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The first time it happens, it’s a cup of coffee on top of Sharie’s coffee shop. Or, rather, it’s a cup of coffee Matt knows instinctively is from Sharie’s on top of the building Sharie’s sits at the ground floor of.
There are weirder things than a fresh cup of coffee on a rooftop at night all by itself.
Matt’s wary, of course. He sniffs it extra good, and can smell Sharie’s coconut perfume and vanilla deodorant. She made this cup herself and left it here.
…Why?
He frowns, hesitantly picking up the cup, hearing the crumple of paper it had apparently been sitting on top of like a coaster. Without thinking, Matt’s taking off a glove to run his bare fingers over the surface of the paper. He can feel some rough indentations and smell the sterile scent of ink. But he can’t read it. If he’s honest, he’s lucky to vaguely remember the shapes of letters enough that Foggy said they were pretty legible, but still the worst handwriting he’d ever seen. Trying to… feel out the shapes of letters enough to read a note was strictly off the table for him.
Still, he was… somehow under the impression that this was for him.
He had no idea why. He had no idea if he was right. He’d been really craving a coffee, so maybe he’s just superimposing the idea that this was meant for him over the reality of the situation, which was that he didn’t really deserve anything ever, including a fresh cup of coffee.
Matt pocketed the paper. Then he walked to the edge of the building, sat on the edge, and began drinking, head tilted as he listened for anything new to put a stop to.
***
The coffee becomes a semi-regular thing. Matt keeps drinking it.
***
To nobody’s surprise, Matt is tussling with some rogue Hand agents on top of an apartment complex when they manage to throw him off the side of the building. He shouts instinctively, then moves to save himself with an air of desperation, a kind of rogue panic that feels less like fear and more like excitement. He ricochets off a crossbar, barely manages to grab it with a hand enough to change the direction of his continued fall, and then crash-lands on somebody’s fire escape with enough force to make the structure rumble as though it had become its own clap of thunder.
Matt groans, not bothering to get up. He makes a mental catalog of his injuries, breathing, giving himself to the count of ten.
He reaches ten.
Matt stumbles his way back to his feet, then begins his ascent to continue the fight.
***
The next night, there’s a first aid kit on the same fire escape he’d fallen onto.
He stands there, vaguely stricken, for several seconds. But who else would this be for?
He reaches down, pulling off a glove to feel along the surface again.
There’s a sticky note taped to the surface. Again, he can’t read it. And yet, again, he’s convinced this is for him.
It’s a little baffling. Or, well, a lot baffling.
He still takes it to the roof. Then, after a moment of hesitation, begins parkouring back to his own apartment. Things are a little quiet, and he may as well use this to help with some of the injuries he sustained yesterday. Then he can go back out into the fray.
***
Things pick up. For a week, he avoids the coffee, but it’s out for him every night these days. He finds one more first aid kit, which he also ignores.
Then, one night when he’s in the streets a block from Sharie’s, he hears the shout of some old man across the way, “Devil! Devil, man, cut that nonsense. Sharie’s making you perfectly good coffee.” He tsks, and then there’s the distinct slam of a window being closed.
Obviously, Matt’s once again baffled.
That night, he grabs the coffee.
***
Apparently it’s becoming a thing. There’s the coffee, but now he’s also finding cookies in a variety of places, usually already pecked at by pigeons, but sometimes he’s first to them. He doesn’t eat them—the artificial sugar of most cookies is a bit much on a good day.
Then people start leaving out other foods. The cookies phase out. Croissants, of all things, begin to really phase in. Probably because it’s the one thing Matt’s actually eating.
Some of them are doughey beyond belief, others clearly store-bought, but Matt has a weird acceptance now that these are for him.
And every time, he’s making sure to take whatever notes were left with them. He’s formed a collection at this point. He hadn’t thought to organize them in the beginning, and the scent of where they all came from has mixed together, so he doesn’t always have a great idea about which note came from where and with what. But he knows it’s from Hell’s Kitchen.
It’s odd. This place has always been his home, even during the times he’s felt as if it was trying to reject him. It’s home, and yet, he never expected the city itself to embrace him.
***
It gets more elaborate.
Winter comes, and it’s really fucking cold, and apparently, people have begun making hats, scarves, sweaters, socks. All kinds of things they leave behind with little corresponding notes Matt still can’t read, and still hasn’t told Foggy about.
And, well. Matt starts to keep some of them. Sometimes, he even runs around in full armor, scarf wrapped around his neck and lower face.
It’s after a couple weeks of this that it starts to filter more into his everyday reality.
Matt’s half-asleep in the pew for the nine o’clock service, trying and failing to pay attention, when he hears from a few pews back, “—and I’ll have you know, Jeremy said he saw the Devil wearing the scarf I made him, Cathy. Wearing it! I haven’t seen him wearing yours.”
The other woman, presumably Cathy, laughs good-naturedly, then swats at the woman with offense. “Now, now. You don’t know that. And you wouldn’t see him wearing mine, anyway, with your old deviled eyes!”
The women cackle, and Matt is, of course, left stunned once more. He’s been feeling that a lot lately.
***
People are knitting and crocheting a lot of things for him now. It’s unwieldy. For the pressing majority—which is an inordinate amount—he waits to collect until the end of his run, keeps the notes, then drops them off to charity to be redistributed.
Every once in a while, though, he comes across something so soft and comfortable against his skin he just can’t help but take it on as his own.
He doesn’t wear the stuff publicly. Definitely not in the beginning, at least, lest he out his civilian identity.
But then people start thrifting them, and Matt’s overhearing even more conversations about all this clothing, people starting to sort through if theirs was left for charity or if the Devil kept theirs, and who’s ending up with the clothing, and if they think the people who do end up with the items are styling them well.
The biggest win, evidently, is when the articles of clothing are not found in thrift stores after a week. People are concluding that means either the Devil kept them, or he was attached enough to be hesitant to let them go.
Which.
Well, that’s fair. And it’s a little funny, especially when the ladies at his Church are gossiping over which yarns and materials the Devil is most inclined to hold onto. It’s funnier that they’re right.
***
Eventually, Matt has accepted that enough of the items have reached general circulation that he’s safe to occasionally wear things he’s collected for himself.
Hence why he shows up to meet Foggy and Karen at Josie’s in one of the handmade sweaters.
As soon as they both spot him, both of their heartrates do a little jump.
“Is he—” Karen says, and Foggy interrupts with a, “Yep,” then stands up to meet Matt and usher him to their claimed booth.
“Dude,” Foggy says. “What the hell is that?”
Matt frowns, trying to remember if he has any visible injuries at the moment. He doesn’t think so, but he’s been known to miss the small things. He checks his glasses, his hair, then sighs and says, “What is what, Fog?”
“What is w— the sweater!” Foggy hisses, leaning forward.
Matt blinks blankly. “Oh. Yeah? It… was a gift. What about it?”
Karen wheezes as Foggy stammers through several choice phrases. “The— you— because it says I’m Not Daredevil on it, Matt.”
Once again, Matt blinks.
The words take an age to process.
And then he’s laughing, borderline hysterical. Karen is riotous with him as Foggy gapes sputtering on, though Matt can tell their filtered amusement is getting to him.
“You didn’t know?” Karen manages.
He snorts obnoxiously, then shakes his head. “It— I— people have been leaving things. With… little notes? Lots of— of scarves. A few sweaters, uh. I didn’t— didn’t realize—” And then he’s breaking down into hysteria again.
“Oh my God,” Foggy says, dragging his hands down his face.
“Notes?” Karen says, sitting up. “Did you keep them?”
Between his laughs, Matt nods, incapable of speech.
“God,” Foggy says again, shaking his own head, but Matt can hear the shape of his smile now. “Bring the notes with you to work Monday. And brings the clothes. We gotta make sure there’s nothing incriminating on there.” He sighs. “I’m Not Daredevil. Jesus, Matt.”
And if those little old ladies ever happen to notice that Matt Murdock is ending up with those particularly soft scarves on Sundays? That is between them and God.