Chapter 7: Daredevil

                "Charles," came a voice.

                Xavier shook himself out of his reverie and pressed the switch on the side of his desk that activated the intercom. "Yes, Ororo?"

                "The mansion's cameras are picking up a small, fast-moving figure coming up toward the house from the west side," came her even tones from the speaker. "It is not yet close enough to trigger the alarms, but it will be here quite quickly. Should I alert the others?"

                "There are no other intruders? This one is alone?"

                "Yes."

                Xavier smiled to himself. "No, Ororo. I am expecting this particular guest; please do not interfere or hinder his path in any way." He turned off the intercom and went to the small table off to one side of the office, placing his hand against the surface to brace himself as he reached for the catch of his study window and unlocked it. Gasping with effort, he lowered himself back into his hoverchair, then took two glasses out of a side cabinet and filled them with iced tea. Then he reached for the remote to the small stereo on the corner of his desk and switched it on. The soft sound of Bach's 'Air For the G String' began to fill his office.

                He sat back and sipped leisurely from his glass of iced tea and closed his eyes, listening to the music. Moments later the window behind him opened, and a figure slipped inside, closing the window soundlessly. "Tsk, tsk," the intruder said, shaking a finger gently. "Such lax security, Charles Xavier."

                Xavier opened one eye, smiling dryly. "Hello to you also," he said. "Matt, come on. You what my security precautions are like; what makes you think that I did not know you were coming? Just because you didn't hear the rain hitting my security cameras doesn't mean they weren't there." He opened his other eye and sat up straight in his chair as his guest made his way over to the desk and picked up the glass of iced tea.

                The Daredevil stood on the other side of Xavier's desk, holding his glass in one hand while his head tipped back, listening to the music. He was a trim, wiry young man, with a firm jawline and thin lips that on anyone else would have looked feminine but on him just made him look handsome. The rest of his face was hidden by the dark red leather mask that fit like a second skin and flowed back over his head before angling downward into a body suit made of similar material. The suit fit him well, showing off the strong muscles that enabled Matt Murdock to dance on the highest rooftops of the city in his other persona, and profession, as the Man Without Fear.

                "Bach," Matt Murdock said after a moment, having identified the composer. "Very good choice, Charles. The sound waves produced by his music bounce evenly off everything and give me a very clear picture of you office. You've redecorated since I was last here." And he pointed to the framed picture behind Xavier's desk.

                Xavier chuckled. "Sometimes I wonder if you were indeed born as a mutant with sonar as your power, and it manifested when you lost your sight," he said. "Were it not for the fact that Hank has said you are unquestionably completely human, of course."

                Matt sat down in the chair in front of Xavier's desk and sipped his tea. "What new decoration have you added to your office?"

                Xavier turned and looked at the picture. "It's a copy of Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'," he said. "I find that sometimes looking at the swirl of color helps to order my scattered thoughts."

                Matt raised an eyebrow. "The most powerful mind in the city, becoming disorganized? I find that hard to believe…" and then he chuckled. 'Happens to the best of us. But you didn't request my presence here tonight to chat about your office décor."

                "No," and Xavier put his glass down as he sobered. "I was wondering if you had noticed anything of what the Kingpin might be doing lately."

                Matt frowned. "The usual," he said, leaning forward slightly in his chair. "Murders, drug trafficking, that kind of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you count the visit he made down to the Starlight two nights ago."

                "Really?" Xavier leaned forward now. "Tell me what you can."

                Matt frowned. "One of his lieutenants apparently went there last Saturday, looking for some fun. He saw a singer there he became enamored with. He told Fisk about her, and Fisk went to see her there last night. He took the club's proprietor aside in the alley last night and paid him to have the singer 'delivered' to him this morning." He paused. "As I was leaving the city to come here I noticed an unusual number of the Kingpin's thugs roaming the streets. I also overheard a conversation between two of them about a girl they were looking for. Apparently Fisk allowed the singer to leave his house alive—a very unusual happening—and then changed his mind later. He invaded Hell's Kitchen looking for her, but wherever she's hiding she is doing so very well indeed. I assume she has heard what happened to her employer and has gone into hiding."

                "Ah." Xavier said, sitting back.

                Matt raised an eyebrow under his mask. "Now I have a question for you. Actually several. Why are you suddenly interested in Fisk, and what he's doing in the city? Isn't your 'specialty' evil mutants?"

                "Normally, yes," Xavier said. "But the singer you were referring to is a 'friend' of ours, and is currently hiding here."

                Matt's eyebrows went up. "Well. The Kingpin will never think to look here for her. This is the absolute last place he will expect to find her. If I'm not prying, how exactly are you acquainted with her?"

                Xavier sighed. "I first met her about seven years ago. She was fifteen, and was living in the orphanage next door. She was being used by the keeper of the orphanage to rob banks. They went to rob Manhattan Savings.

                "The headmaster placed her under some kind of mind control  and used her to kill the other children who were participating in the robbery. Then he tried to flee. She resisted, fought the mind control. Jean helped her break it…but her power went wild and killed the Headmaster and his son, who was the one with the mental talents. She went to Mount Haven."

                Matt sat silently as Xavier took a sip of his tea and continued. 'She was abused terribly in prison. It was partly my fault; I promised to visit her, and I didn't. If I had, the guards would probably have left her alone. As it was, though, they saw this fifteen-year-old that no one apparently cared about, and they did what they wanted to. The warden tried to rape her, and she fought and injured him. In revenge he tied her outside and taped her eyes open. When someone finally brought her in the sun had destroyed her retinas and she went blind.

                "They decided after that that there was no reason for her to remain in prison. She couldn't see to use her powers; how could she be a threat to anyone? So they released her. She drifted around for a while until one day the manager of the Starlight asked her if she would sing for them. She sang, but she refused to participate in the club's other business. This morning her employer picked her up from her apartment and took her to Fisk. He forced her to sing for him until her voice gave out, then punished her with a beating." Matt winced visibly at this.

                "Bobby has become…involved with her, of late. He found her on the street later trying to find her way home. As soon as she told him what happened he realized the city wasn't safe for her, and brought her here. And as soon as he did we all realized who she was. I insisted that she stay here, even though she wants to leave; I can't let her leave. Fisk will almost certainly kill her if he finds her, and I would have failed her again."

                Matt drained the last of his iced tea. "If she is as strong-willed as you describe, if she doesn't really want to stay here she won't. Your security systems were designed to keep intruders out, not to keep people in. Short of locking her up in one of your cells, if she wants to leave you won't be able to stop her."

                "I know," Xavier said. "I asked her to give us a chance. If she's very unhappy, I'll make arrangements for her to live somewhere else."

                Matt shook his head. "I've 'seen' a little bit of your mansion. She's not going to be happy here. She'll have trouble just getting around."

                Xavier sighed. "I have to admit, I haven't got the slightest idea what a blind person would require. I've never had to deal with that particular disability. Part of the reason I asked you to come here is to suggest things I can do to make living here easier."

                Matt snorted. "Tell the women who live here not to rearrange the furniture. That's the first thing. She will have to memorize where everything is, and constant rearranging of furniture and what's on it will confuse her." He tipped his head back, thinking. "Have raised labels made for everything. Anywhere there's writing for anyone to see, put a raised label under it. It doesn't have to be Braille, though that would help. Another thing you could do is have her dresser knobs replaced."

                "What?" Xavier frowned.

                Matt explained. "If there's a different knob on each drawer of her dresser getting dressed will be easier. Also, make sure the water hookups on any tap she might use are the same. The hot water always on the left, the cold always on the right; otherwise she'll turn on a tap expecting cold water and it will be hot. If some of the taps are the same and some are different she'll be discouraged and she'll stop using them.

                "Label the canisters in the kitchen. Rearrange the contents of the cupboards so that all the cereals are in one, canned vegetables are in the other, and so forth. Then label the outside of the cupboards according to what's in them. It'll be easier for her to find what she needs."

                Xavier sighed. "I never thought about all of that. I never thought about what the world must look like to someone who can't see."

                Matt smiled. "Here's something to do. You can't, obviously, but have one of the women go through the mansion with a blindfold on. It'll give her an idea what your friend needs and doesn't need." He set his glass down, and said, "Perhaps you might consider…when the current business comes to a head, I am in need of a secretary. My apartment is two rooms; I don't use the other one. She's welcome to stay with me; my apartment's already set up for a non-seeing person. My computer has Braille characters on its keys; and my partner could proofread anything she types up. She can learn to handle the phone easily; and everything in my office is labeled, so organizing would be easy. Maybe you might consider asking if she would be willing to share space with me."

                Xavier's eyebrows rose in surprise. "I shall do so," he said as Matt rose. "This is an extremely generous offer. I will tell Amy about it; she could certainly benefit from having the help of another non-seeing person around."

                Matt held up a hand for silence, and Xavier stopped at that imperious gesture. From out in the hall they heard Bobby's voice. "We're on the ground floor, Amy. Just a little farther to the kitchen, and from there to the Rec Room and the medlabs. Hank will have something there for that burn."

                Xavier hastened to the door of his study and opened it. Bobby was helping Amy make her way along the hallway; she was dressed on pajama bottoms and a spaghetti-strap tank top that carefully left her back uncovered. He saw a great deal of red skin there that wasn't all due to the beating; and she was sobbing. "Amy!" he exclaimed. "Amy, what happened?"

                Bobby answered for her. "She turned on the hot tap in the shower instead of the cold one," he said grimly. "The hot water burned her back. I'm trying to get her down to the medlabs now." He saw Xavier's guest, standing beside him in the door to the study, and blinked. 'Hello, Matt."

                Matt didn't answer. There was just enough of the Bach filtering out into the silent hallway to bounce gently off the forms of the two people Xavier was speaking to. One he recognized as Bobby Drake, the Iceman. The other…

                She had long, straight hair pulled back in a ponytail with the end pulled forward over her left shoulder. The sonar picture he was getting was of a pretty young woman with high cheekbones, a heart-shaped face, and firm chin with a pert, slightly upturned nose. She wasn't the prettiest he'd ever 'seen' (a vision of Elektra passed though his mind) but there was something about her that made him want to stare longer. He fought down his initial reaction and took her hand where it was held out slightly in front of her. "Hello," he said gently. "I'm Matt."

                "I'm Amy. Nice to meet you, Matt." She had the most wonderful voice; though untrained, it almost throbbed (to his ear) with vibrant tones. The sound waves produced from just that simple introduction flowed from her lips and wrapped around her, and he shivered with the beauty of it. Xavier glided backward, and Bobby took Amy off down the hall as Charles closed his study door.

                He looked with some bemusement as Matt stayed standing, staring at the closed study door with an odd smile hovering about his lips. "She is something, isn't she?" he said gently, to break Matt's introspection.

                Matt shook himself and turned away from the closed door abruptly. "Yes, she is. I've never heard a voice like hers before. A pity her life didn't go differently; she would make an excellent singer." He didn't take his seat again, but looked at Charles. "If there's nothing else, perhaps I might go? I had a fairly bad night last night. I wouldn't have come out tonight at all if you hadn't asked me to come."

                "Oh, no, I don't want to keep you," Xavier said, suddenly noting how stiffly the other man was moving. "What happened?"

                "Got hit by a stray bullet last night on Canal Street," Matt said, grimacing as he touched the bullet wound in his leg. He'd bandaged it as well as he could, but in the process of getting up to Xavier's Westchester estate had reopened the wound. "I got the bullet out, but it'll take some time to fully recover."

                Xavier knew Matt Murdock couldn't go to a hospital. How would a blind lawyer explain how he got shot? "Hank could take care of that for you," he said, gesturing to the bandage.

                "It's just a scratch--" Matt started to say.

                "Hank could look at it as soon as he's done with Amy," Xavier said. "It would be no trouble at all."

                Matt thought about that. He could see Amy again… "All right," he said, turning away from the window and pulling off his hood. "Thank you."

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Amy was lying face-down on the biobed when Matt and Xavier came in. Hank was spraying some sort of medication over her back, and nodded to Charles. "Charles, Matt, I shall be done momentarily," he said. "Amy, how does that feel now?"

                "Better," Amy said, her voice muffled by the pillow she had pulled in front of her mouth. Hank pulled off the rubber gloves he had been wearing, and Xavier saw a thick white cream smeared all over them. There was more of the stuff on Amy's back.

                "Go ahead and put your shirt back on," Hank said quietly. "The fixative I sprayed on your back will prevent any of the anesthetic cream from rubbing off on your clothing. What can I do for you, Mr. Murdock?"

                Matt had to struggle to keep his voice level and his mind on the conversation as Amy got up. She was wearing nothing  on top, and as she turned around, he could 'see' the outlines of small, full breasts just before she pulled her shirt back over her head. "Uh…I…uh, got shot last night," he said, forcing his thoughts back to the conversation. He pulled down the red leather pants he wore, then pulled the leg hem of his biker shorts up his thigh and showed Hank the clumsy bandage he'd put on it.

                Hank tsked. "It's not a bad job for a blind man, Mr. Murdock, but you really should have had it looked at by a doctor."

                "And how many other doctors are there who would understand?" Matt shot back. "How does a blind lawyer manage to get himself shot?"

                Hank sighed. "True. Why don't you lie back while I get what I need?" Matt lay back on the bed Amy had just sat up on, and closed his eyes.

                Amy's ears pricked. "You're blind?"

                Matt smiled, though he knew she couldn't see it. "Yes," he said.

                "So am I." The interest in her voice was evident.

                "Yes, Charles was just telling me about you," he said. "It's not easy being blind, is it."

                "No, it's not." Amy paused. "Were you born that way?"

                "No, it was an accident," Matt said. "Chemical irritants injured my eyes. I've been blind since I was young."

                "I've been blind for four years." Amy's voice was soft. "I still find life hard."

                "It gets easier," Matt sucked in a breath as Hank started to unwind the bandage from his leg. "And you have a lot of friends here to help."

                "Yes," but Matt blinked, wondering what had happened to put that bitterness in her voice. Maybe if he got to know her more he could find out what had hurt her.

                Bobby spoke. "Amy, you're yawning, and Hank has to work. Come on. Let's get you up to bed."

                Amy stifled another yawn. "All right. Good night, Charles, Good night, Hank. Good night, Mr. Murdock."

                "Call me Matt. Good night, Amy."

                He sensed the smile. "Matt, then. Good night, Matt." And the door closed behind her.

                Matt made some small talk while Hank patched his leg up, but his mind was on the girl. And he was still thinking about her when he left the mansion much later.