Cats and Mice

It was raining that morning, as Karen was nearing the building. They had taken care of their paying client in only 3 days, and she was now looking forward to cracking the mystery surrounding a sketchy insurance company and how they were taking advantage of their older clients. She didn’t require good weather to do a good job, and the rain was most welcome after the last few weeks and the heat they brought. 

The driver stopped the car, she paid and thanked him for the ride, wished him a good day, and left. Instead of running inside, she stopped under the flower shop’s awning and waved at Rose. She’d been working inside for days, and now that the outside was completely done, Karen was starting to think that it looked a little too good for Hell’s Kitchen. It was obvious that Rose put a lot of effort into renovating the place, and Karen was only wishing her to succeed. Mostly because that woman seemed really passionate about opening her own business, but also because she was hoping that it’d put Matt’s constant doubts about her to rest. 

Karen pushed the unlocked door of the shop and smiled. “Weren’t you doing that last night already ?” she asked, pointing at the shelf Rose was putting together. 

Rose dropped everything onto the floor and rushed to the counter. Less than 10 seconds later, Karen was holding a warm coffee cup. “It appears that I need multiple shelves if I want this place to be taken seriously,” she replied with a knowing look. “Only a dozen more and I’ll even look professional.”

“You need to get some fresh air, too,” Karen argued. “It’ll drive you crazy to stay locked up inside.”

“You got in, it wasn’t locked.”

Karen added two sugar cubes to her cup and sat next to Rose at the counter, filled with screwdrivers, nails, scissors and tape. “I didn’t know anyone either when I first got here. I was lucky enough to find Foggy and Matt, do you have anyone ?”

“Do shelves to build count ?” Rose laughed, glancing at the boxes still waiting for her. 

“We should go out for drinks before you open,” Karen said. “I know a place. The legend says that if you survive Josie’s drinks, you’ll become a true new yorker.” She left her seat. “Thanks for the coffee, I’ll bring you the cup back.”

“Don’t bother,” Rose sighed. “I might need some legal advice soon, I’ll take it back when I come upstairs.”

Karen nodded with a smile and wished her good luck with the multiple shelves she still had to put together. She only realized how good the shop smelled when she entered the staircase. She didn’t care if it was from Rose’s personal flowers or her perfume but at that moment, Karen was starting to envy Matt’s ability to smell things from that far away. Maybe she’d buy something from Rose to make the office smell better than just old coffee and ink. 

***

As Karen was entering the office, Matt was all but enjoying his ability to hear and smell things from afar. On the contrary, he’d never wanted this gone so bad. Something that Foggy didn’t seem to understand and was instead mocking every chance he had. 

“She’s hiding something,” Matt repeated, hoping that this time his friend would listen. “Trust me,” he added, for good measure. 

In the past few days, Matt went from being suspicious of Rose, to now being completely infuriated by her. It was mostly due to the fact that she’d been humming the same song over and over again for days, when she wasn’t simply singing it at the top of her lungs. And that woman didn’t know how to sing at all. It was a torture, and he was now convinced that she was doing this on purpose to drive him insane. Which, according to Foggy, was probably what he was. 

Karen handed him a coffee from their small kitchen, even if hers smelled way better, and sat at her desk without another word. 

“You need to let her be, buddy,” Foggy argued. “Stick to the facts, here. So far, a calm heartbeat has always been your way of telling if someone was being honest, right ?” Matt sighed. Again with that same argument. It was a good one, at that. He nodded. “And she’s done nothing for us to be distrusting her, right ?” Another sigh, another nod. “Then can we agree that you’ll stop worrying about a woman who just wants to open a flower shop before it starts being creepy, on top of illegal ?”

“I’m telling you the incident with the paint was on purpose.”

“Maybe it was,” Foggy conceded. “Maybe she just wanted a reason to talk to you. That’s what they all do anyway,” he finished with a laugh. “At least she was being creative.”

Karen cleared her throat, most to Matt’s regret. Whenever they were having this conversation, she was always siding against him. “She doesn’t have any friends,” she said. “I told her we’d go for drinks at Josie’s.”

“I’m not coming,” Matt immediately replied. 

“You weren’t invited,” Karen scoffed. “I meant her and me. I need friends I don’t work with.”

Matt let out a long sigh and left for his office. None of his friends were ready to listen to him, and he was tired of explaining himself over and over again. They should’ve known to trust him in cases like that, how many times had he been right over the years ? They were supposed to trust him. They’d known that woman for a week, talked to her twice, maybe three times each, and they were trusting her more than they did him. 

He knew Rose better. He’d been careful, he’d been listening. Nothing added up with that woman, and there had to be a reason for it. He knew how calm she was, except when there was a piece missing from one of her furniture kits. She called customer service twice already, trying to get some kind of refund. She didn’t lie about being short on money. He knew that she was going to bed later than she should’ve, when it was already tomorrow because she was spending hours on her computer at night for some reason. There was never any sound coming from it. He knew she was waking up early enough to have been on a run, showered and started working on her shop by the time normal people only got out of bed. 

None of this was normal behavior for someone who was simply opening a flower shop. If Rose had been opening a gym or a coffee shop, then Matt wouldn’t have been so suspicious. But she wasn’t, and she wasn’t who she was pretending to be, he was certain of that. 

Now that he was pacing around his office thinking about it, the idea that he was going a little too far and that Foggy might have been right about starting to get creepy wasn’t entirely lost on Matt. Still, he couldn’t think about anything other than the secrets Rose Parsons was hiding. And now Karen wanted to befriend that woman, and he knew he’d have to be careful for the both of them. 

Matt finally sat down and took a deep breath. In no time, the humming from the shop downstairs reached his ears. He couldn’t get one second of silence. This was torture, and she was making all this on purpose. She had to, whoever she was. He rested his back on his chair and tried to work on their new case. This one was supposed to be interesting to him, helping the helpless and whatnot. 

As he was going over the transcripts of the insurance policies he’d been sent, Matt didn’t realize that his leg was bouncing to the rhythm of a Queen song he’d heard a lot lately. 

***

“Rock you,” Rose finished, happily tapping on her newest shelf. She was getting good at this, and this shelf had an even better feeling than the others. She got it for free, since the customer service had been nice enough to help after she called about the multiple missing screws. 

She pushed the shelf against the wall, already starting another round of We Will Rock You. She liked Queen as much as the next person, but she’d heard that song at the hardware store a few days back and hadn’t been able to get it off her head since. She was relieved that she didn’t get a lot of visitors. So far, no one had realized how much singing wasn’t one of Rose’s many talents. To her knowledge, at least. 

After a quick look around her, Rose was rather surprised to see that she was, for the most part, done with putting together the furniture. She wasn’t expecting the flowers to be delivered for another couple of days, but things were starting to look good in here. She was ahead of schedule on all fronts, and she was more than satisfied with herself at that point. 

Rose decided that she deserved a long break. Maybe a whole day without hurting her hands with screwdrivers could do her some good, she thought. It was still raining outside, the perfect weather to go and discover the neighborhood after living here for over a month now. It was about time, and she wouldn’t feel oppressed by the amount of people always walking down the streets. 

Most to her upstairs neighbor’s relief, Rose left the shop. Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t exactly a nice place. No one looked happy to be here, which was probably the case for anyone living in New York. The crime rate here would’ve made the IRA blush. New York was a beacon for very bad people and their very bad shit, according to everyone she’d ever met. She thought that maybe flowers were just what this city needed. Some beauty and happiness for people to realize that they didn’t have to kill each other all the time. She laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. 

She walked all the way to the other side of Hell’s Kitchen, realized how small it actually was, posted two letters in the designated postbox, and entered the small church on the other side of the road. 

The place was cold, much like any other place of faith she’d been to over the years. Right now, she was rather glad to have found this one. If the heat was to make a comeback in the next few days, she knew where she’d go to hide and give her fan some rest. She sat in the back and looked around. It seemed sad. Rather empty. It could’ve used some flowers, Rose thought. The priest was looking at her. She didn’t like that. She got up and walked to the end of the aisle. She lit a candle for the people she’d lost, hoping that one day there’d be someone to light one for her. Just in case there was, after all, a God. 

She left a dollar in the donation box and headed out before anyone tried to convert her to some religion she had no care in the world about. After one last thought for this possible God she never believed in, she took her phone out and sent a text. 

‘Shop’s fine,’ it said. ‘Everything is under control, I just don’t get what the deal with NY is. Love you.’ She added a flower emoji, just like she’d been doing ever since her parents got her her first phone 20 years ago, and placed that one back in her pocket. 

***

On the other side of the country, Edward Penquist really wanted to believe that everything was indeed ‘under control’. That was what he was working towards anyway. That was the reason why he was entering a small Seattle diner, ready to face the woman who broke his heart 16 years ago.

He saw her the moment he got inside. Even with her back turned to him, he recognized her. Edward had been married to that woman for almost two decades, and he never once thought about starting a life with anyone else after she left. Here she was now, waiting for him to show up. The last time he’d been that nervous was when Fleur was born. Before that, it was on his wedding day. 

“Need help picking a table, Sir ?” the young waitress asked him as he was standing there, in the middle of the diner. 

He said no, apologized for being in her way, and turned back to look at Eva. She was looking at him too. 

Edward Penquist had been an accountant for most of his life, and the entirety of his married life. He was now an analyst, taking care of people’s problems before they arose. He liked numbers and facts. Tangible things. He wasn’t a very emotional man, and he was well aware of that. Yet, this man’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of his ex-wife. He’d grown old, but she hadn’t changed that much. More than that, it also hit him how much their daughter now looked like her mother. They had the same light brown hair, the same blue eyes, the same smile. Their noses also looked the same. Fleur turned out to be a younger version of her mother, even if the years had been kind on Eva. 

He finally decided to move out of the waitress’ way and went to sit in front of Eva. She was still, in his mind, the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid his eyes on. Not that he’d been watching any other woman since he’d met her anyway. He still found it in himself to remember the reason why he was here today. He wasn’t here to reminisce about the past, but to keep his daughter safe. 

The smile that had threatened to show on his face disappeared, leaving only a blank expression. “16 years,” Edward calmly said. “What do you want from her now, Eva ?”

She smiled at him. He hadn’t changed that much. She’d thought he’d looked different, but he didn’t. She remembered that jawline he’d always shared with Fleur, how she’d joked for years that he’d never be able to pretend she wasn’t his. Eva wanted nothing more than to see her daughter now, to tell if she still looked like her father. “It’s because it’s been 16 years, Ed,” she replied. “I miss my daughter, and you’re the only person who can help me find her.”

“But you had to involve other people in this,” he said. 

“I had to know if you were still working for these people,” she sighed. “I can’t believe you still do. Does she know ?”

Edward nodded. “I told her after you left. She had to know it wasn't her fault that you abandoned her,” he explained, his voice now filled with resentment over the pain she’d put their daughter through. 

Eva leaned forward and crossed her arms over the table, looking at him in the eyes. “You’re right. It was never her fault, Ed. It was yours. The lies, the-” The waitress stopped by their table. Edward barely looked at her when he waved his hand around to send her away. Eva rolled her eyes at his clear lack of respect now that he was angry with her and sighed. “Where is she ?”

“On a trip.”

“When will she be back ?”

“Hard to tell,” he replied. “When she feels like coming back. Might be a few weeks, might be a couple months.” He leaned forward, copying Eva’s position, and glared at her. “I’ll tell her you want to contact her. In the meantime, I suggest you let her be.”

“Call her now,” Eva insisted. “I want to be sure you tell her.”

He scoffed and laid back on his seat. “I’ll tell her when I see her, Eva. It took you 16 years to remember you had a child, a couple more months won’t hurt you.”

With that, he threw a few bills on the table and walked away. He knew Eva wouldn’t stop trying to find Fleur, but he was counting on his luck and hoped that she’d stay in Seattle, thinking she was somewhere around here long enough for Fleur to be done. She didn’t need that kind of distraction now. 

Fleur’s safety was, and had always been, Edward’s priority. Still, he felt a pinch of guilt run through him when he looked back at the diner and saw Eva holding her head in her hands, sobbing. He didn’t want to keep them apart forever, he thought. Fleur deserved to know that her mother was out there looking for her, no matter how angry he’d been after she left them. He simply wanted them to wait before meeting each other. 

They’d deal with their family drama later, far away from Seattle, and very far away from New York. 

***

Edward’s car was long gone when Eva finally found the strength to look up and order another coffee. She wiped the tears off her face and assured the waitress that she was fine. 

She’d hoped that Edward would accept to help her when he called her a few days ago. When he offered to meet here. That was why she jumped on the first plane. All this for nothing, because she’d have to wait for months before being able to hold her daughter in her arms and apologize to her. 

‘A trip’, he said. Months. No trip would ever take that long. Fleur had never mentioned wanting to travel the world. However, she’d said from a very young age that her father was her hero. She didn’t know the first thing about her father, but she had always admired him. Eva was sure that after losing her mother, this admiration only grew stronger in the young woman’s mind, and he admitted to have told her the truth about his life. 

Rage flashed through Eva’s eyes at the idea that Fleur might have taken that same path he did long before they’d even met. After it destroyed their marriage, Edward had the audacity to bring their child into that life. Fleur deserved better than lies. She deserved a life where she’d be happy. 

Eva didn’t know anything about how it all worked. When she discovered her husband had been lying to her for almost 20 years, she gave him a chance to come clean. Which he did, but she never asked him to go into details. She just left. She knew that she should’ve taken her daughter with her, but she was scared. He loved Fleur just as much as she did, and she was scared of what they’d do if they both disappeared. Now, Eva realized that she could’ve saved her daughter from all this. 

It wasn’t too late. She could still find her and ‘extract’ her, if that was the word they were using. Of course Edward loved Fleur, and Eva would never question that. And in the end, he’d helped her more than he thought. By asking her to meet him in Seattle, he’d confirmed that Fleur was still on the East Coast. It was time for Eva Duchamp to get into another plane. 

***

“Do you know who that is ?” Vanessa asked her driver as they were waiting in the private landing zone for her new friend to get there. The man shook his head. No one was telling him anything these days. “They said it was help, let’s hope he knows how to put a crib together.”

“I’m sure you can find people to do it for you, Ma’am.”

Vanessa politely smiled and turned her eyes back to the tarmac. These people couldn’t even recognize a joke. They were all Wilson’s friends anyway, they were used to his ways, not hers. She had neither the skills or the will to keep his business alive in his absence, she knew that just as well as they all did. It was her luck that she was pregnant. She was certain that it was the only reason why so many of them stayed by her side. To protect Wilson Fisk’s heir. Vanessa had always been a very intelligent woman. She was, once again, very right about all this. Not one person in Wilson Fisk’s inner circle cared about the woman they all deemed responsible for their boss’ downfall. That baby however, was a whole other story. 

The plane finally appeared in the sky. Vanessa opened the car door against her driver’s wishes and took a few steps outside. The fresh air had been something she’d missed lately. Between the summer heat and her hormones, she was burning up most of the time. Wilson’s lawyer complained about how cold the penthouse was once. She sent him away after advising him to take a coat the next time he’d come to visit her, and telling him that she wouldn’t be taking any advice from someone who never carried a child. The subject was never brought up again. 

Vanessa’s heart was pounding in her chest in anticipation. The plane was finally stopping. She couldn’t wait to know who was supposed to help her and her baby go through life in the state it currently was in. The stairs of the private jet unfolded, and Benjamin Poindexter walked out, down the steps, and stopped a few feet away from her. 

She hadn’t been expecting anyone in particular but if she had, it wouldn’t have been that man. Vanessa silently stared at him as the engines of the plane were being turned off, wondering what version of him was standing there. Was it agent Poindexter, the man who swore to protect his country against its enemies ? Was it Dex, the man who worked for Wilson by pretending to be Daredevil ? Or was it the man who tried to kill her husband in retaliation ? The last time she’d seen him, he was being put on a stretcher after a fall that seemingly left him paralyzed. She’d asked what had happened to him after that, but no one had ever been able to give her an answer. 

But now he didn’t look paralyzed at all. He was standing straight in front of Vanessa, waiting for her to either send him back to the plane or say something. 

She chose the second option. “Why are you here ?” she simply asked. 

“I understand that it’s a surprise to you to see me,” he calmly replied, forcing himself to show empathy for the pregnant woman. “I’m here to honor my debt to Mr Fisk. He had arrangements made for me to be healed after I fell. I’m here to repay him and take care of his family,” he added, looking at Vanessa’s stomach. 

She instinctively brought her hand to protect her child, protecting it from that man who once presented himself to her as the ‘new James Wesley’. But James Wesley was a good man, and a good friend, according to some standards. Benjamin Poindexter was neither of these things, according to all standards. 

That being said, he had skills that Wesley never had, and he could prove himself undeniably useful if anyone ever tried to hurt her or her baby. She nodded at him and stepped aside, leaving him access to the car waiting for them. “Get in the car,” she said. “We’ll talk over dinner.”

***

Matt barely had dinner that night. Karen had offered to order something, but he wanted to feel useful again and told her he’d be on the roof if she needed anything. He’d now been on that roof for two hours and had barely moved at all. 

After Poindexter used his suit as his own, Matt had a new one made for him. That one was definitely more comfortable and according to Karen, a little more cheerful. Matt wasn’t sure if it was really a good thing, but he wanted to stay in that LA stylist’s good graces and didn’t complain about the cheerful bit when he was asked about feedback. And if it helped people remember that he wasn’t the killer they’d seen on the news, it was only a plus. 

Someone screamed. Matt stood up and focused on the streets below him. A woman crying for help. Three streets down. He ran to the other side of the roof and jumped on top of the next building. He’d be there before the cops.  

He kept jumping from one roof to another and got to the woman and her assailant in no time. There was only one man, trying to rob a woman behind a dark corner. Matt jumped down, landing in between the man and his victim. She screamed and ran away, leaving him to deal with the man.

That man didn’t seem to realize that he was in way over his head and still plunged on Matt, his knife ready to deal with the masked vigilante. He screamed in pain when Matt moved aside and twisted his arm behind his back. The man fell on his knees, and pathetically begged for his life. He stopped fighting, much to Matt’s regret. It was even easier now that some people still believed him to be a cold assassin. 

Hearing the police sirens wailing in the distance, Matt hurried and tied the man up to a broken lamp post. They’d take care of him themselves. On his way out, Matt stopped and turned back to the pleading man. He hadn’t realized before. That smell. Flowers. It wasn’t from the woman he attacked, he was sure of it. 

Now invested in a brand new mission by himself, Matt jumped on the nearest security stairs and made his way back to the roof. He kept running, jumping and rolling without ever stopping. He had to get back there. Rose had to have something to do with that woman being assaulted. In his mind, things were clear. The flower shop was only a cover for her criminal activities. She ordered this attack. Whoever Rose Parsons was, she was not only opening a flower shop.

Sadly, his hopes were crushed when he made it back to the supposedly fake flower shop. As he was standing on the roof, listening to whatever was happening inside Rose’s apartment, he realized that the smell wasn’t the same. She didn’t have any contact with that man. She probably had nothing to do with illegal activities. Not the ones he was originally thinking about, at least. 

She was only sitting on her couch, eating some Chinese takeout that she ordered online and was delivered to her door by a student trying to get by. She used the money she got back from the shelf to treat herself and took enough to eat for a few days. Nothing criminal here. She’d had a good day and was enjoying her night, working on some personal business she had to take care of. Nothing Matt Murdock could ever prove or even find out about. 

***

Matt’s hurry to go back to that place to check up on a flower girl didn’t go unnoticed. Benjamin Poindexter might have been sent back to New York to protect Vanessa, not knowing about the baby she was expecting, but he still had some business of his own to take care of. Daredevil was that business. Hurting him was on top of Dex’s priority list. And the flower girl seemed to mean something to him, otherwise why would he have run back here right after helping another helpless woman in that street ? 

Matt left the roof to go back to his place, but Dex didn’t move. He stayed there, watching over the woman on her computer as she was eating her egg fried rice with a fork, not knowing that she’d just become someone of great interest in a city of millions.