Fishing Isn’t Fair to the Fish

by NezumiPi

Summary:

Spoilers for Defenders S1 and prior individual shows. In a magnificent display of poor judgment, Luke Cage invites the Defenders on an upstate fishing trip in they can get to know one another better and perhaps smooth over some minor interpersonal conflicts.

Contains (in no particular order): Minor interpersonal conflicts, major interpersonal conflicts, moderate impersonal conflicts, Danny Rand’s undergarments, porn for the blind, misuse of pharmaceuticals, talking swans, occasional fishing, and some seriously unpleasant business.

Chapter 1: Fishing

Luke Cage loved fishing. He had grown up with it. It was relaxing. You could read a book while doing it. It was even (in many cases) productive. It was the perfect form of recreation.

To some people.

"No," moaned Clair. "Fishing is in nature and nature is where sharks live."

"Hey, you said that if I could name all of your cousins, I could pick our vacation."

"Only because I didn't think you could do it!"

"And besides," said Luke, "if you're attacked by a shark, I'll protect you."

"I hope you realize that offering to fight a shark on my behalf is not romantic," said Claire, with an eye roll that made clear she was already acquiescing.

"Who says I'm going to fight the shark? Maybe I'll debate with it, make it see the error of its ways."

Claire laughed at the image of Luke arguing philosophy in scuba gear.

Luke must have taken this as a sign that he had won because he pressed further. "I want to invite the others: Danny and Jessica and," he paused, "Matt."

Matt had returned to Hell's Kitchen unceremoniously three weeks prior, after several months of ostensible death. He was keeping to himself and offering no explanation whatsoever as to how it was he wasn't crushed beneath a building. Jessica and thrown herself into records searches, trying to prove that the returning Murdock was actually a twin brother, while Luke and Danny simply kept a wary distance. In fairness, Matt had shown no signs of being an assassination zombie. He was, in fact, acting pretty much exactly like himself. But none of them were experts on the subject of ninja death cult resurrection and they had agreed that caution was warranted.

Claire sighed. "You're planning something."

Luke smiled, the picture of innocence. "I'm planning a fishing trip."

---

Jessica scowled at the rusted hatchback. Claire was in the driver's seat, with Luke next to her. Murdock was in the back, clutching his apparently unnecessary cane. The trunk had a cooler, fishing gear, and a few duffels. "I thought we were going in one of Richie Rich's nicer vehicles."

"Yeah, well," said Claire, "you pissed him off, so I'm borrowing my nephew's car."

As Jessica threw her things in the back, Matt straightened and asked, "Danny's not coming?"

"No, he's coming," said Luke, in that above-it-all manner he liked to maintain. "He just doesn't want to ride in the car with Jessica, so he's meeting us there." He then went on to fill Matt in on the other two Defenders' spat.

The argument had started a few days ago, when Jessica, Luke, and Danny had independently converged on the same criminal lair at the same time. They were each been tracking low-level grunts only to find themselves face-to-face with an ex-pro-wrestler who'd been badly mutated by an inhaled Asgardian drug. They went at him inelegantly, unintentionally interfering with one another's moves but blocking their enemy at the same time. Luke had a firm grip on the guy's left arm-cum-tentacle while Jessica had him pinned to the wall by his curved, goatlike horns.

"Quick!" Jessica had yelled to Danny. "Fist him!"

Danny had done so and, standing over their now-unconscious adversary, crowed happily that Jessica finally respected the power of the Iron Fist. This had gone on for some time before Luke saw fit to step in and explain that – in modern New York City – when used as a verb, the word 'fist' actually had a more prominent meaning than 'to strike with the focused totality of one's chi'.

Danny had, predictably, lost his temper, shouting and throwing things. This went on until Jessica pulled out her phone, purchased the domain www.ironfisting.com, and threatened to resell it to a Nevada-based adult film company, at which point Danny had chosen to stomp away rather than escalate further.

Matt scratched the back of his neck and laughed. "Iron…fisting dot com? Really?"

Jessica shrugged. "Spandex porn's all the rage these days. Whoever they have as a stand-in for Thor is pretty damn accurate. And Stark's just got sex tapes. There are a few Captain Americas. They even have Daredevil porn. I'd ask if you've seen in but," she waved her right hand in Matt's direction.

"Oh god," sighed Matt, turning red and already regretting agreeing to this trip.

"Some guy with a huge dick in red spandex 'catches' lubed-up criminals and teaches them the error of their ways, primarily through sodomy." Jessica was clearly enjoying herself.

"I've seen some of the Thor ones," said Claire, both agreeing with Jessica and distracting from the concept of Daredevil porn. "They're pretty good. I mean, really cheesy, but still."

"I have never been more grateful for my inability to see digital video," said Matt.

"Hey, there's a question," said Jessica. "What do blind guys use for porn? Little statues or something?"

Matt immediately thought of the saint figurines and crucifixes that were scattered around Saint Agnes' Orphanage. He was glad he'd never eroticized them, because it would have left him with some very strange fetishes. Hey, this is great, but could you try to be more…martyred? He shook that thought away and answered, "No, the sense of touch doesn't scale to size. I think some men use audiobooks and, um, smells are usually a thing." Matt shrugged and tried desperately to suppress the blush that forced its way up his face. He absolutely did not mention that he owned a bottle of lavender shampoo that he used for that precise purpose.

"Smells? Weird," said Jessica. She unbuckled her seatbelt and twisted around to open the cooler in the trunk. Matt heard the hiss of a soda (or, more likely, beer) can opening.

"I don't think you get to criticize," said Luke. "Do I need to remind you of the domain name you just bought?"

At that, Claire turned on the radio and they all relaxed in silence. Luke stared out the window. Matt drummed his fingers on his leg. Jessica finished her beer and pretended to sleep through All Things Considered, static-laced oldies, and basketball commentary. They hit a dead zone just at the same time construction forced them to slow and Claire felt it was time to address the elephant in the Hyundai Accent.

"So, I get that we're trying to be sensitive about it and all, but are you going to tell us how it is you're not dead?"

Matt could hear an uptick in both Jessica's and Luke's pulse. Of course, he didn't need super senses to know it would be a tense question, made worse by the fact he didn't have a good answer. "I don't know," he said. "I clearly remember entering Midland Circle. The fight, I remember bits and pieces. And then nothing. I had a head injury."

"You were crushed by a building," said Luke.

"Which probably caused the head injury," answered Matt. "I wasn't resurrected by the Hand."

"How do you know, if you don't remember anything?" Jessica was no longer feigning sleep.

"I woke up in a Catholic abbey with normal injuries," said Matt. "Hand resurrections require resources, leave marks."

"And how do you know that?" asked Jessica. Matt didn't get to casually claim expertise on ninja revival.

"Stick told me. And I saw it in Elektra. She wasn't the same. She felt different." Matt grimaced. "So I think I wasn't brought back by the Hand. But I could be wrong. And I know you think so. And yes, I know you're taking me out of the city so you can decide whether to execute me."

"Then why'd you agree to come?" asked Claire.

"Because if I'm one of them, I want you to kill me," said Matt.

There wasn't really anything to say after that.

---

Between traffic, missing their exit, and two extended pee breaks, they didn't get to the park until after dark, which made navigation difficult.

"I think we go left up here," said Claire.

"No, we already went left," said Luke. "We should go right."

"Straight," said Matt. "The cabin is straight ahead and Danny is already there." No one bothered to speculate as to how Danny had beaten them to their destination – travel was always simpler when you had essentially unlimited funds.

"You can hear his heartbeat from this far away?" asked Luke.

"I can smell cooking and hear whistling. The food and the tune are both Chinese."

The cabin had a small kitchen inside, but as they drove up, they could see that Danny was using the firepit to steam rice and vegetables. He was barefoot, wearing loose cotton slacks and an ill-fitting sweater. Claire thought back to Luke's disturbingly yellow t-shirts and wondered if fashion sense was the first casualty of a superhero career.

"I made dinner," Danny called, scooping whatever was in the pot into bowls. Luke took it gratefully, hungry enough that he would eat whatever Danny had made. He nodded approvingly at the first bite. It was simple stuff, no meat or spices, but good.

"Not for you!" shouted Danny, yanking a bowl back from Jessica.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Jessica rolled her eyes. "Are you going to tell me I can't go to your birthday party next?"

Claire decided to step in and asked Jessica to help carry the cooler inside. Matt followed, moving a bit slower than usual. The ground was uneven and cluttered with roots and sticks. This would take some getting used to.

Luke stayed outside with Danny, consigning himself to his role as peacemaker. "I know you two have a beef, but we have a more important mission to focus on here. We have to figure out if Matt's really-"

"It's not just any disrespect," interrupted Danny. "She was tying the sacred Iron Fist to lust."

"And lust is a sin?" That sounded to Luke more like something his preacher father would say than a globetrotting twenty-something.

"Lust is a form of desire, and desire is the cause of all suffering."

Luke scrolled through his not-inconsiderable mental library of religion, literature, and philosophy before settling on Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. "You're a Buddhist," he said. It wasn't at all surprising.

"Yes, I am and I want her to respect that."

"You want her to respect that. Isn't that a desire?"

Danny had his mouth open to respond, but he closed it without a word. After a moment, he looked down and said, "You're right. I'm being prideful."

"The thing is," said Luke, "I think you can solve this. You may want to avoid desires, but she doesn't. Why not just offer to buy the domain name at twice whatever the porn company is pitching?"

---

The Jessica-Danny feud was thus defused, or at least temporarily diminished. See, for example: "Murdock, call the pope! It's a miracle! This guy can still breathe with his head up his own ass."

"Oh, shut up," yelled Danny.

"Catholics don't automatically have the pope's phone number," said Matt. "You know that, right? It's important to me that you know that."

They relaxed into a light buzz, empty beer cans collecting in the corner.

"I have a theory," said Claire, a little more loudly than she would have if she were entirely sober. "I call it my Superhero Heightened Immaturity Theory."

Luke snorted at the acronym.

"I think whenever you lot," she waved a hand at the four Defenders, "start on your quest or get your powers or whatever, you completely stop growing up. You're stuck emotionally at whatever age you were when your little…" She seemed to be searching for a word. "…thing started."

Danny looked slightly insulted. "My parents died when I was ten. I don't act like a ten-year-old." This argument was weakened greatly by his behavior earlier in the evening.

Claire looked at Jessica. "I'm going to guess goth sophomore?"

Jessica chugged the rest of her beer. "Thirteen. Off by a couple of years." She shrugged, having better things to do than join in this argument. Like get another beer.

"Close, though," said Luke with confident half-smile, like he was in on the joke. "I didn't get involved in any of this until I was in my 20s."

"Which is why you emit a faint whiff of adulthood from time to time," answered Claire.

"I hate to burst your bubble," said Matt, "but I lost my sight at nine. And even if you don't start counting until I started training, I'd only be eleven."

"Excuse me?" asked Claire, with an indignant snort. "Is your argument that you're more mature than that?"

"Well, I-" Matt began.

"Uh-huh. You may have suits and a degree, but don't forget that I found you in a literal dumpster. You might not have spent an hour and a half trying to prove that the different colors of Froot Loops actually taste different, but you have the emotional range of a bratty school kid."

"It turns out," interjected Danny, "that Froot Loops do all taste the same."

Chapter 2: Fishing 2: The Fishening

"Don't use Q-tips!" snapped Claire, as Matt guiltily withdrew the cotton swab from his ear. "I know it feels good now, but it's not going to feel good when you stab a ball of wax into your eardrum."

Jessica took a swallow from her fifth of whiskey. "That feeling when you use a Q-tip?" She raised an eyebrow at Matt, even though he couldn't see it. "That's a sin."

"And lo, Eve bit into the apple, and then followed it up with a cotton swab, and thus original sin was brought into the world," Luke intoned with booming faux-gravity.

"George Carlin, the comedian, had a bit about how there's no truly original sin. It's all stealing and coveting. Never anything new like, 'Bless me father, for I have sinned. Last week, I completely covered an electrician in flour.'"

"Or," said Claire, with a nod at Luke, "O heavenly father, I'm sorry, it's not that I exposed myself to my girlfriend's mother on purpose, but there were so many bullet holes in my clothing that I might as well have."

"How about," asked Luke, side-eyeing Jessica, "I got drunk on communion wine, which isn't unusual for me, but this time I stole it from an altar boy."

Jessica scowled back at Luke, then said, "Sorry, God. I can't resist the urge to go out at night and reinforce the stereotype that blind people like to run around dressed in bondage gear." She paused while Luke and Claire erupted in snorts. She rolled her eyes to the sky and continued her prayer. "It's not a sex thing, though, Jesus. It's not. Really, it's not."

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned," whispered Matt, voice thick with irony. "It is a sex thing."

---

Luke awoke at 3:30am and headed to the bathroom. The cabin had two small bedrooms, one on either side of the central living space. He had claimed one bedroom for himself and Claire, while offering the other to Jessica, on the grounds that she kept odd hours. Matt was sleeping on the sofa, a thin silk sheet both above and below his body. Danny apparently liked to sleep on the floor, flat on his back with a book or wadded-up sweater supporting his head. But Danny wasn't asleep at the moment.

Luke could see Danny standing just outside the cabin's screen door, one earbud in and one earbud out, cycling rapidly through kung fu stances. He was chanting along with his iPod, "Takin' a life or two, that's what I do, you don't like how I'm livin', well fuck you, this is a gang and I'm-"

"You know," said Luke softly. He didn't whisper, he never did. He just spoke quietly when the need arose. "You know, it's a little messed up for a rich white kid to be rapping NWA, right?"

"Uh…" Danny fingered the collar of his loose t-shirt. "Now I do?"

"You can go to sleep," said Luke. "Thanks for taking the first watch."

"Actually, I'm pretty wired now. You should just go back to bed. I've got it until morning."

Luke shook his head. "I'm heading down to the lake in a couple of hours anyway. You haven't seen anything?"

"Matt's just been sleeping." Danny took out his phone and started fidgeting with it.

"Checking your stocks?" asked Luke.

"No." Danny shook his head vehemently. "I hate that stuff."

"And yet you have so much of it."

Danny sighed. "I'm not good at it–at business stuff. Makes me feel stupid. But I can't just ignore it. I let the accountant tell me how to invest everything and I ended up owning some diamond mine that's causing a war. Or something like that. Colleen explained it to me, but I didn't get it. So, I tried to get involved, but I really didn't understand the math parts. Like, I know you can turn a percentage into a decimal, but what if the interest rate is a percent with decimals already in it? What do you do then?" Danny threw up his hands as if he had posed a major scholastic conundrum on par with the Higgs boson.

"Were there schools in K'un Lun?"

"Of course."

"Schools that taught more than just kung fu?"

"Um…we did meditating, and channeling our chi, and-"

"But not algebra and chemistry and world history?"

Danny shook his head.

Luke chuckled. "You have a fifth grade education, man. No wonder you're lost. Hire a tutor, or go to GED classes at the Y. Catch up on the basics. The world'll make more sense."

Danny's eyes narrowed as he considered this advice. Luke thought he might have looked embarrassed, and wondered if that embarrassment might turn to rage, but then Danny yawned. "Yeah," he murmured sleepily, "I might do that."

"Go to sleep, Danny. I'll keep an eye on Murdock."

---

Matt wasn't having nightmares. He wasn't dreaming at all. That, he realized, should be a concern. Surely almost dying was a trauma? Shouldn't his old dreams have returned? The ones with flesh on flesh sounds and crunching bones and Elektra's dying sigh and his father's blood and Foggy's rejection and loudness and loneliness and- But there were no dreams at all.

Matt awoke early, to an earthy, salty smell. Based on the ambient temperature, he suspected the sun hadn't yet risen, although he wasn't certain. He sensed a heartbeat, a body disturbing the airflow – based on the size, it was obviously Luke.

"Rice for breakfast?" Matt asked.

"Danny ate all the Froot Loops," said Luke, handing Matt a reheated bowl of the stir-fry from last night.

They dressed and trekked down to the lake, Luke carrying the fishing gear. Matt didn't bring his cane, but he walked slowly, shuffling his feet slightly as he navigated around tree roots and exposed branches. They headed to the north side, where a creek emptied into the basin. There was a dock there, with three small boats tied on. Matt had few experiences with water outside of a bathtub or drainage ditch. He felt knew from experience he could flail well enough to avoid drowning (once Stick had pushed him off of a pier into the East River to teach him…something), but he had never formally learned to swim. Luke, on the other hand, seemed at comfortable and confident. He strung up the lines and began to tie on the lures. Matt rejected Luke's first choice.

"Not that one. It smells like danger."

"What does danger smell like?"

"It's sort of…bitter and spicy." After a beat, Matt added, "Not unlike myself."

Luke tied on Murdock-approved lures and handed Matt a pole. "I don't know exactly what it is you see, but I show you how to cast, you think you can copy me?"

"That's a fair assumption."

Luke angled the pole back and flicked it gently toward the lake, bob landing forty yards or so away. Matt tried to mimic him, but the materials were unfamiliar, and his own normally muscled body needed a slightly different angle that Luke's super strong one. Still, by the fourth try, he landed in the middle of the lake, and by the seventh he was able to reliably aim where he wanted to go. Satisfied, Matt sat down on the edge of the dock.

"Have you told that lawyer, Nelson, that you're back?"

"I tried," said Matt. "He…didn't take it well."

"He was in a bad way at your funeral. You guys know each other long?"

"Since college," said Matt. "He thinks I faked my death on purpose, so I could cut ties with him, be Daredevil full time."

Luke drew in a long, slow breath. "If I thought someone did that to me, I'd be pissed too."

"You don't think I faked my death. You think I was resurrected by the Hand."

"Until this ninja craziness started, I'd only heard of one guy ever coming back from the dead."

"Two," said Matt. "Everyone always forgets Lazarus."

Luke smacked his forehead. "You're right! Lazarus! Ooh, my Sunday school teachers would be very disappointed in me."

"You're a Christian, then?"

"Baptist," said Luke. "You're Catholic?"

Matt nodded. "Do Baptists have altar boys?"

"Thankfully no, because I probably would have been one. My father was a preacher. You?"

"No, it's mostly about carrying things from one place to another. I think they were rather concerned I would consecrate the wrong thing by mistake."

"I did sing in the choir," mused Luke. "Until my voice changed and I was too embarrassed."

"I was absolutely terrible at singing. And the nuns, they didn't know much about blindness, but I think they expected that somehow, magically, all blind people were talented musicians. So they assumed it was stubbornness on my part, rather than a tin ear."

"What nuns?"

Matt provided the briefest possible explanation for his tenure at the St. Agnes Orphanage. Then he sighed and turned to face Luke. "It hasn't escaped my attention that there's no one else here."

"Danny bought out the other cabins."

"Because you think I'm dangerous."

Luke stared at the lake for a long time. "You thought Elektra was safe, or at least that there was some good in her, even after she killed that Stick guy, so I didn't trust your judgment, not entirely, even before a building collapsed on your head and you waltzed back into town like some kind of concussed Gandalf the White with a law degree." He took a slow, deep breath. "Danny thinks he can, well, the phrase he used was 'touch your soul' to see if there's any lingering influence of the Hand."

"And if I don't submit to this voluntarily," asked Matt, "you and Jessica are here to hold me down?"

"Did you really think she came along for bird watching and macramé?"

Matt scowled. He had suspected something like this. His rational mind even knew their fears were reasonable. At the same time, he knew he wasn't an occult zombie. He knew it. Instead of arguing that point, he asked, "Is it safe? Does Danny know what he's doing?"

"He's…fairly confident."

"Fairly confident?" sneered Matt. "In Danny Rand terms, that's an admission of overwhelming inexperience."

"We're not going to let him hurt you. And if there is a problem, Claire's here to patch you up."

"If it's so safe, let him do it to you first. To all of you, not just the guy with unbreakable skin."

"That's not fair, Murdock. None of the rest of us died."

Matt's head jerked to the right as something tugged on his fishing line. "This is bullshit, Luke, and you know it."

"Do I? You weren't exactly honest with us before Midland Circle."

The fishing pole clattered to the dock and Matt was on his feet. This whole situation was pissing him off, and he was getting the distinct impression that he had been brought out here, not only to get him away from civilians, but also to make it harder for him to flee. His radar sense wasn't trained on wild terrain. There were more unexpected objects, irregular shapes. They were using his blindness against him. He remembered the path back to the cabin. He was faster than Luke at a dead sprint, he was sure of it. He could-

"Jessica was against it, if it makes you feel any better. She thought it was wrong to do it against your will. She was outvoted, but she was on your side."

"This is still unconstitutional," said Matt, but it was more of a grumble than growl.

"Oh yeah, which part? I don't remember any ninjas in the Bill of Rights."

"Third Amendment?"

"Ain't none of us trying to quarter soldiers in your house, Murdock."

And then Luke got a bite on his line and the argument was set aside, if not actually resolved.

After Luke caught two fish and Matt caught zero, they trekked back up to the cabin. Matt carried his own gear this time, more confident in his orientation. At one hundred yards out, Matt cocked his head to this side. At fifty, he suppressed a smile. And at thirty, even Luke could hear Danny and Jessica bickering.

Danny was raising his voice, trying to continue what he no doubt believed was a clear and coherent story. "Then he told the Swan Mother-"

"Wait," said Jessica, paying attention to Danny for the first time, "all this time you've been talking about a swan?"

"No," said Danny, "of course not."

"Oh, thank god."

"She's not a swan. It's her children that are swans."

They could both hear the plastic thunk as Jessica threw a liquor bottle at Danny and missed. She shouted, "Do you know that we can hear you?!"

Chapter 3: Fishing 3: Revenge of the Fish

"Okay," asked Luke, "everyone got their questions?" His expression could variously be described as curious, demonstrative, or gossipy. He dealt the cards before anyone could object. They were playing poker with the opportunity to ask invasive questions as the prize for each hand. It was basically truth or dare, with less chance of someone putting a bug up their nose. So far, Claire had taken the opportunity to find out who was up-to-date on the tetanus vaccine, Jessica had asked the men about wet dreams purely to make them uncomfortable, and Danny – weirdly – had asked Matt what the best thing was about being blind. ("You said vision's overrated, right?" "I guess." "So what's the best part?" "Well, I don't have to put up with nearly so much advertising.")

Jessica looked at her hand and snorted, which could have meant practically anything. Danny briefly looked excited before forcing his face into a studiously controlled expression. Claire had a good poker face. Luke and Matt just didn't move. Not that it mattered. They had tried playing with trades and a betting system before, but Matt's senses gave him a virtually unlimited capacity for cheating, so now they were playing a completely luck-based game in which each player got five cards and then argued about why it wasn't fair.

"Show 'em," said Luke.

Luke put down three-of-a-kind, followed by Jessica with a pair of threes, Claire's almost-a-straight, Danny's two pair, and Matt's jack high. When Matt lay down his cards, he proclaimed, "Full house."

Jessica snorted. "Nice try, Murdock. We know you can feel the cards."

Matt was beginning to realize that snorting was an essential, if not primary element of her vocabulary. He laughed, though in honesty he was not used to losing at poker.

They all waited for Luke to ask his question. He took a sip of his beer, put it down and said, "Your first time, all of you" with a sly smile.

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. Claire spoke first. "Sixteen. Boy down the street. You couldn't go to prom unless a senior invited you, but mi madre didn't know that. So while everybody else was at prom, we got a hotel room and-" She made a vague shimmying motion and laughed, embarrassed but fond.

Luke was a good sport, and he was the one who had dragged them all into playing vague self-disclosure poker in the first place, so he launched into a story – just detailed enough to be interesting, but not so much as to be tawdry – of getting very close at the age of fifteen before being interrupted by his grandmother. He was, he explained, so traumatized by the experience that he didn't actually seal the deal until he was twenty.

They were meant to laugh at Luke good-naturedly, and both Matt and Jessica obliged. Danny just nodded in an almost congratulatory manner, as though having sex at twenty were a genuine accomplishment.

"Seventeen," said Jessica, to everyone's surprise. "During a very poorly supervised detention. He was halfway decent, all things considered."

"Wait, were you actually in the detention room?" asked Danny. "Like, with the teacher?"

"Detentions were in the auditorium. We snuck back into the AV control room. On a pile of cables."

Matt shuddered lightly. "That sounds…uncomfortable."

"Oh yeah?" asked Jessica. "How old were you, Mr. Silk Sheets?"

"Twelve."

"I know you can't see my face," said Luke, "but I want to assure you that it's…uh…"

"Fucked up," filled in Jessica. "Like the idea of twelve-year-olds having sex with each other."

"It wasn't with a twelve-year-old," said Matt.

Silence.

"You're not-" began Matt, before cutting himself off in frustration. "It's not what you're thinking. Not…something exploitative. I had begun training. At first I was totally focused on combat skills, but as I got older, I started to think about, well, the things adolescents think about. My mentor wanted me to keep my head in the game. So he made arrangements for me to…have an experience with…uh…"

"Fucked up," said Jessica with another snort.

Matt was torn between defending Stick's unorthodox methods and agreeing that taking a middle schooler to a prostitute was both illegal and unethical, but he was saved from having to say anything by Danny who began eagerly describing a device the K'un-Lun monks had fitted him with that sounded sort of like a bamboo-based Victorian anti-masturbation genital cage.

"I'm not sure that's at all healthy," said Matt.

Danny protested that chastity had been essential to maintaining his focus on kung fu while Luke wondered whether having sex would really disrupt Danny's connection to the Iron Fist.

Jessica ignored them both. "Pretty sure that's extremely illegal child abuse and you were raised by pedophile sadists."

Danny's face tightened in rage. "Just because you can't go two minutes without-"

"Okay, okay," said Luke. "Cool it."

"You're all so focused on matters of the body and you don't-"

"Take a walk, Danny," said Luke.

---

"I don't like it when people insult the monks," said Danny. "They saved my life."

Matt continued scrubbing food particles off of their plates. He rinsed one and handed it to Danny for drying.

"Colleen and Claire said the same thing, when I told them what training was like. Said it was abuse. And it was nothing like that. They weren't like, you know, like the bad parents you see on TV."

"I don't watch much TV."

"You had a mentor," argued Danny. "That Stick guy. You learned to fight from him. He must've hit you to teach you, right?"

"He did," said Matt, "but I don't have the same affection for my teacher as you do for yours."

"You agree with them." Danny's heart rate increased. "You agree with them!"

"I'm a lawyer," said Matt, hoping that, by staying calm, he could help Danny avoid an imminent outburst. "I know the text of the law. If they hit you with an object, if there were bruises, then it meets the legal definition of child abuse." He handed Danny another thoroughly scrubbed plate to dry. "That said, the law is a blunt instrument. It doesn't account for nuance," he added, conciliatorily.

"Nuance," echoed Danny. He was still bouncing from one leg to the other, but he didn't seem to be getting any angrier.

"When I was in law school," said Matt, "we studied this case. Vietnamese immigrants had practiced indigenous medicine on their young son who had the flu. Something called 'cupping'. You use fire to consume all the oxygen in a glass cup, before applying it to the skin. It creates a vacuum and sucks the skin upward, causing bruising and pain. Rare risk of blood clots. No actual medical benefit. The parents were arrested for child abuse. They violated the letter of the law. But the point of the case was that they hadn't violated the spirit of the law. They didn't lose their tempers, or provide a generally unstable home environment. For most abusive parents, the violence is just one manifestation of an overall pattern. But these were good parents who did one unusual practice."

"How did the case turn out?"

"It didn't. Just a hypothetical. We debated it in second year."

Danny stopped bouncing. "Stick. Do you like him?"

"Ha, no," said Matt with an unhappy laugh. "But," he allowed, "I also don't like it when other people criticize him. I got in a fight with a close friend of mine once. My friend was saying things that, if I looked in from the outside, I would agree with him, but he was talking about Stick. It was hard to be objective."

"They made me strong," said Danny, no longer enraged, but still insistent.

"I was in special education classes at school. Every day, for two periods I would have Braille instruction and orientation / mobility training with other blind kids. And I hated them, hated how needy they were. One girl, I remember her mother would walk her to school, walk her right to her chair and help her sit down in it. And some kids like that, they don't grow out of it. There are blind adults who won't go anywhere without a guide. And it's unnecessary. Even without super senses, most blind people can learn to be very independent. But the only way to learn is to try and fail. Fail a lot. Parents are too nice sometimes, can't bring themselves to let their kid hit her head, fall off the sidewalk, burn herself on the stove. So they coddle. But Stick, he didn't coddle me. He threw me into the deep end. I hated him. But he made me strong, too."

"That's…that's sort of how you learn things in K'un Lun," said Danny. "They don't always tell you all the steps to what you want to do. They just tell you to do it and you figure out the how yourself. I think it's a better way to learn."

"You don't have to agree with the others, just accept their right to see the situation differently from you."

"Is that how you do it? How you get along with that friend you disagreed with?"

"I didn't," said Matt, "I couldn't. I had to make him see things my way."

"So you won?" asked Danny.

"No," said Matt, "I didn't win."

---

Matt knew they were keeping watch while he slept. He didn't mind. Well, he did mind, but he wasn't going to do anything about it. If they distrusted him, they had their reasons. He thought about Elektra, sent by Stick to – ironically – seduce him to the Chaste. Elektra, who became the center of his life whenever she was a part of it. Elektra, who killed Stick. (Stick, who in all fairness, was moments away from murdering Danny.) (Danny, who in all fairness, had probably been asking for it.)

He got up before Luke. Jessica was sitting on the front porch nursing a whiskey sour, so he wouldn't have to leave a note, which was good. His penmanship ranged from awful to tie-dye earthquake. He showered in water a few degrees above cold and dressed in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. Matt idly wondered why he owned basketball shorts since he'd never played the game. (He could play it, in theory at least. But that was a secret, and basketball was a team game.)

He picked up two fishing rods, and grabbed a few hooks and lures from the tackle box. He held one rod out to Jessica.

"If you're supposed to be keeping an eye on me, you're going to have to sit around and drink someplace else."

"Or I could make you sit your ass down."

"You could try." Matt smirked. He actually wanted to be chased by someone through the forest. It would be a thrill, a challenge, to navigate in such an unaccommodating environment. He could escape Jessica, he was sure of it. She was strong, but not particularly agile or fast, and she was untrained.

Instead, Jessica rolled her eyes and denied Matt his game of grown up tag. "Whatever. I can drink there as easily as I can drink here."

Matt considered jogging down to the dock, forcing Jessica to keep up, but decided that was pointlessly cruel. Instead, he took the lead, occasionally using the fishing rod to map his surroundings. Jessica, for her part, trudged behind him and tried to decide if there was something inherently disgusting about eating fish from a lake the birds shat in.

"How's your sister?" asked Matt. They had met only briefly at the police station, but Matt had certainly heard her radio show enough times.

"Ugh, she thinks she's Woodward and Bernstein after the whole thing with the earthquakes. Now she wants to do some story about asthma."

"Is she for it or against it?"

Jessica stood still for a moment, wishing she had thought of that comment herself. "She should stick to celebrity interviews." She started walking again.

"You don't want her getting mixed up in anything serious," said Matt as they settled onto the dock, prepping and casting their lines. Jessica had no intention whatsoever of catching anything. Matt, on the other hand, suspected that his radar sense could extend below the water if he properly focused his attention.

Jessica didn't answer that. She didn't need to. They sat in silence, Matt casting and recasting, Jessica completely ignoring what was probably a bite. She had a level of comfort around Matt, one she didn't trust. If she slept with him, with her luck, she'd probably find out that, in a Kilgrave-induced daze, she'd previously burnt down his favorite childhood nun.

Hours passed before they heard Danny's voice ringing from the footpath. "Wait, that's fishing?"

He was followed by Claire and Luke, the latter of whom said, "How the hell else would you fish? What's wrong with it?"

"It doesn't seem very fair to the fish," said Danny. "Using tools against them, fooling their natural instincts."

"Hang on," said Claire. "Before we came up here, you told us that you fished a lot in K'un-Lun."

"Yeah," said Danny, "but not like this." He gestured expansively at Matt and Jessica, who were idly holding fishing poles and wondering where this conversation was going.

"I'm going to regret this," muttered Luke. Aloud, he said, "How did you fish in K'un-Lun?"

It was at this point that Danny began to take off his pants.

Fishing, in K'un Lun, apparently involved standing waist-deep in the water, perfectly still and silent – not to mention naked – until the fish regarded you as an inanimate element of the landscape, at which point you were to snatch them out of the water with your bare hands.

Luke had to admit that the thought of Danny being still and silent was appealing if only for its novelty, but the sport of half-naked aquatic chi-punching held no attraction for him personally. Jessica and Claire were staring in confusion, disgust, and (in Claire's case) very slight admiration.

"I'd like to change my answer," said Matt, serenely oblivious. "This is the best thing about being blind."

Chapter 4: Fishing 4: A New Hope

Claire put down her beer. "Whatever test you want to run on Matt, we need to get moving on it." She waved her hand to indicate Danny and Luke. "This has been fun and all, but we need to get back to the real world."

"Well," said Luke, tipping his head to the side thoughtfully, "really, you're the only one who has to get back. I'm unemployed, Matt's dead or at least missing, Jessica's self-employed, and…" He trailed off, opting against bluntly commenting on Danny's employment status.

"And Ward says that work is much easier when I don't come in," finished Danny, pleasantly unembarrassed by this statement.

"Okay," Claire put up both hands in a gesture halfway between 'placating' and 'surrender', "apparently a perk of being a superhero is avoiding a timeclock, but I have to get back to work tomorrow. So, if you want me to patch you guys up after you drag Matt through this test, hurry it along."

---

"Do you still play the piano at all?" Jessica grabbed a handful of Doritos from the bag before extending it to Matt.

He sniffed and wrinkled his nose, shaking his head no to the proffered pseudo-foodstuff. "No, not really. Even if I have raised music, I can't read it and play at the same time, which makes learning a new piece very frustrating." That sounded shitty, but Matt looked more fond than forlorn.

"I figured you would just play everything by ear."

"I'm not that talented. I took very basic lessons when I could see. Some ten week after-school program that my father must have sacrificed to send me to. Then when I was living in the orphanage, the nuns tried to teach me again. One of them, Sister Paul loved the piano, but she couldn't play anymore because of her arthritis. She and I developed a sort of shorthand, a way for her to tell me what notes to play, shouting out chords and intervals. It worked almost as well as reading music."

"Wait a minute," said Jessica, "since when are there transgender nuns?"

"What?"

"You said 'Sister Paul', which is either some kind of transgender thing or a decent name for a prog rock band."

Matt laughed. "Some orders of nuns change their names to that of a saint they're particularly devoted to, including male saints."

"That's not nearly as interesting." Jessica helped herself to another handful of Doritos. "Why'd you give it up?"

Matt shrugged. "She died when I was…let's see…a sophomore in high school, I think. And I didn't love playing enough to go through the effort of learning to work with another teacher."

"Your life has been really shitty, Murdock."

"And here I thought I was telling a nice story about a blind boy and a sick nun playing music together."

"You're disgustingly positive."

They were both silent for a while, before Matt said, "Are you still in touch with your foster mother?"

"No, she's an abusive piece of shit."

"I'm sorry."

"Not to me," said Jessica, "but you, you know, the details…it's not my story to tell. I'm sure Trish could get a seven-figure book deal if she wanted, but she doesn't, so that tells me…" She waved her hand inarticulately. Matt didn't have to see the gesture to understand it. With context, the details were sort of obvious, but speaking them aloud felt like betraying a confidence. "It was a place to stay until I turned 18. Other than that, there was really no point to her adopting me."

"If I were being disgustingly positive," said Matt, "I would point out that it gave you a sister."

"God, you're like a dead Hallmark card come to back to life."

---

When Matt and Jessica returned from their walk, Luke was waiting outside the cabin, leaning on the wooden post that supported the awning. "We're all gonna get tested," he said without preamble. "That way Matt will know it's safe and it doesn't hurt."

"I'm not afraid of pain," said Matt. "And your voluntary submission to this evaluation doesn't make forcing it on me fair or right."

Jessica took a step back from Matt. "You said in the car that you'd want to know if you were Hand, right?" She tactfully refrained from mentioning that this was the first she'd heard of this plan, and that if they were all getting tested by Danny's magical glowing fist, Luke was most certainly going first.

Matt took a step backward, which allowed him to both enter a combat stance and to feel the ground around him with his foot. He wasn't preparing for a fight – he was just getting prepared in case a fight happened to occur.

But then, "Matt," called Claire, "this scares me, all right? I have seen the Walking Dead shit that these people leave in their wake and you sure don't look like that to me. But I saw a building crush you. And I need to know. I need to know and I'm scared enough that I'm going to let them do this test on me, even though I don't know what it is or how it works or-"

"Fine." Matt hung his head. He couldn't justify fighting his way free when a woman with no special powers was willing to face this, especially not when she was doing it for his sake. "Fine," he repeated. "This is just fine."

Danny sat down on the ground in the lotus position. He directed Luke to do the same, but it was obvious to all involved that Luke was too bulky to manage. He settled for sitting cross-legged in the dirt, with the knowledge that even this modified position was going to become uncomfortable after a few minutes. Danny scooted forward so their knees were just barely touching. Luke resisted the urge to smirk. This looked like some kind of fourth-grade secret club initiation, not a deadly-serious ritual from an ancient and mystical society.

"Whenever anyone entered K'un Lun, they were challenged in this fashion," said Danny, "to prevent a corrupting influence from spreading over the city." He formed his right hand into a fist and rested it against his left palm, which was perpendicular to his chest. He breathed in deeply and exhaled in short, noisy bursts. Luke felt a trembling sensation crawling over his skin and reflexively shut his eyes before forcing himself to open them again, remembering that this was supposed to be safe and he was virtually indestructible. Danny continued to breathe like a disgruntled Lamaze class and his closed fist gradually took on color. The glow was different than before, broader but less intense, with streaks of orange and grey bleeding through the yellow. Danny shifted his left palm to Luke's chest. He opened the fingers of the fist and wrapped them firmly but not forcefully around Luke's neck. Thin flickers of yellow seemed to slip into Luke's carotid artery and all present, even Matt, felt as though they could see the light travel through Luke's circulatory system, although their eyes told them the light had disappeared. Danny's breathing slowed, became quieter and steadier. He withdrew his hands and rested them in his lap.

Luke stood. "What's the verdict?"

Danny blushed and shifted his hands slightly. "Your chi is…very strong." He looked almost embarrassed as he added, "No sign of the Hand."

"Do you seriously have a boner?" asked Jessica.

"No!" shouted Danny, a little too quickly, hands still in his lap, and Jessica actually found herself feeling a little sorry for him. She didn't understand all this mystical ninja crap, but maybe there was some kind of weird tantric mind-body connection, or maybe Danny just had the hots for Luke, which she couldn't exactly fault him for.

"Relax, I was just teasing you," she said. "You need to rest or eat something before testing me?" she asked, tactfully offering him an out.

Danny took a few more deep breaths and shook his head. "Just a minute." He gestured for Jessica to take Luke's place. He looked to the side. "Is touching your neck and your chest going to be a problem?" he asked, and for once the question didn't sound snide or challenging, just genuinely concerned.

"I can deal with it for a minute or two. Just don't get near my face." Jessica settled onto the ground, close to Danny but not quite touching him. Danny repeated the same sequence of sounds and gestures while Jessica held her breath and tried not to picture Kilgrave.

"You're clean," said Danny, moving his whole body away from hers. They made eye contact for a moment and said nothing. Jessica got up, making space for Claire.

"I feel like I'm getting my palm read," said Claire. Seeing Jessica and Luke go through the procedure made her much less nervous, although her brain couldn't stop reminding her that anything involving Danny Rand's glowing fist had a minimum 5% chance of spontaneously exploding. Still, this was very different from combat. She could feel the light emanating from the fist and it wasn't a bad sensation – sort of like waking up from a full night's sleep. She could feel Danny's hand drop from her neck and the light fading from her body. She didn't need him to state his findings out loud; she knew she was clean. She felt very clean, deeply clean, like anything sick or filthy or impure would just slide off of her. If she could feel like this all the time, she would understand how Danny had no problem with walking around New York City barefoot.

Claire stood and turned to Matt. "Your turn, counselor."

Matt had a sour, stubborn look on his face, upper lip curled in resentment. It was a little over-the-top, Jessica thought, as if he were putting on a show and not just expressing himself. Still, Matt sat down across from Danny and made no objection when Jessica and Luke stood guard to his left and right respectively. Danny began his ritual gestures. Claire could see Matt's mouth moving slightly and silently. She didn't need to lipread to know he was praying.

When Danny placed his left hand on Matt's chest, both men clenched their teeth and hissed as though suppressing pain. Danny inhaled slowly, then exhaled in three sharp, loud breaths. He brought his right hand to Matt's throat. Immediately, Matt's head jerked backward so violently his glasses were thrown across the ground. Claire saw with horror that his eyes – the pupils, the irises, the whites – were jet black. Danny kept his hand in place, gripping tightly to maintain his hold as Matt's whole body began to violently convulse. Matt opened his mouth and let out an animalistic roar.

Chapter 5: Fishing 5: 5 Fast 5 Fishiest

Matt opened his mouth and let out an animalistic roar as Danny was thrown backward, skidding across the ground. As soon as the connection was broken, Matt's eyes returned to their normal color and he went silent. He did not, however, stop convulsing.

Claire spent two seconds – no more – taking in what was happening around her – before she reacted. While she had never seen an epileptic seizure precipitated by glowing kung-fu magic, she had handled dozens, maybe hundreds of seizures in her career as a nurse. She knew what to do. "Danny," she called, "get out your phone and start timing this. Down to the second. Luke, go get me my supplies and two metal spoons. Jessica, you have sleeping pills, right?"

"Klonopin," answered Jessica. "I forget the dose."

"Go get them. And the bottle."

For all their constant bickering and sniping at one another, they obeyed Claire instantly. Danny watched helpless as Matt twitched on the ground. "Shouldn't we bring him inside? Or hold him down?"

"No," said Claire, "he's safe enough for now. And if I can't stop this in under five minutes, he's going to need to go to the hospital anyway." She didn't mention the brain damage statistics, or the survival ones for that matter, for extended seizures. After what they had seen, she suspected that Danny might not be entirely opposed to Matt's death. He was playing along at least, going through the motions of helping for now, and that would have to be enough.

Luke and Jessica returned at the same time. Luke knelt down next to Claire, opening her med kit and preparing to hand her what she needed. She held out her hand, "Spoons," she said. While Luke filled that request, she asked Jessica. "What's the dose on the bottle?"

"One milligram."

Claire pointed to Matt. "Has he had any alcohol today?" Jessica shook her head no, while Luke sniffed Matt's breath to confirmed it. "All right then, give me four of them." Claire nested the spoons one atop the other, with the one pill in between. She crushed the pill and poured the powder into a waiting sterile container (thank you, Luke). She repeated the process three more times before adding saline and preparing the solution for intravenous injection. "Now," she said to Luke, "hold his right arm steady. Don't worry about bruising him. If this misses the vein, it's not going to be pretty."

Matt's muscles continued to contract and twitch in meaningless spasms. As Luke took ahold of his arm, they all heard a grating sound as the seizure pulled the arm in one direction while Luke steadied him in another. Claire tapped the air out of the syringe, rubbed the site with an alcohol swab, and gave the injection with practiced dexterity. Once she withdrew the needle, Luke released his grip on Matt. Normally, Claire would have asked the orderly to maintain the hold until she got a sterile bandage on, but if Matt got a staph infection after being crushed to death by immortal dragon-hunting ninjas, it would serve him right.

"Danny, time," said Claire.

"Five minutes, fifteen seconds."

Alarm bells went off in Claire's head. That was too long. It couldn't have been that long, could it?

"You're holding it upside down, dumbass," said Jessica. "It was two minutes, twelve seconds. Two thirty-one now."

They all watched and waited.

"Three minutes," called Danny.

They were almost to the four-minute mark when the twitching began to slow and at four minutes, twenty-six seconds, it stopped entirely.

Claire sighed in relief. Matt would be confused when he woke up – they always were. She sniffed the air and discretely touched the ground around his waist. There was no smell of urine, and the ground was dry. That was a small mercy – a proud guy like Matt would be humiliated to find out he wet himself in front of his friends.

"We can move him now," she announced, after re-cleaning the injection site and bandaging it up.

Luke carried Matt inside and laid him out on the sofa in the central room. He had barely put him down before Matt began to stir. Matt touched his own face – first gently, then with increasing panic.

"It's just us," said Jessica. "You don't need the mask. Your secret identity as Iron Man is safe with us."

"Nuh-uh," answered Matt through a yawn. "I'm Black Widow." By all appearances, he then fell back asleep, although Matt was the only one of their group who could really tell for sure if someone was sleeping.

They all stepped a few feet away, a pointless pretense given Matt's senses.

"So," said Jessica, "I guess that's what it looks like when someone fails the test."

"What? No," said Danny, "that's never happened before in, like, ever."

"Wait, that's not what happens if he's Hand?" asked Luke.

"If he was Hand, he would have disintegrated," said Danny.

"You could have told us that earlier!" hissed Jessica in the loudest whisper she could manage.

"I thought you knew!" answered Danny, in a voice considerably louder than a whisper. "And if he was Hand, he'd be dead already. It would just be, you know, the body."

"That's not the-" Luke cut himself off with a sigh. "We'll deal with that later. For now, we've got to figure out what this means, and what we're going to do about it."

"Uh no," said Claire, "I'd like to further discuss the fact that a guy who doesn't understand compound interest was the only one who knew that disintegration was a possible side effect of-"

"He wasn't." Matt's voice was quiet and weak, but nonetheless clear and distinct.

There was a moment of silence while they all took this in. Then they all began shouting at once: "What?!" "You knew?" "How could-" "Did that Stick guy-"

"Stop." Claire raised her hands to shut everyone up. "Matt, if you knew this could kill you, why didn't you run or fight or-" She stopped speaking when an intake of breath told her Matt was ready to respond.

Matt narrowed his eyes, though of course he didn't look directly at any of them. "Because suicide is a mortal sin."

---

"Can he hear us?" Luke pointed at the cabin. Or, more accurately, at the supposedly-sleeping man inside the cabin.

"I left my cell right by his head playing white noise," said Jessica. "But I'd still assume that he can."

Claire could see that the others were still wound up from the drama of stopping Matt's seizure. Luke and Jessica were clearly restless, while Danny was literally bouncing on the balls of his feet. She had seen it often enough in the ER – the adrenaline rush that came from bossing around biological inevitability. "If he's like any other seizure patient, he'll be sleepy and confused for at least an hour, maybe days. Probably a migraine, too."

"He's not," said Danny, with unearned certainty. "He may not be a resurrected Hand soldier, but he's been…touched by the Hand somehow."

"Touched by the Hand," echoed Jessica. "Sounds like the kind of story you end up telling to a therapist while pointing to an anatomically correct doll."

"He must have known this was in him," said Danny. "So why did he agree to the test?"

"There doesn't have to be a special magical reason," said Jessica. "You guys ever think he might just be garden-variety depressed? His life was pretty shit even before his girlfriend was killed, came back to life, tried to kill him, and then died again. Maybe he's just sick of living."

"Then why did he wait so long to agree to it?" asked Luke.

"Maybe the Hand influence in him was fighting his deathwish," said Danny.

"Or maybe he wanted to resist enough to guarantee that we'd be there to force him to go through with it, in case he lost his nerve at the last moment," said Luke, offering a hypothetical answer to his own.

Claire rubbed at her forehead. "Can I just get verification that we all saw the same thing? That his eyes changed color like some X-files bullshit?"

Danny nodded. "And his scream. It was like a demon." He paused and looked from side to side. "The Hand worship the Beast."

"The Beast," said Luke. "Like Satan?"

"That's…one way of interpreting it," said Danny, obviously suppressing a level of disdain.

"You're trying to tell me that Matt is possessed by the devil?" asked Jessica.

"I don't know!" snapped Danny. "I don't know what to do with any of this! He's the Hand and I am the enemy of the Hand!"

"Okay," said Luke, "calm down. We don't expect you to have all the answers. Let's all pool our information. Anything we know, even if it's small, we share it." He looked at Claire and Jessica for confirmation; both looked skeptical but refrained from arguing. "I know that whatever was done to me, I'm hard to injure and I heal fast. Maybe Matt heals the same way." He gestured for Jessica to take her turn.

"Well, there was that one time I dated a sorcerer pirate," offered Jessica. "Oh, sorry, you were looking for information on zombie ninjas." She rolled her eyes. "I've got nothing."

Claire was still rubbing her forehead as if trying to stave off a headache. "I can tell you that if you put aside what went before it, he had a pretty classic myoclonic seizure, except for the fact Matt doesn't have epilepsy." She stilled her hands and thought harder. "You know, I bought his claim that he didn't recall getting out of the pit. Peritraumatic amnesia is real and common with head injuries. But if he didn't get hit, or he had some kind of superhuman healing, he might remember."

Luke nodded his acknowledgement before turning back to Danny, hoping that going around the circle would make him feel less pressure to personally find a solution. Still, if any of them knew about mystical ninja nonsense…

"I know that he should die," said Danny. "He's already dead. He died in the pit. I know he was a good guy and I'm sorry. I really am. But whatever he is shouldn't exist."

"I agree," said Matt. (When had he gotten up from the couch?) He knelt down in front of Danny, his hands clasping opposite elbows behind his back. "You are Danny Rand, the Iron Fist, the guardian of K'un Lun, and I know you will not suffer the Hand to live."

Notes:

End Notes: Claire's medical solution to Matt's seizure was generally rooted in actual pharmacology, but, you know, also kind of made up. Don't try this at home, or in Hell's Kitchen, or Harlem. But if you're in K'un Lun, go wild.

Chapter 6: Fishing 6: The Winter Fisher

Thanks to years of ill-tempered self-destruction, Jessica Jones knew a suicidal gesture when she saw one, so she knew what was going to come out of Matt’s mouth before he even opened it. She let him speak, and when he said pretty much exactly what she expected, she picked him up from the ground, threw him over her shoulder sack-of-potatoes style and took off.

“Since when can she fly?” asked Claire.

“It’s more like jumping,” said Luke before turning to deal with Danny whose clenched right hand had the barest hint of a glow. Luke was rapidly coming to the realization that telling Danny to calm down had a 0% success rate, so he said a placating, “We’re going to find a way to fix this,” instead.

Danny, for his part, was out of breath and wide-eyed. “I am the,” gasp, “enemy of the,” gasp, “Hand.” He obviously hadn’t recovered from whatever energy he had expended in testing them and now he was panicking as he was presented with a choice that was – to him at least – unconscionably difficult.

“Matt’s not a mindless zombie,” said Claire. “He’s something else. He’s not what your monks sent you out to fight.”

“I have to fight the Hand. I’m the enemy of the Hand. I am the Iron Fist, the defender of-“ Danny gulped and gagged. He looked at Claire and then at Luke and then at no one and said, “I did a terrible thing.”

“Okay, okay,” said Luke. “Sit down. Do you weird little double-cross legged thing.” He gestured for Claire to sit as well. Calming Danny down was the first priority.

“Lotus,” said Danny. “It’s…it’s the lotus position.” He was still staring at nothing, looking horrified and very young.

“You didn’t do anything yet,” said Claire. “Matt’s alive, and I’m sure we’ll figure out a way to cure him.”

Danny shook his head. “The Iron Fist is the guardian of K’un Lun. I left my post. The Hand-“ Danny gulped again. “K’un Lun. The whole city. They were all killed by the Hand.” At this, Danny shut his eyes tightly and his chest pulled inward as though the wind were knocked out of him. He seemed to be having a panic attack in which each gasp of breath left him smaller.

Claire gave Luke her best ‘Do something!’ expression. Unfortunately, Luke was giving Claire the same look.

---

Jessica and Matt landed a half-mile away, although Matt felt that ‘landed’ was too generous of a word. ‘Crashed’ was more appropriate. He could feel a scratch on his forearm from tumbling through the canopy and he was currently entangled in a mess of thin vines. He concentrated on his radar and found Jessica a few feet away in a similarly undignified position. She stood, dusted off her jeans (to no effect whatsoever, as far as Matt could sense) and stomped over to Matt’s position.

“Are you fucking stupid?! Are you a whiny little kid?! Are you fucking Trent Reznor!?”

“I’m not gay and I’ve never met Trent Reznor.”

“Then stop acting like a little emo shit.”

“Nine Inch Nails was technically before emo.”

Jessica snarled. Matt shut up.

They were both quiet for a moment. Matt began unravelling the vines that were wrapped around him, but before he could finish and stand up, Jessica asked, “Do you think your god is an idiot?”

Matt cocked his head to this side.

“You said you think suicide is a sin. But apparently you also think that you can trick your god by falling on someone else’s sword. Which is the most literal, short-sighted piece of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“Maybe god’s a lawyer,” said Matt wryly.

“Yeah, keep laughing asshole. You were going to make a murderer out of Danny. He’s, like, twelve. Just last night, Luke had to explain to him that ‘lady parts’ and ‘lady pieces’ were not synonymous.”

Matt blinked repeatedly, either taking in the serious moral charge Jessica was laying upon him, or trying to wrap his head around the idea of Luke patiently explaining that lady parts were shapely, while lady pieces were the possessions of a serial killer. Eventually, he shook his head as if to clear it and said, “Danny’s killed before. He and Colleen were hunting Hand foot soldiers all over the globe.”

“That’s different.” Jessica stomped over and sat down next to Matt. “Look, I don’t know how much you know about Kilgrave, about the things he made me do.” She took a noisy breath. “I killed a woman. An innocent woman. It was Kilgrave, but it was my hands. And it fucked me up more than anything. You’re not doing that to Danny.”

“Are you arguing that I do it myself?”

“Don’t be a fuckwad.”

At that, Matt actually laughed. “You have any cash on you? Give me a dollar.”

Jessica reached into her pocket. “This better not be a magic trick or I swear to god-“

“No,” said Matt, taking the bill, “but you just hired me as your lawyer. So that thing you just told me is covered by attorney-client privilege.”

“I’m glad you’re planning to stay alive long enough to worry about subpoenas.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Jessica snorted and pulled herself to her feet. “If I can trust you to keep your suicidal impulses in check, we should probably head back.” She bent down to pick Matt up again, but he braced his hands in protest.

“Uh-uh. Not flying with you until you get better at landing.”

Jessica groaned, “Fine, but if you walk into a badger or something, I get to laugh at you.” She offered her hand to Matt, who used his magical super hearing to confirm which direction they needed to go, before holding out her hand in an offer to act as a sighted guide. She didn’t know exactly how to do it, but she’d seen it done a few times, and she suspected she would be better than nothing.

“Thanks,” said Matt, with a thin note of wariness, as if he suspected that she was offering only because she intended to walk him right into a tree.

“Claire thinks you remember what happened to you in the pit.”

“That’s not a question.”

Jessica didn’t answer, and tried to look audibly disdainful.

Matt tipped his head in her direction. “When the building collapsed, something went through my gut. It felt like stone. Probably a concrete slab. I was dying. And then she fed me her blood.”

“Ew.”

“She gave it to me a little at a time. Just a few drops each time. It kept me alive.”

“How did you get out?”

“I didn’t,” said Matt. Before Jessica could accuse him of further melodramatics, he explained, “She did. She climbed. She practically carried me. And when we came to an obstacle she couldn’t pass, she…sacrificed.”

“Sacrificed? Like a goat or something?”

“I don’t know what she did. A ritual of some kind. I couldn’t see, I had a concussion that was playing havoc with my senses, and I was still badly injured. All I knew was that every time she did it, she sounded and smelled like she was farther and farther away. We were nearly to ground level when she disappeared entirely.”

“So she ran away,” concluded Jessica.

“Sure,” said Matt, clearly not convinced.

“And after she sacrificed all that to save you, you want to throw it away?”

“I can feel her blood. I can feel the Hand in me. It feels…unnatural.”

“So are gummi worms, and they’re pretty good.” Jessica rolled her eyes at her own lame attempt at humor. “Look at it this way: Have you ever taken it up the ass?”

“What?” Jessica’s question had its intended effect of throwing Matt off.

“You said you’re not gay, but maybe you’re bi. Or maybe you fooled around with that lawyer friend of yours back in college. Or maybe you had a girlfriend with a strap on. Or maybe you like to finger yourself when you jerk off. Doesn’t matter. The point is that having something inside of you that doesn’t belong there is always going to feel weird. There’s no getting around it. And you can let that weird feeling take over, feel it over every inch of skin. But you don’t have to. It’s your body. You can say, ‘this is me and that isn’t’. ‘This weird and that’s normal.’ ‘I can’t stop this, but it doesn’t mean it’s who I am.’”

It was an inelegant analogy and Matt had a strong suspicion that it would fall apart if he thought about it too deeply, but it felt true.

The continued walking through the forest (or, in Jessica’s case, trudging) until they returned to clearing outside the cabin to find Luke and Claire sharing a drink.

“It’s okay,” said Jessica, “I’m apparently the goddamn suicide hotline now.”

“Where’s Danny?” asked Matt.

“He…” began Luke, obviously uncertain how to and whether to explain Danny’s disclosure of the fate of K’un Lun and his overwhelming guilt.

“He was really agitated,” finished Claire. “I had to sedate him. He’s inside sleeping it off.”

Jessica had a vague sense that ‘agitated’ was nurse speak for ‘pissing me off’, which, if true, was probably totally warranted. Still, they were going to need Danny’s expertise (Jessica felt an involuntary shudder as she thought those two words together) if they were going to solve the demon blood problem without killing Matt.

They all shuffled back into the cabin and killed time for an hour or two until Danny could reasonably be awoken, at which point Matt, face burning with shame, explained to the others exactly how he had gotten out of the pit, swallowing down his defense attorney arguments when Luke couldn’t contain his disgust and disbelief: “You drank her blood?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t ask for it, it was just there and it-“ Matt cut himself off and gulped air as he turned away.

“Whatever it was, it’s done,” said Claire. “Now, we have to focus on fixing it. Danny, there has to be some kind of spell or potion or something.”

“I don’t know how to do magic,” said Danny, shaking his head. “And the Iron Fist hates the Hand. I don’t think there’s a way to draw out the infection with the Fist.”

“What about some kind of ritual?” asked Luke. “Like, uh, purifying yourself? There has to be something like that.”

Danny considered that. There were atonement rites and ways of moving oneself through spiritual struggle. “Yes,” he said finally, “I know of practices like that. They involve meditation, fasting, and-“ Danny switched to Mandarin, “zìwǒ chéngfá.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the English. It’s like if you poked your skin with nettles. Or you exhausted yourself carrying heavy weights. Or you made yourself eat dust.”

“You mean torture?” asked Claire.

“We call it mortification of the flesh,” said Matt. “Self-punishment has a tradition in Catholicism, too. Primarily historical, but-”

“Okay, we’re not torturing the blind guy,” interrupted Jessica, “is a sentence I never thought I would have to say.”

Claire threw her head back and shut her eyes, thinking back through everything that was said. “Danny, you describe the Hand blood as an ‘infection’, right?” She didn’t wait for a response. “What if we treat it like one?”

“You mean with antibiotics?” asked Luke skeptically.

Claire didn’t answer. She turned to Jessica. “What’s your blood type?”

“B-negative, why?”

Claire shook her head. “Luke, you?”

“O-positive.”

“That’ll work. Matt’s A-positive.”

“What will work?” asked Matt. “And how do you know my blood type?”

“Transfusion seemed like a fairly inevitable part of your life,” answered Claire, both harried and reasonable. “And both Jessica and Luke heal fast. There’s something in them that drives out injury and infection. So maybe a transfusion will-“

“That’s a great idea,” said Luke, “but you can’t get a needle through my skin.”

Claire frowned. “Yeah, that’s the downside. The needle’s not going through your skin.”

Notes:

Danny’s Mandarin phrase translates to ‘self-punishment’. I was going for something that meant harming or debasing the self, but for spiritual reasons rather than psychopathology. I have absolutely no knowledge of Mandarin. If anyone knows of a more appropriate translation, please let me know.

And yes, it was a dumb pun to make Jessica’s blood type ‘B-negative’.

Chapter 7: Fishing 7: Fishnado

Claire explained that, although Luke’s skin was unbreakable, there were several areas of the body not covered by skin. She allowed her listeners to imagine terrible possibilities for a moment, so that when she added that there was a decently sizable vein on the underside of the tongue, they looked relieved rather than horrified.

Luke still looked a little queasy.  “How are you going to keep the donation site sterile? Aren’t mouths full of germs?”

Claire sighed. “I was going to have you gargle with mouthwash, but you’re right, that will only temporarily clean the site.  As soon as your mouth starts producing spit, the needle will be contaminated.”

“You need a way to temporarily shut off saliva production,” said Matt.  “Aren’t there drugs for that?”

“Not any I have with me,” said Claire.

“Cotton mouth,” said Jessica, idly examining a dangling fingernail.

“What’s he have to do with anything?” asked Luke.

Jessica looked confused.  “What?  No, I meant when you’re hungover, your mouth goes dry.  You get cotton mouth.”

Luke’s unease had been diminishing over the course of the problem-solving conversation, but it now seemed to spike again.  “I think we should stick to actual medical stuff.”

“She’s right, though,” said Claire.  “It’s a scientific fact. Alcohol causes vasoconstriction, which diminishes the functioning of the parotid glands which means no spit.  You have to drink a lot for it to work, though.”

Luke sighed.  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

---

Luke Cage hated getting drunk.  He didn’t mind drinking – hell, he owned a bar at one point.  But he didn’t believe in getting so intoxicated that he lost control of himself.  Unfortunately, that was exactly what he was being asked to do.

At least the others were doing the same thing.

“I miss Colleen,” said Danny, words just beginning to slur.  “She smells so nice.” He was only on his third beer, but was apparently a lightweight.

“They always smell nice,” said Matt, sounding comfortable and nostalgic for once, instead of alert and forlorn.  “You should call her,” he added, “and tell her how much you want to smell her hair.”

“No, no you shouldn’t,” interrupted Jessica.  She’d had one beer and about four shots of whiskey, but thanks to her tolerance she was no more than lightly buzzed.  “Coming from anyone but a blind guy, that sounds like something a serial killer would say.”

“And what does it sound like coming from a blind guy?” asked Matt.

Jessica narrowed her eyes.  Was Matt flirting?  Unclear. She decided to insult him just in case.  “It sounds possessive and desperate.”

Before Matt could work on stumbling through a quip, Danny managed to yawn loudly.  Apparently, Heineken was much stronger than whatever plum wine he’d gotten his hands on in K’un Lun.

Jessica rolled her eyes and pulled a Gatorade out of the cooler.  She tossed it to him, somewhat off course, but he snatched it expertly from the air.  Apparently, intoxication didn’t overwrite his kung fu skills.  “Drink it before you go to sleep,” she advised.  “The whole thing.  It’ll cut down on your hangover.”

Danny marveled at the florescent yellow liquid and began licking condensation off the container.  He eventually opened the bottle, but seemed to have forgotten how gravity worked: instead of tipping it over into his mouth, he was just jamming his tongue down the neck of it, trying to lap out the drink within, Jessica began to wonder if one of them had slipped Danny something stronger than alcohol, but no, she was the only one who would have, and she didn’t have any drugs on her.

Matt, meanwhile, was drinking brandy directly from the bottle (Brandy? Who the hell brought brandy? Were they planning on entertaining a duchess?) in an attempt to match Luke shot-for-shot. 

“It’s better to go quickly,” Claire explained. “If you spread it out, the alcohol gets metabolized, and you might as well be drinking less.”

Luke, eight drinks in, was openly gawking at Danny’s attempts to siphon Gatorade with his tongue.  Claire, only on her second, was more subtle.

Matt, meanwhile, walked over to Claire and whispered, “I have a secret.”

“I know,” said Claire.  “We know all your stupid secrets.”

“Nope,” said Matt. “I have a secret identity.  No one can know. Would put them in danger.”

“And yet, we’re all in plenty of danger anyway.”

Matt shook his head desperately, either because it was very important that he convey the vehemence of his opinions, or because he was drunk and a little dizzy.  “Shh,” he said, “it’s a secret.  But you helped me.  I’ll tell you if you swear to never tell another soul.”

Claire arched her eyebrows.  “Scout’s honor,” she said with a sigh.

Matt leaned in close and in a voice so quiet it could barely be heard, he said, “I’m Spider-man.”

---

Claire’s phone alarm went off at 4:45 am. She had worked out – using pharmacokinetics tables that she hadn’t looked at since nursing school – when Luke would be most hung over.  She herself hadn’t had enough to drink to have any serious hangover symptoms, but that didn’t mean she was enthusiastic about getting out of bed before the sun rose.  She sat up to see Danny nestled at the foot of her and Luke’s bed, instead of lying ramrod straight on the main room floor, the way he’d done every other night.  With his curly hair and submissive posture, he looked very much like a labradoodle.

Claire tried to remember what happened last night as everyone’s level of drunkenness progressed passed pleasantly relaxed on the way to worryingly disinhibited. Matt had been drunk crying about his manly love for Foggy Nelson. Jessica had stolen Matt’s phone, guessed the password, and sent Nelson a bunch of faked texts.  Danny had been intermittently sleeping and challenging everyone to a fight before he somehow used the power of the Iron Fist to jump onto the roof of the cabin.  Or maybe that had just been kung fu? Jessica had tried to convince Luke to handle it, but Luke had been completely absorbed in lip synching Luther Vandross. After If this World Were Mine and Treat You Right, Luke and Claire had retired to their room for – what was, in retrospect, astonishingly indiscreet – sex.  Claire wondered idly how Danny got off the roof.  It didn’t really matter.  They were fixing Matt and ending this trip.

She nudged Luke into consciousness.  He groaned and rolled onto his back.  He took a few shallow breaths as he remembered where he was, and why he was in this particular state.  His mouth was indeed painfully dry.  He also had a monstrous headache.  “Can I take some aspirin?” he asked. “Or will that mess things up?”

“No, aspirin is fine as long as you swallow it dry.  Then swish and spit with Listerine and we’ll get started.”

Luke Cage was not The Man Without Fear™.  He wasn’t timid by any stretch, but he had a reasonable awareness of what was likely to cause him harm. He feared lots of things: an unjust police state, gentrification, undercooked pork, the possibility that his father could see his internet search history from the afterlife, and so on.  Reasonable things.  Things that were worth fearing.  Luke was in no way ashamed to admit that having his mouth packed with gauze while a hollow needle pierced the vein under his tongue was going on the list as yet another thing that rational, non-cowardly people definitely feared.  He swallowed down the gagging feeling and the urge to cough as his blood pooled in a sterile IV bag.

Claire ran her fingers over his forehead and told him he was doing great, just a little longer, just a minute more, okay, that’s it, you’re done.

---

Matt awoke with the sunrise.  Not because of the light, obviously, or even because of the change in temperature since that was gradual.  No, he awoke to the birds as they noisily celebrated the end of night and – if those old nature documentaries Foggy loved were to be believed – advertised their fuckability.

Claire and Luke were already awake, and judging by the smell of copper that hung in the air, Luke had already provided his donation.  Matt extended his senses further.  Jessica was more drowsy than asleep too sharp for deep rest.  Danny smelled like vomit, but nowhere else in the cabin did, so at least he hadn’t thrown up indoors.  As much as the odor was gag-inducing, there was a certain nostalgia to it, remembering his and others’ first nights of over-imbibing.  Matt recalled the night before, remembered Jessica stealing his phone, and considered putting in an earphone and reviewing his recent text messages. But no, whatever was going to happen this morning, he would need to be strong for it, not distracted by relationship drama.  He decided to sit in the grass just outside and meditate.

Danny awoke next, full of nausea and regret, but he too decided to meditate and clear his mind for the challenges ahead.

They couldn’t wait for Jessica to wake up on her own time – that was liable to push them well into the afternoon – but they let her sleep until 9:00, which all agreed was sufficiently compassionate.

At that point, Claire and Luke spread a tarp on the main room floor.  Matt lay down on it, towels wadded beneath his head so he wouldn’t be hurt in the event of another seizure.  Claire confiscated his glasses for the same reason, but she felt bad doing it. She knew Matt didn’t like his own blank stare, the effect it had on others, and that combining it with him lying helpless on the floor would make him feel even more small and naked.

Jessica positioned herself at Matt’s feet, while Luke sat just past his head, both ready to restrain him if the need arose.  Danny stood to the side, uncertain how best to help, but prepared if the need arose.  Claire brought in the fishing pole they were using as a makeshift IV stand.  Luke’s blood was already suspended from it, plastic tubing dangling down.  Claire did what she had done a thousand times before and started Matt’s infusion.

The blood began to drip.  “How do we know if it’s working?” asked Danny.

“You’re asking me?” snapped Claire. Because she was obviously an expert in paranormal maladies.

“I can feel it,” whispered Matt, almost too softly to be heard.  “I can feel it. I can feel her.  I can feel everything. I can feel-“

“Okay, calm down,” said Claire.  “It’s just medicine.  Keep your head on straight.”

“I can feel. I can feel I can feel I can feel-“ 

Matt’s whispering was so unnerving that everyone present was slow to register his levitation.  His whole body hovered a hand’s breadth over the ground. He was vibrating, eyes shifting sightlessly back and forth.

“I can feel I can see I am the Hand I am the Body I am-“

“Pay attention!” Danny shouted as he slapped Matt hard.  “Focus on your breathing!”

There was enough overlap in their respective trainings that this engendered a reflexive response in Matt.  His body seemed to lose tension (though it remained suspended in the air) and his eye movements slowed.

“Feel your chi,” said Danny.  “Feel the chi of the air.  Feel the chi of the water and of the earth.  Feel your own fire.”

But this was either the wrong thing to say or Matt’s meditative training had simply not had the depth of Danny’s.  As Matt lost focus on Danny’s words, his muscles tensed and his breathing became irregular.

Danny shook his head.  “He has to focus. He has to fight it.  Use something that’s familiar to him, something he can draw on for strength.”

Which, when put that way, the solution was obvious. “Pray,” ordered Claire.

Jessica shrugged helplessly.  “Uh…bless us oh Lord, and these thy gifts-“

Luke cut in, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”  He continued with the prayer, wishing he knew if there were any differences in the Catholic and Protestant versions, but the one he knew was apparently close enough because Matt was calming, mouthing the words even though he wasn’t actually making any sound.  “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever,” concluded Luke.

Still, it was sort of working.  Claire knew the Hail Mary in Spanish, and she remembered that Matt spoke Spanish passably, so she gave that a shot while Luke looked up something on his phone.

“Maybe not so much with ‘la hora de nuestra muerte’,” suggested Jessica, who spoke very little Spanish, but felt that now was not the time to be going on about the hour of their deaths.

Matt’s vibrations had strengthened into outright shaking, forceful and strange, because it didn’t resemble the muscle contractions of a seizure. He whispered with each sharp exhalation, “I am the Hand I am the Beast,” as a dark fluid began to cloud his eyes.

“Got it,” said Luke.  “Give me the grace, Good Lord, to set the world at naught,” he read from his smartphone screen.  “To set the mind firmly on You, and not to hang upon the words of men’s mouths. To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly pleasures.”  He paused in his recitation to see that Matt’s eyes were clearing.  As he continued, Matt mouthed the words long with him, ahead of him at times, because Matt knew this prayer from memory.  They went from the first stanza to the next and the next.

“Gladly to bear my purgatory here,” Luke continued, in unison with Matt. “To be joyful in tribulations. To walk the narrow way that leads to life.” Matt’s body stilled and his muscles lost their tension.  By the time they got to, “These minds are more to be desired of every man than all the treasures of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all in one heap,” Matt was speaking clearly, in his normal voice, and the IV bag was empty.

“The prayer of Saint Thomas More?” he asked.  “How did you know?”

Luke shrugged modestly.  “He’s the patron saint of lawyers.  Lucky guess.”

“I don’t feel…I don’t feel her at all,” said Matt, making a valiant effort to sound completely glad at this turn of events.

“Danny,” said Luke, “test him.”

Danny leaned over and laid hands on Matt, sensing with his chi.  “He’s clean.”  Danny smiled broadly.  “He’s clean.”

Notes:

Chapter title was suggested by /u/DroolingFanGirl.

Chapter 8: Epilogue: No More Fishing

Jessica and Danny

"Goodbye, Mrs. Gutierrez," yelled Danny. "I'll see you on Thursday!" He stood smiling in the front door of the dojo, waving as a small, elderly woman walked away.

"Do I want to know what you're doing with little old ladies?" asked Jessica from the sidewalk.

Danny turned and walked back inside, Jessica following him. "She's my tutor for all the school stuff I missed. It's actually pretty neat. Like, did you know that negative numbers and subtraction are basically the same thing?"

"Yes. Literally everyone knows that," said Jessica, taking the spring out of Danny's step. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and decided to put forth very minimal effort to soften the blow: "I mean, everybody learns it in school. But they mostly forget it, so at least for you it'll be fresh."

"Yeah," said Danny, slightly cheered by this interpretation. He led her into the dojo. "I was thinking we should begin with meditation-"

"I would rather suck off Norman Vincent Peale."

"I don't know who that is, but what I was trying to say was, 'I was thinking we should begin with meditation, but I know that's not your style.'" He scowled. "Come on. Give me a little credit."

"I just want to learn how to punch right. You and Matt were schooled by ninjas. Luke's got his military training. I want to be more useful if I ever have to throw down again."

Danny was pleased that Jessica recognized this weakness in herself, and even more pleased that she was seeking his help in correcting it, but he knew better than to verbalize these thoughts. Instead, he said, "Well, let's see your stance." He knew better than to push her toward canonical wushu postures; he would settle for getting her to bend her knees a little. Jessica mostly hit opponents, so she didn't need a stance that would allow her to kick effectively, just one that would let her move and follow through. They spent the better part of twenty minutes tweaking her posture. It would have gone faster if Danny had just been allowed to touch her and show her how to do it, but he settled for modeling and verbal instruction.

Then he aimed a kick just to the left of her face. She tried to grab it, but he was too fast, his foot back underneath him before her hand was even raised.

"Asshole," she muttered.

"Hit me," said Danny.

Jessica took a wide swing, holding back her force as much as possible to avoid injuring Danny. It didn't matter, though, because he bent backward easily, almost lazily dodging. Danny aimed another kick just to the side of Jessica's right flank with a spinning motion, landing on one foot. She began to try in earnest, putting less effort into restraining her own strength and more into just landing a punch, while Danny continued to deploy perfectly targeted blows right next to her body. Jessica could feel her heart rate increasing entirely out of proportion to the light exertion of training. She could hear Kilgrave's voice in his stupid British accent, and feel his breath brushing the side of her-

Danny was standing still. "You're not focused."

Jessica scowled. "You're not going to beat me with reeds, or whatever it was they do in K'un Lun."

For once, Danny didn't rise to the bait. "You need to be of one mind. Push other thoughts away."

"I can't, okay? Other thoughts just show up in my head and unless I'm pretty wasted, I can't just will them away."

Danny gave the thinnest of grins. "Of course, you can't will them away. That's like trying to push water with your hands or blowing back the wind. Don't fight them. Just allow them to exist. And keep returning your focus to one central mantra."

"That you're annoying," said Jessica, "and I want to punch you."

Danny nodded. "Sure, if that works." He jumped several feet to the right, landing in tiger stance. "I'm annoying," he said. "I'm really annoying. And all you can think about is how bad you want to hit me." With every word, he dodged, dipped, and weaved. Jessica staggered from one direction to another, swinging heavy haymakers that she telegraphed from a mile away. "Come and get me!" sing-songed Danny, drawing from faint memories of preschool playgroup.

"What the fuck kind of teaching is this?"

"I'm really annoying!" Danny's voice was nasal and melodic, like a taunting kid brother. "I'm really annoying! I'm really annoy-"

Jessica landed a blow and Danny was thrown backward. He was able to turn his momentum into a roll and regain control before crashing into the wall.

"Shit! Shit! Are you okay?"

"Yeah," said Danny, rolling his left shoulder experimentally. "You just winged me."

"Well," said Jessica, tucking her hair behind her ear, "maybe you should rethink your pedagogy."

Danny didn't know the word 'pedagogy', but he could guess it well enough from context clues. "No way," he said, "it worked perfectly. You focused on one thought! Even if it was, you know, wanting to shut me up, you still put the other stuff aside! And now that you know you can do it, you can learn to do it without, you know, quite so much prompting."

Jessica forced herself to close her mouth and not just gape at Danny. He was pleased with her performance? That he could piss her off enough to make her forget about Kilgrave for one stupid second? "All I asked you," she said, "was to teach me how to throw a punch."

Danny just shrugged as if to say, 'no point in learning to throw a punch if you can't keep your head in the fight'.

Jessica checked her phone. "It's 8:00," she said. The end of their scheduled lesson.

"You want to stay for dinner? On her way home, Colleen is going to pick up-"

"No. Thanks."

"See you next week?" asked Danny and, to Jessica, he just sounded so stupidly hopeful for a guy she had just super-punched in the arm.

Jessica exhaled audibly. Not a sigh, just a little noise. "Danny," she said, "are you good with the internet? Social media and all that?"

"Uh, I've got some of it down." Danny smiled and scratched the back of his neck. "I mean, they had the internet before I went to K'un Lun, but it was different. There was Neopets and all the websites were on Geocities."

"Block out an hour after our lesson next week," said Jessica, "and I'll teach you some tricks."

---

Matt

On the first floor of the apartment building, Matt could sense Foggy's heartbeat. On the second, he could smell Foggy's preferred brand of anti-dandruff shampoo. On the third, he could hear Foggy rehearsing the Q-and-A of a deposition. On the fourth, he can feel the subtle vibrations of his friend's pacing.

His ex-friend.

His ex-friend who hated him for lying and keeping secrets and not even having the decency to stay dead.

Matt leaned on the wall outside Foggy's fifth-floor apartment. He was free of the influence of the Hand, generally uninjured, and had been eating a lot of fish lately, which he understood to be a healthy dietary option. He was a peerless vigilante and he was not dawdling in his attempt to talk with Foggy Nelson. Really.

Instead, he listened to Foggy reword his questions to avoid eliciting hearsay for several minutes before the pacing footsteps shifted ,the door opened, and – without even leaning out into the hall – Foggy said, "You might as well come inside, Murdock. If you wait out there any longer, you're going to hear me rehearse my Soviet-rap fusion concept album."

Matt entered the apartment. "Soviet-rap fusion?" he asked.

"M.C. Hammer and Sickle is an idea whose time has come."

Foggy's apartment was cluttered, unlike Matt's, with junk on the floors and photographs on every wall. "How did you know I was out there?"

"Actually, I just knew you were coming by sometime today. That was the fourth time I've done that. I figured, why let you have all the creepy ESP moments?"

"Fair enough," said Matt. He had his cane with him, and he was presently holding it vertically with both hands fisted around the main grip. He breathed slowly, in and out, before saying what he came to say. "I didn't plan this, Foggy. I didn't think I was going to-"

"Survive? Yeah, I know." Foggy walked back into his kitchen and began pulling out the ingredients necessary for grilled cheese sandwiches (i.e., bread and cheese). "I got a bunch of texts from your number last night that said as much. Must've been one of your new superfriends."

"How'd you know they weren't from me?"

"Your texts either have bizarre typos or speech-to-text homonym errors. These were too clean."

"Must've been Jessica," said Matt. "I don't know how she hacked my phone PIN, though."

"Is it still your dad's win-loss record?" asked Foggy. He was spreading pesto sauce on the bread and cutting up different kinds of cheese.

Matt didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"Yeah, well, to people who know you, that's not too hard to guess." There were a few clangs as Foggy pulled a both a frying pan and a pot out from under the stove and set them on burners.

"Should I ask what the texts said?"

Foggy stopped bustling around in the kitchen. "You didn't read them?" He pulled out his own phone. "Something happened to me at Midland Circle. The kind of thing that you don't want to know about. It took a lot out of me, and there wasn't much left in me to begin with." Foggy's voice became thinner, wirier, as if he were speaking over a tin can and string. "I asked the others to kill me. I'm not telling you this because I expect you to help me or save me, but because I don't want to hide one more thing from you."

"And she called me dramatic," muttered Matt.

"Fuck 'dramatic'!" yelled Foggy, slamming down the pot lid in his hand. "You died! I had to…I had to tell my parents you were dead. It was Thanksgiving and I was home and I was still so messed up over you, they knew something was wrong."

"What did you tell them?" asked Matt, in what he hoped was an even tone of voice.

"I didn't tell them about Daredevil." Foggy sighed. "I said you had a drinking problem that got worse. You started in on pills and then heroin. But you were getting clean. You said you were getting better and I believed you. And," Foggy's voice broke, "you needed to borrow some money and I lent it to you. I thought you were…you were getting better. But you took that money and you overdosed."

The metaphor wasn't particularly hard to follow to its unpleasant conclusion. "Foggy," said Matt, "it's not your fault. I would have gone to Midland Circle even if you hadn't brought me the suit."

"My mom was really broken up about it," said Foggy, not explicitly acknowledging Matt's statement. "I think she always believed you and I would, you know." He didn't look directly at Matt while saying this, focusing instead on setting his carefully-constructed cheese sandwiches in the frying pan.

"Yeah, I know."

"Do you want to die, Matt?" It was a technique they both used at work, jumping into a startling question with no lead-up in the hopes the respondent would be reluctantly honest.

"I…nothing lasts, Foggy. No one stays. I never thought I would live to be old, so after the battle, I assumed it was my time."

"I think the worst part is that you think that's reasonable and reassuring." Foggy frowned, thinking. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're lawyers, right? We're going to sign a contract. You're going to agree that you will not harm or kill yourself, nor allow yourself to be harmed or killed through action or inaction except when harm is unavoidable in the expected course of Daredevilling."

"'Daredevil' as a verb probably won't hold up in a court of law."

"And you're going to talk to a therapist-"

"There are limits to clinician-client confidentiality," interrupted Matt. He had obviously researched the issue.

"Did I say you were going to talk about Daredevil? No. You can if you want, but I know you've got enough fucked up shit in your life to fill 50 minutes a week. I mean, Jesus, just what happened to your dad! You're going to see someone for at least twenty sessions. You can switch if you don't like the person, but the counter starts over." Foggy had obviously researched the issue, too. "And you're going to do those two things and in return I am going to suck it up and help you with your stupid-ass quest to run around in a rubber gimp mask."

"Can this agreement, including the part about the rubber gimp mask, be notarized?"

"Absolutely. My assistant at HC&B is a notary and he's sworn to secrecy."

They both stopped talking for a moment. Matt could hear cans being opened and poured into the pot. Smooth sounds, no clunks to indicate lumps. Must be tomato soup.

"I'm s-"

"No," said Foggy. "For once, you don't have anything to be sorry for. Listen to my heartbeat, man. Am I pissed? No. Am I confused, terrified, and hungry? Yes, yes, and hell yes. So we're going to have the dinner of 5-year-olds and work out how to make you an un-missing person in the least disruptive way possible and just generally both be alive."

Foggy sounded unsteady, as though the slightest disturbance would cause him to collapse to the floor of the kitchen, crying between his distant best friend and his lukewarm tomato soup. Matt sat down at the kitchen table. "I agree to your terms," he said. "And I would like you to know that the position of 'Daredevil's Sidekick' is always open."

"Hah! I knew you had an ulterior motive."

It wasn't really funny, but they both laughed as the grilled cheese sizzled and the soup boiled.

"M.C. Hammer and Sickle? Really, Foggy?"

"Oh, yeah. My first hit song was going to be, Too Legit to Quit (Seizing the Means of Production)."

---

Luke and Claire

Claire Temple was never going fishing again. It didn't matter if civilization collapsed, everyone returned to subsistence living and the only non-lentil-based protein source was fish, she still wasn't fishing.

"I thought it went pretty well, all things considered," said Luke.

"You were the only one to actually catch any fish," countered Claire.

"Danny caught some."

"I'm trying to forget about that."

Luke just shrugged and smiled without saying anything before going back to work reinforcing their new table. He had originally suggested that they just avoid having sex on the more fragile items of furniture, but he had been very easy to persuade, on this topic at least. Once he finished adding the fourth brace, he settled down next to Claire on the sofa.

"How the hell did you know about Saint Thomas More?" she asked. "I thought Baptists didn't have saints."

"They don't. But he was also a philosopher. Wrote a book called Utopia envisioning a perfect society that I read while I was in lockup. And the foreword gave a brief biography, said he was the patron saint of lawyers. I remembered that because I thought it was funny – having a saint just for lawyers."

"So, it wasn't a stab in the dark."

"An educated guess," agreed Luke.

Claire stretched and leaned back against Luke, finding him more comfortable than the worn sofa. "I am never going fishing with you again," she repeated.

"Understandable." Luke wrapped his arm around her, feeling around with his opposite hand for the TV remote. This was the best time to ask – they were close together, but without any potentially embarrassing eye contact. "This may be an odd question," he began, "but how would you feel about inviting Danny and Colleen over-"

"Why would that be-?"

"-for coffee?"