Pros and Cons of Anonymity
Disclaimer: Premise and characters belong to Marvel, I'm just playing with them.
Notes: I'm up to S1 of "Daredevil" and in the middle of S2 of AoS. I really wish I'd already seen the Punisher trial from S2 and I've read some of the more generic spoilers but that's as much as I want to know because it's on my list of things to watch.
Back in High School my US government instructor used to reserve the last 15mins of the class for debate on a current event. If we could keep the debate going until the end of class we didn't get homework that day. Some people had actual stances, some of us just didn't like homework and were happy to join whichever side appeared to be losing to make sure we used the time allotted.
Chapter Three: Lousy Medical Benefits
"Alright class, what did you think of Spider-Man's press conference yesterday?" Peter's US Government teacher asked.
Flash Thompson's hand shot up, "I just want everyone to acknowledge I've been right all along: Spider-Man's a hero and the Bugle is full of shit. You all heard it, even the police came around to his side!"
Gwen Stacy looked up from the notes she was studying. "It wasn't the police who came around," she said.
Flash snorted, "Like Spidey needs the police's help, he's doing them a favor letting them ride on his coattails."
Peter stared at his desk and wished that anyone else had decided to champion Spider-Man. Well, anyone except Peter Parker that was, 'What if I give myself away? Still, why does FLASH, of all people, have to be a fan?"
"Right," Gwen's voice dripped sarcasm. "Being able to bench a semi-trailer totally qualifies you to enforce the laws. I'll give him that he's useful to have around when someone else with powers is smashing up the city but what's he going to do with a typical crime scene, where you don't catch the guy in the act? Go on the TV, challenge them to a fight and hope they're dumb enough to come?"
"He's Spider-Man, he knows who the bad guys are," Flash declared.
"Yeah and four months ago Captain America decided Iron Man was the bad guy. Then he changed his mind after it was too late," Gwen snapped. "Put a guy in a mask and we're all cool with him playing judge and jury, but if my dad uses his baton or god forbid his gun to defend himself against some asshole resisting arrest and half the city's up in arms shouting about police brutality."
For a few moments silence held. "Any other opinions?" the teacher asked. "Or is it time for me to start assigning homework?"
"Well, I think Spider-Man's nothing but a hypocritic," Felicia Hardy baited Flash with a flip of her long white-blonde hair. "He does exactly the same thing as Captain America for months then he cozies up to Iron Man during the Avengers' Civil War and suddenly the city's bending over backward to accommodate him."
Flash scowled darkly at Felicia besmirching his hero but before he could say anything Liz Allen piped up, "Spider-Man figured out he was wrong, so he joined the good guy and he's trying to do the right thing now," shen said. "Why shouldn't the police work with him? There wasn't a law against what he was doing before the Accords."
"Yes there were," several of the class chorused.
"Vigilantism pfft," Liz waved it off, "Nobody's cared about those laws for years. Not until some heroes couldn't owe it when they screwed up."
"They aren't called the Sokovia Accords for nothing," Harry said. "You just go all fangirl over Iron Man because he rescued you once."
"Damn right!" Liz exclaimed. "Tony Stark used his armor to get me to safety while he stayed behind. That takes more guts than running around beating people up with weird powers. What do you have against Iron Man anyway Harry?"
Harry shrugged, "Tony Stark was basically a snake-oil salesman. Even after he said he got out of the weapons business he still had the US military pairing my dad's warheads with SI's guidance systems. If Stark couldn't convince his team to go along with him he was calling it in."
"He tried, we all heard the trial. He tried several days before the conference in Vienna and his so-called teammate walked out on him. He tried in Berlin and got shut down again. We all saw him try at the airport, but oh no Captain America knows best, he doesn't have to listen to anyone!" Liz exclaimed. "And the whole time he was lying to Tony and then he killed him all to protect the guy who murdered Tony's parents."
"Yeah, I give you Rogers wasn't listening there but if he'd really cared about getting the Avengers behind the Accords he wouldn't have just assumed Black Widow was passing on information to the team for him," Harry replied. "If you really care about something you take the time to lay the groundwork. Everybody hates change, so when you want someone to change how they operate you have to sell it, Stark didn't do that. He just dumped the Accords on the Avengers, whom he'd stepped back from, and expected them to be on board with him… After Sokovia."
"Sokovia wasn't Tony's fault! Why does everyone blame him for everything! He's a hero as much as the rest of them! He saved my life!"
"We all appreciate what Iron Man did for Ms. Allen," the teacher interrupted seeing tears welling up in Liz's eyes. "But to address Ms. Hardy's initial point: Is Spider-Man siding with the Avengers who favored the Accords in Leipzig hypocritical given his actions in the months leading up to last June and considering that he's refused to sign the Accords since then? Mr. Parker, you've been particularly quiet today. Do you have an opinion or are you taking a zero for participation today?"
Peter flinched. "Well, in the press conference he said he didn't want to commit to being available for international missions. That's fair isn't it? He didn't say he didn't agree with the Accords, just that he wasn't in a good spot to be dragged overseas all the time."
"He's got those special abilities doesn't he?" Felicia challenged. "If the world needs him out there, he has a responsibility to go. A real hero would make the time. I mean who cares about some stupid 9-to-5 when HYDRA's out there murdering people?"
Peter looked down at his hands. A part of him agreed that what Felicia was saying was right and Colonel Rhodes wasn't being fair saying he wasn't allowed to go on international mission just because he wasn't eighteen yet. At the same time, he couldn't imagine just leaving his aunt like that. Before his internship at SI, Peter had been selling pictures of Spider-Man to the Bugle to help make ends meet without his Uncle Ben. The internship took more time, since he couldn't double up patrolling as Spider-Man with paying bills but it paid better and Peter didn't miss the fights about money not being worth his life. Aunt May had not been happy when she'd seen his name on the Spider-Man pictures in the Bugle, given how close his camera had been to the action. She was more understanding now that she knew what was actually going on, now that she knew he was trying to help people not just worrying about family expenses. That one, Peter had admit Colonel Rhodes had been one hundred percent right about: Keeping Spider-Man a secret from his aunt, lying to her day in and day out had been a screwed up decision.
"No he doesn't," Gwen argued. "Spider-Man has a responsibility not to harm anyone with his powers and it's great that he wants to help out but he doesn't have a responsibility to do so. It doesn't sound like anyone's offering to finance him and we don't have a right to ask the guy to go all "Les Miserables" on us and end up having to steal to eat because he's too busy saving the world to hold a job. He's got a responsibility to himself and to his family if he has one. Tony Stark had the ability to ask Ms. Potts to take over as CEO of Stark Industries so he could spend more time on being Iron Man, but how would you like it if you worked for SI you lost your job because he was too focused on Iron Man and the company went under. And the rest of the Avengers were getting support, first from S.H.I.E.L.D. then from Tony Stark, so again if the company went under none of the Avengers would have been eating, let alone having all that cool tech. Without SI you don't have the Avengers. Can you seriously say Tony Stark would have done more good spending all his time as Iron Man at the expense of his company or was it better for the world that he maintain his business so he could do things like keep the Avengers going after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell?
"Considering most of the Avengers turned out to be backstabbing criminals?" Liz asked bitterly. "It's too bad he didn't kick them to the curb while he still had the chance."
"Spider-Man didn't do anything wrong," Flash protested.
"I didn't say he did," Liz shot back. "Spider-Man wasn't one of those assholes who spent years mooching off of Tony then betrayed him for asking them to follow a stupid law! Gods, you'd think he'd asked them to murder babies the way they reacted to being asked to sign the Accords."
"I have an idea!" Flash exclaimed. "Gwen's dad was going on about how Spider-Man's a legal identity now, so the cops should pay Spider-Man. I mean he's basically doing their job for them."
"He's working with them," Gwen protested.
"Yeah, and they should pay him so he doesn't have to waste his time with any stupid 'day job'," Flash returned.
Gwen's mouth hung open.
'SI's already paying me,' Peter thought to himself, 'I mean I do real intern stuff too but it's not like Dr. Stark would have offered if I weren't Spider-Man. And if Flash thought of having the police pay me other people will too, Then what do we tell them? We can't tell them I can't sign the Accords because I'm a minor.'
"Spider-Man fought with the Pro-Accords team but he's too good to sign them?" Felicia said to stir the pot. "This whole work with the police thing is clearly an attempt to get ahead of SHRA. Get in with the right people so he doesn't have to sign that either."
"If he doesn't want to sign it he shouldn't have to," Flash declared.
"I don't know," Liz said quietly. "The stuff Captain Marvel said about SHRA treating people like weapons and how it's objectifying, maybe it's not a good law." She glanced at the other girls in the class, "I mean do any of us like it when a guy looks at us and only sees boobs? Then you think about the stuff that awful Ross was already doing because he thinks Hulk and everyone Enhanced is just a weapon for him to use."
Felicia looked divided.
"Turn-coat," Harry muttered to Felicia. "Lizzie makes it a girl-issue and you jump ship on me. Come on Pete, we've got five minutes to go or homework, help a guy out here."
Peter gaped at his friend, 'The Accords were a choice, if I want to get involved on an international scale I've got to sign and agree to follow the rules laid out by the UN. It's not really that different than a driver's licence, if I want to get behind a wheel I have to prove to the government that I'm qualified and I have to follow the rules. But SHRA, what's being proposed now, if I don't give them my name I'll be breaking the law just because I've got these powers.'
"I'm disappointed in all of you," Harry announced. "Okay, the Hulk. You know I'm all in favor of him smashing the alien bugs that came out of the portal and I've met Dr. Banner at some of the research conferences my dad's dragged me along to. He seems like a nice guy but he's not really in control of the Hulk. Something makes him mad and you've got multiple city blocks in ruins. Do you want him as a neighbor?"
"The Hulk's only destructive when provoked," Felicia pointed out. "Ross proved you basically can't cage him or kill him so, um, your answer is keep provoking him?"
"Okay, Hulk was probably a bad example. Thor too, since he's Asgard's prince and if we provoke them they've got a whole army of super-soldiers vs. our handful," Harry said. "But isn't there something wrong with letting them dictate terms simply because we don't have the power to stop them from running roughshod over us?"
"No it's not about letting them do whatever they want," Gwen spoke up. "It's about reactive vs predictive laws. Like Felicia said: The Hulk is destructive when provoked, usually that means people trying to lock him up or shoot him because they're afraid of what he can do. Dr. Banner follows all the laws the rest of us do but because of what he's capable of people attack him and it goes badly. We're all capable of murder, physically capable of killing someone, but the police don't go around hounding us because of what we might do."
"Johannesburg," Harry interjected.
"Okay, maybe you've got a right to ask Dr. Banner what level of provocation he can deal with before Hulking out, especially after something happens," Gwen said. "But if what they were saying about the Scarlet Witch causing Johannesburg by using her powers to force Dr. Banner to lose control is true then you punish her. You don't punish people for laws they might break, you don't punish them for existing."
Pepper sighed, cradling her phone against her shoulder. "Marlena, I understand you're worried about Harley missing so many classes but his school is used to this sort of situation. He'll have video recordings of the lectures he misses and I'll put a tutor on the jet sent to pick him up to help with any questions he might have… Someone with Japanese languages skills as I see his Foreign Language requirement is giving him the most trouble since his previous school only required two years prior to graduation rather than demonstrated mastery and most of his classmates started working on their language in middle school if not before."
"It's not that Pepper," Marlena argued, "I know Harley can manage the academics. But how is he supposed to make friends when you're pulling him out of class every other week for SI business functions?"
"Two-thirds of his classmates are child-stars due to your location. The rest are olympic-class athletes or the children of politicians or other industry heirs," Pepper pointed out. "Beyond the security, I suggested that school because Harley's irregular schedule is the norm there."
"I just wish I could send him to a normal school," Marlena replied unhappily. "Are you really sure you need him at this gala?"
"It's a fundraiser for the Maria Stark Foundation," Pepper explained. "A significant portion of the donors are the legacies of her networking. For the most part they aren't as directly related to SI's business concerns as the other functions I've brought Harley to but Maria didn't ruffle feathers the way Howard did and Tony was much less abrasive when it came to people his mother respected. These are the people who leaven the paparazzi influence, they're the ones who convince our investors that the latest media scandal is nothing but hot air. Now, I'm not saying Harley's going to get up to the sort of nonsense Tony was infamous for but the paparazzi are going to be looking for stories when it comes to him. I want these people to have a favorable impression of Harley so when the media turns a molehill into a mountain they'll be there to set the record straight."
For several minutes the line was silent. "Why don't you come back here with Harley when this gala's done?" Marlena offered. "You're due date's only eight weeks after that."
Pepper shook her head, even though Marlena couldn't see her, "My doctor's here, in fact I've basically got my own maternity ward in the Tower due to the former Avengers medical unit. SI's corporate headquarters are just downstairs, I'll be available if something goes too wrong even while I'm on maternity leave. And it's not as if I'll be alone. Happy, James and Vision are all staying in the Tower."
"Can't argue with keeping the doctor you know and trust close. But being available to the company, are you sure that's what you want? I'd want to make them jump through some hoops before concluding that they need you to bail them out, at least until Nettie is a few months old," Marlena disagreed. "As for your company, between the three of them, I'm certain Happy, Vision and Colonel Rhodes could handle an invading army but when it comes to bathing a squirming newborn what you want is experience not fire-power."
Pepper laughed at that, "Okay, point to you. I don't think any of us, myself included, has ever held a newborn baby before. I hadn't even thought about bathing her, I've got to add a baby bath to the list of supplies needed. It took me a week to decide on a crib, I close ten million dollar deals without batting an eye but that crib nearly defeated me. Still I really wouldn't be comfortable giving birth anywhere else." To herself Pepper thought, 'Dr. Cho and her staff are aware that fire-proof receiving blankets might be a necessity.'
"Think on it," Marlena said. "You should have someone who's been there looking after you for at least the first few weeks."
"I'll think about it," Pepper allowed. "I have to go, another SHRA meeting."
Pepper took the elevator down to the garage level where Happy was waiting for her. "You see the news yet?" he asked as he opened the limo door for Pepper.
"I've been busy with the Gala plans all morning," she said. Pepper pulled out her smart phone and called up a news browser.
"Police caught in the crossfire as Daredevil and Punisher take on a drug cartel," the headlines screamed.
"Just what we need," Pepper muttered. "More fuel for the fire just when we're trying to convince people that we don't need a mandatory registration for the Enhanced."
"Are either Daredevil or Punisher enhanced?" Happy wondered.
"Does it matter?" Pepper sighed. "The public doesn't really sees Barton or Romanov as different from the other Avengers even though they're not enhanced. Daredevil and Punisher are part of that group regardless of what their abilities actually are or where they came from. FRIDAY, could you pull all footage on the fight? Security cameras, the dash cams on the police cars, any footage posted to the web. We need to see if there's anything to mitigate this mess."
"You know me, I love hacking," FRIDAY replied cheerfully over the limo's speaker system.
"On that note, Nelson called in sick this morning," Happy said as he drove out of the garage.
"You think the odds favor an injured vigilante friend over the flu?" Pepper asked. "FRIDAY, priority on anything that tells us how Daredevil got himself hurt."
After a few minutes a shaky, poorly-lit video popped up on Pepper's phone. It showed Daredevil shoving a cop out of the way a moment before a muzzle flash from the shadows. The impact of the shot knocked Daredevil backwards and he fell off the overpass where the fight had been centered. "Just after that an officer reports Daredevil attacked him," FRIDAY said. "I synced the timestamps. The gunman was in the dark, the officer probably never saw him."
"Okay, this is an angle," Pepper decided. "FRIDAY make sure that video propagates. Start some rumors that Daredevil was killed protecting a police officer. That should drain the energy out of the headlines we're seeing now and swing some sympathies back with our bone-headed heroes."
"I might discreetly check with Nelson about what sort of medical care they've got access to," Happy rumbled. "Hero or villain you can't exactly go to an ER with a bullet wound and not have cops asking questions. Especially if you're hiding that you're Enhanced or if you've got too many scars to explain."
"Peter!" Pepper exclaimed. "I need to talk to May. The medical team Tony put together for the Avengers kept files on all of them: How to work around the arc reactor while Tony still had it. Drug dosages for Thor and Rogers that actually did them some good. Even Romanov and Barton had notes about how to approach if they were delirious. We need a baseline on Peter so he can get proper treatment if he gets hurt or if he gets sick. He can't even get check-ups from a normal doctor, either they'll notice he's enhance and endanger his identity or if they don't notice then they're incompetent."
The night before.
A sharp jab in the ribs woke Foggy from a sound sleep. He scrambled backwards until he recognized Matt's mentor Stick standing over him. "What the hell?"
What Foggy knew of the man was that while he'd put Matt back together again after his father's murder, Stick's goal had been to train the ten-year-old boy as a soldier in his shadow war and when Matt became emotionally attached Stick abandoned him. As an adult Foggy couldn't sort out the mix of kindness and exploitation that drove the old man's actions and for that reason was inclined to consider the entire relationship abusive despite the abilities Stick's training had given Matt.
"He's got several fractured vertebrae in his neck and he dislocated his hip. Keep him off his feet for at least a week or two if you can manage it," the old man stated then turned and walked away.
"You can't just-" Foggy protested but Stick ignored him. "Where's Matt?" he called after him as he struggled out of bed.
"Livingroom," Stick replied. "You place was closer than his other friends. Can't be bothered hauling him all over creation." Then he was gone.
Foggy stumbled into his living room where he found Matt unconscious on his couch. Apparently Stick hadn't considered the majority of Matt's injuries worth mentioning. Matt was cut and bruised, covered in bandages and his neck in a brace that still had a RiteAid tag on it. For a moment Foggy found himself thinking about how far Matt might have walked or been carried before anyone thought of the brace. Then he forced mind away that avenue, 'Did one of them just smash a window and take it?' he wondered because it scared him less than what he'd been thinking before.
He turned around and walked back into his bathroom, then dug through his medicine cabinet until he found some hospital-grade painkillers left over from the injuries he'd gotten the night the Kingpin blew up the Russians the year before. He checked the label, 'No expiration date.' He rattled the bottle, 'Another few injuries like this and we're down to OTC's unless Claire's back in town.'
With the bottle of pills in hand, Foggy slumped in the chair across from Matt and waited for him to wake up. The morning newspaper brought the media's explanation of how Matt had come by his injuries. Foggy cringed at the headlines although he felt some relief when it turned out the only serious injuries the police had suffered were two gunshot wounds; Matt didn't use guns.
Around nine Matt shifted from unconsciousness to a restless, pain-filled sleep but as long as he could sleep through it Foggy didn't do anything to encourage him to wake. It was nearly ten when pain finally won out over exhaustion. "Here," Foggy said pushing a pill and a glass of water in Matt's hands.
"Thanks," Matt said once he'd downed them. He started to sit up.
Foggy put a hand on his chest, "Even that scary old coot says stay off your feet for two weeks. God what I wouldn't give to take you to a real hospital. X-Rays, no secondhand medication, a licensed doctor instead of whoever we can get ahold of with half a clue about what's wrong."
"Stick knows what he's doing," Matt assured him before he fell back asleep.
Foggy sighed and went online to see if there was a police manhunt for Daredevil. He was pleasantly surprised to find the online news much friendlier to Daredevil than the morning edition of the Bugle had been. There was even a video of Matt saving a cop that was rapidly trending. Foggy cringed as he watched Matt fall off the overpass after being shot. He shut down the internet browser in favor of a heavily annotated copy of the current SHRA proposal and a word processor
When Foggy turned on the TV at midday the video had jumped from social media to CNN. A young, slightly bewildered officer watched the video a reporter shoved in front of his face and admitted that what he'd assumed had been an attack had actually saved his life.
Matt had slept himself out by mid-afternoon. "Roll off that couch and odds are your hip pops back out of the socket," Foggy warned.
Matt sighed and settled back on the couch. "What are you working on?" he asked after a few minutes of restless twitching.
Foggy hesitated for a moment, then a look of determination settled over him. "A brief for the ACLU," he said. "I'm trying to get them looking at the more egregious aspects of SHRA. You want to do something to really to make things better? Stop going out and trying to get yourself killed and start acting like the lawyer you studied to be."
"Castle would have been there even if I wasn't," Matt sighed. "I was trying to get to them before he could, put them in a cell before he could put them in a mortuary."
"You could have been killed last night or paralyzed. You're not invulnerable, look at Rhodes, that could have been you," Foggy exclaimed. "Your neck is broken, if you were working with the police you would have had medical care, you wouldn't have had to limp off and lick your wounds by yourself. Just getting here, every movement was a risk that you shouldn't have had to take. You can't be sure that brace is adequate, what did the old coot do? Read your aura to see what medical care was need."
"I'm fine, Stick knows what he's doing," Matt said shortly.
Foggy took a deep breath, "Sorry, shouldn't have said that. I hate seeing you hurt like this, thinking about how much worse it could have been. Look, we're trying to find a way to bring vigilantes like you, the ones who are willing to be limited, under the law," Foggy pled. "That's what SHRA is meant to be but Ms. Pott's team isn't the only one trying shape it. Daredevil's a stop gap, going out and beating up bad guys the legal system misses it doesn't change anything. Going outside of a faulty system to force it to work only masks the problem. SHRA could be a step toward fixing the underlying problem… Or it could be a wedge driven between the Enhanced and the rest of the world. You're not going to solve this with your fists Matt, but I could use my partner. Help us make a good law instead of pretending you're above it."
Matt shook his head. "I don't think you can… But hand it over." He sighed as he accepted the thick sheaf papers, "Even if you had free reign to write the law anyway you liked I don't have the naivety to believe that people with money or power won't twist it to suit themselves, but let's see what I can do to help you make them work for it. Actually if I'm going to do this, do you mind stopping by my place? The text-to-braille converter is on the shelf left of the window."
"You actually need it?" Foggy asked.
Matt hesitated. He ran his fingers over the papers. "I could read a short note from the impressions of the print on the page," he admitted. "My senses are sharp enough to sense your pen strokes easily. I can even feel the raised ink from the laser printer, but it's a struggle to read like that. I have to fight to remember what the letters mean when they're not written in braille." He thumped the papers, "When it comes to the written word English isn't my primary language, hasn't been for a long time."
A quick smile crossed Foggy's face, "Thanks for explaining," he said. "Do you carry keys in that get up or am I going have to test my fire-escape scaling skills to get into the apartment?"
"Lucky you… check the belt pouch, forth to the right from the buckle."
As Foggy left Matt's apartment forty minutes later a dark-haired woman dressed to be forgettable fell into step beside him. "Tell him people know he's hurt. There's blood in the water and who hasn't seen Shark Week once or twice. We're taking care of things but he needs to watch his back."
"Who's we?" Foggy asked but the woman melted back into the crowds without a backwards glance.
For the rest of the walk back to his apartment Foggy told himself that no one knew about his connection to Daredevil and Matt was safe at his place. His heart rate still soared when he saw a heavy set man with a fighter's stance loitering on the steps inside his building. Foggy avoided eye-contact with the guy as he tried to slip past him and up the stairs.
When the man reached toward him Foggy threw himself again the far wall of the stairwell. The man put up his hands. "Happy Hogan, Ms. Pott's driver," he introduced himself.
Foggy took a deep breath and peeled himself off the wall.
"We saw the news," Happy said. "Thought I'd drop by and make sure your friend had medical care. Might not agree with how he goes about doing things but we're not going to stand by and do nothing if he's seriously hurting. There's a medical level at the tower and we've still got staff on call."
"I- I- Thanks, I'll tell him," Foggy sighed. "I don't think he's hurt bad enough to take you up on that. This time anyway."
Notes: Salaried Heroes: There's an old Wally West/Flash storyline where Wally's twenty, supporting himself and his mother. He had extremely limited marketable skills and an enhanced metabolism making him need to eat huge amounts. He decided to try to make money off of his heroing, since that's pretty much the only thing he's trained to do and everyone acted like he's a horrible person for this. I mean it's not as if the doctors and nurses who were looking down on him for wanting compensation for his life-saving efforts get paid for their work… Oh wait, they do get paid. I thought the disdain Wally's actions generated was overblown, wanting to make a living is not the height of selfishness.
Stick: If Tony deserves to be criticized for bringing fifteen-year-old Peter to Leipzig, then Stick's actions are utterly indefensible. Yes he gave Matt the training to cope with his abilities and to overcome his blindness to a degree that he's much more capable than a sighted person. But Matt was an emotionally distraught nine or ten-year-old and Stick was training him as a soldier, molding him for use in Stick's war. As much as Matt might have been upset when he disappeared it was probably the nicest thing Stick could have done.