Matt stood on the rooftop, scanning the city. Tuesday nights were usually quiet; no weekend revellers, no groups of tourists, just workers just want to go home and watch whatever reality crap was on television. The usual few druggos and drunks were around, and a couple of other homeless guys, but they weren’t a threat. Not tonight. Tonight they were just unfortunate to be out in the cold.

Perhaps tonight would be quiet, Matt thought. He’d stand on the roof for about an hour all the same, just to be sure. But everything was calm. Ordinary. A block over a toddler cried in frustration, too tired to be reasoned with. Two blocks down someone was serving vegetable lasagne. The teenage twin boys in the building across the road were laughing and wrestling and getting scolded by their mom as they crashed into the wall. At least a dozen households nearby were watching the basketball. A lone stranger wandered disorientated down an alleyway off 48th.

Matt spun around to face the direction in which he sensed the stranger. The stranger smelt as though he’d been sleeping rough for some time. He was nervous and confused, his heart rate was too high and his breathing laboured. He had a slight fever and it had been a long time since he’d had a proper meal. A very long time. Impossibly long.

Leaping across the rooftops, Matt positioned himself above the stranger, blocking out all other distractions. The stranger walked with his head bowed, shoulders hunched, and hands deep in his pockets. He didn’t want to be seen.

Matt stood on the rooftop, just out of the stranger’s eye line, should the man look up. The stranger glanced around, as though he knew he was being watched. His heart rate quickened and he picked up his pace, pulling his shoulders up even higher. As he did moved, Matt noticed something wrong with the sound the man made. Something unnatural. Something he’d never heard before. Similar to a hip-replacement, perhaps? Something artificial. Something metallic and cold. Something was wrong.

Matt leaped down from the roof and overtook the stranger in the shadows, sensing it was best not to approach the man from behind.

The stranger stopped.“I know you’re there,” the man said, his voice tight. He exhaled, and Matt could almost hear the stranger’s chest rattle.

Matt felt the tension increase the stranger’s body as the man clenched his fists tightly in his pockets. Matt stepped out of the shadows into the dim of the alleyway. “Why are you in Hell’s Kitchen?” he asked, slowly approaching the stranger.

The man shook his head. His heart pounded. “It’s not how I remember it,” the stranger said. Matt could feel the hot tears welling in the man’s eyes. “I don’t know the city any more. I thought - out of anywhere, here, but - I don’t know.” The stranger took a step back.

“Who are you?” Matt asked, but that seemed to be the wrong question. The stranger’s whole demeanour changed in an instant, as he stiffened, stood up straight and swung a punch at Matt, narrowly missing as Matt dodged just in time. Matt swerved as the man swung again, this time managing to grab the man's arm. He quickly let go as what he felt underneath the man's jumper was not flesh and bone, but steely and hard. Matt released why he hadn’t recognised the noise; because he’d never met anyone with a metal arm before.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Matt said, blocking a hit, “I want to help.”

“You can’t,” the man said through gritted teeth, and swung at Matt again. He was quicker than Matt would have given him credit to be and too well trained to be an ordinary homeless guy. "You know nothing about me."

“I know you need help. You're hurt,” Matt said, ducking from a punch. The stranger just grunted and continued to fight. “I want to help you.” Matt recalled reading about a guy with a metal arm. Something in the news a year or two back? “Why are you in Hell’s Kitchen?” he asked again.

The man made no reply, save a grunt and continued to attack. Everything about the man’s movements were so methodical, as though he wasn’t thinking at all. As though some primal fight or flight instinct had just taken over.

Matt hit the man, noticing a pattern in his movements, which sent the stranger stumbling into a wall. “Why have you come back to New York? Who are you?”

The man yelled and ran at Matt. Matt ducked to block a hit, and got the stranger in the guts. The man dropped to the ground.

Click.

The stranger sprung back to his feet and again ran at Matt. Again Matt dodged him, but only just. They fought quickly, the stranger now trying to stab Matt as well as punch him. But now Matt was intrigued. Why would a homeless guy have a metal arm and a fancy Gerber knife. A WWII commando-style Gerber knife. A truck rumbled past along 10th, and for just a fraction of a section, Matt’s concentration was broken. The stranger noticed this momentary lapse in concentration, took advantage and pinned Matt against the wall with the metal arm, which also held the knife up against Matt’s throat.

Matt waited. He couldn’t compete with a guy with a metal arm. The stranger was too strong, now that Matt was pinned. He could hear the man’s heart pounding, feel the fear and terror surging through him.

“What are you waiting for?” Matt choked. Matt kicked himself for engaging. Why did he have to be curious? Why couldn’t he just leave the stranger alone? He knew why. Because the stranger was frightened and hurt and lost, and it was his job to protect his city, and those in it.

“You’re - you’re…” the man stammered.

“Finish it,” Matt coughed.

The man hesitated, then let go and stepped back. Matt dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. “I don’t know this place anymore,” the man said slowly, his hands shaking, and closed and pocketed the knife.

Matt panted and gasped for air. “Who are you?”

“I don’t know.”

Matt was about to answer “that’s a lie”, when the stranger’s heartbeat told him it wasn’t. The man honestly didn’t know who he was. Matt used the wall to help himself stand. “Let me help you.”

“You can’t.”

Another truck rumbled past, along with a motorbike. “Why have to come back to New York?” Matt asked again. He was met with silence. Matt listened. The man was gone. “So this is how that feels,” he said quietly to the empty alleyway. He listened harder, and could hear the stressed heartbeat and metal arm disappearing into the night. Matt began to follow the stranger, when a police car sped past along 10th, sirens blaring, blocking out all other noise. The car passed, and so did Matt’s chance at following the stranger.

“Oh, good,” Foggy said as Matt entered the office. “You have to settle our argument.”

“Foggy, you realise Matt will be the worst at this,” Karen laughed, and leant against the desk.

“I don’t care,” Foggy insisted, and folded his arms. 

“What am I settling?” Matt asked, shutting the door behind him and leaning his cane against the wall.

“Most iconic dress in a film,” Foggy said, “Karen thinks it’s the black Audrey Hepburn dress from ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, but I’m telling you it’s Kiera Knightly’s green dress in ‘Atonement’.”

“It’s the black dress,” Matt answered.

“Ha! Told you!” said Karen.

“How - what, Matt, that’s not even fair. You don’t even know what the green dress looks like. It’s so hot, man.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Matt said, “But I think I remember the Audrey Hepburn one. Is that the one with the big hat she wears at the races?”

Karen laughed. “What? No, Matt, it’s the little black dress with the pearls.”

“Oh, Matty, that’s ‘My Fair Lady’ you’re thinking of, that’s not even the right film,” Foggy moaned.

“Oh,” Matt said, “Well, I vote with Karen anyway. Do you two actually do any work before I get here?”

“This is critical work, Matt,” Foggy said, “And you’d totally vote the green dress if you could see it. It’s all long and flowing and then the library scene - oh man, I want to be James McAvoy fairly often because he is super good looking and just great, despite the fact he gets killed or seriously injured in like every film he’s in, but that scene is just like, uh, so hot. Both literally because it’s a hot night, and,”

“I’m sure it’s too early in the morning for this,” Matt said and gave Foggy a smile. “And my turn to ask something un-work related.”

“Fire away,” Foggy said, much too full of enthusiasm for this time of a morning.

Matt paused. He had to find out more about the man with the metal arm, however Google didn’t really lend itself to a blind guy. “Do either of you remember hearing anything about a guy with a metal arm? I think it was a year or two back.”

“Do you mean Iron-Man?” Foggy asked, “You know, guy with a metal suit? Tony Stark. Buckets of money.”

“No,” Matt said, “Foggy I know who Iron-Man is. I mean, he was a,” Matt paused as he tried to find the right word. He didn’t want to say ‘terrorist’, but he was sure that was the word the media had used at the time. “In DC. Was that it? All that stuff with SHIELD or whatever they were called?”

“Yes,” Karen said, “Yes, Matt you’re right. He was like, shooting Captain America and stuff. Hang on,” Matt listened as Karen moved around the desk and sat down, then began typing. “Here we go, there’s a picture of him here on a bridge with a machine gun. And another here,”

“What does he look like?” Matt asked.

“Dangerous?” Karen said, “The picture quality isn’t great. Long hair, and a mask and goggles.”

“Wait, scroll down,” Foggy said, “There’s another one. Wow, I could do a better job with the eyeliner than that guy. Matt, you could do a better job doing someone else’s eyeliner. I mean, he’s got it everywhere.”

That didn’t help. The guy last night wasn’t wearing make-up. “But what does he look like? Build, features, come on, help me out here,” Matt asked again, trying to keep his voice light.

“It’s kinda hard,” Foggy said, “Oh here’s one of him punching Captain America. Umm, about the Captain’s hight, which is like six-foot twenty or something, I don’t know.”

“He’s fit,” Karen said, “But slim. It looks like he’s wearing a bullet-proof vest maybe? And military-style pants and boots. His left arm looks to be made out of metal, and not in the Iron-Man way. Like, his left arm is literally metal. He’s got shoulder-length dark hair, but there doesn’t seem to be any good pictures showing his face. It always seems to be masked, or he’s wearing so much eyeliner, it’s hard to tell.”

“Wait,” Foggy said, “Do you think he’s friends with the masked weirdo who’s been running around Hell’s Kitchen? Because this metal-arm guy, well, I mean, he’s a terrorist. He’s dangerous. He’s taking on Captain America, which also kind of means he’s insane.”

“Foggy,” Karen laughed. Matt forced a smile for Karen, but knew that Foggy was going to have more questions for him later. He didn’t like Foggy called this guy ‘insane’, though. Something about that just didn’t seem fair. “Matt, why do you want to know?” Karen asked.

“Just,” Matt shrugged, “Just a thought.” He needed a better reason that that. “You know when you’re trying to get to sleep and something comes into your head and you need to look it up? Well, I just need someone else to look it up.”

“I never remember what I’m thinking about before I go to sleep,” Foggy said, and shook his head. “I just shook my head, by the way, Matt.”

Matt had to laugh. Foggy knew he could tell, but had struggled to break the habit of telling Matt the body language of himself and others. “Has there been any word on him since?” Matt asked.

He listened as Karen typed. “Hold on, nope, ‘page not found’.” Matt waited as Karen clicked on another link. “Loading, and… ‘this content has been removed’.”

“Refresh the browser,” Foggy said.

“I am,” said Karen, bashing at the enter key. “Here’s another one, loading, ‘401 page error’. What the hell? Why don’t any of these links work?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Matt said, “Thanks for your help, Karen. At least I know now I wasn’t making it up.”

“No problem,” Karen said, “But more importantly,” she said, sitting back in her chair, ready to interrogate her employers, “How come you’re both so familiar with ‘My Fair Lady’?”

*

It wasn’t until Karen had gone to buy lunch later in the day that Foggy approached Matt. “So,” Foggy said, leaning against the door to Matt’s office, his arms folded defensively, “Matthew Murdock shows up late to the office with questions about a man with a metal arm. Out with it Matt, what’s going on?”

Matt adjusted his position in his seat. Foggy wasn’t messing around, and Matt didn’t want to lie. “I - I guess you’d say I ran into him last night.”

“What, you were just going for an evening run?”

“Foggy,”

“Matt, he’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, well, I know that now,”

“What?” Foggy exclaimed.

“Wait, how do you know he’s dangerous?”

Foggy entered Matt’s office properly. “Appart from the fact he was beating up Captain America?” 

Matt raised his eyebrows.

Foggy sighed, “Fine. We could see the pictures on Images this morning, but none of the links would open, which I thought was odd. So, I may have spent the rest of the morning making associated searches and going through pages and pages and pages of Google to find anything.”

“What did you find?” Matt asked, genuinely intrigued.

“Wait, I go first,” Foggy said, “Were you out Daredevilling last night?”

“It that a verb now?”

“Matt,” Foggy warned.

“I was just - yes. He was lost and wandering. I thought he was just some homeless guy who needed help,”

“From the Daredevil?” Foggy asked, cutting Matt off. 

“I wanted to help him.”

“But?”

“He attacked me. I don’t know what made him snap. But then he just - snapped back, I guess. He’s hurt, Foggy. He needs help.”

“Yeah, I know, Matty,” Foggy said.

“Why? What did you find?”

“Annoyingly, not a lot. I’d say all of the text articles that mention him in Washington DC have been removed from the internet. I mean, I had to go to page six of Google just to find something that would work. Page six, Matt. Of Google. No one goes past page one, maybe page two at a stretch. Whoever is trying to keep this a secret is doing a really good job of it.”

“So someone doesn’t want him to be found?” 

“I’d say someone doesn’t want something to be found. But I did find a couple of things, though I don’t know if they make much sense. There’s a mention of a guy with a metal arm by some ex-CIA or something guy. Something about a mission in Georgia in the ’60’s, and this guy, or, well, some guy, with a metal arm was involved. He linked to the Soviet’s. The ex-CIA guy said that he was code-named the Winter Soldier. So I tried Googling “Winter Soldier”, and nothing. There is nothing. I mean, there is things, but it’s all just military guys in white cameo gear. Nothing about this guy.”

“Hmm,” Matt said.

“But that’s mad, right Matt?” Foggy asked, “It can’t be the same guy you came across, can it? The same guy in DC? He’d have to be like, 70.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, and sat back in his chair.

“Well, that’s all I got. But, well, there’s nothing on the internet, Matt. And internet rule number one is that nothing is ever really removed from the internet.”

“No, you’re right,” Matt said, “But thanks Foggy. Seriously.”

“Yeah, well, you keep them streets safe. As soon as Karen gets back, I’m going for lunch. You want anything?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Matt said, “Just a sub or something. But really, Foggy, thanks.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like we have any real work to do,” Foggy said. Matt could feel that Foggy was suppressing a smile.

“Karen’s coming,” Matt said, hearing the door downstairs click open and Karen’s footsteps through the hall.

“I’ll get my wallet,” Foggy said, and left Matt’s office.

Matt put his hands behind his head and leant back. The Winter Soldier. Pages deleted from the Internet. Something was going on, and Matt wanted to know just what. 

7am. 7am. Beep. Beeeeep.

Matt rolled over and hit the snooze button on his alarm clock. He groaned into the pillow. The previous night he had stood on his rooftop in the cold, scanning Hell’s Kitchen for the metal-armed stranger, but had not been able to sense him. Matt didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved. He sighed and sat up. Perhaps the stranger would come back tonight. Maybe he would never come back. 

Matt leant back against the pillow and pulled the blankets up over his shoulders. He considered turning the radio on to catch the end of the seven o’clock news, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. Thoughts of the metal-armed raced around in Matt’s mind, and he couldn’t shake them. The guy had even appeared in Matt’s dream, though it what capacity Matt could no longer recall. 

Private number calling. Private number calling.

“Seriously?” Matt muttered and reached out for his phone. “Who calls at five past seven. Hello?” he asked, his voice still groggy from sleep.

“Good morning,” a polite male voice said on the other end of the line, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“No,” Matt said, trying to sound a little more awake than he felt, “Sorry, who is this?”

“A friend,” the man said, “I’m sorry, there isn’t an awful lot I can say over the phone. I am correct in assuming this is Matthew Murdock?”

“Yeah,” Matt said. The voice on the other end of the line sounded kind and unthreatening, and there was something about his voice that made Matt want to trust this guy, even though he couldn’t pin-point why. But this call was far from a social one. 

“Mr Murdock, son, I need to meet with you. This morning. It’s regarding a case you’ve been looking into.”

Matt thought for a moment. He didn’t know that they were looking into any cases. “I’m sorry, I’m going to need more information.”

The man on the phone swallowed. “I’ve been told breakfast tacos are a thing, and they’re supposed to be good at this place on 30 West 24th. I’ll pay. I guess I’m the client after all. I’ll order you a cab.”

“Ok,” Matt said, intrigued. Since when did he receive phone calls to go for breakfast tacos? “I just - what’s the case regarding?” he asked.

“A missing person,” the man said. Through the phone, Matt could hear the man drumming his fingers. He was nervous, on edge. Something about this conversation was making the man uncomfortable. “And I think you may have met him.”

“The Winter Soldier?” Matt asked, the words coming out before he could stop them.

There was a pause. 

“How will I know you?” Matt asked.

“A cab will be there at eight.” The man hung up.

Matt sat in bed for a minute, trying to make sense of what had happened. He got up, pulled on a sweatshirt and pants and went to the loo. So this was regarding the Winter Soldier? Possibly. But who knew they were looking into that, other than himself and Foggy? Unless Foggy had told Karen, but that was too unlikely. Matt went and sat down on his bed. “Call Foggy,” he said to Siri.

“Calling Foggy,” Siri replied.

The phone rang, and after five rings a very sleepy Foggy answered. “Nelson and Murdock Attorneys of something. Hello?”

“It’s Matt, Foggy.”

“Oh, hiya Matty. You ok? What time even is it?”

“I’m fine, so don’t panic,” Matt said, “But how would I know what the time is? It’s after seven, but I can’t give you anything more specific. Look, I think I’m going to be a little bit late to the office this morning.”

“You’re always late, Matt,” Foggy mumbled. Through the phone, Matt could just hear Foggy push his hair back and rub his eyes. 

“True,” Matt replied.

“Why are you calling me, though? You never call. You just show up late. Has something happened? Are you hurt? Do I need to call births, deaths and marriages? Wait, sorry, wrong one. Police, fire or ambulance?”

Matt laughed. “No, Foggy, I’m fine, really. It’s just - I got a phone call just now. A, well, I think he’s a prospective client. He wants to meet for breakfast.”

“Do you want me to come?” Foggy asked. His voice sounded stronger, and Matt guessed he was now sitting up. “Where is it? What’s the case about? Do you think he’ll actually be some bad guy? Maybe I should come.”

“No, don’t come, I’ll be fine,” Matt said. “Something about him - he seemed worried.”

“Well, he is calling a law firm first thing in the morning.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Matt said. 

“So you don’t want me to come?” Foggy asked.

“No,” Matt said, “I’ll be fine.”

“Well if I don’t hear from you by ten, I’m calling the police.”

“Please don’t.”

“Then keep me updated, Matty. I worry.”

“Alright, mom,” Matt teased.

“Right,” Foggy said, “Well, I’ll see you later, Matt. I’m gunna go make me some bacon and eggs, now that I’m awake.”

“Ok,” Matt said, “Bye.”