EDIT: I changed the rating from K+ to T for the use of the word "sh*t" and... well, a bit of violence but mainly that.

Chapter Two: The Return

To say Skye is nervous… well, that would be an understatement.

She's never done this. Sold information. But it isn't really selling is it? After all, she's not getting paid money. So.

Plus they gave her an in. It's important information she can give to the Rising Tide, and she'd never even have had a hint on it if it weren't for these people approaching her. Union Allied Construction Company, the people who hired her, probably isn't squeaky clean either (why would information be so important to a company unless they have something to hide?) but she figures it's a step. She's doing good work.

And she's run up dry on every other lead. So, she has to take this.

Which brings her back to here, in the now, back in New York City where she was possibly born and definitely raised. It doesn't bring back too bad of memories. Or at least it wouldn't if she weren't walking down an alley right now. Alleyways were where the worst of shit happens.

But she finds Carrie's Cupcakes old, hasn't-been-used-in-ten-years sign easy enough. It's where they're meant to meet.

Skye leans against the wall beneath the sign and rubs at her cold forearms. I should have brought a jacket, she chastises herself.

Well, acquired one would probably be the better term, considering she hasn't got one of those at the moment. Now she just has a flannel she stole from a foster brother years back and it doesn't even go all the way down her arms.

It brings her a chill that she's far too preoccupied with for her own good, and she jumps and gasps when a voice cuts through the night air.

"Do I have the pleasure of addressing Skye?"

It takes her a beat to recompose after nearly jumping out of her skin. "Yes, you have the- I mean… yeah that's me."

"I'm so sorry," says the suit. A suit, in this part of town. Quite a sight. "If I'd have known you were… well, a young lady, I never would have asked to meet under such conditions."

Skye musters up a fake grin she's mastered over the years. "Well, you never know what you're going to get with online dating. Sorry to disappoint," she quips. He doesn't seem to think it's funny. "I'm not gonna lie though… this is shady."

"My apologies. You are aware that you are not in the most legitimate of businesses, I hope?"

"I'm aware hacking is very much on the down low, yeah."

"So you can understand why my company should not be seen fraternizing with… such people."

He looks her up and down. She gets that a lot. Sometimes it's guys eying if they wanna try to go in for the prize, if what's underneath all the ratty clothes and dirt would still make a good lay.

But this guy? He's just looking at the top layer. And he's none too impressed.

She clears her throat. "Yeah, totally. I get it, but I would like to get back to my safe and cozy hotel kind of ASAP."

"Understandable."

She nods, staring at him. Something about a calm, collected suit down this dingy street where it smells like rotten eggs and, for lack of a better word, despair… it unnerves her.

She shakes out of it though. She whips out her laptop and shows the man the screen.

"So, what you guys had me look into was totally right. Their payments don't add up. See this here? There was almost twelve million recently moved to the shipping department. And I'm not awesome at math, but considering they shipped less than their previous trimester I find it weird that they'd need three times as much money."

"Hmm. Interesting."

She shuts her computer. "Anyway, I set up an algorithm that should help your people sort through the rest and probably make some decisions for yourself without my financially challenged mind getting in the way. I put it on a USB."

She's been shifting through her bag, getting her laptop put away at the same time as fishing out the flash drive. Once she has it in her palm, she just grips it with her hand still inside her pack.

"Um… so yeah," she says, a little stunted. "So I'll give that to you if…"

"Don't worry, Miss Skye. I have your payment," he says, holding out a USB of his own. "Though I do have a little paperwork for you to fill out first."

He literally pulls out a clipboard with white forms on it and a pen at the top. Like she's at the doctor's office and not the depths of Hell's Kitchen.

"Paperwork? Ok well, I thought the fact that we were meeting in an alley made this unofficial, like you said…"

"It is a confidentiality agreement. Quite important, really. We can't exactly have this information getting out of Union Allied's hands."

"Oh, um… I'm sorry, this was never discussed. They're… they're stealing money from everyone. And people have a right to know! Who else knows what they could be doing? The police need to be involved, really."

The suit laughs and her blood runs cold. "Miss Skye, please, take a look at the paperwork. If you sign that, along with your… preferred method of payment we can actually give you quite a generous sum in cash."

She looks down at the clipboard offered to her.

Skye's jaw drops open and she almost forgets to pick it back up, because holy shit. Fifty Gs really ain't bad.

And for someone who spent her last thirty bucks a couple weeks back on a gym membership so she'd have a place to sleep, it's pretty damn good.

But… "Why wouldn't you want anyone to know? If they're a competitor you can just shut them down and everyone wins."

"Let's just say it's more an internal familial dispute, and we wouldn't want to mar our sister's name."

The companies are working together, Skye realizes. One was getting a little handsie with their funds and the other decided to check into it.

But they're gonna take care of it quietly… Who knows how many people are getting hurt in these dealings? What she found pointed to illegal actions… and if she's not mistaken, most likely a front for happenings that are probably not the best. That, along with the giant amount they're offering her… It only makes sense.

She would be taking blood money.

"I… I'm sorry. This was a mistake," she mutters, pushing the clipboard back to the man's chest and turning around.

He grabs her wrist.

"Hey, let go!"

And he does, surprisingly. So quickly it almost seems like an accident he'd tried to snatch her arm in the first place. Skye begins walking away and though he doesn't touch her again, he's hot on her heels.

"I really must insist. You've already done the work and I can tell by your current predicament you need this."

"Look, I don't do this for the money I do it because information is free. I'm sorry, I never should have taken this job. Please just find someone else."

Skye speeds up. She looks back only once a few moments later to check if it's not her mind playing tricks that she doesn't hear footsteps following. It's not. He's not behind her.

In fact, she doesn't see him at all.

Skye's blood goes from cold to icy.

She hears a crack! noise, her ears are ringing from the sound and her head feels as though it's been split in half.

Most likely because the noise came from her forehead hitting the brick wall.

Suddenly Skye's shoved face forward into the backseat of a car. Her mind's running slow from the hit, but she can hear the man's mutterings. "Tying up loose ends" and "no damn duct tape". She feels her arms yanked behind herself and tied with something smooth and bulky.

She screams.

Not incoherently. Curses and demands to leave her be as she begins fighting for her life. Because she doesn't know how it happened, or when, when she even realized it, but that's what this is now.

She's fighting for her life.

"Do shut up," the suit demands of her, sounding more irritated than angry. His casualness of the situation scares her, and all of a sudden the foreboding he brought with him is ever so evident. "You had your chance. You're lucky you have a pretty little head that'll sell nice to the Russians; it's the only thing keeping me from putting a bullet in it."

She can't help but gasp a sob. Skye never realized she was in so deep. Into something where murdering businessmen meet in scary alleys, buy people off to keep quiet or sell girls to foreigners. Things were so much simpler when she was looking at these unlikely happenings from behind a screen.

She wants to scream again, but she can't seem to get it out again. She's choking back tears and breathing too hard from shock as he presses his weight onto her back.

When he's wrapped around her and guiding her to the now open trunk, a blind panic sets in and she screams as loud as she can.

She's shoved inside anyway and he closes the top.

She still doesn't stop screaming.


Matt's not really fond of school breaks.

All his friends leave. Most importantly, Foggy leaves. He actually invited Matt this year to come for Easter, but Matt tells him it would be smarter to use the time to get some studying in.

Truly he just doesn't want to intrude.

So, alone and, for all intents and purposes, bored, he takes a trip back to Hell's Kitchen.

He's not sure why. Nostalgia, he supposes. He wants to get a pizza at the old place he used to go to when his dad was alive. And his mom. Because Easter's tomorrow. It's a time for family and he figures sharing one of the only meals he remembers that will taste more or less the same is as good as anything. But on actual Easter Sunday everything will be closed.

He passes alleys that have engrained themselves into his mind, like a map permanently sketched. He hears the familiar rats and sewer water, smells the overpowering stenches.

He passes one road that used to have a few small businesses, one a cupcake shop that he used to enjoy, but they've since dried up.

It is not still, not quiet, there, though.

He listens. Merely in passing, doesn't even slow his pace.

There's a deal going on. He first thinks drugs, but the man's voice is too formal and he can smell the expensive cologne wafting of him. The girl is too inexperienced, or perhaps just nervous. Either way, she's not a junkee.

Matt continues on. It doesn't matter. It's not his business, no matter how odd the happening is.

He enters the old pizza shop and places his order. He couldn't find the number and they're too small to even have gotten a website yet. But since it's 2011 everyone has a website, and they probably should take the time. He finds it rather endearing though. Quaint.

He sits down to wait the twenty minutes they say it will take when he hears it.

The girl from the alley is screaming.

He bolts upright, stands faster than most people would consider normal. Especially for a blind man.

"Whoa, buddy, you alright?" asks the boy behind the counter.

Matt doesn't acknowledge him. Focuses on listening.

Matt ignores these things, usually. One would not believe the noises this city endures, the cries for help and shouts of madness. He'll call the police when he can.

But for this girl it's now or never.

And somehow, some compulsion from the mere sound of her voice, is telling him he needs to help her.

He moves swiftly but convincingly out the door, though once he passes the threshold into the cover of night he's off. He rushes through the streets to go back two blocks where the strained noise is coming from.

He hears her try to plead with the guy, saying how she'll do whatever task he'd asked of her. Whatever it is, he doesn't accept and she turns back into hysterics.

She's very loud now, at least until there's a soft thunk and her decibels decrease only somewhat. Even through the trunk of a car he knows someone without his enhancements could hear her.

The car starts and begins moving, too fast for Matt to catch up. But as he listens to the engine he can tell which direction they're headed.

It's… a crazy notion, but he drops his cane and latches onto the ladder of a nearby apartment building. He hasn't flexed his climbing muscles in quite a while, but it feels almost like riding a bike. He makes it to the top of the building.

Then across it.

And then… then he has to jump.

It's easier than he thinks though the gap is fairly large. At the next building the leap is near effortless.

He follows the sounds of the car but perhaps even more so her screaming. She hasn't let up yet. The banging is adamant too, which he believes is coming from kicks.

Suddenly her shouting becomes the all too apparent noise as the car begins to slow. It's only been three blocks.

Matt feels like he didn't need to do this rooftop thing at all.

But he decides it's probably a good vantage to get a drop on the guy.

Matt lowers himself quietly and stealthily down the fire escape, getting close enough to have a good view but far enough that he still won't be seen.

The man gets out of his car and fixes the edges of his suit. Casually, as if there isn't a sobbing girl in the back of his vehicle. But he soon goes to deal with the issue, rounding the car and opening the trunk.

The girl sits up immediately like he's going to let her get up and go, just like that.

But then there's a gun on her forehead and even Matt can feel the speed her eyes wince together at the touch of that. She lowers herself to lie down again on her back, willingly cowering back into her own containment.

"I'm afraid I don't have anything to gag you with, but so help me god if you make one more damn sound I will rip the shirt off your back and stuff it in that loud mouth of yours!"

His voice started off serene but with definitely something to be wary of before he started full blown shouting into her face. Like a calm before storm.

"Or I can just pull this simple little trigger and cease the sound that way. So stay quiet," he explains, the storm already released and leaving just the serene tone in his voice again.

Her breathing quickens and her sobs dissolve into tiny shakes as she attempts to cry silently. Satisfied, the man shuts the trunk again.

Matt swallows bile. He can't believe he even almost thought of passing her up. Of just allowing this to happen. His fists clench as he feels a rage towards the disgusting man threatening a defenseless woman, and finds himself actually looking forward to the moment of his attack.

That thought he's not fond of. God would surely forgive violence towards someone to save another, but relishing in it? That can't be the moral thing to be feeling.

The man twirls about himself suspiciously after closing her in. Searches around like something is going to pop out at any moment.

So that's exactly what Matt does.

He sails down from the fire escape, surprise on his side as he hits the man with his feet. The gun goes soaring off to the side and across the concrete, which is slick from recent rain.

The thug looks confusedly around himself. He's on the ground, on all fours, and Matt gives him another kick in the head. He's still not out, but there's a dazed look in his eyes. His head turns towards Matt.

Matt feels anxiety creep up within him. Through the impromptu decision to save this girl he never even though about preserving his identity. He can't let this man see him.

He quickly dives bodily over the man so Matt's back is against the car. Placing two hands on the trunk for support he leans back into it then springs his feet forward to get the momentum he needs to knock the fairly large man out.

Matt's glasses stay on for the whole experience. Convenient.

He takes a moment to compose, letting himself chew on the decision he'd made so quickly, nearly letting his identity slip through the cracks. It could have been foolish, but it seems to have worked out.

Now there's just the woman in the trunk to take care of. The smart thing for Matt to do would be to call the police. He'd taken out the immediate threat, surely the cops could handle the rest.

But her terrified cries and heartbeat and shaking rings through his mind's thoughts and he can't stand the idea of leaving her in there another minute.

He's even concerned for her current status. The girl is startlingly still now, but just by the heavy breathing he can feel her outlining vibrations in the trunk. He finds the handle to push it open.

And is quickly rewarded by a headbutt to his own.

Oh, now his glasses fall off.

The girl springs out of the car swiftly as she can with her hands tied behind her back and makes a break for it. Matt doesn't bother with the fallen glasses, immediately going after her.

"Whoa, whoa, hey!" he calls to her as she runs, catching her bodily.

"No! Let go, let go!" she shrieks in pure terror. He spins her around as fast as he can to inspect what feel like jumper cables tying her hands behind her back. This man hadn't been planning on taking anyone hostage tonight. This had been improvised.

But due to the rubber Matt's able to untangle them even through her squirming, releasing her the moment he's done. She breaks away from him but quickly stills. Realization that he's helping grips her.

She glances uncertainly around herself, absorbing the scene while her breathing remains rapid. It's slowing though, or at least becoming less erratic. The shock is settling in to a point of understanding.

"You-you took him out?" she asks hoarsely, pointing at the unconscious man. Her body's quivering.

Matt nods. "Yeah."

And he realizes she's seeing his face. But if he can play it off like he's not blind through the dark of night and just convince her to get on her way, that would be ok.

"You should go. Before someone tries to come finish what he started," Matt tells her.

"I would but…" she starts quietly. Her head tilts towards the man on the ground and she steps forward to inspect him. Kneeling, she tentatively grabs something from the guy's hand and brings it to her face.

"He took my flashdrive…" she trails off, as though wracking her brain for something. "But… shit! He left my laptop!"

"Your laptop." It's a question, but Matt's voice is fairly flat with disbelief.

"Yeah, my laptop! My heart and soul and only reason to live."

Well. Matt thinks that's a fairly over-dramatic phrase.

"Well you're still living," he points out. "Something that could very easily have gone a different way."

She stares at him for only moment, then shakes her head as though clearing it. "Ok… yeah. Yeah you're right. I'm sorry I forgot to-" She takes a deep breath. "Thank you for helping me. But I need my laptop. Will you… could you come with me to get it?"

Matt almost scoffs. "How about you try walking away with your life and just go back to where you came from?"

"Do I look like I can just walk to the nearest apple store and buy a top dollar computer to you?" she asks, and he can tell she's indicating her clothes.

You don't look like anything to me, he wants to say. Not in the way you think.

She seems to read his mind. Her head tilts in puzzlement at his face, her eyes then drawn to the glasses he is decidedly not picking up on the ground. She steps towards him. Inspects his face.

"What?" he snaps. He's getting nervous and, frankly, her staring is a bit rude. But he knows she's onto him.

Matt expects her to say "what's wrong with your eyes?" or "are you blind?" but she just says:

"Matthew?"

So he just blinks.

"Matt Murdock! It's me, Skye! From St. Agnes. You know…" she gets real quiet and mumbles off, "Mary Sue Poots."

Somehow, he's not even all that shocked because it makes perfect sense. He thought he heard something in her voice, something like familiarity, but puberty has distorted her enough that he couldn't make it out.

This person he was worried would find out his secret is the only one who already knew.

"Skye," he says with a grin. "How did you know it was me?"

"Well there can't be too many blind ninja warriors out there in the world, can there?" she asks. Stops and thinks. "Are there?"

More than she knows.

"Not too many," he concedes.

"Is this what you do?" Skye asks. "Are you not hiding it anymore?"

"I've never done this," he admits, almost grinning at the thought. "You stood out to me."

"Thank god," she mumbles looking around herself as though renewing her horror for the situation. She takes a deep breath. "I still need my laptop. Are you coming or what?"

He really doesn't want to. Get involved, or anything like that. But it's Skye. It's Mary Sue.

How can he leave her?

"Shit!" she exclaims ten minutes later when she sees the broken laptop in pieces. "I… urg! Shit!"

She's quiet then, overlooking the remains of her laptop as though waiting for it to reassemble itself.

"Sorry about your computer," Matt offers her when the silence becomes too much. "But don't you see how much worse that could have gone?"

She inhales sharply, a deep angry breath, but lets it go with something like zen.

"I know. I can't imagine that people even – that he was-" She sighs and tries to find words, the contorted expression on her face making him wish he didn't even remind her. "That guy was going to sell me like a dog, and it was my own stupid fault being careless," she bit out spiteful and scared, before her head sagged downwards. "I just… I don't have anything else."

Her voice was full of raw despair while she knelt down and stared at the destroyed machine, grieving. As though it were a murder scene. But when she riffles through the wreckage her face lights up.

"Well," she mumbles, voice heading back to normality, "I got a consolation prize." She lifts her head and wags a flash drive at him.

"What's that?" he asks.

"What I came here for."

"Why you came to Hell's Kitchen?"

She shakes her head. "New York."

"So you don't live in the city."

"Nope, L.A. Came here for the job."

He wants to ask her questions, curiosity nearly getting the better of him. But instead he just sighs. "We need to get out of here."

She nods in agreement, though her heart beats faster and she curls inward as though timid.

"Where are you staying?" he asks.

"The people who hired me put me up in a hotel…" she mumbles.

"You can't go back there."

She scoffs. "I know. I'm just not sure where to go. Know any good shelters?"

She asks the question with a casual ease and Matt knows that she's done this many times before.

He shakes his head. "My roommate's gone for the night. You can come stay with me."

Her face recoils a bit in shock. "You don't have to do that. You've… you've done enough."

"Oh come on," he coaxes. "It's not like you're a stranger or anything."

"Heh," she sort of laughs, half-heartedly. Then she purses her lips together and nods. "Ok. Thank you."

"Sure," he says. "But first…"

Matt lets the end of his sentence drag so it fills her with dread, knowing he's being a little cheeky.

"Yeah?" she asks nervously.

He smiles. "We have to pick up my pizza."


A/n: Thank you so much for the response you guys! I'm glad you like it.

I hope you don't mind that they've fast forwarded to adults. This was going to be three chapters long with each chapter at a different age, but this one got long and so the next one will pick up right where this left off. (Another character may be making an appearance...)

Please let me know what you think :D