5
“Are we sure this is a good idea?”
Foggy frowned at Karen over his ice cream cone. The weather was still a good few weeks from truly being warm, but as soon as you couldn’t see the cloudy exhaust of your breath upon exhale ice cream carts started to flood Central Park. Foggy took advantage of the dairy influx and grabbed a scoop of Chocolate Swirl every time he was in the area. “Are you kidding? It’s a great idea.”
“He can’t even walk yet. Why did we come to a playground?”
“It’s the principle of the matter, Karen. You take kids to playgrounds.”
Karen closed her eyes, took a deep breath out. Pinched the bridge of her nose like it was Foggy giving her a headache and not the dripping cone of vanilla ice cream in her left hand. “Jessica said not to take unnecessary risks. Taking him out and parading him around Manhattan is a risk.”
Peter, his stroller facing the park bench so Karen and Foggy could have eyes on him at all times, gurgled and viciously shook his stuffed lion. The rattle inside jingled as his tiny fist bounced up and down. Karen reached out and ran a gentle finger from the middle of his forehead to the tip of his nose. Peter’s face scrunched up and he sneezed hard enough to shake his rattle.
Foggy finished off his ice cream and poached a few of Peter’s wet wipes from the diaper bag to clean the chocolatey sugar off his hands. “I get it, I do. But the fresh air will do him some good. Besides, he needs to see people other than us, Matt and Jessica every once in a while. He’s gonna turn into one of those hyper reclusive kids that never talks and doesn’t know how to share.”
Despite being an overall happy, giggly baby, it became apparent over the few weeks Foggy had known him that Peter was very attached to Jessica and Matt. He was a baby— that was to be expected. The only issue was that if either of his parents tried to leave the room, that attachment turned literal.
Somehow, either through sheer force of will or whatever convoluted set of powers he got from Matt and Jessica, Peter had developed the ability to stick. It went beyond basic grip strength; objects physically couldn’t be removed from Peter’s hands until he either chose to release them or was distracted by something else and subconsciously let them go.
The grabbing and subsequent tearing out of a chunk of Jessica’s hair was a rough way to find out Peter had developed a new power, but now that Peter’s parents and his doting aunt and uncle could identify the signs, there were almost no more truly damaging incidents.
Except for today, when Hogarth called Jessica to tell her the James Wesley representative requested an in-person meeting.
The mood in Jessica’s living room, which had started as the lighthearted, content feel of a friendly get-together, immediately swung to the thick, depressing essence of an occupied funeral parlour.
Jessica had looked surprised but ultimately unshaken. Matt looked like he wanted to swing at someone.
“Tell her to put me on the case,” he demanded. “Tell Hogarth to put me on as consulting council. And to let you into the meeting. Tell them it’s liability insurance. Tell them she’s thorough and likes to have multi person teams for high profile cases. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Matt,” Foggy said, reading the tension in his friend’s shoulders and knowing it would only get worse. “You know she can’t do that.”
“For so many reasons,” Jessica added, arms crossed. “If you’re so sure Fisk was on your tail about being Daredevil before Midland Circle, you can’t be seen around this case.”
Foggy nodded. “You should also distance yourself from Jessica on paper. She’s your eyes and ears right now—“
“Everyone is my eyes, Foggy—“
“Oh my god, you get my point. She can be involved in this without drawing suspicion. If this really does involve Wilson Fisk we don’t want to accidentally tell him you aren’t dead. Not yet, at least.”
“I also really, really, really don’t feel like telling Hogarth you’re Peter’s dad.”
“Why?” Matt asked, his smirk betraying his true feelings on the matter. Jessica’s hatred for telling Jerri Hogarth anything private was comical, especially considering how long the two of them had been meddling in each other’s personal lives. “You embarrassed?”
Jessica scoffed. She lifted her legs off the floor and crossed them on top of her desk. Her boots landed dangerously close to her laptop. “I just don’t want her up in my shit. Plus, if she realizes I let a blind man knock me up she’ll think I’ve either gone soft or mentally abused you somehow. I’m not interested in hearing what she has to say.”
It was a testament to how tolerant Matt had become of Jessica’s antics that he didn’t think anything of her comments. Foggy wouldn’t say Matt was combative — okay, maybe a bit combative — but he’d been much less defensive of jabs at his character in recent days. He was brutally honest and always said what he meant. Jessica hid her true feelings under layers of sarcasm and profanity. Thanks to hours and hours spent around Jess’s verbal brutality, Matt was learning to take things with a grain of salt.
“Fine,” Matt conceded. “But you need to be in that room. Figure out what’s going on. In the meantime, I’ve got an interview. Another case-by-case basis gig at the Baxter building.”
Jessica scratched at her chin. “Shit, I thought you’d be home today. Who’s gonna watch Peter?”
It took several minutes of convincing and heartfelt reassurances from Matt, but eventually Jessica entrusted Peter to Foggy and Karen for the afternoon. It took a surprisingly short amount of time for both of them to look at eachother and burst out laughing. They didn’t know how to babysit. Karen had no kids, no nieces and nephews. Foggy had a big family, but between work and everything that’s happened in the last few years with Matt he wasn’t exactly rich in child rearing experience.
So, when all else failed, they took Peter to the park. What else were they supposed to do?
Karen started undoing the buckles secured over Peter’s chest. “Let’s actually entertain him, then. You wanna go play, Pete? C’mon, let’s have some fun.”
Peter’s eyelashes fluttered in surprise as Karen swooped him out of his stroller seat. His giggles were infectious— Foggy couldn’t help but smile as Karen managed to climb the short set of stairs to the slide despite her heels and pencil skirt. Peter situated in her lap, head and back pressed against her front, Karen propelled them smoothly down the slide.
Despite seeing it all from the bench, Foggy could see sheer glee slide across the baby’s face. None of them were sure if Peter’s almost frightening awareness of his surroundings was a result of his powers or if he was just an intelligent kid. Either way, he reaped a too-conscious amount of joy from playground equipment that would have made other kids his age scream their heads off.
They stayed that way for a while, Karen walking Peter through various play set structures and Foggy valiantly guarding the stroller.
“He’s adorable.”
Foggy startled. He didn’t notice the new occupant on the other end of the bench. “Ah, yeah. Thanks.”
The woman smiled. She dipped her chin toward the playground, her sternly pinned bun not shifting at all on the back of her head. “She’s not too hard on the eyes either. How long have you been together?”
“Oh, no, uh…” Karen was on a swing now, one hand on the chain and the other holding Peter carefully to her as they gently rocked back and forth. “We’re not..She isn’t…”
“Ah.” The woman nodded, smiled slightly with thin, tight lips. She had deep lines cut into the corners of her eyes, half crescent gouges around her mouth, but a natural beauty still sat deep in the height of her cheekbones and slender nose. “Forgive me for presuming.”
“No, no. It’s alright. We’re just the babysitters today. Mom and dad were called into work last minute.”
The two of them fell silent, gazes trained on Karen and Peter. It was a windy day despite the sunshine and Foggy’s hands were cold, even buried deep in his pockets. He was starting to regret the ice cream.
“My boy and I,” the woman said, recrossing her legs like she was steeling herself for the conversation, “We weren’t close. I worked a lot, his father was…Not a good man. I wasn’t there to defend him. He holds it against me, and I don’t blame him in the slightest.”
Foggy wasn’t expecting such a heartfelt confession on a Hell’s Kitchen park bench. He stumbled for words before landing on, “I’m… I’m sure you did what you could.”
“No, I don’t think so. But now I can only try to do better.”
Karen was peering in the direction of the bench, evidently having just noticed someone she didn’t recognize was sitting next to Foggy. She didn’t look concerned, but polite confusion was evident in the dip of her brows.
A phone rang, tinkling bells repeating a short tone. The woman pulled her cellphone out of her coat pocket. “Make sure your friends know the treasure they hold, yes? Give that child all the love in the world. You never know what may happen.”
She answered the phone with a simple “Yes?” and began walking away from the bench. “Oh, is that now? I’m sorry, I lost track of time–”
“Who was that?” Karen asked, gently bouncing Peter in her arms as she watched the woman walk away.
“She didn’t say. Just sat down and started talking.”
“Anything interesting?”
Foggy shook his head. “Said some pretty morose stuff about hardships with her own son and how we need to appreciate Peter. Or something like that. I don’t know.”
Karen frowned and gave Peter a little squeeze. The baby squealed in delight and slapped a chubby hand against Karen’s forearm. “Oh, he’s appreciated alright. His parents would go to war for him, I’m sure of it. And I don’t know about you, Fog, but Aunt Karen would kick some asses for Pete here.”
“Aunt Karen, huh?”
“It’s got a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Karen went for the stroller. Her free hand went to push the sun shade back and unclick the safety bar. She bent at the waist and rotated her shoulder to slip Peter into the seat. The only issue; he did not end up in said seat.
“Shit, Pete, that hurts!”
Peter’s hand was still splayed across the top of Karen’s forearm. When she pulled upward on his wrist the skin of her arm tugged upward with it.
A laugh bubbled up out of Foggy’s chest. “Is he sticking to you?”
“It’s not funny, Foggy! Peter, please, honey, let go. Just let go, come on–”
“They’re late.”
“Yes, Jessica, I noticed.”
“They are the one that called the meeting and they’re an hour late. I had to leave Peter with a sitter for this.” Jessica kicked her boots up on the conference room table, crossing her legs at the ankle. Her laptop sat open in front of her. The cursor blinked in an empty word document. She wanted to take her notes the usual way – with a leaking pen on a napkin or an overdue phone bill or something – but Hogarth insisted she look as professional as possible since it was unusual for a Private Eye to sit in on this sort of meeting in the first place.
Jeri raised a single eyebrow at Jessica’s attitude. “Your fault for having a kid.”
“Not entirely my fault.”
“Fine. The fault of you and whatever poor bastard you made a father.”
“God, Jeri, you really have a way with words.”
A knock on the conference room door interrupted the argument, and Jeri’s receptionist Jessica couldn’t remember the name of stepped into the room. She was a pretty thing, long dark hair and curves in the right places. Jeri seemed to have a specific taste in employees — young and attractive.
“Miss Hogarth, your one-o’clock is here.”
“At two,” Jessica mumbled under her breath.
Jeri scalded Jessica with a sharp glance. “Great. Send them in, please.”
The receptionist nodded and stepped out. A few seconds later a much older woman walked in and approached the table. “Forgive my tardiness,” she said, offering Jeri her open palm. “I’ve been a bit…Out of sorts, as of late.”
Jeri shook her hand and smiled. “It’s no problem. Jeri Hogarth, pleasure to meet you.”
The woman’s icy blue eyes slid from Jeri to Jessica and she froze. Her recovery was quick, though Jessica could still read the unease in the tick of her jaw as she smiled and extended her hand.
“This is Jessica Jones. She’ll be handling the minutes for our meeting today. My usual paralegal is out on maternity leave and I asked her to step in.”
Jessica’s leather jacket and ripped jeans were a far cry from typical law office attire. She even sharply contrasted with this new client, whose charcoal pantsuit and greying hair pulled into a tight bun gave off the vibes of someone with a lot of money and at least moderate societal importance.
The client blinked. “Right.”
“So,” Jeri said, wasting no time and opening her own laptop along with the almost empty case file. “You’re here on behalf of James Wesley.”
The client rolled her chair closer to the table. “Not quite.”
Jeri looked up from the case file. “Oh?”
“I am James Wesley.”
It may have been the overpriced chair Jessica was sitting in and the weird way it curved into her spine, or the fact that she’d been away from Peter for several hours, or the dryness in her mouth because she drank all of her tea, but suddenly something felt entirely wrong. Off-kilter.
“I know it may be confusing,” James said, choosing to ignore Jessica’s poorly concealed shock. “My mother was very close with her father. She had no sons and decided honoring him was worth the unusual name.”
Jeri cleared her throat, apparently trying to unlodge her own surprise. “I apologise for assuming. Your file was rather vague. I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
James nodded, tapped at the table with a well manicured fingernail. “That was intentional. I needed to keep all of this low profile until I could come to New York and meet with you in person.”
Jessica stopped her typing. She wasn’t taking notes, just fleshing out her grocery list —she was dangerously low on tea bags and diapers — but was taken aback by the seriousness in James’s voice. “Low profile?” Jessica asked.
“I know it seems silly. I’m surprised you took my case in the first place, considering how little information I gave you. I hope the retainer made up for it.”
“Yes,” Jeri said through a shallow laugh, “I’d say it did. But that doesn’t explain your need for secrecy.”
“I conduct most of my business in London,” James explained. “I’m out of the public eye. I don’t have much contact with my family in the States, either. That includes my son James who, until a few weeks ago, I was unaware had passed away.” She laughed, but it was hollow. “You must think I'm a terrible mother.”
It was hard to not mentally kick herself. Jessica had spent ample time digging up information on James Wesley. The wrong James Wesley. Even if Jess hadn’t been looking into someone of the completely wrong sex, she would have never found this woman in the city archives. She wasn’t from the right state. Wasn’t even living in the country.
Hogarth chose not to address the self deprecation and offered one of her prizewinning fake sympathy smiles. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
James didn’t say thank you. “Wilson Fisk called me from prison to tell me of James’s passing.”
Jessica probably should have been more focused on the whole Fisk bit, but she had to get something out of the way first. “Hold up. Your name is James, and you also named your son James?”
“I hardly think that’s important right now,” Hogarth hissed.
Jeri was right, of course, but Jessica would never say that aloud. “So Fisk called you from prison. You seem oddly willing to admit that. Many of his men killed themselves before admitting a connection to him.”
Matt gave Jessica a barebones rundown of his encounters with Fisk over the last few years in preparation for the meeting. A major component was Fisk’s men and how most of them, at least in the beginning, were too scared to even say the guy’s name. He was the fucking Voldemort of Hell’s Kitchen. Secrecy like that held little weight now, considering the guy had a locked, metal-barred suite at Rikers. But most people holding onto their blind loyalty still weren’t so eager to create a link between themselves and one of New York’s most controversial men, especially with the FBI still poking around.
“I wouldn’t call it a connection. It was a phone call, nothing more. Simply an employer informing next of kin that an employee had been killed on the job.”
Even prepped with Matt’s Devil-acquired Fisk knowledge, Jessica was still struggling to piece together James’s story. Hogarth, in all of her uninformed glory, seemed to be fairing even worse. Jessica took the conversational reins. “You don’t sound as if you were very shocked by Fisk blinging your personal line.”
The furious clicking of Hogarth’s pen was a telltale sign of impending doom. She not-so-gently dropped her elbows onto the tabletop and lowered her head into her hands, eyes squeezed shut like she was fighting off a headache. “You were aware your son was working for Wilson Fisk? And you were okay with that?”
“Whatever James was doing for that man is none of my concern. All I care about now is making sure the appropriate parties take responsibility for his death. If not through a murder trial, then other legal means.”
“The appropriate parties,” Jessica said, “Being who, exactly?”
“I’m not ignorant, Miss Jones. I do my research. I did research on this very law firm before I paid. You aren’t a secretary. You work for Miss Hogarth as a Private Investigator.”
“Wrong. I don’t work for her. I’m more of an independent contractor.”
“I’d like to acquire your services in finding James’s killer.”
That would be an incredibly easy job for Jessica, considering that she already knew who killed James Wesley. She would bet real money on the fact that Karen Paige’s name wasn’t going to be the one Miss Wesley drew from the hat.
The situation was becoming more and more convoluted. Jeri was clicking her pen so fast Jessica thought the spring might pop and splatter ink all over the table. “So you don’t know who it was?” Jessica asked, not so subtly testing the waters.
“Oh, I know,” James said with newfound ire. “Wilson told me.”
“And you believed him?” Jessica asked incredulously. “ Wilson is supposedly responsible for hundreds of deaths. Who’s to say he didn’t kill your son himself?”
James waved a bony hand through the air. “He has no reason to lie. He’s already on trial.”
Jessica motioned for James to continue. If she herself was losing her patience, Jeri was one eye twitch away from a coronary. “Alright, then. Spill. Who was it?”
James switched her attention from Jessica to Jeri. “I retained your services for a reason. I need to know you’re prepared to take my case.”
“I can’t promise anything until I have the full story.” Hogarth held up the pitifully thin James Wesley client folder. “An empty file will get neither of us what we want. You didn’t even give me your real sex. Until I know everything, until we can trust each other, I can do nothing for you. So tell me who killed James, and we’ll go from there. I want to help you, Miss Wesley. But if you don’t have a case, you don’t have a case.”
James appeared at war with her own conscience, lips twisted to the side as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. Trust Jeri Hogarth and Jessica and potentially avenge her son, or fully admit to a connection with Wilson Fisk and whatever potential fallout that may bring and walk out empty handed.
“Daredevil killed James. And Miss Jones, I want you to find out who he is.”
“The Pampers, right?”
“ That’s what the list says, isn’t it ?”
“To be fair, I can’t actually read the list. I have to have my phone voice-dictate it.”
“Oh my god, we’re way beyond you playing the blind card. I’ve said it before, Matt. The Pampers- ”
“--Are a good brand but are cheaper than those hippie dippie all natural Huggies, yeah, I remember.”
Phone in one hand and cane in the other, Matt found his way to the grocery counter and asked for an employee. One of them guided him to the correct product. Despite being able to hear bones shift and kick ass in dark alleys, he still couldn’t read the print on packaging.
“And the tea!” Jessica shouted through the phone. “The tea bags! You know, only–”
“The Lipton ones, yes, Jessica.”
Matt’s job interview ended before Jessica’s meeting with Hogarth, and he walked out of the building to a text from Jess asking if he’d run to the store for her on his way home. He obliged, of course. Partially because some of the items were for Peter, and partially because as the days wore on he had a harder and harder time saying no to Jessica Jones.
“ I’m almost out of the Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz office. Matt, that meeting was a doozy, let me tell you.”
Matt paid for his goods and left the store. He was eager to get home; Peter had been in a good mood ever since they found out his enhanced hearing was keeping him up at night. One pair of baby earplugs later and both Jessica and Pete were sleeping better than they ever predicted they would. “I wanted to ask you about that but I wasn’t sure if you were in a safe place to talk.”
“Yeah, better wait until I’m home. Where’s Pete?”
“Karen and Fog took him to the park near my apartment.”
“Do they know he can’t even walk?”
“Here’s to hoping. Wanna stop by my place on your way home? I can tell our professional babysitters to drop Peter here since they’re nearby.”
“ Uh, yeah, sure. Alright. But I have a quick question.”
Matt fumbled with his keys, struggling to keep the phone balanced between his ear and shoulder and hold the groceries at the same time. “Okay, shoot.”
“What’s your address?”
Matt’s door swung open and he stopped in the threshold. “You don’t have my address?”
“You were dead to me for ten months, Matt. I didn’t bother tracking you down. And you always come to my place to see Pete. I never had a reason to know it.”
“I’m not offended, Jessica. I just didn’t realize that was a bridge we hadn’t crossed yet.”
“Well if we’re gonna cross it I’ll need the coordinates.”
“I’ll text you the address.”
“Fabulous. I know you’re gonna have to speak it into your phone, so have the voice dictation thing read it out loud twice to make sure it’s right. I don’t wanna end up in the basement of a sketchy noodle shop.”
“And what would you say if I lived in said noodle shop basement?”
“Matthew Murdock, do you live in the basement of a noodle shop? I know you don’t really need an aesthetically pleasing home environment but c’mon, man, you’re a father now. I at least hope you’ve got the stoves turned off. I know Pete isn’t crawling yet but he’s full of surprises. He’d find a way to hurt himself.”
Matt dropped the groceries and his keys on the kitchen counter. “No, I do not live in the basement of a noodle shop. But wouldn’t it be funny if I did?”
“Talk to you later, Matt. Text me the address.”
Jessica ended the call before Matt could keep the bit going. He stood in his kitchen, contemplating. Matt wasn’t big on cleaning, seeing as he couldn’t see, and usually did the bare minimum to make sure the place was livable. Karen and Foggy helped sometimes, but often it was just Matt and a Swiffer dry mop and the hope that he’d be able to feel the dust particles shifting enough to know the floor was actually clean.
But now Jessica was coming over. She could see, and the last thing he wanted was for the mother of his child to think he was living in a cesspool.
After sending Jessica his address and hoping it would take her a little while to get there, Matt slipped off his shoes and got to work.
Matt’s building was a meatpacking era warehouse converted into a handful of spacious lofts. Jessica’s first thought was that it was way, way, way out of an unemployed lawyer’s budget.
“Foggy, just…There’s a candy wrapper stuck in the wheel — shit, the diaper bag is slipping, grab it! Petey, please, it’s okay to let go — Jessica! Hey!”
Karen and Foggy were ambling up the sidewalk. Foggy was pushing the stroller, but instead of Jessica’s child strapped into the seat the diaper bag was safely buckled into place. Karen had Peter on her right arm, and she was using her left hand to try and gently pry his chubby palm off her forearm.
Peter looked pleased as could be as he smacked his lips together and looked at everything happening on the sidewalk around him. He was particularly focused on a truck driver screaming at the owner of the bodega next door until he saw Jessica.
The baby broke out into a goofy grin and let loose a string of nonsensical babbles that left drool dripping from his bottom lip. His right hand finally peeled off Karen’s arm and he reached for Jessica across the asphalt.
“Hiya, squirt.” Jessica couldn’t keep the smile off her face as Karen approached and passed her Peter. Jessica wriggled a finger into the baby’s side and he hiccuped with glee before tucking his head into her shoulder.
Jessica hated admitting how much leaving Peter affected her. It was like an invisible string connected them, and any time they were separated the tether tugged on her ribs and made it just a little harder to breathe. No one but her had ever watched Peter alone until Matt stepped in while she went to the archives a few weeks back. Letting Karen and Foggy whom she, truthfully, didn’t know very well, take him outside the apartment was nerve wracking.
But Matt had a lot of faith in his friends, and it was obvious how much they cared about him. They’d also been very open with how excited they were to have Peter around and showered him with love from the second they met him. When Peter was born, Jessica was his only real family. Trish and Claire were around and Jessica was eternally grateful for it, but in terms of people being completely dedicated to Peter simply because they wanted to be and not out of a sense of duty or pity, Peter’s familial boat was in choppy waters.
Jessica wasn’t oblivious to the outpouring of love the last four months had brought, with Matt jumping into the picture at month one and his friends stumbling in around Peter’s fourth month on the dot. Now the kid was almost five months old and had himself a genuine, solid support group. It was something Jessica never thought either her or her son would have, but now that it was here, it was hard to imagine life without it.
Jessica looked to her babysitters. “How was he? Didn’t commit any crimes or push other kids off the swing set, I hope?”
Foggy came around with the stroller and punched the key code into the building’s front door. Of course Foggy would know the code. “An angel. Except for the part where he stuck to Karen’s arm for the better part of an hour and wouldn’t let go.”
Jessica winced. “God, I’m sorry. I still don’t know where he got that. That’s not a Matt thing or a me thing.”
Karen shrugged. “Just a combo of your guys’ freaky jeans smashing together. Not that I think you’re freaky—“
“I’m not offended, Karen. Peter’s genes are probably fucked.”
The three of them made their way up the stairs, Foggy in the lead with the stroller folded and hung on an arm. Jessica figured they’d stop at the first landing, but Foggy didn’t pause and continued up four flights until the stairs ended on an upper level with only two doors. He pulled out his keys, because of course Foggy would also have keys to the apartment itself, and stepped aside to let everyone else in.
“ Matt,” he called into the apartment, “Make yourself decent, you’ve got company!”
Matt laughed from somewhere inside. “Yeah. Because I’m the kind of person that walks around indecent.”
The apartment was both exactly and nothing like what Jessica expected. It was industrially chic, the sort of place a suspiciously rich hipster would shell out for. The sparse decor and complete lack of decoration made sense for a man who physically couldn’t see the point in extravagance.
It was an impressive space — corner unit penthouse, huge windows and a roomy separate bedroom space. Jessica once again wondered how the hell Matt could afford it all.
Matt stood behind his kitchen counter, button up shirt popped open at the top, sleeves rolled to his forearms and tie nowhere in sight. He wasn’t wearing his red glasses, and his eyes were aimed somewhere just over Jessica’s shoulder. “Is that my boy over there?”
Peter squealed and started wiggling in Jessica’s arms. Matt dropped the dirty dish he’d been in the middle of scrubbing and sloppily wiped his hands on a towel before padding over and grabbing Peter under the arms. The kid was being passed around like a dish at Thanksgiving but didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
Jessica was used to seeing Matt relaxed — he always calmed down when Pete was nearby. But this? Matt comfortable in his own home, wearing nothing on his feet but woollen socks and holding his son like he’d never let go? It was a whole new level of domestic.
Foggy dropped the stroller and the diaper bag next to the couch and grabbed his briefcase. “I gotta get to the office. I told them I’d make up the half day I missed with overtime. Update me on the Wesley meeting later, yeah?”
“Same,” Karen said, “I gotta get back.”
“Thanks again for watching our spawn,” Jessica called as Matt’s friends made their way toward the door. “I owe you one.”
“The only form of payment I’ll take is more Uncle Foggy time. That kid adores me. Keeping him away would be cruel and unusual punishment.”
Karen slugged Foggy’s shoulder, mumbled something about hogging all the baby time, and the two of them left. The door clicked shut behind them and Matt and Jessica were left standing alone in the living room.
“Nice place,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Peter, with his infinitely amazing timing, decided that was the moment to be so excited about being in a new environment that he should spit up. Heavily. All down his own onesie, and the arm of Jessica’s jacket, and the front of Jessica’s shirt. He hadn’t had such an episode in ages. Of course he chose to do it at a time in which Jessica has no access to a spare change of clothes.
Matt wrinkled his nose. He didn’t have to see the mess to smell the mess. “I assume he just—“
“Yeah.”
“He’s got a change of clothes in his diaper bag right?”
“Folded up at the bottom.”
Matt headed for the diaper bag. Jessica continued surveying herself with moderate disgust. She held Peter at arm’s length like he might erupt. Peter just kicked his stubby legs and spoke in a series of blown raspberries and gurgles.
“Jess, if you need something to change into, there's t-shirts folded at the top of the closet in the bedroom.”
“It’s cool, I’ll just…Wipe it, or something.”
Matt came over with the onesie and grabbed Peter. He’d somehow managed to lay one of Pete’s spare blankets out over one of the couch cushions without her noticing and got to work stripping off the baby’s soiled clothes. “Seriously. It’s just a shirt. You’re covered in baby puke. Just change.” He motioned over his shoulder to the bedroom. “It’s all yours.”
The longer Jessica looked at the mess on her shirt, the more willing she was to give in. “I’ll be right back.”
“I thought so.”
Jessica retreated to Matt’s bedroom and pushed the sliding door shut. She felt like Indiana Jones, sneaking around some sort of forbidden temple full of booby traps and lost artifacts. It gave the aura of a place she shouldn’t be .
The bed was made, pillows carefully positioned at the head of the mattress with something shiny — were those silk sheets? — glimmering from beneath a thick comforter. There was a surprising lack of dust on the bedside tables, and it even looked as if the floor had been swept, if a bit sloppily. Surely Matt wasn’t always this clean, right? Jessica’s own apartment was a poorly kept discount store in comparison. She wasn’t a slob, not anymore – a dirty apartment meant baby allergens — but she couldn’t even remember the last time she changed her sheets.
“You find the shirts?” Matt shouted from the other room.
“Y-yeah, yeah. Thanks.” Jessica pulled a random folded shirt from the stack on the top shelf of the closet. Her own landed in a heap on the bedroom floor with her jacket, and before she could remind herself that her unnecessary sense of urgency was, in fact, unnecessary, she threw the shirt over her head, got stuck in the neck hole, stepped backward, and slipped on her own laundry.
“Shit! Ow, what the hell?”
“Jess? Jessica, are you okay?”
Flat on her back, Jessica’s view of the vaulted ceiling was interrupted by the outline of Matt standing over her with a concerned look on his face. Peter was too busy poking Matt’s shoulder to realize his mom was sprawled out across the hardwood.
“I’m thriving.” Her ass would definitely be bruised tomorrow.
She couldn’t look Matt in the eye; the concern on his face was too genuine. She turned her head to the side and got a direct view to the underside of his bed.
Aside from the whole blind-man-is-secretly-an-ass-kicking-vigilante situation, Matt Murdock was not a person one would consider full of surprises. He wore moderately priced suits and skinny ties, only skinny ties. He consistently combed his hair the same direction and somehow always had the exact same amount of stubble on his chin no matter how long he left between shaves. He made occasional dumb blind jokes and drank weird German beer. He was worn-in, typical, predictable Matt.
Predictable Matt was not the sort of person to have boxes of baby supplies hidden beneath his bed.
“Is that a Pack N’ Play?”
“What?”
The box was unopened, shipping label still stuck to the front like the package had been delivered, received and immediately shoved out of the way. But the blueprint style outline of a rectangular enclosure with mesh walls was obviously printed across the side.
“There’s an unopened Pack N’ Play beneath your bed.”
“Right. Almost forgot about that.”
Matt held out his free hand. Jessica ignored how his large palm swamped her own and yanked herself upward, wiping stray hair from her face. “You’ve got a Pack N’ Play beneath your bed. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.”
“I guess I just… I know my apartment isn’t exactly homey, much less baby-friendly. I figured if Pete ever ended up needing to stay here, I wanted him to have an actual place to sleep.”
It was…Surprisingly heartfelt. Jessica didn’t expect the whirlwind of emotions today was throwing at her. Truthfully, she was sick of having so many feelings. Feelings were inconvenient and messy and sometimes nice but usually ended in heartbreak and hefty bar tabs. And Matt saying he wanted to be prepared if he ever got the chance to take Peter for a night stepped too far into the territory of feelings Jessica didn’t like feeling.
The influx of emotional input reminded Jessica of the Hogarth and Wesley meeting, and how she should probably tell Matt about it sooner rather than later. She figured the only reason he hadn’t already asked was because of Peter. He never wanted to talk shop if he could be spending time with Pete.
What better way to break up this kind, heartfelt moment with soul crushing news? “The James Wesley that hired Hogarth is actually James Wesley’s mom, and she wants me to find Daredevil’s true identity so Hogarth can help her bring a civil case against him.”
Matt’s hazel eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, come again?”
Jessica smelled like Matt.
Her shirt smelled like him, anyways. Like his body wash, cedar and bergamot and cleanliness. She must have chosen one of the shirts he sometimes wore to bed.
The mother of his child smelling like him was almost enough to distract from the severity of the conversation at hand. The two of them retreated to the living room and Jess explained everything; Miss James Wesley and her son, Fisk’s call to inform her of James Junior’s death. How Fisk told her Daredevil did it.
Matt scratched at the stubble on his chin. “No part of this situation makes sense. I know Fisk cared about Wesley more than his average goons, but personally informing his mother? And why now? Wesley died over a year ago. Seems a little late.”
“Not to mention the whole Daredevil thing,” Jessica added. “If no one else has found your civilian identity by now, why does Miss Wesley think I’m the woman for the job?”
Matt considered this. What did Jessica have that other private investigators and criminals with grudges against the Devil didn’t? “You’re the only PI in the area that’s openly a super.”
Jessica shrugged. Matt heard the soft material of his shirt shift over her skin. “So?”
“You killed a man. Another Super. In public.”
“I’m aware, Matthew.”
“I assume you had an influx of people coming to your office after the fact. You know, trying to…purchase your services.”
“You mean people came and asked me to kill other people for them. Yes, it wasn’t exactly the highlight of my career.”
“You’ve got the outward image that you’re a PI with kickass superpowers and few boundaries. Miss Wesley probably found you first and then hired Hogarth so you’d be obligated to take her case.”
Jessica groaned. Matt had a feeling she was rolling her eyes. “One problem. I don’t work for Hogarth. I take whatever cases I want.”
“Miss Wesley likely doesn’t know that. So she hired Hogarth and hoped you’d be along for the ride.”
The sound of rustling cushions and bare feet on the floor told Matt Jessica had started pacing. It was an unusual nervous tick for her. Even when off-kilter, Jessica was typically the image of a stiff, guarded individual. Now she came off like someone about to have a breakdown. Peter’s head turned back and forth, tracking his mom as she fumed. “It still doesn’t explain why Fisk would call Mama Wesley from prison over a year after James’s death. Or why Miss Wesley would bother trying to file a civil suit. She doesn’t even know who her defendant really is!”
“Civil cases are different. Criminal proceedings require a ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ judgement for someone to be guilty. Civil cases only require fifty-one percent surety of negligence. It would be much easier to tag Daredevil for Wrongful Death than anything else.”
Jessica had a point, though. Trying to sue a vigilante for Wrongful Death was a fruitless endeavor for multiple reasons. If you don’t know who you’re suing, you can’t sue them. You also can’t prove wrongful death without some sort of proof that they actually did kill someone. Matt didn’t kill James Wesley. Yes, one of his best friends was the guilty party, but as far as he knew there was no court-worthy proof condemning either of them.
The jumbled mess of questions in Matt’s mind started solidifying, and the picture they formed wasn’t one Matt liked.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked. “You’re making that concerned, pinched face you make when something’s wrong.”
“This isn’t about suing,” Matt said, quickly spiralling. “Fisk is just using Miss Wesley to get to you through Hogarth. He needed people, mainly a PI, who were capable and willing to do whatever it took to solve a case. But he also needed someone who’d never been associated with him in the past so he could fly under the radar. He knew Miss Wesley would be grief-stricken and clueless and do something rash. He probably suggested she sue, offered his own funds, told her you’d be able to identify Daredevil and find out who killed her son, and recommended Hogarth knowing you’d worked for her in the past.”
“This is taking too long. What’s your point, Matt?”
Matt didn’t want to tell her his point, because the second it was out it would ruin the relative peace he’d had since showing up on Jessica’s front door that day almost four months ago. He wanted to keep living in the ignorant bliss of the idea that Fisk was done worrying about him and he could move on with his life, not as The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, but as an attorney and a father.
But it was because he was a father that he had to tell the truth. “Fisk called Miss Wesley and baited her to get to you. Because he wanted to hire you to do his dirty work. He has no intention of a Wrongful Death suit ever happening. He just wanted to use the investigation phase to his own benefit.”
Jessica finally stopped pacing. “His dirty work being…”
“He’s still onto Daredevil. Onto me. He’s trying to unmask me from prison, and he’s doing it through a series of persuasion and proxies so no one will ever know it was his idea and he still gets what he wants. The person that locked him up, exposed to the public.”
The cushion dipped next to Matt, and he suppressed a startle when he realized Jessica was now sitting oddly close to him. No desk or playmat between them, this time. Her knee pressed into his. “After which you, the father of my child, will be privy to many, many, many trespassing and criminal assault charges. Not to mention you’ll have the attention of every underground organization or bad guy you’ve ever wronged, and they’ll all be vying for their own chunk of flesh.”
“Yes.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Peter pulled a bit of Matt’s sleeve into his mouth and gnawed at the fabric. Matt didn’t bother stopping him.
“You know, before you became a public enemy, I thought the Daredevil persona was sort of sexy. Not anymore.”
“You think I’m sexy?”
“That’s not what I said.”