Marvel one-shots and short stories

Matt Murdock and Avengers, identity reveal #1

    "Uh, guys?" Daredevil said into his comm.
    "We're a little busy, DD, what's up?" Tony asked. Daredevil flinched at how loud and mechanical Tony's voice was before continuing.
    "There's a bomb in the basement." Daredevil explained, regretting his life choices. Earlier that evening, he had left the office after answering a call from the Avengers. They needed help with a Hydra unit in Hell's Kitchen. Daredevil had agreed to help them. It turned out that there weren't anywhere near the number of agents that they expected to find, and it seemed too easy. Which, of course, would explain the bomb.
    "Alright, can you describe it?" Natasha asked next.
    "Um... it's big? Lots of wires, a timer, a lot of C4 is attached to it, and it's on the main load-bearing beam in the basement." Daredevil explained.
    "How many wires?" Clint asked.
    "Um..." Daredevil pulled off his gloves and carefully ran his fingers over the device, "seven wires. They all connect to different parts of the device. And four wires are going out and connecting to the C4."
    "I'm assuming you've never dealt with a bomb before?" Clint said.
    "You're right," Daredevil responded, exacerbated. All he could think was, 'please don't ask me to cut the red wire, please don't ask me to cut the red wire!'
    "Alright, it sounds like it's a pretty simple bomb. This is going to sound cliche, but you need to cut the red wire." Clint explained.
    Oh no.
    "Um, that could be an issue." Daredevil said, starting to panic a little.
    "Are you color blind? 'Course you are, why not, the universe hates us. Just tell me how much time is left on the countdown and I'll try to get there." Clint said.
    "I don't know how much time is left." Daredevil said.
    "How can you not know? You said there's a timer!" Tony interjected.
    "I can't see it!" Daredevil exclaimed.
    His declaration was met with momentary silence before Nat, always the composed one responded.
    "You're blind." It wasn't a question but Daredevil answered anyway.
    "Yes! So what do I do?"
    "You get out. Now. Since we don't know how long is left there's no way for anyone to get there safely to help." Natasha instructed calmly. At this point, the Avengers had taken out all of the assailants and were regrouping.
    Daredevil came running out of the building momentarily, pushing the group of hostages towards the exit from the blast zone. When he got to the Avengers, he froze, sniffing.
    "It's about to go off," Daredevil stated, quickly putting his hands over his ears. The others could handle explosions from this distance just fine, but his super hearing would make the bomb unbearable.
    He jumped slightly when he felt large warm hands cover his, helping to block out the sound of the loud explosion. After the initial explosion, Daredevil made no move to remove his hands from his ears due to the residual ringing. He was surprised to find that the hands were not removed immediately either.
    "Devil Friend," Thor's low voice cut through the ringing, not causing any more pain, "are you alright?"
    "Uh-yeah." Daredevil tried to pull his hands away from his ears but found that the hands--Thor's hands--weren't moving.
    "Are you certain? You seem unsteady," Thor informed him.
    "Yeah, it's just my ears are ringing. It's making me a little off balance." Daredevil explained. Thor hummed in understanding and removed his hands from Daredevil's ears, letting Daredevil's arms fall to his sides.
    As both sets of hands were removed, Daredevil tensed at the sudden onslaught of noise, feeling untethered for a moment. Then, he felt Thor's hand on his shoulder. It was done casually but was very grounding.
    "You're blind?!" Tony yelled, again making Daredevil flinch. Thor's hand tightened comfortingly on his shoulder.
    "Yeah. You got a problem with that?"
    "Oh, of course not," Tony said sarcastically, "why would there be a problem? It's not like our unawareness of this issue almost killed us!"
    "Look I'm sorry that this happened," Daredevil gestured to the building in flames, "but I'm not going to apologize for not telling you that I'm blind and protecting my identity."
    "But-" Tony was cut off by Nat.
    "Ok. You have every right to a secret identity. Surely we can all understand that?" she said to her teammates, daring them to disagree with her.
    "Nat's right," Clint agreed before Tony could dig his hole any deeper.
    "But how do you do it all? The flips, the fighting, everything?" Tony asked, his outrage transforming into curiosity.
    "I'm completely blind, NLP - that's no light perception, but all of my other senses are increased by a lot, so I can get a sort of an outline picture of things around me." Daredevil explained, grimacing at the still loud and insistent voice of Tony Stark.
    "We should go back to the tower," Steve cut into their conversation, "I have a feeling there are going to be a lot more questions."
    At the sound of the team's agreement, they all started to use their methods of transport. Tony started flying, Steve got on his motorcycle, and Nat and Clint got on their shared motorcycle. When they had all gone a decent distance, Thor spoke.
    "Would you like to... I believe the phrase is "hitch a ride" with me. You are still unsteady on your feet and the tower is quite a ways away."
    "Uh, sure? What do I do?" Daredevil asked, cocking his head towards Thor, too tired to try and pretend to make eye contact.
    "Just hold on," Thor stated, putting one arm around Daredevil's waist and pulling him closer to his body. Daredevil quickly wrapped his arms around Thor's chest, and Thor used Mjolnir to launch them into the sky. When they took off and Daredevil's radar sense was thrown off, his grip slackened in shock. For a moment he worried that he might fall, only to feel Thor's grip tighten until he could recover enough to regain his grip. Within five minutes, they were touching down on the landing pad at the top of the Avengers Tower.
    "That was quick," Daredevil said.
    "Yes. I believe we have arrived before the others. How is the ringing? In your ears?" Thor asked.
    "It's almost gone. I just hope that they're quiet when they're interrogating me. Otherwise, it'll come back and bring a migraine this time," Daredevil chuckled as he followed Thor into the elevator and down to the common floor.
    "Hopefully. Am I too loud?" Thor asked quietly, concerned that he was causing his friend pain.
    "No. I like your voice no matter the volume, because of its tone and pitch." Daredevil explained, reaching up to remove his helmet. His hands, which were still shaking, were stopped by Thor's.
    "You do not need to reveal your identity to me, or my teammates," Thor assured him.
    "I know. But do you think that Tony's just going to sit on the information that I'm blind? Knowing that, and he can figure out my age, as well as the fact that I'm from Hell's Kitchen? He'll figure out who I am in a heartbeat." Daredevil counters.
    "Ah. I wish that I could argue that, but he does seem to interfere with the affairs of others quite often." Thor agreed sadly, letting his hands fall away from Daredevil's hands.
    Daredevil quickly unclasped and pulled off his helmet. If Thor was surprised, he did not show it.
    "You are younger than I had thought," was the only comment Thor made.
    "Do you have any questions?" Daredevil asked.
    "Not that I would like to ask until the others arrive. I would not like to make you repeat the answer to a question." Thor explained as Daredevil nodded in understanding. Shortly after they had moved onto the couch, the other Avengers came bustling in--loudly.
    "Would you guys mind keeping it down?" Daredevil said, his face scrunched up in pain.
    "Oh my god the devil's a child," was Clint's first reaction, though he did speak softly. In his defense, Daredevil did look pretty young with his hair messed up from the helmet and his nose scrunched up.
    "No. I'm 26, not a kid. And my name's Matt Murdock." Matt explained.
    "Okay, first, 26 still counts as a kid. You're the youngest person in this room," Tony countered, still speaking loudly, causing Matt to flinch as the ringing started to increase a little.
    "Alright, that's fair. So, I'm assuming that you have questions? About all of this?" Matt said.
    "Hell yeah, we do!" Tony exclaimed.
    "What happened to give you the senses? Can you give us basic backstory and stuff about your life?" Bruce asked quietly, causing everyone to quiet down.
    "Yeah. So, when I was 9, I pushed a guy out of the way of a truck that was out of control and carrying chemicals. That's what caused my blindness and all of my other senses to increase," Matt started.
    "So how strong are your senses? Just naturally, without trying to push them?" Tony cut in.
    "Well, generally I can hear within about six or eight blocks. I can hear further when I'm outside of the city, but New York is loud. I can smell what you ate three days ago on your breath and the preservatives in a lot of food. I can taste blood in the air from where Clint got a cut about three days ago. My sense of touch is strong enough that most of the time I can read by feeling the rise of the ink on a printed piece of paper. Some new printers don't leave enough of an imprint though so braille is still my best bet," Matt explained.
    "Alright. The way you fight, I can tell that you've been trained. Who trained you?" Nat asked, also keeping her voice down.
    "A man named Stick came and found me shortly after I started living in the orphanage. I was ten at the time. He taught me how to harness my senses and use them to fight in his war. Eventually, when I was fourteen, he decided that I wasn't worth his effort since I didn't want to kill anyone and he left." Matt explained, now having to concentrate to ignore the migraine that was pushing into his head with Tony's mutterings.
    "Why did he want some kid to fight in his war?" Tony asked loudly, making Matt tighten his jaw.
    "He figured that he would be able to mold me into his perfect soldier, except that I was a kid who needed a dad, not a general," Matt said.
    "Are you alright, Friend Matthew?" Thor asked quietly while the team took a moment to discuss what they had been told.
    "I'll be fine for a bit," Matt answered too quickly.
    As Thor realized that Matt was not, in fact, fine, he moved on the couch slightly so that their legs were pressed together, giving Matt something to focus on.
    "Tony, can you please quiet down? I'm still sensitive from Hulk and I can't imagine that Matt appreciates the loud sound of your voice right now either," Bruce interrupted Tony's rant on wanting to do experiments on Matt to figure out exactly how his senses worked, "and also, you're not doing any experiments unless I'm there too and Matt knows, understands, and consents to everything you plan to do."
    "Fine. I don't know... does anybody want to watch a movie?" Tony said, finally quieting down.
    There was a chorus of yes's from the team, while Matt leaned towards Thor.
    "Can you show me where a bathroom is?" Matt asked quietly.
    In response to that, Thor simply stood and led Matt out of the common area and into an elevator.
    "There are bathrooms on each floor, so I shall take you to my floor. It will be quieter," Thor said, "are you truly alright? You are shaking still and you are pale."
    "Um... no. No, I'm not alright. My ears are ringing, my head is pounding, Tony's arguing with Steve about doing experiments on me, my uniform is too tight right now, and I'm really hot. I also feel like I'm going to pass out or throw up. Or maybe both." Matt said quickly, his breathing starting to speed up. When it became apparent that he had finished, Thor stepped closer to Matt in the elevator.
    "Can I hug you?" Thor asked. He didn't know how else to comfort his young friend, so he offered the best thing he could think of.
    "Yes," Matt said quickly. He was suddenly enveloped in the god's arms. He let himself be lifted off of the ground in the hug as he melted into the warmth that Thor produced.
    "Is this better?" Thor asked.
    "Yeah," Matt answered simply, his answer muffled by his face being squished against Thor, smiling into Thor's chest.
    "Good," Thor walked carefully and slowly out of the elevator and onto his floor. He set Matt down in the bathroom.
    "Thanks," Matt said as Thor left him in the room.
    "I will be in the living room if you need anything," Thor said, grinning.
    "Ok," Matt said, closing the door.
    A few moments later, Thor looked towards the door at the sound of retching.
    "Matthew? Are you alright?" Thor asked, concerned.
    Matt kicked the door open and Thor saw his friend on the ground, holding himself up over the toilet as he threw up.
    "What happened?" Thor asked.
    "Tony decided to make five different types of popcorn," Matt said as though that explained everything.
    "Ah, with your increased senses..." Thor trailed off the question.
    "Yeah. When you add all the different types of preservatives to the migraine I already had, you end up throwing up." Matt explained.
    "My friend, I am very sorry," Thor knelt to rub Matt's back, "I will speak with Tony and explain the issues to him."
    "Thanks," Matt said, finally sitting down all the way.
    "Are you feeling any better?" Thor asked.
    "Yeah, I'm done throwing up if that's what you meant," Matt said with a chuckle that he seemed to immediately regret as he grimaced from the sound.
    "Would you like to brush your teeth? I have an extra toothbrush that you could use." Thor offered.
    "Yeah, thanks," Matt said, trying to stand up before his knees gave out, only for him to be caught by Thor. While Matt brushed his teeth, Thor stood next to him, making sure that he would be able to stay standing. When Matt finished, he found himself once again enveloped in Thor's arms, this time Thor was purposefully pressing Matt's ear against his chest, so that he could hear Thor's heartbeat.
    "Better?" Thor asked, slowly rocking the two of them back and forth.
    "Mhm. Tired," Matt slurred, "long day. Before all this stuff happened I was in court for five hours straight and that was right after patrolling all night."
    "How long has it been since you slept, Matthew?" Thor asked.
    "Uh... two--no three days?" Matt said quietly.
    When Thor heard this, he immediately swept Matt up off his feet into a bridal-style carry, causing Matt to squeak in surprise.
    "Shhhh... It is alright. I am taking you to my bedroom, and you are going to rest while I explain the problem to Tony." Thor said as he set Matt down on the bed.
    "Mhm," Matt said, falling asleep almost immediately.
    Thor quickly went upstairs, not wanting to leave Matt alone for too long.
    "Where's Matt?" Clint asked when Thor entered the room.
    "He is sleeping in my room. He was already exhausted and then began throwing up when he smelled the popcorn. I believe that when he is present we should contain ourselves to agree on one type of popcorn on movie nights. Also, try to keep your voices down. He can hear you and you're all very loud." Thor explained.
    "But-" Tony tried to object before Bruce cut him off.
    "Tony. There's a kid downstairs who can hear every word we say, smell everything in this building, and probably feel the subway's vibrations from the top of this building. Be nice. Be quiet. I would appreciate that last one as well. I'm going to bed. Have fun with the movie," Bruce finished as he walked away to the elevator.