Sweet Hibiscus Tea [DISCONTINUED]

Peter collapsed on his couch, groaning and putting pressure on his side, waiting for his healing factor to kick in and make the stab wound - and the pain - disappear.

He’d become pretty much nocturnal at this point, like an actual human spider, considering that he always tried to stay in dark corners as much as possible.

He stumbled over to his kitchen and grabbed the materials necessary for a sandwich before hastily putting it together and eating it to fuel his healing.

His flat was bare, for the most part. He has a single bedroom with a sliding door between it and the living room, connected to an open kitchen. Considering the size of the apartment itself, it's very surprising that he had managed to snag it for such a low price, even with the giant neon billboard.

He’s lucky that the landlord didn’t ask questions.

Checking over his injuries again, Peter wrapped the worst slashes and stabs, even if they would be gone in a few hours.

Deeming himself fit to sleep, he clambered into bed, barely remembering to shed his suit, and passed out.

————— 

His upstairs neighbor is weird as fuck, Peter decides after smelling a suspicious amount of blood for the 5th time. Every time Peter is awake enough to listen to what's happening upstairs, he’s surprised. 

According to his landlord, Matthew Murdock - a blind lawyer - lived there.

He recognized the name as the lawyer who had helped him get the police off of his back about Mysterio’s death and as the guy who caught a literal brick headed for Peter’s face - but didn't know anything other than that.

After the first worrying incident, which included a loud thump from upstairs and the tell-tale metallic smell of blood and bruises, with a twinge of gunpowder thrown in the mix, Peter searches up everything he could find on Murdock. 

He might not be nearly as good at sleuthing as Jessica Jones, but damn, if he isnt a good hacker. Not as good as Ned was, but still. Awesome hacker. 

After a bit of legal and slightly illegal research, he can now say that he is 85% sure that his upstairs neighbor is Daredevil. 

Scratch that; he knows Matt Murdock is Daredevil. 

The guy reportedly showed up extremely late during the Frank Castle case, with a Daredevil sighting from the night before. 

Then came the whole Midland Circle mess. Or, ‘The Defenders’ - who reportedly went into the building with four members and left with only three. Next thing they know, Daredevil is presumed dead, and Matt Murdock has completely disappeared - but has no missing persons case. 

The FBI then thinks that Murdock has connections to Wilson Fisk even though he took Fisk down and barged into his apartment, only to find nothing but a discarded pile of clothes. Both The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and Matthew Murdock reappear less than a month later, and life continues as usual.

He’s skipping over many other things, but that’s fine.

Queens and occasionally Midtown is ‘Spider-man’s territory’, but he’s starting to spend a lot more time in Hell’s Kitchen now that he lives there and beats up the odd cult or gang before leaving them to the police.

He’s not a very ‘friendly neighborhood’ nowadays.

It's a surprisingly long time before he runs into the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. 

Then again, if his suspicions about the Devil’s ridiculously enhanced senses are correct, Daredevil was probably ignoring him.

Jerk. 

It happened like this:

Peter was off chasing another lead.

Before long, he found himself at the docks of Hell’s Kitchen, perched on a shipping crate with a zipped-up black hoodie and listening intently for any info he could gather, subconsciously tilting his head like an owl.

He had been perched for hours, fatigue invading his mind and his eyelids heavy after staying in one place for so long, when out of the shadows, Daredevil swoops in, punching and kicking like the demon he was.

The arms dealers were unconscious and bloody in less than a minute.

Peter shook himself out of his daze before jumping down from his perch, landing a few meters away from Daredevil with his hands raised, showing that he means no harm.

“As much as I enjoy not having to waste my limited supply of webs, I would like to know why you’ve taken a case I could have handled easily.”

Daredevil twitched slightly from where he was beating the information out of one of the thugs, dropping the unfortunate man and whirling around to face Peter.

Peter kept talking

“I mean, I know this is your territory or whatever, but I would think that your fancy senses would have picked up on me watching this place from blocks away.”

Daredevil snarled, “go home, Spider-man. You’re not needed here.”

Ouch. 

“Alright, alright, fine. Dunno why you’re so twitchy about this, but I’ll leave you alone, I guess.”

Peter swung away, slightly miffed, and snapped a photo with a hidden camera before he got too out of range.

—————

Matt was pacing around his living room.

He brought his fist to his mouth and breathed, thinking over the past hour's events.

Daredevil raced in, beat the perps Spider-man had been listening to - the kid was probably on a stake-out, now that Matt thought about it - then told Spider-man to leave and followed their abnormally fast-paced heartbeat swing out of range. Also, Matt believes they took a picture of him if the snap of a camera lens was anything to go by.

He continued his pacing.

Every time he thought about Spider-man, his memory seemed to skip over like a broken record.

Distantly, he remembers doing a case for Spider-man, possibly about Mysterio’s death.

But whenever he tried to think about what had happened in that short time, his usually perfect memory continued to fail.

Matt asked Karen and Foggy when he returned to the office about it.

They said the same thing.

They did a case on Spider-man. They had recordings and hard copies. But as soon as the mention of who the guy was behind the mask, the papers blacked out, like they were erased or burnt, and the recordings fizzled and crackled with static every time Spider-man spoke, ensuring that the voice was utterly unrecognizable.

And it frustrated him to no end.