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Foggy regretted that he didn’t always pay attention to what was on in the news. He listened for key words, like ‘masked vigilante,’ ‘Devil in Hell’s Kitchen,’ ‘John Doe found in the Hudson wearing bulletproof Satan costume’, and variations thereupon because, well, reasons.Reasons named Matt Murdock.Followed shortly by the appellation of “has no sense of self-preservation and someone has to look out for that walking trash fire.”But considering Foggy was usually neck deep in whatever problems Matt had going on in the city – like representing Frank Castle, trying to avoid being murdered by zombie ninjas and supposedly dead ex-girlfriends, or trying to save the city from being under the thumb of Wilson Fisk – he missed pretty much everything else going on.On the other hand, unless it was Karen, the news tended to be either biased, speculative, or just plain wrong, so Foggy rationalized he wasn’t missing much.Until late one night, when all three of them were in the back of his parents’ butcher shop in their half-assed (but so much nicer than their actual ‘office’ ever was) headquarters, working on a case that for once had no ties to Fisk, Zombie Ninjas, or anything else that registered on the ‘it’d be weird as fuck if it were anywhere but here but now it’s normal’ radar, and Matt cocked his head to one side, frowning.“Someone’s coming. Fast.”Despite the warning, Karen and Foggy still jumped when someone didn’t knock on the door, but slammed their hand into it, making the door rattle in its frame.“Do we assume that’s a client, or someone come to kill us all?” Foggy asked, looking to Matt who just gave that sideline smirk of his that said he knew damn well Foggy was being sarcastic.“I don’t think assassins knock,” he deadpanned, even as Foggy was reaching for the door.He wasn’t sure who he was expecting when he opened it. Maybe one of their previous clients. Maybe someone who didn’t even know that they were law office, and really wanted some late night sausage links.It took a minute for him to put the face to a name. He’d never seen Ward Meachum out of a suit or out of a multi-billion-dollar high rise corporate building or looking anything less than the primary driving force behind Rand Enterprises. Even on the one or two occasions he’d seen him at the office, it was because he was tagging along with Hogarth.From what Foggy remembered, Ward was a cold, calculating, and ruthless businessman who hadn’t even looked in his direction.
“You’re Franklin Nelson, right?” Ward demanded, panting heavily as he braced himself in the doorway. His hair was mussed and shorter than Foggy remembered and the look of panic was utterly alien on the business tycoon’s face. “From Hogarth, Chao, and Benowitz?”“Um, yeah, that’s me,” Foggy said, still frowning and trying to figure out what the hell a billionaire was doing on his doorstep looking like he was a homeless man looking for change. “You, uh, want to come in?”Ward blinked. Like he was a little surprised that Foggy let him in without asking what he was doing there.“I’ll get coffee,” Karen offered, and pushed her seat towards Ward, giving him her patented ‘We got this’ smile. Not for the first time or the last, Foggy was grateful for his friends and partners. “You look like you need it.”“What I need is something with a little more kick,” Ward snapped, running a hand through his already tousled hair. He didn’t take Karen’s offer of a seat, instead choosing to pace at the edge of the room nearest the door, his other hand on his hip. And then: “Sorry. That was rude. Thank you. Coffee will be great.”What. The. Hell.He glanced towards Matt, who had yet to say a word or even rise out of his own seat, but Foggy could tell he was taking in everything about Ward – including things Foggy couldn’t tell on his own.
“I think I should mention that before we go any further, I don’t work for Hogarth anymore,” Foggy pointed out. “This is our own firm, so if you –”“I don’t need lawyers, I need help,” Ward said, stopping dead in his tracks. “Help she can’t give, or wouldn’t understand and I would spend half my time trying to explain things I don’t have time to explain or – or even know if I could. You knew the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, right? Or – shit, no, what was his name – Daredevil?”“Ummm….” Foggy half shrugged, not entirely sure how to answer that. Did he admit to knowing Matt was Daredevil, or play dumb? Did Ward know Matt was Daredevil, or did he think this was like Commissioner Gordon and not knowing Batman was Bruce Wayne? Shit…did he even know Matt wasn’t dead? “I might know a thing or two about him, but –”“You know about the weird shit that goes down in this city, right? You know Jessica Jones, that business at Midland Circle, the – the dragon at the bottom of it?” Ward pressed.When Foggy didn’t immediately answer, Ward’s face fell.“You don’t?”“Maybe start at the beginning?” Karen suggested, not unkindly. She again tapped the back of the chair invitingly. “Then maybe we’ll get a better understanding.”Ward looked at the chair like it was going to jump out and bite him, and Foggy wondered if the stories about Ward Meachum being a drug addict were right and there was little more to this than he was high as a kite right now.Except he didn’t look high. His eyes were wide, but they were clear, he wasn’t sniffing or rubbing at his nose, and he while he mentioned needing a stiffer drink than coffee, he didn’t ask for one.So…shock and nerves. Trauma. Anxiety. That feeling of knowing you need help, but the help you need is so far outside the norm you’re not even sure how to ask for it, never mind know who to ask it to.“We’ve had our share of weird. Trust us. If we know what’s going on, we can help. Or try to, anyway.”Matt still hadn’t said a word, and Foggy wasn’t sure if he should try and bring him into the conversation, or if he was doing one of his blind ninja tricks and should just leave him be.For a moment, it looked like Ward was about to turn tail and run right back out the door he’d just come through. But then Foggy saw him mentally steel himself – brace his shoulders, suck in a quiet breath and breathe it out slowly, and finally take the offered chair, wrapping his hands around the chipped and discolored mug of coffee Karen put in front of him.“I don’t need legal help,” Ward repeated, which helped clarify a few things. Ish. “If you’re going to cite to me conflict of interest with Rand being Hogarth’s client and me coming to you, it doesn’t matter.”“So then why come to us?”And there was that pause again, where Ward didn’t meet any of their eyes, just stared down at the coffee like it was who he’d come to see. His mouth opened and closed a few times, before he bit his lip, taking another drink.“This is about Danny, or he would be here with you,” Matt said, quietly and confidently. “Nothing to do with him as Danny Rand though, because then you would be going to Hogarth. It’s about him as the Iron Fist.”“Yeah,” Ward breathed, and his shoulders sagged in the relief of not having to figure out how to tell what he should or shouldn’t mention because secret identities and vigilantism in friends - a problem Foggy Nelson was well acquainted with. “He’s –” and then Ward stopped dead again, seemingly noticing Matt for the first time since he came through the door. “Wait. Who are you?”The abrupt suspicion in his tone made Matt frown in confusion, and Foggy liked that even less.“Murdock,” Matt explained, in that same patient tone. “As in Page, Nelson and Murdock.”There was a beat, and something about that simple phrase made Ward’s face twist into something ugly.“As in Matt Murdock?” Ward asked, the near panic of earlier gone, replaced with something bordering on rage but Foggy – and Matt – had no idea what changed. “As in the guy who was buried under Midland Circle when a building was blown up on top of you and you went down with the Hand?”Well, shit. Ward was apparently quite well informed about the goings-on in New York that had nothing to do with industry and Rand Enterprises.But that still didn’t explain why he was suddenly looking at Matt like he was the enemy. If he knew about Midland Circle, then he knew about Matt’s other identity.Matt wasn’t looking at Ward. His thousand-yard stare was focused down at the mug of coffee that Ward was now white knuckling like he intended to break it and use the shards as a weapon.Almost casually, Matt remarked, “I’m not Hand. The only reason I’m alive is because, near as I can tell, God hates me and wants me to suffer a little more.” There was a self-deprecating half smile. "I’m not an enemy of Danny’s.”Ward’s eye twitched slightly, and his grip didn’t relax.“Danny didn’t question the Hand’s habit of being alive when they shouldn’t be. I assumed it was because of how and where he was raised, but…given how your heart rate just spiked, I’m guessing it was because of someone you knew. I know what the Hand does to people. I promise you, I am not Hand, and I am not Danny’s enemy.” Matt paused, looking up even as he cocked his head to one side again. “They didn’t take him again, did they? We’ve been, uh, a little busy. I hadn’t even considered if they were even still around, but –” he let the sentence hang in the air.“No. I’m sorry, it’s just – I’m a little paranoid when people who Danny told me were dead show up the same day he vanishes, but that’s not fair, is it, because I came to you, not the other way around, and the way that Danny talked about you, you sounded…well, like a comic book character.”Foggy snorted at that.“It’s just that the last person I knew as Hand was my father, and I had to kill him twice, and he wasn’t some sort of badass blind ninja vigilante, so I don’t like my odds against you.”That would explain why he was looking at Matt with something between suspicion and disbelief. The little Matt had filled him in about the fiasco around Midland Circle and the Hand, it made sense that the first conclusion Ward jumped to with Matt impossibly surviving a building collapsing on him would be the same reason the Hand would – that Matt himself was Hand, and according to Matt, the Hand was the sworn enemy of the Iron Fist, and immortal in the same way one would be in Pet Cemetery. Kinda dead, kinda not, and a whole lot of evil.
“He’s still Matt,” Foggy helpfully pointed out. “If that’s what you’re worried about. That whole thing with Daredevil killing people wasn’t him, it was…not him. And complicated. But he’s not dead, and he’s not undead, he’s just…really durable.”Ward glanced over at Foggy, and he could tell he had no idea what he was talking about. Matt, on the other hand, shot him a withering scowl over his glasses – just to make sure Foggy understood him - with an expression that clearly stated: Really, Foggy?Yes, Matt. Really.
“We’ve been out of the country for the past couple of months,” Ward explained distantly. “We got back only a few days ago, and…” he shook himself, snapping back to the present and dismissing whatever the hell other games of catch up they could play. “When we got back, Danny being Danny, found out that there were people going missing. Random people. Homeless. Vagrants. Most of them were kids. A lot of them were from a community center he knew, and when the Triad came to him about finding out what was happening -”“Wait, wait…back up for a second. The Triad came to Danny to help them find missing kids?” Foggy asked. What in the actual hell?This is what he got for not paying attention to community news bulletins.Ward waved his hand absently. “Danny’s a terrible businessman if business is what’s involved, but when it’s human decency on the line, I swear to god that kid could find a heart in Hannibal Lector.”Matt snorted at that one, but it was less a disbelieving snort, more a ‘that sounds right’, because Foggy did that often enough when Matt did something particularly selfless…and stupid.“I told Danny to wait, to see if we could contact Colleen so at least he wouldn’t be running off by himself, and he actually listened, but then…when we were asking around, the kids that were left, they started talking about how people were disappearing all around the city. Disappearing in broad daylight, and the cops didn’t care, and no one ever found bodies. They just vanished,” Ward explained. His voice was tight, the look on his face pinched and drawn, and Foggy knew it wasn’t just Danny that Ward was worried about.Huh. Never thought he would see the day Ward Meachum would care about missing homeless kids.“Any leads?” Matt asked.“Not really. Vans looked different according to different people, no specific victim profile beyond someone who wouldn’t be missed except by people that no one cared about. The only thing that everyone Danny talked to agree on was that the ages were getting younger and younger. When people first went missing, it was just…anyone on the street. After a few weeks…it was almost all people under twenty-five. And then it was kids.”“And today…” Ward’s hands cinched impossibly tighter around the mug, and Foggy wondered if it was going to finally shatter in his grip. It’d seen better days. “We overheard a racket in one of the alleys – Danny was trying to find out if anyone had ever seen where the vans go, and as dumb luck would have it, that’s when they showed up. Danny interrupted them, and when they saw the Iron Fist light up, they…didn’t even blink. Like they knew about him, or at least about people with abilities, because…” Ward stopped long enough to down half the cup of coffee in one gulp, and Foggy couldn’t help wincing, because that had to hurt. It was still steaming. “They took him, too.”“Did you tell the police?” Karen asked.Ward shot her a scathing look. “Yeah, of course I did. But the cops haven’t found anyone else, and I know Danny is more than a little loose-lipped about being the Iron Fist, but that doesn’t mean I want to go around telling people he is. And they’re treating it as unrelated to the other disappearances, and like I should just be waiting for a ransom demand. And I don’t…I don’t think this has anything to do with him being Danny Rand, because they didn’t care until they saw the Fist. You should’ve seen the way they just stopped and stared when he lit his Fist up. Like Christmas had come early or something. And they knew how fast to hit him and with…something, because they didn’t even bat an eye at the amount of damage he did before they got him.”“Not to ask a stupid question, but why come to us?” Foggy asked. Until he walked in the door, Ward had no idea that Matt was alive, or that Foggy knew Matt was Daredevil. Jessica Jones, who was an actual investigator – not to mention another enhanced person, seemed a more likely person to approach with a missing person case, not lawyers who operated out of the back room of a butcher shop.Ward nodded towards Matt, his expression completely open and more than a little desperate. “Because last time Danny was taken, he was the one who got him out alive.” He took in a shuddering breath, and the first signs of the letdown from an adrenaline high were starting to show. His hands, still in their death grip on the mug, began to shake. “And I was absolutely, one hundred percent banking on the fact that Matt Murdock’s closest friends were the kind of people who would be able to help a person like Danny.”“Where was he taken?” Matt asked. “He works out of Chinatown, right? Or he did, last time we met. You said you were out of the country until recently – did anyone know you were coming back?”It was a little mind-bending to watch Matt Murdock ask Daredevil questions. Rarely did Matt have the opportunity to drop the façade in front of clients, which always made questions a bit…dicey.Ward, to his credit, answered without hesitating. Facts were given without embellishment and opportunities already tried and what they already knew and who they’d tried to contact.“With the Hand gone, I don’t think there’s anyone left who would care specifically about the Fist,” Matt mused, tapping his fingers against the table. “But if they weren’t interested in him until they saw him light it up, then maybe it’s just people with special abilities they’re interested in?”“For what?”“Luke Cage and Jessica Jones were made,” Matt explained, and his expression darkened, the fingers tapping slower but more forcibly. “Not like Danny or me, but…were experimented on. Luke when he was older, Jessica when she was a kid.”“IGH,” Karen piped in, snapping her fingers.The three men turned to look at her, Ward for the first time showing something like hope, because at least three letters were more of a lead than what he’d had when he walked in.Apparently, he’d never heard of IGH, because hope was the last thing that Foggy would associate with them.“I’ve been looking into it ever since Midland. They’re almost impossible to find, impossible to find records on…Jess was looking into it, but then something happened, and I haven’t heard anything since. But they make enhanced people.” She cleared her throat, absently shifting her weight and moving her hand like she was about to bite a nail but resisted the urge last second. “Jessica and I were investigating the rumors that they were to order.”“As in…human trafficking for people with abilities?” Ward asked slowly.“Truthfully?” Karen asked, making sure she met Ward’s dark, angry gaze. “Worse. Because they experiment on people who don’t have powers in order to give them some, which is bad enough, except that they also have to have somewhere to get the beginning material from. And they’re not picky about where they get it from, or what happens to the people they take it from.”
Ward sat perfectly still for a moment, staring at Karen with a face completely devoid of emotion. He reminded Foggy quite suddenly of his former self back at Rand Enterprises.Even if he’d missed Matt shifting abruptly to his right, the explosion of rage wouldn’t surprise him, but he still jumped when Ward stood so abruptly he knocked the chair over and back, twisting and hurling the mug as hard as he could against the furthest wall, shattering it beyond repair.It’d definitely seen better days now.“What the fuck does the world have against Danny?!” Ward shouted, landing a solid kick to the chair he’d upended. “How many goddamn times does…” he didn’t even finish his sentence, slamming his hands against the table with enough force it made the legs shudder and Foggy cringed, waiting for it to give out.Matt winced in sympathy, though for the table or Ward, Foggy wasn’t sure until he remembered talking to the survivors of Midland – before Matt returned – and Jessica explaining how the Hand had kidnapped Danny for the power of the Iron Fist as some sort of a key to a lock.Except, it’d been in Jessica Jones speak, so most of it was inlaid with enough profanity it would make a sailor blush and explanations he didn’t follow, so he’s still not sure how much of that was literal and how much was metaphor.“Tell me you can find him, Murdock. Tell me that you’re everything Danny said you were and you can find my brother,” Ward begged through gritted teeth. “The last time…” Ward sucked in a harsh breath between teeth and Foggy realized it was more than just anger practically visibly rolling off of him in waves. “The last time someone took him, I almost lost him,” Ward said. “And I can’t…I can’t do it again, and he can’t either and he’s the only family I have left and the only person I give a shit about. I need to get him back – I’ll do whatever it takes, I’ll pay whatever it takes. Tell me that everything Danny said about you is true, please.”Everything and more, Foggy thought. Probably.In all honesty, it’d been a little hard to listen to Danny fanboy over Matt after Midland. To hear someone who’d only known Matt less than a week gush about what a true hero he’d been, the amazing way he fought, and how he’d never given up even unto the end. To see how Danny Rand went from wild, unpredictable and fueled primarily by whim and rage take Matt’s final request to heart and try to defend the city when he was gone was…enlightening, if Foggy was being kind to himself. Crushing, if he wasn’t.Maybe because in less than a week of knowing each other, Danny showed more support for Matt and everything that he was – Daredevil included – than Foggy had in months of knowing, and the lingering guilt of words left unsaid between them hung heavy in his heart.“Tell me exactly where he was taken,” Matt said, voice deadly quiet and calm. “I will find him. And I’ll bring him home.”The tone was as cold and calculating as Ward’s expression, and if it’d been anyone that didn’t know what Matt was promising, they would’ve turn tail and run.But Ward knew exactly what the word of the Devil meant, and for the first time since telling them what’d happened, Ward looked relieved.
Thank God Danny hadn’t changed too much in the months since they’d seen one another. It was always a little hard to try and explain how much his sense of smell told him more about a person than his hearing. Mostly because it embarrassed people and made them feel self-conscious that he could smell what they had for breakfast, whether or not they were getting sick, or if that clinical strength antiperspirant wasn’t worth what they were paying for it. Being blind seemed to unnerve enough people without them knowing that he could back trace them over the course of several hours just by following the scent of their perfume or laundry detergent – or lack thereof.As soon as he arrived where Ward said he’d last seen Danny, he caught the smell that was so distinctly Danny, he couldn’t help the wry smirk at the memory of his first encounter with it. When he first met Danny in the original shit show throw down at the corporate headquarters of the Hand, he’d wondered what on Earth could make a human being smell of green tea, cheap but authentic Chinese food and enough brimstone and smoke Matt wondered if he’d been in a fire earlier that day.It wasn’t until Danny announced he was the Immortal Iron Fist that it clicked into place – he smelled like a dragon. The stories Stick told him when he was younger – of a magical place in the Himalayan mountains where dragons still existed, and warriors trained for a secret war against shadowy dark villains called the Hand popped back up from long forgotten memories. If it’d been anyone but Stick, who had no sense of wonder or imagination and scoffed even at the idea of such things, telling him that dragons were real and maybe one day he would meet one, Matt would’ve been of the same opinion as Jessica and Luke – that Danny was one, crazy, or two, speaking in metaphors, and the dragon he’d punched in the heart was an allegory for defeating addiction, not the source of super powers.Danny’s story was not the weirdest thing he’d heard – and he wasn’t even sure why Luke and Jessica kept debating the truth of it, because they were currently engaged in a fight with a zombie ninja death cult who used dragon bone and remains to keep themselves immortal. Seriously. How was the dragon the hardest part to accept in that scenario?Maybe if they’d had the added benefit of Matt’s senses, they’d know that Danny wasn’t lying – his heartbeat never wavered when he told them he was the sworn enemy of the Hand, and it was his duty and his mission to defeat them. Of course, they’d had the benefit of being able to see what his fist could do when it was powered up – it wasn’t until someone commented on the fact that it glowed that Matt realized others could see…whatever thing he did with it. To him, it radiated something that wasn’t quite heat but wasn’t quite anything else he could describe.If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with Elektra back from the dead, trying to prevent the others from killing her (and her from killing them), he was pretty sure he would’ve gotten along with Danny considerably better than he had. Weird as he was, he was also endearing – like a humanized golden retriever who just wanted everyone to be friends. That earnestness to do right and his rather…binary…sense of right and wrong was why Matt asked him to look after New York and not the others.Yes. Danny Rand was a little weird.Weird, but conveniently so, because there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of dragons in New York and that made trailing Danny’s scent over downtown into Brooklyn like following a homing beacon on radar.
Slightly more difficult was gaining access to the building he’d traced it to. Danny was still present, but it was everything else that hit him like a punch to the senses.The chemical burn of antiseptic and iodine, a half dozen chemicals Matt recognized as derivatives of morphine and a hundred more that he’d never come across – on the street or in a hospital or in a drug den run by Madame Gao. The reek of blood and sweat and salt of tears, the stench of it so thick he could taste copper and iron on his tongue before he even entered the building.The sound threw him though.He expected…well, he’s not entirely sure what he expected. Something between a prison and a hospital, maybe. The click-clack of rickety wheels on gurneys being run down hallways covered in cheap linoleum, the beep of monitoring equipment, the rasp of crisp and too sharp sheets against flimsy gown material. Something that would give a clue as to what they were doing with their prisoners – because that’s what they were, not patients.
Except…Except.Those sounds were still there, but much louder were sounds like a prison riot already well underway.Enough chaos that no one either noticed or cared about someone in a devil costume. Guard posts on the outside were abandoned, though Matt sensed there hadn’t been much outward security so they could keep up the pretense of the former meat packing plant. He couldn’t hear the electronic hum of cameras though, and the neon overhead lights were flickering in seizure inducing staccato.Sorting through the sounds and the smells was difficult, but not impossible – context was a little more trying. People were panicking. Parts of the building were on fire, and the sprinkler system set off, dousing the entire place with foul smelling water that’d been stagnant in pipes too long.
As bad as the smell was, the water was helpful – the splash of the water lit up the buildings like a 3D radar image for him, enough that he was able to see better than if he wasn’t blind.People rushed past him, oblivious to him – he doubted they could even see him. The lights were off more than on, and the strobe effect would make things even harder to see for anyone else. All of them were running in the same direction though – past him, and away from the lower levels of the building.Away from the smell of a dragon.The entire building shook, making the gathering water in the hallways shudder and jump.That answered the question of Danny being alive and on the move.The explosion was still beneath him though, and so far, every way to the sub basements that Matt found were sealed – blocked by rubble, or doors electronically sealed with no obvious way to open them without a key card.Even in the chaos, he could hear gunfire below him, the sounds of bullets ricocheting off walls and presumably Danny’s fist – at least, Matt hoped that’s what that odd sound was. For people keeping enhanced people imprisoned and seemed to have little issues capturing them in the first place, they didn’t seem to have a lot of measures in place to keep them imprisoned.There was a pause in the gunfire, and for a moment, Matt worried it was because they’d finally managed a lucky shot and Danny - again, he just assumed from what he could hear and feel through the floor - was down.Until the screams.So unexpected and so loud Matt flinched on the floor above them, before they abruptly stopped. No explosion, no sound of a fight, just – six people screaming in utter agony before silencing.And Danny…now that there wasn’t gunfire to distract him, Matt could hear more than just Danny. There were a dozen others with him, moving quickly in the same direction Matt was going, just a story below.Scratch quickly.Now they’d broken into a solid, flat out, run.Some were faster than others. Few ran with hitches in their steps. Some were dragged between two others.All of them were children – probably under the age of 15, if Matt had to go off size alone.No one was following them. Whatever made them scream like that knocked them out cold. Erratic pulses and shallow breathing were the only signs of life left behind.Stairs. They were headed for stairs. Likely an emergency exit, at the far end of the hallway, and already half of them were up the stairs. And unlike Matt, Danny didn’t have to worry about locked or blocked doors. With a wave of energy, the door – and the surrounding wall – exploded outwards, and Danny stumbled into the corridor.And it was Danny. The radiating…whatever…from his Fist was easy enough to sense even if the water from the sprinklers didn’t perfectly create an image of him, plain as day. A child, a girl who was probably no more than seven, hung around his neck as he held her up with one arm even as her legs wrapped around his waist, and the twelve children gathered behind him when he came to a halt at the top of the stairs.“Danny,” Matt called, not sure how much Danny could see in the strobe lighting or the water. He guessed that for once, he could probably see better than Danny.He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.“Hey, kid,” Danny asked, quietly enough that if it’d been anyone but Matt they would’ve never heard him. “Is there a guy in a red devil costume standing in the hall? Or is that the drugs talking?”The kid in question nodded.“Poor choice of costume, dude,” Danny snarled, and threw his fist out.If it hadn’t been for years of training and combat, Matt would’ve found himself hurled the length of the hallway like the abandoned hospital equipment caught in the wave with the blast of energy Danny created. Instead, he pivoted sideways, flattening himself into the recess of one of the doorways, narrowly avoiding the energy.Since when could Danny do that? Last time he saw Danny, the only way he could use the Fist was if he physically connected with something, like an actual punch.What else could he do?“I know the guy who wore that first,” Danny called. “And I know he’s dead. So whatever the hell bullshit plan you think you have? Not gonna happen. And I’m not gonna let you desecrate the memory of what that suit means.”“Danny, it’s me,” Matt shouted back. He didn’t necessarily want to yell first names, but if Danny didn’t believe him… “It’s complicated, and I’ll explain later, but right now is not the time!”“Be that way,” Danny snarled, and Matt braced himself for another chi attack, pushing back into the recess. He wasn’t too eager to fight a friend, especially not when he was no longer sure what Danny was capable of and with a dozen kids in various stages of shock nearby.Except Danny didn’t throw another punch.Something ignited behind Matt’s eyes, like someone stabbed a white-hot poker directly into his brain, clawing and digging its way through his head as if it were alive and he knew what made the others scream. It hurt too much to even scream, to breathe, to do anything, the world on fire in a way he’d never felt before. Images flashed through his head, of a life that wasn’t his – his mother ripped from a crashing aircraft, the image of his father staring unblinkingly to the sky as snow gathered round, the slice of a poisoned blade, the agony of someone ripping away his connection to the universe, and –The clawing, tearing thing in his head stopped, hesitating but still there like a coiled snake waiting to strike again.Matt?It was Danny’s voice, but it wasn’t something audible. The coiled presence in his head reared back as if it was the one burned, and vanished, leaving Matt’s mind his own again.
Matt wasn’t sure when he wound up on the ground, or when exactly Danny covered the distance between them, but there he was, leaning over him and sounding profoundly apologetic.“Ow…” was all he managed – children were still present, after all, and it did sum up his feelings just then quite adequately.Because owwwww…“I am so sorry!” Danny apologized, holding out his hand to Matt. The girl on his back leaned precariously over his shoulder, but Danny didn’t seem to mind, only readjusting his grip on her. “I thought you were dead, like, really dead, at Midland, and since when were you not dead? I mean, I’ve been out of the country for a while, but I still get texts. Do you text? Or call? Does anyone else know you’re alive? You are alive, right? Not like…alive like the Hand was alive, you’re not like, Zombie Daredevil or anything, right?”“Not dead,” Matt rasped, taking Danny’s offered hand and letting him pull him to his feet. The world swayed uncomfortably for a moment before he steadied himself. “Not for lack of trying, but still alive.”“How’d you manage that? I mean, a building fell on you. You know what? Tell me later when the building around us isn’t on fire. Can you take us back the way you came? I was kind of unconscious when they brought me in and I’ve been mostly guessing and that’s not very fast and –” Danny sucked in a breath. “Sorry about the babbling. I have no idea what they gave me, but I don’t seem to be able to shut up. Sorry. About it. Can we go?”Matt paused, casting a cursory sense over the remainder of the corridor. No one was left in the building besides them. No one that would give them any problems, anyway. The guards were still down from whatever Danny did to them, and while they were alive, they weren’t coming after them any time soon.“From what you saw…is this mostly a lab with scientists, versus a prison with guards?”Danny shrugged, and then immediately narrated it. “I shrugged. Wait. Can you tell that? Never mind. I think mostly a lab. The only people with weapons were the ones on the other floor and I whammied. I think that’s the word. Kayla. Is that the word?” he nudged the girl on his back.“Yeah…” she whispered, shyly ducking her head back around to hide.“Is that what you did to me?” Matt grumbled, leading the kids and Danny back through the rapidly flooding hallway – the water now splashed around his lower calf, rising as the sprinklers stayed on. It was almost to the knees of some of the smaller kids, and Matt lifted one of the boys who was being dragged semi-consciously by his two friends.Danny gave a nervous chuckle. “Uh, yeah…sorry about that. I didn’t realize it was you, and then I’d already done it, and I’m not sure how long you’re going to feel the effects of it because I just learned how to do it like, two weeks ago, and oh my god, when does this wear off? I thought truth serums were fake. Is this a truth serum? Or is this something else?”Matt bit back a smirk, because really, this wasn’t all that different from how he remembered Danny – too much energy, and too much talking. “They just make you more talkative. Take the stairs on your left. Two flights up, and then take the right – the building is cleared for now, but I’m guessing someone’s called in re-enforcements by now, and I don’t want to be here when they show up.”“I need to call Ward…” Danny mused aloud. “He’s going to kill me. Well. He’s going to glare at me, and lecture me about being a danger magnet, or how he feels like he’s Lassie having to tell people constantly that I’ve fallen down a well or been kidnapped by zombie ninjas.”“He’s at my office. I’ll call him for you,” Matt said, trying to keep Danny engaged. He could tell Danny was flagging. He remembered him saying it took a lot of energy to summon the Fist, and he guessed he’d been using it a lot lately without a chance to replenish his chi. His feet were beginning to drag, and Matt only realized just then that Danny was barefoot.All of them were.And now that they weren’t being rained on by stagnated and chemically treated sprinkler water, he could tell a lot more – the scritch of soaked, rough material of cheap scrubs as they walked, the smell of blood and something else that he couldn’t identify – a lot of chemical somethings he didn’t know, the harsh and shallow rasping breaths between them and the not always muted whine of pain when they mis-stepped in the dark or moved something they didn’t want to.The rabbit-like beats of their hearts, and the familiar tang of fear so thick he could almost taste it in the air…“They need to get to a hospital,” Matt pointed out. “A real hospital.” Even if he could reach Claire, he was pretty sure she’d draw the line at treating traumatized children en masse.“I own one I can take them to,” Danny said bluntly. “They’re the best – they even managed to fix my leg after Davos shattered it, and they saved Misty after Midland when she lost her arm.”So that’s the hitch in Danny’s step – a distant accident, not a current injury.As they stepped out into the night air – early morning, Matt supposed, since it’d been nearly midnight when Ward showed up on their door. The sun should be turning the sky a light pink, and he could hear the distant rumble of early commuter traffic.He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of being seen in his suit in the daylight, but he also wasn’t about to just ditch Danny with a bunch of shell-shocked kids in the middle of one of the worst sections of the city.Good thing he’d started listening to Foggy.He pulled a burner phone from his suit, hitting the speed dial for Foggy even as Danny chuckled, somewhat deliriously, at the idea if Daredevil running around with a Nokia tucked into a hidden pocket.Foggy picked up before the first ring even finished. “Thank God. Did you find him?”“All of them,” Matt confirmed. “There’s twelve kids, and Danny, and they need medical professionals. Ward have anything helpful?”Matt could hear Foggy relay the message and snorted at Ward’s sarcastic and clearly relieved snipe of “I’m still a billionaire. Yes, I can arrange something.”“Where are you?” Foggy asked.As soon as he gave an address, or least the rough estimate, Foggy assured him that Ward would have someone to come pick them up – though he failed to specify how or in what.“Hey,” Danny piped up. “Tell Ward to tell Misty. Misty should know. And she’s good with kids. I think. Yeah. She seems like she’d be good with kids.”“The same Misty that had all of us detained?” Matt asked, frowning.“Yeah!” Danny said brightly. “That’s her! Ward knows how to reach her. I think she likes him. She’ll come if he asks.”Matt repeated the message and heard Ward snort. Foggy must’ve put them on speaker. But Ward didn’t disagree, so Matt took it as an agreement.“Help should be there in less than 20 minutes. You going to be okay?”“Yeah,” Matt said, smiling a little at the exasperated worry in his best friend’s voice. “I’m fine. See you at the hospital. Uh…bring a change of clothes. Or send them with the driver. Whichever is faster and raises fewer suspicions.”Foggy snickered but agreed before hanging up.They’d only gone a few blocks from the original building – Danny hadn’t been wrong when he’d said it was on fire, and the smoke was rising into the morning sky. It would only go unnoticed or unreported for so long, and nobody wanted to be around for that.But the kids were tired. Bone ragged exhausted. Danny’s limp was becoming more pronounced and there was still the matter of being barefoot in downtown Brooklyn in the Meat Packing district. They hobbled several buildings over and all but collapsed against the wall, hidden from view from any casual passerby.Despite all of that, Matt couldn’t help the small glow of pride – in Danny, for managing to make a bad situation better, and finally managing to do something unrelated to Fisk or the Hand. It felt like it’d been ages since he’d managed to do anything as Daredevil that wasn’t tied up in either one of them.It felt…good.Danny stood next to him, keeping an eye out for whatever aid Ward was sending, though Matt tried to tell him he didn’t need to keep watch.“I feel like you’ve done pretty much all the heavy lifting for this,” Matt pointed out. “Give it a rest.”“I just did what you would’ve if it’d been you. How did you find us anyway? Super-secret ninja skills?”Matt snorted. “No, I…uh, could smell you. And I followed it from where you were taken to here, but by the time I got here…well, you weren’t exactly a damsel in distress.”“Damn straight,” Danny said, and Matt could hear the grin in his voice. “I’m a damsel causing damage. But seriously though…do I really smell that bad? Ward finally stopped calling me a dirty hippy, so I thought I was getting better about it. Though I guess I didn’t exactly have time to take a shower before I was kidnapped…you know…again. Seems to be a thing.”“You don’t smell bad, you just smell…” Matt considered his wording. “Unique.”There was a pause. “Oh? Like what? Or is that just a polite way of saying bad?”“You smell like a dragon.”Danny straight up giggled at that, and then built up until he was laughing so hard he was clutching his chest as he tried to breathe.Coming down off an adrenaline high and sinking into shock was always interesting to see in others.“Shit,” Danny finally managed, sniffing slightly. “That’s…that’s…I dunno what that is, but you know what? I’m going to pass out now.”It was all the warning Matt had before Danny abruptly pitched sideways, barely managing to catch him and lower him to the ground before he face-planted onto the concrete.
Danny woke to the smell of sausages. Which, okay, fine – weird, but fine, because it beat waking up in an operating theatre that reeked of blood and antiseptic and death. He wasn’t on a bed, either, which he was secretly grateful for. Sleeping on the floor was hardly new for him, but he had no idea where he was, because he didn’t remember falling asleep in a deli. As soon as he cracked an eye open, he found himself almost nose to nose with a murderous looking Ward.“Ward!” he protested, flinching back and promptly knocking the top of his head against a table. “Aren’t you always telling me about personal space?”Ward didn’t so much as blink. His eye twitched, though. A slight tic he retained from childhood whenever Danny did something particularly stupid. “You’re about to never have personal space again, Daniel. You’ll be lucky if I don’t get Rand to stick a tracking device under your skin. Multiple tracking devices.”Oh. Right.The lab.Danny smirked with humor he didn’t feel, rubbing the top of his head. “It’s not that bad.” Which was an utter, total lie. His head was killing him even before he whacked it on the table. He still felt exhausted down to his bones and hunger gnawed at his stomach like a living, breathing thing. Most of the night was a blur – except for the moment he woke up in a sterile lab, strapped down in six-point restraints as someone in a surgical mask was in the middle of a fifth skin biopsy, blood running freely down his hand.
He tried for a casual glance at the back of his right hand. Bruises, thick and dark and turning a violent shade of purple encircled his wrists, but the blood from the biopsy sites had been washed away. Angry red scar tissue remained – he’d fix that later.After he ate.“You are an episode away from being kidnapped by hill folk or sucked up by a twister,” Ward snapped, jabbing an accusing finger into Danny’s sternum. “There’s being a magnet for trouble, and then there’s you – you’ve set an entirely new bar that defies definition in the current English language.”“I’m pretty sure there is one, and it’s ‘shit magnet’.”Matt stood in the doorway, his red tinted glasses doing nothing to hide the sideways smirk of his, leaning casually against the doorframe, a coffee mug in one hand.“Yes,” Ward agreed. “That is exactly the word. You are an utter shit magnet, and I am getting you LoJacked as soon as I get back to Rand’s R and D department.”Danny didn’t immediately reply to Ward’s not so idle threat – he was too busy staring at Matt. Matt, who he was still convinced might be a hallucination, except Ward saw him too. He only had vague memories of last night – just more nightmare fuel to add to the line-up – but Danny was grateful at least the part about Matt being alive wasn’t a dream.Ward glanced back at Matt, who lifted his mug slightly in a subtle ‘cheers’. “Oh, so you didn’t know he was alive either? Good. I would hate to think you would mention him being dead but fail to also mention if he wasn’t.” Ward pushed himself to his feet, knees popping from kneeling on the floor for too long. “I’m going to leave you two to…do whatever it is ninjas do when they get together.” As he walked by Matt, he sent a scathing glare back towards Danny. “If you try to disappear again, I give Matt permission to use whatever ninja skills necessary to keep your ass where it belongs.” He made a ‘V’ with his fingers, pointing to himself and then Danny in the universal ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’ signal before disappearing through the door.“I like him,” Matt said, cocking his head to one side, head tilted towards Ward’s exit. “Foggy keeps describing him as Grumpy Cat, though.”Danny snorted. “Me, too. And Foggy isn’t wrong.”“So,” Matt asked, rolling his head back towards Danny. “You’ve learned some new tricks since last I saw you.”Danny blinked. No, he hadn’t. Had he? There was a vague, surreal memory of seeing Matt in his Daredevil suit in stop motion animation in the rain. He rubbed absently at the headache forming between his eyes, pressing the heel of his palm against the throbbing ache. Normally, using the Fist didn’t hurt so bad, even if he was starved of energy. The only thing that hurt like this was…“Oh shit,” he blurted, clapping his hand to his mouth. “Matt, I am so, so sorry about that, I didn’t mean-”Matt held up a hand. “You already apologized. Accepted. But that still doesn’t answer the question of what that was. Vulcan mind meld?”
“Sort of, I guess? I didn’t really get a whole lot of explanation on how or what the Iron Fist could do before I left K’un Lun, but I used to be able to…hitch a ride with animals, I guess. Like with a hawk, or a dog. And I thought that was it, that was the limit, but Ward and I have been travelling trying to find out more about the Fist – ‘cause there can be more than one, did you know that?” Danny pushed himself up to lean against the table legs. The world swam dizzyingly for a moment. “Anyway, one them told us you could use it to mix consciousness with other people, not just animals.”That was an unpleasant conversation. Danny only recently regained the power of the Iron Fist when he found Randall, and the previous Iron Fist was…less than kind when he demonstrated. Even if he did give him the Book of the Iron Fist, Orson Randall was not someone he wanted to come across again.Though, to be fair, he had raided the guy’s warehouse and stolen his guns three days earlier…“So…those things I saw, what I felt…” Matt trailed off. “I think I remember Stick talking about things the Iron Fist could do. I didn’t listen at the time, because he was trying to recruit me to the Chaste and I wanted nothing to do with it. But...those were your memories?”The battered and well-worn floor of the back office was suddenly very interesting. Danny shrugged, tracing the pattern of the tile with a finger. “Um, yeah. I can’t like…psychically attack anyone, I can just share memories. Um, and I think I can use it sort of like hypnosis, and I think I can use it like a radio over short distances, but I only ever tried it once, to practice, on Ward and he was not happy…” He cleared his throat. “Matt, I’m sorry – it’s not just a one-way connection when I do it, and I didn’t mean to pry, and I know how much you value your privacy, but I won’t ever do it again and –”Matt held up a hand, stopping Danny mid rambling apology. “You’ve done that twice already. Let’s call it third time’s the charm, shall we? If I’d gone through half the shit you’d just been through, I can’t say I would’ve reacted any different. We’re even. I doubt anything you got from me was any pleasanter.”That was an understatement. Danny already thought Stick was a bit of a dick – what with the whole trying to kill him thing – but he hadn’t been any kinder to Matt than the monks of K’un Lun had been to Danny.Maybe worse.Danny made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat.Matt sighed, walking across the room to hand him the coffee cup. “Here. It’s a peace offering. I hate tea, so I can’t guarantee the quality. Karen assures me it’s good. And before you try and apologize for a fourth time, don’t. So you got a glimpse of a somewhat shitty childhood. I got one of yours. We’re even. And if I’m going to be honest, which…is still kind of weird, because I spent my entire life not telling anyone about my…night life…or even just what I could do, it’s kind of a relief. There aren’t many people who would or could understand our lives.”Danny took the cup gratefully. It smelled amazing. “Tell Karen she’s fantastic,” he said, sipping carefully. “Ooh. Just the right amount of honey. Everyone always steeps it too long and makes it bitter.”“I’ll tell her it passes muster,” Matt said dryly, taking a seat in one of the weathered looking chairs. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you avoiding the subject. I’m not that blind.”“Ward usually just stares at me and tells me he has no idea what I’m talking about,” Danny explained. “He’s a good listener, no matter what he says.” He started, almost sloshing hot tea all over his hands. “What happened to the kids?” He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about them.Some hero.“Ward put them up in the hospital you suggested. Child protective services and the local law enforcement is taking care of them. Fortunately for you, Ward apparently has enough experience taking care of you and most of your injuries were superficial – and waiting for the drugs to get out of your system – we just came here. Our temporary office.” Matt gestured to the small room. It was a little like a waiting room, but like it was an afterthought, because there were only two chairs, an end table and Danny took up most of the floor with the worn but thick blanket he was sitting on. “So. Anything else?”Danny considered that for a moment. On the one hand, he didn’t want to push his luck. Matt was…Matt. No superpowers except heightened senses, and he took on the Hand for years. He saved their collective asses at Midland Circle, and Danny’s life last night – because if Matt hadn’t come along, God knows who would’ve found them first, and that was assuming they would’ve made it out of the building. He was as close to a real, live, authentic superhero that Danny had ever come across, and the last thing he asked of Danny was to protect his city. Not the city. His city. It was humbling. And a little terrifying.But on the other hand…Danny couldn’t help but think he’d failed. He left the responsibility with Colleen and took off with Ward to solve his own problems, doing the exact opposite of what Matt asked with what Danny thought was his dying wish. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Matt was just as mad at him as Davos for walking away from something he was supposed to stand and defend.“I know you asked me to look after New York when you…well, I was going to say died, but clearly you didn’t, which, by the way, you’re going to have to tell me how you survived fifty tons of rock and mortar and steel coming down on your head –”“A convenient plot twist,” Matt deadpanned without cracking a smile. “Also known as ‘God’s not done punishing me yet’.”Danny wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh. Matt’s sense of humor ran dryer than even Ward, and he was only half right guessing at what was a joke and what wasn’t. “Catholic humor is so weird,” he said instead. “But that wasn’t what I wanted to ask.” He twisted the almost empty mug in his hands, and Matt raised a curious eyebrow.
“When…when we last saw each other, you told me to watch after your city and…” he trailed off, not entirely sure how to tactfully ask if he’d done what Matt asked of him and dreading what he was sure was a ‘you fucked up’ response.Matt cocked his head to one side, considering. “You want to know how well you did.”Danny didn’t say anything. He doubted Matt needed him to.After what seemed an eternity, Matt shrugged. “Well, you didn’t let it blow up on your watch, which is more than I can say, so yeah. I’d say you did fine.”Danny felt something give a little. A weight lifting from his chest at the easy but sincere praise that was more precious than anything else Matt could give him.Except.Wait.“Did you say blow up?”