Chapter One: Roomies

Precarious towers of cardboard boxes. Young people scurrying in all directions. The smell of sweat and cheap aftershave. Anticipation and nervousness hanging in the air. These were what Matt Murdock could feel, hear, smell and practically taste as he moved down the corridor in the college dorm. Being blind wasn't something that had ever held him back, what with his other senses being heightened and all, but new surroundings and people always did take a short while to get acclimatised to.

He waved his white stick back and forth in front of him, now and then hitting a pile of clothes or a box of comics, and finally arrived at what he hoped was his room. He reached out his hand and felt the door in front of him in the hopes that it would have some sort of raised number or lettering. No such luck. Shrugging, he opened the door and stepped inside the dorm room. He could tell it wasn't huge; two beds and two chests of drawers were the main pieces of furniture and freshly washed clothes filled the room with a warm, almost spring-like scent. The almost silent whirring of a laptop and a quickened heartbeat seemed to be the only sounds.

"Hi," Matt waved sheepishly to whoever the heartbeat belonged to. Odd, it didn't feel like it was coming from the right direction. He chalked it down to unusual surroundings and waited or a response.

From where he stood on the ceiling, Peter Parker looked down at the guy who'd just entered his room with wide eyes, like a rabbit in the headlights. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he saw Matt's glasses and cane, however, and he quickly dropped from his place on the ceiling to the floor.

"Oh, thank God. You're blind." Peter saw Matt's confused expression and backtracked swiftly, "No, I mean- Oh, jeez sorry."

Matt smiled awkwardly and shrugged, "No problem. Is this room 240?"

Peter knew his roommate wasn't arriving until tomorrow and so had presumed he would be safe to be 'himself'. Obviously not.

"Er, this is 251," Peter pointed towards the door then slowly lowered his arm as he realised the gesture was useless, "240 is across the hall."

Matt's bewildered look lasted only a second or two and then he nodded, "Right, sorry. Thanks."

He exited Peter's room and frowned deeply, why was he so high up?

Inside room 240, Warren Worthington III sat on his 100% silk sheets and stared out of the open window. His father had sent some assistants to unpack his belongings and set up his room the previous day and so now he had nothing to do other than wait for his roommate. He was lucky to be even staying in the dorm; his father had insisted that he stay at home and be chauffeured to college every day but Warren had stood firm with the idea that he wanted to experience college life to the full, including sharing a room with a complete stranger. Now that he thought about it, however, sharing a room with someone in his 'condition' might not have been his greatest idea. It was too late now though as the door opened and in walked said stranger.

Warren got to his feet and held out his hand, a trained smile on his face, "Nice to meet you, I'm-" he cut himself off as he absorbed the sight of the young man in front of him, white stick and all.

"You're…?" Matt held his cane with both hands and smiled lopsidedly, red-speckled hair glistening in the sunlight from the window. He was used to all of the various reactions people had to his condition and waited patiently for his roommate to compose himself.

"Sorry!" Warren cleared his throat, "Warren. Warren Worthington, that's me." He shook Matt's hand firmly.

"Matt Murdock. This is 240 right?"

"Certainly is!" Warren's mind was suddenly filled with the image of this poor guy trying every door until he came to the right one.

"My bed's this one?" Matt moved over to the empty bed and placed his bag down directly in the centre of it, much to Warren's surprise.

"Yeah," Warren nodded, shaggy blonde hair bouncing as he did so, "Someone dropped off some boxes for you too."

"Great," Matt's head tipped slightly to one side for a split second and then he mumbled, "We need cheese."

Warren opened his mouth to ask what the heck he was talking about but Matt was already opening a box and rummaging around inside. He seemed to know exactly what was what as he picked out his alarm clock and placed it on his end table and then continued to unpack pots and pans as Warren stared, fascinated.

A knock on the door shook the blond from his trance and he quickly opened it, revealing a tall young man with short blond hair and a huge grin.

"Hey! I'm Johnny from next door and we really need some cheese."

"I- What?" Warren's jaw worked a few times as Johnny continued to babble.

"You see, my roomie and I want to make omelettes but we have no cheese and he really wants cheese. I'm scared he might like, implode or something if he doesn't get it."

"Cheese?" Was all Warren managed to say but thankfully Matt was at his side bearing said cheese.

"Here," Matt handed over the bright orange slab, gaining him a look of utter confusion from Warren and a pleased yet suspicious glance from Johnny. The latter shrugged and headed back to his room, waving the cheese,

"Thanks, man! I'll pay you back in chips or something!"

Warren closed the door and turned to Matt, "How did-"

Matt just grinned, "What?"

In room 241 Johnny Storm waved the block of cheese he'd just acquired triumphantly like it was some sort of trophy and threw it towards his roommate,

"Look! Got the cheese!"

Across the room, sitting on his bed, Bobby Drake caught the cheese and shook his head, grinning,

"No way! How?"

"It was weird actually," Johnny ran his hand through his tousled hair, "This blind guy was there waiting with it."

"Yeah, yeah." Bobby leaned back on his elbows and sighed loudly, "Come on then, my turn. What should I get?"

"Hmm…"

Stroking a hand over his non-existent beard, Johnny contemplated his next move. They'd proposed a game to decide who would do the first set of clothes washing when the time came and so far Johnny had retrieved the most items. He suddenly grinned like a Cheshire cat,

"I've got it!"

Peter unpacked the last of his clothes, shoving them into the closet as best he could, and looked down at his duffel bag. His 'suit' was in there and he needed to make sure it was going to be hidden somewhere his roommate wouldn't accidentally find it. He didn't like the idea of having to explain why he had a bright red and blue skin-tight lycra outfit under his bed.

Before he could find a suitable spot, someone knocked on his door and he quickly answered it, not wanting a repeat performance of earlier. It was Johnny.

"Hey, I err, do you have any sugar?"

"Sugar? No, I think they have some in the communal area though."

"Mhmm, right. Is that around here somewhere?"

Johnny slyly guided Peter away from his room as Bobby snook in like a drunken cat. He made a b-line for the duffel bag on Peter's bed and started to open it as quietly as possible. That's when Peter's extra 'sense' started to buzz and he dived back into the room. His eyes bulged and he quickly swatted Bobby away from his bag.

"What're you doing?!"

Bobby gaped like a fish and blurted, "Underwear!"

Peter stopped flapping and simply stared at Bobby, dumbfounded, "What?"

"I was looking for some underwear!" he shot an icy glare towards Johnny that screamed 'help me' but Johnny remained silent, a pained look on his face as he tried not to laugh.

"Don't you have any?" Peter discreetly tugged the bag from Bobby's reach and dropped it to the floor.

"I need someone else's though!" Bobby's ears flushed red as Peter's eyebrows rose higher.

"He's a very disturbed individual," Johnny grabbed Bobby's arm and started to drag him out of the room, much to Bobby's dismay.

"I'm not a pervert I promise!"

His wails echoed down the corridor like the calls of a madman and Peter scratched his head, utterly perplexed at what had just occurred.

Matt finally finished unpacking his things just as the sun set, casting the room he shared with Warren into a purple glow. Not that Matt himself would know. It had been almost eleven years since he'd actually seen colours and wasn't certain he even remembered what they looked like. He believed that if he were to suddenly regain his sight he wouldn't be able to decipher between blue and yellow, green and red. He pushed the empty cardboard box under his bed and reached for his cane, planning to search for the showers now that the corridors were a little less manic. His hands groped the sheets but found nothing, however, and he frowned as he patted further across the bed.

"Your stick dropped on the floor earlier," Warren reached over from his position on his own bed and picked up the cane, handing it to Matt.

"Thanks."

Warren nodded and then smiled at himself for the habitual gesture.

"Can I ask you something?"

Matt turned his head towards the sound of Warren's voice and smiled, "Have I always been blind?"

"What? Oh, no. I was going to ask why red?"

That was a new one. Matt wasn't exactly sure what his roommate meant, "What?"

"Your glasses," Warren pointed to the round red shades that Matt sported, "Why did you choose red? Aren't they usually like, black or something?"

"They're red?" Matt knew fine well that they were but couldn't help teasing Warren a little, "I'm kidding. My father, he always liked red. Guess I just wanted to keep that part of him alive." He sensed the sudden tension in the air, the slight shift of dust around Warren as he moved uncomfortably on his bed and quickly tried to raise the mood once more, "Plus they look cool, right?"

Warren smiled, all tension released, "Yeah!"

7pm was dinner time for the boys in the dormitory. A large hall filled with long tables and the smell of slightly overcooked spaghetti was what awaited the newcomers and the race was on to find a seat next to new acquaintances.

Bobby and Johnny quickly got their meals, piled extra high as the antics of the day so far had exhausted them to the point of near starvation, and grabbed some seats next to the rear wall, joining Peter as he wolfed down a burrito and managed to get a large globule of it on his shirt. He smiled at them through a mouthful as Bobby introduced himself.

"Sorry for the weirdness earlier! We were just goofing around," Bobby stabbed his fork into a meatball, wishing it was Johnny's head, "I'm Bobby," he pointed the meatball at his companion, "And this is Johnny."

Peter swallowed and offered his hand to shake, "Don't worry about it. Peter. What're you guys studying?"

"Engineering," Bobby's tongue slipped out of his mouth to lick up some of the sauce from his chin.

"I'm doing art. I'm going to express myself through my hands!" Johnny started flouncing his arms around wildly and almost knocked over his glass of water in the process.

Peter couldn't help but laugh, "Nice. I'm in photography so we'll probably bump into each other now and then."

The three were soon distracted by their growling stomachs and began demolishing their food in silence. When they were starting on dessert, which they had discussed thoroughly and decided was pudding of some sort, Matt and Warren took the last two seats beside them.

Johnny smiled and waved his spoon at them, "Ah! Cheese-guy!"

Bobby almost choked on his mysterious pudding as he realised that his roommate hadn't been lying when he'd said there was a blind guy earlier. Matt returned the smile.

"Hi. I'm Matt," he held out his hand for Bobby to shake before turning towards Peter, "I don't think I properly introduced myself before."

Peter was a little taken aback at how 'normal' Matt seemed to act. His mannerisms and body language were that of someone who had twenty-twenty vision. He scolded himself internally for being so assuming in the first place.

Beside Matt, Warren sat on the very edge of his seat uncomfortably and pulled his long coat a little tighter around himself. He wasn't a huge fan of chairs and much preferred to use stools at home as they didn't constrict his movements so much. He sighed and accepted that it was just going to be another 'experience' at college and hoped that some of the others would be more pleasant.

After he had also introduced himself and the five of them had completely devoured their meals, they decided to head back to their rooms. They could hear some of the other students talking about checking out some local bars or bringing various forms of contraband into the dorm but for now, all the five of them wanted to do was rest. Not only were they new students and had to prepare for college life but they weren't exactly the norm when it came to human beings, either. And very soon they would all learn that being in college wasn't as they had expected.