daredevilawyer | Still of the Night

People yelling.
Sirens blaring.
Gunshots.

A typical night in Hell's Kitchen.

Only this one was a little louder than usual. A building near the edge of the city had exploded into flames, the police swarming to the scene with their usual inefficiency. Daredevil had heard the explosion across town and was running along the rooftops to investigate. The police scanners squauking confusion and mayhem as they didn't know what kind of thing was tearing through the flames as they were trying to take it down.

Matt paused on the rooftop nearest the building in question, the heat palpable even from this distance. He could hear repeated gunfire and calls from the police trying to get control of the situation. And then a large crash over the crackling flames.

That sounded suspiciously like a car being thrown.

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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 Date: 2015-04-14 04:04 am (UTC)

David starts by carefully cleaning the wound and the area around it. Should save Matt the trouble initially and he can leave instructions later.

"Thank you. I think, I might try staying a day or two, just to help. After that, and McGee will get too close for me to stay around here. He's very determined, and very good. Stubborn to a fault." He gives a dry laugh, almost like he's talking about an old friend. At one point they almost were, when David was dragging the wounded reporter through brush to save him from a raging wildfire.

Matt sets his jaw as he keeps still as he can for the doctoring of his head wound. He wasn't one to show weakness if he could help it.

"One would think," he says, teeth clenched slightly, "nobody would believe his story."

David is too focused on tending to the small gash to feel the need to shake his head. He determines that a single stitch and some simple combing should be enough to hide the wound, and if they can keep the bruising down Matt should have fewer questions asked.

"I could only wish. Enough people have witnessed the creature, including scientists and credible sources, like your friend Tindelli, that he seems to get just enough traction to stay on my trail. I haven't had him come this close in a while though."

Fewer questions are good in his line of work. Its better if his day and night jobs don't meet up with each other. The first aid kit is a good one, but it's hardly a surgeon's tray. He's lucky to have the needle and thread.

"One could argue that enough people have seen flying saucers too, that doesn't make them credible witnesses." Tindelli, however, that was another matter and Matt knew it. He's quiet for awhile, thinking to himself. "Must be quite a life..." he thinks aloud without realizing. Moving from place to place, never settling down. Matt imagines what that must be like.

"True." David sets about to sterilizing the needle and getting everything ready when he hears Matt musing out loud. He contemplates whether to answer and then decides to respond as a way of passing the time he takes prepping.

"It's a life." The implied shrug can be heard in his voice. "Not the one I ever thought I'd lead, but it's not a bad way to live. I've been all over the country, and the people I've met, well..." He smiles, giving an amused chuckle. "It's never dull meeting a new person. Or meeting up with old acquaintances."

A smile on Matt's face, remembering how he first met David in the jail cells.

"You did not always think that way." He would suspect there's good days and bad when it came to the Hulk. Even if he hadn't actually seen it with his own eyes.

"I - have my days." David sighs as he finishes his work. He still prefers to stay buried, but when he runs into people like Matt, he remembers that perhaps he's not as alone as he feels.

"Others, I remember I'm not the only one getting myself into trouble." He quietly huffs an amused sound, threading the needle and setting a hand on Matt's head, moving the hair aside. "Alright, just one stitch should do it. Unfortunately we're taking a few leaps back in medical practices." He couldn't find any localized anesthetic in the kit, so Matt will have to tough it out, but it's not like David will be setting a limb or doing major surgery. He feels bad causing any additional pain, but there's not much of an option here.

"Make a few if you think it necessary, doctor," Matt says with a smirk that says he was game for it. The fact that he couldn't see the needle might work to his advantage in this case. "I promise not to sue for your barbaric medical practices."