Players Unmasked
Eva hadn’t had a second of sleep ever since Dex had thrown Edward’s unconscious body in that cell. She’d completely lost track of time, and was now only waiting for him to wake up. He’d moved some time before, but she’d been too scared of the pain he’d be in and used one of the syringes Dex gave her to keep Edward alive. Anytime she’d been trying to rest her eyes after that, panic was taking over, forcing her to keep watching him.
The bleeding had stopped. At first, she thought that it was a good thing. But then, she’d noticed how pale he was, and how ugly his wound was. She was now certain that he could’ve died at any moment.
That was how Eva found herself on her knees, praying for Edward to survive. She’d never prayed before. She was probably doing this all wrong, because he was still unconscious. And when he finally opened his eyes, after a day, or two, or maybe just a really long time, she allowed herself to thank God for it.
She crawled next to him and smiled through her tears. “You’re alive,” she whispered.
Edward painfully tried to keep his eyes open, but talking was still out of his reach. For a moment, he kept them closed and tried to form a coherent timeline regarding what had happened to him.
He remembered his unanswered calls to Eva. He remembered going to meet her. A phone was ringing. He remembered shooting something, and a bullet entering his arm. Shoulder. A man stopped above him before he lost consciousness. He remembered that man. Poindexter.
He tried to move, to understand what was going on and how Eva tied up into all this, but she forced him to stay still. She said something about recovering. Her voice seemed so far, echoing in his head, when her face had been so close. The pain in his shoulder was waking up with him. Edward had been shot before. That wasn’t the pain he was supposed to be feeling. He slowly opened his eyes. Despite the blur, he managed to see the walls around them. Metal. His left hand touched the floor around him.
They were in a cage, by themselves, and Eva had probably been the one to take care of him. She wasn’t a doctor. He had no idea how long she’d been in there, and he was sure of one thing. If they didn’t get out of there fast, he’d lose his arm from an infection. Moving was still too painful. He tried to talk instead.
Eva immediately moved her ear above his mouth. “Pain ?” He nodded. “I can give you something, but it’ll make you sleep again.” She brushed the hair away from his forehead and sighed. “Maybe that’s for the best.”
“No.”
“Ed, you’re… You need to rest and- Half ?” she asked. “Can I give you half of it ?”
He nodded again, but she was already looking through her small stock of medical supplies. It took a few minutes for the painkillers to work their magic. Too long for Edward when he was only thinking about one thing. His arm didn’t matter anymore. Eva’s worrying state was only secondary.
As soon as the pain stopped forcing him to clench his jaw, he looked at Eva. “Fleur,” he breathed out.
Eva sat on the ground, her back against the wall and her knees close to her face. “I think she’s safe for now. He wants us to be alive,” she said. “He has plans. Oh, I-” she jumped to her left, moaning in pain when the shackles around her ankles pulled her back, and grabbed her only bottle of water. “I’ve kept you some. I wanted to give it all to you, but I… I was too thirsty and I threw up a lot. And I rinsed my hands before changing your bandages.”
“You did well,” he whispered.
Washing her hands had been unnecessary. In his current state of dehydration, Edward knew that it would’ve soon become a problem. But Eva wasn’t a nurse, and he owed his life to that woman. She didn’t need the truth.
“He says she’s collateral damage, Ed,” she said as she was helping him to a sip of water.
“Why ?”
“I’m not his confidant,” she scoffed. “He wants to hurt a man she’s close to.”
Edward was rather confused. After Poindexter killed Santos’ team, every single one of them had been required to learn his file. The only man he would’ve wanted to hurt, because of some twisted idea of revenge he had in mind, was Wilson Fisk. Fleur had never mentioned forming a bond with that man. She once sent a report because she’d shot him in the knee, but that wasn’t something to start a friendship on.
“Woman ?” he asked.
Eva shook her head. “He said something like dating. That she’d never forgive him for our deaths.”
Not Page, Edward thought. Poindexter had probably lost his mind for good. The only other men ever mentioned in his file were an FBI agent he’d killed, and Daredevil. He might’ve wanted revenge on him. The only problem was that Daredevil had no connection to Edward’s daughter.
“Dating,” he whispered. There was that man, the lawyer who was letting her sleep on his couch. Edward had hoped that it was where she’d be sleeping, but maybe there was more to it. “No sense.” Eva was confused, but it was nothing compared to the headache threatening Edward at the moment. He tried to remember the lawyer’s name, and then to guess if he’d ever been mentioned to have a link with Poindexter. There was none. Poindexter was a lot of things, but he wasn’t one to choose his victims without knowing why. Not when he was planning on abducting a woman’s parents. He had to have known something more, something that Edward was only now figuring out. “Fuck.”
“What ?” Eva almost jumped on top of him. Something had happened in his head just now, and maybe he’d thought that he said it out loud, but he hadn’t. She was still in the dark. “Edward, talk to me,” she begged him. “Is she safe ? Edward ?”
He opened his eyes again and sighed. “I think Fleur’s dating her target.”
***
William placed a cup of coffee next to Rose and sighed. “I hope the baby your parents are making ends up better than their first.”
“That’s disgusting.” She looked up from the file she was trying to sort out and frowned. “Why are you being disgusting ?”
“He hasn’t called.”
“And ?”
“Protocol.”
“And ?”
He winced. “Are you deaf ? He hasn’t called in almost 48 hours.”
“He’s not required to call you,” she replied. “And it hasn’t been 48 hours yet.”
Rose knew that it wasn’t usual for her father not to respect protocol, since he’d always been the first to lecture her whenever she wasn’t following it religiously, but it was also unusual for him to be in company of his ex-wife. She’d call him herself, since William seemed to be so disturbed, and she’d find a minute to lecture him on the importance of protocol when it came to their security. He’d like it. Knowing her parents, her father was probably only trying to get her mother to understand their lives and to stop running around New York calling her by a name that wasn’t using at the time.
She left her seat and pinned a few more pictures and documents on the boards they’d set up. Behind her, three piles of untouched files were still waiting. A week would’ve never be enough, and Rose was starting to think that there was a reason if no one ever asked for that case before.
“I say you take the su-”
“Say ‘suits’ and watch me leave,” William said with a bright smile. “You take these stupid suits and I get…” He looked through the files and ended up picking a random one. “Right. Victimology.”
“That’s worse.”
There were so many testimonies that they’d stopped counting them. Whether they were coming from the victims Daredevil had saved or the criminals he’d beaten up, they all had something to say. Rose had read them once, and if it reinforced her will to take the case, it didn’t give her any lead to follow.
She still understood where William was coming from. These suits were a nightmare, and he’d been working on them for weeks, after taking over the previous work of other people who’d gotten nothing out of them. And now, standing in front of that board, she didn’t even know where to start.
Two different suits, made by two different people. They’d gotten a hold of the man who’d made the second one right before the feds executed him on Fisk’s orders. Rose had met him and asked for him to be released. He didn’t know anything other than ‘he’s a good guy, he’s protecting us, I betrayed him’, and clearly wasn’t the sharpest tool of the box. He didn’t deserve to be in jail, and he’d been sent somewhere nice with his girlfriend, somewhere they’d be able to find him if anyone ever needed some protective gear. Not the brightest, but maybe the most skilled at his craft. The identity of the person who had made the current suit was still unknown, and the first one was just a monumental joke. Just like all first suits these people were making for themselves, it was flawed. Poor quality. That man had barely protected himself for months.
“Hey, you have the depositions from the people he’s put in the ER ?” she asked. She pointed at the few poor quality pictures they had from Daredevil’s DIY project. “From that period.”
William looked through his current file, then through another one and a few others before finding the right one. He cleared his throat and took his best drug dealer voice. “That motherfucker can take a punch, if you get to touch him he doesn’t flinch. Didn’t give a shit that we were eight and we had-” He stopped and closed the file. “Ninja.”
“Any record from anyone not involved in these fights but showed up with coinciding injuries ?” she asked. “They had knives, guns, and they knew how to fight. He had to get patched up somewhere.”
William threw his file away and sighed. “I already looked into that. I cross checked all of the dates with every single medical record in New York.”
“What about nearby states ?”
“Sure,” he scoffed. “Because when you’re hurt and bloody, you’re gonna drive two hours to get stitches out of state. I’ve heard New Jersey’s nurses were hot.”
Rose smiled. “Okay, is there anything you haven’t figured out yet ?”
“Of all the things I haven’t figured out yet ?” he asked back. He left his seat and joined her by the board. “There’s one thing,” he said, staring at the first set of pictures. “We only have bad images of this one, but how does he see ?”
“Holes in the fabric.”
“Nope. No mention of his eyes anywhere. That’s usually in the top five when people describe someone else. Skin, hair, eyes, height, weight.”
Rose sighed. “He’s only been spotted at night.”
“So we think he has a day job.”
“That doesn’t pay,” she scoffed. “Because a suit made from Amazon picks, that’s a broke dude. But it’s dark, and he’s putting a thick piece of fabric around his head. How do you take down so many people if you can’t see shit ?”
William raised his cup and smiled. “Night vision.”
That had been one the recurring theories people had. Since they knew close to nothing about the guy, rumors went wild. “He’s got eyes in the next two, though,” she whispered. “That’s usually when they start thinking about when we find them.”
“Decoy ?”
“Maybe.” She walked away from another dead-end and sat on the edge of the large conference table. “What about connections ?”
“Nothing new either,” he sighed, opening another file. “You said you met Jessica Jones, right ? Did she tell you anything ?”
“Yep, and I’m only getting a headache now because I like the sound of your voice,” she snapped back, glaring at him. “They’re friends, she wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Touching,” he laughed. “So here’s what you’re dealing with. A beat up ninja with night vision, with a job that doesn’t pay, and who’s friends with Jessica Jones. You’ve spent months there, tell me you have someone that matches.”
Rose laughed along with him. Not only was that ridiculous, but that was also nothing. Almost three months, and she’d gotten nothing more than what they already had. “You know,” she said, taking a breath, “take out the night vision ninja and I might’ve exactly th-”
She stopped laughing and walked back to the boards. That was a stretch. But if William forgot about his precious night vision ninja, she had someone who checked all of these boxes. It almost added up to perfection, even if it wasn’t physically possible.
“What now ?” he asked.
She moved closer to the pictures of that first suit. There was no possible way. “What if he doesn’t need to see,” she whispered. She turned back to William, her brows furrowed and her heart pounding in her chest. “Medical records,” she said. “Matthew Murdock, all visits to the ER in the last 3 years.”
He started looking through highly confidential records, and she sat back around the table. Her legs were already bouncing. She couldn’t stop. It was simply a coincidence. Sure, there were too many of those, but she had to be sure before she allowed herself a cardiac arrest.
After a minute, William looked up. “Nothing.”
She nodded and turned his laptop towards her. The file he’d given her about Matt was still in there. She’d read something. Foggy talked about it. Matt had only recently gotten back to practicing law. He’d stopped. There was a time when Daredevil went missing. She looked at the dates on Matt’s file and checked on the board. The timeline checked out almost perfectly. Only a week between Daredevil’s comeback and Matt’s.
“What if he doesn’t need to see,” she repeated, a little louder.
William leaned forward and shook his head. “I said ‘night vision ninja’, not ‘blind dude with a cane.”
Rose kept her head down, going over every single thing she’d ever found weird about Matt. There was the paint. She’d made sure they’d all get splashed. He’d avoided it. He wasn’t the target, but something had to get to him too. Nothing did. He’d known that Bees’ Paradise was a flower shop when the only flowers were in the back of her apartment, too far for anyone to see or smell. The cacti box he’d jumped over.
How many times had she questioned his blindness ? She’d read his file only the previous night. She’d checked. There was no doubt about it. “You know what they say when you lose a sense, right ? That the others get stronger ?”
“You don’t get it,” he calmly replied. “We were both there. How does a blind man gets to kick my ass the way he did ?”
“Boxing ?”
“I’m serious, F.”
“Me too,” she insisted. “I’ve seen the scars on his back, William. This is not from boxing or falling, or being attacked by one of Fisk’s men. I’m talking about some serious shit, and there’s no mention of him being in the hospital for it ? Seriously, would it be the weirdest thing we’ve seen ?”
He leaned back on his chair and sighed. “That’s not him. Too much of a stretch.”
Rose scoffed. If William’s ego hadn’t been on the line, he’d have been agreeing with her already. She didn’t have any proof, and she was still very much hoping to be wrong, to find something that didn’t fit, but it did. That was more than they’d ever had.
“Do you believe in God ?” she asked.
“No, and neither do you.”
“Right, so technically we can’t go to Hell if we do a very bad thing.”
He looked up and frowned. For a few seconds, he simply stared at her, trying to understand what she meant. And then he did. “No way.”
“We need proof.”
“Not doing that.”
Rose rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not talking about anything big, only… you know, it’s just to make sure it’s not him.”
“No,” he firmly said. “That has nothing to do with religion, F. This is basic human decency. I’m not going to beat up a disabled guy because you’ve suddenly decided he’s Daredevil. You shouldn’t even be talking about this,” he added. “Aren’t you sleeping with the guy ?”
“Well, uh… No.”
“No ?”
“It’s been a busy week,” she defended herself. “And… whatever, that didn’t happen.”
“Your life is so sad.”
“Fuck you,” she breathed out. “Will you do it or do I need to ask someone else ? Because if it’s him, that’s not gonna be your name on the report I hand back, you know that.”
She knew she’d hit the right spot. William rubbed his hands over his face and looked down at the pile of files next to them for many seconds. When he looked back at her, he sighed. “There’s gotta be a very special place in Hell for people like us.”
***
Karen had spent the night out and was still to come back after chasing that mysterious lead she’d refused to share with her friends. They were now waiting for her to finally show up, hopefully filling in the blanks for them, because so far, they had nothing to work with.
“It’s weird that they didn’t invite you for lunch,” Foggy said after a silence too long for his taste. He was probably referring to Rose, who was supposedly visiting her father in the morning. “I mean, you’re sleeping with his daughter, I’d want to meet you if I were him.”
Matt took a sip from his coffee and nodded. “Nothing happened.”
For once, Foggy was at a loss for words. They’d been seeing each other for over a week, and even if the circumstances weren’t idea, it was still unusual for Matt to wait that long. “Say I believe you,” he calmly said. “That’s a cute story to tell your chidren in like, 10 to 15 years. That you’ve managed to wait for a week before touching their mother.”
“What’s in your coffee ?” Matt laughed.
“Optimism, you should try it sometimes.” Foggy sat on the edge of Karen’s desk and shrugged. “I choose to believe that it’s all just a big misunderstanding. Wrong person, wrong place, that kind of thing,” he said. “Not everything has to be connected to Rose.”
He really wanted to believe that it would all be resolved quickly, with an explanation that would’ve made them all think that they had been idiots to ever think that someone had something against Rose. Even worse, that they’d allowed themselves to think that she was connected to any of these things happening.
Unfortunately for him, Karen entered the office wearing the same clothes as the previous day, and holding a mountain of paperwork. What really bothered Foggy however, was the look on her face. She was exhausted, of course, but she was also concerned. Concerned, and sorry about something.
She took a deep breath and looked at her friends. Like a bandaid, she thought. “Rose is some kind of cop, and I think she’s after Daredevil.”
As Matt was already showering her with questions about her last evening, Foggy took his coffee and calmly walked back to the kitchen. He spilled it out in the sink, and watched the last drops of optimism disappearing down the drain.
“Are you okay ?” Karen asked when he came back.
“Peachy.”
Matt held a hand in front of him. “Wait,” he said. “You can’t just throw accusations like that. You were looking for that woman I talked to, and now you’re saying Rose is- How ?”
She led them to the conference room, rushed to get back to the kitchen and grab the coffee pot, since they’d all need it, and came back. A lot had happened since the last time they’d been in that same room.
During the first coffee, she covered everything from her visit of Eva’s appartment. The pictures, and more importantly the man who was always by Rose’s side. She’d called Ellison the second she remembered the man, and he’d told her everything he remembered from him. Not his name, but the way he’d threatened to have the Bulletin crawling under a mountain of paperwork and never making it out of the water before having to file for bankruptcy. Worse, the man had official papers censuring the media on what they could or could not publish about Frank Castle. He’d also remembered once thing about that man. He had a badge from Homeland Security.
Of course Matt and Foggy assumed immediately that Rose’s father had been working with the government. That was the goal of that badge. But Karen countered that by telling them that she’d called someone from Homeland Security. The woman was now with the CIA, and still managed to not remember that man from anywhere. His face was completely unknown to her. When she’d searched the reports about Frank Castle, she noticed that every single one had been transferred out of their servers, to an unknown source. Source that she didn’t have the necessary level of clearance to access.
Waiting for another one of her friends to call back, Karen had then decided to go and talk to Eva’s neighbor. She didn’t learn anything useful about Rose’s father, but Rose herself. As it turned out, Rose wasn’t even her real name. The neighbor was confident that the girl’s name was Fleur.
She wanted to give them a second to let that sink in, to realize that Rose had in fact been lying to them the whole time, but Karen didn’t have time. That was only the start of her night.
When she’d left the neighbor’s apartment after dinner, Karen stopped by the precinct to talk to Brett. She didn’t even have to beg him for anything. He’d noticed that weird things were happening too, and he wanted answers. They both searched through the files that had been transferred to an unknown source outside of their servers, just like the Homeland Security ones. Three of them showed up. The disappearance of two men working for one of Rose’s suppliers, the mysterious homicide downtown, and the guard working in Fisk’s prison. Brett had looked it up, and these three cases’ investigations had been taken over by someone else. They all thought that it was Rose’s father, when in reality it was only the new worker in charge of Benjamin Poindexter doing his job and trying to stop the local population from talking about him and creating a wave of panic, thinking that he’d get to him before he made himself known.
And when Foggy and Matt thought that the worst was behind them, that maybe Rose wasn’t behind all this and was only hiding her identity because of her father’s job, whatever it was, Karen told them about a conversation she’d had with Frank Castle. He’d never met Rose’s father, and had never seen the girl in the picture, but he remembered someone who’d come to talk to him about his encounters with Daredevil. He’d left empty handed, but with a bullet in the thigh. He’d been arrested for it, and released after that. He’d thought that his friend from the CIA had been the one to pull some strings, but after another call to their common friend, it turned out that she’d never done anything of the sort. Someone was making sure to keep Frank out of prison.
If Foggy was finding it hard to turn up with any decent excuse for his friend now that her father was apparently Big Brother, it wasn’t Matt’s case. “None of it ties up to Rose,” he said. He’d listened to everything, but nothing here was incriminating enough. “Nothing says it’s her.”
“It does, but you’re not gonna like it,” Karen said. “Eva’s neighbor told me that she’d hired a PI to find her daughter under the name of Fleur, right ?”
“And ?”
“We asked that same PI to look into Rose’s past,” she replied. “Jessica saw both pictures, related to both names, and-”
“She lied to us,” Matt finished.
“What if,” Foggy intervened before they decided to cut all ties with her, “what if these people have something on her ? She could be trying to protect us.”
“She lied,” Matt repeated. He knew that they’d never been very close, but he’d hoped that in a case like that, she’d have shared a few important things. Instead, she’d come up with a tale about a girl who didn’t even exist. At the same time, she could’ve also been trying to protect Rose. They still had nothing of substance against her, and he wasn’t ready to believe that she’d lied about so many things. Matt himself had never caught her lying. “She’s been attacked. And the shop… You’ve seen her, it doesn’t add up.”
“I’m with him on that,” Foggy agreed. “The other night in the shop, you weren’t there. She was- No.” He took a second to look at the files Karen had methodically laid out on the table and frowned. “What if she’s not here for Matt ?” He pointed at the three files Brett had printed for them. “Let’s say that the same person did all that. If she’s working with these people, she might be here to catch him.”
“And keep that kind of person out of trouble, like Castle ?” Matt asked, not exactly feeling better about that theory.
“Look, it’s better than her coming after you,” he argued. “What’s the timeline ?”
Karen looked through her notes. “She moved here in June,” she said. “We met her in August, these three cases all happened soon after that.”
“Her aggression and the shop too,” Matt added.
“So what, she’s after Matt and someone is after her ?” Foggy asked. “These guys,” he said, pushing the file about the delivery men, “they add up. But what does she have to do with a random homicide and a prison guard ?”
“Fisk,” Matt breathed out. “If someone went to talk to Frank about me, they must’ve gone to talk to Fisk, too.” He immediately pulled out his phone and asked it to call his contact there, a man named Gregory. “Greg,” he said as soon as someone picked up, “it’s Matt Murdock.”
“Hey, how are you doing ?”
“Good,” he lied. “I’m calling you about a case I’m working on, I was hoping you could help me.”
“You’re working on Yuri’s murder ?” Gregory asked.
“Yes,” he lied again. “Is it connected to Fisk in any way ?”
“I think so. There was an incident with him that night.”
“What incident ?” Foggy asked.
“Uh… Who are you ?”
“My associate,” Matt immediately replied. “Wait, you’re saying Yuri Hansen talked to Fisk ?”
“Hm, no,” Gregory mumbled. “I wasn’t there, it was the shift after mine,” he explained, “but Yuri was already dead. They checked the handwriting on the report and everything. I mean, she’s very committed, all tests were done and it wasn’t him apparently. And my boss said that it was a guy from the feds who did it, that it wasn’t our fault and all.”
“The feds talked to Fisk ?” Foggy asked, almost jumping onto the table.
“Who’s that ‘she’ ?” Karen added.
“Hey, Matt,” Greg replied, “you know I’m not supposed to tell you anything, right ? Looks like you have a press conference going on here.”
Matt pulled the phone closer to him and sighed. “You can trust them. Do you have a name on that woman ?”
“No way,” Greg scoffed. “Fisk’s case worker ?”
“Yeah.”
“Not telling you that. She’s nice and all, but I think she only gives us gifts to make us forget that she can ruin our lives with a snap of her fingers,” he replied. “She had the guys make a full search of Fisk’s cell yesterday, and she asked for a rectal exam on him, too. I’ve heard she shot him in the knee once. Just like that, because he was trying to scare her.”
“Sir,” Karen started, leaning towards the phone, “does the name ‘Fleur’ ring a bell ?” Greg didn’t reply. She wasn’t expecting him to, and his silence was more than she’d asked for. “Has she ever gifted you plants ? Flowers ?”
“Listen, lady,” Greg finally said. “I don’t know you, and I know you’re doing your thing, but my wife can’t work. I can’t lose my job, okay ? The only thing I can tell you is to let her be. She’s alright, okay ? Just don’t piss her off and leave me out of it.”
He hung up before Matt even thanked him for his help, which he wasn’t about to do. They’d been sitting there for almost two hours, and learned things that he didn’t want to be true. The friends remained silent for a long time, now that they knew so much about Rose.
“Guys,” Foggy whispered. “I solved the murder cases.” Karen arched a brow at him, and Matt simply lifted his head up. “FBI guy, stealing other people’s suits, killing people because they’re in his way ?”
Matt shook his head. “Can’t be him. The last time I saw him, he couldn’t feel anything.”
“But if he was back,” he insisted, “he’d want to hurt you, starting with someone you’re close to.”
“And he’d go to Fisk,” Karen added. “And to me.”
Foggy sighed. “So, uh… Do we think Rose is on our side or not ? Because we might need some help, here.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Why is it always us ? I just wanted to help people and get rich.”
***
Rose checked her phone for the tenth time in only an hour. Still too soon. It would still be too soon for another couple of hours, but she’d been unable to think about anything else all day. At least her hands were busy.
After leaving the print shop, she’d stopped by Pops and convinced him to make a donation to charity. He forced Tommy to come clean with his tendency of talking about her to anyone who asked, but she didn’t care. It only meant that Jessica Jones never managed to get them off her back. Her cover had been a disaster from start to finish, but that wasn’t a problem anymore. William was still doubting her, but she wasn’t. Rose was sure of herself. She was right, and she’d be gone soon. Karen hadn’t been the only one Tommy had talked to, and she’d probably talked to her mother before her father took her away, meaning that they most likely knew that she’d lied about her name. With all the good work Rose had done, she was a bit disappointed that everyone around her made it their only goal to ruin everything.
Gone. She’d been given a week. She wanted that week. Now she’d just have to leave and forget about Rose Parsons. She’d liked being her. She didn’t want to stop being that woman.
As she was trying to arrange the sunflowers in between the rose bushes Pops had given away, Rose heard footsteps. She glanced behind her and recognized the black robes standing a few feet away. “I’m almost done,” she said, smiling at the nun.
Maggie took a few steps forward and held her umbrella over Rose’s head, who looked up and finally noticed the rain. “I think you deserve something warm,” she said. “What about hot chocolate ?”
“I have coffee,” Rose replied. “I don’t mind the rain.”
“We’d mind if you got sick trying to help us. Come inside.”
That didn’t sound like a request. Rose looked at the trailer Pops and Tommy lent her. There wasn’t much left, and she wouldn’t have said no to a break. She nodded, put down her tools and followed Maggie inside.
There were only a few people there, maybe sheltering themselves from the rain, maybe visiting. They weren’t praying. The nun quietly showed her a pew in the back, and Rose sat next to her, checking that she wasn’t wetting the floor too much.
After a few seconds of silence that made Rose very uncomfortable, she looked at Maggie and scoffed. “I was wondering when you’d try to get me to pray.”
“Do you want to pray ?”
“Not really, no.”
Maggie smiled. “You never come in. Do you have a relationship with God at all ?”
“I don’t exactly believe He’s real,” she replied with a shrug. “I think He’s not taking it very well lately.”
“And yet, you’ve offered to make this place more welcoming.”
Rose stared at the candles lit next to the altar. She’d never believed in God, but she was open to the possibility of being wrong about it. Therefore, she’d always made sure to do enough good to balance her job. Finding out about people’s identities, ratting out to very powerful people about it, being the one who would cause her targets to lose every single one of their rights without them even knowing… It required a lot of good deeds to balance everything.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do anything for the orphanage,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Are you leaving ?”
“I- Well, I’m planting everything I guilt-tripped one of my suppliers to give, but I have nothing else.”
“Is that what’s bothering you ?” Rose arched a brow at her. “I’m a nun, not an idiot.”
She scoffed. She was a master liar, but apparently not good enough for God’s servants. “With everything that’s happened to me lately, I think I can be a little bothered ?”
“At times, our beliefs must be challenged,” Maggie calmly replied. “You came to New York, started a new life, built something of your own, it takes a lot of courage. You’ve been savagely attacked, and you kept your offer to help that church. You’ve lost everything, and you’re here, apologizing for not being able to do more.”
Maggie wasn’t wrong about one thing. Rose’s beliefs had been challenged. Not by everything that happened to Rose Parsons, but by Rose Parsons herself. Even for a short period of time, Fleur Penquist had been given everything she could’ve asked for. In less than a week, she’d lost everything. She’d questioned her choices for longer than her shop’s troubles. She’d questioned them the second she’d visited that empty commercial spot and the ridiculously small apartment attached to it.
That was her test, then. Was her job worth giving up everything she could’ve ever wanted for herself ?
“I should get back to work,” she said.
“Of course.” Maggie grabbed something next to her and handed it to Rose. “Wear this. No one wants you to get sick on top of everything else.”
Now wearing a very ugly green raincoat, Rose planted the last of her bushes and sunflowers in front of the church. It was nothing like she’d imagined, but still better than before. She sighed, thinking that not even one thing had gone the right way since she’d gotten to New York.
***
On his way to the newest shop of Hell’s Kitchen, William tried calling Edward again. It wasn’t like him to break protocol, and even less not to call back. Worse, he hadn’t been harrassing everyone to know about his daughter’s safety. Everything was going to shit around her, and he’d apparently decided that she was doing fine and didn’t need him checking up on her.
“Hey, Ed, it’s me again,” he said, leaving yet another message on his mentor’s voicemail. “It’s been over 48 hours, you know the protocol and you’re not calling me back. I checked, and the last time you’ve missed a call was when your wife left you. I suggest you stop trying to win her back, she has a whole family waiting for her on the other side of the world. Your daughter’s right here, and she’s lost her damn mind, Ed. Call her, she’s getting me to beat up the blind dude she’s dating. No sex happened, by the way. If it makes you sleep better.” He looked at his watch. “You have an hour to call me back, or I’ll have to report you as missing.”
He stopped in front of Fleur’s shop and secured the hood on his head. He’d seen it on the police’s pictures, but what happened there was a real hate job. That was personal, and Poindexter had no reason to hate her like that. He had reasons to hate Daredevil, but not her. He looked up to the windows of the law practice he was supposed to watch and sighed. She could’ve been right and he simply wasn’t ready to admit to himself that he got beat up by- No. It couldn’t be the same guy, he knew that.
He walked around the corner and reached the back of her apartment. A real shithole, he thought. He’d been to her real place once, when Edward was getting his kitchen painted, and for one moment he’d envied the paycheck coming with the short-time covers. That jealousy disappeared when he’d remembered that the girl had no life of her own. She was living in that expensive apartment only a few months a year. Not enough to have real friends, even less dating anyone. No matter how much he’d always wanted to take his boyfriend on a proper holiday, at least he had someone to go back to every night. Fleur only had her plants. Not even that anymore, he thought. He’d never say it to her face, but he somehow admired her. She’d suffered the consequences of the lies coming with the job since she was a child, and she was still going on. That was a level of commitment he’d rarely seen before.
It didn’t change that she was insane and a pain in his ass. Convincing him to go after the lawyer… William already had a list of everything she’d have to do for him when he’d prove her that she was wrong.
He waited by the window of Fleur’s apartment, barely protected from the rain, for another hour. He checked the lights of the offices upstairs a few times. He didn’t know how long lawyers were supposed to work, but it was getting dark. The hour had passed, and Edward still hadn’t called. Had he even listened to his message ? The Penquists were great liars, but there was no doubt in William’s mind that the ex-wife could’ve beaten him in a fist fight. That was why they were both calling him whenever they needed violence. The Penquist family, William thought. Good with guns, shit with their hands.
He didn’t get another second to think about that messed up family. A man, dressed in red and with stupid horns on his head, jumped from the other building and landed in front of him. William wasn’t masked this time around, and was hoping that he wouldn’t remember him from their last encounter.
“Wow,” he almost shouted, pointing at Daredevil. “I know you ! I’m a huge f-”
Matt rushed, jumped, and kicked William’s broken arm. The cast had been hidden with his hoodie, and William now knew that the man had recognized him. He clenched his jaw, fighting hard not to let the pain take over. The cast was broken. On the ground, he rolled over and dodged another hit coming for his head.
“What do you want with her again ?” Matt asked.
Clearly not blind, William thought, trying to put some distance between them. He hadn’t been a match to the guy when he had two functioning arms, he wasn’t going to take his chances with only one.
But Matt didn’t stop. He kicked William in the chest, making him bend over. A punch on the ear, and he was kneeling in a puddle of rainwater. “Who are you ?” he asked.
William was getting a bit tired of that guy already. He spat the blood out of his mouth and closed his eyes, trying to stop the earth from spinning. The pain would have its time to shine later. For now, he had to get out of there. “The tooth fairy,” he hissed.
Matt took a step closer to grab his throat. William held his breath and slid his knife down his sleeve. He turned around, took a swing. Matt grabbed his wrist, but William was already expecting that. He pulled him closer and kicked him in the knee. He freed his hand and twisted Matt’s arm before swinging again. The point of the knife got him, judging by the low groan the Devil made. William shielded his face from another punch using the cast, screamed when it completely shattered and sent a wave of excruciating pain all the way through his body, and threw his opponent at the window.
The planks gave up on impact, and William immediately ran away from the scene. He didn’t check on the night vision ninja. He didn’t look back to check if he was being followed either. He kept running, until he finally reached his car three blocks away from the shop. He started driving, holding his arm against his chest.
When he deemed himself far enough from Hell’s Kitchen, he stopped. He took a deep breath and let out a worrying amount of insults regarding a lot of people’s mothers. He howled, for as long as he needed, and kept screaming until his throat also became painful. He hit his head on the car seat over and over again, slowly allowing himself to breathe again. He needed a hospital. He checked the glove box of his car, looking for an ID card he hadn’t used recently for the same thing.
He placed his phone on the passenger’s seat and took a deep breath. “Call the stupid bitch,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Calling Fleur Penquist,” his phone replied.
It took less than a second for her to answer. “Is it done ?” she asked.
“Fuck you !” William shouted. “You hear me ? Fuck ! You !”
She waited a couple of seconds before even trying to say anything else, but William wasn’t shouting at her anymore. “Do you want to elaborate on all those fucks ? Was it him ?”
“The fuck do I know,” he snapped back. “I didn’t see that stupid lawyer. Probably still working. But his good friend Daredevil showed up to beat the crap outta me again. He broke my arm, again !” He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. The car was dangerously drifting to the right, and he wasn’t ready to die yet. “I cut him. Look for a guy with a cut somewhere on the face. And maybe a limp, I got his knee pretty bad.”
“Hey, Will,” she calmly said. “You’re gonna be okay ?”
“Yeah, but I feel like shit right now,” he replied. “I’m getting to a hospital, and I’m not going home tonight. I need morphine, and I need to find your fucking father. Fuck him, too, by the way.”
“Shit,” she breathed out. “Just… Forget the protocol, okay ? Take care of yourself. Get some rest.”
“F ?”
“Yeah ?”
“Fuck you.” He hung up and quickly got the car back on the road.
***
Dex was back. Rose was lying. The guy who attacked her came back. Nothing made sense to Matt anymore.
He’d been thinking about this all day. As much as he wanted Rose to be the good person he knew she was, there were now too many coincidences to be treated as such. He’d had doubts from the start, of course, but there were things he’d never questioned. She was nice, caring, and sometimes a little weird. She couldn’t have lied about everything. In fact, he’d never caught her in a lie. Not once, not for one little thing. Matt knew better than anyone how to catch people lying to him, and it never happened with her.
It seemed that she’d been on the side of the law all along. Greg told them that. She was good, she was nice, and she was a bit dangerous. Matt believed that. He’d heard it himself when she’d expressed a desire for the man who’d destroyed her shop to pay. It was a side of her he’d never suspected before. That was her, not someone she was pretending to be. Not knowing about who he really was, it was a possibility that she’d lied to protect them. He considered telling her the truth. He would’ve been able to help her catch Dex.
Sadly, there was also that other possibility. The more dangerous one. As much as he didn’t like that word, Matt was aware that he wasn’t that different from the others. Karen said it herself, not everyone in New York liked vigilantes. Surely the government didn’t either.
He adjusted his tie around his neck and put his key in the lock. Rose was already inside, pacing around the room. Something was bothering her. She’d taken a shower, but he could still smell the flowers she’d planted earlier. She didn’t lie about her activities, at least. Her fingers stopped tapping the back of her phone the second she heard the door. She jumped onto the couch and pretended to be reading something. She’d been waiting.
“You’re back,” she said as he was putting down his briefcase and keys. “I’m sorry I didn’t pick you up, but I really needed a sho-”
She froze when appeared from the hallway. That man went pretty hard on him, harder than anyone with a broken arm should’ve been able to, and Matt knew it. He’d known from the start that he wouldn’t have been able to hide everything from her. “It’s alright,” he said, ignoring the fast beating of her heart. “I like to walk, and you don’t have to be my driver.”
“What happened to you ?” she calmly asked.
Matt stopped on his way to the sink. “It’s not that bad.”
“Looks bad.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “But I can’t see it.”
She quietly walked to the bathroom. She didn’t sound as concerned as she would’ve been a day before. Something had changed. She came back with a first aid kit and joined him. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll clean this up while you tell me what happened.”
He sat behind her as she began to water a clean cloth. He slowly took the bandaids off and sighed. “There was a man lurking around your apartment,” he explained. Her heart skipped a beat. “He didn’t like me being there.” Another missed beat.
Rose turned to clean his face and froze. Her heartbeat disappeared for an instant. Then it started again, louder and faster than Matt had ever heard her. And then, slowly, it went back to normal. Just like that, she was perfectly calm again. She wiped the blood from the cut on his cheek. “He had a knife.” That wasn’t a question. “It’s not deep. You won’t need stitches.”
“It’ll leave a mark.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of them said another word until she was done. There was nothing more to say. She’d seen the cut of William’s knife. He’d heard her. Benjamin Poindexter had been a coincidence. She’d been here for Daredevil all along. The man whose arm he broke twice was someone she’d most likely sent. Matt had been the one she’d been sent for. The one who’d been asking way too many questions about her. Files had been accessed by too many people. He knew, she knew, and there was nothing more to say.
“All done,” she said, sitting next to him. She crossed her arms over the counter and sighed. “I finished my work with the church. It’s not as I wanted it to be, but it’s done.”
“There was nothing left from your shop,” he replied, mimicking her posture. “How did you get anything to plant at all ?”
“Lots of smiles,” she scoffed. “Now God’s a little closer to many rose bushes and sunflowers.”
“Why do you like them so much ?”
She glanced at him and smiled. “They turn to the Sun,” she said. “No matter what, they look for something good. They’re also pretty and have a cool meaning.”
“Which is ?”
“Happiness, optimism, devotion… honesty,” she finished with a chuckle.
“You almost had it all,” he replied.
“Nobody’s perfect,” she laughed.
Matt didn’t ask about her visit to her father. Rose didn’t ask anything more about the fight and how the investigation on her shop was going. Lies were getting old, and she was exhausted. Her work was done now, and she had to leave.
One more for the road, she thought. “Actually, I was waiting for you,” she said. “My father’s waiting for me and-”
“Where ?”
“He’s got a room in-”
“Where ?”
She laughed. At that point, she was could've just come clean and left on one single truth. “Look, I-”
“I can’t look,” he stopped her with a smile.
She smiled back at him and left her seat behind the counter. “Listen, then. Thank you for taking me in after what happened. I really appreciate that you’ve been here for me ever since I opened the shop, but I think it’s time for me to go.”
“It’s late,” he calmly said, taking her wrist before she walked away.
He let her hand slide into his but didn’t let go. She didn’t try to take it back either. It had taken Matt a very long time to understand, but that was her tell. Somehow, Rose had turned lying into a work of art. She was only perfectly calm whenever she was lying. The only thing he had to do was to turn her back into herself. Not forever, but long enough for her to stay the night.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“Do you have to ?” He pulled a little harder on her hand.
She didn’t fight back and took a step forward. “I should.” Her free hand gently brushed his cheek. “But you could start bleeding again.”
His hand found the side of her thigh and pulled her a step closer. “Who knows, I could bleed out.”
Rose burst out laughing. “Yeah, sure. That’s a very deep and fatal wound you have here.”
She mumbled something under her breath. That was it. A normal heart. Laughing was simply too natural for her. She leaned in and kissed him, almost expecting Matt to pull back. He didn’t. Instead, he stood up and pulled her closer, enjoying the feeling of her body against his.
Rose didn’t mention leaving when he led her away from the kitchen. They’d lied enough. They’d both solved a mystery and they deserved a proper reward, as well as a proper goodbye.