Chapter 1
Petra has never been a violent girl.
Spirited, yes. Spunky even. Rebellious in the way a child raised by pro-bono lawyers had to be. But never violent.
Which was why it scared her when she found how much she liked it.
She’d just turned nine in the summer of the Hell’s Kitchen cicadas. They were huge, ghastly things that only came out every thirteen years. She read that they had an extraordinarily boring life- be born, hibernate in the depths of trees, reproduce and lay eggs, come outside for a few short moments, then die.
She always found it within herself though, to appreciate them. Even though she felt quite old, people told her that nine was very young. There was so much more she wanted to see and do outside of the world as she knew it. “The world” being between 14th to 32nd street.
If she only had a summer to feel the sun, she’d go ‘batshit’. (That was the word Uncle Foggy had said about a case and then told her not to repeat.)
The bugs would glitter in the air, with their vibrant green and yellow scales reflecting in the sun light. They sounded awful like a car continually running over an orchestra. That wasn’t their fault, she reasoned, that their language sounded like that. After all, human languages like French sounded terrible.
She imagined the conversations they had to be sharing-
“Hi, Mr. Bugsly,” She raised her voice high for Mary-Jane’s amusement. The two girls managed to climb a tree in the few seconds the recess monitor wasn’t staring them down to yell her head off at them.
At the moment, they observed two cicadas face off against each other on a thin twig. Petra spoke for the smaller one now, whose green wings looked like an emerald gown.
“I hear you’ve been having issues with my insurance claim. I should be duly compensated for the strife I’ve been put through, because of your negligence.”
Mary Jane giggled and bit the end of her copper pigtail. Petra continued on, taking on a deeper tone.
“Oh, Duchess Insectella, you really think I’m going to allow my corporation to take that hit?” She imagined the other bug to growl, with his ugly yellow suit on. “Don’t you remember that I had you sign an NDA which would make it in this situation impossible to sue?”
Petra didn’t know the specifics of words like “NDA” or “corporation”. However, from the context that they came up at her dad’s job, she knew them to be stand-ins for pure evil.
But it always had to have a happy ending.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Bugsly,” She returned to Duchess Insectella, who now flexed her wings up and down like she was mad. “I have hired the services of Bugson and Bugsdock, and they will serve you with a notice for my eleven-ty million dollars. And I will see you in court!”
With that parting address, as if the bug knew the dynamics of Petra’s imaginings, Insectella flew off into the hot September afternoon like the strong independent woman she was. Bugsly flew off soon too, in the opposite direction. Maybe to report the newest development to this cicada C.E.O.
Mary-Jane clapped at the end of the scene, carefully balancing herself on the tree limb they both sat on. She wanted to be a lawyer, her best friend always said. She liked yelling at people and getting them to do what she wanted.
Last playdate, Uncle Foggy cackled at the declaration, while Dad gave them his careful smile.
“There’s a little more to it than that,”
His fingers never lifted from whatever braille document he was reading. The audio playing in his left ear buzzed on as he inclined his head towards them.
“What we want to do is to have a conversation and appeal to the other party, and hopefully resolve all situations before we even think about entering a courtroom.”
In that spirit, when Mary-Jane muttered darkly “Flash is stomping on the cicadas again,” Petra let out a breath.
She grasped onto the branch above her and in one fluid movement, she flipped up and onto the ground below. She ignored the squeal of “Miss. Petra Murdock, what have I said-” from the recess monitor, and marched her way over to the offendor.
“Excuse me,” She pressed her glasses to the bridge of her nose as his foot came down with a sickening crunch. “I’m going to request you cease and desist this behavior. It’s not very nice.”
Flash stared at her, like he couldn’t understand the language she was speaking. Under his light-up transformer shoe, a bug’s leg twitched. “Fuck off, Penis Petro,” he sneered. “Or else you’re next.”
Petra took a step closer.
“Next for what?” She asked, innocent. “You’re not big enough to squish me. And I just want you to think about the fact that you’re killing a bug that’s twice as old as you. And smarter, besides.”
He must not have caught that last insult, with the cogs of his brain working in slow motion. “Uh,” Flash muttered as he finally lifted his foot. Petra looked down at what he had done-
It was a dark stain on the blacktop, of bug guts and black blood. A delicate wing lay across the mess. She puffed her cheeks, nausea washing over her.
“It was ugly anyway,” Flash defended. “And it couldn’t even fly right- it kept bumping into stuff.”
Rage spiked in her chest, hot to the touch. It was electric and all consuming. She wanted to feed that anger. Protect it in a box and keep it alive.
“So what if he was ugly?! Or had a hard time getting around?” Petra sputtered and curled her fists in her skirt pockets. “Eugene Thompson, I hope the day never comes that someone decides to squish you because you’re ugly- which you very much are! I hope someone bigger than you shows you more grace than you did him.”
With that, she spun around on her heel, ready to be done with it. She had achieved her justice for the day, was ready to return to Mary-Jane and the world of bug lawyers when-
“No wonder you care so much about an ugly bug- I see your blind dad pick you up from here.” Flash called after her. “He’s ugly and can’t even function without that stupid cane. One day, he’s going to get beat up, hurt, and die and we’re all going to be laughing.”
Petra paused. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. An eerie sense of calm overcame her.
He took the chance to add -
“He’s not even going to know it’s coming. He’s fancy with his suits now. But he’s going to be like this stupid cicada- screaming, crying, then just guts on the sidewalk-”
She was in flight the next moment. She sprinted the three steps between them and threw herself in the air, trusting herself to fall on him.
He screamed.
The air whistled past her ear as she tackled him. Petra felt the skin rip from her knees as they tumbled across the black top.
She laughed as she struck him across the face. Then again, again and again until someone pulled her off-
Petra pressed a finger against the bruise forming across her cheek. It puffed up, like red, purple and green splotches mixed together. Her knees burned from where they’d been bandaged. She teased the cut in her lip, and cringed as it bled more.
The bench outside her Dad’s office was cold and rigid. She’d told him multiple times to invest in a set of pillows. He promised that he would, but somehow forgot each time they went shopping.
Right now, the lack of comfort felt purposeful. Like she was a kid outside the principal’s office, except the principal was the devil and her next stop was eternal hell.
“I cannot say,” Uncle Foggy disclaimed, as he handed her a bag of frozen peas. He seemed rather delighted about the entire debacle. “That I approve of this. I can’t, really.”
Petra held the ice pack against her swollen face and blinked harshly at the lightbulb’s flicker above. Her glasses had broken in the fight- well. Not fight. Beat down. Flash had sobbed when they dragged her off him, face bloodied and a tooth missing. But he’d managed to get a few lucky hits in.
Because of her bad eyesight, she couldn’t see her uncle or any detail of the office. She could only make out the vague colors and shapes, and the light coming through the window. She imagined, though, Auntie Karen pursing her lips at the two of them.
“Foggy,” She scolded, sounding half-hearted herself. Petra squinted at her, making out her blonde ponytail bobbing in the sun rays. “Don’t encourage her. She’s suspended for the month. And,” She added reluctantly after too long a pause. “Violence is bad.”
“Oh. No.” Uncle Foggy dug up a chocolate bar from his pocket and split it. She begrudgingly took the piece he offered to her. “My favorite assistant is going to be here for the entire month. The horror. And that kid has been demented for far too long.” He bit into his piece, sounding pensive. “I operate in the realms of the law, of course, but you talk shit, you get shit.” He cringed as soon as the words left his mouth. “Bad words, Pete. You don’t get to know those yet.“
She got to beat up a kid till he had to go to the hospital but wasn’t allowed to say the S-word. Cool.
“Favorite assistant,” Karen scoffed. Her fingers click-clacked against the keyboard. “And are you saying you’re pro beating-up-a-nine-year-old?”
“No.” Foggy protested. “I would never approve of beating up a child. But I do appreciate when another child does the job.”
At that declaration, Dad’s office door creaked open.
He leaned against the doorframe and inclined his head towards the two of them. Petra narrowed her eyes back, still unable to make out his face.
Wordlessly, Dad dug into his pockets and held out her extra pair of glasses.
She pressed them to her eyes, where they sat tight and uncomfortably against her nose. She blinked to get used to the sudden visual input.
What Petra was met with was a particularly sour expression across Dad’s face, evidently addressed at her. It made her skin crawl, and she almost wanted to take off her glasses and throw them across the room.
“In my office.”
The tone brokered no argument. She put down the frozen peas, let her head hang and shuffled past them while Uncle Foggy exhaled.
“Matt, don’t be-“
“Don’t be what? She broke a boy’s nose, Franklin. Her defense wouldn’t be admissible in any court-“
“Well, Matthew, isn’t it a good thing we’re not in court, and it’s just-
“Just what? Going to follow her academic career? This is what all her teachers will know her as- the violent kid. And that will follow her all the way to middle school. That isn’t even to talk about the peer impact.”
A heavy tear rolled down her cheek- the first of the day. Violent kid - that’s what she was. And it felt- felt- good. Sickly good. She knew, deep down, if she had the chance, she’d go back to that feeling again.
Uncle Foggy let out a heavy sigh. “She’s not a criminal.”
“No.” Dad’s voice was surly and rough. “She won’t be.”
They sat in silence behind the closed doors for a good amount of time. She heard the two other adults reluctantly leave- the click of Auntie Karen’s heels and the snap of Uncle Foggy closing his briefcase. When the door to the Nelson and Murdock office shuttered close, Dad finally spoke.
“I beat up a kid when I was your age.”
Petra jolted up at the declaration, from where she’d hid her face in her knees. She stared at him- her gentle father whose only dispositions she knew was softness and rightful indignation.
“Before the accident, obviously.” He leaned his elbows across his desk, on top of braille dociments. The figurines Petra made for him clattered. “He was a bully in the schoolyard. Understandable that I snapped, by all accounts.”
Petra hugged her knees again, and wondered where this was going.
“That was the first and only time,” Dad continued, like he was in a memory far away. “My father ever hit me.”
The words sat heavy in the air as Petra breathed in. She wasn’t scared that her own dad would do anything of the sort- not at all. But the idea that Jack Murdock- the man Dad missed everyday- would ever choose to do that seemed inconceivable.
“He was a boxer,” Petra leaned forward, trying to put the pieces together. “He got into fights for a living- why would he care that you beat a bully up?”
“He cried after,” Dad sounded as if he hadn’t heard a thing she said. “Apologized till he was blue in the face. But it taught me one thing- violence is begotten.”
He turned to her now and carefully reached a hand across the table. She made contact, and he clasped her palm against his with a too-tight squeeze.
“To my dad, violence was a tuned instinct,” He directed at her now. “And he was inclined to it- as am I. But he always wanted better for me.” His thumb traced the back of her hand. “Books, not fists. Resolution, not a fight. That was what got me out of the path my father took- and what ultimately killed him. And I want the same for you.” He insisted. "My dad was wrong for hitting me. Very wrong and he knew it. But if I got into more fights, one day a bigger person would have hit me and I'd never have gotten up. That's what he was steering me away from, as flawed as his approach was."
He paused for a moment and Petra looked away- not that he could tell. Guilt filled her, stronger than the adrenaline that had coursed through her since recess. She’d been selfish, and she knew it. Because how she handled what Flash said wasn't about protecting her dad- it was about being angry and taking justice into her own hands.
“It’s a mark of my fatherhood,” He sighed. “that you know not to hurt people who have done wrong. To give them a chance instead, to talk to them, or let the right authorities know. Because you can’t decide that as one person- what justice someone faces, or what they get in the end. Because someone else could turn around and decide the same fate for us.”
Petra sniffed in, hard. Her bruises ached as she leaned her head against his open palm.
“Flash was so mean,” She protested weakly, as Dad carded delicate fingers through her hair. “He said such awful things. Someone needed to show him up. And he didn’t even get in trouble for it.”
“Well, you did knock his front tooth out,” Dad remarked, not unkind. “And I can take the insults, Pete. I can.”
“I don’t want you to,” Petra responded, miserable. “I don’t want people talking about my dad that way.”
“And I don’t want a principal calling me to let me know my daughter sent another child to the emergency room and a dentist” Dad sounded tired, not angry anymore.
He patted her head again before he stood up. He patted around for his white cane before he found it folded up in the corner it always resided. He held it in his hands for a moment, wringing his fingers around the aluminum tube.
He looked stumped, which distressed Petra more than she would like to admit.
Dad always knew what to do with her- how to explain the world or make her go to bed on time. Anything thrown at him, Matt Murdock knew how to handle it.
But in the evening light peeking through the windows, he looked- vulnerable.
She didn’t like this version of her dad. She never wanted to see it again.
“Bring your Hebrew homework,” He declared, finally. He unfolded his cane and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. “I have an appointment at Clinton Church.”