Chapter 9: It's Seven O'Clock And I Wanna Rock

The attack on Avengers Tower was on the news.

No one seemed to know what had attacked, which only made people more interested. Some said it was a massive bird, or a Chitauri soldier, or a small advanced plane that just looked somewhat like a bird.

A few people online actually speculated that it looked like a gryphon, but people didn't seem to take them very seriously.

Aura wasn't mentioned, even once. She supposed that was a blessing, but it probably just meant that the Avengers planned on handling it themselves or with SHIELD.

Aura also didn't know why the gryphon had attacked mortals. Maybe the Avengers' interest in Aura was taken as a threat by monsters?

The problem was, gryphons weren't very smart or observational. It was almost as if a smarter monster had recruited the gryphon. But that was unheard of. The only times different kinds of monsters worked together was in wars on the gods. Why would the gryphon do that for another monster? What had it been offered?

…

The day after that, Aura got a panicked text from Daredevil.

Daredevil: I need your help. Someone close to me has been kidnapped by Wilson Fisk

Aura: I'm free. Where should I meet you?

Aura scrambled to pull on clothes (so what if she had put on pajamas after getting back from work), her combat boots, and reinforced fingerless gloves. She attached her sword sheath to her belt and strapped a dagger to her arm. Daredevil texted her a side of Hell's Kitchen to be at halfway through, and as she was running that direction she got another text with an address.

She didn't know Wilson Fisk, or who had been kidnapped, or how dangerous this was going to be, but she went sprinting towards it anyway. Like an idiot. Or like a hero.

The tendencies tended to mix together. A lot of times the difference is just coincidence.

The address was the Veles taxi building. It seemed surprisingly quiet for this time of night. No cars or people were going in or out.

Aura could see a dark figure standing in an alley across from the building. She texted, "I'm here," and watched as the figure pulled a phone out of their pocket and checked it.

Reasonably confident that the figure was Daredevil, Aura stuck her phone in her pocket, flipped her hood off her head, and started casually walking that direction.

"Hey," Daredevil said when she reached him. He sounded frazzled and anxious, and he kept turning towards the building.

As usual, he was wearing all black and a black cloth mask pulled over the top half of his face.

"Who's Wilson Fisk?" Aura asked. She too was looking at the building, scouting for entrances and exits.

"Tell you later. They have my friend in there, in the basement."

"So, what's the plan?" Aura asked.

And he told her.

…

It was a good plan, though Aura didn't know how he would be able to tell where everyone in the room would be standing. Did he have night vision? A child of Hermes Aura knew, Charlie Garcia, was exceptionally gifted in luck. They could chuck a dagger into a battle and hit a monster dead-on every time. Maybe it was like that?

Aura didn't have any particular jobs for the plan, just to back Daredevil up. Daredevil was going to be busy holding off the bad guys, so Aura's priority was to get to Claire and get her somewhere safe.

Aura was right outside of the building. It was a taxi company, so the whole basement was a parking garage for taxis. A large garage door right next to Aura led to a ramp going down into the basement. The garage door was open, and Aura could hear an injured and upset Claire being interrogated about Daredevil's identity.

Aura tapped her hand on her thigh, softly humming Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) by Elton John.

After a few minutes, the lights in the basement clicked out in unison.

Aura grinned and started walking down the ramp. She went as quietly as she could, and the sounds of the guys talking angrily (in almost comically heavy Russian accents, what was this, Die Hard?) mostly covered up her footsteps.

Aura got to the end of the ramp and started creeping around the edge of the wall towards the direction she had heard Claire's voice coming from. It was amazingly dark, but she could already feel her eyes adjusting, which meant the Russians could see well enough to fire a gun. Which they all had.

A lasso suddenly wrapped around one of the guys and yanked him backward, which Aura only knew because she had been told that's what Daredevil was going to do. The bad guys would only be able to guess based on what they heard. Many angry and confused Russians whirled around with guns, threatening the intruder. The man who had been standing nearest to Claire took a step away from her, diverting his attention.

Claire was sitting in a chair, wrists and ankles duct-taped. The chair was facing away from the side of a taxi. Aura took her chance, sidling up to the other side of the taxi. She was now much nearer to the goings-on, but everyone was on the other side of the taxi.

Daredevil started to really go after them. Pipes and wrenches were hurled, bad guys were tackled, the like.

Aura was busy creeping around the side of the taxi. It was too dark for her to be seen easily, but rapid movement was much more likely to be noticed.

Soon she was almost behind Claire. "I'm a friend," she whispered, leaning closer. "Don't freak out. I'm going to get you out of here. Are you duct-taped to the chair?"

"No," Claire said. She started trying to stand, but her duct-taped ankles made that rather difficult.

Aura knelt, unsheathing her arm knife and using it to cut through the tape. Then she did the same to the duct-tape around Claire's wrists.

"Follow me," Aura whispered.

The two started walking around to the back of the taxi, but one of the Russians yelled "The prisoner's escaping!"

Uncool. "Run!" Aura said to Claire, who took off towards the ramp.

A pipe thwacked into the head of the guy who had yelled, and Aura used the distraction to yank his gun out of his hand and chuck it as far as she could towards the rows of taxis. Then she stamped on his foot (with combat boots! Fun!) and punched him in the face.

The guy said something presumably very unkind to her in Russian, so she said, "Κύντερον!"

As they continued their ferocious fistfight, there were a lot of insults. Aura couldn't understand him, and she knew that he couldn't understand her, but they both did a very good job of conveying mutual dislike.

Aura knew that Daredevil had been very clear about not killing anyone, but the guy was quite strong and did a good job of defending his pressure points, and Aura was getting tired. The good news was, she could hear the other bad guys being taken out around her.

A few times, guns were aimed at her, but only one person fired. She dodged decently easily, so she was mostly annoyed on behalf of the bad guy she was fighting. Someone on your side firing at someone really close to you was like, mega cold. It would have been very easy to hit him by accident.

But when he glanced at the shooter accusatorily, she immediately punched him in the diaphragm and when he leaned down slightly to grab his chest she punched him in the side of the jaw hard enough to knock him unconscious, so she didn't feel that bad.

He crumpled to the ground, and Aura gymnastics-rolled out of the way and came up running to avoid possible gunfire.

There was none, so she just looked stupid.

She ran up behind the guy Daredevil was sparring with and used him as a springboard, slamming her foot into his back.

He stumbled forward hard and Daredevil knocked him out with a lead pipe.

Aura had always thought "Teamwork makes the dream work!" was a stupid thing to drill into preschoolers, but here she was.

"Where's Claire?" Daredevil demanded anxiously.

"Mike?" Claire asked, coming down the ramp.

Aura took a few steps back and let them have their reunion. It was the most awkward one she'd ever seen. Claire wrapped her arms around his waist and started shaking. Daredevil, or "Mike" (what kind of a name for a superhero was Mike?) put his arm around her and tried to console her.

"So," Claire said, watery. "I'm about ready to go home, how about you guys?"

Just to clarify the title is from Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting) I don't know if this takes place at seven, this is from the scene in Daredevil