Chapter 1: Getting the Band Back Together

Lee Owlsley

Lee Owlsley stood at the window of his 52nd floor corner office in the Financial District, looking uptown. So far, everything was going according to plan. Even before his father's broken body ended up at the bottom of an elevator shaft, hurled there by Wilson Fisk, he and his father had put their plan in motion, transferring Fisk's assets to themselves and sequestering them offshore. After the discovery of his father's body, Lee continued to carry out the plan, until the State of New York and the Feds, those Fisk hadn't gotten to, froze the crime boss's remaining assets. In the two years since his father's death, Lee had overseen the slow, painstaking process of laundering those assets and putting them to use. Fisk's money had enabled him to move to New York from Chicago and set up his own financial services firm, the perfect cover for his real business. Unlike his father, Lee was not content merely to be the money man for a crime boss; he was going to be the boss himself. Some sixty blocks north of his office was the perfect territory, just waiting for someone like him to take it over in the wake of Fisk's downfall: Hell's Kitchen.

Matt

The chirping of the alarm woke him, too soon. Matt groaned and slapped the top of his talking alarm clock to shut it up. The electronic voice announced, "seven o'clock a.m," then mercifully fell silent. It felt like four minutes, not four hours, since his head hit the pillow. Daredevil was busy last night. Since Wilson Fisk's arrest, the human traffickers, drug pushers, and gun dealers had returned to Hell's Kitchen, seemingly in greater numbers than before. Especially the drug pushers. And he was hearing rumors about a new would-be boss who was aiming to fill the vacuum created by Fisk's absence.

What was worse, he was not looking forward to the day ahead of him. Foggy had scheduled a meeting this morning, to hash out the future direction of Nelson, Murdock & Page. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to like some of Foggy's ideas, but he was hardly in a position to dissent. After all he'd put them through, Foggy and Karen still wanted to be his partners and his friends. He didn't fully understand why, but he'd take it. He was not going to fuck this up. He wouldn't get another chance, not even from Foggy. He set those thoughts aside and dragged himself out of bed.

An hour later, Matt, Foggy, and Karen were sitting around a table in their temporary office above Nelson's Meats, with breakfast sandwiches and coffee provided by Foggy's brother Theo. Foggy was saying, "I'm not saying we aren't going to help people." He paused, apparently noticing the skeptical expression on Matt's face. Then he continued, "I'm just saying we can help people and make a living at the same time."

"But, Fog – " Matt protested.

"Just hear me out," Foggy said. "Whether you want to admit it or not, it takes money to help people. Getting paid in chickens isn't going to cut it. I'm not talking about charging people 500 bucks an hour so we can have fancy offices and expensive apartments. But there's a big difference between that and working for nothing. What we do has value, and in our society you get paid if you perform a valuable service."

"So what are you saying?" Karen asked.

Foggy raised a finger. "First, when we have a personal injury case, we do it on a contingency fee. That way, the person responsible, or his insurance company, pays us." He raised a second finger. "Second, not all of our clients will be poor folks. Hell's Kitchen is changing, whether we like it or not. If someone can pay, they pay, on a sliding scale based on what they can afford." He raised a third finger. "Third, if there is a deserving case and the client can't pay, we consider doing it pro bono, but only if all of us agree." He raised a fourth finger. "Finally, we already have some paying clients, who decided to come with me from Hogarth's firm. We bill them at the usual hourly rate."

"I bet Hogarth was pissed about that," Karen remarked.

"She was," Foggy confirmed, "but there's nothing she can do about it. It's the client's choice." When neither Matt nor Karen had anything more to say, he turned to Matt. "You're being awfully quiet, Matt," he said.

Matt shrugged. "It's not really what I had in mind." he said. He turned to Karen. "Are you OK with this?" She nodded. "Then it's two to one. You win, Fog."

"It's not about who wins, Matt," Karen told him. "We have to be smart about this. We can't help people if we can't stay in business. The only reason we were able to keep the doors open before was because of the big checks from CGI and . . ." She swallowed hard. ". . . and Elektra. That's not sustainable. I know. I was the bookkeeper."

Foggy sighed wearily. "Just give it a chance, OK, Matt? You want to help people without getting paid for it? You have Daredevil for that."

Matt scoffed. "You mean I'm still allowed to be Daredevil?"

"C'mon, Matt, you know you don't need my permission. It's not like I could stop you."

"You would if you could," Matt muttered.

Karen spoke up before Foggy could get a word in. "This isn't helping, guys," she said. "We're supposed to be talking about the future of Nelson, Murdock & Page."

"We are," Foggy retorted. "Matt being Daredevil is directly relevant to the future, for all of us."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Matt demanded.

"C'mon, Matt, you know as well as I do, it's only a matter of time before you get caught, or seriously injured, or worse. Then we're all fucked, not only you."

"I'm not gonna let that happen."

Foggy scoffed. "Says the guy who stayed behind and let a building fall on him."

Matt clenched his jaw. There was no way he could make Foggy understand why he stayed. And even if Foggy had finally accepted that he wasn't going to stop being Daredevil, Foggy would never fully understand why he couldn't stop. He got to his feet and started to walk away.

Karen gasped. "Foggy – " she began, with a warning in her voice.

He didn't let her finish. "I'm not backing off," he said. "As long as Matt is Daredevil, we're all at risk."

Matt reached the door and grabbed his jacket and cane from the coat rack, then turned to face them. "Let me know when you decide my future," he said as he walked away.

The door had barely closed behind him when he heard Karen say, "Well, that went well." If Foggy replied, Matt didn't hear him. He wasn't listening.

He made his way down the stairs and out the side door. Once outside in the alley, he leaned against the wall and let his grief wash over him. His first thought, when he woke up in the orphanage infirmary, was of her, Elektra, but after Father Lantom told him no one had escaped from the building, he had never allowed himself to grieve for her. At first he was focused on his recovery. Then he was consumed by the overriding need to take down Wilson Fisk, to keep Foggy and Karen safe. Now he couldn't avoid the reality of her death: she was truly lost to him, this time. There would be no miraculous return. He had saved her, only to lose her. He blinked back tears and slowed his breathing. Someone was coming. Karen, probably. He didn't want to talk to her, or anyone, right now. He sprinted to the sidewalk, then unfolded his cane and walked away, as quickly as he could.

He stopped a few blocks away, when he was sure no one was following him. Then he realized where he was. Without consciously thinking about it, he had headed in the direction of Fogwell's Gym. It was in the next block. He shrugged. It was as good a destination as any. Maybe hitting the heavy bag would help. He waited for the light to change, then crossed the street.

After pummeling the heavy bag for a half hour, he paused to catch his breath. His mind felt clearer now, the grief not so overwhelming. The old hand wraps he'd found in one of the abandoned lockers were getting loose after repeated hits on the heavy bag, and he started to unwrap them. Then he heard someone approaching: Foggy.

"Matt?" he called. "Are you in there?" Not waiting for an answer, he opened the door and stepped in.

"Yeah, I'm here," Matt replied. "What do you want?"

"Karen says I owe you an apology," Foggy explained.

"Got that right," Matt muttered. Then he raised his voice and asked, "Do you say you owe me an apology?"

"Yeah, I do," Foggy replied. "What I said, about staying behind, that was out of line. I shouldn't've said it, and I'm sorry."

His heartbeat was steady. "Apology accepted," Matt told him, turning back to the heavy bag.

"And I'm sorry about, you know, Elektra," Foggy added. "They say you never forget your first love."

"They're right," Matt said curtly. He hit the bag a couple of times, hoping to discourage any further conversation on the subject.

Apparently Foggy got the message. "Come back to the office?" he asked. "We still have things to talk about, you know."

"Do we?" Matt asked. "Seems like you and Karen have everything planned out."

"Not without you, buddy," Foggy declared.

Matt took a deep breath. He wanted Nelson, Murdock & Page, too. No, more than that, he needed it. He needed to square things with Foggy and Karen. "OK," he said, "we'll try it your way."

"Good," Foggy replied. "It's gonna work, you'll see."

"I hope so."

"It will. Trust me. And I'll try to keep my mouth shut about you-know-who."

"I'll believe itwhen I see it," Matt muttered under his breath. Foggy heard him and groaned. Matt grinned to take the sting out of his words. Then he finished unwrapping his hands and followed Foggy out of the gym.

There wasn't much conversation on the way back to Nelson's Meats, but there wasn't any rancor, either. Their anger had faded as quickly as it had flared up. As he walked alongside Foggy, holding his friend's arm, Matt berated himself. He had almost blown it with Foggy and Karen – again. Jesus, he was such an idiot. What was he thinking?

When they got back to the office, Karen didn't ask what happened, apparently knowing they had patched things up. Matt guessed there was some non-verbal communication between her and Foggy, that he couldn't pick up. They spent the rest of the morning moving tables and chairs and setting up the partitions Karen had found at a secondhand office furniture store. When they were done, they had three somewhat private offices and a reception area. It wasn't Landman & Zack, or even their old office, but it would do.

Foggy and Matt left Karen at the office while they went to Matt's apartment to pick up his case files, those the FBI hadn't seized in their futile search for evidence linking him to Fisk. Now that Fisk's manipulation of the Bureau had been exposed, Matt didn't expect a problem getting the rest of his files back. But if they fought him, that was a fight he was looking forward to.

He was relieved to find the Feds hadn't taken his file on the Aaron James case. Even though the trial had ended, he still had work to do on the case. But Matt had been lucky, for once. Not much had happened in the case while he was gone. The defendants had filed an appeal, but the court reporter was still working on the trial transcripts that were needed before the appeal could proceed. Matt would have to call Aaron and his parents and reassure them he was on top of things, but he still wasn't sure how to explain his absence. He needed to come up with a plausible story that had at least a passing resemblance to the truth.

Once the files were boxed up, Foggy and Matt hauled them downstairs, along with Matt's scanner and Braille printer. An obliging cabbie answered Foggy's hail and helped them load everything in the trunk, before driving them back to the office.

That evening, Matt was sitting on the couch in his living room, his legs stretched out in front of him and a bottle of beer in his hand. He let his mind wander. His thoughts drifted back, to the time he sat with Elektra on this same couch, comparing their scars. Before the Hand killed her. Before they took her and turned her into . . . something else. But it didn't take. Her sense of self and maybe, just maybe, her love for him had overcome what the Hand tried to do to her. Regret welled up in him. He'd been so close to reaching her, the real Elektra the Hand had failed to erase. At the end, in the underground chamber beneath Midland Circle, he even dared to hope he'd succeeded. But their time ran out. He heard it running out as the timer on the bombs ticked down inexorably. Then she was just . . . gone. It was true, what he'd told Stick that day at the cemetery: they had only had a few moments together. Now there would be no more moments. Only his grief and regrets remained, all the stronger for having been suppressed for months.

He drank the last of his beer and set the bottle down on the table in front of him. As he rose from the couch, planning to grab another from the fridge, he let in the sounds of the city around him. Someone pulled back the slide on a semi-automatic. Paper rustled as a customer exchanged money for drugs. A woman screamed. His city needed him, needed Daredevil. He had work to do.

He crossed the room and opened the closet. As he pulled his black shirt and pants out of the foot locker, he reminded himself he needed a better suit, one that protected him better. Not the devil suit. Not after Poindexter wore it. Maybe he could persuade Melvin Potter to make him a different suit out of the light, strong material he'd invented. There was only one problem with that plan: even after Fisk's downfall and the exposure of the FBI agents who served him, Potter was still in federal custody. He needed to get Potter out. Surely he could convince the AUSA that Potter was acting under duress when he went back to work for Fisk. He would have to talk to Foggy about it tomorrow. Karen, too. He set his jaw, put on his black outfit and mask, and jogged up the stairs to the roof.

Foggy

When Foggy returned from court the next morning, Matt was the only one in the office. He was sitting behind the table that served as his desk, in his shirtsleeves. He was slumped over on the tabletop, his head resting on his folded arms. He didn't react when Foggy walked in. Oh, shit. He was unconscious. "No, no, no, no, no," Foggy muttered under his breath. "God damn it," he thought, "this can't be happening. Not again." Trying to ignore the knot in his stomach and the tightness in his chest, he decided to take a closer look. He needed to find out how badly Matt was injured. He took a couple of steps forward, then stopped short. There was no blood anywhere, and Matt's breathing was deep and steady. He wasn't injured. He was sound asleep.

Foggy gave a silent sigh of relief, then turned and tiptoed away, but he wasn't quiet enough. Matt raised his head. "Hey, Foggy," he said.

"Hey. You OK?"

"Yeah, just a little tired."

"Long night?" Foggy asked.

"You could say that." Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked like a piece of paper, folded into a small square. He held it out to Foggy. "Take a look at this?"

Foggy took it and examined it. "What is it?"

"Heroin," Matt replied. "I interrupted a drug deal last night. While I was, uh, taking care of the dealer, his customer took off. But he dropped that when he ran away. From what they were saying, I'm guessing it has some writing, or something, on it."

Foggy turned the folded paper over in his hands. "Yeah, it does," he told Matt. "It looks like – " He studied it for a moment. Finally he said, "It's an owl. Maybe the dealer's brand?"

"That's what I'm thinking," Matt agreed, "but probably not the street dealer's. Probably someone higher up."

Foggy nodded. "Makes sense. What were they saying about it?"

"The dealer was saying something like, 'This is the real shit.' Then he held out his hand, like he was showing the buyer something. I've been hearing talk about some high-grade heroin that showed up recently. I'm thinking this is it, and whoever's putting it out on the street wants people to know what they're buying."

Foggy pulled up a folding chair and sat. "Any idea where it's coming from?"

Matt shook his head. "No clue." He rubbed his eyes before he continued. "But there's a lot of drugs out there. It's like it was when we were kids, remember?"

Foggy nodded. He remembered, all too well. People he'd known all his life had gotten caught up in it. Some were in and out of rehab. His own cousin had just gone to rehab, for the second time. Others were dead. "God damn opioids," he muttered.

"You got that right," Matt agreed. He frowned and shook his head. "I can't get ahead of it. Neither can the cops. I hear them talking. For every dealer we take off the streets, two more show up. It's like every lowlife in the city decided it was open season in Hell's Kitchen after we took care of Fisk."

"Nature abhors a vacuum," Foggy observed.

"I guess. It's looking more and more like Fisk kept a lid on all that shit, not just the drug dealers but the guns and human trafficking, too. They're all back since he's been gone."

"Shit, you mean Fisk might actually have done some good?"

Matt rubbed his face wearily. "Yeah. Unintended consequences and all that. But he still had to be stopped."

"Damn right he did." Foggy handed the paper package back to Matt. "What're you gonna do with this?" he asked.

"Keep it. For medicinal purposes, you know."

"Matt!"

Matt grinned. "I already flushed the drugs. But I'm hanging on to this," he said, holding up the package with its owl logo.

"You know, buddy," he said, "you should go home, take a real nap. I got things covered here."

"No, I'm fine," Matt protested.

"Do I have to remind you I just found you sound asleep at your desk? That's not a good look, one of the partners sleeping on the job. Go home. You can thank me later."

Matt tried to protest, but he couldn't hold back a yawn. "OK, OK, I'm going," he grumbled, getting to his feet. He put on his jacket and picked up his cane, then walked slowly out of the office.

Foggy smiled to himself as he watched Matt walk away. It felt good, Nelson, Murdock, and Page together again. Then he remembered his panic a few minutes ago, when he thought Matt was injured, or worse. Welcome to my life, he thought resignedly.

Author's Note: I always thought it was a little odd that Matt's first thought, when he wakes up in the orphanage, is of Elektra, but she disappears from the story after Father Lantom tells Matt no one was seen getting out of Midland Circle. It's understandable – there was a lot going on in season 3. But I think, even if she's not mentioned, her loss must have played a large role in Matt's mental state.

My take on what transpired between Elektra and Matt in their final moments below Midland Circle is one possible interpretation. There are others. YMMV.