Chapter Text
The scratching of pen on paper in the other room seems to be the only thing Piper can focus on this Thursday morning. Her screen reader is rattling on, the laptop’s small speakers filling the room with the exact wording of a contract one of their clients had thoughtlessly signed.
This is important, a young man could loose the roof over his head on this.
But all Piper can focus on are the sounds barely making their way through her closed office door: Karen, muttering to herself as she takes notes, paper crumbling as she rips a page out of her memo pad and tosses it aside. Footsteps, as the reporter starts pacing over to the small kitchenette, to the front door, back to her desk, and then the same triangle again.
This is what it’s been like for three days.
This is how it’s been since Matt had come in on Monday morning, with a fresh bruise almost covered by his collar and avoiding to put weight on his left leg, and handed Karen a notebook. The notebook is bound in soft-looking brown leather, has obviously seen copious use, the cover strained with coffee, the edges rounded, a few of the pages carefully taped back together after having been ripped.
Karen had taken the notebook with a hint of confusion, gaze on the present freshly received instead of her partner in conversation. “What’s this?”
Matt had tilted his head ever so slightly, considered his words. “This got dropped off at my place last night. It’s from that Steiner guy you’re looking into.”
“This got dropped off?” Piper had asked, still not looking up, already skimming through the pages. “By whom?”
There had been a pause. When Matt had replied, his voice held the weight of a secret shared, an answer already given. “You know by whom.”
And when Karen had looked up, she hadn’t looked at Matt, hadn’t even glanced in his direction. Instead, her gaze had gone straight to Piper, preparing a cup of tea over at the kitchenette.
And Piper had known that they were intentionally keeping information from her.
Which, honestly, is their right. There is no reason her colleagues have to share all their secrets with their newest hire. Gods know Piper doesn’t readily share her secrets with the group, either.
It’s not a great feeling, though, to be the odd one out. To be the only one not knowing who, or where, or when. To hear Karen asking questions the men don’t reply to as long as Piper can hear. To see Foggy keeping himself from making sure Matt is alright when he winces at a pat to his shoulder. To feel the way Matt puts up walls around anyone who isn’t Foggy and Karen, to know he keeps this walls up within their offices, now that Piper works there, too.
But everyone is entitled to their own secrets. And if her co-workers don’t want to share whatever it is they’re hiding, Piper won’t press.
After all, she knows what it is like to have a secret one does not feel comfortable with sharing, has over the span of the past decade met her fair share of people who wouldn’t respect that boundary, who would push and nag and try to wheedle an answer out of her on what exactly makes her life so strange.
None of those people had remained her friends.
Piper doesn’t want to loose these people, though, doesn’t want to loose this job.
So, she doesn’t ask.
Doesn’t ask about shared looks she isn’t invited to, doesn’t ask about stories that go unfinished due to her presence, doesn’t ask about the injuries Matt does a good job of hiding.
She doesn’t ask about the book, either.
Karen doesn’t truly try to hide it, though. She has it open on her desk when Piper comes into work on Tuesday, is waving it under Foggy’s nose when Piper returns from a client meeting with Matt on Wednesday.
The notebook is full with lists, neat black letters in orderly rows on off-white paper.
The first time Piper catches a glance, she doesn’t even try to read it. The second time, she writes her inability to read it off as her dyslexia disagreeing with the font in particular. It’s the third time she sees it that she realizes that her dyslexia isn’t the problem, at all.
The notebook is encrypted.
And for the past three days, Karen has tried to find whatever code would lead her to be able to read it.
The mechanical voice droning out of Piper’s laptop ends. From the end of the document, the cursor patiently blinks up at her.
Piper buries her face in her hands, allows herself a moment of frustration, a moment to breathe. Then, she opens one of her drawers, takes out the expensive headphones Leo had recommended her during her exam days and connects them to her laptop.
The noise canceling is excellent and Karen’s frustrated muttering vanishes from notice.
Piper resets the screen reader to the top of the document, starts it anew.
The first few paragraphs are what one expects from a contract: involved parties, general information, some paragraphs of legal jargon that are meant to dazzle and confuse rather than to inform.
Piper’s arm is itchy. When she goes to scratch it, she notices the slightest discoloration on the fabric. Usually, it’s covered by her blazer, but she took it off in the office. When did she last do a load of dark laundry? If this blouse needs a wash, should she put one on once she gets home in the evening? She could do it over the weekend, too, if she gets home late tonight.
Her phone buzzes.
Did she reply to that text Drew sent her last week? Should she call her sister one of these days? How long has it been since they last talked?
But it’s just her calendar app, reminding Piper that she has to get to court.
The screen reader drones on, but Piper hasn’t been listening for a few paragraphs, anyways. She sends the contract to her phone, resolves herself to listen to it on the way. The legal jargon successfully distracts her from the banality of the New York subway, so much so that she misses her stop and has to walk back three blocks to get to her appointment on time.
She gets the client out of bail, accepts their thanks, sets up a meeting for the following week, returns to the office. The day has gotten late by the time Piper pushes through the door to the offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page.
Karen is at her desk, scribbling away at notes upon notes that do not seem to get her any closer to breaking the encryption in front of her. Foggy and Matt’s offices are empty.
“Long day?” Karen asks when Piper drops her bag next to the door and goes to rummage through the cupboards in hope of finding something to eat.
“Worst thing is that I don’t even feel like I made much headway at all,” Piper replies, contemplating if she even wants to eat the bland crispbread she finds.
Karen drops her pen on the desk, leans back in her chair, lets out a frustrated groan. “I know what you mean. I feel like I’m running in circles with this.” She nudges the notebook on her desk, glaring at it for good measure. “I told myself that if I can’t crack this code by the end of the week, I’ll put it aside and return to it at a later time.”
“You want to talk about it?” Piper offers.
Karen looks genuinely surprised. “I didn’t think you were interested.”
Piper can honestly say that Karen could monologue about the history of crispbread and she’d probably still like to listen to her. “I didn’t want to push.”
And maybe they’ve run into this pattern before: Piper hesitant to ask questions in fear of appearing pushy and Karen reluctant to share information without being prompted.
“I’m not even sure what this is,” Karen admits. “But I’ve been putting together an article on a right-wing lobbyist who dresses himself as a businessman and if my source is to be believed, this notebook is his.”
And if she calls them her source, Karen believes them.
Piper doesn’t ask for a name on the source, knows that she wouldn’t get one if she did. There is the slightest hint of a redirection of topic, too, in Karen’s word. Shifting the conversation from the notebook to its owner, from the way Karen acquired the notebook to how she got all the other information.
So, instead of pressing the issue of the notebook, Piper picks up a printed copy of a picture lying on top of a stack of papers. “Is this the guy you’re looking into?”
The photo shows a man who looks so boring it’s almost impressive. White, middle-aged, with a close-cropped beard and a thinly framed pair of glasses. It’s the kind of picture hundreds and thousands of companies have on their homepage for their employees, for their chair-people, for their founders.
Professional, calm, lacking any character.
“Randolf Steiner,” Karen says with a nod. “He’s an asshole who thinks he owns enough money that laws shouldn’t apply to him. Law enforcement is scared of touching him because he has powerful friends, and the courts don’t have enough to pin on him to come at him, either. Eternal circle of cat and mouse. Police can’t grab him without a warrant but they don’t get a warrant without some evidence.”
Piper nods along with the explanation, knows all too well how their legal system works. “How did he get on your radar, though? This isn’t new.” Because Karen might only have had the notebook for a few days, but the stack of notes scattered around her desk dates back over a few weeks.
“He’s in the city for a conference, so I did some research.”
Some research is a gross understatement.
Piper’s stomach growls. She has little to no interest in crispbread. And seeing as Karen had worked through lunch, she could probably use some dinner, too.
“How about we grab dinner and we talk about anything but work?” Piper asks. They do that, sometimes, need to do this; to put this stipulation on their outings to not talk about what’s going on in the office, to mark their conversations as pleasure, not business.
Karen frowns, clearly struggling with the idea of taking the night off with a mystery still demanding to be solved.
Piper waggles her eyebrows. “We could grab curry from that Indian place you like.”
“You know, I don’t like you using my weaknesses against me,” Karen says with a lofty smile as she starts packing up her notes.
Piper doesn’t even try to fight the grin on her face.
“Do you know what’s up with the guys from the office across the floor?” Karen asks as they enter the elevator. “They’ve been working late almost every day for the past month or so.”
The offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page share a hallway with a small marketing company who’d, up until recently, tended to work early rather than late. Piper isn’t above some gossip. “The ginger one was waiting for the elevator when I came in yesterday, and he was on the phone with someone. Sounded like they caught a client in Asia and are now struggling to align with the different time zones.”
“Didn’t the owner price himself on only working locally?” Karen asks as the doors open with a ding. “He made a right show out of it when they first moved in.”
Honestly, Piper doesn’t remember what the man had been talking about in his first few weeks here. Piper herself had been new to the building, had not cared about neighbors when she was still trying to get herself acquainted with her new employers.
“Might have,” she replies slowly, focus being pulled from the conversation by a weight that feels heavier than the distraction that had carried on throughout the day.
Next to her, Karen laughs, entirely unconcerned by the prickly feeling running down Piper’s back. “He spent half an hour telling Matt just how important print media is in today’s marketing world. And firstly, print media? In this day and age? Secondly, why tell Matt of all people about it?”
And Piper wants to laugh along with the anecdote, knows that she should. But right now, she can’t bring herself to. From the moment they step out into the street, Piper feels eyes on her, heavy like a physical presence.
When she turns, she’s met with a pair of sea-green eyes.
Already mourning her dinner plans with Karen, Piper stops to let him catch up. “Percy, hi. Did we have plans? You remember Karen.”
There is no need in asking Karen if she remembers Percy. Karen remembers everything. Which is good for a reporter, is good for gathering information, or asking her for help in a legal case.
It’s less good, sometimes, in this strange limbo of feelings they’re in. This odd in-between where they don’t date but don’t not date, where Piper has romantic feelings and is almost sure that they’re returned, but where she doesn’t act on them. Doesn’t act on them because of what it might mean for the firm in the long run. Doesn’t act on them because of all the other things that are only half-hidden between them. All the unspoken truths and half-lies that smooth everyday interactions.
Like Matt bringing Karen Randof Steiner’s notebook and Piper not asking where he got it from.
Like whatever Percy is about to drop on them.
“Yes, hi. Nice to see you again.” Percy hugs Piper in greeting, shakes Karen’s hand.
Piper regards him. “Did I forget we had plans?” She repeats, needs an answer, needs to know how important this is, how urgent.
Percy shakes his head. “No, this is an ambush, I’m sorry. Something came up and I could really use your help.”
In all the years they’ve known each other, Piper has never refused Percy help when he asked for it. She won’t refuse him now, either. But looking at Karen’s resigned smile, she almost wishes she were the kind of person who lets others walk into fires without backup.
“Karen, I…”
Before Piper can get out whatever half-formed apology this was going to turn into, the reporter interrupts her. “It’s alright. I get it. I’ll just turn in early today and see if I can catch up on some sleep.” She hugs Piper. “I’m holding you to that curry on another night, though.”
“I’m counting on it.”
As Karen vanishes down the street, Percy turns in the other direction. Piper falls into step next to him.
“For all it’s worth, I’m sorry for interrupting your dinner date,” Percy says as they make their way down the stairs to the nearest subway station.
Piper shrugs. There’s no changing the facts, now. “It’s fine. Also, not a dinner date.”
“So, you weren’t planning on going to a restaurant with the person you have romantic feelings for?”
“How would you know who I have romantic feelings for? You never notice these things until someone tells you to your face.” It’s a low blow, but not a strong one. Piper knows he won’t take offense.
Percy shrugs, unconcerned with his lack of a romantic radar. “Annabeth mentioned it.”
Which, yeah, probably makes sense.
“Where are we going, by the way?”
Percy doesn’t comment on the sudden change of topic, drags her into a waiting subway car. “As I interrupted your dinner-not-a-date, I thought we could get chimichangas.”
Half an hour later, Piper and Percy are sitting at the waterside, each of them with a chimichanga and a soda, an extra one next to Percy. The East River flows before them, brown water sparkling in the setting sun. Ferries pass before them, tourist boats, sport ships, a couple in a tandem canoe. Beyond the river, Brooklyn rises with her densely packed residential buildings and crowded streets.
A passing boat takes a turn instead of following the path further up the river, takes shelter in a little harbor just on the other side of the river. It finds shelter on a wooden dock packed with expensive yachts.
Percy still hasn’t said why he took her here, why he interrupted her evening plans.
But if he’s not going to talk, Piper’s not going to ask. Instead, they talk about Camp, talk about Percy repainting his mother’s living room, about Katie’s second pregnancy.
The sudden smell of burning rubber hits Piper at the same time as the sound of screeching tires too behind her, too close for comfort.
Piper rolls her eyes, takes another bite of her dinner, chews it carefully. “Was that meant to scare me?” she asks as Leo flops down to sit next to her, all toothy grin and disheveled hair.
“Never, oh most beautiful woman in the world. Did you get me food?” He half-hugs her as he’s pulling his helmet off, and Piper can’t pretend to be mad at him for even a second.
She jots a thumb in Percy’s direction. “If you’re just flirting with me for the food, you’ll have to redirect your attention to Percy.”
Leo turns to look at the son of Poseidon. “Oh, most handsome…”
Percy laughs, puts the extra chimichanga into Leo’s hands. “Don’t even start.”
Now that Leo is here, there’s three of them.
Which, to an outsider, might not be of much significance.
But Piper has spent many years at Camp Half-Blood, has called it her home for a while, considers its inhabitants her family. And each family has its rules, has its patterns. Two people are a sparring match, four are a pinochle round, five or more are a movie night.
Three people are on a quest.
And now that the adventuring group is complete, Percy finally starts talking about why they’re here.
“Do you see the yacht over there?” He points over at the harbor on the other side of the river.
“What, the white one?” Piper asks, scanning the dozen or so white motor yachts docked at the harbor.
“Third one from the left,” Percy adds helpfully.
Leo cocks his head, considers the ship all the way across the river. “Nice one.” He scrunches up his forehead, but the distance seems to be too far for him to reach with his powers, to say anything of note. “You interested in the specs?”
The third yacht from the left doesn’t look that much different from the fourth or the second one from the left. It’s big, a show of ostentatious wealth even Piper’s father never had to throw around. It’s the kind of ship that’s featured on Below Decks, the kind of ship that has dozens of staff to wait on a handful of passengers, the kind of ship to throw pretentious parties on.
Percy shakes his head. “No, I’m interested in its owner.”
“Why are we talking about the ship, then?” Leo asks, missing context clues as he is wont to do.
“Because we’re going to break into it.” Percy says it with such calm conviction that it takes Piper a moment to catch up with the fact.
She stares at him blankly. “You do realize I’m a lawyer, yeah? This could get me disbarred.”
“Only if we get caught,” Percy shoots back, flawless logic as always.
Leo, of course, doesn’t struggle with the ethical – or legal – repercussions of Percy’s plan, goes straight to curiosity. “Why are we breaking in? Who’s ship is it?”
And then, because Piper’s life is a massive joke and the fates hate her guts, Percy says the one name that could easily convince her to go through with whatever it is he’s got planned. “Randolf Steiner. Ever heard of him?”
“Unfortunately,” Piper mutters as Leo shakes his head. She finishes off her food, wipes her mouth with the flimsy napkin. “Apparently, he’s a right-wing asshole who thinks money can buy him freedom from the law.”
Percy hums his agreement. “He’s also an asshole who participates in whale hunting and profits off shark finning.”
“Asshole, all around, got it,” Leo comments, wolfing down his food. “What are we here to do, though? You don’t need me and Pipes to sink a ship.”
“He’s an asshole, yes,” Percy reiterates. “But he’s not actually who I want, he’s small game. This guy is connected to the scum of the seas. I want to get his contacts, so I can dismantle his finning ring, and take down whoever else crosses my path as I do so.”
Piper thinks of Karen with pages upon pages of notes on this guy, thinks about days of fruitless attempts to break his code. “If you don’t want to take him down, mind if I do?”
Percy beams at her. “Don’t hold back on my account.”
Piper returns the smile.
She knows why people are sometimes frightened of Percy when he smiles like this. Knows why they’re scared when Percy shows his teeth and his nose crinkles just a tiny bit as if in anticipation of a fight.
But he’s her family, and the son of Poseidon is only ever dangerous to his enemies. So Piper looks at a face that would make another person run for the hills and feels a sense of determination and finality settle into her.
“Please tell me you have a plan.”
Percy doesn’t, not really. Percy has never been one for plans, has always been one for improvising or for going with Annabeth’s plans. He’s never needed much of a plan, seeing as “hit them until they stop moving” is a strategy he’s absolutely perfected, seeing that he is a fighter to his core.
But Leo is an engineer who might be lightning fast while solving mechanical issues but tends to skip context clues where the human factor is concerned. Leo needs a plan because if they don’t have one, he might wander off to re-calibrate the navigational system or whatever else is likely to catch his fancy.
Piper, first and foremost, needs a plan because she doesn’t plan on getting caught. She plans on getting in and out without anyone noticing, plans on not getting disbarred just to help her friend’s vendetta.
So, they think about it, and they talk about it.
And when they finally have a plan that doesn’t feel like it’ll fail within the first two minutes, Percy gets up, throws the wrappers into the nearest trash bin, then gets out earplugs for both himself and Leo.
“Can you hear me?” Piper asks a minute later to no reaction. She takes care to have her next words dripping with charm speak. “Do a spin.” A passing seagull struggles through a looping.
Percy and Leo remain unmoved.
Piper smiles at her friends, easily changes to ASL to communicate. “You’re good. Let’s head out.
Percy offers her a mock salute, then somersaults off the pier and into the Hudson.
Piper and Leo follow him with less theatrics.
Some feelings, Piper thinks she’ll never get used to. Emerged in water that’s gripping her so tightly she can’t do much more than wiggle her toes, she floats up the side of the yacht, hopes that no-one happens to come this way.
They’d sat on the pier for quite a while, familiarizing themselves with the layout of the boat, the people on it, the intervals in which they walk the perimeter. Piper had changed her sensible office-wear for dark jeans and a black hoodie Leo had brought.
The sun had gone down.
Not that it helps all too much. New York is the city that never sleeps; billboards, streetlights and cars alike lighting up the night.
Steiner is in his office in the center of the ship. It has floor-to-ceiling windows, lush couches, a TV, a desk. One of the sliding doors has been left open to let in the cool evening air.
His mistake.
Percy sets her down right outside the window, the water retreating the way it came as Piper makes sure the hood covers her face.
Steiner doesn’t even turn around as she enters, feeling too secure in the sanctity of his floating home. “Sleep,” Piper tells him, infuses just enough of her power into the command that the man in front of her gently tilts to the side, rests his head on the nearest cushion and goes to sleep.
Piper grabs the stone Percy had previously pushed into her hand and tosses it into the water. A moment later, another wave sets Percy and Leo down next to her.
They get to work quickly, too many people on the ship for their presence to go unnoticed for long. On a desk sits a sleek laptop and Leo is soon in front of it, fingers flying over the keyboard. Slumped on the couch, Steiner doesn’t even react when Percy relieves him of his phone. Piper turns towards the bookshelves, scans over titles in heavy cursive that are an absolute headache to decipher.
It’s not much of a library, not much in the form of physical media, just a few books on global economical relations, some biographies, an illustrated book on maritime travel or two. On the low table in front of Steiner, Piper finds a notebook like the one that had been driving Karen to frustration those past few days.
Piper picks it up, flips through the pages. It’s only a quarter filled, but the filled pages hold the same thing as the notebook Karen has at the office: letters in clusters of seven, no discernible pattern to them, some cipher neither Piper nor Karen has any idea how to unlock.
Piper puts the book back, focuses on the task at hand.
Leo’s backup of both the laptop and the mobile will have to do.
“How’s it going?” Piper asks her best friend.
Leo’s already lost interest in the laptop, is instead sitting in the high-backed chair behind the desk, spinning it around and around and around. He doesn’t even look up at the question.
Piper waves her hand and on the next spin-around, Leo drops a foot to the ground, locks eyes with her, quirks an eyebrow at her. Piper repeats the question non-verbally, her hands flying through the well-trained motions of ASL.
Leo responds in kind. “It’s loading. Give it a few minutes.”
“And the phone?”
“Already cloned it onto the hard drive.”
“Good.”
Two short snaps of fingers make her turn around, look at Percy who’s face is set in sudden alertness. On his sign, they all scramble for cover.
Two of the security detail poke their heads into the room a moment later. Piper presses her back against the desk, forces her breathing to be slow and steady.
“You sure we should be in here?” asks a young voice with a southern accent.
“I thought I heard something,” comes the curt reply.
“You mean besides the bosses’ snores?” Humor underlines the nerves. Piper hopes they’ll turn around before they step past the couch and spot Percy hidden there.
A scoff in reply. “You think we should wake him up? He’s got a meeting in half an hour, doesn’t he?”
Soft steps on a thick carpet. They’re getting closer to Percy.
Piper chances a glance around the edge of the desk, makes sure nobody is looking in from past the windows.
Her voice is heavy with magic as she speaks. “Be silent. Sit down. Sleep.”
The two guards follow her commands without a second’s hesitation. Piper counts to five, makes sure everything is quiet and safe. Then, she leaves her hiding place, signals the guys the “all clear”.
Percy gets up from his spot behind the couch, takes one of the ear plugs out. “We good?” he asks.
“Yes,” Piper confirms, “at least for now. But Steiner has a meeting in half an hour, so we should get on with it.” She is about to turn back to ask Leo how long the download will take, when she spots the look on Percy’s face. “What’s with you?”
“I can hear fish,” Percy replies slowly, head cocked to the side like a curious dog.
“We’re literally on the water, Percy. It’s to be expected.”
Percy shakes his head. “But it’s coming from above us, not below.”
Piper has never before been on a yacht such as this, but she’s seen them often enough on TV. “You figure there’s a swimming pool on the roof?”
It’s the wrong thing to say, even though it might be true. But Percy’s face goes from curious collie to enraged rottweiler in the span of one sentence. “They wouldn’t.”
“You’re really going to make bets on the morality of this guy?” Because Piper might not have been on a yacht like this before, but she’s met guys like Steiner. She’d met them at Helmson, Peters and co and represented them, had met them in courtrooms with Matt and Foggy and crushed them.
“We have to free them,” Percy says, forgone decision, no need to argue, no way to change the outcome.
This was supposed to be a stealth mission, in and out without leaving a trace, without anyone noticing they were ever here. Stealing a swimming pool full of fish from the deck of the ship is many things, but “stealthy” isn’t among them.
Piper takes a breath to refuse, arguments already on the tip of her tongue, years of training building up in the back of her mind that she knows make her capable of getting Percy to leave without making a fuss. But then she meets his eyes.
Percy might be a bleeding heart, but so is Piper, when confronted with her friend’s puppy dog eyes.
“If I loose my job over this, you’re gonna regret this.”
It’s the truth as much as it is an empty threat. Percy would regret it, would feel guilty, would grovel for forgiveness. But Piper wouldn’t rub it in, not in a serious way.
Percy winks at her. “Then let’s make sure we don’t get caught.”
“Three more minutes,” Leo offers before Piper even has to ask. He, too, has taken out his ear plugs.
Which, Piper understands. They’re uncomfortable, and make communication hard and lower spacial awareness. But at the same time, they keep her allies safe from the charm speak Piper uses on their opponents.
Three minutes.
A grand exit.
No chance to go unnoticed.
“Put these back in,” Piper tells her friends. “I’m going to get us some space.”
She crouches next to the guards. “Once you wake up, you will go down to the engine room. You will have no memory of seeing us here, or even of coming into the study. You will report to the other guards that you saw someone go down into the engine room, and call for backup. Make sure you search below decks thoroughly for the intruder. Now, wake up.”
Their eyes fly open, staring blindly past Piper as they get to their feet and out of the room.
Percy whirls around in alarm as they start moving, but settles as Piper gives him a sign.
She walks over to the couch, sits down next to Steiner. She wants to give him a series of commands, wants him to scatter and secure their exit, but another thought crosses her mind. “Tell me how to decipher your notes.”
Steiner stirs but doesn’t wake, his words clear in spite of his sleep-heavy tongue. “It’s the Vigenère cipher, code phrase “Great fish feed on the lesser”.” Piper doesn’t know what any of that means, but commits the words to memory.
“You will wake up at the sound of someone shouting,” she commands him. “You will not remember us being here or taking a nap. You will stay in town until the end of month at least.”
Leo is running a cloth over the keyboard, Percy returns Steiner’s phone to its owner.
Footsteps clatter down the stairs to the engine room in search of intruders.
Leo pockets the hard drive, pulls the hood over his head. “With or without?” he signs, gesturing towards his ears.
“Take them out,” Piper replies in kind, making sure Percy sees it, too. “If we’re to do this quickly, we aught to be able to communicate.”
Percy turns to Leo. “Can you mess with the security feeds?”
Leo scoffs at him. “What do you think I’ve been doing sitting over there the past few minutes?” he grins.
“How long do you need?” Piper asks, turning to Percy for his part of the plan.
“Hop in the pool, make a huge wave to drain it into the Hudson,” Percy surmises. “So, a minute if everything goes well?”
Everything does not, in fact, go well, but who could have guessed that?
Even though the guards are all below decks to chase after imagined intruders, two men are sitting next to the pool, whirling around to face the actual intruders with wide-eyed stares.
Going by the pressed collars and the expensive watches, they aren’t guards. They still carry weapons and don’t hesitate to point them at the three black-clothed strangers suddenly appearing on the other side of the pool.
“Stop!” one shouts.
“Who are you?” the other demands. “Show your faces!”
Piper raises her hands in a show of surrender. On either side of her, the guys are doing the same. “Put down your weapons,” she commands. “We’re not here to harm you.” If she commands them to go to sleep, Percy and Leo will fall to her wiles, as well. Piper chooses her words carefully. “There is no need for anyone to get hurt.”
She takes a step towards the pool. Percy and Leo follow. The two men across the pool lower their weapons, clearly apprehensive of them, but lulled into a sense of security by her words.
Piper stops at the edge of the pool.
About a dozen fish are lazily swimming around the chemically clean water. Next to her, Piper can almost feel Percy’s rage radiate off him. Shaker of the earth, they call Poseidon. Percy’s father is known to have a temper.
But it’s not the god himself Piper is on the mission with, it’s one of her closest friends and allies. She’s not afraid of Percy, has to believe that he won’t blow the mission for all of them in the name of revenge.
Percy takes a step past her, drops down into the pool.
The strangers’ grip on their weapons tighten. Piper doesn’t want to draw even more attention, keeps her voice low and level. “Don’t worry about him, just stay where you are.”
A sudden jerk next to her.
Leo, about to follow Percy into the pool, has drawn to a sudden stop.
The day has been long and Piper’s attention might be slipping, so the next words she utters aren’t very well thought about. “I didn’t mean you,” she tells Leo. But the men on the other side of the pool hear her, too.
As Leo takes a step forwards and vanishes into the water, the strangers, free of Piper’s commands after her poorly-worded comment to her best friend, draw up their guns and fire.
Piper lets herself fall forwards into the safety of the pool, pain shooting through her shoulder as blood paints chlorinated water red.
As water swirls and rushes around her, Piper looses all sense of direction. She can’t tell what’s up and what’s down, can’t tell if the sudden sick feeling in her stomach comes from the shock of being shot or from the odd feeling of being tossed around like a piece of laundry in the washing machine.
Piper holds her breath for as long as she can.
When her lungs burn and pain forces her to gasp for air, she is still under water. Regardless, her lungs fill with air, not water, as the tossing and turning finally subsides.
A hand firmly grasps onto hers.
Piper squeezes back.
When she pries open her eyes, it is to meet worried green eyes surrounded by muddy brown water.
“When I said I didn’t want to get disbarred, this wasn’t quite the alternative I had in mind,” she forces out.
Percy’s eyeroll is fond, if a little exasperated. “You should have said.” His grasp on her shifts, the water around them taking on a direction, a purpose. “Leo is calling Will to meet us at the pier to patch you up.”
And indeed, somewhere behind them, Piper can hear Leo’s voice.
When darkness pulls her under, Piper doesn’t go willingly, but with the knowledge that she is in the very best hands.
Friday morning comes with the smell of wet asphalt from a thunderstorm since passed, with voices excited for the upcoming weekend, with Foggy’s arm steady and familiar underneath Matt’s hand.
Karen is already at the office when the two men arrive with coffee from the shop down the street and baked goods to ease their morning meeting.
It’s not that unusual for Karen to be in before them. That Piper is running late, however, is so far unheard of. But as Matt approaches the office, he can hear only one heartbeat in the office, only one set of footsteps, no early-morning chatter between the two women.
Karen greets them with her usual cheery mood, only a beat of a pause when the door opens to admit Matt and Foggy instead of Piper. Matt doesn’t begrudge her the disappointment.
He’s got a favorite co-worker, too, after all.
“Piper not in yet?” Foggy asks after handing both a bear claw and a coffee over to Karen.
Long hair swishes over cotton as the reporter shakes her head. “No, not yet.”
“The two of you closed up last night, didn’t you?” Matt asks. Remembers hearing the fist bits of a conversation about having dinner together before he consciously stopped listening, found something else to focus on.
Karen is past being annoyed at him for knowing things he shouldn’t. “Yes, we did, planned on having dinner together. But Percy picked her up, it sounded urgent.”
Matt doesn’t know if it was urgent, as he hadn’t actually listened to them.
He isn’t sure how he feels about Karen being stood up like this, if this even counts as her being stood up. It was just casual dinner between friends. And something else had come up for Piper.
If Foggy blew a basket every time Matt rescheduled dinner plans, their friendship would have been shot years ago.
By the time Piper enters the office, another twenty minutes have passed, but neither Matt nor Foggy have gotten to work. They’d spent their time around Karen’s desk, discussing the Steiner story before Piper comes in.
Karen had come across him in her research, had gotten her claws into the topic, had dug up pages upon pages of notes on the man. With each new information Karen unearthed on the man, Matt’s dislike had grown further. It started with barely legal and definitely not ethical treatment of his employees, went through tax fraud and animal abuse and donations to sketchy firms up to bribery and extortion – allegedly, one has to add, as none of these things have ever been proven in a court of law.
But as the weeks had gone on, Karen hit a wall. None of her sources dared to go on record, nothing she had in her notes was quite up to the standard of reliable sources she’d need to publish.
Randolf Steiner attending a meeting in Hell’s Kitchen one evening had been a lucky coincidence.
Matt running into him on his way home hadn’t been a coincidence, at all.
It had been easy to mime the clumsy blind guy, to steady his stumble with one hand against Steiner’s shoulder, the other gliding into the man’s bag to pull out a little notebook.
Karen had been ecstatic when Matt had brought her the book.
“One of my sources says he keeps all his notes in this thing, takes it out to read, but only ever writes in it in the privacy of his study.”
The elation hadn’t held on for long.
“I can’t read it,” she’d said, disappointment heavy in her voice. “It’s some sort of code.”
Karen had spent days trying to decipher the notes, hours upon hours of research and phone calls and increasingly frustrated tapping on her keyboard, scratching of pen on paper.
This morning, however, Karen’s thoughts aren’t on the notebook. “One of my police contacts called me this morning,” she says, exited, and with renewed drive in her voice. “Apparently, something happened on Steiner’s yacht last night. Police were called because shots were fired. They couldn’t go on board to check it out because it’s under a foreign flag and therefore technically foreign soil, and nobody could pinpoint the sound to his ship beyond reasonable doubt. But far as I know, someone sneaked into their engine room and caused quite an unrest.”
“You heard anything about that?” Foggy asks Matt.
Matt shakes his head. “He’s in a harbor on the other side of the river. My hearing isn’t that good.”
The clicking of heels in the hall is familiar enough when Piper finally arrives. She’s slightly overdone it with her flowery perfume this morning. Her voice is cheery as she opens the door with a greeting.
Matt turns to greet her, attention shifting from his previous conversation to their newest colleague.
Her heart is beating fast.
She smells of blood.
“You alright?” Matt asks, instead of offering a greeting.
Piper shrugs, but something about the motion seems to agitate her left shoulder. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Because I can hear your muscles knitting themselves back together. Because I can smell old blood and fresh scabbing and sharp antiseptic on you. Because when you move, the blouse on your left shoulder rubs over something I can only guess are stitches.
Because you’re hurt.
Because your heart-rate is up.
Because you’re trying to avoid my question.
“Just that you’re in later than usual,” Foggy gently cuts in. “Here, we swung by the bakery on our way in.”
With that, he hands over baked goods and fresh coffee, and starts their little progression over to the meeting room.
Foggy might not be able to clock Piper’s injuries in a dozen different ways. But he knows Matt well enough after all these years to know when he’s thrown, knows enough to deflect attention away from him, to give him a moment to re-settle himself.
Karen runs a hand up Matt’s forearm. “Everything good?” she asks. A few years ago, he might have thought there to be more behind her touch, might have found intention and longing behind the quick brush up his sleeve. These days, Matt knows that while Karen might still be holding out hope for a romantic relationship with one of her co-workers, it certainly isn’t Matt.
“Well enough for now,” Matt replies. He tries to make a habit out of not lying to his friends any more than he has to.
Piper calms down over the course of their regular morning briefing. She scratches her shoulder a few times, almost wincing away from her own touch, but keeping her face calm and the pained sounds to an absolute minimum, inaudible to anyone but Matt.
Once they’ve talked through all their cases, allotted case-work, scheduled meetings, caught each other up on different proceedings, Foggy moves to close the meeting to get to his own desk.
Piper stops him. “Actually, if you’ve got another minute, I’d like to discuss the Steiner case.”
“It’s not a case,” Matt replies. The truth, even though they tend to treat Karen’s stories similarly to the lawyers’ cases.
There is a reason they’ve mostly kept this between the three of them until now, though. With Matt collecting information as the Devil, cluing Piper into things is hard without running the risk of her catching wind of something being off.
“Maybe it should be,” comes the cryptic reply as Piper grabs something out of her purse. There is the soft thunk of fingers hitting wood as Piper places her hand on the table, takes a deep breath. Her heartbeat is picking up again. “I have come into possession of information on Randolf Steiner. I have come to this information through a highly credible source that I do not wish to divulge.” The sound of something compact in a plastic casing being placed onto the desk. “This is a hard-drive with all the information Randolf Steiner has both on his personal laptop and his mobile phone.” Piper’s voice is business-like, sounds the way it does whenever Piper is in court, or talking with opposing counsel. Matt isn’t used to hearing her work-voice turned onto him. “Karen, I understand that you are in possession of a notebook of Mr. Steiner’s of which you do not want to divulge the means of access, either.”
Karen makes a small sound, surprised, and maybe a little bit offended. Matt can almost feel her trying not to look at him. If Piper finds out how exactly Karen got her hands on that book, the whole house of cards comes toppling down on Daredevil.
Piper doesn’t allow the silence to stretch, takes their silence as a statement. “I’m not asking about how you got that notebook, just as I expect you not to ask me how I got my information. Whatever this is-” she makes a vast hand gesture, encompassing everything and nothing in the law offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page- “I won’t ask questions if you don’t.”
The silence following the statement is heavier than the one before, settles between them like a challenge.
Nobody picks it up.
Piper takes another breath, calming and slowly beginning to settle. “The notebook is encrypted using the Vigenère cipher, code phrase “Great fish feed on the lesser”.” One more time, her hand goes to her shoulder to ghost over the well-tended wound there. “Now, would you mind me taking the rest of the day off? I must have slept oddly, my shoulder is all stiff.”
Her heartbeat picks up. Lie.
“Sure,” Foggy says, voice in half a haze from the past few minutes, “you should rest.”
Foggy has said these word so many times to Matt, it feels weird that they still hold any meaning at all. Piper grabs her bag, offers her goodbyes, makes to leave the room.
After dropping a bomb like this, getting out of dodge might be a good idea.
Maybe, she realizes just how much her three colleagues need some time among themselves right now.
Piper is almost out the door when Matt stops her. “Piper?
“I don’t know anything about an intruder in Steiner’s engine room,” she replies calmly.
Her heart beats in the steady rhythm of the truth.
Matt bids her goodbye and lets her leave.