Chapter Text
Wednesday 11:58
I'm here early.
I decided I might as well let myself in, considering it would be a little sketchy for a teenager in a dark hoodie and sweats to be lingering outside at midnight alone.
I came here without the whole spider-man get-up.
Something tells me that he won’t care much.
The place is your typical boxing gym.
I’ve actually passed by it a few times over the years, more so on patrol.
It’s a little run down, but something about it feels homey.
I don’t turn on the main lights, so as not to attract attention to the small boxing ring, but I do turn on a dim lamp that I find in the corner.
It’s not the brightest, but with my enhanced senses it doesn’t matter much.
I did a few stretches when I got here about ten minutes ago, so I'm all ready to start. Plus I finished an early patrol before I came here.
Right as I was about to allow myself to take a seat while I waited, I heard the sound of footsteps up on the roof.
Looks like the devil has arrived.
I wait as I listen to him come through the same window I broke to get in.
I don’t turn around when I hear him walk up behind me.
“Look who decided to show up.” I say.
“It’s not like I was late or anything, you’re the one who’s early.” He says.
“Yeah you have a point there I guess.” I say while turning around, finally facing the man who is dressed in all black, with what looks to be a scarf covering his eyes. I watch as his head slightly tilts, and if it weren't for the covering of his face, I would suspect his eyebrows rose slightly.
“You aren’t wearing a mask.” He says, the question clear in his voice.
“Not much use is there? You know, with your whole blind but not blind thing you got going on.” I say. Even without seeing his face, and his unnatural ability to be intimidating, I notice the shock and mistrust that comes from my statement.
“What are you talking about?” He says with a hard voice. To anybody else, that tone would have thrown them off, but the devil’s not the only one with enhanced senses. He’s nervous, but not enough to hurt a “Kid.” So to speak.
“Oh, come on? Your lack of sight is pretty obvious, I’m honestly surprised nobody else has noticed.” I say, not unkindly. To be honest though, I'm not actually too surprised. People always impress me with their uncanny ability to underestimate those they consider to be weak or lesser than.
Cough, Stark, Cough.
After a second of silence, the devil seemingly still lost in the surprise of me figuring him out, I got bored.
“So, are you gonna say something or…” I say.
Finally, he seems to have come back to his senses.
Hehe.
See what I did there.
Senses…
Anyways-
I watch as he puts aside his worries and surprise.
“Okay then, I guess we should get started.” He says.
I can’t exactly deny the rush of excitement that comes with the thought of fighting someone without the pure drive of survival or the feral need of violence.
And then with that came the sudden reminder of what occurred a few days ago.
What. Is. Your. Name.
Quickly, I push my thoughts aside, and listen as Matt starts his lecture.
To say that I'm impressed would be a lie.
Okay that was a lie, to say that I’m impressed would be the most truthful I’ve been in quite a while.
Despite what I may sometimes delusion myself to believe, I haven’t had as much training in certain aspects of fighting as I would like. And with the devils experience, and obvious training in fighting styles, it was more of a challenge than I'm used to.
Now I’m not saying that I was completely defenseless.
Fuck no.
The nasty bruise on his face and favoring of his left side proves that.
But damn if my stomach isn’t aching and bruised from that last hit.
Although, I will say it was quite the challenge to get him to stop pulling his punches.
I guess the whole “you’re just a kid!” thing is still getting to him.
In fact, I believe that is what he is currently ranting about at the moment.
“I can’t believe I just fucking did that. I’m turning into him. Why the fuck did I do that?”
Oh.
Maybe less of a rant.
More of a crisis.
Sounds like past trauma.
I have experience in that.
“Um… It’s okay?” I say.
Right, my expertise lies more with bottling up my feelings, less so talking about them.
I don’t exactly know how to… comfort.. per say.
Well shit.
“It is most definitely not okay! What was I thinking? I hit a child!” Anger laces his tone, but I can hear the deeper feeling of guilt behind it.
“Well yeah, you’re the one who insisted on training me.”
I watch as his breathing seems to speed up at that.
And shit, right, this definitely isn’t the time for sarcastic comments.
I wonder when I picked up the insistent need to deflect difficult situations with sarcasm.
Oh wait.
Nevermind.
“Fuck!” The devil shouts angrily.
And hell, I really need to ask him for an actual name. Real or fake. I'm getting tired of calling him ‘the devil’ in my head.
If i’m gonna be honest, it’s kind of throwing me off, this sudden display of emotions. It seems kind of out of character from the usual brooding, ‘I’m the actual devil and you should fear my very existence,’ stance.
But I set that aside and choose to focus on the matter at hand.
After a few tries of getting him to hear me, I decide that he’s not gonna listen to me by simply asking kindly.
“DAREDEVIL!” I yell.
And wow, I forgot that my voice can somehow sound both soft and demanding at the same time. I guess it comes with the territory. For the whole comforting innocent civilians thing.
He finally turns his head in my direction, and I'm not surprised to see the blank look on the bottom half of his face.
“Listen,” I say, “I understand that this isn’t the most ideal situation for you, but It’s honestly fine. It’s training, I can take a punch. I’ve taken much worse hits, and If it helps any, all my injuries will heal within a couple hours.”
Though he doesn’t seem to be completely convinced, he does seem to calm down some.
We stand in silence for a couple minutes, not necessarily awkward, but not comfortable either.
At some point, we end up sitting beside,(but not too close) each other against the wall. I lean my head up against the ceiling, trying to get myself to block out all the sounds that end up being heard in the dead of night.
“So… what should I call you?” I ask. I hear him slightly tilt his head.
“What do you mean?” He asks.
“Well I'm kind of calling you the devil in my head, but that's kind of getting annoying. Plus, I don’t think it does much good for my mental health.” I say semi jokingly.
I hear his heart stutter as he hesitates.
“Mike. You can call me Mike.” He finally settles with.
“Cool, so we’re going with fake names. I’m… Ben.”
Damn. Of all names I had to say Ben. The fuck is wrong with me?
Why not John, or Luke, or… I dont fucking know, any other name that isn’t my dead uncles?
“Alright then Ben. I guess now is the time we should discuss whatever the hell happened the other night.” He says in a tone of voice that's kind of amusing coming from “Daredevil.”
That thought doesn’t seem to help any though, as the meaning of the sentence catches up with me.
I tense slightly, not caring to linger on the fact that Mike most definitely noticed.
“What about it? It happened. It’s over. Nothing to talk about.” I say, not even trying to play stupid and pretend not to know what he was talking about.
“I think we both know it's not that simple. You killed a man.” He says.
“Way to point out the fucking obvious.” I say, voice tight in anger.
It’s silent.
“Look. We don’t have to talk about it. I know that Miles kid covered up for you right? Said some other dude dressed in black did it?” He questions.
“Yeah.” I say, feeling a little sick at the thought of a kid covering up for a murderer.
“Okay, well I’m gonna be honest with you. You may be a kid, but…” He trails off in a very non- devilish way.
It may have not been said out loud, but the message is all too clearly there.
I may be a kid, but murder is murder.
He heard everything that night.
He has to know if I can be trusted.
“Right.” I sigh. “Look, I’m not gonna run around killing a bunch of people if that's what your worried about-”
From the sound of it, that is exactly what he is worried about.
“But, that night was… I lost control of myself. I never do that, and if i'm being frank, I-” I cut myself off, realizing that this is the first time in months that I have even semi “opened up.” And to be spilling my guts to a man that I don’t know the true name of and just met the other night?
Well I’d say I’m resembling my old self a little too much.
Stop it with the emotions Peter.
I reprimanded myself.
Realizing that Mike is still waiting for me to finish my thoughts, I continue.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about.” I say.
We both ignore the small skip in my heart beat.
Despite this, Matt seems to be satisfied. Maybe he heard something that I didn’t intend, I don’t know.
He seems to nod his head in some type of resolve.
“Alright. As you know, there are other ‘vigilantes’ around..” He starts.
This peaks my interests, so I turn my head slightly as he continues to speak.
“Basically, we kind of stay in touch. We meet every Thursday at Midnight for about an hour or so. Mainly just to train, strategize, you get the jist.” He says.
“Are you inviting me to the mega top secret Vigilante club!” I say enthusiastically with sarcasm.
I get the feeling that Mike rolled his eyes. But who knows, maybe I’m imagining things.
“Essentially, yes.” He says blandly.
“I’ve been around for a while now, how come I didn’t get the invite sooner?” I ask, only slightly petulant.
“Well, when you first started showing up, surprisingly enough, none of us ever ran into you.” He says.
I grimace slightly as I remember purposely avoiding any other vigilante. I was still caught up in the childish wonder of being a “superhero,” and was scared to meet the “professionals.”
“Then at some point Stark showed up, and we figured there was no point in seeking you out if you already found someone to help you with training.” He said. I catch a note of resentment at the Stark name, and I can’t help but agree.
“Yeah, well, that turned out magnificently.” I say sarcastically.
Surprisingly, Mike doesn’t point out my obvious bitterness towards the billionaire.
I then realize he’s waiting for an answer to his offer.
I hesitate for a second.
Do I really want to risk it?
Wouldn’t it be better to stay with the whole lone wolf thing I got going on?
Although, It would be nice to get some more training in.
I need to be prepared when I find the man who killed my aunt.
Plus, I can see if anyone has seen anything suspicious around.
It's just for training.
For my aunt.
That's all.
“Alright, alright, sure. I’ll be there.” I say.
“I’ll text the address to your burner.” He nods his head, back to his brooding.
“Alright it's late.” He says standing up, myself following. “You should get home, your parents are probably worried.”
I couldn’t help the snort that left my mouth.
“What?” He says.
“Nothing, nothing.” I say. “I guess I’ll see you Thursday.” I say.
Just as I was about to make it to the window I snuck in through, he stopped me.
“Ben, wait!” Mike says, hesitantly. “Just, be careful kid.”
Kid.
My breath catches a bit.
“Right, sure.” I say, turning around and making my way through the window. But before I leave, I softly whisper something that I know he can hear.
“Thank you. You stay safe too.”
It’s almost unbelievable how much things can change within a couple of days.
Getting to where I am now most definitely wasn’t easy, but it was one hundred percent worth it.
Getting home from my training with Mike, I entered my new apartment through the window.
After the whole event with good old Peterson, I had that conversation I had been planning with Moore. I made it clear that he would not seek me out. As far as he knew, I went to live with the estranged sister of my aunt May. On top of that, he was to stop fostering any and all kids in the future. Of course he wasn’t so agreeable with the plan at first, but after sharing some evidence of his treatment to me, along with some other proof of his past crimes, along with a very… questionable tactic of persuasion, he settled.
Now, I currently reside in the run down apartment that I most definitely didn’t acquire in the most legal manner.
But what can I say? Desperate times call for desperate measures.
That is the saying right?
Anyways, it’s because of this that I had to skip the past couple of days of school.
According to my Aunt , I came down with something and will be staying home until I recover from the random sickness.
I also made sure to check in with Ned and MJ, letting them know of my illness.
Although, I still have been going to work. That I can’t really skip if I want to keep food on the table.
Making my way through my bedroom, and to my closet, I pull out some sweats and a t-shirt, and find my way to the bathroom.
When finished with the shower, I feel more refreshed than usual. I think it has something to do with the soothing of the hot water against my newly gained bruises.
With a towel wrapped around my waste, I stand in the cramped bathroom, staring into the mirror. I cringe at the scars found on my body. They aren’t the most… visually pleasing. With some of them come bad memories, others I can barely remember how I got them. I guess the enhanced healing can only do so much.
My gaze rises to my eyes. Nothing special about them. Although, Ben used to say that I had my mothers eyes.
After a while of staring, some more unwelcome thoughts seem to arise.
Thoughts of Nick Peterson. Of what I did.
What. Is. Your. Name.
My hands clench hard against the counter.
I feel sick.
I feel numb.
I feel… like a-
Like a monste-
BANG!
Quickly, I snap out of my thoughts.
No point in going down that road.
I have to figure out who killed my Aunt.
That's the only thing important right now.
After getting dressed, I head to the small empty living room.
I sit on the ground, opening my computer and pulling out my cluttered notebook.
Samuel Dalton.
What a stupid name.