Note: This story takes place a few months after SM3.

Chapter One

Man in Red

The crisp December wind bit hard into Matthew Murdock's nose, mouth and chin, the only parts of his face not covered by his crimson cowl. It seemed a lot colder thirty stories above the streets, but Matt was not the least bit fazed. He could still hear the traffic far below. Myriad scents, aromas, and stenches filtered up from the cauldron that was Hell's Kitchen.

It had not been the best of days for Matt. He and Franklin 'Foggy' Nelson, his longtime friend and law partner, had lost a case they should have won. That losses were rare around the law firm of Nelson and Murdock did not lessen the sting of defeat, or the burning sense of injustice that gripped Matt's heart. The scumbag who had just walked out of the courtroom on an obscure legal technicality was going to face justice, Matt vowed silently, one way or another.

Matt recalled his salad days when he and Foggy, fresh out of law school, were going to set the world on fire. After all, neither of them were the naïve, newly minted young barristers they had been so many years ago, even with the advantage of working with Foggy's mother for that first year before they opened their Nelson and Murdock law firm.

As Matt gazed down at the distant streets, not really seeing anything but the outline of the buildings and the racing cars. He tried to remember when he first donned the crimson costume and Man-Without-Fear persona that it symbolized. But the memory had escaped him.

How long had it been? Some days it felt like a lifetime ago, and other days it felt like only yesterday. The lyrics of an old Beatles classic gently floated into his mind - Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away, now it seems as though they're here to stay…

That brought to mind Foggy, who, by the strangest happenstance, stumbled onto his secret.

To Matt's ears, the knocking on his front door sounded like cannon fire.

Couldn't anyone get a decent night's sleep?

He slowly began to realize that he had been unable to drift off because of voices, traffic, and numerous other sound waves that crashed against his eardrums, none of which he should have been able to hear. It was only then that it dawned on him that he was not in his sensory deprivation tank.

Matt struggled to keep his eyes open. He felt a little disoriented for a minute. But everything came back to him… the battle with the Owl…

Leland Owlsley had once been a successful financial investor, nicknamed "The Owl of Wall Street" for his financial wisdom. That is, until the IRS exposed him with his criminal connections a few years ago.

Throughout the years Leland, now known as the Owl, turned to crime and now was great crimelord. Matt had fought him on several occasions, and had gotten to be a formidable foe. He used serum, which enabled him to fly short distances as well as other mutations to the point he was more animal-like, and it affected his sanity. His bones were hollow and had greater muscle mass than a normal human's. His eyesight and hearing were acute to a superhuman level. But the key things Matt had learned about the Owl was his criminal mastermind and his shrewd tactical intellect.

Even most of the Owl's weapons were bird-based. One of the weapons being were a set of metal talons that were on each wrist. Some of his other bird-themed weapons were things like a cape that was designed to resemble an owl's outstretched wings that helped him glade through the air.

But now, the Owl was establishing his presence in the criminal underworld even more with the absence of the Kingpin. No doubt to try to become the next "Kingpin of Crime". What galled Matt was the Owl had never been caught for all his criminal activities.

He thought of getting out of bed and making his way over to the bathroom, where relief awaited him in the form of Demerol. God only knew how much he needed after the night he had…

The knocking came again. Matt could tell immediately that it was Foggy. The heartbeat and the scent were dead giveaways. And whatever he wanted, he was not going to go away. Matt raised his eyebrows; Foggy's heartbeat seemed faster then usual.

His hand brushed his leg, he felt the slick touch of leather pants. Matt frowned. He always removed his suit after a mission. But he could not remember anything that happened the night before, other than the beating he had taken from the Owl.

He could still smell his own clotting blood, feeling the bruises on his body. Which meant that he must have gotten home, taken the Demerol, fallen onto a bed he rarely used and passed out.

Matt felt the ache from the bruises on his face. How was he going to explain that to Foggy? He could only use 'walked into a door' so many times. Knowing Foggy for as long as he had, he was certain his portly partner would bring up the seeing-eye dog issue again.

Donning a robe along with his sunglasses, Matt nearly tripped over his jacket and boots, both of which were still on the floor. He must have really been out of it last night. He quickly hid them before making his way to the foyer.

"Foggy? Come in. What are you doing here so early?" Matt asked in surprise as he opened his front door. His partner almost never came to visit at least not in the morning, and they would usually meet in the morning for coffee (or tea) at the café.

"I found something important about the Castle case," Foggy answered, as he stepped through the doorway. His voice held tenseness in it.

"And this couldn't have waited until I got to the office?" Matt moved toward the living room, but once there he remained standing so that his partner would not know how much pain he was in. The robe was rubbing against the claw marks on his arm. It stung something fierce.

"Yeah, but that's not the reason I'm here." Foggy started to pace back and forth across the room, and wreaked havoc on Matt's senses in the process. Foggy's footsteps sounded like boulders falling; his heartbeat sounded like distant thunder that was not so distant.

"Why don't you sit down for a while and take a load off your feet?" Matt queried his partner.

That seemed to snap Foggy out of whatever was bothering him, but only for a moment. "No. Dammit, I still can't believe this." Thankfully, he had stopped pacing, but his heart was beating faster. "Why did you do it, Matt?"

Now Matt was confused. "Do what?"

"Lie to me through both sides of your mouth all these years. How could you sit there and tell me with a straight face that Daredevil doesn't exist?" he asked, his tone betraying feelings of tremendous hurt and anger. "All this time you kept telling me I was crazy, but I wasn't now, was I? And I believed you. I trusted you. You made a complete fool out of me, in public no less."

How could he even… Matt could not even begin to wonder. "Foggy, I-"

"Don't even try to deny it!"

"How could you even know?"

"When I came over here earlier, the door was open. I found you lying on the bed, half in and half out of your costume... You looked like you'd been in a gang fight. The only reason I left without calling 911 was that you were still breathing. And as pissed as I am, I just left you alone to sleep for a couple of hours so that I could get a straight answer out of you when I came back."

Matt gazed silently at the floor for what seemed like an eternity.

"Well, counselor?" Foggy's voice was thick with an edgy sarcasm that Matt had never heard before.

"The Defense rests," was all Matt had to say. There was nothing else for it. Foggy had been more than just his law partner. They had been close friends since they first roomed together as freshmen at Columbia. Even with all his foibles, Foggy Nelson was the one person he could count on more than anyone or anything else in the world.

"So Matt, how in the hell do you do it?"

"Pretty far-out, huh?" Matt gave his friend a half smile, though there was hardly anything humorous about Foggy's discovery of his other life. The bruises made him wince in pain.

"Are you really blind, or was that just an act you've been putting on all these years?"

"It's a long story."

"We have time," Foggy stated as he finally sat down.

"Well, I guess you could say it started right after I lost my eyesight…"

…Foggy would keep his secret to the grave…

"…a Honda Civic heading south on Ninth Avenue heading toward 53rd Street." Matt was brought out of his reverie by the police dispatch that was two blocks away. "…we have a stolen vehicle… suspect believed to be involved in armed robbery of Klein Jewelers at the corner of 72rd and Madison Avenue…"

Running at breakneck speed, Daredevil jumped from one rooftop to the next one. Not once did he stop to think about the thirty-story drop he would have to deal with if he missed; that's why his billy club had a built-in zipline.

He was just about to close in on his quarry when suddenly he sensed an extremely fast-moving object heading toward the car from the opposite direction. Looking up, he saw what looked like a man hurtling between the buildings with nothing keeping him aloft but extremely thin, barely visible threads.

The other man flipped in mid-air before coming to a stop on the wall of an office building overlooking the street corner. He appeared to be clinging to the stone surface with nothing but his fingertips. He could not have been more than fifteen feet from the gargoyle around which Daredevil's own zipline was wrapped.

"I'm going to take a wild guess here…" The strange man was addressing him. "You're either the legendary Daredevil - though no one's seen a picture of you – or someone forgot to tell you that Halloween's over."

Daredevil knew who the man was before he opened his mouth. As far as he was concerned, the wallcrawler was not making a good first impression. "I don't think it's any of your concern, Spider-Man."

"You know who I am?" Spider-Man asked.

"Your reputation precedes you."

Spider-Man was ready with a quick comeback. "So does yours." In the next instant, though, his demeanor turned serious. "There's a police chase that went by here, did you happen to see where they went?"

Daredevil hoped that Spider-Man was not referring to the same chase he had been following. "They're going down Ninth," he answered but continued with, "But leave that guy to me."

"We'll just see who catches him first!" Not bothering to wait around for a reply, Spider-Man fired a webline and swung away to continue his pursuit.

Daredevil made no move to stop him or continue the chase himself. And for good reason – a woman's scream suddenly split the air. Another attempted rape… one more than he was willing to tolerate in his neighborhood; he would not let this lady become another victim.

He did make it in time, but only just. He let the guy have it, and could have easily beaten him to within an inch of his life. But Daredevil kept himself in check. He had learned that lesson well, when he had that "behavioral-modification" session with that drunken father, right in front of his son. The image of that boy cowering in fear from him, and not his father – that image had stayed with him, seared into his memory. Would the woman react the same way?

Sure enough, when he made his way over to the woman to make sure she was okay, she shrank away from him. "Don't touch me!"

Holding out his hands so she could see them, he stepped back a little. "It's okay, I won't harm you. And he," Daredevil nudged the guy with his boot, "won't be able to harm you."

The woman, who seemed very young, let out a sob. Her dress was torn, but it seemed mostly in one piece. Luckily a police car was coming down the street, and the woman ran down that way to wave them down while he made himself scarce.

Daredevil listened to see if there was any other trouble. Detecting none, he headed home.

His mind went back to Spider-Man. Matt's extraordinarily heightened senses enabled him to get beyond his first impressions far more quickly than people with perfect vision. In the few seconds during which they had come into contact with each other, Matt had determined that Spider-Man was about twenty years of age and five foot seven inches tall. From the deep, steady pounding of Spider-Man's heart, he knew the man as was in superb physical condition – as natural an athlete as one could find. Matt was deep in thought as his feet touched the roof of his brownstone. He spun the combinations on the multiple locks to let himself inside.

Maybe he should be thankful for small favors, guarding the streets had not been completely bad tonight. Well, bad physically. Emotionally? His day had sucked. And that run in with Spider-Man had not been on his 'to do list' today.

The police never gave a second thought to trying to arrest Spider-Man for the numerous crimes that he had been accused of committing, with murder at the top of the list…

The media on the other hand, either praised or tolerated Spider-Man, who was in the papers almost daily. The only one that disparaged his name on their front page was the Daily Bugle. Or so Foggy had said.

Would Spider-Man deliberately cause everything the Bugle accuses him of? He seems to be more a hell-raiser and glory hound…

Matt did not have an answer to his question. He was used to keeping to the shadows; he did not want to be in the papers. But of course heroes like Spider-Man wanted the spotlight for themselves… Like when he was presented with the key to the city a few months ago. But with any luck, he would not have another run in with the wallcrawler anytime soon.

A shower and some sleep is what I need now, Matt thought with a weary sigh as he removed his mask.

Fifteen minutes later, showered, dressed in sweats, and with a towel drying his hair, Matt made it up to his main floor of his apartment. He paused by the answering machine - it was alerting him that he had a message. Pressing 'play' he listened to the it.

"Matt," came Foggy's voice. "We got a call from our alma mater. Apparently their letter got lost in the mail or something. Anyway, Professor Robinson wants us to be guest speakers in his advanced trial advocacy seminar. If you have 'other' things keeping you busy tonight, we'll talk tomorrow at the café."

Matt did not have to think it over too much. He always enjoyed going back to Columbia Law School. He hoped that his story about the blind kid from Hell's Kitchen making it as an attorney would inspire more law students to take up pro bono work rather than become pawns of corporate America, as most were wont to do.

Oh, Foggy is going to love that, Matt thought, and his mouth turned up in a smile.

Notes: I'm also working on a side story on John Jameson and Gwen Stacy called Table for Two. The fic will be set during this story and follow it slightly. I have the first chapter up, though timeline-wise it hasn't happened in this story yet, but I'll make note in the coming chapters when Table for Two chapters coincide with these chapters.

Information about the Owl is directly from Wikipedia.

Foggy's finding out Matt is Daredevil was based off the Amazing Spider-Man Vol 2 #35 & #38 by J. Michael Straczynski. At the very end of ASM 35, Peter's aunt May finds out he is Spider-Man when he is sleeping and his Spider-Man costume is on the floor. Some of the idea also come from the actual comic were Foggy did find out in Daredevil from Vol 1 in issues 347 & 348 by J. M. Dematteis. Thanks for mentioning it, Barbara (as well as getting me hooked on comics)!

Thanks for reading, please review. Jenn