Matt hates magic.
It’s the one of the few things that his senses are completely useless against; magic doesn’t have a pulse, or a smell, or a surface to reverberate off of. If Foggy’s descriptions are any accurate—not that they help him—magic is sparkly and bright, and elaborate hand gestures that spell out floating symbols.
This one doesn’t sound very flashy, he thinks as he throws one of his batons. He barely has the time to duck down afterwards, plucking his baton out of the air because its trajectory has changed from flying forward towards the magic…wizard, whatever, to hurtling towards him.
Matt doesn’t understand why someone with magic would rob a register in Hell’s Kitchen. For all his years as Daredevil, this is his first encounter with it, and Matt certainly hopes it’s his last.
He can’t predict her movements; there isn’t much to sense when she disappears in one corner and appears out of the other. The only reason Matt’s still able to keep track of her is because she keeps yelling, the sound waves bouncing off the walls giving him a decent gauge of where she appears next.
Finally—after what seems like an eternity of tag, the tips of his fingers brushes against her collar and he’s able to latch on, pinning the girl down onto the concrete while grabbing the rucksack of cash from her hands. She’s thrashing against his grip, and as Matt finally pries the last ends of the bag from her fingers, he can feel the abrupt shift in the texture of the concrete beneath his knees.
“Get off me!” She yells. Matt barely has enough time to swear before the cold, harsh concrete melts into feather-like dust, and he starts falling into—
—Bang.
The gunshot cleaves through the fog in Matt’s mind. He shoots upright in his seat in an instant, the smell of gunpowder in the air and sirens he’s identified as police ones scream at him that something is wrong wrong wrong.
He doesn’t waste another second in leaving the apartment. The first ten, maybe twenty steps, Matt uses his cane to keep up the facade. Then he smells his father—the cheap cologne he buys from the drugstore that he always uses after matches, the smoke that clings to his hair and skin, and the faintest scent of detergent on his clothes that they picked out together when Matt told him, two weeks ago, that the previous one was too strong for his nose.
Matt starts running. He tries to ignore the smells of gunpowder and blood that clog up his nose and threaten to leave him hurling, trying to hone in on the sirens and chatter just a few more meters down. It’s too hard to tune out some scents and grasp on to others.
The police try to stop him, but Matt manages to slip past them anyway. Now that he’s closer, hunched up against his father’s soft clothes, the blood overpowers the cologne, the detergent, everything. Matt doesn't want to dwell on the fact that he now knows the difference between the smell of cigarette ash and gunpowder.
He reaches for his dad’s hands. They’re rough, calloused, little scabs and holes on the knuckles that show where he once bled and bruised. “Dad?”
His dad doesn’t answer. Matt’s fingers reach for his face, and he ignores the burn on his eyes when his fingers come off wet from a substance that isn’t the consistency of water. “Dad, dad,” he tries, but there is a flame in his throat that engulfs his words.
Matt begs that his senses fail him just this once. He begs for it to be the reason he can’t hear his dad’s footfalls behind him, his worried tone calling out for Matt, his warm arms wrapped around Matt as he chastises him for running out this late. He begs for it to be why he’s accidentally and wrongly assumed this gunshot victim is his dad.
His fingers map out the curves of his eyebrows, the misshapen nose of one too many broken incidents, and the cut by the side of his temple. Matt’s fingers trip on one of the stitches he’s placed there three nights ago. He brushes against the ridges of a hole, just a few inches above the temple, and the tips of his fingers that have come into contact with it feels like it’s been seared.
It’s his dad, lying on the ground in front of him. Matt hurls himself onto his chest. “Daddy!” He places his ear to the cold, wet cotton, straining his ears for the steady beat of his dad’s heart.
He hears the prayers of a church he knows is eight blocks down, the sirens of firefighters dispatched from their office five blocks south, and the sympathetic, pitying murmurs of the people standing behind the gates to the alley.
He hears the heartbeats in every block of Hell’s Kitchen, varying in speed and strength, jumbled together into one erratic, cruel song that mocks the absence of his dad’s.
“Daddy, daddy,” he sobs, tasting the salt in his mouth, feeling the burn down his cheeks. His dad has always woken up when he cries, placing a soothing hand on his back as they chase away his nightmares together.
Now, the sound of his wracked lungs and choked breaths fill Matt’s ears for a long, long time. The smell of blood and gunpowder will cling onto his nose for weeks, giving him more than enough nightmares to sob to. Still, his dad remains asleep on the ground.
Matt clings onto his dad, and he cries himself to sleep with his dad by him one last time.
Matt wakes up, and his first thought is if he’s been moved into a dumpster heap.
It stinks. It stinks so intensely that Matt struggles up onto his feet, and for once in his life, doesn’t have a rough idea where he is. It’s so putrid and surrounding, images of the smell of year-old wet laundry and a thousand sweaty boxing men jammed into a singular room pop into his brain with every breath.
He promptly decides to pinch his nose with his fingers. It doesn’t completely eliminate the nausea he feels from inhaling, especially not when he can now taste the stench on his tongue instead of in his nose, but he can focus on the brick under his fingertips and the sounds of the metro whooshing past beneath him. It hits him then that his hands are dry, and his cane is nowhere to be found.
Matt keeps a hand on the wall, and reluctantly removes his fingers from his nose, keeping his breaths light instead—no sense in losing another one of his senses. He really wants to find a corner to hurl up in; the smells of rot and decay seem to stretch on for miles. When he goes home, he’s going to have to ask dad to—
—Crrk.
He hears another gun cock. It’s far, so distant it’s barely audible, but Matt throws himself in the direction anyways. Has God answered my prayers? Is this my second chance?
Matt hears curses from people he’s barreled into, aggressive expletives spewed out so imaginative his dad would’ve covered his ears from them. He pays no mind to them as he flies around corners, but for however long he’s slept, Hell’s Kitchen seems to have changed, buildings and roads popping up where playgrounds and abandoned construction sites should have been instead.
He finds the source of the shouting and the gunshots after he slams into a dumpster for the third time. Matt hears the creaking of a trigger, the raised, panicked breathing of the shooter, and he runs with all his might. There are thoughts in his mind, suspicions whispered that this isn’t the same alley he found his dad’s body in, but he shoves them down and pulls out memories from his younger, sighted days, where he’s still able to watch how his dad punches.
His body seems to remember it too, and Matt hurls his fists upwards. A crack and the clattering of metal is all he needs to hear. One, two, he reels back and launches again where he can hear a hammering heartbeat, but he’s not fast enough. The man catches his wrists mid-air, his jagged nails digging into Matt’s skin hard enough he has to bite down a yelp.
“Just can’t mind your own fucking business huh, kid?” He snarls, and Matt feels his body clash into the fourth dumpster of the day before he registers the stinging pain that stretches across the entirety of his cheek.
“Had to play the fucking hero, didn’t you? You think you’re some Bat?” Matt hears the gun cock at him, hears the louder, faster heartbeat of the man standing over him. Matt doesn’t understand he means, not when the shrill alarm bells in his head are going off.
He’s going to die here.
He can hear his breaths echo off the barrel of the gun that is pointed in his direction. There is no third, frightened heartbeat in the alley anymore. But there’s one more steady pulse above him.
And in a flurry of movements too quick for Matt to follow, the shooter is slumped unconscious against a wall opposite him, the man standing above him replaced by the calm heart.
“Hey, kiddo. That was a good punch, but leave the crime-fighting to us, yeah?” the voice says. It’s soft and gentle, no traces of tension even after knocking a guy with a gun out. It doesn’t sound like his dad; there is no familiarity, not even in his heartbeat. “Gotham’s no place for a kid to be running around at night.”
Matt stands back up, rubbing his cheek. Gotham?
Matt’s never heard of a Gotham in his life. Suddenly, the unfamiliar sounds and sights come rushing back to him in the same moment as his dad’s death does, no longer barricaded by his terror at almost dying, and it takes everything in him to not start trembling in front of the man still standing in front of him. He tilts his head towards the bustling city, listening in for any mentions of a bus or a train back to Hell’s Kitchen.
“Oh,” the man says, like he’s realised something. “You know where your parents are? I can walk you to them.” His fingers brush against Matt’s shoulder tentatively, and it reminds Matt of the way he once cradled a bird with a broken wing in his palms. His hand eventually settles on Matt’s shoulder, and it’s cold. Smooth, rubbery, and cold.
“Gone,” he replies quietly. Dead is a word he fears will leave his insides empty if he says it instead. “I don’t—”
He doesn’t realise he’s crying before the same cold fingers brush against his cheeks, soothing the burn of his tears as he wipes them away. “I’m sorry,” the man says, his voice much lower now. Lithe arms wrap him in an embrace. Matt’s sure he’s being hugged by a person who loves cold, rubber-like, full body spandex suits, but the small warm flame that flickers in his gut pull him closer to the man’s chest.
He tries to say something, but all that comes out of his throat are sobs.
His dad is dead, and his God has abandoned him. His God has thrown him in a place he’s never heard of and he can’t even find his way back to his dad. He desperately racks his brain to remember how his dad smells like and comes up with nothing, because this city reeks so much the stench infuses itself into your bones and makes it the only smell you remember.
“Do you have anywhere to go?” The man asks.
Matt shakes his head vehemently, not trusting his mouth to voice anything but wails. He wants to apologise for smearing his tears and snot all over this man’s chest, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just places a hand over Matt’s back and the other over his head, patting him gently. “I’m Nightwing,” he says, “do you want to come with me?”
Matt contemplates for a moment, breathing out hard enough he manages to get across a question coherently. “Are you a good guy?”
Nightwing laughs softly. “Yeah, I am.”
His heartbeat doesn’t falter once, holding steady as he extends a hand out to Matt.
“Okay,” he replies, and takes Nightwing’s hand.
Nightwing’s other hand goes to his ear—he can hear the crackle of it as it comes to life. He says, “O, I’m ending patrol early. Got a kid—what’s your name, kiddo?”
“Matt. Matthew Murdock.” Nightwing leads him somewhere away from the alley, turning a few corners before Matt can smell asphalt right in front of him.
“Matthew Murdock. Could you run his name against the databases and tell me if he’s got anywhere to go?”
A woman’s voice sounds from the other end. “One second,” she says. A pause. “There’s a newborn, and an eighty year old Matthew Murdock near your location, both of which I’m assuming isn’t who you’re with.”
Matt pretends not to hear the ongoing conversation, toeing the rocks by the side of the road he’s standing on.
Nightwing replies, “No, kid looks about nine,” he lowers his voice, letting go of Matt to walk to a distance he thinks is out of earshot. It isn’t. “I found him trying to punch the lights out of a mugger. He started crying when I asked him about his parents.”
“Well, I expanded the locations, but there aren’t any Matthew Murdocks that match both age and story. You sure the kid’s not lying?”
Matt feels a prick of irritation at the accusation, but another voice in him understands the wariness. He crouches down and plays with the grass stalks growing between the cracks—they’re coarse and withered, and Matt suspects there’s something about the very air of this Gotham that sucks life out of everything.
“He’s blind, O,” Nightwing sighs. “Didn’t even know who I was. And… I don’t think he’s lying about his parents.”
There is a confession in the last sentence, a well-masked hollowness in the words that Matt picks up on because of its familiarity.
Another voice—rougher, deeper, enters the conversation. “Bring him to the manor.”
Nightwing’s heartbeat quickens for a moment at that voice. “Jesus, B,” he mutters, “way to give me a heart attack.”
O says worriedly, “You sure N should bring him to the manor? N? And the manor?” Matt wonders why Nightwing and a manor don’t mix well together.
“We have enough room for another,” the voice replies.
Nightwing’s heart has gone back to its natural rhythm. “B, one day, you’re going to need another manor for all the kids you pick up.”
“You picked up this one.”
Nightwing snorts at the response. “I suppose I did,” he sighs, tapping at his ear again. “I’ll settle him in, and we can discuss the… nightly activities tomorrow.”
Matt’s pretense of fixation on the little withered weeds has to come to an end when he accidentally yanks it out by the roots. Thankfully, it’s the same moment the thing in Nightwing’s ear settles back into an almost inaudible hum as his conversation ends.
“Come on,” Nightwing calls as he walks back to Matt, tapping Matt on his shoulder. Matt reaches for his arm, faking a few misses before he latches onto his elbow. “Let’s go home.”
The drive to Nightwing’s house is an awkward one, and Matt is relieved when the car eventually pulls to a stop. He’s helped out of the car into something he thinks is a cave—he can hear smaller, inhuman heartbeats, and what seems to be the flapping of wings above him.
“Um,” Matt asks, “where are we?”
The words are as much a question as they are a tool for him to figure out his surroundings. His words bounce off the walls, echoes loud enough for Matt to conclude that they’re in a cave of some sort, and Nightwing confirms it. “Batcave!” he says cheerily, “couldn’t exactly waltz through the front door like—well, Nightwing. Let’s head up to the manor.”
Matt slips his fingers into his hand as Nightwing leads them up a flight of stairs, the narrow hallways eventually expanding into a larger, hollower one. Matt can smell old paper and leather—books, from at least a few levels above him, tomatoes, pepper, chicken—soup?—somewhere from his left. Jesus, how big is this house?
“Alfie’s cooking up some soup,” Nightwing perks up as they approach what Matt assumes to be the kitchen. “He’s the butler here.”
When they reach the kitchen, Matt hears a heartbeat two floors up, perched on a windowsill or an opening of some sort, kevlar fabric brushing lightly against wood, but he helpfully decides to ignore it. No point in saying something that would expose his abilities.
“Master Dick,” a British voice greets. Nightwing waves his hand. “Is this the child?”
“Hi,” Matt waves in the same general direction. “I’m Matt.”
“Hello, Matt. Have some soup, you look awfully thin,” Alfred pushes a glass bowl across a ceramic table, the metal spoon in it clinking softly. Matt has to admit, the contents do smell heavenly, and he instantly abandons any thoughts of his abilities for the growing pang of hunger in his stomach, making his way over to the bowl. “You too, Master Dick.”
There is another bowl set beside his, and he hears Dick’s footsteps close their distance and eventually stop by his side. “I love you, Alfie. Did you know that?” Dick says, his words muffled like his mouth is full. Matt is overwhelmed by the absence of chemicals and preservatives in the soup he almost nearly weeps at the blessing his taste buds have been given.
He hears Alfred and Dick’s heart rate jump the second the pulse by the window drops down to the kitchen. The landing’s almost inaudible, the sound of their heart louder than the contact of feet with linoleum.
“Black Bat!” Dick says, the forced calm in his voice betrayed only by his racing pulse (it’s slowing down now, Matt will give him credit for that). “What’s up?”
There’s a moment of silence, and Matt can feel Black Bat focus on him for a few seconds before she says, “New kid. Wanted to see.”
Matt can hear her hands moving through the air with some gestures, but she does it at a speed too fast for him to even try and decipher. She and Dick engage in some conversation behind his back, eventually coming to a consensus as they turn back to using verbal language.
“So, are you guys superheroes or something?” Matt asks at the same time Dick asks, “Matt, do you want to stay with us?”
Dick pauses slightly before he answers, “Yeah, we’re the ones. Batman, Robin, you get the idea.”
He doesn’t get the idea. He’s never heard of these people in his life, but Matt decides to keep that thought to himself, opting for a vague nod. “I see,” he says primly.
Then he contemplates Dick’s question, but he comes to his answer without much of a struggle. “Probably not,” Matt says. I gotta get back to Hell’s Kitchen.” Maybe this wild journey will end when he’s back in New York.
“Well, then you should rest,” Alfred cuts in. “Get a good night's sleep before they bring you back.”
Matt nods, leaving his spoon in the now-emptied bowl. “The soup was really good. Thanks, Alfred.”
As Dick leads him to the door, he hears Black Bat heartbeat shoot up the walls and out of the opening again. “Black Bat,” he starts, before noticing the stark absence of a fourth individual in the room. “…and she’s gone.”
Matt tries not to laugh at the incredulity in his tone, grasping his arm as they make their way up to what seems to be a guest room. The sheets seem rather fresh, though, the floral scent of detergent still clinging onto them.
“Here’s your room,” Dick says, ushering him in and guiding him around the area. He lifts Matt’s hand to brush against the table in the corner, the nightstand beside the bed, and finally the bed by the windowsill, where there’s an extra set of clothes by the side. “That’s pretty much it. I’ll come get you tomorrow for breakfast?”
Matt nods, grimacing slightly at the sheets as he settles down onto them. They’re a little scratchy against his skin, but he supposes it’s still a far improvement from the ones at home. “Okay. Thanks, Dick.”
“Ha!” Dick snorts. “You caught my name. Can you keep it a secret?”
Matt shrugs. “Sure.” He thinks Dick’s a little too over in his head about it, though; it’s not like he’s heard anyone talk about Nightwing before.
“Cool. Goodnight, Matt,” Dick says through the crack of the door before he closes it.
Matt shrugs on the sweater and closes his eyes against the pillow. “Night, Dick.”
He hears Dick’s earpiece crackle to life once again. “N, Hood needs backup near the abandoned subway tracks. Think you have time to make one more trip before calling it a day?”
“On it.”
Nightwing’s footsteps lead him back down the steps he brought Matt from. He listens out for the distancing rumble of engines and scratch of tires against gravel until even his ears have to fall to silent walls.
Matt curls in on himself as much as he can, trying to listen to any other sounds. The flying things in the Batcave. Alfred washing and placing plates back into the pantry. He’s trying to do anything but think about his dad’s death. The last few hours have been hectic enough that he was able to push it into a little compartment in the back of his mind, but now, in a house far away from the smog and pollution of Gotham, the peace causes those memories to wash back ashore.
The soup was nice, the house is rich, and the sheets are soft. But Matt will give it all up if he gets to fall asleep with his dad alive and beside him again, without the smell of blood plastered all over his skin.
Matt buries his head into his pillow and listens to Alfred’s heartbeat flit across the house. He falls asleep before he hears more of them enter the cave beneath him.
Matt wakes up with all his memories, some new ones, and feeling like he’s been hit by a freight train.
“I hate magic,” he mutters, stretching out his small, nine year-old body. The magic user he was fighting had thrown him into another dimension, and made him a kid. It’s a miracle he’s managed to survive through the night—one by the name of Dick, apparently.
Matt rubs his temples in a feeble attempt to assuage the throbbing pain, his senses already stretching out to map him a picture of the manor now that he’s a thirty year old with better control over them.
It’s much, much larger than what his temporary amnesiac self had assumed last night. There’s a cave that stretches across the entirety of the manor and its backyard, multiple hidden passageways, the largest stairwell one below a ticking clock. There’s also people shuffling through the hallways, one making their way to his door.
“Hey,” Dick pokes his head in and says. He sounds tired, if the two cracked ribs and stitches on his back are any indication. “Breakfast?”
Matt thinks about coming clean and decides against it in a matter of seconds. He doesn’t know if he can trust these people just yet. Dick, perhaps, but there are five more heartbeats he’s picking up around the house, and he’s not going to be able to punch his way out of this one in his current state.
“I’m coming, what’s for breakfast?” Matt fumbles around, taking his time to the door and grabbing Dick’s hand. The guy’s heartbeat picks up slightly. Too much on the pretense, then? He can’t really recall the events of last night through the pounding migraine.
“Alfred’s signature waffles,” Dick says, his tone normal. “You’re in for a treat.”
Matt knows Dick isn’t exaggerating—the rich, buttery, and sweet smell that wafts from the kitchen has a magnetic pull on Matt and his stomach—but his headache is making everything significantly less attractive.
As they find their way to the table, Matt is slid a plate by Alfred—he digs in gratefully, and honestly, the waffles are great, crispy and soft simultaneously, but against a swarming migraine? The sugar is a catalyst for his nausea.
He must’ve made a face, because Dick’s concerned voice pops up from across the table. “What’s wrong?”
Matt shakes his head and smiles politely, finishing the last of his plate and thanking Alfred quietly. “I’m fine,” he says to Dick, “just a headache.”
“You want some ibuprofen?” A voice calls from behind him. It’s young, and it’s coming from someone who’s so drenched in coffee Matt thinks he could get a caffeine boost just by being in his proximity. “Can kids take ibuprofen?”
Dick turns to the kid. “Do not give him ibuprofen, Red.”
Matt highly doubts magical headaches can be solved by scientific drugs anyways, so he shrugs. “Thanks anyways.”
Red shuffles in and grabs a plate from Alfred, who doles him an extra pile of pancakes and what seems to be another mug of coffee. Matt’s reminded of Foggy and his caffeine addiction—this kid would have a field day with his coffee machines.
“This the kid you picked up?” Another hoarser, older voice sounds from behind them. Red’s heart jumps slightly at it.
Dick lets out a breath that sounds like a smile. “Hey, Hood. You here for the waffles?”
“Do I look stupid enough to miss Alfred’s waffle mornings?” Hood replies, and he grabs a seat beside Matt, his fork scratching against the plate as he eats in a way that only aggravates Matt’s headache.
Matt’s about to leave; maybe head back to his room or something, before the last heartbeat makes its way to the doorframe of the kitchen. This one makes all of their—except Alfred‘s—heartbeats raise slightly, and Hood’s muscles tense as he shifts in his seat.
“Hi, B,” Dick says between bites. Red waves, and Hood just lets out a grunt that borders between disgruntled and awkward.
Well, this certainly is a complicated family.
Matt is suddenly reminded he’s not supposed to have a good sense of direction around the house he’s only been in for a night, and with Dick still stuffing his face full of waffles, he’s stuck here in a battle of wills between his migraine, the ruckus of the kitchen, and his sheer determination.
He rests his head against the hand he’s propped up with his elbow on the table, closing his eyes in an attempt to catch some semblance of rest amidst the chaos.
“Are you alright?” The fourth asks, the concern threading his words—B, Matt recalls. His voice is gruff and gravelly, but it’s definitely not his real voice.
“He’s got a headache,” Dick supplies.
And maybe it’s the headache, maybe it’s because he has a hand muffling one of his ears, but before Matt can react he’s in someone’s arms and being scooped off his seat. Alarmed, he wrestles his way out of the grip and lands on the floor, utterly bewildered. “What the hell?”
“I was just going to carry you to somewhere you could rest,” B says, arms raised like he’s surrendering. “I’m sorry.”
Matt is rendered speechless for a few seconds. “…Thanks, but I can walk,” he manages, “you can just offer me a hand to hold on to.”
Hood snickers softly behind them.
B doesn’t respond, but he does tap Matt’s arm and allow him to hold on as they walk away from the kitchen and in the direction that, suspiciously, leads to the clock stairwell to the cave.
He hears hushed voices seconds after they depart.
“He’s got moves,” Red says appraisingly.
“I’ve not seen Bruce get that look for a long time,” Dick says amusedly.
Hood snorts. “He got it when he found you perched on a chandelier.”
His migraine is beginning affecting his senses, and they’re out of earshot earlier than they should be. Matt tries not to frown at the thought of it as they descend the stairs, back into the cave Dick had driven them into last night.
He’s herded onto a couch, Bruce settling on one of the chairs in front of whirring screens. Matt is almost amused at how his feet don’t even touch the ground now.
“You can go have breakfast with them,” he says when Bruce shows no signs of leaving. “I’ll be fine here.”
Bruce turns around, like he’s contemplating something. After a long moment of silence, he says, “Do you have anybody in Hell’s Kitchen we can contact?”
Matt sighs, rummaging through his brain fog for any logical excuses for interdimensional travel. “No, but I’ll figure something out.” He sinks into the couch and lets himself fall sideways onto a pillow.
A pause, and Bruce looks at him so intensely Matt can feel the stare.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Bruce asks.
Matt closes his eyes and feigns sleep. He’s going to be better equipped at handling this when a killer headache isn’t driving knives into his temples. He has no choice but to trust the group of vigilantes, and if they decide to hurt him while he’s asleep?
Well. What’s a nine year old with no training going to do.
He hears a soft sigh from Bruce, but it isn’t an annoyed one. The clicking on his keyboards resume, and Matt drifts off into a fitful rest again, determined to wake up painless.
He does wake up painless, thank God. But he also wakes up to two heartbeats and a discussion about him.
“There’s no Matthew Murdock in Hell’s Kitchen,” a woman says. She sounds like the one in Dick’s comms from last night, and her voice is coming from a steel speaker. “At least, no living ones. There’s a Matthew Murdock that died from an accident a year ago, but no records show he’s blind.”
“He doesn’t look like Jason, so no Laz Pit,” Dick muses.
Bruce makes a noise of confirmation. “No missing persons reports for him either.”
Matt lets their conversation wash over him as he thinks about whether he should tell them the truth. Or, at least, some version of the truth. They seem genuinely concerned with his wellbeing, and he could use all the help he could get.
“I’m not from around here,” Matt finally says, sitting up.
They turn around to look at him, none surprised that he’s been listening in.
“Pissed off a magic user,” he continues, “I think they sent me to another universe.”
“How did a nine year-old piss off a magician?” Dick asks curiously.
“Well, I was thirty when I did it.”
“So, de-aging and universe-hopping?” Bruce muses. “How do we know what you’re saying is true?”
Matt shrugs. He doesn’t have a way to prove it. “I don’t know. I guess you’ll just have to believe me.”
There is a moment of silence. He can hear Bruce’s fingers brush against a sharp metallic edge near his belt, and it takes everything in Matt to not raise his eyebrows and go, “Really?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Dick prompts, his tone exaggeratedly light, like he’s trying to defuse the tension in the room.
Matt takes the olive branch and chooses his words carefully. “Well, I was having a heated conversation with said magic user.” More like a heated fight, but he wasn’t going into his own identity at it. Not even in a different universe. “And she said something like ‘Get away from me!’ Then I ended up here, memories and body regressed to my nine year old self.”
“Do you remember punching and almost getting shot by a mugger?” Dick asks amusedly.
Matt makes a face. “Didn’t get regressed to the best day of my nine year-old life.” Probably still one of his worst, but he tucks those thoughts away for when he returns. He recalls crying in Dick’s arms, and it’s uncomfortable enough to deepen his frown.
“But now you’ve got all your memories back?”
Matt nods. “Woke up with it and a killer migraine.”
They pause to take in what Matt’s just said.
“Red Robin’s going to have a field day with this,” Dick snorts.
Oracle laughs. “Tell him there are multiple universes and he’s never going to sleep again. Hell, he’s probably going to build an interdimensional machine.”
Bruce rubs his temples. “Well, we definitely can’t send you to Hell’s Kitchen now.”
Matt shoots a wry smile at them. “I figured as much.”
“You could stay here while we figure out how to get you back.”
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Matt leans back on the couch.
“Nope,” Oracle replies.
They sit in awkward silence long enough Oracle disconnects herself from the conversation, and Bruce leaves with a “Call me if there are any updates.”
Dick, for some reason Matt can’t understand, settles down on the couch beside him, playing with his phone. His heart rate is too fast for the act of nonchalance he puts up, and Matt waits for the moment he bursts.
Eventually, Dick puts down his phone and asks, “Can I ask you something?”
At Matt’s nod, he continues, but his words come out tentatively slow, like he’s trying not to step in a landmine. “Why did nine year-old you run towards an armed mugger?”
Dick is a good guy. Matt knows it from his careful gestures, his warm voice, and the way he treated Matt last night, picking him up and giving him a shelter over his head without a second thought. It’s the reason why Matt doesn’t choose to deflect the topic. “My memory was regressed to the night my dad was murdered.”
Matt hears a sharp intake of breath, but he continues. It’s been twenty years; it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did last night, when he was still a child. “He was shot down in an alley. I heard the gunshots, and I followed it to an alley where I found his body. So when I woke up, I thought God had given me a second chance when I heard guns again,” Matt tries to chuckle. It doesn’t quite come out as lighthearted as he wants it to be. “And I ran after it.”
There is a long stretch of silence.
“Did you ever find the man who did it?”
“I did.”
“What did you do?” Dick’s voice is quiet, and there is the same hollowness in his words he picked up last night. It is the scars of grief that have left marks on his soul, the same way it has on Matt’s.
“Someone tried to make me kill him,” he answers honestly. There is a comfort in knowing these confessions will stay in another universe, the ramifications of the knowledge one that won’t affect him after he’s gone back to his own. “I wanted to. I almost did. But I didn’t. I called the cops on him.”
Dick lowers his head, letting the words settle around them before he speaks. “My parents were killed too. I found the man guilty of it and did the same thing.”
Matt asks, curious, “Is that why you became Nightwing?”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t Nightwing at first,” Dick says, his words breathy as he smiles, “my parents' deaths had gone uninvestigated, marked as an accident because their murderer had half the cops in Gotham on his payroll. I was angry. And, well, Batman noticed. He took me under his wing and helped me investigate their murders. I was his sidekick then, called myself something different too. We went around stopping the crime the GCPD got paid to turn a blind eye to. ”
Matt tilts his head in his direction. “Gotham reminds me of Hell’s Kitchen,” he says dryly.
“That’s not a compliment, is it?” Dick snorts when Matt shakes his head, not bothering to hide his own smile. “Then I sure as hell hope you guys have a Batman too.”
Matt shrugs, not willing to touch on the topic. Dick seems to pick up on it, and they fall into a comfortable silence again.
That is, until Dick can’t hold his tongue again. Not that Matt minds—the man’s is pleasant enough to hold a conversation with. “Do you have a job back in your universe?”
Matt angles his head in his direction and tries to shoot him a bemused look. “I’m thirty. Of course I do; I have my own law firm, with two friends. Nelson, Murdock and Page.”
“Nice,” Dick shoots him a thumbs up. “I’m giving you a thumbs up.”
“You don’t?”
“Oh, I’m twenty-eight, but I do. I’m a police officer at BPD—Bludhaven.”
“You fight crime both day and night?” Matt has to admit, it’s a level of dedication that rivals his own.
Dick snorts. “Yup.”
Dick opens his mouth, taking in a breath like he’s about to say something else, but it’s cut off. His heart rate starts picking up, a steady incline that’s basically alarm bells for ‘something is going wrong’.
“What’s wrong?” Matt asks.
“There is a golden, sparkly portal opening about ten feet from us,” Dick informs grimly. He flings himself off the couch, holding two batons in his hands that emit a steady hum.
Matt is almost alarmed—almost, because a voice appears that could never harm him. “Matt?”
He hears three heartbeats, two beating much faster than the third, and the scrape of metal within a leather purse. “Foggy, Karen. Hi,” he says dryly.
“You know them?” Dick asks. His heartbeat is calming back down.
“They’re the Nelson and Page of the firm,” Matt replies, standing up.
He can hear Foggy trying to keep in a laugh, goddamnit. “Matty,” he says, saccharinely sweet.
“Oh, god, shut up,” Matt groans. “We’re still the same age, Fogs.”
Karen places a hand on his shoulder, her body trembling with badly-contained laughter. “You’re so small. So adorable. Where’s my phone?” There’s the click of a camera as she undoubtedly attains more blackmail footage of Matt.
“Hi, I’m Stephen Strange,” the third heartbeat says. “Your friends came to me when you were MIA for a week.”
“I’ve only been here a day,” Matt muses. He’s heard of this guy, though; some sorcerer with magic.
Stephen Strange shrugs. “Time works differently when you’re in another universe,” he simply says. “Alright, rookie deaging spell. Let me just…” he rubs his hands together, before spreading them in ridiculous ways. “… reverse this, then we’ll head back.”
Matt nods, then realisation hits him like a truck. “Wai—” There’s what sounds like an explosion, and he’s back in his body.
And his Daredevil suit, because he was patrolling when he left.
“—t,” he finishes lamely. There’s complete silence for a good minute. The sorcerer mutters an apology under his breath, so inaudible anyone without ears as good as his would’ve missed it.
Matt hates magic.
“Well,” Foggy is the first one to regain his voice. “Um.”
“Well. That answers how you pissed off the magic user.” Dick shuffles closer to them. He says slowly, “Are you like, Red Bat?”
Matt grimaces. “Daredevil.”
“You kinda look like B, though.”
“You have a bat vigilante?” Karen asks.
“Oh, we have many bat vigilantes.”
“We should go. I can’t hold interdimensional portals for very long—they’re too unstable,” Stephen Strange cuts in.
Foggy taps the back of his hand, and Matt hesitates. He pulls off his cowl for a brief moment so that he can visibly raise his brows at Dick. “Can you keep it a secret?”
Dick grins. “Sure.” His heart doesn’t falter a beat.
Matt grabs Foggy’s elbow and lets him lead them to the portal. He steps through, and it’s obvious where the other end is located—he can smell Karen’s coffee machine, and the ridiculous amount of paperwork on his desk.
“See you around, Nightwing,” he says. He doesn’t think he will, but it’s a nice thought to harbour regardless.
“Bye, Matt,” Dick waves.
Something swooshes shut, and the fourth heartbeat fades. Another gust of air picks up, and the third heartbeat disappears as well.
After a moment of silence, Matt says dryly, “I don’t suppose you guys have a change of clothes for me?”