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Daredevil had been known to team up with the Punisher on occasion. But only very occasionally. Usually it was the result of having a common enemy, or the necessity of an ally, or to share knowledge, or, heaven forbid, (but more often than Matt would like) the need to prevent Punisher from taking the fight too far. Tonight it was none of those. Tonight the reason was based purely on Matt’s need for help. (He thinks that he’ll be embarrassed about that at some point, but he’s too out of it to think about it right now.)
Daredevil and Spider-Man had been involved in a rather nasty crime scene. A drug cartel had gotten out of hand in Upper Manhattan. Usually Matt would leave a job in that part of New York to local heroes in that area, but this particular operation was moving quickly and coming dangerously close to Hell’s Kitchen, threatening to expand onto Daredevil’s home turf anyway. So the devil had taken matters into his own hands.
Spider-Man was an initially unplanned addition to the equation. He had gotten word of the cartel and tracked Matt down to help him out with it. The two of them had spent Monday afternoon working out their plan. (After Matt managed to dissuade Foggy from coming over and Peter had finished all of his classes for the day.) It wasn’t a very elaborate or detailed plan, they both enjoyed a little improvisation in their work. And it looked to be a pretty simple job. And they didn’t have the most detailed information to work with. This particular cartel was doing a semi-decent job of keeping their secrets with a combination of an unusually tight circle of confidants and bloody ways of keeping those secrets amongst the pawns that they used. Matt was sort of impressed, he had found that most organizations of this kind were pretty awful at keeping any secrets if you knew who to talk to. (And how to talk to them.)
The red duo had managed to secure the time and place of the cartel’s next meeting (just the next night), so they headed out Tuesday night just after the shadows began to lengthen. By the time they got to the location of the meeting (old, filthy warehouse -- why always a warehouse?) it was well past dark.
Daredevil and Spider-Man moved silently to the roof of the warehouse to listen in to what was happening inside. It quickly became clear to Matt that this “drug cartel” was far more than that. According to the discussion taking place in the warehouse below, the cartel was apparently also a trafficking ring. Matt was sort of a little more impressed by the ring now that he knew that they had apparently managed to keep that off the grid. He was also disgusted. This new development brought the complication of having to rescue the victims who were being held in a side room of the warehouse. It also made Matt ache to draw blood. He could hear Spider-Man’s heart rate nearly double when Matt told him about the children huddled in the small room. And wasn’t it just a little more disgusting that they were all children? Matt made the executive decision to send Spider-Man to get the children out, much to his companion’s chagrin. There was no way that he was going to let Spider-Man anywhere near the men in charge of this operation while he was that worked up over it.
While Spider-Man slunk off silently to see to the children, Matt let himself into the warehouse equally silently to distract the ring. He wishes he could say that he tried his best to keep a level head and only act as a distraction. But he would be lying. The devil made sure that Matt took the first opportunity to put his fists in someone’s face.
The fight was quick and bloody. Although the cartel was armed, they are flattened in a few short minutes, Matt riding high from the rage-fueled adrenaline pumping through his body. Several shots were fired in the scuffle and his ears are ringing faintly from the loud noise. He can just make out the sound of Spider-Man coming back into the building, no doubt moving noiselessly to anyone else’s perception. It’s nearly silent to Matt’s enhanced sense, and that’s quite the feat. Matt contemplates meeting Spider-Man halfway, but as soon as he moves pain shoots up his left side. He thinks he lets out a gasp, but regardless, he’s sure he hears Spider-Man echo the sound, jumping down from the wall where he was crawling toward Matt.
“DD?” he ventures hesitantly. “You okay? What happened in here? Oh man, this is insane!”
He must be looking at the disaster that the floor of the warehouse has become. “Did you get the kids to safety?” Matt growls out.
“Yeah, yeah. Called the nearest precinct to let them know where they were and everything,” Spider-Man tells him distractedly. “Seriously, though, what the hell happened in here?! This is a mess!”
Matt lets out a dark chuckle and is rewarded with a sudden reminder of the sting in his side. He stumble to the right and Spider-Man is suddenly at his side supporting most of his weight effortlessly. The kid is strong.
“Okaaayy,” Spider-Man says in a slightly panicky voice. The kid pulls his hand away from where he rested it on Matt’s left side. “Oh, shit, man! Shit! That’s a lot of blood!” Matt hadn’t really noticed it before, but now that the kid’s said something, Matt can feel the warm stickiness slipping down his side.
“Calm down, kid,” comes a low rasp from Matt’s left and Spider-Man jumps at the unexpected voice. (Probably far enough back that he’s in the shadow?) “Panicking sure as hell won’t help anyone.”
Matt faintly registers that he must be in a bad way if he didn’t hear the Punisher come into the warehouse. (During the fight? After? Was he shooting too? Did he kill anyone? Matt tries to listen for the heartbeats of the cartel, but quickly gives up. He can’t tell.) He knows the Punisher’s heartbeat well enough to recognize it from blocks away. This time he didn’t hear anything at all.
“-gonna get him out of here before the cops swarm this place.” Punisher’s voice fades back into Matt’s perception. Is he losing chunks of time too? Shit, this is bad. He thinks that he would already have know that if he could just focus long enough to--
Sudden pain bursts through his body as he’s hauled into thick, strong arms. “Frank!” he manages to gasp out.
“You’re good, Murdock,” Frank reassures in his deep voice that rumbles through Matt’s whole body. Matt hears Spider-Man gasp again from Frank’s right side. He’s in too much pain at the moment to determine why.
“You hear any sirens heading this way?” Frank asks as he starts moving toward the back door of the warehouse, Spider-Man trailing along behind.
Matt thinks that he manages to grunt out an answer. He can hear them approaching, but he thinks that they’ve got a good seven minutes before they get here. It’s hard to concentrate long enough to be sure though.
He can feel even the smallest jolts as he’s carried out. But while his sense of touch seems to be amplified by one hundred, the rest of his senses are on the blitz. He feels the throbbing pain in his side acutely from a spot just above his hip bone, but he only catches snatches of Spider-Man’s vocal freak out taking place right behind him. He feels Frank’s uneven gait, the pain sharpening every time his feet touch down against the cement floor, but can barely make out Frank’s gruff responses to Spider-Man’s panicked questions about whether or not Matt’s going to make it. (If Frank were truly annoyed by the kid’s questions Matt would put forth more of an effort to pay attention to their conversation. Luckily Frank seems to simply be uncomfortable and out of his depth as he tries to comfort the kid as best he can.)
Frank misjudges a step in the dark and slams his foot down harder than he intended. A jolt of lightning passes through Matt and the last thing he’s aware of is Frank’s soft apology before his remaining senses desert him.
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Matt comes to in the back of a car that smells of Frank Castle. (coffee, gunpowder, dog) His head is laying in Spider-Man’s lap. The teenager is arguing with Frank about the merits of a hospital.
“You gonna explain to the nurses why he’s naked or are you gonna explain to the cops why you hauled Daredevil into the hospital in the middle of the night?” Frank demands from the front seat.
Spider-Man splutters a response. “Well, he needs medical attention, like, twenty minutes ago! Hospital is the best place for that!”
“And he’ll get it. Just not in a hospital. Trust me on this, kid, okay? I know what I’m doing here. This is going to be a lot easier for everyone involved. You, me, and him.”
Spider-Man makes a skeptical sound and Matt can tell that he’s gearing up to argue some more, so Matt inserts himself into the conversation. “No hospitals,” is all he manages to choke out before he’s promptly ambushed by his lungs and falls into the most agonizing coughing fit of his life. His body instinctively attempts to double over, even stretched out as it is, and his side and ribs (oh God, not broken ribs, please not broken ribs) chime in with their distaste for that plan. All Mat can hear is his own blood rushing in his ears. By the time the coughing stops and the blood quiets, Frank and Spider-Man appear to have resolved their disagreement, or at least have stopped arguing out loud. So Matt allows himself to slip back into the black blanket of unconsciousness that’s calling his name.
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The third and final time that night that Matt comes to, he’s once again been moved. His senses are muddied and the pain in his side is dull. (morphine) He can’t really use his radar sense when he’s this drugged up, but he can smell the familiar scents of a hospital. (cotton sheets, disinfectant, bleach, blood) His sense are coming back to him one at a time. The next thing he’s aware of is the muffled sound of the Night Nurse talking to someone a few rooms down. (That answers the question of where.) Then he feels the top of a head pressed against his arm, sleep-slow breathing coming from the person resting next to him.
Ah, now he’s picking up heartbeats. Spider-Man’s young heart coming from the vicinity of the head next to him. The Night Nurse’s heart near her voice. The Punisher’s strong heartbeat next to her.
The nurse stops talking and Matt hears Frank’s low rumble next. He’s speaking so low and deep that Matt can barely make out any of the words. As it is, he only gets “Foggy” and some numbers. (Foggy’s cell number?) The Night Nurse retreats behind her desk, probably to call Foggy, and Frank’s footsteps move down the hall toward Matt’s room.
Matt checks to make sure that his eyes are still closed. He allows Frank to believe that he’s still asleep as the vigilante peeks into the room before retreating back to the front room. A few more mumbled words to the nurse and Frank’s gone.
Matt shifts on the bed. Spider-Man stirs at the movement and raises his head from the bed, his heartbeat speeding up slightly as he wakes up. He jerks into a sitting position when he sees that Matt’s awake, his heart rate spiking before slowing back into its normal rhythm.
“You okay?” he asks worriedly as he tugs uneasily at the bed sheets.
“Fine. I’m good,” Matt croaks out.
Spider-Man flinches audibly and Matt hears him fumbling with a cup and pitcher on the bedside table.
After Matt manages to take a few sips from the offered cup, Matt sinks back into the pillows. He can tell that there’s something that the kid wants to say, so he waits patiently.
Finally Spider-Man speaks. “Look. Um, that was. That was pretty freaky back there. We’re lucky that the Punisher was there. And it made me realize. Well, the thing is--” he stops and sighs. “Sorry. I’m rambling again… it’s just that, you seem like a decent guy. And if anything ever happened to me while we were, you know, doing what we do. Well, I would want someone to able to tell my aunt. So, um. I’m Peter Park. From Queens.”
Taken by surprise by the sudden speech, Matt nods wordlessly. He knows how much trust is involved in the telling of a secret identity. There’s a reason that they’re secret.
“I kind of… I kind of already know who you are?” Spider--, no, Peter ventures timidly. “The Punisher kind of said it. Sorry. I know that that’s a big thing. And you should have been able to decide that for yourself.”
“It’s fine. Really. I trust you.” Matt smiles gently in Peter’s general direction. “Matt Murdock. Hell’s Kitchen.” He doesn’t extend his hand in a handshake, and Peter doesn’t seem to mind. Matt doesn’t know if Peter’s put together the whole blind thing yet.
“Oh! By the way,” Peter says excitedly as if reading Matt’s mind. “I don’t know how you do it, but I think it’s super cool that you do what you do blind! It’s awesome!” Matt grins at Peter’s enthusiasm. A pause. “And I’m also now realizing that you probably couldn’t read any of the notes I’ve left you. Sorry about that.”
“I have someone to read the notes to me. And I’ll explain how I do it sometime. Just… not now.”
Peter nods emphatically as Matt sinks further into his pillows.”Right now, I think I’m going to go to sleep,” Matt admits. “You should probably get home to your aunt.”
“Yeah, right. Good idea!” Peter jumps up. “Is it okay if I call tomorrow to see how you are?”
“Of course,” Matt allows. “Now go home and get some sleep before your classes start tomorrow.”
Peter nods a final time and lets himself quietly out of the room. He says goodbye to the Night Nurse and lets himself out the front door onto the New York street.
As Peter heads one direction away from the makeshift hospital, Matt hears Foggy approaching from the opposite direction.
Matt gets shot and breaks at least two ribs. Foggy just misses Spider-Man by minutes. All in one night. Foggy is going to be pissed.