Chapter Text
Matt reluctantly made his way to Avengers Tower. He was dressed in his red daredevil costume. He kept to the shadows of the rooftops and alleyways to avoid being seen. When he arrived he snuck over to a hidden back door and silently slipped inside.
The hallway was empty and utilitarian. The slight echoing in the passageway indicated that there were not any decorations on the smooth walls. He started to get nervous wondering if he had stepped into a trap or test.
“Good evening, Mr. Daredevil.”
Matt jumped at the sound of a voice and cast out his senses to find its source.
“My name is JARVIS and I am Mr. Stark’s AI.”
Matt heard the hum of electricity running throughout every wall of the building, and the nearest heartbeat was four rooms away. The voice lacked a heartbeat, but was probably telling the truth.
“If you continue down the hallway to the elevator I will take you straight up to the floor with the conference room where everyone is waiting.”
Matt took a couple breaths to try to calm himself then nodded to the voice. He quickly realized that an AI might not be able to see him and followed up with a verbal response.
“Understood.”
Matt walked into the elevator and waited uncomfortably as it started moving without him doing anything. When the elevator came to a stop JARVIS spoke up again.
“The conference room is the third door on the right. Everyone should be there already.”
Matt did not feel like responding this time and simply followed the directions.
“I look forward to meeting this new brother in arms,” an unknown voice boomed, from the room he was heading to, grabbing his attention.
“The rest of us finally get to meet the devil guy,” he heard Stark say.
“Tony, you have already met him,” Agent Romanoff pointed out.
“Yeah, but he was unconscious for most of it and then he didn’t stick around to play with me.”
“I wonder why,” Romanoff responded, sarcastically.
“Hey, I’m a fun guy. Lots of people would pay to get one-on-one time with me.”
“Lots of people doesn’t mean everyone,” Steve’s voice added in.
“Can we just agree to be nice?” Agent Barton asked. “He is pretty cool, and if we aren’t invasive then he will be easier to work with. Maybe he will open up a bit if we aren’t in his face.”
“I can be nice,” Tony said defensively.
“Prove it,” Romanoff dared.
Matt had arrived at the door and knocked.
“Ooh the devil knocks,” Stark said excitedly. “Do you think he needs to be invited in before he can step through the threshold?”
“That's vampires, Tony.” Another unfamiliar voice responded tiredly.
Romanoff opened the door and Matt stepped inside silently. Everyone was sitting around a circular table. He took note of the two Avengers he had not previously met. There was a huge man who had to have been the initial loud voice. He had a larger than life, staticy presence in his perception. Matt guessed he must be Thor. The other man he had not previously met was rather small and seemed uncomfortable, but his heart beat almost drowned out the gigantic alien’s next to him. Matt had never heard anything like it before.
“Welcome Daredevil,” Agent Romanoff said as she gestured for him to sit in the empty seat next to her, and Matt quickly obliged. “You have met myself, Clint, Steve, and Tony.” She pointed towards each man and she listed his name. “This is Thor,” she gestured to the large man. “And this is Bruce, also known as the Hulk.”
Bruce nodded when he was mentioned. Matt paused to take in the man’s presence again. He could smell something odd coming off of the man and wondered if that had anything to do with being the Hulk. Questions filled his head about how this man could possibly be the Hulk in the first place since he was far too small. Matt kept his inquiries to himself though knowing he was not willing to share much about himself.
“And you are?” Stark asked pointedly.
“You can call me Daredevil.”
“I still don’t know what Fury was thinking when he decided you should join our team, while we know nothing about you,” Stark continued.
“If you don’t want me here then I can leave,” Matt responded.
“No,” Steve cut in, as Matt started to get up. “We need you. We actually only knew about this Hydra operation, because of you.”
Matt sat back in his seat and waited.
“That child trafficking case you were working on turned out to be Hydra. We got lucky and one of the men that was arrested knew more than he should have and was willing to share his information for protection. Hydra has been grabbing kids off the street and trying to force mutations on them so they can use them as weapons. We have gained intel that they were actually successful with a pair of twins who they have been training in Sokovia for a while now. We are going to get them out of there and arrest as many Hydra agents as we can as well.”
“This is also the most likely location for where they have been hiding Loki’s scepter,” Thor added, in a serious tone.
“Here is a map of the area,” Steve said, and an electrical hum was the only indication that anything had happened. Matt guessed there was a hologram or screen that everyone was looking at. Steve pointed at the air as far as Matt could discern. “We should be far enough away to not affect the town, but it would be good to bring the Iron Legion you have been talking about Tony.”
“What is the Iron Legion?” Matt asked, glad to focus on something other than the visual.
“It is my newest invention,” Stark stated proudly. “Droids made to help protect the civilians when a big event is going on and we are busy.”
“What do these droids look like? Do they speak Sokovian? Are people going to know they are there to help?” Matt asked, new questions building in his head as he asked them.
“Well they look like my Iron Man suit which everyone has to know by this point means help. And they don't have much for languages yet. I suppose that is something I will look into next, thanks for the idea, but there will surely be someone in the village that speaks English who can translate.”
“Not everyone sees you as a hero, Stark. And not speaking the language will just ensure that the locals don’t trust you or your droids. This sounds like a disaster in the making,” Matt said, bluntly. “Do you have any idea how much collateral damage you all caused during the alien invasion? Manhattan still hasn’t recovered. And now you want to take your destruction team to some tiny town in a different country and hope that foreign robots will make everything better.”
“Hey, I made the Iron Legion for the purpose of damage control!” Tony shot back. He sat forward and pointed at Matt as he spoke. “I know that the invasion did not go well, but I am doing my best to help fix it. I've donated millions of dollars to rebuilding the city!”
“Yeah, do you have any idea where any of that money actually went?” Matt asked in a dangerously low tone. “For a self-proclaimed genius you sure have made some big, obvious bad decisions.”
Tony scoffs, “Sure I read the news, I get it. Fisk took control of the funds and used them to tear apart Hell's Kitchen. I’m one guy, I thought I could rely on other people to oversee what was going on.”
“All I hear are excuses, and I am not about to sign on to a mission that is as half-baked as everything else I have witnessed the Avengers accomplish.”
There was silence in the conference room. Matt considered getting up to leave again. Why did he agree to come here in the first place?
“What would you suggest we do differently?” Steve finally asked.
“If we are going to be that close to civilians then we should not be bringing the Hulk for one thing. And if there is any chance we need to get civilians to evacuate then that needs to be done before-hand, by a human, who speaks their language.”
“If we do that then we will tip Hydra off that we are coming for them.” Natasha pointed out without giving any hint as to her opinion on the matter.
“What is more important to you?” Matt demanded. “The mission, or the lives of innocent people?”
Steve sighed, “You are right. The civilians' safety must come first. Natasha, can you talk to your contacts in the area and see if you can get someone to quietly evacuate the city? We will have to just be as quick and quiet as possible. And hope they are arrogant enough to stay instead of running when they notice us.”
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Matt did not like the quinjet. He could sense everything inside the small aircraft and outside there was nothing but air. He felt every gust of wind rattle through him. Every footstep made inside the small space was like a hammer in his head. The engines were so loud he could barely focus on anything else. It was disorienting and he was going to be sick. He had never been in a plane before, so he had been unaware this would be a problem. He sat silently in his seat, gripping the arms of his seat with white knuckles under red gloves. He prayed for the trip to be over while the Avengers chatted around him, unbothered.
“Um, Daredevil, are you awake?” Bruce asked quietly. He had been sitting next to him for the last half hour, and Matt had been ignoring him, hoping he would go away.
“Yeah,” Matt grunted.
“Okay, cool, I was just wondering, because you haven’t moved from this spot since we started the flight, and it is hard to tell with your mask,” Bruce rambled.
“I am awake, I have been awake,” Matt responded, testily.
“Are you doing okay?”
“Why are you here?” Matt snapped. “I thought we agreed it was best if the Hulk was not involved.”
“The Hulk is not going to be involved. And trust me when I say I am very grateful about that. You did a great job of talking sense into everyone, and I hate to involve the Hulk at all, not to mention when we will be anywhere near civilians. I am here just as tactical support. I will stay in the quinjet. And I may not be a medical doctor, but I am the best option for first aid outside of a licensed practitioner, so I am here to help afterwards as well.”
Matt nodded, feeling his irritation towards the man die down.
“I have noticed that you look very tense though,” Bruce continued. “Which is understandable considering who you are with and what you are about to do, but I was also wondering if maybe you were experiencing motion sickness?”
Matt internally sighed. Leave it to the quiet one to notice.
“I’m fine,” Matt gritted out.
“You know that is not really an answer.”
Matt noticed the other Avengers starting to glance their way.
“There is nothing you can do,” Matt stated quietly. “Medication messes with me. As soon as we land I will be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Bruce asked.
“Yes.”
“What are you two talking about over here?” Agent Barton asked as he casually walked over to them.
“Nothing,” Matt said, dismissively.
Matt sensed Barton turning towards Bruce, with what he assumed was a questioning expression.
Bruce shrugged, and moved to sit away from everyone else.
Clint, unfortunately, took his spot. Matt faced away from him trying to look distracted by anything else.
“So are you looking forward to your first adventure with the entire Avengers team?”
Matt shrugged. Mentally questioning how he had gotten himself into this in the first place. He just wanted to help the people in his community and now he was on a stealth aircraft, flying across the ocean to fight an ancient evil organization, with people who defeated an alien invasion.
“C’mon dude, this is going to be fun. We are going to kick Hydra ass!”
Matt nodded, while his stomach felt like it was doing somersaults.
“Don’t mind Tony, I know he is a bit bitter, because you called him out on his mistakes. But he is a scientist and he always wants to improve, so he will come around.”
“Let's go over the plan one more time, we are almost there,” Steve called out.
Matt reluctantly unbuckled from his seat for the first time since they had lifted off and cautiously followed Clint over to a table, where Steve pointed things out. Again Matt assumed there was some sort of hologram or something everyone else could see. He just nodded along and did his best to understand where he was supposed to be in relation to everyone else. Since he was the new guy he was supposed to stick to Natasha pretty much the whole time anyway, so he could follow her lead.