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Rain tapped softly against the barred window.
Matthew Murdock sat on the narrow cot, listening to the prison breathe around him. Distant traffic six stories below. Pipes rattling in the walls. Two inmates arguing somewhere down the block. A guard trying very hard not to fall asleep at his desk.
Then—
A scrape against brick. A quiet, muffled: “Okay, wow, that is so much slipperier than it looked—”
Matt tilted his head toward the window. “You know,” he said dryly, “most people use the door.”
Silence.
Then: “…you heard that?”
Matt smiled faintly. “Kid, I can hear you blinking.”
Spider-Man hauled himself up to the narrow window with considerably less grace than he probably imagined, one hand stuck to the concrete beside the bars while rainwater streamed down the red fabric of his suit. “Cool. Great. Horrifying skill set, still.” He peered into the cell. “Also, for the record? This place is impossible to break into.”
“And yet.”
“Okay, yeah, but I’m built different.”
Matt leaned back against the wall. “What are you doing here?”
Peter shrugged too quickly. “Swinging around. Saw a federal prison. Thought, wow, what a fun and emotionally healthy place to visit.”
Matt laughed quietly under his breath.
Peter relaxed, shoulders loosening a fraction beneath the soaked suit. “Okay, good,” he said. “You’re still capable of human emotion.”
“I’m incarcerated, not deceased.”
Peter tilted his head. “I mean, the news seems a little unclear on that distinction.”
Matt leaned back. “The news always overreacts.”
“No, but like— really overreacting.” Peter gestured vaguely. “Everybody’s acting like they caught the Zodiac Killer or something.”
Matt leaned his head back against the wall. “I did confess to being Daredevil on live television.”
Peter pointed at him immediately. “Okay, see? Every time you say it out loud, it somehow gets crazier.”
Rain pattered softly against the glass between them. “Everybody thinks you gave up,” Peter said quietly.
Matt’s expression settled. “I didn’t.”
“Then why stay?”
“Because I crossed lines I can’t uncross.”
Peter shook his head immediately. “Yeah, no. Absolutely not. I’ve seen the people you stopped.”
“And I hurt people doing it.”
Matt could hear the shift in Peter’s breathing — sharper now. Uneven. “You were trying to save the city,” Peter said carefully.
“That doesn’t absolve me.”
“And prison does?”
Matt looked toward the window. Toward the nervous heartbeat crouched outside it. Young. Exhausted. Angry at the world in the particular way only good people ever were.
“For the first time in a while,” Matt admitted quietly, “I can sleep.”
Peter stared at him. “In here?”
“You’d be surprised.” A faint smile tugged at Matt’s mouth. “It’s quieter than Hell’s Kitchen.”
Peter blinked. “…was that a joke?”
Matt’s smile widened just slightly.
“That is the most upsetting thing you’ve said so far.”
Peter shifted against the wall outside the window, one hand stuck to the brick while rain slid down the red of his glove. “Look, people are trying stuff, okay?” he said. “Ms. McDuffie’s basically terrorizing the DA’s office. Ms. Page threatened to leak, like… honestly I stopped understanding half the journalism words.”
Matt sighed. “Karen shouldn’t be wasting her time on me.”
“Okay, well, apparently Karen Page heard that and took it as a personal threat.”
“She’ll move on.”
Peter barked a laugh. “No offense, Mr. Murdock, but do you know the people in your life? Because I met Frank Castle for four minutes and I’m pretty sure he threatened to bite through a guy’s throat for saying your arrest sounded ‘fair.’”
A tired smile pulled briefly at Matt’s mouth before fading again. “They should let it go,” he said quietly.
Peter stared at him through the rain-speckled lenses of his mask. “That’s such a crazy thing to say.”
“I mean it.”
“No, I know, that’s the crazy part.” Peter shifted, crouching lower on the ledge. “You spent years getting the absolute crap kicked out of you for this city and now everybody knows who you are, so suddenly they think they get to decide whether you were a good person?”
Matt stayed silent.
Peter shook his head. “That’s not how this works.”
“It is now.”
Peter looked away toward the street below. His voice came out more casual than the words deserved. “People get weird when they know things about you. They act like knowing your name means they know you.”
Matt listened to the uneven rhythm of the kid’s heartbeat. Too fast.
“You sound experienced,” Matt said softly.
Peter immediately deflected. “I’m young, spry, deeply traumatized—”
“Kid.”
Peter exhaled through his nose. Then, quieter: “I just think maybe you shouldn’t decide you deserve this because the world finally saw the ugly parts.”
Rain against glass.
Distant sirens somewhere downtown.
“And what if I do deserve it?” Matt asked quietly.
Peter let out a disbelieving snort. “Okay, then New York is seriously screwed if your guilt complex is the moral baseline here.”
That pulled a real laugh out of Matt, small and tired but genuine enough that Peter visibly relaxed for a second.
Then Matt tilted his head slightly. “How old are you, exactly?”
Peter shrugged. “Old enough to be psychologically damaged by grown men dressed like ninjas.”
“You sound exhausted.”
“Yeah, well.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck and looked out toward the rain-soaked street below. “New York’s been kind of a lot lately.”
Matt listened carefully now that the jokes had started coming slower. Beneath the chatter and nervous humor, the kid sounded exhausted.
It sounded uncomfortably familiar.
“Listen to me,” Matt said softly.
Peter looked back at him immediately.
“You’re not supposed to do this alone.”
The silence that followed stretched just a little too long. Matt heard Peter inhale sharply behind the mask, and when he finally answered, the joke came slower than usual, like he’d had to reach for it.
“Wow. Prison Matt is way more emotionally available than regular Matt.”
“Don’t spread that around,” Matt replied dryly. “I have a reputation.”
Peter laughed, but it cracked around the edges, and Matt heard the loneliness underneath it before the kid could bury it again.
“There are people who care about you,” Matt said carefully. “Let them help when things get too heavy.”
Peter went quiet again. Then he gave a small shrug and said, “Sure. Yeah. Probably.”
The words were casual. The heartbeat wasn’t.
Matt felt something tighten painfully in his chest. “Kid—”
“Anyway,” Peter interrupted quickly, pushing off the wall a little as if movement alone could get him out of the conversation, “this has been a super healthy and normal prison visit, but I should probably go before somebody notices the guy in red spandex hanging outside a federal building.”
Matt let the deflection happen. For now.
But before Peter could move, he said quietly, “Don’t come back here.”
Peter blinked behind the mask. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“You seriously think I’m just gonna leave you in prison forever?”
“Yes.”
“No, see, that’s where your plan falls apart.” Peter pointed at him. “Because it’s a terrible plan. Like, genuinely awful. One star review. Would not recommend.”
Matt shook his head, unable to stop the faint smile tugging at his mouth.
Peter stepped backward onto the rain-slick wall outside the window, one hand still stuck lazily to the concrete. Then, softer this time, he added, “Besides... somebody should check on you.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“Yeah,” Peter said, almost too quickly. “I kinda do.” He dropped backward off the ledge, hanging upside down for a brief second outside the barred window. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Murdock.”
Matt opened his mouth to argue, but the kid was already gone, swallowed up by rain and web-lines and the distant sounds of the city below.
The cell fell quiet again.
And despite everything, Matt found himself smiling.