Before Wilson beats Matt half to death and before they see his soulmark, Wilson spends a day thinking. He meant to banish the dream of a woman laughing, laughing at that asshole Mike, but the memory returns throughout the day. It comes to him at odd times. He can't forget it. It interrupts. It's intrusive.

He asks Wesley to have the men keep an eye out for a boxer named Mike, and when Wesley stares at him without blinking - always a bad sign - he sighs. "The man in the mask," he says. He doesn't have words for this. He rubs his neck; it's hot, in the summer, and it smells like exhaust. "I believe - I believe it may be an associate of his."

"A boxer," Wesley says. If it was anyone else, even the slightest hint of confusion might have made Wilson angry, but it's Wesley. Wesley only wants the information that Wilson has, which makes it that much worse that Wilson can't give him any.

"Call it a hunch." He manages not to shrug.

"...of course," Wesley says. "How aggressively should we look?"

"Quietly," Wilson says. "But quickly; I think if we find him, the masked man might not be far away."

_______________



"Who told you," Matt says. He'd swear his throat's bleeding but there's no taste of blood; it just feels closed up. Swollen. He's on a roof - he had to get up, up off the street and into the cleaner wind. He needs to be careful. The important thing to remember, for this conversation, is that he is Matt Murdock and the man in the black mask, but Mike? Mike is a friend of Claire's. He'd been in plain clothes, tonight, at the gym, and he'd heard strangers asking. A boxer, they'd said, maybe he fights sometimes? Mike?

Danny who owned the place, he'd laughed: what, he owe you money? Nah, I don't know no Mike.

Claire's the only one who knows a Mike. He'd run to the place she was staying, masked, woken her up. She'd been sleepy and angry, but she'd promised him that she didn't talk to people about her friend Mike. "Who told you to look for Mike?"

"Good," Fisk says. "That was something of a calculated risk." People's voice change when they're pleased, and Fisk sounds pleased right now. "I wasn't sure that I was right until now."

"Call off your dogs, Fisk," Matt says. He won't tell Foggy or Karen, but sometimes - lately - it feels like Fisk brings out the devil in him. It was never so hard to focus until he'd discovered Fisk, the spider conspiring to bring down the city. "This is between you and me; no civilians have anything to do with this."

"You know him," Fisk says, "or his woman? Good. You're protective of them? Loyal? Even better; still a shame that you didn't have the sense to take the job I offered. When I find him - and I will - we'll talk, I think."

The wind is cold and damp and smells like McDonald's grease, like burning coolant, and (as always, in the city) like piss. He is beginning to think that he can only drag this out for so long.

"We're talking now," he says. "You want the best for this city? Why kill an innocent man to get to me?"

"It's not ideal," Fisk agrees. "I'd much prefer alternate routes."

Up here, on the roof. Matt will never have to stand on this roof again. And - and they're talking about Mike, who is not Matt Murdock, and is not the masked man, and - and - and here, maybe, Matt can acknowledge that the heat that Fisk lights in his veins is not entirely. It's unwelcome, but it's not - it's a heat he's never felt before.

"Such as," Matt says. Fisk is breathing slowly; Matt's just fallen into rhythm with him.

He listens to Fisk breathing, on the phone, in this quiet space. In. Out. In. Out.

"One last chance," Fisk says. "You love your city. I love her, too; don't make me tear it apart."

"You don't tear cities apart, Fisk, you tear people apart."