Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mary never told Matt she was pregnant. Why would she? Matt was just a quick hookup and she'd started dating Richard not long after. They married quickly, whether that was because of the baby, or for other reasons, no one will ever know. They certainly never said.

When Peter was three years old, they dropped him off with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben without warning. They never asked if they could take the child, just handed him off with a couple bags and a quick goodbye. All Mary told May and Ben was that they were going on a business trip and that they’d be back for Peter at some point. Not even soon, just “whenever we get back”.

May and Ben were told about the plane crash two weeks later.

When Peter was eight May and Ben were shot in a mugging gone wrong, Peter standing beside them shaking and staring wide-eyed at their bodies. The police discovered later that the mugger drew the line at killing kids and that’s why he left Peter alone in the alley until someone finally saw the bloody scene and called the police.

He didn’t moved an inch for hours, nearly collapsing to the pavement when a paramedic wrapped a blanket around him and put a careful hand on his shoulder to coax him out to the street.

 ******

Matt hadn’t even been in the office for five minutes when his phone rang.

‘Unknown number, Unknown number, unknown num-‘

Matt, bewildered, quickly picks up his phone, glad that Foggy and Karen aren’t in the office so that he doesn’t have to deal with their annoying curiosity.

“Hello?”

“Is this Matthew Murdock?”

“Yes.”

“This is the New York Office of Child and Family Services; we would like to arrange a meeting with you to discuss a child in our care.”

Matt raises an unseen eyebrow. What child? He knew none of their cases involved children and, as far as he knew, he didn’t have any kids.

His curiosity wins out over his confusion and he asks, “What’s the soonest time I can come in?”

The woman on the phone sounds a little surprised by the straightforward answer when she asks, “Can you be here in an hour?”

He thinks for a moment, trying to remember if he has any meetings scheduled for that morning. He doesn’t think so and an hour would be just enough time for him to tell Foggy and Karen that he would be gone for at least the morning and get over there.

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Great! I will see you in an hour Mr. Murdock. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye” Matt says, just as Karen and Foggy walk into the office carrying coffee. He had been so focused on the conversation that he hadn’t noticed them coming in the building or walking up the stairs with his senses.

"Hey Matt!" Karen greets as she turns and sees him in his office. "Were you just on the phone?"

"Yes, and I won't be in the office this morning, I'm actually just leaving."

Foggy shoots him an odd look even though he can't see it. "What has you rushing off this early?" he asks, his tone laced with suspicion.

"I'll tell you when I get back." He replies quickly, grabbing his cane from by the door and leaving the office before anyone can ask any more questions. He can tell from their heartbeats and small movements that they’re more than a little surprised by his sudden exit, but he doesn't have time to entertain their questions, especially since he doesn’t have any answers.

******

Peter was scared. Just a few days ago his Aunt and Uncle were murdered, and he had stood in the alley with their bodies, clothes and face splattered with blood, until the police arrived. He thinks he remembers someone approaching him while he was standing on the dirty, blood-soaked concrete, but he couldn't move, couldn’t think. All he could do was stare at Aunt May and Uncle Ben's blank faces, looking but not really seeing.

He hardly noticed when the police and ambulance arrived, only becoming aware of it when a blanket was draped over his shoulders by one of the paramedics. It took a long time to coax him to move and he almost collapsed to the ground, legs shaky and nearly unable to hold his weight. He eventually let himself be guided out of the alley. Everything after that was a blur and soon he realized that he was at the police station.

There they helped him clean the blood from his face and hands and got him a new shirt to replace his bloodstained one. The entire time he was near catatonic; even when the social worker he’d been unintentionally ignoring introduced him to a young couple and said they'd be his temporary foster parents. Just until they located whoever his aunt and uncle said would take care of him in their will. In the back of his mind Peter knew that there was no one else, Aunt May and Uncle Ben were all he had left. He barely registered the thought though and couldn't find it within himself to speak it aloud. So instead he followed the two young women out of the station and into their car.

He'd been at their house for two days and hadn't said a word. Peter knew they were worried about him, but he couldn't do anything about it. He walked around in a haze, shocked by the event and his current circumstances. Any time he tried to open his mouth to speak he couldn't make the words come out.

On the third day the shock began to wear off and Peter began to wonder what would happen to him now. Where will they take me next? Am I going to stay here with these people or are they gonna move me to another foster home?

He really wants to ask all of the questions practically burning his tongue, but he still can't form the words and push them out of his throat. Luckily, one of the women, he thinks she said her name was Marcella, guides him over to the couch that evening to sit between her and the other woman. The one who isn’t Marcella, Robin maybe, is the first to speak.

"We know you're probably really scared right now but just know that you'll be welcome here as long as you need to stay with us, and if that turns out to be longer than what it takes for them to find your family we'll figure that out too, but you'll still be welcome."

Relief washes through Peter with her words, he at least knows now where he'll be for the foreseeable future and he thinks these people are nice despite the fact that he can’t remember much of the past few days.

"Do you know if you have any other family?" Robin says, carefully, as though this might upset him.

All Peter can do is shake his head, looking down at the floor. Robin and Marcella share a sad look over his head and then gather Peter into a tight hug. After they both pull away Marcella looks at him and says softly, "Why don't you get ready for bed, sweetie?" while brushing a hand through his hair. Peter nods and heads off to his bedroom, the weight pressing on his heart a little lighter and his head a little clearer.

Chapter Text

As Matt walks in the doors of the Child Services office, he is immediately greeted with the sound of many voices talking over one another. He hears the rustle of children restlessly sitting in chairs and hissed warnings of parents attempting to corral other children who won't stay seated. He smells fear on some of them, hears their quick heartbeats and anxious movements. He is here for a reason though, so he tunes all this out and makes his way to the reception desk, tapping his cane in front of him. It’s less to guide himself and more to warn wayward children to move out of the way. The secretary is typing at his computer as Matt approaches the desk and he clears his throat to get the man’s attention.

"Oh!" A little startled by Matt's sudden appearance, he quickly gathers himself and asks, "How may I help you?"

"My name is Matthew Murdock, I spoke with a social worker on the phone about a child."

"Let me check." The social worker says as he turns back to his computer and begins typing. "Ah, yes. You're meeting with Amy. I'll let her know you're here so she can take you back to her office."

As Matt steps to the side to wait, he hears the secretary pick up his phone and speak a few words then say to him, "She'll be right out."  Shortly after he can hear the sound of thick soled boots coming down the hall, not the kind of footwear he expected from a social worker. The footsteps get closer and then stop in front of him. He can sense that she is petite with short cropped hair, he can't hear it brushing against her clothes or face. Her body language is stiff and little challenging, and her heart rate is slightly elevated.

"Mr. Murdock, I assume? I'm Amy." She greets him warmly but quickly, sticking out her hand. "I have my hand out, at your twelve o'clock." She narrates.

Matt, surprised, carefully reaches out and shakes her hand. "It's nice to meet you Amy."

She turns, facing the same direction as him. "If you'll grab my elbow, I'll take us back to my office where we can talk."

Still surprised by how accommodating she’s being he almost doesn't notice when she taps the back of his hand to let him know where her arm is. After a slight hesitation he takes her arm and she begins leading them down the hall. When they arrive at her office she says, "The door is open and there's a chair about four steps directly ahead. He walks in and feels for the chair, sitting down. After he's seated, she walks into the room and sits in her chair on the other side of her desk. The room smells like paper and some faint, woodsy scent like cedar that is probably her perfume or soap. He smelled it earlier when she was leading him.

"So," he begins, "what's this about? Who is this kid?"

"Good, straight to business. Mr. Murdock you were named as the biological father and guardian of a child in the will of May and Ben Parker."

A little stunned by this information and confused by the names he doesn't know Matt says, "I'm sorry, but I don't know who those people are."

She is apparently prepared for this response and says, "May and Ben Parker were the Aunt and Uncle of the child, they had legal guardianship of him after his parents, Richard and Mary, died. Mary is his biological mother."

Now that name sounded familiar to Matt, he remembered Mary from law school. They'd gone on one date that ended back in her apartment and then they’d parted ways. He never saw her after that.  "I remember her, we only dated once."

"Well that one date must have been enough to convince her that you would be able to take care of her child should something happen. She named May and Ben Parker in her will but asked that they should put you in their will so that you'd be his next guardian in case anything happened to them."

Matt is silent, contemplating. Amy kept saying he in reference to the child so apparently, he has a son. Another Murdock boy, I can only hope he doesn't have the Devil in him too. Can I even take care of a child? Mary didn't know about his past or she probably never would have chosen him. Nonetheless, Matt thinks of his Dad and how he'd felt after he died, knowing there was no one left in the world to care for him. He thinks of bouncing around from St. Agnes to foster homes. He thinks of finding his mother, knowing that one of his parents was alive all this time, had known him even as he was growing up, but never reached out as his mother. He could never do what Maggie did, he would never let that happen to his son. Decision made, he says to Amy, "What's his name? When can I meet him?"

Amy perks up, he can sense her shoulders untensing a little and he thinks he can hear a smile in her voice when she says, "His name is Peter and I can arrange a meeting with his foster parents while you sign the paperwork. I've had it printed in braille and filled in your information, but I'd like you to make sure that it's correct."

He smiles and accepts the forms she hands him, nervous and excited about the prospect of meeting his son. Peter.

******

On the fourth day Peter is sitting in his room when the phone rings. He can hear Robin pick it up in the living room. "Hey Amy, what's up?" he hears her say. Peter almost tunes out the conversation thinking that she’s talking to a friend when he hears, "Yeah Peter seems to be getting better, he doesn't have that blank look on his face anymore and he's eating." There’s a pause while the other person speaks. Then, "No he still isn't talking, but he'll nod and shake his head or write something down for us if he really needs to." Another pause, "Oh, so they did put someone in their will. That's great! Who is it? Did you find them?" A pause, then he hears a quiet gasp and the next words are said so quietly he almost can't make them out, "His father?" 

Peter is stunned, so stunned that if the person on the other end of the phone hadn't been talking for a while he would have missed the next part of the conversation. "So, he wants to meet Peter? That's a good sign, right, since he didn't even know he had a son?"

The conversation keeps going but Peter isn't listening anymore. All he can think about is that his whole life he was told that Richard Parker was his dad and now he hears that he wasn't. He doesn't feel lied to, exactly, but he feels something that he can't articulate. He starts to feel a little abandoned by whoever this man is who's supposed to be his dad, but then he remembers the last thing he heard, "he didn't even know he had a son". He's relieved by that. This man didn't even know Peter existed until, he guesses, today.

Peter is broken out of his thoughts by Robin calling his name. He gets up and walks to the living room where Robin and Marcella are sitting on the couch the same way they were the night before. Marcella pats the cushion between them so Peter walks up to the couch and sits down. 

Robin immediately starts speaking, a little carefully. "So, Peter, we got a call from your social worker today."

Peter nods his head and points at his ear, hoping she understands that he heard.

She does and lets out a breath before saying, "So you heard that your father wants to meet you?"

Peter nods again.

"And that's okay with you?" she asks.

He nods.

"Great! We set up a meeting with him. He and your social worker are going to come here tomorrow afternoon." He thinks she's done so he's about to try to ask what time, but Robin continues, "Now, there's a couple things you have to know before he comes." That sounds a little ominous to Peter, but he keeps listening. "His name is Matt and he's blind."

Blind! How is Peter going to communicate with him if Matt can't see him nod or read his notes?

It's Marcella who speaks this time, "We know it'll be a bit of a challenge to talk tomorrow since you can't speak right now but we'll figure it out. Maybe Robin or I can read out your notes to him."

Peter nods slowly then pauses for a moment, thinking. Suddenly he gets an idea and he reaches out towards the coffee table. Peter nods his head again and taps the coffee table twice, then he shakes his head and taps the coffee table once.

"Oh!" Robin exclaims, "That's such a good idea. two taps for yes and one tap for no."

Peter nods vigorously, a little proud of himself.

"Alright, well we'll be having dinner in about an hour, you can go back to whatever you were doing before." Marcella says.

Peter stands, hugs them both quickly, and then scampers off back to his room, excited about tomorrow.

******

Matt can hear Foggy and Karen talking before he even gets to the door of the office. He can hear Becky, their secretary, at her desk too. She hadn't been in yet when he'd left that morning, which is odd, now that he thinks about it. He pushes the thought away for later though, because now he has to focus on how he's going to tell them that he has a son who is, unless something happens and the court tries to deny his guardianship, coming to live with him in the very near future.

He still hasn't figured it out by the time he opens the door, but he doesn't have time to think about it further because as soon as he's in the office Karen and Foggy are turning to him asking a million questions about where he's been and why he was so cryptic that morning. Matt holds up his hands in surrender and says, "If you'll just let me speak, I can answer your questions."

Foggy and Karen go quiet, waiting expectantly. Becky hasn't said anything yet, only looked up from her work to watch the scene, baffled. Apparently Foggy and Karen hadn't given her any details from that morning.

Matt opens his mouth to begin and then closes it again blowing out a breath. He has a death grip on his cane which he's holding upright in front of him as though it can shield him from Foggy and Karen’s inquisition. He finally decides to just start at the beginning with who called him this morning.

"Before I left this morning, I got a call from a social worker - about a child. She asked if I could come in for a meeting, that's where I went."

Foggy looks confused now. "Why would a social worker call you? You don't have any kids and we aren't working any cases involving kids."

Matt just looks resigned. "That's what I thought too, until I got there and she told me I've been named as the guardian of a child in someone's will."

"Well, who is this kid?" Karen asks.

"Apparently," Matt says, slowly, "I have a son."

The overlapping questions begin again until Becky, bless her, asks loudly, to be heard over the din, "So what's his name?"

And Matt, with a kind of goofy half-smile, says, "Peter."

Chapter Text

Matt opens the door to his apartment, exhausted, immediately taking off his glasses before setting down his bag and cane. He rubs at his eyes tiredly, walking over to the fridge. He grabs a beer and opens it before slumping down on the couch with a sigh. He had actually been eager to meet his son, still is, but his enthusiasm has been tempered by the argument he had with Foggy in the office.

******

“So what’s his name?” “Peter.”

The conversation had only gone downhill from there. Becky was genuinely happy for him, he’d heard her lips turn in a smile. She’d moved her wheelchair out from behind her desk, coming over to give him a hug. “Congratulations, Matt,” she’d whispered in his ear, “you’ll be a great dad.” It was once she’d moved away and Foggy and Karen had recovered from the shock of being interrupted that all hell broke loose.

“You can’t possibly think that’s a good idea. Being a vigilante and a father? Are you insane?” Foggy half-shouted.

Karen joined in, “I can’t help but agree with Foggy on this, Matt. Who’s going to watch him when you go out? What happens when you come home late at night, bloody and bruised?”

Matt kind of half-chuckled to himself at that. Isn’t that what my dad did? ‘Come home late at night, bloody and bruised?’

He said as much to Foggy and Karen, “When I was Peter’s age my dad left for fights at night and I’d be asleep at the table or on the couch when he got back.”

“Wait, really?” Karen interjected, incredulously.

“You do realize that isn’t normal, right?” Foggy told him.

Both of them were somehow still surprised by Matt’s childhood, even after years of working together.

“At least I’m not going to be teaching him how to do stitches.” Matt scoffed. “And we have cellphones now. If I’d needed my dad during a fight, tough luck, he didn’t have a phone and he wasn’t always fighting at Fogwell’s.”

This only served to make Foggy mad, however. “Does that mean you’re going to tell him, then, or are you just going to wait until he sees you in the suit?”

Matt started getting irritated then, “Oh come on Fogs, I just found out about him this morning and neither you nor I really know what’s appropriate to tell an eight-year-old. This is an unusual situation, I’m going to have to play it by ear.”

“So you are just going to let him find you on the floor, bleeding and half-dead!” Foggy was nearly shouting then, clearly only getting angrier as memories of him finding Matt in that state rushed to the forefront of his mind.

“I am not having this conversation with you right now.” Matt said intensely. Then, softer, “Thank you Becky, I won’t be in tomorrow.” as he turned and walked back out of the office to go home.

“Wait!” Karen called, uselessly, and Matt ignored her, continuing down the stairs.

******

Back in his apartment Matt is startled out of his reverie by someone knocking on the door. He can tell it’s Foggy from the heartbeat and is fully prepared to ignore him until he leaves until Foggy starts speaking.

“Matt, I know you’re in there. I’m sorry about earlier, I was being a dick and I shouldn’t have said all that.” A pause. “Are you going to let me in so we can talk or am I just going to have to stand here and shout apologies through the door until you tell me to leave?”

It’s tempting, to give in to his anger at Foggy’s earlier behavior and make him wait, but he is making an effort so Matt should at least open the door to hear him out. Sighing, he sets down his beer and moves over to the door. When he finally opens it Foggy has his fist raised to knock again and jumps a little when he sees Matt.

“Karen wanted to come too,” Foggy starts, “but I figured I’d come by myself since I’m the one who really needs to apologize.”

Matt just wordlessly opens the door further and motions him inside. Foggy steps inside awkwardly and, after closing the door, Matt takes pity on him, asking, “Do you want a beer?”

“Seems like a beer conversation, yeah.” Foggy says, his heart rate and fidgeting indicating he’s nervous.

Matt hands him an open beer and then goes back to sit on the couch where he was before. He sits down and brushes his hand along the coffee table until it hits his beer before picking it up.

Foggy sits in the chair opposite and stays silent for a moment, taking a sip to delay speaking. “I know I was totally out of line earlier, he’s not my kid and it’s not my business to tell you how to raise him.” Another sip, then a half-smile. “Besides, I missed all the important questions.”

Matt’s warmed up with the apology and asks, a little amused, “And what questions would those be?”

Foggy shakes his head, bemused, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe how old is he? And have you met him? Or when are you going to meet him? Who’s his mom?”

Matt takes a second to digest the flurry of questions before answering. “He’s eight, I might’ve mentioned that before. I haven’t met him yet, I’m going with his social worker to meet him at his foster parent’s house tomorrow, that’s why I won’t be in the office again. His mom is Mary Parker, I don’t remember her maiden name. I’m not sure if you remember her from law school, we only went on the one date, you might not have even met her.”

“Your dad really left you at home alone when you were eight? And what was that comment about teaching him to do stitches about?” Foggy inquires.

Matt raises an eyebrow. “Yes, he really did do that, I think eight was the age he stopped asking one of the neighbors to come to our apartment to watch me. The stitches comment came from my dad teaching me to do them so I could stitch him up when he came home.”

Foggy’s eyes widen as Matt speaks. “Okay, I’m not even going to touch that right now. You said you’re meeting him tomorrow?”

That goofy smile from earlier, when Matt had first come into the office, is back. “Yeah, in the afternoon.” The smile slips. “His social worker said it might be a little difficult to communicate though, he’s not talking right now, selective mutism.”

Foggy grimaces. “That does sound like it’ll make it hard, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

It goes quiet in the apartment, though Matt can still hear everything happening around him for several blocks. He hears a scream and sirens and turns his head towards the sound, thinking about asking Foggy to leave so he can put on the suit.

Foggy notices his friend’s movement and knows it means he’s listening to something far off that only he can hear. He can see Matt tensing too like he wants to go towards the sound. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to go out tonight, Matt. A black eye would make a bad first impression.”

Matt sits back, not realizing he’d leaned forward, and acknowledges the truth in what Foggy said. He really doesn’t want to be beat up when he meets his son for the first time. “You have a point Fog. Guess I should stay in, get in some work that I’ve missed on those cases.”

“Sounds good Matt.” Foggy says as he sets down his beer and stands, walking over to the door. Matt follows and as Foggy’s going out the door he turns back to him and says, “Don’t forget to tell me and Karen how it goes tomorrow.”

“Might as well wait until we’re all in the office the next day.” Matt says, holding the door. “I’m sure Becky will want to hear about it too.”

“Of course. Bye Matt.”

“Bye Foggy.” Matt replies as he closes the door. On his way back into his apartment Matt grabs his work bag, then walks over to the table and gets to work.

******

On the fifth day Peter wakes up with the sense that something important is supposed to happen. Suddenly, he remembers, he’s meeting Matt in the afternoon. He can’t decide if it’s comfortable to call him “dad” yet. Peter hasn’t called anyone dad since he was really little. He barely remembers his dad, Richard. Uncle Ben was always Uncle Ben. Something grows tight in his chest thinking of him, a deep hurt with the pain of loss. He thinks about meeting his dad in the afternoon again. Peter decides to test it, in his head, calling Matt dad. He might wait though. What if he’s mean? What if he doesn’t want me to call him that? I guess it doesn’t matter right now, I still can’t talk.

He’s startled out of his thoughts by Marcella calling from the kitchen, “Peter, do you want breakfast?”

He can’t answer so he simply gets out of bed and drags himself into the kitchen, slumping into a chair at the table. Despite all his musing he’s not quite awake and he can hear Robin giggling from the other side of the room at his dramatics.

Marcella places a plate of eggs and bacon in front of Peter and asks, “How do you feel about meeting your dad today?”

Peter smiles and moves his hand in a so-so gesture, hoping that’s enough for her to get it.

“Hm. Happy but not sure?” she clarifies.

Peter nods, pleased that she understood. They’ve both been really good about the whole not talking thing.

Robin joins in then, “It’s okay to not be sure. Heck, we’re not sure about this meeting. Marcella and I don’t know any more about Matt than you do, other than what Amy, your social worker, told us about his visit to her office. She said he was eager to meet you.”

Peter nods at that and breakfast continues quietly with an air of anticipation.

******

The day passes at a snail’s pace. Matt tries to get work done but he can’t focus for more than a minute, mind always going back to Peter. Despite how much he wants to meet Peter he can’t help but be anxious. What if he doesn’t like me? What if I screw it up? Amy said that Peter’s foster parents are good people, what if he doesn’t want to leave? What would I do then?

An endless amount of questions and worries float through his head and he doesn’t realize how deep in thought he is until the alarm goes off signaling that he needs to get ready. Amy had decided it would be easier for both of them if she picked Matt up at his apartment and drove them over to Peter’s foster home together. So, Matt gets up out of his chair and goes to his bedroom, dressing casually in a t-shirt and jeans. This takes so little time that he’s ready a lot earlier than he needs to be. He ends up sitting on his couch, nervously running his hands through his hair until he hears a car pull up outside of his building. By the time he has his shoes and glasses on he can smell Amy’s cedar soap and hear those thick-soled boots walk up to his door. He waits until she knocks to open the door so as not to startle her.

“Are you ready to go Mr. Murdock?” Amy asks as soon as the door is open.

“Yes, just let me grab my cane.” He replies as he does so, then leaves his apartment locking the door behind him.

They don’t speak again until they’re at her car and Amy says, “The passenger door is just ahead of you at your one o’clock.” She’s silent for a few blocks after they start driving then asks, “So I told you his foster moms are Robin and Marcella, yeah?”

Matt makes an affirmative sound.

“And I told you about him being mute?” she continues.

Matt, nodding, says, “Yes. Did they come up with a way to work around that?”

“Yes, actually.” Amy replies, “Robin and Marcella called last night and told me that when they told Peter about you being blind he suggested that he could tap on the coffee table twice for yes and once for no. They also suggested one of us reading out what he writes down.”

“The tapping is a good idea.” Matt says, “My friend Foggy actually texted me last night, said there’s an app you can type into and it will read what you wrote. Might make it more of a normal conversation.”

Amy makes a considering noise, “That could actually work. Definitely more personal, especially if Peter decides he wants to talk to you alone.”

“If we do go with that option, someone else will have to put the app on their phone. I’m not sure it would work on mine with all the accessibility settings turned on.” Matt admits.

“We’ll work it out once we’re inside.” Amy assures him as she parks in front of a neat brownstone.

Matt takes a deep, slightly shaky breath, then steps out of the car, ready to meet his son.

Chapter Text

Peter is sitting on the couch, shifting nervously. Marcella had told him not too long ago that Matt and Amy were on their way. His thoughts had been racing all day. He had worked himself up so much that Marcella had sat him down in a recliner with a cup of hot chocolate. That helped, but now that the time is almost here he’s antsy and nervous. A constant litany of, Are they here yet? Are they here yet? running through his mind.

Robin and Marcella are trying to look calm for him, but he can tell that they are just as nervous as him. No, nervous for him. He doesn’t know how or why they care so much about him after such a short time but he’s glad they do. It helps settle him a little, that whatever happens today, they’ll still be there.

It’s ironic that he got distracted by other thoughts just in time for a knock at the door. Peter whips his head to look towards the entryway almost hard enough to give himself whiplash. Thankfully Robin and Marcella aren’t startled and Marcella goes to sit on the other side of the couch from Peter, close enough to give a little comfort, but not too close. At the same time, Robin goes and answers the door.

******

Matt stands nervously on the porch with Amy, subconsciously fiddling with his cane. He can hear two slightly elevated adult heartbeats inside as well as the fast thump thump thump thump thump of an anxious child’s heart. That must be Peter, he’s just as nervous as I am. And what a thought that is, he hopes Peter didn’t inherit his anxiety.

He doesn’t have time to think anything else because then the door is open and he can sense a woman in front of him, a little taller than Amy. She smells like lavender and plain soap, her hair swishing in a braid or ponytail at her back.

She greets Amy first then turns her face towards him. “You must be Matt, I’m Robin.”

She holds her hand out, but he ignores it until Amy narrates for him. “She’s holding her hand out.”

Matt hears Robin chastise herself under her breath. “Of course he can’t see that, dummy.” It makes him want to chuckle, but he holds it in and reaches carefully to shake her hand before she retracts it.

Robin opens the door wider and tells them to come in. He steps inside, Amy guiding him by the elbow in the unfamiliar space. He knows there are two people on the couch, but his senses narrow to focus on one. He can sense his son clearly now and he stops abruptly, drinking him in. That’s Peter, that’s my son. God, he’s so tiny. Matt’s in such a daze, focusing entirely on Peter, that he barely notices himself asking Amy to lead him to where Peter is.

******

Peter watches his dad walk into the room, holding a white cane and being led by Amy, his social worker. He’s only met her twice, once when he was first brought here and another time when she brought him clothes from his old home. He barely notices her however, focusing entirely on his dad, who seems floored by even being in the same room as Peter.

Matt has his head tilted towards him, like he’s listening to something, and he’s almost looking right at Peter. He doesn’t know how Matt knows where to point his face since he can’t see him. The thought is fleeting as he keeps staring at his dad, taking him in. He’s dressed casually and he has these round, red-lensed glasses on. Peter likes them, they have personality. He didn’t expect the bright red hair since his own is brown.

Peter keeps staring as Matt mutters something to Amy and then Matt is being led closer to where he’s sitting and suddenly his dad is crouched in front of him. Dazedly Peter hears him talking. “Hi Peter, I’m Matt. I’m your dad.”

He’s barely done speaking and Peter doesn’t know why, but he’s launching himself at Matt, hugging him tightly around the neck. Maybe it’s just because of everything that’s happened over the last five days. Maybe it’s because he thought he had no one left. Maybe it’s because something about Matt just screams safe, but Peter is hugging Matt tight and crying into his shoulder.

******

For a second Matt has no idea what to do. Peter is hugging him and crying. He shakes himself out of it quickly though because he realizes he’s gone tense and he doesn’t want Peter to think this isn’t okay. He relaxes and hugs Peter back just as tightly running his fingers through his son’s hair, comforting him with a quiet litany of “I’m here” and “It’s okay now” and “I’m not going anywhere”.

 On the barest edge of his awareness he notices Amy quietly guiding Marcella and Robin into the kitchen, “Let’s give them a moment.” It doesn’t register though because his senses are almost entirely focused on the child in his arms. Peter feels so small and thin. He can feel his tiny, hitching breaths as he cries. Underneath the scent of tears he can smell the same plain soap Robin uses and detergent and a scent that’s unique to Peter that he doesn’t bother analyzing, just breathes in deep.

Slowly, Peter’s heart rate goes down and his death-grip loosens a little. The shuddering breaths go back to something more normal and Matt can’t smell any more fresh tears. Peter doesn’t let go though, so neither does Matt, but he does stop the comforting words so they can just share this moment of peace together.

Eventually Peter does let go, but not completely. He takes Matt’s hand and pats the couch next to him as he sits down. Matt is glad for this because he doesn’t want to let go either.

******

Peter’s a little embarrassed and surprised and tired from everything that just happened. He’d be more embarrassed about it, but Matt had hugged him back just as tight and ran his fingers through his hair, which felt really nice. Then Peter remembers what Matt was whispering to him and something warm starts taking over the ice he hadn’t even realized was in his chest.

He doesn’t even notice he’s done it until he’s already there, but Peter has curled himself into Matt’s side on the couch. Hm. This feels nice. And Peter must be more tired than he thinks because that’s his last thought before he’s fast asleep, tucked against his dad.

******

Matt lets go of Peter’s slack fingers to curl his arm around his son and carefully leans back, holding him close while he sleeps. This is not how Matt thought this meeting would go at all, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

It’s only a minute later that he notices Marcella stick her head back into the living room. He’d been too focused on Peter before to really notice her, but when she walks out of the kitchen with Amy and Robin he takes the time to assess her. He can tell she’s a little taller than Robin. Her hair swishes against her back and has that airy quality that tells him it’s full of tight curls. She uses the same soap as Robin, but she smells like spices.

Marcella introduces herself quietly, to not disturb Peter. “We didn’t get to meet earlier, I’m Marcella.”

Matt reaches out his left hand to shake, since his right is currently occupied with Peter. “I’m Matt, obviously. It’s good to put a voice with the name.”

“So Matt,” Amy starts, “how do you want to do this?”

“It seems like I’m not going anywhere for awhile.” He replies a bit cheekily. Then, more serious, “I’d like to bring him home as soon as I can. I’m sure you’ve both been good to him, but unless I’m reading this wrong, I think he needs family. I’ve been through what he has, and I know I wanted someone, anyone, to be there and take me in. If I’d had any family left- “

Matt cut himself off, he knows his mother now, knows she was there for him vaguely as a child. He’s forgiven her by now for leaving when he a was baby, understands depression intimately, but he doesn’t know how much he can forgive her for letting him think he was alone later.

The silence is heavy, even if the others don’t know exactly what he’s thinking about. It’s broken by Amy’s calm professionalism. “I don’t think any of us can or want to argue with that. If it’s okay with all of you I’ll go back to the office and start the final paperwork Matt needs to take Peter home. Matt, you can just call me whenever you’re done here and I’ll take you back to your apartment.”

It’s Robin who speaks first, “I think Marcella and I are good with that. Matt?”

Matt is so caught up in listening to Peter sleep that he almost doesn’t answer. “Hm? Yeah, sounds good.” Matt doesn’t notice the three women smile at each other, but he does follow Robin and Amy’s footsteps towards the door.

Matt listens in on their conversation from where he’s sitting.

“This is good, right Amy?”

“Honestly, this is the best that could have happened. I’ve seen a lot of meetings between kids and their new guardians and most of them don’t go this well. Peter’s reaction, while heartbreaking, was good and Matt really wants this. I don’t know if he’d ever wanted to be a dad before, but he’s certainly taken to it out of way more than a sense of duty. I think he loved that kid before they were even in the same room.”

Matt smiles a little, sure that she’s right.

Robin snorts out an aborted chuckle. “Yeah that’s written all over his face. We’ll be seeing you Amy.”

“Alright, I’ll be back later.”

He hears the door open and shut, then Robin’s footsteps come into the living room and go over to where Marcella is still sitting in one of the chairs.

“Is he awake?” Robin whispers quietly.

Matt hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes until she says that. “Yeah I’m awake.” He says quietly.

Robin startles slightly and Marcella laughs softly at her. Robin slaps her arm lightly, smiling.

******

Peter wakes up slowly with a bit of a headache from crying. He’s still tucked up against Matt, but his dad’s arm is around him now. There’s a whispered conversation happening that he ignores in favor of burrowing closer to Matt. That gets a chuckle that he can feel through the chest his head is resting against, and a question. “Are you awake now Peter?”

He nods into Matt’s chest with a little “mhm” for good measure.

“Good. Now that you’re awake I want to get some stuff out of the way. First question, serious one, do you want to come live with me?”

What kind of question is that? Peter does his best to convey both his answer and his feelings about the question by tapping Matt’s sternum twice a little forcefully and nodding vigorously into his chest.

“Okay I get it, dumb question. Next one’s a little tougher. Is there anything you want me to grab from your Aunt and Uncle’s house before you move in? We’ll still go after, but do you want anything now?”

That one is harder, and Peter has to think for a minute. He needs more clothes, he never got the chance to tell Amy to grab his bear off his bed, and there’s the quilt Aunt May said his grandma made him before she died. Those are the only things he can think of right away. He taps Matt’s chest twice, a little slowly because he doesn’t know how he’s going to tell him what to get.

“Alright, Pete, just write me a list and I’ll have Amy read it.”

He nods once into Matt's chest.

“We’ll go out together to get some stuff to decorate your room. I don’t know what you like and I’m not good at decorating anyways, I don’t even know what color the walls are in that room.”

Peter nods again, excitedly this time. Aunt May and Uncle Ben never let him decorate his room.

“Now that we have that settled, I’m going to call Amy so she can take me back to my apartment, but I promise that I’ll be back very, very soon. Okay?”

Peter does not like this at all. He doesn’t want Matt to leave him alone again even if Robin and Marcella are nice. He does his best to discourage his dad from leaving by wrapping his arms around Matt’s chest and shaking his head.

“I know Peter, I know. I don’t want to go either, but I can’t stay here, and you can’t come with me until all the paperwork is done. It’ll only be a couple days, promise.”

Peter just squeezes his arms tighter around Matt, not soothed this time by the hand carding through his hair. Then he hears Marcella say something from the kitchen.

“You could always come over for dinner, Matt, every night you can until the papers go through.”

“Are you sure Marcella?” Matt replies, tentatively, “I don’t want to bother you.”

Robin speaks up, “Don’t be silly, you wouldn’t be bothering us, and it’ll be good for Peter. Besides, if the last couple hours are anything to go by, you’re good company.”

“I definitely won’t say no then.” Matt says. Then he pokes Peter in the side and asks, “Does that sound good to you?”

Peter still doesn’t want Matt to leave, but as long as he keeps coming back, he guesses it’s okay for now. He doesn’t loosen his grip, but he does nod slowly.

“It won’t be forever Peter.” Peter almost doesn’t hear the next part. “I promise I’ll always be back.”

Chapter Text

Matt finds himself standing outside the door to the office trying to figure out what to say for the second time in three days. He had arrived purposefully late to make sure everyone was in the office before him. What do I even tell them? Yeah, I met my son, he hugged me and cried for half an hour before falling asleep curled against me for three hours. I still know nothing about him, but I love him.

Karen and Foggy are going to ask more questions than he has answers. Still, he can’t avoid the office forever, so he guts it up and opens the door.

The relative silence he’s met with is unexpected. Karen and Foggy can’t seem to decide who should speak first, they’re facing each other, and he imagines they’re having some kind of silent argument.

Becky, never one to beat around the bush, makes their decision for them. “How’d it go Matt?”

“Good-I think.” Matt says a little tentatively. He wouldn’t really describe it as good with that much crying involved, but him and Peter at least seemed to bond emotionally.

Karen finally finds her voice. “You think?”

“Well it didn’t exactly go how I thought it would.” Matt shrugs. “As soon as I introduced myself, he hugged me in a death grip and sobbed into my shoulder for half an hour.”

“Wow. That’s, uh-“ Foggy stammers.

“I know.” Matt thinks for a moment. “Honestly, I think he just needed family so he could let go. If my mom had shown up when my dad died, I don’t know that I would have been much different. Maybe not the crying, I was kind of a stoic kid, but I probably would have latched onto her and not let go.”

“Oh, poor baby. Does he need anything?” Always practical, Becky.

“I’ll let you know. I’m just trying to push the custody papers through right now and get the guest room at least a little ready.”

“We’re going to decorate once Peter moves in, I’m going to let him choose. He gave me a list of a couple things to grab from his aunt and uncle’s but I think I’ll grab his sheets too and a couple other things from his room just so he doesn’t move into a completely barren space. You’ve been in the guest room Fogs, there’s just the bed in there, I don’t even know what color the walls are.”

Foggy scoffs, “Yeah, I think you’re gonna have to put some furniture in there, buddy. The walls are white by the way, I’ll paint if you want me to.”

Karen lights up at the suggestion. “Oh! I can help Foggy with that.”

Matt’s surprised by their offers. “That-that’s very nice of you, but you don’t have to.”

Matt here’s Foggy wave his hand dismissively. “Of course we’ll help, don’t worry about it.”

Karen frowns and then says somberly, “Sorry to break up the mood, but you never said how they died, his aunt and uncle, or why he was living with them.”

Matt sighs. “He was living with them because Mary and Richard, his parents, apparently dropped him off when he was three, left on a business trip, and then died in a plane crash.”

 Everyone gasps, shocked, but he continues, “That’s not even the worst of it. He was with his Aunt and Uncle when they died. They were shot by a mugger and, well- his social worker told me he’d been sitting in the alley covered in blood for a while before the police arrived.”

He can’t see any of their faces, but he can hear their collective horrified gasps and senses Karen’s hand move to cover her mouth. Their heart rates are up and his mouth fills with the salt-taste of tears from Karen and Foggy. Becky has just sat back, her mouth hanging open, shocked into stillness.

No one moves for a long time, trying to process what this child has been through. Matt holds his cane in a white-knuckled grip. He knows what they’re feeling, he’d been just as horrified as they are when he was told. 

He’s angry in a way none of them are. Angry at how long the police took to respond to a shooting, even if it’s something he knows well working as Daredevil. 

He’s angry at a God he does and doesn’t believe in that his child had to go through something so gruesome. Yes, Matt heard his dad being beaten to a bloody mess after the fight and heard the gunshot that killed him, but he was only there for the bloody aftermath, touching his father’s mangled face.

The relative silence in the room is suffocating so Matt expands his senses and turns his attention to other things. He listens to the clack of keys in other offices in the building, smells coffee brewing in a dozen pots. Further out he hears a cat in the alley outside, people walking along the sidewalk, cars driving down the street. The man who owns the shop across the street is berating a boy for trying to steal, but it’s calm and he gives the boy some of the bread he was going to have to throw out soon.

Becky, who always seems to be able to break up these silent moments before either Foggy or Karen can come up with anything, cuts through the tension calmly. “That’s terrible, what he went through. I’m sure you’ll help him get through it. Keep us updated and let us know if you need anything.”

Foggy and Karen break out of their spell and add their agreement with her words, reminding Matt to take the help they offered before.

Matt just nods stiffly and walks into his office, closing the door. He needs to put his mind to other things, so he thinks of how he’s going to see Peter at dinner tonight, smiles, and gets to work.

******

The next few days are a blur for both Matt and Peter.

Matt gets up, works, eats dinner with Peter, goes out as Daredevil, sleeps.

Peter gets up, eats breakfast, reads, watches TV, eats dinner with Matt, sleeps.

Three days in, the cycle is broken, Matt gets a call from Amy that changes his life forever.

When Matt’s phone starts droning ‘ Amy Amy Amy’ he snatches it up quickly. “Amy? Do you have an update?” He’s a little breathless with excitement and nerves.

“Hello to you too, Matt” Amy answers wryly, “I do actually have an update for you. Your paperwork has gone through, though not quite as smoothly as I’d like. There was a little hiccup in there with you being blind, but you’re the biological father and no one is around to contest so all I had to do was set one ableist judge straight.”

“Is that all of it then? Can I bring Peter home?”

“That’s it, I can give you your custody papers with Peter’s records and you can take him home with you as soon as tomorrow. I’m going to let you be the one to tell him. I know you’ve been having dinner together so, if you want, I can drive you to dinner today and give you everything at the same time. You also told me he wanted you to pick up a few things for him, I can drive you to his aunt and uncle’s after.”

“Tha-that sounds great, thank you so much, Amy.” Matt barely gets the words out, his brain stuck in a loop of It’s done, Peter’s coming home. My son is coming home.

Amy breaks him out of it after giving him a second. “Text me what time you normally leave and I’ll be at your apartment to pick you up. Bye, Matt.”

“Uh-goodbye.” he manages to stammer out before she hangs up.

Matt’s dazed enough he doesn’t notice Foggy come over and poke his head in his office. “Is that call what I think it was?

“Yeah,” Matt whispers, “Peter’s coming home.”

Foggy pulls his head back out and turns towards the rest of the office. “Karen! Becky! Matt’s officially a dad!”

Chapter Text

Matt can’t sit still in Amy’s car, fidgeting with his cane, bouncing his leg, running his hand through his hair. He’s too excited about telling Peter the good news. They’re a couple blocks away and he can hear Peter’s heartbeat. They pull up in front of the brownstone and he barely replies to Amy telling him to let her know when he’s done before he’s out of the car and at the door.

When Marcella answers the door she can tell something’s different, notices how fidgety Matt is, how quickly he comes in when she opens the door wider. She stops him with a hand on his arm before he gets out of the entryway. “What’s up? You’re all- twitchy.”

She thinks he kind of looks like a cat when he tilts his head towards her before answering. “We got approved.” He whispers excitedly, “I can bring Peter home tomorrow.”

Marcella quietly let’s out a little excited gasp, mindful of Matt whispering to not alert Peter. The news is a little bittersweet, she and Robin like Peter and they care about him a lot, his absence will be felt deeply by both of them.

Matt senses what she’s feeling in her quiet sigh and the minute droop of her shoulders. He gives her a comforting pat on the arm before walking out into the living room. As soon as Peter spots him he runs to Matt for a hug, like he has every time he comes to dinner, so Matt already has his arms out, ready to catch Peter.

Today Matt grabs Peter in a hug and picks him up, swinging him from side to side a little before putting him down. “Peter, I have some very important news for you. I think you’re going to like it.” Peter rolls up onto the balls of his feet excitedly. “We got approved! You’re coming home with me tomorrow!”

Peter rushes forward and hugs Matt around the legs before he kneels down to Peter’s height so they can hug properly. They stay like that for a long time, both with silent tears running down their faces. Eventually, they get up and go to the kitchen table to eat.

******

Peter leads Matt out to Amy’s car after dinner even though he doesn’t need him to. It’s more like they’re just hanging onto each other anyways since Peter can’t direct Matt and doesn’t really know how to anyways. Neither of them wants to let go even though they’ll be seeing each other in the morning.

They have to when they get to the car and Matt gives one last hug and a kiss on top of Peter’s head before he gets in and closes the door, leaning back with a sigh.

******

Next stop is May and Ben’s so they can get the things Peter wanted along with several other things Matt thinks Peter would like to have, like his sheets and clothes.

When Amy lets him into the apartment, the first thing he notices is the stale smell of the air, like when you come back from a vacation. He can smell Peter here too, and Amy from when she came here for Peter’s clothes. He can also smell two people he doesn’t know, May and Ben presumably.

Matt’s holding on to Amy’s elbow for show and she leads him down a hallway to Peter’s room. When they get there, he remembers to give the list Peter gave him to Amy for her to read out to him. He already knows what it says, he’d run his fingers over the words after he got it.

Matt nods once she’s finished, there’s only two things on the list. He runs his fingers over the bed, hoping the quilt is on it. He’s in luck, there is a quilt on top. The list had helpfully said what color it is. “Amy, is this quilt red and blue?”

“It is, looks handmade too.” she says from where she stands in the doorway.

Glad that it was easy to find, he picks it up and folds it, handing it to Amy for her to put in the box they brought. He can sense where it is, but the bear is a little more complicated to grab without revealing too much. He just asks Amy again. “Do you see the bear in here?”

“It’s at the head of the bed, by the pillow. It’s the only one in here, so it’s probably the right one.”

He slides his hand along the bed until he feels it and hands it to her. He also hands her the pillow and strips the bed, folding the sheets to go in the box as well. He’d like to look around the room more, but he needs Amy to leave. “Amy, would you mind going to the linen closet and getting the rest of Peter’s sheets and towels?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Once he hears her walk away, he goes to the closet and finds a duffel bag to put the rest of Peter’s clothes in, the ones that didn’t make it to the foster home.  

He can sense a picture frame on top of the dresser, so he picks it up and puts it in the box. He can’t see what the picture is, but he figures that if it’s important enough to put on the dresser Peter will probably want it.

He should ask Amy what it is, he knows Peter should have a picture of his aunt and uncle. Matt had taken a picture of his dad with him to St. Agnes and carried it with him to every foster home and back, even though he couldn’t see it. He still has it and he’s even more glad of that now, it means he has something to show Peter what his grandfather looked like.

Matt sweeps his senses around the room, focusing on finding what’s important. There’s a little desk in the corner with a backpack leaned up against it and Matt is instantly reminded that Peter will have to start going back to school. He’s already missed a week. How he’ll be able to go back to school not being able to speak, Matt’s not sure.

Matt doesn’t even know what school Peter goes to. He lived in Queens, which is a good bit away from Hell’s Kitchen. He’ll have to ask Amy about all that later.

Putting that train of thought aside, Matt moves to the desk and taps it focusing more closely to make out the shapes of things. There’s a spiral notebook and a pencil that he puts inside the backpack. He finds a book that feels like a plastic-covered library book with a bookmark in it. He’ll definitely need to ask Amy about that, it’s probably overdue.

Peter had mentioned over dinner that he likes to read so Matt moves to find the bookshelf after depositing the backpack with the box. Not knowing which books to grab, Matt just feels for worn spines and bookmarks, hopefully grabbing several that Peter likes.

On his way to put the books in the box Matt steps on something small and hard. He kneels down and picks it up trying to figure out what it is. It’s rectangular and plastic with six circles on the top. He vaguely remembers Legos from before he lost his sight. They were something other kids had, they didn’t have enough money to spend on toys, and definitely not ones that could get lost so easily.

He goes to find the box now though, if Peter likes them Matt should bring them to his apartment. There isn’t much in his apartment for sighted people, much less a sighted eight-year-old. He should find some way to get Peter TV. Maybe that’s something the others can help him with.

Once the Legos are located Matt walks out into the hallway where he hears Amy standing, a bag of sheets and toiletries in her hand. “Is that everything, Matt? Did you find what you wanted?”

“I think so.” He replies. “I found a picture on his dresser, I put it in the box. Can you tell me what it is?”

She walks over to it and picks it up. “Looks like it’s Peter, May, and Ben at a science museum.”

He files the part about the science museum away for later. “Good, I wanted him to have a picture of all of them.”

Matt picks up the bags and Amy grabs the box so Matt can use his cane and they leave.

******

Matt senses a truck when they pull up in front of his building. Amy helps him again by grabbing the box and bringing it upstairs with him. He hears Karen and Foggy stop talking when he unlocks the door.

He wonders what they’re doing in his apartment. “Karen? Foggy?” Matt asks.

“Hey Matt” They say at the same time.

Once Matt and Amy are inside, he remembers Karen and Foggy have never met her. “Oh, uh-” Matt gestures behind himself- “this is Amy, she’s Peter’s social worker.”

Matt moves out of the way, setting his cane by the door, as Karen and Foggy go to introduce themselves. He goes to Peter’s room and puts the bags with Peter’s things on the floor then goes back to get the box from Amy. He takes it from her as she continues talking to Karen and Foggy and puts it with the bags.

Amy addresses Matt when he comes back into the room. “I put the folder with all of Peter’s papers in the box with his stuff. There are braille and print copies of everything and they’re attached to each other. The birth certificate has a braille label attached so you can find it.”

Matt will never stop being surprised at how well Amy accommodates his disability and it shows on his face. “Thank you for doing all of that.”

“Psh, it’s what should be done, don’t worry about it.”

Matt doesn’t comment any more on the subject, but he’s never been so well accommodated before and he thinks she knows it. He’s glad she’s playing it off as no big deal, even if it is to him.

“Since we got everything that needed to be done today out of the way, I think I’ll head out now. I’ll see you in the morning Matt.”

“Yeah, alright, bye Amy.”

Once she’s gone, Matt asks Karen and Foggy what they’re doing there. Karen explains that she had an extra dresser that Peter could use and that they’d borrowed Foggy’s dad’s truck to bring it over. He thanks Karen profusely, but she waves him off. “I needed to get rid of it anyways.”

Matt, Foggy, and Karen proceed to struggle with bringing the dresser all the way up to his sixth-floor apartment. Eventually, they get it into Peter’s room, and everyone slouches, exhausted, onto the couch and chairs in the living room.

“Well that sucked.” Foggy says and Matt and Karen nod in agreement. “I brought a tablet for Peter to use. Let’s order takeout and I’ll help you set up Netflix, I already downloaded the talking app. I should probably leave instructions on how to use it since you won’t be able to help, Matt.”

Matt just thanks him and agrees, not bothering to argue with Foggy’s generosity.

When they’ve finished the takeout and setting up the tablet Karen and Foggy try to convince Matt to go with them to Josie’s to celebrate but he declines. He doesn’t want to pick up his son in the morning with a hangover.

Karen and Foggy decide to head to Josie’s without him, to celebrate for Matt, they say. Matt knows it’s an excuse for them to get drunk, even if they don’t need one. It isn’t until after they’ve said goodbye and Matt is sitting alone on the couch that he lets himself really think about what’s happening.

It’s one thing to know his son exists, to have visited him regularly, eaten dinner with him, but it’s a completely different thing to have him living in the same apartment. Starting tomorrow he’ll be responsible for another person.

Matt knows he’s hardly responsible, he eats takeout most nights and goes out in a costume to beat up criminals. He still hasn’t figured out how to broach that topic.

Obviously, Matt can’t stay off the streets forever, he knows he’s had to for a couple days during this whole process, but not all of them, Hell’s Kitchen needs him. He’s gone out after eating dinner with Peter, taking extra care not to get hit in the face.

That worked for Robin and Marcella, they don’t suspect he’s anything more than a blind lawyer, but Peter is perceptive. He’s been very tactile with Matt since that first day and he definitely knows when Matt is injured.

Peter also knows when he’s been guided to Matt’s other side to avoid bruised ribs or a strained shoulder. He moved before Matt tried to move him a couple times

On the one hand Matt is very proud that his son is so smart, but that creates a problem trying to hide anything. He’s already decided that Peter needs to know something. Especially since he doesn’t want to hide his abilities and pretend to be a normal blind man in his own home.

It will make communication easier for the two of them too. Yes, Peter can use the tablet, but he can also write Matt notes. He did some research on selective mutism and he hopes Peter will eventually be comfortable enough to at least talk to Matt. He won’t push it though, Peter will talk in his own time.

Matt already decided not to go out tomorrow, he’s not going to leave Peter alone the first night, maybe not even the first couple nights. He did buy another burner phone though, for emergencies, so that Peter can contact him while he’s out.

He has an emergency plan worked out for as many situations as he can think of, hoping he’ll never have to use them, but knowing that that’s wishful thinking. Something will happen eventually.

He refuses to be another person in Peter’s life to die, knows that’s an impossible promise, but he’ll do his best, even if that means calling Frank for backup on bigger jobs.

Breaking himself out of his thoughts Matt checks his watch and realizes that it’s entirely too late for him to be up. He needs to be up early and at his best for Peter.

******

Peter is practically vibrating with excitement. Robin and Marcella are great, but dad is coming to take me home. Peter didn’t think he’d really have a home anymore, after. He wonders what Matt’s apartment is like, wonders how blind people live. He hopes Matt will tell him what to do differently, he doesn’t want to be a problem right away.

He’s sitting on his bed, bag on the floor at his feet, as he runs through everything over and over. He glances at the clock every couple of minutes, willing it to be nine o’clock faster but really just making time seem to pass more slowly.

Peter normally sits on the couch in the living room when he waits for Matt to come for dinner, but he can’t do that now. He doesn’t want the attention he knows Robin and Marcella would pay to him. It’s well intentioned, but they hover, and he doesn’t want them to know how anxious he is. They’d tell him not to worry, but how can he not?

About five minutes until Matt is supposed to arrive, he goes out to living room anyways, he doesn’t want Matt to have to come find him or think he’s hiding.

Not long after Peter sits down Robin and Marcella are in front of him asking if he’s ready and touching his hair or his arm in what they think is a comforting manner, but Peter really just wants to be left alone with his nerves. He shrinks out of their touch just enough for them to get the idea and they’re thankfully not hurt by it.

They’re such good people and he hopes that there’ll be another foster kid that comes to them who really doesn’t have anyone. Every kid deserves this much kindness.

Not a minute after Robin and Marcella have backed off and gone to sit elsewhere in the living room there’s a knock at the door. Peter goes still, his head darting towards the entryway. Robin, who’d been sitting on the arm of Marcella’s chair, goes to open the door.

He doesn’t pay attention to what’s said only rushes to hug his dad as soon as he enters the living room. Peter makes his footsteps loud enough for Matt to hear, but he’s ready anyways, squatting down to Peter’s height to hug the life out of him like he’s done every time he’s come.

Matt let’s go of him but stays at his height to look him in the eye, as much as he can, running his hand through Peter’s hair. “Are you ready to go?”

His hand is still at the back of Peter’s head, probably to get his answer, so he just nods vigorously.

“Alright then, give Robin and Marcella your goodbyes and grab your stuff. I’ll wait right here.”

Peter goes to them and hugs them both tightly. They’re all a little glassy eyed when they part and he hands them a slip of paper with ‘Thank You’ written on it. They both hug him again after they read it and say their goodbyes.

When they let go Robin and Marcella go over to Matt to say a few last things and Peter goes to grab his bag from by the couch. He picks it up and goes back to Matt, grabbing the hand not holding his cane to let him know he’s ready.

Robin and Marcella follow them to the door. When he’s at the car Peter half turns around and waves to them where they’re standing in the open doorway.

Matt and Peter get into Amy’s car and the nervous excitement comes back as they start driving away.

******

They get to Matt’s building and he’s endlessly grateful that Peter is thoughtful enough to hold his hand as they go inside. He doesn’t need it to know where he is but likes having him close.

They get to Matt’s door and he pauses for a second before unlocking it and leading him inside. Amy hadn’t come up, just gave Matt another folder with all of Peter’s school information and said goodbye.

Even inside the apartment Peter doesn’t let go of his hand, except when they take off their shoes. They get out of the entryway and he hears Peter suck in a breath, maybe because of how big the apartment is, or because of all the windows. It’s not nighttime so the billboard isn’t lighting up the room with crazy colors yet.

“Do you want to go see your room?” he asks, and almost immediately he feels Peter squeeze his hand twice. “Alright then, it’s not much but we can get some things to decorate later.” Peter’s only eight but Matt is still concerned that he won’t like it with how little there is in there.

******

Peter’s excited, but he’s also nervous, so he grabs Matt’s hand again as soon as they’re out of the car. He wants Matt to know he’s there, but he also just wants his dad’s solid comfort.

He doesn’t exactly know why, but Peter always feels safe with Matt, and comfortable. Matt’s not really the best hugger, he’s all hard muscles and he never knows how much strength to use, but it makes him feel protected.

He always seems to be hurt too. Peter will try to lean into one side and there’ll be a quiet hiss that he knows Matt doesn’t want him to hear and he’ll not-so-subtly direct Peter over to his other side.

That’s one of the other reasons Peter always stays glued to his dad’s side. He doesn’t know how he gets hurt, but he’s worried.

He keeps holding his dad’s hand even when they enter his huge apartment, it’s so much bigger than Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s, and there’s so many windows.

Peter only lets go when they get to his room so he can look around. He’s surprised at how much of his stuff is there, he knows most of this wasn’t on the list. He walks over to the bed running his hand over his quilt and sees that his favorite sheets are on the bed too. How did Matt know?

He sees his bear next to the pillow and snatches it up immediately, hugging it to his chest as he continues walking around the room. There isn’t much furniture, just the bed and a low dresser. There’s a stack of his books, a box of Legos, and his school bag on the floor next to it. Then he spots the picture of him with May and Ben on top of the dresser.

Tearing up a little he releases his death grip on the bear with one hand to reach out and grab it. He hasn’t cried since that first time he met Matt, but a couple tears slip out as he looks at the happy photo.

Placing it back on the dresser he wipes his face on his sleeve and continues looking through everything. His clothes are in the dresser, it looks like all of them, definitely more than the small amount that Amy had brought for him.

He gets down on his knees to look at the stack of books. Some of his favorites are there, and a couple he hasn’t finished yet. Staring at the books Peter realizes that Matt notices a lot more than he thought.

It makes him realize just how little he knows about his dad. He knows he’s a lawyer, but-that’s it. At dinner Matt asked all the questions, if he could talk Peter probably would have asked more about Matt but it’s a little hard to ask specific questions when even communicating with notes is hard.

A dozen questions immediately pop into his mind with the realization and he wants to find out how to ask them.

Having looked at everything Peter walks back over to Matt. The room is plain, but he remembers Matt saying something about decorating. Peter is okay either way, all the important things are here.

When he gets back to Matt at the door, he grabs his hand again and Matt asks if his room is okay. Peter squeezes his hand twice as he nods, even if the nod is kind of pointless.

******

Matt definitely lets out an internal sigh of relief when Peter says the room is okay. It’s not like there’s much Matt can do about it right now if it wasn’t, but he doesn’t ever want Peter to feel uncomfortable.

He noticed Peter’s tears when he looked at the picture, but he seemed to handle it well. If Peter is anything like him though, he should probably make sure that he’s really okay. Matt probably held in too much after his dad died, but, unlike him, Peter has someone close to talk to.

He also noticed Peter’s pause by the books. It obviously wasn’t about them, he was looking at the wall when his heartbeat ticked up for a second and then went back down.

He files that observation for later. Maybe Peter will tell him, maybe he’ll have to ask about it. He’d have to explain how he knows to ask, but that’s another conversation altogether.

The rest of the tour is uneventful. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, Matt’s room. The closet with the suit is locked and Matt doesn’t bother to explain other than telling Peter not to open it. He can tell Peter wants to know why, but he doesn’t bother trying to ask.

The only thing left to show him is the tablet, which, in hindsight, he maybe should have shown Peter first so he could ask questions as they went. Too late now, he’s sure Peter will ask all his questions as soon as he figures out how to work the app.

Honestly, Matt is pretty eager to actually be able to converse with Peter, even if it is in a slightly roundabout way. He can’t help with the tablet though, he can only show Peter the directions Foggy left and let him figure it out. Peter’s a bright kid, he’s sure it won’t take long.

It takes even less time than Matt thought for Peter to figure it out and the first words that come from the speakers leave him shocked into stillness with a million different emotions.

“Hi Dad”

Matt’s silence doesn’t last long, the uptick in Peter’s heartrate brings him out of it. He doesn’t want Peter to ever question calling him ‘Dad’. So, he leans forward to brush his hand through Peter’s hair where he’s sitting on the floor next to the coffee table. “Hi Peter.”

******

When Matt is silent after Peter calls him ‘Dad’ Peter gets nervous. Did he not want me to call him that? Did I do something wrong? He calms down when he sees Matt lean forward and feels his fingers brush through his hair.

Leaning into the touch, Peter scoots until he’s sitting on the floor, back to the couch, in between Matt’s legs. Matt seems to understand what Peter wants and keeps running his hand through his hair.

He can’t decide what to ask next, he has so many questions. Matt beats him to the punch.

“So-what do you think?”

Typing out his answer takes a little time, but it’s so much better than playing twenty questions. “I like it it’s big” “There’s a lot of windows”

He hears Matt’s little sigh of relief. “What about your room?”

This answer takes longer, Peter has to figure out how to accurately describe everything he feels about it. “It’s good thank you for bringing all of my stuff and the picture” It’s a little too simple, but he thinks it gets the point across and he can’t really think of how to say everything.

“You’re welcome, Peter. I thought you’d like having a picture of them, I know I liked having a picture of my dad at the orphanage.”

Peter’s a little shocked by this information. Isn’t an orphanage for kids with no parents? Does that mean my dad’s parents are dead? He only said something about his dad. Where’s his mom? Is it okay if I ask?

As if he can hear Peter’s thoughts, Matt says, “It’s okay if you want to ask questions. I won’t get mad.”

Having been given permission, Peter thinks of all the questions he wanted to ask but his questions about what they were just talking about are at the forefront of his mind.

“Why were you at an orphanage”

Matt lets out a soft exhale and stays quiet for several long seconds and looks thoughtful. When he finally speaks his words are measured. “My dad, Jack, was a boxer. He died when I was ten. My mother wasn’t with us and she didn’t take me in after, so I went to live at the Catholic orphanage associated with the church me and my dad went to.”

That’s a lot to unpack. Peter has the sudden realization that he’s been lucky, twice. May and Ben had taken him in first when his parents died and now Matt has taken him in. He wonders where Matt’s mom was. He didn’t say she had died, just that she wasn’t there.

“Where was your mom”

Matt looks thoughtful again, and a little angry, but a little sad too.

“My mom got sick when I was a baby and she had to leave. I didn’t know this when I was a kid, I only learned recently, but after she left, she became a nun. She works at the orphanage I grew up in. I met her a little while ago. She doesn’t know about you, I haven’t told her yet. I might take you to see her sometime, if you want.”

Peter is surprised by his dad’s honesty, he didn’t expect to be told all of that. Usually adults didn’t tell him everything just because he’s a kid. He’s also confused. Why did she become a nun if she was sick, couldn’t she have just gone to a doctor? Why didn’t she say anything when Matt lived at the orphanage? How did he find out?

He feels like the more they talk he gets more new questions than answers, even with his dad’s honesty. He decides to just keep asking questions though, now he needs to know so he doesn’t keep wondering. Matt said to ask, right?

“Why didn’t she go to a doctor if she was sick”

Matt blows out a long breath and looks like he’s trying to figure out what to say. He finally seems to just try to explain, but the words come in fits and starts.

“It wasn’t-she wasn’t sick, not like you’re thinking. It-it wasn’t her body that was sick, it was her mind. She was-sad, really sad, and it-hm-it messed up how she was thinking. She left because she was afraid she would hurt me or my dad.

She was already training to be a nun, when she met my dad. He saw what was happening, how she wasn’t taking care of herself. Then something happened and my dad contacted the priest. They took her back to be a nun again so they could help her.”

Peter thinks he understands, though he doesn’t know why she was sad or why that would make her hurt anyone. He does know that that’s the best explanation he’s going to get, and he doesn’t think him asking would help.

He doesn’t really want to ask more questions about Matt’s mom anymore, he only gets more confused by new information every time he does, and it seems to make his dad sad.

With everything that’s happened he’d completely forgotten about anything that wasn’t happening immediately around him. Belatedly, he remembers seeing his school bag in his room. He’s missed more than a week by this point. Am I even going back to the same school? How far away is it? How do I go to school if I can’t talk? And, oh no, what about Ned? If I go to a different school will I still get to see him?

As if sensing his distress Matt leans in close to Peter and speaks to him quietly, hand never moving from where it is stroking his hair. “Hey, what’s wrong? You’ve gone all stiff and you haven’t said anything in a while.”

Having been broken out of his thoughts, Peter types quickly. “Am I going back to my school”

Relieved by such a normal question, Matt relaxes and sits back. “You’ll be going back to the same school since you go to that science school in Midtown. You’re actually closer to it now.”

Now it’s Peter’s turn to relax a little. He still wonders when he’ll go back and what to do about not being able to talk. Does Ned know where I’ve been? Would they tell him anything or have I just been missing for over a week? He picks the easiest question. “When am I going back”

“Soon, hopefully, but you don’t have to rush. You can go back whenever you’re ready.”

Peter’s glad Matt’s giving him a choice and he’s not being forced to go back right away. Thinking about it though, he doesn’t really want to be gone long. He misses the routine; he misses how normal going to school is.

He also promised May and Ben to do well in school and it’ll be hard to do that if he misses a lot of it. They also implied heavily that he has to keep his grades up to keep going to Midtown. He doesn’t really know why, but he made a promise and he’ll keep it.

So much has happened in such a short time that he actually, for the first time in his life, wants to go to school where everything is easy and boring. That doesn’t mean he feels ready.

“Not Monday”

Matt lets a little huff of air out of his nose. “I expected you to say that. I guess it only really matters if you want to go at all this week, or if you want to try next week. You should be settled by then.

I need to talk to your school anyways. Do you want me to try to get some of the work you’ve missed? Since you’re not going too school, you’ll have to come to the office with me. You could work on it there.”

For some reason Peter doesn’t like the idea of going back in the middle of the week. Matt’s right that he’ll be settled in a week, he’d been at Robin and Marcella’s long enough to at least get used to living with them. He can’t guarantee that he’ll be ready for school though.

“I’ll try next Monday” “Can you get my work <question mark> I promised I’d keep my grades up”

“Alright, I’ll call the school Monday to tell them when you’ll be back, and I’ll ask about your work. That’s very responsible of you.”

Suddenly, for the first time during their conversation, Matt’s hand stills in Peter’s hair. He turns completely to look at his dad. Matt is still, empty, glasses-covered eyes directed straight ahead at nothing. His lips are pulled into a straight line and he has an unreadable look on his face.

Matt seems to decide something and his hand starts moving in Peter’s hair again. “I’m okay Peter, just trying to decide if I should tell you something now or later. I won’t tell you the whole thing, not yet, enough has happened to you recently.

I don’t want to hide from you though, and that’s what I’d be doing, what I’ve been doing. I-I’m not sure if there’s really an easy way to explain this so I’m just going to give you the facts and you can ask questions when I’m done.”

Now Peter is really confused. What does he mean, hiding? What won’t he be saying? Why does it matter how much he tells me?

Matt doesn’t pause for long after his declaration.

“When we’re here, at home, I won’t act like a normal blind man. I can do things other blind people can’t do. I can’t see anything, but-I have heightened senses. I can hear things you can’t, and I can hear things farther away. I can also smell and taste and feel a lot more than you can, in a lot more detail. I use all of this to create a kind of picture in my head.”

That’s a lot for Peter to take in and he doesn’t quite understand exactly what Matt means when he says he can create a ‘picture’ in his head. Does this mean my dad has superpowers? Kinda sounds like superpowers. Why does he act blind all the time if he doesn’t have to? Exactly how much better are his senses?

The first question seems the most important to Peter. “Does that mean you have superpowers”

Matt chuckles a little. “I wouldn’t call it that, but-sure, superpowers.”

That is so cool. “Why don’t you use them all the time”

“Well, Pete, some people wouldn’t understand. They’d want to ask a lot of questions that I don’t want to answer. I do use my senses all the time, I just have to make it look like I’m not.”

That makes a little more sense to Peter. He doesn’t know what questions people would ask, but it doesn’t sound good. “How good are your senses”

“Hm. I can hear your heartbeat, and everyone else’s on this floor and the one below us. I can hear the lights in the billboard across the street and everything else in Hell’s Kitchen.

I can feel each individual hair on your head as I brush my fingers through it. Your hair is really soft. I can read print or writing on a page by running my fingers over it, that means you can leave me notes and I can help with your homework.

I use air and vibration to tell me where people and objects are and if they’re moving and what they’re doing.

I can tell people apart by how they smell. I can taste every individual ingredient in my food. I also have something I call my ‘radar sense’ I don’t know how to explain it, but it gives me a better idea of where things are and more detail.

I don’t really know how much of that makes sense to you; most adults I’ve told that to don’t really understand.”

Peter thinks he gets it, but he can’t really grasp the scale of it.

He can hear heartbeats and feel ink? What do different people smell like? What in the air? What vibrations? What does he mean by ‘radar’? He didn’t even try to tell me. He said my hair is soft, I guess that’s why he likes touching it so much. I like it when he does, it feels nice.

Peter’s brain is overloaded with all of the information Matt’s given him and it seems like his dad can tell. “Why don’t you go and do something fun for a while, I’ll make us lunch. There’s Netflix on the tablet if you want to watch something and you know what’s in your room.”

Peter just nods a little and moves out of the way so Matt can get up. He has so much to think about he doesn’t think he can concentrate on anything else.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day had been mostly uneventful. Matt and Peter had settled close together on the couch after lunch, Peter with a book and Matt with some casework for the next day. The only event of note happened sometime in the middle of the night.

Matt woke up groggily to the night sounds of the city and the mostly asleep tenants of his building. Searching the sounds to find what had woken him he heard one that was much closer than the others.

His half-awake brain registered quiet whimpering from the next room, and he sat up quickly, on high alert. Searching his apartment with his senses, he found nothing else out of place and quickly got out of bed, moving to Peter’s room to figure out what was wrong.

Upon walking into the room, he senses Peter thrashing slightly on the bed, obviously in the middle of a nightmare. Not wanting to wake Peter but wanting to calm him down, Matt decides to see if the method Maggie used to calm him a hundred times in the orphanage will work with his own son.

He walks over to the bed and sits carefully on the edge. Finding one of Peter’s hands he grabs it and begins running soothing circles on the back of it with his thumb. Slowly, Peter stops thrashing and goes quiet. He seems to wake halfway, enough to acknowledge Matt’s hand and grip it tightly.

He doesn’t wake all the way though, and soon Peter is fast asleep again, facing Matt and not letting go of his hand. He resigns himself to sitting here for the foreseeable future and, truth be told, he’s not even mad about the loss of sleep.

He could sit here forever just drinking in his sleeping son. On the surface, his radar gives him an impression of his blanket-covered form and he’s very aware of the warmth of the small hand he’s holding.

Deeper, he can hear his now-calm heartbeat and slow breaths. The smell of children’s soap and May and Ben’s detergent doesn’t completely cover Peter’s individual scent.

Matt doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting here, lost in his senses, but he becomes distantly aware of his alarm going off in the next room. Reluctantly, he lets go of Peter’s hand and stands up to turn it off.

Peter doesn’t wake, just grumbles a little and hunches deeper into the blankets. He’ll have to wake Peter soon since he’s going to work with Matt, but he’ll let him sleep for now.

******

Peter wakes slowly to the sound of Matt bustling around in the living room. He vaguely remembers having a nightmare and the feeling of a hand holding his.

Knowing that Matt woke up in the middle of the night to calm him down makes a warm feeling grow in his chest.

His sleepy thoughts are interrupted by Matt calling to him softly from the doorway. “Come on Peter, time to get up. There’s eggs and toast in the kitchen then you need to get dressed, we have to leave soon.”

Peter grumbles from under the blankets then throws them off and tiredly half falls out of bed. He hears a little chuckle from Matt at the dramatics and makes a grumpy face he knows Matt can’t see as he walks out of the room to the kitchen.

Matt ruffles his hair and walks ahead of Peter to make him a plate. He wakes up a little watching Matt move around the kitchen. He wasn’t really paying attention yesterday, so this is the first time he’s really seen Matt when he isn’t acting more blind than he is.

The way he moves is a lot more fluid, but some things are still different. Matt runs his hands along cabinets, counting them until he gets to the right one. He sticks the tip of his finger into the cup as he’s pouring a drink.

It’s a little unnerving that Matt never directs his face to anything in particular. He never pretends to look at what he’s doing.

Peter breaks himself out of his observation and goes to sit at the table when Matt sets down a plate and glass. He starts eating sleepily, his body still only half awake, and he vaguely registers Matt telling him when they need to leave.

He’s not completely awake until he’s gone through all the motions of getting dressed and his dad is herding him out of the apartment.

Once they get out onto the street, he grabs Matt’s hand and doesn’t miss the quick smile on his dad’s face when he does.

It’s not a very long walk from Matt’s apartment to his office and before he knows it, they’re in front of the building and Matt is crouching in front of him to address Peter directly.

“Okay Peter, I’m going to give you fair warning, my coworkers can be a bit- enthusiastic. There’s three people up there who are very excited to meet you.

If you don’t want to meet them right now, I can tell them to leave you alone and you can just go to my office. Or, you can meet everyone, and I’ll still tell them to dial back the enthusiasm.”

Peter takes a minute to think about it. One the one hand, meeting three new people right now seems a little scary; but, on the other hand, he’s going to be spending a lot of time in Matt’s office. I can’t avoid them forever.

Peter squares his shoulders and tries to look strong like his dad when he nods and holds up two fingers hoping his dad can sense it and understand that he wants to meet everyone.

“You want to meet them?” Peter nods again. “Alright, let’s go up then.”

With that, Matt stands and grabs Peter’s hand again before opening the door to the building and bringing him inside.

Peter notices Matt pause and take a deep breath in front of the office. Peter notices words on the glass of the door reading Nelson, Murdock, and Page Attorneys and Investigative Services. The pause makes him a little nervous, but Matt gives his hand a reassuring squeeze before opening the door.

They’re just people, Dad’s friends, it’ll be okay. What could go wrong? Dad said he’d keep them from asking a lot of questions. Will they try to hug me? Dad would stop them, right? I don’t want to hug strangers.

His thoughts are cut off when they walk in the office and everyone stops talking. All three of them are standing around the reception desk. Did Dad tell them I was coming or do they always stand around like this in the morning? I don’t really want to meet them all at once.

Peter squishes himself a little closer to Matt’s leg as he starts talking. “Everyone, this is Peter. Peter, this is Foggy, Karen, and Becky.” Pointing to each of them as he says their names.

Peter gives a little wave but he’s suddenly less sure about meeting these people now that he’s faced with them. Matt, of course, senses this somehow and after all of them greet Peter he carefully directs him towards what Peter assumes is Matt’s office.

Once they’re inside with the door closed Matt crouches in front of Peter just like he did outside. “Too much?”

Peter nods and almost falls into his dad’s arms. Matt is quick to wrap him in a hug and run his fingers through his hair reassuringly. “It’s okay Peter. I told you it’d be okay outside and I meant it.”

Comforted for the moment Peter pulls away from the hug. “If it’s alright with you there’s a chair there in the corner by the bookshelves you can sit in.”

Matt pulls the tablet out of his bag and hands it to Peter before standing. “While you get comfortable I’ll go back out and talk to them. Do you want me to bring some tea?”

Peter nods to Matt and goes to sit in the surprisingly comfortable armchair in the corner, relieved that Matt really doesn’t expect him to interact with anyone.

******

Matt lets out a silent sigh as soon as Peter is settled and leaves his office, closing the door behind him. Of course, Karen and Foggy are on him as soon as he gets near Becky’s desk.

Karen’s first comment isn’t the one he expected. “He’s so cute, Matt! He looks just like you.”

That’s news to him. He doesn’t know what Peter looks like except for what Amy told him about his hair and eyes and what Matt knows about his body type from being close to him so much. “Does he?” He inquires, hoping Karen will describe Peter more thoroughly.

Karen is noticeably surprised by the question. “No one told you? Well, his hair is a lot like yours except brown, not red like yours, and I have no idea what color your eyes were before, but his are dark brown.”

Matt, offhandedly, “They were blue.”

Karen stills for a second then continues. “Your faces look very similar though, he’ll have your jaw when he’s older.”

Foggy breaks into the conversation, “Were you that skinny when you were a kid? Because, wow, he is tiny.”

Matt thinks back and remembers that, yes, he had been that thin. All sharp elbows and no substance. He’d always put a lot of it down to how poor they were, but now he supposes that some of it is genetics. The Parkers were definitely more well-off than he and his father had been, but that wasn’t saying much.

He answers simply, without delving into all that. “Yeah, I was a small kid for a long time.”

Foggy huffs out a breath, then jokes, “We’ll just have to put some meat on those bones. Bringing him to see Mama Nelson would do the trick.”

That surprises a short laugh out of Matt. “I’m sure she’d demand weekly dinners.”

Becky pipes up from behind her desk. “How about we let him get used to us, yeah?”

Matt sighs a bit. “He’s been through a lot in the last couple weeks, met a lot of new people, and he can’t talk to you right now without that tablet. He’ll warm up to you, one at a time, three strangers is a bit much all at once.”

Becky, calmly, “Don’t worry about it, Matt, he can take his time. I bet he’ll warm up to me faster than either of you crazies.”

Foggy and Karen make offended noises.

“I won’t rush him.” Matt shrugs, “Besides, he has plenty of time, he’ll be here all week, he decided not to try school until next Monday.”

Foggy disperses the group in the silence that follows. “I’m sure we all have work to do, and like Matt said, Peter will be here all week and we can interrogate Matt later.”

Matt turns gratefully to the kitchen to make Peter’s tea and get some coffee for himself hoping Becky made it instead of Karen or Foggy. Foggy follows him though, and Matt thinks he knows what he wants to ask.

“What have you told him?” Foggy asks calmly, but a little accusingly, still not entirely comfortable with Matt being Daredevil and a father.

Matt sighs. “Just about the senses. I’m taking a couple nights off then I’ll tell Peter. He needs me, but so does Hell’s Kitchen. I have a plan Foggy; I won’t be leaving him alone with no way to contact me.”

Foggy huffs out a breath then says, skeptically, “I’ll take your word for it for now, but I still don’t like it.”

“Noted.” Matt ends the discussion, not wanting to fight, and exits the kitchen.

He goes to his office and smiles a little, listening to his son’s heartbeat and the quiet sound of a show playing on the tablet as he opens the door. He sets Peter’s tea on the table next to the chair and ruffles his hair.

As Matt sits at his desk he focuses on Peter’s heartbeat, blocking out the sounds from outside, and gets to work.

Chapter Text

It was a quiet day at the office, only a couple of client meetings. Most of the day was spent preparing for court the next day. Matt asked Peter if he wanted to come and the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. Peter wanted to see his dad in action, he didn’t know what court was like.

Foggy shooed Matt out of the office in time for him to take Peter home and make dinner. Most of the preparations for the case were taken care of, he and Becky could take care of the rest. Matt’s protests were more for the principle of the thing. He knew he should take Peter home.

******

Truth be told, Peter didn’t mind spending the day in Matt’s office. It certainly wasn’t exciting, but it’s better than sitting at home all day.

The couple of clients Matt had met in his office didn’t seem to mind a kid sitting in the corner, didn’t ask who he was or why he was there. He appreciated that and he suspects Matt did too.

Matt is cooking again, and Peter really wants to ask how he does it, but he’s worried that it’d be rude. Matt, ever watchful, seemingly all knowing, somehow knows Peter wants to ask something.

“Go ahead and ask Peter.”

His original question gets put aside for a moment. “How did you know I had a question”

Matt hums. “Well, you’ve been watching me cook for a while now and you kept moving your hand towards the tablet, but you never started typing.”

Peter is surprised that Matt noticed all that, or even that he was paying attention to Peter at all. He wonders if it’s even possible to hide anything from him, not that he wants to. How much does he really sense all the time? Is he always paying attention? Does that work through walls?

He doesn’t ask any of those things, just circles back to his original question, it’s a lot less complicated. “How do you cook”

Matt considers his answer. “A lot of it is time, knowing how long things take to cook. Some of it is just tasting everything along the way. I can smell if something starts to burn before other people can.”

Matt seems to be done, but he starts speaking again. “I should warn you, when you use things in the kitchen, make sure to put them back where they go. I can tell what things are by smell, but I don’t usually bother.”

Peter makes a mental note of that and thinks the rule probably extends to the rest of the apartment.

Curiosity satisfied, he goes to his room and grabs one of his books, taking it to the couch to read until Matt finishes dinner.

******

Matt is tense all through dinner and he hopes Peter hasn’t noticed. He probably has, but there’s nothing Matt can do about it right now. He wants to wait broach the topic of Daredevil until after they’ve eaten.

He’s still not sure how he’s going to go about saying it. Just saying it directly is the only thing he can think of.

Getting the mask out of the footlocker and showing it to Peter is obviously the most direct and believable way. Not that he thinks Peter wouldn’t believe him, it’s just easier with the evidence in his hands.

Matt realizes he hasn’t moved for a while, stuck in thought, and Peter has definitely noticed. As far as he can tell, Peter is scrutinizing him, trying to figure out the problem. Matt decides to give him a complete non-answer to deflect until they’re finished.

“Finish your food Peter, I’ll tell you after we eat.”

Matt is amused when that immediately causes Peter to shovel food in his mouth, clearing his plate in record time. Food finished, he takes his plate to the sink and sits on the couch, restlessly kicking his feet, obviously telling Matt to go faster.

He’s tempted to go slowly, to delay the inevitable, but there’s not much left on his plate so it doesn’t take long anyways.

With trepidation he puts his plate in the sink and walks over to the closet where he keeps the suit, feeling Peter’s eyes on him the whole way. He unlocks the closet then the footlocker that holds the suit. Peter is trying to peer around him to see what’s in it.

He grabs the mask, setting it in front of him, out of Peter’s view, and puts everything else back, not bothering to lock it for now. He holds the mask close to his chest, still turned away from Peter.

“I’m about to show you something important, Peter. Just- allow me to explain. I’ll answer any questions you have.”

Anxiously, Matt turns and walks towards the couch, stopping in front of Peter when he gets close enough, then holds out the mask.

“I’m Daredevil.”

Chapter Text

Peter is stunned, he has no idea how to react. Distantly, he notices himself reaching for the mask and taking it from Matt’s hands. Mask in hand, he comes back to himself a little and starts looking it over.

There’s a lot more to it than he thought there would be from what he’s seen of grainy photos and security footage on the news. He doesn’t know exactly what he thought it would be before, but it’s definitely a lot more protective.

The hard shell on the outside is made out of something other than plastic, he can’t tell what. The inside actually has a soft black foam lining like a hockey helmet. The eyes are a nearly opaque red plastic.

He goes to put it on, just to see what it’s like, but Matt reaches out a little hesitantly to stop him. “There’s, uh, probably a little blood in there. I sanitize it but I’m sure I don’t get it all.”

Peter panics a little at the mention of his dad bleeding, even with all the protection.

Matt picks up on his elevated heart rate and backtracks a little. “The mask works fine- it’s just that the edges aren’t padded; a good punch can give me a cut.”

This relaxes Peter, knowing that the blood isn’t from anything major. Now that he’s done looking at the mask, he can’t avoid thinking about why he has it in the first place.

My dad is Daredevil. That’s so cool. But won’t he get hurt? He goes out and beats up criminals at night. That’s dangerous, he could die. I know he said he wouldn’t, but will he leave me too? No one else meant to leave me either but they did.

He shakes himself out of the dark direction his thoughts were going. Obviously Matt isn’t going out there completely unprotected. He just has to trust that he’ll do his best to come back alive. Peter can’t ask him to stop, he doesn’t want to for one thing, and the city needs Daredevil.

With that worked out, he lets himself think about just how cool it is that his dad is a superhero. Obviously, he can’t tell anyone, not even Ned whenever he gets to see him again.

That thought almost derails him and he’s about to be distracted when Matt starts speaking again. “Now that we have that out of the way, I need to tell you what’s going to happen while I’m out.”

Oh yeah, he’s going to out at night and I guess I’ll be here alone. What if I need him? What if I have another nightmare? Subconsciously, Peter recognizes that it’s not if he has another nightmare, it’s when.

His thoughts are interrupted by Matt again, “You’re a good kid, I’m going to trust you to be here by yourself. My dad left me home alone all the time when I was about your age. He was always gone for matches and practice. Unlike me, however, you’ll have a way to contact me.”

Matt pulls out a Nokia flip phone that looks nearly indestructible. “This is your emergency phone. It’s a burner, I don’t know if you know what that is, but just don’t use this phone for anything other than calling me, Karen, or Foggy in an emergency.”

Matt hands him the phone. “Those three numbers are the only ones in there. I have a phone like that one that I keep on me when I’m out. If you need me, for any reason, that includes nightmares, call once, let it ring a couple times, hang up, then call again. If I don’t answer, wait five minutes.

If I can’t talk right at that moment I’ll find a time within that five minutes to call you back, even if it’s just to have it ring a couple times and hang up. If I do that and don’t call back within ten minutes, call Foggy or Karen.

If it’s an immediate emergency where you can’t wait for me, just call Foggy or Karen if I don’t answer or can’t talk.”

It’s a lot of instructions to take in, but it’s actually a pretty simple system. Peter understands what Matt means when he says he can’t talk; he’s probably fighting someone.

How does he do that anyways? Who taught him? Daredevil doesn’t fight like a boxer so it couldn’t have been Grandpa Jack. I’m not sure I want to ask. Who teaches a blind kid to fight like a ninja? And why?

“Peter,” he focuses in on Matt again, “do you have any questions about all of that? Do you understand what to do?”

Peter understands the emergency procedures just fine, so he nods.

“Good.” Matt sighs, relaxing a bit. “I won’t go out tonight, you’ve only been here for two days, I won’t leave you so soon. Besides, I have court in the morning and Foggy hates it when Becky has to cover up bruises.

I’ll probably go out tomorrow though, criminals think they can do whatever they want if I’m gone too long.”

This makes a certain amount of sense to Peter. He definitely knows it never looks good when Daredevil is out of the picture for a while. He knows the news always focuses on it when he’s gone for any length of time.

Peter hasn’t seen the news lately, but he wonders if Matt’s been gone long enough for them to notice yet.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s just relax until you have to go to bed.”

Peter agrees wholeheartedly with this idea, and if he’s a little clingier tonight than he was last night neither of them say anything.

Chapter Text

Peter had another nightmare that night, but Matt just came to his bedside and held his hand until he calmed and retuned to peaceful sleep. Neither of them mentioned it in the morning. Matt wasn’t going to say anything unless the nightmares got worse or didn’t stop happening so frequently.

The morning was pretty much the same as the day before too. Peter dragged himself to the kitchen and Matt coaxed him into getting dressed after he’d eaten. The only difference was that Peter had to dress a little nicer since he was accompanying Matt to court.

Once they were out on the street and heading towards the office Matt started giving Peter the rundown for the day. “Okay Peter, we’ll be going by the office for just a little while to pick up some things for court and go over everything one last time, but then we’ll be heading to the courthouse.

“I’m going to warn you, court will probably be really boring to you once the novelty wears off. We’ll probably be there all day. If you get bored and don’t want to stay, Karen said she’d be in the office all day and Becky said she’d take you back if you want.”

Matt senses Peter’s nod and they continue in silence to the office.

He wasn’t kidding when he said the visit to the office would be short, they were only there for about half an hour before they made their way to the courthouse.

******

Peter knows Matt said court would probably be boring but he’s still excited to see his dad in action. He doesn’t really know anything about court or what a lawyer does. He doesn’t even know what the case is about.

They’re at the courthouse now and he’s a little impatient for them to get going. There’s just boring stuff right now. Becky said it was ‘jury selection’ but he doesn’t really know what that means.

Peter still sits calmly and watches the proceedings, he wants to know everything about what his dad does, even if it’s boring. It takes a really long time for the actual trial to start, but when it does Peter can’t look away.

Matt is really intense in court, like channeling some of ruthlessness he uses as Daredevil. He’s efficient, every word meant to tear apart the opposition. When witnesses are called, Foggy doesn’t get up, he just lets Matt handle it.

Peter can see why, Matt doesn’t waste any breath on emotional arguments, he sticks to the facts. He paints a positive picture of the defendant without straying from truth to opinion. He tears apart the prosecution’s blatantly biased interpretation of the evidence.

The prosecutor attempts to regain control by trying to confuse the jury, twisting facts and adding an emotional slant. The number of times Matt and Foggy say “objection” leads Peter to believe that the prosecutor is losing control of the situation.

In the end, the verdict is not guilty. Peter didn’t understand a lot of the technical parts of what was going on, but he understands that that means Matt won the case.

Once they’re out of the courthouse, Peter hugs Matt quickly then turns to Becky and motions with his hands, making the outline of a square, indicating that he wants the tablet.

Becky makes a little ‘oh’ sound when she realizes what he means and gets the tablet out of her bag. Peter struggles a little to hold the tablet and type on it. Matt grabs the sides of it, fumbling a little for the benefit of the people passing by. Now that Peter doesn’t have to hold it it’s much easier to type what he wants to say.

“That was great Matt”

Matt startles a little at the praise. “Did you understand any of what was happening?”

“Kinda I knew when the other lawyer was getting frustrated” “I knew what you were doing when you were asking questions too”

“What do you mean Peter?”

“Just that you were really intense and good at getting answers and pointing out lies”

“Oh, okay. Come on Peter, we need to go the office for a little while then I promise we can go home and have some dinner.”

With that, Peter nodded and grabbed Matt’s hand and they left.

******

When Peter told Matt that he thought he had done well in court he was surprised but pleased. He hadn’t really expected Peter to understand that much of what was happening even though he’s aware of Peter’s intelligence.

The rest of the day seemed to go by quickly, even with all the paperwork they’d had to do back at the office. Before he knew it, he was tucking Peter into bed making sure that Peter knew he was going out and had the phone on the nightstand.

Matt is nervous about leaving Peter alone for the first time. As he suits up, he thinks about the moniker the press gave him, ‘The Man Without Fear’. If only they saw him now, afraid of leaving his son.

However, Matt knows the city needs him and he’s been gone too long already. Foggy told him that the news has picked up on his absence, which means that the criminals have too. He needs to remind them that he hasn’t left.

With that thought in his head he walks out the roof access and crouches on the corner of the roof, listening for signs of danger. It doesn’t take long for him to hear a scream a couple blocks away.

Through the night, Matt responds to calls of distress and checks on the places he knows criminals gather. They’re not smart enough to go anywhere else even though they must know that Daredevil knows their favorite haunts. Not that it would make a difference, he’ll find them no matter what.

Occasionally Daredevil will stray from the outer edges of the Kitchen into the surrounding blocks. He doesn’t do that tonight, instead he responds to calls and then returns to the area around his apartment where he’ll be able to hear Peter.

It’s late when Matt drags himself back through the roof access, tired and bruised. He’s taken off the mask and is starting to get his gloves off when he hears movement behind him.

Peter is standing in the doorway to his room, rubbing at his eyes groggily. Matt curses under his breath, quietly enough that Peter can’t hear him. He turns to face Peter as he continues taking his gloves off.

“Did I wake you Peter?” He whispers, “I thought I was being quiet enough.”

Peter nods and Matt knows that he must have been sleeping lightly to have woken when he came in, aware of just how quiet he was being. It must have been the door that woke him.

Peter, still half asleep, walks towards Matt but he stops Peter before he can get close enough to touch the suit. Matt knows just how dirty it is, flecked with the blood of criminals and the grime of alleys.

“Let me get changed Peter, then I’ll come tuck you in” he says softly. “The suit is dirty; you don’t want to touch it.”

Peter nods slowly and goes to sit on the couch. “Go on back to bed Peter, I’ll be there in a minute.” Matt says, confused at why Peter is staying in the living room.

Peter just shakes his head and stares at Matt. It’s then that he registers Peter’s slightly elevated heartrate. Matt thought he was careful enough to avoid any injuries that Peter could see. He takes a moment to turn his focus inward and catalogue his injuries.

He can feel bruises littering his torso, nothing unusual, nothing that would concern Peter, he didn’t even bruise any ribs. His hands are sore, but his knuckles aren’t split. Then he registers the feeling of dried blood mixed with fresh blood on his face and pain in his eyebrow.

Matt reaches up and touches his eyebrow and finds that it’s split. He doesn’t remember it, but someone must have gotten a good punch in to his face for the mask have cut him like that. He understands Peter’s distress now.

“Ah. That cut probably looks pretty bad, but it’s really small. Head wounds bleed a lot no matter what.” Matt turns back towards his room but has a sudden thought and turns to face Peter again. “Would it help if I brought my first aid kit out here so you can see me fix it up?”

Peter remains still, seeming to think it over. His heartrate had slowed while Matt was talking. Peter makes his decision and nods slowly, unsure, but willing to try it anyways.

“Okay then. I’ll just go get changed and come back out with the first aid kit.”

Matt sits warily next to Peter on the couch when he returns to living room. Matt has a moment of déjà vu when Peter reaches up and softly touches the cut on Matt’s face. The scene is eerily reminiscent of when Matt was Peter’s age, inspecting his dad’s injuries after a match.

Peter’s hand doesn’t linger and Matt opens the first aid kit getting out the alcohol wipes. He cleans the blood from his face and Peter relaxes even more now that Matt looks less gruesome.

“See Peter,” Matt says reassuringly, “it’s just a small cut.”

Peter nods, relaxing into the couch, but continuing to watch Matt as he puts a couple stitches in the cut. He doesn’t take his eyes off Matt even as he cleans up the everything and returns the first aid kit to the bathroom.

“Alright, let’s get you back to bed.” Matt says quietly, urging Peter off the couch with a gentle touch. Peter goes willingly and lets Matt tuck him back under the covers.

“Goodnight Peter.” Matt says, kissing him on the forehead before walking quietly from the room and closing the door.

Back in his room, Matt sighs wearily. He hadn’t expected that and wasn’t prepared for all the emotions that came with it. He feels guilty for waking Peter and for him seeing his father with blood streaming down his face.

He feels strangely happy though. Happy that Peter cares so much about his wellbeing. He feels nostalgic too; he has a strangely positive association with those memories of his father. Of quiet moments in the middle of the night at the kitchen table.

Matt shakes himself out of his reverie and continues preparing for bed, needing to get a few hours of sleep before work. He goes to sleep with a soft smile on his face, listening to Peter’s heartbeat in the next room.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t planned, but Peter waking when Matt returned from patrol became a nightly occurrence. Every night, Matt would go out as Daredevil and every night when he came home, Peter would wake to the sound of the roof access door.

He hadn’t come home with anything more major than a cut on his face that Peter could see. Matt would come home and change while Peter sat on the couch. He made sure to clean his face and hands before he went back out to Peter.

His son would look him over with his perceptive gaze. He caught Matt sitting awkwardly with a cracked rib one time and didn’t want to go back to bed. Matt convinced him and they went through their usual routine of Matt tucking Peter in, kissing him on the forehead, and leaving to continue getting ready for bed.

There was only one time that Matt had had to interrupt his patrol to come home because Peter had a nightmare. Not that the nightmares had gone away, but they usually happened later in the night, after Matt came home.

He’d be more concerned about the nightmares, but it had only been a couple weeks and he knew just how long he kept having nightmares after his father’s death.

******

Sunday came upon them quickly. Peter hadn’t even realized it until Matt asked if he was ready to go to school the next day. Peter had answered with a shrug because he really didn’t know. There are a million and one thoughts racing through his mind about what’ll happen.

Does everyone know? Are they gonna say anything? What’s Ned gonna say about me being gone for two weeks? I don’t even know if he knows why I was gone. Would he have tried to find out? I think his mom and dad have Aunt May’s number, but I don’t know if anyone has her phone or would’ve answered it.

Matt breaks him from his panic with a hand on his shoulder and a small smile. “It’ll be okay, and if it isn’t, I’ll be here.”

Coming from someone else that might have sounded ridiculous. It’ll be okay? Matt doesn’t know that, can’t guarantee anything. But it’s that second part that Peter really believes. Yeah, Matt will be here.

Chapter Text

Peter woke up on Monday morning more nervous than he'd ever been; maybe even more nervous than when he met Matt. He was so unsure of himself. His thoughts race as he gets ready for school.

How am I supposed to explain what had happened if I can’t speak? Will I just end up writing notes all day? Will anyone even understand why I can’t talk? I know some people will bully me; I've seen it happen.

His biggest worry is about Ned. He’s completely abandoned him for two weeks! For all Ned knows Peter could be dead.

As if summoned by Peter’s worried thoughts, Matt appears in the doorway to Peter’s room. “Are you ready Peter? You seem nervous. You don’t have to go back today if you’re not ready.”

Peter just shakes his head and determinedly picks up his backpack. Matt gets the message and turns away from Peter’s room, heading for the kitchen. “I’ve got breakfast ready; you need to eat.”

Peter’s not hungry, but Matt actually cooked breakfast on a weekday and it smells so good that he can’t resist. Breakfast actually makes him feel a little better and gives him time to calm down and organize his thoughts.

It’ll be okay. No matter what happens Matt will be here at the end of the day. That’s what he promised.

******

The school building seems larger than ever. He’s never been this nervous about going to school, not even on the first day. He doesn’t want to let go of Matt’s hand and Matt doesn’t seem to want to let go either.

“Do you want me to walk you to your class?”

On the one hand, Peter thinks it’s silly for his dad to walk him inside, but on the other hand, he knows these are special circumstances. So Peter nods and squeezes Matt’s hand twice because they’re in public and starts walking towards the doors.

Inside, Matt has a realization. “We should probably stop by the office, tell them you’re here.”

Peter gives Matt the affirmative and they go to the office where the secretary takes one look at Peter and gasps. “Oh, Peter I’m so glad you made it back! I’m so sorry for your loss. How are you doing sweetie?”

Matt saves him the trouble and answers for him. “He’s still not talking, like we’d discussed before.”

“Oh, poor thing. Does he have a way to communicate?”

“Yes, he has a tablet with a text to speech program that we’ve been using to talk to each other. Isn’t that right Peter?”

Peter squeezes Matt’s hand twice as affirmation.

The secretary noticed the way Peter answered. “I find it so incredible how you can communicate with each other so well despite everything.”

“Yes, it was a challenge, but we got through it pretty quickly.” No one speaks for a moment. “Well, I’d better see Peter off to class.”

“Yes yes. Have a wonderful day Peter, we’re all glad you’re back with us.”

Peter knows the way to his class, so he gently steers Matt in that direction by their clasped hands. It’s a few minutes before class starts and Peter just stands outside of the closed door, still nervous about being back.

“You’ll be fine Peter.” He hears Matt tell him as if from far away. “Why don’t you go on inside?”

That snaps Peter out of it and he turns and hugs Matt tight. Matt reciprocates and Peter revels in the feeling before letting go and turning to open the door.

As soon as he walks inside all eyes are on him. He feels their stares like a brand, all of them asking silent questions. There’s pity in the teacher’s eyes, she knows what happened. Ned is in the back, in his usual spot next to Peter’s empty desk.

As soon as Ned realizes Peter has walked in he waves happily from the back. Peter can’t tell what Ned knows; he’ll find out soon enough. Peter weaves his way through the desks, head ducked down to avoid the stares.

When he sits down Ned leans over and whispers excitedly to Peter. “Hi Peter! I’ve missed you where have you been?”

Peter holds up a finger to signal Ned to hold on as he reaches into his backpack and pulls out his tablet. After turning the volume almost all the way down, Peter types in an answer he knows is a cop-out, but he doesn’t have time to get into the full story now.

“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you at lunch.”

That gives Peter a couple more hours to figure out how to tell his best friend that his aunt and uncle are dead and that he moved in with his dad.

Before Ned gets the chance to say anything back, the teacher is getting their attention and class starts.

******

Lunch comes too soon for Peter’s liking and now he’s sitting in the cafeteria with Ned in an almost awkward silence.

Ned is the first to break it. “So what’s with the tablet? Why can’t you talk?”

Peter doesn’t really know the answer to that question himself. He just knows that if he tries to speak, nothing comes out. So he shrugs and answers as best as he can. “I’m using the tablet to talk. I don’t know why I can’t.”

“Oh, okay that’s totally okay.”

Peter is extremely glad that his friend let it go that easily.

“Now the big question; where were you?”

Peter decided just to go the direct route and explain as quickly as possible. “My aunt and uncle were killed. I lived with a foster family and then I moved in with my dad.”

Ned looks stunned, mouth gaping. He tries to speak a few times and then finally gets the words out. “Holy crap Peter, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.” There’s a pause and then Ned realizes something. “Hey, I thought your parents were dead. How are you living with your dad?”

That’s an easy question for Peter. “Richard wasn’t my real dad. My real dad is named Matt.”

They go on talking for the rest of lunch, Peter explaining in greater detail what he’s been through the last couple of weeks and before they know it, lunch is over, and they have to go back to class.

Peter thinks their conversation made them closer friends. He’s really glad he has Ned and he wants him to meet Matt as soon as possible. Peter has a real smile on his face for the first time in weeks for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

The rest of the school day went by in a blur for Peter. He’s excited for Matt to pick him up from school so he can meet Ned. As soon as the teacher dismisses them for the day Peter jumps up from his seat and grabs Ned’s arm, dragging him out of the building to wait for Matt by the front steps.

They don’t have to wait long; Peter can see Matt walking towards them with his cane sweeping in front of him. Peter drags Ned over to his dad and taps Matt’s arm to let him know they’re there, at least for appearances sake, Matt knew where Peter was blocks away.

Ned turns to Peter and asks, “Is this Matt?”

Peter nods in response. Now that Ned has announced his presence Matt says, “Yes, are you Ned? Peter’s mentioned you a lot.”

Ned, a little uncomfortable around someone he’s never met before, says awkwardly “Uh, really?”

Peter, saving Ned from more awkward conversation, takes Matt’s hand and starts spelling into his palm. Hang out. Phone number. Parents.

Matt, realizing what Peter wants says, “Oh yeah of course, Peter. Good idea.” Then, to Ned, “Do you know your parent’s phone number so we can set up a time for you and Peter to catch up?”

Ned brightens at a question that he can actually answer and the suggestion that he can hang out with Peter outside of school. “Yeah!” He falters a little, “Should I write it down or…” trailing off.

“Yes, that would probably be easier for you.” says Matt. “Peter can read it to me later.”

Ned scrambles excitedly to grab some paper and a pencil from his backpack. He hands the hastily written number to Peter just before spotting his mom further down the sidewalk.

“Oh, my mom is here. Bye Peter!”

Peter waves goodbye to him and turns back to Matt, taking his hand so they can walk home.

As they walk Matt asks Peter about his day. “Did you have a good day at school Peter?”

Peter squeezes Matt’s hand twice.

“That’s good. I was worried that you’d have trouble.” A moment of silence. “Was there any trouble?”

Peter hesitates then squeezes Matt’s hand once.

“I guess you’ll have to tell me more specifically when we get home.”

The rest of the walk home is spent in peaceful silence.

******

As soon as the door to the apartment closes, Matt asks, “So what was the trouble at school?”

Peter opens his mouth a few times like he wants to say something, but his voice won’t work, and he just heaves a frustrated sigh before getting the tablet out of his backpack.

Matt waits patiently for Peter to answer him and Peter is struck, once again, by how lucky he is. He’s always so nice to me. I can’t believe he puts up with me when it’s so hard to talk to each other. I didn’t want to talk before, and I still don’t really want to, but I want to be able to talk to my dad.

This hadn’t really been a problem before he went back to school. Robin and Marcella hadn’t been bothered by his silence and Matt is so patient. Everyone but Ned hadn’t been as patient or understanding. Even then, Ned still had a hard time with it, he wasn’t used to waiting so long for his friend to reply.

The other kids mostly ignored him, he hadn’t been very popular before his extended absence and wasn’t any more popular because of it. All they did was stare at him every time he walked into a room, but Peter kept his head down and no one tried to ask where he’d been.

He guesses not all of the teachers got the memo about him not talking or they just ignored it. There was one notable incident where one of the teachers had asked him about what happened and had begun to get annoyed when, instead of answering, he opened his backpack to get out his tablet.

Before it could turn into a real incident one of the other teachers walked up and whispered to the teacher who proceeded to look embarrassed before apologizing and quickly walking away.

Matt has already been waiting long enough for Peter to reply and he doesn’t want to type out everything about the students and the incident and the pitying looks anyways. In the back of his mind he also doesn’t think Matt wants to hear about it all either. In the end he settles for, Frustrated. Can’t talk. Stares. Pity.

******

Matt started to get concerned when more and more time passed without Peter typing anything. When he hears what Peter finally writes, he’s almost relieved. This is something he understands; he was only a little older than Peter when he’d had to go back to school after the accident.

Despite this, he doesn’t really have anything he can say to Peter other than, ‘it gets better’ because it does. Not all at once, and maybe not quickly, but it does. That’s not exactly helpful to Peter right now though.

There’s not really any particular way to be helpful in this situation. He’ll just have to be supportive and encourage Peter to actually tell him about his frustrations. Matt doesn’t want Peter to end up like he did, angry and isolated.

Peter does already have a head start with Ned though, he seems like a good friend. If they weren’t so young Matt would just let Peter talk to his friend about what’s going on, but he doesn’t think Ned can really provide the support Peter needs. Honestly, Matt thinks that Ned would have to be one saint of an eight-year-old to be able to sit still while his friend types out long conversations.

Matt isn’t going to let Peter get away with saying just those five words about his entire day. He doesn’t want Peter to think that he doesn’t care enough to sit down with him and talk, no matter how long it takes. Matt thinks he knows a good way to give Peter enough time to say what he wants.

“Why don’t you type out everything that happened, and I’ll get started on dinner.”

******

Peter is shocked, quite honestly. He hadn’t expected Matt to actually want to hear anything more specific than that. Although he knows he shouldn’t really be surprised at this point considering that Matt has let him ask all the questions he want since the moment he moved in. Matt’s answered every single question Peter has ever asked so why can’t he do the same?

With that in mind, Peter starts the long process of typing out everything that happened from the moment Matt dropped him off at his class.

Chapter Text

The rest of the school week went by quickly for Peter. The staring didn’t die down. Somehow, everyone learned that Peter couldn’t talk, and he became even more of an oddity. After all, who goes missing from school for a month then comes back mute?

People still didn’t try to talk to him though, they almost shied away from him even. Peter didn’t mind, he didn’t want to have to go to the trouble of explaining everything over and over. A task made more difficult by having to write or type everything he wants to say.

His conversation with his dad made him feel better about the whole situation. Matt’s words had been comforting and Peter knows the only friend he needs is Ned. He’s so excited to spend the weekend with him after spending so much time away.

He is a little worried about Matt and not being there to see him come home from going out as Daredevil, but there isn’t anything he can do about it unless he just never wants to spend the night at Ned’s ever again. Dad was Daredevil before I came to live with him. It’s not like I can stop him from getting injured either. He’ll be okay for one night if I’m not there when he comes back. Right?

******

Wrong. Peter was so, so wrong. When he comes home on Sunday Matt doesn’t answer the door. His heart rate picks up and his thoughts race. He could just be taking a nap, right? But no, Dad has super hearing, he always hears me wake up in the middle of the night when he’s sleeping.

So, palms beginning to sweat, Peter gets up on his tip toes and grabs the spare key from where it’s taped to the hall light. “Dad?” he calls as he comes inside, not even noticing himself speak.

Peter hears some shuffling and a quiet groan coming from the direction of the couch. He hurries over, relieved to know that Matt is at least in the apartment and alive. He is less relieved when he sees Matt, who has a nasty black eye and what looks like white bandages wrapped around his chest, peeking out from the collar of his shirt.

“Dad!” Peter exclaims, noticing himself speak this time, but too preoccupied to care. He falls to his knees next to the couch, legs feeling numb. He reaches a trembling hand towards Matt but stops short. Peter doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how badly Matt is actually hurt and doesn’t want to make anything worse accidentally.

He’s frozen between touching Matt and not wanting to hurt him and is snapped out of it by Matt’s hoarse whisper, “Peter is that you?”

He’s not sure if Matt is asking because he actually can’t tell if it’s Peter or if he’s just confirming Peter’s presence. Either way Peter nods and gently grabs Matt’s hand from where it’s sort of dangling, wrist on the edge of the cushion, placing it in his hair. Matt has spent so much time running his hands through Peter’s hair that it makes it as good a way as any to confirm that he’s there and that he is who Matt thinks he is.

Matt relaxes visibly from the tense position Peter hadn’t noticed he’d been in and starts running his fingers almost absently through Peter’s hair, the motion soothing both of them. “What time is it?” Matt asks, voice quiet and raspy, “I didn’t mean to fall asleep for very long.”

Peter doesn’t actually know. He dropped his bag with the tablet by the door and the only clock that’s actually been programmed is in Matt’s room. He looks around a little helplessly until he spots Matt’s phone on the coffee table.

Peter thanks whatever deity there is that Matt’s phone has the accessibility features turned on so he can just unlock the phone and tap the time. “6:35” The sudden electronic voice from the phone startles Matt and he flinches back.

Matt groans as he sits up and says, “I didn’t realize it was that late.” There’s a pause and Matt’s brow creases. “Um, Peter- did you speak earlier, when you came in?”

It hadn’t been Peter’s focus at the time, but now that he thinks back on it, he remembers that he did actually speak. He hasn’t spoken in so long that his shout had been more of a hoarse croak, but he had spoken.

Peter opens his mouth and closes it again, a little afraid to try to speak now, a little afraid of the disappointment if he can’t. What do I really have to lose at this point? Before, I didn’t want to speak, couldn’t speak. Now I have so many things I want to tell Matt and ask him about. I’ve been getting so frustrated at school. What do I even say? Guess I could just answer dad’s question.

Peter opens his mouth again and actually says, “Yeah, I think so” in a harsh whisper.

It takes each of them a second to process, but when they do, they both grin widely. Well, Matt’s is more of a grimace, but the emotion is there. Peter’s expression sobers quickly though, remembering his fear for Matt that led them to this.

So, availing himself of his regained speech, Peter asks, “What happened to you Dad?”

Matt grimaces, relaxing into the couch. “Nothing you need to worry about Peter. I’ll be okay in a couple days.”

Peter doesn’t really believe him, but he’s willing to let it go for the moment. He trusts Matt to not be hiding anything major or deadly. He’s also distracted by suddenly regaining the ability to speak. Does this mean I’ll be able to speak all the time? What’s gonna happen if I go to school and I’m suddenly able to speak again? People are going to think I was faking it.

Peter’s breathing is getting faster and shallower. He can feel his heart racing. He can still see Matt and the living room, but it feels far away, like he’s not really there. His vision is getting fuzzy at the edges, he feels like he’s choking. His body is shaking even though Peter can’t really feel his limbs. What’s happening? Am I dying? Why can’t I move? Why does everything feel so far away? I’m choking, I can’t breathe. Make it stop. Make it stop.

******

The first thing Matt notices is Peter’s heart rate spiking. Then he hears his breathing change and instantly Matt knows Peter’s having a panic attack. Matt has to hold back a groan of pain as he moves himself off of the couch and onto the floor in front of Peter. He’s not sure if Peter can even tell that he’s there, he hasn’t moved at all, head fixed in the same position, body still but trembling.

Matt isn’t really sure of how to pull someone out of a panic attack, but he figures that if he can at least get Peter to focus on him and stop hyperventilating that’ll be a good start. “Peter. Peter. Hey, I’m here. Dad’s here. Can you look at me?” Matt says calmly, hoping that Peter will focus on not only the words, but the tone as well.

He continues speaking calmly to Peter and eventually Peter seems to be able to hear him, turning his face towards Matt. “That’s good Peter, just focus on my voice. I’m going to count, and I want you to breathe with me, can you do that?”

Despite getting no response, Matt continues, “I’m gonna count to 10 and I want you to breathe with me, inhale then exhale.” Matt counts forwards and backwards to 10, trying to give Peter some kind of rhythm to focus on. It seems to be working, Peter’s breaths are getting longer and less shallow.

Matt doesn’t know how long they’ve been doing this, but it feels like an eternity before Peter’s breathing finally evens out and he falls forward onto Matt, gripping onto him like a lifeline and sobbing. Matt doesn’t like to hear Peter crying, ever, but he knows that this is infinitely better than the panic from before.

All Matt can do is hold Peter tight, head turned sideways so that his cheek rests on top of Peter’s head. One of Matt’s hands is brushing through the hair at the back of Peter’s head. The other is resting on Peter’s back, pressing Peter into his chest as he sways back and forth, rocking them both on the floor.

They stay that way until Peter’s sobs die down to sniffles and, eventually, quiet breathing, Peter having exhausted himself to sleep. Matt gingerly picks Peter up, completely disregarding his own injuries, so that he can take Peter to bed.

Instead of putting Peter in his own room he lays him gently in Matt’s own bed, suspecting that Peter won’t want to be alone when he wakes up. Matt, exhausted himself, climbs into the bed after tucking Peter in. Soon he falls asleep as well, albeit with his senses trained on Peter, ready to wake at any sign of distress.

Chapter Text

Somehow the next morning was pretty normal, neither one of them mentioned the night before, either because they didn’t want to revisit the incident or because they didn’t know what to say. The only acknowledgement that anything happened is that Peter hesitantly asks if he can stay home from school.

Matt, of course, lets him, calling the school to make sure they’re aware Peter won’t be coming in, and calling the office to tell everyone he’ll be working from home. Matt barely gets any work done, but by the afternoon, Peter and Matt are grinning at the TV and everything seems to be okay.

Peter goes back to school the next day and finds that he still can’t speak in public with so many people around. Well, progress is progress, right? The only person I want to talk to here is Ned anyways.

Ned is of course extremely understanding of the whole thing and they even find that Peter can speak when they’re alone in Ned’s room. They’ll take all the little victories they can get.

Weeks go by like they had before the incident. It wasn’t perfect, Peter kept having panic attacks, so Matt found him a therapist and he made more progress. At their first session his therapist immediately told him that what he was experiencing is called selective mutism.

It’s good to have a name for it. Makes me feel less strange, less alone. Now maybe I can get better.

******

One Saturday morning, while Matt is making breakfast, Peter walks out of his room and asks him about the boxing gloves on the wall.

Matt doesn’t even need to use his senses to know what he’s referring to. He had hung his dad’s old gloves there as a reminder of him, like hanging up a picture.

“Those were my dad’s. I told you that Grandpa Jack was a boxer, right?” He answers quietly, remembering exactly which fight those gloves were used in.

Peter turns towards the gloves and holds his hand out like he wants to touch them but pulls his hand back at the last second like they’ll break if he does.

“You can pick them up if you want.” Matt says hesitantly, like even he isn’t sure about it.

He feels Peter bring his hand up again and then put it back down at his side, shaking his head slowly. “I can tell how much they mean to you,” he says, “it’s okay if I just look.”

Matt barely keeps himself from sighing in relief. He knows it’s irrational, they’re not made of glass, they were made for hitting people, but he still can’t let go of the idea that something will go wrong and mess up one of the last pieces of his dad he has left.

******

Peter can almost feel the tension leave his dad when he decides against touching the gloves, the barely noticeable slump of his shoulders. He knows they’re special now and he’ll be careful around them. He doesn’t exactly know what happened to Grandpa Jack, just that he died when Matt was young, but he doesn’t feel like it’s right to ask.

The gloves do give him an idea though. “Hey dad, would you teach me how to box?”

Matt seems a bit startled by the question if the little flinch is any indication. “Why do you want me to teach you? Not that I wouldn’t of course, I’m just curious.”

Peter has to think about it for a second, he needs to put the right words together. Why do I want to learn to box? I know part of it is because dad and grandpa did. I guess it’ll make me feel closer to them.

Now confident in his answer Peter says, “I guess because you and grandpa box and I feel like it’ll make me feel closer to the family, if that makes any sense.” He trails off towards the end, suddenly less confident now that he’s said it out loud.

******

Matt turns towards him, eyebrows raised and eyes blinking in surprise. That wasn’t the answer he expected. He’d thought it would be something more along the lines of thinking that it was cool or something similar, not that he thought of it as some kind of tradition special to the family.

It almost makes him tear up a little with happiness. Boxing had never been associated with good things in his family despite all the ways it made Matt feel closer to his dad.

His answer is immediate, not letting Peter doubt his decision to ask or his reason for wanting to learn. “Of course I’ll teach you Peter. I’ll take you to the gym my dad used to go to. He taught me to box there.” He sucks in a quiet breath before adding the next part softly, “I’m so glad you want to learn. I was always so close to my dad at the gym, even after I lost my sight.”

******

Peter didn’t expect that answer. He wasn’t expecting his dad to feel the same way about it as he does. It makes him happy though, to know that he’ll be going to a place that’s so special to his dad.

He definitely isn’t expecting Matt’s next question. “Do you want to go today? It’s a Saturday, we have plenty of time to go in the evening when it’s cleared out. They let me in after close.”

Peter was not expecting to be able to go so soon, but he’s so glad that he doesn’t have to wait more than the rest of today in restless anticipation. Of course he says yes and that’s the end of it. They eat breakfast quietly and go through their Saturday peacefully, doing whatever separate, activities they’d each had planned before Peter brought anything up.

After a similarly quiet dinner, they both get dressed in gym clothes and Matt grabs his bag off the floor as they leave. Peter is buzzing with energy as they walk down the streets towards the gym. He’s sure that Matt can feel his excitement in the air seeing as he’s practically vibrating and almost skipping instead of walking while holding Matt’s hand.

They get to the gym and it looks closed. Peter looks to his dad, confused, but then he sees Matt flip through his keys before unlocking the door. Why does he have a key? I know he said he was let in after close, but I didn’t think this was what he meant. Obviously he and his dad have been going here for a long time, but I don’t think any of the other long-time regulars would be allowed to have a key to the place.

The question bothers him enough that he decides to ask. “Hey dad, why do you have a key to the gym?”

Matt pauses before answering. “I don’t really like working out in a space with a lot of people and it definitely looks odd if the blind guy always knows where everything is. Playing up the blind act while I’m working out is counterproductive.”

That makes sense. He wouldn’t actually be able to work out properly if he had to constantly worry about looking like a normal blind person all the time. I bet people watch him too, even if he didn’t mention that.

Matt walks on in without turning on the light. Peter wouldn’t mind except that it’s a bit too dark to be in an unfamiliar space doing unfamiliar things in such low lighting. “Um, dad, where’s the light switch?” He asks hesitantly.

Matt pauses, realizing the issue, before opening his mouth and closing it again. Then he says, sheepishly, “I don’t actually know, I’ve never had to use it.” He thinks for a second, messing with the strap of his bag. “I think there’s a switch by the door. Fogwell always pauses there before leaving.”

Peter makes his way to the wall by the door and sees a light switch that he flips. It doesn’t turn on all of lights, but it turns on enough that Peter is satisfied.

Their time at the gym is peaceful. There’s a soft feeling in the air that cuts through Peter’s excitement without dulling it at all. Matt teaches him to wrap his hands slowly and patiently, doing it for him and then keeping his hands near while Peter does it himself so he can feel the movements better.

They stand in an open area and Matt teaches him the proper stance, correcting him with gentle touches here and there, making him go from standing normally to a boxer’s stance over and over until he can get it right.

Peter loves seeing the soft smile on his dad’s face as he’s teaching him, wondering what’s going through his mind. He doesn’t think about it long though, wanting to put all his focus into what his dad is telling him.

He’s excited again when Matt tells him he’s finally ready to learn to punch. He starts with a jab and his first one is sloppy. It gets better though, as Matt patiently corrects how he’s holding his hand, his wrist, his elbow, the way his body moves as his fist flies through the air.

Even though it’s only the simplest things Peter thinks it’s exhilarating. The grin never leaves his face the entire time they’re there. It’s late when Matt finally decides his punch is good. Peter’s sad when Matt says they need to home, but he’s still grinning as he unwraps his hands. I can’t wait to come back.

Chapter Text

Every Saturday evening after the first one, Matt and Peter would go back to Fogwell’s and practice. They never missed a single Saturday. Even if they barely had the time, they’d find an hour to go the gym no matter what. They never expected how important it would be to them.

One Saturday Matt got caught up at the office and didn’t get back until it was already dark, way past their usual time and very close to Peter’s bedtime, but it had felt so wrong to not go that they just went anyways and Peter got to stay up late. By the time they got home it was almost midnight and both of them were exhausted. Matt even had to carry Peter up the stairs, but it was worth it when they both felt the itchy restlessness leave and be replaced by the satisfied feeling of spending time together and hitting something.

******

Months went by in much the same way. Peter went to school; Matt went to work and then out on patrol. Saturday evenings were always reserved for boxing. Peter continued to wake up whenever Matt got home; sometimes helping him tend to his injuries, sometimes not. Matt wasn’t entirely honest every time, of course, Peter worries enough as it is.

Peter’s ability to speak remained the same too; only ever speaking at home with Matt. Matt always smiles softly every time he hears Peter call him ‘Dad’. They ended up taking sign language classes for communicating with each other in public after Peter found out about tactile sign.

Before they knew it, it had been a year since Peter came to live with Matt. They marked the day with celebration and melancholy in equal measures. They were so happy that they found each other, but incredibly saddened by the fact that so many died for it to happen.

******

Peter was very serious about his therapy so that his frustration about not being able to speak wasn’t too overwhelming. One day when Peter was at Ned’s house, he called out a casual “Hey Ned” and they both stood completely still in surprise before cheering and hugging each other tightly.

I can talk to Ned now this is so great! Oh my gosh I can tell him all the stuff I was way too lazy to type out on the tablet. I can’t believe how much Ned was carrying our conversations! It’s kind of impressive now that I think about it.

Peter shook himself out of his thoughts and immediately bombarded Ned with an entire rambling retelling of everything Matt had been teaching him at the gym. They had to take a break in the middle for drinks since Peter used his voice so rarely, nut that hardly stopped him from continuing his one-sided conversation that turned into him talking about anything and everything he’d wanted to say for the last year. Ned could hardly get a word in edgewise, but he didn’t mind, just glad that he could finally hear his excitable friend’s voice after so long.

By the time Peter went home he’d calmed down from his talking high. That didn’t stop him from skipping down the sidewalk on the way home or bursting through the door to the apartment with a loud “Dad! Guess what!”

******

Matt was unbelievably happy when Peter told him about being able to talk to Ned. He realized that this was probably the most excited he’d seen Peter in the last year outside of the first time they went boxing together.

He was hopeful that this would be the beginning of the next stage of his recovery. Matt wasn’t bothered at all by Peter not speaking all the time, but he knew that it frustrated Peter to no end that he couldn’t communicate well with everyone.

Matt was, of course, extremely familiar with ableism in its many forms and didn’t want Peter to have to deal with biased people making his life harder. Granted, Peter was surprisingly perceptive for an eight-year old and Matt noticed him silently seething next to him in public when people treated Matt poorly because of his blindness.

He couldn’t decide if he was anticipating or dreading the day Peter would be able to speak in public. He was sure that Peter would put the fear of god into anyone and everyone who even looked sideways at Matt. He’d definitely have to put a stop to that pretty quickly or Peter would end up angry and frustrated everywhere they went.

******

Another year went by and Peter made more progress in speaking. Of course, that progress was that Peter was able to speak in public when strong emotions were involved. He likened it to finding enough energy to hop over an invisible fence in his mind. This happened most often in the way that Matt dreaded; Peter had a lot of strong words for ableist people.

He did listen to Matt and take his advice to learn to limit his anger and frustration to times he felt were truly important. There was a learning curve to figuring out this concept, as with all things, but Peter got the hang of figuring out what was worth getting verbally angry about fairly quickly.

The nightmares lessened, as did the panic attacks, and some of Matt’s worries lessened with them. Peter came out of his shell even more after he started talking to Ned again and Matt learned quickly just how excitable and passionate Peter was about everything he cared about.

The boxing lessons brought out an athletic side to Peter that he hadn’t explored before. The first thing he asked to try, oddly enough, or maybe not oddly at all, was gymnastics. They soon learned that Peter was very good at it too. Matt hated it a little bit when he couldn’t really cheer Peter on at competitions since he was playing the usual part of a blind man and shouldn’t have been able to ‘see’ what was happening, but he was proud all the same.

When Peter came home from his first day of sixth grade he rambled on and on about this girl named MJ and how “she’s so cool, Dad” and “she pretends to not like us but I know that’s a lie because she sat with me and Ned at lunch and talked to us too”.

News about the mysterious MJ came home from school with Peter quite a bit, making Matt wonder if he would ever get to meet her or if she would just stay in his mind as a collection of random facts and stories.

The one time Matt asked about it Peter just blushed and scratched the back of his head with an “I don’t know Dad, I haven’t even actually talked to her for real yet”. He wasn’t really sure what that had to do with hanging out after school, but he just gave it a mental shrug and put off asking again for another time.

Around the third anniversary of Peter coming to live with him, Matt wondered where all the time had gone. He was honestly also amazed at how little they’d missed boxing on Saturdays over that time. Matt felt a special kind of happiness about that fact, knowing that Peter could surely be doing other things with his friends during that time.

Neither of them knew it, but the reality was that Ned learned to not ask Peter to do anything on Saturday evenings and extended this knowledge to MJ when she became their friend.

None of them knew what awaited them Peter’s freshman year of high school. If they had, Matt might have prepared Peter a little more.

Chapter Text

Peter can barely contain his excitement the morning of the field trip. In lieu of bouncing up and down, he’s practically walking on his toes all the way to school until he sits down at his desk.

“Dude you are practically vibrating. It’s just a field trip.” Ned says chuckling as he speaks.

“No no no but Ned it’s not just a field trip, it’s the field trip. We’re going to a genetics lab that’s uncharted territory for us.” Peter says, signing wildly as he talks, leaning over towards Ned.

“But I don’t know anything about genetics man. I do computer science. You’re the one who insists on learning every science out there.” Ned groans slumping in his seat.

MJ walks over to them, eyebrow raised, “Oh jeez loser. How much of Matt’s coffee did you steal this morning?”

Peter looks up at her blinking rapidly, offended. “Okay first of all, you know it’s impossible to steal coffee from him. Second of all, I’m not that hyped up, I’m just excited.”

MJ scoffs. “Hate to break it to you, but you are that hyped. I think this is the most freely I’ve ever heard you talk in public.”

Peter slouches down, suddenly very aware of his surroundings.

MJ dramatically tilts her head back, rolling her eyes. “Aw man I didn’t mean to kill your whole vibe. I’m freaking happy that you’re letting loose a little.”

Their conversation is interrupted by their teacher telling everyone to sit down so that he can take roll before they get on the bus.

Peter’s excitement returns in increments as they travel to the lab and before long, he’s back to fidgeting in his seat and talking fast about everything they’re going to see. Ned understands absolutely none of it, but he nods along so that he doesn’t make the same mistake as MJ. Both Ned and MJ have watched Peter make huge strides with talking in public and they never want to do anything that messes with his progress. They hate when he goes all quiet and tense, glancing furtively at everyone around him.

MJ sits across the aisle from them on the bus and breathes out a sigh of relief as she watches him open up again. She felt really bad for making him uncomfortable. She acts all tough and mean, but she really does care about her friend.

******

Peter was beyond excited for this field trip. He knows that neither of his friends care about any of this or really what he’s saying, but they’re not telling him to shut up, so he ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him that he’s being annoying and keeps going on about all of this advanced science that they can’t understand because it’s way above their grade level. If he bothered to think about it enough, he’d wonder why they’re going to a lab like this so early in the year when they’ve barely even started biology. This is college-level science after all, definitely not something they’d cover freshman year.

Peter’s sure that he’s the only one in their grade who actually understands any of what’s in the lab just because he likes to study advanced science in his spare time. He spent the week before the trip studying anything and everything relevant to genetics and the publicly advertised experiments so that he can really make the most of it. He’d been so focused that Matt had to dig him out of his books to eat and sleep.

When they arrive, Peter turns to the window of the bus and plasters his hands on the glass, nose almost touching, staring excitedly at his first glance of the lab. Ned tugs on the back of his shirt to tell him to come on when everyone starts filing out of the bus. When Peter realizes what they were doing, he starts practically shoving Ned out of the bus in front of him. MJ, behind them, thinks this is absolutely ridiculous and kind of cute.  Ned is not as amused and jabs his elbow back at Peter, attempting to tell him to back off.

Outside the bus, they stand grouped by class, Peter taking up position in the back with Ned and MJ. He can’t stay still, rocking back and forth on his heels and fidgeting his hands, fingerspelling words from his thoughts. Soon enough they’re led inside the lab. Peter really hadn’t known what to expect, but he’s mildly disappointed by the dumbed-down science museum-type display room they’re led to. He still walks through curiously, reading every sign, and absorbing every detail of every model. There’s an intern acting as a tour guide who Peter keeps half an ear on while he’s looking at everything.

He immediately perks up again and looks towards their guide when he announces that they’ll be getting a quick walk-through of the real labs. The excessive motion that disappeared when he saw the first room comes back with the announcement. He’s fingerspelling again and MJ tries to figure out what he’s saying, but his hand is at his side and it’s moving so fast that she misses a lot of letters. She does gather that a lot of it is complicated scientific terms that she wouldn’t have understood anyways.

Peter’s eyes dart all over the room as they’re led through the lab area. He tries to figure out what the experiments are at a few of the stations but doesn’t have much luck. He’d love to see if their guide would give him some information, but he knows he won’t be able to make his voice work.

A loud alarm interrupts his thoughts, startling him into complete stillness.

“CONTAINMENT BREACH. ALL NON-LAB PERSONNEL FOLLOW YOUR ESCORT TO THE NEAREST EXIT. LAB PERSONNEL INITIATE EMERGENCY PROTOCOL.”

Peter’s heart starts racing with the announcement. What could a containment breach mean. I guess obviously something got out, but what and where? Why is their first reaction to get everyone who doesn’t work at the lab out? Whatever it is could get out with us if it’s in the right area.

Peter ends up being dragged along with the group by the back of his shirt collar like an unruly kitten. When they’re finally standing outside, Peter feels a pinch on his hand and looks down, almost instantly smacking and killing the spider that he assumes just bit him. It was small and black, not very dangerous looking, so he just decides to deal with it at home. MJ saw him slap his hand and raises an eyebrow towards him. He just shrugs in return and says “bug”. Which is enough of an answer for MJ who merely turns back to the front of the group where their teachers are talking to the tour guide.

Peter’s teacher claps his hands loudly once before announcing, “The tour will be ending early due to unforeseen circumstances, everyone get back to your assigned bus.”

Peter’s lips turn down a little as he shoves his hands in his pockets and practically drags his feet towards the bus. They had only seen half of the lab!

Ned moves to Peter’s side and says, “Man that’s such a bummer. I’m gonna guess we missed half of the stuff that you thought was good and we have to go back to school early. I hope that doesn’t mean we actually have to do the remaining classes.”

Somehow Peter manages to sign roughly, “My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.”

He hears MJ snort behind him and turns to her to sign sharply, “Yeah yeah yeah laugh it up,” punctuating his sarcastic remark with short jazz hands before turning around and returning his hands to his pockets.

MJ catches up to walk next to Peter, “Okay okay, I guess I underestimated how much this trip meant to you.” Then under her breath she grumbles, “Psh. I really should have known with how fucking peppy he was earlier.”

Ned and MJ try to draw Peter into their conversation on the bus going back to school and in the classroom, where they’re given ‘study hall’ for the rest of the day, but he barely answers; signing yes or no to direct questions or just not looking at them at all, hands sitting on the desk, fingers entwined as a signal that he doesn’t want to communicate, even through sign.

That doesn’t stop Ned and MJ from looking over at him periodically during their conversation and they both peek over just in time to see Peter’s eyes roll back in his head as he slumps sideways out of his chair onto the floor.

Chapter Text

To say Matt was scared would be the understatement of the century. Hearing that sickly-sweet sympathetic voice on the phone telling him that his son had collapsed at school sent shivers down his spine, cold dread overriding his senses. He’s lucky that he’s alone in the office. Matt has no idea what expression he’s making right now, but he knows it isn’t good. He probably looks scared out of his mind and he’s sure it would only send Karen and Foggy into a panic.

They aren’t there though, so no one is watching as Matt takes a deep, steadying breath. He straightens his shoulders as he leaves the office. The white-knuckle grip on his cane is surely noticeable. Every sweep and tap are stiff and the sound grates on his nerves. He’s relying on it more than usual too; his senses dampened by fear. His own heartbeat rushing in his ears drowns out the sounds of the city around him. The walk to the hospital is a blur, Matt is glad that he has these streets memorized so well, that his body can lead him where he needs to go while his brain is turned off.

He walks into the hospital, shaking himself into focus enough to find where the reception desk is. He’s halfway there before he remembers that he should not be able to tell so he stops where he is and holds his cane upright with both hands on the grip, hoping to be noticed quickly. Thankfully he doesn’t have to call out for any assistance, that always annoys him.

A person who could be a nurse approaches from his left and says, “Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”

Matt exhales a shaky breath and replies, “My son was just brought here from school, I’m here to see him.”

The person gives a little hum of understanding and says, “Well, sir, my name is Clara, and I would be happy to get you checked in and direct you to your son’s room.”

Matt’s shoulders loosen a little from their stiff position as he replies softly, “That would be very helpful, thank you.”

He raises his hand a little in front of him and Clara guides his hand to their elbow. They’ve obviously been very well trained for working with the visually impaired and he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to fight for accessibility when he’s already so strung out on emotion.

After they’ve finally gotten through all of the technical aspects of checking in, he’s led to the floor where he’s been told Peter is. A frown replaces his carefully neutral expression as they get closer to where he’s been told Peter’s room is. They stop at a door and the nurse says softly, “This is his room Mr. Murdock. Would you like me to stay with you after we go in? I’ll show you where the chair is by the bed. Peter isn’t awake yet, but the doctor will be here shortly to explain your son’s condition.”

Matt has to work to keep his expression from showing any of his confusion at what he can perceive of the room through the door. He manages to reply to the nurse, “No, I’ll be alright to wait by myself, thank you.”

“Alright Mr. Murdock.” The nurse says with the same quiet sympathy as before as she opens the door and guides Matt to the chair. “The doctor will be here soon. I’ll make sure to notify him of your need for accommodations during any part of his explanation.”

Matt just nods absently, a part of him grateful that the doctor won’t be surprised by his blindness. That part is drowned out by the other part of him that needs to know just what the hell is going on with his son. Matt’s been able to recognize Peter in every situation, even blocks apart from each other, since they first met when he was eight years old, but today, in this hospital room, Matt almost can't recognize him at all. It’s like someone took everything about his son and shifted it a foot to the left. It feels like him, but it doesn’t. He can’t quite catalogue all of the differences, but his heart sounds different and he can tell from how close he’s sitting that Peter’s skin is cool.

He reaches a shaking hand out to lightly brush a hand over still-familiar features. He runs the same hand through Peter’s hair and down his arm to grab his hand. Any relief he felt from verifying his son’s face is jerked back into confusion and a new level of concern, beyond even what he’d been feeling before, because the skin on the palm of Peter’s hand is different. Matt brings the hand that had been loosely holding his cane up quickly to join his other hand in running the tips of his fingers over this skin that feels so out of place. He doesn’t even register the clatter his cane makes as it hits the floor. All of his attention right now is focused on trying to figure out why the palm of Peter’s hand feels like the skin of a peach with a slightly sticky quality to it.

He’s so caught up in this that he doesn’t notice the doctor until the door opens and she’s entering the room. Matt forgets himself in his surprise and turns to face the doctor before she’s announced herself. The doctor doesn’t seem to register this as odd so Matt assumes he’s in the clear.

The doctor doesn’t wait long to introduce herself. “Hello Mr. Murdock, My name is Dr. Amna Zaman, and I am Peter’s primary physician.”

At first Matt’s response is delayed because what he thinks is her hair confuses him, but he realizes quickly that she must be wearing a hijab. A bit frustrated that his mind is enough to be distracted by such a small detail he makes an effort to actually focus on what she’s saying and responds, “Doctor could you please tell me what happened to my son? Why is he still unconscious?”

Matt hears the rustle of paper and determines that she is likely looking at Peter’s chart. She hums, apparently dissatisfied by what she’s looking at. “To be honest Mr. Murdock, we’re not sure. Peter’s test results are all out of normal ranges and keep changing each time we run the labs. It would be better if we had some baseline tests to compare this to, but it doesn’t look like he’s had any bloodwork done before.” There’s more paper rustling and Dr. Zaman sighs through her nose. “Were you aware of any health problems Peter might have had before, Mr. Murdock? Even any mild complaints or recurring illnesses that might not have warranted a doctor’s visit?”

Matt thinks back, but he can’t remember anything and is nearly certain that the changes he can perceive wouldn’t be caused by a simple illness. Matt suddenly remembers that the field trip was to a genetics lab. He forgives himself for the forgetfulness given the circumstances, but he does wonder why the doctor hasn’t mentioned it and wonders if anyone told her any specifics. He speaks up about this new line of questioning. “They were at a field trip today to a genetics lab. Did they say anything about that? Did anything happen?”

Matt can’t quite discern her expression, but the doctor seems to perk up a little and blink rapidly before saying tentatively, “No, they didn’t mention that. It seems I’ll have to contact the school.” As she’s turning to leave, she seems to remember her manners and looks back towards him. “Will you be okay waiting here Mr. Murdock? Do you need anything? If something happens the nurse call button is on the bed near your hand.”

Matt merely shakes his head and turns back in his chair to face Peter. Dr. Zaman takes this answer for what it is. No, he isn’t okay, but he doesn’t need anything either. The rest of the world seems to fade deep into the background after he hears the door click shut until all he can hear is his heartbeat and the changed sound of Peter’s.

Chapter Text

Getting out of the hospital had been an experience for all involved. Especially considering the fact that Peter was still pretty out of it and wasn’t much help convincing the doctors that, no, Matt is not an irresponsible parent, signing his child out of the hospital so early with such odd test results. They had, after much concern on the part of the doctors and a lot of confusing lawyer speak by Matt, conceded that since Peter was in no immediate danger it might be good for him psychologically to be released to recover at home.

They may or may not have been told to make follow-up appointments with several doctors about the, frankly ridiculous, amount of radiation permeating Peter’s entire body. Matt may or may not have completely ignored this advice just like his father did so many years ago. They were told that Peter wasn’t in danger of giving anyone radiation poisoning and that was good enough for him. Unless Peter starts coughing up blood or doing something else majorly concerning Matt is willing to take the chance to avoid the scrutiny of too-curious doctors and their scrutiny.

******

To say Peter was confused would be the understatement of the century. He vaguely remembers passing out in class, but everything after that comes to him in small pieces that only partly put together a picture of the last 24 hours or so.

He remembers waking up in the hospital and feeling his dad’s hand in his hair, a comforting enough gesture that he didn’t take in anything else about where he was or what was going on before surrendering to unconsciousness once more.

The next time he woke up is clearer and the massive disorientation he felt with all of the new sensations bombarding him hasn’t gotten any better. He was very confused when he opened his eyes and could see perfectly clearly. He even brought his hands up to his face to check if someone had left his glasses on, but there was nothing there. It also seemed like he could hear everything he didn’t know air could be so loud. There was an odd static noise that he pinpointed as his head rubbing against the pillow. He honestly didn’t want to examine what on earth that could mean so he focused on the other, worse feeling of massive anxiety.

There was a feeling in the base of his skull telling him to move, that he isn’t safe where he is. It whispered wordlessly “they’re gonna find out, they’ll never let you leave.” He had absolutely no idea what that meant, but it was impossible to ignore and scaring the living daylights out of him. He was peripherally aware of the heart monitor beeping faster than it probably should and a voice that could only be his dad telling him he’s safe, but he was completely frozen. It was all too overwhelming to deal with, so he just stopped. He was probably freaking his dad out, but he couldn’t make himself do anything to fix it, not with the panic running through his body.

He knows that he checked out completely somewhere between his dad moving away to talk to someone else and being loaded into a taxi. He checked out again for an undetermined amount of time before coming back to himself in his bed at home.

The room is completely dark, or he assumes it is even though he can see perfectly fine. The light is too low for it to be anything else. His dad’s noise-canceling headphones are over his ears too and, even though he can still hear in an odd way, it’s a major improvement over what it was before. The biggest thing he notices though is that the overwhelming panic is gone. He’s so relieved that he lets out all the breath in his lungs and feels himself go completely boneless against the mattress.

Matt must’ve heard this because he immediately pokes his head through the cracked open door and asks softly, “Peter? Can you hear me?”

******

Peter doesn’t really know what’s happening, the only thing he can process is that someone is calling his name. Nothing makes sense to him at the moment. Up is down, left is right, and a whisper at the doorway sounds like a scream in his ear. Of course he can hear his dad calling to him, he can hear the neighbors down the hall, but that doesn’t mean he can respond.

The world is too many things happening at the same time, but all of it is flowing like molasses. All Peter can do right now is lay where he is and try to sift through all of the sensory information he’s being given. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet, so he can check the imperfect blackness behind his eyelids off the list.

The next thing is everything he can hear. The entire floor of their building is so loud and suddenly Peter is violently aware that this is only a piece of what Matt can hear every day and has a lot more respect for his ability to not go completely insane.

Continuing through the list, Peter can feel the odd scratchy-but-not texture of his sheets and the difference between the air where the vent is pointing and where it isn’t. The scent of the ai itself is shockingly not too different, it just smells like his room, but that will probably change once he leaves a familiar space, or someone opens a window.

Taste is probably the last sense on anyone’s mind when they aren’t eating or drinking, but Peter has done too many grounding exercises to not both realize that that’s what he’s doing and understand that he can taste the air without being able to identify what the hell he’s tasting.

Nothing makes sense right now, everything is too much, the grounding exercise isn’t working (never mind the fact that he isn’t doing it properly.) He feels like everything is half a step away from everything else, but he still hears his dad calling to him, and all of it together seems real enough that he can’t be dreaming.

Okay, five things he can see, he can do that, if he only drags his eyelids open. He can see the ceiling, easy. He can see the cobwebs in the corner that he hadn’t noticed before. Turning his head, he can see his bookshelf, progress. On his bookshelf, he can see what expects, especially the book with the teal spine. What he doesn’t expect is to actually see the dust on the shelf in front of the books.

Moving on, four things. He can feel his sheets. They feel different, scratchy-but-not in a way that he can’t identify. He can feel his clothes, somehow more uncomfortable than they ever have been. Sweats and a t-shirt, he’s not even sure what he’d been wearing before. The difference between bare feet and blanket feels important. He really feels where air conditioning and stale apartment air meets as if it’s somehow present when it wasn’t previously.

There’re too many things to hear, picking three feels impossible, but that’s the point of the exercise. He hears his dad, all of him, the part that’s calling his name, the breath in his lungs, the heart in his chest. He feels that as one thing, though, lest he be lost. He also hears the shuffling sounds of his neighbor to the right, not trying hard to discern what is actually happening. The third thing he hears is less of a thing and more of an amalgamation of things. The city noise that he wrote off when he could still ignore it.

The two things he can smell are the first that come to mind. His gym clothes in the corner and whatever the fuck his room smells like. Unwashed teenager, the odd collection of scents people accumulate no matter what they do.

The only thing he can taste is his own mouth, who knows when he last drank anything. He doesn’t know what happened beyond knowing that he fainted outside of a lab and that he was at a hospital at some point in time. He has enough presence of mind to realize that he’s at his dad’s apartment and that’s about it.

******

Matt would be more concerned about his son’s state if he couldn’t just perceive his running through the five stages of the sensory grounding exercise. At least he thinks that’s what happened. All Matt really knows is that Peter woke up when called, followed the sound of his voice, did several things characteristic of the grounding exercise, then fell right back into some formless sleep.

There really isn’t much to be done until Peter truly wakes, unless Matt wishes to traumatize him through premature exposure to everything the world has to offer. So, no matter how much it hurts, Matt lets his son sleep.

Chapter Text

Waking up was like swimming through a sandstorm. Peter was tired before he even opened his eyes. No matter how bad the exhaustion was though, it was infinitely better than being overwhelmed by everything.   

He notices a few distinct differences between now and the last time he woke up. Without opening his eyes, he knows he’s wearing his dad’s fancy hearing protection that has active noise-cancelling. The next most obvious thing is that he can’t see anything except the barest outline of light where his window should be. Peter is definitely going to thank his dad for somehow completely blocking his window without also making it so dark that he would freak out about not being able to see when he opened his eyes.  

His sheets are the same and so are his clothes but changing those things while he was asleep would be too much to ask for. It’s not so bad now anyhow since he isn’t fighting all his senses at the same time anymore.  

Peter decides that he’s feeling good enough to sit up and move to the edge of the bed. He doesn’t feel weak, necessarily, but for some reason the idea of putting his feet on the floor and standing up is the most daunting task he’s faced all week.  

Come on Peter! What’s the problem? Just hop down off the bed and walk out there so you can reassure your dad that you are not, in fact, dying because, holy fuck, he’s probably scared to death. Wait, back it up, how did I get out of the hospital like this? What doctor in their right mind would release me while I was mostly unconscious?  

His thoughts stayed in this pattern for a while, circling around and around his brain. Peter doesn’t know how long he sits like that, but eventually he’s able to interrupt his own circular thoughts in a way that sounds suspiciously like MJ. If you really want to know so bad, why don’t you go out there and ask Matt, genius?   

He’s moving before he can think about it too much, but he doesn’t get very far. Just a moment ago he was staring at his feet hanging off the edge of the bed and now he’s standing, staring at where his feet are actually rooted to the spot. Trying to pick his foot up off the carpet feels like trying to pull on industrial strength velcro.  

I wonder if my feet are gonna mess up the rug like velcro too? That thought gives him the idea to pick his foot up slowly, starting with the heel. He’s tense, ready for a ripping sound that doesn’t come. Well, that didn’t go as bad as I thought it might, but wait, why did that work? You don’t pull your feet straight up when off the floor all at once when you’re walking.  

After thinking about it for a bit, the only reason Peter can come up with is that he was consciously intending to move his foot that time instead of just walking. Theory in mind, he intentionally walks himself out of his room to face his dad and the inevitable sensory explosion of the world outside his room.  

******  

Peter had been asleep so long that Matt was starting to regret taking him out of the hospital, possible too-curious minds or no. Just as he’s considering calling the paramedics, he hears movement in Peter’s room. He breathes out a sigh of relief and tries to follow the sounds to figure out what’s happening, but all he hears is the rustling of bedsheets then the creaking of the mattress.  

The pause between the mattress creaking and feet hitting the floor is almost concerning enough for Matt to go back in Peter’s room and check on him. The sound of velcro is the next thing he hears and it’s confusing enough that he almost stops listening. He didn’t hear Peter move a bag or anything else that might have velcro, so where is that sound coming from?  

He gets an idea when he hears the sound again in a pattern that gives him the impression of footsteps. Matt turns his head unnecessarily towards Peter’s door as it opens so it seems like he’s looking from where he’s sitting on the couch.  

“Dad?” Peter asks. “How long was I asleep?”  

Matt actually has to think about that one. He honestly doesn’t know, he lost track somewhere while he was carefully monitoring Peter’s vitals in an almost meditative state.  

Matt reaches out and unlocks his phone then taps the clock. “ Three-oh-four pm March seventh .”  

The answer startles Matt a bit. It’s been a whole day since he brought Peter home from the hospital and a full eight hours since he last woke up.  

“Well Peter”, Matt says, “Looks like you got home from the hospital yesterday afternoon.”  

“Looks like?” Peter asks, a little hesitantly.  

Matt turns his head away from Peter as he answers. “I honestly lost track of time.”  

“Oh.” Peter says and they lapse into silence.  

Matt decides to break the awkwardness by walking over to Peter and wrapping him in the firmest hug he dares to give. Eventually he pulls back, hands on Peter’s shoulders, and asks the question that’s been plaguing him since he heard Peter get out of bed. “So, Peter, why do your footsteps sound like velcro?”  

“Um.” Peter says, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t say anything else, just shrugs and signs “ I don’t know. ”  

Matt works hard not to show an outward reaction to the sudden lapse into sign. It’s really not that weird and should probably be expected after everything that’s happened the last couple of days.  

Matt has a theory that the cause of the velcro sound is related to the way Peter’s hands felt at the hospital. Matt slides his hands down Peter’s arms to his hands and holds them palm up. Running his thumbs across the odd new fuzzy texture of Peter’s palms he asks, “Do your feet feel like this now?”  

Peter flinches back a little and then lowers his head before answering sheepishly, “Um, I didn’t actually check. Didn’t notice whatever that is with my hands either.”  

Matt chuckles a little then says, “Why don’t you lift up your foot and check for me.”  

******  

Peter has no idea what he was expecting his dad’s reaction to be, but a long hug followed by questioning what his footsteps sound like isn’t quite it. He should have seen the part about the footsteps coming though because it does sound exceptionally weird. Peter had no idea that the palms of his hands were fuzzy until Matt started rubbing his thumbs across them.  

He decided to try to ignore how freaked out he was by all of this and instead peeled his foot off the floor and rubbed his fingers across the bottom of them. They had that same odd, fuzzy texture and that got his brain going down the rabbit hole again.  

So, if my palms are fuzzy and the soles of my feet are fuzzy, why aren’t my hands sticking to everything like my feet? Maybe they work differently from my feet? Maybe they’re the other way around?  

With that thought, Peter rubs his hand on his sweatpants and wills them to stick. He only realizes that this is a bad idea when he goes to peel his hand up and hears the ripping sound. He winces and looks down at the new fuzzy spot on his sweatpants.  

At least these are really old. I can’t believe that actually worked. I wonder if I can climb walls now! Sounds really complicated though, having to tell my hands to stick but my feet to let go. But the possibilities!  

Peter gets lost in his head for a little while and only realizes that he never answered Matt when he hears a quick “Peter!”  

He shakes his head to focus and answers. “Yeah, my feet are the same, but dad did you see what I did with my hands? They can stick to stuff now too! I wonder what materials it works on or if it takes more concentration to stick to different things or what wearing shoes is gonna be like now.”  

He’s interrupted with a soft “focus Peter”.  

“Oh, right, my bad.” Peter says.  

Matt chuckles a little then asks, “How are you feeling? It seemed like everything was too much for you before.”  

Peter realizes that Matt is right at the same time he realizes that he’s still wearing the headphones. The conversation and all the other sounds seemed like they were at a normal volume, so he didn’t even notice. He’s almost scared to take them off now.  

Looking outside the window reveals to him that the billboard that was already bright is too much now and he turns away quickly. He hadn’t noticed that none of the lights were on earlier, but now he does even if that’s not exactly unusual, Matt never turns the lights on himself even with Peter around.  

The careful “nothing” smell of their apartment is the same and he’s grateful for that. At least one sense is still the same. He’s trying not to focus on touch because there’s just way too many things happening there for him to process.  

“So, I hope you’re not too attached to these headphones because you’re never getting them back.” Peter says with a little chuckle that doesn’t entirely hide his discomfort.  

Thankfully Matt just goes with it and says, “They’re all yours, kid.” The silence after the statement is heavy though, like Matt is trying to make a decision. In the end he just shakes his head and asks, “Are you hungry? You should be, how about we make a late lunch?”  

Peter has no clue what Matt decided not to say, but he puts it out of his mind for now, his stomach is being very loud now that Matt said something about food, and answers, “Sure dad! I’m starving!”  

Neither one of them says anything more about the changes to Peter’s body. Peter’s just glad whatever that was didn’t kill him and he’s pretty sure that’s what Matt’s thinking too.  

Chapter Text

Peter was absolutely not panicking. What was there to panic about? His feet are just sticking to the insides of his socks, nothing weird about that. Nothing weird about the way he’s turned up the music playing in his headphones loud enough that he can finally no longer hear their downstairs neighbor doing some things he’d really rather not think about.

How does Matt put up with this?

Speaking of Matt, Peter looks at the clock and sees that it’s late (or early) enough for Matt to be dragging himself back in through the window any minute now. Maybe Peter’s overabundance of anxiety would be better served by focusing on the way Matt actually does physically drag himself gracelessly over the windowsill most mornings.

He’s never actually hurt that bad though, right? Right, yeah, he’s just tired all the time. He totally doesn’t lie to me about his injuries. Keep telling yourself that Peter.

Peter hasn’t slept at all, and he thanks everything that Matt is letting him decide when he’s ready to go back to school. It won’t be anytime soon if he can’t figure out how to block everything out long enough to sleep.

He could’ve just asked Matt before he left, but he was so busy trying to ignore everything happening around him that he didn’t think to ask him about how to ignore everything happening around him. They didn’t talk about anything during dinner or after and before he knew it Matt was putting on the Daredevil suit and climbing out the window with a thousand more reminders than usual about how he can “Call me anytime, I’m serious Peter, I don’t care how busy you think I might be, you just got out of the hospital. Do you understand Peter? Even if you just think something is weird.”

Peter was a little worried that Matt wasn’t acknowledging what they both knew was happening, but that last part and the general overabundance of concern was an acknowledgment of sorts. Matt was at least telling him in a roundabout way that he knew something was up and didn’t really want Peter to just brush it off.

With that in mind, Peter has decided that if Matt looks like he’s going to work in the morning he’ll keep his questions to himself until Matt returns, but if Matt stays home Peter has a very long list of questions to ask. He doesn’t think Matt will have the answers to most of them, but he just needs to get them out there.

That’s as hard as he’s thought about all of this since before dinner. Peter has been doing his best to ignore anything and everything that reminds him of the changes to his body so that he doesn’t start freaking out while Matt isn’t home. He doesn’t want to keep Matt from going out either, people need his help and Peter feels like freaking out, and keeping Daredevil off the streets is much too selfish. There are probably a lot of people who would take issue with that thought, but they’re not in his brain to hear it are they?

His general freaking out is rudely interrupted by Peter hearing Matt stumble-crawl his way up the fire escape. He usually can’t hear Matt until he’s at least on the landing outside of their window, but he figures he can now with his newly enhanced hearing. That part is kind of nice he figures since he won’t be surprised by the window opening in the middle of the night anymore.

Really tuning in to the racket Matt is making gives him another headache from the city noise he was doing his best to ignore, but he tries harder to tune it out, using this like practice for the rest of his life. Matt honestly doesn’t sound too great today. Peter hears “shit” and “fuck” every two steps. From how uneven Matt’s gait sounds Peter begins to wonder if Matt has done something to one of his legs tonight. He isn’t able to figure out what it is just from listening, but Matt is already starting to push the window open, so Peter won’t have to wait long to ask him.

Peter walks over to the window and opens it the rest of the way, deciding to help Matt out today instead of pretending it’s every other night and he hasn’t heard Matt coming from a mile away.

As Peter’s helping him in the window, he hears Matt say quietly, “What? Peter, how did you already know I was coming in?”

“Kinda have the extra special hearing now too, in case you forgot,” Peter replies.

Matt grimaces then says sheepishly, “Ah, yeah, it had slipped my mind. Sorry kid. I’m definitely feeling the fights tonight.”

Matt admitting that something is wrong means that whatever is wrong with Matt’s leg is pretty serious.

Maybe I should address it right away. What’s the point in pretending I couldn’t hear him? We’re going to have to get used to this being the new way of life sometime.

Peter goes for it and says, “You mean whatever you did to your leg? And before you ask, I heard you stumbling and cursing your way up the fire escape.”

Matt hums, not looking so happy about part of that announcement, probably several parts of it actually. “That’s going to take some getting used to.” Matt sighs then continues, “You’re right about the leg; twisted my knee and definitely sprained my ankle. I can’t hear the bones so it must not be broken.”

Peter is really glad his hearing is not that good, he’d be constantly grossed out if he could hear bones and organs sloshing around in people’s bodies. He decides that’s pretty funny and wonders if using the word ‘sloshing’ will gross out Matt. “Dad, does hearing people’s organs slosh around ever gross you out?” Peter says with the stupid grin of a teenager who thinks his joke is the best thing ever.

Matt’s grimace from pain turns into a grimace of disgust which Peter is unreasonably proud of.

“Peter” Matt says sucking a breath through his teeth. “Why in the world did you have to say it like that? I won’t be able to stop thinking about that for days and I have no choice but to hear people’s organs sloshing around.”

The absolutely disgusted way Matt says those last two words makes Peter’s smug grin even bigger.

“Stop grinning like an idiot Peter or I’ll tell you exactly what your organs sound like,” Matt says pretending to be harsh but not quite hitting the mark.

Peter’s grin instantly disappears, though it takes a bit of effort. He really does not want to know what that sounds like.

“On that note,” Matt says, “does that mean you can’t hear that for yourself?”

“Nope,” Peter replies, “my hearing is still not that good.”

Matt smiles a little, as much as he can through the pain, and replies, “Good, good, that should make it easier for you to tune out the background noise. I remember when I first woke up with my senses going wild and I could barely hear my dad talking to me even though he was right next to me and the loudest thing in the room because of all the heartbeats around me in the hospital.”

Peter grimaces. “That sounds awful, and I thought what I’m hearing was bad.”

“Oh, it is.” Matt acknowledges. “I bet you haven’t even noticed that both of have been whispering this whole time. You thought we were talking at a normal volume didn’t you?”

Peter is startled by that statement, but then he realizes that he hasn’t been getting a headache from talking to Matt like he has from a lot of conversations recently. “I guess I haven’t been paying attention. It sounded normal to me.”

“That’s the thing you're going to have to get used to the most.” Matt says seriously,” It’s not the tuning out the background noise that’s going to be the worst part, it’s going to be getting used to your voice being incredibly loud to you at a normal volume. We’ll need to work on that so that you can relearn how loud you’re speaking.”

“That doesn’t sound very fun.” Peter says with a little bit of the whine every teenager does at the idea of something they don’t want to do.”

“I know, I know. An incredible burden for you, what will you ever do?” Matt teases.

Peter grins at that, feeling more normal than he has since he woke up. He’s starting to think that maybe it’ll work out. Feeling more confident he asks, “Can you stay home from work tomorrow to help me?”

The light smile doesn’t leave Matt’s face and he says, “Sure kid, I’m not planning on leaving you alone in this.”