aworldonfire | rp | all the hurt that brought me here

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rp | all the hurt that brought me here

It's a miracle, he thinks, that he got away from Nobu, from Fisk. It's a miracle that he made it back to his apartment, as beaten as he is. It's a miracle, but singing the praises of God doesn't follow him much past the door, not because he doesn't want to but because, while he's still alive, still fighting, he's rapidly devolving into hysterical thought thanks to the blood loss, and what he's stricken by, standing in the doorway of the rooftop access, is that he remembers what red looks like, would swear he could see it.

It's in the taste of his own blood in his mouth, after all, the wash of pain in his stomach and chest that rushes over him whenever he draws breath, the smell of metal (not his own, not copper, so much blood, oh, God), clinging to his wounds, where he was stabbed again and again and again. It all permeates as much as Clint's cover's body spray did, the red, making it hard to think, hard to see beyond his absent sight, and he takes a drunken step forward, presses his fingers to the wall that runs alongside the steps that come down into his apartment, hoping it will help, praying for a touchstone. He makes it down a handful of stairs, something like wild optimism rising in his chest, alongside the pain (he can make it, if he can just make it to the phone, make it to Claire), before it all goes to hell.

His foot catches on something, something likely broken by him, by Stick, less than a handful of days ago, and he trips. He hits the remaining steps face-first, so fast it takes him a moment to register what just happened, to grunt, no more winded that he already was (is his lung punctured? he can't tell. it hurts. father forgive him -- both of them), and try to sit up. All he manages is to slide the rest of the way down the steps to the ground and for black to join the red, a memory of tunnel vision closing in on the edges of his mind's eye, as what little he can get from his other senses slips, stutters, unconsciousness creeping up on him. He doesn't try to get up again, after that, just lays there, panting. He doesn't even hear the door opening again above him, practically miles away.

He doesn't know how many minutes pass, him laying there, but eventually and what seems to him suddenly, something occurs to him. He shifts again, not trying to get up this time but to press his shaking fingers to the comm at his ear, always worn, just in case, but rarely used outside of his team ups with Clint and Natasha. It takes him three tries to actually get there, actually find his ear, and when he manages, it takes a moment more of false starts to fight past the black and find the breath for his words. It never occurs to him to think that the Avengers, if they're listening, already know what's going on, if only to a certain degree, that the comms are always transmitting, always receiving, that help may already be on the way.

"Little -- little help here?" he chokes out. "I need help. Please."

The red and black catch up to him, after that, as relentless as he's ever been in the same colors, and he slips into something like twilight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Not as much as you'd think." Not as much as Claire, at least. She might not be stitching up superheroes on the regular, but she's an ER nurse -- she probably deals with stitching up plenty of people with more mundane injuries. "Usually, he's out there with them."

And while he's never seen the Hulk up close and personal, he at least understands on an intellectual level that it wears him out. He's probably not stitching up too many people, afterwards. Matt figures he just falls into bed.

"Wait, what? Really?" He's just confused, now, because he can't put Bruce together with anything he's seen on the news - and he would assume Matt just means Bruce doesn't just wait at Stark Tower for them to finish the fight, but that doesn't fit, and just. What?

Matt joins him in looking baffled. "You don't -- he's the Hulk, Foggy."

Did he not know that? Belatedly, it occurs to Matt that, no, he probably didn't, given how careful Tony's been about preserving Bruce's identity, and -- well, shit. He didn't mean to out him.

No, Foggy definitely didn't know that, and he's glad he hadn't just taken a drink of his coffee because he would have choked on it. "Their doctor is the big green smashy guy. Holy shit."

He seriously never would have guessed that.

"Not that I think you would," Matt starts, looking a little guilty, albeit more for giving away Bruce's secrets than for what he's about to ask Foggy, "but try not to spread that around? He's got his reasons for wanting to hold onto the whole secret identity thing, and Stark's put a lot of effort into helping with that."

A beat. "They all have."

"I get it," Foggy returns, "after all that down in Virginia and over in Harlem." Yeah, he can get why Bruce might not want people finding out what he does in his spare time. "And what's one more secret identity to keep to myself?"

That actually comes out lightly - he's really not bitter. Really.

"Pretty much." Though, to hear Tony tell it, most of what happened there wasn't his fault. Knowing Bruce personally, now, and his own terrible relationship with the press, he's inclined to believe it, too. "And thanks."

He wouldn't doubt it - especially now that he knows how badly the media misrepresented the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. "Yeah, you're welcome."

He pauses a beat. "Should I tell him I know?"

"I wouldn't lead with that, but," Matt starts, one corner of his mouth turning up into a crooked smile. It fades almost as quickly as it comes. "As long as you don't decide you're gonna run screaming from him, I think it'll be okay if you do."

If Bruce really has a problem, Foggy can throw the blame on him. He did tell him, after all.

"Uh," Foggy begins, "He seemed like he had everything under control, and he works with them, so I don't plan on it." He pauses a beat. "And I do sometimes have some tact, Murdock."

He just loses some of the filter with Matt, because come on. It's Matt.

"Sometimes," Matt agrees, teasing. The smile that comes along with it lasts a little longer, this time, if only out of gratitude that he still has the right to bust Foggy's balls. Did he mention that losing him as a friend really was a concern of his?

Foggy makes a face at him, and then, in possibly one of the first of many, holds up a finger to flip him off. "How many fingers am I holding up, asshole?" he asks, though without heat, just holding back a grin of his own.

He might not be dealing with the same side of the crisis as Matt - he was more worried about whether or not he really knew him or not than losing him in anything beyond the injuries being more than Bruce could fix - but it is a relief that Matt looks so much less death-like than he did last night, that he's actually in a shape to joke around instead of barely stringing together a sentence.

"One," Matt answers, something matter-of-fact in his tone, almost sarcastic, albeit still teasingly so. It's on par with an eye roll, really. Yes, he can 'see' your middle finger, Foggy. Thanks for that. "Right back at you."

Foggy just grins at him outright, now. "That is both seriously awesome and seriously freaky," he tells him in lieu of further snark.

Matt lets out a breath of a laugh, still amused, but a touch embarrassed now, too. "Not that it wouldn't have been hard to guess, considering, but ... " Yeah, he used his superpowers on that one. "Sorry."

"Nah, seriously. I'm gonna... try my hardest not to get used to it." Because if he gets used to it, he's liable to give it away at some inopportune moment. "But you've got an actual superpower, man. That's awesome."

"Yeah, it's -- pretending's the hard part," Matt admits, a little of his smile slipping. He thinks of the nuns, who thought he was losing his mind (maybe he was), before Stick. He thinks of his father, before them, who he never told his secrets to, even if what he could do wasn't nearly as developed then (he knew something was wrong or at least different). He thinks of after all of it, before Foggy, after him, all of it still an effort, in certain situations.

"Anything fast or loud is still kind of ... " It's reflex to respond, especially now, doing what he does with his nights, when fast and loud usually equates to some asshole with a gun taking shots at him. Thankfully, he has the discipline to clamp down on what's become muscle memory, in the former case, and in the latter, well. He can at least get away with reacting to that.

"But -- thanks," he finishes, finally.

"Yeah," Foggy returns, acknowledging the thanks, because he's not actually sure what to say to the rest of it. And he has something related to ask anyway.

"And, uh. Speaking of superheroes." He pauses a beat. "'Daredevil'?" Because yes, he heard Steve say it on the way in, even if he did it quietly.

"Oh, uh," Matt starts, looking thankfully amused again. "Barton and Romanoff decided Devil of Hell's Kitchen really didn't work as a call sign, if they wanted my attention in a hurry." A beat. "Too long." And another. "They kind of -- they decided just Devil sounded stupid, I vetoed Dread Pirate Murdock ... "

He shrugs. "Eventually, we decided on Daredevil, for my codename."

And if he looks a little hopeful, afterwards? Tell him that's not a stupid codename, Foggy, please?

Foggy considers it for a moment before he finally nods. "Definitely less of a mouthful than 'Devil of Hell's Kitchen'." A beat. "And it's less likely to invite Gordon Ramsey puns."

He approves, yes.

"To be fair," Matt starts, holding up a hand, "I didn't actually come up with that one." The whole Devil of Hell's Kitchen thing. He's not sure who did, exactly, beyond knowing it came out of the Bugle, but.

"I know you didn't. But I won't be able to give you hell about it when Karen or anybody else is around, so I had to get that one in now."

Because seriously. Other than wanting to punch the guy in the face, that was the second thought Foggy'd had about the vigilante.

Snorting into his coffee, Matt takes a moment to finish it out and set the empty cup on the floor before he asks, "Anything else you feel like you need to get out of your system?"

He won't mind sitting through a few puns, if Foggy wants to throw them at him. Really, it'll be the least terrible thing he's had to endure, these past few days.

"Uh," Foggy begins, looking and sounding thoughtful. "No," he decides, finally. "But I reserve the right to come back to them in the future."

You deserve bad puns, Matt. All of them.

"Remind me to start making paper balls to throw at you, next time we're in the office," Matt shoots back. Again, the lady doth protest too much. "Or maybe the next time you step out for something. It'll give me something to do, to kill time, while I'm on house arrest."

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