1963-07-25 - Remember the Gloves, Devil
Summary: Daredevil's secret identity is (somewhat) revealed to Spider-Woman.
Related: NYU Protest
Theme Song: None
jess daredevil 


The crowd is…Well, while there was a riot trying to happen, the appearance of a giant green monster and then its departure sort of shook up any attempts to organize from either side of things. That was good enough for Jess, who retreated back to the stoop where she left her jacket and her heels, pushing a hand through her hair with a heavy sigh. "It would not be the saddest thing ever if anyone ran off with them," she grumbles under her breath.

*

Everything went down rather quickly. Matt Murdock's swift disappearance went relatively unnoticed, or so he thought. A quick dash into a nearby alley and a rush around behind a dumpster, where he promptly began undressing.

However, he pauses. There, behind the dumpster, the collared shirt discarded, he's halfway through pulling the red gloves high up on his arms when the sound of that green monster heads… up, and away.

Pressing his lips together, Murdock reaches for his cane. He separates it into two clubs, then fixes them to his belt before moving to unzip his pants. Turns out there's red underneath, and a good reason for why he chose to fashion for himself a uniform essentially made of tights.

"Could use some sort of armor," he murmurs to himself, before reaching to find his hood. Better get it on quick before someone identifies him. The hood, however, gets stuck on his shades. With a grumble, he goes about removing them and looking for a place to stow them.

*

The jacket and the shoes are gone. Maybe some enterprising young college student will be able to get a job thanks to them. Or more likely they'll end up abandoned later and in a trash can. Jess sighs once more, turning around to see if she can catch sight of someone with them.

Hearing noise in the alley, she turns that way, starting toward the dumpster. "Hey," she calls by. "Hey, did you see someone come by here with a jacket and a pair of heels?"

Apparently she hasn't seen whoever's making noise yet…

*

"No?" Murdock's response comes without thinking. It takes a moment for him to process that he knows the voice, and panic hits him. For a fleeting moment, he can't decide whether to zip up and try to get his proper clothes back on, or to finish the transformation and hope she won't recognize his voice.

"I, uh, didn't. Hey look, I'm, uh, taking a leak back here, okay?"

Wince.

*

Jess may not be able to hear heartbeats, but she does have enhanced senses, and she doesn't hear the sound of a leak being taken. But she does recognize that voice.

"Oh, hey, is that where you wandered off to?" She actually sounds relieved. Blind guy missed the craziness! That's always a plus. And didn't get trampled. More plus. "Sorry, I lost you in the crowd there, but, uh…You probably shouldn't back here right now. Cops kind of lost the chance to be heroes, someone's probably likely to get stupid if they catch you."

*

Good, good. She's talking. There's another momentary hesitation, before he gets to work on the coverup. The mask gets shoved back down under, and he zips back up. A quick dash to where he stowed the shirt, and he's pulling it back on, swiftly. "Yeah, I know," he says, distracted. "I just, thought it would be… best to kinda… get out of the way, you know?"

The clubs are clicked back together, and he finally steps out from behind the dumpster, glasses fixed to his face again.

When Matt emerges, he's smiling easily. "So, someone, uh, made off with your…"

He forgot to take off the gloves.

"… your shoes."

*

"To be fair, I took my shoes off in the middle of a riot, so…I probably kind of deserved it." Which is right around the time he rounds the corner and Jess quirks a brow, crossing her arms loosely over her chest.

"But hey," she drawls. "Guess I'm not the only one making some questionable wardrobe decisions."

*

Murdock's face becomes as red as the weird gloves on his hands.

"It… isn't… what you think." He's operating under the assumption that she hasn't pieced two and two together. He's operating under the assumption that, perhaps, with luck, he can pass this off as cross dressing. Despite the fact that ladies don't often wear long, red clingy gloves in the heat of July, nor do they wear ones that aren't shiny.

*

"Uh huh." Jess half-turns to look toward the mouth of the alley, unconvinced. "You should probably finish changing," she suggests. "Before someone who's in less of a glass house than I am shows up."

Is he really blind? Probably not. Which means he very well might have seen her little display with the green guy. Too bad she doesn't have a shoe to throw at him to test that theory. It doesn't seem like she's placed the gloves with he man from the roof yet, though.

"Were you going after the black thing that was on the roof there?"

*

With a rueful look, Murdock pulls the gloves off, one at a time, with a nice embarrassing 'snap!' each time.

"Yes," he answers, while stuffing the gloves into his pockets. "The…" Wait. Is she baiting him? He draws in a deep breath, fixing Jess with a look. It's just hard to tell where exactly he's looking, thanks to those glasses. "You mean, the big blue thing? I intend to track him." A beat, and a raised eyebrow. "Do you?"

*

"Not the big one. He was green." One gate passed, but Jess still doesn't seem entirely convinced. "There was another one, about the time big green came out in the crowd. Black, and oily, and with way more teeth than anything has a right to have. Seemed like more of a threat, honestly, but it slunk off. Honestly?"

Jess looks up toward the roof, grimacing. "I think big green's better left alone. Whoever he was, he wasn't big and green in the middle of the crowd until things got ugly. Maybe he just needs to get away from the crazy to get back to normal."

*

So, that's what that other sound ones. "Oh. Yes. That one. I wondered what that sound was."

Matt reaches out with try cane, tapping it a couple times while approaching Jess. Then, he sighs, and tucks the cane under his arm.

He turns his head, growing silent for a long moment. "Yes," he murmurs. "I think you're right. About big green. But…" He lifts a hand, holding up a finger, hoping she might give him pause. A long pause.

"The other one is moving fast. Too fast for either of us to track."

*

Jess arches a brow, tilting her head to listen as well. "You can hear that one?" she asks, dubious. "Big green's easy. The other one slipped out underneath all the crowd noise."

It's the listening motion that makes it click. She remembers that. "And here I thought New York was supposed to be a big city," she muses. "You save whoever you were looking to save?"

*

He knows he's been had. Murdock reaches up to remove the shades from his face. He doesn't have the usual 'blind eyes', because, in a way, he's not truly blind. No, he cannot see, but his eyes are not entirely unfocused. They don't stray in opposite directions. They do, however, look past her, as if Jess wasn't there.

"You don't wear your costume under that dress?" he asks.

*

"Suits are way more forgiving for that sort of thing. Feminism. Secretly funded by people who've come to the realization that they might have to fight the jolly green giant in a blouse and a pencil skirt." Jess might be regretting that particular arrangement at the moment.

"On the flip side, you're not standing here without your shoes, so I think you might've come out on top of this one." She tilts her head, giving him a closer look. "That wasn't an answer to the question. So. That's a no on the saving success?"

*

Murdock seems vexed by her question. "No. There's something bigger at play here, and I can't put my finger on it." A pause. "But I will. I just have to-"

Cutting off again, he jerks his head to the side, blinking, then darting his head upward. "Wait. That's impossible. The black one, it just… it's gone. Disappeared."

*

"Sweetheart, that riot was just interrupted by a giant green man that bullets bounced off of," Jess points out, dry. "I hate to break it to you, but nothing's impossible. Black thing's gone? It teleported, or it powered down, or it got out of range. But disappearing? Definitely not impossible."

Now that he's got his costume stowed, she steps away from the mouth of the alley, clearing the way. "The blind guy act is pretty good. Must get old fast, though."

*

With a rueful expression, Murdock walks forward and past Jess. "News flash. It's not an act."

He turns around the corner then, and upends a post box that's been turned over. Up come a pair of heels, and he offers them over. "I believe these are your size?"

*

"Uh huh." Jess watches him walk past, attentive. "If you can't see, you're making up for it with something. So. Technicality." When he locates the heels she blinks, working it through.

"Yeah, that'd be them," she says, stepping forward to take them back and slipping them on again. "Thanks. I think. Please tell me you didn't smell them, because if that's the case, they're getting burned."

*

The man's gonna do her a favor. He's not going to admit anything about his sense of smell.

"Don't burn your shoes," he tells her, before fixing the shades upon his nose once more. He steps up toward her, then, and seeks to set himself in a position where he's next to her, but looking the other way.

"The more pressing query is this." A pause. "Were you following me?"

*

Jess laughs, a note of surprise in her voice. "I'm good, but I think we're going to have to chalk this one up to luck," she replies, amused. "Started a new job, which meant getting a new place, which meant working out some new routes between home and work." And hopefully 'job' doesn't mean…job. That would be awkward.

"Sort of recently discovered that that I haven't been doing as much good in the world as I thought I was. Helping out the blind guy seemed like a decent thing to do."

*

A glance to the side is given, and to this, Murdock grins. "Well. This blind man will thank you, as is appropriate." He considers for a moment whether to ask for her name. However, secret identities and such… he'll let her try to figure it out if she should feel so inclined.

"I'm afraid this is no place for a blind man," he tells her, perhaps a subtle suggestion that he might find a place to get back into that costume and do some tracking. "Good day, ma'am," he says, before lowering his cane and tapping away down the sidewalk.

*

"You too, buddy," Jess smirks after the man with the cane, watching him until he disappears in the crowd. Small city. Small world.

But at least she doesn't have to walk home barefoot in New York City.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License