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Matt did not understand why violence was so impressive to some people. If he could imagine that the person behind him was admiring his technique, perhaps he would understand a little. He wasn’t fighting a horde of enemies, seeming to predict their moves as he dodged, weaved, kicked, punched, and grappled with them. Nor was he caught in a graceful free fall only to catch himself in the end, swinging through the night between buildings. There was nothing pretty about this fight, not really very noble either.
The years that he thought that what they did was noble had long since passed. It simply was the best that they could do given their powers, abilities, training, constitution, etc.
He’d found them near the tail end of his near-nightly patrol of his corner of Manhattan. Though it wasn’t always so cleanly delineated, they all had their own little sections of the city that they protected. Sometimes there was a spoken agreement, oftentimes there wasn’t. Usually it just fell down to personal affinity. Where were you born? Where have you done the most living? Where did you call home? In any case, they had been three blocks from his apartment, a young woman’s muffled screams as she was accosted. The man’s words were soft. They should have been for only her ear: “Shut up, shut up! I don’t wanna hurt you, ya noisy bitch! I just want yer bag. Let go and then I’ll be out of your hair!”
Matt had hesitated for a moment, wondering if the woman would let go of her purse. Not that she should, but it would make it hell of a lot easier if he just had to chase him down and not have to worry about her getting hurt in the scuffle. The girl had guts, though, he'd give her that much. Instead of giving up her property, she’d hurt him instead. He’d only been able to imagine from the sounds of gnashing teeth and stomping of feet. Unfortunately it hadn’t done much good for her and instead of giving her a chance to get away, it had earned her a hard, open handed slap.
The man’s howl of ‘ ow! That fucking hurt, bitch’ , followed quickly by the meaty sound of flesh hitting flesh had easily covered up Matt’s landing at the mouth of the alleyway and rush forward to separate the two.
Matt was dimly surprised that she hadn’t taken off when he’d thrown her attacker into the opposite wall. He’d thought that she was in shock until he realized that she was excited. Not sexually, thank god, that was always awkward. No, it just seemed like she was enjoying the experience of being an onlooker in the kind of scene you had to pay the cost of a movie ticket to see. Every jab, every feint that left the man wide open, every time his fist landed with a resounding body blow, her heart skipped a beat, her breathing came faster, and occasionally she murmured incoherent approval.
In movies, a fight lasted entirely too long, especially between two amateurs. You could learn to throw a punch but that didn’t do shit for your endurance. Training taught someone not only how but also the endurance to last in a fight. When Matt had only begun, the would-be thief was woozy, leaning heavily against the building behind him as his knees buckled.
“That was sick,” she breathed from somewhere behind him. Matt was vaguely surprised to hear a foreign accent. One of those indecipherable European ones that he could never pin down. Norwegian? Swedish? Swiss? French? For all he knew she wasn’t European at all. Accents could be such nebulous things.
Matt grimaced before turning to face to her. Ignoring her vastly misplaced praise, he spoke softly. “ Where were you going? ”
“Huh?” She seemed taken aback by his question. “Oh, I was on my way back to a hotel.” Her sigh sounded a little embarrassed. “I’ve been using this alley as a shortcut for the past few days…I guess I never considered it might be more dangerous at night….”
Matt hummed, not quite unsympathetic. This should be a world where a person could walk wherever they wanted without fear of being attacked. Maybe where she came from was safer. Some idyllic small town where the cops weren’t corrupt and the streets weren’t awash with crime.
“Go catch a taxi,” Matt told her. “It’s not a good habit to wander far from well lit, busier streets at night.”
“ No shit. Thanks, by the way. What are you gonna do with him? ”
Matt canted his head and listened. The man’s daze had slid him into unconsciousness. Strange, he didn’t think he’d beaten him that badly. “Don’t worry about it.”
After she left, Matt considered his options. Was he really worth dragging to the nearest police station? True, the encounter had gotten violent, and the man had fought him back, but he didn’t exactly have the vibe of a career criminal. In fact he’d be willing to bet high that this was his first attempt. Sometimes justice wasn’t jail time; sometimes it was a lesson well learned. Being beat up by Daredevil in your first foray into a life of crime seemed like something you wouldn’t soon forget.
Instead he went to go find the girl to make sure she hadn’t gotten herself into more trouble. He found her waiting just as he’d strongly suggested: Trying to catch a cab or maybe she’d called one of those ride sharing services. He rather hoped it was the former. Matt was all too aware that the drivers for those companies weren’t exactly strictly vetted. Either way, he waited for her to be picked up and hoped, with some faint twinge of guilt, that he would be done for the night once she was whisked away to safety.