Chapter Text
Cleo Murdock wasn’t an idiot.
The second rumours began floating around Hell’s Kitchen about some man in a black mask running around and beating up criminals in the dark of the night, the girl’s thoughts were immediately on her father. Sure, Matt Murdock was blind, but his uncanny ability to hear and smell things that he had no business detecting made a strong case for his being said man in the mask. That, and his ninja fighting abilities and his deeply ingrained martyr complex.
Cleo Murdock wasn’t an idiot, but Matt really, really wished she were. Maybe if she were, she wouldn’t be tending to her bleeding father on their living room floor, brow furrowed as she calmly stitched the wound on his chest.
“We could always patch me up on the couch.” Matt suggested weakly, at which his daughter scoffed.
“Oh, so you can stain the cushions red? Hard pass.” He heard the girl blow out a slow breath, and felt a slight breeze flow past him as she sat back on her heels. “All done. Who was it this time, anyway? Pick pocket? Or was it a kid running a lemonade stand without a permit?”
Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. Matt sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “That’s not what I do and you know it.”
“I know.” She responded quietly, carefully putting everything back into the first aid kit. Matt’s heart ached at the bitterness in her voice. Cleo understood that what he did was important, that the whole reason he did this was to keep her and others like her safe. The innocent. It was also why he had taught her to fight. But, that didn’t change the fact that her father risked his life every night, and returned to their apartment at odd hours looking like he had been run over by a bus. Or several.
Matt heard Cleo push herself to her feet, and did the same, settling himself on the couch. The sound of glass clinking and water rushing from the sink was apparent as the girl got her father a glass of water. When she wandered back to the living room and handed him a glass, she plopped herself down next to him.
For a few moments, they sat in comfortable silence, Cleo lying back on the couch with her feet resting against Matt’s leg. Then, she spoke. “MJ invited me to have a sleepover at her house.”
Matt raised an eyebrow. “That sounds fun. When is it?”
Cleo snorted. “Right now.”
At that, Matt frowned. “Why didn’t you go?”
“Do you really need to ask that?”
For the second time that night, Matt found himself sighing. “Tonight’s evidence to the contrary, you don’t need to be here every night to patch me up.”
“Maybe not every night, but I can never predict which nights I will need to be here, so it’s safer to stay in.” Cleo paused. “Besides, I kind of lied to MJ about why I can’t have sleepovers anymore.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you won’t let me because you think it’s a sin.”
Matt couldn’t help but chuckle. “God, now your friends are all going to think I’m an insane Catholic.”
“You being insane and a Catholic are mutually exclusive, actually. But desperate times, desperate measures.” Cleo hummed thoughtfully. “Besides, everyone already knows you’re crazy.”
Matt dipped his fingers into his water glass and flicked the drops at the teen, causing her to laugh and kick him lightly in protest.
“Speaking of crazy, did you hear that the Parkers are moving out?” Cleo asked.
Matt tilted his head to the side slightly. “No, but that doesn’t surprise me.”
Cleo shifted in her spot on the couch, moving to lie on her side. “No, but it still sucks. Peter’s always been a good friend to have around. Good neighbour. I mean, it makes sense that he and May wouldn’t want to stay here with everything that happened with his Uncle.”
“Yeah…” Matt patted her leg reassuringly. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“Me too.” Again, Cleo moved next to him, presumably to secure a throw pillow underneath her head. “Who am I going to walk to the bus stop with now?”
“More importantly, who’s going to protect you from the bullies at the bus stop?” Matt joked.
“Oh, please.” Even though he couldn’t see her, he knew that Cleo was giving him the eye roll of the century. “More like who’s going to protect him. That little ray of sunshine couldn’t challenge a spider to a fight.”
“Now all I can picture is Peter fighting off bullies dressed in a spider costume.”
“Now that is something I would pay to see.”
“I would pay to see anything.”
“Sweet Jesus, one more blind joke and I’m taking my little rucksack and running away.”
Matt smiled widely and began to think of a retort, but Cleo’s breathing had already begun to slow. Though he hadn’t checked the time, he would wager that it was very late in the night, even nearing dawn. Taking care not to disturb her, Matt carefully scooped his daughter into his arms, at which she mumbled something along the lines of “mmmm gonna sleep through school”.
“It’s Friday, so I sure hope not.” Matt replied softly, though he knew she had already drifted off. Taking care not to bump her head against the doorframe, Matt gently entered his child’s room and slowly lowered her onto her bed. He lingered for a moment, listening to his daughter’s steady heartbeat. Truth be told, if he could pay to see anything, it would be Cleo. To see whether or not they looked alike, or if she had inherited the majority of her looks from Elektra. He suspected it was the latter, though Foggy insisted they had an uncanny likeness.
Matt could only hope that the likeness ended at their looks, and that she wouldn’t grow up to be a crime-fighting vigilante. Not that he knew at the time, but one day, he would understand that he was incredibly wrong.
————
Matt could barely remember what life was like before Cleo. Well, it wasn’t so much that he couldn’t remember it, but that he didn’t want to. His daughter brought things into his life that he hadn’t had enough of in so long—stability, love, family. He could do without the tantrums, and all the messiness that went on between him and Elektra, yet he wouldn’t trade any of it.
When Elektra had first discovered she was pregnant, she had disappeared without a trace. It was only a full year later when she appeared on his doorstep with an infant sleeping peacefully in a baby carrier that he learned of the child’s existence.
While Matt had had a myriad of feelings coursing through his veins in that moment—panic, anger, joy—Elektra had seemed unfazed. She had merely given him a once over and announced that the baby was, in fact, Matt’s daughter that she had named Cleo Natchios Murdock.
“I—Elektra, this—what?!” Matt had sputtered, his brain short circuiting at the information he was being forced to process. To be fair, he had just been studying for an exam, and all that he could intelligibly explain were legal terms.
Elektra had sighed, shifting her weight from side to side. “Look. I thought that I could do this on my own, but I can’t. We can discuss custody through my lawyers. I have… she’s not safe with me.” At that, Matt detected a hint of sorrow in her voice, and could have sworn tears were forming in her eyes. “For now, I need you to watch her.”
“You’re not making any goddamn sense, Elektra!” Matt had snapped, then winced when he realized he had just sworn in front of a baby—his baby.
“You can do a DNA test if you want, but I have other matters to attend to.” Elektra shoved something into his arms, which he could only assume was a bag of the baby’s things. He could hear the sound of the carrier being gently placed on the floor. “The stuffed elephant is her favourite. If she gets fussy, play jazz or classical music for her. I don’t know why it works, but it does.”
Still struggling to make sense of the situation, Matt had nearly missed the words that Elektra had whispered to the child. “I love you, my sweet girl. But you’ll be safe here. Mummy will be back soon.”
She had dropped a kiss on the baby’s forehead, and as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone.
Mechanically, Matt had gone through the motions. He slowly picked up the carrier and wandered into his dorm room, gently setting it on the floor in front of his bed. He slung the bag Elektra had handed him off his shoulder and onto his bed, before sitting himself down on it in shock. Matt had sat there, dumbfounded, the only sound he could process being the baby’s heartbeat. His kid’s heartbeat. Baby Cleo.
Lost in his reverie, Matt did not hear Foggy approach their dorm from the hallway, and flinched as his roommate burst in.
“Matt, you will not believe what just happened to—” Foggy paused, and Matt didn’t need to use his abilities to know that his friend was staring at the baby. “Did you steal a fucking baby?”
———
Having fallen fast asleep, Matt didn’t notice the figure peering into his apartment from a roof across the way.
The figure in question was a woman. She hadn’t seen her child in years. It wasn’t for lack of trying, or lack of interest for that matter. The woman knew that wherever she went, danger followed, and that that same danger would follow her child. She had already come close to losing her daughter once, and would never make that same mistake again.
But despite what the man who raised her would tell her, she knew better than to believe that having attachments was impossible. After all, the child’s father had friends, and had raised his daughter into a beautiful young woman.
If this war ended, if she could end it, then perhaps she could get her daughter back. Maybe even her daughter’s father. As the woman stood on the edge of the building, peering through the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’s window, she couldn’t help but feel a spark of hope take shape in her heart.
She could have it all. She was Elektra fucking Natchios, and she damn well would.