Interlude
This was hell. Stark Industries was actually hell. Who would’ve suspected? Who knew hell was on earth this entire time?
“Matt, are you okay?” He felt Foggy turn his head toward him, his voice concerned.
“Yes, this building is just...”
“Expensive and tacky?” Foggy supplied. Matt shook his head. No, it sounded like the Spider-Man suit multiplied by a thousand. Every high-rise was full of cell phones, but this building (and the suit) had a buzzing current running through them. It was disconcerting. But he wasn’t about to say that out loud. Foggy understood it was sense-related and shrugged, but Matt could feel that he was extra honed in on him now. It felt nice that he was concerned. Everything had been so strained between them lately. But when hadn’t it been?
They stepped into an elevator that Foggy informed him “had both bronze and silver decor like an Old Testament idol.”
“It was gold,” corrected Matt.
“What?” said Foggy, distracted and now paying very little attention to Matt.
“The calf, in the Bible. It was gold.”
“Sure whatever, Matt, but this elevator doesn’t have any buttons?” A woman’s voice startled both of them.
“Mr. Nelson, Mr. Murdock, welcome to Stark Industries. I will be taking you to your meeting with Ms. Potts and your client on the 17th floor. If you have any needs, I am here to help.”
That voice was not human in a way that unsettled Matt. Human voices all sounded different, but this voice had the same subtle inflection of a person except... it wasn’t. He’d heard that Tony Stark had developed complicated artificial intelligences, but knowing it and experiencing it were very different.
Foggy seemed unbothered. “So,” he said to the voice, “who else is in this meeting we have unwisely accepted?”
“Mrs. Parker, Stark Head of Security Happy Hogan, Colonel James Rhodes and Avengers Initiative Director Nick Fury.” What the fuck, thought Matt, that is way too many people in one room with a potential interest in Daredevil.
“That seems like a lot of people,” Foggy said casually. But his heart had sped up. Matt’s nerves were soothed by the warm feeling from Foggy being on the same wavelength. It didn’t happen as much since the blip.
“Ms. Potts took great care to invite only the people whose attendance was vital.”
“No Wade Wilson?” Foggy questioned.
“He declined,” answered the voice.
“Really?” pressed Foggy. “Why?” Really Foggy, you can’t defense lawyer an A.I.
“Why do you think?” quipped the voice, the decidedly nonhuman voice that was definitely flirting with Foggy. Matt needed to sit down.
“I think that was a smart decision on his part,” said Foggy. “Do you have a name, elevator voice?”
“I am FRIDAY,” she said. “I am present throughout the building and able to assist during your visit. You have arrived at the 17th floor. Please exit to your right and proceed to conference room 1720.”
They stepped off the elevator, and Foggy took Matt’s arm to lead him in the right direction. Foggy claimed that this floor was more “office” and less “nouveau rich hell,” not that it made a difference to Matt. He was extremely unsettled by the constant AI surveillance, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.
Matt and Foggy stepped into the conference room, the last to arrive. He felt Foggy’s hand tense slightly on his arm. This room was strung tight. Ms. Potts gestured for them to have a seat and quickly ran through introductions.
Peter’s aunt looked stressed and had a protective hand on Peter’s arm. Peter warmed up slightly, happy to see Foggy and Matt. He was far less stressed than the last time Matt had seen him, but still on edge. Happy Hogan, attentive but relaxed as he sat on the other side of May Parker. James Rhodes, at Pepper’s side and seemingly nervous toward Peter for some reason Matt couldn’t deduce. Peter didn’t seem to notice.
Pepper Potts, in charge and completely at ease. Whatever her plan, she was absolutely certainly there would be no surprises. “Director Fury,” she said tightly, “you may begin.” She was not pleased with whatever he was about to say.
“Do all these people really need to be here?” he asked. Pepper glared at him, and he sighed in defeat and looked to Matt and Foggy. “Issues of national security, privileged information, etcetera. I’m sure as lawyers that you understand when to shut the hell up.”
From Peter’s snicker and the subsequent pinch from May, Matt was sure that Pepper had rolled her eyes. “FRIDAY, please turn off recording to this room for the duration of this meeting.
“Of course, Ms. Potts.” FRIDAY sounded different when she answered her, as though she was more familiar with Pepper. So unsettling, almost as unsettling as the fact that Matt had already started thinking of the AI as a woman.
“Mr. Parker, I owe you an apology,” said Fury. To his credit, he didn’t grit his teeth or huff about it, but this definitely wasn’t a conversation he was happy about.
He pointed at Matt and Foggy. “This is the shutting up part.” Fury focused on Peter again. “I assigned a shapeshifting alien to the Mysterio business. He was not equipped to handle the situation. I should have been there.” Pepper’s heart rate quickened slightly. Matt focused in on her. Guilt? It was subtle, but she was watching Peter with an air of sadness about her. Guilt, then. But Rhodes was still watching Peter nervously. Why?
“Where were you?” asked Peter. He seemed bewildered.
“Space,” Fury answered. Inexplicably, Peter seemed less bewildered.
Foggy shifted next to Matt, and Matt could feel him get ready to launch into lawyer mode. Matt desperately tried to signal him to shut up, but Foggy was on.
“Shapeshifting alien, Director Fury?” Foggy leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It seems like my client, the minor you put in charge of this colossal fuck up, could really use a shapeshifting alien right now.” Pepper looked smug. Ah, so this was her idea as well, and it seems like she appreciated an aggressive dick on her side. Matt was out of practice and had misjudged basically everything. He squeezed Foggy’s arm appreciatively.
“Fine, yes, he agreed to help,” said Fury. Hell hath no fury like Pepper Potts, apparently. “Peter, you have our sincerest apologies for this mess. Talos will appear as Peter Parker half a dozen times for the next three months while you’re out as Spider-Man. Pepper will be in touch with the schedule.”
Peter nodded. His heart rate slowed to calmer than Matt had ever heard it, even during the nap he took at Matt’s apartment. Poor kid. The idea of his own identity getting out gave Matt hives. He couldn’t imagine dealing with that at 17.
“Are we finished here?” Fury directed the question to Pepper as he abruptly stood up and left without waiting for her answer. Matt felt the room relax, and it quickly became extrovert social hour. Foggy slid right into the madness while Matt observed quietly.
Foggy chatted with May and Happy as
Peter animatedly filled Pepper and Rhodes in on the last few days. Matt quickly picked up that the nervousness from Rhodes was due to his obvious relationship with Pepper, of which Peter was apparently unaware. Matt felt for him. Peter was a forgiving kid, but that conversation would involve a lot of feelings for everyone.
Peter sped over the Daredevil part of his story and his heart rate picked up, but he didn’t so much as twitch in Matt’s direction. Pepper, on the other hand, subtly glanced at Matt, and his blood ran cold. Her gaze lingered on him just a bit too long. Did she know? Peter was oblivious; he had kept Matt’s secret. But Pepper seemed to know.
Matt endured the conversations, too off-kilter to join them. Foggy made his way over and touched Matt’s elbow with a soft, “Are you okay?” Matt nodded tightly, a lie that Foggy didn’t believe for a second.
“Well, my partner and I should be returning to our many cases,” Foggy said, still with a gentle hold on Matt’s arm. Peter literally leapt over the table with his inhuman reflexes to hug them both at the same time.
“I will never get used to that,” May commented, shaking her head. Peter laughed cheekily and blew her a kiss.
“The creepy ceiling crawling is worse, but Morgan thinks it’s cool so he does it all over the house,” said Pepper as she approached Peter. The motion Peter made suggested he stuck his tongue out at her. “Don’t be a stranger,” she added fondly, kissing Peter on the cheek. Peter exhaled shakily but quickly regained his composure and nodded. There was some background there that Matt was missing.
Pepper turned to Foggy and offered her hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Nelson.” Foggy was pleased, and Matt had to suppress an eyeroll at how predictable he was with women in power suits. Everybody had a type. Matt offered his hand to Pepper. “Thank you,” she said, her voice emotional. And oh, she definitely knew. Matt grasped her hand and immediately noticed that she was warmer than she should’ve been. Warmer than was any kind of normal. Was she enhanced? Matt had no idea, but he kept her hand a moment too long in his surprise. Foggy eyed him questioningly but Pepper took it in stride.
Foggy waited until they were out of the building and a block away before bombarding Matt with questions, starting with, “What the hell was that?”
“Well for one, she absolutely knows who I am,” started Matt. Before he could continue his freakout, Foggy interrupted.
“She does have an actual AI working for her and also, she was married to a guy who tracked down Spider-Man through YouTube.” Foggy had that tone of voice that suggested Matt was being an idiot. It was exponentially more common since the blip. It wasn’t a playful tone, and every time, it tugged inside Matt’s chest. He huffed a breath, ran a hand through his hair, and continued.
“Iron Man tracked down a 14 year old in a spider hoodie, which is not the same thing, Foggy.” Matt had a fleeting thought about deescalating that he pushed aside. “And she’s hotter than a person should be, but her body temperature is normal.” Matt could feel the look that Foggy gave him. He punched Foggy in the arm. “Not like that.”
“You can always tell, Matt,” Foggy said. He was flippant, not the least bit stressed. Matt was still keyed up from Foggy’s earlier tone, and it grated on his nerves when Foggy wasn’t taking something seriously. He blamed the attitude on Wade’s influence, which was unfair but Matt wasn’t feeling particularly charitable.
“If you’re about to go on a Deadpool rant, I don’t need to hear it,” Foggy said wearily. Matt bit back a reply, put off by Foggy’s accurate read of him. “Oh, so it was that. Again. And I thought this afternoon was going so well, but here we are.” He dropped his hand from Matt’s arm. Matt felt its loss in his soul.
They walked the rest of the way to Fogwell’s in silence. Matt listened to Foggy’s steady heartbeat instead of the city noises around them. If Foggy suspected, he let it alone.
“Do you want to come in for a while?” Matt asked as he unlocked the door. “I don’t have any kids here tonight. I promise to go easy on you.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Foggy, but his voice was light, not carrying any of the tension from earlier. He slid his phone out of his coat pocket and frowned. “It’s later than I thought. I don’t want to be late for any bad decisions.”
“Dinner with Marci?” questioned Matt. It was usually a safe topic, even after the break-up.
“Yeah, she asked.” Foggy tightened his ponytail. He’d always messed with his hair, but the addition of the ponytail had been jarring. Matt woke up and it had been so little time for him, but half a decade for Foggy.
It wasn’t a stretch to say he was a different person. The ponytail, the beard, even his heartbeat felt different. Foggy had grown more muscular, which was not something he ever cared about before. It wasn’t for show; Matt knew he sparred with Wade, first because Hell’s Kitchen had become so dangerous, and then because of habit after the blip. He always turned down Matt’s offer to join him in the gym and dodged questions about it if pressed.
“If I’m lucky, she’ll get dinner,” Foggy continued, oblivious to Matt’s internal deliberations. “And then I’ll buy enough rounds for us to get shitfaced, and then we’ll have regret sex.” Foggy sighed wistfully. “She’s really good at that.”
“So you’re not exactly over, then?” Matt said, taking a chance at poking at a boundary.
“No Matt, nothing is ever really over.” A tired sigh, messing with his ponytail again, and a squeeze of Matt’s arm to say goodbye. “Take care, man.” Matt always wanted to ask why when Foggy had this particular sad tone in his voice, but the words died in his throat. He never heard it unless they were alone. He always sounded more at ease around Wade, or Karen.
“And stop obsessing over Pepper Potts, because I can hear your thoughts!” Foggy added as he walked away. He turned around and did something with his hands - finger guns? - before continuing on his way.
- - - - -
Matt was totally obsessing over Pepper Potts.
A few hours in the gym with a punching bag convinced him that this wasn’t something to leave alone. How did she know, and more importantly, why let it slip to him? Tony Stark had been a fucking idiot about secret identities, but Peter was practically her bonus kid. She wasn’t flippant about keeping vigilante identities under wrap.
Matt needed to talk to her, but not in that damn AI building. In a move that he was sure no one in his life would approve of, Matt set out to track Pepper. Unsurprisingly, she was a difficult woman to find alone. She parked in the garages at Stark Industries and her condo. He wasn’t about to confront her in broad daylight, or anywhere near her kid’s school. She had meetings that ran late, but she always seemed to be in the company of other people. After a week of tailing, Pepper parked a block away from an evening yoga class, and Matt took his chance.
He dropped down behind her from a fire escape and noted the jump in her heartbeat and the buzz of the metal glove pointed at his chest at the same time.
“Oh shit,” Pepper exhaled, her pulse immediately slowing down. “You could’ve asked for my cell!” The glove retracted into a band around her wrist, the same technology that held Peter’s webs.
“Less trackable this way,” said Matt.
“My cell is probably less trackable than you on the streets all night,” she pointed out. That was...fair. But the AI made Matt nervous, not that he was about to share that. “So what do I owe the pleasure to?” Pepper took Matt’s elbow as they walked and guided him through several unoccupied alleyways to get to her car. It was not the same way she had come from her car. Interesting that she had an alternate route planned.
“I have some questions for you,” Matt said, not his smoothest moment. The heat from her hand was distracting, and he was always somewhat disconcerted in unfamiliar parts of the city.
“I’m sure you do,” Pepper said. “Starting with how do I know who you are, when and all that, I assume?” Matt made an affirmative noise and she continued. “Tony tracked down all the New York superheroes before the blip. I’m sure his plan was to build a database for the entire country, but he never went back to it after he came back from space.” It was still bewildering to Matt people were just going to space and coming back like it was nothing.
“He only ever contacted Peter though?” Matt asked. Pepper nodded. “Why?”
“He found him first and went for it.” Pepper hesitated, and Matt could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “I think Tony saw himself in Peter, a little bit.”
“Did you know how old he was?” Matt asked. He might as well be direct about it.
“No,” Pepper said adamantly. “I was running the company, Tony was doing whatever Avengers shit was going on, and we were honesty not in a great place with each other. I didn’t ask.”
“But?” Matt pressed. Because there was more. Pepper was wound tight.
“Happy let it slip that he was only 15, and I laid into Tony. You can’t just... give a teenager a million dollar suit and let him loose on the city with no guidance, and then take the suit away and let him almost kill himself!” Pepper clenched her fists and huffed, anger quickly dissolving to sadness.
“Oh,” said Matt.
“Yes, oh,” Pepper said. She sniffled, her eyes teary. “I’m sorry, I’m being ridiculous. I’m just - I worry about Peter. Tony was gentler after he lost him, after Morgan was born, and I think Peter needed to see that.” She steadied herself with a few deep breaths. “Anything else?” Yes, thought Matt, five million questions about Peter and what Matt should be doing about a child with the strength to throw a bus and the weight of the world on him. But now was not the time for that. That Peter was a stressful subject for Pepper right now was extremely apparent. But there was the one other thing...
“Maybe...” Matt hesitated and he felt Pepper turn toward him, curious. “Are you enhanced?” Pepper hummed thoughtfully.
“Why?” she asked.
“You’re warmer than the average person,” Matt answered. “I would say hot, but I don’t think you’d let me hear the end of that.” Pepper’s laugh echoed in the alleyway.
“It’s interesting you can feel that,” she said. “No one has ever noticed before. Do you remember when Tony disappeared, a decade ago, and people were blowing themselves up?” Matt nodded. It felt like ancient history, before the blip. He couldn’t imagine how long ago it felt to everyone who lived through his missing five years.
“Well, the short version,” Pepper began, tightening her ponytail. It was a stress habit for her. Was it for Foggy? Matt wasn’t sure, but he vowed to pay more attention to it. “Is that it’s genetic manipulation through nanotechnology that is not exactly compatible with human life. It’s been neutralized, but there are residual effects. I heal slightly faster than I used to, and there’s the high temp.”
“But it’s not like a fever,” Matt treaded carefully. He didn’t like anyone prying into his enhanced senses, but Pepper seemed at ease. He held out his hand to her. “Do you mind?” She placed her hand in his, her head tilted curiously. “Your temperature is normal, a little on the lower end of average actually, but your blood feels hot, which probably sounds insane to you.”
“No, you’re right,” Pepper said. “It’s neutralized but still there, channeled through my bloodstream so it’s always moving. Less chance of exploding that way, or so people much smarter than I am believe.”
“That’s - just - it’s definitely something,” said Matt. Pepper nodded.
“It’s weird. It’s okay to say it’s weird.” Matt laughed. Pepper was lovely. He was a little bit disappointed that they were already to her car.
“A Leaf?” he asked. He expected something flashier. He was pretty sure Pepper rolled her eyes.
“Tony was the car half of the relationship,” Pepper said. “If I charge it at the Tower, it runs on one hundred percent sustainable energy. Plus, it’s customized. Won’t be sneaking up on any ninjas though.” She tapped on the roof. Matt flushed. Note to self that Peter is incapable of shutting up.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect to your - “ He gestured helplessly at the car. Pepper shook her head and laid a hand on his arm. She was meticulous about her body language, and she adjusted to touching him more because he couldn’t see her. Smart.
“None taken, promise,” Pepper said truthfully. “FRIDAY doesn’t have to be everywhere. I don’t need you to be around her if it makes you uncomfortable.” Matt nodded. What could he even say to that? Pepper owed him nothing. She was far kinder than he’d expected. There were two sides to everyone though, and he’d seen her be ruthless with the media. No wonder she was CEO.
Pepper squeezed his arm before she got into her car. “This isn’t my business,” she said, “but you should think about going back to law. I’ve done my research. I know you were a hell of a lawyer.” Matt gave a half smile. He’d thought about it, but he couldn’t imagine a practice without Foggy and he could imagine even less asking him about it.
“Well, you never know where life will take you,” he answered, trying to keep the creeping sadness out of his tone. If Pepper noticed, she left it alone.
“You know where to find me if you do,” she said, handing him a business card with her personal cell in Braille. Matt considered himself a fairly well prepared person, but he had nothing on her. He stuck the card in his pocket and nodded before darting up the closest fire escape. He watched Pepper until she was safely in her car before heading back to Hell’s Kitchen.