Chapter Text
Pietro died in 2014.
He was shot defending Clint Barton. It did mean Wanda was twinless in the end, but the Avengers took her in afterwards, so she wasn't alone. Clint then named his son after him. Well, the kid’s middle-name was Pietro, but it was close enough to count. He didn’t need anymore then all that. He was content, he didn't need another shot.
He certainly didn’t need be back alive.
He has no clue how he’s alive, but dwelling on it isn’t doing much. He might as well run with it and figure out the details later. Focusing on keeping his new found life is probably more important then knowing about how he got it.
Especially when he’s tied up in a penthouse with a pretty sweet view.
Not one he recognised, but sure.
Everything was a charcoal black, dark clouds seared into the grimey skyline which jutted out from behind glass giants. Their bodies were covered in partly illuminated eyes, all watching aimlessly at him as if it was a daydream in a midnight park. Any panes at eye level selectively closed off, blocking out the alert awakeness of a ceiling light glow.
He's sitting in the dark on a storey miles off the ground.
Pietro ruffled around with his binds. Coarse rope was around his ankles and tied his wrists behind his back - nothing he couldn’t handle. Strucker had him burning through thicker after all, a bit of twine isn’t anything more than a symbolic gesture to Maximoff. Someone wants him here, and that someone wants the illusion of control over him.
So, he might as well play along.
He’s not alone - he knows that for certain. No one would leave their captive alone so close to a glass window. His ‘someone’ is in the shadows, waiting for something, he bets. Pietro opens his mouth to speak, tone precalculated.
“Where am I…?”
Short, simple, but expectable. A fake wobble to truly sell the deal.
“Somewhere. For now.” The voice is gritty but elegant, like a gold chain on a muddy pavement - scuffed up and dirtied, but still out of place from everything around it.
“What you want from me?” Pietro asks, hiding his fiddling with the rope, testing the slack and range of motion in his wrist. Yeah, child’s play.
It takes a moment for the man to respond.
“There’s a cluster of small incisions and scarring all over your body. Bullet wounds I’m presuming. One in each shoulder, one in your thigh and a handful across your chest and stomach.” The eventually tone was calm - overtly calm. Factual almost, no room to argue. “Are you wondering how I know that?”
Pietro let out a grin. “Amongst other things.”
The man let out a gladdened huff, muffling the sound of ice swirling against a glass. “Tell me then, Pietro. What questions to you want answering?”
He was taken off guard, wrists frozen, eyes scrunched. “How... how you know my name?”
“It wasn’t difficult to find.”
“Wh-who are you?”
“A man with ambitions.” The answer was spoken with clarity and status. “And I’d like you to help me with them.”
“You… you kidnap me and have the nerve to ask for my help?!” Pietro concurred , half aggravated, half amused. “Your friends must think the world of you.”
A chuckle snarled out of the darkness. “You have a sense of humour.” It observed. “And a perceptive mind. Both good qualities. But let me put forward this, I didn’t kidnap you.”
“These ropes say otherwise.”
“I guess they do.” The stranger was eerily conversational through it all. “But I can assure you, I didn’t play a leading part to you being here.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to bring someone to me. And I want her alive.”
“You got me kidnapped, so I could kidnap someone else?” Pietro expressed dubiously. “Are you full of shit?”
The man sighed. “It’s come to my attention that you’re fast. I need fast. The girl I need, she’s… headstrong.”
“You’re any better?”
“This is serious.” He lectured, sipping from the glass. “She destroying my operations. Bring her to me alive and we’ll make all this work.”
Pietro shuffled the chair towards him, wood battling wood. “What’s in it for me?”
The man paused for a moment. “Is your life not enough?”
Toying with the ropes again, Pietro shook his head.
“I don’t do that.”
He started to rub his hands together, subtle at first, but then speeding up.
“Worth a shot.” The man grumbled defeatedly. He sped up his hands. “I really don’t like working with the Piper but… if it’s my only option…”
The man began to tap against the phone screen, attention momentarily diverted. Pietro took the opportunity. His hands became a blur. The man began to speak, but Pietro didn't bother to make out the words. He blazed through the fibres. Fast. Cutting the ropes. Fighting through friction until… snap…!
The rope fell to the floor.
Pietro headed for his ankles. He attacked the knots with his fingers. He heard the man jolt.
“You…!” His face lit up with blue-light. It was gnarly and coarse and bitter, wrinkles plunged into shadow. He cursed down the phone. “Security!”
Pietro slashed at the other knot. It was done tighter, firmer. He pulled at the rope with his hands. Kicked it with his free foot. He could hear people running up the stairs. He kept trying. The man sunk further into the wall. The doors burst open. Men and women with guns, all pointed at him. Light from the corridor forced its way in. He continued to claw as they came closer.
“Hands where I can see them!” One of the security guards ordered, handgun directed at him.
Pietro froze. He hesitantly pulled away his hands and raised up his arms. He looked over his shoulder at the city, at the drop down. The guard grabbed his arms and unclipped a set of cuffs from their belt. They snapped them around Pietro’s wrists.
“Call up the Piper.” The man in the dark ordered once he was restrained again. “The kid’s illogical.”
The guard just nodded and pulled out their own phone from a side pocket. Pietro eyed the city. He had one leg free, hands caught together and a chair attached to him. Odds were against him, but it didn’t stop him from kicking.
He kicked hard, launching himself towards the window. It shattered as he forced through. The guards jumped into action. A bullet fired. Pietro fell through the air.
Wind wrapped around his body. His thoughts felt hazy and his body was cold. He plummeted towards the ground. The faces above him grew smaller. Falling faster and faster and faster. Air rougher, wind tougher, head aching. Speeds heightened until… everything slowed down.
Maximum speeds often had that effect on Pietro - moving so fast, not even time could keep up. He could extend every second, savour every moment, watch as life played in slow-motion. The wind was less aggressive, his thoughts less invasive, and he could sense every motion in his fall. The flap of a nearby bird’s wing was heavy, and the glass shards almost levitated along with him as he slowly and tenderly spun in his descent. He has time to think.
He’s about halfway down now, the ground below gentling growing in size in every minute. He could break through another window to land, if he could get the traction. He won’t make it if he falls against the concrete. He takes a deep breath and leans towards the tower again.
Time picks up. Air binds him, forces fight him. His body bullets towards the glass a second time. He leans in further.
Closer.
Closer…
He erupts through the window, thudding onto the tile. The chair shatters from the force.Shards of glass coat the floor, stabbing into his winded body. His lungs freeze up and muscles fail. Everything hurts, destroyed in a full body punch. He can’t move. He can’t drag himself off the ground, can’t breathe. Red scrapes out his skin and bruising swells over his chest.
Throbs overwhelm his body and can’t remember when his eyes shut and he can hardly comprehend.
Everything fucking hurts.
Footsteps… footsteps he thinks. He can hear them. Someone’s here.
He forces out a wobbly smile and croaks out…
“You didn’t see that coming….?”
The Devil crawled out the depths in 2015.
He emerged to try and keep the city safe, do the things that other people couldn't. He fought conspiracies, arrested criminals, uprooted Fisk. He did the things the police couldn't... or were paid to look away from. He became the symbol they needed.
But now? Now he's not sure where it's landed him.
Metal scraps along stone. Something heavy and forceful, but narrow along the edge - like a sword or an axe. They drag it along the floor towards him, the grating sound coming ever nearer, distracting him from the person themself.
He doesn’t like sounds like that - the ones that invade every piece of his being and bounce off the corners of the room. Nails on chalkboards, glass shattering in empty rooms, bullets fired, metal across stone. Considering he’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, an active vigilante who deals with those things on a day-to-day, misophonia is a huge trigger of his.
He doesn’t know where he is now. He knows he’s inside, but the room’s drafty, probably leaving him close to the ground floor. It’s not a massive room either, based on the way the cold air sits on the slats, and there’s a door, just… to his right, slightly ajar. Everything smells damp and not well kept and he tastes a murkiness in the atmosphere. It clings to his exposed face like glue.
He doesn’t have his mask on.
Someone must have taken it off.
The metal continues to ring in his ears. He cringes at it and his fingers curl up. The person stops.
Their heartbeat fluttering, he hears them take a step back, soft soles on concrete. Their grip on the weapon is soft and they keep tapping a finger against the plastic handle. Their breathing wisps louder, cardboard shuffles against cloth and faint static sparks off a microphone as it becomes more audible. Half-afraid, half-prepared, they pick the axe of the floor.
“Make a run for it… I’ll… I’ll hit you with this, yeah?” It’s a boy, no older than sixteen. He’s putting on a tough voice, trying to seem threatening. It’s not really working, and instead it makes it seem like he’s never done anything like this before. “You-you better tell me who you are. Otherwise it’ll get messy…”
The boy stinks of spray paint and ill-hygiene. The feedback buzzed with every word out his mouth. He clutches the axe harder.
“Where did you put my mask?”
Trying to angle his head towards the sound of the kid, he lets the question hover. He didn’t need to lose the leverage he can pretend he has, but he's also struggling to use his actual skills to his advantage. He's struggling to map things out, and both questions went unanswered.
“Don’t make me ask again…!” The kid cries out in the silence. “I-I will do it…! Don't think I won't, yeah...?! Who are you?!”
“Put the axe down, kid."
He hears the boy’s nails dig into rubber. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“I never said you were.”
“S-Stop messin’! He shouted, more intimidated then intimidating. “I-I- You don’t think I will?!”
Murdock picked up on the unease in his voice and the tension in his grip. “Not unless you prove it.”
“What…?”
“Do it.” He incited. “Prove you’ll do what you’re saying you will.”
The boy’s hand quivered, a loose rope or vine around his wrist hitting against the rubber grip in his palm. His heart rate began to increase and his breathing grew more ragged than it already was. Taking a hesitant step forward, he slowly raised the axe above his head. He held it clumsily, and his body trembled. Scrunching his face, he prepared to bring it down and…
Swung it lifeless by his side.
“You… you knew I was bluffin’… didn’t you?”
Murdock nodded.
“Damn it.” He slumped down, his weapon clattering down beside him. “This… this is so bloody stupid!”
“It’s stupid to not want to hurt someone?”
“Well, yeah?” The boy fizzed, frustrated. “I need to. I can’t just stay all bark and no bite…!”
He slammed his fist against the floor. The microphone flickered with the feedback again, causing the boy to wince and hit the side of his face. The sound halted when he slapped the plastic on his hearing aid.
“F’ing thing…” He muttered to himself.
“You’re… deaf.”
“In the one ear.” He let out a half-chuckle. “Other one’s catching up though. Once my aid goes, I might as well be.”
“That’s what the white noise is, isn’t it?”
“You can hear that?” One brow raised, the kid leaned closer, intrigued. “You must have some pretty good ears, you lucky bugger.”
“I wouldn’t call myself that.”
The kid smirked again, his heart rate steading. “I like you. If you’re working with the Wolf or something, I’m actually gonna riot.”
“The Wolf…?”
“Yeah?” He sounded as if he was just told he had three heads. “The underground killer who’s running this place to the ground? You don’t know him?”
The silence gave away the answer.
“Okay…” He fiddled with edge of the cardboard - he had tied it around himself like body armour. “You wanna tell me how you - a guy in a mask - ended up in a city you know nothing about?”
“Only if you tell me what city that is.”
“You- You’re in no place to make demands.”
“You can always hit me again if I start acting up.”
“…” The boy couldn’t conceal his laughter. “Screw you.”
Pulling himself to his feet, the kid pulls something out his pocket. Something light and made of plastic, slightly hollow by the sound of his fingers against it. He starts pressing buttons and the burner phone begins to ring.
“I gotta make a call.” The boy snickers, edging to the right. “Welcome to the warzone, you arsehole.”
The kid pried the door open - it wasn’t connected to the hinges so he just shoved it out the way. Grimy air clumped through the opening as he clambered through. He ended up stood just outside the door, lowering his voice when the otherside picked up the phone.
“The guy’s a friendly.” There was no hesitation in his voice, just trust.
“You positive?” The person on the receiving end wasn’t as lenient, the slightly corrupted audio not disguising there disdain.
“Yeah.”
“How’d you know?”
He paused, unsure how to respond. “I… I can kinda just tell, y’know?”
“You can just tell?! That’s some bullshit I’m telling you.”
“I’m telling you it ain’t!” Irritation bloomed in his voice.
… “ ‘Stina also isn’t buying it. You’re too soft.”
He scowled. “I’m not soft! And I know what I’m doing, come see for yourself.”
“I am not letting that goddamn Wolf of ours have any other lead on where I am. Just get him to talk, Jack.”
The other side hung up without missing a beat.
The boy - Jack - sighs, before slowly turning back into the bunker. A hard plastic hat hits the beam above his head as he comes through the door again.
He sits down in front of Murdock and starts to fidget with the cardboard again.
“You gotta name?” He asks gently after a moment. The question was simple and conversational, not as prying for information as he was just tld. “Or is that on a need to know basis?”
“Matt.”
“Well then, ‘Matt’, what’s the story?” Jack queries reluctantly, head not looking up at him. “I’m sure there’s a reason behind that helmet of yours, one worth hearing I bet.”
“People needed a symbol.” He kept it short, brief. “I took up the mantle.”
“I take it these people you speak of aren’t the one’s here, eh?”
“Go figure.”
Jack folded over the corner of the cardboard body armour. “…Are you a hero?”
“Not exactly.” The laugh was dry, forced. He himself knew he wasn’t heroic, just necessary.
“What exactly are you then?”
“I suppose…” He couldn’t find the words on his lips.“…I do things the heroes are afraid of.”
“So, you’re another martyr then.” Jack’s words grew spores of slight annoyance. “Another person who uses grand excuses to grind up their empathy?”
Matt pushed away from the wall. “Only if I have to.”
The kid stood up again, still pulling at the skin between the cardboard. He heads towards a wall to his left and rests two palms down on a wooden surface. He grabs something light and flat, drifting slightly in the draft - a couple sheets of paper. Turning back towards Matt, he flicks through the pages.
“Only if you have to…” Jack repeat, considering each prolonged syllable. “Sounds to me like you using those excuses on yourself. But who I am to say anything, right? You probably got everything figured out.”
He hands the sheets over to Murdock.
“Eitherway, I want to trust you. And I want you to help us, Mr Martyr.”
Matt takes the papers and nods.
It really does break the moment when Matt Murdock technically cannot read.