Chapter Text
They’d received a very fancy letter in the mail one morning. From Stark Industries, asking Nelson, Murdock and Page Attorneys at Law if they’d be willing to take on a case for them. Matt wasn’t too thrilled by the request. In fact, he outright refused it at first.
“Matt c’mon! It’s Tony freaking Stark! How are we suppose to say no to him??” Karen and Foggy were crowding Matt’s already tiny office space, meanwhile, Matt was trying to pretend like he couldn’t hear them. Despite the fact that all of them knew he could’ve heard them if they were on a whole other floor.
“By saying no Foggy, refusing the case. Working for the Avengers? That’s way too risky guys.” He was pointlessly flicking through his papers, making an effort to look busy in hopes it’d get them to drop it. It doesn’t.
“But they don’t even know your red clad alter ego! How could this possibly be risky??” Foggy pleaded with him, nudging Karen with his elbow, a silent request for backup.
“Foggy’s right Matt. There really is no risk. I read over their case. From the looks of it, some company is suing the Avengers, i.e Stark, for ambushing one of their shipments and then attacking their driver.” Karen stepped forward slightly, Matt could feel the shift of air as she flipped through some papers in her hands.
He wrinkled his brow in confusion, “What company?” He tried not to show too much curiosity in the case.
More shifting of papers before Foggy responded, “D.T. Pharmaceuticals. It’s a private pharmacy that makes and tests new cancer treatment drugs. Hey don’t they have a few locations in Hell’s Kitchen?”
“Yeah, a few- pretty sure they started up in Hell’s Kitchen actually. That must be why Stark asked us of all firms to take the case,” Matt answered. Despite his resistance to taking the case, he couldn’t help but find it intriguing. “What’s DTP’s claim?”
“They’re claiming The Avengers sent one of their members to intercept their shipment truck as it entered Manhattan.” Karen responded, reading off one of the papers.
“Was anything stolen?” Foggy asked her, smile slightly, he could tell Matt was growing more and more interested by the second.
Karen shuffled to another paper, “No, all the inventory was intact. But the driver sustained severe injuries to his head, he’s in a coma.”
Matt sat back in his chair, “Just one person? That’s not really the Avengers’ style. They don’t do stealth missions very often, when they do, it’s normally with a few of them, not just one.”
Matt could practically hear Foggy’s eyebrow raised, “And you know this how exactly Murdock?” Slight amusement laced in his voice.
Matt rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses, “Everywhere the Avengers go they leave behind destruction. I keep tabs on them to make sure they don’t do the same to Hell’s Kitchen. Turns out they can be discrete when they want to be.”
“Well, it sounds like it wasn’t the Avengers that did this.” Karen said, a smile prevalent in her tone. The same smile she has on when she gets a lead on a case.
“Which means whoever did do this is still out there, anddddd, it means the Avengers could really use a lawyer.” Foggy added, eyeing Matt with a grin, “We’re both looking at you very expectantly right now Matt.”
Matt sighed, “Yeah I figured. I don’t know guys, even if this isn’t about Daredevil, working for the Avengers could still be very dangerous.”
Karen let out an amused huff, “Since when have we turned down potentially dangerous cases? And besides,” her smile turned slightly mischievous, “You owe us.”
She lightly flicked Matt’s arm, right above wear they all knew fresh stitches were bandaged under his suit jacket. Matt pursed his lips, she was right. He’d been going out a lot at night, and getting more and more hurt. He hated how much it worried them, and then Karen using that guilt against him? She would make hell of a lawyer.
“Fine.” Matt huffed out, defeated. He tried not to smile when he felt the air shift again as Foggy raised his arms triumphantly.
He failed.
That night Matt got home a little later than he’d anticipated. He was greeted with the smell of fresh take out food from the Mexican place around the corner. He could hear the sounds of silverware being placed on the table. Matt smiled as he kicked off his shoes and hung his coat up.
“Sorry I’m late. Took on an unexpected case.” He spoke out softly, walking towards the man standing in his- their kitchen.
Frank turned around right as Matt entered the kitchen area, “No worries, you’ll have to tell me about it.” He could hear the smile in Franks voice as he wrapped his arms around Matt’s waist.
This normalcy between them was still rather new. It took awhile for them to get to this point. Hell, it took awhile for them to admit their ‘casual one night stands’ were a lot more than casual. Regardless, Matt was beginning to love this new routine, coming home to someone, someone who actually understood him, all of him.
It was a welcome change. And a rather funny change too. Matt still laughs every time he thinks about how Foggy and Karen found out they were dating. According to Karen, Foggy’s face was absolutely priceless when he saw Frank walk out of Matt’s room shirtless.
“Whatcha thinkin about in that big head of yours Red?” Frank asked, placing a soft kiss on his lips.
“I’m thinking about how good that food smells right now.” They both laughed.
“Only the best for your picky ass.” Frank said moving to sit down.
“Hey! I’m not picky, I just have an acquired taste!” Matt responded in mock-offense.
He joined Frank at the table, eating together, happy and relaxed in each other’s presence.
—
Their first meeting was the following day.
“Good morning! You must be Nelson, Murdock and Page!” Tony Starks voice filled the empty hallway leading out of the parking garage where a Mr. Hogan had dropped them off.
Foggy was the first to extend his hand, “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person Mr. Stark. I’m Franklin Nelson, but you can call me Foggy, these are my companions, Matthew Murdock and Karen Page.”
“It’s nice to meet all of you! I’m so glad you’ve agreed to take on our case,” Stark extended his hand to Matt, after a second, Foggy whispered to Matt, “He’s got his hand out to shake.”
Stark’s expression shifted to embarrassment for a moment as Matt raised his own hand, “My apologize Mr. Murdock.”
“No need,” Matt responded with an easy smile, “it happens a lot. It’s nice to meet you Mr. Stark.” Matt took a step forward, limping slightly.
He and Frank went out last night, it wasn’t a very busy night but while they were heading back home Matt managed to slip on some ice, twisting his ankle.
“So ice is Daredevils weakness?” Karen had teased that morning while waiting for Starks car to pick them up.
Stark laughed as he shook Matt’s hand, he sensed Starks slight hesitation when he noticed the limp, “please, Mr. Stark is my dad, Tony. You alright Mr. Murdock?”
Matt laughed sheepishly, “Yes fine! Just twisted my ankle the other night, slipped on some ice while walking home.” For once he was actually telling the truth (mostly).
“Ah, well luckily you won’t have to walk too far, the elevator is pretty close by.” He was smiling but something about his tone seemed slightly off.
“Nice to meet you Tony.” Karen said kindly, taking the attention off of Matt. She shook his hand, “We were quite honored when you reached out to us to take on your case!”
Tony smiled at her, “Yes well, I’ve noticed you’re firm has done a lot of good work for the people of Hell’s Kitchen, it’s hard to find good lawyers that you can really trust these days. Now please, follow me.”
He led them to a conference room on a high up floor, Matt tilted his head around as they entered the room, listening to the quiet and muffled sounds of the city below. Faintly, he could hear voices on the floors above them, a lot fewer voices than on the floors below them.
‘Must be a private area.’ He thought to himself.
Already in the conference room were two other people, a man and a woman. The woman was sitting relaxed but professionally in one of the seats, Matt could sense an assortment of knives and other small weapons located all over her body.
Next to her was a man, he seemed a little tense but smiled as they entered the room. Matt could sense the man’s heartbeat was stronger than most people’s.
“Gentlemen, and lady, I’d like you to meet Agent Natasha Romanoff and Captain Steve Rodgers, I figured for our first meeting we’d keep it small.”
They shook hands and introduced themselves before taking a seat.
“We reviewed the case file you sent us yesterday but we’d like to gain a little insight from all of you.” Foggy began,
“From our understanding, DTP is suing for destruction of property, attempted theft, assault, and attempted murder” Matt continued.
“Which isn’t true. We had absolutely nothing to do with that.” Steve spoke up, his tension seemed to grow.
Natasha placed a hand on his arm, which seemed to calm him down a bit, “DTP is claiming we had something to do with the attack on a shipment truck that took place two weeks ago. However we had nothing to do with this attack, we didn’t even know about it until they served us the papers.” Natasha explained calmly.
She was telling the truth, but Matt could feel she was anxious as well, she was just covering it up better than Steve.
“Do you have any idea why DTP would believe you guys were involved then?” Karen asked.
All three of their heartbeats stuttered. Matt tapped Karen’s hand under the table to let her know she was onto something.
“Anything you tell us is confidential, but we need to know anything and everything that can be relevant to this case.” Matt said carefully.
“We…have an idea of what they might be doing.” Tony said, he kept glancing at Steve, choosing his words carefully.
Foggy raised an eyebrow skeptically, “Care to share with the class?”
“A few years back a guy named Damon Thompson worked for me. He was a scientist, a good one, I’d been told he was an asshole to anyone who tried intervening in his work. But I ignored that, like I said, he was a good scientist. I gave him access to one of my lab’s storage units, in case he wanted to use any of it’s context for his research.” Tony sighed, “Anyway, turns out the guy was stealing shit from the lab for almost a year, we only found out cause the security guard he was paying off finally came clean to my head of security Happy Hogan. Unfortunately at that point I had no idea what he’d taken or how much. All I could do was fire him.”
Karen nodded understandingly, “So you believe he’s trying to get back at you for firing him?”
“Yes, I also believe he used the stuff he stole from my storage to start up his company, just don’t have any proof.”
“Why didn’t you ever go after the guy? I mean when he first created his company he probably couldn’t cover up his tracks right away, you probably could’ve gotten evidence on him.” Foggy asked.
“I considered it. But the more research I did into his company, it seemed like he was really using the stuff he stole to help create new cancer treatments. And hey, it’s not like I needed the money he made from it.” Tony laughed sheepishly.
“Well,” Matt started, “The good news is it looks like all the ‘proof’ this guy has is personal suspicion. I think we could get this guy to settle, no need to go to court over this when he’s got no real evidence you guys were involved.”
All three of the Avengers in front of them shifted. Their heartbeats wavered. After a moment of silence Karen spoke up, “If that is all the evidence they have?”, She prompted.
“There is one other thing.” Natasha spoke up, “Initially, we thought the same thing, we could just settle this in a meeting, no need to go to court. But when we spoke to Thompson and his lawyers, not only did he believe one of the Avengers was involved, but he claimed he knew which Avengers as well.”
The more Natasha spoke, the more anxious Steve seemed to get, his heart rate sped up by the second.
“Apparently the shipment truck’s security feed showed a dark figure, around 6’ foot, dark hair, face covered, military style uniform, larger build. The guy appeared very experienced with weaponry and he knew what he was doing. It was dark outside in the area the attack took place so they couldn’t ID him based on the video. But according to them, they believe it’s enough evidence to justify who they think it is.”
“And who do they think ambushed them?” Foggy asked.
Steve looked up at them, his voice was level and cold but the hint of fear and worry in his tone was obvious, “They think it was James Barnes. They think it was Bucky.”