"I don't know, Foggy. You can't just get rid of years of self-discrimination overnight. You didn't hear her— she didn't even consider herself human," Matt said in his office, Foggy sat on the other side of the desk as they worked through paperwork together. He had told Hebi to stay at the apartment that day to recover from her bulletwound, promising to take her with him to work for the rest of the week afterwards in exchange. She had gotten oddly clingy, and he had learned the hard way that the other aspect of her powers she hadn't covered with him was her partial cold-bloodedness. She didn't tangle herself into a knot when they slept on the couch because she was too busy burying herself as closely to him as possible, absorbing his body heat.
"Have you considered therapy? Psychologists could be a lot of help," Karen offered up, the door between the main room and the office open so she could listen in on their conversation.
"I don't know, Karen. We'd have to tell the therapist everything about Hebi in order for that to even have a chance of working, and I don't think either of us is ready to trust a stranger like that," Matt responded with a frown. "But, I'm just worried about what her mindset might cause her to do. I mean, what if one of you happens to be with her when trouble breaks out? She wouldn't think twice about throwing herself in front of a bullet if she thought it would save you."
"Welcome to our world," Foggy said ruthlessly, looking up from his stack of papers. "Karen and I have to constantly worry about you doing the exact same thing. No sense of self preservation, and now we have two of you living under the same roof? I'm one step away from a heart attack," Foggy had gotten pretty close to Hebi, the girl's dry and sarcastic wit matching with his own sense of humor beautifully. For them anyway, it annoyed the hell out of Matt and Karen. In a good way, of course. Totally.
"Actually, I think it's better to have two than one. So they can cancel each other out," Karen suggested, leaving her own desk in the waiting room to lean in their doorway. "Neither of them will let the other throw their life away if they're in the same area anyway."
"Guys," Matt interrupted when it seemed like Foggy was going to reply to Karen. "I mean it, I feel like she'll only get worse if she's stuck with someone like me. I'm not the best role model for pursuing good mental health and not making self destructive choices," Matt lifted his glasses for a moment so he could rub at his eyes in frustration.
"Matt, you're the one that said it can't be solved overnight. What Hebi needs is a steady home and a normal lifestyle," Foggy's suggestion gained a raised eyebrow and half-hearted glare from his blind friend. "Which, yeah, you're not the shining example of either of those things. But she doesn't need complete normality. It might even drive her crazy, if you try to throw her into a completely average life. But you've got a pretty steady job, you're not going to give her up or anything, and she's going to be able to go to school like a normal kid in another, what, month and a half give or take? That's already pretty normal. Dealing with your nighttime criminal-punching will probably help her feel like things aren't changing too quickly."
"And you already said you planned to bond with her more," Karen spoke up again with a smile that Matt could sense from his position behind his desk. "Having a father figure like you will do wonders, just you see—"
"I would love to, Karen—"
"Don't finish that sentence, Murdock, you know what I meant," the secretary glared playfully, waving a finger at the redhead before walking back out to sort more files.
Matt could only smile, Foggy chuckling softly alongside him, at Karen's antics. But having his friends offering suggestions helped, even if he still didn't feel like they were right. There had to be something he could do. But even without the answers, just knowing his friends were backing him up with Hebi lifted the weight on his shoulders.
The lawyer's hands stilled over the sheet of Braille he had been reading. Maybe that was what Hebi needed. Friends she could trust.
"Oh boy," he muttered under his breath, causing the blond on the other side of the table to look up, one eyebrow raised in confusion.
"What?"
"How is a traumatized fifteen year old mutate with trust issues going to be able to let herself make friends in high school?" The redhead asked, feeling a headache coming on. "She still doesn't tell me things that happen on a daily basis. So far she's been pretty easy to take care of, which isn't right. Teenagers have problems, they have frustrations. But she's never once asked for my help."
"You lost me," Foggy admitted.
"Friends, Foggy. She needs friends her own age, like I have you and Karen," Matt explained. "People she can talk to."
"Then she better ace her entrance exams," Foggy said with a shrug, tone casual as if the problem could just be solved that easily. "If she gets into Midtown Science, she'll find plenty of nerds to be friends with. She talked my ear off yesterday about Spider-man's webs and how she wants to steal a sample to recreate for medical purposes," Foggy's smile was easy to sense for Matt, despite the annoyance in the other guy's tone. "I think Daredevil has been bumped down to her second favorite vigilante, sorry."
Matt snorted at that, going back to running his fingertips over Braille. "Nah. At least I know she doesn't just want me for my inventions."
—*—*—*—*—*
That following Saturday night, Matt spent with Hebi. He decided that Hell's kitchen could last one night without him (at least until he snuck out after Hebi fell asleep, like he was planning).
"How's your side?" The redhead asked, not smelling any new blood but knowing that Hebi wouldn't tell him about any pain she had unless he asked. It was times like those that made Matt glad he was a walking polygraph. Hebi could fool pretty much anyone with her lying, except people with Matt's brand of enhanced hearing.
He felt Hebi's head raise up from where she was shoveling ice cream into her mouth, the black cherry flavored treat coating her lips. Apparently being partially cold blooded didn't stop her from gorging herself on softserve if she was allowed to. Matt heard a soft huff of air leave her nose, but it sounded more amused than anything else.
"I've had worse than one bullet in my side, Matt. It didn't even hit anything vital," and yeah, that just worried the hell out of her guardian. As if he wasn't already furious enough at the thought of what she went through at the hands of that group, now he knew they had apparently given her a worse wound than a gunshot. A gunshot.
"What, have you had two bullets in your side or something?" The lawyer replied sarcastically, one brow risen above his round glasses. "That doesn't answer my question you know."
"I'm fine. It's just burns a lot still, but I'll recover. No complex sleep-doughnuts for a while though, even I'm not crazy enough to do contortion with stitches in my abdomen," the teen took a large scoop of ice cream, scooting closer to Matt's side despite already being pressed up against it. They were watching the audio-descriptive version of The Empire Strikes Back, because Hebi was the biggest closeted nerd that Matt now knew.
The vigilante had to shake his head, a bittersweet smirk on his lips. It took a minute for his ward to notice it, and he could sense her brows furrowing when she did.
"What? What's up?"
"Nothing. It's just that you're just as stubborn as any Murdock," the buzz of lightsabers played in the background as Matt made a sound halfway between a sigh and a chuckle. "I haven't decided if that's good or bad yet."
"I'm really not," Hebi whispered, her head tilted so that Matt figured she was staring into her carton of ice cream. "But, if being stubborn like a Murdock means being able to drag myself up and keep living, then maybe I'd like to be. I certainly have the best role model in New York to learn from on that account."
"Yeah?" Matt felt his smirk turn into a soft smile. "Try not to copy me too much, though. Red isn't your color."
"Matt," Hebi's dry tone forced Matt to use all of his self control to keep a straight face. "You're blind."
"I am? Woah, I never noticed."
"Do you even know what red looks like?" Hebi tilted her head, and Matt could feel her gaze on his cheek. "I mean, I just assumed you were born blind but you never told me."
Yeah, he hadn't had he? Matt snorted at the realization, making Hebi sit up and her heart pick up slightly.
"What? What did I say?"
"Nothing, I just realized that I'm not the best role model when it comes to opening up. I didn't even realize I haven't told you that story yet," he admitted, running a hand through his hair. "Can we turn off the movie now? We aren't even paying attention to it anymore."
Hebi practically leapt towards the laptop, clicking out of the window they had open. Matt could feel the temperature in Hebi's cheeks flare up when she realized Matt was staring towards her trying not to laugh at her enthusiasm. The teenager cleared her throat, trying to save some of her dignity.
"Having the audio description and the subtitles on at the same time was just weird, okay?" Matt's hum apparently didn't assure Hebi, who just blushed harder. "So, I'm assuming by 'story,' that you mean you lost your sight instead of being born blind, right?"
And there went all of Matt's amusement. He wasn't upset by the story or anything, not after having plenty of years to get used to his situation, but it still wasn't a particularly happy one.
"Nah, I was a normal kid—" Hebi's scoff of disbelief made him smirk a little bit in spite of himself. "—No, really, I was. Anyway, I noticed a blind man who was crossing the street about to get hit by a truck—" Hebi was suddenly pinching her nose, which made Matt's grin widen. "Yeah yeah, the irony. Anyway, I pushed him out of the way. But when the truck swerved, the containers of radioactive waste it was carrying fell over and I ended up getting covered in it. It got into my eyes and blinded me, but it enhanced all of my other senses to what they are."
"Your life sounds like a comic book," Hebi deadpanned, making Matt laugh. It wasn't a chuckle or a snort, it was an actual laugh. Hebi sat up a bit straighter, seeming spurred on by it. "Boy pushes blind man out of the way, goes blind himself. But oh no, toxic waste! Which then gives the boy the exact magical powers he needs to become a kickass superhero! Kinda. Except, in hindsight, most heroes don't get beat up nearly as badly as you do," Matt just shrugged in agreement, still chuckling.
"Nobody would buy a comic book about me," Matt argued, ruffling Hebi's hair despite her squeals of indignance. "Every issue would be me getting my ass kicked for three fourths of it."
"Heh, like a Bruce Willis film. Gets beat up for an hour and a half, then comes back and hands the bad guys their asses for the last half hour straight. And people love Bruce Willis films. Daredevil comics would be a bit!" Matt sensed Hebi raising a hand to her chin, and could practically feel her sly grin. "In fact…"
"Nope," Matt vetoed instantly. "No Daredevil comics. No Daredevil stories, and just in case you find a way— no Daredevil movies."
"You ruin all my fun."
"Your ice cream is melting."
"Shit!" Hebi instantly went back to devouring her treat, and Matt just leaned back and wondered how the hell a teenager could get him to relax so easily.
It wasn't until half past midnight that Hebi finally managed to fall asleep, right on top of Matt's chest like the previous night. He really had to stop letting her do that before it became a habit, the leather couch wasn't comfortable to sleep on. And, even more of a problem, he couldn't sneak out as Daredevil when she was so light of a sleeper that the moment he even tried to slide out from under her she would wake up.
Matt could only sigh, for once grateful that Hebi's hearing was bad enough for the sound to not wake her up. Figures, assassins couldn't let down their guard. Apparently that meant they couldn't sleep soundly enough for their guardians to go out and beat up criminals.
Matt shifted his position— apparently they couldn't sleep soundly enough for their human pillow to get into a comfortable position to sleep in, either. But instead of opening her eyes when Matt shifted slightly, he heard her...whine.
The sound was so soft that he probably wouldn't have heard it without his enhanced hearing at all. He stiffened when Hebi twisted closer to his chest, making that tiny whine in the back of her throat again. When it happened a third time, Matt realized what it was.
She was having a nightmare.
Probably the quietest nightmare in the world too, which meant that it probably wouldn't have caused enough of a racket to wake Matt up from a dead sleep. Worry spiked in his chest. Slowly, Matt reached up to lay his hands on Hebi's shoulder. He would normally never condone waking Hebi up forcefully since there was the risk of being constricted accidentally, but this time he didn't care. His kid needed his help again.
"Hebi," he whispered, knowing he was close enough for her to hear him. "Hebi, wake up. It's just a nightmare, you're okay!"
Hebi's grip tightened on his shirt, but her heart rate picked up enough for him to tell that she was awake. "No… no needles," or, mostly awake. "No more needles, no more shocks. I hate cold water."
Her voice was breathy, probably not even loud enough for her to hear herself.
"Hebi, it's okay. It's me, Matt. You're at our apartment, we fell asleep on the couch again. You're okay, Hebi. You're okay."
"I want a real dad," her half-asleep voice mumbled again, making Matt take a slow breath.
"I don't really think I'd make a good dad, Hebi. But I can't be worse than that last asshole, so…"
"So you'll adopt me?" Hebi's head shot up, eyes wide. Matt blinked, raising an eyebrow.
"Weren't you just having sleepy delusions?"
"Well, yeah but that last one was just me fishing."
"Hebi."
"Awesome! That's the perfect disapproving-dad voice."
"...once I adopt you, you are grounded."
"I can live with that."
"But, ground rules," Matt lifted his hand to count them out for her visually. "If this is going to happen, you have to tell me when you have a nightmare. You don't have to talk to me about the nightmare itself and you can wait until the next morning if you really want to, but I want to know. Second, you have to promise to at least try to open up to me a little more. Third, you have to make sure I open up to you, because I might not notice if I'm closing myself off. Deal?"
"Yeah," Hebi shrugged, laying her head back on his chest. "But I have a condition of my own."
"Shoot."
"You need to let me come out with you on your patrol every week."
"What?" Matt sat up suddenly, but instead of flying off of him Hebi ended up pretty much stuck to his chest. Not the same way Spider-man stuck to a wall though, she was just able to hold her whole body weight on his body with just the minuscule anchor of her fingers curled into his shirt. Less sticky, more clingy. Ignoring his new jacket, Matt glared down towards Hebi. "Absolutely not. It is way too dangerous—"
"For you to do alone? I agree. You haven't even seen me fight full out, we haven't even sparred in the gym yet. You just stick me on the weights and punching bags and go do your own thing," Hebi lowered her butt back onto the couch, slowly letting go of Matt's shirt before she tore it. "Come on, please?"
Matt frowned deeply. There was no way he could allow it. Not only could Hebi get hurt— again— she would also be exposed to more of the way he fought as Daredevil. Matt wasn't the most kid friendly vigilante, he broke bones and occasionally tortured information out of people, and there were a few coma-induced patients in the list of people he beat up. There was no way Hebi would be okay with living under the same roof as somebody like that. Not even Foggy, who had been his best friend for years, could completely accept that violent side of him. And after the amount of violence Hebi had already had to endure, he didn't want her to have to fight even more. Or to see that kind of fighting anymore.
"No. Hebi, I can keep you safe right here. You don't have to fight. It's my job, especially if I adopt you, to keep you safe. You can have a normal life, forget about what they did to you. Become a biochemist or whatever other job you might want."
"Don't be stupid," Hebi had definitely never said something like to Matt before, not seriously. He felt his frown deepen, her tone having been dark and stubborn enough to tell him that he wouldn't win the argument easily. "You can't just forget about stuff like that. I know you know better. I'm not going to wake up one day and not remember the shit they put me through. Not unless I got one hell of a knock on my head, but I rather not risk losing any good memories on that tactic. But I can defend myself and you can benefit from having a usually-functioning pair of eyes backing you up."
"There is no way you are coming out on your shed cycle, for sure," Matt instantly rebuked, not liking where the argument was heading.
"Don't be a hypocrite—"
"No, Hebi! You don't have the same sonar senses or anything that I do, it isn't the same when you're blind. You are way better off than most with your heat vision, but that just won't cut it all the time in a fight. People can come up behind you and you won't hear them."
"I can wear thin soled shoes to feel their steps through the ground," Hebi instantly offered.
May grit his teeth, not about to let up. "I said no. That is final, Hebi."
Perhaps if he had been able to see, he would have noticed the look that entered the teenager's eyes and known the mistake he had made. But he couldn't, so he had no idea.
"Then don't adopt me. I won't have Matt Murdock as my dad and not Daredevil, and I won't set myself up to lose another parent."
Hebi pushed Matt back down after that, curling up on his chest again. The vigilante could only frown, upset by the events but not about to back down.
"If you're mad at me, then get off," Matt snapped. "I would like to sleep on my silk sheets, thanks."
"Hell no, if I get up then you'll sneak out on patrol."
Damn.
—*—*—*—*—*
A week passed, and Hebi's shed cycle came about only two days after the two month mark of knowing Matt. She wore her dark purple sunglasses that Karen had bought for her during that shopping spree so long ago already. They sat close to her face, covering her eyes even from the sides so that it wouldn't be easy for somebody to catch glimpse of the milky, opaque white that covered her eyes before shedding off.
Once again, Matt had picked up on it almost immediately. He and Hebi had been slightly strained over the past week or so since their argument, but they still ate breakfast together every day and pretended everything was fine. Matt still made effort to take more time with Hebi, whose bullet wound was healed enough by then for her to go back into her instinctual sleep pretzels and basic contortion. Claire, who insisted on a follow up with her late at night, did warn the both of them that Hebi should avoid overworking it but that it was healing slightly faster and probably about as perfectly as it could.
"It's the snake genes," Hebi told Matt that morning as she sat at the table sending out the placement of her food with her heat vision. "Snakes, and a lot of reptiles in general, can make full recoveries from extremely devastating injury even out in the wild. My DNA might have been effected in a similar way, making my immune system more resistant to injury infection. I haven't really been lucid enough to ask whenever it was relevant though."
Matt swallowed a bite of his omelette, eyebrows furrowed. "You aced your entrance exams, maybe you can test your DNA after school in one of Midtown's high tech labs one day. There might be things you can do that you don't know about yet," He tiles his head in thought. "Maybe we should test how far your strength goes in the gym this weekend. I know you can crush guns with your constriction, but what about lifting strength?"
Matt could sense Hebi shrug, sipping her morning tea. It was a new blend she had put together to test, and even picky Matt had given it his seal of approval despite not being nearly as into tea as his ward was.
"I don't really think it's the same kind of strength. Contracting your muscles is different than pushing or punching outwards. I can lift a car though, I think. I've only ever really had to lift one off the ground a bit so I don't know if I'd be able to bench press one or anything, but it's an idea."
"Yeah, the idea of you bench pressing a car is terrifying," Matt's face was twisted a bit at the mental image. Hebi snorted. It was pretty relaxed despite the tension of their argument still hanging in the air. But then again, it was Hebi's shed cycle. Her shed cycle tended to bring them a bit closer and it was easy to see that even if it was only the third shed cycle she'd had around Matt.
"Well, deadlifting a car takes a different kind of strength," Hebi spoke again. "I mean I'm built for assassination, not wrestling. I'm fast and I have a lot of explosive and endurance strength, but not really brute strength. You know, my body is built for one or two super strong hits at a time, not holding a building over my head."
"Or apparently acting really creepy, and keeping your body horizontal over open air with only your ankle anchored around the back of the sofa. For an hour."
Matt could feel the heat in Hebi's face heat up as the girl blushed. "I wanted to make sure I didn't lose any of my core strength! I told you, endurance strength. Snakes don't have limbs to hold them up, it takes a lot of endurance to hold a strike pose like they do."
"Don't lie, you were trying to find the teaspoon you dropped but couldn't see where it rolled. I don't know why you'd think staying in place would make it pop out of thin air, but—"
"I thought maybe I just couldn't see it because of my vision! So, uh, I wanted to stay still to see if I'd notice a gleam of the metal or something."
"It was behind you."
"I know that now!"
Eventually Foggy came to pick up Matt, and Hebi slinked over to the cabinet they had gotten set up in a corner to hold all of Hebi's non-clothing items. All her clothes were stored in one half of Matt's closet, which had taken getting used to for both of them but worked out. Opening the first door of the cabinet, Hebi stared towards her stack of school books that she had gotten early to study for the new, extremely intense school she would be going to. And realized;
She wouldn't be able to read for one week every month.
"Ah, shit," she muttered. She never learned Braille because her blindness was always temporary, but even if she did it wouldn't really cover for her in school when she was trying to hide her blindness. Hebi was extremely fond of chemistry, but mechanics flew over her head. She knew there was no way in hell she'd be able to make anything to help her with her predicament.
"Well," she muttered. "I guess I need to beg a favor from the old grouch," she sighed, adding that to her list of chores for the day. "But first things first," she closed that door and opened the bottom most drawer of the closet now that she knew she wouldn't be able to study just yet. Underneath a few hats and a brand new backpack laid a wrapped bundle, which she pulled out. Slowly pulling off the butcher paper wrapped around it, three pieces of fabric were revealed.
Hebi wasn't able to see it, but she had already looked over it visually the day before when she had snuck out during the day to get it. She had been able to let Matt leave her at home so she could prepare for her new school year, especially since she had summer assignments to finish up before the year began.
But with her eye caps currently rendering her blind, the teenager settled for running her fingers over the durable material. Satisfied, she packed it into her still-empty backpack, followed by a generously sized glass jar of her newest tea blend. She hoped it would soften up the grouch she was about to visit. After a moment's thought, she also pulled the first textbook she could grab into the bag too, just in case. Slipping out of her pajamas and into a real outfit for the day, she headed out.
Hebi lifted her phone to her lips. "Text Foggy- 'I'll be out visiting a friend, but I'll be back before dinner. Tell Matt for me.'"
"Text sent."
—*—*—*—*—*
I knocked on the door in front of me, one hand still wrapped around the strap of my backpack. Inside the house was slightly disorienting— every time I touched the wall I could feel millions of tiny vibrations as if there were tons of tiny men running around inside. Thankfully though, it didn't take very long for the door to open to an unfamiliar woman. Unfortunately, the woman's perfume hurt my tongue and I had to keep my mouth partially closed to deal with it.
"Yes?" Her voice was cool and professional, but friendly enough I supposed.
"I'm here to see Hank Pym. You can tell him the brat that saved his life is here, he'll understand."
I could feel the woman's muscles tense in shock, making me grin slightly.
"Saved my life? You saved me from a broken arm, don't be dramatic!" The voice that called out angrily from deeper inside the house made me snicker. "Get in here, maybe I can force you to eat a decent meal for once!"
The woman in the door sighed, stepping aside to let me in. "Follow me," she said simply, and I did as she asked as she led me into the house's dining room.
"Wow, new clothes? Glasses?" Hank Pym seemed surprised. "Was someone finally able to drag you off the streets, girl?" Even though my ears were focused on the old man, my heat vision and scent receptors were analyzing the new body also in the room with me. Male, thankfully not wearing overpowering cologne.
Shaking off my observations, I grinned and slung my backpack forward so I could reach into it and pull out the glass jar I had packed inside.
"Yeah, but that's a story for another time. I recently was able to buy a bunch of herbs, and I mixed a tea blend especially for you," I held the offering out with a large smile on my face. The old man just stared in my direction for a moment before reaching out to grab the jar almost greedily.
"Hebi, this is my daughter Hope and a guy I'm training, Scott. Scott, Hope, this is Hebi. She caught me when I was about to fall down a cement staircase, and ever since she's been showing up with any information she thinks I need to know. She's good at hearing important information," Hank filled in the other two people in the room before turning his gaze back to me. I could feel his half-hearted glare and grinned in response. "And she is clearly buttering me up. What do you want?"
I tilted my head, considering the other two people with us. Just because Hope was his daughter didn't really mean— "You can trust them. I know you have some abilities you have never told me about, does this have something to do with them?"
I sighed. "I forgot how observant you old people are," I teased. "So you're training a new Ant-man? You any good with mechanics, Scott?" The man, who I could practically feel boiling over with the need to talk (seriously, he was jittery and his overflowing energy was starting to slightly get on my nerves), instantly took the opportunity to speak.
"I'm more of an electrician, personally. And I'm totally already the new Ant-man, I don't need any more training. By the way, should she know about that? It really doesn't seem like a kid should know about that. And what my secret identity?"
Hank let out a long-suffering sigh at Scott's word vomit that made me chuckle. "I told you, Scott," Hank interrupted the still-talking man slowly. "Hebi hears things. It wouldn't surprise me if she researched me after saving me that first time, and found all the hidden information about the Ant-Man. She confessed she knew about it after the third time we met. Get to the point brat, it must be one heck of a favor if you're stalling this much."
I sighed, rubbing my forehead and taking a seat at the table with Hank and Scott without asking. Nobody corrected me, so I set my backpack on the table.
"For those of you who don't know, I was homeless until recently. But two months ago, some stuff happened and I ended up getting a legal guardian I can trust. Because of that, I'm finally able to go back to school and I even ended up testing into Midtown Science," an appreciative whistle came from Scott at the news, and I could feel even Hank slightly lean back in his seat. Hope, who I had nearly forgotten was in the room, hummed in approval.
"Sounds like nothing but good news to me, Kid," Scott spoke. "Midtown's top of the line."
"Yeah, I'm excited," I admitted with a smile that vanished a second later. "But that's where the issue starts. I'm a chemistry and biology girl, I suck at mechanics and really anything electrical. But my abilities give me a bit of a… disability, that I would like to hide."
"A disability?" Hope asked, finally moving to join the rest of us at the table. "What kind of disability?"
I frowned, thinking over my phrasing for a moment. "I… don't want to go into details, but I'm a mutate. I was injected with radioactive snake DNA, and got several different abilities from it. But not all of them are beneficial," I ignored whatever reactions the others were giving, instead reaching for my glasses. "This is one of them. Every month, I experience my version of a shed cycle. It lasts six days, with the shed coming off on day seven," I pulled the sunglasses off my face. The silence was thick. "It renders me blind for almost a week. I can't read or study normally, and I can't read Braille. People don't tend to just go blind temporarily, and I don't want anyone to know about my abilities. I was hoping you could make something that might be able to read for me during these periods. Maybe scan text and read it into my ear."
"That would be distracting though, especially in school when you have to also listen to teachers," Scott spoke up, drumming his fingers on the table. It was clear he was still reeling from what I had revealed, but worked through it. "And normally you'd need one of those sticks to navigate if you're blind, right? How did you walk in here as easily as if you could see?"
Yeah, it was naive of me to think I could get something made for me without giving away some more of my abilities. I sighed, deciding to bite the bullet. Hank was a good man, I'd just have to trust him and the other two in the room.
"I have heat pits hidden under the outermost layer of skin on my lips, and right under my nose," I admitted. "It gives me accurate heat sensing, basically heat vision."
"How accurate?" Hank spoke up again, and I could sense him straightening up in his seat. I chuckled.
"To a hundredth of a degree and a sixteenth of an inch. Why?"
Hank stood up, and I could just tell he probably had an idea. "I'll have something for you by Monday. Bring another jar of tea. And bring those sunglasses back with you too."
—*—*—*—*—*
I left Hank Pym's house, but instead of going back home I decided to try out a trial run in the outfit I had packed in my backpack, back in an abandoned building I had used as a squat once for a while back when I was still homeless. I only left because it had gotten too stuffy for me during the hot weather leading up to summer.
Slipping in, I did a full scan of the floor I had chosen in the abandoned office building to make sure nobody was currently around. Once that was done, I slipped into one of the small rooms that was probably a closet back when the building was still in use, and slipped on the costume for the first time.
I used the columns in the building and the scattered, leftover furniture to test out the outfit. It was flexible, and the feet on it offered protection while still being thin enough to allow me to feet vibrations through the ground. The mask had tinted lenses, allowing me to see out but not allowing anyone to see in—both for my identity's sake and to hide my eyes when I was in shed so nobody would be able to tell when I was blind. I spent about an hour trying everything out before packing up and leaving the building, mentally thanking that contact I knew that owed me a favor. I had stayed in the shadows or behind him the whole time when dealing with them, so they didn't know who I was. Being homeless had had its perks, such as accidentally running into people with certain skills that were suddenly coming into handy.
That night, after dinner and after hanging out with Matt for a while, I pretended to go to sleep. If Matt wasn't going to let me out on patrol with him, I'd go out on my own. I had only waited a week to get a decent costume made, figuring I might as well protect my identity if I was going to make a target out of myself. The material wasn't as durable as what Matt's costume was made of, probably, but I did made sure it would at least keep a knife from hitting me too deeply. It wasn't bullet proof at all, though, but I figured I needed more flexibility than durability in my costume unlike Matt since my fighting style was so different. I wouldn't brawl against multiple people like he did unless it was unavoidable, so hopefully I wouldn't need the armor factor.
I waited ten minutes after Matt left to slip out of the window, knowing he had gotten far enough to stop tuning in to the apartment. In my new costume, I used the rooftops as my road and followed Matt's scent trail.
Toes barely touching down at each step, I ran low across each roof until I heard the telltale sounds of fighting. I smirked, which was visible in the opening of my mask around my mouth. Trust my guardian to be able to find criminals so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if he just had another gift for finding people that needed their asses kicked.
I leapt onto a nearby street lamp, hanging by my ankles upside down on it, not far from the busted light bulb of the lamp. I let my mouth fall opens but more, identifying all the different bodies by heat and scent in the fray that was below. Nobody had noticed me, which was good because it meant I hadn't regressed in my training.
I waited for a minute, observing as my guardian fought against the seven men at once. I didn't want to get in his way, I just wanted to prove my point. So, once I noticed a man starting to aim a gun at him behind his back I swung myself down. My arm coiled around the gun barrel, crumbling it in on itself even as my other hand swung a fist straight at the man's temple. The hit connected easily, and man crumbling down unconscious. I turned back to the rest of the fight, identifying four of the heat signatures that Daredevil had been fighting out cold across the ground, leaving two more against him.
Matt had apparently taken several hard hits, but I wasn't too worried. Now that it was down to two and Matt had likely noticed me, I jumped in to grab one of the men. I disarmed and knocked him out right as Matt finished with the last guy himself. As I suspected, he was no longer shocked when he turned to me— but I could tell by the way his fists were clenched by his sides that he was not happy.
"I thought we talked about this, H…" he stopped himself, clearly not wanting to say my name out loud. I shrugged.
"Come on, double D. You should have known I wouldn't listen for long," I felt strangely confident in my costume, like it marked my graduation into a certified badass. "As far as names go, let's just say Python. It's simple and not too cartoony."
For a long moment, all he could do was make sounds of frustration, so I walked over and took one of the guy's phones to dial 911 for him. By the time I knew the police were on the way, Matt had collected himself.
"Go back," he grumbled in his gravelly Daredevil voice. I turned back to him, eyebrows raised under my mask.
"Sorry, I'm a vigilante now. And since I have nothing to do with Daredevil, you can't order me around. So," I jumped up, kicking off the side of a building and grabbing easily back onto the lamp post I had started on. My fingers of my right hand easily held my whole body weight. "You're stuck with me for now, Darey."
I heard a short growl of frustration come from his voice, but he obviously saw the situation for being the hopeless mess it was on his part and didn't offer another argument.
"Fine, but we are talking about this later. Keep up, and don't get in my way," he growled out, and I smiled in triumph. I pulled myself up higher and then swung myself over so I was hanging upside down with only my fingers curled around the lamppost keeping me up in the air. Below me, Matt stayed still for a moment before climbing up to the roof of the building next to my lamppost, and crouching down as he tuned in to a larger area to sense any other crime that might have been happening.
"Come on," he grumbled, taking off. I grinned as I flipped off from my upside-down position to land next to him, running by his side.
"You know, you sound like a grumpy old man when you talk like that," I kept my voice down, almost quiet enough for me to be unable to hear myself. But, of course, Daredevil could hear me perfectly. He didn't dignify my quip with a response, picking up his pace slightly instead. I didn't rise to the bait, instead staying a steady few feet behind him.
It didn't take long for us to reach the next crime, which had me clenching my jaw. I crouched down by the lip of a building, letting my heat vision scan the scene even as Daredevil jumped down. As much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn't jump down with him because I worked better as backup to thin out the people he had to fight one by one.
There was a girl, probably about my age, knocked out and in the arms of one of the men. Another girl around the same age, awake, was straining against another older female who was clearly very strong considering she didn't seem burdened at all by the younger girl's struggles. The teenager was trying to yell despite getting smacked at every attempt. A man was heading to gag her, but that was the first person Matt jumped in to knock out. The man and the female with the hostages backed up, letting the three other men with them draw their guns and run in to face my guardian.
Break it apart, I ordered myself silently. My instincts told me to protect Matt, but my logic told me that he didn't need it nearly as much as those girls did. The people trying to kidnap the girls smelled like drugs, alcohol, gunpowder, and chloroform. I could smell tranquilizers in one of the man's guns, suggesting they were professionals. Probably traffickers.
"We'll take the cargo, join us at the meet up point once you kill the Devil," the rough voice of the woman barked out right before she and the man carrying the passed out teenager turned and ran. Definitely traffickers. I narrowed my blind eyes, leaping forward to land on the building across the alley closer to the fleeing kidnappers before jumping down in front of them.
" who the hell are you?" The man fell back, the woman having an arm free despite the struggles of her captive and used it to aim a gun at me. I smirked.
"Just a demon, no big deal," I quipped darkly, running forward before she pulled the trigger. I ducked into a roll, and twisted after my landing so my legs knocked the woman off her feet. As she fell backwards I surged up, grabbing her wrist and squeezing. My hand easily broke her wrist, squeezing a scream of pain from the woman's throat as she dropped the gun in that now ruined hand. I grabbed the weapon before it hit the ground, crumpling and barrel before hurling it at the head of the second kidnapper. The metal soundly hit the man's head, knocking him back and making him lose grip of the girl he was carrying. I slammed my elbow into the female kidnapper's head to knock her out before surging forward, grabbing the male kidnapper by the throat and slamming my knee right into his crotch.
Another pained scream entered the air, slightly strangled by my careful grip on his throat. The combination of me limiting his air and his pain from my dirty kick made him limp, so I got rid of his weapons and dropped him.
That dealt with, I turned to the passed out girl and leaned her carefully against the wall, pushing my finger gently against her neck to feel the vibration of her pulse. It was slow, but steady. She was just sedated. The other girl, sobbing for a multitude of reasons, walked up behind me. It wasn't hard to track the salt in the air from her tears or the vibration of her slightly heavy footsteps.
"Th-Thank you," the girl stuttered. "Is, is Stacy okay?" I frowned at the other girl's vulnerable tone in her voice. It reminded me all too much of how I had felt only slightly more than a week earlier.
"Just sedated," I reached over to grab the phone I had taken off the female kidnapper. "Take this. Call the cops—" I sat up suddenly, hearing a familiar yell of pain after a gunshot. "Shit. Do as I say, count to a hundred and twenty and call the cops. Stay near your friend, and yell if one of these two wakes up, got it? And if anyone asks, just say I'm Python. I don't want to find out what crazy nickname the press will make for me otherwise," I kicked the man so he was completely passed out instead of limp in pain, just to be safe. Once I registered the girl nodding, I ran back to Matt.
All four men he had been fighting were out, but he was bleeding. A bullet had hit the weaker red fabric of his costume, sending the scent of his blood into the air. I cursed under my breath, jogging over to where he was leaning heavily against a wall in the alley. Even I could hear his pained panting.
"I'm fine," he growled out at me. "The girls?"
"Oh please I know you could hear us, we weren't far. Don't change the subject, I need to carry you."
"It went clean through," Matt informed me, and I tilted my head to realize I could, actually, smell blood coming from an exit wound as well as the entrance. That made things easier, at least. Carrying him wouldn't strain my own healing wound too much, and the bullet went through his thigh so there was no way he was walking home.
"The nurse's place? It'll be easier to take you there," I asked softly, turning and jabbing a thumb towards my shoulder. "Come on, hop on."
"... this is humiliating," I managed to hear him mutter, making me snort as I felt him climb onto my back. The fact that he was almost a full foot taller than me didn't make it hard.
I easily shouldered my guardian's weight, running down the alley until I reached a fire escape I could climb without jostling the vigilante on my back too much. Once I was traveling over rooftops again and following Matt's directions, I decided to speak.
"You know, how would you have made it home without me? Or to Claire's?"
"Hebi."
"You would have called Foggy right? After stumbling somewhere halfway safe and probably passing out. Foggy can't defend himself like I can, plus this is so much more sanitary than passing out in an alleyway."
"Hebi," Matt said again, huffing, but I didn't relent.
"And what if there had been another guy still awake? Those two with the girls might have escaped if I wasn't there—"
"I get it. You can come out with me twice a week on patrol, once on your shed. You're so stubborn," the last part was said in a slightly fond grumble, but I still heard it. "But not more than that. You'll have school to focus on soon and you'll need to put a lot of effort into your studies. Especially on your— shit, how will we be able to hide your shed cycle at school? How did I not think of that?"
I grinned. "I got it covered, I visited a friend earlier today that might be able to help. Maybe you can tell the school I have an eye condition though, so that I'll be allowed to wear my sunglasses in class during the shed cycle."
"Take a left here. Do I even want to know who the friend is? How did you even get this costume, it feels professionally done."
"A different acquaintance made it for me. And as for my friend, maybe I'll tell you when you don't have a bleeding hole in your leg."
Our conversation tapered off, and I followed the last of his directions until I was tapping on glass of an apartment window. After a moment I heard the curtains inside rustling, and then the lock being flipped and the window sliding open. I grinned at the mass of heat I recognized as Claire on the other side, stepping in with Matt still on my back.
"Decided to switch roles, did you?" She asked after I set Matt down and pulled off my mask. I forced my eyes closed despite the discomfort of feeling my eyelids over the old skin of my shedding eye caps, so that Claire didn't have to see them. "How did you even carry him, kid? Isn't he at least twice your weight?"
"She's strong," Matt answered for me, lifting off his own mask as Claire sat down with a large box of what I assumed were medical supplies and began to treat his wound.
"Of course she is. My life can't get any weirder, I don't know why I'm still surprised," The nurse said with long suffering in her voice that made me smirk half-heartedly. I had pushed it back when y mask was on, but having Matt injured like this was terrifying. Even worse, I knew he was going to hide it as much as possible during the day which meant he was going to be walking on his injured leg as he worked.
After Claire did as much as she could, I sling my guardian back onto my back and begin a much slower trek to our apartment. Matt was fading in and out of sleep, so the journey was silent. At least, until we got in and I laid him in his insanely soft bed.
"...I'm adopting you," he spoke up suddenly after I pulled the blanket up over his still mostly-costumed body. I looked down towards him in surprise. "I know you're strong. And I know I'm not invincible. It'll be better if we're there for each other— and besides, tonight proved you're too damn stubborn to not be a Murdock."
I chuckled. "Goodnight, Matt," I muttered as I walked to the restroom to change out of my costume and into my pajamas. My whole body ached slightly from the long journey both ways, especially having to carry Matt so far, and the sudden ache in my chest told me that the female kidnapper must have landed a hit I hadn't noticed in the midst of mid-fight adrenaline. I'd probably have a nasty bruise.
And I knew that fights from then on probably wouldn't go in my favor so well. They weren't expecting me to be by Daredevil's side, but once word of the new Vigilante in Hell's Kitchen got out people would be ready for me.
I couldn't help but be excited.
—*—*—*—*—*
A/N. yeah, this didn't end up quite as good as I was hoping, but oh well. Maybe one more chapter before school starts up for Hebi? We'll see, I'm kinda just playing this by ear. And yes, Spider-Man/ Peter Parker will be a pretty important character once he shows up. I am making some changes to his character though, throwing in a little Fanon stuff to mix things up. But it is mostly based around Homecoming Spider-Man, with other canon and fanon mixing in. More about that in the A/N that will come along with his appearance chapter.
Was this okay? Tell me what you think. Until then,
See you next chapter!~
