Chapter Text
It was late, and Matt had just returned to his apartment from an eventful night of Daredevil action, hoping to catch at least a few hours of sleep before his day job. His plans were temporarily interrupted when his phone rang.
“Mahoney, Mahoney, Mahoney.”
Matt let it ring a few times before picking it up, just to make it seem like he hadn’t already been awake. “Yeah?” he said, trying to sound appropriately groggy for the middle of the night.
“Murdock,” Brett greeted. “Come down to the station ASAP. I have a client for you.”
Since Brett made it sound urgent, Matt wasted no time. The cab dropped him off directly in front of the station, and Matt walked to the entrance as quickly as he could without raising suspicions.
Brett intercepted him right by the door.
“He’s just a kid, maybe thirteen or fourteen,” Brett explained. “Lowell picked him up for trespassing. Store owner called it in because he heard noises, but even he didn’t want to press charges when he saw the state of the kid.”
Matt rubbed his temples. He hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours, and here was Brett calling him in for a kid who wasn’t even going to be arrested? “So you’re dropping the charges then? Why did you call me in?”
“The kid hasn’t said a word since we picked him up, other than to ask for a lawyer. And when you see him… Oops, you know what I mean. He’s just skin and bones really. He’s either a runaway or has been severely neglected. Or both.”
“Have you called social services?”
“Yeah, they’re coming, but they’re backed up, so they won’t be here for another 2 hours at least.”
Matt hesitated. He didn’t want to turn down what sounded like a desperate kid, but he wasn’t sure that he had the necessary expertise.
“It sounds like you need a family lawyer,” Matt said. “Someone who specializes in child abuse cases.”
“Murdock, trust me when I say you’re the lawyer he needs right now,” Brett said. “He’s on edge around everyone. And he might be blind.”
Matt could feel his own heartbeat speed up at that. “Might be?” Talk about burying the lede.
“We couldn’t confirm it for sure because we haven’t managed to get close enough to examine him. He has a blindfold on, and he starts having some kind of panic attack if anyone tries to get close enough to take it off.”
Brett led him to one of the victim interview rooms, and Matt was thankful that they hadn’t left the kid in an interrogation room because he wouldn’t have put it past them.
Brett knocked loudly and waited a beat before opening the door.
“Hey Slim, there’s someone here to see you. He’s a lawyer.”
The kid shifted in his chair. His heart was beating wildly.
Brett guided Matt to the chair opposite the kid.
After a moment, Brett cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll leave you two then.”
Brett made a show of walking away with very audible, very telegraphed footsteps, before stopping by the door and saying, “Okay, I’m closing the door behind me now.”
If the situation had been different, Matt would have made fun of him.
As it was, the kid let out an exasperated sigh, so Matt might need to take Brett aside later and remind him not to treat visually impaired people like they were clueless.
“Hi there,” Matt said. “I’m your lawyer, Matt Murdock. Do you mind if I call you Slim or was that just something Brett came up with?”
“My name’s Scott,” the kid mumbled.
They sat in silence as Matt tried to think of how to approach this situation, faced with a possibly blind, definitely scared teen. All he could picture was Stick. Maybe he could think of what Stick would do and then do the opposite?
“You’re blind?” Scott asked, breaking the silence.
“Yeah,” Matt said. “I lost my sight in an accident when I was nine. How could you tell?”
“I could hear the cane. It sounds different than a cane used for stability,” Scott responded. “But I guess you understand, right? You must know what it’s like to have to rely on your other senses.”
Matt swallowed. It wasn’t often that he encountered other blind people, who presumably didn’t have enhanced senses, and he was reminded not to make assumptions about anyone’s capabilities.
“So, Scott, you understand that you are not under arrest, correct?”
Scott nodded. “Uh, sorry. I nodded. Yeah, I understand, but…” He trailed off.
“But what?”
“I tried to leave, but the officers wouldn’t let me. That can’t be legal, right?”
“Listen, Scott. No one wants to press charges, but Officer Mahoney had to call child services. When they get here, they’re going to assess your living situation. Do you have a parent or guardian that we can contact?” ‘Or who I need to beat up?’ Matt thought, but didn’t voice that part.
“No, there’s no one,” Scott said, his heart rate spiking. “I’m an orphan. I grew up in an orphanage. Mr. Murdock, please, no matter what, you can’t let them send me back there.”
He was hyperventilating now, and Matt reflexively reached out a hand to grab his shoulder. Scott reached up it, but instead of brushing Matt’s hand off, squeezed it in his hand between too bony fingers. Slowly, Scott’s breaths evened out, and he released Matt’s hand.
Matt spoke more gently now. “When did you run away?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Scott said. His body language was closed off. He was skinny, and his arms folded in against his body made him seem even smaller, even younger.
Getting Scott to open up felt like an impossible task. It was clear that his experiences at the orphanage had left him deeply mistrusting of authority figures. Matt had witnessed it in others and experienced it personally too—when those who were meant to protect were the ones who cause hurt, it was hard to trust again.
“I lived in an orphanage too,” Matt said. “It sounds like my experience was nowhere near yours, but I’m not going to lie. There were times when I wanted to run away too. The only thing that kept me there was that I had nowhere else to go.”
“It was a year ago. I couldn’t stand it there, not another minute,” Scott said, his whole body shuddering.
“If you tell me what happened there, I can make sure you never get sent back there, maybe even get their licensing revoked,” Matt spoke calmly, taking deep breaths to control his anger.
“You won’t believe me. No one ever does.”
“Try me.”
Scott tapped his fingers on the table. Finally, the words poured out. “The place, it looked like a regular orphanage from the outside, but I swear it was designed to make me go insane. I would see stuff, weird stuff, and all of the staff members would deny it right before my eyes. And at night, sometimes, they would come for me and hook me up to machines and experiment on me until I didn’t know what’s real or not. Even now, after I got away, I’m not sure if this is real or some kind of test. I don’t know, maybe I’ll always feel like he’s still manipulating everything from behind the scenes.”
Matt tensed. He was listening closely to Scott’s heartbeat, and the kid was not lying, which meant that Scott was either telling the truth or at least believed it to be true. Matt wasn’t sure what was worse — the idea that a orphanage had tortured a child like that, or that a young boy had suffered enough psychological trauma to invent it and truly believe it happened.
“I believe you,” Matt said. “And I’m real.”
“I need the kid to come home with me.”
Brett looked up from his paperwork to find an impatient-looking Matt Murdock hovering next to his desk.
“Tonight,” Matt said.
“I don’t suppose that you’re a certified foster parent,” Brett said. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Matt interact with a kid before. He’d really only called Matt because of the whole blindfold thing. It wasn’t like he expected Matt to appear and instantly decide to foster/adopt/kidnap (or whatever this was) the kid.
“No, but I’m sure that you’ll figure it out.” Matt’s voice was low and borderline threatening, and it rang some kind of bell to Brett, who couldn’t quite place it.
“Fine, but you’ll owe me a big one.” Brett sighed, reaching for his phone. He knew a few people in child services, and maybe one who was high up enough and disillusioned enough with the red tape to make something happen.
Matt scoffed. “This is me doing you a favor. I came in because you called me.”
“Touché. Let me see what I can do.”
When his phone rang at 3 a.m., Foggy groaned, reached for it, and accidentally knocked it off his nightstand. The second time it rang, he picked it up.
“Matt, you better be dying. But also, don’t be dying.”
“Foggy, I’m not dying.”
“Ok, I’m hanging up then.”
“Don’t! I need to talk to you about something. I might be taking in a traumatized teenager. Foggy, tell me I’m not crazy.”
“You’re crazy,” Foggy said. Only Matt would call at 3 a.m. to say that he was adopting a kid.
“Foggy…”
“You seriously risk your life every night vigilante-ing, and you think you can be there for a kid?”
“But…”
“Whatever, this can wait until the morning,” Foggy said, hanging up. He rolled over in bed and wondered if Matt had any self-awareness.
It turned out that while Brett’s contact could help expedite the process, there were still certain checks child services needed to do before approving this unconventional arrangement, so a little over 48 hours later, Matt’s apartment welcomed a new co-tenant.
Soon after, Foggy headed over to Matt’s. Matt had seemed a bit harried over the past few days, but hadn’t mentioned parenthood again, which was a relief to Foggy because that had frankly been delusional.
He knocked on Matt’s door, and like always, started feeling anxious when no one answered right away.
“Matt? Buddy?” He called out, leaving the ‘You alive in there?’ unsaid, both for the neighbors’ sake and also to tamp down his superstitious side. He didn’t want to jinx anything.
“One sec,” Matt responded.
Sure enough, the door swung open just a few seconds later.
“Foggy! I’m so glad you’re here. I need your help taking Scott shopping for clothes.”
“Scott? Who? Wait… you didn’t—” Foggy sputtered. “Tell me you didn’t.” It had only been three days since he’d seen Matt. Was it even possible to find and take in a kid in the span of three days?
At that moment, the bathroom door opened, and Scott stepped out.
The first thing Foggy noticed was that the kid was Matt’s mini-me — tousled brown hair, strong jawline, and that same wounded puppy look. He was even around Matt’s height (although probably still growing) and wearing baggy Matt clothes. The only obvious difference was the blindfold instead of sunglasses and that the kid was a literal string bean, like Foggy was seriously worried that the kid might be malnourished.
“Ugh, fine. But we’re getting some food into him first. Also, why is he wearing a blindfold?”