Matt paused and cocked his head, surprised but also worried as a new set of sensory inputs made themselves known to him, interrupting his focus on the scent of blood he could smell inside the slaughterhouse that Turk had tipped him off to.

He thought about saying something to the figure nearby but decided instead to lean into what he hoped were the shadows of the alley, observing, knowing that the other person was attempting to be just as quiet and stealthy as he was.

Of course, Peter wasn't as good at it as Matt was. He was humming nervously. A pop song that Matt didn't know the name of, with the occasional lyric out loud punctuating the half-remembered tune. And fidgeting with all the pent up energy and awkwardness of a bored fourteen-year-old. Matt would have recognized Peter immediately, even if he wasn't hanging upside down from a fire escape in a way only Spider-Man could. His heartbeat was always louder than most people - strong and distinctive. A likely side effect of whatever happened to him to allow him to swing from building to building the way he did.

Another side effect, Matt had learned not long after his first encounter with him, was that Peter's senses were almost as sharp as his.

"Who's there?" Peter called out. Matt stepped forward, letting Peter realize who he was.

"Daredevil," Peter said, jumping down from the fire escape gracefully, but with caution. They may have met before, but Daredevil's reputation for violence and anger always made Peter wary. "What are you doing here?"

"Just out for a late night stroll," he replied. "Like you."

"Right," Peter said. "Just a friendly stroll that happens to take you to a slaughterhouse where some drug dealers ran after fleeing this Punisher guy everyone's so worked up about."

"It is quite the coincidence," Matt replied. "Isn't this a little far from your usual territory?"

"It is. But you know as well as I do that criminals in this city don't always like to keep to their own neighborhoods. Plus, there is a psychopath on the loose. That sort of seemed like a thing that I didn't really want happening in my backyard, you know?"

"I know," Matt told him. And he meant it. "But I can take it from here."

"Uhhhh... no?" Peter replied. "I was here first, so you know... Finders keepers, I guess? Does that apply in a situation like this? Anyway, I'm not leaving. Working together is actually probably better anyway, right? Two heads are better than one? Team Red!"

Matt assumed that Peter gestured to their costumes. He wished he could smile at the enthusiasm the kid had, but the stench of death and cries for help coming from the slaughterhouse were only escalating as they stood there. No teenager should be exposed to that.

"The Punisher isn't some desperate junkie or pissed off mugger," Matt said. "He's a mass murderer out for blood. He's dangerous."

"Yeah, well... I'm dangerous," Peter said. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself he meant it.

"You're also unarmoured," Matt told him. "The person who gunned down the Irish, this Punisher, did it with the kind of weapons that could slam through a bulletproof vest. What are you going to do when you find him? Dance around him until you can web him up? He'll kill you."

"Your costume doesn't exactly look assault weapon proof either," Peter replied. "And this is my city. I can't walk away and let someone do what he's doing knowing that I have the power to do something about it. No way."

Matt's heart broke a little to hear someone so young declare something like that with such conviction. Peter was going to grow into one hell of a man some day. Matt just had to convince him to live long enough to get there.

Peter went to swing up the side of the building, but Matt knew he couldn't let him. He tackled Peter and slammed him face first into the ground of the alley. Peter sputtered in shock and struggled. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked. "I'm on your side!"

"I don't want to be your enemy. But I will do what I have to do to keep you out of this. Stick to stopping muggings and holdups and things you can handle, kid."

It was Matt's turn to be surprised when Peter flipped over underneath him and threw him off with the strength and agility of a gymnast. He braced for an attack, but it never came. Instead, Peter stood for a moment, rattled but thinking.

"I'm not a kid," Peter said, finally. "It's Spider-Man, in case you haven't heard."

Matt sighed. "I know. I'm sorry. But you have no idea what you're up against, what's in that slaughterhouse. And I know your M.O. You're not like me. You help people, but you also avoid a fight when you can. You don't seek them out the way I do. If you go in there? Well, I'd hate to see you come out of it a different person. That's all."

"Promise me you'll handle this?" Peter asked him.

Matt nodded. "I'll take care of it."

"Promise." Peter said again.

"I promise."

With a barely perceptible nod, Peter swung away and Matt breathed a sigh of relief.

He didn't want to say anything. Foggy was angry enough at him as it was, not that Matt could blame him. He never wanted Foggy to have to see him so vulnerable again after what had happened the night Foggy found out about Daredevil. But there hadn't been time before the Punisher shot him, and if he didn't say something to Foggy now, he knew he would regret it if something happened.

"You need to talk to Peter," he told Foggy from where he sat with his head in his hands, nauseous, on his couch.

"I'm sorry, what?" Foggy asked him, surprised, from the kitchen where he was finishing up washing dishes. An attempt to keep himself occupied and not think about things that stressed him out, Matt knew.

"Peter Parker," Matt clarified. "I know that he's Spider-Man, Foggy. I ran into him last night trying to go after Punisher just like I was trying to do. You need to talk to him. You're his lawyer. And his friend. He'll listen to you."

Foggy heaved a breath in and Matt knew that he was upset. He was trying not to cry. "Great," Foggy told him, anger in his voice, "that's just great, Matt."

"What do you want me to do, Foggy?" Matt asked. "Not say anything to you? I know it's not the best timing, but he's going to get himself killed!"

"You're going to get yourself killed! What I want is for you to care about that and to think about the example that you're setting. He's only a kid, Matt. A dumb kid who has the same dumb idealistic ideas that you do about sacrificing himself for a greater good and no clue what the hell he's doing. Imagine if you hadn't been there last night and he'd confronted the Punisher instead. That bullet that took you down wouldn't have hit a helmet, Matt! Goddammit!"

"Peter isn't Spider-Man because of me, Foggy," Matt told Foggy, angry that Foggy would accuse him of inspiring Peter to put himself in harm's way. "I don't know why he decided to put on that suit. Maybe you do. But what I do has nothing to do with him."

"Oh come on, Matt," Foggy told him. "Are you really that naive? You're out there playing the hero, sending a message to the whole world that taking the law into your own hands is A-OK. It's fine, everyone! If you wear a mask, you don't even have to have Stark's level of accountability! Join the party! Of course, copycats are going to spring up. Like Spider-Man. And like the Punisher."

Matt sucked in a breath at that. "That is..." He sputtered. "That is not fair, Foggy."

"Maybe not," Foggy told him. "But you know it's true." Foggy sighed. The deep kind of sigh that Matt had heard him let out far too often lately. It was the sigh of someone resigned to something they hate with no good options to do anything about it. Matt heard the tap turn back on. Foggy was back to washing the dishes.

"I'm sorry," Foggy finally told him. "I shouldn't have..."

"No, I'm sorry," Matt said. "I tried to talk to Peter myself. I think I got through to him. I promised him I would handle the Punisher. But I need you to make sure he stays out of this. Please."

"Yeah, of course I'll talk to him," Foggy said. "He trusts me. I'm sure I can convince him to listen to reason. That'll be a nice change."

Matt's nausea got worse, so he chose not to respond to that, laying back down on the couch and closing his eyes instead.

Foggy let out a deep breath he didn't realize he had been holding as the throng of reporters finally scattered and the claustrophobia of being surrounded on all sides dissipated. He tried to calm the pounding of his heart in his chest and will the panic away, knowing that the last thing he needed was for the headline of the next day's paper to read "Lawyer In Punisher Case Collapses On Courthouse Steps".

He felt like he might just be succeeding when the last of the reporters finally cleared away and revealed a lone photographer standing a few steps down from him, staring. A skinny, teenaged photographer who Foggy knew all too well. Better than many of those closest to him knew him, in fact.

"Hey Pete," he said sadly. "What are you doing here?" He gestured to the camera.

Peter shuffled his feet awkwardly. "School paper," he replied.

"Oh yeah?" Foggy asked, walking down the steps towards him. "Didn't know that high school newspapers were big on true crime. A little Rated R, isn't it? Shouldn't you be photographing the fish sticks in the cafeteria or new lockers or something?"

"Probably," Peter replied. "I asked to cover this though. On account of a personal interest."

Foggy lowered his head from Peter's gaze, unable to handle the disappointment in the young man's eyes. It felt like he was disappointing everyone lately.

"Thank you," he told Peter. "For taking what we talked about to heart and staying out of this mess."

"Of course," Peter told him, bitterness creeping into his voice. "Happy to do it. Wouldn't have wanted to get in the middle of something that you were already busy meddling with."

"I am an adult Peter," Foggy told him, hating how much he sounded like his own father, "And you are fourteen years old. There are things in life..."

"That I don't understand?" Peter asked him. "Yeah, I've heard this speech before. A lot, actually. Adults like to give it. But see, I think I understand just fine. I understand that you're a hypocrite. You talk a big game about helping people, but at the end of the day, you don't care. You want to talk about how I'm too idealistic and naive, but I'm doing the right thing. I understand the responsibility that I have to the world and to the people around me. You're defending a man who opened fire on your own neighborhood, painting him out to be some kind of war hero. I understand that you're not the person I thought you were."

"Peter..." Foggy tried to say, but Peter just shook his head at him.

"You're not my lawyer anymore, man. Or my friend."

Foggy let him walk away.