Archive of Our Own ^beta

When she’s in New York City, Jen has to dress the part of a high-paid lawyer: High heels, silk shirts, and tweed suits. Even her hair screams, ‘I must work for the one percent in some capacity!’ Her regular LA wardrobe would clash with the monochromatic fashion sensibilities of her East Coast clientele. She has exactly four work outfits to pack when she flies to New York, and the outfit she’s wearing is her favorite. She knows Matt can’t exactly see it in the traditional sense, but it makes her legs and butt look great. She looks classy but attractive. She thinks he’ll get the picture. Besides, all the material is high quality. She hopes Matt likes the textures in contrast to her skin.

 Once she finishes work for the day, Jen goes straight from her client’s Upper East Side residence to the nearest hipster bodega to buy dinner ingredients. She doesn’t want to waste time going back to her hotel after work. With traffic, it would add over an hour of commute. This time around, she also hasn’t bothered to pack a change of clothes in her satchel. Where she’s going, she doesn’t see a pressing need for more clothes.

Jen hails a cab and endures the smell of artificial melon-scented air freshener, loud music in a foreign language, and the increasingly impassioned conversation the driver conducts on her handset. They make record time across the city. Impressed, she tips the cab driver, then grabs her grocery bags. She exits the car carefully, mindful of her heels. She doesn’t want to snag the floorboard carpet. When she’s Jen, she tries to be mindful of other people’s property since she utterly fails at it as She-Hulk.

When she finally exits the cab, she struts down the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in her top-dollar lawyer uniform. She looks a bit silly, but she doesn’t care. A passing biker watches her walk by, gives her a whistle and yells, “Look at those legs! Ass ain’t bad either, baby!” Jen rolls her eyes and gives him the finger. It shatters any dainty rich-girl image she conveys rather beautifully. She grins at the angry shout of, “Bitch!” that follows her down the street. The knowledge that she can Hulk out and toss that man in the air like badly-behaved pizza dough floods her body with endorphins. Jen suspects it isn’t just the biker’s anger that would be impotent in She-Hulk’s presence.

She’s ready to ditch her heels by the time she makes it to Matt’s building. The cab dropped her off less than a block away, but she’s been in these shoes since early morning. A girl’s arches can only take so much. She takes the stairs two at a time, slinging the heavy grocery bags to the crook of her elbow. The thin plastic rubs roughly against her skin. Jen expects Matt to appreciate the all the work she’s put in to orchestrate her sexy arrival to his apartment. The fancy clothes and heels are one trial on her patience. The trip to the bodega was another. After a long day of wrangling expectant clients, her brain had taken much longer to locate the meats, cheeses, and crackers needed to make a decent charcuterie board. A decent wine bottle selection had taken even longer.
               Now, she knocks briskly on Matt’s door. The wood rattles more than usual under her fist. Jen tries the doorknob and finds it unlocked. That’s suspicious; Matt never leaves his door unlocked. She drops the grocery bags at the doorway and eases the door open. She grips one heel in her right hand, its thin stiletto pointed outwards. “Matt,” she calls, cautiously, as she lets herself into the apartment, “I’m here. Are you ok—AHHH!” The end of her sentence disappears in a startled scream.

The plaid throw from Matt’s couch lies on the floor, soaked in blood. A large black duffle bag is next to the throw, also spotted with blood. There are a series of guns laid neatly beside the bag, in descending order of size. A bloodied bulletproof vest hangs crookedly off one of Matt’s dining room chairs. More importantly, there’s a stranger folded awkwardly into that chair. He looks up from suturing his own stab wound and jerks his head in a curt nod. “Hey,” he says, through gritted teeth, “you mind grabbing the vodka? It’s in that cabinet to the right.”

“WHAT THE HELL!” Jen draws back her arm and hurls the heel at the apartment intruder.

The man dodges the shoe. “Hell of an arm you got there. You must be Red’s new girl. You got the badass lawyer look.”

“WHAT. THE. HELL?”

“Shh, easy,” the man says, as if Jen is a spooked cat. “Stop screaming.”

“DON’T YOU SHUSH ME, WEIRDO! WHO ARE YOU!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!? WHERE’S MATT?!”

“If you keep screaming like that, the whole building’s gonna turn up at the door,” the man says. “Or the cops. Either way, I don’t think Red would appreciate the attention.”

Jen snorts out her breath like an enraged bull. The nerve of this guy, to try and silence her with Matt-guilt when he broke into Matt’s apartment! “Wow, you are so right,” she says, bitingly sweet. She unbuttons her lovely silk blouse and shrugs it off. She throws it to the side, and it lands elegantly on the couch. “I can handle this myself.”

The man’s dark eyes go wide. His hands halt mid-suture. Jen can see him glance at her breasts. Unlike the biker on the street, he looks right back up to her face. “Um—”

Unlike him, Jen doesn’t pause. She tosses her remaining heel and pulls off her skirt, tossing it on the couch too. Her hair pops loose of its fancy confines, falling to her chin in waves.

The man’s eyes open even wider. “What the—”

Jen Hulks out. Unlike her workwear, her bra and panties are Luke Jacobsen originals and can stretch to her larger form. They’re also bulletproof, which is a bit redundant, but this fact makes Luke very proud. She now towers over the intruder in nothing but her skivvies, hands on her hips. She stares him down. “So, you come here often?”

For a moment, the stranger stares back at her in disbelief. Jen’s pretty sure he’s less intimidated and more confused. He quickly stands up from the dining room table. The stab wound on his side dribbles blood onto the floor. He snaps the suture thread and throws the needle on the table. “You know, I thought the Hulk was a man,” he says, as if that’s the most important issue at hand. “He’s a man, right? So, you’re what—his cousin, or something?”

“Where’s Matt?” Jen asks, growling. “Did you hurt him? Does he know you broke into his apartment?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know where he is? You don’t know if he’s hurt? Or you don’t know if he knows you’re here?”

“That’s too many questions to answer at once.”

Jen growls. She’s out of patience. She reaches for the stranger, and he dodges. He reflexively punches out at her when she spins to catch his arm. Most assailants are taken off guard by her agility and she uses it to her advantage. Jen quickly swats his arm then picks him up by the neck, shaking him a little when he tries to put a combat boot in her gut. His feet dangle a few inches off the floor. He manages to bend enough to pull a knife from his boot, but all he does is crack the blade as he whips it across her bare abdomen. When she pinches his neck a little harder to emphasize her advantage over him, he scrabbles at her wrist. If she was a normal assailant, by this point he’d have stabbed her, kicked her, and broken her grip. He’s clearly an impressive combatant under normal circumstances. Since she’s She-Hulk, he just breaks a couple fingernails on her skin. “Ouch, no, stop,” Jen says, deadpan. “Mercy. Spare me.”

The man glares at her. Without She-Hulk’s superior height and weight, the expression would terrify her. “Are you gonna kill me or what?”

“Wow, it’s really all-or-nothing with you,” Jen says. “All stabbing, no gabbing. Dial it back, buddy.”

“Buddy?”

“Maybe we can just have a talk?” Jen says.

“You’re the one who made a move,” the intruder says.

Jen pauses and takes a breath. He’s right, but the audacity of this guy really irritates her.  “Let’s not forget: You’re the one who broke into someone’s house.”

“Not just anyone’s house,” the guy says. “Red’s house. I know Red.”

“Okay. So, who are you, and why are you in Matt’s apartment? And who stabbed you? And are they still around?”

  “I’m not going to talk to you like this,” the man says. “I’m not a kitten. Put me the hell down.”

“If I put you down, are you going to behave? Or are you going to try and shiv me again?”

The stranger barks out a laugh and grips her wrist with both hands. “Are you serious right now, lady? You got me by the throat! What was I supposed to do, let you crush my windpipe?”

“I’ve still got you by the throat,” Jen points out. “And look: No crushing.” Still, as a gesture of goodwill, she sets him back onto the dining room chair. By the way he grunts, she might have been a bit too forceful. Jen walks over to the guns, scoops them into her arms, and takes them to the kitchen. She’s not proficient enough with firearms to disarm them, so she just puts them into the fridge for safe keeping.

“Don’t do that,” the man complains in annoyance. “Those were expensive.”

“I haven’t done anything to them.”

“The moisture will ruin the firing mechanisms.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Jen says, sarcastically. She gives the fridge door an extra shove. “Thanks to me, the killing tools might no longer kill people. How will I sleep tonight?” She glances at the apartment intruder as he winces and puts a hand to his bleeding abdomen. “Wait!” Since she’s not planning to kill him, she feels obligated to say, “Don’t touch that stab wound with your dirty bare hands. I’ll get the first aid kit.”

The stranger gives her the side eye.  “Yeah, you’re Red’s girl, all right.”

The suggestion of Matt’s possession makes Jen flush. She almost corrects his assumption, but the nickname, ‘Red’ distracts her. As she kneels on the living room floor to grab the tacklebox-sized first aid kit Claire gave Matt for Christmas, Jen thinks about where she’s heard it before. Matt has a few dubiously acquired sobriquets, many of which he despises due to their origins. She knows Red wasn’t among the hated nicknames. Jen herself tends to call him all kinds of embarrassing things in the heat of the moment, not least of which includes, ‘Gorgeous’ and, ‘Babydoll’. Most memorably, she once giggled her way through an orgasm during which she’d exclusively referred to Matt as ‘Pro-Bone-O.’ It’s one of her best recent memories because Matt had nearly passed out from laughter. The sexy time was ruined, but Matt Murdock had tears of mirth in his eyes and Jen considers that an absolute win.

Now that she recalls that night, she realizes Matt opened up emotionally after she had pulled that ridiculous, spontaneous sexcapade. Over the next few hours of fun and afterglow, she’d learned so much more about Daredevil’s past than she had thought possible—

“Wait.” Jen’s pleasant trip down memory lane comes to a screeching halt. She spins around, the wound care supplies clutched in each hand. “I know who you are!”

The stranger at the table just shrugs.

“You’re—” Jen gasps as the truth sinks in, “Oh, my god! You’re The Punisher!”

“My friends call me Frank.”

Jen whirls back around to stare blankly at the first aid kit. She whirls the other way again to stare at the man who can only be the infamous Frank Castle. “Wait—are you saying I should call you Frank?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been damn near choked out by a friend.” He pauses. “Okay, maybe I have, but not under these circumstances.”

“Oh, Frank! You are on so many watch lists,” Jen groans. “And now I’m an accessory to—whatever it is you did tonight! I’m aiding—Oh no, I’m abetting!”

“Technically, I broke in and you tried to stop me,” Frank Castle says. Jen is surprised by how reassuring he sounds. “That seems like a good excuse for the cops if you do call them. Also, I’m officially dead. The feds scrubbed my identity years ago. I’m not on any watch list.”

“Who’s gonna believe that She-Hulk couldn’t subdue a random, vaguely militant guy who broke into her friend’s apartment?”

“So, just leave and come back when I’m gone.” Again, Jen is surprised to hear such a reasonable argument from one of the country’s most violent offenders. “Plausible deniability or whatever you lawyers call it.”

Jen shakes her head. “That’s a term typically reserved for higher-ups in an organization who may not be aware of their subordinates’ wrongdoing—”

“Okay, Judge Judy.” Frank rolls his eyes. “Not to be an asshole, but are you going to help me fix this hole in my gut? You interrupted me right in the middle of stitches.”

“Oh, yeah!” Jen hurries over with the first aid supplies. Once she realized she was going to see a lot more of Daredevil, she’d enrolled in the Urban Crisis First Aid class at the nearest community college. The paramedics who taught the class had been very thorough and even included an, ‘In Case of Enhanced Human Encounters’ section. She puts those classroom skills to good use now, assessing the damage, thoroughly cleaning the wound, and finishing up the wound closure with a surgical stapler Claire had pilfered from her workplace. Jen cannot make efficient sutures to save her life; she’s tried. Her little online-order, fake-skin-and-stitches kit sits beside her reading chair at home, riddled with holes and sad excuses for wound closures.

Throughout the first aid process, Frank is stoic, watching her work in silence. He grunts a bit when she punches in the staples, but Jen knows she wouldn’t be nearly so reserved if it was her own abdomen leaking peroxide and blood onto the floor. “Finished,” she says, unnecessarily, as the last staple goes in. “You want some aspirin? That’s about all Matt’s got here as far as pain control.”

Frank blinks. “You’re telling me he goes through all that shit on nothing but old lady arthritis meds?”

“He takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” Jen says, with forced cheer.

Frank’s not buying it. “He’s crazier than a bag full of cats.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Matthew Murdock’s behavior is totally normal, and it never worries anyone ever.”

“I can’t keep up with sarcasm right now.” Gingerly, Frank stretches out his legs. “I’ll take the aspirin, I guess.”

Jen grabs the medicine and gives him two tablets. To his credit, Frank thanks her politely. She goes back to the doorway, grabs the grocery bags, then heads to the kitchen to open the bottle of wine. “You want some charcuterie?” she asks, as she pops the cork off. “I bought enough for three people to share. We’ll just save some for Matt.”

“Charcuterie? Isn’t that a sophisticated version of a Lunchable?”

“A Lunchable?” Jen laughs. “That’s one way to look at it. It’s meat, cheese, and fancy crackers. You want some or not?”

“Sure, why not? I could use some protein.”

Jen ignores Frank while she assembles the food. It takes her twenty minutes to slice the cheese and arrange it, the crackers, and the meat on the only cutting board Matt owns. It’s not a refined presentation, but the smell of the food is making her mouth water. She pours herself a glass of wine and decides Frank has too many injuries to partake in alcohol. She wants to keep most of the bottle to herself. She pours him a glass of water instead. As she lays the food on the dining room table, she asks, “Does Matt let you come into his apartment like this? Or is this officially breaking and entering?”

“Why,” Frank says, as he picks up a piece of cheese, “are you going to kick me out?”

Jen smiles toothily at him over her wine glass. “If Matt doesn’t want you here? Absolutely. Possibly from the roof.”

“So, guns are murder machines, but if you drop me off the side of a building, that’s not murder? Interesting ethics you got there.”

“It’s not murder,” Jen says, with an arched brow. “It’s justifiable homicide. There’s a big difference, legally.”

“Justifiable?” Frank repeats. He points eloquently to his abdomen. “You had time to staple my wound, slice some cheese and meats, and down a glass of red before throwing me off the building. You clearly weren’t in fear for your life.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Jen says. “I guess I’d just have to toss your body in the Hudson, so no one ever finds it. Maybe that would work.”

To Jen’s surprise, Frank just laughs. “Fair enough, ma’am.”

“Does Matt let you in here?” Jen asks again, before the conversation derails further.

Frank leans his head back against the chair with a sigh. “This may be hard to believe, but I don’t actually break into my friends’ apartments that often. Me and Red don’t have some kind of verbal contract over whether I can pop his door lock if I need a place to lay low for a few hours.”

“Okay, I’ll take that statement under consideration.” Jen gulps down more wine. “No sudden drops for you until I parse it out. I hope that’s reassuring.”

“You’re too pretty to be a guard dog,” Frank says.

“I’m not a guard dog,” Jen says. She eats a cracker, then adds, “I’m a shark.”

“Lawyer jokes. Great. Just what I need.”

“Did you see Matt out there tonight?”

“It’s too early,” Frank says. “He’s probably still at the office. He’s never out before eight. I’m only out because I had specific intel about an operation happening at sundown.”

“Which I want to know nothing about,” Jen says, quickly. The less she knows about Frank’s business, the less truth she has to obfuscate if questioned.

“Smart woman,” Frank says. “I can tell you Red wasn’t there.”

“Is that how you got stabbed? No one was watching your back?”

“No. I usually work alone.”

Jen raises her eyebrows. “You have an alleged body count in the triple digits, and you work alone?”

“Usually, yes. Especially in Red’s territory. He and I don’t really work well together, so we try to stay out of each other’s way. We don’t see eye to eye on the whole, ‘sanctity of human life’ debate.”

Jen snorts. “Well, no, you wouldn’t. Matt’s blind.”

“Smartass.”

“You made it really easy.”

“Yeah, I walked right into that one,” Frank agrees manfully. “Was he supposed to be here before you, tonight?”

“I thought he would be,” Jen says, with a frown. “Matt told me he’d leave the office around seven. It’s seven forty-five. It can’t take him forty-five minutes to walk home, not with the way he moves.”

Frank hums thoughtfully. “You give him a call?”

“We try not to call one another during working hours,” Jen says. “It’s a professionalism thing.”

“If it’s forty-five minutes past quitting time, then it’s not working hours. Give him a call. If he doesn’t answer, we’ll know there’s a problem.”

Jen dials Matt’s number. The phone rings for a few seconds, then a cool female voice reports that the person she’s trying to reach is not available. She doesn’t leave a voicemail. When she pulls the phone from her ear, Frank is watching her carefully. “Yeah, he didn’t answer, obviously,” Jen says, a bit snappish. “Look, if there’s something crazy going on around here, you should just tell me. If there’s any possibility Matt could be involved, I should know.”

“I keep my intel as far away from Daredevil as possible,” Frank says. Jen knows he’s being truthful. “If he’s in trouble, it’s not the same trouble I had today.”

“That’s the thing about this neighborhood,” Jen says. “There’s more than enough trouble to go around.”

“I would go out and look for him,” Frank says, “but a guy tried to gut me earlier, and that aspirin somehow didn’t cut it. I’m not sure I’d be any help to Red even if I did go back out there.”

“Damn it,” Jen groans, flopping back against her chair, “I didn’t bring any clothes!” When Frank just raises his eyebrows at her, she says, “I can’t go run the streets in my underwear, Frank. She Hulk doesn’t need to get arrested for indecent exposure.”

“You’d let them arrest you? Because I’m pretty sure you could knock the average NYPD officer through a brick wall.”

“I wouldn’t,” Jen says, aghast.

“I don’t think my jacket’ll do much for you,” Frank says. “You can try it, if you want.”

Jen looks at the article of clothing in question. Like the bulletproof vest, the dark blue jacket also has a spray of blood near the bottom hem. It’s a hoodie, so it’s a bit stretchy. Jen tries it on. She can zip it to just under her boobs. It does cover her shoulders and back. Similarly, she can just squeeze into a pair of matt’s training joggers, but she can feel the seams straining in the crotch area. “Great,” she sighs, “this outfit’s going on the internet, for sure. More fuel on the Intelligencia fire.”

“Intelligencia? What’s that?”

“You don’t want to know, Frank.” Jen puts her hair into a ponytail as she strides to the door. Her plan is to access the apartment’s roof and hop across a few buildings. She can keep a lookout and see if she can spot Matt on his way home. If she doesn’t see him, she’ll keep jumping rooftops until she hears a commotion or sees trouble. Since Matt isn’t answering his phone, it’s the best plan she has. Wherever there’s trouble in Hell’s Kitchen, Matt Murdock is not far behind.

“I kind of do want to know,” Frank says, following her to the door. “The name Intelligencia sounds pretty ominous. If it has anything to do with Daredevil—"

“It doesn’t,” Jen says. “It’s a She Hulk problem. It’s a female problem. Be thankful you’re a male.”

“I am generally thankful to be male,” Frank says. “But I don’t follow you.”

“I’m just saying: The whole Punisher shtick would turn out very differently if you were a woman. There wouldn’t be any Punisher fanboys building private armories and saluting the flag if you were a girl. There’d just be whack jobs on the internet jerking it off to you and trying to doxx you at the same time.”

“Okay, for starters: There are Punisher fanboys?”

“Do you live under a rock, Frank?” Jen asks, impatiently. “Yes. Your fans have been all over the internet in the past few years. You basically kickstarted a militia cult in Montana.” Frank is clearly flummoxed by this news. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. You didn’t know. Okay, never mind. Not important right now.”

“My point was: If this Intelligencia thing has to do with She Hulk and not—” Frank frowns. “What’s your real name, anyway?”

“It’s Jen,” she says. “Jen Walters. Look, I have to go. If you’re still around and welcome in the apartment later, I can tell you the long, torturous tale of Intelligencia. It’s soap-opera levels of melodrama. But right now, I need to make sure Daredevil isn’t dying in a dumpster somewhere—"

There’s a bang from the building’s first floor. The front door slams shut. Heavy breathing echoes up the stairwell, along with the shuffle of feet and the thump of a body carrying something with way more mass than a gallon of milk. “Jen,” Matt’s voice calls hoarsely up the stairs. “Jen, help!”

“Oh, no.” Jen flies down the hall and leaps from one staircase landing to another until she reaches the second floor. There, Matt stands on the landing. He’s in his Daredevil suit and helmet. He seems unharmed. Jen can’t say the same for the body draped over his shoulders in a fireman’s hold. The bright blue-and-red patterned suit doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Neither does the large circle of blood on the suit’s right shoulder. “Are you insane?” Jen hisses, careful not to name Matt out loud. “You can’t come into your building through the front door—"

               “Please, take him,” Matt says. His legs buckle, but he steadies himself. He grabs the body on his shoulders, so it doesn’t slide off. “He’s a lot heavier than he looks. I’ve been carrying him for blocks.”

               “You can’t bring him here. That’s such a bad idea—”

               “Jen. Please. Help me.”

               Jen can’t say no to him. The man Matt’s carrying looks gravely injured. He needs immediate help. She rushes over and lifts the body of Spiderman into her arms. She tries not to wince at the lifeless way his head bounces against her chest. To She Hulk, carrying him up the stairs is like lifting a twelve-pack of soda. She doesn’t even break a sweat.

“This is so not how I wanted this evening to go,” Jen huffs.

               “I know,” Matt says, contritely, as he stumbles up the stairs. Carrying Spiderman clearly took it out of him. “I’m sorry.”

               “I wore a killer outfit. I stopped and got food. I even bought wine.”

               “You’re amazing and wonderful and I’m really, really sorry.”

               Matt squeezes past her to fling open his apartment door. Jen barrels through it and makes a beeline for the couch. Frank scrambles out of her way as she sets Spiderman down. Matt kneels beside the couch. “What happened?” Jen asks Matt. “What kind of injury is this?”

               “Frank,” Matt barks, “get the first aid kit.” Frank’s two steps ahead, already dropping to his knees next to Matt, unlatching the big tacklebox. “There are trauma shears in the top smallest compartment.” Frank locates the heavy-duty scissors and sets to work cutting off Spiderman’s suit. “I don’t really know what happened,” Matt tells them. “I was on my way home when I heard him scream. I barely had time to change into the suit. I almost lost his voice in the city.”

               Frank peels back the suit. Blood erupts from Spiderman’s back. Frank unwraps a large, thick bandage and presses down forcefully. Jen swallows down nausea as she looks at the injury. Spiderman’s skin looks torn open. She thinks she can see a piece of metal sticking out of his shoulder. “I don’t think we can handle this,” she says, unsteadily.

               “Looks like a bomb blast or something,” Frank says. “There’s shrapnel. Shit. We should drive by the ER and throw him out—”

               “We can’t,” Matt says. “Whoever did this to him will look for him in the hospitals. They’ll search for a patient with this exact injury. We can’t put Spiderman into their hands.”

               “If that shrapnel migrates, we won’t have to do anything to Spiderman,” Frank says. “He’ll just die.”

               Matt leans into Spiderman’s body and inhales. Frank and Jen both stare at him in disgust. Matt ignores them and starts tapping his fingers against the skin surrounding the injury. “Red,” Frank says, “what the actual—"

Matt shushes him and keeps tapping. His breathing turns tidal, like he’s meditating. Jen and Frank exchange a mutually bewildered look behind his back, but they don’t interrupt again. For a few moments, the rush of the air conditioning is the only sound in the apartment. After a minute or so, Matt speaks in a strangely steady voice. “I can see the fragments. They’re embedded superficially, mostly into the muscle. None of them have entered his blood stream. I can get them out.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Jen asks. “This is Spiderman’s life in our hands.”

Matt nods. “I can do it. Just let me concentrate.” He sits back on his heels and keeps up his controlled breathing. “Frank, I want you to keep tapping his skin while I work. Jen, get some gauze and catch the blood.”

“What if he wakes up?” Frank says. “Isn’t this kid super strong? I saw footage of him stopping a subway car with his bare hands. He could snap you in half before we stop him.”

“They hit him with some kind of tranquilizer. I can smell it on him. He was probably unconscious before the blast even caught him. That’s why he’s so injured.”

“Okay, but he could metabolize it quickly—”

“There’s no one stronger than a Hulk,” Matt says. “And we have She Hulk here. I trust Jen to help us out if we need to restrain him.” He turns a little towards Jen. “Are you okay with holding him down?”

Although the thought makes her queasy, Jen nods. “Yeah. I can do that. It’s for his own good.”

“All right,” Frank says, with a sigh. “Let’s get this show on the road, then.”

Matt makes surprisingly quick work of what is essentially surgery. Although his hands do tremble, they keep a constant, even motion as he works. Frank does his part and faithfully taps at Spiderman’s skin. Jen mops away quite a bit of blood, acquiring a pile of bloodied gauze beside the couch. She hopes Spiderman has superhuman blood volume, too, otherwise he’s going to need a transfusion at some point. Matt removes all the metal debris, thoroughly cleans the wound and is halfway through his sutures when Spiderman jolts awake. True to Frank’s prediction, the awakened superhero screams like he’s being attacked, seizes Matt by the front of his suit, and throws him across the room. Matt turns the fling into a softer touchdown by tucking his legs and landing in a roll. He still hits the opposite wall of his apartment with a bang and a gasp of pain.

Spiderman lunges for Frank next, but The Punisher does the flinging before Spiderman can, throwing himself back from the couch. This clears the area for Jen’s next move. She grabs the flailing superhero by the back of his neck and pushes him into the couch. She sits on his legs, trying not to put any pressure on his injury. “Calm down, Spiderman,” she says. She hopes she sounds friendly. “Calm down! We’re not hurting you! We’re helping you!”

Spiderman is understandably skeptical. “And I’m supposed to believe that? You’re holding me down!”

“Because you threw Daredevil across the room!”

Spiderman struggles. Jen tries not to crush him. “Get off me! I can’t breathe!”

“Okay,” Jen says, taking a steadying breath, “don’t be mad.”

“What are you—”

Jen doesn’t climb off him. She grabs the mask still covering Spiderman’s face and yanks it off. The young man underneath her takes a gasping breath, then shoves his face into the fabric of the couch. “No! Put it back!”

“Sorry,” Jen says, “but the mask probably didn’t help your breathing situation.”

“Please don’t,” Spiderman begs. His voice is muffled by the couch. “Please don’t do this. I don’t know what you want, but I don’t have any money. I don’t have any family. I don’t have anything valuable—”

“We don’t want anything,” Matt says, as he stands and shuffles gingerly back to the couch. “I heard you when you got attacked. I went to pull you out of that warehouse before whoever hurt you could.”

Spiderman stills at the sound of Matt’s voice. “Daredevil,” he says, tentatively.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“You—you saved me?”

“Well,” Matt says, with a wry smile, “I still need to put the last few stitches in that shoulder, but I tried.”

Spiderman wiggles under Jen’s knees. She eases up just enough to let him slide up the couch to a more comfortable position. He hangs his head over the arm of the couch, gulping in air. “Whatever they hit me with, it almost paralyzed my lungs,” he says, with a cough. “Luckily, they miscalculated my level of resistance to most drugs.”

“Can I finish your sutures?” Matt asks.

“Oh.” Spiderman thinks a moment, then says, “I mean, I don’t know what else I would do about them. I can’t afford an ER visit.” He lets Matt lean over him to start the line of stitches from the middle. “I don’t have insurance, you know,” he continues, voice thready from pain. “My freelance job doesn’t have benefits, and delivery jobs have been pretty patchy lately.”

“That’s appalling,” Matt says, as he ties off the last few stitches. Spiderman flinches but doesn’t complain. “Spiderman should have insurance.”

Spiderman sighs. “Well, I’m not qualified for the big buck jobs. So, I get by without it.”

“How, though?” Jen asks, curious in spite of herself. “Don’t you get hurt a lot? Why aren’t you a walking deformity?”

“I actually don’t get hurt that much,” Spiderman says. “This was an off day for me.”

“Well, Mercury is in retrograde,” Jen says.

“Is she serious right now?” Jen hears Frank scoff to himself.

Spiderman snorts. “You know, somehow, I do all right most of the time. Even without checking the horoscopes before I go out and fight crime.” He cringes as Matt rubs some disinfectant over his wounds.

“Well, you might want to reconsider it,” Jen says. “Especially if your sun sign is Virgo or Scorpio.”

“Duly noted,” Spiderman says, with a smile in his voice. “Most likely ignored, though. I got to be honest.”

“See, Daredevil ignores the zodiac, too,” Jen says, with a shake of the head. “And look where that’s gotten him.”

“Well, it looks like it’s gotten him a penthouse apartment, cool superhero friends, and mad first aid skills,” Spiderman says. Jen hears Matt snort in amusement.

Frank comes back to the side of the couch and says, “So, are you going to apologize for nearly throwing Daredevil through the back window, or are we just going to pretend that didn’t happen?”

“Oh.” Spiderman’s embarrassment is obvious even though his face is still hidden. “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. It was instinct. Kind of hard not to react to a guy digging a needle in your skin.”

“It’s fine,” Matt assures him. “You couldn’t have known what was happening, coming off of a tranquilizer.”

Jen judges the relaxation of Spiderman’s limbs and decides she can release him from her restrictive hold. She backs off slowly, keeping her hand firmly on the back of his neck but climbing off his legs. Matt finishes his work around the same time. He picks up the used first aid items and takes them to his kitchen trash can. He walks over to the cabinet by the couch and pulls out the vodka Frank requested earlier but never received. He pours a healthy measure into a tumbler, then brings it over to the couch. “Here,” Matt says, as he crouches by the couch arm where Spiderman hides his face. “Have some liquor. It’ll numb the pain a bit.”

Spiderman’s brown hair flips around as he shakes his head. “No-no thanks. I—um—I don’t drink.”

“This isn’t for recreation,” Matt says. “A few sips won’t hurt you.”

“I’m good, really!”

“Oh, my god,” Frank says, with a hand over his face. “Red, the kid’s not old enough to drink.”

Matt frowns. “What?”

Jen gapes down at the person she restrained for the past ten minutes. “Spiderman…Are you a minor?”

“No!” Spiderman’s quick to say, defensively. “I turned eighteen last August!”

“Oh, my god,” Matt says, weakly. “I just performed unauthorized surgery on a baby.”

Spiderman twitches. “I’m not a baby, Daredevil! I’ve been kicking bad guys’ butts since I was fifteen!”

“Fifteen?” Matt repeats, with a twist to his mouth Jen knows well. Matt’s triggered by Spiderman’s youth. “Spiderman, are you—when you said ‘I don’t have any family’—”

“They’re dead,” Spiderman says, bluntly. “Everybody’s dead.”

“Shit, kid,” Frank says, from bedside the drink cabinet. “You got anybody in the city looking out for you?” He pours himself a glass of vodka, then notices Jen’s hand wave and pours her one, too.

“No,” Spiderman answers Frank. His head sinks further into the couch. “But it’s better this way. No one can use other people to threaten me, anymore.”

“It’s not always about protecting other people. What about you? You’re going to need help, sometimes.” As he speaks, Matt’s hands grip Spiderman’s rejected vodka so tightly, Jen’s afraid the tumbler will crack. It’s not high-quality glass. “Like today: You needed help.”

“Can I have my mask back, please?” Spiderman asks. Jen hears the tension in his voice. The kid doesn’t want to talk about his support system or lack thereof. “I have to go.”

Matt’s not going to let it go. “Listen, outside of your Spiderman identity, you could get help. There are city resources for young adults—"

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“I’m sure you are, but it never hurts to have that kind of information on hand in case you—”

Spiderman raises his voice slightly. “I asked for my mask. Are you guys going to give it back, or not?”

“So, you’re going to run away from an adult conversation,” Frank says, evenly. “But you’re not a kid, right?”

“No offense, but I don’t know you guys,” Spiderman says. “I don’t want to have a heart-to-heart with you, right now.”

“Are you even going to thank Red for saving your life?” Frank glares at the back of Spiderman’s head. “He really didn’t have to. He didn’t know what he was walking into when he did. Plus, you made him late for a date.”

“Okay, all things considered, our date is kind of low on the priority list, now,” Jen mumbles.

Once again, Spiderman shifts uncomfortably on the couch. “Look, I’m sorry—"

“If you don’t want any city help, I could give you my number,” Matt blurts out, as though the words are pulled out of him by an unseen force. “If you need help, you could call me. You’re in Queens, right? That’s a forty-five-minute taxi ride from here. Or, you know, a ten-minute web swing. Whatever works.”

“Really?” Spiderman lifts his head. Jen sees the edge of his jaw before he seems to remember the need to conceal his identity. He shoves his face back into the couch. “No, no. I couldn’t do that. You don’t even know me. It’d be a pain for you to—"

Matt keeps talking. “I don’t mean for vigilante problems, either. I honestly don’t know how much help I’d be to you with your duties as a superhero.”

Spiderman winces. “Oh, I’m sure you’d be a big help—”

“I mean, you should call for help if your bike breaks, or if you can’t figure out which kind of renters’ insurance you need, or if you want a character reference for a job—”

“Adulting help,” Spiderman cuts in, with a lift to his voice. Jen thinks he’s smiling against the couch cushions. “Is that what you mean?”

“Yes,” Matt says. “I think so? At any rate, I’ve survived into my thirties.”

“That’s valid,” Spiderman says. “Kind of a huge accomplishment, for an enhanced human.”

“I’m not enhanced,” Matt says, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

Spiderman lifts his head slightly in confusion. “But you must be—"

 “Don’t argue with him,” Jen says. “It’s not worth the headache. He really believes he’s normal.”

“I am normal,” Matt protests.

“You’re kidding, right?” Frank says.

“I am!”

Frank laughs. “Okay, Red. And I’m the King of England.”

“Either way,” Spiderman says, “thanks, Daredevil. I—I could use the help, sometimes. I aced all my physics and calculus classes in high school, but somehow job applications confuse me. I don’t get it.”

“Think of it as learning a second language,” Matt says.

“What language is that?” Frank asks. “Corporate Bullshit?”

Matt shrugs. “Essentially. The people who structure the hiring processes at most jobs might as well live on another planet, for how connected they are to their target audience.”

“I don’t have my phone with me,” Spiderman says. “I don’t carry it with me when I’m web slinging, for obvious reasons. Could you write your number on a piece of paper, or something?”

“I will,” Jen whispers to Matt. He nods, then goes to grab a bit of scratch paper from his recycling bin. Jen writes his number in meticulously legible handwriting. She surveys the mess they’ve made of Spiderman’s suit and says, “I think you might need to borrow some clothes, buddy. Otherwise, this number’s going to fall right out of your sleeve.”

While Matt goes to retrieve a spare outfit, Spiderman fidgets nervously. “I don’t know. I can’t wear the mask with borrowed clothes. That could make someone who recognizes that outfit think whoever owns it is Spiderman.”

“That’s…highly unlikely,” Matt says, as he comes back into the living room.

“I can’t take any chances,” Spiderman says, grimly. “I can’t let anybody else get hurt because of me.”

“Then take off the mask and go home in plain clothes,” Frank says, bluntly. “That’s your only option.”

“We won’t look!” Jen hastens to say, as Spiderman cringes in fear. “We won’t look. Daredevil can hand you the clothes and we’ll turn our backs. He’ll be the only one to know your identity. Superhero-to-superhero confidentiality. Is that okay?” She can’t fully reassure the kid, because telling him Daredevil’s blind might betray Matt’s own identity. She has to make this solution sound like a compromise.

“You won’t look?” Spiderman asks.

“No, we won’t.” Jen shoos Frank, who obligingly turns around. She turns, too. “We’ve both got our backs turned. It’s okay.”

She hears Matt approach the couch. There’s a rustle of clothing, a few hisses of pain and a soft apology from Matt. She hears Spiderman thank Matt. There’s a moment of silence, and then Matt says, “Would it make you feel better if I took off my helmet?”

“Daredevil,” Frank says, warningly.

Matt ignores him. “It’s a little unfair that I’ll be able to recognize you on the street when you can’t do the same.”’

“Uh,” Spiderman says, “well, if you’re cool with that, it’ll make me feel better.” His voice is lighter and brighter, unhindered by the couch or a mask. “You know, that way we have mutually assured destruction if one of us decides to snitch.” He stutters. “N-not that I’m a snitch! I’m not! I’ve never sold anybody out ever—”

“You’re over-selling it,” Matt says, dryly.

“I’ll shut up now,” Spiderman says, miserably.

Jen hears a familiar huff of air, then Matt says, “All right, I’m going to do it.” There’s the sound of ballistic-grade polycarbonate hitting the floor.

Although she can’t see what’s happening, Spiderman’s reaction seems disproportionate to the situation. Jen hears him swear and fall back against the couch. “Oh, my god! M-Matt Murdock?! You’re Daredevil?!”

Frank and Jen both full-body flinch, resisting the urge to spin around. “You know him?” Jen demands. “How?”

“I don’t know you,” Matt says, slowly, “do I?”

“No,” Spiderman says, “probably not. Um, I know you from that one article in the Daily Bugle. About that big settlement from the construction company. They had that safety violation that paralyzed that kid.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, nice to formally meet you. Thanks for saving me!”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Matt says. “How do you feel? Do you need to sleep off that tranquilizer for a few hours?”

“Nope! I’m good. I feel fine.” There’s a squeak from the couch springs. “I’m going to catch a cab home.”

“Do you need money—”

“No,” Spiderman’s quick to say. “I always keep a wad of cash strapped to my ankle.” He laughs. “It’s still there, miraculously.” Jen hears footsteps. “This has been really great, but I’m going to get out of your hair! Maybe you can still salvage that date!”

“Okay. Do you need help going down the stairs—"

               “I’m good! Thanks! I’ll call you later!” There’s a rattle as Spiderman passes the liquor cabinet, then a bang as he exits through the front door.

Once the door closes, Jen and Frank turn around and stare at Matt, who has a bemused look on his face. “I’ve had some weird friend acquisitions, but that one really took the cake,” Jen says.

“Not a friend,” Frank says. “Mother Hen just picked up another little chick.”

Matt’s eyebrow twitches. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You’re such a mother hen.”

“I am not—”

“First, it’s the neighborhood,” Frank presses. “Then, it’s your parish. Then, it’s Karen Page. Then, it’s the enhanced yahoos you met in a fight with The Hand. Now, it’s a baby superhero who’s a friendless orphan, just like you were.” Privately, Jen can’t fault his logic.

Matt held up a hand. “As far as Karen’s concerned, you don’t have a moral leg to stand on. So, don’t even go there.”

“I’m just saying. She was your first lawyer project.”

“He sounded so lonely,” Matt says, somewhat defensively.

               Frank snorts. “Yeah? And?”

               “What do you want from me, Frank? Did you expect me to just toss him out on the street? ‘Here’s some stitches! Well, see you! Hope you don’t die!’”

               “That’s actually how ninety-nine percent of the population lives their lives, Matthew. I know that’s hard for you to believe, but there it is.”

               “Well, maybe more like ninety-five percent,” Jen says, fairly.

               Matt stalks to his bedroom. “I’m taking a shower.”

               “Okay, Red. Go cool off, before that burning self-righteousness boils your brain.”

               Jen waits for Matt to close the bathroom door before she eyes Frank and says, “So, do you guys just repeat that little mating dance ad nauseam? Or was that performance all for me?”

               Frank puts a hand to his gut and sits back down on the couch, where he’d been perched before Matt and Spiderman’s arrival. “That’s just Red being Red.”

               “Right,” Jen says, dryly. “You definitely weren’t the instigator, there.”

               “Would you grab that vodka?” Frank asks.

               They both finish their tumblers of vodka before Matt re-emerges, scrubbed clean and divested of his Daredevil trappings. Jen observes him closely for any injuries he may have acquired during Spiderman’s rescue, but for once, Matt seems unscathed. She stands, ushers Matt to the couch, then retrieves the charcuterie board from the kitchen table. “Have some food,” she instructs. She settles the cutting board full of food on Matt’s knees.

               Matt feels the outlines of the crackers, cheese, and meat. “This all feels very expensive, Jen.”

               “You’re welcome,” Jen says, dryly. “There’s an equally nice red wine to accompany it.”

               Matt wilts a bit against the couch cushions. “I really ruined dinner, didn’t I?”

               “Whoever blew up Spiderman ruined dinner,” Jen corrects him. “I know you, Matt. You couldn’t just go whistle your way home for a booty call, knowing Spiderman was in trouble.” She nods at Frank. “Also, The Punisher hijacked the evening before you even knew Spiderman needed help.” She frowns as Frank’s head falls back against the couch. “Is he asleep?”

               “Yep,” Matt says. Frank knocked his boots off at some point during the vodka. His legs are on the couch cushions, his back supported by a pillow on the armrest. His feet almost touch Matt.

               Jen feels it necessary to clarify, “He’s asleep? He didn’t pass out or anything?”

               “Just sleeping,” Matt says. “It’s a Marine Corps thing.”

               “Narcolepsy is a Marine Corps thing?”

               “During The Blip, Frank could fall asleep on rooftops, in the trunk of a car, and in an alley outside a mob safehouse.” Matt sighs. “I didn’t sleep at all on those missions. It’s definitely a skill he learned in combat.”

               “You guys worked together during The Blip?” Jen takes cheese and a cracker and pops them in her mouth. “I didn’t know that.”

               “We had to,” Matt says.

                “Frank says you guys don’t agree on your vigilante ethics. So, how did that work?”

Matt shrugs. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“You mean Frank was desperate enough to cave to your rules of engagement,” Jen says, with certainty.

“There was compromise on both sides,” Matt says. “But maybe a little more compromise on his part.”

Jen shrinks down to her usual size and zips the hoodie up all the way. “Scoot over.” Matt closes the last inch between him and Frank’s sock-clad feet. Jen slides into the space between the armrest and Matt’s hip, curling into his side. As Matt stealthily threads his fingers through her hair, she eats another bite of cheese. Matt’s other hand creeps its way onto her thigh. “You know there’s no way we’re doing anything remotely sexual with Sleeping Beauty over there at the other end of the couch, right?” she asks, with raised eyebrows. “We can be adventurous, but not that adventurous.”

“I wasn’t going there,” Matt says, with a little laugh. “I just want to be close to you.”

“That hand placement says otherwise, mister.”

“Is that hand bothering you, miss?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jen says. “I just wanted to be clear: No funny business with Frank Castle’s feet on your other hip.”

Matt contemplates the feet in question. “They could be a lot worse.”

“Matthew.”

“They don’t even smell.”

“Matthew Murdock.”

“Are you sure you don’t like Frank’s feet, Jen? Unless my assessment is way off, they seem pretty big in proportion to the rest of him--"

“Red, if you want me to leave, you could just say that,” Frank’s voice says, groggily. “Better yet: Just have Jen throw me off the building, like she said she would.”

“You threatened to kill him?” Matt asks Jen. He’s wearing that disappointed little frown he uses frequently on others, but rarely in reaction to her.

“She did,” Frank says.

“He’d broken into your house!” Jen says. “I didn’t know if you wanted him here! And he’s super dangerous!”

               “I’m pretty sure she was bluffing,” Frank says. “You know, seeing as I’m still alive.” Judging by the tone of their earlier conversation, Frank knows she wasn’t bluffing. Jen realizes he’s covering for her. She doesn’t know how to feel about it. Since Matt relaxes a little, she supposes she can only feel grateful. “Well, this has been a shitty evening,” Frank says, as he rolls off the couch and onto his feet. “I did not enjoy it.”

               “Nobody enjoyed it, Frank,” Matt says.

               “Yet,” Jen says, in his ear.

               “Frank hasn’t left yet, Jen,” Matt retorts, just as quietly.

               Frank gathers his possession in record time. Jen begrudgingly returns his guns. Frank follows her into the kitchen and snatches the wine bottle, stuffing it into a side pocket of his duffle. “Hey,” Jen protests, “that cost me thirty bucks!”

               “I had to play percussion on Spiderman’s mangled shoulder while Red dug around in his muscles,” Frank says. “And then, I woke up to hear Red analyze the aesthetics of my feet. I’m taking the wine.”

               Frank exits the apartment from the roof access, taking his gear, his hoodie, the wine, and some extra food. Once they’re alone, Jen and Matt thoroughly sprawl out on the couch. Jen drinks a little more vodka as she lazily feeds Matt a few pieces of dried fruit. “I guess we did make it to the date part of the night,” she says. “Just a little later than expected.”

               “That’s the spirit,” Matt says. The words are followed by a jaw-cracking yawn.

               Jen pulls her hand from the fruit. “You’re not going to make it to the good part of the night, are you?”

               “I’m slowly losing consciousness as we speak,” Matt says, regretfully.

               “Are you sleep-talking, right now?” Jen teases.

               “If I was, how would I know?”

               Jen curls up against him, tangling their legs together and twining their hands on her chest. “It’s okay, Matt. You did the right thing.” She lets loose a yawn of her own. “You saved Spiderman. That was the only thing you could have done.”

               “We can just take a nap?” Matt offers, as he pulls her closer.

               “Don’t stress about it,” Jen says, smiling. “Daredevil needs his sleep.”

               “Yeah, but She-Hulk’s not in town that often,” he answers. “And I promised—"

               Jen puts a hand on his mouth. “It doesn’t matter. Jen’s happy to snuggle and sleep. Is Matt good with that?”

               His arms tighten around her. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m good with that.”