Throughout the years, I've gotten requests for a Gravesen staff spinoff, some one-shots from the perspective of "outsider" characters like the Howling Commandos, and I myself had the idea to write some from the POV of the children born into this crazy Gravesen family. So, I've lumped them all into this one-shot collection. I have about 6 chapters ready to go with absolutely no planned schedule for posting them, and I'm always open to requests! It's super easy and fun to crank out a few hundred words from a new POV.

The Roommate:

Matt got into Columbia. He and Nick both got acceptance letters to their first choice colleges on the very same day. Matt would have opened it right then and there, but it wouldn't have done any good since he was home alone and the envelope wasn't nearly heavy enough to contain either an acceptance or rejection letter in Braille. So he'd called Nick and talked to him while he waited for Dad to get home from work. Nick's siblings were home, so he could have gotten his own answer, but he waited for Matt so they could find out together.

As he read the letter aloud to Matt, his father's voice picked up in excitement. Next thing he knew, Dad was hugging him so hard he nearly picked him up off the floor. "I am so proud of you, Matty," he said.

"You didn't hear that nickname!" Matt shouted towards the phone, knowing Nick was snickering about it. Normally the nickname grated on him, but right now he was too elated to care. That elation lasted a week or two, especially as his other friends from school also got accepted to places they'd applied. Frank even successfully enlisted in the Marine Corps; he'd been terrified they would reject him because of his TBI and the lingering effects it caused. Fortunately for him, those effects were mild enough not to disqualify him from service.

Once summer wound to a close and Matt actually faced imminent departure from Hell's Kitchen and the life he knew so well here, that elation was replaced by trepidation. He'd been navigating these streets as a blind person for almost a decade now, though he still remembered vividly how difficult it had been that first year. He was more skilled and more mature now, of course, but it would still be difficult to learn his way around an entirely new area while also adjusting to a new lifestyle and rigor of coursework.

Another thing he'd have to adjust to: having a roommate. As an only child, Matt had never had to share space with anyone. He'd always had full control over the location of every object in his personal space, which minimized the amount of time he spent looking for things and the number of times he tripped over things. Matt had the option to apply for single room accommodations with disability services, an option which he strongly considered. However, he ultimately decided not to since it wasn't something he needed the same way he needed his course materials in Braille. There were probably many other disabled students who needed a single room more than he did, so he decided to play the roommate lottery. Matt just hoped he didn't end up with some well-meaning asshole who mollycoddled him.

The fateful day arrived when he'd meet this roommate. Matt's dad helped him find the right building, and Matt ventured inside to find the right room. He could hear people walking up and down the hallways, probably carrying things to their dorms, but nobody stopped to acknowledge him. Honestly, Matt preferred it that way. If he had a nickel for every time he'd politely declined help from a stranger, he could pay his entire college tuition. If he had a nickel for every time they'd helped anyway, he'd have even more nickels.

Matt assumed he'd entered the building on the first floor, so he climbed up two flights and confirmed his location with a Braille sign beside the door to exit the stairwell. He wasn't so lucky with the individual room numbers. Matt couldn't even find signs labeling the doors within his reach, which meant they were either above his head or so flat he couldn't feel them. He'd been hoping for tactile print at the least. Frustrated, he stood against a wall and took a deep breath, listening out for any clues as to where his room might be.

"310!" a voice exclaimed. Matt latched onto the sound and followed it to his source. If the numbering system made any sense at all–which wasn't always the case–then 312 would be the room on either side of it. Without any clue as to which, Matt took a guess. From within the room, he heard a voice shout, "God damn it! Come one! Load. Load!"

He stepped inside.

"What?" the voice asked.

"Excuse me, is this room 312?"

"Yeah, who're you looking for?"

Matt was somewhat confused by the question. Did this person not expect they'd be getting a roommate today? Wasn't it rather obvious that he was living here if he was looking for it? "Oh uh, sorry," Matt said, not even sure what he was apologizing for.

"What for? You're blind, right?"

Matt tried his best not to reveal how much that question grated on him. Sighted people could glean so much information just by turning their heads and they still felt the need to confirm the obvious. "Uh, yeah, so they tell me," he said instead. Joking about it usually put people more at ease, made them less worried about offending him. "I hope that won't be a problem."

"Why would it?" the person asked, and Matt internally sighed in relief. That was a green flag. "Oh! You're…you're my roomie!"

Finally, they'd caught on. "Uh, Matt Murdock," he introduced.

"Foggy Nelson. Wait, Matt Murdock? Are you–you're not from Hell's Kitchen, are you?"

"Yeah, born and raised."

"So am I! Yeah, I heard about you when you were a kid, what you did, saving that guy crossing the street."

Matt had not expected his roommate to know who he was. The accident happened so many years ago that nobody really thought about it anymore. "Yeah, I…I just did what anyone would have."

"Bullshit. You are a hero."

"I'm really not." Of all the scenarios he'd prepared for, his roommate hero worshiping him was not one of them.

"Come on! You got your peepers knocked out saving that old dude."

"They didn't get knocked out." Matt thought of Nick, whose prosthetic eyes literally could come out. He'd have to introduce him to Foggy one day. Preferably without telling Foggy beforehand that his eyes could come out.

"Good, 'cause that would be a little freaky. But no offense."

Oh, Matt was definitely going to prank this guy with Nick at the first opportunity. "Please, none taken," he said with a smile. "Uh…most people dance around me like I'm made of glass. I hate that."

"Yeah, you're just a guy, right? A really, really good-looking guy."

"Oh, um…" Matt didn't know how to tell Foggy that he wasn't interested.

"I mean, girls must love that. The whole wounded, handsome duck thing. Am I right?"

"Right." Matt should've figured he was talking about that rather than coming onto him. They'd only known each other for five minutes for goodness' sake. "Yeah, it's been known to happen." Especially when he started high school and there were many girls there who hadn't known him as a kid, before the accident.

"This is gonna be awesome!" Foggy declared.

"What is?"

"Me as your wingman! You're gonna open up a whole caliber of women I've only dreamed of. A lot! We're gonna be like Maverick and Goose!"

That wasn't where Matt expected this conversation to go either. "Okay." Foggy's computer beeped.

"Oh, shit!" he exclaimed. "I'm in!"

"In what?"

"Punjabi. I got the last spot."

"You're taking Punjabi?"

"It's spoken by 130 million people. I'd like to know what they're saying."

"That's the only reason?"

"Well, yeah. I Mean, why else would I learn it?"

"I don't know, a girl, maybe?" Matt smirked. He'd known Foggy five minutes, but that was enough to know that would take a whole ass college course for a girl.

"See? This is what I'm talking about. Me and you, Maverick and Goose, no secrets."

"Goose died and he was married." Matt watched that movie at Nick's with his siblings not that long ago.

"Details." Foggy paused. "Hey, do you know a good place to get a cup of coffee on campus?"

"No." Matt didn't know of anything on campus besides this building right now.

"Well, lucky for you, I do. And it's filled with luscious co-eds. Shall we?"

"Sounds good, but first I have to get all my stuff from the car and say goodbye to my dad." It took them only three trips to bring everything up, with Foggy's help. Dad, never one for extended displays of emotion, gave Matt a single hug and said his farewells.

"Coffee time?" Matt asked.

"Coffee time," Foggy concurred. He stood and headed towards the door, then stopped before he could cross the threshold.

"What's wrong?" Matt asked.

"We…probably need to have a conversation or two. About being roommates."

"Yeah, okay." Matt imagined that was customary for all roommates.

"I want to be sure I don't have any habits that are going to…you know, mess with your way of life."

"I'm blind, not vegan," Matt shot back. "But I appreciate the thought. How about tonight, before we go to sleep, we can talk about all the roommate etiquette stuff?"

"Sounds good."

~0~

They ended up having a prelude to that conversation on the way to the coffee shop, in which Matt gave Foggy pointers on how to guide him. He could have managed with only his cane and following the sound of Foggy's voice, but it would have taken much longer especially since the campus was brand new to him and more crowded than usual with all the parents moving their kids in. "Don't grab me." was the first thing Matt said, because it pissed him off when people tried to "guide" him the way parents "guide" reluctant toddlers through the grocery store. "Just hold your arm out and I'll grab it."

Foggy extended his elbow just as Matt had directed. "You don't really have to say if we're turning left or right because I can feel you move, but if there's a curb or stairs or anything that requires movement other than walking a straight line, let me know." Matt wracked his brain for obstacles that often tripped him up. "Major cracks in the sidewalk, puddles, low hanging branches, stuff like that." The branches were particularly annoying because he had no hope of detecting them with his cane.

"Sounds good," Foggy said.

At first, he was overly cautious, walking slowly and over-describing, but he'd started to get the hang of it by the time they arrived. He read off the menu for Matt, they sat down at a table, and immediately got lost in conversation with a bunch of other freshmen. They ended up staying for several hours. Matt was glad he'd unpacked and said goodbye to his dad before heading over here.

"It's dark out," Matt remarked as they left to go back to the dorm. He had no idea they'd stayed that long.

"How would you know?" Foggy asked.

Matt laughed. He forgot that most people still clung to that misconception. "I can see light and dark," he explained. "Most blind people can see at least that much. My friend Nick, though, he's one of the rare ones who can't see anything at all."

Foggy didn't say anything at first, and Matt assumed he was nodding. "Is that why you wear sunglasses? Are you more sensitive to light since it's all you can see?"

An interesting train of thought, but not correct in Matt's case. For both him and Nick, the sunglasses were almost entirely for everyone else's comfort. Only then did Matt realize that sharing a room with Foggy meant he would see Matt without them at some point. His dad and his ophthalmologist were the only people who'd ever seen his eyes. Nick didn't really count because he couldn't see them. The thought made him incredibly nervous. Matt had never seen his eyes after the accident, for obvious reasons, but after leaving the hospital for a check-up several months afterward, he'd asked Dad to describe what Matt couldn't feel for himself. He knew the skin around his eyes and lids had thickened with scar tissue, but there was so much more he couldn't perceive that would be a sighted person's first impression of him. Dad explained, voice tight, that they were white and cloudy, criss-crossed with straggly red blood vessels. His dark brown irises were barely visible behind the white opacity and they moved with none of the same intention and focus as before.

"So they're scary," Matt's nine-year-old brain had concluded.

"No, Matty, they're not scary. They look different than they used to, that's all."

Matt had known he was lying and decided then that he'd never remove his glasses in public. He drew enough stares as it was.

"I just think they're stylish," he told Foggy, because he wasn't about to rant about his biggest insecurity to a guy he'd known less than a day. It took him months to talk about it even with Nick.

"They are," Foggy agreed.

They returned to their room, each did a little more unpacking and organizing, and got ready for bed. It took Matt a little while to find his way around the shared bathroom, but he managed. He'd Braille-labeled all his toiletries so he would never accidentally use someone else's. When he returned to the room, he heard Foggy messing with his Brailler. The sound immediately stopped when Matt arrived.

"Sorry," Foggy blurted out. "I was just trying to figure out what it was."

Matt chuckled. "It's okay. I know a thing or two about exploring with my hands." He flashed a grin as Foggy snorted. "It's a Braille typewriter, by the way."

"Cool. Why does it only have seven keys?"

"Six are for letters, the middle one is a space bar. All the letters and symbols are combinations of six dots. It's complicated." Matt didn't have the energy to explain all the intricacies of the code at the moment.

"Sounds like it."

"Since we're already on the subject, do you want to have that chat?"

"Sure."

"You go first," Matt offered. "Give me the dos and don'ts of sharing space with Foggy Nelson."

"Oh, okay," he sounded surprised. "I don't think there's all that much. I'm a pretty easy-going guy. I sleep like a log. I'm happy to share food and stuff like that. I guess the only don't is don't have sex while I'm in here. I'm not into the whole voyeurism thing."

Matt burst out laughing. "I would never do that to you. I hope you'll offer me the same courtesy. I might not see shit, but my hearing's spectacular."

Foggy laughed too. "Got it. Okay, your turn. Tell me how I can not fuck up living with a blind person. Also I apologize in advance for everything I will fuck up. I'm trying my best."

"I appreciate it. I think the biggest thing is to keep the floor plan the same. Don't move the furniture or leave tripping hazards on the floor." He gestured to his folded-up cane on his desk. "I don't use that when I'm in a familiar space, so I rely on memory."

"I can do that."

"I think that's it?" Matt said unsurely. "I hope you don't get annoyed listening to redundant information. Everything you learn by reading, I learn from electronic voices who read it to me."

"That's cool. Like what?"

"My clock, my phone notifications, audio description on movies, but I don't watch those very often. Books I usually read on a Braille display or put earbuds in, so you don't need to worry about that."

Foggy didn't say anything.

"If you just nodded, I couldn't tell," he confessed. That was always the hardest habit to get people to break. "Which reminds me, it'll take me a bit to really know your voice so if you run into me out of context you might have to introduce yourself." Matt had exchanged so many hellos, even sometimes whole conversations, with no idea who he was talking to.

"Got it." Foggy hesitated. "I know you said the glasses were for style, but they don't really go with pajamas."

"You're curious, aren't you?" Matt deduced.

Silence.

"Oh, sorry. I just nodded."

Matt smiled crookedly. Foggy would inevitably see them, so it might as well happen now. "I've been told they're pretty freaky, fair warning."

"That's rude. Who would say that to you?"

Foggy's instinctive response bolstered Matt's confidence. In such a short time, he'd already proven himself a good person and a good ally. Matt removed his glasses, folding them up and placing them on the bedside table. He blinked a few times and looked in Foggy's general direction.

He didn't speak for a long time. Matt was about to put the glasses back on when Foggy asked, "Do they hurt?"

Matt was taken aback by the question. No one had ever asked him that before. Most people were preoccupied with trying not to make their shock and disgust audible. "Not anymore," he answered.

"Okay."

Foggy said nothing more on the matter. He announced, "I'm tired, I think I'm gonna hit the hay," and that was the end of the conversation. That went as well as he could've imagined. Matt thought then that he might've won the roommate lottery. He knew he won the roommate lottery a week later, when Foggy led him down their dorm hallway and urged him to feel the signs now taped up on everyone's door. Apparently, he'd taught himself to use Matt's Brailler and secretly typed up the room numbers and the names of all the residents in their hallway.

After She-Hulk, I got the itch to rewatch all of Daredevil and I liked it even more than I did the first time I saw it. It then gave me the itch to write some Gravesen Chronicles Matt. I traumatized myself looking at pictures of chemical burns on eyeballs, but I think it adds a nice degree of realism.