Luke Cage loved fishing. He had grown up with it. It was relaxing. You could read a book while doing it. It was even (in many cases) productive. It was the perfect form of recreation.
To some people.
"No," moaned Clair. "Fishing is in nature and nature is where sharks live."
"Hey, you said that if I could name all of your cousins, I could pick our vacation."
"Only because I didn't think you could do it!"
"And besides," said Luke, "if you're attacked by a shark, I'll protect you."
"I hope you realize that offering to fight a shark on my behalf is not romantic," said Claire, with an eye roll that made clear she was already acquiescing.
"Who says I'm going to fight the shark? Maybe I'll debate with it, make it see the error of its ways."
Claire laughed at the image of Luke arguing philosophy in scuba gear.
Luke must have taken this as a sign that he had won because he pressed further. "I want to invite the others: Danny and Jessica and," he paused, "Matt."
Matt had returned to Hell's Kitchen unceremoniously three weeks prior, after several months of ostensible death. He was keeping to himself and offering no explanation whatsoever as to how it was he wasn't crushed beneath a building. Jessica and thrown herself into records searches, trying to prove that the returning Murdock was actually a twin brother, while Luke and Danny simply kept a wary distance. In fairness, Matt had shown no signs of being an assassination zombie. He was, in fact, acting pretty much exactly like himself. But none of them were experts on the subject of ninja death cult resurrection and they had agreed that caution was warranted.
Claire sighed. "You're planning something."
Luke smiled, the picture of innocence. "I'm planning a fishing trip."
Jessica scowled at the rusted hatchback. Claire was in the driver's seat, with Luke next to her. Murdock was in the back, clutching his apparently unnecessary cane. The trunk had a cooler, fishing gear, and a few duffels. "I thought we were going in one of Richie Rich's nicer vehicles."
"Yeah, well," said Claire, "you pissed him off, so I'm borrowing my nephew's car."
As Jessica threw her things in the back, Matt straightened and asked, "Danny's not coming?"
"No, he's coming," said Luke, in that above-it-all manner he liked to maintain. "He just doesn't want to ride in the car with Jessica, so he's meeting us there." He then went on to fill Matt in on the other two Defenders' spat.
The argument had started a few days ago, when Jessica, Luke, and Danny had independently converged on the same criminal lair at the same time. They were each been tracking low-level grunts only to find themselves face-to-face with an ex-pro-wrestler who'd been badly mutated by an inhaled Asgardian drug. They went at him inelegantly, unintentionally interfering with one another's moves but blocking their enemy at the same time. Luke had a firm grip on the guy's left arm-cum-tentacle while Jessica had him pinned to the wall by his curved, goatlike horns.
"Quick!" Jessica had yelled to Danny. "Fist him!"
Danny had done so and, standing over their now-unconscious adversary, crowed happily that Jessica finally respected the power of the Iron Fist. This had gone on for some time before Luke saw fit to step in and explain that – in modern New York City – when used as a verb, the word 'fist' actually had a more prominent meaning than 'to strike with the focused totality of one's chi'.
Danny had, predictably, lost his temper, shouting and throwing things. This went on until Jessica pulled out her phone, purchased the domain .com, and threatened to resell it to a Nevada-based adult film company, at which point Danny had chosen to stomp away rather than escalate further.
Matt scratched the back of his neck and laughed. "Iron…fisting dot com? Really?"
Jessica shrugged. "Spandex porn's all the rage these days. Whoever they have as a stand-in for Thor is pretty damn accurate. And Stark's just got sex tapes. There are a few Captain Americas. They even have Daredevil porn. I'd ask if you've seen in but," she waved her right hand in Matt's direction.
"Oh god," sighed Matt, turning red and already regretting agreeing to this trip.
"Some guy with a huge dick in red spandex 'catches' lubed-up criminals and teaches them the error of their ways, primarily through sodomy." Jessica was clearly enjoying herself.
"I've seen some of the Thor ones," said Claire, both agreeing with Jessica and distracting from the concept of Daredevil porn. "They're pretty good. I mean, really cheesy, but still."
"I have never been more grateful for my inability to see digital video," said Matt.
"Hey, there's a question," said Jessica. "What do blind guys use for porn? Little statues or something?"
Matt immediately thought of the saint figurines and crucifixes that were scattered around Saint Agnes' Orphanage. He was glad he'd never eroticized them, because it would have left him with some very strange fetishes. Hey, this is great, but could you try to be more…martyred? He shook that thought away and answered, "No, the sense of touch doesn't scale to size. I think some men use audiobooks and, um, smells are usually a thing." Matt shrugged and tried desperately to suppress the blush that forced its way up his face. He absolutely did not mention that he owned a bottle of lavender shampoo that he used for that precise purpose.
"Smells? Weird," said Jessica. She unbuckled her seatbelt and twisted around to open the cooler in the trunk. Matt heard the hiss of a soda (or, more likely, beer) can opening.
"I don't think you get to criticize," said Luke. "Do I need to remind you of the domain name you just bought?"
At that, Claire turned on the radio and they all relaxed in silence. Luke stared out the window. Matt drummed his fingers on his leg. Jessica finished her beer and pretended to sleep through All Things Considered, static-laced oldies, and basketball commentary. They hit a dead zone just at the same time construction forced them to slow and Claire felt it was time to address the elephant in the Hyundai Accent.
"So, I get that we're trying to be sensitive about it and all, but are you going to tell us how it is you're not dead?"
Matt could hear an uptick in both Jessica's and Luke's pulse. Of course, he didn't need super senses to know it would be a tense question, made worse by the fact he didn't have a good answer. "I don't know," he said. "I clearly remember entering Midland Circle. The fight, I remember bits and pieces. And then nothing. I had a head injury."
"You were crushed by a building," said Luke.
"Which probably caused the head injury," answered Matt. "I wasn't resurrected by the Hand."
"How do you know, if you don't remember anything?" Jessica was no longer feigning sleep.
"I woke up in a Catholic abbey with normal injuries," said Matt. "Hand resurrections require resources, leave marks."
"And how do you know that?" asked Jessica. Matt didn't get to casually claim expertise on ninja revival.
"Stick told me. And I saw it in Elektra. She wasn't the same. She felt different." Matt grimaced. "So I think I wasn't brought back by the Hand. But I could be wrong. And I know you think so. And yes, I know you're taking me out of the city so you can decide whether to execute me."
"Then why'd you agree to come?" asked Claire.
"Because if I'm one of them, I want you to kill me," said Matt.
There wasn't really anything to say after that.
Between traffic, missing their exit, and two extended pee breaks, they didn't get to the park until after dark, which made navigation difficult.
"I think we go left up here," said Claire.
"No, we already went left," said Luke. "We should go right."
"Straight," said Matt. "The cabin is straight ahead and Danny is already there." No one bothered to speculate as to how Danny had beaten them to their destination – travel was always simpler when you had essentially unlimited funds.
"You can hear his heartbeat from this far away?" asked Luke.
"I can smell cooking and hear whistling. The food and the tune are both Chinese."
The cabin had a small kitchen inside, but as they drove up, they could see that Danny was using the firepit to steam rice and vegetables. He was barefoot, wearing loose cotton slacks and an ill-fitting sweater. Claire thought back to Luke's disturbingly yellow t-shirts and wondered if fashion sense was the first casualty of a superhero career.
"I made dinner," Danny called, scooping whatever was in the pot into bowls. Luke took it gratefully, hungry enough that he would eat whatever Danny had made. He nodded approvingly at the first bite. It was simple stuff, no meat or spices, but good.
"Not for you!" shouted Danny, yanking a bowl back from Jessica.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Jessica rolled her eyes. "Are you going to tell me I can't go to your birthday party next?"
Claire decided to step in and asked Jessica to help carry the cooler inside. Matt followed, moving a bit slower than usual. The ground was uneven and cluttered with roots and sticks. This would take some getting used to.
Luke stayed outside with Danny, consigning himself to his role as peacemaker. "I know you two have a beef, but we have a more important mission to focus on here. We have to figure out if Matt's really-"
"It's not just any disrespect," interrupted Danny. "She was tying the sacred Iron Fist to lust."
"And lust is a sin?" That sounded to Luke more like something his preacher father would say than a globetrotting twenty-something.
"Lust is a form of desire, and desire is the cause of all suffering."
Luke scrolled through his not-inconsiderable mental library of religion, literature, and philosophy before settling on Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. "You're a Buddhist," he said. It wasn't at all surprising.
"Yes, I am and I want her to respect that."
"You want her to respect that. Isn't that a desire?"
Danny had his mouth open to respond, but he closed it without a word. After a moment, he looked down and said, "You're right. I'm being prideful."
"The thing is," said Luke, "I think you can solve this. You may want to avoid desires, but she doesn't. Why not just offer to buy the domain name at twice whatever the porn company is pitching?"
The Jessica-Danny feud was thus defused, or at least temporarily diminished. See, for example: "Murdock, call the pope! It's a miracle! This guy can still breathe with his head up his own ass."
"Oh, shut up," yelled Danny.
"Catholics don't automatically have the pope's phone number," said Matt. "You know that, right? It's important to me that you know that."
They relaxed into a light buzz, empty beer cans collecting in the corner.
"I have a theory," said Claire, a little more loudly than she would have if she were entirely sober. "I call it my Superhero Heightened Immaturity Theory."
Luke snorted at the acronym.
"I think whenever you lot," she waved a hand at the four Defenders, "start on your quest or get your powers or whatever, you completely stop growing up. You're stuck emotionally at whatever age you were when your little…" She seemed to be searching for a word. "…thing started."
Danny looked slightly insulted. "My parents died when I was ten. I don't act like a ten-year-old." This argument was weakened greatly by his behavior earlier in the evening.
Claire looked at Jessica. "I'm going to guess goth sophomore?"
Jessica chugged the rest of her beer. "Thirteen. Off by a couple of years." She shrugged, having better things to do than join in this argument. Like get another beer.
"Close, though," said Luke with confident half-smile, like he was in on the joke. "I didn't get involved in any of this until I was in my 20s."
"Which is why you emit a faint whiff of adulthood from time to time," answered Claire.
"I hate to burst your bubble," said Matt, "but I lost my sight at nine. And even if you don't start counting until I started training, I'd only be eleven."
"Excuse me?" asked Claire, with an indignant snort. "Is your argument that you're more mature than that?"
"Well, I-" Matt began.
"Uh-huh. You may have suits and a degree, but don't forget that I found you in a literal dumpster. You might not have spent an hour and a half trying to prove that the different colors of Froot Loops actually taste different, but you have the emotional range of a bratty school kid."
"It turns out," interjected Danny, "that Froot Loops do all taste the same."
As far as I can tell, there's no Defenders category on FFnet. So I put it in Daredevil.