daredevilawyer | Still of the Night

It was slightly reassuring that he wasn't trying too hard to catch him. So long as he could keep his attention till they were in the clear. They were coming up to a small park on the edge of the city and leaving the sirens and fire far behind. Daredevil, however, was still hurting from the previous building collapse and was having to go on foot again.

He paused and turned to face the large man chasing him, waiting to see if he was going to have to dodge again. "Running out of steam, big guy?" He wasn't about to admit he was starting to tire too, a trickle of blood visible along the side of his smoke smudged face. At this point, he might let Hulk catch him and see what he'll do with him. Last time, he was carried to safety. Surely David was still in there...somewhere

Edited 2015-04-12 23:22 (UTC)

The Hulk keeps moving after Daredevil, but his motions are plodding and slow. Eventually his target, which is starting to swim before the Hulk's eyes, slows to a stop and allows him to catch up. His own feet feel heavy as he walks slowly up to Daredevil. Towering in front of him, he lifts up a large hand, and then sets it on Daredevil's shoulder, patting it with a friendly, uncharacteristically light gentleness.

He smiles briefly, flashing large teeth with a grunt. Tag, human. Then he sidesteps Daredevil and moves over to a tree trunk, leaning heavily against it, and slowly collapsing to the ground. David is in there, and slowly, he's making his way back.

The shoulder is tense for a moment before Daredevil smiles too, relaxing his stance. "Guess you win." He puts his batons away in his boots before hearing the thud as Hulk hits the ground. Matt quickly moves to his side, checking his pulse. His fingers feeling the face starting to shift back...

He sits on a nearby log with a sigh, looking worse for wear but glad that they were both still alive. "David? David, you still with us?"

David is exhausted, and while his burns are healing they're still painful. He doesn't take long to come around, and when he does he gives a pained groan, only feeling more cold from his wounds. He isn't expecting anyone to be nearby so he here's his head around to look at the source of the sound, and quickly regrets it.

"Ow." He drags himself up so he's sitting instead of prone and looks up with shock on his face as he recognizes his company. "Matt?" He can smell the smoke on both of them, what memories he does have come rushing back and then he sees the blood on his friend's face. He grimaces as he stands, and taking little heed to his own wounds, he wobbles over and quickly starts to assess his friend with faintly shaking fingers.

"Are you alright? You weren't, you weren't in the fire were you?"

Despite his disheveled appearance, Matt is smiling as he pushes back his mask to reveal his sightless eyes. "Couldn't let you have all the fun, could I? Besides, Tindelli wasn't doing too well against your greener side." Matt winces and pulls back as David finds the wound on his head along with some bits of debris from the building. "How about you? It was pretty hot in there."

"I'll be fine." He's not lying, but he's not giving details. David is too preoccupied with doctoring Matt, to really give himself a proper assessment just yet. Some might attribute it to ego, but he knows he will heal quickly, and is more interested in mending those who need it more than he does.

"Sorry." He removes his hands when Matt winces so he doesn't make it hurt more. Once Matt is still again, he's more careful. His hands sting a bit, but the skin there is unbroken, so he's less worried about Matt, and besides they both have radiation exposure.

"Well, you might need a stitch or two, but it could have been worse. I was trying to get off the fourth floor when the metamorphosis occured. What happened? Are the police alright?" Good or bad, David is not a fan of hurting anyone, if he can help it.

Matt's used to rolling with the punches. But it's not every day one can say they survived a building falling on them. "They're fine, a little trigger happy perhaps..."

He tries to hold still for David.

"....you owe Tindelli a car or two."

"I...?" It takes David a moment to realize that Matt isn't joking, and then he sighs. He steps back, finally looking at his own arms and realizing they've been seriously scalded, but the itching tells him the power granted through his inner monster is at work already. In a few days he should look untouched.

"Let's...get you home." Because David doesn't need memories to know his home is burned to the ground, along with everything he had. He'll need help to get shoes back on his feet and the least he can do is provide his medical services in return. He is about to offer his hand out to Matt when there's the crunch of gravel under car wheels from too far off for David to hear. Someone else is also in town, and is hot on the trail of a reported green hulking creature following the infamous Daredevil. It's a double scoop if McGee can just track down where the duo went.

Matt can hear the regret in his voice. He can't let a friend of his beat himself over nothing. "Of course, if you hadn't used the cars, we would still be flattened under that building...or what's left of it."

Matt pulls his mask back up over his head. "One driver." That heartbeat is either nervous or excited, he was definitely pursuing something. And since the biggest greenest something happened to come this way, that only left one answer. "Com'n, this way."

Daredevil gets himself up despite being sore and leads the way through the park. He couldn't head back into town so the docks were the only alternative.

David can only gawk at Matt, stunned at the idea of a building collapsing onto them. And Matt came out with bruises and some minor wounds. David only gives so much credit to the monster but it's saved Matt for him before, so at least that confirms it can recognize old allies. It's a small comfort, but it does help a little.

He doesn't hear anything when Daredevil tells him the car is approaching, but he doesn't question it. He follows Matt into the park blindly, trusting his friend to get them out if trouble. And trouble it is, when McGee finds Hulk-sized tracks.

"John?!" Not that McGee had any other name to call David, but David still can't help that his head swivels and his heart rate spikes briefly at the familiar voice. It makes his feet move a little faster, and while he tries to hold his arms gingerly, his grip tightens faintly as he the reporter jogs after the tracks.

Matt hears that heart rate spike. "You know the guy following us?" That couldn't be good. Personal vendettas were never good. Take it from someone who had one.

Daredevil hits his second (possibly third) adrenaline rush of the night and swings up into a tree. "Keep going, I've got a plan."

He unscrews one of his batons, a line coming out in the middle between the two pieces. When the man with large flat feet comes running by, he snaps the line with precision as it twirls around the man's ankles, causing him to trip.

The masked man lowers to the ground on one side of the line as the investigative reporter goes up by his feet on the other. "H-hey...don't think I've had the pleasure," McGee tries to be glib even as he's hanging upside-down.

Even without his eyes uncovered, it seems like his gaze narrows in his own silent reply. "....I don't like being followed." A flick of his wrist and the other side of the rope whistles around McGee's body, tying him up like a trussed goose. It'll take him awhile to get out of that one.

Matt jogs off in a different direction than David did, knowing his way well enough to double back and find where he ran to.

"Y-yeah. I'll explain later." Matt clearly has a plan, and David's interest in evading McGee makes him more than glad to go along with it. When Daredevil tells him to keep running, David does exactly that. Though now without the radar sense to guide them, David has to slow down in the darkness, less he risk running into, or tripping over something. His arms are tender enough, it could be all he needs on top of the stress from McGee to send him into another change.

David's made tracks, and he comes to a stop at the edge of the park, hearing water lapping nearby. He's clad only in his shredded pants, and is unwilling to invite trouble by wandering to the waterfront. There could be police patrolling, and he's already had that experience in the city once before. Now that he has a record here, the trouble would be worse. Even moreso with McGee around to poke his nose into things which would spell trouble for David.

He curls up at the base of a tree, shivering slightly as he looks through the darkness. He trusts Matt to handle McGee, but that still doesn't lower his risk of being discovered by someone else. Without heightened senses, he can only sit and wait quietly, taking the time to calm his racing heart.

"He's a talkative one," Matt says from somewhere near his left. Emerging from the shadows, one baton lighter. "Kept telling me he'd make it worth my while."

Matt knew better than to take him up on it. He'd followed the anxious sound of David's heartbeat to his tree. Holding out a hand to help him stand up. "We can't stay here." If they could make it back across town to Matt's apartment building, they'd be in the clear.

David can't help being briefly startled by Matt, but it's nothing worrisome. He just had no idea which direction to expect his friend, and the familiar voice quickly calms him.

"He is." David takes the offered hand, wincing as his body finally protests to moving. "In a place like this, he's offering enough money that people might talk." Nothing against the city, but David's last visit had told him just how dangerous it could be. He resumes following in Matt's footsteps, doing his best to shadow the man.

"He'll be trouble as long as I'm around."

"Really? How much?" He might be kidding, it's hard to tell.

Matt got the feeling this was the exact trouble that had been hounding David for awhile. "Friend of yours?" he asks, leading the way through the park easily.

Matt seems to have a solid handle on the situation, though David shoots him an unappreciative glare at the question. He doesn't care whether or not Matt can see it, he figures the man will catch the annoyed silence before David responds.

"Ten Thousand. If I'm captured. His name's Jack McGee. He thinks the creature killed two scientists in a fire at the Culver Institute. He's been after me since." Years. It's been years, but as of late the pursuit has waned. Still, the man occasionally shows up when David least expects it, when it seems like the only thing he has to escape is his own inner demons. There's the dogged reporter, determined to see 'justice' brought to the Hulk.

It's his job to ask the tough questions. Matt knows from his own ears that David is telling the truth. He whistles low. "Hefty price to be carrying around. Though if he starts waving that figure around town, he's libel to attract the wrong sort of people." Mr. McGee might bite off more than he can chew.

"You ever think about facing him down? Proving your innocence?" Matt asks, cutting through a back alley.

"I've tried. He's insistent that the creature faces trial. He's so certain it murdered Doctor Marks, he came after me with a tranquilizer gun." He's a real one-man mob, and David is certain that even if he were proven innocent in the courts, McGee would still slander his name and see that he's shut away from any chance of a cure. People would recognize David Banner, and the only thing he fears more than himself is the idea of being locked up without hope. His chance to cure himself revoked for the sake of a juicy tabloid headline. He's not certain he could live like that, and he fears just exactly the kind of real monster that would make him.

Matt hums thoughtfully to himself, "I doubt he would do well on the witness stand." The Hulk would probably take the place apart, not realizing what was going on. "The world is full of unreasonable men. Hard to be reasonable sometimes...but we can try."

Matt pauses as a few cars go by the alley, waiting in the shadows. His apartment building was only a block or two away. But they were not exactly inconspicuous. A masked man in black and a man without a shirt and torn jeans without shoes. "We may be able to slip in the back way."

As they climb up the fire escape on the building, Matt asks, "You think yourself capable of killing those scientists? You sound uncertain enough for me to think you aren't sure yourself."

"Elena..." David seems to catch himself and sighs as he glances about, finally starting to recognize where they are. "Doctor Marks. She proposed a theory that, because I wouldn't kill, the creature wouldn't kill. There was a fire at the lab, I -changed-, and when I came around we were clear of the building. There wasn't a mark on her that the creature could have made."

That had been a private horror for him, and he'd had many instances where he feared the monster within him had finally gone too far. In fact he had nightmares about it, but looking back at years of episodes, no one had actually died because of him. People had been hurt, and that was difficult to shoulder, but the weight of a life in his hands he knew would break him. The false belief that he'd killed someone in the past had already come close to making him take desperate action.

David goes quiet as he follows Matt up the fire escape, trying his best to keep his footfalls light. Lacking shoes, he finds it necessary just to keep the metal grating from making the healing skin on his feet hurt more. Now that the adrenaline had thoroughly worn off, his whole body was starting to ache from the fire. Aloe will go a long way to helping him relax tonight.

"Sounds like the evidence is all circumstantial...and that you...or it...carried her out of the fire. That doesn't sound malicious to me." Matt keeps his voice low as they travel up the metal stairs. His apartment is near the top and with his baton, he's got enough leverage to get the window open.

"But tonight's not the night to discuss culpability and circumstance. That's my day job," he says with a smirk, pulling the window open more as he lets David in the apartment first, following and shutting the window behind him. The apartment is dark, not that that's a hindrance to Matt's senses. But at least it's much warmer than the outside night air.

Matt pulls off his mask with a sigh. He can smell the smoke from the fire on it.

David's lost two people very close to him in a fire, which probably hadn't helped him keep calm earlier tonight. He gives a shiver while he waits for Matt to lever the window open, but he's very glad for the warmth of the place when they're finally inside. He stops to let his eyes adjust from the streetlight to the darkness of Matt's place. For a moment he's blind, but it also lets him realize just how much his eyes also sting from the earlier fire. With a sigh, he finally lets out a cough, practically smelling the smoke all over again between himself and Matt.

"Legalities later. I think we both need some basic first-aid. I can take care of your head once we've cleaned up."

"Why? Is there something wrong with my head?" Matt asks, tongue in cheek. He moves easily through the apartment, flicking on a lightswitch for his friend to see. It has changed little from the last time David was there. A small cough as he opens a cabinet to feel around and another before finding the first aid kit. Everything labeled in braille on it. This gets set on the table and Matt goes to find David some clothes. Returning with sweat pants and shirt. "Hope these will do for now."

David knows his way around a first-aid kit, even if it's in braille. He takes the time though, to wash his hands and first, splashing cool water up his arms to help alleviate the warmth sticking to his skin. It was like having a bad sunburn, but he wanted to stitch up Matt's head first. It wouldn't take much, but the stitch would help the wound heal more subtly.

David is glad for the clothes, but wants to clean the soot off of him before he changes. However, he's more interested in Matt's well-being and pulls out a chair, depending on the sound of the legs on the floor to indicate its location to the astute man.

"Sit down. We'll get this out of the way for you." David wanted to keep his fussing to a minimum, he already knew how proud Matt was, and didn't want to be a bother. At least not any more than he's already been tonight.

Privately, he wonders just exactly what Matt did to delay the dogged McGee, but knows it will only be temporary. He'll need to get on the move again to avoid the inquisition that's soon to follow. It will soon feel like the reporter is in every corner, just waiting for David to turn around. He had to figure out a way to leave once he was sure Matt wouldn't need someone to mind that suture for infection.

Lacking the ability to roll his eyes, Matt does as instructed. "Sure I couldn't just put a bandaid on it? Say that I ran into a door?" He suspects that would be a terrible cover story.

His face is smudged with soot from the fire, the wound in question having dried blood down the side of his face. He wishes he could see how bad it was but reluctantly having to depend on David's eyes to fix this one for him. Maybe his hair would keep anyone at the office from asking questions if the stitches were under it. His eyes looking off at nothing in particular. "If there's anything else you need...?" He leaves that an open ended question, knowing that David liked to keep moving. "You're welcome to stay if you need to."

Edited 2015-04-14 04:04 (UTC)

Still of the Night

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