was reminded suddenly the last time Fisk was freed; when all the criminal underworld had come together to work for him, secure under the Kingpin's protection. "It's gotta be another mob boss," he said. "Someone who stands to gain a lot of ground under Fisk. Someone who wants open season on New York."

Spider-man nodded. "Exactly. That's what Roel said. But the problem is, no one knows who this third party is. Not even Fisk, apparently." He shrugged. "Roel said he'd try to get more guys out, try to get in with some of the other mob bosses. See if anyone's involved. But to be honest... it's all sort of a long shot."

Foggy pulled out his phone and began scrolling through his news feed. He didn't necessarily expect to find much helpful information—but he wanted to see how far Fisk had risen in the polls since he'd last checked. He wondered if, perhaps, any news had broken about new Fisk endorsers. Or if there was any new mob activity.

The top result was a live feed—a video from the Daily Bugle, showing Wilson Fisk standing on the front steps of Metro General Hospital.

"There's no way Fisk isn't behind this," Matt was saying. "He's lying—he has to be."

Foggy clicked on the livestream, turning up the volume all the way. "I don't suppose you can use your human lie-detector thing through a screen?"

Spider-man and Matt both fell silent as the low, stilted voice of Wilson Fisk poured through the speakers on Foggy's phone.

"It's a tragedy," Fisk was saying. "Three lives lost, and countless others injured and traumatized. These people are attacking our sacred institutions. A massacre of this nature, in a court of law—it's entirely unconscionable. My deepest sympathies go out to the victims and their families. I stand with you. I will always stand with you." 

Foggy glanced at Matt, who was clenching a crumpled piece of gauze in his fist—his bloody knuckles turning white. "It's just more Fisk bullshit," Foggy said quickly. He shut off his phone. "We don't need to hear it right now."

Still, the echo of Fisk's voice seemed to hover over their heads like an icy gale of wind. They stayed silent for a few moments.

Finally, Spider-man stood up. "Well, get some rest, D. Heal up."

Matt took a shaky breath, clearly trying to get his rage under control. "I've had worse. Just a couple weeks ago, remember?"

"Still," Spider-man said. "If we're gonna take down Dex together—and Fisk, for that matter—you need to be at your best. Okay?"

"Where are you going? What's the plan?" Foggy said. Spider-man shrugged.

"I'll see if I can track down where Dex has gone. I don't know that I'll be able to, but I've got a little time before I'm meeting up with my girlfriend."

Foggy's eyebrows shot up. "You have a girlfriend? I haven't read anything about that—"

"In the fan magazines?" Matt muttered, too soft for Spider-man to hear.

Behind his back, Foggy held up his middle finger, which earned a snort from Matt.

"Yeah," Spider-man said, and his voice was suddenly a little breathy. "M—er... Mary. Mary... Jane."

Foggy was just about to make a marijuana-related joke, when Matt quickly stood and moved across the room. He caught Spider-man by the arm, an intensity in his stance that surprised Foggy. "Listen—just—please, be careful. You saw Dex. He's psychotic. He'll kill you as soon as look at you."

"Relax, D. I got this." Spider-man ducked out of the window and jumped down, hanging onto the ledge by a single finger. "It was nice to meet you, Foggy. See you around."

And he was gone, nothing more than a swinging silhouette against the afternoon sky. 

"Pick your jaw up off the floor and hand me that aspirin," Matt said dryly.

Foggy resisted the urge to throw the bottle at his head, instead carefully placing it into Matt's outstretched hand and dropping onto the couch next to him. "Do your meditation healing-thing," he said. "You're not looking so good."

"It's not a superpower, Foggy, not like Spider-man. It won't work that fast."

"I know, but... still. It'll help."

Matt slipped off his mask and nodded, bringing his legs up onto the couch and closing his eyes. "You... are you okay to stay? Or does Marci need you at home?"

"She's working through depositions all night," Foggy said grimly. "Someone's gotta be here to make sure you don't slip into a coma and die."

Matt laughed at that, then grimaced in pain. 

They lapsed into silence. Foggy pulled out his phone again, scrolling through all the sites he could think of, looking for something—anything—that might tie Fisk to the city's major crime bosses. He stayed that way all afternoon, lulled practically into a stupor by the bright screen and the even sound of Matt's breathing.

He'd stay there all day. All night if he had to. He'd stay until he was certain Matt was okay. Or—maybe 'okay' was a lot to ask for. Foggy would probably have to settle for 'not in immediate danger of dying.'

Either way—he'd be here as long as Matt needed him.

#####

On the wide concrete steps outside the hospital, Wilson allowed himself a few moments to compose himself. A firestorm of flashing bulbs, a cacophony of shouting voices, the chaos of the press conference surrounded him. Enveloped him.

"Mr. Fisk—Mr. Fisk—did you meet with—"

"Mr. Fisk, as mayor would you address—"

"Who is really at fault here today, Mr. Fisk—"

He'd spent most of the afternoon inside the hospital, sitting at patient bedsides, meeting with grieving families and traumatized survivors. The atmosphere here—both inside and outside of the hospital—was reminiscent of that time, years ago, when the people of New York had believed that Daredevil himself was a terrorist. That time when Daredevil, in the esteem of the city, had become a villain.

In his hands, Wilson held carefully-selected flowers leftover from the ones he'd personally delivered to the survivors. They were necessary props; tangible symbols of the care and dedication he provided. He took one last moment to sweep his gaze across the swarming crowd—journalists, photographers, and ordinary citizens alike—and finally stepped up to the microphone that had been placed for him.

"I have just met with the survivors of today's terrible attack," he said, nodding grimly into the cameras pointed at his face. "I can only hope that my financial contributions will lessen some of the tremendous load they must bear in the years moving forward. Their medical bills are paid for in full. Their rent, for the foreseeable future, will be taken care of."

A murmur rippled through the gathered crowd. Many nodded, smiling. A couple people seemed to be wiping tears from their faces.

He made quick eye contact with J. Jonah Jameson, who was standing at the very front. His speech today would be published in every major magazine in New York—most of the media were reliably on his side, after all. Still, though, his most dedicated voters were subscribers to the Daily Bugle. He directed most of his speech toward Jameson, making sure to give the Bugle camera his best side.

"Incredibly generous," Jameson was saying into his livestream.

Wilson took a brief pause, arranging his face into a steady, passioned expression. "This city is diseased," he said finally. "Certain individuals have been permitted, for far too long, to act outside of the law. They commit acts of violence every day; and for years, we have tolerated it. We have even praised them for it." He shook his head slightly. "Many of you may recall, only a few short years ago, when Mr. Poindexter terrorized this city in his own Daredevil suit."

Whispers traveled through the gathered crowd.

"It's clear to me that this terrorist has taken inspiration from these so-called 'heroes.' Mr. Poindexter, ladies and gentlemen, is a vigilante gone wrong."

From somewhere in the reporter section, a journalist shouted, "Are you saying that Dex was trying to be a hero?"

"I'm saying," Wilson said, "that he was inevitable. I'm saying that it's time we hold people—all people—accountable for their actions."

His words had the desired effect. The majority of the crowd were nodding fervently, swept up in the rhetoric. Sure, a few in the crowd looked somewhat uncomfortable—after all, it was the work of 'heroes' that had brought back half the world after Thanos' snap. It had been the work of 'heroes' that had kept them safe for so long.

"I understand that it's difficult," Wilson said, injecting his voice with an air of sympathy. "You have been led to believe that we need these heroes; that we live in an age where exceptional power is needed."

"Yeah, what about Thanos?" someone shouted.

"And the Battle of New York!" came another voice.

"And the mafia! Didn't Daredevil take them out?"

There was a soft murmur of agreement, the people of this city remembering the terror of years past. Some of which Wilson had directly instigated—and yet, they already seemed to have forgotten his involvement. Or if they remembered, they didn't believe it. It was simple to puppeteer the people; to draw their attention elsewhere, place their focus where Wilson needed it. If they so easily believed that Wilson was not responsible for Hell's Kitchen's criminal underworld...

Perhaps there was no limit to what they would believe.

Wilson drew himself up higher. "How can we be sure that those... tragic events happened the way they've been reported? These otherworldly threats, these elite criminal organizations—the only ones to work with them directly were the 'heroes' we've been told to worship. Perhaps we have not heard the full story."

He wouldn't push it further—no, that would be too much.

He would let Jameson do it instead. Jameson would shift the blame for all those battles onto the heroes; after all, the man regularly traded in conspiracy and doubt. Within a week, he'd have half of New York believing that Thanos and the Battle of New York were a result of the heroes' meddling.

Most importantly, Jameson would have to focus the anger—the hatred—around Daredevil.

The city was ready to have villains again.

"Daredevil... Spider-man... even the Avengers." Wilson allowed himself a soft sigh. "We have had faith in them for far too long. But I'm afraid that faith has been misplaced."

He let the words sink in for a moment before continuing.

"I humbly ask you to put your faith in me instead, ladies and gentlemen; and together, we will fix this city." The energy of the crowd surged, excitement and fervor wafting in the very air above their heads. "As mayor, it will be my absolute priority to hold these 'heroes' accountable for the damage they have done—and the atrocities that they have inspired. I will bring them to justice."

At this, applause broke out. Wilson smiled at the crowd, waving, before he began to walk among them. As he gently moved through them toward his limousine, the people launched questions at him. They called his name. They begged for acknowledgement. Some of the people wore tee shirts with his face on it; a few carried signs. Vote for Fisk. Down with the Hero Class. Fisk Can't Miss.

If his father could only see him now...

He shook hands as he walked and took photos with admirers. Just outside his limousine, a fervent voter looked up into his wide face, eyes brimming with grateful tears, his hands trembling. "Thank you, Mr. Fisk—thank you—you'll protect this city—"

Wilson took his hand in both of his. "I'll do all I can."

The man stuttered something else, but his voice was quickly lost in the sea of others. Wilson's security guards carefully guided him through the rest of the crowd, through the adoration and applause, until finally he was able to duck into the limousine. Felix was waiting there for him, clipboard on his knee. He nodded deferentially.

There was a knock on his window; Wilson turned and saw the ruddy face of J. Jonah Jameson. He rolled his window down.

"Mr. Jameson."

Jameson poked his head through the window curiously. "Your guy over there said you wanted a word." He gestured toward Felix.

Wilson nodded. "I need some stories covered."

"Anything, boss. What are you thinking?"

"This city..." Wilson took a long breath, thinking. "This city needs to understand. They must see the dangers, the evil, the corruption that the 'heroes' bring about."

"Couldn't agree more."

"I want you to put all of your focus on this," Wilson said. "You've done great work already with Spider-man—I'd like you to add Daredevil to your list. Show the good people of this city the danger that he poses."

"Him and all the rest," Jameson said. "The Daily Bugle is dedicated to exposing these menaces for who they really are."

"Everything you're doing, heighten it," Wilson said. "The stories, the videos, the exposés. Flood the streets, Jameson. Convince the people."

"Do what I do best," Jameson said, grinning.

Wilson nodded. "Thank you, Jameson. That will be all."

Jameson slunk away, and the driver finally pulled away from the hospital steps. 

Wilson was silent for a few minutes, drained. The entire afternoon had been a fervent performance; an act of political theater that, while effective, left him exhausted. He relished in the quiet of the car, the soft tilting and bumping of the roads under the wheels.

The city loved him again. His heart swelled in his chest, the adulation and the praise and the city's very need seeped into his skin. He loved this city. He would be the man it needed.

But first... there was the matter of Vanessa.

"Felix," he said finally, not bothering to turn away from the window. "You have new information for me."

"Yes, sir," Felix said. "The latest poll numbers are in; you're leading by thirty-five percent. It's... unprecedented."

"Yes, it is," Wilson said thoughtfully. "The payments have gone through to all my endorsers? The donations?"

"Of course."

"And..." he paused, finally turning toward him. "What of the others? Senator Smithson, Councilwoman James, and the rest. Do we have any news on them—on who might be... encouraging them?"

Felix shook his head. "Unfortunately not, sir. But, if I may, whoever is... handling... these matters for you, it seems to me that we should be thankful. They're doing an excellent job. It's due to them, really, that you're so far ahead."

"You're telling me not to look a gift horse in the mouth," Wilson said, raising his eyebrows. Felix hesitated, then nodded. Wilson let out a long breath, thinking hard. "No, Felix," he said. "That 'gift horse' could very well be wooden, filled to the brim with murderous Greeks. We need to find out who is doing this. And we need to put a stop to it."

"Put a stop to it? But, sir—"

"Quiet!" Wilson said sharply, and Felix faltered. "This campaign must be incorrigible. Do you understand?"

"But—ah—yes. Of course, sir."

"If Mr. Murdock were to hear that any of my enterprises were... less than legal... then then entire campaign would be in jeopardy." He clenched his fists and unclenched them, tempering his anger. "And not just the campaign," he said, "but my life."

Felix frowned. "Sir, Daredevil doesn't kill—I don't think he's even capable of it—"

Wilson leaned back into his leather seat. "I have never met a man who couldn't be persuaded to kill. There is always a line, Felix; and Daredevil... he walks it carefully. Dances just behind it. But any moment, he could step over."

"I see."

But it wasn't his own life that Wilson was afraid for. Not really. Not at all.

It was Vanessa's. 

No, Murdock wouldn't kill her. Perhaps he might snap and kill Wilson, but... Wilson didn't think Murdock had it in him to harm Vanessa. He'd always had a weakness, a foolish compassion that kept him from becoming the Devil he claimed to be. But... he could destroy her in other ways. He could block her visa, involve the government, use all the legal avenues he could to keep her from Wilson's loving arms.

He could have her imprisoned, on the charge of Ray Nadeem's murder.

But if he could become mayor first... he would have the political sway he needed. He could pull strings and ensure that she was cleared of all charges. He could bring her home. 

Wilson toyed with his father's cufflinks. "We must find this... benefactor, Felix. We must put a stop to his interference before Murdock catches on. Before he destroys everything that I've worked for."

Felix bowed his head again. He looked like he wanted to say something else—but Wilson held out a hand to stop him. He needed a few moments of silence; he needed to compose himself before he spoke to his beloved. He steadied his thoughts, his breathing, his very posture as he watched the city fly by. Bright afternoon-sunlit windows, skyscrapers and shops, the bicycles and the food carts and the mad rush of distracted people. His people. His city.

His cell phone began to ring. Wilson checked his watch; she was right on time. He swiped to answer the video call.

"Vanessa," he breathed, drinking in the sight of her lovely face. Her faraway face. Even through a tiny screen, she seemed to fill the entire car with light. Her presence was practically tangible, even from nearly four thousand miles away.

Her lips curled into a sweet smile as she looked at him. "Hello, my love."

"Are you well? Are you safe? Do they feed you enough?"

"I'm well-provided for, Wilson. Of course, it's nothing compared to my life with you... but... it's adequate, for the time being." She paused for a moment, gazing at him. "I hear congratulations are in order. The Daily Bugle reports that you're males ahead in the polls."

"Yes," Wilson said. "I'm going to win the mayorship, Vanessa. And when I do... when this city belongs to me... I'll bring you home."

"Not until then?" she said softly.

Wilson closed his eyes. "Please... we've discussed this already. It's too dangerous to bring you here. Murdock could have you imprisoned—he could send you away."

"And the mayorship will change that?"

"I'll have influence, Vanessa. I'll be able to clear you of all charges. Even better; I'll have the resources to take down Murdock once and for all. I'll be powerful enough to break our stalemate, and he will be out of our lives. For good."

She looked at him, a slight frown forming at the corners of her lips. She played with the ring on her finger, thinking. "I'm sure you will win, darling. But... what if we could increase your chances further?"

"What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath, and when she spoke, it was with an air of practice—as though she'd been planning to say this for some time. "Your city, Wilson... it loves a fairy tale. We could give them that."

Wilson frowned. "A fairy tale?"

"Think about it." She spoke faster now, almost urgently. "A husband and wife, torn apart on their very wedding day; living on far distant shores for years and years. And yet, despite the best efforts of a corrupt vigilante, their great love survived. Not only survived—it flourished."

A warmth spread across Wilson's skin as she spoke. Each word caressed him; it soothed him; like the tender touch of her fingers, drifting across his cheek, his jaw, his lips.

"If you bring me home before the election," she said carefully, "your voters will see the power of our love. They will see your devotion. They will understand, as I do, the abiding care you have in your heart. With me at your side, the city will see that you are a man of both power and passion."

Wilson thought back to the day of their wedding. After nearly a year of widespread public revulsion—a year of imprisonment, vilification, and humiliation—the wedding of Vanessa Mariana and Wilson Fisk had sudden broken apart the vitriol. The newspapers, social media, television—everyone declared Fisk to be a hopeless romantic, a man dedicated to love. It made him relatable. It made him likable. Vanessa had endeared him to the city.

How much more would the city love him, love them, upon their reunion?

His resolve was failing. He wanted her back. He needed her back. "I can't guarantee your safety, Vanessa. If the federal government learns about your involvement in Ray Nadeem's... dispatch... I could lose you forever."

"Wilson..."

"There are wolves in this city, my love," he said softly.

She tilted her head at him, smiling sympathetically. Once again, her compassion overwhelmed him. He was telling her about the dangers she might face, and all she worried about was him. 

"There will always be wolves, Wilson," she said. "But what are wolves to a lion?"

And suddenly she was standing behind him, her hands reassuringly upon his shoulders, her soft breath tickling his neck. She was placing tender kisses upon his face, whispering sweet promises in his ear.

She was right. She was always right.

"Let me come to you, Wilson. Let me come home."

Thoughts stormed through his mind, an excited and fearful windstorm. He could make preparations for her return. He may not be the mayor yet—but his name still held sway in this city. He could arrange for armed guards, 24/7 protection. At his side, she might be safe.

And yet...

"There's still the matter of Mr. Murdock," he said hesitantly, picturing the man's face. The soft red glare of his glasses, the blood upon his jaw, from his nose. The rage behind his unseeing eyes. He could hear his voice, its urgent timbre, his words like darts that pricked across Wilson's skin. "How can I risk you, when he—"

"We have protection against that; his friends—Miss Page and Mr. Nelson, and now Mr. Parker as well. He won't make a move against us, not with the stalemate in effect."

"I suppose so," Wilson said uncertainly.

"And even if he does..." Vanessa smiled at him. "I trust in you to protect me."

"The risk, Vanessa..."

"Is worth it, my love."

He had no response to this. What could he say? Even as he hesitated, arguing silently with himself, Vanessa seemed to read his thoughts. She seemed to sense him relenting; could sense the chink in his armor, his Achilles heel. 

"So," she said slowly. Her voice rang like bells, chiming with barely-suppressed delight. "It's settled. Book me a flight, my darling."

Wilson closed his eyes. "Give me three weeks," he said, defeated. Glad to be defeated—and despising himself for the gladness. For that weakness, that delight, that selfishness. "I'll arrange for your protection."

"Two weeks, dear."

He felt his face trembling, twitching, with the swell of emotions in his chest. "Two, my love. And... you'll be in my arms again."

"Hmm," she said—a sound of pure contentment. Like the release of a long-held breath. "That's all I want. All I need."

He wanted so desperately to reach through the screen, to touch the softness of her face and feel her pulse beneath his fingertips. "I pine for you," he whispered.

"And I for you..." An impish smile darted across her face. She opened her mouth, as though she were about to say something else—when suddenly, her smile faltered a little. Then dropped altogether. "I... I'm sorry, love. I have another call, I have to go..."

Wilson blinked. "I—ah—yes. Of course."

She tilted her head, her smile returning—though not quite as bright as before. "I'm sorry to cut this so short. But I love you, Wilson. Every beat of my heart declares it."

She hung up.

And in the sudden silence of the limousine, Wilson felt unease creep over him, like a soft trickle of rain.

The car sped along the streets. He let himself get lost once more in the lull of its soft movements; he stared at his faint reflection in the window, superimposed over the passing city. He had two weeks to prepare. Armored guards to select, a penthouse to be styled to her taste... dangers to be removed...

And among those dangers, the man who witnessed Vanessa order the hit on Ray Nadeem.

He had hoped to avoid this. Although he knew the witness could be trusted to keep a secret, there was no telling what the Devil of Hell's Kitchen might do if he got his hands on him. No... this witness... he was a danger. And as close as he was to Wilson, perhaps it was time... perhaps it would be prudent...

Felix cleared his throat. Wilson started; he'd forgotten that he wasn't alone.

"What is it, Felix?"

Felix coughed apologetically. "I'm sorry to disturb your reverie, sir, but you have an appointment with Senator Jones at the State Capitol this evening. Would you like me to reschedule? If you feel there are other priorities..."

"No, Felix, that will be fine. Tell the driver to divert to Albany."

Felix nodded again and tapped on the driver's window to relay the message.

Wilson watched him for a moment, thoughts as repetitive and heavy as a war drum in his head. Then, silent, he turned back to the window. His reflection looked pale, somber, burdened. He watched the skyscrapers flit past, unsteady and fleeting behind his stoic, translucent gaze. 

#####

Peter was perched at the top of the Empire State Building, looking down at the canyons of the streets and alleys, the towering mountains of skyscrapers. His arm, still aching terribly, was bandaged inside of his spider-suit. He'd told Matt he would go to the hospital, but... honestly, he didn't need it. Ever since his spider-bite, he'd been able to heal from wounds like this in... oh, two days, give or take. Something Matt, as cool as his weird meditation-thing was, wouldn't understand.

He'd been waiting all day to hear something about Dex. He'd prowled the streets, eavesdropped on conversations, and followed police cars most of the afternoon. But aside from mentions of today's courthouse attack, there was absolutely no sign of Poindexter anywhere. Sitting at the top of the Empire State Building was his last resort—the bird’s-eye-view was unlikely to provide him with any useful information, but… it was worth a shot.

It had been hours since he'd spoken with Matt and Foggy. He'd hoped to at least find something before he had to meet up with MJ Sighing,  he crawled up onto the spire and hung off it. Then he closed his eyes. He was trying to let his "tingle" take over, to sense for some kind of danger; like in Star Wars, when Luke turned off the targeting system and relied on the force...

Okay. This was stupid. Wherever Dex was, he wasn't causing any trouble—at least for now. There was nothing Peter could do. Besides, he was sure they'd all hear about him soon enough. And as soon as Dex made a move, he and Matt would be on his back like... like... like Yoda on Luke.

Man, he was thinking like Ned. Peter felt a pang of something—regret? Longing? Grief?—shoot through his chest. He wondered if maybe it would be okay to reach out to Ned; as MJ's boyfriend, of course. Introduce himself, become friends again...

He shook his head. Peter couldn't think like that; he was already putting MJ in danger just by being around her. It was too late to back out of that—the damage was already done, Kingpin already knew who she was—but he wasn't going to add Ned to the mix. Even if it killed him to think about Ned having Star Wars marathons without him.

The LEGO Palpatine that sat on his dresser would have to be enough.

It was too painful to think about Ned, so he tried to redirect his focus. For a minute or so, he cleared his mind, just taking in the view. The glint of sunshine off the millions of windows in the city, the sprawling blue of the Hudson River, all of it was laid out before him like a hazy painting.

There were downsides to being... who he was. But this view was definitely a perk.

Finally, he hopped down to the edge of the rooftop and let his feet dangle, pulling out his cell phone. He'd had it on airplane mode all day, certain that Matt would try to call him and force him to come home, to give up the chase. Which, obviously, Peter wasn't going to do.

He turned off airplane mode, and immediately—

Oh.

He had thirty-two missed calls and sixty-seven text messages. A few of them were from Karen and Foggy, but the rest... it was all MJ.

He closed his eyes, guilt seeping like concrete into the pit of his stomach. It had been so long since he'd had to check in with people; since people had worried about him at all, for that matter. It hadn't even occurred to him to reach out and let everyone know he was okay. But he'd wanted to be completely sure that Dex was gone, that they were all out of danger, before looking at his phone at all.

MJ was going to kill him. He opened up his text conversation and read through a few of the messages.

Peter please answer I'm getting really worried

You'd better not be hurt

Hello?

Please be okay. Call me.

Call me. 

Call me.

I'm at the courthouse—where are you? It's so crowded

I'm headed to the hospital. You'd better not be in there.

Answer me

Peter please

The guilt in his stomach wriggled a little, mixing with a strange sense of elation. MJ was worried about him. She was worried. She cared. Peter already knew that, but... still. He couldn't help but smile—and then, sigh. Bracing himself for an onslaught of anger, panic, or relief—perhaps all three—Peter called her.

The phone rang for only a couple of seconds before MJ picked up. "Peter? Oh my gosh—Peter—"

"Hi, MJ." 

"You're okay—you're okay—" She began to breathe heavily, almost hyperventilating in her sudden relief. "I thought you died—"

The phone call began to cut in and out. Peter tried moving around a little, but the reception was pretty spotty this high up. 

"Listen, MJ, can you hear me? You're cutting out."

"Ye—ear me? I ca—eet me at th—"

Peter craned his neck up to glare at the sky. Damn this technology. "Hold on, I'm gonna come meet you. See you in a few."

He could hear a few garbled words in between the distortion and the static, but it was basically unintelligible. Peter sighed, hung up and tucked his phone into his pocket. Then he dived headfirst off the building. 

He'd swung halfway to MJ's apartment when he realized—his clothes. He'd left them just outside the courthouse, where he'd suited up earlier.

That was a problem. Not just because he didn't want to show up at MJ's in his Spider-man suit. No... if Peter's clothes were left out there, the police might put two and two together: that whoever owned the clothing was in some way involved in the fight this morning. They could check it against the security cameras from inside the trial. Maybe they could match DNA. And they'd have questions—questions he couldn't answer—for Peter Parker.

So, he turned about-face in mid-air and began swinging in the other direction. 

As luck would have it, the police were focused on the front of the building at the courthouse steps. He'd had the foresight earlier to change along the side, behind a dumpster. Peter landed at the very top of the courthouse behind a statue of a woman carrying a book; then, careful to move in the shadows, he crept across the wall and down the side of the building.

His clothes were still in a haphazard pile behind the dumpster, completely untouched (though they'd sort of been imbued with the smell of garbage. MJ was gonna love that). Even better—his briefcase was still there. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was looking, he pulled off his spider suit, shoved it into his briefcase, and slipped back into his clothes.

He looked an absolute mess, but it would have to do. He couldn't keep MJ waiting, worrying, any longer.

He continued down an alley then finally back out onto the streets. To the subway station. On the train, zooming through the underground. Then back into the bright light of day and another few blocks to MJ's apartment building. In the door, up the stairs, down the hall...

He knocked on the door, and there was no response.

"MJ? You there?"

No answer. Peter pulled out his phone, getting ready to call her, when he noticed she'd sent him a new message:

Meet me at Midtown High in Queens. I want to show you something

Peter took a deep breath. He had a feeling he knew what she wanted to show him.

Twenty minutes later he was standing on the concrete steps outside of his old high school—the high school that had forgotten him. The doors were locked, of course, and the windows were dark. MJ was nowhere to be found. 

He knew where she must be, though.

He glanced up at the rooftop. She was undoubtedly behind that ledge, just out of sight. Peter assumed she must have picked the lock to get in, and probably locked it behind her—just for Peter's benefit. To test his lock-picking abilities, maybe.

Well, Peter didn't know how to do that. But he could break it.

Apologizing silently to the school, Peter pushed the door open, snapping the deadbolt. Of course, he could have crawled up the side of the building—but that would have defeated the whole "anonymous superhero" thing. So, he walked the same path he'd grown so used to: down the hallway, through a utility closet, up the stairs and onto a fire escape and then—

As he finally moved out onto the rooftop, the slowly setting sun painting everything gold, he caught sight of MJ. Her back was to him; she sat on the edge, looking at the pink clouds. 

"MJ," Peter said. She turned around, and Peter's heart sank. Her face was stained with tears. Trembling, she stood and ran to him. "Hi, MJ, I—"

She fell into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered, her voice garbled and muffled through Peter's shirt. "I waited outside the courthouse for hours—and the hospital—and you, you, you..."

"I'm right here," he whispered, running his fingers through her hair. "I'm sorry, MJ, I should have called—"

She broke away. "Yes! You should have!" she said, and punched him lightly in the arm. And, unfortunately for Peter, it was the arm that Dex had shot earlier.

He doubled over in pain. "Gaah—aah—"

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry," she said, hands over her mouth. "Are you—did you—did Dex—"

Peter gritted his teeth and straightened back up, gingerly clutching at his arm. "It's nothing, I promise. Just... you've read his casefile; he throws stuff. Pretty hard."

He figured he'd be better off not mentioning the bullet.

"He hurt you? Like, he actually—he got you?"

He nodded. "But it's okay, I promise I'm fine—"

She looked like she wanted to tear his shirt off—and not in a fun way, but in a "let me see how bad you screwed up and got hurt" kind of way. "Let me see it."

Peter shook his head. "I told you, I'm fine—"

"Take off your damn shirt. Unless you want me to rip off your sleeve."

Peter laughed nervously and, feeling highly uncomfortable, carefully slipped it off. "I already bandaged it."

For a moment, she just looked at him, biting her lip; finally, she seemed to steel herself and nodded. She grimly pulled him by the arm to the edge of the rooftop, where they sat together in a patch of late sunlight. "I'm good at first-aid," she said, unwinding the bandage. "Let me check and make sure it's..."

The blood-soaked bandage fell away, revealing a partially healed, somewhat scabbing gash in his arm. She frowned at it, then up at him. "You said... you said you got this today."

"Yeah, from Poindexter."

"Peter, this is—this is healing. Like, really well. And really fast."

Peter closed his eyes, wishing he had a good lie on hand. But... well, there was no better excuse than the truth. "It's just a weird... thing that I have."

She raised her eyebrows. "You wanna explain what that means?"

He swallowed. "I was exposed to some weird radiation a while back." MJ was silent, and Peter couldn't quite read her. He decided it would be prudent to leave out the spider. "I've been able to heal pretty quickly ever since," he added lamely.

"That's not how radiation works."

Peter shrugged. "Tell that to Dr. Banner. Or Jen Walters, for that matter."

She snorted. "Are you telling me you're a Hulk?"

"No! Nothing like that. It's just... radiation can be unpredictable. You study science, you know there's a lot of mysteries in the universe." 

She was quiet for a minute, her arms wrapped around her knees, looking straight ahead at the sky. "Yeah. Lots of mysteries." She puffed up her cheeks with air and slowly blew it out, a stray curl of hair fluttering over her forehead. "You're one of them, Peter."

"What do you mean?" His heart began to pound.

She hesitated for a minute, then shifted, turning until she was facing him. Peter did the same, and their knees bumped together. "How did you know to come here?"

"I mean, you texted me the name of the school..."

"No, I mean the rooftop. How did you know that I would be up here?"

Peter had no answer for this. He grasped around for a response. "I think the better question is, why wouldn't you tell me you were up here?"

"I was testing you," she said, moving her knee slightly to tap against Peter's in a soft rhythm.

"Testing me? For what?"

She closed her eyes. "You just... you seem to know a lot of things about me. Things that I haven't even told you. And we're so... we're so..."

"Connected?" Peter whispered.

"Yeah," she said. "It's so strange. I guess I just—I wanted to see if you thought the same way I did. And apparently... yeah. You do. So tell me, what made you think to come up here?"

Peter was quiet for a moment as the sun moved lower into the sky. The shadows on the roof elongated, stretching like wide yawning mouths. The light was shifting from gold to purple, and MJ's face looked like a painting underneath the vivid sky.

"Just an instinct," he said finally.

MJ frowned at this, but seemed to accept it. In silence she slowly began wrapping the bandage back around Peter's arm. Peter couldn't tear his eyes away from her, the concentration on her face, the nimbleness of her fingers. Her steady hand. Her soft eyes.

Finally finished, she lay back on the rooftop and stared, wide-eyed, at the sky. Peter joined her. Their hands lay between them, mere centimeters apart; Peter wiggled his fingers, trying to find hers.

Without turning away from the sky, MJ interlaced her fingers with his.

As the sky darkened and the faint stars appeared, Peter let his mind wander back. His high school days with Ned and MJ ran through his mind like a film. He remembered countless afternoons spent up here, laughing, kissing, even crying. And he remembered days spent alone on the rooftop in contemplation and reflection. This was where he'd come when he'd first developed feelings for MJ. It was where he'd come after he'd turned down Tony's Avengers offer (the first time). It was where he'd come after Tony had died, and then again after he'd been outed as Spider-man.

And the last time he'd been here... was the day Aunt May was killed.

He could feel the ghost arms of past Ned and MJ around him, their steadiness a strong anchor against his shaking, broken body. The compassion of their embrace bringing fresh fountains of tears out of his eyes.

"So," MJ said, her tone a little lighter. "You have 'super healing'?"

"I... I wouldn't call it that."

She snorted. "Any other magical powers you're not telling me about? Are you secretly one of those 'enhanced individuals' the government keeps talking about? Feels like there's hundreds of them these days." She was laughing, but Peter felt his stomach twist.

"I don't know, I feel like a pretty normal guy," he said uneasily.

She turned on her side to look at him, grinning. "That sounded like a pretty evasive answer, Parker. Are you secretly an Avenger or something?"

"No, I'm not an Avenger." Not anymore, anyway. "I'm just a boring law intern."

She laughed softly and moved closer. "I don't think you're that boring. I mean, you did face off against a serial killer today."

As Peter smiled back at her, he felt the exhaustion of the day settle over him. Suddenly he felt sluggish, as though he were made of lead. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment, dreading the falling of the night and the dawning of the morning—dreading tomorrow, when she would leave him. "I'm going to miss you, MJ."

She was quiet for a moment. "I have a long weekend in just a few weeks. Maybe we could do something then."

"Do something?"

"I don't know. Something fun." She paused, thinking. "Maybe we could find another murderer for you to help defend. That would be fun."

That was such a quintessentially MJ thing to say. Affection bubbled up in Peter, and he laughed. "I really like you," he said.

MJ froze. "What... what did you say?"

Peter remembered suddenly—those were his exact words to her, just before he kissed her for the first time. His heartbeat stuttered a little. "I said... I really like you."

They were innocuous enough words; words any boyfriend might say to his girlfriend. But in the context, with the tone... he could see the wheels in MJ's head turning. His heart was pounding, moving into his throat. She couldn't be remembering—she couldn't be—

"Are you okay?" Peter whispered.

MJ didn't respond. Her brows were furrowed, her mouth twisting in deep thought.

And suddenly, she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him closer. On their sides, on a rooftop under the night sky, in this graveyard of their past relationship, their lips met. She kissed him like she was exploring something. Traveling along a road she'd known once, long ago.

Peter thought his heart was going to explode out of his chest. When MJ paused to catch a breath, he pushed himself away, looking deeply into her face. "MJ, I..."

Did she remember him? Had she somehow broken through Dr. Strange's spell?

"Why are you so familiar to me?" she whispered.

And with those words, Peter's heart dropped down into his stomach. She didn't remember. Not enough, anyway. 

He swallowed. "You're familiar to me, too." He stood up and turned away, picking up his discarded shirt and pulling it back over her head. He couldn't look at her, not now with disappointment written all over his face. "I, uh... it's getting late," he said, taking a deep breath and plastering a smile onto his lips. He turned back to her. "You should probably go finish packing."

She sat up, looking disheveled. "No... Peter... stay here with me."

Of course. Always. Forever. I love you.

"Sure," Peter said. "I can stay a little while longer."

He sat back down next to her and she curled up by his side, settling neatly in the crook of his arm. The early autumn wind picked up her hair, blowing its floral scent into Peter's nose. He breathed deeply, marveling at the way she breathed in sync with him. And after a while, she fell asleep in his arms—the distant lights of the city shining upon her face. Peter lowered his head and rested it on top of hers. He'd stay like this for a while. And when she was ready, he'd walk her home.

The brisk night air enveloped them like amber, capturing them in a singular, lovely, melancholy moment.

Chapter Text

New York Bulletin Top News:

TERROR IN CITY HALL: ESCAPED CONVICT MURDERS COUNCILWOMAN
Early in the afternoon this Monday, chaos and abject fear erupted across the city hall chamber as the recently-escaped spree killer, Benjamin Poindexter, shot and killed Bronx Councilwoman Bella Jasmin at point-blank range. Jasmin was an outspoken critic of known criminal and current mayoral candidate, Wilson Fisk. One of the few dissenting voices on the city council, Jasmin called into question many of Fisk's unsavory business practices and campaign strategies. Authorities have announced no official motive behind this shooting, as Poindexter has once again evaded police capture. Regardless, without Bella Jasmin, the city council is now more or less unanimously aligned with the agenda of Wilson Fisk... (cont'd page 3)

MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT AND WIFE MURDERED IN FREAK HOME INVASION
Anson Vogler, president of the Manhattan Borough, was killed this Wednesday morning along with his wife during what officials have claimed to be a "burglary gone wrong." The victims were found stabbed through the throat with what appeared to be their own kitchen knives. Coroner Jason Graham stated that "the angle of the knives, along with their depth and position, appears to indicate that the weapons were thrown with great force from a far distance." A spokesman for the NYPD refused to comment when asked whether this crime fit the M.O. of the escaped murderer Benjamin Poindexter (known by some as Bullseye). Interestingly, Vogler was the only one of the five borough presidents who took an official stance against Wilson Fisk's mayoral run. New Yorkers are wondering—is this a coincidence? Two prominent Fisk detractors murdered in three days?... (cont'd page 2)

ANTI-DAREDEVIL GRAFFITI ARTIST DEFACES BROOKLYN BRIDGE
Anti-superhero sentiment is at an all-time high. Ever since the controversial J. Jonah Jameson made unsubstantiated accusations against New York's own Spider-man, the citizens of this great city have been contentiously divided on the topic of powered individuals; the current city atmosphere is reminiscent of several years before the blip, when the United Nations passed the Sokovia Accords. This week, a vandal spray-painted an enormous anti-Daredevil mural on the side of the Brooklyn Bridge... (cont'd page 6)

In her Bulletin office, Karen chewed at the tip of her pencil, thinking hard. She wanted to begin another Fisk piece—perhaps something about the anonymous "benefactor" Matt had mentioned. The mysterious individual—likely another mob boss—could be the key to toppling Fisk's campaign. Maybe with enough attention on the topic, someone would slip up; someone would notice something. And Fisk would be disqualified. Or arrested.

This was nothing more than wishful thinking. She sighed, opening up her laptop and staring at the blank screen. Besides, she couldn't write a story based on unsubstantiated claims, no matter how trustworthy her source was. She couldn't very well say "Daredevil told me that Spider-man found out that someone's cheating to get Fisk elected."

Unless she had solid evidence, she couldn't go through with a story like that. That would be like painting a big red target on The Bulletin—even more so than currently—and things were already tense enough around here. Given that they were the only anti-Fisk publication in the city, and the building was the site of a previous Poindexter attack, Ellison had heightened security to a near-paranoid level. There were police stationed at the entrance, bag checks, pat-downs, and even a newly-installed metal detector.

Karen didn't think that would do anything to stop Poindexter—or, Bullseye, as people were calling him lately—but it seemed to give the rest of the staff some comfort, so that was something.

She drummed her fingers on her desktop, thinking. It had been nearly two weeks since Dex had escaped from the courthouse, killing three people in the process. And, of course, Fisk had managed to spin it. Dex, he said, was a superhero gone too far, and Daredevil and Spider-man were in on it. 

The public was more pro-Fisk, more anti-superhero, than ever.

And mysteriously, without any public scrutiny or suspicion, Fisk's few official detractors were being picked off the map, one by one. The question was, who was behind it? Was it Fisk's mysterious benefactor, or was Fisk himself ordering the hits? And if so, how did he get Poindexter under his control again?

She glanced around her office, thinking, when her gaze fell on the picture of Matt she kept on her desk.

It was taken just a few days after the blip, when both she and Matt had returned from their five-year death stint. Foggy had been so overjoyed, so overcome with emotion, that he'd followed them everywhere. Snapping photos, taking videos, memorializing every moment he could He'd sent Karen some of the best ones, trusting her to describe them to Matt.

This one was her favorite. They'd been walking in Central Park and stopped to sit at the Angel of Bethesda fountain. Matt had put his arm around her and leaned in to kiss her cheek, smiling; the sunlight through his glasses cast glowing red shadows on his cheeks. Karen was leaning into him, laughing, eyes closed in contentment. Foggy had snapped the picture before Karen even realized it was happening.

Back when their relationship was certain. When Karen thought she knew what Matt wanted. 

Matt had been laying low ever since the courtroom attack. He'd been injured pretty badly; and, according to Foggy, Spider-man had taken over Fisk detail. She was relieved for him, glad that he had a superpower friend to care for him. Someone with actual powers, who could withstand the beatings and torture Matt took on a regular basis.

She'd tried to visit him, but Matt had refused. So she could only assume that he was back on his bullshit. Tuned to his standard brooding mode. Trying to protect her.

Did he not remember that she had once confronted Fisk directly?

Or that she had... had handled herself against James Wesley?

He certainly hadn't been so brooding and protective just before the trial, when he'd kissed her in her office. Or even as he was fighting Dex, when he kissed her and borrowed her scarf. But now... he was so hot and cold, so passionate and so reserved. She wished he would just make up his mind, one way or the other.

She was tired of waiting.

Irritated, she flipped the photo facedown and returned to her blank computer screen. She typed gibberish for a while, thinking, brainstorming, free writing...

There was a knock at the door. Karen jumped. 

"Sorry," Ellison said, poking his head through the open door. "Can I come in?" And, without waiting for an answer, he walked inside and leaned against the wall, looking at her curiously. Squinting a little.

"Did you... need something?" Karen asked, nonplussed.

Ellison raised his eyebrows. "Well, I was coming in here to tell you to back off the story—but it seems like you're not even pursuing it." He shook his head. "I'm surprised at you, Karen. You're usually chomping at the bit for shit like this."

Karen closed her laptop. "Wait—what story? The Fisk benefactor one? I just figured I needed better sources before—"

He blinked and stood straighter. "You haven't heard?"

Karen frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Ellison was silent for a moment, like he was debating whether or not he should even tell her. Then, as though realizing she'd find out anyway, he sighed. "Bullseye just attacked Fisk outside the mayor's office. Fisk's in the hospital."

Karen stood. "You're kidding."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Ellison crossed his arms. "I assumed you'd want to cover this story. But I came in to tell you I'm giving it to Jerry."

"Jerry?" Karen scoffed. "Ellison—come on! I'm the Fisk writer! I've been doing this for years. I know him, I know his patterns, his M.O.'s—"

"You're biased, Karen."

Karen rolled her eyes, already packing up her bag. "You sure felt different when you wanted me covering Poindexter's story."

"Karen. You and I both know that, A, Fisk is a hell of a lot more dangerous. And B, your history with Fisk is a lot more personal."

Oh, he has no idea.

"The mayor elections are one thing," he continued. "But Fisk being attacked is another. So I'm telling you, as your boss, to lay off this piece."

She slipped her laptop into her bag, barely listening. "I thought Fisk had to be behind the recent attacks—I mean, he has to be—but then, who's attacking Fisk?"

"Karen, put your bags down. I'm giving you a story on a new tenement building going up in Queens, to replace the one that got bombed—"

"Maybe it's like when he paid someone to shank him in prison," Karen said, slipping her bag onto her shoulder. "He's trying to put off suspicion, distance himself from these latest attacks."

"Karen!" Ellison crossed and stood in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Like he was prepared to physically hold her back. "You're not going to go interview Fisk. He loathes you."

"He loathes a lot of people." She shrugged her bag higher onto her shoulder and slipped her pen behind her ear. "You included."

"Not like this. Karen, I don't know why he hates you, beyond his usual, psychopathic baseline of loathing. I don't know why, and I'm not going to ask. But he tried to have you murdered—multiple times. You specifically. I'm not going to throw you into what basically amounts to a lion's den."

Karen closed her eyes and ducked out from under Ellison's grip. "Will you stop trying to protect me? You and Matt—it's like no one thinks I'm capable of taking care of myself! I'm getting really sick of people telling me what I can and can't do."

"I'm your boss, Karen. That's my job."

She straightened herself and looked Ellison dead in the eye. "You can tell me what to do when I'm on the clock. But it's..." she glanced at her watch. "5:02. So I'm going to go down to the hospital, and I'm going to interview Fisk, and I'm going to write a story about it. On my own time. And if you don't want it for the Bulletin, I'll just post it online and you can print whatever shitty story Jerry comes up with." She pushed past him and through the door, flipping the light switch and leaving Ellison in the dark.

"Karen, wait—"

"See you tomorrow, Ellison."

She sped out of the building, her mind racing. Fisk was in some private one-percenter hospital, she knew it. He wouldn't deign to recuperate with the common folk of New York City. As she walked out the door and toward the subway station, she was already looking up directions to the Lenox Hill Hospital, already compiling a list of questions for the bastard.

It was time for Karen and the Kingpin to meet face to face once more.

#####

Peter was halfway out of his bedroom window when he heard Marci calling from the kitchen.

"Peter? Are you home?"

Sighing, he came back in, pulled off his Spider-man gloves and mask, and threw on a suit and pants. "Yeah, I'm here, what's up?"

She knocked on his door, waited briefly for Peter's assent, then poked her head into his room. "A client of mine gave me a tie for Foggy this morning, but it's really not his style. You want it?" She held it out. It was a sleek, blues nd fancier than anything Peter had ever owned. Marci was a corporate lawyer; a well-paid lawyer with a huge office and apartment, and clients so upper-crust they'd probably vomit if they ever showed up at Nelson and Murdock's rinky-dink firm.

"I—yeah! Thanks, Marci!" Peter grabbed it and immediately began threading it through his collar. "Foggy doesn't want it?"

Marci rolled her eyes. "Franklin thinks that he'd look too out-of-touch with his clientele if he wore it. But you're a lowly intern. You have to stand out a little." She looked him up and down, appraising him, then straightened the tie a little. "There! A little class is not going to hurt your firm." She nodded approvingly, then turned around and headed back to the kitchen. "Is there a reason you're home so early?" she called over her shoulder.

Peter hesitated. In reality, he hadn't been in all day; Matt had asked him to spend the day tracking down any Fisk intel he could find. Unfortunately for him, that was absolutely nothing—so he'd spent most of the day messing around. Stopped a couple muggings, saved a kid walking into traffic, texted MJ and absentmindedly listened to the police radio scanner. A good day, but... unproductive, as far as Fisk was concerned. 

Until he'd received a text from Roel, ten minutes ago. Meet me at the usual spot ASAP. Important info.

That's what he'd been headed for when he was leaving through his window.

"Oh, I had to come back and grab something," he said. "I'm actually heading back to the office now." 

"You want a ride?" she asked. Peter suppressed a smile. Marci was one of the only people he knew who owned a car in Manhattan.

"I'm okay, thanks."

Marci shrugged. "Suit yourself."

She walked back into her kitchen, the clicking of her heels echoing throughout the spacious apartment. Peter followed her out. He couldn't very well use the window exit anymore, now that Marci knew he was home.

Marci sat on the couch as Peter picked up his briefcase and moved toward the door. She picked up the remote and turned on the T.V.; immediately, Peter felt the blood rise to his face as the gruff, manic voice of J. Jonah Jameson came from the speakers.

"And of course, we've known for some time now that Spider-man is working with this Bullseye maniac. We all saw the menace leaving the courthouse two weeks ago, along with this crazy-looking man—" a cell-phone photo of Matt with Karen's scarf tied around his head flashed on the screen. "—who, according to reports, could be the vigilante Daredevil, back in his idiotic homemade outfit."

Marci rolled her eyes. "Can you believe this guy? What a jackass."

"Of course, it's been years since we've seen the Devil of Hell's Kitchen in his demonic red suit; but that doesn't stop the fact that we know he's back. Mayor Fis—excuse me, mayoral candidate Wilson Fisk has gone on record as saying that Daredevil is behind all of this mayhem and madness. I mean, Daredevil framed Fisk for some bogus crimes and had him locked up before the blip! Is that the kind of psycho you want protecting this city?"

Peter suddenly realized his fists were clenched.

Marci was shaking her head, totally absorbed. "Politicians have to manipulate people, that's part of the job—but this is something else. How much do you think Fisk is paying this idiot?"

Peter shrugged.

"Maybe if someone could get some evidence, we could go after him on bribery charges. My firm could get involved, we've got the resources. And there has to be someone out there who knows something that can take Fisk down."

Roel, Peter thought. Roel was waiting for him with important intel.

"I'm sure Matt will tell you if he finds anything," Peter said.

"Matt? Why Matt?"

Peter faltered for a minute. "I... uh... he's just obsessed with Fisk, been on the case for ages."

This seemed to satisfy Marci. Peter made a little more small talk with her, then, as soon as he could get away, he dashed out into the complex—down the stairs—outside—and into an alley, where he changed into his Spider-man suit. He put his civilian clothes in his briefcase and shot a web, launching himself high into the air.

He let himself sail overhead, soaring, falling, before finally sending out another web to catch himself. He usually enjoyed it, this flying feeling; on clear days like today he liked to savor it, live for a brief moment in this strange, exciting feeling. But today... everything just felt muted. Off.

He tried not to let Jameson get to him. After all, Peter heard him every day; or if he didn't hear him exactly, he heard passersby on the street echoing his ideas and his conspiracy theories. Peter was used to being demonized. He'd been used to it since Quentin Beck had framed him for murder.

But this felt worse, somehow.

With Fisk gaining power, all of the slander felt so targeted. So calculated. Instead of just being peddled—and believed—by crazy people, anti-Spider-man sentiment was coming from high places. It was legitimized.

He swung past a spray-painted graffiti mural; a grotesque Daredevil, complete with fangs and a forked tongue. "The Devil in Disguise," someone had sprayed underneath. 

Well, at least Peter wasn't going through it alone.

In a few minutes, he was directly above the alley in which he usually met Roel. Come to think of it, it was probably a bad idea to meet in the same place every time. They were getting too predictable, too trackable; it was only a matter of time before someone caught on.

But that was a problem for another day. Peter dropped onto the wall, hanging on with one hand for a moment, then climbed down.

Roel was waiting for him, staring nervously around himself, his arms crossed.

"Hey buddy! What's up?"

Roel glanced at him. "You're late."

Peter sighed, hopping on top of a dumpster and swinging his legs. "Sorry about that, got caught up in a conversation with my roommate."

"You... have a roommate?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "You think I could get my own apartment? In this city? In this economy?"

Roel shuffled his feet a little, cocking his head as he considered Peter. "They don't pay you well, then? For the work you do?'

"They? Who's they?" Peter said. "You think I get paid? Buddy, I am so broke. All the time. I mean, I can barely afford to take my girlfriend to the movies, let alone live somewhere nice."

Well... technically he was living somewhere nice. But that was due to his friend's generosity. Peter was, for all intents and purposes, a charity case.

Roel shrugged. "It's always weird to me, you living another life."

"That's kind of the point of the whole 'anonymous superhero' thing. So." He dropped onto the ground and slapped Roel genially on the arm. "Whatcha got for me, buddy?"

With a nervous glance around, Roel moved closer. "This is... big, Spider-man. Even for Fisk." 

"All right, lay it on me."

"First thing—his wife, Vanessa. She's returning."

Peter frowned. "Wait, what? I thought—I thought she couldn't get here, like there was some weird visa problem or something—"

"Fisk is more powerful than ever; he has friends in high places. And according to my guys in his office, it was really easy to get to get the immigration office on his side."

Peter slowly blew out a breath. "Well. That's not great. When's she coming?"

"She's on her way; she'll be here tonight or tomorrow." He paused for a moment. "But that's the least of our problems. All this stuff with Bullseye has been really good for him. He's got three quarters of the city believing that Poindexter is a superhero problem, that you and Daredevil have gone rogue, and that Fisk's the only one who can fix it. No one's been so afraid of heroes since the Sokovia Accords."

Peter thought back to that time, years and years ago when Tony Stark had recruited him to fight against Steve Rogers. He'd done it, of course. Tony was his idol—and still was, to an extent. But he hadn't understood the nuances, the intricacies, of the whole superhuman registration thing before. If he had...

He probably would have fought on the other side. Sorry Tony.

"Yeah, it's not great," Peter said. "But what does that have to do with Fisk's plan?"

"With a spree killer on the loose, and two 'rogue heroes,' Fisk is playing the city like a puppet. New York wants things to calm down, and they'll follow Fisk into hell to get it. Apparently Kingpin's meeting with the governor any minute now; Fisk's been paying him off for years, and word is he's also being blackmailed by Fisk's mystery... helper. Bribery and blackmail are a killer combination."

"Spit it out, Roel. What does Fisk want from the governor?"

"He's gonna get the governor to declare martial law."

There was silence between them for a moment. Roel was stone-faced, grave, serious. Obviously, martial law would be bad, especially under Fisk. But unfortunately for Peter, he had only a vague idea of what it meant. He made a mental note to ask Matt or Foggy about it.

"That's... not good," Peter said.

Roel nodded. "Word is that Fisk wants to use the remnants of the Sokovia Accords and implement them under martial law. He's gonna use the military as a strong-arm to suppress all hero activity. Only heroes who registered under Fisk would be allowed to operate in the city, and their secret identities would be completely out in the open." Roel squinted at Peter. "Which I'm assuming is bad news for you."

Well. It wouldn't be the first time.

"So..." Peter squeezed his eyes shut, thinking. "So the only people who would agree to something like that would be... insane, right? People who agreed with Fisk?"

Roel nodded. "The only 'supers' in New York City would be in the palm of Fisk's hand. They'd be like his own personal hit squad. If he goes through with this, the city's gonna go to shit. He'll use the military and the registered 'heroes' to protect the criminal underworld and grow it into something... something real ugly."

Peter tilted his head. "That's good news for you, isn't it? I mean, you're in a mob."

"You kidding? Fisk hates us. We tried to take him out years ago, before the blip; he'd crush us before we could even spit in his direction."

Peter nodded slowly, thinking. He had to find Matt. This was huge; this was insane. And from the sound of it, with the governor and martial law and everything—they would need to find a legal way out of this mess. 

Good thing Daredevil was a lawyer.

Roel moved closer to Peter. He hesitated, then put a hand on his arm. "If Fisk is ruling under martial law—if he implements the Accords here in New York—he'll go after you first. You and Daredevil. He'll kill you. I don't—" he sighed. "I don't want that to happen to you, Spider-man. You're a good guy."

Peter suppressed a smile. "Uh... thanks, buddy. You're a good guy too."

"I'm not. I'm in the mob, remember?" Roel shook his head. "Just—just be careful. Okay? I don't want to see you killed."

Peter was grinning now, but he nodded seriously. "You too, Roel. I'll see you—"

"Wait." Roel grabbed his arm, and with his other hand he rummaged in his pocket for a minute. "Just—take this." His voice was gruff, embarrassed. 

He held out an enormous wad of cash.

"Roel, I can't—I can't take thi—how do you even have this much—"

Roel shrugged. "Crime pays. Listen, you said you were broke—maybe this will help a little."

"This is, like, five thousand dollars—"

"It doesn't seem right, with everything you do for the city... you shouldn't be..." he sighed. "Get out of here before I change my mind."

Peter swallowed. "Roel, that was—that was really—"

"Go!"

Peter shoved the cash into his pocket, touched, and shot a web high above him. "See you around, Roel. Thanks for the intel and—uh—thanks."

Roel gave him a reluctant wave as Peter soared out of sight, on his way to find Matt Murdock.

#####

Matt took a seat in the creaky confessional and folded his cane. He took off his glasses and held them in his hands, considering them for a moment. Then he crossed himself briefly, took a breath, and turned his face heavenward. "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It's been..." he did some quick math in his head. "A month since my last confession." He paused for a minute or so, letting the sensory details of the church flood his mind. The whispered prayers of parishioners in the chapel, the footsteps of Sister Maggie in the apse. The smell of burning wicks and the vibrations of Father Cathal's heartbeat.

"Go ahead," Father Cathal prompted. Matt cleared his throat.

"I've... I've hurt people, Father."

Father Cathal was silent. He knew all about Matt's secret life and his special proclivity for hurting people. Whether or not he approved, he was usually fairly non-judgmental about it. Nowhere near the level of Father Lantom, of course. But Father Lantom was gone.

Matt pressed on. "I've used violence to solve problems, and I've lied to people. A lot."

"None of that is any different from what you usually do, Matthew. But you sound... distressed. What's on your mind?"

He thought back to Mitchell Ellison and the conversation they'd had just before Dex's trial. He thought of Karen and her steady heartbeat. And he thought of Poindexter, in this very church, trying to take her away from him.

And taking away Father Lantom instead.

"I'm hurting Karen," he said, so quietly that Father Cathal had to lean closer to hear him. "I'm bad for her."

"What makes you say that?" His voice was measured, even.

Matt shook his head. "I need to cut her loose. With my... my life... the way that it is, I'm putting her in danger. Every moment I'm with her, she's infinitely closer to being killed. And I just—I can't do that to her." He paused. "But... I can't break it off, either. Not all the way."

What a coward he was.

Father Cathal sighed. He leaned back behind the partition and took a long breath. "Isn't she in danger regardless? She's a reporter, she picks fights with dangerous people. And forgive me for saying so—but you've known her for a long time; she's already connected to you. Anyone looking to hurt you will go through her, whether or not you cut romantic ties."

"It's different," Matt muttered.

"I don't see how."

Matt ran his hands through his hair. As he raised his arm, one of Dex's wounds split slightly. He winced. "It's more—it's more—it's permanent," he said finally. "You know I was going to propose to her. Back when I'd—when I'd given up my... other life. I was going to marry her."

"And do you think she would have said yes?"

"Yes," Matt said. "She would have."

"She's capable of making her own choices, Matthew." Father Cathal paused for a minute, turning his head upward as though he were praying. "And you're more than capable of protecting her from danger, if the news reports I've read are any indication."

Matt shook his head. "You don't understand. Fisk—he'll never stop hunting her. He told me so, when I stopped him last time. When I—when I didn't stop him last time."

Father Cathal turned toward him. "What do you mean?"

"Father..." Matt crossed himself again. "What if the only way to protect her... and not just her, but the whole city..." He trailed off.

"What are you trying to say, son?"

Matt took a deep breath. "What if the only way is to damn myself? What if—what if—I'm supposed to kill him?"

The words rang in the silence, hanging in the air over his head like a sword. Father Cathal didn't respond.

Matt closed his eyes. "One soul in exchange for the whole city. What if... what if it's God's will?"

There was a prolonged silence, and Father Cathal breathed deeply. Matt could practically hear the neurons firing in his brain. "God will never will you to damn yourself. You're a learned man, Matthew, you know that." Father Cathal crossed himself. "It sounds to me that you are not fighting with Fisk, son. You're not even fighting with God. I think you're fighting with yourself."

"God told David to kill Goliath," Matt said.

"That was a different time. We're not at war."

"Aren't we?" Matt said. He could feel his blood pressure rising, the devil in him slouching slowly toward the surface. "Look at this city. It's suffering. It's bleeding and dying and vultures are circling—"

Unbidden, like the breathless shock of an uppercut in the ring, Frank Castle's voice rang in his head.

Look around, Red. This city, it stinks. It's a sewer. It stinks and it smells like shit and I can't get the stink out of my nose.

Who was Wilson Fisk if not Goliath?

I think that this world, it needs men who are willing to make the hard call. I think you and me are the same.

"You're looking for permission to do this," Father Cathal said quietly. "I can't give you that; no one can."

Only I do the one thing you can't. You hit 'em and they get back up. I hit 'em and they stay down.

He thought back to that night, years ago—Fisk's wedding night. When the smell of his blood sharply cut across his pristine apartment. He remembered the feel of Fisk's head in his hands; so vulnerable. So breakable. It would have taken one move—just one snap in the right direction. Just one man, willing to do what was necessary...

Father Cathal turned to peer at Matt through the tiny slats in the partition. "You've struggled with this before, and you found the right answer. It's my prayer for you to find it again."

Matt put his glasses back on. "Thank you, Father."

Father Cathal assigned him a penance and declared him absolved of guilt. 

Matt didn't believe him.

As he left the confessional, Father Cathal's heartbeat slightly raised behind him, he hesitated. He could go into the office, he could go home... but what he longed to do, actually, was to put on his black suit and punch something. Anything. 

But that would sort of negate the purpose of confession. He'd let that particular sin rest awhile before indulging again.

What he really wanted—what he wanted more than anything—was to see Karen. He'd avoided her for the past two weeks. And yet, he couldn't bring himself to visit her. Each time the memory of her voice entered his head, he thought of Mitchell Ellison—of his warning. His chastisement. 

He took a seat in the chapel, in a pew toward the back, directly underneath a stained glass window. He could feel the slight warmth of the sunlight through the glass and the heat of the candles toward the front. He remembered Karen, years ago, shielded by Father Lantom. He remembered the sounds, the smells of Father Lantom dying in Karen's arms. 

And he remembered Elektra dying in his own arms, the copper taste of blood and the slow faltering stop of her heart. He knew it would be the same if Karen—if Karen—

Someone began walking up the aisle toward him; Matt heard the click of heels against stone and smelled the soft scent of linen. Sister Maggie. He angled his head toward her.

"Praise God, it's a miracle. Matthew's in church again." She sat in the pew next to him.

"Hello, Sister."

"Let me guess—" she sighed, appraising him. "You're here to get your stitches looked at? Or maybe you want a lecture. I can help with both, but I'm better at the latter."

Matt raised his eyebrows. "Maybe I'm just here for the cheery atmosphere."

"Smartass," she muttered. "I see you took confession."

"There's a lot I need forgiveness for in my line of work."

"At least you're self-aware," she said, and Matt snorted.

They sat in silence for a while. A few lone parishioners came in and knelt in the pews, whispering prayers. Matt did his best to tune them out, but couldn't help but get caught up in the pleading, the anguish, the need. He clutched his cane harder and forced himself to focus on Sister Maggie instead.

"I read about Poindexter's trial," she said, tilting her head toward him. "I know how badly he hurt you last time. I worried—I was really worried that—" she sighed. "I'm glad to see you're back, and looking... mostly still in one piece."

He laughed a little, but the sound died quickly. Then he frowned, chewing on his lip. "Sister, do you remember Karen Page?"

"Of course," Sister Maggie said. "I'm not going to forget the person Father Lantom died for."

Matt closed his eyes. "I need to call things off with her."

He could tell Sister Maggie wanted to argue with him, to call him a dumbass or a stubborn moron—something distinctly inappropriate for a nun to say. But she seemed to think better of it. "Well, you've been with enough women to know how to do that."

He shook his head. "No—no—Karen's different. It's not a fling, or a—or even just a relationship. It's, it's..."

"It's love," Sister Maggie said simply. "I remember the way you fought for her. And the way you talked about her when you were living in the basement." She shrugged. "Let me guess, you want to cut things off because 'warriors have to be alone' and whatever else that Stick man taught you. What I don't understand is why you're asking me about it."

"That's really nice, Sister."

He didn't need sight to know she was rolling her eyes. "That's not what I mean. It's just—you're never here for a chat. If we're talking, it's because you want something. Advice, I'm assuming. But I really don't know what to tell you."

Matt swallowed. He hadn't been intending to speak to her about this—hadn't even come in to speak with her at all—but like always, in the midst of his confusion, his desperation, he'd ended up at her side. He closed his eyes.

In his head he saw his father, bloody face and boxing gloves, a weariness in his smile. It was a weariness he'd known ever since he could remember; from the time Matt was born, to the time Jack Murdock was murdered, there was always a  sadness in him. "When you—when you—left," he said slowly, delicately. "It... I think it almost killed my dad."

Sister Maggie went very still.

"But over the years," Matt continued, "he moved on. He never—he never completely healed, but he was okay. He managed. He made a life for himself. What I want to know... is..."

"What, Matthew?" Her voice was only a breath, so soft that no one else in the world would have been able to hear it.

"How did you survive it?" He whispered.

Her heart rate sped up, pounding hard and fast like a drum. Matt regretted asking her almost as soon as he'd said it. It was stupid. He shouldn't have—

"Matt! Matt!"

Surprised, Matt angled his head toward the sound. The smell of Axe body spray and synthetic latex were enough to tell him that it was Peter—as if his voice wasn't enough. Underneath Peter's dress shirt and pants was his Spider-man suit. His heartbeat was fast. His face was warm, flushed.

Matt stood. "Stop yelling—this is a church." He sensed Peter blushing. "I'll meet you outside."

Peter nodded and ran back out through the doors. Matt turned back to Sister Maggie and began unfolding his cane. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said anything. I shouldn't have—"

"You don't survive it," she said softly.

"What?"

She took a long breath. "A part of you dies, and you're changed forever; someone entirely new. When a piece of you is—is ripped away—or worse, when you rip yourself away—" she shook her head. "You can't fix that."

Matt opened his mouth to say something—but there was nothing to be said.

"Good afternoon, Matthew," she said quietly. She stood and gently touched his arm, then walked away.

He stood, paralyzed, in the silence for a moment, then remembered Peter. He sent his focus out to Sister Maggie one last time—she was heading into the basement, trembling—then followed Peter out of the cathedral and into the hot sunshine.

Peter was bouncing from foot to foot, his heart pounding. Matt closed the door to the chapel and took a minute to breathe, trying to clear the panic and despair from his head.

"How did you know I was in there?" he said finally.

Peter frowned. "Dude, you have, like, three friends, and you're super Catholic. THere's a limited number of places you could be."

Matt didn't really have a response to this.

"Listen—I just talked with Roel—"

"The Albanian? What did—" Matt paused, angling his head and focusing in harder on Peter. There was a cottony, sweaty sort of smell emanating from the pocket of his dress suit. "Do you have a wad of cash in your pocket? Smells like—" he sniffed. "Like cigarettes and sweat. Where did you—"

Peter laughed uncomfortably. "Uh... yeah... Roel heard I was broke, he felt sort of bad. Not that—I'm not complaining, you guys pay great—well, you pay okay—I mean—"

Matt closed his eyes. "Peter. What did he tell you?"

"Right." Peter took a deep breath, his heart rate starting to slow down a little. "It's bad, Matt. It's really bad. Vanessa's on her way to New York right now—"

Matt's jaw clenched.

"—which I know is bad, because—"

"The stalemate," Matt said. "We're about to lose a lot of ground."

Peter shook his head. "That's not the worst of it, though. Fisk—he—he's gonna get the governor to declare martial law in the city—you can explain that to me later—and he wants to... he wants..." Peter's hands were twisting.

"What?"

Peter drew in a breath, held it for a moment, then blew it all out at once. "He wants to bring back the Sokovia Accords for New York, Matt. He wants to—"

Matt ran a hand under his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "He's putting a target on our backs." His mind was racing, a thousand legal strategies rolling over one another. All insufficient, insignificant. All useless. All of it, against Fisk—useless. "He wins," Matt muttered. "He always wins."

"So what's the plan? How do we fight this? Are we going the lawyer route, or should we just go kick his ass?"

Neither. We don't.  "We, uh... shit, Peter, we just have to—" Matt's heart was beginning to race, a blood red rage filling in the blackness of his eyes. There was only one way to stop Fisk. Only one way. "Do we know what Fisk is doing right now? Does he have any campaign events going on, any—any meet and greets? We can't do anything right now—but we can try to... I don't know. Track him. Get more intel. Can you look him up?"

"On it," Peter said, pulling out his phone. Matt twisted his hands around his cane, his knuckles whitening. "Just a sec... bad WiFi out here... okay. Wilson... Fisk... news. Let's see."

Matt concentrated on his breath, bringing his focus to his center. He listened to his heartbeat, to the expansion of his lungs. He forced the rage to lower, imagining water slowly swirling down a drain. He forced his mind to slow down, his thoughts to settle.

"Holy shit," Peter muttered. "He's been shot—Bullseye just shot Wilson Fisk."

"What?"

Peter scrolled frantically. "He's in the hospital—Lenox Hill. 'A Fisk representative has reported that the mayoral candidate is in stable condition and is currently being treated for a single gunshot wound to the upper arm.'"

Matt was about to say something about Bullseye—about how Poindexter never missed, about how that had to have been planned; Fisk had to have been behind it, to try to escape suspicion, or to frame someone else—he was about to say that Fisk had done this before, had hired someone to attack him in prison in order to puppeteer his way back to the top—when he suddenly realized something.

"Peter. Has the Bulletin released a statement yet?"

He quickly typed on his phone and scrolled. "No—no—nothing yet."

Matt clutched Peter's arm. "Peter—Peter—I—" his stomach was ice and he felt as though the pavement had cracked open; as though he were falling into a chasm a thousand miles deep. His heart was pounding. His breath was unsteady, panicked. "Pretend to guide me—quick—there's a taxi two blocks away, hail it when it gets here—I—we have to—"

"Matt?" What's going on, what do you—"

"Karen," Matt said, his cane shaking in his hands. "She's at the hospital, I know it. She's—she's going to meet with Fisk."

Chapter Text

"Your men are searching the city, sir, but they've found nothing. Apparently Poindexter is in the wind."

Wilson took a deep breath as the nurse next to him carefully put his arm into a sling. In truth, Wilson didn't think he'd even need it. He'd been shot before, much worse than now. He would overcome it easily. And yet... it might do his campaign some good to be seen in this sling, to prove to anyone who might doubt his innocence that he, too, was a victim. The sling could humanize him.

He experimentally flexed his arm. A jolt of pain shot through his nerves, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. He nodded to the nurse, who promptly left the room.

"Then find him," Wilson said sharply. Felix shifted a little.

"Sir... I do wonder if perhaps it might be expedient to search for his employer instead. Poindexter is far from organized; someone must be choosing his targets for him. I think that—"

"Of course he's being controlled!" Wilson said, impatience frosting his voice. "Presumably the same person who has been... assisting... my campaign lately. But the best chance we have at learning their identity is through Poindexter."

"Yes, of course," Felix said quickly.

"So find him!"

Felix nodded. "I'll double the offer on the streets; perhaps someone has seen something..."

"Yes, yes," Wilson said impatiently, waving his hand as though brushing the words away. "More importantly—where is Vanessa?"

"In the air, sir."

In the air. In the air. Wilson took a sharp breath, willing his heart to slow down. His love—his life—she was in the air. She was on her way.

In a matter of hours, she would be in his arms.

Wilson sat up straighter in his bed, arranging his face into a carefully controlled, neutral expression. "Thank you, Felix. That will be all."

Felix shifted his weight then tucked his hands behind his back as though bracing for something. "Actually, sir... there's one more thing. I wanted to get everything else out of the way first, before telling you—"

Wilson frowned. "What is it?"

"There's a reporter here to speak with you."

He shook his head, irritated. "Redirect all reporters to my lawyers. You know this, Felix. I don't speak to the press without representation—unless, of course, it's Mr. Jameson."

"No, it isn't Mr. Jameson, sir..." Felix hesitated. "It's Karen Page, sir."

Karen Page.

The monster who had found his mother, all those years ago. The accomplice to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. The interfering reporter and investigator.

The murderer of James Wesley.

Wilson froze, hot rage beginning to stir in the pits of his stomach like writhing snakes. "Karen... Karen Page."

"Yes, sir, from The Bulletin."

"I know who she is!" Wilson said sharply. Felix took a breath and stepped forward, tilting his head deferentially.

"I can have her sent away if you would like."

Wilson balled his hands into fists, the muscles in his cheek jumping. Twitching. "I don't want her sent away, Felix. I—" He was shaking now, remembering, raging. "I want her dead."

Felix nodded. "Shall I send for the Russians then, sir?"

Yes. The Russians. Kill her. Tear her apart. Dye the earth scarlet with her blood.

Wilson took a steadying breath, waiting a long moment before responding. "No, Felix. I... she..." he closed his eyes. "It would not be advantageous, at this time. She must be kept alive."

If he touched Karen Page, if he moved an inch against her, Murdock would come for him. No—Murdock would come for Vanessa. And Wilson could not have that. Not now, when she was so close to home, so close to him. When they were hours away from their loving reunion. Not now. Not ever.

Still... Karen Page presented an opportunity. She was so close to him, so close to the Devil. Perhaps he could get information from her; at the very least, he'd be able to upset and disarm Murdock.

Wilson shifted back in the hospital bed, arranging himself into an imposing posture. Still, tense, rigid, but calm. Like a statue. He took a few more breaths and let the muscles in his face settle into a grave expression. "Send her in, Felix."

"Yes, sir." Felix bowed his head and made to leave.

"And, Felix... that will be all for the day."

Felix nodded and ducked out of the room, leaving Wilson to wait in silence for Karen Page to enter.

In just a few minutes he heard her; the sound of her heels clicking on the linoleum tiles, her soft "Thanks" to his bodyguard who was holding the door open. And then she was in front of him—blonde hair tied back into a smart bun, blazer jacket and crisp slacks giving her an air of self-assurance and poise. She carried a yellow legal pad in one arm and a leather purse in another—just the size of the .22 Wilson knew she carried.

"Ms. Page," he said.

"Wilson," she said, narrowing her eyes. "Or are we not on a first-name basis anymore?"

He took a slow breath. "Very well, Karen. What are you—"

"I'm here to find out why you had yourself shot," Karen said, her voice edged with acid. "Talk."

Wilson raised his eyebrows. "I don't know what you're implying—"

"Oh please," Karen said. She sat in a chair across the room; close enough that she wouldn't have to shout, but far enough to keep her feeling safe. Wilson found himself smiling faintly. She was frightened of him.

"I'm afraid I can't help you, Karen. I assure you, the injury I received was quite real."

She scoffed, almost laughing. "I don't doubt it. But you had yourself shanked in prison years ago—"

"Allegations," Wilson said. "Unproven."

"Bullshit!" Karen said softly, leaning forward. "Ray Nadeem testified. He knew. He put you away—"

"And yet," Wilson said, smiling, "here we are."

Karen let out a slow breath, leaning back in her chair, and scribbled something at the top of her legal pad. "You had five years to yourself during the blip. Is that what you did? Spent that time erasing evidence? Bribing officers? Wiping the shit away from your name?" Wilson didn't answer, and Karen leaned forward again. "For what, Wilson? For the mayorship?"

"I want to help this city," Wilson said evenly.

"Sure," Karen said. "The city. Yeah. Or maybe... you want to build up your little rat kingdom? For Vanessa?"

Vanessa...

Wilson took a breath—unsteady, shuddering, twitching. Karen was so weak, so vulnerable, brittle as a toothpick. He pictured her on the floor in front of him, neck snapped, head at an unnatural angle, blood leaking from her eyes.

"Nothing more than you would do for your Mr. Murdock, I'm sure," he said finally.

Her eyes flashed.

"Say that name again," she said softly. "I dare you."

He smiled. After a moment, he opened his mouth to say something, when outside the door came a frantic sound—shouting, scuffling. The sound of running. Banging. The latch of the door.

Matthew Murdock burst into the hospital room, followed closely by Peter Parker.

Karen jumped up from her seat, shock and indignation etched across her face. "Matt! What are you—"

Wilson flared his nostrils, his heart rising. Unconsciously he began to clench his fists and unclench them, fingers twitching against each other.

"I do not welcome... intrusions, Mr. Murdock—"

But Murdock wasn't listening. He was panting, his hair ruffled, completely disheveled. He was almost shaking as he rushed to Karen's side; hands trembling as he touched her shoulders, her arms, her face. "Karen... you... you—you're okay—"

"Get out of here, Matt! I can handle—"

Wilson narrowed his eyes, watching them carefully. Murdock seemed practically senseless with fear; hardly aware of his surroundings, entirely focused on the frame of the woman he loved. He looked almost dizzy with the relief of finding her intact. "Karen... damn it, you—why are you here?" His hands brushed across her face.

Subtly, slowly, Peter Parker moved in front of the two of them, momentarily blocking them from Wilson's view. Wilson frowned at the boy. He hadn't proven to be much of a threat thus far; in fact, he was more of an annoyance than anything else. An insect, as it were. And yet—there was something almost menacing in the way he was standing. Something protective, fierce.

"Fisk," Parker said.

There was a clatter, and one of his bodyguards burst through the door. "Sorry, sir—they rushed us—we couldn't stop them—we can have them removed—"

Murdock was still running his hands over Karen's face, her arms, her hair, as though looking for reassurance. As though unaware of what he was doing. Wilson glanced at them and then at the resolute figure of the boy in front of him.

"No need," he said finally. "They're here for a press interview. You may go."

The bodyguard looked uncertain, but he nodded and ducked out. Wilson made a mental note to take care of the man later—after all, mistakes of this severity were not easily forgiven—then he returned his attention to the group in front of him.

Murdock finally stepped away from Karen, clenching his fists. He drew in a deep breath and turned to Wilson.

"You son of a bitch," he said. "You had yourself shot."

"I have already told Karen," Wilson said, and he was amused to see a flash of anger across Murdock's face at the sound of Karen's name from his enemy's lips. "I am a victim here. I have no idea who tried to have me killed, but Bullseye's attack was entirely genuine."

Murdock was twisting his cane in his hands. "You're—you're lying."

But he was not lying, and Murdock knew it. It was in his face, the crestfallen downturn of his mouth, the confusion and anger in his brow. Wilson sneered, almost unaware of it, as he looked at the pathetic form of Matthew Murdock before him.

"I'm surprised at you, Karen," Wilson said, turning to look at her. "You're a respected journalist, an investigator in your own right. I didn't think you needed protection to conduct a simple interview."

Karen shook her head. Wilson could see the blood, the red, rising in her face. "I didn't want—I didn't—" she turned to Murdock, infuriated. "Go! Please!"

Murdock wasn't listening to her. "We had a deal, Fisk. You stay away—you don't lay a finger—"

Wilson sat up higher. "And what have I done to break our deal, Mr. Murdock? Karen came to me."

Karen stood and came closer, ignoring Murdocks' attempts to draw her back. "You were shot in the arm. Dex doesn't miss. How do you explain that?"

Yes. The arm. Wilson had thought much the same; Poindexter had clearly missed on purpose. He'd allowed him to escape, to survive. Wilson could only assume that Karen was right, in some regards—Poindexter had shot him to keep up appearances. He'd shot Wilson in order to make him seem like a victim. To clear him of suspicion.

Likely on the orders of his mysterious benefactor.

Wilson took a long breath. He had been entirely unprepared. Had Poindexter truly been seeking his life, Wilson would be dead already. The thought filled him with more anger than fear, more conviction than panic.

He would not let himself be caught off-guard again.

"Perhaps he's lost his edge, after so many years of poor health."

"That's bullshit!" Murdock yelled. Wilson stared at them for a moment; at Karen's clear irritation, at Parker's concern and confusion, at Murdock's rage.

Rage Wilson knew all too well.

Karen scribbled something on her legal pad. "Poindexter's stronger than he's ever been. All the adamantium in his skeleton, it's made him deadlier than before. I think you knew that."

Of course he had. "All the more reason to quash the actions of these crazed vigilantes. You can quote me on that."

Karen was quiet. She turned around, glaring at the two men near her. After a moment Parker practically dragged Murdock to the back of the room, giving Karen space to work. To investigate. Wilson raised his eyebrows. She was like Vanessa, almost; able to control a room, to get what she wanted. What she needed.

The thought of Vanessa and Karen together filled Wilson with a sudden flash of anger, and he took a moment to quell it.

"You killed Julie Barnes," Karen said. "Don't deny it—you killed her years ago. You set Dex off the rails and used him like a puppet. Sounds like you're doing it again; you've made a loose cannon and now you're aiming it wherever you want."

"No, I'm not," Wilson said, and he was pleased to see Murdock's face screwed up in frustration. He'd heard from subordinates about the Devil's uncanny ability to detect truth—it was something else altogether to see it with his own eyes.

Karen glanced back at Murdock, then moved closer. She dropped her voice quieter. "You'd better be careful around Dex, Wilson. You're about to be reunited with your precious Vanessa. And you and I both know what a danger he can be."

The muscles in Wilson's face began twitching.

"Karen!" Murdock said sharply.

"How... did you know..." Wilson said, then took a deep breath. "How did you know that Vanessa is returning?"

Karen smirked. "There's a lot I know, Wilson. A lot."

And before Wilson could even respond, the boy stepped forward—triumph and resolution in his voice, in his stance. "Like your plan to declare martial law!" Parker said. "Using the Sokovia Accords, no less."

Wilson clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.

"Peter! Shut up!" Murdock hissed.

There was a mole. A rat. Somewhere, among his men, someone was leaking information to Spider-man. Or Daredevil. Or both. Wilson was silent for a long moment, picturing his assistants one by one. His bodyguards. His inner circle. In his mind, they were lined up before him; trembling and afraid. Loyal, all but one... but who?

"If I recall correctly, you've had... dealings with heroes in the past, haven't you?" Wilson said. Karen shot Parker a confused glance. "I hear Spider-man fought in favor of the original Sokovia Accords."

He was pleased to see Parker's face contort slightly at the sound of his alias.

"Yeah, well, people change," Parker said.

Murdock was fidgeting, almost pacing, rubbing at his eyes underneath his glasses. "We're leaving," he said, tugging at Karen's arm, but she shook him off.

"So, you—what? You want to have all the heroes arrested? Give yourself more free reign?"

Wilson smiled placidly. "On the contrary. Any hero who signs with me will be allowed to operate in the city—with some guidance, of course."

Karen shook her head, laughing hollowly. "So you're trying to create your own personal squad of trained fighters?"

Parker narrowed his eyes. "No one's gonna go for that. I know a lot of heroes—they're not—"

Wilson flexed his fingers, testing the pain in his arm. It was manageable. Nothing. "I'm sure you're right, Mr. Parker. None of your old... friends... will be interested in what I have to offer. Most of them operate outside the city these days. No—I don't need them to sign. Only the vigilantes who make New York their home." He closed his eyes for a moment, then looked directly at Murdock—wishing the man had working eyes, so he could see the fire in Wilson's. "Men who cannot leave the city—who were born in the city. Raised by it. Men with the city in their blood."

Murdock's hands were twisting furiously around his cane.

"And if those men choose not to sign, well—they must face the repercussions of the law. As soon as it's implemented."

Parker was shaking his head. "No one's going to sign—"

"Then there will be no more vigilantes in New York City," Wilson said evenly. "Arrests will be made. Consequences will be implemented."

He kept his face neutral, calm, pleasant even—but inside Wilson was fuming. They should not have known about the martial law, or his use of the accords. When he found out who was leaking the information, the sky would burn red with blood and rage.

Wilson turned to Karen. "This is all off the record, of course—at least until it goes into effect."

"And when will that be?" Karen asked. Wilson only smiled at her.

"That is not up to me. We'll have to wait and see what decision the governor comes to."

Karen shook her head, twisting her mouth. "So. You'll subdue all the heroes, and then what? Give Bullseye free reign over the city? Let him murder and torture everyone until you're free to just take the mayorship?"

"I already told you," Wilson said, his voice rising. "I had nothing to do with Poindexter. These murders, the... unsavory activities of late, are outside of my influence. No, Karen—" he sneered. "I don't know who is behind it."

Murdock was breathing heavily, his jaw clenching.

"On the record, Karen," Wilson said, "you can tell your readers that until the epidemic of vigilantism is under control, I am calling on the governor to declare martial law. He will make the right decision, I'm quite confident. Because if not... who knows how many lives will be lost?"

Murdock angled his head, like he was listening carefully for something. "You just want them all killed," he said. "All your opponents—anyone who speaks against you—"

"Of course not!" Wilson said, almost a shout. He took a moment to collect himself and bring his voice back down. "I have already stated that I am not behind any of it. No, Mr. Murdock—I am innocent in all this."

"Bull—"

"But it's a foolish man who doesn't seize an opportunity when it's presented," Wilson said. "This city is drowning. It is suffocating in the chaos left in Poindexter's wake; who knows how many men and women this maniac will murder? The city needs someone strong to guide it through these trying times."

Murdock was scoffing, laughing, derisive and disbelieving. "I told you, Fisk. I told you—we had a deal. You can't—"

"Have I gone after Karen Page?" He said, and suddenly both Karen and Peter seemed to melt away into the ether, leaving Wilson and Murdock alone. Connected, tied, solitary in the openness of a strange void. "Have I moved against Franklin Nelson? Have I revealed your identity?"

Murdock was unclenching and unclenching his fists, his chest almost heaving. "If I hear a word—a whisper—if you step a single toe out of line—I will go to the FBI. And your Vanessa, your precious Vanessa, will spend the rest of her life rotting in a cell."

Fisk closed his eyes. He imagined Murdock, impaled upon spikes. He imagined Murdock buried alive in cement and dropped into the Hudson. He imagined his head, detached from his shoulders, crushed into a pulp of bone and brain.

"If you want her free," Murdock said, "stay away."

This dance... the lunging and avoiding, this stalemate...

Wilson was tired of it.

"Do you know what I think, Mr. Murdock?" Wilson said, quietly and evenly. "I think you have no evidence against Vanessa.” He watched Murdock carefully, waiting for a reaction; something that might reveal what Murdock knew, what evidence he had. What power he held.

Murdock's jaw tightened.

"I think this 'stalemate' of yours is built on a bluff."

He was about to say something more, when suddenly Parker's voice rang out. The illusion shattered—the illusion that he and Murdock were alone in this fight. Parker and Karen were there, and Parker was tense, poised, as though ready to spring.

"Of course we have evidence!" Parker said, triumph oozing from his voice. "We have a witness, someone who personally saw Vanessa order a hit on Ray Nadeem."

"Peter!" Karen said suddenly, sounding horrified. Peter glanced at her, then abruptly closed his mouth, dropping into silence. Murdock was gripping his cane so tightly that it trembled. As though it were about to snap.

A witness. So Murdock knew who was in the room that day. 

Wilson should have known as much. There had been two witnesses besides Vanessa and himself. He'd killed Mrs. Shelby years ago, in anticipation of this very event. But the other witness...

Felix Manning.

Felix had been useful. He had been loyal. Wilson had allowed him to live, all these years—albeit on borrowed time. He'd thought that Felix's service outweighed the cost, the risk, of keeping him alive. And it had, for a time.

But if Murdock knew Felix was a witness—if Murdock, using his barbaric methods, could force Felix Manning to turn state's witness...

Then that time was at an end.

Wilson took a slow breath, thinking. Then he rearranged his face into its carefully neutral expression and turned to Karen. He was loath to see her go, loath to let her heart continue beating. He'd prefer her to remain on the linoleum floor, pouring blood from each orifice. He'd prefer to snap each bone in her pathetic body.

But for now... she needed to be kept alive. As insurance, for Vanessa's safety.

At least until he could take care of Manning.

"This interview is finished," he said. "Good day, Karen. Mr. Parker. Mr. Murdock."

Karen was glaring at Parker. Parker was staring, horrified, at the floor. Murdock, though... his head was angled directly at Fisk, his jaw clenched, his scabbed knuckles starkly white as he trembled with rage.

Wilson was silent as his bodyguards filed into the room and surrounded the three of them, marching them into the hallway. He was silent still as the nurse came in and double-checked his stitching and bandages. He was silent as he was discharged from the hospital, as his guards surrounded him protectively and walked him down to the street outside.He was silent until he stepped into the limousine waiting for him.

Wilson tapped on the glass separating him from the driver. 

"We're going to visit Manning," he said. "Now."

The limousine pulled away from the hospital; Wilson watched it shrink and fade, twisting and fiddling with his father's cufflinks around his wrists.

#####

Dex pulled his baseball cap further down, shielding his face, and popped the collar of his jacket as he walked through the wrought-iron gates. "Cedar Grove Cemetery: Gates Close at 5 PM" read a blue sign affixed to the gate. Dex ducked his head, keeping his face to the ground, and entered.

This was the eleventh cemetery he'd scoured in the last two weeks. He'd searched public records, newspapers, combed through countless internet archives—but to no avail. The cemeteries were his last resort. He was determined to find Julie's grave, to find some sort of proof that she'd lived. That she'd died.

Julie...

His head pounded, flashes of red and white searing across his eyes, as he tried—for the millionth time—to remember. Oh, he remembered some things; their friendship at the suicide hotline, her kindness, her compassion, her goodness—so unlike anything Dex had ever known. Had ever been.

And he remembered, snippets, glimpses, fractional moments of her final days. Shattered images that didn't fit together. That couldn't fit together, not until he had more information to work with.

He planned to search the graveyard methodically, as he had done all the others; beginning in the newest section, the back rows, carefully through to the front. Parallel, even, crisp lines of searching. Searching. Searching.

First, though, he had to report back to his employer.

He pulled the burner phone from his pocket and called the last number—the only number saved to the phone. Unknown Caller, read the ID; his only pitiful clue as to the nature of the person he worked for.

"It's done," Dex said the moment his employer picked up.

"Where?" came the voice on the other end. Like always, it was garbled, mechanical, tinned; a voice clearly coming through a voice modulator. Completely anonymous.

"Caught him outside the mayor's office, square in the arm."

"And his reaction? Was he angry?"

"No shit," Dex said, slowly moving through the row of granite headstones. Jones, Smith, Imani. "I just shot him."

"This is important," the voice said carefully. "Did he suspect your motives?"

Barnes. Dex was looking for Barnes. Julie Barnes.

"I have no motive," Dex said. "Just you."

There was an impatient noise from the phone. "Did he suspect that you missed on purpose?"

Dex thought back to Fisk's massive, moonlike face, the rage that had lit up behind his eyes like a bomb going off. "I don't see why it's a secret. I mean, you want him elected—it would be a hell of a lot easier if he was in on it."

"He cannot know!" the voice said, steely. "The campaign must be spotless on his end. He can never know we are helping him."

"I don't see why." Connors, Nocenti, Miller, Adams.

There was a long pause before his employer answered. "There are certain... undesirable elements watching him. They will strike if Mr. Fisk makes one wrong move. He must remain innocent in all this."

Dex was somewhat mystified by this, but to be honest—he couldn't bring himself to care. He didn't give two shits about Wilson Fisk, or his mysterious employer. Or even his newfound supervillain reputation.

All he cared about was Julie.

She'd been murdered—his lawyer, Murdock, had been pretty clear on that. And if Dex strained, he could remember. He remembered the rage and the panic. He remembered a handful of interactions with Daredevil. He remembered a frozen body, eyes wide, skull blasted open...

What he couldn't remember was the person who killed her.

He would find them eventually. He would come for them, and Dex would watch the light leave their eyes as their blood leaked out through their mouths, their throats.

"He didn't suspect shit," Dex said. More graves—Zdarsky. Jonas. Bendis. "I can be real convincing."

"So he believed you were there to kill him?"

Dex thought back. There had been a flash of shock in Fisk's eyes as Dex had shot his two bodyguards in the head. He'd let their bodies slap against the pavement before he'd turned to Fisk—smiling—and cocked the gun straight at his temple.

And he'd waited just a fraction of a second, letting Fisk move just out of the way; he'd let the bullet enter dead into the Kingpin's upper arm.

Then there was the moment of fear in Fisk's eyes, replaced unnaturally quickly by a monstrous, animalistic rage. But in that moment of uncertainty and chaos, with the guards dead on the ground and blood pouring from Fisk's arm, Dex had made an easy escape.

"Like I said." Tucker, Valdez, Summers. "I know what I'm doing."

There was a satisfied silence on the other end. Dex glanced at another tombstone—Lee—then straightened up and moved the phone a little closer to his ear.

"I've done everything you wanted," he said. "Killed politicians, civilians—I even attacked your own guy. It's time for you to follow through."

"And what would you like from me, Poindexter?"

"You know what I want, you piece of shit—"

The voice had a dangerous edge to it now. "I told you. You'll get the information you're looking for when the job is done."

"I've done—"

"The entire job," the voice said, low and angry. "There's work yet to do."

Dex could feel his blood pressure rising; could hear the droning of wasps, the rush of air as the rage, the panic, the animalism threatened to overtake him. The edges of his vision seared to black and he took a few deep breaths.

He remembered back two weeks ago, to the day of his trial—to the guard he'd killed, who had whispered to him: "If you want answers, if you want revenge—go to 86th and Columbus."

He thought back to his loosened handcuffs and his confusion; then, the realization as he'd remembered Julie for the first time.

As he remembered her murder.

He'd fled the courtroom and found his way to 86th and Columbus. He didn't know what he had expected—a meeting with someone, perhaps. Instead he'd found a burner phone taped to an alley wall. And it was there, it was then, that he'd begun taking orders from his mystery employer. Try as he might, he couldn't discern any identity through the mechanical, modulated voice on the other end of the phone.

You'll find that Julie Barnes doesn't exist anywhere, the voice had said. All records, all reports, every news article—even the internet is scrubbed clean. Someone doesn't want you to remember Julie. But you do, don't you, Dex? You remember her.

I can help you find her killer, Dex.

I can help you get revenge, Dex.

I know who did it, Dex.

And I'll tell you... for a prince.

How easily he'd become a puppet, a weapon in the hands of this mysterious person. But it would all be worth it—all of it—if he could get his hands on Julie's murderer.

"You don't want to tell me?" Dex said quietly. "Maybe I'll come and kill you instead."

There was a low chuckle. "Feel free, Poindexter. If you can find me. Of course, then you'll have lost your only lead. But if you think killing me will help you feel better..."

Dex growled. "My lawyer knows who killed her. I'll get it out of him, and I won't need you anymore—"

The voice laughed aloud. "Do you really think the lawyer would tell you the truth? You were an agent for the FBI, Dex. The corrupted FBI. I know you remember some of it. Don't you recall how easy it was for officers of the law to lie?"

He remembered. Snippets, glimpses only, but he remembered.

"Besides—do you really think the lawyer would know anything? Someone so irrelevant, so disconnected from everything that happened to you? He was just trying to drum up sympathy from the jury. He doesn't know anything."

Dex shifted his weight, thinking. "Murdock sounded pretty sure. It might be worth beating it out of him."

There was a long moment of silence. A nearby bird crowed, a flap of wings sounded, and a flash of shadow zipped across the headstones before the voice responded. "Stay away from the lawyer, Poindexter. You go near Murdock and the deal is off. You'll never find Julie's killer."

Dex frowned, pushing down a swell of rage. "Sounds like you're trying to protect him."

"Of course not!" The voice was angry now, angrier than Dex had ever heard them. He cocked his head, intrigued in spite of himself. "But Wilson Fisk has a history with this lawyer. Nelson and Murdock were instrumental in his arrest and indictment; it's because of Murdock that Mr. Fisk was imprisoned in the first place."

"Then why do you want me to stay away from him, if you hate him so bad?"

His employer took a slow breath. "If Murdock is hurt, then Mr. Fisk could be implicated. He might be blamed, and everything we've been working for will be lost."

Dex bounced his leg, thinking hard. In truth, he doubted Murdock knew anything about Julie. It wouldn't be worth the trouble of going after him. Loath as he was to continue as a puppet for this... this person, it was the best shot he had at finding out the truth.

At avenging Julie.

His employer seemed to read his thoughts from his silence. "There we go, Dex. I knew you'd come around. We're not done with each other yet."

Dex clenched his jaw. "What do you need?"

His employer made a small, contented sound. "You're at Cedar Grove Cemetery, aren't you?"

Whirling around, Dex felt his heart begin to pound. "What—how did—"

"Did you really think I wouldn't have you followed?" The voice sounded amused. "It's only a precaution, Dex. Don't worry. I've sent a gift for you; someone will be along shortly."

"Youre—you're having me followed? You piece of—"

"Good afternoon, Poindexter."

He clenched his fists, feeling his nails pushing into his palms. He could feel the skin breaking, curling around them. The buzzing, droning wasps in his head started up again, and he could feel hysteria slowly starting to rise in his chest. He was powerless, useless, trapped by this—this manipulative—this machinating, conniving—

"For you, sir," said a voice behind him.

Enraged, panicked, Dex whirled around. Without thinking, without even stopping to look at who it was, he grabbed the man's head and twisted it. The neck snapped—so satisfying, so final—and the body of a random man fell to the ground, his head cracking against a nearby tombstone.

An enormous box tumbled from his arms.

Dex sat down on a nearby tombstone and dropped his head into his hands. He tried to get his breathing under control, steadily willing the droning wasps to quiet and the pounding of his heart to still.

After a minute or so, he nudged the corpse with his foot. It wasn't anyone he recognized; probably some low-level assistant to his mystery employer. Ah, well. Dex picked up the box that the man had dropped.

There was an envelope on top. Dex ripped it open and snatched the note inside.

Your next assignment is simple: I need you to fight Daredevil.
DO NOT KILL HIM. Just weaken him.
As long as Daredevil's around, people will be afraid, and they will turn to Mr. Fisk for guidance and protection. Daredevil is far more useful alive than dead. Make him suffer, by all means: but DO NOT KILL HIM.
P.S. Thought you could use this. I know you've made good use of it before. And feel free to change it however you like; make it your own. After all, Daredevil's already a villain in this city. We don't need two of them.

Dex frowned, crumpling the note and stuffing it into his pocket. Then he sliced open the top of the box with his pocketknife.

A mass of red and black greeted him; body armor, latex and kevlar. The smell of gunshot residue sent a flash of memory through his head. This suit—he'd worn this suit before. He'd fought in this suit. He'd killed in this suit.

Daredevil's old red suit.

He dug around for a minute until he'd pulled out the cowl, with the red horns at the top. He ran his thumb over it, feeling a strange revulsion and anger rise in him. He wasn't Daredevil. He never had been. He didn't need a suit—he didn't need it—

He ran his fingers over the kevlar material of the chest-plate. It was unnecessary, insulting even... but it could be useful. If his shattered memory served him correctly, this suit had been incredibly protective. Deflecting fists, knives, bullets...

It made him powerful.

He pulled the rest of the suit from the box and folded it into a neat, careful square, tucking it safely under his arm. He shifted the cowl in the other hand, then kicked the cardboard box over the corpse.

Then, trying to quiet his thoughts, he continued his search through the graveyard.

Up and down the aisles, stone after stone, a whirling blizzard of names and dates. He searched and searched as the late afternoon sun fell lower and lower into the sky, until the tombstones cast long, demon-like shadows over the ground. Like yawning, gaping mouths, waiting to swallow him whole.

Kirby. Chechetto. Johanssen.

Barnes.

Barnes. Barnes! Dex stopped, feeling the blood drain from his face, hearing the wasps in his head once more. His vision blurred—in panic, in excitement, in pure overwhelm, he couldn't be sure. He knelt down to get a better look, trembling.

In memory of Julie Barnes.
Beloved friend, taken too soon. 1991-

The death date was gouged out, chipped neatly from the granite stone.

Whoever had wiped her records, scrubbed her from the internet... whoever was dedicated to keeping her secret, to keeping Dex from his revenge—presumably his own employer—

They'd gotten here first.

There was no point in it; it was senseless, stupid, enraging. She'd been killed just before he'd been paralyzed, in 2018. Gouging out her death year was nothing but a way to send Dex a message: that he was powerless, reliant on his employer for revenge. That he'd get nothing on Julie unless his employer told him first.

Dex stood, reeling, the edges of his vision turning red and black. He heaved, his breaths almost like screams; the wasps droned until he could no longer hear the sounds of the city, or even of his own body. The wasps drowned out everything.

Enraged, he hurled Daredevil's cowl at her grave.

Immediately, the granite on the corner of Julie's grave crumbled. Little chips of sparkling mica and quartz flew from the sheer force of Dex's throw, littering the ground where her head lay six feet below.

And the cowl—the bulletproof cowl—

One of the horns had broken off.

Dex blinked, breathing carefully, trying to get himself under control once more. This was new. This was—strange—impossible. He'd always been strong, always been brutal—but to break a bulletproof helmet?

It was the adamantium in his skeleton, in his spine. He knew it. 

He hadn't realized how much stronger he'd become.

His fingers twitched and he felt a strange sense of all-encompassing vigor run through his bones, his veins. He was strong. He was powerful. He was deadlier than he'd ever been. What did the newspapers call him? Their fearful name, the alias they'd bestowed, unwanted, upon him?

"Bullseye," he whispered. The crumbled granite underneath Julie's name glittered in the fading sunlight. 

He picked up the cowl, and the broken-off horn. He stared at it, for a moment, thinking. 

Bullseye...

Perhaps there was something to be done with the suit after all. 

#####

Wilson was waiting for him in the dark.

He sat at the head of Felix's table, under the dim light of the just-set sun coming in through Felix's blinds. A couple of Russians were just outside on the fire escape. They would wait until they were called. Until they were needed.

Felix was due home any minute. He'd spent the evening since the hospital out attending to his own various affairs and errands, no doubt grateful for the day off.

Wilson regretted it, this entire business, of course. But there was nothing to be done. Nothing but to push forward. He glanced down.

On the table was a bottle of chardonnay and two glasses—one frosted slightly white, the other clear. He arranged them carefully then leaned back in his chair, satisfied. 

Then he waited. 

Vanessa was only an hour away. He had not seen her since their wedding night, before the blip. He had not basked in the glow of her slightly crooked smile, her twinkling eyes, her soft arms. He wanted more than anything to be in the airport now, waiting at the gate for her to fall into his arms. Into his protection.

But there was a matter he had to attend to first.

After nearly ten minutes of waiting in the dark, Wilson heard Felix arrive home. The fumble of keys, the rustle of a jacket, the low tuneless whistle as his most loyal assistant shuffled into his home and settled into an armchair.

Wilson remained unnoticed.

"Good evening, Felix," Wilson said finally, and Felix jumped up. He whirled around and spotted Wilson, sitting calmly at his kitchen table, half shadow and half silhouette.

"Mr. Fisk—sir," he said, hand clutching at his chest momentarily, before he dropped it and bowed his head. "Forgive me, I wasn't expecting—"

"It's of no consequence," Wilson said. He stood and gestured for Felix to join him, even pulling out a chair. Felix glanced at him, a little apprehensively, then sat. Wilson followed suit. "I merely wanted to take an opportunity to thank you. It has been... trying, for both of us, of late."

"Undoubtedly, sir."

Wilson cocked his head, taking in the sight of the man across from him. He was no James Wesley... not a friend, per se. An acquaintance. Born of convenience, but built to something strong, something reliable, through years of loyalty and steady payment.

He did not relish the task at hand. He took no pleasure in it.

But he would move past it.

Wilson looked at the glasses in front of him. The room was dim enough, shadowed enough, that the powdered insides of Felix's glass were largely indistinguishable from Wilson's own glass. He'd layered the entire inside with cyanide, evenly frosting it all the way to the edges.

"And yet," Wilson said, uncorking the chardonnay, "we have made good progress. Your work has been... impeccable. Thank you."

"Of course sir. You're miles ahead in the polls, I expect we'll be able to—"

"I'd like to celebrate," Wilson said. There was no time for conversation, for deliberation. He had to get to Vanessa. "To thank you."

He poured the wine—first into Felix's glass, to allow the powder to dissolve fully—and then into his own.

He swirled his glass around and took a sip, letting the oak-aged sweetness spread smoothly across his tongue. Then he gestured for Felix to do the same.

Felix stared into his glass for a long moment. Then he looked up into Wilson's face, and his eyes were bright—wide—afraid.

"Please, sir—I don't underst—"

Wilson took Felix's glass and swirled it, letting the white wine sweep the powder down and incorporate it into its depths. He smelled it—the hint of bitter almond beneath the grape. He could see the delicate cloudy swirls all throughout.

"Drink, Felix," he said, and held out the glass.

Felix took it, his hands trembling. Wilson took another sip from his own glass.

"Sir, if it's—if it's something I've done—"

Wilson tilted his head, watching him. Waiting. Still, Felix held the glass gingerly in front of him. Of course he knew about the cyanide. He must have seen this coming; he must have. Felix was a smart man, after all. He must have known that he was the final loose end in Vanessa's fate.

"This is a celebration," Wilson said. "You've been successful, as have I. A toast, then, shall we? Drink." He raised his glass and waited for Felix to do the same. 

Felix's eyes were beginning to water. He breathed sharply, terrified. Wilson raised his eyebrows dangerously and after a moment or so the man finally raised his glass, letting it glint in the faint light coming in from the window. Wilson took a sip from his glass.

"Ple—please," Felix whispered.

Wilson paused. He leaned forward and dropped his voice dangerously low.

"I will not ask you again, Mr. Manning."

The tears in Felix's eyes began to fall. His hands trembled. His breath fogged up the edges of the glass, and from his lips fell whimpers—like they were overflowing out of him, like a glass poured too full.

Wilson raised his drink higher. "Your health, Felix."

"M—my—my he—heal—health," he stammered. He raised the glass to his lips and hesitated, shaking so hard that drops of wine were splashing from the sides.

Finally, he seemed to realize the futility of waiting any longer. And, as though wishing to hasten what was to come, Felix shakily tilted his head back and poured the entire glass into his mouth.

It took just over a minute for the poison to begin taking effect.

Felix's muscles jumped. He tensed up. He fell back into his chair, rigid against the wooden back, arms curling up and inward. His mouth began to foam, drool and excess wine dribbling sloppily from his lips.

He choked and gasped, clutching at the clothing on his chest—as though desperate to tear through it. To tear through the skin underneath. To reach his heart, and stem the poison from the inside.

Wilson took a slow sip and watched Felix seize. "I am sorry I couldn't give you a quicker death," he said. "You have served me faithfully. For that, sincerely, I thank you."

"Ghhrkkk—ahhffhh—"

Wilson swirled his chardonnay around a little, then leaned froward and picked up Felix's glass from where he'd set it down, just before he'd begun to seize. He'd have the Russians dispose of this later. Crush it, throw it into the Hudson. Along with the remnants of the chardonnay.

"It's unfortunate, Felix. But... Daredevil knows about you, what you witnessed; he plans to use you to hurt Vanessa. You know as well as I do that I can't have that."

Felix's eyes were wide, like two yawning mouths. They shone in pain, in fear. Wilson closed his own eyes for a moment, tamping down the faint regret that he felt rising in his stomach.

"I considered, of course, staging your death more advantageously. I could have mimicked Mr. Poindexter's methods. With the chaos he has wrought, it could've helped my campaign. A prominent Fisk campaign manager, murdered in his apartment by a crazed psychopath—yes, that could draw extra sympathy my way. And it could have deterred suspicion. But..." Wilson sighed.

Felix was still whimpering.

"I couldn't do that to you, Felix. No—you, who cared for Vanessa when I couldn't. You, who proved so loyal, so resourceful. No, Felix; you deserved a dignified death."

Felix was vomiting now, and choking on it.

"Of course, I'm sure it doesn't feel this way to you—but don't worry. We'll arrange you well. No violence, no gore, no mutilations. Not for you, Felix."

Felix tried to say something, but couldn't speak through the mess in his mouth. His muscles were growing more and more rigid, as though he were going into rigor mortis even before death.

Cyanide was not something Wilson usually dealt in, but he knew well enough that it would take at least five minutes for Felix to die. He would seize, he would go into cardiac arrest, and finally—Felix Manning would give up the ghost.

"I am sorry for the pain this causes you," Wilson said, taking another sip. "But don't worry—you won't suffer alone. I will stay here until the end."

And he did.

After seven minutes or so, Felix slumped over the table. He was rigid, still. His corpse was warm.

Wilson called in the Russians.

His men began their cleanup routine, removing Felix's clothes and scrubbing down the body. They wiped the mess from his face and closed his eyes. They dressed him in new clothing and arranged him carefully at the table. They wiped Wilson's fingerprints from the entire apartment and placed the glasses and the chardonnay into a sack, passing it out through the window to their compatriots. 

They placed a perfectly-forged suicide note on the table in front of him, along with a broken cyanide capsule.

The streetlamp outside cast a hazy orange glow over the corpse, cut through with slats of darkness from the blinds. Wilson watched the body for a couple of moments, considering him. This was the man who had handled all of Wilson's affairs, from the time James Wesley had been murdered. He'd been the man to protect Vanessa in Europe when Wilson couldn't. Wilson was sorry for the pain he'd endured in the end—but it had to be done.

From his pocket, Wilson pulled out a small notecard. One of the Russians nearby looked at him curiously.

"Take this," Wilson said. "Deliver it to Nelson and Murdock—wait for my signal."

The Russian nodded and left, and Wilson was alone with Felix once more.

"I... regret," he said, slowly, "that our time was so short together."

He stepped past the corpse and toward the front door. He pulled a glove onto his hand so as to avoid leaving any fingerprints. With his hand poised on the brass knob, he looked back at the slumped figure that had once been his most trusted advisor.

"But for Vanessa... I will always do what must be done."

#####

Matt was silent, seething, on the walk back to the office. Karen and Peter were walking together several feet ahead; Matt could hear the nervousness in their heartbeats, smell their adrenaline. He could taste the hospital on their clothes, saline and hand sanitizer and latex. And in his head, he was still smelling Fisk's blood. The bullet in his skin.

Behind him walked a ghostly image of Wilson Fisk. A terrible fantasy. A delusion. Matt wasn't sure anymore.

"They walk into danger so easily, Mr. Murdock," Fisk said, voice just above his shoulder. Matt angled his head away from him. "What will happen when the day comes that you are not there to save them?"

Ahead of him Peter and Karen were silent too. Matt wondered if they heard what he did, the haunting voice of Wilson Fisk, threatening and gloating.

"The city loves me. The city needs me. And what do you offer? The Devil of Hell's Kitchen—what do you provide? Fear? Suffering? Anguish? No, Matthew—I am not the villain. You are."

Matt closed his eyes and laughed hollowly.

He could tell Karen could hear him, but she didn't stop walking. In fact, she sped up—clearly still angry with him. Matt let the gap between them widen, sitting down on the stooping steps of a dirty brownstone and dropping his head into his hands. He listened to Karen and Peter walk, three full blocks, all the way to Nelson and Murdock. He waited until they had entered the building before he stood up and began walking again.

The conversation with Fisk—the real Fisk—was playing through his head like a record. The city needs someone strong to guide it through these trying times... I am innocent in all this, Murdock, but it's a foolish man who doesn't take an opportunity when it's presented...

He'd been telling the truth. The machinating, conniving monster had told the truth. All the blackmailed officials, the campaign corruption, the murders, even Poindexter... Fisk was completely uninvolved.

"And even if it was me," said the voice of Wilson Fisk in his head, "you would be powerless to stop it."

Matt picked up his speed as he walked toward the office, as though he were trying to lose Fisk in the dwindling evening crowd.

"Your love for Karen Page, and Franklin Nelson, is malignant. It's holding you back from doing what this city needs."

Matt shook his head. He shook it hard.

"It's holding them back, too, Mr. Murdock. Because that's what your love is—what it has always been."

Matt swept his cane broadly in front of him, relishing the vibrations of the tip scraping along the concrete, wishing it would drown out the imposing voice that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

"Your love is a prison."

Matt had made it all the way to the office. He paused for a minute, running his fingers along the small plaque that designated their practice—Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys at Law.

He closed his eyes and took a few centering breaths, doing what Stick had taught him: drawing in his focus, his energy. Taking inventory of himself and his surroundings. There were dozens of people nearby. There was the constant buzzing of neon lights. The smell of rats and sewage and pizza and the taste of polluted air.

But the building was secure. It didn't seem as though Fisk had had them followed.

Matt sent his focus to the upper story of the building. He could hear the heartbeats of Karen and Peter, and Foggy as well. And a fourth set—Marci, he was pretty sure. No doubt, Foggy had heard the news about Fisk's injury and came into the office to talk about it. To wonder, to plan, to deliberate.

"There is only one witness to Vanessa's crimes," the image-Fisk said again. "You spoke with him yourself, all those years ago. Felix Manning is the key to bringing me down. Or perhaps he might have been—but you've shown your hand. I know, now, Mr. Murdock, everything that you know. I'll tie up that loose end, and you will be left with nothing. Nothing."

Matt put his hand against the brick wall to steady himself.

And suddenly, the image of Fisk melted away, replaced by something new. Karen, sprawled across the floor, covered in blood. An engagement ring glittering on her finger, the band spattered scarlet. Her bones snapped, her sinews torn, her heart totally—dreadfully—still.

"You know I'm going to kill her," Fisk said quietly, reappearing as suddenly and smoothly as a serpent. "You sensed it, Matthew, didn't you? You could hear the desire in my voice, the hatred in my heartbeat. I've sent someone to kill her before. Perhaps this time I'll do it myself. I'll bathe my hands in her blood, and you'll know—she was never safe. Never, not with you."

Matt screamed and punched the brick wall.

The pain of it shocked him back into sense. He tasted the blood in the air as his knuckles shredded, felt the bones and joints shifting. He realized with a start that he was panting, gasping for breath. He took a moment, willed the sneering image of Wilson Fisk to dissolve, then entered the office.

Peter was waiting for him at the door, hands twisting together. "Matt, I'm so sorry—I didn't think—"

"Damn it, Peter!" Matt slammed the door behind him. "You—you idiot—now Fisk knows. He knows that we know about Manning, and now—"

Karen, from her place sitting atop her desk, crossed her arms. "Your hand, Matt. It's bleeding."

"You played right into his trap," Matt said, savagely folding up his cane. "He was testing us, trying to gauge what we know—and now, because of you, Felix Manning is in danger."

"Matt. You're bleeding." Karen was standing now. "What did you do?"

"We have to find him," Matt said. "Fisk doesn't leave loose ends. And now that Fisk knows we know—"

"Matt!" Foggy said, and Matt finally moved his attention toward him.

Foggy was sitting next to Marci, who was clutching Foggy's hand. Her heart rate was raised, apprehensive. She and Matt rarely interacted; he doubted she had ever seen him like this—bloody, rageful. Matt took a long, slow breath, willing himself to calm down.

Peter was leaning against the wall, head in his hands; Matt could smell saltwater, tears welling in Peter's eyes. He sighed, guilt rising in him. Peter didn't know; he couldn't have known. He was new to all this. Sure, he'd been a hero for some time—but he didn't understand how Fisk operated. Matt had been just as reckless when he'd first gone against Fisk.

"We have to find him," Matt said again, calmer this time.

Marci scoffed. "I don't think there's much that a group of lawyers can do for him. Does anyone know where he lives?" She didn't ask who Felix was, or what his significance was. Matt could only assume that Foggy had filled her in. He didn't keep anything from that woman—except, of course, Matt's secret. 

Matt didn't know where Felix was. Of course not. Fisk and all his associates kept their locations a closely guarded secret. Matt had no idea—absolutely no idea—where to start. Perhaps it was time to interrogate, to beat it out of someone.

"Okay," he said finally. "Foggy, you and Karen and Marci stay here and try to figure out where he lives. See if you can track him—public records, statements, any clues you can find. You can text Peter when you're done—Peter and I will go and..." he trailed off.

Marci cocked her head. "Why not stay and help us?"

Foggy looked at his girlfriend, then at Matt. "Maybe we should all stay here and try to track him." Then he dropped his voice to a whisper, a breath, so low Marci wouldn't be able to hear even sitting next to him. "You can't go after him now. If Fisk is looking for him, he's going to be more dangerous than ever. You're going to get yourself killed."

Matt shook his head. He had to go out, to search the streets, to bloody his fists and find him.

Karen began to whisper too. "Don't take Peter. You're going to get him killed." 

Matt, without turning around, focused his attention on Peter behind him. The kid was clearly wracked with guilt, eyes still a little watery, heart pounding. "I'm sorry," Peter said again.

Matt sighed, leaning against the front door and loosening his tie a little. "You didn't know—you couldn't know. It's okay."

Peter didn't look up.

"You've never met him before," Karen said. "You were unprepared. We get it."

Peter's heart began to beat faster. This talk was clearly making him feel worse. After all, Peter had gone up against Fisk before. Matt could sense the telltale signs, the signals Peter was subtly giving off. The boy was spiraling, blaming himself for Felix's danger in a way Matt knew only too well. The best thing for him right now was to leave him alone, to let him work through it on his own. Like Matt did.

Karen opened her mouth to say something else, but Matt held up a hand to stop her.

And, in holding up that hand—the one he'd injured downstairs—he realized for the first time how badly it hurt.

His knuckles had all split open. Blood was oozing, terribly thick and slow, down his fingers. Matt was also beginning to think he'd fractured a metacarpal; he tuned out every other sound, listening hard to his hand. The bone scraped against itself, sounding strangely like an old ship.

Definitely broken. He sighed. This was a Boxer's Fracture; something his father had been intimately aware of. Matt couldn't count the number of times he'd bandaged his father's hands after he'd broken them this way. Usually, Matt could avoid it, with the precautions he took—boxing wraps, muay thai ropes, choosing his targets more carefully... but he'd been reckless. Impassioned. 

Like his father. 

"Matt, you're bleeding on the floor," Karen said.

Matt knew it. He could hear the blood dripping, the deafening splash each drop made on the carpet. The stain would be a pain to get out. At least he wouldn't have to look at it.

"Right," Matt said.

Karen sighed and made her way to the office kitchenette, where they kept an enormous—practically industrial—first aid kid. Marci, undoubtedly, was looking at it in pure confusion. After all, what kind of lawyers needed to keep this kind of stuff on hand?

"Sit," Karen said, and Matt sank down to the floor. She followed him, kneeling in front of him and placing his hand carefully into her lap.

She began her tender ministrations, her gentle fingers moving so carefully across his stinging, scarred ones. She wiped his knuckles with alcohol and cotton, removing any trace of his blood. His rage.

"So," Foggy said, a little too brightly, trying to lighten the dark pallor that was hanging over the office. "Where should we start? Fisk real-estate holdings, maybe? He's got to be the owner of wherever Felix is hiding out. Or maybe—"

"We could compile a list of interviews," Marci said. "See if we can narrow down the general location where the media tends to find him. I don't know how much that will help, but it's a start." She sighed, a little dramatically. "Foggy Bear, why don't you order some takeout? I think this is gonna take all night."

Karen began spreading Neosporin across his knuckles. Matt shivered at the sensation, more at the touch of her fingers than the feeling of the paste. He cleared his throat. "Thanks, Marci, but really—we can take it from here. Like you said, it's gonna take all night—"

"Oh please," Marci said, moving behind Foggy's desk and opening up a laptop. "Foggy helped put Fisk away. Twice. I'm sure I'm already on Fisk's radar; I'm stuck with you all whether I like it or not. Although," she added, planting a quick kiss on the tip of Foggy's nose, "I do like it. I mean, I'm all in anyway. Might as well enjoy the ride."

"Hmm," Karen said, and Matt could practically feel her eyes boring into him. "I can understand that."

Matt pulled off his glasses and rubbed harder at his eyes. He couldn't think about this. Not right now. Not with Fisk going after Felix Manning, not with the Kingpin's intense vendetta against Karen.

Foggy and Marci began talking quietly, and Matt turned all his attention on Karen in front of him.

"You shouldn't have interrupted my interview," Karen said quietly, lacing bandages through Matt's fingers. There was a barely-suppressed edge of irritation in her voice. "I was doing fine until you got there."

With his free hand, Matt rubbed his temple. "I—I just... I panicked, Karen. I figured you'd be there, and... I don't know what came over me." He hissed in pain as Karen pressed slightly too hard on his fracture. Seeing his pain, she loosened the bandage a little. "I had to be sure you were okay."

"You were scared for me. What a surprise," she said, lifting each of his fingers to make sure he could still move with the gauze around them.

"I know you can handle yourself. I just... I remember what happened last time you talked to him, and I... I can't lose you."

Karen was silent for a minute or so, and Matt could hear her heart beating. Fast, but steady.

"And that's why you're pushing me away," she said.

Matt shook his head. "I'm not trying to push you away, Karen, I just—"

"No, you are," Karen said firmly, tightening the bandage. "You're trying to protect me, or keep me safe, or something. But damn, it, Matt, I can protect myself! Okay? I don't need your help, your... your salvation, or whatever it is you think you're offering."

"I don't—"

"And," Karen said, dropping her voice a little, "you're not going to lose me, Matt. Push all you want; I'll still be here. Pissed off, but here."

Matt was reminded of a similar conversation he'd had with Sister Maggie, years ago. He wanted to argue, to protest, or even to capitulate—but he didn't. Instead, he closed his eyes and fell silent, allowing Karen to continue wrapping up his hand.

They all worked in silence for a while; Foggy and Marci scouring the internet for anything Felix Manning-related, Karen tending to Matt's injury—slower than she had to, more careful, as though she wanted to hold onto Matt for a while despite her exasperation. And Peter, finally seeming to come out of his downward spiral, worked on scrubbing Matt's blood out of the carpet. Matt tried to stop him, wanting to do it himself, but Peter insisted. He was the intern, after all. It was technically his job.

A few false leads, some cursing, some exhaustion, some takeout Chinese food... and nothing. Nothing at all. As time passed Matt felt guilt and danger pressing in on him from all sides. He was useless, sitting here. He should be out, beating Russians, scouring the city for the man—the one man—who provided a buffer between Wilson Fisk and the lives of everyone Matt loved.

"Oh shit," Foggy whispered.

"What, Foggy Bear?"

Foggy didn't answer. Instead, he turned the volume up on his computer until the grating voice of J. Jonah Jameson filled the entire office.

"We just got word that Vanessa Marianna Fisk, the wife of our future mayor, has just touched down. We should be seeing the two of them any minute, walking through that door—"

Matt clenched his fists. Karen, who was still holding onto Matt's hand, held tighter.

"And here they are, folks! Wilson Fisk, arm in arm with his lovely wife. For those of you just tuning in, let me remind you that this is the first time they have seen each other since their wedding night in 2018, when Daredevil savagely beat Mr. Fisk and framed him for a number of ludicrous crimes. Wherever he is, I hope he's watching. He and all the other maniacal vigilantes! They need to know that the Fisks are unstoppable!"

"Ugh, look at them," Foggy muttered.

Matt forced himself to chuckle hollowly. "Would that I could."

Karen, her voice low, began to describe the details of the scene to him. Her words melted into a clear image in Matt's head.

The Kingpin, in pure white as though he was at a wedding, was standing arm in arm with his wife. She was poised, also in white, smiling gracefully at the myriad cameras that surrounded her. She was almost like Jackie Kennedy, handling the media with a gentle presence that seemed to soften everyone around her. The camera crews and reporters were fawning over her, amazed at her grace, her strength. She was clinging tightly not her husband, standing up every so often to softly place a kiss on his lips.

Wilson, though, was staring only at her. As though the two of them existed alone, solitary in a nebulous, featureless void. As though the Kingpin existed no more; as though he were nothing more than a husband. A lover. Not a mob boss, but an ordinary man in love.

Matt clenched his jaw.

"The crowd here is going wild," Jameson was saying. "No doubt millions of his supporters are celebrating with him tonight. This is going to do wonders for his campaign; everyone likes a good love story! We can expect to see his poll numbers jump up in the coming days. The Fisks are unstoppable; just an absolute powerhouse. Daredevil, Spider-man, and Bullseye too—those menaces have no power over him. Even after the chaos of the last few weeks, the Fisks are staying strong. They're working together for this city. Truly, they are inspirations to us all."

"I'm gonna be sick," Foggy muttered. "Let's listen to something else."

He clicked on what was presumably another news livestream, which blessedly wasn't covering the joyous reunion of New York's favorite political couple. It was some piece on the crime rate and how it was affecting the housing market in Hell's Kitchen. Matt tried to focus on that story, or the sounds of the office—anything to get the image of Wilson and Vanessa Fisk out of his head.

Then he heard something.

Footsteps, on the ground outside. The latch of a door, stories below. The smell of primo cigarettes and cologne, and a hint of what could be chardonnay. And a heartbeat, steady but fast, as someone climbed the stairs toward the office.

Matt's muscles tautened. He found himself clenching and unclenching his fists, as though preparing for a blow. He couldn't do anything without revealing his identity to Marci. He couldn't fight, not now. And yet—

The man was one floor below. He was speaking on the phone, his voice hushed and urgent: "On the door. Yes. Do svidanya." He hung up and continued up the stairs.

A Russian. 

Matt's heart began to race. He gestured for Peter to come closer, and when he was within earshot, he dropped his voice to a whisper.

"One of Fisk's men is coming up the stairs. I don't know what he's doing, but be ready, in case—"

There was a knock, loud and assured, almost threatening.

Foggy, Marci, and Karen all looked up. Perhaps it was the grim atmosphere of the office, or seeing Fisk on Foggy's laptop, but their heartbeats were all apprehensive and quick.

"I'll get it," Peter said quickly, but Matt pulled him down to the floor and stood up in his place.

He moved cautiously to the door and listened intently. The man outside, whoever it was, had turned around. He was sprinting down the stairs. Matt briefly considered launching himself out the door and running after him—but what good would it do? He was without his mask. And besides—

The man had left something behind.

Matt opened the door, revealing the empty hallway to the others, and pretended not to notice the envelope taped to the entryway.

"There's a note, Matt—about head level," Marci said.

Nodding, Matt ran his hands over the wooden door until he made contact with the envelope. "What's it say?" he said, handing it to Karen.

Karen stood and ripped it open, but before she could pull out the note inside, the reporter on Foggy's laptop cleared her throat.

"We have breaking news," she said, "regarding Wilson Fisk's campaign manager, Felix Manning."

Foggy practically fell over himself as he rushed to turn up the volume. 

"Emergency services recovered a body from his apartment earlier this evening. The police have refused to give an official statement, but the Fisk mayoral campaign has announced that Manning committed suicide. According to an inside source, Manning was found with traces of cyanide in his bloodstream along with a note—"

Her words were drowned out in the sudden spike of heartbeats in the office. Not the least of which was the pounding in Matt's own chest. Peter, though, was the worst of all. He was pressing the base of his palms into his eyes, breathing heavily, panicked.

They were all silent for almost two full minutes before Foggy had the sense to close his laptop.

"The note, Karen," Matt said finally. Karen nodded, swallowed, and reached into the envelope. Inside was a small notecard. She pulled it out, glanced at it, and hesitated for a moment before turning to Matt.

"It's—it's in braille."

Matt blinked. "What?"

Karen passed it over, and Matt ran his fingers over it. Then again, and again. His hands began to tremble in rage, until without meaning to he crumpled the paper in his fists. The words wouldn't leave his head, echoing like a terrible, funereal bell.

Where is your evidence now, Mr. Murdock?

Chapter Text

Peter, Foggy, and Marci left just a few minutes after the news report on Felix's murder. Matt, though, stayed behind—thinking, obsessing, stewing—and Karen stayed with him. Matt didn't have to ask why. She was still here because she was frightened. 

Of what, Matt couldn't be sure. There were dozens of options. Fear of Wilson Fisk coming after her, strangling her like he had done to Ben Urich. Fear of the city, the state it was in, the disasters to come. Fear for Matt's well-being, for his propensity to go out and do stupid, rageful things. 

Probably all three.

They sat in silence for a while. Matt's mind was racing, his thoughts chasing each other around his head; as though the inside of his brain were a courtroom, filled with impassioned counselors desperately arguing. He couldn't silence them, couldn't calm them.

Everything was different now. Felix Manning was dead. A man—granted, a murdering, criminal man, but a human being nonetheless—was dead because Matt hadn't stopped Fisk. More than that; Manning was the only witness to Vanessa's crimes. Without him, Matt had no leverage on Fisk, no way to follow through on his threats. Wilson Fisk, once again, held all the cards. And he would be coming for them. As surely as the sun would rise and set, as ominous as the frightened heartbeats of a chaotic city, Wilson Fisk would come for them all. He would murder Foggy. He would murder Karen.

And there was nothing Matt could do to stop him. Not without crossing the one line he'd sworn he'd never cross.

"Matt, breathe," Karen said, and Matt realized that he'd been holding his breath. He closed his eyes and forced the muscles of his body to relax. "It's okay," she added. "We'll work something out. I think if we just—"

"Karen, I'd like you to move in with me."

There was a long beat of silence.

"Excuse me?"

"You're the one person Fisk hates more than me," Matt said. "I have to keep you safe."

Karen sighed and moved away from him, sitting on the edge of her desk. "Wow. I thought you'd never ask." She looked behind her through the window, her heart rate slightly raised.

"There's no one there. I checked."

She nodded, then crossed her arms and steadily gazed in Matt's direction. "I don't see you asking Foggy to move in."

That's because Spider-man's his roommate. Foggy's already under protection. "Like I said. Fisk wants you dead. If he's going to go after any of us, it'll be you first."

Karen laughed hollowly, looking straight up at the ceiling. "You know, I always hoped that when we moved in together, it would be because you wanted me to. Because you loved—"

"Karen, we can't do this right now, we've got—"

"I mean, we've been through this before, it's not the first time, but you're still acting like—"

"—a mob boss out to kill us both, and you want to rehash—"

"And you're pushing me away, but I love you, Matt, despite the fact that you're being a complete idiot and an asshole—"

"I can't think about this right now, Karen, I..."

They both fell silent, their interruptions and outbursts and the sounds of desperation fading away until the mundane sensory details of the office began filling in Matt's head once again. The buzzing of the electric lights, the fly in the corner, the dirt tracked into the carpet, the heady scent of Karen's floral perfume...

"Yes," Karen said finally. "Okay. I'll move in."

Matt swallowed and nodded. He stood from his place at his desk and unfolded his cane, walking until he'd found Karen's arm. Then he grasped it. Karen led him out of the office and onto the street outside. It was easy, routine; a facade she kept up for him without asking. Without needing to ask.

They walked in complete silence all the way to Matt's apartment.

Karen didn't bother flipping on the light switch when they entered, no doubt completely accustomed to the bright neon billboard just outside the window; the one that Matt could hear buzzing every hour of the night. It would provide enough illumination for her. Matt tried to imagine what she might look like in the undoubtedly strange lighting of his apartment. How the colorful lights might catch and glance off her shoulders, her cheeks, her fingers. The image made a lump rise in his throat and Matt swallowed it down.

"Make yourself at home," he said, gesturing vaguely around the space. As if Karen needed it. As if she didn't know this apartment almost better than her own. "I've got leftover Thai in the fridge if you're hungry."

"Pajamas would be nice," Karen said, a hint of irritation etching into her voice. Matt sighed.

"I can go to your apartment and grab a few things," he said. "In the meantime... I've got an extra toothbrush, top drawer. And you can take one of my shirts if you want."

Karen nodded, slipping into Matt's bedroom and grabbing a few things. A shirt, the toothbrush, a comb. Matt let his focus drift away from the sounds and vibrations of Karen walking around the space and turned his attention to a more urgent task at hand.

The enormous closet in the center of his living room was almost calling out to him. Practically tangible. He crossed to it and undid the heavy metal padlock, revealing the large chest that sat in the middle. Inside was a removable top, upon which Matt had stacked his father's old boxing things: the silky "Battling Jack Murdock" robe, the mouthguards, the worn gloves, the wraps. He ran his fingers over the items for a moment before pulling out the whole insert and setting it aside.

Hidden beneath was his Daredevil gear.

This had once been where he'd stored his red suit, the one that offered so much protection and safety. It was where he'd hid his cowl, his batons, the bulletproof armor that Melvin Potter had so carefully crafted. Now, though, as before, it was storage for a simpler uniform. Black shirt, black boots, black cargo pants. A mask, created from a nun's veil years before. Wooden batons and a holster. Black boxing wraps. And bloodied Muay Thai ropes.

He never suited up anymore; not fully. He'd hoped he wouldn't really need to again, ever since Fisk was arrested the last time. He'd hoped that a simple mask would suffice in those moments when he had to let the Devil out. But not anymore. Not with Fisk as powerful as he was.

Matt lifted the clothing from the chest and set it on the sofa. He loosened his tie and took off his glasses. He pulled his shirt over his head.

"What are you doing?"

Karen had reappeared from Matt's bedroom, clad in an old work shirt, toothbrush in hand.

"Going out."

Karen was quiet, but Matt could hear the pounding of her heart as she took in his scars, the seared pink lines that crossed his back, his chest. Even for as long as they'd been together, it was a sight that, apparently, she could never fully grow accustomed to.

"Why?"

"Grabbing stuff from your place, remember?"

Karen shook her head. "You don't need the full... ensemble... for that."

Matt pulled the black shirt on and began wrapping his hands, wincing slightly at the pain as the fracture in his hand shifted. He didn't anticipate a fight tonight, not really... but he couldn't be too careful. Not anymore. "I'm gonna go pay Brett Mahoney a visit. Let him know that Felix was murdered."

Karen nodded, though she didn't seem fully satisfied. She sat down on the sofa, facing away from him, and Matt slipped into the cargo pants and began lacing up his heavy black boots. He could tell she wanted to say something, perhaps dissuade him from leaving her alone, but she stayed silent.

Finally he headed up the stairs to the rooftop access door, carrying his mask in his hands. He moved to turn the doorknob when he heard the sounds of Karen crossing the floor, climbing the stairs, walking until she was standing just behind him. Matt turned around.

She placed her hand on his arm, biting her lip so hard Matt could taste the smallest hint of blood in the air. Then she softly touched his brow. Matt didn't need to see to know she was staring into his eyes, studying them intently.

Silently, she took the mask from his hands and stretched it over his face, tying it around the back of his head. Straightening it around his nose. She leaned close—as though to whisper something, or to kiss him... but seemed to think better of it, and took a step back.

"Be safe," she said softly.

Matt ducked outside, letting the door latch behind him.

He listened to the sounds of the neighborhood, ensuring no one was nearby—that no one was waiting to hunt Karen down, to take her away from him. Then, when he was sure she was safe, he took off at a run across the rooftops, building after building, until he finally stopped just above Brett's apartment.

Detective Sergeant Brett Mahoney didn't live far from Matt's place—within his hearing range, though he had to focus hard if he wanted to listen to Karen from here. He kept an ear peeled for any disturbances, any of Fisk's men who might be lurking near to hurt her, then dropped down onto the fire escape outside Brett's window.

Brett was pacing in his room, awake despite the lateness of the hour, clearly deep in thought. Matt knocked loudly.

The policeman's heart rate spiked as he walked cautiously to his window, hands at the pistol on his side. When he saw Matt he stepped back, heart still pounding, and hesitantly slid the window open.

"Detective," Matt said, and stepped past Brett into his home.

"Hell," Brett said, somewhere between awestruck and irritable. "I just knew you'd be showing up at my place one of these days."

"It's been a long time." Matt paused. "You and I both know Wilson Fisk has plans for this city. Plans we need to stop."

Brett sat down on his windowsill and crossed his arms. "Half the boys on my payroll think he's the Second Coming. But, yeah... I remember what he did before. I know who he is."

"I think he murdered Felix Manning."

Brett nodded slowly. "Been thinking the same thing. A guy with no history of mental illness, who's that close to the biggest mob boss of the century, and he poisons himself?" He shook his head. "Still, though, it's just suspicion. Unless you've got something on him."

Matt was silent.

"Guess not, huh?" Brett said. "Well. Me neither. Actually, I'm pretty sure Fisk's got a good handful of men in my precinct working for him. Maybe the M.E. too."

"Yeah, nobody knows how to cover his ass like Wilson Fisk," Matt muttered. It had been a long shot, hoping that Brett had some kind of proof against Fisk. He sighed. Still, it was nice to know that Brett was in the loop in all this. At least there was someone in the NYPD he could trust.

"Keep an eye out then," Matt said finally. "You dig up anything, let me know. We need to cut this thing off at the head."

Brett was quiet for a minute. "You still working with Foggy Nelson?"

Matt hesitated. "I... what do you mean?"

"I mean that when Fisk was arrested last time, Nelson hinted that he was working with Daredevil. He and his law partner, Matt Murdock. Wondered if that was still going on."

Matt nodded slowly. "Yes. I'm in contact with them sometimes. So if you find anything..."

"Go through Nelson," Brett said. "Yeah, okay. But I don't know what you expect me to find. The city's in love with Fisk these days. He owns half the cops already, and once he's mayor—"

"I won't let that happen."

Brett snorted. "Sure. You let me know how that goes. Mark my words, Fisk'll have this city in the palm of his hand before the year is out."

Matt clenched his fists.

"So," Brett said. "Is there anything else you wanted from me, or are you just gonna stand there looking menacing all night?"

Matt paused for a moment, letting his senses stretch out along the streets back to his apartment. He could hear Karen clinking bottles around, probably looking for a drink in the fridge. As far as he could tell, there was no one else around, no danger yet. He closed his eyes, relieved, and brought his focus back to the present moment.

"I want to ask you a personal favor, Detective."

"Great." Brett threw his hands up in the air and stood up, walking past Matt and leaning on the edge of his desk. "What is it? What do you want from me?"

"I want you to keep an eye on Franklin Nelson."

"Of course you do."

"Fisk hates him, and with everything starting to go his way, he's going to get more dangerous. Just... keep an eye on his place. Put a couple men on it. Men you trust."

Brett folded his arms. "I could put a few D-listers on the job, I guess. But... Fisk hates that whole firm. What about Karen Page, you don't want me watching her?"

Matt shifted his feet a little. "I have it on good authority that she's staying with Murdock right now."

"Huh. Didn't know they were a couple." 

Matt made a sort of noncommittal noise.

Brett started drumming his fingers against his desk. "Well, you want me to put a man or two on Murdock's place? I mean, Nelson's a tough kid, he can handle himself. But Murdock... how's a blind man gonna protect himself from someone like Fisk?"

Matt set his jaw. "I'm watching his apartment. You don't need to worry about him."

"Then why don't you watch Foggy's apartment too?"

"I can't be in two places at the same time, Detective," Matt said.

"How should I know?" Brett sounded like he was rolling his eyes. "I don't know what kind of crazy shit you can do."

Matt hesitated for a minute, thinking. Brett could always get in contact with Foggy if something happened... still, though, he couldn't help but wonder if that would be enough.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'm going to give you my burner number, just in case. Emergencies only."

"Like I'm gonna call you. I'm a cop; you're a vigilante."

Ignoring this, Matt took a sheet of paper from Brett's desk and wrote down a number, hoping that he was writing on a blank space. "Save this." And he turned toward the window.

Truthfully, he didn't think Brett's protection would do much—Fisk was more than capable of plowing right through the cops—but he was more than a little reassured to know that, at the very least, there was someone on the force looking out for them. Someone trustworthy.

"Nelson and Murdock did a lot for this city," Brett said as Matt slid the window open. "I'll be your eyes and ears, whenever I can."

"Right. Thanks." Matt ducked out through the window and onto the fire escape.

Brett poked his head out the window. "You're leaving, just like that? You don't want to tell me what you know? What your plan is?"

"Good night Detective," Matt said, and swung himself over the fire escape, scaling his way down the side of the building.

Brett cursed irritably and closed the window.

Next was Karen's apartment. Matt gathered a few essentials; some medication, her laptop, notebooks, toothbrush, clothing... anything that smelled strongly of her. Anything she'd spent a long time holding, things she used regularly, he tossed into a bag and slung over his shoulder. When he was satisfied he'd found everything Karen would need, he slipped out of her place and back out onto the roof.

The cool nighttime wind enveloped him, picking up the fabric strips at the back of his mask and tossing them playfully around his shoulders. In his feet he could feel the subway, almost two hundred feet below the ground. He could sense the people in the building and on the streets; unaware of the constant peril around them, the screaming of a diseased city. Matt stood above them and took it all in.

Then he ran.

Leaping across rooftops and fire escapes, maneuvering deftly around all the obstacles in his path, Matt's heart was racing. This was his jungle, his darkness. He could hear a cacophony of cars, a symphony of sirens, the chorus of a place swelling with danger. With need. Matt was solitary in the middle of it, alone in his terrible awareness, rushing through the shroud of nighttime as swiftly and deftly as the wind that followed him.

He stayed out for a few hours, a little past the turn of midnight; prowling the streets, listening hard for the sounds of Fisk's men. Hoping to hear snatches of Russian or perhaps a name he knew. Desperate for something to follow, to guide him. But there was nothing.

But there was nothing.

He could feel discontentment and agitation rising in his throat like bile. He needed to hit something. To hit it hard. So he wandered, fists clenched, until he found a mugging. Then a low-level weapons deal. He stopped an armed robbery, leaving the perpetrators zip-tied to a chain-link fence—bloody, bruised, knocked out cold.

But it wasn't enough.

These were minuscule, insignificant problems in the wider mire of New York's criminal underworld. It was a little like mopping the floors inside a house on fire. The city was suffocating, it was burning, it was dying—and the most Matt could do was keep the low-level crime at bay. The uselessness of it all stuffed his head, clutched at his chest, hung off his feet like cement shoes. 

Filled with rage, he stopped an assault a few streets away from his apartment, beating the perpetrator until his fists were dripping in his hot blood. After a protracted moment of pure, beautiful, sinful violence, Matt let the man slump to the ground. Unconscious. He checked for a pulse—the man would live, he'd be fine eventually—then, unsatisfied, he crept back toward his apartment and slipped inside through the loft door.

Karen was asleep on the couch.

She breathed evenly, softly, her heartbeat like the soft patter of rainfall against a window. Her arms were tucked up under her chin, her legs curled upward almost in the fetal position, and she shivered a little in the slight chill of Matt's apartment.

"Karen," he whispered. She didn't stir.

He crossed quietly to the kitchen and turned on the tap, the smell the blood on his hands diluting as the water washed it off his knuckles and into the sink. He let the rage, the dissatisfaction, wash away with it; swirling down the drain until it was somewhere he could ignore. Where he might be able to smell, to hear, to taste it... but it was far. Easy to push away from his thoughts.

He pulled his mask away from his face and let it hang from his fingers for a moment or two before dropping it onto the counter. Then he crossed the room until he was kneeling, leaning over the back of the couch, his head just above Karen's.

"Karen," he whispered again. He'd meant for her to take the bed, never intending her to curl up on the sofa.

But Karen was sound asleep.

Matt considered her for a long moment, debating whether or not to shake her awake, to move her to the more comfortable bed. Eventually he stood up and walked around to the front of the couch. He slipped his hands under her knees and shoulders, carefully gathering her into his arms until she was curled, slightly stirring, against his chest.

As he walked her across the apartment and toward his bedroom, her breathing changed slightly, her heart rate fluttered, as she wandered into the no-man's-land between sleep and waking.

"M... Matt...?" she murmured sleepily. "Every... everything... okay?"

"Everything's okay," he whispered. "Go back to sleep."

She sort of nodded, resting her head against his chest, nestling into him.

He could feel his heart pounding against her head, felt the warmth and tenderness rising up through his body. She was s soft, so quiet, so vulnerable like this—so different from the fierce spitfire he knew in her waking hours. He loved her this way. He loved her both ways. He wanted... more than anything... more than his life, than his world...

He didn't know what he wanted.

He carefully laid her down in his bed, brushing her hair away from her face, and draped his silk sheets over her. She clutched them, mostly asleep, and settled deeply into Matt's down pillow. He stood over her for the briefest of moments, waiting until her breathing relaxed again and she was back in the depths of slumber before returning to his living room.

He slowly removed the boxing wrap from around his fingers and wrists, revealing Karen's careful bandages underneath. He folded his mask from the countertop, unlaced his boots, and had just pulled off his shirt when Karen began to stir again. Her heart rate spiked and she gasped in her sleep, desperate and afraid.

She was having a nightmare.

He listened carefully for a moment, waiting for it to pass, frozen over his Daredevil chest. She was turning, tossing, frantic as she slept. Matt could only imagine what she dreamed about. She had nearly as much trauma as he did, just as much reason for nightmares. And with the world how it was, with Felix Manning dead and Karen in more danger than any of them... it was no wonder she was having bad dreams. Perhaps it was the image of her brother, or her father. Images of a bloody James Wesley, dead at her hands. Perhaps it was Fisk at her throat, strangling her until she was limp and purple.

"Matt," she whimpered, still asleep.

Matt dropped everything he was holding. In a heartbeat he was kneeling at the side of the bed, tucking her hair away from her face, carefully picking up her warm hand and holding it in his own cold, callused ones. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across her palm, willing her breathing to slow down, waiting for her heart to calm. For her dreams to fade to a comforting, empty black.

After a minute or two her heart rate returned to normal. Desperately wishing he could see her face, interpret her sleeping expression, he cupped her cheeks in his palms and ran his fingers over the contours and shapes of her countenance. Her muscles were relaxed, calm, peaceful.

Whatever the nightmare was, it had been brief.

Matt suddenly realized what he was doing, noticed how close he was to her. He tore his hands from her face. He couldn't do this, couldn't sit here and revel in her presence, her softness. He couldn't let himself get caught up in this life. Not with Wilson Fisk trying to murder them all; not with the city crumbling under the heavy weight of his fists. What kind of life could Matt give her? What kind of future would Karen have with him?

With the Devil?

Unbidden, images flooded his mind. Karen, a ring sparkling on her hand, arm in arm with Matt as they walked through a lovely small house on the outskirts of the city. Matt and Karen across from each other at a little wooden table, sipping wine and laughing as they planned barbecues and holidays. Karen with an extra heartbeat inside her, a little Jack or Penelope Murdock, and Matt listening to the heartbeats every minute of every day—frantic with joy and fear. Matt, his hands healed and soft, wrapped in the warmth of Karen's, his Daredevil suit retired at the bottom of the closet. 

No.

He couldn't.

He stood up and backed away from Karen's sleeping form. She could never, should never get that close to the Devil. And the Devil could never disappear. Not while the city needed him.

Not while Matt needed him.

Careful of the Murdock boys, his grandmother used to say in response to the fire in Battlin' Jack's eyes. The fire in Matt's eyes. They've got the Devil in them.

He turned away from her, grabbing a blanket off his dresser as he went.

"...Matt?" Karen said suddenly, half awake. "That you?"

"Go back to sleep," he said softly. Then he left her in the emptiness of his bedroom, settling into the sofa under his thin blanket, falling asleep to the sound of a heartbeat that would never truly belong to him.

#####

Wilson awoke, as he often did, at four o' clock in the morning. He sat up, gasping, staring at the wall—so much like the painting, Rabbit in a Snowstorm. He stared, unblinking, listening to the ghostly sounds of hammer striking flesh that echoed in his head. 

It was nearly a full minute before he remembered who lay beside him.

In the dull light coming in through the window, the light of a slumbering city, Vanessa's face was a golden yellow. Restful. Trusting. Soft. Wilson, trembling slightly, placed his hand on her bare shoulder. It was hard to believe, even now, that she was home. That she had returned to him. That, despite Murdock's best efforts, he and his love were reunited.

He crept silently out of bed and wandered down from his loft and into his kitchen, turning on a soft lamp on his way. He turned on his stove. He pulled out his ingredients, the eggs and the butter and the chives.

His mind returned, over and over again, to the mole; someone close enough to know his plans, who was passing information along to Daredevil. Or Spider-man. Or both. They knew about the martial law and his plans for the Sokovia Accords. There was a traitor on his payroll.

The thought infuriated him—but with that fury came a sense of grim determination. It fueled him. Thus far, he'd been unable to do anything to thwart Murdock. He'd been powerless, his hands tied. Now, though...

Now, he had something to do.

He cut a thick cube of butter and dropped it into the pan, letting it sizzle and melt, coating the entire bottom.

He had narrowed it down to eight or so men in his security detail; men who were around to hear his plans, close enough for some knowledge, but distant enough that Wilson didn't know them well. He didn't trust them. Eight men who each posed a potential threat.

He cracked two eggs into a bowl, carefully picking out a shell that fell in, and began beating vigorously with a fork. 

Wilson would contact Francis—a relatively minor figure in his organization, but he was in need of a new advisor. And besides, Francis had been a James Wesley hire. Wesley trusted him, so Wilson trusted him. Francis would feed information to the eight different men: that a meeting was to occur between Fisk and the opposing mayoral candidate, Pamela Hawley, and that Fisk planned to attack her.

It was untrue, of course. A complete fabrication. Wilson couldn't risk going after Hawley, not with his reputation and campaign hanging in the balance. Besides, he didn't need to; Wilson was winning the election by an unbelievably wide margin.

He poured the beaten egg into the pan, whisking deftly.

No... the attack wouldn't happen. But Wilson would give each of his men a different location for where it was to take place. And a situation this dire would surely necessitate either Daredevil or Spider-man arriving. There, Wilson could confront them. And there... at whichever location a crazed vigilante would appear...

Wilson would know which of his men was the mole.

With a start, he realized that he had beaten the omelet almost too long. Carefully he began to roll it in the pan, softly and neatly, and slid it smoothly onto a plate.

Wilson would be waiting in the middle of all these locations, ready to make a move the second someone showed up. He'd have Russians stationed at each location to inform him immediately. And then... then he'd know. He'd know, and he'd murder and he'd torture and he'd rage until he had eradicated the mole and all his informants entirely.

He gathered the chives into his hands and chopped them into a thousand perfect green curls that he sprinkled over the omelet. Then he ate. It was smooth, custardy, perfectly savory. A luxury that, despite its frequency, he never grew tired of.

After an hour or so he could hear Vanessa getting up, showering and humming softly. Her voice was like the delicate ringing of a finger atop a wine glass. It entranced him, invited him. He smiled at the sound. He had been without it, without her, for so long... it was a miracle he'd survived her absence.

She sauntered down the stairs in a bathrobe, her hair dripping, her eyes shining with sleepy contentment.

"Good morning, Wilson," she said.

Wilson pulled a chair out for her, kissing her softly on the top of the head, before preparing her a fresh omelet. This one he took his time with; measuring exactly, folding with the precision of a Michelin star chef. Everything must be perfect for her on this, their first real morning together as a married couple.

Vanessa cut into her egg and smiled at the taste, and the sight of it made Wilson tremble with happiness. He poured her a glass of orange juice.

"I was sorry to hear about Felix," she said, taking a sip and crossing her legs. "Was that you?"

"Yes," Wilson said, somber. "I... had no choice. Murdock knew about him, my love. He knew that Felix witnessed your..." he hesitated.

"My hit on Ray Nadeem?" she said, smiling her impish smile. "I understand. He had to go. Still, he was always very pleasant to me. I hope... his end was merciful?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Of course," Wilson said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and resting his chin atop her head. "He protected you when I could not. He cared for you. I gave him a dignified end."

"Good." Vanessa took another bite of her omelet. "So... Murdock has nothing on us now. Are we going to move against him?"

Wilson was quiet for a moment, considering. He breathed deeply and took a step back from Vanessa, pulling up beside her and placing a hand on her knee. Unconsciously, automatically, as though it was a force of nature that demanded constant contact between her body and his. "No... not yet. Even beyond the things he has done as Daredevil, Murdock was the lawyer that put me away—twice. He and Nelson both. As for Miss Page, she publishes a new piece every week trying to expose me. If they were to die now... I could easily be implicated, and my campaign..."

Vanessa tilted her head. "It's a delicate line to walk, my love, but you've walked it before. You could work it out with the press, find a way to discredit them before you kill them."

"No." Wilson set his jaw. "Perhaps I might have been able to, once; but this... this mystery benefactor has complicated things. A number of my opponents have been murdered, presumably on his orders. The deaths of Nelson, Murdock, and Page would be too many coincidences; the people of the city might learn... they might realize..." He fell silent.

"Do you think... this 'benefactor' of yours is a threat to us?"

Wilson looked into her face, so lovely, so full of concern. "I don't know."

She took a deep breath, thinking, then picked up both of Wilson's hands in her own. "We'll find him, then. We always do. In the meantime..." she let go and cut another piece of her omelet, holding the fork to Wilson's lips. He accepted it, and the omelet tasted sweeter somehow on her fork. "Is there anyone else you can threaten? Anyone else involved who wouldn't implicate you should something... unfortunate... befall them?"

Wilson chewed thoughtfully. "I suppose there is Peter Parker... but he is Spider-man. I don't understand the extent of his powers; I don't know if I could overpower him."

"Ah, well, it was a thought," Vanessa said ruefully, rubbing his arm.

"Although..." A map, a web, of connections splayed out in his mind. Lines connecting Parker to his law firm, to Daredevil, to a young woman. "He does have a young lady friend. I started a file on her months ago, when Parker first began seeing her. Perhaps..."

Vanessa looked up at him, her eyes bright with affection. "Perhaps she is the way to persuade Mr. Parker."

Wilson closed his eyes and nodded. There would be time for that later, time to go through Miss Michelle Jones-Watson's file, time for planning and threatening. Now, though... his mind settled back to the more urgent matter at hand, the one he'd been considering before Vanessa had joined him this morning.

It was time for him to clean out his organization. It was time for him to find the mole.

#####

Peter and MJ had been talking for hours, most of the afternoon eaten up in staring into the bright light of their phone screens, watching each other's distorted, slightly blurry faces. Peter had webbed his phone to the wall so he could patch a few holes on his Spider-man suit—out of frame, of course—as he spoke with his girlfriend.

It was a nice distraction. Talking to MJ was the only thing so far that had pulled him out of his deep mire of guilt, his responsibility over Felix Manning's fate. Peter had tossed and turned all night and all morning, wracked with panic and shame. Because of him, Matt's identity and Karen and Foggy's lives were in greater danger than they had been before the blip. Because he was a stupid kid, unprepared for this kind of fight; a stupid kid who had opened his stupid mouth and ruined everything.

"I don't know," MJ was saying. "The stats class is kinda kicking my ass. I thought I was good at math."

"You're great at math," Peter said, wincing slightly at the sight of the nasty gash on his suit. He'd gotten it while stopping a mugging a couple nights ago. The knife wound had already healed—of course it had, knife wounds were practically nothing—but his suit, unfortunately, didn't have healing powers. Nor did it have nanotechnology, like the old Stark suits. If he wanted to look good as a friendly neighborhood vigilante, he had to put in the time to fix it himself.

He bit off a piece of thread and slipped it through the needle.

"I was good at math. In high school. College is different."

"You can do it. You'll probably surpass the professor in a week."

MJ smiled, then shifted a little—as though forgetting that she was looking through a screen, and trying to get a look at what Peter was doing. "What are you working on?"

Peter held up his needle. "Patching up my jeans."

"Ah, domesticity," she said, grinning. "You can't just buy some new pants?"

He sighed. "I'm broke. Beyond broke."

Actually, technically, he had $5,000 dollars lying around—the stack of cash that Roel had given him—but he was saving that. He wasn't sure what he was saving it for, but he was sure he'd find a use for it at some point.

Also, he was hesitant to spend it. It had come from a mobster, after all. The government could be tracking the serial numbers on the bills for all he knew.

"The fancy law firm doesn't pay well?" she said, raising her eyebrows.

Peter snorted. "Come on, you've seen Matt Murdock. He's like the definition of the word 'shabby.'"

"Fair point." She leaned back and began fiddling with her necklace. Peter pretended not to notice, not to care deeply about that little broken piece of glass she wore around her neck. He also pretended that he wasn't glancing over at his matching piece, another petal to the broken dahlia that he kept on his dresser. "You need to get a better job. Work for one of those New York billionaires or something. Take down the bourgeoisie from the inside."

Peter laughed. "I mean, I was an intern at Stark Industries for a while."

MJ sat up. "You never told me that. When?"

"Back in high school," Peter said. The hole in his suit was nearly sewn up. The whole thing looked a little worse for wear, but it was better than before. He knotted the thread at the top then moved down to a smaller tear in the thigh. "He was a pretty good boss."

"Wait. You actually met him? You weren't just like a coffee-getting, floor-cleaning intern?"

"No!" Peter said. "I did real stuff! Assisted with development, helped fix software bugs, stuff like that. Usually I worked with him directly."

"That's insane," MJ said, sounding impressed. "Did he ever take you out into the field? Like, with Avengers stuff? Did you ever see any action?"

Peter grinned. "A little. Mostly he made me stay behind. He was always really worried that I'd get hurt or do something stupid."

"Hmm." MJ hesitated. "Did you ever, uh... did you..." She sighed. "Nevermind."

"What?"

She chewed on her lip for a minute. "Did you ever meet any other Avengers?"

Peter could feel his heart beginning to beat a little faster. "Yeah... I met a few. I never knew them that well or anything—"

"Did you ever meet Spider-man?"

A silence fell. There was something in her voice, somewhere between apprehensive and urgent. Peter held his breath, hoping, desperate, knowing logically that there was no way she knew...

"Yeah," he said finally. "I met him a couple times. Why?"

Her lips were twisting, moving, as though there were words buzzing around in her mouth like wasps, desperate to escape her closed lips.

"Why, MJ?" he said again.

She was still fiddling with the necklace, passing it through her fingers, letting it catch the light coming from her lamp. "I just... I..."

"MJ?"

She sighed finally, brow furrowing, confused. Frustrated. "Okay. I've never told anyone this—except Ned—but. Um. I think I..." she shook her head. "You're gonna think I'm crazy. Or lying."

Peter sat up straighter, dropping the sewing into his lap. "No! I promise, I won't."

She closed her eyes, nodding to herself. "Okay. Well. I... I think I know Spider-man."

The air in Peter's room seemed to condense and shrink in on itself.

"Or, knew him, at some point," MJ said. "In fact... I worked with him; me and Ned. We helped him in a fight."

Peter blinked. "Wow. That is... uh... that's. Um. Wow."

"It was back in November, almost a year ago. He, um... you remember all those villains that sort of ransacked the city? Ned and I helped take them out."

Peter didn't know what to say to this. He didn't know how much she remembered; he hadn't realized she remembered any of it at all. The stirrings of hope were beginning to poke out of the pit of his stomach, like bright yellow buttercups from the compost heap of pining, yearning, sadness, anxiety that usually occupied the space.

He quashed it down. She didn't remember. She couldn't.

"I remember seeing him swinging around on the Statue of Liberty, you know, before the shield fell off. And I remember—I remember..."

She sighed. Peter moved closer to the phone.

"What do you remember?"

"That's the thing," she said softly. "I hardly remember any of it. It's like—there are just holes everywhere. Things that don't make sense. I mean, why would he have asked Ned and I to help him? We didn't know him! And how did we get there in the first place? Why don't I remember anything about him? His voice, his face—if I ever even saw his face—I don't know. It's like—it's like—"

Her face was twisted up as though she were about to cry. Peter was gutted. Even when they had been together the first time, this was a sight he had so rarely seen. Guilt seeped across his body like concrete hardening in his veins. He wanted to put on his suit and swing all the way to Boston, to hold her. To cradle her. To reassure her.

To tell her everything.

She laughed a little and wiped at the underside of her eyes. "This is so stupid. I don't know why I'm upset. I just—"

Peter swallowed. "I get it. Forgetting something like that, it's gotta be... scary. Frustrating."

"It's like I'm crazy!" she burst out. "But I'm not crazy. I remember Spider-man. I remember that I knew him. I worked with him. I mean, look at this!" She brushed her hair away from her forehead and moved closer to the camera, pointing at her eyebrow. A thin white scar cut across it. "I got this that day. It's proof, okay? It's proof. It happened. I'm not crazy, I'm not—I'm not crazy!"

Peter closed his eyes. The scar was small, but significant. Shallow, but to Peter... it might as well have been a stab wound. "I don't think you're crazy. I believe you, MJ."

She shook her head, biting her lip. "Ned, too. He forgot all the same details I did. So it's—it's something beyond just me. Something happened; something made us forget. I just figured, if you met Spider-man while working for Tony Stark..."

Peter's heart was wringing itself out like a wet rag. He ached for her. This pain, it was his fault. His entirely. "You wanted me to ask him for you. See if he knows what made you forget."

"It's stupid," MJ said.

"It's not stupid. It's just... I... I don't know him anymore, MJ." His stomach was churning, nauseous at the lie. "Tony's dead, I don't have anything to do with the company anymore. And it's not like I ever knew Spider-man that well anyway..."

MJ nodded, smiling ruefully. "Like I said, it's stupid."

"No! Not stupid. Not stupid, I promise. I..." The words were stuck in his throat. He wanted to tell her that she and Ned weren't the only ones who had forgotten. That a heavy fog of amnesia had fallen across the whole world, like a veil. He wanted to mention Matt and his case file, the missing braille wherever Peter Parker was mentioned.

He wanted to tell her that he remembered everything.

He wanted to tell her that it was his fault.

"I wish I could help you," he said finally. "But—"

Across the room Peter's burner phone began buzzing. He glanced at it, ignoring it; he'd be happy to call Roel back later. 

"—but I just don't know..."

The burner stopped buzzing, and then immediately started up again as Roel began a new call. The hairs on Peter's arms and neck began to rise. His tingle, his strange sense...

The call was urgent.

"MJ, this is terrible timing," he said, suddenly acutely aware of his surroundings. Of the danger that was pressing in on all sides, at all times. "But there's a work emergency—I have to run—"

MJ snorted, still wiping at her eyes a little. "I'm scaring you off with all this, huh?"

"No! Not at all! It's just—damn it, the timing is terrible. I want to keep talking to you—"

"Go," she said, smiling, though it didn't make her look any happier. "It's okay."

And before Peter could say goodbye, she hung up.

Feeling a little sick to his stomach, Peter shot a web at the burner phone and brought it flying back toward him. It was still buzzing; Roel was on his third call now. Peter flipped it open. "Roel, buddy, this isn't a good time."

"This is our chance, Spider-man. We can catch him red-handed. We can take this son-of-a-bitch down tonight!"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to say over the phone. Meet me in our usual spot."

And he hung up.

Ten minutes later Peter spotted him waiting in the alley. Roel looked excited and tense at once; bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, arms crossed, glancing around himself desperately. The sun had just set, and the streetlamp bathed the alley in an ominous, otherworldly orange light. Peter dropped down in front of him, the strands of his web falling around them like elongated snowflakes.

"What's going on? What's happening tonight?"

"It's Kingpin," Roel said. "I just heard—Fisk told one of my guys that he's meeting with Pamela Hawley tonight."

"Pamela—Pamela Hawley, the only person running against him for mayor?"

Roel nodded. "They're meeting in a warehouse out on the docks, Pier 81. It's supposed to start in twenty minutes."

"Okay," Peter said slowly. "I don't get it. You said we're gonna 'catch him in the act.'"

Roel glanced behind himself then moved closer to Peter. "It's a setup. He told Hawley he's thinking about dropping out, to lure her out there. But when she gets there, he's gonna kill her. Probably try to blame it on Bullseye or Daredevil or something, stoke the whole 'anti vigilante' thing he has going on."

"Wilson Fisk is going to murder someone? Tonight? And... if I get there..."

"You could stop it," Roel said, grinning. "And you can prove, once and for all, what a sick bastard Fisk is. He'll be arrested within a day."

Peter was reeling, his head whirling and spinning as though his thoughts were being buffeted around in a wind tunnel. This was his chance: his chance to make things right. Peter had put a target on their backs when he'd blabbed about Felix Maning; he'd destroyed the fragile sense of safety Matt had built with his stalemate. But none of that would matter; not if he and Matt could catch Fisk tonight. Peter had to call him, had to get him down here. 

It was time for Spider-man and Daredevil to take down the Kingpin together.

"I can't believe it," Peter said finally. "It's the smoking gun."

"Get it on film," Roel said. "You have a camera? A phone?"

Peter patted his pockets. Damn—he'd left his real phone back at Foggy's apartment. He pulled out the burner flip phone, showing it to Roel. "I think it's got a camera. It's not very good, but..."

"It'll do," Roel said grimly. "Just get a confession on video, or if worst comes to worst then film the murder attempt—"

"Then stop him before he actually, you know... decapitates her, or whatever."

Roel and Peter both grimaced at the mental image.

Peter's heart was pounding. If this was the moment, if Fisk was going to be behind bars this time tomorrow... then they'd be safe. The whole law office. Matt would be able to be with Karen like he'd always wanted. And Peter... Peter could move forward with MJ.

With MJ out of immediate danger, maybe he could finally tell her the truth.

The thought of a safe future with MJ, and the idea of making up for his deadly mistake with Fisk, almost made Peter jump into the air. His muscles were tensed, like he was about to spring up and start flying. He was beaming, ecstatic, ready for the thrill of a fight. Without any forethought or warning, Peter leapt forward and wrapped his arms around Roel.

"Ah, buddy, thank you! This is—this is fantastic!"

Roel, clearly incredibly uncomfortable, awkwardly patted Peter's back. "Yeah... okay, Spider-man."

Peter stepped back, grinning at him behind the mask. "You know, dude, maybe you should consider dropping the whole life of crime. I mean, we're saving the city together. You're kind of a hero."

The corners of Roel's mouth twitched. He crossed his arms.

"You've got twenty minutes. Go, Spider-man."

Peter shot a web straight above him and shot himself into the sky, whooping.

As he swooped along the city skyline he awkwardly positioned his burner between his shoulder and his ear, calling Matt. Over and over again, all the way to the docks. But Matt didn't answer. Whether he was asleep or out fighting crime Peter had no idea, but one thing was clear—Matt was not available.

The idea of facing Fisk alone was more than a little daunting. He wondered, briefly, whether he should sit this one out and wait for Matt. But... that would mean giving up the chance of a lifetime. This was his one opportunity to get Fisk; and Peter had a responsibility to make up for his mistake

So he arrived at Pier 81. Alone. 

There was an abandoned warehouse attached to the pier, a couple broken windows displaying shattered reflections of the darkened Hudson beneath. Peter could only assume the murder was to take place there. He crept up the side of the building and slipped in through one of the windows, dodging the shards that pointed sharply upward, and landed softly on the dusty floor.

It was mostly empty; a few tables and chairs were stacked haphazardly in one corner, a pile of wooden crates in another. Broken bottles and rusty tools and splintered boards lay scattered across the floor. An old landline phone hung on the wall near the door. Peter took in the room, mentally noting the best places to fight in, which beams he could swing from—then he crouched behind a stack of crates. A quick blast of web fluid later and his phone was attached securely to the wall. Recording.

Then he waited.

For thirty minutes he sat in the darkness, growing more and more apprehensive with each new star that shone murkily through the dusty windows. Roel had been very clear: the whole thing was supposed to go down ages ago. But the minutes ticked on. There was no Pamela Hawley, no attempted murder, and certainly no Wilson Fisk. 

After a while his boredom started to get the best of them.

He shot a bunch of web fluid into the world’s stickiest hacky-sack and tried bouncing it around for a while, which proved to be a mistake. Peter would probably have to wash his suit with industrial solvent to get the gunk off it. He sang some Queen songs, using a nearby beer bottle as a microphone. Then he tried juggling; super-strength juggling, no less, with giant wooden crates. Which—predictably—ended in disaster, with Peter cleaning up a giant splintery mess.

An hour passed. With a long sigh, Peter stood up and turned to his phone, preparing to rip it off the wall. Roel’s informant must have been wrong. The Albanians hadn’t given him any bad info before, but… well, Peter figured they were bound to be wrong sometimes. He would go home, call Roel again, maybe check in with Matt…

The landline telephone began to ring.

The hairs on Peter’s arms rose. Peter slowly turned around; it was as though the air was shimmering with invisible waves, like hot asphalt in the summertime. It was like the warehouse was disappearing, fading into a white blur, and something… some dreadful threat was slouching toward Peter’s awareness.

Ring. Ring. Ring. 

Peter slowly reached out a hand and lifted the receiver off the wall. 

“You came without Murdock,” said the voice on the other end. “Good. His help is beneath you.”

Fisk.

Peter took a long breath. He closed his eyes. “Where’s Pamela Hawley?”

“Ah, yes, my honorable opponent.” Fisk sounded almost amused. “Not here.”

Peter’s heart beat quickly, steadily, as he stared around himself. He’d known to expect Peter—he’d been waiting—Fisk had prepared. Dread oozed along his skin. “You killed her already?”

“I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Parker.” Fisk sighed. “I thought you’d have figured out by now that this was all a ruse. Perhaps you do need Matt Murdock’s help.”

Peter hesitated, then shook his head. “No—no, I heard—I have a source—”

“Your source was wrong,” Fisk said. “Why should I kill Ms. Hawley? She is… insignificant.”

Hot anger began to swim through Peter’s veins. Anger and panic. “You—you killed Felix Manning.” 

“I think you’ll find that you killed him,” Fisk said evenly. “Mr. Manning would be here now if you hadn’t been so thoughtless.”

Peter clenched his fists, his knuckles aching at the strain. “You—I—that’s not—”

“You’re a child, playing at being a hero.” Fisk’s voice was rising. “Impulsive. Reckless. Full of foolish pride.”

Peter closed his eyes. “You said… you said this was a ruse. Why? What do you want with me?”

Fisk was quiet for a long moment. The silence hung in the air like a dust cloud. Just as Peter was beginning to wonder if Fisk had hung up the phone, he began to speak again. “I met Matthew Murdock here once, years ago. Long before all this…” he paused. “...Daredevil nonsense. He, too, was rash. Careless. I suppose his alias suits him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I had him attacked,” Fisk said. “An associate of mine, skilled with knives and chains—he nearly killed your friend. By the time I spoke with the devil, he was broken. Weak. I suppose nothing has changed.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because,” Fisk said, “Murdock was in my way—much like you are now. And I needed to be rid of him.”

“So you… you’re threatening me?” Peter began to walk, slowly, carefully, his tingle still running down his skin like snowmelt. 

“I don’t relish killing children.” Fisk took a long pause. “But I will not hesitate to do what needs to be done. I am telling you, Mr. Parker, to leave this fight. My quarrel is with Matthew Murdock, but I will not allow you to interfere any longer.”

“You want to kill my friends,” Peter said, voice shaking in anger. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

“You are so shortsighted,” Fisk said. “Blind to the situation at hand—if you’ll pardon the expression.” The tingle was stronger now; growing insistent. Peter glanced out the dusty warehouse window—but there was nothing there but the darkness. “I am not going to kill Nelson, Murdock, or Page. As much as it grieves me, their deaths would be ill-advised at this time.”

Peter frowned. “What do you mean.”

“I’ll leave them for now. And yet…” Fisk’s voice suddenly dropped lower, his words slower, more stilted, as though it took some force to get them out. “They threatened Vanessa—and that is something I cannot forgive.”

The tingle surged, jumping up in intensity until Peter was almost nauseous.

“What does that mean, their deaths are ‘ill-advised’?”

“It means…” Fisk took a long breath. “...that you must stand your friends down. It means that as long as Murdock is out of my reach, I will set my sights on someone else. Someone more vulnerable… like the reckless intern of a law office.”

Peter set his jaw. “I’m not scared of you.”

“Or the lovely young woman romantically entangled with Spider-man.”

MJ’s face bloomed like a lily behind his eyelids. Peter began to tremble in rage. He smelled blood in the air; unspilled blood. His or Fisk’s, he couldn’t be sure. 

He hardly cared. 

“Yes,” Fisk said, and Peter clenched his fists tighter. He was going to leave here—he was going to find Fisk, hunt him down, pummel him until there was nothing left but a bloody pulp. “She means a great to you. I respect that. Admire it, even.”

Almost unconsciously, receiver still pressed to his ear, Peter took inventory of the things in the room—things he could bring with him, to break across Fisk’s head, swing through his femurs, ways to paint him purple and red with bruises and blood…

“But love,” Fisk said knowingly, his voice tinged just slightly with regret, “love is a prison, Peter Parker. It is a liability. And it is a burden.”

Peter glanced out of the dusty window again, his tingle roaring at him. Somewhere beyond the streetlamps, hidden in the hazy darkness, was a figure he couldn’t quite make out. Apprehension rose like vomit in his throat.

“If you touch her… if you go near her… if you even say her name, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Fisk said. “You’ll kill me? No… you and your employer are too weak, too simple, to do what is required.”

The figure outside took a few steps forward, and the yellow light of the streetlamp began to reflect off his bald head. He held a cell phone up to his ear. A smile stretched across his wide face.

“Even if it means losing the people you love.”

Peter screamed. 

He let the receiver drop, smacking against the wall. He pressed his fingers to the triggers of his web shooters. He leapt forward, toward the window, ready to jump through, to go to Fisk, to hurt him—

Boom .

A flash of white. Sparks and stars of red and black and orange. Splintering wood, shattering glass, crumbling concrete—a fierce blast of heat—

Peter flew backward into the concrete wall. Pain bloomed across his body; sharp aches, searing pangs—he could feel glass shards inside him from exploded windows, could feel shrapnel and concrete chips embedded under his skin—he could feel fire across his skin, scorching burn marks, could smell the spandex of his suit melting into his flesh—

Dazed, dizzy, Peter tried to sit up—but there was a large piece of concrete pinning him to the floor. The warehouse around him was in ruins. What was left of the walls was on fire. Splintered wood and shattered glass were thrown haphazardly around him. Peter gritted his teeth and pulled a particularly large piece of timber from his arm. 

He could barely breathe. He felt as though someone had ripped out his ribcage and replaced it with iron, crushing his lungs. The smoke in the air burned his throat and tongue. He weakly slapped out the flames on his suit.

Distantly, Peter heard footsteps over the sounds of the crumbling building. Weary, nearly unconscious, he lifted his head. 

Wilson Fisk was stepping carefully around the wreckage. As Peter watched, Fisk stepped on Peter’s burner phone—the one he’d been recording with—and crushed it against the concrete floor. Then, staring unblinkingly at Peter, he swiped on his own cell phone for a moment and held it up to his ear.

“Number six, Francis, yes. I’ll deal with him when I return.”

He hung up and crouched down next to Peter—so close that Peter could feel his breath. “I told you—” he said, and, before Peter could react, Fisk reeled back a fist and punched him in the face. “—to stay out of my way!”

He punched Peter again, and Peter bit a hole through his lip.

“I didn’t want to do this,” Fisk said savagely, punching him again. “But you left me no choice.”

He’d planted a bomb beforehand. Peter should have known. He should have seen through his ruse. Matt had tried to warn him, but Peter didn’t listen. Fisk was prepared—he was always prepared—he was five steps ahead, no matter what they did. 

Peter swallowed down the blood in his mouth. Then, with all the wounded strength he could muster, he flung the concrete off of himself and kicked upward into Fisk’s stomach. 

Fisk fell back, and Peter agonizingly pulled himself to his feet.

Blood was oozing from his nose and mouth and onto his suit. He tried to regain his bearings; to gather his thoughts, his senses, isolate his tingle from all the chaos. He could feel a concussion behind his eyes, could sense fractured bones swelling his face. His breathing was wheezy and weak.

Fisk clutched at his stomach where Peter had kicked him, then straightened himself. “Perhaps it would be best just to kill you now,” he said. 

He lunged at Peter. Peter’s tingle was in uproar, urging him to flee—but he was powerless, too weak and injured to react in time. Fisk lifted him off the floor. His fingers dug into Peter’s skin. His eyes shone black. He screamed like an animal as he threw Peter through one of the broken windows.

The glass shards sliced deeply into his skin. His arm, his stomach, his legs, his face; he could feel the slashing of tendons, of muscle, of fat, the scoring of his body in uneven puzzle-piece patterns. Half his mask tore open and a gash seared across his chest. Countless new holes in his suit alerted him to the coolness of the night air—a jarring contrast to the scorching flames—as he fell onto the pier outside.

He hardly had time to register the reflection of the burning warehouse on the water, the soft lapping of the Hudson and the briny smell of river, before Fisk was outside and staring at him once more. He loomed above him like a pale planet.

“I don’t relish killing children,” he repeated, kneeling down to Peter’s level and wiping blood off his lip. “But you… Peter Parker… are no ordinary child.”

He placed his hands around Peter’s throat and clenched.

Immediately Peter could feel his windpipe collapsing, could feel the blood pooling and purpling in his face. Fisk pushed Peter’s whole body into the splintering wood of the pier, his neck and head almost off the side and into the Hudson. There was nothing but the agony, the burning and aching and desperation. He kicked upward weakly, clawing at Fisk’s hands. 

Fisk was right. He’d been foolish. Reckless. His emotions had got the better of him and he’d gone in without a plan, without a chance in hell of getting the upper hand.

Peter gurgled. He gasped. Bloody, ashen drool fell from his lips and up his face as he lolled backward, almost falling off the pier, held in place only by the steadily closing fingers of the Kingpin’s enormous fists.

The last sight he was going to see was Fisk’s face, a dark shadow against the flickering light of the destroyed warehouse.

Wilson Fisk would live on, free to go after MJ and make an example of anyone who tried to cross him. MJ would suffer and she would die—unaware of who Peter really was, unaware of how much he loved her. She would die and there would be nothing left of Peter’s life. No one left to bury.

The edges of his vision were searing black and red. Fisk’s face was twitching, trembling, and he was smiling—

The hairs on Peter’s arm rose.

He was hardly aware of the tingle anymore, hardly aware of anything. But as the tingling sensation grew… he suddenly found the tiniest reserve of strength. Small, almost inconsequential; just enough to free one of his hands from under Fisk’s arms.

Instinctively, he shot a web into the Kingpin’s eyes.

Fisk roared and fell back, stumbling and clutching at his face. Peter, almost unconscious, unable to stand, dragged himself—grasping at the wooden edges of the pier, hands scrambling for purchase on the algae-covered dock. He could hear Fisk again, coming after him, advancing like a rhinoceros…

Peter plunged into the Hudson river, blood streaming from his body and pooling like scarlet clouds in the water.

Chapter Text

It had been less than a day, and already Matt felt as though Karen was home.

They were both seated on the sofa, Karen engrossed in a thick book, her legs stretched across the cushions and her toes just underneath Matt's knees. Matt didn't think Karen even realized she was touching him. It was as though it was an instinct, a natural reflex to be near him. 

In less than twenty-four hours, it was like life had always been this way. As though Fisk and his designs were nothing more than a hazy nightmare, drying and fading like morning dew. Despite everything that had happened in the last few days...

Matt was happy.

It was a Saturday, so neither of them had to leave the apartment. They spent the day, content, in this contrived facsimile of domestic life. Quiet. Safe. They'd talked for hours—about Wilson Fisk, of course, at first. About Felix Manning and Poindexter and the thick mire of danger around them. But after a while... their conversation had turned to other subjects. Silly jokes, memories, questions... simple things. Ordinary things. Beautiful things.

One day and one night with Karen, and it was like the last couple months had never happened. Like he'd never run out on her that night at the restaurant.

Matt hadn't realized how much he'd missed this. 

Like always, there was a snide voice in his head, chiding him, warning him to keep away from Karen. But in the warmth of Matt's apartment, against the autumn chill of the window, in the cloud of her smell and touch and the powerful beating of her heart... Matt could ignore it.

He could pretend, at least for now, that this was his life.

Matt was supposed to be meditating. His hand, after all, was still fractured, and he had countless other injuries from his fight with Dex a few weeks back. His body was in a perpetual state of brokenness; had been for years. And so he was sitting, legs crossed and hands in his lap, breathing deeply like Stick had taught him. No magic, no radiation, no superpowers—just awareness. It wouldn't really fix any of his injuries, but it would speed up the process slightly. At the very least, it would help him push through the pain.

Quiet moments like these were ideal for meditation. Matt had been trying to focus on it for the last hour. But...

Karen was right there. Her apple-blossom perfume, the remnants of minty toothpaste on her lips, and the soft wiggling of her toes just under his knees were all incredibly distracting. 

Setting her finger in her book to hold her place, Karen leaned across to the coffee table and poured herself a mug of tea. Matt could taste the moisture of the steam on his lips as it rose and dissipated into the apartment. The earthy scent of the tea swirled together with Karen's perfume; intoxicating.

Matt shook his head. He was supposed to be focusing.

Karen sipped at her tea then sat back and resumed her reading. She was unconsciously mouthing along to the words as she read, tapping her finger softly against the mug. After a minute or so she paused, placing her finger on the page to keep her place, and looked up at Matt. Then she ducked her head back down, pretending she hadn't.

Matt abandoned the pretense of meditation and moved closer to Karen, lifting her legs so he didn't sit on them and instead laying them across his lap. He absentmindedly traced a figure eight onto her knee. "What are you reading?"

Karen jumped at his sudden touch. Heat rose in her face and her heartbeat sped up slightly. Matt suppressed a smile. 

"Um..." she took a breath. "Jane Eyre."

He chuckled. "Wow. Nerd."

She elbowed him hard in the arm, then swung her legs off the sofa and shifted herself closer to him—back pressed against his chest, legs bent upward onto the couch, head leaning back onto his shoulder. Knowing it was stupid—that he shouldn't have this, couldn't have this—he draped his arm around her, letting his fingers dangle over her knee. She made a contented humming noise.

"You ever read it?" she said, putting her now-empty mug down on the coffee table.

"Yeah. You?"

"No. I would've, if I'd gone to college." She fell into silence—remembering, no doubt, the circumstances of her college application. Thinking of a dead brother, an estranged father, a life that could have been. Matt could feel the movement in her face as she bit her lip in distress.

He cleared his throat. "Read it to me?"

"I'm at the end. You're not gonna get much out of it."

"I've read it before." He took his glasses off and twirled them around in his free hand. "I can follow."

"Literally the last chapter, Matthew."

"Read to me. Please." He let his fingers trail along her arm.

She hesitated, and Matt could feel her heartbeat flutter a little. Then she propped the book up onto her raised knees and leaned forward.

"'I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth,'" she read softly. "'I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine.'"

Her voice had the lilt and grace of a skybird, skimming along the surface of a midnight lake. Matt closed his eyes and rested his chin atop her head.

"'I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms.'"

Matt breathed deeply until everything disappeared—the apartment, the streets outside, the steaming tea—until there was nothing left but Karen. After a while, her words disappeared too. Karen was still reading, but Matt let the sound of her voice swim past him, focusing instead on her heartbeat. Hers, and his. They were like instruments; hers a piano, steady but intricate, complex and tantalizing and there. His was a drum—a desperate war drum, aggressively underscoring the melody of Karen's heartbeat.

They were so close together, the two beats. Asynchronous, but so, so, so very close to a perfect rhythm.

"Matt?" Karen tilted her head back to look up at him. "Are you even listening?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry. I just..." he fell silent, sheepish.

"You weren't listening," Karen said, and Matt could hear the laughter behind her voice. "Practically begged me to read, and you zoned out immediately."

Matt grinned down at her. "Sorry," he said, playfully twirling his glasses again. After a minute he opened them, bringing them around to Karen's face and sliding them carefully onto her nose. 

Karen chuckled—a soft "hmm."—and laid back against him.

Almost automatically, Matt relaxed against her, the tension in his muscles dissipating more easily than it ever did through meditation. How easy it was, to get lost in this; to get lost in her. She was intoxicating. She was dreamlike. Karen was quiet Sundays, noon sunshine, the smell of blueberries in the morning and the soft sound of raindrops on a glass windowpane. She was every moment of caught breath and sudden realization; every beautiful, ordinary thing.

Somewhere distant in his head, the voice of Wilson Fisk was screaming, danger snapping around him like dogs. Matt could hear every threat from Fisk's lips. He knew it was selfish to love her like this. He knew it. But... for a few stolen days, Matt would allow himself this forbidden life; with the woman he loved in such close proximity, wiping away the murky dangers and fears. Loving him. Letting him love her.

"Little on the nose, don't you think?" Matt said finally.

"What do you mean?" Her voice was content, dreamy.

"Rochester's blind at this part, right? I think he lost his sight in a fire or something." Matt traced little star patterns onto her elbow.

"Your Columbia education's really paying off."

Matt laughed and planted a kiss on the top of her head, relishing in the feel of every hair against his lips. 'Well, good news. He's about to get his sight back."

"Are you really spoiling the book for me?"

"Are you really upset about 200-year-old spoilers?"

She chuckled and put the book onto the coffee table, settling more deeply against his chest. Then they sat together in silence for a while. Her breathing slowed, her heart rate more peaceful than he'd heard it in months. It was almost as though she was asleep, though Matt could tell she was awake. There was no need to talk, to question, to do anything. She was content just to exist in his company.

So was Matt.

After a while, Karen reached for his hand—still idly moving along her arm—and held it in hers, tracking along the lines in his palm and between each of his fingers. "Matt..."

"Hmm."

She was quiet for a moment. "I... this is... Matt, I just feel..."

With his free hand, Matt ran his fingers through her hair. "I know."

Karen sat up then, pushing herself off him slightly. Then she turned to face him. Crossing her legs, his glasses still on her face, she picked up both of his hands in hers and squeezed lightly. "Matt. You asked me to move in with you because you wanted to protect me."

He took a deep breath. Thoughts of danger were creeping back in, like frost crystals on a windowpane. "Yes. I did."

"And I agreed. Because I... I trust you, Matt."

"Karen, where are you going with—"

She shook her head, shushing him. "Now I need you to trust me."

"I don't underst—"

"Shh." She lifted one of his hands higher, studying it carefully. She ran her thumb across his knuckles—still scabbed and bloody from his escapades the previous night, scarred from years of fighting and rage. "Let me protect you."

Matt closed his eyes. "I don't need protection."

She squeezed his hand tighter. "Matt, you're the strongest man I know. Look at you. Daredevil's a hero."

"Karen..."

"But I've seen the other side of you," she said softly, still rubbing circles around his scabbed knuckles. "The soft side of you. The Matt Murdock side. And..."

"Karen, please..." he whispered.

"That part of you needs me," she said softly. 

He couldn't say anything, couldn't even open his mouth to speak. He felt as though his throat had been glued shut.

She lifted his hand to her mouth and gently kissed his scars. "I know you'll protect me," she said. "Can you trust me to do the same?"

Matt opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Karen seemed to read his thoughts. She placed Matt's hand down and leaned far forward, taking Matt's face in both of her hands. Then she just watched him. Matt wondered what he looked like to her, in the blood-red tint of his glasses. They sat like that for a long time; enough time for Matt to hear their heartbeats finally sync up. Beat, beat. Beat, beat. Like a chord, perfectly harmonized after measures of melancholy dissonance.

She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his.

"Trust me," she whispered. Matt let out a shuddering breath.

He nodded.

Matt could feel her smiling against him, the stretch of her mouth tugging lightly across her face. She clutched at the collar of shirt and pulled him closer. With her other hand she tangled her fingers into his hair. Then she opened her mouth and caught his scarred lips in her soft ones. 

"You're not going to push me away again," she said when they parted. "Whatever danger comes... I'll face it with you."

Matt pulled her in for another kiss.

He didn't know how long they were like that, what fraction of eternity they spent exploring each other. He didn't know anything except the demanding heat of her skin and the piano keys of her heartbeat. The air around them was thick, saturated with images... sensory associations that clawed at Matt's mind, burst open his skull and filled his brain with such softness, such sweetness. Rainswept meadows and autumn sunshine and bells and candle flames. Soft footsteps and distant waltz music. Her perfume. Her breath. The goosebumps on her arms as Matt trailed his fingers on the back of her neck.

She pulled away. Matt leaned forward, caught her arm, desperate for more...

"I'm going to go get dinner," she said, breathless.

Matt shook his head, trying to clear his hazy tangle of thoughts. "I... what?"

"It's 9:00," she said, and he could hear the laughter in her voice. She stood up, pulling Matt's glasses off her face and pressing them into his hands. "We have to eat sometime."

She was already walking across the apartment, slipping her feet into her shoes and picking up her purse.

"Wait—Karen, it's—it's not safe, Fisk is—he's probably looking for you."

Karen shrugged. "I have my gun. Don't worry, it's just a couple blocks away."

"Karen... stay."

She drummed her fingers up the side of the wall, one of her feet slightly tilted off the ground, her toe tapping against the hardwood floor. "Trust me, remember?" she said, a smile in her voice, and left.

Matt let out a breath. He listened to her, the steadiness in her footsteps, the flustered beating of her heart. He listened to her until she was out on the street, until she'd hailed a cab and was safely on her way.

Trust me...

In her absence, the apartment felt strangely small. Quiet, despite the never-ending stream of constant noise in Matt's ears. It felt cold.

And the voice, the voice he'd been quelling since Felix Manning's death last night... it had been so distant when he'd been with Karen, these last twenty-four hours they'd spent together. But now, in her absence, the voice swelled to a roar.

"How long will you mourn, when she's dead?" Wilson Fisk asked him, his voice like the low rumble of a hearse. "Years, decades, spent pining? Searching? Desperate, alone, burdened—knowing that you killed her. That you, Matthew, had a choice—"

"Shut up!" Matt screamed aloud.

And to his immense relief, the voice faded away.

Matt suddenly realized that he was out of breath. He stood up, paced, walked to his kitchen counter and leaned against it. Karen asked him to trust her, and he had agreed. She was capable, she was strong, she knew what she was getting into...

But then again, Karen had always had a talent for finding danger.

He set his glasses on the counter and opened his refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of beer—the "German piss" that Stick and Elektra had always hated so much—and popped it open. He let the stuff tingle across his tongue, holding a sip in his mouth until the carbonation and the alcohol had both numbed him just a touch. He took another swallow. Then another.

He was on the verge of calling Karen, making sure that she’d made it to the restaurant, when he heard a wet thud. 

Then another thud, followed by a few sticky grasping sounds. 

Matt set the beer down and dashed to the window, pressing his hand against it to better feel the vibrations. Someone was scaling the wall—someone light and quick. They were wounded, if the strong scent of blood was any indication. Blood—and the smell of burnt flesh. Matt cracked the window and caught the briny taste of saltwater and latex.

And the gasping, desperate voice of Peter Parker.

“M—M—Ma—att—”

Peter was just below him, clinging to the side of the building. His heart was pounding faster than Matt had ever heard it. He could hear the strain in Peter’s muscles, the panicked breathing, could sense the sheer exhaustion and pain in his every movement.

“I’m—I’m gonna—gonna fall…”

Matt opened the window wide and thrust his hands down, grasping at Peter’s arm just as Peter let go of the building.

He strained and clutched so hard that he was sure he was printing bruises into Peter’s skin. It was awkward, clumsy, terrifying, but eventually Matt was able to drag Peter up through the window and onto the floor.

He was soaked in blood and water, and was on the verge of passing out.

Pushing down his panic, Matt scooped Peter up in his arms and laid him on the couch. Peter was gasping, panting, his heart rising faster and faster and faster. Still stammering, babbling gibberish, Matt could hear the absolute terror rising in the kid.

“Shit—shit, Peter! What happened?”

“Fis—Fisk—it it it was—it was Fisk—”

Matt clenched his fists hard enough to crack his knuckles. 

Peter was practically more injury than kid; more blood than flesh. Matt could sense fevered heat coming off of large portions of his body, places where he’d been badly burned. He could smell fabric melting onto his skin. Peter’s voice was strangely high and distorted. However, beyond that, Matt couldn’t get a good read on him. He couldn’t listen for broken bones or dislocations, not with the pounding of Peter’s heart and his panicked breathing.

“Peter. Peter, you need to calm down. Take a breath.”

“I—I can’t—MJ’s in danger—it’s… it’s my—” he cut off, gasping.

Matt closed his eyes and crossed himself. Then, trying desperately to keep the panic at bay, he rushed to the kitchen. There was a half-empty teapot full of lukewarm Earl Grey on the stove. He poured it into a mug, stemming the shaking of his hands, and put it in the microwave. Then, while it was heating up, he ran to his bathroom and grabbed the basic first-aid kit. 

Peter was hyperventilating, his heart rate rising to a fevered pitch.

The microwave beeped. Matt grabbed the cup, ignoring the burning in his fingers, and knelt at Peter’s side, forcing the kid to sit up just slightly. He pressed the mug into his hands. 

“Peter, I want you to drink this. Now.”

Peter was gasping, the mug shaking in his hands and sloshing onto his suit. Matt winced at the burn of it, feeling the heat spiking on Peter’s skin. “Wh—I don’t—I—”

“Focus on the feeling of it. Track the heat as it goes down your throat.”

Peter took a swallow, still shaking, but his breathing began to slow.

“Okay,” Matt said. “Take a deep breath. I want you to feel your lungs expanding.”

Peter shook his head. “I don’t—I don’t need to—meditation isn’t—I have super healing, re—remem—ber?”

Matt placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “You’re also having a panic attack. Tell me five things you can hear right now.”

Peter’s fingers twitched as he sank back into the couch. “Uh… uh… your heater’s on. And—uh—there’s a… a siren, outside…”

“Good,” Matt said. Peter’s heart was slowing down. “Keep going.”

“I can hear you breathing,” Peter said, and Matt was relieved to hear Peter’s voice slowing down too, his words clear and uninterrupted by panicked gasps. “And my own voice, I can hear that… and…” He trailed off, breathing deeply. “I can’t hear anything else.”

Matt nodded. “That’s okay. You’re calming down. Drink more tea, I’m gonna get a look at you.”

“Look?” Peter said, and gave a halfhearted attempt at a laugh. Then he hissed in pain. Matt shook his head and guided the mug to Peter’s mouth. When Peter was sipping it, distracted somewhat, Matt put his hands on Peter’s chest and listened carefully.

Four cracked ribs, a fracture in his skull, and a broken nose. He’d bitten completely through his bottom lip. Enormous burns had eaten through his suit and scorched across his skin. His windpipe was swollen terribly, and based on the change in Peter’s voice, Matt could only assume he’d been throttled. There were deep slices through his chest and arms, and a nasty one on his face. 

He focused harder on these gashes; wide and deep, as though he’d been slashed through by at least eight knives. However, a closer listen revealed embedded glass and splinters of wood. Matt could hear it slicing miniscule new cuts in his skin, his muscle, whenever Peter moved more than a centimeter. 

Between that and the burns, it was clear what had happened.

“Shit,” Matt muttered. “A bomb?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, his voice trembling. “And he threw me out a window.”

Matt ran a hand over his eyes. He didn’t know the extent of Peter’s healing powers; he didn’t even really know how to administer first-aid to someone whose body was basically its own first-aid kit. However, he did know that he had to get the debris out of the kid’s body, and the dead tissue away from the burns, or Peter’s skin would heal itself right over it. 

“I’m not a doctor, Peter. Should I take you to the church again? Sister Maggie might—”

“No.” Peter shook his head. “This—it looks worse than it is.”

Matt bit back the urge to call him out on his use of the word ‘look,’ instead assessing the fractures in his bones. Nothing major; nothing that required immediate attention, at least. “How do you figure?”

“Uh…” he gritted his teeth. “Okay. It’s as bad as—ow—as it looks. But I always heal—gah!—fast.”

Matt shook his head and kept examining him in silence.

He was on the verge of asking Peter if he thought stitches would be necessary (they sure as hell would be if this was Matt’s body, but Peter was a special case) but before he could, Peter’s heart began to race again as a second wave of panic took over. No doubt now that he was somewhere safe, he was starting to process whatever had happened.

“Matt—Matt—Fisk is, he’s—” Peter was already beginning to gasp again. “He’s gonna come after—after MJ—”

“Drink your tea,” Matt said quietly, and pulled a long pair of tweezers out of the kit. “We’ll talk about that when you’re calm.”

Peter, shaking, obeyed him.

Matt pressed a hand to Peter’s chest again, feeling at the biggest gash. There were at least sixteen slivers of glass inside him in this one spot; it seemed like some big piece had gotten inside and then shattered. “I need to get the glass out of you,” Matt said grimly. “This is gonna hurt.”

“That’s… that’s okay—gah!” he yelped as Matt mercilessly dug the tweezers into the deep gash on his chest.

He located the first piece pretty quickly, ignoring the squelching sounds of blood and flesh and the microscopic slicing of muscle as he pulled it from Peter’s body. He dropped the sliver into Karen’s empty mug. Then another, and another. Clink. Clink. Peter was clutching desperately at the sofa pillows, straining, groaning. 

Matt did his best to tune out the sound, letting a fraction of his focus drift to the street outside. It was drizzling, and there were few pedestrians out and about. Cars screeching past, of course, and distant sirens, and the buzzing of the electric billboard—

A car pulled up on the curb. There were footsteps, heels on pavement, and then Karen’s voice thanking the cab driver.

“Damn,” Matt whispered. “Peter, Karen’s coming up. She’s staying with me until Fisk is…” He trailed off. Fisk wouldn’t be stopped. He couldn’t be, not without Matt taking matters into his own hands. And seeing Peter like this, so vulnerable and broken, fearful as a child…

Matt felt that if the Kingpin were in the room right now, it would be all too easy to snap his neck.

“She’s… are you guys, uh…” Peter’s teeth were scraping together as he grimaced in pain. “You guys… together again, or…”

“Where’s your mask?” Matt said suddenly. He hadn’t really taken note before, but Peter’s hair was loose around his head, his voice unmuffled by the fabric. 

Peter reached his hands up to his face. “Oh no—it got—it got torn up in the explosion… It’s, uh… it’s—” he gasped as Matt pulled another piece of glass out. Clink. “It’s probably at the bottom of the Hudson.”

Matt stood up, dropping the bloody tweezers onto his coffee table. “Damn it. Okay—” Karen was inside the building, climbing the first set of stairs. She’d be here in less than three minutes. “Okay, Peter. It’s up to you. Do you want Karen to know your identity, or would you—”

“I thought you—you’re always saying—the identity thing, I have to protect—”

“I know. I know.” Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re a little past all that now, Peter. Karen’s—you can trust her.”

Peter swallowed. “I know that, it’s just—the more people know, the more danger. Right?”

Matt sighed. “Fisk wants to kill her either way.”

There was silence for a moment as Peter thought. Finally, he shook his head. “No. No, I—I need to hide.” He started to sit up onto his elbows.

Matt laughed hollowly and pushed hard on Peter’s shoulders, forcing him back onto the couch. “No. Stay. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He crossed to the closet, unlocking the heavy padlock and opening his Daredevil chest. He had a spare mask in here; old and worn, a little grungy, but good enough for the purposes of hiding Peter’s face.

He came back to the couch and leaned over Peter, lifting his head gently and wrapping the mask around. He pulled it down over his nose.

“I—I can’t see anything,” Peter said.

“What a nightmare.”

“No! It’s—” Heat rose in Peter’s face. “I just mean—I thought it would be, like, mesh or something. Eye holes maybe.”

“Why the hell would I need that?” Matt stood up and crossed to the entryway. Karen was at the end of the hallway, advancing steadily toward the apartment. “Stay quiet for a minute. I’m going to talk to her.”

He opened the door and slipped out into the hallway.

“Matt?” Karen said, speeding up a little when she saw him. “Are you—what happened to your hands?”

Matt realized too late that his hands were covered in Peter’s blood. He hastily wiped them on his pants. “Karen, I have to tell you, there’s—” He paused. Karen was carrying curry; Matt could taste it on the air. More significantly, it was curry from their favorite restaurant. The one with the chili pepper lights, where they’d had their very first date years ago. 

The restaurant where Matt had almost proposed to her.

“You went to our place.”

“Yeah,” Karen said innocently. “I just figured, you know… things have been really great the last day or so. Feels like old times.”

“Right…”

“And,” she pressed on, “you promised you’d trust me. We don’t need to do this whole…” she gestured a little with her free hand. “Keeping-me-at-arm’s-length thing. Right?”

Matt closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead. “Right. Yes. I… I know.”

Karen shrugged. “Our last date didn’t end well, so I figured… you know… maybe we could pick up where we left off. With the curry and all.” She lifted up the takeout bag. Her voice was meaningful, heavy with hints. She knew, of course she knew, what that last date had been moving toward. 

She tried to move past him into the apartment, but Matt sidestepped in front of her. She tilted her head, confused.

“Karen.” Matt ran his hands through his hair. “Listen. This is just—it’s bad timing. But, um… Spider-man is in my apartment right now.”

Karen dropped the takeout bag. 

“What?”

Matt scooped it up. “He’s hurt, bad. Fisk tried to blow him up. He came to me for help.”

“He knows who you are?”

“Uh, yeah.” Matt sighed. “Yeah, he found out a couple months ago.”

Karen paused. “And… do you know who he is?” Matt hesitated, and Karen seemed to read the answer from his silence. “You do. You know who he is, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“Come on,” Matt said. “It’s not my secret to tell. You know that.”

Karen was bouncing her foot, thinking hard. She was silent for so long that Matt was worried she might be angry. Finally, though, she sighed. “Okay. What can I do to help?”

Matt opened the door and they walked inside. “I think I’ve got it handled. Just… stay in the apartment tonight. Fisk is in a rage, apparently. I don’t want you caught up in it.”

Karen nodded and took the curry back from Matt, dropping it onto his counter. Then, hesitant, she took a few steps toward the sofa to try to get a look at Spider-man.

Peter was hissing in pain as he tried to dig out another piece of glass that was stuck in his jaw. Karen’s hands flew up to her mouth, and Matt could hear her heart rate pick up.

“Stop that,” Matt said, crossing to Peter and grabbing his wrist. “Let me take care of it, please.”

Peter grumbled but acquiesced, and Matt picked up the tweezers and renewed his ministrations. Karen was now directly above the couch. Matt could hear her biting her lip, could hear the slight change in her breathing that he’d grown so accustomed to. 

She was thinking hard. Investigating. Trying to put puzzle pieces together. 

“Spider-man,” Karen said. “I’m Karen Page.”

“Uh, hi, Karen—ah!” He hissed as Matt began on a new gash. Already they seemed to be healing, hints of scabs starting to form—which was bad news considering all the debris still stuck inside him. “I’ve heard a—ow—a lot about you.”

His voice was still slightly high, raspy. Matt frowned at him.

“Something happened to your throat. Tell me.” He put a couple fingers on the side of it, hearing the blood pulse through, feeling the swell and the heat of the bruises already forming.

“Yeah, I… uh…” Peter shifted a little. “Fisk tried to kill me. Stra—angle.” He hissed again as Matt returned to the cuts all over his body and began opening them back up with his tweezers. 

Karen came and sat at the edge of the coffee table. She picked up quickly on what Matt was doing and held out the coffee mug for him to drop glass shards into. “Why are you wearing Matt’s mask? Did Fisk see your face?”

“He already knows who I am,” Peter muttered. “My mask came off when I fell into the Hudson.” 

Matt worked in silence for ten minutes or so, holding flaps of skin open, mopping up blood with the gauze Karen was handing him. All throughout, Peter remained fairly calm. Matt was reminded of his father, all the injuries and pain he suffered throughout his career—the weary acceptance of it, the stoic attitude of someone well-accustomed to suffering.

He held it together like an old pro—until Matt started debriding the burn wounds.

“I’m sorry,” Matt said, wincing, firmly brushing the gauze into Peter’s burned arm, scrubbing away the dead tissue and melted latex. “Hang on—almost done—”

Tears were streaming down Peter’s face, and Matt could hear the grating scrape of his teeth as he ground them together. Meanwhile, Karen held Peter’s hand tightly and passed Matt clean gauze and water. And finally, when the glass was gone, the burns were cleaned, when Peter was sufficiently bandaged and dosed with Tylenol… there was nothing left to do but watch him suffer.

After thirty minutes or so, Peter began breathing slowly and evenly. His heart rate settled. Matt could sense each of the kid’s muscles releasing their tension and relaxing into the sofa.

“He’s asleep,” Karen whispered. Matt nodded. Sleep would help. Knowing how quickly he’d healed the last time he’d been hurt this badly, Matt had no doubt that he would be practically back to normal by morning.

“A word?” Karen whispered, walking toward the bedroom. Matt followed her, keeping an ear on Peter just in case. When he’d joined her, Karen crossed her arms. “Matt. That’s a child.”

“If you’re talking about his voice, keep in mind, he’s been strangled. That messes with your vocal cords—”

“You know I’m not an idiot.”

The air in the room was suddenly stifling. Matt closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. “I don’t know what you expect me to do, Karen. I’ve done my best to keep him out of danger—clearly I haven’t done a very good job—”

“Do his parents know?”

“He doesn’t have any parents,” Matt said without thinking.

Karen’s mouth was open to respond, but she closed it. She took a couple steps toward the door. Matt could tell she was looking past him, studying the exposed half of Peter’s face, thinking hard. “So.” she said finally, turning back to Matt. “You seem… pretty protective of him. More than you usually do.”

“Karen…”

“Almost like you are with Foggy and I,” she said.

“Karen—Karen, stop this. Please.”

“What?”

“Stop digging.”

Karen scoffed. “What do you expect me to do? I’m a reporter, I get curious—”

Matt grabbed her shoulders, feeling the warmth radiating from her, trying not to get distracted by the scent of their restaurant still on her clothes and the memories they’d made there. “Just… leave this one. Please.”

And he walked past her, back into the main room and over to the kitchen.

He pulled out a couple plates and started dishing up the cold curry. Karen came and joined him and they sat at the barstools, eating in silence. Karen had one hand resting on his knee, like she was trying to hold him there. Trying to keep him from flying away. Matt, though, was barely aware of her. Ninety percent of his attention was on Peter, monitoring his heart rate and lungs. And the other ten percent…

He was thinking about Wilson Fisk.

Spider-man was powerful. He was resilient, quick. Stronger than anyone he’d ever met, except maybe Jessica Jones. And yet… Fisk had taken down Peter so easily. As though Peter were a fly—or, more appropriately, a spider—that the Kingpin was swatting away.

Matt moved his fork around between his fingers, thinking.

Clearly, Fisk was stronger now than he’d been before. Matt had known that for a while, ever since he’d had his ass handed to him the last time they’d fought. After Peter’s apartment had been bombed, Fisk had beaten Matt into a bloody pulp. He assumed that Fisk had spent the blip training, building up his physical prowess and agility to terrifying heights. 

Still… to beat Spider-man, one on one…

Matt could only assume that Fisk had manipulated Peter somehow. He must have tricked him, made him emotional, goaded him into thoughtless action. That was his M.O.; a deadly combination of brutality and manipulation. 

“Matt?” Karen said softly, and Matt realized that he had bent the fork.

“Sorry,” he muttered, standing up to get another one. Karen grabbed his arm and pulled him back. 

“Wait. Matt, just—talk to me. Please.”

He chewed on the inside of his lip and sat back down. “I’m sorry, Karen. Sorry you’re getting caught up in this.” 

“Damn it, Matt!” Karen said. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m already caught up in it. This isn’t just your fight.”

Matt shook his head, pressing the base of his palms into his eyes. “This is different, Karen. It’s—it’s—”

“Look at me.”

Matt raised his eyebrows at her.

She sighed. “You know what I mean! Just—let me see your face. Please.”

Matt turned his face directly toward hers. She studied him for a moment; he imagined he could feel her eyes on him, grazing lightly across his features, soaking in the crests and canyons of his face. Her eyes—strikingly blue, if Foggy’s description was to be trusted—pressing into him, sharp and focused, catching every flaw. Every scar. Every mistake.

“You have that look,” she finally said. “You’re shutting me out again.”

“Look at what Fisk did!” he said. “To a superhero! What’s he going to do if he gets hold of you? Karen, he’s going to—he’s going to crush you.”

Karen placed a hand on Matt’s arm. “Hey. This doesn’t change anything.” Matt scoffed a little, and she pressed forward. “Listen, Matt. Even if you ended things with me right this second, I’d still be in his crosshairs.”

“Because of me.”

“No!” There were searing flames in her voice. “Because of me! Because of how I’m reporting on his campaign. And—” her voice cracked slightly. “Because of what I did to James Wesley.”

She was shaking a little as she said it. Matt picked up one of her hands and held it between his palms, steadying it. 

“Fisk wants me dead with or without you. And do you really think that I’m safer without you?”

“I’m sorry all this is happening,” Matt said softly. “I’m sorry that this is your life.”

She shook her head. “I’m not. My life is better with you in it. And with Daredevil in it, danger be damned.” She lifted her free hand and placed it on top of Matt’s, so all four hands were touching, clasped together. “You promised you’d trust me.”

Matt raised his hands, with hers, up to his lips. He began to mouth a prayer over them. What he was asking for, he wasn’t sure. Forgiveness? Strength? A miracle? He couldn’t even form the words beyond Our Father. 

Finally, he let go of her hands and cupped her head between his palms.

“You’re right,” he said. “I promised.”

And he kissed her, the touch of her lips as soft and gentle as a dandelion seed landing on his skin.

Peter shifted on the couch, groaning a little in his sleep. Matt pulled away and walked closer. He listened carefully to the boy’s heartbeat; he focused on the sound of the grinding fractures in his ribs as he breathed, the taste of copper and antiseptic in the air, the fading smell of burned flesh radiating off him. The salty sheen of sweat across his forehead.

He was okay. In pain, of course, but healing was always painful.

A surge of affection rushed through his chest. This kid—this amazing, powerful, stupid, brave kid—had almost gotten himself killed. But he’d fought back against the Kingpin. He’d survived. And what’s more—he had come to Matt for help. He trusted Matt to care for him.

Without thinking, Matt ruffled a hand through Peter’s hair.

Karen walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” he said simply. 

“It’s late,” Karen said, softly kissing his ear. “Couch is occupied. You could join me in the bedroom, if you want.”

Matt shook his head. “I’ll stay out here. He needs me.”

“Okay,” she said, and Matt could hear her smiling. She kissed his cheek one last time. “Good night.” 

She let go of Matt’s shoulders and walked past him, reaching for his hand as she went. Matt let her grasp his hand in hers, and their fingers mingled together until she was beyond his reach.

#####

A drop of pizza grease dripped down Dex's fingers, oozing along his arm and tickling his skin until it finally dripped onto the gray granite of the headstone.

"Sorry, Julie," Dex said, carefully wiping it off with his sleeve. "One of the dangers of pizza nights, huh?"

It was thirty minutes to midnight. He'd spent all day in the cemetery; he felt at home here. Certainly far more at home than his shitty little apartment, his lease under a fake name, his empty bedroom and cold walls. Here... he was with Julie. Since he'd found her grave just a day and a half ago, he hadn't slept. He hadn't showered. He hadn't even changed his clothes. He'd only left the graveyard to drop off the Daredevil suit and to pick up the pizza.

"Cheese with broccoli," Dex said, taking another bite. "Your favorite."

He was remembering more and more every day. Before he'd been paralyzed, they'd had pizza nights once a week. Or, at least, Julie did. Dex couldn't remember if he'd ever joined her. But he remembered fractional, shattered pieces of their time together. He remembered Julie's career as a dancer, her morning jog route. 

He remembered pizza night.

"I've got some ideas for the suit," Dex said. "A few modifications I want to make. You never saw me wearing it, but trust me—it fits me a lot better than that Daredevil creep." He sighed, thinking about the costume. A good dye job and a grinder would make all the difference in the world to that ugly thing.

"You'd probably do it better than me," Dex said. "I always got the sense that you were real creative. Still—I think my new design's pretty good. It gets the idea across, anyway."

Something rustled behind him.

Dex laid a hand on his hip, where he kept his pistol. There shouldn't be anyone around this late at night. Not even the security guard—Dex had killed him yesterday. No one in the world knew he was here, except—

Except his mysterious employer.

The rustle sounded again. Dex held his breath and stood up, pulling his pistol from its holster.

With an ugly squawk, a raven flapped its wings and swooped onto a headstone 200 feet away. Dex let out a relieved sigh. The bird gazed steadily at him, its beady eyes two pinpricks of light in the inky darkness of the cemetery.

It wasn't worth the bullet.

Dex picked up a pebble from the ground, turned it over in his fingers for a minute, then hurled it at the bird. With an almost surgical precision the stone knifed through the air. The bird screeched, then gurgled, as the pebble punched through its neck.

With a thump, the raven fell off the headstone and onto the grass.

Dex sat back down next to Julie.

"Sorry," he said, tucking his hands under his knees. "I'm on edge. Things are... things are real bad right now, Julie."

Why? What's going on?  Julie seemed to say.

Dex shook his head. "It's my mind—it's all scrambled. Memories are coming back, but it's slow, and I don't know what's real and what's made up."

That sounds hard, Dex. That sound really hard.  

"I remember you, though. How... how good you were. That's what I always liked about you." He pressed the base of his palms into his eyes. "I'm trying to be good, Julie."

You can do it. I know you can.  

"But I'm doing things I'm not proud of," he said. "Things I'm not supposed to do. You wouldn't like it." He could hear droning in his head again. It was like his brain was a nest, dry and flaky, teeming with wasps. They swarmed, crawled, flew through his ear canals and his nostrils and his eyes, buzzing loud enough to block out all thought.

"They're making me do it. If I want to find out what happened to you—if I want to make things right—I have to do this shit. I have to follow orders. But, I... I'm drowning, Julie. I'm a puppet and I know it, and I can't do anything about it—"

Breathe, Dex.  

Dex breathed.

"Right," he said. He picked up another slice of pizza, hands shaking, and let it flop between his fingers. "I have to—I have to stay calm. Once I do this, once I find out what happened to you—then there'll only be one murder left. And then I'll be done."

You'll be done?  

"I'll be good. Like you."

Dex leaned against Julie's headstone, dropping his head back until it was resting on the rough-hewn top. He took another bite of pizza. He wished Julie could taste it.

The night air whispered across his skin, raising gooseflesh and sending a cool ache through his bones. He supposed he should go home and rest up before his next fight—he was supposed to go after Daredevil, after all. He should go home and finish his suit modifications. And yet... he hated the idea of leaving Julie alone.

"I'll be good like you, Julie. Eventually."

Dex's burner phone rang.

He pulled it out of his pocket, quelling the rage that came with being interrupted. The reverie was broken. Julie was silent. Now the only sound in the graveyard was the phone's beeping, incessant and grating. It seemed to bounce off the rows of headstones until it filled his head almost as completely as the wasps. The pale light from the flip screen just barely illuminated Julie's carved name.

Dex let it ring for a minute, then answered.

"What?"

The voice of his mysterious employer, modulated and anonymous, came through the speaker. "Touchy, Poindexter. I take it you're not happy to hear from me?"

"Get to the point." 

"I'm calling to find out why you haven't done as I asked."

Dex took a bite of pizza. "Well this may come as a surprise to you, but I don't know who Daredevil is. It's a little hard to attack someone you can't find."

His employer chuckled softly. "I'm disappointed in you. Couldn't you use that smart little FBI brain of yours to lure him out?"

"Thought about it," Dex said. He could almost feel Julie's rotting eyes watching him, somehow piercing through the soil and the grass. "Almost attacked a hospital. That would've drawn him out. But... I think this assignment calls for something a little less dramatic."

"Sounds like you're trying to keep casualties to a minimum," his employer said. "Don't tell me you've gone soft."

Dex clenched his jaw. "Come talk to me in person. See how soft I am."

His employer laughed again. "I have a new assignment for you, Poindexter. And seeing as you've failed to follow through on the first one, I thought this would provide a nice little... opportunity for you. You can kill two birds with one stone."

Dex glanced behind him at the dark shadow on the ground, where the raven's corpse lay.

"What's the assignment?"

"A source of mine tells me that tomorrow the city will practically be a war zone. I don't want this next attack to get lost in the news cycle—so we'll let the chaos settle for a few days. You'll wait for my signal before moving forward."

Dex frowned. "Get lost in the news cycle?"

"This is an important assignment, Dex. Perhaps your most important. And the people... they need to see it."

"Okay..." Dex closed the pizza box and stood up, hand resting reflexively on his pistol. "What's the assignment?"

"Before you do anything... the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. You need to get his attention. You're going to bring him to the site of your next assignment."

"I told you," Dex said, irritation simmering in his chest. "I don't know who he is."

"You don't have to know," his employer said. "Before the blip, Daredevil worked very closely with the police. One officer in particular seems to have gained his trust; I believe he knows our horned friend very well. Perhaps it's time for you to pay him a visit."

"Who's the cop?" Dex ran his fingers along the handle of his gun. A few days would be enough time for him to fix up the suit. He'd be more than ready for a fight with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

"You'll wait for my signal, of course. Then you'll have a nice little chat with the officer, and you'll get Daredevil to follow you to a particular location. And that's where you'll carry out your new assignment."

"You got a name?" 

"Yes," his employer said. "You're going to visit Detective Sergeant Brett Mahoney."

#####

Matt was awoken suddenly by a hand clutching at his chest.

He sat bolt upright, trying to focus his mind. He was on the floor, sleeping next to the couch—next to Peter Parker, who smelled of coppery blood and river water, whose fist was grasping at Matt's shirt. Whose heart rate was dangerously high, whose adrenaline level was spiked enough for Matt to sense it.

Peter Parker, who was currently gasping for air.

"Matt—I—can't—Matt—help—" His voice was raspy, broken, strained.

Matt scrambled to his knees. He put his hands on Peter's chest and listened carefully, quelling his own rising panic.

There was a bubble of air in his torso. Matt could feel the vibrations of it as it moved slightly, could hear the pressure it was putting on his lungs. He'd encountered this before. Years ago, when he was first starting out, Claire Temple had helped him through it.

"There's air collapsing your lungs," Matt said, trying to steady his voice. "Hold on, Peter, hold on—Karen!" he screamed. "Karen!"

There was a muffled thud and a shuffling sound. Karen, groggy, walked into the room.

"Matt? What's going—oh shit!" She rushed to Peter's side. "Shit, Spider-man! Matt—he needs an ambulance—"

"First-aid kit," Matt said, pointing behind him. "I need alcohol wipes and the catheter needle—it's a big one. Underneath the, uh..." he focused harder on the kit. "It's under the gauze. Hurry."

Peter was heaving, his breathing shallow, the pressure on his lungs keeping them from expanding. "Ma—ah—help—can't—"

"We're going to get the air out and relieve the pressure," Matt said. "Try to hold still." He fumbled for a minute with Spider-man's suit, looking for the best way to take it off. 

"Gah—can't—breathe—"

"Sorry, kid," Matt muttered. He grasped the collar and tore open the suit.

Karen pressed the medical equipment into Matt's hands then knelt beside him, hands over her mouth, heart racing. Matt did his best to ignore her. He felt for the air bubble in Peter's chest one more time before swiping the skin with the alcohol pad and lining up the needle. "This is going to hurt. Brace yourself."

He plunged the needle into Peter's skin.

"Ghkk—ah—" Peter jerked in pain, and Matt put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

With his free hand he carefully removed the needle, leaving the catheter in. As soon as the needle was gone, a soft hiss escaped the opening; a whisper as the air left his chest. Peter groaned. Loudly. Breathily.

He took heaving, gasping breaths. Heavy breaths. His lungs, still a little weak, began to expand more normally. Oxygen was flooding his body. Matt, more relieved than he'd ever been, carefully pulled the catheter out of his chest. Karen handed him a bandage and he pressed it over the puncture. Then he sat back on his heels and crossed himself.

Karen clutched at Matt's arm. "How did you know—where did you learn—"

Matt rubbed his forehead. "Claire. I, uh... got stabbed a few years ago and had the same thing happen to me. Figured it couldn't hurt to keep the needle on hand."

Karen swallowed and nodded. She moved her hand suddenly, as if she wanted to reach out to Peter; however, she seemed to think better of it, and dropped it back into her lap.

"Ahh—thanks—thanks, Matt..." Peter was still gasping, but he sounded much better than before. Matt stood up. 

"How long were we asleep?"

"I don't know," Karen said, glancing at her watch. "Two hours, maybe? Damn, it's been a long night."

Peter was already trying to sit up. "I feel... ah... a lot better... thanks."

Matt shook his head. "Let's check your other wounds. We're awake anyway."

Still gasping a little, Peter fumbled his hands around his chest, his face, his legs. "Healing pretty... pretty good... starting to... to scab."

Karen stood too. "You're already scabbing?"

"Super healing," Matt said quietly. "He'll be on his feet by morning."

Peter took several long, heavy, deep breaths. "I was... I was going to tell you about Fisk... but I fell asleep."

"Right." Matt led Karen to one of the chairs, waited for her to sit, then leaned on the arm. "What happened? Why did you go after him?"

"I don't go after him... not on purpose..." He took a couple more deep breaths, and Matt took the opportunity to listen to the fractures in his bones. Already, he could tell a difference. Peter was still hurt, hurt bad—but clearly his healing powers were even more impressive than Matt realized. "I got a text from Roel," Peter said finally.

"The Albanian?"

Karen sputtered. "Wh—you're working with the mob?"

"It's a long story," Peter said. "But they want to take down Fisk—at least, I thought they did..." he winced and clutched at his chest.

Karen turned to Matt. "You can't use your human lie detector thing on them?"

"I've never talked to them," Matt said. He nodded at Peter. "Keep going."

Peter sat up fully. He blindly fumbled around at the table in front of him—Matt had almost forgotten that Peter was wearing his mask—until he'd found his mug of tea from earlier. He took a sip. "Ugh. Cold."

Karen sighed and stood, taking the mug from Peter and walking to the kitchen. She dumped it out and poured him a new cup, slipping it into the microwave.

"I don't know what to think," Peter said. "He's always given me good intel before, but—" he grimaced and gingerly touched one of the gashes on his face. "Not this time. He told me Fisk was gonna murder Pamela Hawley at the docks."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Matt said. "I could've helped—"

"I called you!" Peter said, indignant. "You didn't pick up."

Matt could practically feel Karen's eyes boring into him. Guilt was seeping in from his fingertips, oozing down from his head, settling like concrete in his chest. He and Karen had been wrapped up in each other all day, living in a fantasy, completely distracted. Matt hadn't even turned on his phone today.

"Okay." Matt tried, unsuccessfully, to push down his self-loathing. "Go on."

"It was a trap. Fisk was waiting for me, and Pamela Hawley wasn't even there. Roel must have... must have tipped him off." Peter slammed a fist down on his knee. "Damn it, I'm so stupid. I thought—I thought Roel was my friend."

Matt sighed. He paced for a moment, then walked to the counter. His phone was sitting on top. Useless. He pressed the power button as Karen pulled Peter's now-hot tea from the microwave and returned it to him.

Peter took a noisy slurp and another deep breath. "Fisk said... he said he's not coming after you. Either of you. Not Foggy either. But he threatened me, and M—uh, my girlfriend."

Of course he did. Of course. Matt pushed his fingernails into his palms, his knuckles cracking loudly. 

"Why isn't he coming after the rest of us?" Karen asked. 

"I—I don't know." 

Matt ran his hands through his hair, thinking. Without Felix, he had nothing on Vanessa—nothing on the Kingpin. So what was Fisk waiting for?

With a loud beep, his phone powered on and the tinned voice of his screen reader began speaking. "You have seventeen missed calls."

"Someone's popular," Karen said.

Matt focused on her for a moment. She was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, staring intently at Peter. Matt knew what she was doing; studying the lower half of his face, memorizing it, trying to match it to images in her head. She was puzzling. She was working. She was searching.

"Three calls from Peter Parker," his phone said.

Karen's head shot up.

Matt shook his head. "This isn't my Daredevil phone," he lied. His heart was beating a little faster than normal. Damn it. Damn Peter. Damn phone.

"Fourteen calls from Foggy," his phone said. Matt pressed a couple buttons. "Last call three minutes ago."

Great. Fantastic. Matt pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm going to call him back. Hold on." He pressed another button and held the phone up to his ear.

Foggy answered immediately. "Matt! Where the hell have you been?"

"Sorry buddy."

Foggy sighed. "Every time you miss my calls, I think you're dead in a dumpster somewhere."

"Yeah, I know." Matt pulled up one of the barstools and sat down heavily. "What's going on?"

"It's Peter. He never came home today, and his cell phone's here at the apartment. I just—I know he went with you and Karen to see Fisk in the hospital the other day. I'm worried that—"

"Uh..." Matt avoided facing in Peter's direction, instead turning his head toward the ceiling. "He's fine. I talked to him earlier, he's with his friends."

"What friends?" Foggy said. "You ever seen that kid hang out with anyone outside the office? Except his girlfriend, I guess." Foggy's voice was calmer, though he still sounded a little irate. "Damn it, Matt... you and Peter both. Stop going off the radar like that. I thought—I thought—"

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. Listen, man, now's really not a good time..."

"Of course it isn't," Foggy said, a little cold. "Glad you're okay. Glad Peter's okay. If you get ahold of him, tell him—tell him—"

Matt sighed. "Yeah?"

"Tell him to get his ass home. Tell him I'm glad he's safe."

"Right. Sorry again—"

Foggy hung up.

Matt dropped his face into his hands. This had turned from one of the loveliest days of his life into... well, not the worst day of his life, but it was definitely in the bottom fifty.

He, Karen, and Peter sat in silence for a few minutes. Matt monitored his vitals. Already, the kid was back to breathing normally. A pang of jealousy ran through Matt, along with hints of amazement and even pride. This kid... this kid was something else.

"So, Peter," Karen said suddenly. "Was that your first time facing Fisk?" 

Matt's head jerked up.

"No, I've met him before, but I—" Peter froze. "Wait—what? I don't—I'm not—I—" He whirled around. "Matt—uh—help?"

"I knew it!" Karen said. She jumped to her feet, striding to Peter's side in three steps. "I knew it! You are both such bad liars!"

Matt bit his lip. He wasn't sure whether to panic or to laugh. He slipped off the barstool and walked over to the couch, leaning against the back just above Peter's head. "Listen, Karen—"

"I'm not Peter—who's Peter? I don't know a Peter—"

"Please," Karen said, her voice dripping with triumph. "I work with you every day. You think I can't recognize half your face?"

"You didn't recognize mine," Matt said, stifling a small smile.

"Well, I learn from my mistakes," Karen said. She crossed her arms. "Besides, it's a much bigger leap to accuse your blind boss of being a... ninja vigilante."

Matt sighed. "Fair point."

Peter shook his head and, resigned, pulled off the mask. He handed it to Matt, who pocketed it. "Okay. Yeah. You figured it out."

Karen sat on the couch next to him, putting her hand gently on his knee. "You could have told me, you know. I've kept Matt's secret for years."

"I know. I just... I have a real... I have a real issue with secret identities." 

He didn't elaborate further. Matt couldn't blame him; it was crazy enough to learn that your intern was Spider-man. Hearing about wizards and magic and worldwide brainwashing was probably too much for Karen to handle in one night.

"Well," Karen said, turning back to look at Matt and then back to Peter. "Your secret is safe with me. I promise."

"Thanks," Peter muttered. He dropped his head into his hands and instantly hissed in pain.

"You don't want to bend like that," Matt said. "You've still got four broken ribs."

"Yeah. Yeah, I got that." Peter groaned a little.

Karen turned toward Matt. "Did you know he was Spider-man when we hired him?"

"No." Matt shook his head. "Found out a week later, though."

The room felt lighter, somehow, with Karen in the loop. Despite the creeping guilt that was spreading through his body, despite the overhanging threat of Wilson Fisk and his plans for martial law, Matt couldn't help but smile. Just a little. That was it. That was his last secret. No more hiding, dodging, lying.

Well, except with Foggy.

"So. Peter. You were telling us about Fisk," he said.

"Right." Peter sighed. "He threatened MJ. But she's in Boston—she's safe from him. Right?"

Matt hesitated. "We'll... we'll protect her."

Peter's heart rate picked up a little. "He can get at her in Boston?"

"Fisk has people everywhere," Karen said softly.

"Maybe she should come back to New York." Matt put a hand on Peter's shoulder. "We can protect her better here."

"No!" Peter said, and there was real panic, real force behind his voice. "She earned that spot at MIT. She deserves it. She—I—you have no idea what it took to get her to that school."

"Peter. This is her life we're talking about."

Peter was silent for a full minute. "Then maybe... maybe I have to leave New York. Maybe I should follow her to Boston."

Matt closed his eyes. Peter was right. Someone needed to be out there, to protect MJ. But... the idea of losing Peter, of letting him go off without any kind of protection... it made Matt nauseous. One fight against Wilson Fisk, and Peter had stumbled in half-dead. What if that happened in Boston? When Matt couldn't be there to help?"

"We can talk about that later," Matt said finally. "For now, we need to figure out how Fisk knew you'd be waiting for him."

"Roel sold me out," Peter said bitterly. "He's been playing me this whole time."

Karen stood up and began pacing, her arms crossed, her fingers tapping a soft rhythm against her elbows. "Or Roel's being played."

"What do you mean?" Peter said.

Karen stopped pacing and turned to face Peter. "Where was Roel getting his intel?"

"A... a guy on Fisk's detail. The Albanians have been infiltrating Fisk's organization for months."

"And he's never led you wrong before today?"

Peter shook his head. "Never."

Matt caught onto Karen's point before she even said it. Dread settled like a soft dusting of snow inside his stomach. He moved to his closet and unlocked it; from his Daredevil chest he pulled his black shirt, his muay Thai ropes, and his makeshift wooden batons.

"Where are you going?" Peter said before Karen could start talking again. He got shakily to his feet. "Let me—I can come help—"

"Sit," Matt said sharply. He pulled off his shirt, and Peter's breath caught in his throat. Presumably he'd caught sight of Matt's scars. Matt raised his eyebrows at him until he sat down again. "Not everyone has healing powers," Matt said dryly, and pulled his black shirt over his chest.

"Fisk knows there's a mole," Karen said. "When we confronted him in the hospital..."

"And I mentioned martial law," Peter said, the temperature dropping from his face. 

Matt pulled on his gloves. "And the Sokovia Accords. Only people on Fisk's personal detail would have known about that."

"This was a test," Karen said softly. "To see which of his staff was working with Spider-man."

The muay Thai ropes were like sandpaper against Matt's skin, even through the black gloves he wore. Still, they'd protect his fractured hand somewhat. And they'd do a lot of damage, if need be. He began wrapping them around his wrists, then up through his fingers and across his palms. Weaving over and over, knotting them like rosary beads over his knuckles.

Peter's heart was racing. "Then—then Fisk knows about Roel. He knows about—about everything. Roel's in danger."

Yes. Roel, and the rest of the Albanians. Matt had to find them. He had to warn them about Fisk.

He tied off the ends of the ropes then picked up his phone. Then he navigated through to his contact list. His screen reader read the names aloud as he scrolled: Foggy. Karen. Peter Parker. Marci Stahl. Blake Tower. And, finally...

"Brett Mahoney," his phone said.

Matt hit the call button.

The line rang four times before Brett picked up the line. "This better not be who I think it is."

"Good evening, Detective." Matt tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and crouched down to tie his boots.

"Do you know how late it is? You can't just call—"

"I need information on the Albanian mob. Any leads you have, Safehouses, meeting points..."

Brett scoffed. "I'm not gonna help you beat up mobsters. That's illegal."

"I'm not going to hurt them. This is about Fisk. I need locations, now."

Karen moved back to the sofa and put an arm around Peter. He was trembling. Karen whispered into his ear, a soft refrain: "It's okay. It'll be okay, I promise. You're safe now, that's all that matters."

Brett was quiet for a moment. "Well. I got a few leads. Might get my ass fired for talking to you, but..." he sighed. "If it'll help take down Fisk."

"It'll help."

"Okay." There was a sound of shuffling paper over the phone. "I'll text you the addresses. They're unconfirmed, mind you—the Albanians are pretty low on our to-do list."

"Don't text, just tell me over the—"

Brett hung up.

Matt sighed. Sure enough, a text message immediately pinged on Matt's phone. He tried to get the screen reader to read it aloud.

"New picture from Brett Mahoney," his phone said.

Great.

"Karen, can you read this to me, please?"

Karen gave Peter one last little squeeze on his shoulders, then stood and walked to Matt. She took his phone from him and studied it for a minute.

"It's a picture of a sticky note," she said. "Brett wrote some addresses. 55th and 11th, 22nd and 9th, and 75th and Columbus."

"Thanks," Matt said. He took his phone back and turned toward the door, but Karen stopped him. 

"Let's talk for a minute," she said. She grabbed his elbow and guided him across the living room, up the stairs and onto the loft, just next to the rooftop access door.

Before Karen even opened her mouth, Matt shook his head. "I have to go," he said. "I have to warn the Albanians. Fisk's out for blood."

"I know, I know, it's just..." she dropped her voice and jerked her head in Peter's direction. "What do we do about him?" 

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." she twisted her hands, biting the corner of her lip. "He's just a kid, Matt. We can't let him—"

"He's practically an adult," Matt said. "And a hell of a lot more powerful than I am."

"Are you kidding me? Look at him!"

Matt ignored the verbiage and focused in on Peter. The kid was sniffling slightly. Matt could smell the saltwater of tears brimming in his eyes, could feel air moving from his quick and uneven breaths. He was acting like he had a few nights ago, when he'd given away Felix Manning's name—when Manning was murdered.

Peter was wracked with guilt.

"When we hired him, we promised we'd take care of him," Karen said. "I don't care if he's Spider-man. He needs—"

"He needs you," Matt said. He grabbed Karen's hands and raised them slowly to his lips. "Karen, I don't know how much I can help him right now. I'm not, uh... I'm not the best at letting people in."

Karen snorted.

"But you can help him," Matt pressed on. "He's in bad shape right now, and not just physically. He needs someone compassionate. Someone kind, brilliant, safe..." he kissed her fingers. "He needs you."

Karen pressed her forehead against Matt's. "We can't let him go to Boston. We can't."

Matt tilted Karen's head up and lightly brushed his lips against hers. "We'll figure something out, I promise. But right now... I have to go."

Then he pulled away, grabbing his mask from his pocket and slipping it over his head.

His hand was already on the doorknob, but Karen pulled him back. She straightened the mask, carefully creasing a few folds, and ran her finger underneath the hem. She trailed along his cheekbones and his nose, until finally she pulled his head in toward her once more and kissed him again.

"Be safe. Please."

In spite of himself, Matt smiled. He nodded.

Then he slipped out of his apartment and into the cool night air.

Chapter Text

Wilson Fisk stepped out of his limousine and into the early periwinkle of the burgeoning day. The sun would rise in an hour, and morning would creep across the city. The day would come. Business would move forward.

But Wilson's night wasn't over yet.

It had been hours since he'd fought Spider-man, but a stinging bruise across his face kept the memory fresh. Peter Parker, apparently, was not one to be trifled with. He was stronger than Wilson had assumed. Almost too strong, in fact. He would have overpowered Wilson—if he weren't so easily manipulated. It had been child's play to provoke him. And when he was upset... Parker was foolish and weak. That knowledge was more than worth this evening's fight.

And... it was not the only thing he had learned.

Wilson had set a trap, and Spider-man had predictably fallen into it. The warehouse on the docks was the location he'd given to the youngest member of his security detail—a fresh-faced young man, brutal and quiet, new to the operation. Aron... something or other. Wilson should have guessed he was the mole. Such an oversight—such a dangerous oversight—

He twisted his father's cufflinks. His hands still smelled of the young man's blood.

It was only too easy to get information from him. As it turned out, the mole—Aron—was a member of the Albanian mob. He'd been planted on Fisk's detail in order to pass vital intel to Spider-man and his associates. As Wilson had broken each finger in Aron's hand, as he'd sliced off each ear, each toe, the young man had been more than forthcoming. Wilson had learned that there were three more Albanians infiltrating his organization. He'd learned the location of five Albanian safehouses in the city.

And he'd learned that there was one man responsible for it all; one man who was the point of contact between Spider-man and the entire Albanian mob.

A man named Roel Kadare.

Wilson had left Aron's mutilated corpse on the tile floor of his penthouse. His assistant, Francis, would take care of it. He would clean it, return the apartment to perfection before Vanessa even awoke. 

In the meantime, Wilson had business to take care of.

He took a long look at the building in front of him. This was the main Albanian safehouse; an old restaurant, currently being renovated as a front for a money-laundering business. Typical. Gauche, even. Construction equipment lay dormant around the building, two-by-fours and nails and toolboxes scattered across the pavement. The windows were mostly dark, but there was a light on somewhere in the back.

Roel would be here; the Albanian mole had been quite certain of that. He left the building every morning at 6:00 to go carry out his business.

Wilson glanced at his watch. 5:45.

He was struck by a sudden exhaustion, like a bullet in his gut.

He shook his head. This wasn't the time for weariness. This was the time for action, for fixing mistakes, for rectifying weaknesses. This should not have happened. There should not have been a mole. The Albanians, his enemies, had been inside his home. They'd been near Vanessa. They'd been feeding information, bringing danger and doom closer to them both.

Wilson's oversight had allowed this to happen. He had jeopardized Vanessa.

He wouldn't make the same mistake again.

Their current penthouse would have to go. There was no safety in it; not anymore. He doubted that Murdock or Parker would attack him in his own home—but perhaps, if they were pushed too far, they would find someone else to do their dirty work. Or they'd find other ways to hurt him. He needed to move Vanessa somewhere safe, somewhere they could never find her.

And yet... he was about to be mayor. There was no such thing as privacy anymore.

Secrecy was not an option. Hiding would be out of the question.

Wilson needed a fortress.

He needed a building secured to the highest level; a building with technology and resources, something that would keep the likes of Daredevil and Spider-man far away. Somewhere Wilson could rule over his beloved city, while locking himself away from its dangers.

He'd been thinking of this for some time. In fact, he'd been eying a particular building for weeks. And now, with the danger brought by Spider-man and his Albanian friends...

It was time to call and put down an offer. 

But Wilson had more urgent business to attend to first. He glanced at his watch again: 5:50. 

He turned and looked around him. In the shadows, in the alleys nearby, behind cars and dumpsters and lampposts, a number of Russian mobsters waited. They would watch for his signal. And they would rain destruction on this safehouse.

Francis had Russians stationed at each of the five Albanian safehouses throughout the city. When Wilson gave his signal, a bomb would go off at each location. The bombs would take care of the majority of the Albanian pests, and those that survived the fires would be driven out into the streets—where the Russians were waiting with guns and knives.

Wilson Fisk was bringing war to this city. And eventually, they would thank him for it.

5:55.

He would have to deal with Spider-man, of course. Later. Wilson had the perfect leverage; Parker was in love with that young woman. Michelle Jones-Watson. She was the perfect conduit; Wilson would send a clear message through her. And Parker would begin to understand who he was dealing with.

6:00.

Wilson took a cautious glance at the edges of the building. In the shadows, he caught the eye of one of the Russians. The man nodded deferentially, and Wilson ignored him. They would wait, no matter what happened. They would all wait. The timing had to be perfect.

The light inside the building shut off, and a middle-aged man walked out. He was burly and tall, but he walked fearfully—carefully—looking all around him, almost paranoid.

Wilson stepped forward, until the orange light of the streetlamp was a spotlight over his head.

"I was told you'd be here," Wilson said softly. "Your men know you well."

The man jumped. He put his hand to his hip and whipped out a switchblade, flicking it open.

"Fisk," he said.

Wilson inclined his head. "Roel, is it? Roel Kadare?"

Roel took a step back. "What—what do you want?"

"You've been working against me," Wilson said. He stepped forward until darkness fell over him like a drape. "You've had spies in my organization. For months, perhaps. That ends now."

"Don't come any closer," Roel said, brandishing his knife. "I'll cut your damn guts out."

"I understand you're friends with Spider-man."

Roel froze.

"Yes," Wilson said, sneering. "It's unlike him. Spider-man has always been... so above reproach. It's hard to believe he'd debase himself like this, working with common criminals like yourself."

He took another few steps toward Roel. Roel looked like he wanted to fall back—like he wanted to shrink, to run into the building and barricade himself inside. But he stood his ground. 

"I'm not gonna tell you anything," Roel said.

"No?" Wilson said, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Don't tell me you're fond of the boy. Too soft to betray him?"

Roel spat on the ground. "Eat shit."

Wilson walked forward until Roel was within reach. He stretched his fingers until the knuckles cracked. "You're a man of integrity. As far as men like you... like us... go." He took a long breath, glancing around him at the strewn construction materials on the ground. "You're his confidante. I can respect that."

Roel steadied his feet, shifting his weight, holding the knife higher. "Don't come any closer. I'm warning you."

"But you see, Mr. Kadare," Wilson said, still smiling. And yet... as he spoke, anger began to seep upward. Like pockets of air, bursting toward the surface of a black ocean. "I'm not here for information. Your friend on my security detail... Aron, was it? He gave me all the information I need."

Even in the ghostly light of pre-dawn, Wilson could see Roel growing pale. "What... what did you do to him?"

"I am not here for information, Roel. And I'm not here to threaten you." And Wilson's smile slid away, his face twitching with rage. "I am here to kill you."

Before Roel could react, Wilson lunged at him.

He grabbed the man—so weak, so brittle, like glass under his fists—and head butted him. A flash of white shot across Wilson's eyes at the contact, and he bared his teeth, relishing in the pain. Then he did it again. There was a beautiful sound in the dull thud of Roel's head against his. 

Roel punched weakly toward him, but Wilson was faster. He lifted Roel by the collar of his shirt and punched him in the face, flinging him back against the brick wall of the safehouse. 

"That all..." Roel spat out a tooth, reeking of panic and pain. He took a dazed step toward Wilson. "That all you got?" 

There was a flash of silver as Roel swiped at Wilson with his knife. Wilson sneered. How foolhardy. Impulsive. Ineffectual. The tip of the blade barely sliced through Wilson's suit, revealing the layer of Kevlar underneath—body armor that Melvin Potter had crafted for him years ago.

Wilson snarled and kicked Roel in the chest. 

Roel flew backward, landing hard against the pavement. His head hit a toolbox which scattered across the sidewalk—spilling wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers and nails. Wilson walked closer as Roel began to scramble to his feet; but before he could, Wilson pressed his foot against Roel's neck.

"You can—kill me—ghhkk—" Roel managed to say. "But they'll keep—ahck—coming for you. Daredevil and —chghk—Spider-man."

Anger, tinged with a frost of fear, crept upward along Wilson's body. From his foot, connected with Roel's throat, all the way to his torso. It plunged like blades of ice into his chest. He took a breath, inadvertently loosening his foot just slightly from its place against Roel's neck.

"They'll come for you," Roel said again, gasping. "They'll come for Vanessa."

Wilson roared.

He fell to his knees atop Roel's chest, pressing down with all his weight. Roel's ribs cracked underneath him. His agonized screams were needles in Wilson's ears.

He picked up Roel's head and thrust it into the concrete as hard as he could. Crack. 

"Speak her name again!" he screamed, his face twitching. Crack. "Go on!"

Roel clawed at Wilson's face, desperate, and his finger caught on Wilson's eyelid. Wilson shouted. His eye watered, blurring, and pain shot through his face.

Enraged, howling in pain, Wilson reached for the spilled toolbox and grabbed the first thing he touched. Something cold, metal, heavy.

He raised it above his head and brought it down sharply into Roel's skull.

He was shouting, screaming wordlessly vocalizing as the beating punctuated his voice. Like some demented drumbeat; the accompaniment to a primal, rageful dance.

Thud. Thud. Thud. 

Crack. 

Squish.

Roel's head cracked open like a walnut. Wilson tore into it, over and over, pounding and pounding and pounding. His arm grew heavy and still he raised it; still he pummeled; reveling in the the whip of the air, the spatter of hot blood and flesh across his face, the white and red fragments scattered on the concrete.

He thrashed until he heard the hammer make contact with the pavement through the back of Roel's caved-in head.

The sound, like a cracked bell, echoed deafeningly in his head.

Wilson blinked.

He looked down at his himself, coated in blood and brains. In his hands he held a dripping, scarlet hammer.

He trembled, dropping the hammer. It thudded against Roel's chest then landed on the pavement with a soft clank. A voice ran through his head, then another; two voices mingling together, identical in their frenzy. One a middle-aged man. The other a frightened, rageful child.

Keep kicking him! Keep kicking him! Keep kicking him!

Wilson took a shuddering breath.

He pushed himself off of Roel's twitching corpse and rose to his feet. His men, the Russians, were lurking in the shadows. Wilson could feel their eyes on him, could almost smell their fear. They were still waiting for his signal. Waiting for him to regain control.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief, carefully wiping the blood from his face.

It was time.

Wilson turned back toward his limousine, preparing to leave, when he caught the sound of running footsteps. They grew louder and louder; a furious scream pierced the early morning air. Somewhere above him, someone was running. Someone was coming for him.

Daredevil leapt from the roof of the Albanian warehouse, catching himself on the lamppost and sliding down.

He landed at Roel's feet. Wilson could see the disgust, the abject horror, in the lower half of Murdock's face as he examined the corpse.

"You murdered him," Murdock said, his voice shaking. "You're—you're an animal. You're insane."

Wilson closed his eyes, placing his hand on the car door. "I don't have time for these games, Mr. Murdock." His whole body was still trembling in uncontrolled anger. It was like he had a star inside of him, white-hot and gargantuan, threatening to burst through his fingertips. He had to move—he had to leave—or he'd let it out on Murdock. And as satisfying as it would be, to see Daredevil dead at his feet...

Now was not the time. Not when his death could be linked back to him. Not when Wilson was so close to winning the mayorship. And not while his friends were still alive. Nelson and Parker... and Karen Page most of all.

Felix Manning was dead, yes. And yet... the stalemate was still too risky to break. Not while Page, investigator that she was, might still uncover something against him. Something against Vanessa.

If he killed Murdock now, the rest of them would come for him. 

"You came after Spider-man," Murdock called after him, standing up from Roel's corpse and stalking toward him. "Is that what you do now? You like threatening children?"

"Parker came after me," Wilson said. He pulled out his cell phone, touching Francis' name and preparing to call. "You can't touch me, Murdock. I have men on all sides."

Murdock angled his masked head around him, like a bird, as though he were listening for something Wilson couldn't hear. "Yeah, no shit," he said. He took a few steps closer anyway.

Wilson hit the call button on his phone and held it up to his ear. 

"You're going to crush the city," Murdock said. "And where will that leave you?"

Francis answered immediately. "Sir?" he said.

Wilson closed his eyes and opened the car door. "Now, Francis," he said.

Daredevil took another step toward him, the straps of his black mask dancing behind him in the dawn breeze. "The Kingpin of nothing," he said.

Wilson ducked into his car.

It took less than fifteen seconds for the bomb to go off. A flash of bright orange and white seared across his eyes, followed by a deafening boom from inside the Albanian safehouse. Outside, Daredevil dropped to his knees, his hands pressed against his ears, his mouth open. Screaming in agony.

Wilson smiled.

It was a small bomb; enough to kill most of the people inside, enough to set the building ablaze. Enough to drive any survivors outside. And sure enough, within a minute or so, Albanian mobsters came straggling out through the door—limping, screaming, clothing and hair blazing in red flames.

And as the Albanians came outside, the Russians advanced. Guns raised to their shoulders, knives out, they set upon the Albanians like lions in a pen of sheep.

The same scene would be playing out in the other four safehouses across the city. Francis had it all organized earlier this evening, when Wilson had beaten the information out of the mole. For all intents and purposes, Hell's Kitchen was now ablaze in a gang war—the Russians against the Albanians—and Wilson was completely off the books. Uninvolved.

He twisted his father's cufflinks in his fingers, absentmindedly wiping away more of Roel's now-cold blood. 

Outside the window, Daredevil was struggling to his feet. His fists were raised, and, though he was swaying a little, he looked ready to fight. The Russians, of course, knew not to kill him. But perhaps they'd be able to take him down a peg or two.

As Daredevil advanced on the Russians, and the Russians advanced on the Albanians, Wilson thought of Vanessa. It was time to return home. He'd be making her an omelet before she even woke up.

He signaled to the driver, and the limousine pulled into the alley. Wilson looked back at the scene one last time. He smiled. The crackling flames and the sharp cracks of gunshots trailed behind him as he headed home to his beloved.

#####

Karen was amazed at how quickly Peter was healing. Sure, she'd heard about Spider-man's superpowers—but seeing it up close was something else entirely. Especially since the only hero she ever dealt with was Matt, and, well... to call him 'super' would be very generous.

Around 7:00 she brewed a coffee and brought Peter a steaming mug. He was sitting up now, stretching, carefully testing his ribcage and feeling at the diminishing burns on his chest.

"Thanks," he said, taking a long swallow.

Karen nodded. "So, Peter... your suit."

"Yeah?"

"It's destroyed," she said, gesturing to it. "And your mask's gone. How do we get you a new one?"

Peter took another swallow of coffee. "I need a new sewing machine first. It blew up with the rest of my apartment."

Karen raised her eyebrows, impressed. "You made it?"

Peter shrugged. "It's just spandex. And a few latex accents around the spider pattern. I usually get the fabric online." He paused. "Matt doesn't make his?"

Karen rolled her eyes. "It's not like his current outfit is very involved."

"But back in his devil suit days—he didn't make that?"

"No," Karen said. She pulled out her phone and searched for 'sewing machines' from an online craft store. "That was body armor. A man named Melvin Potter used to make it, until he went to prison. So Matt's back in black."

She surreptitiously placed an order for a new sewing machine and several yards of blue and red spandex. Express shipping, of course.

The sun slowly began to rise over the cityscape, and by the time 8:00 rolled around, Peter was walking around the apartment again. Slowly and painfully, to be sure, but walking nonetheless.

Karen stood up to wash the coffee mugs, when her phone rang. 'Mitchell Ellison,' read the caller I.D. She picked up the phone, balancing it between her shoulder and her ear as she began rinsing a mug under the tap. "Hey, Ellison," she said.

"I've already got Jerry working the story, but I want you on it too. There's got to be a way to tie this to Fisk."

Karen frowned. "Wait—what are you talking about?"

"What am I—Karen, are you serious? It's everywhere! You're usually on top of this shit."

"What's going on? Ellison—"

There was a rustle on the other end and a rush of voices. Talking to someone else, his voice farther away, Ellison said, "Move it to page six. This is the headline. Are you insane, Carol? Come on!" He returned to the line. "Karen, I gotta go—we're in crisis over here. Just go turn on the news."

He hung up.

Foreboding crept up her chest like ivy. She dropped the mug into the sink and ran to the bedroom where her laptop was plugged into the wall.

"Karen?" Peter said. Karen ignored him, bringing her computer back into the living room and setting it up on the coffee table. It took her a couple minutes to find a live news stream from a source other than the Daily Bugle. It would be easier with a TV—just a matter of tuning to the local cable news—but of course, Matt didn't have one. Eventually, she pulled up a stream on NBC and turned the volume up as loud as it would go.

The image was a chopper shot of the city. Five different locations in Hell's Kitchen were on fire; black smoke streamed like ribbons into the sky, and the soft golden glow of flames were harshly reflected in the glass and steel around them.

"—and we're now learning that the Russian mafia is involved. No word yet on whether they're working with New York's controversial vigilantes, but rumors say—"

Peter ran over and sank next to Karen on the couch. Karen pressed her hands to her mouth, and they watched together in silence.

The reporter listed the addresses of the bombings. Karen tried to listen, but she couldn't get the images of a burning, exploding Matt out of her head. The addresses, though, sounded familiar. She was fairly certain that the bombed buildings were the Albanian safehouses Brett had told them about.

Matt was too late. Fisk had reached the Albanians first. She swallowed, hard, as the news footage cut back to the reporter in the studio.

"The bombings are only the beginning," the reporter was saying. "Shootouts between rival gangs have been erupting throughout the city since just after 6:00 this morning. Sources are saying that the Albanian mob may also be involved—"

Peter stood up and ran his hands through his hair, pacing frantically behind the couch.

The reporter touched a hand to her ear as though listening to an earpiece. Then she nodded solemnly. "We'll go now to some on-scene footage provided by the Daily Bugle. I'm told that the content is quite graphic; viewer discretion is advised."

The screen cut to a shot of a half-destroyed brick building. Flames were licking out through the broken windows and construction equipment was scattered across the ground. Blurred corpses and fallen guns littered the street.

J. Jonah Jameson came onto the screen, holding his neon green Daily Bugle microphone.

"It's a bloodbath, folks," he said. "The Russians and the Albanians have been in a shootout all night. You can see the damage behind me. But that's not all—several eyewitnesses have placed Daredevil at the scene."

"Matt," Karen whispered through her fingers.

The camera panned down slightly. Behind the yellow police tape, somewhat removed from the other corpses, was a twisted, mangled body.

"Rumor has it the masked vigilante was seen above this body behind me, right before the gunfire began. Officers found the corpse with it skull crushed in," Jameson said. "Of course, blunt force trauma has always been Daredevil's MO. But it seems this time, he's finally gone too far."

The torso and legs were spattered in blood and what looked like chunks of skull. Where the head should be was a network-censored blur; a mass of scarlet and pink, like a crushed rose out of focus.

Next to the body lay a bloody hammer. A piece of scalp was caught between the prongs.

"No," Peter whispered. He put a hand on the couch to steady himself. Karen put a hand behind her, on top of Peter's, and she could feel him trembling.

"Officers have identified the man as a high-ranking member of the Albanian syndicate, by the name of Roel Kadare—"

Peter vomited all over the floor.

"It's a real tragedy, folks—right here in our own backyard—"

Karen muted the laptop and rushed to Peter. She rubbed his back as he heaved again, sick splattering across the floor.

"I'm—I'm sorry—sorry—" Peter said, bile and drool dribbling from his mouth. He was clammy, shaking, his face twisted with rage and pain and nausea. "I'll—I—I'll clean—"

He vomited again.

Karen guided him to the bathroom. He knelt at the toilet and Karen left to give him some amount of privacy. She mopped up the vomit as Peter continued to heave. Truthfully, Karen was close to doing that herself.

This wasn't the first time Wilson Fisk had murdered this way; Karen uncovered the story years ago. Fisk was still a child when he'd taken his first life. He'd murdered his own father with a hammer when he was twelve years old.

Savagely, spitefully, she hoped Fisk felt now as he had then. Frightened. Ashamed. Monstrous.

A few minutes later, Peter came out of the bathroom. His face was ghostly in the dim light of the apartment. He looked at her, his lip trembling.

"Fisk did this," Karen said. "Not you."

"I led him there," Peter said. His voice caught in his throat.

"It's not your fault," she said softly. She put the mop down and moved to him.

"I try to help," Peter said. He pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head. "Spider-man—he's supposed to help—"

"Peter," she said, and held his face in her hands.

"But Peter Parker ruins everything."

He let out a sob, then cut it off, staring up at the ceiling and breathing deeply, heavily. "I'm sorry. I can't—I shouldn't—"

Karen pulled him close, letting his head rest against her. "It's not your fault," she said again.

He sobbed into her shoulder.

She let him cry for a long time. He was strong; powerful, more powerful than anyone she'd ever met. But at his heart—at his core—he was a child. A lonely, forgotten child, riddled with guilt and responsibility, haunted by tragedy. And not just the tragedy of today; he had the look of someone burdened with years of loss and grief.

He looked like her.

Karen was about his age when her brother had died—when she'd inadvertently killed him. She'd carried the guilt from that car accident for over a decade.

"You didn't kill him," she said.

"Yes I did!" he said brokenly. "And Felix Manning. And my Aunt May. I—"

A new wave of sobs washed over him. Karen slowly led him to the sofa again, sitting down with him and putting her arm around his shoulders. She rubbed steadily up and down his arm.

After a few minutes, the sobbing quieted. He pushed himself off Karen, looking embarrassed, and dropped his head into his hands, resting on his knees. Karen rubbed his back and thought for a minute.

"Years ago, I had the chance to talk to Matt's priest," she said finally. Peter nodded but didn't look up at her. "I'm not religious or anything," she added. "But he was a good guy. And... he was really wise. Helped me when I was going through—a lot."

She swallowed, remembering back to that time. Matt was depressed, more dead than alive, cut off from the world. Fisk had just murdered several of her friends and was hunting her down. Karen had been lonely, reckless, and in constant peril.

She'd hurt people too.

"Anyway," she said, clearing her throat. "He told me something. He said... that whatever it is we do, it can always be redeemed."

Head still buried in his hands, Peter finally spoke. "Do you believe that?"

"I didn't then," Karen said. "I do now."

She waited for him to respond, but Peter was silent for a long moment. Finally, he stood up, still avoiding her eyes. "I should get dressed," he said. He was still trembling a little. "Can I borrow some of Matt's clothes?"

Karen nodded. Peter walked into Matt's bedroom and slid the doors shut behind him. Watching him go, Karen bit her lip. She wished Matt were here. He knew Peter better; what's more, he knew what it was to drown in an ocean of responsibility. Like Peter, Matt knew what it was to be a hero, despairing at the edge of the world, watching it burn beneath him and hearing the cries of the anguished and the lonely. Matt knew what it was to fall, and what it was to rise.

As if on cue, Karen's phone began to ring again. She wiped her eyes—she hadn't even realized they'd been watering—and picked it up.

'Matty,' the caller ID read.

She swiped faster than she'd ever swiped in her life.

"Matt! You're alive!"

"Are you okay? Is Peter okay?"

Karen nodded. "We're fine—are you?"

Matt was quiet for a minute. "The city's a war zone, Karen. Russians everywhere. The Albanians are dead."

"Are you hurt?"

Matt sighed. "Not really. They landed a few good punches, but I don't think they were trying to hurt me."

That made sense. If Fisk was trying to paint Daredevil as a Russian ally, then it would only make sense for the Russians to leave him unscathed.

"Are you coming back?" Karen asked.

"Not yet," Matt said. "I want to check on Foggy first. You know if he's home?"

"Let me check," Karen said. She and Foggy always shared locations with each other—it was only logical, when you were friends with one of the most dangerous men in the city. She went to her 'Find My Friends' app and perused it for a moment. "No, he's at the office," she said.

"It's Sunday."

"It's not like you and I have been working a whole lot lately. Maybe he's trying to get caught up."

Matt sighed. "That's more than likely. I'm going to—"

"We'll meet you there," Karen said. "We need to get out of the apartment."

Matt paused. "Did you not hear anything I said about the city being a war zone?"

"Please," Karen said, rolling her eyes. "I've got Spider-man with me."

"Yes. A very injured Spider-man."

"Not really. He's practically back to normal. Spider magic or whatever." She grinned. "Maybe you should get some real powers, Daredevil."

There was a very loud and very dramatic sigh. "I hate that kid."

Karen laughed. "Meet you at the office," she said, and hung up before Matt could say anything.

After another minute or so, Peter exited Matt's bedroom, dressed in one of his shabbier suits with a red silk tie. Karen gave him a small smile. He gave her a halfhearted one back, but it looked painful. Like even lifting one corner of his mouth was like moving a mountain.

"We're heading into the office," Karen said. "Matt's gonna meet us there."

Peter nodded and headed for the door. As he passed behind her, Karen turned to join him—when something on her muted laptop caught her eye.

Wilson Fisk was standing in front of a building, the glare of glass and steel like a sick halo behind him.

"Hang on," Karen said, and unmuted the laptop. Peter walked over and joined her. They stood, frozen, staring into the harsh blue light of the screen.

A reporter was pushing a microphone into Fisk's face. "Is it true you've just purchased this building?"

Fisk nodded solemnly. "These are dangerous times," he said. "Just this morning, bombs went off across the city. We're aflame in a gang war. And if I am going to run New York with the power it deserves, I must do it from a fortress."

"So you're buying the building to make a statement?" the reporter asked.

Peter turned to look at Karen. "What building?"

Fisk stood straighter, his hands behind his back, and a look of resolute confidence washed over his face. "I am," he said. "These terrorists—these criminals and these vigilantes—need to see. I will not bend. I will not break. I will protect this city with everything that I am."

"I understand the building is still equipped with highly advanced security systems and state-of-the-art surveillance technology?"

Fisk didn't seem to be listening. "When I am mayor, I will fulfill my office from the safest building in the city. And together, we will show the world that we are strong. That freedom, and democracy, and the rule of law will prevail." 

There was a round of applause from behind the camera. Karen scoffed in disgust. Peter's brow was furrowed tightly, anger and confusion etched like an engraving upon his face. "What building?"

Dread knotted in Karen's stomach as the camera panned slowly upward. Fisk was standing at the base of an enormous, modernistic skyscraper. The glass tapered until it reached an enormous helipad, and then closed off at a daring angle above.

A glowing letter 'A' adorned the side of the building. 

"No," Peter whispered. "No. No, no, no. He didn't."

Karen shook her head in disbelief. Information, anger, theories and panic and questions swirled inside her, like the rapid printing of newspapers inside her mind. "Wilson Fisk just bought Stark Tower."

#####

"Foggy!"

Foggy jerked awake, one of the depositions on the desk stuck with drool to the side of his face.

Marci was standing in front of his desk, eyebrows raised, looking like she was trying not to smile. She held out a cup of coffee.

Foggy took it, pulling the paper away and wiping off his face. "You shouldn't be here."

"You shouldn't be here," she said, sitting on the edge of his desk. "It's a Sunday."

"Yeah, well, I have work to do," he muttered, stacking the pages in front of him. Before they'd taken Poindexter's case, they'd been flooded with work from the DA's office—and in the last few weeks, all of that had flown out the window. Foggy was working constant overtime these days, combing through files and sorting paperwork and calling clients, doing everything he could to keep Nelson and Murdock running.

He glanced at the deposition in front of him, and the words seemed to melt into each other, blurring and congealing into something unreadable. He took a long drink of coffee, then dropped his head onto the desk.

"This sucks. This sucks."

Marci made a little sympathetic noise and walked behind him, circling her arms around his torso and resting her head on his shoulders. "It's not okay for Matt to abandon you like this."

"He's not abandoning me... it's just..."

"It's just?"

"He's got a lot going on."

Marci clicked her tongue, sounding skeptical. "It's not the first time he's done this. There's always some kind of drama with him."

"No, it's different; he, uh... he has..."

"What?"

"He's got, uh..." Foggy hesitated. "He's got... depression. Makes it hard to come to work."

Well. It wasn't technically a lie.

Marci was clearly dissatisfied with this answer, but seemed to sense that she wasn't getting anything else out of him. She kissed his cheek. "He'd better be grateful for you," she said.

"He is. I think." Fogy shuffled through the deposition papers and sighed deeply. "You should go home, Marci. All the bombings and everything—and the shootings—"

She gave his shoulders a quick rub. "I've got a big, strong man to protect me."

Foggy raised his eyebrows at her.

"Besides," Marci said. "I can take some of the load off. Give me a few cases. The sooner we're done here, the sooner we can head home and do... other things." She trailed a finger down his chest and onto his stomach.

Foggy snorted. "Nothing more romantic than looking over depositions together. Here." He handed her a monstrous stack of case files. She raised an eyebrow as she began flicking through them.

"Damn, Foggy Bear. I was kidding."

"Too late. You offered."

She sighed dramatically and sat down—this time on Foggy's lap. "You don't mind, do you?" She licked her finger and turned through the pages of the top deposition. 

This was all incredibly distracting.

Foggy paused, then, in a sudden movement, stood up and twirled her around. She yelped in surprise and he smirked at her.

"Get your own chair, you freak," he said, and kissed her. She giggled.

"You win, Foggy Bear." She walked to Peter's desk and rolled his chair over. "I guess you don't want this..." she gestured up and down her body. "...all over you."

"Will you stop? We're at work!"

"Oh please." She nudged at his calf with her toe, and when he didn't budge, sighed and started going through the paperwork. "You really know how to turn a girl on, Nelson."

She leaned back, a thick packet between her fingers, and began to read.

Foggy tried to get back to his own work, but it was pretty hard with Marci Stahl right next to him. She was so beautiful, so funny, so cuttingly intelligent and witty. And, inexplicably, she loved him.

"You know this contradicts the plaintiff's affidavit?" she said, pointing to a line on the paper. "You didn't mark it or anything. Give me a highlighter."

Foggy, grinning, handed one over. She held the cap in her mouth as she underlined the passage.

"That's a pretty glaring mistake, Foggy Bear. Jeri Hogarth would have your ass for breakfast." She highlighted another line.

Foggy watched her for a minute, thinking. Then— "You ever wonder where we'd be? If you hadn't, you know..."

"Been dead for five years? All the time. Go on."

He pressed on steadily. "We'd be married."

She didn't look up from the paper, but Foggy could see the corners of her mouth twitching. "Oh, really?"

"We'd have a big dramatic wedding. Very tasteful. You know..." he grabbed her hand. "We could—"

"Foggy Bear," Marci said. She paused, like she was thinking of saying something, then seemed to think better of it. "I have a table booked for us at Le Bernardin tonight. Let's talk about this then."

Foggy tilted his head. "Le Bernardin? That's... that's fancy. Like, really fancy."

"Yeah, well, it was my turn to plan date night, and I didn't feel like doing McDonald's again." Her phone vibrated, and she glanced down at the notification. Then she frowned and opened up the New York Bulletin news app.

Foggy frowned too, his mind still on the restaurant. "Don't you have to make reservations... like... months in advance?" She didn't answer, still staring at her phone. "What's the special occasion?"

"Foggy, look," she said, and passed him her phone. On the screen was an article, posted just two minutes ago on the front page of their website.

LAST FISK OPPONENT DROPS OUT OF MAYORAL RACE

Pamela Hawley has officially backed out of the running for New York's mayor. Said Hawley: "The bombings across Hell's Kitchen this morning were a wake-up call. This city needs a strong hand. Someone who won't buckle under pressure. And I cannot be that person."

Hawley then officially endorsed Wilson Fisk and pledged to donate her remaining funds to his campaign. Fisk's campaign team has declined to comment.

Foggy passed the phone back without reading the rest of it, feeling sick. 

"Fisk just won the election," Marci said softly.

Foggy stood up. He began pacing, rubbing his forehead. "No. No, he hasn't. Not yet. There are laws in this country, he still needs to be voted in."

"He's unopposed, Foggy!"

"Then we'll find someone else to run."

"Like who?" Marci said.

Before Foggy could answer, the door to the office swung open.

Foggy instinctively jumped in front of Marci, worst-case scenarios running through his head—Russian mobsters, ninjas in black, Poindexter in Matt's red suit—

But it was only Karen, Matt, and Peter.

Foggy ran his hands over his face. "Pamela Hawley just—"

"We know," Karen said, her voice tinged with fury. "I got a call from Ellison on the way over."

Foggy took a minute to appraise them all. Matt, especially. He'd gotten into the habit over the years; after countless hours watching over him while he bled out, while he pulled knives out of his flesh and set broken bones, Foggy couldn't help but give Matt a once-over every time he saw him.

He looked mostly fine; maybe slightly the worse for wear, but nothing worth a hospital visit. He had a split lip, a bruise on one cheekbone, and his knuckles—like always—were bloody. Foggy supposed that had something to do with the Russians this morning. 

Karen looked okay; there were enormous bags under her eyes, but she was fine. Then he turned to Peter, expecting to see much the same.

Foggy's mouth fell open.

Peter's eyes were blackened, yellow bruises blooming across his skin. There were hints of dried blood under his nose, faded, like he'd tried to scrub it away. Underneath the collar of his shirt Foggy could see his neck was swollen.

"Peter?" he said. Peter didn't look at him. "What happened to you?"

Matt moved to Foggy. He felt for his arm for a moment, then took him aside. "We can talk later—"

Foggy wrenched himself away. "Did Fisk do this to you?"

Peter hesitated, then nodded. Foggy's heart dropped into his stomach.

"Why?" Marci said. "Why would he attack you?"

No one answered. Foggy looked from Karen to Matt to Peter, waiting for them to say something... but it was complete radio silence.

"Peter was with Karen at the hospital, when she interviewed Fisk," Foggy said eventually. "I'm guessing that had something to do with it?"

"Something like that," Peter muttered. Then, without looking at anyone, he crossed to Karen's office and closed himself inside it. Foggy resisted the urge to go after him. He'd never seen the kid like this; sullen, brooding, angry. Beaten.

Foggy turned to Karen. "How did he escape? Did M—someone save him?"

Karen glanced at the closed door. "Um. Spider-man saved him."

Foggy shook his head. "Holy shit. Ho. Ly. Shit."

"We've got bigger problems," Matt said. He tapped his cane along the floor until he came to his desk, then leaned on the edge of it.

"Bigger problems? Peter almost died!"

"Fisk is running unopposed. We have to find someone to run against him."

Foggy strode to the kitchenette and opened the freezer, pulling out an ice pack. Then he went to Karen's closed office door. He put the pack on the floor and pushed it under the gap in the door, knocking softly. After a moment, Peter's fingers poked through and pulled it the rest of the way under.

"We seem to be the only people who know what's going on with Fisk. We're the only ones standing up to him publicly," Matt was saying, his voice laden with hints. Foggy stood up and returned to his desk, shaking his head. He should've known Matt was going to bring this up.

"No, Matt. No." 

"You could run," Matt said, undaunted. "You were almost the DA. You would've won if you hadn't stepped down."

"True," Marci said, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

"And you're a damn good lawyer," Matt said. "We need someone who believes in the law."

Foggy narrowed his eyes. If Marci wasn't there, he'd point out the hypocrisy of a criminal vigilante lecturing about the importance of law. "It's not like I'd win."

"Of course you wouldn't win," Karen said, crossing her arms. "No one's gonna win against Fisk. But if you get enough votes—"

"He'd have to play cleaner," Matt said.

Karen nodded. "And you'll be keeping him on his toes. With enough pressure, he's bound to slip at some point."

Marci put her hand on Foggy's shoulder. "You guys used to work with Daredevil. Maybe he'd protect you."

"And," Karen said, slipping her arm through Matt's, "I'm pretty sure Daredevil knows Spider-man. He'd probably help too."

Foggy shook his head. "Guys, listen, I—"

"You care about the truth," Matt said. "You care about people."

"And you're great at management," Karen said. "Hell, you've practically kept this place afloat by yourself over the years."

Foggy felt like he was shrinking. Ordinarily, it was Karen and Foggy who had to gang up on Matt. He really didn't like the reverse.

He thought back to his time working at the office of Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz; the shark-like nature of his peers, the cold inhumanity of it, the lack of camaraderie and friendship. He'd been forced to spend all his time catering to the rich and the powerful. If he were mayor, it would be back to that life. He wasn't built for that.

"I wouldn't mind having the mayor as arm candy," Marci said. She sat in Foggy's chair and propped her feet up on the desk.

"No!" Foggy said loudly. He put his hands behind his head and paced. "No. I'm not doing it."

"Foggy—" Matt began.

"There's a reason I dropped out of the DA run," he said. "I just—I—"

"What?" Karen said, frowning. Foggy took a long breath.

"I need this, here," he said finally, gesturing around the office. "Helping people. Real people. I'm not spending the next four years with a bunch of uptown shitheads."

Matt ran a tongue over his lips, like he was preparing to say something, then shook his head. "Fine," he said.  "Then we need to find someone else. Fast."

There was about a minute of solid silence before Marci cleared her throat.

"Matt could do it," she said. "He's got almost as good a record as Foggy. And he'd probably get a few sympathy votes. You know, because of the whole..." she nodded toward Matt's cane. 

"Charming, Marci," Karen said.

"Am I wrong?"

Matt rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses, looking pained. "I can't. I'm not—I wouldn't be a—"

Foggy jumped in. "—that is to say, Matt's, uh..."

"He wouldn't be a good fit," Karen said. "Let's just leave it at that."

Foggy turned and gave Marci an apologetic look. Her eyebrows were raised practically into her hairline. She twirled a pencil in her fingers as she scrutinized them all. "Wow. Cryptic. I love it."

They were quiet for a minute. Foggy let his mind wander back to Peter. He looked like he'd been crushed, and not just physically. It was so unlike him, to be gone all night, to leave his phone behind. And to have an encounter with Wilson Fisk, no less. Had he gone out looking for him?

"Marci," Karen said suddenly, her head jerking up.

"What?" Marci said. 

"No—Marci." Karen put down the legal pad. "You can run."

Marci tilted her head. "Me?"

"Yes!" Karen said. "You're one of the best lawyers in the city—and look at your clientele! All the 'uptown shitheads' Foggy can't handle. You've spent your whole career dealing with corrupt assholes and putting them in their place."

Foggy looked at Marci, waiting for her to say something—to refuse, to defer—but Marci was staring thoughtfully at Karen, a pencil tapping against her lips.

Matt raised his head a little, almost like he was looking at Marci. "You've got high connections. That's important."

Drifts of ashen dread began to settle in Foggy's stomach. He picked up Marci's hand. "Marce—I don't—I mean, you could do it, you'd be great—but... but... it's dangerous, babe." He ran a thumb over her knuckles. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"Marci was right," Matt said. He tapped over to Foggy and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We can talk to Daredevil. And Spider-man. I'm sure they'd both protect her."

"I could get the Bulletin behind you," Karen said. "And we could probably convince Blake Tower and Brett Mahoney to endorse you."

All eyes in the room, minus Matt's, were on Marci. Even Peter had curiously poked his head out of Karen's office.

Marci looked back at all of them, tapping the pencil against her smiling mouth, bouncing her toes on Foggy's desk like she was conducting music with them.

Finally she nodded. She stood up and put an arm around Foggy's waist.

"Okay," she said. "I'll do it."

Karen grinned. She immediately started scribbling notes on a leal pad. Matt nodded grimly and rested his hands atop his cane. Foggy stared at them, the bloody knuckles somewhat reassuring. If Matt was behind her, and if he could get Spider-man involved—then maybe it would work. Maybe Marci could do some real good.

"I have a condition," Marci said, raising a finger. Then she turned to Foggy. She interlaced her fingers into his, silent for a moment. "Damn it, Foggy Bear, I had a plan for this. I was going to wait until Le Bernardin tonight... but..."

With her free hand, she reached into her blazer pocket and pulled out a small black box. She opened it, slowly, coyly, her forehead touching his. Foggy swallowed and looked down.

A white-gold engagement band was nestled in a pillow of velvet.

"Marci..." Foggy whispered.

Karen's jaw dropped, and Matt smirked, looking entirely unsurprised. Damn him, he must've heard the box inside her blazer from the moment he'd entered the office.

"This isn't very romantic," Marci said. "I promise, I had a whole thing planned. Champagne and everything. But..." she shook her head, smiling. "If I'm going to run for mayor, then I want you at my side."

"Marci, I—"

"Like you said, running against Fisk is dangerous. You should marry me, in case I get hospitalized. Plus..." she smirked. "We'll get a hefty life insurance policy, and you'll be set for life."

Foggy shook his head. "Don't joke about that." He caught her face in his hands and stared at her, marveled at her.

She walked two fingers up his chest, his neck, his chin, stopping at his nose and tapping him gently. "Well, Nelson, we doing this thing or not?"

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Hard.

The embrace was breathless, passionate, exquisite. Foggy forgot that they weren't alone in the office. He was caught up in her, his fingers tangled in her hair, his lips dancing with hers. They kissed for a minute, a day, a year even, before Matt cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Foggy laughed and broke away, his forehead still pressed against Marci's. She took a minute to catch her breath.

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes," Foggy said.

Marci pulled the ring from the box and slipped it onto his finger. "I'll pick out my own ring later," she said, kissing him again. "Your taste is questionable. Except when it comes to women."

Foggy leaned in to kiss her again, when he was bombarded from behind. Karen and Matt were pressing in on him, slapping him on the back, squeezing, laughing. Even Peter was out of Karen's office and joining in on the huddle, though his smile looked somewhat plastered on.

Marci sighed dramatically, still smiling. "I was hoping to propose without the whole motley crew, but... desperate times." She picked up his hand and rotated the ring on his finger. Foggy was staring at her, barely aware of his friends in the room. Marci was perfect, she was everything—she was his.

"So," Karen said, clicking her pen. "Not to rush things, but... the campaign announcement. I'm thinking—"

Foggy grabbed Marci's face and they began kissing again, clumsy and hot and desperate, like teenagers. 

"Or, you know what, maybe we'll just head out," Karen said uncomfortably. "We'll leave you to it. You've got a lot to talk about, I'm sure—Peter? Matt?—and, uh, we can do the announcement later—"

"Campaign announcement," Marci said, dreamily, around Foggy's lips. "Sure. Sure. Yeah. Later."

Foggy ran his thumbs along her cheekbones as he sloppily pressed his lips to hers. 

Matt patted him on the shoulder. "Happy for you, buddy. We'll talk later."

"Right, later," Foggy said absently, and his friends walked out of the office.

At the sound of the door latching, Foggy blinked. He remembered, suddenly, his fear—his uneasiness—the danger on the horizon.

"One second," he said, kissing Marci again. Then once more for good measure. "I have to—just—" he was breathless, a tangled web of pleasure and dread and confusion and joy. "I gotta talk to Matt—hang on—"

She nodded and rebutted her blouse. Foggy wasn't sure when it had come undone.

He caught Matt at the bottom of the stairwell. "Matt—wait—"

Matt stopped. Peter and Karen were already out on the street, waiting; Matt gave them a wave through the window. Foggy took a deep breath and twisted his hands together. "Listen, dude..."

"I'll protect her," Matt said. "I promise."

"She's stepping out with a big target on her back—"

"I said I'd protect her," Matt said, impatient. "Foggy, you know I will."

Foggy hesitated. "Matt, you... you aren't around, lately. I get it; you've got stuff going on. But we're caught up in it, too. And, it's just—you aren't exactly reliable. How can you protect her if you aren't even here?"

Matt's jaw clenched. "That's not fair."

"No. It's not," Foggy said, shaking his head. "But it's true. We're supposed to be in this together—Nelson, Murdock, and Page. But last time, when things got... when Fisk got..." He sighed. "You distance yourself, Matt. You close us off."

"I already got this lecture from Karen," Matt said. "And she was right."

Foggy frowned. "She was... right?" 

Matt took a long breath. "I push people away, when Fisk gets involved. I thought I was protecting you all... but... you're right. I can't protect anyone if I'm not there."

"So..." Foggy's eyes widened. "Does this mean you're back with Karen?"

Matt's mouth was moving around, like he couldn't decide whether to smile or frown. Finally, he nodded.

"Ah, buddy!" Foggy said, grinning. He pulled Matt in for a hug and slapped him on the back. "You finally pulled your head out of your ass."

Matt snorted. "You sound like my—like Sister Maggie."

Foggy opened his mouth, then closed it again. He knew, of course, that Sister Maggie was his mother. and yet—it had been years, and Matt still danced around the topic, still refused to bring it out into the open. As though the knowledge was a glass bauble, so delicate that a strong wind could shatter it.

Matt broke the silence. "I'm not going to push you away, Foggy. Not anymore."

Foggy was quiet for a minute, nodding. "That's... I'm glad, beyond glad. But logistically, I still don't know what to do about Marci."

"What do you mean?"

"Your apartment is pretty far," Foggy said. "If Dex gets in, it's not like I can hold him off until you get there."

Unbidden, the image of Benjamin Poindexter popped into his head. There were a million things in his apartment that Dex could wield. Kitchen knives, spoons, pencils—hell, he could probably kill Marci with paperclips if he wanted. And there was so little security. And Dex was so strong...

Matt took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "You know I work with Spider-man sometimes."

"Yeah," Foggy said, grinning. "That guy's so cool."

"Right," Matt said. He sounded like he was rolling his eyes behind his glasses. "Well, it turns out that he lives... pretty close to you."

"Are you serious? Where? In my building?" Foggy said. "Do you think I know him?"

"He's been keeping an eye on you for a while now. He'll protect you when I can't." Matt paused. "He'll protect Marci when I can't."

The unease in Foggy's stomach didn't dissipate, but it did fade a little. He suspected that he'd feel some amount of dread until Fisk was back behind bars. Still; with both Spider-man and Daredevil around, Marci would be... well, perhaps 'safe' was too strong a word. But she'd be protected.

"Jessica Jones used to work for Jeri Hogarth, I think Marci sort of knows her," Foggy said. "Maybe she could help."

"You call me unreliable?"

"Fair point." 

They stood together in silence for a minute longer. Foggy was itching now, desperate to get back upstairs to Marci. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet, glancing behind him.

"Okay," Matt said, snorting. "Go on. Get back to her."

Foggy grinned. He leaned forward once more and pulled Matt into a massive bear hug. "Thanks buddy."

"Congrats, man," Matt said, and he turned to walk out of the building.

"Oh—hang on! I have Peter's phone," Foggy said. He pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it to Matt, who caught it without turning back around. Then he rejoined Karen and Peter outside. 

Foggy took the stairs back to the office two at a time.

Danger was around them constantly; prowling in circles like a pack of animals, threatening to consume them. But for now—with the promise of a threat to Fisk's empire, with Matt actually acting like himself, and with Marci—with wonderful, beautiful, amazing, scary, brilliant Marci as his fiancée—

Foggy was pretty sure he could take on Fisk with his bare hands.

#####

Peter set out walking, aimless, and Matt and Karen followed behind him. Like they were babysitting him. 

Well, after the events of the last few days, he could hardly blame them.

Still, they seemed to sense that he needed some distance. As they walked, Matt clutching Karen's elbow and tapping his cane, Karen softly whispering in his ear, they let Peter move far ahead and lead the way.

In truth, he wasn't sure where he was walking to. But they all needed to get out of the office—Foggy and Marci were no doubt doing degenerate things in there—and Matt was adamant that walking around would help Peter heal. So, they were walking. Walking, wandering, and waiting for the chips to fall.

The streets were eerily empty. The bombs had been bad enough—and now the Russian shootouts across the city had everyone panicking. It was on every news station; all violence, fear, and chaos. It seemed like everyone in New York City was taking shelter in their homes.

Well... not everyone. This was New York, after all. There were some stubborn pedestrians out and about, but they were few and far between.

"Peter?" Matt called. Peter stopped, letting the two of them catch up.

"Yeah?"

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know." Peter shrugged. "Times Square, maybe? It's the only time we're ever going to see it without tourists."

Karen raised an eyebrow. "And this has nothing to do with Stark Tower being right there?"

"Maybe we could do some surveillance," Peter said. "Matt can try and parse something out."

Matt angled his head toward Peter. "You want me to listen for Fisk inside the tower."

Peter shoved his hands into his pockets. "It couldn't hurt," he said, and began walking in the direction of Times Square. Matt and Karen followed. 

"The other shoe's going to drop. I can feel it," Karen was saying to Matt. Peter slowed just a little so he could join the conversation.

"The other shoe?" he said. 

Matt's jaw clenched. "Martial law," he said. "The mass hysteria is a perfect opportunity for Fisk to sink his greasy fingers into the city."

Oh. Right. Peter had almost forgotten about that, between almost dying and being responsible for his friend's murder.

The image of Roel's mangled body flashed into his brain like a neon sign. He took a few deep breaths to quell the return wave of nausea that crashed over him.

Times Square was unnervingly quiet. The bright billboards and signs around them were all tuned to different news stations; Peter could see at least four different J. Jonah Jamesons glaring down at him, railing against the city's vigilantes. There were blurred corpses, flashing gunfire and flames, reporters solemnly urging citizens to stay inside. A few people were out on the street, but they seemed almost shrunken into themselves. They were all looking around nervously, like they were waiting for someone to jump out at them.  They hurried along the streets as though they were rushing to get out of a rainfall.

Peter glanced back at his friends. Matt's glasses reflected the bright billboards around them. Karen was shrewdly looking around at all the signs—like she was searching for some kind of clue, some explanation, some crack in Fisk's armor that she could exploit.

"The governor's in his pocket already," Karen was saying. "Hell, so is Mayor Libris. Martial law's going to be no problem for Fisk."

Peter gritted his teeth. He hated Fisk—hated him. The sensation was new, alien. Peter generally didn't hate anyone. Not the Vulture, Mysterio, or even the Goblin; they were impersonal, or at the very least, crazy and somewhat inculpable for their actions. But Fisk, on the other hand...

Loathing burned along Peter's skin like wildfire. He was certain if he looked down at his arms he'd see new burn scars of red and black across his flesh.

He was about to ask Matt what martial law would entail when his cell-phone began to ring. Peter pulled it from his pocket.

MJ.

Wilson Fisk sneered at him inside his head, and the flames of hatred licked higher up his body. He answered the phone.

"Hey, everything okay?"

"Did you tell anyone?" MJ said. Her voice was distorted, husky; she sounded like she'd been crying.

Peter's breath caught in his throat. "I—what? What are you talking about?"

"Did you tell anyone," MJ said, and took a breath, "that I know Spider-man?"

He'd almost forgotten about that conversation—MJ's fascination with his alter-ego, her confusion and anguish and hope. Peter swallowed. "Of course not! I would never do that!"

MJ was silent, and Peter bit his lip. He glanced behind him. Karen was staring at him with concern, and Matt's head was angled curiously. He was clearly listening to the whole phone call. 

Knowing it wouldn't change that fact, Peter moved a few feet further away.

"What's going on? Tell me," Peter said.

There was a shuddering breath on the other end of the line. "I—I just got expelled."

"Oh shit," Matt whispered behind him.

Peter took a long breath, trying unsuccessfully to steady himself. He was shaking. Fury overtook him, a wash of blood-red creeping into the edges of his vision, painting the street scarlet. "You... you got expelled?"

"Peter..." she said bleakly. "I don't know what to do. I just..."

"What happened?" Peter said. He put a hand to his forehead and rubbed across it, pressing so hard into his skin that he was sure he would bruise. "What exactly did they tell you?"

"I got called into the president's office this morning. The president of MIT, Peter. It's—it's insane, it makes no sense—"

"What did he say to you?" Peter glanced behind him. Matt was pressing his hands into fists, pushing his knuckles into his palm.

"Typical elitist bullshit. 'It's come to our attention that you are affiliated with a known criminal—the vigilante known as Spider-man...' Shit, Peter, I—I don't know how they could have found out. I don't even know him anymore." 

"Is that everything? He didn't say anything else?"

MJ sniffed. "He said some big donor threatened to pull funding unless they kicked me out. Just—just the barest hint of a rumored association with an alleged criminals nd my life is over. My career is over."

"MJ..." Peter said. He wished more than anything that he was in Boston right now, resting her head against him, running his hands through her hair, letting her weep into his chest.

"I think someone paid him off," MJ said. "I don't know why—I don't know what anyone stands to gain from ruining my life—but... there's something so off about this whole thing. I can just feel it."

Panic and fury braided together in Peter's stomach, and he closed his eyes. The whole reason he'd gone to Dr. Strange in the first place, the entire reason the world had forgotten him, was because he wanted his friends to go to that school. To build lives for themselves, to pursue their passions and cultivate their brilliance.

And somehow, Fisk had destroyed it all. Peter had lost everything, and it was all for nothing.

"We can fight this, MJ," Peter said. His voice was sandpaper in his throat. "Matt and Foggy are the best lawyers in the city. They can—"

"No," MJ said forcefully. "If that asshole is still at the school, I don't want anything to do with it. I'm coming home." She was sniffing still, but there was a hardy defiance in her voice. "My friend Ned's coming with me, he's deferring the semester in protest."

"No—no—that's, MJ—we can't just—"

"I just wanted to talk to you about it," MJ said, her voice softer now. "If there's a bright spot in all this... I'll get to see you sooner."

"MJ, I—I—" He pictured Wilson Fisk's pummeled, broken face, bloody on the ground in front of him... yet still smiling, somehow. Peter pressed the mute button and screamed into his hands.

It did not help.

"Peter?" MJ said. Peter unmuted himself.

"When are you coming home?"

"Thursday," she said. "I'm taking the Amtrak. Maybe you could meet me at the station."

Peter swallowed. He nodded, then remembered that he was on the phone. "Yeah. I can do that."

MJ paused. In the silence, she seemed like she wanted to say something more, but eventually she just gave one more shaky, post-crying breath. "I have to go, Peter. I'll call you later."

She hung up.

"Peter," Matt said, with the tone of someone trying not to scare an animal.

Peter's chest was heaving up and down as he breathed desperately, furiously, like he'd been running for hours without rest. The clear blue morning sky was oppressive and false, pressing downwards, crushing the city under its weight. Times Square seemed to be condensing in on him. They were all going to be trapped here—MJ was going to be trapped—

He turned toward the nearest building, a towering triangular monument of white brick—and punched it as hard as he could.

"Peter!" Karen gasped.

The punch created a web of cracks in the brickwork. Piece of the wall crumbled off onto the street. His hand was largely unscathed—one of the benefits of super strength and endurance.

He glanced upward. The corner of the building was emblazoned with a vertical glowing sign, casting a red glow down the length of the building: The Daily Bugle.

He punched it again for good measure.

"Wonder where he learned that from," Karen muttered, giving Matt an irritated glance.

"Feel better?" Matt asked.

"No."

Matt sighed. "Well, you were right, Peter. We can fight it. MJ might not want to now, but when this is all over—when Fisk is gone, when the bastards working for him are put away—Foggy and I can—"

"I really don't want to talk right now," Peter said. "Sorry if that's rude—but I—I just, I..." Fury was building up in him again, and he forced it down into the pit of his stomach. Then he turned around and began walking, staring straight down at the concrete.

He pretended he didn't notice Karen and Matt following him. Matt was filling Karen in on the details of the call, never letting Peter get more than a hundred feet or so away.

Stark Tower was only a couple of blocks past Times Square. How easy it would be, to scale up the glass walls of the building. Suit or no suit. He could punch through a window. He could find Fisk. He could frighten him, crack his skull, hurt him.

A tingle of pleasure coursed through his body at the thought, and Peter froze. This... this wasn't him. This was cruelty. Vengeance. His Aunt May would be horrified. She'd be ashamed.

He chewed at his lip, feeling the pleasure give way to damp, cold dread, and let Matt and Karen catch up with him.

Karen put a hand on his shoulder. "I know you're scared," she said. "But we can help MJ. She can work at Nelson and Murdock for a while, and you and Matt will protect her. And we can—"

Matt's head jerked up suddenly. "Shh."

Peter and Karen stared at him. His head was angling in several different directions, rapid and urgent. He looked almost like a bird, or an animal following a faded scent.

"Matt?" Peter said.

"Quiet."

Karen and Peter glanced at each other. They waited on Matt for almost a full minute. Matt's knuckles were growing tighter and tighter around his cane; they whitened from the strain and the cane began to shake.

"Tanks," Matt said. "On 47th and 8th. There are soldiers walking around." He paused, angling his head in another direction. "More throughout the city. They're all over the place—"

Above their heads, scattered around them like swarming insects, the Times Square billboards suddenly flickered to the same deep blue color. Peter blinked, surprised, and stared at the biggest sign he could find. Emblazoned upon the blue background was the New York State Seal.

"An announcement from Governor Patrick Wenham," said a booming voice from the myriad speakers around them. The seal cross-faded to a shot of a mahogany podium stationed in front of the state and national flag. A procession of people walked up to the stand, some dressed in military garb, others in neat suits and blazers. Peter only recognized a few of them.

"There's dozens of people on the stand," Karen was saying softly to Matt. "Mayor Libris, the city council borough presidents..."

"Everyone on Fisk's payroll, then," Matt said, clenching his fists tighter around his cane. Peter half-expected it to snap from the pressure.

Governor Wenham came in last, taking his place directly behind the stand.

"Good morning," he said. His face was stone, stoic, calm. "I am here today to make an announcement on behalf of the government of New York."

"Is Fisk there?" Matt asked, and Karen shook her head. 

"He doesn't need to be," she said. "He owns everyone anyway." From her purse, she pulled a yellow legal pad and began taking notes. "He's not even mayor and the city's already in the palm of his hand."

"Let me be clear," the governor said. "The violence of the past several weeks has cast a shadow of this beloved city. Crazed vigilantes and criminal organizations have divided us. They may perhaps have weakened us. But they have not broken us."

"Sounds like what Fisk said earlier," Peter muttered.

"This morning I was briefed on a series of bombings across Hell's Kitchen. I also want to make the public aware of the ongoing threat of gang activity and gunfire in the Manhattan area. We are facing a level of violence that is entirely unprecedented in the h history of our great city."

"That's such bullshit," Karen said, fiercely scribbling. "I can think of a dozen Avengers-level threats in the last decade alone."

"This is a tragic time for our citizens; our hearts and prayers go out to all the victims. This is New York City. We must stand as examples to the world watching us. We will not fall."

The people behind the governor were all nodding solemnly. Peter took a moment and looked around the street. The few pedestrians in the Square were all staring upward, their necks craning and their mouths open as they watched the announcement. 

Governor Wenham cleared his throat. "Therefore, we are taking a series of measures to prevent future attacks and preserve the safety of our residents." He looked directly into the camera. "As of right now, I declare New York City to be under martial law."

There was a scattered murmuring—muffled gasps, whispers, shuffling. Some of it from the broadcast, some of it from the scattered bystanders brave enough to be on the streets in the middle of a gang war.

"There it is," Matt said.

"We will continue to mobilize and employ all appropriate law enforcement resources," the governor said. "New York's police department will work hand in hand with the militia to ensure the safety of our citizens and to bring justice to all offenders. Leading the charge will be Major General Bill Meade. General Meade, I turn the time over to you."

Governor Wenham stepped down and one of the military men in the lineup stepped forward. His uniform was littered with badges and medallions. His face was stern, cold, with frown lines deepening his forehead and creasing around his mouth.

As Karen described the man to Matt, apprehension spread across Peter's skin, pricking at him like needles. He wanted to run, to swing, to fight. He wanted to punch Russian mobsters into the pavement. He wanted to fling Fisk out a window.

General Meade adjusted the microphone. "We will be working closely with the established local government at this time," he said. "I've been privileged to work with Mayor Isabelle Libris in the past, and I will continue to work with her office to bring peace to this city."

"Know anything about him?" Matt said.

"Nothing," Karen said. "I'd bet money he's a Fisk supporter, though."

"We will be implementing a curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.," Meade said. "Travel in and out of the city will be heavily monitored. Militia squads will be stationed throughout each of the boroughs. Random security checkpoints and searches will be conducted on a routine basis. Those who pose a threat to the safety of the city will be dealt with swiftly."

This was not New York. This was not his city. Peter's nausea was already boiling up into his throat again. General Meade continued to talk, but it was harder and harder for Peter to focus. He thought instead of MJ—passionate, beautiful, intelligent MJ. She wouldn't stand for this. She would do something about it. She would stage a protest on the governor's lawn, egg the tanks already rolling through the streets, start petitions against the corrupt councilors and senators—

Peter couldn't believe that this was the city she'd be returning to in just a few days.

"Peter?" Karen said, and Peter realized that he'd been lost in thought for several minutes. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, swallowing. "Sorry."

"They're opening it up for questions," Matt said. "You haven't missed much."

"This should be good," Karen muttered, and Matt snorted.

Many of the press questions were predictable. They asked about specific rules, about the hierarchy of leadership; program longevity, plans for the violence, the day-to-day changes New York could expect. These were easy questions. Softballs. Peter was sure Fisk must have planted half the reporters in there.

"Why aren't the Avengers stepping in?" Karen said. "I mean, you'd think we'd have more than just you two."

Peter shook his head. "Half of them retired, and the rest are mostly out of state. And even the New York Avengers are too busy to deal with this. Dr. Strange probably has more important, mystical stuff to take care of. Fate-of-the-universe kind of stuff." He tried to quash the bitterness rising in him. "I don't think any of them know much about Fisk. They're probably assuming the army will take care of everything."

Another reporter stood up to ask a question. The voice was brusque, grating, and overpowering; Peter felt disgust ooze down his spine.

"The mayoral election is already underway," said J. Jonah Jameson. "Can we expect you to work alongside our new mayor when the time comes?"

Meade nodded solemnly. "The election will continue as planned. I know the current candidate well; I have the utmost confidence in his ability to make New York the thriving city it once was. He is the heavy hand we need."

Matt cursed loudly. Peter balled his hands into fists.

The rest of the press conference continued in the same manner, and eventually it ended. The billboards returned to their bright, colorful, flashing selves. It would have felt almost like things had returned to normal, were it not for the deserted Times Square.

And for the two tanks rolling up 42nd street.

Peter stared as dozens of soldiers filed out, barking orders and cordoning off sections of the road. Up and down the street they were ushering bystanders away, brandishing their weapons and clearing the way for more military vehicles.

A soldier with a heavy rifle against his shoulder walked directly toward Matt, Karen, and Peter. 

"This area is closed until a squad has been assigned," he said, glaring suspiciously at them. "Why are you out in the middle of a gang war?"

Matt smiled calmly. "That's my fault, sir," he said, adjusting the red glasses on his face. "I got lost. My friends here are helping me get home."

"Clear out!" the soldier said. "It's not safe here."

"It's not safe anywhere," Karen muttered, and the soldier took a threatening step toward her. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead she shook her head and guided Matt's hand back onto her elbow. Together, the three of them walked out of Times Square, insignificant and meager under the menacing gaze of the militia surrounding them.

As they once again wandered along the streets, Peter stared at the concrete. Matt and Karen were silent. Peter was sure Matt was listening to the heartbeat of the city, assessing the new danger they suddenly found themselves in. 

Peter tried to sort through the windstorm of thoughts in his head. It had taken Fisk so little time to carry out his plan. It was so easy for him to ruin their lives. It was only a mater of time before he won, before everything was over. Before Fisk took MJ away from him, the way the Goblin had taken his Aunt May.

"Peter—maybe we should take you back to Foggy's," Karen said, sounding uneasy. Peter looked up.

He'd led them down 43rd street. At the far end, glass windows gleaming like stars in the sunlight, casting a powerful shadow on the entire block, was Stark Tower. Avengers Tower.

Fisk Tower.

Peter hadn't even realized he'd been walking this way. He supposed it was in some way instinctual, considering how many times he'd made this walk as a high school student. Back when Tony Stark had him under his protective wing, when Peter was still learning what it was to be a hero. What it was to win. What it was to lose. 

He gazed up at the Tower, trying not to imagine Wilson Fisk in Tony's labs, in his bedroom, looking down over the city like he owned it.

There was already a construction crane stretching up the length of the building. Workmen were milling about at the top, brandishing drills and wire cutters and wrenches. As Peter watched, the large glowing 'A' flickered and died. 

Peter took a long, shaky breath, pushing his nails into his palms.

"Matt?" he said.

Matt knew what he was asking. "He's in there," he confirmed, the barely-controlled anger in his voice threatening to spill over. "53rd floor." He angled his head further toward the Tower, focusing harder. 

Then he laughed, harshly, hollowly. "He's dancing with his wife."

Peter wished the roof of the Tower would collapse down on them both.

Chapter Text

There were two hours left until MJ was home.

Two hours until her train pulled into the station, until Peter could hold her in his arms. Two hours until she was safe again—and yet, closer to danger than before.

As he waited, Peter worked on his new suit. It was mostly done; all that was left were the eyes. That was the worst part, honestly. He'd spent all day yesterday crafting the lens backing to fit into the holes. Then he'd had to track down white mesh fabric to cover it. All to hide and protect his eyes, while still allowing him to see.

Peter didn't often envy Matt, whose life was an absolute nightmare—but there was a lovely simplicity to just wrapping a piece of fabric around your head and being done with it. Plus, it was way more comfortable.

A little after five, Peter's phone rang. He dropped his suit in his rush to answer, worst-case scenarios swarming in his head: MJ had been attacked by Russian mobsters, her train had been derailed, she was staying in Boston after all—

It was Karen. Relieved, Peter answered.

"Hey," he said.

"How are you feeling?" Karen said. "You have a nice day off?"

Everyone in the office had unanimously agreed that Peter needed the day to calm himself down before MJ got here. Despite being physically healed, he was a wreck. Ever since Roel's murder Peter had been on edge, scattered. Running on constant panic.

"Yeah," he said. "Just about finished with my suit. Karen, please let me—"

"Nope," she said. "You're not paying me back."

He put the phone between his ear and shoulder and began sewing the mesh into the fabric. "I can't accept—"

"We cannot keep having this conversation," Karen said. "You're keeping it. That's final."

Peter bit back a smile. "Thanks."

"So," Karen said. "We're done here at the office. Foggy and Marci should be home any minute—you still okay to keep an eye on them?"

"I am New York's best babysitter," Peter said. Karen snorted.

"I don't doubt it," she said. "Listen, Matt doesn't think there's a chance of Fisk going after them yet. Hell, Marci hasn't even announced her campaign. But still—"

Peter nodded. "Fisk has eyes and ears everywhere. You never know." He accidentally pricked his finger with the needle. As he sucked on it, he glanced over the suit. It was pretty good. Without access to Stark suits, Peter had become quite the seamstress. Seamster? "Any progress on the campaign?"

"We've got her announcement written up," Karen said. "It's just a matter of timing now. She's going to wait a few days, once the martial law stuff has died down a little. We don't want her to get lost in the news cycle."

Peter held the mask up to his eye and looked through it. Not bad. Time to move onto the next one.

The city was still in utter chaos. General Meade, New York's new leader, had been swift and ruthless in his implementation of martial law. No one was allowed on the streets past 9:00 in the evening; apparently Matt had been shot at a few days ago when he'd done his nighttime parkouring off his apartment building. Businesses were closing, Broadway was shut down, trains and flights in and out of the city were being monitored and sometimes restricted. Heavily-armed military squads were conducting random stop-and-searches on the streets. Citizens in defiance of the new rules were swiftly arrested and held without bail.

Peter had asked Foggy yesterday how it was legal; how all these rights were stripped away so easily. The answer had boiled down to: that's the whole point of martial law. We're operating outside of normal governance. General Meade can do pretty much whatever he wants. 

Which was just great, considering that Meade was one of the assholes in Fisk's pocket.

"Maybe you and MJ could help us with some fliers and buttons tomorrow," Karen said. "The more time she spends with you and Matt, the safer she'll be."

"Okay."

There was a long pause, as though Karen was thinking very hard about what she wanted to say. "Listen, Peter... I know things are bad right now."

That was one way of putting it.

"But they'll get better," she said. "I promise. It's been like this before. Worse even. And we always pull through."

"Okay."

"You're not alone, Peter, okay? You're not alone."

"Yeah. I know."

Peter knew how worried Karen was. He'd seen the concern, the fear in her face over the last few days; he'd seen it in the way she constantly reassured him, the way she checked up on him. As though always checking to make sure he was still there. He couldn't blame her. He knew he was acting strange.

Ever since Dr. Strange's spell, Peter had done his best to keep everything together—to keep a brave face, a carefree demeanor, a friendly neighborhood persona. It was what Aunt May would have wanted. But now... everything was different. His sacrifice was for nothing. MJ was in danger again, the city was tearing itself apart, and Peter's life was in shambles.

The law firm of Nelson and Murdock had definitely noticed.

There was another pause. "Peter, do you want me to come over? Or Matt? I just... I don't like the idea of you being alone right now."

She was so much like Aunt May.

A lump rose in Peter's throat, and he swallowed it down. "I'm okay," he lied. "I promise."

There was a loud crash in the kitchen. Peter whirled around, poised and ready for action—but it was only Foggy and Marci. He could hear them giggling.

Peter rolled his eyes and returned to his suit. No doubt Foggy had just swept everything off the counter to place Marci on top of it. It was a good thing Peter didn't know how to cook. He didn't think he'd ever set foot in Foggy's kitchen again.

"Listen," he said. "Foggy and Marci just got home. I'm going to try and figure out their plans for tonight, see if my chaperoning will involve leaving the house."

Karen snorted. "Okay. Well, Matt's taking me to the gym; I figured it was time to learn some self-defense. So if you need anything..."

"I'll know where to find you," Peter said. "Talk to you later, Karen."

"We love you, Peter," Karen said. "We care about you."

"I know," Peter said, and hung up.

There was another crash and a giggle. Irritated, Peter loudly cleared his throat. 

"Wow," he called out. "The sound quality of this place is amazing. What thin walls. I am so very aware of everything going on in the apartment right now."

There was a thud, like someone slipped and fell.

"Sorry, Peter," Foggy shouted. Peter shook his head.

After another half hour, the new suit was complete. He held it up and gave it a solid once-over. He'd worked on little else in the last week; after all, there was not a whole lot he could do about the city's crime as Peter Parker.

Not that he could do much as Spider-man, either. Not these days. Not against Fisk.

He stripped off his clothes and stepped into the suit, stretching it over his calves and onto his bare chest. The fit was perfect; like his body had been made for the suit, rather than the other way around. He tried on the gloves and mask for good measure.

With the suit completely on, Peter felt a wave of relief come over him. The last few days he'd felt strangely skinless. Like he'd been flayed alive. Without his suit he'd been exposed, sensitive, vulnerable; with it, he was himself again.

He slipped a pair of jeans and a Star Wars hoodie over his suit. He pulled off his mask and gloves, tucking them into his pocket. Then, glancing around to make sure he hadn't left out any incriminating red and blue fabric, he crept to the door.

"Wow, I am starving," Peter said loudly. "I sure hope there's no one naked in the kitchen."

"You're safe," Marci called, and Peter opened the door and walked into the main room of the apartment. The couple were sitting innocently on the sofa, Foggy's arm draped across Marci's shoulders, his new engagement band glinting in the soft evening light.

"You want dinner?" Foggy asked. He swirled a cup of coffee and took a sip.

Peter glanced nervously at the kitchen, then at the two of them. "Depends."

Foggy rolled his eyes. "Kitchen's clean, Peter, we're not animals. There's some leftover Thai in the fridge if you want. Just pop it in the microwave."

Peter shrugged and did so.

"What are your plans tonight?" he asked nonchalantly as the takeout box spun lazily in the microwave. "Feels like a good night for staying in. Watching a movie, maybe."

Marci shook her head. "Got an appointment to pick out my engagement ring," she said. "We had to make a reservation with all the martial law chaos."

Great. Peter would have to tail them.

"Where's it at?"

Foggy waggled his eyebrows at Peter. "Why? You popping the question to MJ?" 

"No!" Peter said, flushing red. "Just—curious."

"Tiffany's," Marci said. "I have to expose Foggy to some high-end jewelry. He was ready to take me to Zales." She rolled her eyes conspiratorially at Peter, as if he was supposed to know what that meant.

The microwave beeped. Peter pulled out the food and twisted some noodles onto a fork. "Right," he said. "What time are you leaving?"

Marci glanced at her watch. "In about fifteen minutes. Listen—we can stay out extra late, if you want. Since your girlfriend's coming back to town, maybe you'd like the apartment to yourself..."

Peter blushed even redder. "No! She's—I—we're, um—"

"Leave him alone," Foggy said, rolling his eyes. Then he glanced at Peter. "But, seriously dude, we can be out of your hair if you want some alone time." He took another sip.

"I'm going to fling myself off the Chrysler Building."

"We need extra time for venue shopping anyway," Marci said, shrugging.

"Venue shopping?" Foggy choked on his coffee. "It's a little early for that, don't you think?"

Marci raised her eyebrows. "If we want to use the wedding for the campaign, then we need to get a move on." She poked Foggy in the chest. "You spilled your coffee."

Peter frowned. "You want to use the wedding... as a campaign event?"

Marci nodded. "Fisk basically did the same thing before the blip. Even now, he's parading Vanessa around town like a damn dog and pony show. People love it. We've got to fight fire with fire here." She grabbed Foggy's tie and yanked him close. "Either way, I get to marry this big guy," she said, and kissed him.

From behind Marci's lips, Foggy said, "We can't put on a wedding that fast."

Marci gave him a very pitying look and patted his cheeks patronizingly. "You're cute. We could put it on tomorrow if we want—I'd just have to bribe a few people."

"Tomorrow?!"

"Relax, Foggy Bear," she said, running her fingers through his hair. "Not tomorrow. I'm just saying—I've had this planned out for months. Guest list, food vendors, you name it."

Foggy shook his head. "Before asking me? That's presumptuous."

"You said yes," Marci said. She crawled into Foggy's lap and pinned him back into the couch. They began making out again. Peter cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"And that's my cue to go," he said, tossing the takeout into the trash. He couldn't take much more of this. He had half a mind to move in with Matt instead—if only he weren't in charge of babysitting the lovebirds. "See you later."

Twenty minutes later, Peter was following a few hundred feet behind Foggy and Marci as they walked to Tiffany's. His hood was pulled down as far as it could go. He stared at the ground as he walked. Beneath everything, his suit was tight against his skin; reassuring, protective, there. 

He stayed at the edge of the pavement, hugging to the buildings as he passed, ducking behind other pedestrians to avoid being spotted—though, honestly, there was little danger of that. Foggy and Marci were like hormonal teenagers, unable to make it twenty feet without stopping to kiss.

"They're my friends, they're my friends, they're good people," Peter muttered through gritted teeth as Foggy stopped for the fifth time to plant a kiss on Marci's neck.

Even several days after the Russian gunfire had ceased, the streets were far more empty than normal. There were pedestrians, of course; it wasn't bare, like Times Square had been that day. But there was a definite air of apprehension. Militia squads waited every few blocks. Soldiers patrolled the streets. As Peter followed the couple, he saw a citizen being stopped and searched. He kept his fists clenched hard around the mask in his pocket.

Foggy and Marci stopped for something, and Peter dove behind an alleyway. This was ridiculous.

Screw it. Peter glanced to make sure he wasn't being watched, then took off his shoes. He knotted the laces together and strung it into his mouth so he'd have his hands free. He tightened the hood of his sweatshirt. Then, internally screaming at the inconvenience of it, he scaled the wall of the building.

By the time he reached the top, hood still pulled close around his face, Foggy and Marci were several blocks ahead. Still, it was easier to keep an eye on them up here. He could watch for threats. And, there was an extra layer of removal from their PDA. 

The next building was twelve feet or so away. He jumped the gap, relishing in the sting of the autumn breeze on his skin. Then to the next, moving his feet underneath him like he was running on air. He made it across three buildings before he took a moment to look around himself, to see what part of the city they were heading into.

Like a raised, broken finger, what had once been Stark Tower loomed several blocks away. Sinister.

It had never looked sinister before.

Peter quickly mapped directions to Tiffany's in his phone. Sure enough, Foggy and Marci would be passing right by Wilson Fisk's new home. Peter would have to be extra careful. Surely, though, Fisk wouldn't be stupid enough to go after them in broad daylight, to risk his public image and his campaign—

Still, Peter's stomach was in knots. He ran faster.

Each building he leapt across was a plateau rising up from a glittering steel desert. The bricks under his feet were old friends, supporting each step. Despite the threat, Peter found his heartbeat slowing a little. This—this rush above the city, this kinship with the skyline—this was home.

At least a quarter of a mile ahead of them now, Peter came to a stop atop a sleek glass skyscraper. Ducking his head to further hide his face, he swung himself over until he was clinging to the side, one arm and one leg, then slid halfway down the building until he could jump across to Grand Central Terminal.

Atop the marble building, Peter slipped his shoes back on and craned his neck to get a good look at the skyscraper in front of him. Glowing red letters had been installed just beneath the helipad. A rush of loathing flooded into his throat like the acrid burn of vomit.

Fisk Tower. 

Peter clenched his fists inside his pocket. He turned around to see if Foggy and Marci had caught up yet. It took him a minute to catch sight of them. There they were, several blocks away, turning onto a different street.

Peter rubbed his forehead. Yeah, that made sense; they were smart enough to avoid crossing Fisk's path. Peter had been worried for nothing. He hopped down off Grand Central, slightly cracking the pavement under his feet, and prepared to follow Foggy and Marci again.

Before he could, the sound of voices and shuttering cameras caught his attention.

Peter turned back around. Across the street, at the base of the Tower, Wilson Fisk was holding some sort of campaign event. He was smiling broadly, shaking hands, speaking to his voters with a look of sincerity on his face that made Peter want to punch him through the building.

Peter pulled his hood lower and crossed the street, feeling scarlet rage creep up from his fingers, through his arms, swelling behind his eyes.

"My office has reached out to the families of the victims," Fisk was saying to the dozen or so people gathered around him. Peter took a minute to assess them; they were mostly journalists and soldiers, though there were at least one or two genuine voters there. Probably for the photo op. "Their medical bills are taken care of. Their needs are being met. I can only hope that, as mayor, I can prevent tragedies like this from occurring in the first place."

There was a small cheer. Peter ran his hands over his pocketed mask to distract himself. Incognito or not, he was ready to put Fisk's head through the glass of the skyscraper he'd just bought.

"—so generous, Mr. Fisk—"

"Thank you, Mr. Fisk, we know you'll stop the—"

"—maniacs like Bullseye and Daredevil will have to—"

A man at Fisk's elbow stepped forward. "Mr. Fisk would be happy to speak with you one on one, if you'd like to form a line," he said. Fisk began shaking hands with the people as they lined up to speak with him. They were fawning, moony-eyed; it was sick. Unnatural. There was something almost reverent in their faces, as though they were meeting the Pope.

Without thinking about it, Peter stepped into the queue.

It took only five minutes or so for Peter to reach the top of the line. Wilson Fisk was turned around, speaking to someone next to him; with a start, and another surge of anger, Peter realized that J. Jonah Jameson was also there.

"And this will be televised when, Mr. Jameson?"

"Tomorrow, sir. We'll pick through the footage tonight and compile something."

"Excellent. Thank you." Fisk turned back to the line with a smile on his face, then caught sight of Peter. He frowned for a moment, lowering his head to see into Peter's hoodie, and the smile returned—uglier, somehow. Slimier.

"Mr. Parker," he said. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon."

Peter could feel skin curling around his fingernails as he pressed them into his palm. "You killed my friend," he said softly. "You're going to pay. I'm—I'm going to make you pay."

Fisk raised an eyebrow. "I thought you'd be busy preparing for your lady friend's return. She's taking the Amtrak, isn't she?"

Icy shards of fear stabbed into Peter's chest. "You touch her, you make one move—I'lll—I swear, I'll—"

Fisk cocked his head, regarding Peter, then sighed deeply. He waved a hand at his assistant, who immediately began herding the crowd away. "Show's over, ladies and gentlemen. You can speak with Mr. Fisk tomorrow. Let's clear out..."

As the crowd began to thin, Fisk tilted his chin up, looking down at Peter with an inscrutable expression on his face. Then he turned back to his assistant. "Make the call, Francis."

Peter whirled to look at Francis, who was swiftly retreating and pulling out a cell phone. "Wait—what did you—"

"I need you to understand this," Fisk said, and laid a heavy hand on Peter's shoulders. "What happens next is entirely on your head."

"What are you talking about?" Peter was shaking with rage.

"The expulsion should have been enough," Fisk said, and he sounded genuinely sorrowful. "I only wanted to send a message. But for you to seek me out today, for you to threaten me, again..."

The hairs on Peter's arm rose. Whether it was his tingle, or just general apprehension, Peter couldn't be sure. "If you hurt her—"

"I was content to let bygones be bygones," Fisk said. "This was just a contingency plan. I'd hoped you Ould be smart enough to stay away... but I was wrong." He dropped his hand from Peter's shoulder and turned toward the Tower.

There were still a few soldiers milling around on the pavement. Peter glanced at them, desperate, then back at Fisk. "What did you do? What was that call?"

"Let this be a lesson to you, Mr. Parker," Fisk said, and disappeared into the door of his building.

Peter closed his eyes. He tried to will himself to stop shaking. The tingling sense of foreboding was growing, like a droplet of water tracing along his spine. He tried to focus, tried to let the sense lead him to the danger.

A radio crackled nearby. One of the soldiers picked up his comm, and Peter's head shot toward it.

"Russian bomb at Hell's Gate Bridge," said a voice through the static. "Inbound train from Boston. Conductor's been shot. Brakes are cut—"

Peter doubled over as a wave of panic hit him like a bat to his stomach. A train from Boston... a destroyed bridge...

MJ.

#####

Matt tilted his head, listening carefully to the sounds of Karen's body as she punched the bag.

"Breathe out when you hit," Matt said. "Release the tension. It'll give you more force."

Karen nodded. With the next three punches—hook, uppercut, jab—she puffed out a breath each time. The leather of the bag crunched under her gloved fists.

Matt smiled. "Good," he said. "Although, you really need to be looking at your target."

She turned toward him and scoffed. "I was looking!"

"I can tell when your head's pointed at the ground."

"Well, my eyes were pointed up!"

Matt crossed his arms. "Then you wouldn't be missing the target. That bag's swinging wild, Karen."

Karen settled back onto her heels and wiped the sweat from her brow. Matt caught the smell, the sweet mixture of her own scent and the lilac perfume she wore. Her apple blossom shampoo. Intoxicating. He blinked, trying to clear his head.

Absently, Matt put his hand into his pocket. The steely cold of a silver ring sent minute shivers across his fingers. He'd taken to carrying it around again. He had no plans for it, yet; not really. But there was something reassuring in its weight, the pull of it against his skin. The thought of a future as yet unborn.

Karen bounced a little on the balls of her feet, then landed a few more punches to the bag—hitting dead center this time. Matt sensed when she turned to look at him, could hear the excited beat of her heart, the stretch of her face muscles as she smiled.

"Pretty good, huh?"

"Pretty good."

They were at Fogwell's Gym. Among the lockers, the dangling bags, the old gloves and ropes and the ring, Matt felt safe. This place was as familiar to him as Clinton Church, or Saint Agnes' orphanage. This was where he'd come to watch his father box when he was just a boy. It was the site of his father's last fight, the one that sealed his death. In this building Matt had honed his abilities, taken out his rage on the leather when Stick had abandoned him. He had come here with Elektra, when she first learned of his abilities. This was where he'd come when he learned that Sister Maggie was his mother.

Fogwell's Gym was his home, his haven. A place of refuge—and, largely, solitude.

He wanted to share it with Karen.

Besides, Karen had asked him to teach her some basic self-defense. It was pretty convenient for that, too.

"Okay," Karen said. "I think it's time to try sparring."

Matt tilted his head at her. "What, you want me to call Foggy?"

She snorted, then lightly hit his shoulder with her boxing gloves. "I've got a pretty good partner here already."

Matt shook his head. "I'm not gonna fight you, Karen."

"Why, because you're Daredevil? Because you think I can't handle it?"

"I—" Matt shook his head. "I just can't believe you want to hit a blind man."

Karen turned her head toward the ceiling. "So help me, Matthew, I will punch you in the face."

Matt snorted, then hopped backward onto the ring and held out his hand. "All right. Hop up."

She placed her gloved hand into his, and he pulled her into the ring, holding the rope up so she could duck underneath. Then Matt swung himself over the ropes and faced her—

And immediately ducked as she took a swing at his head.

"That is very bad boxing etiquette," he said.

"I have to get the drop on you," Karen said, bouncing back and forth between her feet. "You can predict all my moves." She swung at him again, and Matt caught her wrist. Her breath caught in her throat, almost inaudible, and her heartbeat picked up at the sudden contact. Matt tried not to look too pleased with himself.

He let go and grabbed the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head. Then he draped it over the side of the ring. "At least let me put my gloves on," he said. He'd laid them on the edge of the ring earlier. They were his dad's old gloves; soft, worn, frayed. If Matt focused hard enough, he could still smell Battlin' Jack Murdock's cologne.

Behind him, Karen nodded, and Matt began tying the gloves around his wrists.

"Don't," he said, as Karen took a step toward him. He held out a hand. "I will take you down so fast, don't tempt me."

Karen sighed and backed up. Matt tied the gloves, hit them against each other, then stood up to face her.

She immediately came at him again. Matt somersaulted underneath her fist. 

"Damn it," Karen said. Matt raised his eyebrows.

"You're a piece of work, you know that?"

"Gotta play dirty when you're dancing with the devil." She bobbed up and down, brandishing her gloves, and Matt bit back a snort.

"Please stop."

He readied his stance and took a minute to assess Karen's. She was loose, constantly moving, like a maple leaf carried on a breeze. Matt could feel the vibrations from the floor of the ring as her feet shuffled across it, could feel the microscopic rushes of air as the strands of her hair floated, fanlike, behind her. He could taste the sweat on her skin and the hint of chapstick on her lips.

She suddenly kicked toward him. Matt backflipped out of the way.

"Karen!" he said, half exasperated, half amused. "I'm trying to teach you."

She punched the glove into her fist. "All I have is the element of surprise."

"You don't even have that." Matt sighed. "Okay. Keep your hands to your face, like this. You always want to block the head. You punch, you bring your hand back up. Punch, up. Got it?"

"Can we start?" Karen said. "Or are you gonna keep whining at me?"

Matt shrugged. And, when Karen's heart rate began to pick up slightly, he lunged. Before she had time to react, he'd landed two light hits on her shoulder.

Karen gasped, surprised, and Matt froze. "You good?"

"I'm good," she said, a little breathlessly. Then she swung at him.

Matt braced for the hit. The glove connected with his left temple—hard, but not too hard. Fast. Well-aimed. A little clumsy, but not bad.

"A hit," Matt said. "Good one."

Karen blew a strand of hair out of her face. "You're letting me hit you."

Putting his hands up, Matt shook his head. "I'm not. You're just better than you look."

Karen tilted her head at him, moving back and forth a little, shifting her weight as she moved into a better stance. "Maybe I'm picking up on some of your abilities, Murdock, because I'm smelling some bullshit." She lunged at him again. Matt ducked, just a touch too slow, so the blow would land. "Don't go easy on me!"

"All due respect, Karen, but if I don't go easy on you, you'll end up in the hospital."

She considered this for a minute, still bouncing on the balls of her feet. Matt raised his eyebrows. She'd have to stop that if she wanted more power behind her hits. "Okay," she said finally. "Go easy. But—not too easy. If I'm gonna have a chance against the Russians, or Dex..."

She wouldn't. Of course she wouldn't. No matter how much she trained, how hard she practiced, she'd be killed in an instant if Dex came within a hundred feet of her. 

Sick rose in Matt's stomach, and he swallowed it down.

"Okay," he said. "Easy, but not too easy."

She came at him again, and he rolled underneath her outstretched fist. Then he flipped up behind her, grabbed her arm, and pulled it back against his chest.

"Watch the feet," he said, grinning, the back of her head flush with his neck. "I'm a slippery son-of-a-bitch."

She wrenched herself away and kicked at him. He flipped over it easily, and on the way down, landed a soft hit on her side. 

He'd spent his entire life studying, learning the ins and outs of the human body. What it could do, what feats it could stretch to. Its limits, its weak spots. Every hit was measured, almost surgical. He knew where in the body to strike, how much strength to put behind each blow, the exact angle to achieve the desired result. Claire used to say he'd make a world-class doctor, considering his precision. This dedication was how he'd gone an entire career without killing anyone. He knew just how far to go. Just when to stop.

So Karen was in no danger of being hurt. She was strong. Resilient. It was one of the first things Matt had noticed about her when they'd met at the precinct all those years ago. Still, he was even more cautious than usual, lighter than he needed to be.

He landed a soft hit on the side of her head, and she flew back onto the mat.

"Karen! I—are you—I'm so—" he moved closer, crouching down to check on her.

With a mischievous laugh, Karen lunged upward at him. Matt barely had time to move out of the way as she swung at his head.

"Damn it!" she said.

Matt shook his head. "That was dirty."

"If you're gonna go easy on me, I have to break the rules," Karen said.

They sparred for the better part of five minutes. It was almost like a dance; a back and forth, a dialogue, an art. The heat in the room rose. Matt sensed each wave, like trickles of hot spring water across his skin. The soft evening noises outside the window—the sirens, the dimming of the electric lights, the slowly quieting cars on the street—faded in the sound of Karen's breath. Her laugh. The swings of her fists through the air and the contact their skin made against each other.

Karen lunged for his chest, and Matt caught her—trapping her between his arms, pinning her gloved hands between them.

"Ooh, so close," he teased.

Karen was breathing heavily, the hairs in her ponytail coming loose. Matt took a minute to assess her. No bruising; Matt was far too careful for that. Her heartbeat was accelerated, but steady. Sweat beaded across her body. He tried to imagine what she might look like; shining in the yellow light from the windows, eyes bright, cheeks rosy from the exertion, her tank top clinging to her damp skin.

"Matt?" Karen said, and Matt realized he was still holding her close.

"Sorry," he whispered. Karen slowly pushed her arms up through his, then laced them around his neck, the boxing gloves bumping gently against his shoulder blades.

Then she kissed him. Gentle, passionate, possessive. She tugged softly at his bottom lip.

Matt let himself melt into her. "Karen..." he murmured against her lips.

"Matty," she whispered. Behind his head, she was pulling off her gloves. Slowly. Agonizingly slowly. He could feel the laces of it draping against his bare back as she pushed steadily into his embrace. He barely registered the soft thump of the boxing gloves hitting the mat.

And suddenly, while Matt was distracted, Karen kicked his legs apart. She ducked underneath him. While his head was still stuffed, dazed, spinning from the kiss, she flipped him over and threw him onto the mat.

"I—uh—" Matt swallowed as Karen crawled closer, kneeling above him. "Drop seoi nage. Nice."

"You think I'm concerned about the nomenclature?" 

"Where'd you learn—"

"Picked up a few moves in the field with Frank Castle," she said—then, after a pause, "The kissing was not part of it."

Matt took a second to catch his breath, then rolled, flipping over and knocking Karen down to the mat so he was above her. "Yeah?" he said, tearing off his boxing gloves one at a time. "You gonna try that move on Fisk?" Hands now free, he grabbed both her wrists and pinned them above her head. Then he bent down and kissed the corner of her mouth. "Or this one?" A kiss on the edge of her jaw. "How about this one?"

Karen wriggled free of his grip and sat up on her elbows. "No," she said. She caught Matt's neck and guided his head down to hers. Then she kissed him softly. "I'll save those for you."

He was aware again of the engagement ring in his pocket. Hot, suddenly, as though it were searing an O into his flesh. Perhaps he didn't need to mark an occasion. Marci and Foggy had certainly done less. Perhaps—

And suddenly they were tangled together. Her hands were buried in his hair, his fingers were exploring her face, memorizing the curve of each cheek, the contour of her ears, her brows. He tilted her jaw up toward him for better access to her lips. He could taste the soft mint of her toothpaste, the curry from her dinner, the faded lipstick and the sweat. Gooseflesh raised like braille across her arms; Matt ran his fingers along it, imagining the words her skin could write. Lithe. Permanence. Idyll. Belonging. Meadow. Dauntless. A flurry of beauty, of sunshine, of sound, an overwhelm of her.

He remembered, suddenly, a moment he'd had with Elektra a few years before the blip; in this gym, in this very spot, sparring. Kissing. More. And yet, in the dizzying warmth of the present moment, the past faded; like a polaroid left out in the sunshine. Elektra had been a candle, a street firework; bright, vivid, and gone. But Karen—she was radiant. Like a star, a sun; persistent and unceasing, disorienting. Steady. She was sustained warmth. Sustained life. Bursting suddenly, like a solar flare; sparking into vibrant moments of ecstatic beauty, and shining on after.

Elektra was the brief excitement of darkness, Karen the relief and beauty of day. One the passion of a fight, the other the glory of a return home. One a flute, the other a symphony. A day and a lifetime. A thread and a tapestry. Elektra was a raindrop, and Karen the storm.

He lost the thought as Karen pressed herself into him, gasping against his lips, her eyelashes softly tickling his skin.

"Karen... I..." He smiled against her mouth. The silver ring was singing, almost vibrating as they moved together. He reached for his pocket. "Karen..."

"Mmm," she said. "Yeah?"

"I..."

Across the room, something began buzzing insistently.

Karen paused in her kissing. "Is that your phone?"

"Doesn't matter," Matt said, reaching for her again. 

Karen shook her head and sat up. "No—no, Matt, that's—I think that's your burner."

Matt sat back on his heels, his eyes squeezed shut. He tried to gather the scattered threads of his thoughts. "My—uh, my—" he was breathless. Dizzy. "My burner...?"

"Yes, Matt, your Daredevil burner," she said. She stood up and walked to the edge of the ring, and Matt reached uselessly after her. "You're a vigilante, remember?"

"Right... right..." Matt stood, a little shaky, and nudged the forgotten boxing gloves out of the way. "Burner. Yeah."

Karen turned to look back at him, then shook her head. "Honestly. Get a grip."

She rifled through his gym bag until she had the phone in her hand. The buzzing was twice as loud now that it was in contact with her skin. "No caller I.D.," she said.

"No," Matt said. "Not on that phone. Toss."

She threw it at him—a little off to the side—and Matt dove to catch it. Then, more than a little irritated at the interruption, he flipped it open and dropped his voice lower.

"Yes?"

"Daredevil," came the voice of Detective Brett Mahoney. "You gave me this number last week."

Right. Last week. Matt hardly remembered; it felt like at least a century had passed.

"For emergencies, Detective," Matt said, frowning. "What is it?"

Brett's voice was strangely stiff. "I—I may have some information for you about—uh—"

There was a soft click somewhere behind Brett; the sound of a gun's hammer pulling back. Matt froze.

"Detective," he began, when a new voice began speaking. A smooth, threatening voice, crackling with suppressed rage. A familiar voice.

The voice whispered to Brett. "Tell him to go to Gracie Mansion."

Gracie Mansion... Matt racked his brains. That was the mayor's home, all the way on the Upper East Side; just along the East River. "Why Gracie Mansion?" Matt said. "Detective, who's there with you?"

He turned to Karen and mouthed "My suit." She nodded and began rummaging through his gym bag.

There was a long pause. Matt listened desperately, but over the phone there wasn't much his senses could do. All he could hear now was the pounding of his own heart, and the uptick in Karen's. From his bag, she pulled out his black compression shirt, his boxing wraps, and the mask. He began wrapping his hands as Karen knelt beside him and tied his black boots onto his feet. "Detective. Detective, are you—"

"It's a trap!" Brett yelled suddenly. "Bullseye's waiting to kill you and he's gonna kill Mayor Libris—"

There was a sickening crack, a thump, then a thud. 

Then silence.

"Brett!" Matt yelled. "Detective!" 

But there was only silence. Silence, and the distant sound of running footsteps.

Matt shoved his phone into his pocket. "I have to go," he said, tugging his shirt over his head.

"What's going—"

"I have to go," Matt said again. He pulled the mask down over his face. Anger and urgency were flooding like blood through his body. He grasped Karen's face for a moment. "Be safe. Find Peter—he can protect you."

"Matt?"

He kissed her, desperate, then grabbed the tangled Muay Thai ropes from their place on the bench. He'd tie them on the way. "Be safe—please, Karen—be safe—I love you—"

And he burst through the door of Fogwell's Gym, into the soft haze of evening and the danger of New York's uncertain streets.

#####

Peter made it to Hell's Gate Bridge faster than he'd thought possible. The dizzying rush of the swing was like a wind tunnel in his head. He'd shed his civvies behind Grand Central and swung through the skyscrapers with more urgency than he'd ever had before.

He landed with a thump at the top of the arch and looked down at the tracks below. Sure enough, the entire middle portion of the bridge was blown away; Peter could see the wood and debris floating in the East River below. Surrounding the entire area were news choppers and vans, ferries underneath, ambulances on either side of the bridge. They knew disaster was coming—and they were powerless to stop it.

Peter began running along the tracks in the direction of the train. He was no Flash—but his spider powers did give him highly enhanced speed. He could outrun the train, easy. The problem was stopping it.

As he ran, his feet scattering the gravel under the tracks, he called MJ, over and over, hoping desperately she'd pick up.

Amazingly enough, she did.

"Peter!" she said. "The train—we're going to crash—"

Someone was screaming on the line behind her. He swallowed. "MJ—Spider-man's on his way. He's going to help you."

There was a pause, and Peter could hear the screaming even more clearly. "What—how do you—"

"I lied," he blurted out, guilt wrapping around his heart like a fist. "I'm sorry. I lied. I do know Spider-man—I called him—he's going to save you."

"You—you—" MJ paused again. Even through the line, Peter could tell she was restraining herself; but, like him, she seemed to realize there were more urgent matters. "When's he coming?"

"I think he's on the tracks now," said Peter, stubbing his toe against a rail spike. "Listen—you need to get everyone into the back car."

"Peter, we can't—"

"Just do it!" he yelled. "Spider-man told me he needs everyone in the back car. Can you do that?"

There was another pause, and then her voice was more distant; like she was holding her phone at her side. "Everyone move! Ned—help—we need to get everyone to the back—"

"Listen, lady, we can't just—"

"Move, dumbass!" There was another pause, and Peter could hear MJ talking to someone else. "You—pass it along to the other cars. Everyone's gotta move."

"Why?"

"Spider-man's coming. He needs us at the back."

"You can't—"

"You wanna live?" MJ yelled. "Then do what I say!" 

Peter picked up his speed, the phone pressed tightly to his ear. His tingling sense was beginning to surge across his skin, everything warning him to move—to jump out of the way—to avoid getting hit by a train. He did his best to ignore it.

After about six minutes, MJ returned to the line. "Okay. Okay. Everyone's in the back car."

He was beginning to hear the train now, beginning to feel it rumbling along the track. It was close. Peter was close. "That was fast," he said. "You sure—"

"I'm sure," MJ said. "Believe it or not, there's not that many passengers on a Thursday night."

Peter closed his eyes. "Okay. MJ—Spider-man should be pretty close, don't worry—"

She laughed harshly. "Gee, thanks. I feel better." 

"—but he needs you to disconnect the car."

"Excuse me?"

"Please—there's no time—just do it!" he said. "That should engage the brakes. Not enough to stop you, but it'll slow you down. And it'll be easier for Spider-man to stop one car instead of the whole train."

He could hear MJ speaking to someone else now. "How do we detach? We have to—Spider-man needs us to—"

"It can't! It can't detach while moving!" said another voice—presumably an employee of the railway. "Oh shit, oh shit—we're gonna die—"

"Can you try to break it?" Peter asked. "Is there—like—a crowbar? An ax or something? Anything?"

"Where do you think we are? Damn it, I don't—"

And there it was. The train, barreling toward him at seventy miles an hour. Peter took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, trusted his tingle, and—when the time was right—he jumped.

With a resounding thud, he landed on the last car. The metal crunched slightly underneath him. He stuck his hands on the side of the car, reeling from the change in speed, then crawled down until he was squished between the last car and the one before it.

He punched open the glass window at the front. "Stand back! Everyone—back up!" 

And there was MJ, fear flushing scarlet into her face, her hair flying wildly in the sudden wind. Peter almost didn't notice the huddle of people behind her—until he caught sight of Ned, and his heart fell into his stomach.

Later. There was time later. There had to be time later.

"We have to detach," Peter said. "There's a pin—there's always a pin, you just unhook it—" He searched desperately.

"That's just in movies, man," Ned said. 

Peter agonized for a minute, but it looked like Ned was right. "Okay. I'm gonna break this," he said. "Everyone hold on."

He jumped to the car in front and grasped the connecting link. Then, with a spider-enhanced strength, he wrenched.

It worked. Immediately, the last car separated and began to slow—but only slightly. Not fast enough. Not nearly fast enough. But it was beginning to lag behind the front end of the train; Peter could work with that.

Unfortunately for Peter, in breaking the connector, he'd also ripped off the entire front end of the car.

"Uh, sorry—sorry, Amtrak—uh—" Peter jumped back into the car and stood in front of everyone, holding his arms out to keep them from falling onto the speeding track below. "Back up. Far as you can. Go!"

The people in the car pressed back. MJ, though, stepped forward, her hand on Peter's shoulder.

It had been ages since he'd felt MJ's hand on his suit.

"Hello, ma'am," he said, his voice breaking slightly. He cleared it and tried to pitch it down a tone or two. Please—back—can't have you flying out—"

"What can I do? How can I help?"

Peter was quiet for a minute. He closed his eyes, allowing his tingly sense to stretch along the tracks. He had two minutes, maybe, before they'd be on the bridge. Before the car would careen over the exploded track and tumble a hundred and thirty feet into the river below. Before MJ and Ned would drown, if the impact didn't kill them first.

"Okay," he said, thinking. "Okay. It's okay. You're all gonna be fine. We're gonna make it out of this."

"What can I do?" MJ said again. "I don't know if you—if you remember—but I've worked with you before. I can help, just tell me what to do."

Peter's mind was spinning furiously. He could try to get out in front of the train, to stop it with force alone. And that would work, sure, if he had a long stretch of track to do it; but not here. Not with the bridge destroyed, the gap along the track. There was no time.

"Okay," he said again. "I think—I'm gonna swing you across."

"We don't have time for—"

"Not one at a time," Peter said. "I'll swing the car over. It's gonna be... bad. Bumpy. Tell everyone to brace for impact. And grab onto something."

MJ swallowed loudly behind him, then turned around. "Everyone brace!" she said. "We're gonna swing—hold on—Ned, help me—"

And they went down the car, the two of them, connecting passenger hands to rails, to handles, passing the message to the three-dozen-or-so people there. Desperately warning the sardine-packed car that they were coming upon the bridge.

Peter stuck his feet out of the open front of the car, then planted himself—standing solidly on the front end, horizontal, parallel with the tracks. He began to plant webs along the front of the car. Every few inches he webbed a line, until there were nine or ten strands in total. He gathered the ends together—it was thick, now, like an anchor chain—and wrapped it several times around his arm. A ten-foot long web now connected him to the four ton railway car.

This was going to hurt. Bad.

The bridge was back in sight now, its arched edges and support beams silhouetted against the orange sunset. Peter ran the calculations in his head. For the proper torque, for the right angle to swing with the least momentum, he needed to web just past the halfway point of the arch. He'd have ten seconds. Less, probably. He'd be able to get maybe three web lines in place.

He hoped it'd be enough.

Ahead, he watched the front end of the train careen over the edge of the bridge and splash tremendously into the river below. He watched the cars break apart, the windows shatter, debris scattering across the surface of the water.

"Okay," MJ said. She was back behind Peter's shoulder. "They're holding on, they're ready—"

"You need to hold on," he said. "Please—grab something. Anything. Ned too. Be safe, please—"

MJ nodded and backed up. Peter glanced behind him, making sure she and Ned were holding tightly to the steel rail running the length of the car.

"Sorry for this," Peter called. "It's gonna hurt. Get ready."

They were past the brick columns now, passing under the rust-colored arches of the entrance to Hell's Gate. If he had the time to think about it, he'd be really annoyed by the constant references to the underworld these days. Hell's Kitchen, Hell's Gate, Daredevil... damn, New York needed better names.

The track was bumpier on the bridge, uneven in the break of tension caused by the explosion. Peter's teeth chattered together as the wheels bumped along the rails.

He shot a web, aiming more carefully than he ever had in his life. It connected solidly just past the peak of the arch.

He shot another.

Five seconds left—he shot another—

Behind him, a small child broke free from his mother's grasp. Peter heard the cry as the kid rushed toward the front of the car, desperate to see what was going on—

"No!" MJ screamed. She let go and rushed forward, grabbing the chid and throwing him back. Ned caught him—he held tight—

"MJ!" Peter screamed.

But it was too late. It was time to swing.

Peter clenched his body tight as the car completely detached from the track, connected to the air and to the world by the translucent strands of web fluid and the tensing, agonized muscles of Peter's body as he was stretched between the bridge and the car.

The next ten seconds seemed almost like slow motion.

A tingle rushed across Peter's body, like running spiders along his skin. He closed his eyes. Trusting it. Pushing away the panic, the fear. He tuned out the terrified screaming of the people in the car below him.

He swung the car as far as he could, feeling his muscles tearing like paper beneath his skin. And, at the height of the swing—

He let it go.

The car flew; twenty feet, thirty feet—rising, moving over the break in the bridge, soaring toward the track on the other side. The people screamed, they jostled, they moved beyond Peter's reach—

And landed on the track again. Perpendicular, crunched up, the windows shattered and metallic debris littering the tracks; the car was definitely the worse for wear, but the people inside were safely on the ground again.

Except—

In the motion of the swing, MJ flew out of the car.

MJ, who had rushed forward to save the child. MJ, thoughtless of her own safety, rushing to the aid of another. MJ—brilliant, beautiful, brave MJ—who didn't have time to grab hold of anything.

Peter watched her, body hurtling and tossing like a rag doll, as she arced out of the broken car and into the air.

The image seared across his eyes; her curly hair streaming up toward him, mouth open in an unheard scream, arms grasping for him as he dangled under the arch of the bridge, her eyes wide and shining, reflecting the setting sun.

She plummeted toward the water.

And in her fall, Peter was reminded of the fight at the Statue of Liberty; the fear in her eyes as Peter fell after her, as he was knocked out of the way, powerless to save her—the moment when he was certain she was going to die, that he was going to lose her—

Peter let go of the web connecting him to the bridge and dove headfirst after her.

The wind rushed up through his mask, whistling like a scream. His heart pounded in his ears like a funereal bell. Her arms were pinwheeling, the water was rising in slow motion to meet her, the debris of the train glittering on its surface. She'd crack her spine against it, her head would split open—

Peter shot two webs at once: one to meet the bridge above, and one to meet MJ below.

Like a gripping hand, the web caught MJ's outstretched wrist. If he'd had time for it, Peter would be relieved. Less chance for whiplash. Less chance of her spine splitting. Her neck breaking.

The web tautened.

"MJ!" Peter screamed, his voice raw and fiery.

There was a sick crack—MJ's wrist, no doubt—and she screamed in pain. Her toes skimmed the water.

But—she was—she was—

"You're safe," Peter whispered. "MJ—you're—you're safe—"

A sob escaped his lips.

The ferry in the river below moved closer, nudging aside the wreckage of the train. On the deck someone reached out for MJ, lifting her carefully onto the boat and cutting the web with a pocketknife.

"We've got her, Spider-man!" someone shouted. "She's okay!"

Peter was going to throw up.

He dangled for a long moment, feeling his abused muscles catch fire across his body, his head break into a splitting ache. Then he looked up. People were exiting the train car above him; they were bumped, bruised, bleeding from their noses. Blaring ambulances were whisking people away. Standing on the edge of the bridge, arms hugged against himself, was Ned Leeds.

He was okay too.

A sudden rush of emotion overcame him. Water built up in his eyes. Peter swallowed down the golf-ball sized lump in his throat and shot a new web, launching himself up onto the crumbled edge of the tracks.

"Spider-man!" Ned said. "Holy—"

"You good?" Peter said, patting Ned on the arm, holding back everything inside himself from wrapping his arms around Ned and pulling him into a bear hug.

"I'm good," Ned said, his voice shaking. "I don't know if you remember—"

"I remember, Ned," Peter said simply. "I—MJ's down there. She's okay."

Ned sank to his knees. "Thank you. Holy shit, thank you."

The hairs on Peter's arm rose again. He looked up; all around him, the martial squads were closing in. There were at least a dozen guns pointed at him. Peter glanced down at his suit; glowing red dots were scattered like chicken pox across him.

"Gotta go," Peter said. He swung himself down, underneath the bridge, and onto the shore. And then he ran—all the way back to the city, his forest, his jungle hidden among the skyscrapers.

A little over an hour later, Peter walked through the front doors of Metro General, back in his Star Wars hoodie and jeans that he'd stashed at Grand Central.

A receptionist pointed him in the direction of MJ's room. The hallways were crowded with nurses, all bustling around and dealing with the aftermath of the evening's events. Peter had listened to the police scanner app on his way over; there were no casualties, apart from the train conductor Fisk had murdered. Everyone else on the train had survived—though they'd been bumped pretty hard. Peter didn't even want to know how many concussions he'd caused, how many broken bones and gashes and sprains.

Still, even in the chaos of a suddenly overrun hospital, Peter felt as though he was completely alone, walking in solitude down an empty hallway. Each of his footsteps echoed in his head like the clicking of a shotgun. MJ had almost died. She had almost died, and that was on Peter.

Ned was sitting outside MJ's room, a goose egg on his forehead, a black eye and a split lip painting his face in pain. He stood up when Peter came into his view and held out his hand.

"Peter? Peter Parker?"

Peter swallowed. He put his hood down and shook Ned's hand.

"Yeah," he said. "Ned, right?"

Ned nodded. "MJ talks about you all the time." He paused and looked Peter up and down, then caught the logo on Peter's hoodie. "You a Star Wars fan?"

Peter nodded.

"Dude!" Ned said. "That's so dope. None of my friends are into it, I can't get anyone to watch with me. You know, I have this LEGO Death Star set—"

Peter thought back to the Palpatine figure he'd rescued from his apartment.

"—I don't know if you like that kind of thing, but if you ever come over to visit MJ, I could show you. We're both gonna stay at my Lola's house." Ned glanced at the door to MJ's room, then sighed. "It's so stupid, man. They kicked her out for no reason. I'm taking the semester off in protest."

Peter chewed so hard on the inside of his lip that it started bleeding.

"I'm glad she has you," he said finally.

"We've been through worse together. She, uh... she told you about Spider-man, right?"

Peter swallowed hard, and nodded. "I, uh... I heard he was there tonight. During the train accident."

Ned nodded solemnly. "Yeah. It was terrifying. But—everyone made it out okay."

"And MJ?"

Ned winced. "They just finished the cast. They said it wasn't a bad break—Spider-man ended up catching her, but the web snapped her wrist."

Peter glanced through the window of the door. MJ was in bed, a black cast encasing her left wrist. She was holding something in her lap, though Peter couldn't see what—her fingers fiddled with it, and her face was tense and unreadable as she stared at it. "Can I see her?"

Ned shrugged. "I don't see why not. I just came out here for the WiFi."

Peter thanked him and entered the room.

At the creak of the door, MJ moved like she wanted to stand up. It was defensive, defiant, afraid—as though she were preparing to face some threat. Then her eye caught Peter's. She relaxed back into the bed.

"I don't want to talk to you," she said.

The door shut behind him. Peter took a hesitant step closer, then stopped. "MJ—your arm—are you okay? I mean, I know you're—"

"You lied to me."

Peter opened his mouth, then closed it again. What was there to say?

"I told you about my experience with Spider-man," she said, her voice cold. "I told you how hard it's been—how confusing, how weird—I thought I was going crazy. And when I asked if you knew Spider-man, you said no."

Peter remembered. 

"MJ, I'm sorry—"

"I opened up to you," she said. "You knew how much that would have helped me, and you lied."

Peter took a closer look at what was in her hand. Something black and shiny caught the light, and Peter's breath caught in his throat. It was the broken dahlia necklace he'd given her.

"You know him," she said softly, and Peter looked down at the floor. "You called him. You talked to him." She shook her head, blinking rapidly. "You lied to me, Peter."

"I can explain," Peter began. MJ looked at him evenly, waiting for him to say something; but the words wouldn't come. After a minute she nodded sharply. Like she knew what his response would be.

"I need you to leave," she said finally.

Peter looked up at her, his heart pounding. "Please, MJ—"

"Go," she said. "You need to go." 

He wanted to argue. He wanted to hold her, to look straight in her eyes and explain everything. Dr. Strange's spell. Their past relationship. His loneliness, his guilt, his desperation. He took one more step toward her; maybe it was time—maybe she needed to know—

She turned away from him and stared resolutely at the wall.

Peter doubted his explanation would even make a difference.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again. Then he turned around and left.

#####

"Brett!" Matt shouted, leaping through Brett's already-shattered window. "Detective—"

He found Brett on the floor, facedown.

Matt closed his eyes and crossed himself, uttering a quick prayer. Then he knelt next to Brett. His heartbeat was faint, but steady. His breathing was shallow. Next to his prone body was a pistol; Matt put a hand to it. The cartridge inside was jammed. Dex must have pistol-whipped him when the gun malfunctioned.

He rolled Brett onto his side just in case he vomited. Then he pulled out his burner phone, felt for the bumps on the numbers, and dialed.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency—"

"200 and 87th," Matt said. "There's been a break-in. Officer down."

He hung up before the operator could say anything else.

And then it was back out into the evening air—the chill of the autumn breeze like playful nibbling across his skin, the tendrils of his black mask flying behind him. He was running across rooftops, diving beneath clotheslines, flipping over satellite boxes and cables and rolling across concrete.

Gracie Mansion wasn't far.

Still, he'd be lucky to get there before the police. He'd be lucky to get there at all, with the martial squads patrolling the streets. The sun had not quite yet set; though unseen, its presence agitated Matt. He was hyper-visible in this light. If any of the soldiers below looked up, they'd see an unmistakable silhouette dashing against the sky. More than once, Matt had to duck behind a chimney or an AC unit to avoid the gazes of the armed guards strolling below. They wouldn't hesitate to shoot. He knew they wouldn't.

Blood was pounding in his head, thrumming and encompassing, a steady march of adrenaline throughout his Boyd. He let himself get lost in the sensation as his feet slapped against the rooftops, then the sidewalks, then the streets. He let his mind fade away, his thoughts melt, until nothing was left but the thrill of pure motion.

The sun dipped below the horizon, and Matt arrived at the heavy fence surrounding Gracie Mansion.

He crouched down, listening into the grounds beyond. There were four soldiers stationed at the front door; Matt could smell the gunpowder, the harsh Kevlar of their vests. Three along each shorter side, rifles hoisted on their shoulder, heartbeats steady. Four pacing along the back. 

Matt focused harder. Past the guards patrolling the north side was a trellis, laced with ivy and honeysuckle, that led up to a second-floor balcony. There was an open window there; Matt could hear the rustle of a curtain lolling out into the night air. 

Dex must have gone in that way.

Matt launched himself over the spiked fence and landed softly on the grass, safely hidden behind a bush. Then he made his way across the grounds; rolling behind trees, crouching behind decorative boulders. Listening for the guards' pacing, the moments when they turned around and Matt could make headway.

One of the guards along the side of the house yawned, stretched, then turned to walk toward his companions. This was his opening. Matt somersaulted behind him and pressed himself against the side of the house; he edged his way along the wall, moving steadily toward the trellis.

All three of the guards were facing away from him now, gazing out across the empty grounds.

"You catch the game?"

"Yeah. Sucks. Damn Yankees..."

Matt held his breath. Then, with the practiced silence of two decades' training, he leapt onto the trellis. The sickly sweet scent of honeysuckle clouded him, smothered him, threatened to choke him; he pushed past it and climbed, unseen, to the top.

Once he was safely on the balcony, Matt leaned against the wall and tightened the Muay Thai ropes, listening carefully for the electric buzz of a surveillance system. He could sense at least five different cameras on this side of the house. And yet... they were silent. Deadened. Shut off.

Apprehension fell like snow over his skin. Fisk had to be behind this; or, if not Fisk, then the mysterious benefactor trying to get him elected. But there was no time to worry about that now. He had to find Mayor Libris. He had to find Dex.

He angled his head toward the house. There were eight heartbeats in total; six clustered in one group—the Libris family, presumably—and two several rooms removed. Those two were nearer to him. He sharpened his focus in on them. One of the heartbeats was old, feeble, and extremely rapid; afraid, even. And the other was perfectly steady.

Matt breathed deeply through his nose and caught on to the sour, sharp scent of adamantium.

He folded himself practically in half and crouched through the window. It was easy—too easy—to enter the home. He would worry about that later. For now... Matt took stock of his surroundings. He'd entered into some sort of conference room; the two heartbeats and the smell of adamantium were coming from the next room over. Matt could hear soft crying, choking breaths. Then a desperate whimper: "P—please—don't—"

Matt darted into the hallway and burst through the door.

Benjamin Poindexter had the seventy-year-old Isabelle Libris in a headlock; he was holding her so high off the ground that her slippered toes barely had grasp on the carpet. Adrenaline was spiking off her and Matt could smell the saltwater of tears in her eyes.

At her throat, held lazily between Dex's fingers, was an ivory letter-opener—sharpened to a cruel point.

"Took you long enough," Dex said. 

They were standing in the Mansion's library. The room was littered with ornamentation; statuettes and books, globes and busts, endless weaponry for Dex to wield should Matt make one wrong move.

"Let her go," Matt said quietly.

"No. No, I don't think I will. In fact..." Dex tightened his grip on Libris. "I've got some important business here."

"Did Fisk send you?"

The mayor was sputtering, hot blood pooling in the skin of her face as she choked under Dex's iron grip.

"No," Dex said, and his heartbeat remained steady.

Matt clenched his fists. "But you're doing this for his benefit."

"As far as I know," Dex said calmly. He pressed the letter opener tighter against Libris' throat, and the skin broke slightly; thin beads of blood began to form on the blade's edge. "This is a real nice knife you got here. Almost feel bad ruining it like this."

It was the third party, then, that sent Dex. The person so determined to get Fisk in office. The person that, despite all his digging, Matt had learned nothing about. 

The only person potentially more dangerous than Wilson Fisk.

"So who sent you?" He reached toward the bookshelf against the wall and picked up what felt like a small gold trophy. He brandished it in his hand, prepared to throw. 

"Wouldn't tell you even if I knew," Dex said evenly.

"You—" Matt paused. "You don't know who it is?"

"No," Dex said, and a hint of irritation edged into his voice. 

Matt took a step closer to Mayor Libris; the moment he moved, Dex tightened his grip and pressed the knife harder against her neck. "Nope. Stay where you are."

"I'm disappointed, Dex," Matt said. "It's not like you to blindly follow orders. Unless... they're offering you something?"

Dex was silent, and Matt could hear his heart speed up a little. His temperature rose slightly. His breathing hitched, so faint that no one else in the world would have noticed. Matt cocked his head, remembering the massacre at the courtroom.

"Julie," he said. "It's Julie, isn't it? They're going to tell you what happened to her."

"Stop saying her name," Dex growled. He tensed, as though preparing to attack—when his head suddenly shot up. He stared toward the door behind Matt.

Matt shifted his focus. He'd been too distracted by the mayor's plight to pay attention to what was going on beyond the room. But he could sense it now; the other six heartbeats, the ones he'd assumed belonged to the LIbris family, were in the hallway and walking cautiously toward the library. Matt could hear their jumbled whispers and their frightened heartbeats, could smell the leather in their shoes.

"Perfect timing," Dex said. And, with a single, savage motion, he slit the mayor's throat.

Hot blood spattered across the wood floor. Libris tried to scream, but her windpipe had been severed; all that came out was a strained gurgling, air rasping through bubbling blood. Dex let her go and she fell to the floor with a heavy splat.

Matt yelled and rushed across the room. He dropped to his knees at her side, pressing his hands to her throat, trying to staunch the flow of coppery blood. It was useless—he knew it was useless. Her heart was slowing; she was unconscious already; blood was spurting from her carotid like a boiling fountain. Dex chuckled softly and tossed the letter opener. It landed with a thunk on the floor next to Matt's blood-covered hand.

Matt was still holding the trophy. Enraged, he hurled it toward Dex; but Dex batted it away easily as he walked toward a window at the back of the room.

"It's been fun," Dex said, and shattered the glass pane with his fist. He cleared away the shards and made an opening large enough to duck through.

But he didn't leave—he lingered, one leg propped up on the sill, as though waiting for something.

The door to the library swung open.

Matt angled his head toward them. There were five soldiers, rifles aimed and ready; and at the head of them, camera in one hand and a fedora perched on his head...

"It's Daredevil!" said the brusque voice of J. Jonah Jameson. He raised his camera. "He killed the mayor!"

"Come on," Dex called toward him. "We gotta go—operation's blown—"

"What?" Matt said. The room was spinning. He stood, hands dripping with Libris' blood.

"He's working with Bullseye!" Jameson pointed the camera at Matt's masked face, his hands strangely steady. "Caught red-handed—bloody-handed! Fisk told us this would happen. He told us the vigilantes were no good—"

"Daredevil! We gotta go!" Dex said, and slipped out the window. Matt could hear him laughing as he dropped down onto the lawn below.

There was a flurry of rustling, creaking sounds, and the click of several rifles being cocked. Matt swallowed down his confusion and took a long, centering breath.

Connection. Mind. Body.

Matt leapt after Dex through the window.

All the soldiers from the yard must have been brought into the house; the grounds were now completely deserted. Dex was running backwards across the lawn, waving at Matt.

"Come on, D," he said. "Keep up." Then he turned around and began sprinting in earnest.

The mind controls the body. 

The stink of adamantium was like a flashing neon sign. Matt followed it, and the taunting sound of Dex's laughter, all the way out of Yorkville. He followed it through the streets and the alleys of Lennox Hill and Midtown. Curfew was in effect by now; the streets were empty. Too empty. There should have been tanks and patrolling soldiers on the road; Matt could hear them in the distance, blocks away. But they were conspicuously absent from the paths Dex was leading him down. And for that matter, none of the soldiers from Gracie Mansion seemed to be pursuing them.

Whoever ordered Dex to kill the mayor must have also cleared the streets.

The body controls our enemies.

The adamantium in Dex's skeleton seemed to rejuvenate him; Matt had been sprinting at full speed for ten minutes, and he was beginning to feel the strain in his muscles, the weariness washing over him. But Dex... he had an unlimited supply of energy. His heart rate was barely elevated. He was almost inhuman.

Our enemies control jack-shit by the time we're done with them. 

Matt's feet slammed, aching, against the pavement; he felt as though the earth were flying underneath him. The wind was knifing at his skin, the thudding of his heart rate like an accompaniment to a fevered dance. His body screamed at him to stop, to rest.

He pushed harder.

Dex slowed slightly, and Matt caught up with him on the peripheral greenery of Central Park. 

He lunged at Dex and landed a solid kick in his gut. Dex grunted as he fell, landing on his back on the pavement. Matt knelt on his chest and began punching. He could hear the microscopic tearing of skin under his fists as the Muay Thai ropes savagely dug into Dex's flesh. He could taste Dex's blood in the air, mixing in some macabre congruency with the dried blood of Mayor LIbris on Matt's fists.

"You think they'll tell the truth about what happened?" Matt snarled. He pummeled at Dex's nose and relished in the crack. "Fisk killed Julie. You know that, Dex. You have to know that." He paused, fist poised over his face, waiting for Dex to respond.

Dex spat out a tooth. "They told me you'd say that," he said. Then he bent his knees up and kicked Matt away from him.

Matt landed hard on the asphalt, winded, and Dex went running again. But he only ran a few hundred feet or so before he stopped and waited for Matt to catch up.

Matt staggered to his feet. This was a ghastly game of cat and mouse; Dex was toying with him, leading him on a pointless chase across the city. And for what?

"He killed her to provoke you," Matt said. "To make you his puppet. And now someone's doing it again."

Dex's heart rate rose a little. His breathing grew heavier, unsteady, almost like he was panting; not from the fight, but from the impact of Matt's words. "You're lying," he said.

"Think, Dex. Why would I lie to you?"

"They said you'd try to pin it on Fisk. Try to distract me. It's not gonna work."

And yet here they were, talking when they should be fighting, stalled in Central Park. Distracted from the chase.

Dex seemed to realize this, because he abruptly turned around and began to run again. Matt cursed and followed, stabbing pains of exhaustion working their way through his body. It took almost all his focus to push past it; he let the surroundings and the nighttime air melt away until there was nothing but the pain in his body and Dex's heartbeat ahead of him. It wasn't until Dex suddenly stopped running, several long minutes later, that Matt realized where they'd ended up.

Dex and Matt faced each other, fists clenched, in the alley behind Nelson and Murdock.

"Why..." Matt paused. "Why did you bring me here?"

"Boss' orders," Dex said.

Matt took a few long breaths, trying to oxygenate his body, to prepare for the coming onslaught. "They want someone to find my body here?"

Dex laughed softly, shaking his head. He took a few steps closer. "Not your body," he said. "I'm not here to kill you."

"Why not?" Matt said. He braced his body and slowly began to move, circling around Dex like a prowling tiger. Dex mirrored his motions, and Matt clenched his jaw. He needed to close the distance. He could barely handle Dexas it was; and if Dex had the advantage of distance—if he got the chance to throw something—it would be all over. "You have no problem killing anyone else."

Dex reached into the dumpster next to him and grabbed an empty beer bottle. He tossed it up in the air and caught it a few times, almost playful. "They want you alive."

"Why?"

"Don't know. Don't care." Dex smashed the bottle against the brick wall next to him and bent down to pick up the shards. He tilted his head for a long moment, considering Matt—then hurled a large piece of glass toward him. 

Matt flipped out of the way, somersaulting as he landed. He reached for the nearest object—the metal lid of a trash can—and stood again, brandishing it in front of him.

"Adorable," Dex said, and hurled another piece toward Matt's thigh. Matt blocked it just in time, and the glass exploded against the makeshift shield. "You're like a discount Captain America." 

He hurled four more pieces, all in a row; toward Matt's head, his stomach, his arms, his legs. Matt frantically moved the lid just in time to bat the pieces away.

"Not in the mood to play, then?" Dex said, sounding amused. He dropped the rest of the shards. "Fine by me."

He suddenly lunged at Matt, fist raised.

Matt ducked; Dex's fist connected with the brick wall behind him, and he yelled—not in pain, but in rage. Matt angled his head toward Dex's hand. The hit, which would have shattered anyone else's metacarpals, had had virtually no effect beyond the top layer of skin.

Dex seemed to know what Matt was thinking. "Adamantium," he said coolly. "Most of it's in my spine, but there's a few other places as well. My hands, plates in my skull..."

So basically everywhere that made Dex a bigger threat. No wonder Matt couldn't take him. Even before the blip he'd been unable to defeat him; and that was he was an ordinary—if extremely psychotic—man. And now...

Matt flipped forward and landed a kick on Dex's face, knocking him back. Then he wailed on him, punching over and over, the rage a strange relief running through his body. He beat savagely, unreservedly. He imagined Wilson Fisk in Dex's place. A bone in Matt's hand cracked—he didn't care—he kept punching—

The specter of Wilson Fisk beneath his fists, broken and prone, smiled up at him through a mouthful of bloody teeth. "That's it," he said. "Let the Devil out..."

Matt froze, his fist trembling.

"Enough!" Dex screamed. With a burst of energy he threw Matt away him; Matt stumbled, overwhelmed, as the ghostly Fisk vanished.

And suddenly Dex ran past him, out into the streets. Matt took a breath and prepared to follow, ignored the pain radiating over his body; the fight wasn't over. He had to end this, to overpower Dex, to send him back to prison where neither Fisk nor his strange benefactor could get their claws around him again.

Across the street there was a hideous wrenching sound as Dex tore a stop sign from its metal post. Matt rolled his neck, gritted his teeth, and put up his fists.

Dex reappeared in the alley, his stance wide, his heart beating fast and wild. The beating had done a number on him; a quick once-over told Matt that Dex was hemorrhaging internally from several different places. The smell of blood pooling around his adamantium bones was making Matt dizzy and sick. 

"Time to end this," Dex said. He raised his arm, preparing to throw the sign. Matt crouched and readied himself to jump.

With a wild ferocity, Dex's arm flung out. Matt leapt in the air to avoid the projectile—

But it wasn't coming. The throw was a feint.

And in that moment of distraction, in the aftermath of his blunder, Matt was powerless to move out of the way as Dex hurled the sign at him. It whistled through the night air, the aluminum knifing toward him with a speed and power only Bullseye could give it. It spun like a frisbee and, as Matt turned in midair—

The sign embedded itself two inches into his stomach.

Matt screamed and fell noisily to the ground. Dex clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Rookie mistake," he said, walking calmly back down the alleyway. Matt writhed, groaning in agony, painfully aware of the aluminum piercing each layer of his body. The sign jutted out obscenely; every movement Matt made sent the sign wobbling, painfully scraping along Matt's exposed tendons. He weakly raised an arm to remove it.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Dex said, standing directly above Matt. Then, without warning, he put his hands on the sign and pushed it an inch further into Matt's abdomen. Matt screamed. "Stop moving around. You'll make it worse," Dex said. He wiggled the sign and leaned on it slightly, as though making sure it were solidly in place. Not enough to do any more real damage—just enough to hurt. Matt yelped in pain.

Dex chuckled. "All right. Let's get you settled in for the night." He walked behind Matt and put his arms under his shoulders; then, heaving, he dragged Matt across the asphalt. Matt could feel blood trickling down his body and onto the road as Dex dragged him behind the dumpster.

Matt moaned as Dex carefully arranged him in this forgotten corner of the alley. He made a vague attempt to get to his feet, but already he was beginning to fade; his mental image, his world on fire, dissolved in and out as pain expanded across his body. Eventually he slumped back, his head smacking hard against the metal dumpster.

"Don't worry, there's a nice trail of blood here. I'm sure someone'll find you by morning," Dex said. He crouched down at Matt's side and gave the stop sign one last jiggle. "Try not to bleed out before then. My employer would be real... disappointed."

Summoning all his energy, Matt lashed out, swinging at Dex. But Dex caught Matt's hand easily. He squeezed—so tightly that Matt could feel another bone cracking—then dropped it and stood up. He walked calmly out of the alleyway and back into the empty streets. Laughing.

Dex's laughter and the sickly sweet smell of bloodied garbage enveloped Matt like a cocoon as his consciousness dimmed into nothing.

Chapter Text

As Vanessa carefully adjusted Wilson's black silk tie, he thought back to the image he'd seen on the news; Izzy Libris' bloody body, partially obscured by the network blur, taking up the bottom third of the screen like a crimson ocean. Only a few hours had passed, and already the city was awash in fear.

"She was my ally," Wilson said. "She shouldn't have died."

Vanessa shook her head sadly and straightened Wilson's collar. "No. She was no threat to us."

The Libris family controlled one of the largest mobs in the city. So large, so powerful, that Wilson had been half-wondering if perhaps Izzy was his mysterious benefactress—the third party desperately trying to get him elected.

Apparently not.

There was a soft knock outside Wilson's closet door, and Francis' muffled voice came through. "Meade has a press conference gathered," he said. "They're waiting on you downstairs."

The Major General had called immediately after Libris' assassination. The mayoral mantle was Wilson's to take, if he wanted it. Meade had assumed Wilson was behind the murder, and he'd accepted it—as easily as he'd complied with all of Wilson's interference. Wilson didn't bother to correct him; this was what he'd been working toward, after all. And yet...

This shouldn't have caught him by surprise. This secret sponsor, pulling the strings, manipulating Wilson like a marionette... how were they accomplishing it? How were they hiding? Wilson was a pawn in this game, no less than Poindexter and Murdock, blindly sliding across the chessboard under the hands of this mysterious power. Whoever wanted him in office... they would use him. They would exploit him. Neither he nor Vanessa were safe.

He looked down at his beloved, anger and fear spreading like frost crystals across his heart. She was facing the mirror now, preparing to meet the world as New York City's First Lady. Dressed sleekly in white, a red scarp draped around her neck, she was pushing ruby earrings through her lobes when Wilson caught her eye.

Her features melted; in sympathy, in concern, in reassurance. "Wilson," she said. She came to him and cradled his face in her hands. "It will be all right."

"Of course," Wilson said. He placed his hands atop hers.

"We'll find him, whoever he is," Vanessa said. "We'll stop him; we always do. And as mayor, with all the resources at your disposal... it will be child's play."

Wilson closed his eyes. "I'm playing into his hands, Vanessa. Whoever's behind this..."

"You'll handle it, Wilson," she said. And she pulled his head down, until his face was buried in her shoulders. She stroked the back of his scalp with fingers soft and warm as dough. "You always handle it. But for now—we take one step forward. We get you ready for the press."

She left his side and began rummaging through the hanging suits, with the confidence and interest of a researcher in an archive; comparing, combing, sorting. She was humming slightly to the tune of their wedding dance. Wilson's lip trembled in the remembrance. He bit back the swell of emotion and took a deep breath as Vanessa returned to him, holding a white Armani suit and a black topcoat.

"Put these on, love," she said.

He moved to do so; but as he raised his hands to unbutton his vest, she caught his wrist. Her fingers ran over his cufflinks—his father's cufflinks, the ones his mother had given to him in the moments after his father's death. The cufflinks Vanessa had tried to replace a few years before the blip.

"Must you wear these?" she said softly, turning them over.

He had hoped he'd outgrown them.

Wilson thought of the Albanian man, Roel, and the look of his brain smeared into the concrete; the scarlet, wet hammer in Wilson's hand. He thought of his father, and the saw in his mother's hands as she removed his arms and legs. He thought of James Wesley, riddled with bullet holes, Karen Page clutching a pistol. He thought of Peter Parker's face turning purple as Wilson's fists closed around his throat. He thought of the bombs and the guns and the murders throughout Hell's Kitchen. He thought of the city—his city—burning.

But in that burn... it shone like a sun.

Wilson opened his mouth to respond. He looked down into Vanessa's face. He could feel a muscle in his jaw jumping, his cheeks twitching, his breath growing unsteady and the beat of his heart pounding uneven in his chest. The words caught in his throat.

She tilted her head at him, still twisting the cufflinks. Then she smiled softly.

Vanessa planted a kiss on his lips. She kissed the knuckles of his pale hands. And, finally, she pressed the black onyx of his father's cufflinks to her lips, her eyes never leaving his.

"All right," she said. "Get dressed."

Ten minutes later, Wilson and Vanessa Fisk came out through the doors of Fisk Tower. She clung to his arm like she was stitched there. Wilson kept his face steady; it was strong. It was reassuring. It was a face that would bring peace and prosperity to his beloved city.

There was a large podium set up on the street, and a small huddle of reporters just past it. They were the only ones allowed, given the restrictions of martial law. Among them was J. Jonah Jameson, who nodded deferentially at Wilson. There were others, too; a reporter from each paper he owned or paid off, a few independent journalists, cameras and microphones and notepads. And at the back, practically steaming, was the editor from the Bulletin—Karen Page's employer. He stared unflinchingly at Wilson, his eyes poisonous and hateful.

He would have to be dealt with.

Major General Meade caught sight of Wilson and stepped forward to the podium, adjusting the microphone slightly.

"I met with the five borough presidents tonight, immediately following the assassination of Mayor Isabelle Libris."

There was a rhythmic clicking as a dozen camera shutters went off, flashes of white light searing into Wilson's eyes. Some part of him ached to shrink down, tried to shy away into the darkness. But Vanessa's reassuring weight against his arm, the soft steadiness of her breathing, strengthened him.

Meade cleared his throat. "An interrim mayor must be named. And, as the governor's appointed leader during martial law, I put forward the name of Wilson Fisk. He was approved swiftly and unanimously."

Another shuttering of cameras. Wilson drew himself higher.

"Given the proximity of the upcoming election, and Mr. Fisk's unopposed campaign, the city is best served by electing him now and avoiding the chaos and confusion of unnecessary power transfers. He will serve as interim mayor until the election, at which point an official city vote will be held." He turned to Wilson. "I'll turn the time over to Mr. Fisk."

Wilson stepped forward. Vanessa came with him, smiling softly at the reporters arrayed before them.

"This city is sick," he said. The microphone whined with feedback. Wilson lifted his chin a little, relishing in the sound of his voice spreading through the night air. "It chokes and dies under the weight of unchecked vigilantism. It bleeds. It cries out. It is my duty, and my privilege, to care for it now."

A bloody frame of red edged in on Wilson's vision, distracting him momentarily. Seamless images ran through his head. His father. Roel. Ben Urich. Wesley. Murdock. Nelson. Poindexter. Felix Manning. Izzy Libris. Peter Parker. Karen Page. 

"I will work in tandem with General Meade to stamp out the violence and corruption," he said. "For months, I have been drafting a plan to confront the vigilante violence of the city. And after tonight's assassination, the time has come to put it into action."

He paused, looking out over the reporters. They were strangely still, suspended, like a collective held breath.

"A revised and updated version of the Sokovia Accords will be implemented throughout the city," he said. He raised his voice slightly. "No man is above the law. No threat can warrant the unchecked power of these 'heroes'." 

Wherever Murdock was, if Poindexter hadn't killed him, Wilson hoped he was hearing every word.

"The Avengers, Spider-man, and all the rest... they might operate with impunity elsewhere. But within this city, our shining city, they will live as ordinary men. They will no longer go unchecked." Wilson laced his fingers together atop the podium. "Any 'heroes' who wish to operate will do it under my supervision. They will act under my jurisdiction. Unless they sign the Wilson Fisk Enhanced-Persons Registration Act, they will be subject to immediate arrest and indefinite confinement."

A soft murmuring went through the gathered crowd. Wilson took a breath, looking out at the scene before him. The soldiers at the perimeter, rifles high; the midnight black of the skyline, beaming darkness down on the streets. And the teeming masses of the city, safely hidden away in their homes. Watching, no doubt. Listening. 

"And as for Daredevil, the terrorist assassin..." Wilson bit back a sneer. "The order has been given to kill on sight."

More camera flashes and whispers. Wilson stepped back and allowed Meade to step forward again. The general explained the circumstances further, the ways in which the mayorship would work under martial law; how he and Wilson would lead side-by-side until the martial law ended.

Of course, with Wilson in charge... it need never end.

After a few minutes, Meade called Wilson forward again. As he began to walk, he thought he felt a strange, wet mess around his ankles—a sludge of hot viscera, intestines and muscles and skull fragments and brains and eyes and gallons of scarlet blood. Seeping into his shoes, his toes, up through his skin—staining him crimson—

"Repeat after me," Meade said. "I, Wilson Fisk."

"I, Wilson Fisk."

Meade nodded grimly. "Do solemnly swear to support the constitution of the United States."

"Do solemnly swear to support the constitution of the United States." 

Each repeated statement was like the clicking of a padlock, the closing of a door, the sealing of a broken window. The repetition was safety. Surety. Finality.

"The constitution of the State of New York and the charter of the city."

He realized, suddenly, that Vanessa had stepped forward with him; that her hand was interlaced with his atop the leathery Bible on the podium. He imagined he could feel her heartbeat next to him, thumping asynchronously with his—beat beat, beat beat, beat beat—like they were speaking with each other.

"And I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office, according to the best of my abilities."

He wondered where Murdock was now; if he was seething, if he was writhing, if he was dead.

"So help me God."

A strange hush fell over the reporters as Meade stepped back, inviting Wilson to take his place before the people. Wilson centered himself at the podium. Vanessa squeezed his hand softly; and suddenly his heart was a blossoming rose, past the prime of summer... open so wide, so loose and full and alive...

He smiled.

"I will fulfill my oath of office diligently," he said, raising his voice. "This is our city—our New York. We will take it back from the undesirables, the filth, who tarnish our streets."

The reporters whispered. They nodded. They smiled.

"I am Mayor Wilson Fisk," he said. His voice reached a crescendo. "And together... we will make this city a better place."

#####

Maggie held out a hand. "Scissors."

Karen handed them over, and Maggie snipped off the end of the suture. It had taken the better part of the night, and all of Maggie's emotional stamina... but it was finished. Matthew was as stitched up as he was going to get. 

He was unconscious for most of it, thank the Lord.

"Shit, what a night," Karen said, holding the base of her hand to her forehead, her fingertips stained red with blood. "Oh—sorry, Sister—"

Maggie shook her head. "Go wash your hands," she said. "The worst of it's over."

As Karen left for the office kitchenette, Maggie appraised the scene before her. Matthew was out cold on the floor of Nelson and Murdock, bloody gauze and scattered medical equipment littering the space around him. His shirt was pulled up to reveal a wide scarlet gash across the entirety of his lower abdomen. Tiny black sutures bridged across it. The gory stop sign lay on the floor next to his head.

Maggie, exhausted, leaned back against the base of Matthew's desk. She'd been at the office since just after midnight; Foggy Nelson had collected her from the church, had led her stealthily through the guarded streets all the way to Matthew's brutally wounded body. It had taken a harrowing amount of time to get him up into the office without the sign slipping out of his stomach, without him bleeding out, without the patrolling soldiers catching them.

And as Matthew drifted in and out of consciousness all night, Maggie, Karen, and Foggy pieced him back together. They'd all seen the news, filled with images of Matthew hands over the mayor's mutilated corpse. Karen and Foggy had found Matthew by the trail of blood he left behind.

Now that they were out of the woods, Maggie let herself breathe. She crossed herself, watching the rise and fall of Matthew's chest. He was soft and vulnerable in the morning light filtering through the window; childlike, almost, in his sleep.

After a minute or so, she carefully lifted her crucifix over her veil—the very same crucifix she'd leant him once before—and kissed it. Then she placed it on Matthew's neck, tucking the pendant into his tattered shirt. And she prayed for him.

Karen returned from washing her hands and sat on the floor again, inches away from Matthew's head. Her hands were still trembling; but in her face there was a steadiness, a certainty; like a willow tree planted deeply into the soil. Branches waving, perhaps; moving, shaking in the wind—but firmly rooted in the earth.

She was so good for Matthew.

"Gauze?" Karen said. Maggie handed her over a piece, and Karen dipped it into the bowl of pinkish water next to the first aid kit. Then she gently ran it over Matthew's forehead, removing the sweat and the grime. She carefully wiped away the blood, dabbing gently at a cut on his lip.

Matthew stirred. His fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach for something. Without thinking, Maggie picked up his hand and held it.

There was something so like Jack Murdock in Matthew's face; his eyes, despite their sightlessness, so weary and knowing. As though, like the eyes of his father, they'd borne witness to all the evils and all the goods in the city. And both of them, mouths so certain; like words were printed upon them, ready to burst forth with fury and power. A tenderness to their brows despite their heaviness.

A roughened look to them both. A broken look. Hardened, maybe.

Karen ran her fingers through his hair, moving it away from his forehead. She bent down and softly pressed her lips to his temple. She closed her eyes. 

Maggie dropped her gaze. She felt as though she were intruding on something intimate; as though Karen had forgotten that she was in the room. After a minute or so, she cleared her throat. 

"Poindexter was very precise," she said. Karen sat up, her lips twisting, still staring at Matthew's slackened face. "Not deep enough to puncture the intestines, and too far down to hit any major organs."

"Dex... knows what he's doing."

Maggie frowned. "You think Poindexter let him live on purpose?"

"I don't know." Karen sighed and added the used gauze to the mountain of scarlet and white they'd accumulated over the course of the night. "But he could have killed Matt, easy. I think Dex is pulling his punches."

Maggie raised her eyebrows at the bloody stop sign on the floor.

"As far as Dex goes, anyway," Karen added.

After another minute or two, Foggy re-entered the room. He'd left around the time Maggie had pulled the sign out of Matthew's abdomen, looking greenish. "Everything—everything good?" he said. "I cleaned up the blood outside. I don't think anyone will tie Matt to what happened."

He hesitantly took a few more steps toward Matthew; then, seeing his steady—if weak—breathing, Foggy sank to the floor and put an arm around Karen's shoulders. 

"He'll be okay," Foggy said.

"Yeah, I know." Karen leaned her head on Foggy's shoulder and closed her eyes.

Foggy reached his free hand toward one of Matthew's and gave it a little squeeze. There were heavy bags under his eyes, a resigned look painted across his features. "Marci wants to announce her campaign tonight. She just called me; she's gonna pre-record something. You think if we sent it to Ellison, he'd..."

"He can get it into the right hands," Karen said.

Maggie absently ran her fingers over Matthew's wrist, counting out his pulse. It was still steady. "The church doesn't endorse political candidates, but you can tell your fiancée that all that nuns at St. Agnes will be voting for her."

Foggy smiled. "Glad to hear it."

"I still can't believe that Fisk is the mayor," Karen said. She returned to running her fingers through Matthew's hair. "There's supposed to be procedure in place, right?"

"That's the beauty of martial law," Foggy said bitterly. "Fisk gets to circumvent procedure." He ran his hands wearily over his face. "You think he had anything to do with MJ's train derailing last night? I mean, Fisk beat Peter up that one time. Maybe it's related."

Karen nodded, though Maggie noticed she was avoiding Foggy's gaze. "Peter called earlier; he said MJ's okay. Spider-man made sure of that."

Matthew shifted slightly; beneath his closed eyelids, Maggie could see his eyes moving frantically, as though he were gazing wildly around him in his sleep. "Kar—Kare—ren—"

Karen pressed her forehead to his. "It's okay. I'm here."

Matthew's breathing returned to normal. He seemed to relax back into the floor.

Foggy coughed. "Listen, Karen... it's not a good time—but, let's be honest, when is it ever these days...?"

"What do you ned, Foggy?"

"We have to get the campaign announcement out ASAP," Foggy said, sighing. "I thought we'd have longer—I didn't think Fisk would weasel his way into office so fast—"

"You want my help putting it together," Karen said. She sat up, still staring at Matthew's bruised face. "Curfew should be lifted by now. We can head to your place now if you want." And yet, despite her words, Karen didn't budge. She looked like she was nailed to the floor by his side; as though moving away would rip her apart.

"He'll be safe with me," Maggie said quietly. She reached a hand out; Karen took it, rubbing her other hand wearily over her eyes. They held on for a long moment. "I'll let you know if we need you."

"Thank you, Sister," Karen said. She let go and sat higher, shifting up onto her knees, preparing to stand; and as she moved, her knee bumped slightly against Matthew's thigh. She frowned.

"What?" Foggy said.

"He's got something," Karen said. "In his pocket. I thought it was shrapnel or something..."

She carefully reached a hand into Matthew's pocket; and when she pulled it back out, a diamond ring glinted softly in the early morning light. Karen fell back onto her heels, her brows knit together, hands shaking.

"Karen!" Foggy whispered. Karen bit her lip and stayed silent, looking from the ring to Matthew.

Maggie stared too. In an instant she was back in Fogwell's Gym, blossoming under the teasing gaze of a bloody boxer. She was handing in her nun's habit, she was eloping at the courthouse. She was kissing in the light of a sunny kitchen window, a slight swell to her belly, the sharp flint of fear mostly buried beneath the carefree snowfall of Jack Murdock and the life they were building together.

"Sister?" Karen said. Maggie blinked.

"Yes—sorry—"

"We're heading out," Karen said. Her voice was trembling slightly; her eyes were bright, her cheeks pinkish and almost fevered. She gave the ring one last long look, then held it out. "Listen, could you put this back? Don't tell him I saw it, he probably wants it to be a surprise—"

Foggy was grinning like an idiot. "If you guys hurry it up, maybe we could do a double wedding."

"Yeah, Marci'd love that," Karen muttered. She pressed the ring into Maggie's hand; Maggie shivered at its familiar weight, the silver cool as rainfall against her skin. "Please—please call if he needs me—I won't be far."

"I will," Maggie said. She patted Karen's hand once more, her own hands slightly unsteady. "Go."

And they walked out, leaving only the buzzing of the heater and Matthew's soft breathing for company. 

The ring in her palm caught the light of the window; it almost looked as though it were blinking at her. She wondered what Jack Murdock would think of her now; of the disaster, the chaos, the fear and the suffering and the blood that had come of her sin.

She wondered if Jack Murdock had ever forgiven her.

Maggie crossed herself again. "Forgive me, Lord," she said. The ring felt like hot ice against her palm. "And protect my Matthew. Heal him. Don't let my mistakes fall on his head."

Matthew stirred again slightly.

"Forgive him too. Extend to him thy mercy—"

"Si—Sist—Sister Maggie?"

She started. Matthew was awake, his eyes pointed dully at the ceiling, his jaw clenching in pain.

"Welcome to the land of the living," she said. 

"I though—I thought Karen and Foggy—"

"They just left. Can you sit up a little?" Maggie said, trying to ease him up onto his elbows. "They were at your side all night."

"I know. I felt them—I was in and out, I think... I..."

She reached for the painkillers and water cup she'd prepared earlier, pressing them into his hands. He drank clumsily, spilling water all over himself, then fell back to the floor with a thud. 

"Damn it, Matthew," she whispered. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"Thanks for the heads up." He hissed in pain and prodded lightly at the edges of his wound. "I'm fine."

"Oh. Good." Maggie said, throwing up her hands. "Besides the three stitches you just tore open, you mean."

Matthew winced and shifted slightly. Maggie rolled her eyes and reached for the suture kit again; as her hand passed over Matthew's head, he angled it oddly—like he was listening for something, or smelling something.

His hand snapped up and caught her wrist.

"You're holding my ring."

Maggie felt her heart speed up. "Right. I—I found it in your pocket. I was worried it might be shrapnel."

She handed it out to him. He took it, his eyebrows raised.

"You're lying," he said. "Who actually found it? Foggy?"

Maggie was silent.

"Damn it," he said, running a hand across his bruised jaw. "Karen. I wanted to surprise her—wait for the right moment—"

Maggie shook her head and began snipping away the torn sutures. "A word of advice, Mr. Daredevil? You've waited long enough. So has she."

"Well, I planned to do—ahh—" he hissed slightly as Maggie passed the needle through his skin. "—something nice for her—"

"Well." Maggie grabbed a piece of gauze and sopped up an oozing stream of blood. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans."

"Yeah, yeah."

"From the way I hear it, your plans tend to get... interrupted. Terrorist attacks, grievous bodily injury..." she nodded at his abdomen. "These are dangerous times. Just ask her to marry you and call it a day. It might be romantic."

Matthew snorted. "You got a lot of experience in that area?" Maggie stiffened, and he froze. "Uh—I didn't mean—I wasn't thinking—"

She took a deep breath, her hands slightly unsteady as she passed the needle once more through his flesh. "When... when I was with..."

"My dad," Matthew said quietly. Maggie swallowed.

"He wasn't romantic in the traditional sense," she said. "But he made it work. And it was enough for me."

Matthew turned the ring over in his hands, running his fingers carefully over the facets of the diamond, the interior of the band. "He left this ring for me in his will," he said. Maggie tied off a suture. "Sad it was a family heirloom; he wanted me to give it to my wife someday."

"Hmm."

"Did he ever... I mean, was it ever..." he trailed off.

Maggie tied off the last stitch, then sat back on her heels. She looked at the gleaming diamond in Matthew's hand, strangely out of place among the blood and the bruises and the scars. "Yes. I wore it for a while." She picked up a new roll of gauze bandage and some medical tape. "Try sitting up for me. Slowly."

With a wince and a face full of strain and agony, Matthew raised himself onto his elbows, then his hands. His arms were wobbling; before he could fall back onto the floor, Maggie grabbed his shoulders and turned him, leaning him up against the base of his desk.

"My dad had a dangerous job," he said, panting slightly. "Not like mine, obviously... but he got hurt a lot."

"I remember." Maggie unspooled the roll and began wrapping it over the base of his abdomen, again and again around his torso, trying to ignore the scarlet already seeping through. She kept it as tight as she could. The pressure would help stop the bleeding.

Matthew, ever helpful, held the end in place as she wrapped. "Was it... was it hard, that sort of life? Watching the man you lov—er—watching him hurt himself?"

She reached the end of the roll and nodded at Matthew. He held the new end in place as she tore off a piece of medical tape. "Karen is up to the task, if that's what you're asking."

"I'm asking how you felt," he said quietly. 

"I..." she hesitated, glancing at Matthew's face. His eyes gazed sightlessly somewhere past her shoulder, but the set of his jaw, the furrow of his brow, was so focused—so intent—as though they were the only two people in the world. As though she were a witness on the stand, the key to some legal knot he was untangling.

He reached a hand for her arm and rested it there for a moment, gentle. Firm.

Maggie took a deep breath and taped the bandage in place. "It's never easy, watching someone you love in pain." She applied another piece of tape. "But the danger... the risk... it's part of what drew me to him."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Matthew said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Now, completely bandaged, he placed his hands on the desk behind him and heaved himself to his feet. "Karen is constantly in dange—"

His legs gave out, and he crashed loudly back to the floor. He cried out in pain. Maggie's hands flew up to her mouth as Matthew groaned, writhing in agony for a moment against the carpet.

"It's okay—" he gasped. "—I'm fine—"

"You aren't!" Maggie snapped. She knelt at Matthew's head and heaved him until he was in her arms, prone and helpless against her lap. "Look at you!"

"I've—ahh—I've had worse." And he laughed weakly.

"You think this is funny?" Maggie looked up at the ceiling, half-wishing the Lord would send a lightning bolt. "Every day I wake up and I wonder if you're dead. Do you think that's easy for me?"

"No. I don't."

"Or your friends? Is it easy for Foggy and Karen? For Peter?"

"You've stitched up Peter before. He's at least as bad as I am." Matthew winced and clutched at the bandage. "I don't see you yelling at him."

Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose. "Well, I'm not Peter's..."

You're not Matthew's mother either. Not really.

The room was very cold suddenly; very dark, despite the growing daylight outside the window. She thought she could feel a winter breeze moving in, several months early; she thought that perhaps a cloud might form above their heads inside this dingy office, that it might bellow forth a year's worth of snow and bury them both. She thought that perhaps even Matthew's fevered, desperate, endless blood wouldn't be enough to melt it.

"You're right," Matthew said finally. He pushed himself gently away from her and reached for the edge of the desk again. Maggie kept her arms around his shoulders; slowly, agonizingly, she helped him to his feet. There was a long moment of wobbling, of blood draining from his face, his jaw clenching in pain. And suddenly he seemed to summon whatever strength lived within him—the stubbornness of the Murdock boys, or perhaps the Devil himself—and drew himself higher. He stood, steady, in front of her. "I'll be more careful."

Maggie bent down and gathered up the first aid kit, the stitching and the tattered gauze, and placed it on the desk. She picked up the bloody stop sign. "Maybe you should consider taking a break."

"I can't do that."

"Not permanently. I'm not stupid enough to try to convince you of that." Maggie rolled her eyes. "But at least for a few weeks, as this heals—stay out of it. Let Spider-man take care of things. Take some time off."

Matthew shook his head. "I take time off, and people get hurt."

"And how many more will be hurt if you're dead?" Maggie said. "Damn it, Matthew, the Lord couldn't have given you a clearer sign if He tried." She held the sign up a little higher, drumming her fingers along the side.

Matthew raised his eyebrows, a slight smirk playing on the edge of his lips. "You know I can't see that."

"You know it's an octagon. Smartass."

"Point taken," Matt said, snorting. "I will... try to lay low for a little while."

Maggie leaned the stop sign against the desk. "I'll believe that when I see it."

Karen had left behind a red hoodie for Matthew to change into; his Daredevil shirt, after all, was tattered and bloody—completely destroyed. Maggie retrieved it from Karen's side office and held it out.

He caught her arm instead. His face was soft. Tender, even. "Thank you, Sister. For this. For... for everything."

"Take the hoodie," she said. Matthew grabbed it and began pulling it over his head, wincing in pain as he lifted his arms. "Maybe you can take this time off and finally propose to Karen. Lock her down before she realizes she's too good for you."

Matthew laughed. "Yeah. Maybe I should."

He sat on the edge of the desk; Maggie joined him, straightening her habit, checking the tips of her veil for any stray blood droplets. "I'm glad you're finally letting people in," she said. "It's been a rollercoaster with you in that regard."

"I know," Matthew said. He was quiet for a minute, and his hands ventured up to his neck, to the bump under the hoodie where Maggie's crucifix sat. She wondered if he'd only just noticed it—or if, perhaps, he'd felt it all along; if the cross against his chest was a part of him, ingrained into his very heart, and the actual pendant was secondary to the cross he took upon himself every day. The cross of blood and bone and rage and justice that he bore.

"Thank you, Sister," Matthew said again. Maggie took a long breath and nodded.

"I'll walk you to your apartment," she said. She picked up his red glasses from the desk and slid them carefully onto his face. And now, his eyes shrouded, he seemed to grow in size. His jaw tightened. His shoulders broadened. He stood, reaching behind him for the folded white cane on his desk, and took a few steps on his own—slow, wobbling, but steady.

He didn't need her. He never had.

#####

Ned opened the door before Peter even had the chance to knock. "Sorry, dude. She still doesn't want to see you."

Peter slumped, but only a little. He'd known the answer even before he'd walked here. Even so...

"Give this to her for me, will you?" he said. He held out a gift, a new book about the Black Dahlia murder. Ned nodded and took the package.

Yesterday had been a potted Venus flytrap and a gift card to their old coffee shop.

The day before had been a donation in her name to the Nature Conservancy.

And the day before that, a long heartfelt letter—explaining what he could, apologizing for what he couldn't. It wasn't nearly enough.

It had been three days since the train, and Peter didn't know if MJ would ever speak to him again.

He nodded a thanks and turned down the steps of Ned's Lola's house, swallowing down a lump of nostalgia and regret. He was halfway to the street when Ned suddenly cleared his throat.

"Hey, man—I don't know if you're interested, but... remember that LEGO Death Star I told you about the other day? It fell apart this morning when I moved it. Would you maybe wanna... I don't know..."

Peter turned back around. "You want to build the LEGO set together?"

Ned puffed up his cheeks with air, looking a little embarrassed. "It's cool, it's cool, I get it—no worries, it's not a big deal—you're probably not into LEGO, I was just remembering your Star Wars hoodie from the other day..."

Something in Peter's stomach was jumping up and down, so hard he thought he might die. He grinned. "Ned, I would love to build the Death Star with you."

And just like that, as easily and sincerely as the first time, Peter and Ned became friends.

Twenty minutes later, sitting at Ned's dining room table, Peter sorted through a scattered pile of LEGOS as Ned absently babbled. "I know MJ told you we worked with Spider-man, which is pretty cool. I remember being his guy in the chair for a while—you know what a guy in the chair is, right?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah. And like—I can't remember who he is, but I helped him hack into a Stark suit one time. It was all pretty rudimentary back then... I wasn't as tech savvy as I am now. But I mean, that's all I'm doing these days at MIT—or, I was doing, until I deferred in protest. Freaking school. Sucks for MJ, you know? But I'll be real, I like having a break, even if it means coming back to New York in the middle of all this—" he gestured around himself vaguely. 

Peter clicked a piece into place and handed his small section to Ned, who grinned and added it to the main structure.

In the few days since the train crash, since Matt had nearly been sliced in half, since Wilson Fisk had become the mayor... the city felt gloomier. Murky. Claustrophobic. Still, now that Marci had announced her campaign, Fisk at least had an official contender. Even if he was the interim mayor in the meantime. Even if he had the freedom and the power to wreak havoc across the city...

As if he was thinking the same thing, Ned sighed suddenly, putting another couple pieces onto the base. "Can you believe this Sokovia Accord stuff? Or—I guess, the Wilson Fisk Enhanced Whatever Act. I heard no one's signed yet."

Peter shrugged. He picked up Chewbacca's head and snapped it onto his body. "No one's had to. I mean, pretty much all the Avengers operate upstate now. And Dr. Strange can literally just portal away. I think they're all just assuming this will go away when martial law ends."

"If it ends," Ned muttered. "You know, this all just seems like a ploy to get Daredevil. You ever hear Fisk talk? He hates that guy! Him and Spider-man." He shook his head and accidentally knocked a few pieces off the table. "Spider-man's a good guy, from what I can remember. I figure Daredevil probably is too. And, to be honest..." Ned leaned forward. "I don't think Fisk actually cares about any of the other heroes. It's all just a power play."

Peter bent down to pick up the dropped pieces. "You know, I think you may be onto something, Ned."

Ned shook his head sadly. "I wish Spider-man would do something about it. I mean, MJ and I talked to him when the train... you know. But I haven't heard anything about him since. You think he's just lying low?"

"Something like that," Peter said. He absentmindedly rubbed at a mostly-healed scar in his leg, from where a bullet had grazed him last night. He'd been trying to stop a break-in; one of the soldiers patrolling the streets had tried to arrest him for violating the new Accords. Peter had to flee. "This is looking pretty good," he said, coming around to Ned's side of the table and appraising the Death Star. "You gonna display it?"

Ned shrugged. "Maybe. Problem is, I'm missing a piece."

Peter's heart pounded. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. It comes with a little LEGO Palpatine—it's really cool, he's got, like, lightning coming out of his hands—but I have no idea where it went."

It was currently sitting on Peter's dresser in Foggy's apartment, right next to the broken pieces of MJ's black dahlia necklace.

Peter took a long breath and stretched to try and hide the emotion flickering across his face. "Maybe you could get a new one?"

"Yeah," Ned said. "I'm more interested in the. mystery, though. I mean... I feel like maybe I loaned it to someone? Or something like that. I remember having it—and it's like, my mind just blanks when I'm trying to think of it. It's driving me crazy."

Peter swallowed. "Well. Either way, the set looks pretty sweet. Thanks for letting me build it with you."

"No problem, man," Ned said. "I always wanted a nerd friend—besides MJ, obviously. But she's not really into Star Wars. Or LEGO." He paused, glancing at Peter's face. "She'll come around, you know."

"Yeah, maybe," Peter said. He put his hands in his pockets and headed for the door. Ned followed him.

"I'm serious, man." Ned shook his head. "You should've heard her in Boston. She talked about you all the time. And that's not gonna go away overnight. I mean, she's totally in love with you!" He froze, glancing upstairs. "Um... don't tell her I told you that."

Peter bit the corner of his lip, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. "Tell her I was here again. Tell her I'm sorry."

Ned nodded, and Peter left, lonelier than ever as the door latched behind him.

#####

"Okay. Elephant in the room," Foggy said. "You've got a ring."

Matt, Karen, and Foggy were in the office, a week after Matt had nearly died, awash in an ocean of campaign work and legal briefs. Marci was out at a campaign event. Peter, once again, was visiting his girlfriend. For the first time in a long time, it was like the old days—Nelson, Murdock, and Page, in a dirty office, drowning in work.

Karen took a sip of coffee and picked up a draft of Marci's upcoming speech, perusing it innocently. Matt sighed.

"Thanks, Fog. I can handle this on my own."

"I'm just saying," Foggy said. "You guys have been 'will they, won't they'-ing for years. Maybe you should just bite the bullet, before Matt gets murdered and bleeds out on the office floor."

Matt laughed, which turned out to be a mistake. The gaping wound in his abdomen, though beginning to heal, was still extremely raw. He hissed in pain, and both Foggy and Karen stood up, ready to come to his aid. "I'm fine," he said, waving them away. "Really."

They seemed uncertain. Matt sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing wearily at his eyes. "Speaking of, Foggy—how are the wedding plans? What's the timeline looking like? If we want to use it as part of the campaign, then you should—"

"Marci and I talked this morning. We can have everything together in just over a month," Foggy said. Matt could tell he was grinning. "Marci did a bunch of pro-bono work for the Prince George, so they let us jump the line. Best part is, all the proceeds from renting the ballroom goes toward affordable housing and homeless shelters."

"That's fantastic," Karen said. "A month?"

"Yep." Foggy stapled a packet of papers together. "Marci is Wonder Woman. Seriously. She's got, like, three different wedding planners working overtime, on top of all the campaign stuff."

Matt smiled. "So... you feeling up to it? The big day, I mean?"

"Uh..." Foggy said. His heartbeat sped up. "Yes. Mostly."

"Mostly?" Karen said.

Matt raised his eyebrows, chuckling slightly. "Uh oh, Foggy Bear. Someone having second thoughts?"

"Well, Marci is a very scary lady. Probably too much for him to handle," Karen said, nodding seriously.

Foggy scowled. "You two are not as funny as you think you are."

"Tough crowd," Karen said.

"I'm just... uh..." Foggy sighed. "Marci thought it would be a cute photo op if we did a real ballroom dance at the wedding. She wants me to waltz."

Matt grinned, lifting his hands from the braille deposition he was reading and turning to face Foggy fully. "Let me guess. You never learned how to dance?"

"Oh please. You know I got the moves." Foggy did a little shimmy, earning a stifled snort from Karen. "Just not... like... waltzing. Which actually brings me to my question. Um..." He took a breath. "I was wondering if maybe, you know... you could teach me?"

Karen sat on the edge of Peter's desk and crossed her arms, looking from Matt to Foggy and back again. The amusement was practically radiating off her. Matt did his best to ignore this and toyed with his folded cane. "What makes you think I know how to waltz?"

"I don't know, what makes me think you know how to be a ninja?" Foggy said irritably. "You do weird shit, Matt. It just seems like the kind of thing you'd know. Mr. Suave Devil Man or whatever." 

Karen shrugged at Matt, and when she spoke, he could hear the grin in her voice. "I mean, he has a point."

Matt sighed, very deeply and dramatically, and stood up. A sharp twinge of pain shot through his abdomen—but much less than he'd experienced over the last few days. A week's rest and thorough meditation had done wonders. "Well. Lucky for you, I learned a couple things from my time with Elektra."

"Really?" Karen said.

"She was a diplomat's daughter. Taught me all sorts of upper-crust things." Matt walked into the middle of the office, biting down the pain in his stomach, and held out his hand. "Up, twinkletoes."

"What, now?" Foggy said. Matt rolled his eyes and nodded; with a small noise of embarrassment, Foggy joined him on the floor.

"Karen, could you put on some music?" Matt said.

Karen nodded and scrolled through her phone for a moment. "Any requests?"

"Nothing too romantic, please," Foggy said. Karen snorted and scrolled for another minute.

Soft classical guitar and harp played for a few beats, followed by a crooning voice. "Moon river, wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style someday."

"Andy Williams. Nice," Matt said. And, at Foggy's disbelieving silence, he raised his hands in defense. "I listen to a lot of music, okay? It's not like I go to the movies."

He held out his hands. Foggy, uncertain, let his hands hover in the air for a moment; eventually, he settled for Matt's shoulders. Matt shook his head.

"You gotta lead, man."

"I'm gonna kill myself."

Matt grabbed one of Foggy's hands and guided the other to his waist. "Okay. Left foot forward first—I'll step back with my right—now your right. Nope. Not like that." Matt kicked Foggy's legs a little further apart. Foggy stumbled, but Matt managed to keep him upright. "Look. We're just doing a little box. Forward, right, close. Back, left, close."

Foggy hesitantly tried it. "Am I doing it right?"

"In the barest sense," Matt said. "It would help if you actually followed the music." 

Foggy flipped him off, then returned his hand to Matt's wist.

They waltzed for a minute or so, Karen desperately holding in giggles at the sight of them. Foggy was sweating profusely, mouthing "Forward, right, close, back, left, close" over and over again. Matt's abdomen was beginning to throb; the excess movement was not particularly helpful in his healing process. He supposed Sister Maggie didn't have waltzing in mind when she told Matt to take a rest.

"Forward, right—ahh!"

Foggy accidentally kicked Matt, sending him falling backward to the floor. He yelped out in pain as one of his sutures ripped. 

"Oh shit, dude—sorry—you good?" Foggy helped Matt back to his feet, and Matt pretended he didn't feel blood seeping into his bandage.

"I'm good. Keep going."

"Okay—uh—back, left, close..."

Another play through of the song, and Foggy was starting to move a little more smoothly. "Right," Matt said. "Now, if you want to spice it up a little—"

"And I'm sure Marci will."

"—start turning. About a quarter turn with each step; like this."

Within a couple minutes, Matt and Foggy were waltzing seamlessly around the office, sweeping wide circles, narrowly dodging the desks and Karen's dangling feet. "This isn't so bad," Foggy said, panting slightly. They maneuvered around a chair. "How about a twirl?"

"Not on your life."

Matt suddenly realized Karen had stood up; slowly, almost hesitant, she walked up to the two of them and tapped Foggy on the shoulder. "Mind if I cut in?"

"Not at all," Foggy said, and Matt could hear a knowing smile in his voice. He dropped Matt's hand and wiped his forehead. "I need a break. I think I've got the hang of it anyway." He trudged off to his desk and sat down heavily, still muttering "forward, right, close" under his breath.

Matt placed his hand on Karen's waist and she rested hers on his shoulder. Their other hands met, fingers softly intertwining. Then, slowly—without the flair and drama of Foggy's waltz—they moved together, slowly, in perfect sync. Practically rotating in place, only moving the barest of inches. 

This close, Matt was overwhelmed by the warmth radiating from her skin, the apple blossom scent of her hair, the thumping of her heartbeat. She put her head almost on his shoulder, her mouth tantalizingly close to his ear.

"So... can we talk about it?" Karen said. 

"Define 'talk about it.'" 

Matt was vaguely aware of Foggy restarting the song for them.

"Well," she said. They did a half-turn. "I guess... I'm just wondering what you're waiting for."

Matt lifted his arm, twirling her slowly under it. Then he pulled her in again, turning her so that her back was pressed against his chest. He put his lips on her ear. "You want me to do it now? In the office?"

She twirled herself slowly out, then back into the original position. Andy Williams' voice seemed suddenly to fill the entire room. "Two drifters, off to see the world..."

"You worried I'll say no?" She hummed softly against his ear. Matt shivered at the feel of her breath on his skin. His heart pounded a little harder.

"I mean... it's not very romantic..."

"Oh, it's very romantic."

"We're after that same rainbow's end..."

The ring was in Matt's pocket; he'd carried it with him every day. How easy it would be to pull it out, to slip it onto Karen's finger; to feel the gentle give of her skin as the silver slid across it. It grew heavier in his pocket, as though it were announcing itself—reminding him of its presence—begging him to bring it into the light—

Matt sighed. "I don't know... Foggy's here..."

From his place on the desk, staring straight at them, Foggy shook his head. "Don't worry, dude, I'm not listening. Fly on the wall, man."

Karen laughed and dropped her head to Matt's shoulder as they did another half-turn. It was so easy, dancing with her; intuitive, almost. Instinctual. Matt could stay this way forever. No more Fisk, no Bullseye; no more Daredevil, even. Just Karen's body pressed against his, her heartbeat accompanying the music as he held her.

"Matt," she said, raising her head slightly, "you could propose to me with a cupcake ring on the subway, and I'd still say yes."

"You're sure? You wouldn't rather... wait?"

"The anticipation is killing me, Murdock."

The song came to an end, but Matt kept her in his arms. They were barely swaying now, practically motionless. Yet even in the stillness, Matt was dizzy; weightless and floating, like they were sweeping wide circles together in the air. "Karen..." he whispered.

"Yes?"

"I..." he reached for his pocket. "When I met you, I was so... so unsure of who I was. Who I wanted to be." He took a long breath, trying to still the desperate beating of his heart. "And then... you came into my life. And I—"

Matt suddenly heard the urgent whisper of hushed voices. He angled his head; the sound was coming from the street below. There were five men outside, heavy guns in their hands; he would have assumed they were the patrolling soldiers—if they hadn't been speaking Russian.

"Matt?" Karen prompted.

Click. 

"Get down!" Matt yelled.

He pushed Karen on the floor and landed on top of her, screaming as another suture broke open. Across the room Foggy dropped to the carpet; and half a second later, the heavy sound of gunfire and breaking glass and splintering wood ricocheted across the office. 

Matt could feel plaster dust wafting around them, worming into his lungs; he could hear glass falling to the street outside, punctuating the frantic heartbeats of the two people he loved most in the world. He could hear the hitch in their terrified breathing—and under it all, like the discordant drone of an untuned cello, was the Russian shouting of the men outside.

The gunfire lasted a full minute, and stopped suddenly.

Matt cocked his head toward the street, his hands forming a shield over Karen's head. Outside, the men lowered their guns. They filed into cars. And without another word, they drove away.

"Holy shit," Foggy whispered.

"You okay? Everyone okay?" Matt said. He tried to get to his feet, but stumbled, the pain in his stomach overwhelming him momentarily. Karen helped him up, standing shakily herself.

Matt took a minute to assess the two of them. Beyond their terrified heartbeats, there was nothing to suggest any harm. None of the bullets had hit their mark. Matt frowned.

He pressed his hand to the wall behind him, feeling for the holes left behind. The bullets had hit far, far above their heads—four feet at least. Not a single gunman had come close to hitting them.

"Matt?" Foggy said. Matt shook his head.

"This was a warning," he said. "Or a message. I—"

He paused. Someone was walking on the rooftop above them, listening in on their conversation. Someone in heavy boots, a rifle on the ground next to him. Someone whispering Russian into a cell phone. 

Foggy coughed as the plaster dust continued to settle. "Was that the militia? Why—why would they shoot us? Do you think they know who you are?"

Matt rushed to his desk, pushing away the pain in his stomach, and rummaged through it for a moment. Finally he pulled out his spare mask. He tore off his necktie and work suit; underneath it all he was wearing his black compression shirt. His Daredevil suit.

The bottom of it was moist from the blood leaking through the bandage.

"Russians," he said, tying the mask around his head. "Fisk."

"Shit," Foggy said. He crossed to the window, still crouching a little, and peered out. "There's no militia—no soldiers, nothing. Fisk must have cleared the street."

The fever of rage was beginning to creep outward, from Matt's chest to his fingertips, curling like worms inside his veins. Why had one of them stayed behind? Was he sending a message? Was it a trap? Was Fisk trying to provoke him?

He jumped up onto the broken window ledge, grasped hold of the brickwork outside, and hoisted himself onto the fire escape and into the early evening air..

The man was standing calmly in the middle of the rooftop. "Daredevil," he said. His Russian accent sent tendrils of fury through Matt's blood. "They said this place was under your protection, but I didn't think you'd get here so fast."

Matt strode across the rooftop in three steps, white hot agony searing like a knife across his abdomen, and punched the man in the face.

The Russian fell against the concrete, groaning, holding his cheek. Already his nose was bleeding. Matt had broken it. Good. Despite the pain in his stomach—or perhaps because of it—Matt launched himself at the man and pulled him up, slamming him against the brick of the rooftop access door. Then he punched him again; the man's head smacked back against the brick.

"Ahh—Daredevil—stop—"

Matt kneed him in the stomach. "I thought you filth washed away years ago," he said. "Should've known you'd come crawling back to work for Fisk. Like cockroaches." He pulled the man toward him, then slammed him back. He pressed his forearm against the man's neck and pinned him to the wall. "Why are you here?"

"Not—trying—to kill you—"

"Yeah, I gathered that, asshole." Matt grabbed the man's arm and squeezed tightly, slowly twisting it until he could hear joints beginning to pop. "Why are you here?"

"Orders!" the man said. "Following orders!"

Matt squeezed harder, and the man yelped. But there was something wrong. The Russian wasn't fighting back; as though he'd been ordered to stand down, as though he'd expected Matt's interrogation. As though it was part of some larger plan.

"Did Wilson Fisk send you?" Matt growled, pouring all his focus into the man's heartbeat.

The man swallowed. "Yes," he said. 

He was lying.

Enraged, Matt socked the man in his stomach. "Who sent you?"

"Wilson Fisk!" the man said. Lying again. Matt punched him in the face. 

"Who do you work for?"

The man spat out a tooth, and Matt raised his fist again, ready to strike—but the Russian whimpered and grasped at Matt's forearm, which was still pinning his throat against the brick. "No—no, you're right—it's not him—not Fisk—"

"Then who is it?" Matt said. He could feel the man's pulse along his skin, like live electric wires, throbbing beats of energy that crackled and fizzed with fear.

"I can't—I can't tell—they'll kill me—"

And suddenly the voice of Wilson Fisk was behind Matt; ominous and ethereal, like the soft whispering leaves of graveyard trees. "Your threats aren't enough," he said. "What can you do against me? What power do you have?"

Matt clenched his jaw. "You're going to tell me who sent you, or I will throw you off this roof."

"Please—please, I can't—you don't know what they'll do to me—"

"Wrong answer," Matt said. And he flung him around, pushing him to the edge of the rooftop and pressing his back against the ledge. The man was hanging half off the roof now, frantic and scrambling in the cool evening air. 

Behind him, Matt heard Karen and Foggy coming up the rooftop access stairs, holding each other; he could hear them opening the door and moving onto the rooftop.

"Fisk didn't send you," Matt said, leaning over until his face was inches from the other man's. "But it's about him, isn't it? It's all about Fisk. Whoever got him in office—whoever sent Bullseye—they sent you." When the man remained silent, Matt put his hand around his throat—not hard enough to choke, not blocking oxygen, but enough to scare him. Enough for the blood to begin pooling in the man's face. 

"Tell me," Matt said. And still, the man stayed quiet.

Matt squeezed tighter.

"Ghk—yes!" the man said. "It's about Fisk—it's all about Fisk—" 

His hand was moving for the pistol in his pocket. Matt grabbed the man's wrist and wrenched it away; the bone fractured, and the ghostly Wilson Fisk smiled—like an animal, baring its teeth.

"Holy shit, Matt," Foggy whispered behind him. Matt shook his head sharply, trying to tune him out.

"You're going to tell me who sent you," Matt said. "And maybe you'll walk away with one working hand."

He raised a fist—unwrapped, bare knuckle, blood breaking across his skin—and the man whimpered.

"No—please—I can't tell—they'll kill my family—"

Matt clenched his fist so hard that he cracked open one of the splits along his knuckles.

"Who will?"

The man shook his head desperately. "They have spies everywhere—they know, they always know—"

"Tell me who you work for!" Matt screamed. He reeled his fist back, the Devil snarling inside him, raging, gleeful, alive. "Tell me!" And he pushed the man until he was dangling almost upside down over the ledge, held aloft only by Matt's grip on his shirt.

"I can't! Please—please, they'll kill my family—"

"Matt!" Karen whispered. Her hands were over her mouth.

Matt closed his eyes. He clenched his fist until it shook, trembling with the force, the fury. He could do it—he could beat this man, could break his bones, could scatter his teeth across the rooftop. Eventually, he would talk. Matt would have his answer, and the Devil would be sated.

He screamed—something wordless, rageful—and pulled the man back onto the rooftop, flinging him back savagely. The man crumpled, folding and falling like a dropped chain.

"Get the hell out of my city," Matt said. "If I see you again... you're not gonna like how it ends."

The man slowly got to his knees. "Thank you—thank you—"

"Go!" Matt snarled. The man scrambled to his feet and took off at a run, jumping onto a fire escape on the far side of the building and scurrying, ratlike, to the street below.

Matt stormed past Karen and Foggy, down the stairwell, back into the office. He clutched at his abdomen. The entire thing seared, ached, like a boiling river cutting a canyon through his flesh. But there was no time to deal with it. No time for healing, no time for anything. Not anymore.

He put his work clothes back on over his Daredevil suit and tucked the mask into his pocket. Then he rummaged through the bottom of his desk drawer until he found a tangled pair of Muay Thai ropes. Finally, he tucked a folded cane under his arm and grabbed his glasses. But before he could leave again, Karen and Foggy came back in and blocked the doorway.

"What are you doing, Matt?" Foggy said.

Matt put his glasses back on. "You heard that piece of shit. This whole thing's about Fisk."

Karen crossed her arms. "But Fisk didn't send him."

"It's all about Fisk—always has been. And when he's out of the picture—"

"Then what?" Karen said. Matt made to move past her, but she stepped directly into his path. "Then this mystery person slips right back into the shadows? Free to do whatever they want with the city?"

Matt rubbed his temple. "Karen... for the first time, maybe in my entire life... I have a future. Things ahead for me—for us—that I need to protect." He moved to place a hand on her arm, but thought better of it and dropped it back to his side. "When Fisk is gone, then this is all over."

There was a long beat of silence.

"When Fisk is gone? Foggy said.

Sister Maggie's crucifix around Matt's neck felt strangely hot against his skin. He'd almost forgotten it was there. And at the same time, somewhere deep inside him—sitting like fresh, burning asphalt in the pit of his stomach—was a white hot monster, growling to be set loose. A strange creature of violence, of bloodlust, of rage.

Why did He put the Devil in me?  he'd once asked Father Lantom. Why do I feel it in my heart... and my soul... clawing to be let out?

"I'm not going to do anything stupid," Matt said finally.

Foggy threw up his hands. "Great. That's real reassuring."

"But I can't just sit here and do nothing."

Karen took a step closer. "We're not doing nothing. We've got Marci's campaign; she'll put pressure on Fisk, get him to make a mistake..."

Matt shook his head, barely listening. "We've got nothing against him. Nothing. Vanessa was our bargaining chip, but without Felix Manning..." He set his jaw. "Maybe he wasn't behind the shooting today. Or Libris' murder, or Dex. But damn it, everything is revolving around him. This ends. Tonight."

They were frozen, he and Wilson Fisk; suspended in time, like bugs in amber. Powerless to act, while some mysterious third player pitted them against each other, set them to war, ignited wildfires of fear and violence in their souls. He couldn't take it anymore, Wilson Fisk hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles.

"What are you going to do?" Karen said.

Matt straightened his tie. "I'm going to talk to him. As a lawyer. Remind him of our deal."

"Bullshit. I can see your mask hanging out of your pocket."

"Backup plan. Fisk might not be up for talking." He tucked the mask back in. "And, hey. If I beat him into a coma, all this just goes away." He laughed bitterly; neither Karen nor Foggy joined in.

He moved to walk past them, but Foggy stepped forcefully in front of him. "This is crazy, Matt. Crazy. You're injured—bad—you can't do this."

"Move, Foggy."

"No!" Foggy said. "I'm your best friend, asshole. I'm not letting you kill yourself."

Matt closed his eyes. The pain in his abdomen was swelling again; he swallowed it down. "I'm not going to ask again."

Foggy crossed his arms and set his feet. Matt, irritation and adrenaline fighting for control within him, slammed his arm into Foggy's chest and pinned him to the wall.

"I'm going." And he stepped past him.

Karen grabbed his arm. "Matt. Don't."

Matt chewed on the inside of his cheek. The pain in his stomach was getting worse; hotter, louder, more urgent. He needed to punch something. To split skin, knuckle to bone, to let his heartbeat pound the blood and anger through his body. To fill himself with hot, animate, wild fury—the sensation of rage—the sensation of living.

"They could have killed you," he said softly. "I lost focus. I let the danger in. That can't happen again." He pulled his arm out of Karen's grasp. "This ends tonight."

He began to move down the stairs, but Karen ran after him. She grabbed his shoulders and violently twisted him around. Then she pressed her lips into his. Sensation exploded across his skin; his 'world on fire' so vivid, so bright, so real, that for a moment it was almost like he could see her.

"Please don't go."

Matt pulled away. He adjusted his glasses and tamped down the fiery pain in his abdomen. "I love you, Karen. You too, Foggy. I'll see you."

And he walked down the stairs an out of the building, unfolding his cane and tapping his way along the street. Heading resolutely in the direction of Fisk Tower.

#####

Ned's front door opened before Peter had even pulled out today's gift. Head buried in his bag, digging through it, he gave a halfhearted wave. "Hey, Ned. I've got, uh, tickets to the New York Crime Museum and a sunflower I picked on the way over here. Could you give these to MJ for me?" He grabbed the gifts and finally looked up.

MJ was standing behind the door.

Peter dropped everything to the pavement; flushing red, he scrambled to pick them up.

"MJ! I didn't see you! I—" He nervously ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. "I'm really sorry. Really, really sorry. I know how much the Spider-man thing meant to you, and—"

"Stop talking," she said. Peter snapped his mouth shut.

She leaned against the doorframe, frowning a little, curly strands of hair brushing down across her face. The remnants of a black eye were yellowing at the corner of her brow, and her wrist was still encased in a sling. Peter felt sick to his stomach.

"I just..." Her face softened a little. "I don't like not talking to you."

Peter swallowed. "Me neither."

"I mean, I'm mad as hell, but... I don't know." She moved her foot a little, like she was thinking of stepping out onto the porch. "Maybe we could go for a walk or something. I've been thinking about it, and... I know you wouldn't keep that secret unless you had a good reason. Maybe you can tell me that reason now."

Peter opened his mouth, then closed it again. He bit the corner of his lip. "MJ... it's hard to explain. I don't..."

She moved out onto the porch and latched the door shut behind her.

"Let's walk," she said, and stepped past him. Peter, heart beating a samba in his chest, shoved the gifts back into his bag and scrambled to catch up with her.

The streets were quiet, save for the martial squads patrolling up and down. Their menacing figures cast long black shadows over the brownstones in the evening light. As Peter and MJ walked past, a soldier gave them a suspicious glare. Peter did his best to ignore him. It was only 7:00; there were still another two hours until curfew.

The sun, lowering but not yet setting, cast a pale yellow glow over MJ's face. Her bruise shone in even sharper relief. Her curls caught the autumn breeze and splayed behind her slightly. Peter wanted to gather them up, to cradle her face, to look into her soft eyes and tell her everything. Everything. More than he'd ever wanted anything in his life—he wanted MJ to be a part of it again. Completely. Openly. Awake to all that came before. 

"Peter..." she paused for a minute. Her hand was dangling at her side. Peter had the crazed urge to pick it up, but he felt that might be pushing it a little. "I really like you. Like, I really, really like you."

"I do too—"

"But I'm just—I'm so—" she sighed. "The entire time we've been together, there's been something weird about you. You're so familiar to me, somehow.... but you're so secretive."

"I don't mean to be." The lie oozed like tar in his throat.

MJ stopped walking and turned to look at him. "And then there's the Spider-man stuff. Every time it comes up, you deflect or change the subject. You're so... uncomfortable about it. And then with the train thing? You got in contact with him so fast. I've been thinking about it a lot. It's almost like..."

Peter held his breath. 

"It's almost like..." And she studied his face, like she was searching it for some clue, written in freckles across his skin.

"What are you saying?" Peter breathed. She couldn't know. She couldn't. There was no way she had guessed it again.

"I think Spider-man is one of your coworkers," she said finally.

Peter blinked. "Um... what?"

She shrugged. "Definitely not Foggy. Either Matt or Karen. I mean, probably not Karen... but maybe she uses a voice modulator or something to make her sound like a dude."

"Uh..."

MJ crossed her arms. "I worked with you in that office for a little while, remember? When you took Dex's case? I saw the way they act. They're so suspicious, and crazy secretive—and they're heavily involved with all the Fisk and Bullseye stuff. There's just too many coincidences around them." She raised her eyebrows, like she was daring him to contradict her. "I think you know all about it, and that's why you lied to me. It's just too close to home."

Peter took a minute to process this.

"Um. Well. I mean... Matt's blind. So..."

"And Spider-man can stick to walls. Weird shit happens, Peter."

He opened his mouth to respond, but MJ shook her head. Then, closing her eyes as though she was working through something in her head—as though she was making a decision about something—she picked up his hand. Peter shivered at her touch.

"You don't have to tell me," she said quietly. Her hand was so warm. "I... I trust you, Peter. And if, someday, Spider-man is cool with it, maybe he can help me figure out why my memory is so... I mean, why I'm so..."

Peter's heart twisted like a towel being wrung out. He took a step closer. "MJ... I..."

He wasn't sure what he was going to tell her. Maybe nothing. Maybe all of it. About Spider-man, his past life, his love for her. About the world, and the ways he changed it for her, the ways he would change it again; the monsters he'd fight, the buildings he'd lift, the danger and the nightmare and the fears he'd destroy, just to get a glimpse of her smile, just to know she was safe.

His phone rang in his pocket. He ignored it.

"MJ, I... I want to..."

It continued to ring, buzzing incessantly against his leg. 

"It's okay, you can answer it," MJ said, half-smiling.

Screaming internally, wanting to chuck the phone into the Hudson, he fished it out of his pocket. "I'm sorry—really sorry—give me just a second."

It was Karen.

"Peter! Where are you?"

"I'm with MJ," Peter said, glancing at her. "We're, uh... we're talking."

"You're—she's talking to you again? Peter, that's fantastic! What did she—" Karen paused. "There's no time. Peter, listen to me. A bunch of Russian mobsters shot up the office."

Peter immediately tensed, acutely aware of the red and blue spandex clinging to his skin, hidden under his clothes. "Oh shit—is everyone okay?"

"Well. More or less." Karen paused. "Matt is, uh... he's really angry."

"What else is new?" Peter muttered. "Listen, I'm coming over—"

There was another voice on Karen's end: Foggy, yelling in the background. "Tell Peter under no circumstances is he to come into the office! It's dangerous."

Karen sighed deeply. "Foggy says stay away and stay safe."

MJ was looking at him curiously, a thoughtful frown curling like ivy at the corner of her lips. Peter tried to ignore this.

"Are you telling me that, though? Or do you want, like... some help?"

Karen paused for a minute. "The latter. Matt is, uh—" she sighed. "I'll explain in a bit. Just..."

"I'll hurry," Peter said. The nerve endings throughout his body were tingling, hyper-aware, ready to spring into some kind of action. He hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. Then he turned back to MJ.

"MJ, this is awful, awful timing—but there was an emergency at work. I have to go in."

"What happened?" 

Peter shook his head. "I don't really know—"

"You asked if everyone was okay. Did something happen? Something dangerous?"

"Everything's dangerous these days," Peter said. He took a long breath. Of course this would happen to him; the first time MJ talks to him in days, and she's ready to move past Peter's stupid mistakes—and Peter has to go be Spider-man again. "I'll know more when I get there. Could I get a rain check? Please?"

MJ cocked her head. "Something bad happened. I'm coming with you."

And she zipped past him into the streets, raising a hand out. Peter followed her. "No! MJ, you can't come. It's—I don't know what's going on—"

"I'm worried about them too," MJ said. A yellow taxi pulled up to the curb. "I worked with you guys for a while; they're kind of my friends. We can go help them together. After you, Peter," she said, opening the door. When Peter didn't move, MJ sighed and slid into the car. "Or, I can just go by myself, and you can walk."

Damn it. Damn, damn, damn it. Peter sucked his lips into his teeth and looked up into the sky. He wondered how hard it would be to fling himself into the sun.

Still... from what Karen said, it sounded like the shooting was over, and everyone was safe. They just needed help picking up the pieces. MJ wouldn't be in danger, not really; and even if she was... 

Who better to protect her than Spider-man?

Peter stepped into the cab and slammed the door behind him. After a moment's hesitation, MJ grabbed Peter's hand. His heart pounded so loudly he was sure Matt could hear it, wherever he was.

The taxi pulled away from the curb and headed for Hell's Kitchen.

Chapter Text

Outside Fisk Tower, Matt closed his eyes and placed his hand against the glass of the building. He could hear the vibration of energy thrumming throughout the structure—the power of the arc reactor Tony Stark had left behind. He could sense dozens of cameras scattered through the tower, armed guards patrolling halls on each floor, display screens and scanners and high-tech processors. The entire building was a technological wonder.

It was a fortress.

The steel front doors were sealed tightly shut; Matt could sense heavy hydraulics behind them, protecting the tower's occupants from intruders. Enemies. People like him. He felt around the wall for a button and pressed it.

"Your name, sir," said a neutral female voice. It was designed to sound incredibly realistic, but Matt could hear the barest hint of computerization behind it. This must be an AI, another piece of Stark's legacy that Wilson Fisk was defiling.

"Matthew Murdock," he said.

"And your business, sir?"

"I'm one of Marci Stahl's campaign lawyers," Matt said. Her campaign had been public now for a full week; the city had talked of little else. The Kingpin was fuming, no doubt. "I want to talk to Fisk."

"Did you mean 'Mayor Wilson Fisk'?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I need more specific confirmation."

Matt clenched his fists tighter around his cane. "I am here to speak with Mayor Fisk."

There was a brief pause. No doubt the AI was scouring the internet for any records on Matt, or perhaps asking Fisk for permission to let him inside. There was no way he was getting in this way. He had half a mind to turn back and get Peter, recruit him into swinging Matt up to Fisk's penthouse.

"Of course, sir," the AI finally said. Matt tilted his head, surprised. There was a low humming as heavy gears shifted behind the doors, accompanied by the hissing of hydraulics. Finally the front door slid open. "Please enter."

Matt slowly stepped into the lobby.

It shouldn't have been so easy. Apprehension began to creep across his skin. It was almost as though someone knew Matt was coming; like someone was preparing the way for him. This was all wrong. Fisk was living in a mechanized stronghold—and his worst enemy was waltzing right in.

"Mayor Fisk is in the penthouse," the voice said. Matt frowned. Usually he could pinpoint exactly who was speaking to him, could get a good read on them. Not with the AI; the disembodied voice was wrong, somehow. Ghostlike. "He will be available shortly. Would you like to wait for him in the lobby?"

Matt ran his tongue over his bottom lip, itching to knot the Muay Thai ropes he had hidden in his pockets. "You're giving me a choice?"

"Of course, sir. The Fisk administration has nothing but respect for his opponent and her legal counsel. If you prefer, I can arrange for you to be taken up to the penthouse."

"That easy, huh?" Matt muttered.

"My files indicate that you may require extra accommodation. Would you like for me to call a guide?"

So the AI was working off public knowledge, then; operating under the assumption that Matt was an ordinary blind man. He wondered why Fisk hadn't programmed it to be aware of Matt's secret identity. For that matter, he didn't know why the building wasn't programmed to detain him on sight. "No. I don't need help."

"Are you certain, sir?"

Matt swallowed down his irritation and breathed deeply. He gathered up his focus and held it close for a moment, walling off the rest of the world—then he released it, allowing waves of sensory input to flood his brain. He concentrated on the walls around him, the ceiling, the dozens of floors above him. Fisk had people everywhere; employees, assistants, guards... Russian mobsters too, probably. And somewhere in the tangle of heartbeats, far above him, Wilson and Vanessa were waiting.

"Do you have a name?" Matt asked, mostly to fill the emptiness as he listened for the heartbeats.

"I am J.O.C.A.S.T.A., the AI system operating Fisk Tower."

"Right," Matt said. There were seven cameras in this room at least; he wouldn't be able to suit up. Not yet. "Does Fisk know I'm here?"

"He does not. Would you like me to inform him of your presence?"

"No," Matt said. He had no idea if J.O.C.A.S.T.A. was lying, not without a heartbeat. "I'll go talk to him myself." There was a stairwell just in front of him, hidden behind another tightly sealed door. Next to it was a retinal scanner and a card swiper. "Just open the door to the stairwell."

"I'm afraid that's impossible, sir; the staircase is closed."

"It's closed?" Matt said.

"The Fisks are redecorating their penthouse. The stairwell is off limits for anyone except the movers at this time." There was a small pause. "Perhaps you'd like an elevator?"

This was wrong. This was all wrong. The fortress was welcoming him with open arms. He hesitated. Maybe he should leave—come up with a better plan, return another day... but he couldn't. Karen and Foggy were nearly killed today, and tomorrow it might happen again; they wouldn't be safe, not until Fisk was taken care of.

"I... yeah. An elevator would be great."

"Right away, sir."

Immediately the elevator shaft in front of him began to hum. He set his cane firmly on the floor, twisting his fists around it. "Redecorating, huh?" Matt scoffed. "He doesn't have anything better to do?" 

"Mayor Fisk recently acquired a number of new paintings. He and the First Lady plan to curate the largest private art collection in the city."

Of course. He'd almost forgotten about the Kingpin's strange affinity for art. Matt first met Fisk in an art gallery, curated by Vanessa before they'd been married. Vanessa had tried to sell Matt a painting; she'd led him around the space, described the paintings to him in striking detail. She'd been gentle. Witty. Compassionate. A far cry from the woman who'd ordered a hit on Ray Nadeem.

Matt angled his head up toward the elevator shaft. Something was wrong. Rather than moving down toward the ground floor, the elevator was going up; far, far up into the skyscraper. He put his hand on the wall, feeling the vibrations and the tension in the cable. 

It stopped fifty floors above him, and two men stepped on.

Matt frowned and sharpened his focus, isolating the figures from the tangled web of sensation around him. The elevator began moving down again, and the men began speaking.

"Boss says to rough him up if we can, then bring him up to the penthouse."

"If we can?" One of the men snorted. "It's a blind guy, Roy. Come on."

Matt whirled around and began tapping toward the front door. He couldn't fight them; not now, not without a way to suit up. He'd been so stupid to come here. So impulsive. So irrational. He needed to retreat, come up with a better plan—

There was a loud hiss, and the hydraulics suddenly sealed the front door shut. Matt could hear the heavy gears inside the wall locking solidly into place.

He cursed. "Let me out. Now."

"Sorry, sir, but Fisk Tower is now in lockdown," J.O.C.A.S.T.A. said. "My programming prohibits me from opening the door."

Shit. Shit. Matt took a few deep breaths, bracing himself for a fight, trying to swallow down the insistent pain in his abdomen. It was about to get a lot worse. He angled his head back upward, focusing once more on the conversation as the elevator came closer and closer.

"It's just the order," the other man said; Roy, presumably. "Again—beat him, send him to the penthouse."

"That doesn't make sense. If we're protecting Mayor Fisk, why does the boss want us to send this guy up?"

"I don't know, Barry. I don't give the orders. We thrash him, we send him up."

They knew he was blind; they were expecting his civilian persona. There was nothing he could do to hide his identity; when the fight came, it would come to mild-mannered, blind lawyer Matt Murdock.

He clutched his cane tighter as the elevator came to a halt on the ground floor.

"Will you be needing anything else, Mr. Murdock?" J.O.C.A.S.T.A asked. Matt ignored her.

One of the men—Barry, by the sound of his heartbeat—stepped out of the elevator and firmly grasped Matt's elbow. "We're here to guide you to the penthouse," he said. "Disability accommodation is very important to the Fisk administration."

Matt clenched his jaw and let Barry lead him.

Once inside, the elevator hummed and began its steady climb upward. Matt took inventory of the men trapped with him. Their hearts were quick, their adrenaline spiked slightly; they were wearing heavy, protective clothing—almost like riot gear. Each of them carried a dense metal nightstick.

After only a few seconds, Roy reached out and hit the emergency stop button on the elevator. No alarm sounded.

The elevator's security camera suddenly shut off.

Behind Matt, Barry raised his nightstick high. Matt closed his eyes and folded up his cane. "A lot of money in beating up blind men?"

Barry's nightstick froze in midair. "I—what?"

Matt snorted derisively. Then, without turning around, he flung his hand behind him and broke Barry's nose with his cane.

Chaos ensued. Roy tried to jump on top of him; Matt let himself fall to the floor and kicked upward. Roy's head smacked up and dented the metal wall. He let out a shriek of pain and desperately kicked at Matt. 

His foot connected hard with Matt's abdomen. Matt doubled over, gasping in pain.

Sensing an opening, Barry lunged at Matt, splitting his lip open with the nightstick. The hot blood oozed between Matt's lips; he licked at it, then caught hold of Barry's collar and used it to pull himself to his feet. Then he punched him in the jaw—dislocating it. 

"They—they said you were blind—" Roy said. Matt snatched his nightstick away and swung it sharply, thrashing it into Roy's soft belly. The man groaned and clutched at his stomach.

The tiny space quickly filled with heat, with noise, with the smothering smell of blood. Matt let himself get lost in it, relying on instincts and training. He was awash in the flailing of fists, of arms; adrift in the thud of knuckle connecting with flesh, the crack of his cane against their skulls. His cane pinned throats to the walls. His fists split upon their teeth. He was a whirlwind, a numberless concord of Devils.

Still, he was slowing down significantly. He shouldn't have been fighting at all. He had several boxer's fractures in his hands from his encounter with Dex. His abdomen, sutures already ripped, screamed at him, begging him to stop. To rest. Voices of apprehension and dread grew louder. He shouldn't have come—Karen and Foggy were right—

But it was too late. J.O.C.A.S.T.A. had locked down the building; there was nothing for Matt to do but fight. These men were merely the warmup, the guardians outside the gate, stripping away his energy and his skill until he would be forced to face Wilson Fisk weakened and sluggish.

Roy and Barry tore themselves away from his flailing fists; panting, bleeding, joints dislocated and bones fractured, they braced themselves on opposite sides of Matt. After a moment, nodding at each other, they rushed him.

Exhausted, Matt leapt out of the way and grabbed the backs of their heads. He smacked their skulls together.

They dropped to the floor, out cold.

Matt slumped back against the wall and gave himself a minute to breathe. He allowed the pain—the bruises across his face, his ribs, the fractures in his hands, the searing gash in his abdomen—to flood his brain for a moment. He gritted his teeth and allowed the discomfort to speak to him. It pushed him. It called him.

He swallowed it back down and stood up.

He shed his suit and tie, the cloth dropping with a soft thump next to the unconscious bodies of Fisk's cronies, revealing his Daredevil suit underneath. He tore off his glasses and dropped his cane. Finally, he pulled the Muay Thai ropes from the pockets of his work pants and slowly began tying them around his knuckles.

As he wove the ropes between his fingers, Matt pushed his senses outward, letting them wind up along the elevator shaft; he ignored the dozens of heartbeats, the whining of electricity, the various sounds and smells and tastes permeating the tower. He sharpened his focus until he had isolated one room, dozens of floors above him. 

The penthouse.

He craned his neck toward it, feeling the beginnings of primal rage growling in the base of his stomach. He looped a rope around his thumb.

The room sounded enormous, the Fisks' voices echoing strangely around what seemed to be a cavernous circular room. Vanessa was moving briskly about the space, hanging paintings on the walls. Fisk was following her like a lovesick puppy. They spoke softly about the symbolism of the art, the color theory, the brushwork and the form and the symmetry.

And as they hung the artwork, they were listening to The Daily Bugle. He could hear voices he recognized; not J. Jonah Jameson, but some of the other contributors. It sounded like the political pundits they had on from time to time; they were discussing the mayoral election. Matt's blood ran hotter as he twisted a cruel knot over a knuckle.

"Of course, we've all heard Marci Stahl's ridiculous accusations. It's unconscionable, to use the fear in this city to try and oust Mayor Fisk."

"Absolutely! What is she? An elitist lawyer, completely inexperienced, trying to make a quick buck exploiting all the crime and violence. Do we have a clip, Betty?"

More blood trickled down from Matt's nose, oozed from his abdomen, as Marci's voice began echoing around the Fisks' penthouse.

"Some of us still remember who Wilson Fisk really is," she was saying. It was a clip taken from her announcement speech a week ago. Karen had written it for her. "Five separate RICO counts, on top of a mountain of blackmail, intimidation, and murder. Is this who we want leading our city?"

Matt cracked his knuckles, pushing his fists into his palms to adjust the ropes. He rolled his neck until it popped. And finally, he hit the emergency stop button again. 

The elevator shuddered and began its ascent once more.

Marci's voice grew louder."We've lived through alien invasions and half the population disappearing. And are we now going to let a has-been mobster destroy what we've been working so hard to rebuild?"

Matt pulled his mask from his pocket and carefully slid it over his face.

"He's built an empire on fear and corruption—and now he's waging a silent war on the citizens of New York. We're not going to sit here and take it. It's time to reclaim our city!"

Matt widened his stance as the elevator came to a slow stop. Fisk and Vanessa were standing quietly together in front of a painting on the wall, arm in arm, whispering softly to each other. 

The elevator doors opened directly into the penthouse. Fisk and Vanessa started at the sound and whirled around.

"You!" Fisk said, his voice low. Primal.

Matt took a step forward; as he did, he stepped on his glasses. The red glass cracked under his feet.

"Me."

#####

Peter led MJ into the office, and was immediately overcome with the smell of falling plaster dust and gunpowder. The far window was broken, the glass shards on the floor reflecting the fading light outside. 

Foggy looked up at the two of them and scowled. He dropped a dustpan full of plaster and broken glass, and pushed past them to lock the door. "Can't believe we left this open. And you!" He pointed at Peter. "I thought Karen told you to stay home. It's dangerous here."

"Looks to me like the danger's pretty much over," MJ said. Foggy gave her a wave, still looking irritated that they had come. Karen, meanwhile, walked forward and gave MJ a quick hug, carefully avoiding her broken wrist.

"It's good to see you," she said. "We've missed having you around the office."

MJ gave her a quick smile, then stepped past her to examine the broken window. Karen raised her eyebrows at Peter, the ghost of a smile on her lips, glancing back and forth between him and MJ. 

Peter ducked his head and bit back a grin. 

"No police or militia," MJ said, peering out the window. "What a surprise."

Foggy sighed. "We're pretty sure Fisk cleared the streets."

MJ gave Peter a meaningful look. "Yeah. Seems like Fisk hates everyone in this office. Like—really hates you guys."

Karen's eyes widened behind MJ. She mouthed "Does she know about Matt?" and Peter frantically shook his head.

Sweeping some of the glass off the windowsill, MJ bent out a little further to get a better look. "So they shot from down on the street? Makes sense, given how high the bullet holes are."

Karen mouthed, "Does she know about you?" and Peter shook his head again. 

"That's what we were thinking," Foggy said. "Matt actually track—uh..." he cleared his throat. "We sent him out to find the police."

MJ raised an eyebrow at Peter. He flushed red and pretended he hadn't seen. It was going to be a Herculean task, getting her to let go of this "Matt Murdock is Spider-man" theory.

She straightened and began to walk back toward Peter—and suddenly slipped on a piece of broken glass on the floor. She tumbled backward, careening toward the window and the open night air—

Peter leapt for her and caught her as she was halfway out the window.

"Holy shit," she whispered. Peter brought her back in carefully; she was breathless, shaking a little, staring at Peter with an expression he couldn't quite read.

"Are you okay?" Karen said. She and Foggy rushed over. MJ nodded, still staring inscrutably at Peter. Peter coughed uncomfortably and moved across the room, grabbing a mug from the kitchenette and filling it with water just so he'd look busy.

Foggy whistled low. "Damn. He sprung into action like a superhero. Crazy reflexes on that kid." He fussed over MJ for a minute, checking for any broken glass, any cuts or bruises. "Geez, you just can't catch a break lately. MIT, the train... you've got some crazy bad luck."

"I'm not too happy about it," MJ said, finally tearing her gaze away from Peter. 

As Foggy and MJ chatted, Karen crossed the room to meet Peter in the kitchenette. As soon as she was within reach, Peter caught her arm and dropped his voice to a whisper.

"Where's Matt?"

Karen bit her lip, glancing behind her at Foggy and MJ. "He needs your help, Peter. He went—he—he went to fight Fisk."

Peter dropped his mug, and scrambled to pick it up.

"What? Is he stupid?"

Karen shook her head. "He's... he's angry. Irrational. I haven't seen him like this in a long time."

"Picking a fight with Fisk!" Peter shook his head, already slipping on his web shooters inside his pocket. "I mean, that's a stupid idea on a good day—and Matt practically got cut in half last week! He couldn't take a mugger right now, let alone the Kingpin."

Karen nodded. "I hate to ask—I mean, you have so much going on, and Matt's not your responsibility... but..." She sighed. "You're the only one who can help."

"I can't fight Fisk," Peter said. "Not without a real plan. But I can get Matt out of there."

"Right," Karen said. "Knock him out if you have to, web him up, just... just bring him home."

Peter shook his head in disbelief. Saintly Matt, cautious Matt, rational lawyer Matt Murdock, picking a fight with Wilson Fisk? If he lived, Peter would never let him hear the end of it. He felt for the mask in his pocket. "Matt never gets to yell at me about anything ever again," he muttered. Then he glanced back at MJ. "Make some excuse for me—tell them you sent me out for spackle or something. I'll head out right—"

The hairs on his arms suddenly rose.

His tingly sense ran across his body, like icy fingers drawing figure eights on his skin. It was warning him. Whispering to him. Karen opened her mouth to say something, but Peter turned away, frowning—laser-focused on the strange foreboding pulsing through his body.

"Peter?"

"Something's wrong," he whispered. "Karen—you have to leave. Get Foggy and MJ out of here." 

He was already moving, taking slow steps out into the main office, trying to follow the sense all the way to its source. His web shooters were securely on his wrists, and he had his fingers over the triggers; ready to spring into action the moment danger arrived.

There was a sharp bang at the door, then another. And another. And finally the door splintered. It flew off its hinges. It fell to the dusty office carpet.

A black-clad figure stood in the doorway.

He was wearing tactical gear, spray-painted a deep charcoal; heavy duty Kevlar, protective gloves, army boots. On his head was a cowl that covered the top half of his face. There were two tiny nubs at the front, unevenly ground down in an attempt to flatten them. And painted over the forehead was a silver target. A bullseye.

"Hello, Karen," Benjamin Poindexter said. He smiled crookedly. "It's nice to see you again."

He stepped over the splintered door into the office and looked around himself, unperturbed. Peter's tingle was screaming now; screaming that Karen was in danger. That they all were, of course... but Karen most of all.

Dex glanced at the shattered window and the bullet holes on the wall above him. He didn't look surprised. After a moment, he clicked his tongue sympathetically. "You got shot up," he said. "That's hard. That's real hard."

"Karen, get behind me," Peter said. But Karen didn't seem to be listening.

"That's Daredevil's old suit," she said. "Where did you get that?"

Dex ignored her. He kicked a splintered piece of door out of the way. "We've met in an office before, if my memory serves me right. Which it doesn't, of course." There were two batons in the holster on his leg; he pulled out one of them, spray-painted black like the rest of the suit, and tossed it up and down lazily. "But I've read the file."

"Where did you get the suit?"

It was Foggy speaking this time. He was standing in front of MJ, his arms spread wide as he tried to shield her. Peter wanted to take a few steps closer, to protect both of them—but his tingle was still crying out. Karen's in danger. She's in danger.

"A gift from my employer," Dex said, glancing at Foggy. He looked annoyed to be driven from his goal. "Made a few adjustments." And he turned back to Karen. "Like I said. It's nice to see you again."

Foggy was mouthing at Peter. "Go out the window. I'll protect Karen."

Peter mouthed back, "Take MJ and go—please—"

"Not without you—"

"Foggy—go—go now—"

Without warning, a piece of the splintered door hurled through the air and embedded itself in Peter's arm. He whirled around; Dex's arm was still outstretched from the throw, a smile spreading across his face. "Sorry to interrupt your little chat," he said. "But I've got business here, and I'd like a captive audience."

"Peter!" MJ gasped. Peter pulled the wood out of his arm, barely registering any pain. He had to try and distract Dex somehow, to overpower him, give the others enough time to escape—

"My employer was very clear," Dex said. "Kill Karen Page, and Nelson after. Both of you are on the list. But Karen here is the priority." He glanced at Peter and MJ. "No one else was supposed to be here... but I'm not planning on leaving any witnesses."

He was toying with them. He could have killed all of them easily within the first five seconds of entering the office—but he seemed to be finding some sort of bored amusement in the cat-and-mouse game.

That... or he was waiting for something.

"Your employer?" Karen said. "Fisk?" Her voice was shaking, but there was a steady determination behind it.

Dex scoffed and turned fully to face Karen. "Fisk. Please. What does he need me for? He's got the city in the palm of his hand."

Karen. Protect Karen. She's in danger. Peter's tingle was like an emergency alarm, sounding off unceasingly in his brain. He shifted a few feet to the left, trying to shield Karen. And as he did, he glanced up and across the room.

MJ, out of Dex's line of sight, was feeling around Foggy's desk. Peter's eyes widened. He couldn't mouth anything at her, couldn't signal, without Dex seeing. He watched in horror as MJ picked up a pair of scissors and drew her am back, preparing to throw. 

Foggy hadn't noticed either, determination etched across his face as he tried to inch closer to Dex—as he tried to sneak up behind him, a heavy vase in his hand.

Stupid! Stupid! Why was everyone in this office so stupid? Dex was wearing a bulletproof suit. Nothing was going to hurt him. Unless... they were only trying to distract him. Trying to put themselves in harm's way, to give Karen a chance to escape.

"You enjoy being a puppet, Dex?" Karen shook her head, disgusted. "Let me guess. Your 'employer' promised you something, right?"

Dex cocked his head and took a step closer to her. Both Peter and Karen took a step back; Dex laughed a little and patted the baton in the palm of his gloves. "And what if they did?"

"Something about Julie?" Karen prodded. Dex's face dropped suddenly, so fast it was like someone had flipped a switch in his brain. His smile changed to an enraged, ugly sneer. "You still don't know what happened to her, and they promised to tell you. So you can get revenge. Am I right?"

Foggy was edging ever closer to Dex. MJ was steadying her hand, closing one eye to get a better aim.

"Take her name out of your mouth," Dex said.

Karen took a long, shaky breath. "Fisk killed her, Dex. I think you know that." Dex snarled, and she took a step forward. "And you helped put him in office."

"You're lying," Dex said. His voice was low, raspy, more growl than verbiage. 

MJ caught Peter's eye. "Get ready to run," she mouthed. He tried to shake his head without Dex noticing—but MJ ignored him. She screwed up her face, clenched her fists, and threw the scissors straight at Dex's back. 

They fell off him uselessly and clattered to the ground; however, the throw had done its job. Dex snarled and moved away from Karen, whirling around to look at MJ.

Peter's sense was suddenly a deafening roar. Without even thinking, he raised his arm, fingers on the trigger of his web shooter.

Dex hurled the baton.

Peter shot a web.

The web connected with MJ's torso and whipped her out of the way, a millisecond before the steel baton whistled through the air and buried itself into the wall—right where MJ's head had just been.

The web yanked MJ all the way into Peter's arms, and a shocked silence fell over the office.

"Holy shit," Foggy said. He dropped the vase and it shattered. "You're Spider-man."

#####

Matt took a few steps into the office. "We had a deal, Fisk."

Fisk turned to his wife, panicked. "Go—Vanessa, go, please—hide—"

"Not without you, Wilson—"

Matt cracked his knuckles as he took another step forward. The penthouse was enormous, almost obscenely extravagant. Fisk and Vanessa were in the upper area of the space; then there were seven or eight steps that led down into a den, toward what seemed to be windows overlooking the city. The entire space was filled with heavy sculptures and hanging paintings. Sharp chandeliers. Sofas and tables. Matt took stock of it all; they were obstacles to avoid, tools to use. "We had a deal," he said again.

The news was still on, though Matt couldn't sense a television; no doubt it was playing on some sort of futuristic technology Tony Stark had developed, something belonging more on Star Trek than in the hands of a murderous mobster.

"Vanessa! Go! I'll be with you soon."

Vanessa, her heart pounding, took one long last look at her husband, then ran to a staircase at the back of the room. Matt heard her scurrying down, heard her come to a stop several floors below. He turned his full attention on Fisk.

"How did you get in here?" Fisk said. A muscle in his jaw was jumping. "How did you get past security?"

One of the pundits on the news cleared her throat. "Of course, Marci Stahl can talk all she wants—but she doesn't know what she's doing. Wilson Fisk, on the other hand? He's tougher on crime than any mayor we've had. He's making the city a safer place every moment he's in office."

"I just walked in," Matt said. He could feel blood forming a little trail down the skin of his stomach from his reopened wound. "A couple guards gave me some trouble in the elevator—but you didn't send them, did you?"

"Guards?" Fisk said. He took a step closer. Matt took two.

"I assume they're working for someone else," Matt said. His fists felt wonderfully heavy and powerful buried underneath the Muay Thai ropes.

Fisk froze. Matt could practically smell the unease, the anger, seeping off him at the mention of his mysterious benefactor. If they could even be called that. What kind of benefactor would send Matt up to Fisk's penthouse?

Then again, they had sent guards to rough him up first.

Matt put the mystery out of his head. There were more important matters at hand.

Fisk seemed to be thinking the same thing. "I haven't broken our deal," he said. Matt could sense the muscles across Fisk's face twitching, trembling. "I haven't touched Karen Page, or Franklin Nelson."

"Russian gunmen almost killed them today."

Fisk's heart sped up a little as he took this in. "A pity," he said, and the words were nightshade poison from his lips. "But I had nothing to do with it."

He was telling the truth... but Matt already knew that.

"You know who did it," Matt said. He took another step closer; he was within ten feet of Fisk now. "And you're going to tell me." 

Fisk took a long breath, shaking with barely-suppressed fury. "Of course I know who's behind it," he said finally. "But why would I tell you?"

Matt paused. Fisk's heart was beating unsteadily. He was lying.

"You really don't know," Matt said. He almost wanted to laugh. "You don't know. Someone's screwing up your whole life, and you don't even know who it is."

Another pundit began speaking. "Do we even know anything about Marci's policies? She says she's concerned with taking down corruption, but does she have a plan in place? Seems to me she wants to push Fisk out of office and then sit on her laurels."

"You're here because you want answers," Fisk said. He took a long breath, like he was trying to get himself under control. "I have none."

Matt was beginning to feel slightly dizzy from the pain and the blood loss. "No," he said, swallowing down his nausea. "I'm here to tell you to step down."

Fisk paused, and when he spoke again, there was a hint of a smile in his voice. "And why would I do that?"

Whoever was behind this—whoever got Fisk into office, who killed the mayor, who shot up Nelson and Murdock—Matt was powerless to stop them. But if Fisk stepped down, if Matt could cut off the power at the source... all this would be over. The mystery player would have no more pawns to move. There would be no game to play.

"Because I know Vanessa ordered the hit on Ray Nadeem," Matt said. 

Fisk's heart pounded, loud and steady as a beating hammer, his chest heaving up and down. Still, his voice remained calm. "And where is your evidence of that? Your source, the one Mr. Parker so helpfully made me aware of, is dead."

"He was murdered," Matt said. He could feel his pulse beating through the open flesh in his abdomen, the freshly-torn sutures searing like white-hot needles in his skin.

"A tragedy," Fisk said softly.

Blood ran like tears from Matt's broken nose; seeping into his lips, onto his tongue. Like pennies in his mouth, sour and hot and sickening. "You think Felix Manning was my only source?" he said.

Fisk froze.

"You're bluffing," he said, though he sounded unsure. Matt kept his face neutral. Years of detecting lies had taught him to hide one well.

"You're going to step down," Matt said. He began walking again, steadily moving toward Fisk. "Or I will personally make sure that Vanessa spends the rest of her life in a cage. She will never see daylight again."

Matt could hear Fisk's knuckles popping. He was still rooted to the spot, almost convulsing in pure agitation.

They were within inches of each other now. Matt craned his neck up until his face was terribly close to Fisk's. He closed his eyes and dropped his voice to a whisper. "She will never see you again."

Fisk flew at him.

Matt tried to dive out of the way, but he was a second too slow—Fisk launched at Matt and flung him to the floor. Kneeling atop him, he punched down. Hard. Matt's nose cracked. Fisk punched again. Again. And again.

Swinging desperately upward, Matt's fist connected with Fisk's jaw. The ropes dug deeply into the Kingpin's flesh. And, in the moment Fisk was distracted, Matt curled up and rolled out from underneath him.

He launched himself onto Fisk's back and pulled his head back, digging his fingers into his skin, relishing in the sound of knuckle on bone as he hit him. Over and over again, he hit him.

Somewhere in the background, the news continued to blare on. Matt was hardly aware of it. "And of course, despite the best efforts of Marci Stahl and her crackpot legal team, Mayor Fisk is doing a phenomenal job. In the week he's been in office, he's cracked down on crime. He's cracked down on violence."

Fisk flung Matt off him so fiercely that Matt flew into the wall.

His head cracked sickeningly against the stonework, and it was a long moment before Matt could stumble to his feet again. He was unsteady. He was slow. He was losing blood in his abdomen, fast.

Grunting, almost growling, Fisk came at him again. Matt ducked just in time and Fisk's fist connected with the stone wall. He could taste blood in the air as Fisk's skin broke open.

Summoning all his strength, Matt kicked him in the stomach. Fisk stumbled backward. His leg caught on the first stair going down and he tumbled all the way into the den below. Matt followed.

And suddenly Matt was on top of him, punching over and over—one hit after the other—like his arms were windmills, ever turning, ever connecting. The scraping sound of ropes across Fisk's skin was almost louder than his heartbeat. As flesh caught flesh, as Matt split Fisk's face open, he could feel hot blood spatter on his face, drawn from Fisk's cut lip and his broken nose.

Fisk punched upward into Matt's stomach.

A blinding flash of agony shot through his body, like an electric jolt. He screamed. He gasped. He almost froze—and yet—and yet—something in him delighted in it. Found purpose in it. Found drive.

Matt resumed his violent ministrations. The pain in his abdomen was searing upward like a fire as Matt punched him; three more sutures had broken open, and blood was trickling and spreading across his shirt like ink blots. The pain across his body was profound. It was almost profane. And yet... as he listened to the slap and thud of skin and bone, the tearing of rope in flesh... there was something beautiful in the agony. Something energizing. The pain was a vibrant sign of life, like a scarlet rose blossoming amid rows and rows of white.

He punched Fisk. Again. And again. And again. He punched until blood poured from his hands—until another bone in his fist fractured. At the sudden new burst of pain, Matt hesitated. And in that half-second, Fisk found leverage.

He swung both fists up into Matt's face.

The blow sent Matt reeling. He stumbled far back into the room and fell to his knees. His breathing was uneven, his heartbeat weaker than it should have been. His head was fuzzy; from the pain, from the adrenaline, Matt couldn't be sure.

He stood again, a little unsteady, and readied his fists.

"Step down," Matt said again. But Fisk didn't answer; only snarled and lunged. He slammed into Matt's body, and the two of them went through a table.

Sharp splinters of wood stabbed into Matt's side, but it was all negligible next to the icy surge of pain coming from his abdomen. Matt swallowed. Hard. He set his jaw. He did his best to do as Stick had taught him: to draw in his focus, place it consciously—to breathe through the pain, to let it fuel him—

But it hurt. It hurt.

Still in the ruins of the shattered table, Matt was powerless underneath Fisk's heavy fists. Over and over, Fisk slammed them into Matt's face—his torso—his stomach. Each blow was accompanied by an animalistic grunt. A gorilla, maybe. A bear. A wolf.

"You threatened Vanessa," Fisk said, his words short and chopped; like it was a struggle to get them out at all. He raised both fists above his head. Matt could sense them trembling, the extreme tension in Fisk's muscles. There was power behind those fists; power that could level an entire building, could crack Matt's skull open like a walnut. "I'm going—to kill you—"

And he suddenly stopped.

Matt listened for half a second. Fisk's chest was heaving, his breathing stuttered and heavy and panicked. His heart was louder than anything else in the room; overwhelming. Deafening.

He could kill Matt. He could do it.

But he wouldn't.

It was the stalemate. The imprisoning stalemate. Fisk wouldn't kill Matt now; not while Foggy and Karen were still alive. Not while there was a chance, however slim, that they might go after Vanessa in retaliation. Not while he believed, even a little, in Matt's bluff—that Nelson and Murdock had more evidence against Vanessa.

Fisk reached down and grasped Matt's shirt, lifting his torso slightly off the splintered table, shaking in a crazed furor of violent anger and icy calculation. He brought Matt's face close to his. "You'll stay away from Vanessa," he said. And his voice was suddenly deadly quiet. "Or I will kill Foggy Nelson. I will kill Karen Page. I will lay waste to your bleak life until there is nothing left for you to mourn."

He punched Matt in the jaw, and Matt felt it fracture.

"And I will incinerate Hell's Kitchen just to watch you burn."

None of it mattered. Karen and Foggy were already in danger; this mysterious third player made sure of that.

The agony across his body was a chorus of voices; a soft crooning, lulling him into a stupor. Fisk's knuckles crushed his bones, painted bruises across his skin. And the wound in his stomach was gushing blood, spreading across his body, onto Fisk's hands, seeping through the entire penthouse—his blood was oozing into the world, drowning it. He'd hoped it would save it—he'd hoped his blood could save it—Matt closed his eyes—

We're Murdocks. We get hit a lot. But we get up—we always get up. 

Foggy and Karen were in danger; from Fisk, from his benefactor...

Matt clenched his fractured jaw. With every ounce of strength he could muster, he punched forward, screaming—pushing Fisk away from him. Sending him stumbling across the room.

"This ends," Matt said. Yes. Let the Devil out. "This ends now."

#####

"Peter?" MJ said. Her eyes were wide—unnervingly wide—as she stared up at him. She caught his eye briefly, and then something in her face shifted. Her eyes unfocused slightly. She was staring more through him than at him. She was still frozen in his arms, the web fluid around her torso tangling in Peter's fingers, as stiff as though she were made of marble.

Her face slowly began to twist, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Like she was in pain. Like something in her head was bursting, aching, ready to jump out through her skull.

The entire office was deadly still for several long seconds. Dex was frowning, the black eyes of his mask glinting threateningly in the evening light. Foggy's jaw was dropped cartoonishly low. And Karen was looking between everyone in the office; planning, preparing.

MJ's body was rooted in place, but her face began moving wildly; her eyes moving back and forth, like she was watching a film play out somewhere no one else could see. Strange emotions flitted across her countenance, like flashes of colored lights reflecting off her skin.

"Peter...?" she whispered.

There was no time for this. No time at all. He looked desperately to Karen for help.

Karen nodded. She rushed forward and pulled MJ from Peter's arms, quickly pushing her behind herself.

The sudden movement seemed to shake Dex out of his state of shock. He pulled out his remaining baton and smacked it against his palm. Tap. Tap. Tap. The cold smile was back on his face, although it looked somewhat plastered on; and when he spoke, there was an edge of unease behind his voice. "I fought you once before, didn't I?" he said. He stepped forward; he seemed to have forgotten the others for a moment. Peter stepped into the middle of the room, trying to lure Dex farther away from the door. "At the courthouse. You and Daredevil."

"Yep, that's me," Peter said, glancing at Karen and MJ. Karen had her arms around her as they edged toward the door. Foggy was mirroring them on the other side of Dex, still gaping at Peter. "What do you think, buddy, wanna just talk it out? Settle this like adults?"

"Nice try," Dex said suddenly. Without turning around, he flung a splintered piece of the door in Karen's direction. She ducked, but only just in time; Peter could see it catching wisps of her hair as it whizzed over her head. "You guys aren't going anywhere."

Peter leapt across the room, anger surging inside him. He landed on Dex's chest and knocked him back to the floor. He punched him in the face—then again—

"Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep," Peter muttered.

Karen, Foggy, and MJ made for the door; with a panicked, angered cry, Dex flung Peter off him. He lunged for Peter's desk, found a ballpoint pen, and sent it whizzing for Karen's head.

Peter leapt over Dex and in front of Karen. The pen buried itself in his shoulder.

"Damn it! I have a job to do," Dex snarled. And he pushed past Peter, lunging for Karen and MJ, baton outstretched—

Peter caught Dex around the middle and rolled with him—rolled all the way to the wall of Karen's office, just next to the open door. 

"Go—all of you—run—" Peter said, grappling with Dex against the wall.

Dex clutched at Peter's face, clawing at him, reaching for his eyes. Peter jerked his head out of the way. He pulled Dex up by the kevlar chestplate of his suit, and, using all the strength he could muster, slammed Dex back into the wall.

The wall cracked—but Dex only laughed cruelly. Unaffected.

Matt's old suit. Damn. Very protective stuff. Peter swallowed, took a deep breath, and began punching Dex in the exposed half of his face; punching over and over again until his knuckles began to bleed. "Have you thought about therapy, Dex? It's great. Or maybe an anger management class?"

Dex was no longer smiling, but he still looked relatively unfazed. Behind them, Karen, Foggy, and MJ were creeping for the door. Peter could hear them, the panicked whispers, the shuffling footsteps—

Dex flailed for a moment, caught a piece of broken glass on the floor, and hurled it.

Peter knocked his arm away, throwing his aim off slightly—but the glass still found its target. Foggy gasped as the glass shard dug into his thigh. Dex reached for another piece of glass, throwing it before Peter could stop him—and this time it was Karen who was hit. The glass sliced deeply into her shoulder and she hissed in pain.

"All right," Peter said, punching him again. "You need a time out."

And, using all of his spider-enhanced strength, he shoved Dex into Karen's office and slammed the door behind him.

Peter barricaded himself against it—planting his feet on the carpet, bracing his hands on the doorframe. Behind the door, Dex screamed. There was a loud crash as he broke something. More crashes. More banging. Dex was throwing things around the office.

"Karen," Peter said, slightly breathless. Bang. Dex slammed into the door, and the wood vibrated against Peter's skin. Holding, but only just. "Get them out. I can handle this—" Bang.

Karen nodded resolutely. "Come on—let's go—"

MJ was staring at Peter still; staring at him as though she hadn't even noticed all the fighting. And now it was like the thoughts spinning through her head had stopped. Her eyes were bright, focused, trained on Peter's face—

Peter was hardly listening to them. If they could get onto the stairwell before Dex broke out of the room, then Peter could subdue him—or at least try. Dex's adamantium bones were stronger than Peter had anticipated. But he could buy them time; they could get to the safety of Foggy's apartment, perhaps, or Ned's house—

"We can't just leave him!" Foggy was saying. 

Bang. 

"He knows what he's doing," Karen said. She tried to push MJ toward the door, but MJ was still staring resolutely at Peter. Unmoving. Like she was nailed to the floor. Karen pushed harder. "Come on!"

"He's just a kid!" Foggy said. 

Bang. Pushing hard against the door with his back, Peter took a moment to tear off his shirt and tie, revealing the Spider-man suit underneath. Besides the aesthetic of it, the suit had a practical purpose; it was tight against his skin, completely smooth and uniform, with no way for Dex to grab it or get any leverage on him. Bang. Another scream. Dex sounded like he was foaming at the mouth.

"He's Spider-man!" Karen said. "MJ—we have to go—come on—"

"Peter...?" MJ said.

"Wait—you knew about this?" Foggy said, gaping at Karen. "You—you knew Peter's—"

Peter groaned. "We don't have time for this! Go!"

Bang. Bang. Bang.  The wood began to splinter.

MJ shook her head. Hard. Then she crossed the entire room in three steps. She grabbed Peter's head, cradling it in her hands, and stared deeply into his eyes.

"MJ—go—please—"

She kissed him.

There was something new in this kiss; in her face, in the urgency with which she held him. Something new... but something old, too. Something familiar. Something Peter hadn't felt from her since their kiss at the Statue of Liberty.

Bang. Splinter.  Dex screamed again; and yet, Peter could almost ignore it—could ignore the trembling of the door as Dex's body slammed against it, could ignore the pain from the wood and the pen Dex had thrown into his arm, could ignore everything in the feeling of MJ holding him close, something so passionate and urgent in her expression—

"Peter," she whispered. "Peter."

"You need to go," he said, trembling. 

"Peter. I remember."

"You need to—what?" 

His heart stuttered. His breath caught in his throat. His stomach filled suddenly with fluttering birds, cranes that flapped desperately inside him, rustling and squawking and thrashing so much he thought he might be sick. "What?"

"I remember, Peter." 

She ran her thumbs along his cheekbones. Her eyes, that had been so lost and confused and even frightened for the past few months, were sure. They were determined. They were knowing. 

They were shining with tears.

Bang. Bang. Bang.  A piece of the door broke away and fell to the ground.

"You... you remember? You remember me?"

"I remember," she said, laughing and crying at once. And she kissed him.

She remembered. She remembered. She might die today—they all might die today—New York might burn to the ground, the sky might crack open, the ground might crumble and flames might rise from the Earth's core—but she remembered. 

"MJ... I—I—you—"

Karen rushed forward and grabbed MJ's arm. "Later," she said. "We have to go."

And she dragged MJ behind her, pulling her out of the office and toward the stairwell. Foggy hesitated, looking conflicted at the thought of leaving Peter alone. "Are you—are you gonna be—"

"Go, Foggy!"

Foggy nodded and followed Karen out. 

And the second he left, the door to Karen's office gave. Peter fell to his knees as Dex burst through, pushing past Peter toward the exit—determined, driven, like a train on a track heading for Karen and Foggy.

Peter shot a web at Dex's ankle and yanked. Dex fell to the floor and Peter dragged him back.

"All right, buddy, use your big boy words. What's really going on with you, huh?"

Dex had a few new items in his suit now, in his holster and his pockets; projectiles he must have grabbed from Karen's office. Glass from a shattered photo frame. A deck of cards tied together with a rubber band.

And Karen's gun.

Now within reach, Dex swung heavily at Peter's face. He hit—hit hard—and Peter reeled. He could take a punch any day of the week; but Dex was strong, stronger than humanly possible. Damn adamantium. Peter did his best to shake it off. 

"You don't wanna talk? That's fine. How about we just—" Peter shot two blasts of web fluid, securing Dex's hands to the wall.

With a snarl, Dex ripped his hands away. Part of the wall came with it.

"Whoah," Peter said. He leapt up and onto the ceiling as Dex swung again with his plaster-covered fists. "I'm serious about the anger management classes, dude. I can help you set something up." And he dropped down onto Dex's shoulders, punching the sides of his head. If he could just hold him here long enough for Karen to get the others away—just a few moments longer—

Dex flung Peter off of him and cracked his knuckles.

There was a clatter and a muffled curse from the stairwell; it sounded like one of them had stumbled on their way down. 

Damn it—damn—

Dex's head jerked up at the sound. He and Peter stared at each other for a moment, hesitant, frozen...

Then he leapt out the window.

He was going for the front door, three stories below. He was going to head them off at the entrance and kill them in the stairwell.

Peter practically flew out of the office door, leaping for the stairs, landing on the wall over their heads. His friends were nearly at the bottom, Foggy and Karen shielding MJ from the front and behind, heading straight for the door. Peter dropped down onto the step in front of them.

"Stop! Go back—he's coming through the—"

The door opened.

Dex strolled in, his cold smile curled into something akin to a sneer. He pulled out the deck of cards from Karen's office and tore the rubber band, shuffling them in his hands. Peter got a good look at a couple of them. Someone had scribbled all over the cards with black marker. He caught a couple words: "EXTORTION." "RUSSIAN CONNECTION?" "UNION ALLIED."

"You're really starting to piss me off," Dex said.

Karen raised her eyebrows. "I see you found my gun," she said. She was shaking, but her voice was steady. "Won't do you any good. No bullets."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Dex said, still shuffling the cards. "I know what a loaded gun feels like. There's one bullet in here—for now."

"For now?"

Dex smiled. "It'll be in your pretty little skull in a minute."

Peter jumped toward him, hoping to wrestle him to the ground—give the others a chance to escape past them—but Dex was faster. He smiled cruelly and launched a shard of glass into Peter's chest, and another into his arm.

"Back upstairs!" Peter said.

Foggy began to pull MJ up the stairs, but Dex was too fast. He hurled his baton; it ricocheted off the railings and burst through the cord holding up the hanging light fixture. It came crashing down, blocking their way, the bulb exploding in minuscule shards of glass.

The baton landed on the floor. Peter lunged for it, but again, Dex beat him to the punch. He grabbed a card from the deck and flicked it—

It knifed through the air like a razor blade and sliced deeply through Peter's cheek.

Peter froze, horrified. A card. A playing card. Dex could kill them all with a deck of cards. He was so fast; so brutal, so calculating, his aim so precise. Peter could take him one on one, maybe, but while protecting three people?

Foggy, MJ, and Karen began running up the stairs again. Dex threw three cards in quick succession; one sliced across MJ's arm, one across Karen's brow. The last one sliced a thin, clean line across Foggy's neck. Not severing an artery; more like a bad paper cut. Not deep enough to kill.

But he could have. Dex could have killed them.

He was still playing with them.

"If you're gonna kill us, just do it," Peter said. He stood squarely in front of his friends, hands outstretched as far as they could go. They all backed slowly up the staircase, and Dex followed. "What are you waiting for? You have stage fright or something?"

Dex only smiled. And suddenly, a car pulled up outside. Peter could see its silhouette against the tinted window. He craned his head toward it, listening hard.

Someone slammed a car door and stepped out. They began speaking—it was a voice Peter recognized. One that made him want to puke, rip his hair out, punch someone; sour and unpleasant as curdled milk.

J. Jonah Jameson was right outside, along with an entourage of videographers and assistants. "Get ready, folks," he was saying. "We're going live in just a few minutes."

Peter was so focused on the news crew setting up outside, he forgot momentarily about Dex; but a prickly tingle across his skin brought him back to the fight. Peter looked up to see Dex's arm outstretched toward Karen, her gun in his palm, finger on the trigger.

Peter webbed it out of Dex's hand and sent it scattering on the floor next to the stairs. Then he launched himself at Dex, and the two of them stumbled backward, away from the others.

They wrestled for a moment; a frenzied, tangled web of fists and legs and elbows, adrenaline and sweat and kevlar and latex. Heavy breathing. Pounding hearts. Pain, instinct, brute force.

"Go!" Peter screamed, craning his neck to look back at his friends. "Run!"

"Get out of my way!" Dex said. And with a ferocity and speed almost inhuman, Dex flung his arm out toward Peter's head. His heavy steel baton whacked loudly against Peter's skull.

White flashed across Peter's eyes.

He flew back, landing on the wall at the base of the staircase. Distantly, he heard the cement crack. Blood was dripping from the side of his head, trickling down onto his neck. He tried to stumble to his feet—to move, to escape, to protect his friends—but his legs wobbled, and he fell to the floor.

No problem. It was no problem. He only needed a minute—he was just dizzy, disoriented—Dex was really strong, that was all. Just a minute and he'd be fighting again...

"You're making this harder than it needs to be," Dex said. "Spider-man... whoever you are. You're done."

He held the baton back behind his head. Peter weakly held up a hand to stop it—he just needed another minute—he closed his eyes—

Dex hurled the baton like a javelin, straight for Peter's head.

There was a sick thud, a squish, like a fork stabbing into raw meat. Someone groaned. Someone gasped. Peter screwed up his face, waiting for the pain to follow...

It didn't. 

Peter's eyes snapped open, and as they did, something heavy fell into his lap. Something warm, something making weak noises of pain.

Karen lay prone across Peter's knees, the black baton protruding like a flagpole from just below her sternum. 

"Karen..." He shook his head, willing the shock of Dex's blow to settle. "Karen... no... you're—Karen—"

She stirred slightly against him. Her breathing was faint, her mouth moving like she was trying to say something.

"No—no—Karen—"

He was vaguely aware of Dex staring at them, head tilted, smiling a little. Somewhere behind him, MJ's hands were over her mouth, Foggy was shaking hard—Foggy was bending down to the floor—he was reaching for something—

Dex took a couple steps closer. Peter gathered Karen up into his arms, tried to fold himself over her, to protect her, to form some sort of shield as she convulsed beneath him.

"Pe... P—Pet... ter..."

"Karen, no, please, not you—not you—I can't—"

Dex reached for the cards still tucked into his suit. He toyed with them for a moment, flicking through them, and settled on one he liked.

"Time to end this," he said. "The two of you first, then I'll finish off Nelson and the girl."