collaborative_daredevil | General roleplays

I was trying to come up with a way for Matt to notice something is wrong without Mike outright telling him, but without making it too obvious (like him bumping into something, because I don't think he would. I came up with this, but I dunno...

There is someone in his apartment.

Matt’s hand freezes on the door handle, key half way into the lock. He listens to the sound from within, the one that had given the intruder away. His heart rate is steady, unconcerned with the possibility if being caught. His presence is familiar. Matt relaxes as he recognizes it. Mike.

He opens the door and allows it to swing wide. “What are you doing here?” he asks, before Mike can say a word.

He can hear the grin in his brothers voice as he answers. “Lovely to see you too, Matt, and how are you this evening?”

Matt sighs and closes the door behind him. “Breaking into my apartment isn’t okay, Mike.”

“Who says I broke in?” Mike asks him. He rummages in his pocket and pulls something out, holds it aloft as though for Matt to inspect. “I have a key,” he says. “I didn’t think I’d need to use it though. Why are you so late back?”

Matt hangs up his cane and his jacket before sinking into the sofa. “Busy day,” he says. He decides to let the key thing slide for now, but sooner or later he is going to have to deal with it. Or get comfortable with Mike having easy access to his apartment. Which now he thinks about it, he probably does anyway. Not having a key had never seemed to be much of an obstacle for his brother.

Mike opens the refrigerator door and begins to rummage around inside. It isn’t well stocked, but Matt listens to him moving things around for a minute or two, then to the sound of two bottles of beer being placed on the counter top, and then more searching.

Mike's heart rate increases a little and he blows out a frustrated gust of air from between pursed lips. “Don’t you have milk?” he complains. “Literally the only thing in your kitchen that resembles snack food is this cardboard cereal, and you don’t have milk.”

“Third shelf, left side, behind the tomatoes,” Matt says automatically. It isn’t until his brain, still addled from the long day, catches up with his mouth that he realizes what had seemed so strange about Mike’s question.

He hears Mike pull the packet of tomatoes out and leave them on the counter, then the milk after it. “I’m leaving these out,” he says. “You don’t keep tomatoes cold, Matt. They have no flavor that way.”

“Why couldn’t you find it?” Matt asks softly as he listens to Mike pouring the milk over his stolen cereal that he must have helped himself to before Matt arrived, and grabbing a spoon from the drawer.

Mike scoffs quietly at the question and puts the carton of milk back where he got it. “Because you keep it in a stupid place. Why not leave it in the shelf on the door like a normal person?” He picks up his bowl in one hand and the two beers in the other. Matt hears then clinking together as he walks over to the sofa. Matt listens carefully to his footsteps as he does. Nothing sounds out of place. Or maybe it does. Is he walking a little slower than normal? A little more hesitantly?

The cold of the chilled bottle on the back of his hand is Matt’s signal to take it, which he does without thinking. Mike sits opposite him in a chair, puts his beer on the floor by his feet and begins to crunch his cereal.

“Mike?” he says.

Mike fills his mouth with a spoonful and talks around it. “Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

Mike laughs. “I’m a bit beat up, but no worse than usual. He took me on a mission, some warehouse the enemy were using as a base of operations. Decided to make it a training exercise too, so…” he tailed off and shoved another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Hungry, though,” he added around the food.

“He… Stick?”

He is answered with silence for a moment. “Shit. I wasn’t going to mention it. Yeah, he’s back in town.”

Matt feels a slight chill at those words. He inhales deeply through his nose, searching the accumulated scents in the apartment for any hint that his former teacher had been there. He finds nothing. He relaxes just slightly, enough to realize that Mike’s accidental slip had been no accident, he was deflecting from Matt’s original line of questioning.

Somewhere deep inside Matt’s stomach, a creeping uncertainty began to spread. “What color is my t-shirt?” he asked.

“I haven’t been here for weeks,” Mike tells him. “I haven't switched anything around, honest.”

“Humor me,” Matt says. “Prove it.”

Mike sighs. “What does it matter what color it is, Matt? It’s just a t-shirt.”

Except it isn’t. He is wearing a suit.

I like it. :) The bit with the milk was pretty good. And the fact that Matt is suspicious enough to notice... Think he could tell it was a suit, though? Well, as long as the jacket is off, maybe? But, I like the effect that it's the totally wrong garment. (That, and one's casual, the other formal and both impossible to mistake for each other visually...) And if he's tired or preoccupied worrying about what Matt will think... Yeah, it works.

Think Mike is finicky about prepackaged food at all? I mean, he's essentially a soldier and would probably eat anything... But does he like it? (With all the chemicals, gmo's, etc.?)

I think Matt is always suspicious of everything when it comes to Mike. But thinking about it, maybe he reached the right conclusion about what was going on with him too easily. Maybe there should have been another clue...

I can't see how he would be able to tell what kind of clothes Matt's wearing, unless it's by the scent of the fabric or something? But I'd figure Stick's trained Mike to be an expert fighter and to use his abilities to better himself at that, rather than more everyday things that Matt might be more interested in working out. So maybe while Matt would be able to tell something like that, Mike's skill set is limited more to avoiding getting hit, finding a target, maybe noticing and analyzing tiny movements in order to anticipate an opponent's next move. Maybe he's super sensitive to smells of various poisons, or, I dunno, telling what kind of a weapon someone has based on the way the air moves around it... Or something. These might be things that Matt's not so good at, since he hasn't really had cause to use them as much.

I'm just making all this up on the spot, if you can't guess. No deep thought has gone into it! :-)

Food... I'm honestly not sure. He might be funny about it, but judging by Stick's reaction to Matt's 'soft' lifestyle, I doubt he'd stand for that kind of behavior, so Maybe Mike would have just had to get used to stuff like that. Or maybe he's either not as sensitive to things like that as Matt, or can tune out the taste of the chemicals? Or maybe he hates it, but he just eats it anyway because it's easy and it's food. I don't imagine he's much of a chef!

Maybe sometimes he invites himself round to Matt's for dinner because Matt can cook food he can actually enjoy instead of tolerate...

I was thinking, maybe we should try to tie this timeline we're creating to the one from the show, like have things happening throughout Matt and Mike's childhoods that happened in the show. Maybe some stuff when they're with their dad, maybe something like the reaction to Matt's accident, so set around that time, Mike and Matt talking in the hospital or something? The night their dad died, did that play out any differently? Was Mike there with Matt when he found him? Just stuff like that. Might be cool, and might be useful to show these familiar things happening in this version of history, cement the character of Mike into Matt's life so he's easier for the reader to accept there later on. What do you think?

Yeah - that's a really good idea. I bet their talk in the hospital will be heartbreaking. I bet the night their dad died played out differently - maybe even the reason why he chose not to throw the fight. I like it.

Maybe Mike opens something that's wrongly labeled that wouldn't make sense for him to want to eat just then? (Something he could've known if he could see?) So then he goes for the cereal and the milk? So, Matt's wondering why he opened, say,a can of peas and then decided not to eat them?

Oh, you know, that's true. Matt would be better with the day-to-day.

I don't think he would, either. But, Stick did complain about the quality of the beer. (I think it was Heineken that Matt had in his fridge, one of the few mass produced beers that's sold here in the US that isn't made out of fermented gmo corn syrup...)

LOL yeah. I like that.

Ha, good idea. Poor Mike, falling for his own trick that has lain there for months becuase Matt didn't;t want to eat whatever he had pretended the can was. :-D

Stick did complain about the beer, true. But maybe becuase beer is more of a luxury anyway, he'd prefer something he likes. Or maybe he's fussier than he likes to let on!

Elektra commented on Matt's beer too, I think she said it was German? That would make sense, becuase German beer is subject to the Reinheitsgebot, which is basically a law governing what can go into it, keeping it pure. It can only contain water, barley, hops and yeast. If there's anything else in it, they're not allowed to call it beer. Makes for some pretty boring beers if you ask me, but then I'm a real ale drinker. But I bet Matt would find it more palatable.

He doesn't seem to be too fussy about his drinks though, thinking about it.

LOL I'd bet he is fussier than he lets on.

Yeah, that would make sense. He'd want the real beer. I don't even know why I know most cheap american beer is fermented corn syrup. I can't drink it - allergic to wheat. lol. (I guess that's kind of the joke... there's so little wheat some celiacs can tolerate it...)

Well, I know he drinks whiskey - don't know if it's a good brand since it's not on my radar. (It's wheat, so I'll never drink it. Boo.) But, I think there are rules that have to be followed for it to be called whiskey? Which probably means it has real ingredients? (All my horror at processed food being "food-like substances" instead of food comes from being forced to read every label and look for hidden gluten. -_- lol. It's pretty bad. I hear overseas companies have to use better ingredients than they do here.)

Just read my own comment after it came to my inbox - not sure how it comes off - the horror is tongue-in-cheek. Between that and the cow dairy allergy, it's usually easier to just cook. (But, it doesn't stop me from, say, teasing my SO when he brings home something I can't eat that also has ingredients that read like they belong in a chemistry set. *shrugs* He's welcome to it. It's just fun to tease. We also joke about "baked bads" instead of "baked goods," there's a million of 'em.) Anyway...

I'm a fellow label reader, I'm vegetarian, so I'm an expert at scouring lists of ingrediants for gelatin or cochineal, or their E number equivalents. It's pretty rare I notice anything too scary on there though, but that might be becuase I'm not much of a junk food eater anyway. I'm pretty good at knowing what things are though, becuase I google them to make sure they're okay for me to eat, so some of those scary sounding chemical names translate pretty easily into something totally normal that they have just given a long name for some reason.

I don't know if there are specific rules for whiskey, but it wouldn't surprise me, some people are super fussy about it. What I do know though is that if you want something that isn't incredibly harsh, you have to go for the well aged stuff, and that's expensive. I bought my dad a bottle of 35 year old Irish whiskey last year and he gave me some. it was really nice. Something like Teachers or Jameson I'll drink, but probably not enjoy anywhere near as much. The first time you try it can be a horrible shock!.

Cool. I used to be vegetarian for years. :) These days, though, it's recommended that I eat some meat - it's easier for the body to use certain nutrients from animal sources and I have some deficiencies and whatnot that need to heal. (That and I think my SO would go crazy.) Now I stick to certified humane and hope they had a happy life. (At least happier than on a factory farm...) Ah well.

A shock? Like more than tequila? (Actually, my brother brought back some tequila from mexico that was really smooth.) I know whiskey is my mother's drink. I'd probably like it. I think. Hypothetically. lol. It's a shame - I'm mostly Irish.

I read your next installment. I like how Foggy is suspicious, but doesn't want to admit it to himself... It works. Should be fun to play with. :) Working on mine. Got a little start last night before bed.

Well, it was a shock when I was about 8 and my dad gave me a sip! If I'm remembering right, it felt like my throat closed up, as though it was defending itself by stopping me drinking any more! I coughed a lot! I quite enjoy it now. Usually only one though, it's not something I could drink all night. There are so many different kinds though, and they can taste very different. It's probably comparable to tequila, to be fair. But I've only had that once, when I was very very drunk already. If I get dragged into doing shots, it's usually sambuca, which is gross and I hate it! I much preferred the tequila!

Can't wait to see what you come up with for the next part :-)

LOL. Wow. My parents never did that with me. Actually, I'm not sure I remember my first drink. I do remember my first underage party. I think I was 17, maybe 18? My best friend's parent's went away on vacation so she threw one. Probably when I had my first. If it was, then my first drink was a tequila sunrise. :) I favor tequila drinks because it's harder for something to go wrong with them. That, and they're not bad.

I was thinking. Maybe Matt's a foodie? Like, he'll eat whatever, but he knows about all the good stuff? (Good doesn't have to be expensive. It could be the Thai restaurant around the corner or whatever. *shrugs*)

I don't know if that was my first, but my parents would often give us something on special occasions. Like a really weak shandy or a sip of wine or whatever. And one time a friend of mine raised her parents' liquor cabinet and poured a bunch of random stuff into a flask together and brought it to school, really gross, but we drank it before drama class. Only a few sips, then we thought we were drunk, but we really weren't! I never really liked it til I was much older though, at uni. I remember hating beer the first time I had it. Never went to a house party at that kind of age though. But I know a few kids who did in their mid teens, the stories they told about them used to scare me! But they were probably made up. :)

Yes, Matt would be a total foodie. I bet he can always recommend the best restaurants, and they're never the places you'd expect to be amazing but they totally are. He never seems to have food in his apartment though. But he does have random stuff like baking soda when Stick needed it after Elektra was stabbed. So I bet he cooks too sometimes.

I wonder what Matt actually eats most of the time though. The first episode when Karen's at his apartment he has literally no food to offer her. I bet he never keeps his kitchen stocked. He can't eat out or order takeout all the time, he wouldn't be able to afford it. Do you think he does the student thing and just boils up some rice and chilli powder or something? Or forgets to eat a lot of the time, maybe.

LOL I think I assumed because you said you were eight. My bad. My parents never exposed us much to it. (The first wine my mother let me have I had asked for a glass. It was the kind that comes in a box. lol I forget how old I was, but it was old enough to drive.) The house party was pretty chill. It was like the normal hanging out, but a few more guests and there was alcohol. *shrugs* I stayed the night and helped her clean up the next day. Her parents came back to a home that was cleaner than when they left. :) My friends from my high school would have been shocked. I was voted "class angel" for the high school superlatives in the senior year book. I'd met the friend who threw the party when I was working at a grocery store after school in the next town over. One of the older ladies would teasingly refer to us as the angel and the devil, because she was sort of trouble & I'm really not. LOL

He could do what my SO and I do. We only buy what we're going to eat in the next few days. We're not into much prepackaged or canned food and the fresh stuff goes bad quick. So, it usually results in several small trips to the grocery store each week. (Fortunately my SO makes most of these small trips. I usually just go to Whole Foods on the weekend to get my goat dairy fix and some odds and ends. lol.) Anyway, there are moments where we have no food - usually means on of us is making a trip later in the day or stopping at the store on our way home.

I could see the forgetting to eat thing - especially if he were like me when I'm alone studying on the weekend. lol. Thing is - Matt gets a lot of physical activity. I know this rugby player at school and he's always planning carefully to get this huge amount of calories on a schedule and cooking chicken breasts and things. (I once asked him and he said it was something like 4,000+ or so if memory serves.) I'd assume being the Devil of Hell's Kitchen would be about as demanding or more. So, he must be eating something...

I recognize one of the brands of jelly he had out on the table when he was making breakfast for Claire. (I think that was the scene I noticed it. It was on the table at one point.) Anyway, I found it amusing because it's definitely organic. http://www.santacruzorganic.com/products/fruit-spreads I also think that brand tends to be over-priced, but I'd probably buy it in a pinch, if that were my only option and I needed a jelly for some reason. (I put a lot of thought into keeping our food prices down, but organic doesn't have to be expensive if you do it right - sometimes it even comes out cheaper.)

Maybe he does eat a lot of rice? It's not the worst thing you could eat. It's calories. And, maybe he makes chicken, vegetables, and what not, but at the time he was just out of leftovers? He could have even had fresh chicken in the fridge, when Karen was there, but nothing prepared and wouldn't want her to wait 50 minutes for it to cook? *shrugs*

(Actually - there were chicken breast, he could've pan fried it in about 16 minutes. Maybe he was out of food...)

Maybe he couldn't be bothered. It had been a pretty long day for both of them. It wouldn't just be cooking the chicken, you'd need something to go with it, he might have felt the need to offer her something other than water to drink, he might have had something in but not felt equip to actually provide a meal, Takeout is always easier!

Or yeah, maybe he just didn't have anything. I think comics Matt gets his food delivered, maybe it was the day before the delivery came?

I see you've posted fic. I'm going to resist reading it now because it's about twenty past one and I need to be up to take my niece to karate tomorrow. If I read it, I know I'll end up writing something!

Probably it just makes for a better scene, but yeah - takeout is way easier. :)

Yeah, in the comics he has it delivered. :) Have you been reading the new stuff by Charles Soule? It's feeling like an AU. I can't wait to see where he's going with it. (Needs more Foggy, though.)

No, I've not read any of that yet. I read comics on Marvel Unlimited now, because it just got too expensive to keep buying them (I was buying a lot at one point! But unfortunately that puts me a few months behind the rest of the world. I've been keeping up with what's going on though. TBH, I'm not sure i'm going to like it.. Maybe it's the reviews on The Other Murdock Papers putting me off, because she's not that impressed. I'm looking forward to giving it a go though... Are you enjoying it?

I like it and I don't like it. If that makes any sense. I think my fav eras were Bendis & Maleeve and Brubaker & Lark. Though, I don't think the new stuff is bad. It's different. I like his apprentice, too. And the 4th one with Captain America was really good. But, I think the big thing it's missing is Matt's civilian identity. He's Daredevil, like all the time. *shrugs* It's like why'd he bother putting the genie in the back in the bottle re his worst kept secret if he wasn't going to be Matt Murdock? *shrugs*

But, I'm guessing that it's an upcoming plot point, so I'm reserving judgment. That and it's fun to watch what effect his decision makes on all his other relationships. It's having really weird effects. I think Blindspot is the only one not effected and that's just because he'd met him later and doesn't know Matt.

The other thing that amuses me - you might have noticed my AO3 is empty - but there are like, two fanfiction.net accounts that I've forgotten how to log into out there somewhere I think - I used to kind of do that - make almost weird quasi-AU's out of things. (Like, one, wasn't technically AU because it fits the time-line, but it was in this post-apocalyptic future where some characters had been cryogenically frozen for an unknown number of years and after they woke up would encounter reincarnated versions of the characters that weren't frozen. Weird? Yeah, I know.) Anyway, I half wonder if Daredevil were given to me 10 years ago if I'd have done something weird like this. LOL. So, yeah. Not judging. But I miss Matt Murdock and I miss Foggy.

And I have a feeling Foggy should be wicked justified in being angry at Matt - who knows what this mess Matt's included him in is doing to him. If Matt's relationships are all messed up, what about Foggy's?? I hope we get to see that later... (If not, I'm writing it. LOL.)

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

prepare4trouble - 2016-05-01 23:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

stardreamed - 2016-05-02 01:35 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

stardreamed - 2016-05-02 02:06 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

prepare4trouble - 2016-05-02 13:22 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

stardreamed - 2016-05-02 17:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

prepare4trouble - 2016-05-02 20:06 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where Matt has a real identical twin named Mike who is sighted and is Daredevil

stardreamed - 2016-05-02 23:08 (UTC) - Expand

All very good points I just have this head cannon where Matt just doesn't bother taking care of himself but focuses way too much on looking after everyone else. People that he doesn't know as well as his friends. So in my mind it makes sense that he just wouldn't have food in, he didn't get around to buying any because he was too busy trying to save the entire population of Hell's Kitchen. But you're right, the amount of physical activity he does in the average night he's have to eat a lot to keep himself from collapsing!

Rugby huh? I didn't even know that was a thing in the US. Sports nutrition means very little to me, mostly because I have no interest in sports, but 4000 calories is about twice what the average person consumes in an average day. It's surprisingly easy to achieve if you eat junk food, but not so much if you eat real food. (although having said that, I actually have no idea about calorie contents of meat, I just know it'd be difficult for me to come close to that without gorging on pringles!) So yeah, he must be eating. Probably so much that Foggy wondered what the hell was going on, back before he knew!

It makes perfect sense for Matt to eat organic foods. I'm glad they showed that much attention to detail, even if I didn't notice.

No, rice is definitely not the worst thing you could eat. When I can't be bothered thinking of something to cook, I still just make rice, maybe sprinkle some chill powder on it or crumble up some nori. Cheap and yummy :-) I learned that from a friend at uni.

LOL. I like that, too. He probably doesn't bother to take care of himself enough... But he probably still has to eat a lot, even if it's not enough.

Makes me wonder what Mike's been eating? I mean, how does he get groceries? Maybe they have an inheritance, and Mike just spends it frugally? Or maybe Stick feeds him when he's around?

I didn't think it was a thing in the US either. :) But, yeah, apparently my school has a rugby team and it's doing really well.

I only caught it because it's a familiar label. I like their chocolate sauce - it's dairy free which is huge for me. (It's hard to find chocolate that isn't milk chocolate.) That and they make real organic ketchup. (It's way better than Heinz!) But, their fruit juice is wicked expensive. And, it's from concentrate, so I don't see why they think they can charge that much. Anyway...

Never tried the chili powder thing? Sounds cool. I'm always looking for simple recipes. Think that's something Matt could make in the dorm? I went looking for dorm recipes and found some interesting stuff.

Good point, I have no idea what or how Mike will eat. Maybe that's another reason why he likes impersonating Matt so much - easier access to food. They did have a certain amount of money from the bet their dad made (assuming history played out the same in this world) but a certain amount of it went to Stick, and I'm assuming that a lot went on college fees too? But if that was Matt's half of the money (I can't see him taking it all for his education and leaving his brother with nothing!) then Mike would have a fair chunk of cash.

Then again, in the original history I'm assuming that Matt doesn't have a lot of money stashed away, so maybe there won't be much left for Mike :-(. Maybe he paid for college some other way or got a scholarship?

I don't know if Stick would feed him, he doesn't seem the type, he would want him to be self reliant. I bet he's a master of getting hold of cheap food, probably doesn't eat that well, and maybe sometimes the people that he saves will give him something? There's Matt too, no way he'd let his brother starve... I bet if he found out Mike wasn't eating right, he'd try to get him to move in with him, or insist on feeding him. (And I bet Mike would find that hilarious because he was stalking Matt the other day and he didn't see him eat anything from leaving the apartment in the morning to getting back quite late at night)

Not sure if he could make the rice and chili thing in the dorm. Would they have access to cooking facilities there. You can apparently cook rice in the microwave, but I never have, or he could have an electric rice cooker.

It's pretty easy to find non milk chocolate here. There's a great brand called Green and Blacks that do really nice dark chocolate. My sister went vegan for a while and introduced me to it. I don't know if they exist in America though. They have taken the vegan label off the packaging now though, because they make milk chocolate in the same factory and there is a risk of cross contamination.

LOL, yeah. I bet he uses his ID to access Matt's meal plan. :) (Though, I think Matt would notice it come out of his account? Maybe not though. I've never done the dorm thing, so I don't know how immediately obvious it would be.) Maybe he eats Matt's leftovers and fruit.

Matt could have a mix of financial aid, scholarships and loans. He wouldn't have to start paying on loans until 6 months after he stops school, so I think he'd be fine on that front. Him being a good student, in financial need, and blind... I bet he gets a lot of aid and scholarships. Maybe not enough, but hopefully makes things livable.

Not sure if Stick would feed him, either. I also like the idea of Matt being a hypocrite about the food. LOL.

Never done the dorm thing, so I'm not sure what's realistic. Maybe in some setups there is a shared kitchen? But, how would they pay for the food? Maybe Matt had a summer job or something?

Green and Blacks rings a bell. I don't think I've had it, though. I do have to worry about cross-contamination, I think. (I know I do with gluten. Not sure how sensitive the cow milk thing is, but not sure if I want to find out. It wouldn't kill me, it's just doesn't feel good.) There are a few chocolates I know of, just not a ton. I usually find them in specialty stores. I also have cocoa powder I can bake with or make hot cocoa, so plenty of ways to get my chocolate fix, I guess.

I bet you'd like the bakeries I go to - the gluten-free, dairy-free baked goods are often also egg-free, so they're vegan. :) (A little expensive, so haven't been in a while, but omg, so good! lol. Though, I don't expect things to taste like wheat, so my definition of good isn't the same to some people, I guess.)

Was thinking... Maybe Matt got a huge settlement from the accident that took his sight. Maybe they put it in a special needs trust account. So, the trustee does payout what's necessary to take care of his basic health, safety, welfare, and educational expenses. It would also explain why they weren't suddenly rich - Jack would've wanted that money to be reserved to take care of Matt. So, basically, there's money, but Matt has no control over it and he can't spend it - instead it has to be used to pay directly for things that directly benefit him. *shrugs*