Murdock & Knight

Chapter 1

'Welcome to the 15th Precinct

The Pride of Hell's Kitchen'

She glared at the sign hanging over the Sergeant's Desk.

In Riley's line of work she's seen how far humanity can decline. There are some days where she doesn't know if she could ever forget the crime, the murder, the abuse, the depraved act she witnessed.

She probably hasn't even scraped the bottom of the barrel yet.

But that sign. She used to believe in it. See it every time she walked into the station, have a glint of her hope in her heart that at least they were doing the right thing. You could forget the politics, the rulebooks, and the discrimination; as long as you believed you were doing this for a cause far greater than you.

Don't forget the crazy. Namely; the masked man, or 'Daredevil', as he preferred nowadays.

She'd spent two weeks in the hospital, most of it in a medically induced coma, after a sniper bullet shot her a centimeter too close to her right subclavian artery, the night the Russians blew to kingdom come. She had blamed him for hospitalizing her until she knew otherwise. That night was the closest she'd ever come to the enigma.

The day Detective Hoffman walked in and said the seven words that sent tremors through the precinct for months to come, was the day the sign lost all meaning to her.

"I would like to make a statement."

She'd seen him, moving like an apparition, blood spray on his terrified face. Prior to that; she'd seen things, heard things that made her unsure if she could wholly trust the policeman next to her. He'd confirmed that.

The Feds came next. She'd seen that too. When she refused to sit uselessly in a hospital bed and find out what the hell was going on at the station.

A part of her wished she hadn't.

Nearly half the officers in the precinct were arrested for corruption.

A few months had passed since that fateful day. People still whispered about Fisk. It wasn't as bad as the first month, where she heard nothing but the asshole's name in her ear every goddamn hour.

She ripped her gaze from the sign and walked to the elevator. "Knight!" Alfonso Valentin jogged over and gave her file in one hand and a coffee in another. "Another missing girl. Same circumstances as the previous one. White, mid-20's, last seen outside a bar on 43rd."

She smiled; "Thanks Alf."

"You're welcome. And you're late again, sergeant says that's your last warning."

Riley yawned and rubbed her eyes. "Can't sleep." The insomnia had started after she almost died, and there was still discomfort when she moved her right arm.

"You alright?" He asked genuinely concerned. The Sergeant was persistently trying to get her into trauma therapy. She didn't find the idea of talking to a stranger on a plush couch about her problems very appealing, however.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be fine. Get going Alfie, and don't overwork yourself, Maggie wouldn't want you strung out on your anniversary."

He smacked his forehead. "Oh crap! Thanks for reminding me!" She laughed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "Oh and the trial has been pushed to 11am."

"The jewelry store heist, gotcha."

He hurried off to his desk, most likely to book the dinner reservations he should have made a month ago.