At the end of the day, President Maya was still just a student who'd never weathered a truly earth-shaking storm. Her soul might be more mature than her peers', but she still carried the peculiar vanity and naïveté that came with being thirteen.
She wanted to preserve her image in Matthew's eyes. She didn't want him thinking she was some deranged killer. She didn't want to see disgust on his face every time he looked at her.
It wasn't that Maya had feelings for Matthew—swap him out for anyone else at school, and she'd feel the same way.
She, Maya Hansen, was a beautiful, commanding, righteous President. Not a psychopathic murderer.
That was her concern, plain and simple.
If Maya were twenty-three instead of thirteen, or if Matthew were twenty-five instead of fifteen, she wouldn't have wasted a single brain cell on any of this.
Take it or leave it. And if you can't handle it? There's the door.
She knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that wanting to maintain a spotless image among her peers was inherently childish. But at this age, she just couldn't shake it.
Then, without warning, President Maya's train of thought derailed into parts unknown—again.
A scene materialized in her head:
Punisher: Heard you're putting together the Avengers. I want in.
Captain America: No. You've killed too many people. You're not hero material.
The Punisher silently cradles his rifle and walks away.
Post-Civil War—
Punisher: Heard you're recruiting for the underground Avengers. Count me in.
Captain America, thinking: We're short on manpower. Maybe I should give him a shot—
BANG. BANG. The Punisher whips out his gun and headshots two Avengers on the spot.
Captain America, furious: PUNISHER! WHAT THE HELL?!
Punisher: Those two were former supervillains. They're guilty. They deserved to die.
Captain America: GET OUT. And don't ever come back.
The Punisher silently cradles his rifle and walks away.
Matthew clearly wasn't yet familiar with President Maya's little quirks. She'd been sitting there in total silence, occasionally letting out a random chuckle, and he had no idea what to do with that.
"President Hansen? Madam President? Is there anything else? Should I go?"
The words jolted Maya out of her mental montage of the Punisher getting rejected for the nth time. She glanced up at Matthew's utterly baffled face and felt heat flood her cheeks. Thank God Matthew was blind.
"Ahem—sorry about that, Matthew! I just thought of a joke. Anyway, with hearing range like yours, how come you never laugh? You must pick up plenty of funny stuff."
Smooth topic change, Maya. Real smooth. She gave herself a 70 out of 150.
Matthew's expression turned odd. The President's thought process is… kind of adorable? Doesn't match her usual stern, authoritative aura at all.
When he just stood there looking weird without answering, Maya awkwardly pivoted again: "Matthew, in the dockside trafficking case—the one where someone rescued those people—the rescuer killed a man. Do you think that was too violent?"
Having now gotten a small taste of President Maya's conversational style, Matthew took the question seriously. He considered it for a moment.
"I imagine he had no choice—had to use lethal force to protect the victims. In a one-against-many situation, it's very hard to hold back."
"What if he could have held back but chose to kill them all anyway?"
"Is that even possible? Is anyone really that strong?"
"Ha. You know about Magneto. Forget one person—ten, a hundred wouldn't be enough for him to break a sweat."
Matthew's expression froze. "That's… fair. In that case, even if the person's a bit trigger-happy, so what? Those were heinous criminals. They had it coming."
"You don't think they should've been handed over to the police? Let the law deal with them?"
Matthew let out a dry laugh. "President, why bother asking that? I grew up in Hell's Kitchen too. If the law actually worked, Frank wouldn't have been wrongfully shot dead by a patrol cop."
His face was tinged with bitterness, but his answer was honest.
Maya was momentarily speechless. The law's useless, and yet you grow up to become a lawyer?
Actually, she'd completely misjudged his future motivations. Matthew Murdock would open his law firm primarily to defend the wrongly accused—punishing criminals through the legal system was always secondary.
Because when Daredevil gathered enough intelligence, he'd go teach the bad guys how to behave. Personally.
Daredevil wasn't like Captain America or Iron Man. He was an unconventional street-level hero—somewhere between the Punisher and Cap on the moral spectrum. He rarely killed on purpose, but brutal interrogations, broken bones, and shattered kneecaps were just another Tuesday.
He was pragmatic, too. He'd even worked with Madame Gao and Kingpin Wilson Fisk when the situation called for it.
As he'd put it himself: nobody who was born and raised in Hell's Kitchen came out naïve.
"Alright, Matthew, you can go. Keep an eye on Marion's situation and the precinct. If anything comes up, let me know immediately."
Matthew left and closed the door behind him. President Maya never did come clean about her own secrets.
First, Matthew had only passed the initial screening. Whether they'd actually partner up depended on continued observation. Maya's secrets didn't just affect her—they'd put her family at risk. She couldn't be too careful.
Second, while the idea of teaming up with Matthew was tempting, it wasn't urgent. President Maya could still handle the current batch of crises on her own.
Third, if something truly life-or-death came along—like yesterday's Marion shootout with the killers—Maya could always ask for Matthew's help without revealing herself.
And no, that was absolutely not the main reason. President Maya would never just exploit poor young Matthew for free labor. This was a test. Yes. A test of his character!
Ten years later. 2004 Athens Olympics. Men's marathon medal ceremony—press conference.
"Congratulations, Mr. Pinas! You've just defended your marathon Olympic gold. How does it feel?" a Greek national news reporter asked.
The Pinas who'd been a pudgy mess of baby fat in high school was now lean and wiry—all sinew and long limbs.
"Feel? What's there to feel? This was a given."
"But you're only twenty-seven and already a two-time Olympic champion! You're not even a little excited?" This from a French reporter.
"My goal is a minimum of three consecutive Olympic golds. This is only number two." Pinas's tone was perfectly flat.
"Wow—" A murmur of surprise rippled through the press corps.
"Mr. Pinas, congratulations on this honor for your country! I'm Alice, Fox News, New York. At the Sydney Olympics, you already shattered the human limit by breaking the two-hour barrier—equivalent to running the 100 meters in under 9.6 seconds. This time, you've pushed it to a staggering 1:59:02. How are you improving this fast? Yesterday's silver medalist, the Italian runner, clocked 2:10:55—you beat him by nearly twelve minutes. Twelve minutes, not twelve seconds!" Alice, a sharp-featured blonde in her forties, was practically shrieking.
Pinas tilted his head back at a forty-five-degree angle, gazing skyward with infinite nostalgia. "Because every night, I get to see the stars over Manhattan at two in the morning."
"So you're like Kobe—waking up early to train? But even Kobe's 'four AM sun in Los Angeles' is already extreme. Stars over Manhattan at two AM seems physically impossible?" An overly literal British reporter chimed in, and the rest of the press corps nodded along. This Pinas kid really is pure Hell's Kitchen—no polish whatsoever. Trying to do the Kobe thing and botching it completely. Zero out of ten.
Unfazed by the skepticism, Pinas kept his gaze fixed on the sky, lost in the memory of his vanished youth.
"You've got it backward. I don't wake up at two AM to train. I train until two AM before I stop."
"Wow—"
"But that doesn't make sense! That's not how exercise science works! It violates every principle of athletic training!" The British reporter again.
"Nothing unscientific about it. The fact that I'm standing here is all the proof you need." Pinas said it with the swagger of a man who'd earned the right.
"So is midnight marathon training your secret?" Alice asked—clearly not a sports journalist.
"No. My secret is running 50 to 60 kilometers (30–37 miles) every single day. The night runs are just force of habit."
The reporters collectively rolled their eyes. Full marks for audacity, kid. Not even worried about getting a big head.
"That's impossible! Nobody can sustain 50 to 60 kilometers a day! It's absurd—it's unscientific!" The Brit was at it again.
Pinas didn't get angry. He simply asked: "What if I told you I was already running 40 kilometers (25 miles) a day back in my senior year of high school—nonstop? Would you believe that?"
"I would not!" The stubborn British gentleman's face was beet-red, his tone resolute.
"Then go ask the 100-meter champion, Johnny Dawson. We went to the same school. He was there."
Pinas was dead serious. Back then, for reasons he still didn't fully understand, that little bi—ahem—the esteemed President Hansen had kept adding a few more kilometers to his distance every other day, until it hit 40 kilometers. And then, just to be cruel, she'd made him keep going for an entire extra week after everyone else had finished!
If he could ask President Hansen about it now, she'd tell him: Well, maybe you shouldn't have gone home every night muttering "that little b\tch" under your breath.*
President Hansen never held grudges. She just kept very detailed notes.
"Does your old schoolmate Johnny Dawson also train until two AM?" Alice asked, sensing gossip.
"I don't know if he goes to two AM, but probably pretty late. After all, our bodies had, uh… well, we'd gotten used to running from afternoon straight through to night."
"So what set you on the path to becoming a professional athlete?" A Chinese sports reporter asked.
Something complicated crossed Olympic champion Pinas's face—a cocktail of resentment, lingering fear, and something that might have been reluctant gratitude.
"I have to sincerely thank Ms. Maya Hansen."
"What?! You mean Maya Hansen, the CEO of Hansen Biotech?!" Shouts erupted from the press corps.
"Is this Pinas some kind of bio-engineered super soldier?" a Spanish reporter asked.
"Breaking news! Marathon champion personally admits he relied on cutting-edge pharmaceuticals to break the world record!" a Catalan reporter hollered.
Pinas's face went dark. He raised his voice over the commotion: "Say whatever you want about me, but if you drag Ms. Hansen into this—"
Whatever he'd been about to say, the mere implication was enough. Every reporter in the room went pale and shut their mouths instantly.
Satisfied with the sudden silence, Pinas continued: "The person I want to thank is President Maya Hansen—not CEO Hansen. Back then, she and I went to the same school."
The reporters noticed the unmistakable pride on his face when he said this, and collectively thought: Oh, great. Here comes the name-dropping. Typical.
"She was the greatest student council president our school ever had. She didn't just excel in character, academics, and athletics to become the top elementary school student in America—she brought her classmates along to learn and improve together. She, President Maya Hansen, was my life mentor! It was her who trained me, shaped me, and put me on the road to competitive marathon running! Without the esteemed President Maya Hansen, there would be no Olympic champion Pinas!"
By the end, his voice had gone hoarse with barely contained emotion.
Nailed it. He'd watched those Chinese government cadre speeches with a translator, and the money had been well spent. He just hoped President Hansen was watching this live broadcast, so that next time he pulled a hamstring or twisted an ankle, he could shamelessly beg for some of her good medicine.
As for the hatred he'd once felt toward President Maya?
Gone. Completely, utterly gone.
It was precisely because of President Maya's harsh punishments that he'd developed the habit of feeling restless and off unless he ran until midnight. Without that habit, his college long-distance coach would never have noticed him. Without the coach, no scholarship to a top university. Without the university, no shot at standing on this podium today.