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The hipsters in Toronto know that if you want the best New York-style bagels (Montreal-style is so over), you go to the shop on Queen Street West.
They can tell you that there’s always a pretty blonde woman behind the counter, and a chubby, cheerful man in the kitchen. There was a profile of the bagel shop on one of the food blogs, and it mentioned that the owners were former American slaves, so most customers know about that part, too.
Most of them don’t spare a thought for the quiet man with the sunglasses who can sometimes be found sitting in the back corner, the table covered in books printed in Braille. They don’t know that his application to Osgoode Hall Law School is about to be submitted, or that he’s finishing his undergrad degree at the University of Toronto in a few weeks. They don’t know what he went through to get there.
They don’t know about Wilson Fisk buying an 18-year-old blind body slave all those years ago, or about Fisk killing his cook a few years later for passing information to Don Rigoletto, and buying a younger man trained in butchery and baking as a replacement. They don’t know about the tiny room the two slaves shared, or the tentative first words of “I’m Matt,” and “Foggy” in the middle of the kitchen.
They don’t know how Fisk spent years clawing power from the old Maggia families, how Matt spent those years proving he could be more than a housekeeper and bedwarmer to Fisk, how he came to take care of Fisk’s day-to-day business while James Wesley glided from meeting to meeting that Matt scheduled for him. They don’t know that Foggy made sure that the kitchen always smelled of fresh baking, and stayed up waiting for Matt on the nights that Fisk kept Matt in his bed, with a pot of decaf coffee on the stove so Matt could get rid of the taste. They don’t know that the first time Foggy kissed Matt, in the kitchen in the dead of night, Matt knew that they couldn’t keep living like this.
When the customers at the bagel shop look at the woman with the blonde hair and blue eyes, they know that she’s pretty and friendly. The regulars know that she picks the music in the shop, and can recommend some obscure American bands if you ask. They don’t know about Union Allied, or how James Wesley, with a word here and a push there, acquired her to (among other things) take care of his new apartment below Fisk’s penthouse. They don’t know how he made her cry every night.
They don’t know that Matt could hear her.
They don’t know how Foggy made friends with Wesley’s slave, and learned her name was Karen. They don’t know about the private investigator who was hired by Daniel Fisher’s family to find out why his murder was swept under the rug. They don’t know about how she found Karen, about how she jumped to the window of Wesley’s apartment to talk to her. They don’t know how a terrified Karen told Matt and Foggy everything she knew, how Foggy held her and promised her they wouldn’t tell Wesley about Jessica Jones from Alias Investigations.
They don’t know how Matt came up with a crazy, idiotic, desperate plan to create an opportunity to get away.
They don’t know how Matt smuggled the Union Allied files to Jessica, climbing her fire escape and dropping them on her desk while she was out buying whiskey. They don’t know about the scars Matt still has from the beating Fisk gave him when he claimed he had accidentally shredded the files. They don’t know about Matt sending a warning to Jessica about the order Wesley issued to have her killed, or how Matt put on a mask and found her in an alley and helped her put down the thugs that had been sent after her while Fisk was out for dinner. They don’t know how Matt gave her Fisk’s name, and told her where to find the evidence she needed. They don’t know about the deal Matt made with Jessica.
They don’t know how Matt walked into a bank and withdrew thousands of dollars from Fisk’s account in cash; he’d made large cash withdrawals many times before on Fisk’s behalf, so no-one blinked an eye. They don’t know about how his heart was pounding as he dressed Fisk in his tuxedo for the benefit, listening to Owlsley complain, or how his adrenaline spiked when the door closed behind Fisk, taking most of the security team with him. They don't know how Matt took down the security guard at the slave’s entrance in less than a second, while Foggy and Karen gaped at him.
They don’t know how sweet the air outside tasted to all three of them.
They don’t know (and hopefully will never know) about the bar where Jessica had told Matt to go, or about the big man behind the bar who answered when Matt asked for Luke, and nodded when Matt told him that they were friends of Jessica’s. They don’t know about Luke’s apartment upstairs, or the night that Matt, Foggy, and Karen spent in his living room, listening to the radio as it reported on the police raid on the benefit, and Fisk, Wesley, and Owlsley’s arrests.
They don’t know about the red-haired woman and the man with the bow who arrived at Luke’s apartment, complaining about police cordons and road closures and security checks, just after it was reported that Fisk had escaped. They don’t know how an off-hand comment from the archer about putting an arrow through Fisk led to Matt pulling out the mask, and the two of them running over the rooftops as Matt listened as hard as he could for signs of Fisk’s presence.
If they were paying attention to the news in New York, they would know about the arrow that took out the truck carrying Fisk, and the several more than incapacitated his security team. They would know about Fisk being found bloody and unconscious in an alley. They wouldn’t know about Matt’s bloody knuckles, or broken nose, or his smile as he slipped back into Luke’s apartment straight into Foggy’s arms.
They don’t know about how Matt went with the red-haired woman while Foggy and Karen went with the archer, or the moment when the red-haired woman got a call from “Cap” on the drive through upstate New York. They don’t know about the appraising look she gave Matt, or the smirk on her face as she asked him, “Hey, do you want to help us fuck some shit up?”
They probably know about the militant abolitionists known as the Avengers, and the raid on the slave auction house in Albany, and the dozens of slaves who escaped and disappeared. It was big news, especially since Hawkeye had apparently been replaced by a new Avenger, nicknamed Daredevil. Homeland Security dutifully updated its files on the Avengers, but the Daredevil file always stays frustratingly slim.
They don’t know about the house in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where Foggy and Karen were waiting for Matt after the raid. They don’t know how hard Matt sobbed as the three of them held each other as free people for the first time.
If they are interested, the customers can ask about the legal process of gaining asylum in Canada, about how Matt, Foggy, and Karen bought the shop with Fisk’s cash, about Matt’s studies at U of T, and his goal to be a human rights lawyer. The particularly observant ones might even ask about the pretty redhead who is greeted warmly when she comes into the shop every few months, although they’d probably be told she’s just a friend, and yes, she’s single. They probably wouldn’t notice that her appearances are always at the start of U of T’s breaks, and that Daredevil only surfaces south of the border with the Avengers after she’s been in the shop.
If anyone ever notices Matt’s scars, he tells them he used to be a slave. No one except Foggy and Karen know that he’s still adding to the collection. Only Foggy knows that Matt keeps track of how many people he has saved in exchange for each new mark on his body. It’s never enough.