A few days had passed since Arthuria left.
The apartment Tony had provided was nothing short of absurd. Hidden behind an unassuming brick facade in Hell's Kitchen, it opened into a sleek, two-story penthouse that looked like it belonged in a magazine: marble floors, glass walls, a view of the skyline, and tech embedded in every surface.
Of course, all of that was buried now beneath half-crushed pizza boxes, Chinese takeout cartons, instant noodle cups, and what may have once been a salad. A delivery bag still hung on the doorknob. A burger wrapper was taped over what was likely a biometric scanner. The floor was a war zone of snacks.
Mordred was draped across the plush sectional like a lazy lion, dual-wielding a sandwich and a bowl of noodles. Her normal outfit had been traded out for a hoodie, bike shorts, and bare feet propped up on the expensive coffee table.
Jessica was nearby, hunched over a half-eaten burrito, clearly trying to match Mordred bite for bite. She wore sweatpants and a tank top, hair wild, eyes sharp. Every so often she would shoot Mordred a glance—half challenge, half admiration.
It wasn't subtle.
The front door buzzed.
A second later, it opened.
Daredevil stepped inside.
He didn't say a word at first.
He just stood in the doorway, his red cowl pulled halfway back, jaw clenched as he breathed in.
Pizza. Old coffee. Garlic. Cheap wine. Sugar. And something definitely moldy.
His head turned slowly as if he were surveying the crime scene.
Jessica looked up. "Hey, Murdock! Took you long enough."
Mordred waved a sandwich. "You came! Nice. I thought you'd chicken out."
Matt exhaled through his nose. "You used my real name on the food order."
Jessica snorted. "Was that bad?"
"And the address."
Mordred grinned, mouth full. "Well, yeah, how else were we gonna get you here? You think I was gonna write 'Daredevil, Mysterious Rooftop Guy'?"
Matt rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This is supposed to be a secret base." He still regretting allowing himself to be dragged into this mess, but one didn't just turn down Tony Stark when he called.
Mordred kicked over a stack of boxes with her heel, revealing a whiteboard underneath. On it was scrawled:
Punch Ninjas???Profit
Jessica tossed a paper towel at it like it explained everything. "We have a system."
Matt faced at them for a moment longer, then slowly stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. He stepped around a takeout bag and sat down stiffly on the edge of a chair, like the furniture might betray him.
"So," he said flatly, "what was so urgent?"
Mordred blinked. "Urgent?"
Jessica paused, mid-chew. "Oh, right! Uh... we wanted to plan our next move."
"Right now?"
Mordred gave a massive yawn. "Mmmmaybe after lunch."
Matt closed his eyes and breathed deep, clearly regretting every choice that led him to this moment.
"This," he muttered, "is going to be a disaster."
Matt had finally managed to carve out enough silence to speak.
"This place is supposed to be a safehouse," he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Instead, it smells like three fast food chains, a beer festival, and a dead raccoon."
"Hey!" Jessica barked, half-defensive. "We cleaned last night!"
"Smells like you just pushed everything into a corner, and then made a new mess in the opened space," Matt replied flatly.
Mordred belched.
Matt let the silence hang. "Okay. So since I'm the only one taking this seriously, let's get to it."
He reached for the tablet Tony had left on the dining table—now wedged between a crushed box of garlic knots and a half-full bottle of soda. He pulled it free with two fingers, with such precision it was hard to believe he was blind.
"Stark dumped everything Arthuria recovered from that warehouse into this—shipping records, encrypted ledgers, site blueprints. Plus some of his own satellite sweeps and facial recognition matches from the truck ambush. It's a lot. Someone needs to go through it all."
Mordred leaned back into the couch, legs kicked up. "Pass."
Jessica, sprawled sideways in a chair, echoed, "Hard pass."
Matt slowly set the tablet down. "Of course. God forbid one of you learns to read."
Mordred threw a paper napkin at him. "Hey, I know how to read. I just prefer punching problems. It's faster."
Matt ignored the gesture. "Well, I'm blind if you haven't noticed, I might be able to fight, but sadly I can't read."
Jessica sat up a little straighter, tugging at the sleeves of her borrowed hoodie. "Okay, fine. But we're not just sitting around, right? We're actually doing something soon?"
"That depends on if anyone helps me find something actionable," Matt said.
Jessica opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her eyes wandered to a nearby stack of unopened manila folders, and she winced like they might bite her.
Mordred gestured with her sandwich. "Why not just tell us where the bad guys are? We kick down doors. You can do your nerd stuff after."
"Because if we don't know whose door to kick, we're just assaulting random buildings in Hell's Kitchen," Matt snapped. "You know, like lunatics."
Mordred frowned. "That's kinda how father started, though."
Jessica nodded. "Worked for her."
Matt groaned and rubbed at his temples. "I need help."
Jessica tried to reach for the tablet and accidentally knocked over a can of Red Bull.
"I said help, not sabotage." He said as he caught the can before it hit the floor.
Matt tapped the screen with two fingers. "I can listen. I can process. I can track people by heartbeat in a thunderstorm. But I can't go through Stark's intel without someone reading it to me."
"Can't JARVIS do it?" Jessica asked, hopeful.
"Stark muted him after Mordred threatened to rip out the speakers."
Mordred shrugged. "They were judgy speakers."
Jessica looked around the room, at the mess, at the blinking lights on the wall screen, and then at the damned tamblet. "Okay, so Stark is busy, Mordred can't be bothered, you can't see… so that just leaves…"
Her voice trailed off as realization dawned.
"No. Nope. Nuh-uh. I didn't sign up for homework."
Matt just folded his arms and waited.
Mordred grinned wide. "Come on, Jess. Time to prove you're the smartest one here."
"I'm not even the second-smartest," Jessica muttered. "Hell, the couch is probably more organized than I am."
But she was already walking over, dragging a chair next to Matt's with theatrical reluctance.
"You better appreciate this," she said, grabbing the tablet, half tempted to 'accidently' snap it in half. "Because if I find even one spreadsheet, I'm throwing this out the window."
Matt smirked faintly. "No promises."
Mordred leaned back, smug and comfortable. "You're doing great, sweetie."
Jessica shot her a look. "Say that again and I'll feed you this."
She started flipping through the data and stopped at a random file. Stark's handwriting was neat, but it was strange that he had written it on paper and then uploaded a digital copy. Worse still, half of it looked like a fusion of military shorthand and drunken techno-babble.
"'Potential ingress route via sewer sector D-9, previously mapped during Manhattan flood zoning.' What the hell does that even mean?" she muttered.
"It means there is a possible entrance in the sewers," Matt said dryly.
"Does it say anything about where we can find them?" Mordred asked, upside-down now, her braid hanging toward the floor.
Jessica frowned. "Kind of? There's a lot of maps. A lot of scribbles. Some of it's in French for some reason."
"Mon dieu, the horror," Mordred drawled. "Next you'll tell me there's math."
Jessica jabbed a finger toward a page. "Actually, yeah. Stark included some formulas on tracking for shipments and productions… but I don't get it at all."
Matt's head tilted ever so slightly, as if he were considering leaping out the window.
Jessica leaned over the table, muttering to herself. "Alright, okay. This part mentions the old garment district building. The one you guys raided. Then it points to a second site… what does that even say? 'Red door, no signage, guarded at night, drone heat scan shows nothing inside but ventilation is active.' Huh."
"That sounds evil," Mordred said. "We should hit it."
Jessica glanced at her. "Is that your standard for tactical decisions? If it sounds evil?"
Mordred smirked. "Worked so far."
Matt sighed. "I'm fairly sure that document is about the first facility we raided, I'm sure you remember. Warehouse, red doors, no signage, guards, big underground drug lab?" He couldn't understand how Mordred could be so…
Mordred looked at him. "Oh yeah, does sound familiar."
Matt felt his headache grow stronger.
"Let me try something," he said. "Keep reading."
Jessica looked at him. "What?"
"I can memorize audio pretty well," he said. "Photographic hearing, if you will. Read me everything Stark wrote. Every detail. I'll assemble the picture in my head."
Mordred blinked. "That's a thing?"
Matt ignored her. "Start at the top."
Jessica hesitated… then sighed. "Alright, but you're buying the next pizza."
Matt gave the faintest smile. "Deal."
Jessica cleared her throat. "Okay. 'Memo to field team. Based on intel retrieved from Site Bravo—' wait, should I read the footnotes?"
Mordred rolled over again. "Yes, obviously. We need every advantage in the war against sewer ninjas."
Jessica narrowed her eyes at her. "Not everyone is as strong as you, able to ignore the risks."
"I know," Mordred said cheerfully.
And so, begrudgingly, the weirdest crime-fighting trio in New York began their briefing—with a blind man building maps in his head, a mutant playing librarian against her will, and a knight trying to poke holes in the ceiling with a knife.
It wasn't elegant. It wasn't professional.
But somehow, it was working.
Jessica's voice droned steadily now, halfway into a technical paragraph about airflow anomalies near the abandoned warehouse.
Matt stood by the wall, nodding as he mentally mapped the flow of information. He raised a hand to stop her.
"That's it," he said. "Right there. The third vent schematic—those numbers match the ones Stark flagged on the cross-reference. That's a real lead."
Jessica looked down at the page, blinking. "Huh. I think we just… made progress?"
She sounded surprised. Possibly betrayed.
Matt turned slightly toward the sound of Mordred rustling behind them. "Mordred, if you can stop chewing on weapons for five seconds, I think we—"
"Hey!" Mordred interrupted, flipping upright from the couch in one motion, brandishing a tablet Jessica had left open earlier. "Did you know there's a monster truck demolition derby happening six blocks from here?!"
Jessica blinked. "...what."
"They call it 'Hell's Wheels.' And apparently the winner gets, and I quote, 'a cash prize and local street godhood.'"
Matt looked exhausted by the very concept.
Mordred was already halfway to the door. "We have to go. This is fate. My destiny. A trial of strength."
Jessica groaned. "You didn't even read the briefing."
"Exactly!" Mordred called over her shoulder. "My mind is pure. Unclouded by words."
Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. "We just found an actual lead."
"And we'll get back to that," Mordred promised. "But I swear if you let me enter this thing and I win, nobody will question us again. We'll have clout."
Jessica hesitated. "Clout… and a cash prize?"
Matt turned his head toward her. "Do not encourage her."
But Jessica was already grabbing her jacket. "We could use the money! And if we show up in costume, maybe we make some kind of weird urban legend. It's a cover, Matt."
Mordred pointed triumphantly. "Exactly. Thank you, Sidekick Girl."
"I'm not your sidekick," Jessica muttered—but she was already by the door.
Matt stood alone for a moment. "We had a lead. And why would we need the money? Stark gave us more than we could ever need."
Mordred popped her head back in. "Still have it! You can sit here and do homework, or come with us and scream at me from the stands."
She tossed him a helmet that definitely came from Stark's ridiculous storage room.
Matt caught it by instinct, stood there for another second… then sighed.
"…I swear I was a serious lawyer once."
He followed them out the door.
(End of chapter)
So, here it is, the start of the chaos that is Mordred. If it wasn't clear, my idea is to have Jessica try to ground herself in Mordred. Use her energy and chaos as support to forget what happened to her.
I don't want to deal with all the trauma from her time with Kilgrave, so I'm speeding up her recovery by Mordred style.
As for Matt, kinda regretting using him. He is such a pain… he is blind! That is so limiting… can't have him stare at someone, or can I? Do blind people do that? Yeah, but I guess its fine, and he is the best option at this time.
Support me at patreon.com/unknownfate – for the opportunity to read 30 chapters ahead.