Fanfic / The Devil's in the details

From the top, one last time...

My name is Peter Benjamin Murdock, I was bitten by a genetically modified spider, and for the last 3 years, I have been the one and only Spider-man.

I'm sure you know the rest by now..

Woke up at my uncle's place, understandably freaked out, only to discover he had a secret of his own.. Hey, at least I had a mentor. Ended up crashing and burning a few times, and again, and again, but hey we're learning... Matt always said it ain't how you hit the mat, it's how you get back up. Eh, he shoulda seen that right hook coming, blind or not. Least we got a good laugh at it.

Lost uncle Ben... Nearly did something stupid, ended up gaining a father though. Huh? Who woulda thought old Uncle Matt was really dad? Sure as shit TKO'd me...

— "So Far..."

The Devil's in the details is a Marvel Cinematic Universe Series Fic written by IsisKitsune where Peter Parker is the biological son of Matthew Murdock, better known as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

This fanfic series can be read on Archive of Our Own here.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• Actor Allusion: In "Back in the Ring", Peter sarcastically refers to Matt as Batman, a reference to how Ben Affleck, the actor who played Batman in the DC Extended Universe, also played Matt Murdock in Daredevil (2003).
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In-canon, Spider-Man is portrayed as a Fanboy desperate to become a member of the Avengers with Iron Man keeping him at arms' length. Here it is the opposite, Tony trying to get him involved in the Avengers Initiative and getting a restraining order put against him in the process.
• Adaptational Badass: Having more experience under his belt than his counterpart (and being raised by a lawyer and vigilante), Peter is less of a doormat here. He is more confident as a solo-hero and feels less obligated to put up with the Avengers and SHEILD whenever either of them give him trouble, outright threatening Nick Fury when he tries strong-arming him into being involved with the Elemental attacks in Europe.
• Adaptational Jerkass: While Nick Fury in the films tended to do questionable things in the name of national security, here his actions border on Patriot Act-levels. He hijacks Peter's Europe-trip and starts throwing threats around when Peter refuses to cooperate with him, he does nothing to help Peter when Mysterio tries pining the London attacks on him, he botches a kidnapping a attempt on Matt Murdock that almost puts him in a coma, attempts to use him to recruit the Defenders into their initiative (an initiative that might be illegal considering SHEILD's legitimacy is suffering at the moment) and tries turning Matt into an Infinity Stone-detector despite Matt refusing to be a part of it.
• Androids Are People, Too: While Matt's default position when it comes to the Infinity Stones is to hurl them into space as far away from Earth as possible, this is complicated when it is revealed that one of these stones is the heart and brain of The Vision; a synthezoid with his own sense of self and will. Despite having a very religious perspective regarding the stone, Matt still sees Vision as his own person.
  Matt: Killing an animal isn't a sin, killing a man, even a synthetic one... Yeah, I won't kill anyone, and I won't be responsible for their death.
• Character Tics: Whenever a character starts ranting before they get to the point, expect Peter to remark "deflecting..."
• Child Prodigy: At a young age Peter was a technological and scientific genius, being able to properly comprehend advanced theories and Stark's technology. When Peter starts applying his scientific expertise towards magic, he becomes a natural as a Child Mage (or Teen Mage).
• Contrived Coincidence: The fact that Daredevil's son would become Spider-Man is a complete coincidence.
• Caught on Tape: Having been raised by a lawyer (and being very clever himself), whenever Peter is backed into a corner, expect to have him secretly recording everything that was happening on his phone.
  • When he first meets Tony, he has their conversation recorded to ensure that Tony can't strong-arm him into Avengers business (complete with a legally binding restraining order against him).
  • In "Back in the Ring", Matt catches a loan company in the act of attempting to take May's home with a fraudulent mortgage loan claim allegedly signed by Ben after his death. When the manager attempts to get away with it by putting it onto a protracted in-company investigation, Peter reveals to having recorded the entire thing with threats to use it against him.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: In "Meet and Greet", it isn't until Spider-Man, the Defenders and Frank Castle beat the alien killing machine (a type of enemy way above the level of back-alley criminals and supervillains they are accustomed to) do the Avengers show up to deal with the problem.
• Deflector Shields: Peter's answer to the threat the Infinity Stones (and Vision along with it) poses for Earth is to create a massive network of portals around the planet that makes it (and the moon) invisible and intangible to potential alien threats.
• Distinction Without a Difference: While in college, people think that Peter is a mutant whenever they find out that he has powers, especially his mutant friends. Peter insists that he isn't one (being a mutate caused by the spider that bit him, as well as his learned sorcery and his cyborganic components).
• The Dreaded: While Daredevil is feared by New York's criminal underworld, Matt Murdock has become famous as the lawyer that took down Wilson Fisk, making any institution guilty of anything nervous whenever they realize who he is.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When it becomes public knowledge that Peter is Stark's secret heir, people naturally conclude that he is his secret son, forcing him and Matt to do a paternity test and publicly prove that Matt is his actual father.
• Fantastic Racism: With the inclusion of mutants into the story, a lot of the story centers around anti-mutant sentiment — low-key individual moments, systematic racism and outright hate-crimes — with Peter fighting it as a member of Stark Industries and as Spider-Man.
  • In "Rough Start", the Professor tries having his mutants students sign a document that admits their powers and has them sit in a section separate to his non-powered students. Peter responds by having his father form a class-action lawsuit for discrimination. When Peter tells the professor off to his face, the professor takes this as an admission and asks him what his powers are.
  • In "Second Wind", Peter's college tries implementing rules and regulations that target mutants; pyrokinetics have to admit their abilities so that they could fire-proof their dorms (which is illegal for them to do), mandate medication to telepaths, ban telekinetics from all sports (claiming it falls under "enhancements" like steroids), etc.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • Having lived with Matt — an enhanced vigilante and a lawyer — for most of his life, Peter here follows a procedure the moment he meets Tony Stark. When Tony tries involving him in hero business, Peter starts recording their conversation and May calls Matt who immediately puts to stop to any plans of his "internship". Because of this, Peter is left uninvolved with the Civil War (including the iconic airport scene) or anything involving Tony directly.
  • Spider-Man stopping the Vulture's sale on the Staten Island ferry is accompanied by Deadpool. Despite the havoc Deadpool causes, Vulture's plot is stopped prematurely and the ferry isn't split in-half like in Homecoming.
  • Not only to the Defenders meet regularly (both in and out of vigilante business), but at some point Frank Castle became a member.
  • Being Daredevil's son and unaffiliated with the Avengers on any level, Spider-Man is instead an unofficial member of the Defenders.
  • While Thanos' invasion, the Blip and Tony's Heroic Sacrifice still happened, the Infinity Stones weren't destroyed, the Space Stone falling back into SHEILD custody and the Time Stone in the Eye of Agamotto, an arc in the story Peter and Matt learning about the stones and figuring out how to keep the Earth safe when another Thanos-level threat inevitably comes to get to them.
  • This version of the Iron Spider was made by Peter using Stark Industries resources instead of by Tony himself.
• Fusion Fic:
  • While the fanfic is very much about characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a lot of elements are welded from the X-Men franchise as well, including the Murdock Family's association with Deadpool, the existence of mutants and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
  • Peter winds up becoming one of the incarnations of Spider-Man to be sucked into Earth-TRN700 by TRN700-Fisk's particle collider, being the only incarnation of Peter who's father is Matt Murdock instead of Richard Parker.
• Glorified Sperm Donor: Matt did not even know that he had a son until after Peter's mother and step-father's tragic deaths, and even then he left it to Ben and May to decide when Peter knew who his real father was. Peter did not find out that "Uncle Matt" was actually his real father until he read it from a note Ben left for him before his own death.
• Heroic BSoD: When Nick Fury allows Matt within the presence of an Infinity Stone, it overwhelms Matt's senses to the point where he nearly has a breakdown, comparing the object to a star or an angel.
  Matt: Fury, you have to get rid of it, and anything like it. It's fucking calling them. It might not be a sound we can feel or see or hear but it's there. It's calling, and it will keep bringing things to us.
  Nick Fury: You don't understand, these stones are...
  Matt: Is a throne of rubble worth your precious fucking stones?
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Peter's non-existent affiliation with Stark Industries, Happy and May still wind up dating and Peter is given clearance to use EDITH.
• I Resemble That Remark!: In "Meet and Greet"...
  Peter: Dad, you are one vindictive son of a nun...
  Matt: Guilty as charged.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: In "In God's Eyes", Peter has all of SHEILD's files regarding himself, Matt and their alter egos erased as revenger for all of the shit Fury put them through, outing Peter as Stark's heir to the public being The Last Straw for both of them.
• Magitek: In "Power Outage", Peter tries figuring out how to use magic as an energy source for his Iron Spider suit after its arc reactor had failed in "Blact from the Past". When Doctor Strange forbids him, knowing how arduous that kind of sorcery is, Peter does it anyway. The results in Peter accidentally turning it into a relic that binds with Peter's body on a molecular level.
• Mythology Gag: Whenever Matt isn't available, Peter would have Karen Page forward messages for him. What makes this ironic is that Peter's canon-counterpart has an AI named Karen that does similar errands for him.
• Noodle Incident: Despite the number of times Spider-Man asks his dad what "drunk-tank" he found Deadpool in, we never find out how they know each other or whatever tight-situation put Deadpool in Daredevil's debt.
• Paper Tiger: When pitted against the Murdock Family and its honorary members, Nick Fury tends to be more bark than bite, either being grossly outmatched by them in certain categories or just generally falling into bad luck.
  • In "Returning Home", Nick tranquilizes Ned and threatens Peter's class when they keep getting interrupted. Having none of it, Peter threatens to beat Nick within an inch of his life if he acts on it. Nick then finally admits that he needs Peter more than Peter needs him.
  • In "Pear Shaped", Nick tries having Matt Murdock kidnapped in order to have him convince the other Defenders to join the initiative. Unfortunately, they tranquilized him with insulin, the dosage nearly putting him in a coma. He was so embarrassed that he dumped Matt at a Jersey hospital.
  • In "Bar Flies", they kidnap Foggy to convince Matt to help them find the other Infinity Stones. Having known about their failed attempt at kidnapping Matt, he essentially intimidates them into letting him go by listing the sheer number of criminal offenses he can have them put away with, not to mention the fact that all this would do is piss Matt off more.
  • In "Office Work", Nick tries kidnapping Karen for the same reason (despite warning that he is even less likely to succeed with her by Foggy), only for her to beat the kidnappers' faces in as soon as she regains consciousness. She doesn't even tell her coworkers where she was that day, instead cashing in her vacation days.
• Power Nullifier: When Matt and Peter agree to work together to allow Vision to live and stay on Earth while removing his infinity stone, Dr. Strange gives Matt a relic that dulls his senses so that he can share a room with Vision without suffering from Sensory Overload.
• Psychic Link: When Matt senses another Infinity Stone in "Can I get a witness?" while meditating, Dr. Strange links their minds to help find it. It turns out that it was the Vision at Stark Tower.
• Related in the Adaptation: This version of Peter Parker is the step-son of Richard Parker, Peter having been conceived in his mother's brief relationship with Matt Murdock — AKA Daredevil — during college.
• Sadist Teacher: The Professor in "Rough Start" had a registration form that requires mutant students to provide a full-list of one's abilities and to sit in their own section away from regular human students, treating them as though they were "sex-offenders" as Peter describes it. While the Professor insists that he is just "making the transition easier", Peter calls him out that this is just a classic act of discrimination.
  Professor: Seems I know which side of the line you stand.
  Peter: If you think there's a line in the first place, I can for sure as shit say, not on yours.
• Sensor Character: When Matt tells Fury that he can detect recognizable things if they give off energy, electricity in his cell-phone being one example, Fury realizes that Matt could help SHEILD find the rest of the Infinity Stones. Unfortunately for both of them, Matt suffers from Sensory Overload when Fury exposes him to one, Matt's only advice being to keep it as far away from the Earth as humanly possible. The second time he suffers from this by being near the Time Stone, Stephen Strange diagnoses that it gave him a seizure.
• Sir Swearsalot: This version of Peter swears a lot more than his canon-counterpart, often inserting the f-word in his sentences when angry or excited.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The Vision survived Thanos' invasion, the Blip and the following Endgame battle that followed.
• Spy Speak: In "Settling Debts", Peter passes along a message to Matt via Karen about busting the Vulture's sale of weapons on the Staten Island ferry as "new friends in town" that are "throwing a party" with "party favors", as well as "new toys" being sold at a "swap meet."
• Strawman News Media: In "Excommunicado", Peter manages to undo Mysterio's attempt at pinning Peter for the attack on London by accusing the Daily Bugle of posting an altered video accusing him of being a terrorist without fact-checking, basically putting a target on a minor. While Peter is Spider-Man, the various points he make are legit enough for suspicion to be thrown off of him and get the Daily Bugle in trouble. The fact that Peter still has the stubs to photographs he took of himself as Spider-Man at street level is only more damning on the Daily Bugle's part. By the time it goes to court, Matt paints J. Jonah Jameson as a psychopath taking out a personal grudge against Peter (who is, again, just a teenager) by accusing him of being a superpowered terrorist.
  "Peter, I know you can hear me. You're scared, a scared child, a scared child that just got accused of being someone with a lot of very powerful enemies. I need you to be smart about it. And you are very fucking smart."
• Super Registration Act: On top of the Sokovia Accords (which seems to be much looser in this version), a lot of the Mutant related stories involve American Society trying to put a cap on the growing number of powered citizens, Peter mainly using his father's legal knowledge and protesting acts of terror and institutional racism being pushed by his University.
• This Is Reality: In "Back in the Ring", Matt tells Peter that "This is real life, kid... not a comic book" when Peter sarcastically calls him "Batman."
• Time Skip: While the events of Far From Home still happened, the series completely skips over it, Peter describing what happened to Matt in "Returning Home".
• Vitriolic Best Buds: In "Giving Thanks", Peter describes Matt and Jessica as saltmates; "[p]eople that are destined to be together in the world just to piss each other off."
• Would Hurt a Child: "Me and Monsters" starts with Spider-Man and Jessica saving a group of children from a heavily armed group of anti-mutant terrorists.
• You Just Had to Say It: In "Returning Home", Nick Fury tries getting Peter to help him with the Elemental attacks by calling it an Avengers level attack and later threatens the Defenders and his school group into cooperating. When all this does is make Peter want to hurt him, Nick caves and admits that they are in desperate need of his help, and only then does Peter agree to help.
  Peter: See, that's all you had to do, ask.
• Zombie Advocate: In his college years, Peter becomes a big name in Mutant Rights despite not being a mutant himself, often roping Matt into it whenever he or someone else needs legal advice in regards to it.
  Matt: So, you ready for dealing with the backlash of Stark Industries' "pro Mutant" stand? Either way, you'll get some backlash for it.
  Peter: Bring it on, I'll happily punch a fucker that tries to claim anyone is more or less human than anyone else just because they aren't the same.
  Matt: That's my boy.

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