|
By day, Jessica Drew…mostly rides a desk at SHIELD HQ. She didn't really argue when Director Carter said she'd have to start at the bottom. It makes sense. She just didn't account for exactly how mind-numbingly boring it was going to be in comparison to going on ops, which is what she'd been used to doing. So when she gets out of work, she goes in search of something a little more interesting.
Back in her costume, she's staked out a rooftop in Hells Kitchen, perched on top of a water tower where she can see what's happening in the streets and rooftops below. It might look cool, if anyone saw her. But her words are…less cool. Raising her voice just a little above conversational level, she calls out: "Banana daiquiri."
*
Miles flickers into view behind Jessica, he's been around long enough that he gets tasked with jobs like babysitting the new agents. "Banana daiquiri?" he asks, voice slightly obscured by his own mask. His isn't anything flashy, a dark colored vest with a spider embroidered on the back over more dark colored fabric. He raises from his squat to see if anything's happening down on the street.
*
Its an oppressively hot evening in Hell's Kitchen, thanks to the warm front and light rain that moved through the city earlier in the afternoon. A hot evening, but a quiet one, and those who are familiar would know to expect bad things on a quiet night.
Not far away, another costumed figure is pounding the rooftops, leaping over distances between lip and alley, tracking a sound. A very bad, deeply concerning sound; but within that sound, a familar voice is heard.
Boots skid against the gravel, and Daredevil alters course, a water tower in view three blocks distance.
*
"See, I knew the whole 'everything is forgiven' bit was too stupid to be real." Jess flips off the top of the water tower, landing lightly in a crouch as she looks back to the other agent. "Thank God. Switching sides feels like it was the right thing to do, but I was going to feel pretty stupid myself if the agency actually believed it should be that easy." At least she doesn't seem…upset?
*
"Well, gotta play it safe." Miles says, flashing an unseen grin as he flips over to land next to the other costumed woman. "And who better to watch a spider than a spider?" He promptly pushes to his feet and leans against the base of the tower, "But I have faith you didn't come out here to get in trouble."
*
A billy club whizzes out of nowhere, striking the water tower's ironwork. The cable attached to it goes taut, and a figure comes riding up from below.
With a twist, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen overshoots his mark, but that was intentional.
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
The man in red keeps rising through the air, and alights atop the metal dome with light footfalls, and a lean to stop his forward momentum. He turns at once toward the masked figure of Miles, then back toward the cable, to which he gives a firm yank.
The billy club unfastens from where it was lodged in the scaffold, and retracts swiftly toward Daredevil's hand.
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
"We don't have time," he tells them. "Hurry!"
Turning at once, Daredevil performs a swan dive off the water tower, falling over the edge of the building below.
*
"Only the good kind of trouble." Jess's grin flashes back at Miles as Daredevil makes his appearance. "Try to keep up."
She doesn't even hesitate. Daredevil dives over the edge, and Jess takes a running start before diving right behind him…with no tether.
Miles should probably talk to someone about getting a raise.
*
"Here we go." Miles says with a sigh, leaping over the edge after Jess. There's a thwip as he activates his web-shooter, clearly he won't have any trouble keeping up.
*
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
Daredevil may not have web shooters, but he knows how to use that club and grapple. He swings not terribly unlike the spider-folk, bending from alley to street, from pole to windowsill, until his feet alight upon the roof of a bus.
tick tock, tick tock, tick tock
"We're not gonna make it," he breathes, then goes running for the front of thebus. He leaps forward, arms and legs flailing.
There's a building there, a diamond and jewelry store with tenement housing up top. It's run by the Abbiati Family.
Inside, the place has been littered with explosives.
The timer reaches zero, and a spark lights a fuse.
*
Jess can't fly. Not really. But she can glide. As she tumbles off the roof, she snaps her arms out, catching air in the small wings built into her suit and gliding behind Daredevil. When she starts to slow, she steers to a building, clinging to the wall and flipping her way up until she has enough momentum to get going again.
"Not gonna make what?" she calls after Daredevil, leaping from the edge of a roof. "Where're we headed here?"
*
Thwip, thwip, thwip. Miles keeps pace with the Devil, clinging to the side of a building. "If we knew where we were going, I could've ran there faster." His attention shifts forward in the direction the other masked man is running, looking over to the jewelery store as the timer hits zero.
*
The building erupts in flame, explosions ripping through its structure. The ground floor's facade is blown outward, sending glass, concrete and any manner of jewels into the air.e
Those nearest the explosion are fixed to be cut down at once; some of them caught up and incinerated, others to be violently dismembered. There's only a hair's breadth of time to act.
For his part, Daredevil barrels through the air, tackling a woman and her eleven year old son out of the way just in the nick of time. Flame and debris licks at his boots, but the two are safe.
*
"Oh, shit." Jess hears the ticking only when they're almost there, and there isn't much she can do about it. No venom blast is going to stop it from going off, she doesn't have the power to stop the glass. All she can do is put herself between someone and the blast, knowing she's likely to survive it.
Well, there is one thing.
Jess doesn't exactly go for people. Not individually. But as she hits the ground, she skids up to a car at the curb, lifting it to make a shield against some of the debris.
*
The buzz in the base of Miles' skull warns him before the blast happens, and he moves into action flipping off the wall. Thwip, thwip, thwip. Being yanked back and out of the way isn't pleasant, but it's certainly better than being caught in an explosion. "Fuck!" he hisses under his breath, slinging himself over to join Jess in in forming a layer between the brunt of the explosion and the rest of the civilians.
*
The moment of cacophony is over almost as quickly as it began. Debris litters the street, falling down from above, and fire alarms sound from the surrounding buildings. Fortunately, there were a handful of people who survived, thanks to the heroic efforts of three masked vigilantes, but far more havesuffered injury or death.
Its unlikely that anyone survived the explosion on the ground floor. However, there are four levels of tenement housing above, and likely people inside who are going to need a quick recovery.
*
Jess sets the car back down when the first wave of debris passes, ears ringing as she shakes her head. And if her ears are ringing, then that almost certainly means the Devil's are worse off. She doesn't waste time calling - if his hearing's overloaded, he won't hear it, and besides, she'd have to choose between using his name or actually shouting 'daredevil' and…that's just weird.
Instead, she looks up to the building, jaw setting. "Can you climb?" she asks Miles. "There are people up there. I can carry as many as can hold on, but it'd go quicker with two."
*
"On it." Miles says, tossing the car aside. He doesn't waste time climbing, instead he leaps straight up to the second floor and busts into the window. Thankfully he's masked, so that helps with the smoke inhalation bit. Once inside it's your standard search and rescue, just a matter of breaching rooms and collecting individuals.
*
Daredevil is, in fact, disabled by the explosion. He's crawled away from the two he just saved, blinded by the deafened ringing in his ears. His sense of smell is similarly overloaded; sulfur, blood, burnt flesh, charred cement and asphalt.
When he finally finds the curb, he pulls himself up to a bus stop bench and hunkers down, truly blinded for the moment.
In the apartments above, the two spider-folk will have a easy go conducting their search and rescue operations. That being said, the collateral damage is ugly. There weren't nearly as many fatalities up here, but there's a great deal of blood, property damage, and lethal injuries to be dealt with.
*
"Get on board, now," Jess urges a mother and child, crouching down to help them climb on her back before she goes back down the outside wall. It's a task she repeats, one or two or three at a time, depending on coordination and how well they can cling to her. It doesn't seem to cause her any trouble, no matter how much the weight. But every time she reaches the ground, she looks worriedly back up at the building, trying to see if it's going to come down.
*
One, two, three, it seems Miles isn't having much of an issue with collecting people either. That door is blocked? Break it down. "Come on, everyone out, let's go!" he urges, dropping people off before climbing back in to repeat the process.
*
Fortunately, the building's structural integrity hasn't been compromised. Old New York construction, just doesn't crack.
The sound of emergency vehicles approaches, however. Multiple sirens from various first responders, on their way.
That, Daredevil can hear.
Cursing and feeling useless, hedrags himself up into the bus stop, and jerks his head around, truly blinded while the ringing in his ears continues. "Damn," he curses.
*
When she drops another round of passengers, Jess catches sight of Daredevil, pausing long enough to jog over to the man in red. "Hey," she says as she approaches, looking around. "You need a hand getting out of here?" She's not worried about Miles and herself. SHIELD can get them out of any lock-up, even if they can't just wander off on their own. But the blind man whose hearing has been compromised? Yeah, that's a problem.
*
Miles swears wen he hears the sirens, working double time to get passengers out. "Grab him if you have to and get on a rooftop somewhere, we can't be caught or we'll be in some pretty deep shit." he warns Jess before diving back into the fburning building to rescue the last remaining people.
*
"Yeah," Daredevil tells Jess, his head darting her way. "Everything's…" He holds up his hands next to his head, and shakes them around. Scrambled. His ego clearly doesn't like this either, if the tone of his voice is any indication. He hates being the victim.
Well, if there were any question about his particular disability…
Standing, he reaches to find her elbow, or arm, or anything. "Where are we going?"
The emergency lights become visible blocks away, Fire trucks, an ambulance, and anumber of police cars. The streets are also growing crowded… cameras are going off, capturing the sight, and the would be heroes who came to the rescue.
*
"Seriously, spies," Jess replies to Miles, ducking under Daredevil's arm to drape it over her shoulders. "You followed me, you'll be fine." She might be the bottom rung of the SHIELD ladder at the moment, but she's been training as a spy since she was nine. Experience, she has.
The sirens come closer and she gives Daredevil's arm a pat. "Hold on, we're getting out of here, let emergency services do their jobs." With a running start, she heads down the nearest alley, working her way up a wall and along the rooftops to relative safety.
*
Miles starts to head back out the window when he catches a camera flash. "Shit." he hisses, fading from sight before jumping back down. He sets people he was carrying down and runs after the other two, waiting until he's away from the cameras to come back into view.
*
As soon as she has him, Daredevil clenches his hand around Jess's arm. When she starts running, he takes off after her, keeping hold until she's working her way up the wall, and carrying him with like it was no big thing.
Once they've reached the rooftops, he lets go and scrambles away. His senses are coming back, gradually, but he still feels impaired.
"That jewelry store," he warns them. "It was run by the Abbiati's. Mostly racketeering, a small hand in stolen military goods smuggling, illegal gambling… this was a power play. A big one. It's bad news."
*
"They blew up a building full of people. It was bad news already." Jess doesn't seem offended when he moves away so quickly, crossing her arms and looking over her shoulder for Miles. "And what'd you think you were going to do about that bomb if you'd gotten there in time? Cut the green wire?" All right, the last might be a little needlessly sarcastic, but she's got all of one friend, so she'd rather he not get exploded.
*
Miles arrives in time to hear what happened, and it elicits a "Son of a bitch." from him. "We're not superheros." he feels the need to inform Jess, tugging his mask up just over his nose so he can get some fresh air. "Our pictures are gonna be all over the news in relation to to some gang bombing. We're gonna be in some deep shit."
*
Spend enough time in Hell's Kitchen, you get a little jaded. This isn't the first time Murdock has seen senseless death, and it won't be the last. He does feel for the people killed, but he's been at this long enough to know… if you want to keep more people from getting killed, you have to act.
Jess's remark earns a smirk. "I can hear electrical currents, you know," he points out, then looks toward Miles with a bit of alarm. "Shit. Cameras?" A pause. "Damn…"
*
"We were literally carrying people out of a burning building, and that's why we have masks." Jess shrugs, looking between the pair. "Come on, what are you worried about? And what do you mean, we aren't superheroes? Isn't that the whole point of this? We've got powers, so we go out and we do good things with them. We save people, we fight to make the world a better place."
It's an odd mix of cynicism and optimism from the spy, given her circumstances. "We saved people. That's what those pictures are going to show."
*
"We aren't supposed to draw attention to ourselves. We may have super powers, but we're government agents." Miles does not seem too happy right now. "And we don't know if they'll use the pictures with us carrying people out of the fire, or us standing in front of a burning building with all those corpses. You know how they like to put a spin on things, I can see it now." He waves a hand in front of his face, "Spider Menace Massacre."
*
Its going to take some time for his senses to come back in full, but Daredevil already experiences some reprieve from the mental torment. He looks between the two as they argue, mouth drawn into a thin line.
"They will," he says, gesturing toward Miles."Put a spin on it. Always do." He snaps his fingers then. "That's why we wear masks." He's not going to make any remarks about the whole government agent thing. That's one sleeping dog he'd rather not wake.
*
"I don't know about you, but do I look like someone who carries a badge?" Jess counters, gesturing to her own costume. "Very not standard issue. Also, again. Secret government agents. Nobody is looking at this," again she gestures to herself, "And thinking you know what, I bet she works for an agency we don't know exists. Unless they're the sort of person who sees that in anyone, and then nobody believes them."
Waving her hands, she turns to pace a few steps back in the direction they came, looking for the smoke plume. "Relax, guys. Or, you know. Direct the worry to the fact that whoever's making these moves is willing to put explosives in residential buildings to do it. Seems like a bigger deal than some pictures."
*
"Oh I'm worrying about that too." Miles says with a nod, wetting his lips. "I have friends that live out here. And they're going around doing whatever the fuck they please without taking the lives of innocent people into consideration." He tugs his mask back down. "I wanna know who did this so I can pay them a visit and teach them some common sense."
*
Matt turns his face from Miles to Jess, his mask still on. Curious that it doesn't seem to allow for any vision through its fabric. He stares her way for a moment or two, then looks back toward the city proper.
"It's the mob," he explains. "Frank Cavassini got picked by the Feds. It's created a power vacuum, and it's boiling over." He draws in a very deep breath then, and finally forms a frown. "I'm not sure it ends at bombings, either." He seems haunted, as if he witnessed something terrible.
*
"Oh, it ends at bombings," Jess says grimly, turning back to the others. "What's the point of all of this if we can't draw the line at people blowing up buildings? I'm drawing a line there. You don't get to blow up buildings full of families and walk away from it. So, you're the guy who knows the neighborhood," she nods to Daredevil. "Who do we hit back?"
*
"And if it calls for a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer, we can do that. Especially since they won't see me until I'm stinging them." Miles adds on. "You line them up, and we'll knock 'em over."
*
Daredevil remains silent for a long time. Jessica asked a heavy question. They aren't going to like his answer.
With a sharp breath, he spins back around to face them. "The three of us don't have the firepower to hit them back," before nodding to Miles. "Problem is, they like to hide their power. Behind lots and lots of veils. It'll take some digging, so, we better start now."
Foggy's really not going to like the idea he's about to float… but he'll keep that one to himself.
*
"I just picked up a car," Jess points out. "Believe me, I can hit them back. Alternatively, I could also just flood a room full of them with terror pheromones and let them panic-murder each other to death." Jess…could probably use some coaching on strategies that are appropriate for the good guys and which ones shouldn't really be used.
*
"Or, bear with me here," Miles says, directed to Jess, "we find out where we need to hit, and rather than murdering them, we render them unconscious, tie them up, and make some damning evidence public. If that fails due to police corruption, we'll just beat them until they learn a lesson."
*
"She picked up a car?" Daredevil asks Miles. Still, the talk about killing draws a deep frown to his face.
"No," he says, with a demanding tone. He steps closer. "We don't kill. We're not killers. I'm not a killer. Look, I've got no problem beating the ever loving shit out of these chuckleheads, but, the minute we start slaughtering people, we become them." He folds his arms. "Jess, you… you should know better."
*
"I'm not saying I was going to kill them. Just, you know. Let their own paranoia do the job." Jess was ready to defend herself to Miles, but Matt's response gets another pause, this one a little bit deeper. "Yeah. Well. That's sort of the thing- Daredevil. I was kind of raised by people I recently found out were terrorists to be their spy weapon, so. No, I really shouldn't know better. But I'm working on it."
*
"We both picked up cars." Miles informs Daredevil. "They're pretty light though." His attention shifts over to Jess, "Why I floated the idea, gotta unlearn those behaviors. especially when you were being brainwashed by facists." He plops down to have a seat, letting out a sigh. "Bet I'm gonna have to file some paperwork when we get back."
*
"Well, just keep working on it," Daredevil answers. He can appreciate her position, he really can… and there's a part of him that regrets being so hard on her.
"Listen. You guys get back to your paperwork. I've got some work to do. Meet me back here Monday evening and I'll go over, well, everything."
*
"I can, uh. Help with the paperwork." See? At least Jess is learning a few things about friends. Even if you hate paperwork, you can make friends by volunteering to help with it. Baby steps. "And run interference with the director. It was my idea, you were just keeping tabs on me." At Matt's suggestion, she turns back to the man, nodding once. "Sounds like a plan."
*
"Alright, see you then." Miles nods to Daredevil, then he's beckoning Jess along. "Let's go get out of these suits and see what kind of trouble we're in."