Dolus eventualis
Claire likes to think of herself as a practical person. After so many years as an effective night shift nurse there's very little she hasn't seen when dealing with humans and their idiosyncrasies, obnoxious behavior towards danger and their infinite aptitude to act like total idiots. She's recovered the Devil of Hell's Kitchen half-dead from a dumpster, for crying out loud. These points considered, when the phone rings she thinks close to nothing will have the chance to make her even bat an eyelash. Turns out this is not entirely true.
Claire puts the burner against her ear, huffing to herself and wondering if he's forgotten the fact that she's more than a hundred miles away (or why she keeps charging this damn phone). She mutters a half-hearted 'what's up' while contemplating if he assumes she's going to grab her stuff and travel miles to see to his safety. The thought is a bit more than a little absurd, but strangely still invited. She doesn't know if she's supposed to feel annoyed or giddy at it.
A sharp gasp answers her. She knits her brow, thinking, okay, this doesn't sound any good, when a string of incoherent mumbles comes from the other side of the line, mildly choked. Frowning, she tries to ask him to repeat calmly whatever he's trying to say, but he's speaking over her in an array of inarticulate slurs, as if he can't hear her. This sounds bizarre and Claire doesn't really want to know why he's talking as if he's stoned unless he's stoned (but then, why call her?). Pulling a face, she tries to speak louder than him, demanding what the hell is going on but it's panicky rattle followed by distinct gurgle that his speech dissolves into, not anything in orderly fashion. She startles at the horrible sound ─ are you breathing?! ─ gauging what she can understand from the grating wheeze, which is nothing.
Matt Murdock can't form a sentence to save his life. Quite literally.
We'll get back to that.
…
Assault in the first degree. Criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. Coercion in the first degree. Aggravated assault upon a police officer. Manslaughter in the second degree. Arson in the first degree. Attempted mur- He files the list of his (alleged) crimes away to a corner of his mind, not caring, crawling closer: unannounced.
As he approaches the group he takes in what he knows. They seem to be of Sicilian or Italian descent (which is odd, he thought they were the remainder of the Triad cell but oh well), apparently led by a low level boss called Rocco Violi. It's another of those ridiculously half-witted mobs of drug traffickers that think it's a great idea to take the place Wilson Fisk and his associates left vacant. Which is not, if he has any say in it.
However, tonight is a bad night for this, he knows, because his actions aren't in the right place. He hasn't followed this group's activities for the last hour just to send them to Brett's capable hands or to rid Hell's Kitchen of its criminal bastards. Tonight he left home because he just couldn't stay in the apartment anymore, having crept around it all day after going AWOL instead of going to work, his spirit flailing inside him and screeching words that should never be said ─ it will happen again because you are weak and because you're alone and because you deserve this.
The night had been full of nightmares in which there was an attack and he couldn't sense or hear or scream, the pain gnawing at him until he thrashed on the bed sufficiently to wake up. In the dream he never got a chance to defend himself. When he awakened the anxiety and the pressure in his chest had been so intense it felt like having a heart attack. He hadn't slept for more than an hour, waking up sweating and out of breath, his legs moving like he was running; an aborted scream inside his throat as if he just found his voice, at the recovery of sound that was not there. Bolting to his feet and stumbling on the nightstand, crashing against the wall, the confusion of his senses, the void pressing at the world on fire and threatening to extinguish it-
No.
He needs something, he needs reassurance, he needs calm, he needs this, and isn't it funny when his serenity is only achieved now when he's pummeling idiots and sending them careening? His place has never been among peace. Murdocks have only ever thrived in chaos.
His phone's constant babbling Foggy Foggy Foggy Foggy intertwined with Karen Karen Karen Karen is still hammering against his skull. They care too much, he cares too little, and he isn't worth it. (He wishes for Amparo's hands on his arms again, it's okay, darling, just breathe.)
The darkness presses against his mind, the silence clusters inside his throat, he needs something he can't define, and going on patrol sounded both inviting and overwhelmingly dumb when he left his window. He's too erratic. He's danger tonight, and he shouldn't get closer than a mile from his suit or from anybody that might deserve a beating, for he's full of darkness and full of silence and the void can fall onto him at any minute.
He's scared shitless and admitting weakness is not in his nature.
Swinging his billy clubs, he wades into the surprised pack, scattering them in disarray as one of the sturdy billies strikes surely against a man's head, toppling him limply to the ground's cobbled surface. Immediately after he smacks another on the chin, sending him reeling out of the fight, probably with eyes rolling upwards.
Somebody tries to kick him from behind and he twists, his throbbing spine in flames. He savors the pain, powering on it to attack, hitting three of them interchangeably and in quick succession. The three men collapse to the floor before they can make sense of what is happening, their heads cracking like melons. The next two are not so lucky as billy club hits brutally against both temples. He is Daredevil tonight and Daredevil is incensed with frightened pain, and this pain drives him further instead of down. It's his only protection against acknowledging he's not well.
Bullets are flying on the corners of his perception and he's luckily dodging without a thought. The punching and the breaking are a lot more important for now than the conscious escaping from threats, and that's why he's both in danger and dangerous tonight. Nights such as this make him unfairly believe he's got nothing to lose.
His heart hurts, but it should be his head. Darkness swarms around him, threatening to make him topple flat on the floor with its weight, and he's imagining things. Suddenly he wants to answer to the phone that's probably ringing inside his apartment and tell Foggy he's afraid and he can't live in the darkness even if that makes little sense coming from a man who's been blind for the past twenty years. The void is a frightening place to exist in for however much time ─ was it minutes, hours or centuries? ─ his father is dead and God does not care about his misdemeanors. He wants to scream from the nonexistent pain.
The bullets stop coming. He's decimated a gang of drug dealers in less than ten minutes and that's not even close to enough; he's vibrating with tension. One of the men groans close to his left leg and he kicks him until a wet noise replaces the sound. He should be calling NYPD, let the police handle this. His right hand goes to the burner and dials 911; Karen's Band-Aids make his fingers hard to cooperate. The operator picks the call, but he can't bring himself to speak ─ what's your emergency, you idiot? ─ he licks his lips and tries again, tongue curling behind his teeth. Someone curses in Italian in the background. He viciously kicks at a head until the voice fades to quietness.
The operator repeats the request. He disconnects the call.
…
There is blood everywhere and this is not how things are supposed to be. Ruthless and efficient have always been Cesare's traits and this brand of downfall is more vexing than he deserves. She puts the weapon down.
She knows a lot about deep wounds by now, and she thinks, dully, that Cesare is probably going to die, because there is too much blood. She doesn't think anything about that; it's a purely theoretical calculation, as though the outcome doesn't matter much one way or another.
Everything around her is separate from everything else. Her hands, which as she stares at them seem to mock her, are covered in blood that's becoming tacky. Death is surrounding her, like it's something that's always been there and will never leave, and she supposes she's intimately familiar with death anyway. Her pants have a little stippled pattern of something dark pressed into them where she was kneeling, and she stares at her knees, seeing nothing, thinking nothing.
The officer comes from behind her. "Miss, you're under arrest," he seems to say, not unkindly, and he has to repeat himself twice before she notices he's actually there.
"Ah," she stares through him, her mouth dry. "Ma lo sai cosa è successo? Cosa è successo?"
He's looking at her curiously. "You understand what I'm saying?" She lip-reads. "You are under arrest for the murder of Cesare Violi."
At some point she seems to have receded into Italian. She looks at him blankly ─ Cesare's not dead, don't say 'murder' like someone killed him ─ and then shakes her head to clear it. "I understand," she replies, and now she doesn't know what to say. The officer doesn't need her words, though. In less than a minute he's leaving with her handcuffed and Cesare is nowhere to be seen.
…
The apartment is as quiet as always. Foggy's scent is all over the front door (he was here) and his phone is probably bursting with new unanswered calls. He approaches the kitchen counter and lays his hands against it; his fingers twitch. His whole body breaks into shudders and he doesn't know why.
"Hey, Galaxy," he says, breathily, and the phone whirs to attention. All he has to do is tell it to call Foggy. Maybe even Karen. Explain he didn't go to work today because he couldn't face them and say he's alright. Or, while he's at it, that he's afraid and no, that doesn't even make any sense. (But it had been one occurrence, one occurrence, and he'd been blind forever, who can tell that it's not going to–)
He leaves the phone waiting for a command until it goes into standby again. The faint ever present headache blooms like blood in silk when he closes his eyes and pushes his face against his hands, his brain frantically (childishly, pathetically) calling for his father.
The night is a sleepless child and so is he.
…
There's a threshold of pain, he learned, not to be felt. No. 'Not to be felt' isn't exactly the best way to put it, because he does feel it, but it's the type of pain he constantly has to push to the back of his mind. As his senses threaten to burst with stimuli whenever possible, this kind of ache is always efficiently shoved behind other impressions that are both a lot stronger and much more useful. So, up to this threshold he doesn't feel pain sufficiently to acknowledge it. It's always there, needling his brain in a way that should be uncomfortable, but it's been for ages too usual and too branded as part of existence to be picked out from the rest. Intimate and familiar as the skin between his fingers. It's been there since the accident and it will follow him quasi unnoticed to the end of his days.
It's not easy to remember exactly each and every thing Stick ingrained into him ─ there were many ─ but if Matt is completely honest with himself there were more things his old master had to force out of him than otherwise: stupid, simple things, side effects of silly boyhood.
One of the first things Stick had to train out of him was his pathetic reaction to headaches. He used to have them incessantly, as the stings of the world made him nearly mad with shock, but by the end of the first month Stick had already beaten this particular immunity into him. He would make Matt expand his senses to the highest and listen to the worst sounds humanity can produce for hours, until his ears were ringing, his stomach's contents were spilled and he was dry heaving pitifully, on the verge of tears. After weeks of this it kicked in, of course. Terrible noise equated to splitting headache, which equated to torment. His body learned to turn off its reaction to pain so that he wouldn't have to feel it. Pain tolerance conditioning by pain, which is, in itself, very clever (he bitterly congratulates Stick). So he does not acknowledge headaches anymore. At least not until his skull is cracked open.
After the painless threshold, he learned, comes the second: the threshold of safe pain. While the first one deals with the everyday hurts, the second one is designed to galvanize him into action, propel him to fight. He does notice this pain, twisting his insides and lighting him on fire, but instead of making him writhe on the floor it turns him into the actual devil. The acute and sharp quality of it makes adrenaline hum in his blood and fuels him with violence; the detachment persisting, feeding his viciousness, until his fists don't have to beat, his legs don't have to run and the world doesn't have to break if he doesn't move.
He learned how to associate this spectrum the hard way, being kicked several times on the ribs while down, stepped on, slashed, punched, broken, thrown against the wall. Until his stupid body understood this misery wouldn't end unless he got the hell up and reacted instead of lying on the ground as if enemies were supposed to give him a break. He lost count of how many times Stick had to yell at him to fucking counterattack, Matty until he finally found it in himself to move instead of passing out (like a moron). The second threshold is the one in which pain isn't a sign to stop until safety, so he can only allow it to kick him on the shins after he's out of harm's way. (Sometimes an oddly masochistic part of him wishes that hadn't become so easy to handle, and when the pain comes he bitches to himself just because he can.)
He makes sure the pain sticks to the second threshold. That's because the third means life-threatening injury, which he avoids whenever possible (he's a fighter, not suicidal). He's had unpleasant encounters with this spectrum three times in his life and none of them were particularly enjoyable and all were quite deadly; fresh in his mind are Claire, Foggy and a bunch of secrets being thrown on the fan to splash everywhere more or less at random.
But the last time. That is, if he can fit that into a threshold that existed before.
…
The pain is too unbelievable to exist in any category but its own. It came, it lingered and it left him agonizing in a deep pit of nothing. Alone to deal with it in a ditch of darkness and silence. He labels it the threshold of the void, and unconsciously prays that he never has to go through it again, not even in dreams–
our Father who is in heaven, please, please–
but no one is listening.
…
The effects are still in here today, as he hastily makes his way to the office with tension pulsing through his bloodstream and tiredness holding him down, not having slept more than an hour for two days. His emotions are all over the place, he's getting angry at small things, like clumsily burning his tongue with the coffee and slipping the wrong shoe on the wrong foot, his throat restricting and clothes oppressing him and he wants to scream and rage at things and be self-ignorant enough not to care.
He had debated with himself calling in sick this time, but that would make Foggy and Karen more suspicious than they already were, and it wasn't like he would be able to sleep anyway. He had also pondered at least hailing a cab just to avert from taking the same steps to arrive at the building, but he is not superstitious nor overly avoidant, and if it happens again he'd rather not be enclosed with a stranger in a screaming. metal. death. trap.
He isn't a scared little thing, and he won't cower. The idiots he left last night wrapped as gifts in front of the precinct would uphold to that ─ the end of the Whatever Violi little reign.
He's twitchy when he pushes the traffic light button, his internal clock counting down every senseless second until the cars break, submissive to their red light. He can't tell if it's real or not, but the pain is there when he starts to cross the street, ghosting over him like wet cobwebs. It may be just his imagination or the void crashed all his thresholds into one, but the faint, constant headache rages higher and makes him almost involuntarily drop another cane on the same curb.
He powers through the illogical dizziness as a man sinking in quicksand, forcing himself not to run to safety. He wants to throw up. No. It's psychological, he's not weak and he won't cower.
He won't.
…
When Matt opens the door and steps into the office Karen instantly snaps her attention to him, promptly scanning for answers she could not grasp the other day. Matt is particularly secretive when something's up, and she is almost sure both him and Foggy still haven't realized she knows most of the stuff they try to hold from her. Seriously, guys? Like she could not put two and two together and detect the Daredevil thing faster than they could create another ludicrous excuse for this much bullshit (you can have so many car accidents in one life). She hasn't called them on it yet just because the correct timing hasn't come up. Besides that, it's a little amusing in an insulting way to see them try to spin the truth without breaking it (she will tell them, though. Eventually. Honest-to-God).
However, looking at him once more Karen doesn't think this is Daredevil-related; the muteness, the shaking, all the telltale signs of fright had never been there when he was swinging fists at Fisk and all the mobs that can fit in Manhattan. That and the fact that Foggy seemed as put off as her, having refrained from contending Matt as if oddly dismayed, just to be effectively shunned all day yesterday in between countless of unanswered calls.
Matt stops at the door as he notices her, all stiff as a doll made out of tin, looking nauseated and disgruntled, stretched a bit too thin for her liking.
"Hello," she says, because she's staring and he's weirdly paralyzed, and this is getting awkward.
"Hi," he greets back, curtly, as if he's speaking through shards of glass. Without even removing his coat he tries to put a wall between them by quickly entering his office, probably trying to avoid Foggy, who's in the restroom (Foggy had been fidgety and exasperated when she arrived, having spent all night fuming after knocking incessantly on Matt's door. She's sure he's so tight he will snap at the first word they exchange if Matt remains infuriatingly mute).
She follows Matt inside his office, watching him sit on his chair a little unbalanced.
"How are the knees?" She asks from the doorstep, trying to keep things light for the time being and noticing when his grazed fingers twitch over the table at her presence. "I can see you're taking good care of my Mickey Mouse Band-Aids."
He huffs a quiet laugh, but doesn't say anything. He hasn't changed the colored Band-Aids, and from where she's standing they look slightly disgusting, but other than a weird pair of glasses that must be older than her, he is much like two days ago. Maybe a little more composed, except for the fact that most of the signs of distress are still there, and his hands jerk a little now and then, as if he's suppressing the urge to shudder even though he's still dressing his coat and a thick scarf. She's about to offer coffee and watch him refuse it when Foggy shows up behind her, seething as she presumed he would be.
"The fuck, Matt."
Matt tilts his head, shifting it in Foggy's direction with what passes for confusion or maybe for the fact that he must be two days past his bedtime. "Hello," is all he says as an answer, and Foggy loses it.
"Hello? Really?"
Matt stops where he is, blinking behind his old black glasses. "Um?"
"What the hell is happening to you?!" Foggy yells and Karen tries to see through Matt, but he only frowns, as if a particular sort of insanity has befallen his friend.
"What are you talking about?"
"You know what I'm talking about! The last two days! You, spaced out, tongue-tied, bloody knees, snubbed phone calls!" Foggy approaches, fuming, looking like he wants to strangle someone. "You went MIA yesterday and I knocked several times on the 6A but you didn't answer! We are worried! What is happening?!"
Utter silence for some heartbeats. Matt's voice is neutral, almost toneless, when he deigns to answer. "I forgot to charge my phone," and that is it.
Karen arches an eyebrow. That must be the poorest excuse she's ever heard for a suspicious no show, and Foggy seems to agree, because she can see him raising his hands in a 'why is this my life' gesture and taking a sharp, exasperated breath.
"Seriously, dude, that's got to be-"
The jingle of Foggy's ringtone disrupts what could have been the longest bitching lecture in the history of Nelson & Murdock. Foggy looks at the display of his phone and makes a face, pointing at Matt and mumbling an 'I'm pointing at you and this is not over' before he leaves to the main office to pick the call. Karen notices when Matt bites his lip, placing his computer in front of him in a classic defensive gesture (let me barricade with this right here).
"You know this won't end like this, right?" She asks, because if she doesn't nobody will. Matt grimaces, trying and failing to shrug with as much nonchalance as an aggravated teenager. "I don't want to force you to talk to us, Matt. But if something is happening…"
He shakes his head resolutely this time; his fingers still twitch. "I'm fine, Karen," he says, seeming to feel the tension in the air. She watches when his shoulders forcibly relax and his terseness seems to ease. He smiles and repeats, "I'm fine."
He was so taut mere seconds ago and now he's smiling and he's so good at this when he tries, the false front, that it sends eddies of unease to her guts. Her instincts screaming at her. It's obvious something is happening but she doesn't know how to reach him.
"What do I do to help you?" she asks instead, and it's instantly the wrong thing. His face closes over in something dark again, nearly aggressive; he doesn't want her help, her pity. Karen shakes her head and licks her lips, "how about coffee?"
He blinks behind his old glasses and quickly all of that anger is gone, drained away. He smiles again and nods, but Karen watches him with deepening dismay as he reflexively barricades her with everything that's over his table. There is no easy way to all things Matt Murdock ─ with him the learning curve is a lot, a lot steeper.
I'm fine, he said. And if his fine looks so much like shit she doesn't want to see his not-fine. He looks darker than that one time she had had to reassure him, and back then he had already seemed to her as though ready to collapse. You aren't alone, she wants to repeat, but it suddenly seems like it might be the wrong thing to say. She doesn't know what he's fighting and much less if being Daredevil means to always fight by himself.
"Okay… Um… Okay. I will-" she starts, but Foggy quickly reenters the office, his face stern.
"We'll have to continue this conversation later. Brett has a case for us."
…
It's drizzling again when they leave the taxi and step onto the sidewalk in front of Manhattan Central Booking. The building is austere and uninviting, two tall columns of concrete and signs that read 'do not enter until instructed by officer'. It's raining and the wind is blowing his umbrella to the wrong direction, Matt is stubbornly far enough from him to get wet and Foggy is not sure what he wants more: that they open this damn gate already, that his umbrella stops freaking bending or to whack Matt across the head for being difficult. The gate thankfully opens before he decides to commit assault in front of the building that processes all criminal activity in Manhattan.
According to Brett the name is Cecilia Valente. Found eighteen hours prior in the crime scene with body and murder weapon, apparently in flagrante delicto. And that is that. Foggy has no idea what they are doing here at a time such as this, given Cecilia's arraignment seems to be scheduled to happen in less than an hour and they don't have a clue what's going on. Nelson, I need yours and Murdock's ass ASAP in MCB, I have a case for you, I'll explain better later, and that's all there is. No preparation. No details. No love. That's Brett Mahoney for you.
The officer that is supposed to provide them with Valente's RAP sheet is the human version of a headache, burning daylight like he has a long way to go still, doing everything as if each movement costs him ten bucks. Foggy glowers at him, trying to sufficiently convey his annoyance. Brett is taking more time than it's sensible to call again and explain and Matt is sitting on a bench with his back against the counter, tapping his cane senselessly against the floor, in a way that looks like a nervous gesture to anybody that doesn't know him well. (Do you know him well, Foggy Nelson?, he asks himself grudgingly.) He's about to restart his questioning when the slow-motion officer finally obliges to give them the RAP sheet. Foggy takes the piece of paper looking silent daggers, dropping on the bench next to Matt to start reading at last.
Matt is still tapping lightly and pressing his lips into a thin line. His voice is strange when he speaks, as if collapsed into a tiny box. "What does it say?"
Foggy looks at him and then at the paper, frowning. Nothing of this is any good. "She says her name is Cecilia Valente, 34, Italian, and claims to have relationship with the deceased," he worries his lower lip, trying to focus on the task at hand. "No previously recorded arrests."
"She says?" Matt asks, certainly sensing he's not done. Foggy sighs, feeling the RAP sheet weight on his hands.
"There are no documents to prove her identity, no fingerprints on the system, no family connections," his frown deepens a bit. "She's being charged with first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder following a… suspicious fire."
Matt continues tapping, probably unconsciously, a crease on his forehead. "She's most likely an illegal immigrant. And… those are some serious charges."
"Yes. I have no idea why Brett called, he must really think she's innocent. Our office looks like a wasteland because we've refused clients for a lot less."
"Did he say why she needs an attorney so close to the arraignment?"
"Not really. Something about her original lawyer dropping the case two hours ago," Matt arches an eyebrow. "I know, it sounds like weird shit, but Brett was so frantic about the fact we had to be here that… I don't know."
Matt is quiet for a while, until he speaks again. "What does the report say?"
Foggy runs his hand through his hair, turning the paper and grimacing. "Apparently the deceased is called Cesare Violi, the owner of a wine bar in the Upper West Side," he watches when Matt nods with a furrowed brow at the name. "Shot in the head at close range with a shotgun. The other two haven't been identified yet, but are in critical state at Metro General, severely wounded by quite a few shotgun and pistol wounds. There isn't much information about the fire. It seems like she said the two men attacked her and Violi and she was uncons-"
He would continue, but Matt stops his tapping with a start, as if somebody smacked him with his own cane, sitting bolt upright on the bench. Listening.
"Matt?"
Foggy tilts his head and narrows his eyes, taken aback by the reaction, until a minute later the conversation also reaches his ears. Two corrections officers are coming from the end of the corridor, talking too animatedly for a place that is sagely nicknamed The Tombs.
"Ah, another thing. The Italian bitch keeps pretending she can't hear us. Speaks just like any other person, though," one of the fartsniffers says. "Did you see she had the nerve to glare at me for inspecting her?"
"Yeah. Deaf my ass," the other agrees, grinning when the other mentions the inspection. "Getting tired of these fuckers pretending disability for us to cut them some slack," he has a manila folder in his hand and opens it, still smirking like the thick asshat that he probably is. "The attorney for Cecilia Valente?"
Oh, great. The woman is disabled and these stupid idiots are bashing and probably harassing her. This won't end well.
He watches as Matt's demeanor changes, pointedly hitting the cane against the floor to call their attention and immediately rising to his full height as imposing as a glacier wall. The change would be quite a shock if Foggy had never seen him do this before, but the way he stands and moves surely in the direction of the officers ─ cold smile fully operational ─ tells Foggy everything he needs to know. This is Matt in full-fledged punisher mode, and he will take this case and ace it if it's the last thing he'll ever do (this reawakens memories from professors who thought it was ok to tell Matt Murdock what he could and could not do). Foggy rolls his eyes, exasperated; they don't even know the full reason for the charges or if there's any chance this woman is sufficiently innocent not to be sent to Rikers Island today, and still. Pig-headed.
"Matthew Murdock and Franklin Nelson, defense attorneys," Matt says, motioning to himself and to Foggy. "No, the glasses are not a fashion statement and yes, the cane is real. No need for cutting slacks, though, we can manage ourselves."
The CO with the manila folder swallows drily. The other seems to wither a little at their own indiscretion, staring at Matt as if he's never seen a blind defense attorney before (which might just be true, but in that case whatever).
After what he's just heard Foggy doesn't particularly care about their reasons for blatant ableism, but the fact that the simple act was enough to rile Matt to punisher mode proves just how weirdly raw he is. It peeves Foggy a little not to know yet what is happening, but there is no time for this now. Serious business Matt is already talking.
"I would like to know what is taking so long for us to see our client."
…
Cecilia Valente is brought shackled with other five inmates, and for a moment Foggy has no idea who he's looking for. Granted, he knows the mental image he has of all Italian women (Monica Bellucci) isn't exactly always accurate, but what his mind's ever connected with them requires the adjectives sexy, passionate and too irresistible to exist. However, as they sit in front of the Plexiglas divider, it's a very different kind of woman that he sees, as one of the COs uncuffs her and points at them. She quietly looks across the glass to Matt and Foggy, clearly not expecting to see them (clearly not expecting to see anybody at all).
She is a thin and small woman and at first glance ordinary enough looking, seeming no older and no younger than thirty years old, and not exactly someone he would call pretty or even anybody he could picture firing a shotgun at three men. She is dressed in the plain white of the inmates, a guarded expression in her face, her dark brown hair mussed around her shoulders in a strangely lovely way. This is just the first of many discoveries. Upon closer inspection, as the COs interact with her explaining the rules, he begins to realize that she isn't so ordinary. Her eyes are a clear hazel, her gaze penetrating. She seems to rarely look from the face of the person speaking to her, but fixes the speaker with an unflinching hazel stare, making the one who speaks acutely aware of his words. And when she talks, which she does not seem to do often, she uses no gestures. Her words and her mild voice appear to convey what she wishes succinctly. She has no need of gestures. It's easy to see why they would doubt she's deaf.
Thus, when she finally sits in front of them and stares directly through the glass, Foggy recognizes something very familiar. This woman isn't sweet Monica Bellucci; on the contrary, she's a fierce but disabled creature in an unforgiving and isolating world. And as soon as this thought hits him hard he knows something really important, something he needs to look at Matt to confirm and understand. Cecilia Valente knows her struggles, and she will take no shit.
"Miss Valente?"
She nods, clearly paying attention to his mouth. That's how she does it, then. Lip reading. For a moment he had forgotten they might need a translator.
"I am Foggy Nelson and this is my partner Matt Murdock. We are your substitute attorneys."
She nods again, narrowing her eyes.
"We are interested in your case," even though we still hardly know any shit about it or you.
"I have no money," she says briskly, and Foggy wants to roll his eyes at Brett. Of course.
"That's not our interest." Matt answers bluntly back. Foggy stares back at him. Here we go again.
"What is?"
Matt starts tapping his cane again, tilting his head slightly to the side. "The two men. You described them as the attackers of you… and a certain Mr. Violi."
"The police doesn't seem to care much about finding the truth about those two."
"Some do," Foggy argues, but she brushes it aside.
"They think I'm responsible."
A quick silence follows until Matt steps in again. "Are you?" he lifts his eyebrows, posing both hands over the top of the cane in a way that looks reverent. "A man is dead and two more are in the hospital. There was a suspicious fire that could have killed many innocent people. Serious charges."
She seems to bristle at that. "The two men attacked Cesare. They lit the fire. They did this."
"Who are they?"
"I don't know."
"What really happened?"
Foggy wonders if Matt can feel the way Valente's eyes are burning holes through him. She scowls. "Exactly what I said in the report. They knocked me down, I don't remember much after this."
Matt tilts his head again, to the other side, his voice and posture so solemn he looks more like Daredevil than Matt Murdock. "Maybe that's not enough. Maybe you're hiding something."
She stands up and Foggy intervenes. The CO in the corner is eyeing her with distrust.
"Miss Valente. We can work on getting you out of here, but we need your cooperation."
Her hazel stare leaves Matt and redirects right at him, pinning him to his chair. "Why should you believe me? Maybe I do belong in an institution."
"Who are you?" Matt presses, blunt as an old knife, and Foggy pulls a face at the rawest punisher mode.
"Nobody."
"No fingerprints on file. No record. No next of kin. As if you don't exist."
She scowls again, shaking her head. "Leave it that way."
Silence fills the air again, as everybody stops speaking. Foggy wonders if this bothers her at all, and hesitates on what to do. It's quite clear something is rotten in the state of Denmark, but they don't know shit and the judge will be ready in a few minutes. Still, that is not punisher Matt's course of action.
"Who did this to you, Cecilia?"
She opens her mouth and closes again, frowning hard. However, when she's about to restart speaking the CO in the corner steps towards her, another quickly approaching and directing himself to them. "Unfortunately, sirs, the time is up."
Foggy looks at him as if he's grown another head. "What do you mean? Her arraignment is in ten minutes. We need as much time to discuss this as possible."
"I'm sorry, counselor, but that's the information I was given. Due to problems with some of the documentation, the inmate's hearing was delayed to tomorrow afternoon. The Central Booking will be sure to be in contact with you."
He's about to express how much bullshit this idiot is speaking when Matt's hand shoots up to his arm. He wants to argue, but leashes his tongue because the hold is strong and that must mean something. Cecilia is quiet.
"We'll be back tomorrow," Foggy informs her, Matt's hand still heavy on his elbow.
"You should just leave," she answers, shaking her head. "This will get you nothing."
"Have a little faith," Matt says, his voice lighter. The CO handcuffs her and she looks right at them, her hazel gaze unflinching.
She whispers something under her breath and is taken away.
…
"What is the verdict?" Foggy asks him as soon as they step on the sidewalk. There are a million questions waging war inside his head and even though his ridiculous headache is pounding, grinding his nerves. This is good, this is distracting. But this is also a little bit more than just baffling.
Another Violi. He wonders if there is any connection at all.
"She was telling the truth. For the most part, that is."
He can sense Foggy musing. He's also distracted and Foggy's distraction is even better, it means he'll be able to slip unnoticed with little effort after making all that scene. "Which part?"
"She didn't do this, Foggy," he says, blinking the headache away behind his glasses. "But she wasn't telling us even half of the truth, that's for sure."
He only realizes he's walking too fast, and in the rain, when Foggy tugs his arm another time, pulling him under the umbrella for the tenth time today. "There's something really weird with this story, arraignments in Manhattan hardly take more than twenty-four hours after the arrest. Why would her public defender drop the case two hours before the arraignment? Why would anybody target this Cesare dude? Who are the other two at the hospital?"
Matt takes a deep breath, struggling to separate his thresholds and put the pain in its correct place. Foggy's hand on his elbow grounds him. He focuses on a more important question for the moment. "And who is Cecilia Valente?"
"That," Foggy puts, wisely, "is as good a question as any. I didn't think she was the type that wielded shotguns, really."
"Because she is deaf?" he asks, because being an asshole after those idiots is basically a right, not just him trying to be a dick. The headache is starting to give him the spins heavy drinking doesn't. Stick would be ashamed.
"No, pal, I swear I'll never bet anything against people with disabilities anymore." He hums and Foggy shakes his head. "We might have a problem, do we have a problem? If we do take this case, after representing John Healy and Carl Hoffman we might be setting precedents for our once immaculate reputation."
"Objection, Your Honor, on the Healy case at least we got enough for the bills and a fax machine," he jokes, because if he doesn't he'll have to ask to sit. "I wonder if Brett thinks we have a thing for young women charged with first-degree murder."
Foggy snickers. "Come on, Matt, my malleable moral compass tells me after the arraignment we should pass this case to another less moral abiding lawyer. That is, if you don't have to take it anyway because your moral compass has been overridden by your freely spinning bullshit-ometer."
"Oh. My bullshit-ometer."
"Yes. That's basically one of Daredevil's powers. I know you heard something was off. Spill it."
And he really should, or Foggy will remember there is another thing he wants Matt to spill and they'll start arguing again. He is about to be honest for once today when Foggy's cellphone interrupts yet another important conversation, making him fumble with the umbrella and release Matt's arm to pick it. The sensation both liberating and destabilizing.
"It's Brett. Finally," he's almost sure Foggy is arching an eyebrow. Reading a text, it seems, not picking a call. "He says he can't leave the precinct today. We have to go there. Has your bullshit-ometer decided?"
He smiles, nodding. "Go meet him, keep me posted. I'll go back to the office and review what I can find on Violi in the internet."
He seems to have been too obvious, because Foggy takes some time to answer, not sure if he should allow that as if by tugging his arm he can drag Matt wherever he wants. Or say whatever he wishes.
"Yeah… do that. Tell Karen we have new case."
…
Cosa Nostra.
That's what Cecilia whispers under her breath. Matt isn't exactly sure if she thought anybody would hear her, but that is more than enough for him to go with. He tries to force himself to pass by the office and hang in there at least for a couple of hours in front of the computer (you said you would, his body screams for a break, but he stubbornly reminds it he doesn't acknowledge pains on the first threshold). His spirit tugs him in the other direction.
With a day lost in wait at the Central Booking, in less than an hour it's Daredevil that is stepping in the city, effectively convincing himself he can't feel a thing. It is too much of a coincidence he finds himself stumbling in men called Violi on the same waking shift (that doesn't mean much by the amount of time he's been awake, but he shrugs that thought), one of them arrested with his mob and another shot dead in a homicide full of suspicious aspects. The Cosa Nostra?
Ever since Don Rigoletto has gone into hiding the Italian influence in Hell's Kitchen, an area once owned by the Cosa Nostra, has dwindled to nearly nothing. Other mafia bosses have always been involved with many dealings all over New York, but the closest he's felt them since Fisk had been some drug dealing in Chelsea and Upper West Side, which he also saw to not long ago. He tries to focus most of his efforts in Hell's Kitchen, but it's not like he can always ignore the rest of the city over less than a square mile. For a city so overpopulated with superheroes, New York seems so crime-ridden to him it's a wonder it hasn't crumbled into anarchy yet.
He's jumping over rooftops nearly on the abandoned building he found the group in less than twenty-four hours ago. If there's anything in here that points to the right direction he'll find it.
There's something suspicious about the-
The wave of sound and light strikes him so unexpectedly and so efficiently his brain nearly implodes on the first stimulus. He's running full velocity over the roof when it happens, his leg catches on the parapet and twists; the wicked impulse sends him over the edge.
He plummets to the ground with dizzying speed, crashing face first over iron fire escape stairs in a twisted heap of limbs. The pain of the second fall is nothing. He can't feel it. It's drowning inside the ocean of agony that thunders inside his head and all his senses, bursting through his eyes and ears and the world compresses and twists every corner of perception into a flood of anguish that cannot be controlled or shaped or known by itself. There can't be anything worse than this.
It feels like fulmination, like being lit on greek fire and left to burn forever and forgotten. He has no body, no capacity to withstand or separate what he is from the agony, the fire is peeling his skin, his eyes are balls of flames, his ears are melting and nothing nothing nothing-
Oh God oh God oh God-
The horrific pain goes just as it came, leaving behind the throbbing ache of the leftovers.
And the void.
There is nothing.
He retches. Blood is gushing through his nose, copper and bile on his tongue. He's lying twisted on the iron fire escape, bleeding and dirty and that's all he knows. The world on fire is gone, torn from his hands with so much ferocity nothing was left behind. He can't hear or sense and the horror is as paralyzing as a blanket of dirt. He's six feet under. Somebody buried him and forgot to check if he's alive.
Why?!
He wants to ask, but at the same time not. There's no one in the void but him. He should want to run and burst through the nothingness but he feels so shocked and so horrified and so alone he can't move. He can't-
Matty! Matty!
I'm right here with you. It's Daddy. Here, feel my face. Feel my face.
I'm right here.
I'm right here.
He twitches with repressed movements. He wants to throw himself into his father's arms and sob. He wants comfort to his despair. He wants his Daddy to run his fingers through his hair, wants him to hold him in the safe circle of arms until the world and all its careless cruelties retreats, because his father was the only protection he's ever known and he's gone. He's gone. He wants, so badly, to be protected again. He can't be alone with the void.
It's all right, Matty.
It's all right.
He's gone.
Abandoned, mindless. He has lost all feeling in his hands, in his legs, in his lips, can't tell if he is breathing or not, and a great flash of silver panic, edged with bitter despair, lances through his brain. He gasps.
The only protection he's ever known.
But-
Foggy is at the precinct, less than four blocks from here. He's not protection, but he's constant, caring constant and concerned yelling, and Matt is sure if he calls there is no doubt his best friend will come. There will be explanations to be made but he can handle that. He can handle that. He can handle the truth. He can-
His hand goes to the burner holder on his leg, shaking, his fingers numb, some certainly broken, he doesn't care. It's too hard to think. He always calls Foggy using the voice command of his regular phone and he can't remember the number by memory. He can't remember and he almost says 'hey, Galaxy' by mistake and how will he call if he can't remember? The despair is gripping his throat and he nearly lets out a sob. Or he lets out a sob. He can't hear it.
His fingers are too numb against the tiny buttons of the burner and he presses the send button by mistake in the contacts list. He can't see, he can't listen, but there is no doubt who the phone is calling. There has ever been only one number in his list to call. She's not protection but she's safety. She's cure. She's-
Hitting the end button should be simple, but he fumbles with the device and instead of hanging up puts it against his ear and starts to speak or tries to speak or- he doesn't know. He can't hear himself and it feels like his mouth is not working as it should, he can't form the words and he wants to lie down and wait for her to pick him and fix him because she cares if he hurts. Somebody… But Claire shouldn't have to listen to that. She left to escape the hole he created in her life. She doesn't deserve this.
He disconnects the call.
…
I've grown up in a world of compulsory resilience, muffled gasps and tip toeing blindly around broken glass. I have insignificant worries and unsorted feelings that knot my insides. I have tangled thoughts stuck on infinite repeat. I have little love for myself and I forget to breathe if I don't focus.
I am made of glossed-over lies and termite-eaten walls. I am built of broken paper cups and massproduced fake art and you can't know me because I won't let you.