6
Peter’s six-month checkup wasn’t supposed to be such an event.
The subway was packed, and that alone stressed Jessica enough to inspire a longing for her year-ago anxiety remedy; a handle of whiskey in a brown paper bag. Now all she had was a thermos of iced tea and a bunch of shivering New Yorkers breathing all over each other in the middle of flu season. Peter, thankfully asleep in Jessica’s arms, didn’t seem to mind. Matt’s thoughts on the situation were as guarded as ever as he stood just behind with the diaper bag over one shoulder, his cane in one hand and a safety rail in the other. Jessica couldn’t tell if it was intentional, the way his arm sloped over her shoulder and his front separated her from the rest of the cramped car.
He kept his distance — as much as it was possible in such an enclosed space. The edges of his coat barely brushed hers when the train would make a particularly quick stop and he’d sway a bit before regaining his freakishly perfect balance. Each time a commuter would push past them to jump out the car doors, Matt would lean in just a bit closer. Only enough to shield Jessica and Pete from the worst of the elbow jabs, but Jessica could feel the change in distance nonetheless.
She’d vetoed a cab— it was morning rush hour, and every cabbie on the block ignored her waves and whistles. The subway was sure to be cramped, but at least it couldn’t get stuck in traffic.
Eventually they did arrive at the doctor’s office, and the appointment was going as well as they could have hoped until Peter decided that Doctor Wynn’s tie was looking especially grabable and he ripped the fine piece of fabric right off his neck.
The doctor just blinked at Peter, wide eyes darting from the scrap of shiny blue fabric clenched in the baby’s hand down to his own chest. The frayed remnants of his tie ended at the second button of his collared shirt.
“Is he…” Doctor Wynn wet his lips, apparently at a loss. “Is he prone to.. to random bursts of strength like this?”
Something dangerously close to a smile was sliding across Matt’s face. If Jessica wasn’t so mortified she would have been laughing too. “Yeah, uh… I’m enhanced? And we sort of thought that it would skip Pete since I wasn’t born with it, but I guess I’m more screwed up than we thought, because he’s gotten really good at breaking things.”
Peter’s feet kicked open air as Doctor Wynn held him at arm’s length, trying to survey him without coming in contact with the baby’s hands again. Peter still hadn’t let go of the scrap of tie he stole.
“And no real issues have arisen as a result of this? No harm to himself or others?”
Karen Page came to the forefront of Jessica’s mind. She had an infant sized welt in the shape of a handprint on her forearm for weeks . She was a great sport about it and apparently found it more amusing than anything, though Jessica couldn’t help but feel bad about it. It was sort of mutually understood among their friend group that until Peter was at a teachable age, his powers would be something to work around, an unavoidable part of him. Up until this point they’d had no issues with the powers emerging at a truly inopportune time.
“No, none. He just gets excited, I guess.”
Dr.Wynn turned to Matt. The two sat in silence for a moment before Wynn cringed a bit, realizing Matt couldn’t pick up on his visual social queues. Spending so much time with a blind person was allowing Jessica an insight into how little people actually knew how to treat one. Nevermind the fact that Matt’s own abilities meant he could mostly take care of himself — it didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t see the color of the sky, or read printed words on paper, or truly know what other people looked like, and outsiders were prone to forgetting that. Sometimes Jessica forgot that. She’d talk about how pretty Peter’s eyes were, the rosiness of his cheeks, and Matt would just offer a close-lipped smile and a wistful expression.
Dr. Wynn went to straighten his tie and forgot it was no longer there. He sighed. “And you, dad? Have you noticed anything strange? Or unusual?”
“Just the serious grip strength, doc.” Matt scratched at the stubble on his chin. He’d decided to forgo mentioning the stickiness and the enhanced senses, which was all well and good with Jessica. She was willing to explain away certain incidents with the truth seeing as she never exactly hid her own abilities, but she didn’t feel like anyone outside of their inner circle needed to know the extent of what Peter was capable of. Not until it posed a threat to his own safety or the safety of others. She didn’t love that someone else knew about it, but if it had to be anyone Jessica guessed the doctor was a good choice. At least he was legally bound by HIPAA regulations.
The rest of the appointment was as normal as it could have been given the circumstances. Peter had a new toy, half of a men’s navy blue necktie, so Jessica called the morning successful and was ready to get back to the apartment. Now that Peter was sleeping better thanks to some six-month-old-sized earmuffs, she’d gotten used to sneaking in naps while the baby was down. She was really looking forward to her mid-morning snooze.
Matt could have used one of those naps. The subway was less packed on their way home, meaning they managed to grab side-by-side seats, and every few minutes Matt’s head would slump and land on Jessica’s shoulder before he’d flinch awake again.
Matt’s far side was wide open as he unintentionally leaned toward her, only protected by a white shirt and his rumpled suit jacket. Jessica shoved her index finger into the space between his ribs and hip bone. He jumped to attention as if shocked.
His face stayed aimed at the far side of the car, but Jessica didn’t miss the way he used his free hand to gently cup her elbow before pulling away. Almost as if he were making sure she was in one piece before panicking. ”Everything okay?”
“You tell me, Mr. Murdock. You’re not one to fall asleep on public transportation.”
“Sorry. Long night.”
Jessica cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” Matt being, well, Matt, there were about a million things he could have been doing last night other than sleeping. Matt’s penchant for vigilantism was the first thing to come to mind, but he promised time and time again that Daredevil was off the table until further notice. He was freelancing, taking work from law firms on a case by case basis — maybe he’d been up working.
Jessica’s mind supplied an alternative; Or he was doing the other thing people do in beds at night .
He did show up to her apartment twenty minutes after he said he would. They were almost late for Pete’s checkup. But nothing about him had screamed I just had sex and rolled out of bed to take my kid to a doctor’s appointment. He genuinely seemed off-kilter and out of it, like his mind was somewhere else.
Even if he did have an overnight guest, it was none of Jessica’s business. They weren’t together. Weren’t even trying to be together. Didn’t feel that way about one another. They fucked once and a baby came out of it, and that’s great. Romantically they owed one another nothing.
But, if Matt was having faceless strangers over at his place, Jessica deserved to know. Right? He’d taken to babysitting over there when Jessica needed to be on that side of the Kitchen for a job. It was a matter of Peter’s safety.
“I was just—“
“Are you hooking up with someone?”
Their words overlapped and mushed together before they realized the other had been speaking, and they froze. Matt’s mouth opened and closed a few times. “I’m…I’m sorry?”
Oh my god. Why the hell did I ask him that? Jessica couldn’t think quickly enough to recover her dignity, so she did what she always did and leaned into the outburst full-force. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you are, I just thought I’d ask because Pete’s around and having some random person up in his business seems sort of risky. But like I said, not my problem who you fuck. So, yeah.”
Matt coughed. It might have been his way of suppressing a hysterical laugh. “Can we not talk about this on the subway? We’re almost home.”
“This is hardly the weirdest conversation anyone has had on a New York subway, Matt.”
“And then she asked if I was hooking up with anyone.”
Foggy choked on his fried rice and had to
switch out his chopsticks for a napkin when the food came back up. “Seriously? Just out of the blue?”
Matt’s blank eyes were wide with exasperation. “Yes! No pretence, no build-up. Just outright asked if I was sleeping around.”
Foggy took a few deep breaths and retook his utensils. He was starving, and there was no way he was letting the Chinese takeout he grabbed on the way home from the office get cold. He would have forced Matt to return to his lo mein if the poor guy didn’t seem so anxious.
Foggy got the call just as he managed to hail a cab. Matt had a weird day and wanted to talk about it. This caught Foggy supremely off guard, mostly because Matt never wanted to talk about anything. He was maybe the most closed off person on the planet. Unless you compared him to Jessica; then the two of them had some sort of childhood-trauma-influenced tie on who could keep the most emotions bottled up at once.
“I assume in typical Jessica fashion she explained why, but did it with a lot of cursing and minimal regard for social queues?”
“Not a lot of cursing this time, actually. I think she’s trying to cut back. She’s genuinely afraid Peter’s first coherent word will be Fuck.”
“C’mon, Matt, seriously.”
One of Matt’s fingernails scratched idly at the kitchen counter top. Foggy gave his friend a moment to think and surveyed the apartment in the fading multicolored daylight shining through the living room window.
Peter and Jessica had only been coming around Matt’s apartment for about a month, but the place was definitely more hospitable than it ever was before the two of them showed up. The floors were swept, the rugs were vacuumed, the fridge was stocked (if you could call sandwich ingredients and unexpired milk a good selection). Matt was never a dirty or disorganized person — being blind meant making life as easy as possible and ensuring every item had a place. Sometimes even freaky superpowers couldn’t stop you from tripping over a forgotten piece of laundry or overfilling your water glass.
The apartment was just different now that people other than a blind bachelor and his confidants hung around. Baby toys, some spare diapers and a soft blue blanket were piled neatly in a basket next to the couch. A Pack n Play was assembled and pushed against the wall in Matt’s bedroom. A ball of deep purple yarn with knitting needles sticking into the top was spilling out of a tote bag next to the storage closet. The only thing truly out of place was the disorderly array of braille papers across the kitchen table. His laptop sat abandoned next to it all, screen open but blackened with sleep. It looked as if Matt had jumped up in the middle of working and hadn’t had time to pick up.
“She claims it’s because strangers being around Pete makes her nervous.”
“I’d say that’s reasonable, Matt, with everything going on with his powers. Not to mention the Fisk stuff.”
“I know, I know. And I agree. I’d never do something to put him in harm’s way. But there was something else. Another reason she asked. It wasn’t just about Peter.”
“You think she genuinely wanted to know if you were bringing people home? Just to satisfy her own curiosity?” Foggy paused. “Honestly, I’d be curious if I were her. You’re not exactly virginal . The two of you literally have a child that resulted from a one-night-stand.”
“Fog, that’s not the point. All of this somehow came from her asking why I was so tired. Is the only reason a man can be tired is because he’s sleeping around?”
Matt’s hair was ruffled, collared shirt open at the first few buttons. His usual five o’clock shadow was extra dark; It matched the shaded crescents beneath his eyes. “You do look like you haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in a while. And you swore off the Devil for the time being. So you’re either an insomniac, fucking your way through Hell’s Kitchen, or lying about shelving Daredevil and beating the shit out of strangers.”
“ I’m not hooking up with anyone. And I didn’t lie about Daredevil. I haven’t touched the suit since Midland Circle. There’s not much left of the suit anyways.”
“Yeah,” Foggy said, false remorse dripping from the word, “getting a building dropped on you will do that.”
Despite his best efforts, the rice in Foggy's cardboard container had sunk to room temp. He closed the lid and pushed it aside. He’d get to it later. “Then why are you so exhausted?”
“I’ve just been up late working. Got a good caseload right now.”
Ping.
Matt’s laptop lit up. Foggy peered at the screen; his vision isn’t what it used to be, and from his seat at the bar he couldn’t quite tell what the notification box on the screen meant. The adaptable display at the bottom of the keyboard was flipping into action as it translated whatever the notification said into braille.
Luckily Matt couldn’t immediately tell what it said from the other side of the counter. The handy machine was tweaked to make life easier for the unsighted in every way, meaning he didn’t have a chance to close the notification and hide anything. The computer started speaking in a tinny, automated voice; “ New result for filtered search. Wilson Fisk.”
“Fisk? You’ve been googling Fisk?”
Matt looked as if he wanted to throw his hands in the air but decided to ditch the theatrics last minute and simply shrugged. “What else am I supposed to do? I can’t go out and get information on my own without Fisk finding out or putting Peter at risk.”
Foggy didn’t care much about Matt’s methods. He was concerned that his friend was putting thought into Fisk at all, even though logically he knew it needed to happen. After everything went down with Miss James Wesley and her Hogarth case, Matt descended into a bit of a panic. Not on the outside — he was good at hiding it. From Jessica, especially, who hadn’t seen Matt in a personal crisis frequently enough to know when he was burying something of that magnitude. But staying up all night researching Fisk was the sort of thing Matt did when something was eating at him and he was out of options.
Despite all of that, a foolish part of Foggy hoped his friend would just drop it. Let Wesley and Fisk both realize how far fetched and convoluted their plan was, let it derail, and go back to living his life as an attorney and a father.
But he knew it couldn’t end that way. Fisk was too persistent, and Matt was too paranoid.
“Miss Wesley contacted Jessica privately. Even if Hogarth won’t take the case, she wants Daredevil exposed for killing her son. Jessica keeps telling her it’s a lost cause, that Daredevil hasn’t been active in over a year, but Wesley won’t drop it.”
“Well? Did you tell Jessica why you haven’t been sleeping?” Foggy thought making sure a crime lord wasn’t going to come and kill the father of their child seemed like a pretty good excuse.
“Not exactly.”
“Oh my god, Matt, you make everything so unnecessarily complicated.”
“How? I just don’t want her to worry!”
“She’s probably more worried now that she can tell you’re keeping things from her! Jess isn’t clueless. If you’re thoroughly looking into Fisk, she needs to know.” Foggy tried to calm himself down. Matt Murdock, despite being his best friend, was very good at pushing all of his buttons simply by being himself. “Not to mention that Jessica can literally lift cars with her bare hands. She can take care of herself. She’d be pissed if she knew you were trying to protect her or something.”
Matt poked forlornly at his noodles. “You really like taking Jessica’s side, huh?”
“I’m not taking her side. I’m showing you the side you refuse to acknowledge. Also, damn straight I like taking Jessica’s side. She made me Uncle Foggy.”
“Bet you never saw that coming, did you?”
“Didn’t see it happening after a quickie with another Super and you not knowing the kid existed for the first month of its life, but that’s whatever.”
Matt liked to act offended when Foggy made jokes like that, but the faint smile that stuck around afterward was a dead giveaway.
It took himself and Karen’s gentle but persistent reassurance, a full evening at Josie’s and about six servings of scotch for Matt to openly talk about the dark smudge he’d always see on his relationship with Peter. Matt wasn’t there for Jessica throughout the pregnancy or the first four weeks afterward. She, like most other people, thought Matt’s life ended under Midland Circle. Him showing up on Jessica’s doorstep that day to check in was a fluke, a random choice. The last thing he expected was for their casual afternoon before it all went down to have turned into something decidedly not casual.
It wasn’t his fault Jessica thought she’d be raising her son alone. Matt knew that. He couldn’t help that he was physically unable to stay conscious or leave the church for months after the incident. But he also knew he’d been healed enough after his stay with the nunns to come visit sooner, and he didn’t. And it ate him alive.
“It’s not…” Matt paused, lips pressed tight. “It’s not what I expected for myself. Not right now, not with everything. The mess after Midland Circle, Fisk still active, it’s not the world in which I’d choose to raise my son.”
“I hear you buddy, I do. But there are two of you raising Peter, and his mother deserves to know exactly what you’re getting up to. I know you won’t leave this alone. Fisk is your kryptonite, and as long as he’s around you won’t get any sleep. But the lone wolf shit has got to stop.”
“Surely she assumes I’ve been looking into it, it’s been a month since the Hogarth meeting—“
Foggy just stared, face blank. The fact that Matt couldn’t see Foggy’s expression didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the tension in the air. “Fine, fine. No more lone wolf shit. I’m going to her place tomorrow to see Pete. I’ll talk to her then.”
“And if you don’t, I’ll know. I can read you, Matthew.”
“Yes you can, Foggy, good for you.”
“Like a book. A brooding, scarred, blind book.”
“I get it.”
“A book that wears cheap ties and always parts its hair perfectly despite not being able to see it.”
“Alright, that’s enough.”
Someone knocked on Jessica’s front door.
“Just a second!” She called out, trying and failing to secure the snaps at the bottom of Peter’s onesie. “C’mon, Pete, I could have sworn this thing fit a couple weeks ago.”
Peter replied with nothing very helpful, some babbles and a few spit bubbles. Those were his new favorite thing, along with kicking his feet and yelling “ bah” at anyone that wasn’t Jessica or Matt. He was really a baby of many talents.
With a bit more manhandling Jessica managed to get two of the three buttons connected. The third was so close, almost there, when she heard the telltale sign of seams popping and decided to accept defeat before the thing was too ruined to take to the consignment shop. Babies grew fast, and baby shit was expensive. Jessica figured there was nothing wrong with selling what Peter couldn’t use to buy what he actually needed.
Jessica heard knocking again. “ Jess? It’s Matt.”
She figured as much— that’s why she didn’t go rushing to the door in the first place. He’d planned on coming over to spend time with Peter. She waited months to find out he was alive. He could handle a few minutes on her doorstep.
She picked Peter up off her bed and deposited him and his still-open onesie on her hip before
flipping the deadbolt on the front door. Then it was straight back to digging through her dresser for anything that would fit her apparently growing son. God, when did Peter get so big? It was only six months ago that he was too small for his newborn outfits and now he was literally busting out of his clothes.
Jessica heard Matt’s shoes hit the hardwood as he entered. She was about to call him into her room to join the clothing search when someone else’s shoes clacked through her office. Unless Matt had taken to wearing heels, he brought a woman with him.
Jessica stilled over the open dresser drawer. No fucking way. He really is sleeping with someone, and he brought her over here so I could meet her because I made a big fuss about it yesterday.
Jessica wasn’t sure why her first instinct was to walk casually into the office, hand Peter in his diaper-only glory to Matt’s woman without looking at her face, and then sink heavily into the seat at her desk. “We’ve got a problem, Matt. Pete’s in serious need of a new wardrobe.”
“Petey! Hey, stinker.”
The woman was wiggling a finger into Peter’s underarm. Peter was giggling, tucking his face into her shoulder to escape the ticklish torment. The woman was laughing, smile broad, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder so Peter couldn’t tug at it—
The woman was Karen Page. Jesus Christ, it was just Karen. Matt brought Aunt Karen , a well established member of the friend group and someone he’d made very clear to Jessica in the past that he was not fucking.
Matt waived a lax hand in Karen’s direction. “Well that works out, doesn’t it?”
It took a moment for Karen to register that he was speaking to her. Her gaze bounced from him to Jessica. “Oh, yeah, hi Jessica. Sorry I just sort of showed up, Matt said it would be okay.”
It was okay. Jessica liked Karen. She just had a hard time processing Karen when she’d been expecting Matt’s Lay of the Week to come walking into her home. “No worries. Glad you’re here. What’s Matt talking about? What works out?”
Matt, seemingly uninterested in the conversation, had made himself right at home. His shoes and cane sat in a neat pile by the foot of the couch, and he listened with only mild interest to Karen’s explanation.
“I was thinking maybe I could take you out and get you and Peter some things you guys might be needing. You know, like a baby shower gift of sorts, except that the baby’s six months old and not six months gestated. But that’s only if you’re free right now. If not, no worries.”
“I’m free, actually. And look at that,” She motioned to Matt, “We already have a babysitter.”
“How convenient.” Karen gave Peter a smacking kiss on the cheek, which made him squeal with delight and wiggle in her arms. “You wanna head out?”
Jessica nodded, grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair. “Let me track down my shoes and we’ll be good to go.”
“Actually, Jess, could I talk to you for a minute?” Matt asked, somewhat timidly. “Alone, preferably.”
Jessica looked to Karen, who just shrugged and hefted Peter a little higher. “I’ve got him. Go chat, no rush.”
Once the two of them walked into Jessica’s bedroom, Matt wasted no time. “I’ve been looking into Fisk again.”
Whatever she thought Matt was planning to say, this wasn’t it. “Uh, okay?”
“That’s why I’ve been so tired. I handle my cases during the day and spend way too long on this at night.”
“Makes sense.”
Matt frowned. “You’re not pissed?”
“I’m not dense. I know we haven’t talked about it much since the Hogarth meeting but I know you well enough to assume you didn’t just drop it.”
Despite her reassurances, Matt was still fidgeting, fingers tapping a beat against his leg.
“Do I need to be pissed about something? You’re not going out as Daredevil again, are you?”
“What? No, no, I swore off it and I’m sticking with that. Foggy just made me think you’d be pissed for not telling you the important stuff.”
Foggy was right. Matt should listen to his friend more often. “So there’s important stuff you haven’t told me.”
When Matt pulled his red glasses off, it revealed how haggard he actually looked. Jessica thought him and her might be giving each other's dark circles a run for their money. “There’s been a whole lot of nothing since the meeting. Nothing substantial, anyways. None of Fisk’s known associates or their groups have been active. The head man on Fisk’s case, some guy named Agent Poindexter, did a press conference a couple of weeks ago claiming they were still finding and seizing Fisk assets and that everything was under control.”
“I appreciate you trying to clear things up for me, Matt, but you're really stretching this out.”
“Last night my search algorithm flagged a news article. A few days ago Ben Ulrich, an investigative journalist for the Daily Bugle who has spent the last two years covering crime and more recently, Fisk’s life before prison, was killed in his home along with his wife and son.”
“Jesus. The whole family?”
“His daughter was spared. She’s young, in shock. Hasn’t told the cops much. All they got from her was that the bad man hit daddy and he wouldn’t wake up. They’re still looking into it but without more evidence it might just end up being labelled a really nasty home invasion.”
Jessica was trying to put the pieces together in her head. After years of being left alone, Ben Ulrich and his family were slaughtered in the middle of the night by a lone assailant. “You said the daughter was young. There’s no way they would have said that much about her or the attacker in the article. How’d you get that info?”
“I may or may not have played the blind card and stood outside the police station for a few hours asking people for directions after I saw the article. Amazing what you can hear in those places if you listen hard enough.”
As funny as the idea of that was, Matt stumbling around and playing the part of someone he very much was not, Jessica had a hard time focusing on the comedic value of it. “You said Urich was an investigative journalist. It could have been another case, right? Maybe his past caught up with him. Guy probably had a lot of enemies.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Matt scratched at the stubble on his chin. “It could be something. Or it could be nothing. Just…Just be careful, okay? At least until we know more.”
Karen’s voice was audible from the other room. “Okay, Petey, time to let go of my hand. May I have my hand back, please? I love you too, buddy, but I also love my thumb. I’d like to keep it.”
Jessica decided she should probably go retrieve her child before he broke something more significant than jewelry or jacket zippers. She dropped a hand on Matt’s shoulder on her way out of the bedroom. It was sturdy, warm. Jessica couldn’t help but give it a squeeze. “What am I if not Caution embodied, Matthew?”
Jessica’s hair threw a breeze across the back of Matt’s neck as she left the room.
He could feel the ghost of her slender fingers through his shirt, the way they nailed him down like Jess needed something to keep her steady and she chose Matt to be her anchor.
What am I if not Caution embodied, Matthew?
“You’re Jessica Jones,” Matt whispered beneath his breath, an almost silent admission. She was reckless, serious, capable, superpowered Jessica Jones. Cautious, not so much.
Matt wished for her hand to be back on his shoulder. If that’s what it took to keep track of her, to keep Jessica from harm, he’d never move, and he'd make sure she never let go.
“Oh my god, Jessica, look at this.” Karen held a set of baby shoes aloft, styled to look like little cars. Karen tapped the sole of each one with a fingertip and the false tires on the sides lit up blue and red. “Is that not precious?”
“Very precious. Not entirely practical.”
“Gifts aren’t supposed to be practical. I’m gonna get them.”
“Whatever floats your boat, Karen.”
The two of them were in some sort of retail chain baby store shoved in the middle of a dying-out shopping mall. It was cute, the sort of place you went when you had money to blow or a gift registry to fill. Jessica stepped into a few similar places while she was pregnant, usually just to look around and run her fingers over the infant sized knit sweaters and artisanal wooden toys. Needless to say, she hardly ever walked out with anything. Her Solo Mom baby budget hadn’t been quite robust enough for the Egyptian cotton crib sheets.
“What about this?” Jessica passed Karen an item she’d spotted on a nearby rack. The sign atop the display said Snowy Snuggles and everything hanging was either fuzzy or covered in graphics of snowflakes and reindeer.
By the look on Karen’s face, any bystander would have thought she was the one getting footie pajamas with furry bear ears on the hood. “Yes! See? That is fun. We’ll get some practical things too, I know the kid genuinely needs bigger clothes, but oh my god. Peter is going to look so cute.”
It was weird, being outside of her house with someone who was nothing but excited about Peter. There was no parental angst, no sense of moral obligation, just someone that knew Jessica had a baby and was happy to treat it like something to be celebrated. Matt loved Peter, cared about Peter, took care of Peter, but the guy had a guilt complex the size of Manhattan. He would stick around for Pete no matter how much he did or didn’t want him. Even Trish was still hesitant around the baby and treated his birth like some sort of incident rather than a special occasion.
In the beginning, that mindset had Jessica in a chokehold. She knew something had to change when taking care of Peter felt more like a chore than a privilege. She wasn’t magically optimistic— life as a working mom was still hard, life as a working mom with a superpowered baby even more so. Some days she wished some nameless, faceless figure to whom she had no emotional connection could take over and she could get a few solid hours of sleep. Maybe she wouldn’t dream about buildings falling on the father of her child or crime lords burning her apartment building to the ground.
She still didn’t wake up each day ready to smell the roses. But she was getting better at not letting the thorns get to her, and today that meant letting Karen Page buy Peter light up shoes and appreciating that in addition to a kid she loved, she might even be coming out of all of this with new friends.
Jessica and Karen browsed a couple more baby stores before collapsing onto a bench somewhere deep in the mall, their bags dropped unceremoniously onto the tiled ground. Jessica wasn’t even sure which way was out anymore.
The rest, if that’s what slouching on a shitty public bench could be called, felt as if it lasted mere seconds.
Karen clapped her hands together. “Okay. Once we’re ready, we’ll hit a couple more places and find some things for mom too.”
Jessica’s eyebrows rose against her will. “Damn; did you win the lottery recently?” It didn’t register until the words were out in the open that such a statement wasn’t conventionally polite. “Not that I’m not thankful, because all of this helps me more than you know. Like, genuinely. But I feel like I’m bleeding you dry.”
“Believe it or not, Jessica, being a paralegal pays decently well when it’s at a prestigious firm not run by two broke maniacs who only take cases pro-bono.”
That comment earned Karen a snort. “You’re not wrong. You’re too put-together to be working in Hell’s Kitchen, anyways.”
“The neighborhood wasn’t the issue. I just…Had some complications with the employers.”
“Hard to work for two best friends who bicker like a married couple?”
“Hard to work for a guy who only showed up half the time and when he did, refused to tell the truth when asked why he was covered in cuts and bruises. Also hard to work for him after he almost died, made you and everyone who loved him think he did die, then didn’t tell you he actually survived for almost a year after the fact.”
Jessica let out a low whistle. “Well shit, yeah, I guess that’ll do it.”
A bright curtain of hair fell forward to hide Karen’s face as she leaned for one of the shopping bags. Karen’s thumb and forefinger grazed the soft fabric of a tiny sock. “I don’t regret it. It just wasn’t meant to last.” Jessica thought maybe she meant more than just the job.
Karen pretended to be offended by the elbow Jessica poked into her side. There was no real force in the jab. “What do you say we find a store in this place for adult-sized people? I don’t think I’ve had new jeans since high school.”
Karen looked very, very excited about that.
“I can’t believe those were on sale! They’re not even damaged or anything!”
Karen was holding Jessica’s new pair of Levis out in front of her at arm’s length, like she couldn’t see enough of the jeans at once but was trying her best to change that.
Jessica groaned, but the sound that escaped faded into the screech of the subway on its tracks. “Don’t jinx it. I’ll get home and there’ll be a hole in the ass or something.”
“Personally I think that would be great. If guys can have little holes in the front of their underwear I think women should get random holes in their pants. It’s only fair.”
“Hard to disagree with that logic.”
Jessica wasn’t sure how long her and Karen had been out— only that Matt had texted her a Peter update hours ago and she hadn’t looked at her phone since. The winter sky was a dusky purple when they walked out of the mall so Jessica’s best guess was early evening. Her stomach concurred. It growled angrily every time she got a whiff of the street cart hot dog an older man was eating a few seats down the car.
“You wanna stay for dinner, Karen? There’s a great Korean place down the road, best tteokbokki in town—“
Jessica didn’t mean to grab Karen’s arm so hard, but the poor woman almost ended up on the floor when the sound of the train’s brakes kicked up to almost unbearable levels and in a matter of seconds, the car had slowed and then come to a complete stop.
The guy eating the hotdog was now holding an empty bun. The loose wiener went rolling past Jessica’s boots. “Man, my dog!” Both Karen and Jessica watched as he limped his way toward the end of the car, where the hotdog stopped rolling and smacked into the wall.
“Uh,” Karen looked out the window to where only the grungy, unpainted walls of the NYC subway system were visible. “We’re stuck, aren’t we?”
Jessica remembered she still had the sleeve of Karen’s blouse in a death grip and carefully removed her hand. “I sure hope not. If I don’t get something to eat soon I’m going to fight that guy for his ground hotdog.”
The wiener had almost been returned to its bun when, to make matters worse, because nothing ever got progressively better in Jessica’s world, the overhead lights flicked off and cast the train car in darkness.
“Oh, come on!” Hotdog guy shouted.
Jessica took a moment to take stock of her surroundings. Karen next to her, breathing a bit heavy but seemingly alright. Shopping bags somehow still squeezed between her feet on the floor. She was more shaken than she wanted to admit, but Karen didn’t seem to be faring much better and Jessica figured at least one of them needed to stay level headed. This could be nothing; New York trains weren’t exactly known for their mechanical upkeep. Breakdowns were common. That’s what Jessica decided to tell herself, at least.
There was the sound of a clicking door jam, the sliding of the door between cars being thrown open and bouncing within the threshold. It was just dark enough that Jessica couldn’t see who’d walked through. She felt her jacket pockets and couldn’t locate her phone to use the flashlight. It probably slid out when the car stopped.
“Karen, quick, you have your phone?”
“Shit, I can’t— wait, here! Damn, I think the screen’s shattered. Display won’t work.”
Hot dog guy was audibly becoming frustrated. Whoever stepped through the doorway was blocking his access to his meal. “Man, you’re not even allowed to — ugh!”
Jessica could barely see the outlines of two separate figures, hot dog man and the newcomer. And she could just barely see it when the newcomer tensed, reared back, and kicked hot dog guy in the chest so hard he went flying through the air.
He hit something that clinged when he made contact, probably one of the vertical safety poles, and slid to the floor. Jessica didn’t hear him get back up.
It was Karen’s turn to make a mad grab for Jessica’s jacket sleeve. “Oh my god, Jess, what was that?”
Newcomer didn’t seem at all concerned that his victim wasn’t moving. He stepped into the train car and started walking toward them. His pace was slow, calculated. They were in the last car of the chain — they had nowhere to go.
“Karen I know you’re shook up but I can’t see this guy well enough to throttle him.”
“My phone isn’t working, I don’t know—“
“What about mine? Do you feel it anywhere?” Jessica didn’t want to turn away from the shadow moving closer and closer to their position. He was completely unaffected by their panic.
“No! I can’t find it!”
A step closer. Another. “It’s gotta be here somewhere Karen, just keep looking.”
Closer. Almost close enough that Jessica wouldn’t have room to force him back. “I’m sorry Jessica but there’s nothing—“
“ Anything that lights up, Karen, c’mon!”
“Anything…Oh! Here, here!”
The bag’s at Jessica’s feet rustled and something was shoved into her hand. Velcro, fresh canvas. The sole of the baby shoe smacked Jessica’s palm and the tires lit up, tiny red and blue flashing lights illuminating just enough for Jessica to catch a glimpse of the attacker.
Karen passed her the other one and Jessica wasted no time standing. It only took her two long strides and one quick stumble over the fallen hotdog guy to meet the assailant in the middle of the car. Jessica barely had time to consider how fucked up it was that she was about to beat the shit out of a guy with her son’s new shoes before she was lashing out. He didn’t expect her strength, and a well placed shove made contact with the guy’s chest plate and sent him skidding back a few feet.
Jessica frowned. He’s wearing body armor?
He was back and swinging immediately. Jessica caught a nasty right hook to her left cheekbone before landing a swipe of her own, a knock right against the side of his head. If she used as much of her unnatural strength as she thought she did the guy should be concussed, if not on his way to blacking out entirely.
Except she didn’t expect the crack of her knuckles against highly reinforced Kevlar. Peter’s shoe lit up as it slipped out of her grip, the twinkling red and blue enough to catch the barest glimpse of whoever the fuck this guy was.
Red Kevlar. A red suit, shoulder pads connected to an under suit that connected back to the helmet, and atop the helmet…
Atop the helmet was a set of heart-wrenchingly familiar, unmistakable, red horns.
Jessica choked on her next breath. “ Daredevil?”
He went for another hit. Jessica caught the fist flying toward her nose, twisted and pushed out, walked forward with everything in her. She watched the guy grit his teeth against the force of her maneuver. The lights from the infant shoe pressed against his chest with Jessica’s other hand turned his exposed teeth purple. He was good, a skilled fighter, but Jessica was juiced on illegal experimentation and very, very angry. He couldn’t beat her, not today.
Once they reached the doorway Jessica gave one last mighty thrust. She heard the wrist she’d caught crack beneath the force, and the guy and Peter’s shoe went flying.
She stormed into the next car after them. A few taps of the other shoe against her leg revealed, to her horror, not an empty car, but a car with unconscious passengers scattered about. Some were on the floor, others slumped in their seats, but none were awake. Peter’s glittering shoes didn’t offer enough light to show the true extent of the damage, but based upon how no one seemed to be moving, Jessica’s hopes weren’t high. Especially so when she realized the door between this car and the and the next was open, the safety gates to keep non-personnel passengers from moving between cars pushed aside. He must have jumped ship completely and run off into the tunnels to lick his wounds.
Jessica slapped Peter’s shoe so Karen would know it was her when she walked back into their car. Karen seemed relieved for her to still be in one piece. “Are you alright?”
Her face was pulsing around the lower left eye socket where his fist made contact. She was winded, shaking with adrenaline or fear or maybe a bit of both. “I’m fine.”
“What was that? What the hell just happened?”
“I think…I think Daredevil just tried to kill us.”