The first time Matt Murdock found a rock in his suit pocket, he didn’t think much of it.
He and a gravel-filled pothole had been intimately acquainted during a positively romantic rendezvous the night before. AKA, the night a street-level criminal slugged him across the face hard enough to send him horizontal, or as Foggy so kindly called it, the time he ‘got absolutely punked.’
This rock didn’t feel like gravel..? Matt would know, he was face-first in it for a good few minutes. It was awfully smooth and cool to the touch, there wouldn’t have been a jagged edge on it.
So Matt decided to keep it.
It was only when Foggy questioned him about it that he started to think it may not be a regular rock.
“Matthew?” Foggy asked, Matt was rolling the rock in one hand.
“Yes, Foggy?” He replied pleasantly
“Why have you got a crystal”
There was a moment of silence, the only noise being the obnoxious squeaks of Karen's desk chair as it leaned much further back than it should so she could peek into the room and eavesdrop.
Apparently ‘like….meth?” was not the right answer
It was only after Karen burst into the room to bully Matt's phone and the crystal out of his hand that everyone was on the same page.
“So it's like a rock-” Matt started, taking Karen’s aggressive nodding as a cue for him to continue.
“that has magical powers-” He continued, followed only by more nodding.
“And the magical powers are different based on the rock.” Matt finished, turning his head in Karen's direction for her response.
“Exactly!” She agreed, heart thumping excitedly, her hands tip-tapping on the table in front of her like a particularly excited golden retriever.
Foggy had abandoned the great party of spirituality in favour of getting more coffee.
“I call bullshit” Matt replied, taking the rock, or ‘crystal’ off of the table when Karen's hand slamming and dramatic wailing got too intense.
“No one has any imagination anymore!” Karen announced through the now slammed door of her office, only opening it again to snatch a coffee from Foggy who had just walked through the door.
The two remaining men just looked at each other, then the door, then each other again.
“Coffee?”
The second time it wasn’t a crystal, which Matt was incredibly grateful for, he wasn’t sure Karen could handle it.
As he pulled the kevlar plates of his armour away from his skin and shed his utility belt he felt something he hadn’t remembered from before patrol.
“What do you want, Murdock.” Came the slightly slurred voice of Jessica Jones.
“Do you have someone who can test something for me?” Well, someone’s not leaving room for small talk.
“They have clinics for that Murdock, you don’t need to call me for updates on your endeavours.”
“I- what? Christ Jess not that kind of test.”
“Then what the hell do you need tested, pick up something laced?”
“Maybe, found some shit in my belt. It’s sealed and I don’t smell anything on it but I still don’t trust it.”
“Yeah fine fine, drop it by my place and I’ll give it to my guy” Jess sighed, the things she does for these people.
“I owe you one, Jess.” He responded, all charisma and zero Murdock
“Yeah, yeah” she mumbled as he hung up the phone.
The repeating of Jess’ name from his phone pulled Matt away from his paperwork. He took a few steps away from where he and Foggy were working before answering.
“Jones.” He stated simply, he never was one for fancy greetings.
“Murdock” She replied with a false sweetness that made him roll his eyes.
“I assume this is about the thing?”
“Jesus Murdock you make this sound like we’re doing a drug deal”
“We’re not?”
“Yeah, surprisingly not. My guy got back to me, nothing but good old fashioned gluten and sucrose”
Matt paused for a moment, which must have been longer than he thought as he was pulled from his thoughts by Jess repeating his name
“Murdock? You still with us over there?”
“You’re telling me, that someone took the time to sneak a plain-as-day chocolate chip cookie into Daredevils suit and it wasn’t even laced with anything?” Matt asked incredulously.
There was silence on the line for a moment.
“Yes.” came the reply.
“Right. Well thanks, Jess. I gotta get back to work.”
“Yeah right yeah, bye” And that was it. With the three beeps of the hangup tone, Matt's disbelief only grew.
Who in their right mind would give The Devil of Hell's Kitchen a cookie?
Frank Castle has a reputation. What this reputation is exactly varies slightly from person to person, but it usually holds a similar theme. The only person who doesn’t seem to understand this reputation is Murdock. Who instead of calling him ‘The Punisher’ or ‘Terrifying’ or even just ‘Frank’ decides to call him ‘an arrogant dickface’.
Ex-Captain Frank Castle is a terrifying son of a bitch, to most people that is. All six feet and three inches of him is made of pure pain and fury and he has been called such on numerous occasions.
So it's safe to say Frank doesn’t understand where the pretty pink bow on the sight of his prized M16 came from. Or the trinket in his pocket for that matter
It was even harder to understand when he came across Bucky Barnes who was having a very similar issue.
As a rule, Bucky and Frank never spoke to each other. It was actually less of a rule and more of an ‘I don't like or care about you and if you were to die I would be the one comforting other people’ type of deal. So it was a wonder when Clint saw them together on an opposite roof, all buff arm gestures and grumpy expressions.
“Hey kiddos! you here for the ‘Buff and Brooding’ meetup too?”
It was fair to say that both parties were equally unimpressed.
“Screw off Clint we’re trying to figure this out” Bucky levelled him with a flat glare.
“I think ‘we’ is generous, it's more like you're standing here while I’m actually using some working brain cells” Frank retorted
“Oh, you’ve got brain cells? How’s that hole in your head working out for you there big guy” Bucky’s glare immediately shot back to Frank, the two instantly bickering again like children.
“You wanna talk about what’s going on in our heads Barnes? I can hear the electricity crackling from over here”
“Swiss Cheese”
“Lightbulb”
“Ok ok children Jesus Christ can we take it back a notch” Clint finally decided to step in, ignoring the animalistic grunts each man-made when he put a hand on their chest “as much as I'm loving this game of insult-red-rover can you just fill me in on why you're actually here?”
“This guy thinks it's funny to mess around with my guns” Frank started, jabbing a finger at Bucky which only helped rile him up more.
“I’m the one messing with shit? You’ve been doing this to me all week!” Bucky returned, slapping the previously jabbed finger away and brandishing his pocket knife, now adorned with a pretty red ribbon
“I have not!”
“Well I haven't either”
“Ok well I’m no marriage counsellor or anything but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say if Frank didn't do it and Bucky didn't do it. Chances are neither of you did it.” Clint tried, once again attempting to push the two men away from each other.
They both levelled equally unimpressed stares at him.
“I assume you’re talking about the bows? I've had little purple ones showing up on my arrows all week, it's kind of adorable actually.” Both men continued to stare at Clint before Bucky slowly started to speak.
“So… it was you?”
“NO”
“Murdock we need to talk” Came Jess’ tinny voice through the receiver of Matt’s burner phone.
“Jess I’m on patrol right now, can it wait?” The wind of the city made his voice slightly hard to hear, Jess could only assume he was sitting like a gargoyle on someone's fire escape.
“Karen said you keep finding crystals and shit and you had me test that cookie which was a waste of a favour by the way so screw you” Jess started, talking so fast that Matt didn't possibly have the chance of interrupting “they’ve been showing up in my shit, Luke and Danny too, we have to figure this shit out.”
Jess sounded… worried? Maybe not worried but at the very least cautious. Was it really that bad? Matt was scatterbrained at times, didn’t he just pick the rock up from somewhere?
Now that he thought about it, he never really thought about where it came from once the cookie was declared safe. Maybe he should have.
“I’ll be right there.”
Matt felt like he was in some poorly written joke. ‘A blind man walks into a PI’s office to find an amputee, a murderer, a blond with a glowing fist, a man with impenetrable skin and an archer.'
“Is it my birthday already? You shouldn’t have guys” Matt quipped, halfway through the window
“Is it? Guys this is perfect! We’re already together and everything!” Danny was practically bouncing in place, the others pointedly ignored him.
Matt walked to the table the others were gathered around. The table itself was littered with various objects, all in a similar vein to his ‘gifts’. Little enamel pins, rocks of various colors and sizes, little fabric bows, fridge magnets and other oddities covered the wood, most likely compiled from everyone present.
“So you’ve all found stuff too, huh?” Matt started, moving to stand next to Jess.
“I mean I for one think it's kinda cool, how they’re getting past me is infuriating but the little pins are pretty cool” Clint motioned at what was likely his contribution to the collection.
“Look it's not a bad thing per say, but I also wanna know how they’re getting shit past me without me knowing. I only found out shit was stuck to my arm when a lady pointed it out in the supermarket.” Bucky continued, that explains who the magnets came from
“I’m sure you looked adorable with your little magnets, Barnes” Clint cooed, picking up a magnet of a sheep and bouncing through the air.
“Well as adorable as you two are, we gotta figure out whos doing this.” Jess interrupted the two “It’s all good and harmless for now but what if whoever's doing this decides to trade the magnets and cookies for bombs and cyanide, huh?”
It was decided. Cameras were set up, a meeting date was set for a week and all they could do now was wait.
“Alright, I’ve compiled all the footage except whatever Barton, Castle and Barnes scrubbed from their cameras, thanks for that Jackasses, now we've just gotta scrub through it.” Jess had her laptop facing the group, camera footage pulled up and ready to go.
“Alright, we should get ready to come up with a plan. Whoever’s doing this needs to be stopped before they can do something not so… friendly.” Bucky looked to each member of the group, all nodding in agreement.
“Let’s just watch.” Jess clicked play, each member of the group became quiet as they watched the sped-up footage play, combing through pigeon-triggered motion capture and useless footage.
“Stop it there” Frank suddenly spoke, causing Jess to pause the footage before taking it back a few seconds. Everyone watched, fixated, as a figure bounced into the room, dumped his backpack on the table before digging through it to find something and plopping it on the desk. The figure slung the backpack back over his shoulder and left through the window. Jess stopped the footage, leaving the group in silence, processing what they had just seen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me” Luke broke the silence, quickly followed by the sounds of Clint and Danny cackling like madmen.
“We’re idiots, we are genuinely so fucking stupid” Frank was still staring at the computer screen, the sound of his hand smacking into his face could be heard right after.
“Alright I was gonna wait my turn but I’m confused, who was it” Matt interrupted, practically bouncing on his toes with anticipation.
“It was the kid. Of course it was the kid.” Jess walked away from the table and into her kitchen to get a drink.
“The kid? What do you mean the- wait, Peter?” Matt took a seat in Jess’ desk chair. Of course it was Peter, why did none of them consider Peter?
“You're telling me not a single one of us considered it might be the kid?” Bucky stated, looking at each member of the group “Frank was right we are so fucking stupid.”
“Morning Matt! Morning Foggy! Morning Karen!” Peter came bouncing into the room, bag full of cookies in one hand and school backpack in the other.
“Morning Pete, what brings you to the gates of hell this early?” Foggy stuck his head out of his office, eyebrow raised and interest immediately peaked “and what’s in the bag?”
“Oh, they're cookies! I was stress baking and thought I’d drop them off before school” Peter responded, dropping the bag directly on Matt's desk, the smell luring Karen out of her office.
“Ooo Peter cookies, my favourite” Karen piped up, ruffling Peter's hair before instantly opening the bag to take a cookie “also don't you start school at 9? It's 8:52 bud.”
“Oh shoot! Kay gotta go bye guys!” Peter yelled, voice slowly losing volume as he ran down the hallway.
Why they didn't suspect this kid as their mystery gift giver, Matt will never know.