3

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

1989

I hated shareholder meetings. Anywhere between half to three-quarters of everything that was said flew completely over my head, and what little I did understand was usually more on the work product side of things than the actual business.

"... furthermore, our quarterly projections…"

Unfortunately, when you own just over five million dollars in Stark Industries stock, it's generally a good idea to at least try and attend the meetings. And until that investment made up less than ninety-five percent of my net worth, I needed to monitor it. I'd thought the audit that came my way was bad enough on its own. But these?

Well, let's just say it was a welcome relief when my pager went off for the third time in ten minutes, and that gave me a good enough reason to leave.

Because whatever shitshow was happening at the firm would at least be less painful than suffering through this.

And about one hour later, I realized just how wrong I was. I'd forgotten what time of year it was, and now, that meant I had to pay the price.

"Mr. Lieberman can see you now, Ms. Schaefer," my boss' secretary, a dour woman in her mid-fifties, told me as she put the phone down and turned back to her boxy, faux-wood paneled computer monitor to resume hunting-and-pecking for the right letters.

"Thank you again Antonia," I said, ignoring the scowl she sent me as I walked through the frosted glass doors into my boss' office. It was a particularly large example of a corner office, bigger than both my living and dining room together, with display cases along a wall and frames hanging on the wall. In those display cases sat awards from the Bar, legal associations, and charitable organizations. The walls were covered with photographs, framed newspaper clippings, and degrees, as well as a faded Mondale '84 campaign flag. Over at a massive desk by the large, floor-to-ceiling window, a heavyset, balding man in a surprisingly well-tailored charcoal pinstripe suit sat reading from one of several dozen manila folders spread out on the desk's surface, writing without looking in a legal pad that sat beside him.

"You wanted to see me sir?"

"Hm?" My boss and hiring partner at the firm, Schmoel "Sam" Lieberman, looked up from his work and frowned. "Ah, Schaefer. Finally showed up, I see. Come in, take a seat."

I had to fight not to frown at my boss, even as I took his invitation. Sam Lieberman was the attorney who hired me, and who I'd spent the most time working alongside these past few years. You would think this meant he'd taken me under his wing, but no, that was not the case. It only took me about six months before I realized that I was the token woman hire, and primarily existed for the purpose of… well, existing. Whereas my male colleagues all received a chance to act as lead attorney within one year of hiring, I had to wait three years for the opportunity. And even then, it was a softball case, one that a particularly enterprising high school mock trial student could have won.

Worse than that, even now that I was a senior associate at the firm, Sam Lieberman took full advantage of his right as partner to review my work himself, and even when he made absolutely no changes to what I'd written, he still got to append his name to the document when it was filed. It was stifling, but there was very little I could actually do about it.

"You picked a hell of a morning to be too busy for your job, Schaefer," Sam Lieberman didn't bother starting with the pleasantries, and this time I let my frown show.

"Sir, I booked leave for this morning four months ago," I said. "You signed off on the request yourself."

"That doesn't change the fact that you need a shadow." Mr. Lieberman rolled his chair somewhat to the side on his desk, picked up a stack of manila folders, and deposited them in front of me. "So you get to pick from the dregs. Unless you want me to just assign you one, of course."

Without a word, I took the stack of folders, left my boss's office, went down five floors in the elevator, and retreated to my own ten-by-fifteen interior office to peruse the files before me, all the while cursing whoever set the Stark Industries shareholder meeting on the same day I had to pick a law student to shadow me for the summer.

So, just to clarify: the current time of year was mid-May. This meant that university students were finishing up with their academic years. And for law firms specifically, this meant that all the summer hires we'd made back in February would be starting summer work soon.

Now, summer associates aren't handled the same way in every firm. Lewin, Lieberman, & Loeb, LLC, the law firm I worked at, essentially assigned every summer associate to one of the firm's attorneys for the entire summer. Most of the time, those summer hires went to senior associates, and occasionally a particularly impressive law student got scooped up by a partner. These assignments weren't random: once the summer got close, every practice area was given a list of second year students interested in their particular field, and a larger pool of first years was offered to the entire firm. The selection day was something we were informed of on the day of, and was first-come first-serve, with the exception that the partners got first pick. Having a summer associate was generally an optional thing, but there was a requirement that everybody in the firm have at least one every three years.

I was due for an associate. Today was the day they started, selection day.

And I'd missed my chance to pick an associate and make a good first impression because I was stuck at a shareholder meeting.

Now, that didn't mean I was screwed. There were a few associates left, there always were. Unfortunately, the few that didn't get picked early were generally nepotism hires, and nobody wanted to try and shovel knowledge down the throat of an idiot who only got hired because they happened to know the right person as opposed to the right laws. What was worse is that I didn't have the luxury of that option, which meant I had to pick somebody from this list of rapscallions and rejects. Before Lieberman decided to saddle me with the worst possible option for daring to make my opinion on case law and trial strategy known at firm-wide round tables.

Because heaven forbid the woman be correct. Sometimes I hated the 80's.

I sat down in my desk chair, and thanked my lucky stars that my desk had a closed front. I'm short – four feet eleven inches, so a little over five feet in the two- to three-inch heels I was willing to bear all day – so almost no matter the height of the desk chair, my feet weren't going to sit on the floor. Thankfully, I had a little cushioned stool under my desk so that I could let my feet rest on something rather than dangling in midair… and so I could kick off my heels and swap them for a pair of flats when I didn't need to present myself to a partner.

The top of my desk was, I will be frank, a bit of a mess. On a small side arm of the desk sat a boxy computer, an IBM PS/2, with a CRT monitor next to it. The main body of my desk had about six different notebooks, legal pads, and stacks of post-its laying atop it, along with a small zen garden and a pair of paperweights, one in the shape of a Star of David, the other a bit of schlocky tourist junk modeled after the Statue of Liberty. The notebooks and legal pads I stacked into a pile and shoved off to the side, and then I spread out the files of all the possible candidates I had to pick from.

A quick scan of the summer associates' last names let me eliminate five candidates, all rather conveniently named Lewin, Lieberman, or Loeb. Rule number one: don't let the boss's relative shadow you, especially when you're already more than a little disliked at the office. Once that was done, however, I had to actually open up the other folders and scan through.

The next several candidates I saw were… well, let's just say that I could see both why they were hired and why nobody picked them. All it took was checking their resumes, then their transcripts, and finally the last two paragraphs of their cover letters. Bland, cookie-cutter students with no particularly outstanding qualities, the type who probably followed a formula on 'how to be an attractive hire' without actually thinking about what kind of lawyer they wanted to be.

But after those folders, I found one that… well, quite frankly? It didn't make sense to me. The student's transcript told me his class rank was number one – he had the highest grades in his class, and was well on his way to valedictorian. His extracurriculars were similarly stellar – winner of both the 1L mock trial and moot court competitions, on the mock trial and moot court boards, and 1L representative on the student bar association.

Despite all of that, he hadn't been picked by anyone. None of the partners, none of the senior associates. Which meant that one of the absolute best students I'd ever seen was languishing in one of the conference rooms, probably doing his level best to network and absorb whatever information the mid-level associate assigned to keep them company was willing to share, but still having his time wasted.

Once I read his cover letter, though, it all made perfect sense to me… and sent my temper flaring even hotter than it already had been. My mind made up, I walked back through the halls, took the elevator five floors right back up, rocked one foot back on my heel as I waited for Mr. Lieberman to finish up some inane nothing even though I knew he wasn't busy right now, and finally walked back through those frosted glass doors to his office.

"Back so soon, Schaefer?" Lieberman asked. I simply walked up to his desk and slapped the folder down atop it, letting it do the talking for me. He picked it up, and when he finally read the name, I was treated to the sight of Schmoel Lieberman, one of the biggest of bigwig attorneys in Manhattan, doing a double take.

"You realize," he said, recovering remarkably quickly from his surprise, "that the firm is under no obligation to reimburse you for any additional costs you incur from taking on this associate."

"I understand very clearly," I responded, crossing my arms as I fixed my boss with a stern expression. "Do I get to meet my employee now, or what?"

"I'll have Antonia call him up," Lieberman said, turning to the side to pick up the phone. "Figures the dyke would mama bear over this one," he muttered under his breath, quietly enough that if I'd had normal human ears, I probably wouldn't have caught it. But even hidden beneath my powers, my horns picked up sound better than ears ever could.

Two minutes later, Antonia held the door open, and a young man walked through the doors, his gait hesitant and anxious. He wore a simple, cheap-looking gray wool suit, with a drab gray tie that probably used to be black before it got cleaned one too many times; his bright red hair, meanwhile, looked like it had been hastily and frantically combed, and barely had a definite part. The more notable features were the white and red cane in his hand, and the pitch-black sunglasses he wore.

"Excuse me, sir," he said as he entered, body language and voice saying one thing, but the actual way he moved telling a totally different story. He walked towards the desk, cane casting out the way one would expect a blind person to search for obstructions in their way, but the steadiness of his footfalls didn't match the uncertainty implied by the cane, though I did catch a very slight flinch when he brought his left leg down, as though he had a pulled muscle or other injury. "You asked to see me?"

"Yes indeed I did," Mr. Lieberman said, not once standing up from his chair this whole time. "I'd like you to meet Ms. Noa Schaefer. She's one of our senior associates, specializing in both criminal law and medical malpractice. She will be your supervising attorney during your summer here at Lewin, Lieberman, and Loeb."

"Thank you, sir," he said, turning to face me, though if he could see he would be looking a full foot above my head. "Matthew Murdock. Thank you for having me, Ms. Schaefer." Matthew moved his cane towards the side, and extended his right hand in my general direction.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Murdock," I said, taking his hand in my own. "And please, unless we're in front of clients, call me Noa."

"Wonderful, wonderful!" Mr. Lieberman gave a few sardonic claps, utterly spoiling the mood. "Now then, go show our new student attorney the lay of the land, then report back here after lunch. I've got word from Judge Andrews that he may be sending a big pro bono request our way, and it's right in your wheelhouse – criminal defense. You're lucky, Mr. Murdock - she's one of the best."

I wanted to shout, to scream, to say something rude and impolite at this sudden news. In a firm as large as this, pro bono work was usually taken by the firm at large for PR reasons, and by individual attorneys as they wished and could fit into their schedule. But being assigned a pro bono case meant that I would be losing out on my portion of the attorney's fees the firm would normally earn, and that the case was either doomed to fail, a hot potato that nobody wanted, or both.

But I couldn't shout, or scream, or say all that much.

"Understood, sir. Mr. Murdock, if you'd please come with me." I extended a hand to rest lightly on Matt Murdock's arm, and guided him out of the office.

All I could do was smile, nod, and accept.

"So, Mr. Murdock – would it be alright if I called you Matthew?" I closed the door behind Matt once he was inside my office, then pulled one of the two chairs in front of my desk out for him to sit in. I didn't bother to try and guide him to the chair; not only would it have been overly paternalistic to deliberately lead the blind man to a seat, but I got the feeling that he didn't actually need my help to get around in the first place.

"If you insist, ma'am," he replied, taking the seat and leaning his cane up against the side of my desk, though he kept his hand positioned so if it fell, it would land right back in his grasp. I walked around the desk to my chair and, knowing that it wouldn't be enough to break my glamour, nudged Matt's cane with my still-invisible tail.

Or I tried to, at least. Moments before the tip of my tail would have touched the cane, Matt pulled it towards him a couple of inches, and a quick glance at his face showed me a confused furrow of his eyebrows and a slight frown.

"As I told you in my – well, our boss's office," I said, sitting down in my desk chair, "when there aren't any clients present, Noa is fine. With clients, default back to 'ma'am' or 'Ms. Schaefer'." Matt nodded at this, but didn't otherwise make any response. "So, while I know you were given the spiel along with the other summer associates during onboarding, I wanted to take a few minutes to see if you had any questions."

"I do have a couple," Matt said, and from the slight rocking of his body I could tell he was tapping a foot. "Um. As far as getting materials in braille or raised lettering, how would I go about that?"

"That's part of my job actually," I told him before I stood up, then walked around my desk to get to a file cabinet behind Matthew. "The firm has had a few clients in the past who could only see hand motion, or whether a light was on, but also wanted to read the documents rather than having them read aloud to them. We occasionally contract out to a printer who can do the documents in braille, and while there is a nominal fee, I will be covering that. Let me see, where is it…" I pulled open the lower drawer of my file cabinet and bent down to search for the information the firm gave us, and while I did so, I also tried to reach for Matt's leg with my tail.

Once again, moments before I could make contact, he shifted away from my tail.

"Okay, here it is." Papers in hand, I stood up and nudged the filing cabinet closed with a foot, then stood at the side of the desk and perused the materials, wincing internally as I read the prices involved.

Now that I had the information, it seemed to me that the cost involved was one of the reasons that others in the firm passed on taking Matt on. Braille printouts were a dollar a page for normal paper, but legal-size paper and formatting pushed the price up to almost two dollars a page. That, combined with having to go eight blocks away to have everything printed, made me wonder just how expensive a braille printer would be. And those prices were if I had the documents on a floppy disk; if all I had was a hard copy, the minimum was fifty dollars, no matter the volume.

"It's a bit of a schlepp to get to this printer, but it's absolutely doable," I told him. "Any documents we get, I'll make sure to have a version in braille available for you by the next business day." I'd keep the info out; it would be useful later.

That said, it was time to confirm or deny my suspicions. "Anything else? Otherwise, I'll—oop!"

When I turned around to sit back in my desk chair, I let myself knock my Statue of Liberty paperweight off the desk. I reached as though to catch it before it fell, but missed, leaving only one other person capable of doing so.

It wasn't that Matt Murdock caught the thing; it was the infinitesimal flinch forward and then restraint that confirmed my suspicions. An irritated, disdainful expression twisted on his face as I smirked, only to be replaced by an almost serene calm. Reaching down, he picked up the paperweight and placed it exactly where it had been on my desk.

He didn't say anything, simply holding himself as still as possible.

"At this point, I'll ask the question again." I sat back in my chair, making sure my tone of voice sounded more amused than accusatory. "Was there anything else you wanted to ask? Not necessarily job-related?" I clarified at the end.

Matt sat silently for a moment. I resisted the urge to reach into my desk drawer and pull out a nail file, just to have something to do with my hands, and let him work through his thoughts.

"Your boss… seems particularly okay with mutants? Ma'am?" Matt offered, clearly trying to talk around the question rather than coming out and saying it.

"He doesn't know I'm a mutant," I told Matt, watching his expression carefully. Sure enough, there was the expected confusion, and I saw him mouth a few words to himself, clearly trying to formulate a question. "My powers let me hide what I actually look like from people's eyes. I can't do anything to stop a fellow echolocator from knowing what I actually look like." Understanding dawned. And then, once again, he seemed to catch what I said.

"'Fellow' echolocator?" he asked, to which I smiled.

"Probably not on your level, but if you put me in a room blindfolded, I could find my way out without knocking anything over or running into the walls," I told him. "Now that said, this could be rather useful. Tell me: how good is your hearing, exactly? Actually no, wait," I put a hand up to stop him from answering. "Different question first: what do you want for lunch?"

"Um?" was Matt's very eloquent response.

"Meals during work hours are comped by the firm," I told him, "and we tend to eat rather well. Since it's your first day, how about we go to The Palm for lunch, and continue this conversation there?"

It didn't exactly take much convincing beyond that. And the lunch hour was a welcome reprieve before I learned just what kind of hellhole my boss was about to shove me into.

Did I mention I hated getting pro bono work sprung on me like this?

As I'd expected, Matt was not one to pass up what was, essentially, a free lunch. Oh he restrained himself, he didn't order the prime rib, but a New York strip is still more than what one would normally expect for lunch.

During the course of the meal, I took my opportunity to learn more about Matt, both in terms of who he was as a person, and what he was capable of. It was heartening to know that he'd been paying close attention to the ongoing disability rights movement, to the point that it was a large part of why he became the 1L student rep at Columbia. That bit of information also made a lot of sense when I learned that constitutional law was his favorite class, though I did nudge him a bit over his ability to pay attention to three weeks of interstate trucking.

Interstate trucking: the bane of many a 1L's attention span. (If you don't know, don't ask; it's not worth it.)

Matt's sensory abilities, on the other hand, were almost scary. I tried a few little tests to see just how far he could push his senses, and was impressed beyond belief. His sense of smell was strong enough to guess what everybody around us had ordered, to a surprising degree of accuracy. Matt couldn't stop the blush when he relayed that a pair of men in a booth on the other side of the restaurant were having an affair with one another, though I was pleased to see that embarrassment was his only real response to the revelation.

And most impressively, he was able to read my menu just by running his fingers over the paper, and feeling where the ink sat on the paper.

All of this gave me ideas, and quite frankly, if this case, whatever it was about, went to a jury trial? I would be happy to have Matt's hearing on my side when it came to taking depositions, selecting a jury, and cross-examining witnesses.

Lunch wound to an eventual close, and much as I would have liked to delay it, the devil must have his due. Around one in the afternoon, I returned to Schmoel Lieberman's office, Matt Murdock in tow, ready to hear about what grim fate awaited us.

"Mhmm. I'll pass that along," Lieberman said, writing something down on a notepad as he finished up on the phone, all the while leaving the two of us sitting in front of him. "Thanks again Mike. Catch you for drinks next week, yeah? Alright, bye."

He hung up the phone, tore the page from his notepad, and handed it to me.

"That was Michael Finnigan, the Clerk at the courthouse," he said to Matt. "You'll get more from Schaefer when you get down there, but the most important thing to know about the Clerk is that they can make your life easy, or make it miserable. Always schmooze the Clerk, you got that?" Lieberman opened his mouth to say something else, but quickly caught whatever he was about to say and thought better of it. If I wasn't mistaken, he was about to tell Matt to 'write that down, so you don't forget'.

"Yes sir," Matt said, and from the amused grin, I could tell he knew what was about to be said as well.

"Anything you can tell us right now?" I asked. "We were before Judge Andrews, I think you said?" He'd mentioned Andrews before lunch, but Matt might have missed it.

"That is correct," he said, leaning back in his chair and spinning a pen between his fingers. "The Honorable Philip Andrews. Stickler for the rules, doesn't much like theatrics in his courtroom." His gaze lingered on me. "You want him to rule one way or another, the only thing that'll get you there is the law. Man doesn't care about appeals to emotion, and by God have I never seen jury instructions so specific as his."

"What do we know about the case itself?" I asked. "Or the clients?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Lieberman said. "What little I could get is that your client is a minor, and the prosecution is pushing to try them as an adult. Couldn't say why, but whatever it was, it's got everybody acting cagey."

I frowned. There weren't very many situations in which you actually wanted to try a minor as an adult; whatever the crime that this client was accused of, it was serious. The only reasons I could think that a prosecutor in New York City would want to push this is if the minor had committed rape, multiple homicide, or some other similarly heinous crime.

"I'll let you know once we find out why they want to try them as an adult," I told Lieberman. "Was there anything else, sir?"

"Yes. Mr. Murdock, could you step outside for a few minutes? I need to have a word in private with my attorney." Both of us frowned, but it wasn't exactly a request that we could refuse.

"Of course, sir." Matt stood up from his chair, and Lieberman stood up with him to hold the door open for the blind young man. Not that Matt needed the help, I thought to myself, but at the moment he and I were the only ones present who knew that.

Once the door closed behind Matt, Schmoel Lieberman sat back at his desk, and fixed me with a stare.

"After the last time you argued a case in front of Andrews, I feel I need you to assure me that you'll handle this case completely by the book," he told me. "No grandstanding, no theatrics, no pushing the boundaries."

"E-excuse me, sir?" I stuttered, more than a bit affronted by what I was hearing.

"Look. You're a damn fine lawyer, Schaefer. But I don't know if you're partner material. Billables are great - but we need prestige as well. Do well with this case, don't piss off Andrews like you did last time, show you can follow the rules, and we'll see where it goes."

"Sir, I—"

"And for the love of god, stay in your lane on this one." Lieberman breathed out in a heavy rattle, and his eyes flicked to the small liquor shelf he kept on the side of the room, and the half-empty bottle of Glenlivet 21 standing front and center in his seven bottle display. "I don't want to have to speak to another federal agency on your behalf because you decided you wanted to play hardball."

I flushed. "That was one time, and if I'm remembering it right, the FBI did, in fact, have something we needed for discovery!"

"Thank you for reminding me, but I'm not talking about the fakakta FBI! I'm talking about the goddamn SEC bullshit with your iron monger blood money." Oh no, not this shit again. I'd had to disclose my investments in Stark Industries to the firm so that we could avoid any conflict of interest issues when taking on new clients, and when I did, both Lieberman and Loeb had taken the piss out of me for owning any stake in the 'merchants of death'. This completely ignored the fact that Stark Industries hadn't sold weapons tech since three years ago, when Stark got rescued from Iran – but I got the impression that neither Lieberman nor Loeb cared.

And they especially didn't care when they had to bring on an attorney just to handle potential blowback from my investment windfall.

"Well, given this is a pro bono case, I highly doubt I'll have to worry about the SEC, now will I?" I fired back.

"'Doubt,' she says. She doubts. Listen, Schaefer. If I get a call from any part of the alphabet soup – FBI, ACLU, NCAA, whatever – neither of us are going to like the consequences." Lieberman opened one of the drawers on his desk and rifled through it before he finally seemed to remember that he'd quit cigarettes two months ago – his wife storming into the firm had, thankfully, been immortalized in Polaroid when that kerfuffle went down.

Instead, he simply stared morosely at the glass ashtray between us, and sighed. "I'm sorry. That was unprofessional of me. But I need you to understand how serious this is."

"Sir?" The change in the atmosphere was almost palpable. While it certainly wasn't calm, it also didn't feel like I was about to get reamed out. This was a side of Lieberman I hadn't seen since… well, it was two and half years ago, when he lost a case on appeal, and the police found our client floating in the Hudson a week later. He'd been somber, resigned – but also resolute. Certain that he wouldn't let a debacle that bad happen again.

"It's been what, three years since you made senior associate?"

"Coming up on," I agreed. "Two years and… nine months? Ten?"

"You might think I'm holding you back because you're a dame. Well, that ain't shit." Lieberman stared briefly at the signed photo of Geraldine Ferraro and himself shaking hands on his wall. "You're a good lawyer, Schaefer, even if you're hell on my blood pressure. Courtroom, depos, filings - you're my go to. But that's not partner work. Negotiating, soft sells, pushing settlements, bringing in new clients. Making friends. And that's before we get to your reputation. Remind me, how many times have judges threatened you with contempt?"

"I believe the last count was four judges, seventeen times," I offered, not the least bit ashamed. If it took risking a contempt citation to make sure the jury heard what I needed them to hear before deliberating, it was absolutely worth it.

"We can't risk a partner getting sanctioned, Schaefer. Or worse, disbarred."

I gaped. "Disbarred? Sir, I—"

"Andrews was fucking frothing the last time you pulled your shit," Lieberman practically spat at me. "I had to throw the back nine to bleed that venom." I couldn't hold back the visible wince, nor the hiss of breath. Given how ecstatic my boss was when several of us pitched in to buy him a new set of clubs for the yearly holiday party, I could easily believe that deliberately letting himself lose that many rounds was like pulling teeth for him. Which also explained why he hadn't been able to spare a single friendly word for me the past few months, or been willing to back me up during round tables.

I'd been cashing in chips I never realized I'd had.

"So, this case." Lieberman leaned forward in his chair, and laced his hands together in front of him. "You'll be back in front of Andrews. Don't think of it as a punishment. It's not. It's a high profile goddamn bomb that I am throwing into your lap because I need to know if you can handle a situation like this delicately. Winning is good. Flair is fine. Making the front page of the Bugle twice in your career is a goddamn travesty. Don't make it a third time."

"… understood," I said ruefully. "Was there anything else, sir?"

"Not at this time," Lieberman said, as he reclined in his chair. "Just keep your ass clean for this case. The DA, Lou Young? He's up for re-election, and thinks this'll clinch it."

That… was worrisome in the extreme, and if the sympathetic nod Lieberman gave me was any indication, it probably showed on my face. Louis Young was a rising star in the prosecutor's office – scuttlebut was that he had an eye on the mayor's seat. Aggressive tactics had gotten him a few big wins early in his career; given how bad this case apparently was, he wouldn't play fair if I wasn't on the ball about making him keep his nose clean.

"Now go on, you've got a client to meet and an arraignment to prep for."

"Roger that." I headed towards the frosted glass door of the office, but stopped for a moment as a thought crossed my mind. "Sir, when you say it's a bit of a bomb. How bad are we talking here?"

"You wanna be partner, Schaefer?" I nodded. "Then why don't you tell me how bad it is after the arraignment."

I sighed. That was… just about the worst answer he could have given me. "Understood. Thank you, sir."

And with that, I left the office. Seated in one of the chairs set out in his waiting room, Matt sat fiddling with his cane, and even turned away from the door as he was, I could see how flushed he was. He stood up from his chair and followed me without a word, carefully keeping the sweeping taps of his cane from bumping into my still-invisible tail. It was only when we got inside the elevator that I dared to speak. "How much of that did you hear?" I asked.

"Probably more than I should have, sir—I mean, ma'am." he admitted, sounding sheepish. "What now?"

"Now?" The elevator dinged open, and I once again led Matt back to my office, if only briefly. "Let me fill out this form. We'll need to drop by the notary on our way out, but then we need to get down to the courthouse." I pulled out a sheet of paper, filled out what I needed to, then handed him a pen and guided his hand over where he needed to sign.

"What am I signing?" Matt asked, a hand moving over the page as if automatically seeking braille, the tip of the pen very carefully not touching the paper.

"Motion for admission as a student attorney," I told him. "I hope you're a quick study, Matthew, cause you're about to see what the deep end looks like."

"Pun intended, ma'am?" he asked, before flushing again.

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. "For the third time, Matthew. When it's just the two of us, you don't need to stand on politeness, Noa is fine. And no. You'll know if a pun is intended."

"Yes ma'am – I mean, Noa. Ma'am." He fidgeted slightly with his tie, and the knot shifted to be a tad askew. With that change, Murdock's appearance seemed less like a lawyer and more like someone trying to dress like one.

"Close enough," I said with a sigh, silently thankful that the change to his appearance meant people would hopefully assume I was the lead attorney. "Now come on. Time's a-wasting."

Notes:

Currently have one more chapter of backlog, which will be going up sometime tomorrow (Sunday). From there, likely to see... maybe one more chapter before the bar exam happens, but then my schedule will be open enough to start pushing out more words.