Chapter Text
There’s a man standing on a bench in the park, holding a megaphone and a cardboard banner with two blood red interlocking D’s spray painted onto a black background.
“Vigilantes protect us! They keep us safe!” He proclaims. “What the Taskforce is doing is wrong! How many of you have been saved by one of our heroes?”
A small crowd has gathered nearby. Some of them raise their hands in response, others call out in agreement.
“Surely we need to stand up to Fisk! We need to stand up for our heroes, just like they would do for us!”
Unbeknownst to the man, a woman passing by has already dialled the AVTF’s number and sold him out to the bastards, and she’s long gone, too much of a coward to stay and watch the end result of her actions.
He continues to speak, articulate, passionate, and brave.
“I was saved by Daredevil when I was a kid!” The young man continues. “I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for him, putting himself on the line for me!”
He remembers it all too well. The night long ago when he was taken from his father; shoved in a trunk and locked away in a cold, dark room that smelled of urine and cigarette smoke. He shudders, but presses on.
“So now we have to fight back for him!” He says. “We have to make it known that this is our city, and that we need heroes like Daredevil and White Tiger, and Spider-Man-”
The man’s speech is cut short by a smoke grenade that scatters the small crowd around him in utter terror. Most of them attempt to flee, but end up straight in the arms of the waiting Taskforce, circling like a pack of wolves. They waste no time picking off their victims. An older gentleman. A couple of young twenty-something women.
“Get the fuck on the ground now!”
And the Taskforce are here for him too, with their guns cocked and pointed straight at him. The man doesn’t flinch as he stands there, steadfast, unyielding to their demands. He will not show them an ounce of fear. He refuses. There is no resistance without willingness to put oneself on the line; being arrested and taken away or even being killed is a risk he accepted the moment he decided to come out and protest against the wanted posters, the unlawful arrests, the disappearances.
They surround him. They shove their guns in his face. They twist his arms behind his back and force him to the ground, pressing his face against the dirt as they tighten the cuffs round his wrists. But he does not scream, or cry, even though he’s in so much physical agony as they haul him up by the shoulders and drag him away. Bystanders look on, not daring to intervene. Some are filming surreptitiously as they begin to haul him away. Others are too scared to even do that, cowering away from the heavily armed men; everyone knows that they have no qualms about hurting people and total carte blanche to arrest anyone who they deem to be a vigilante or a sympathiser. A few people voice their objections. "Fuck you!" "You can't do that!" "Stop!" but they take no notice of the trash being thrown their way or the admonishing cries of the people. It's as though they're impervious to it all, hiding behind their uniforms from any accountability for their actions.
“Mommy, why did that man get taken away?” He hears a small boy, perhaps no older than four or five years old, ask innocently, and oblivious to the danger such a thought could land him in, he shouts “He’s right! I love Spider-Man and Dared-"
“Shhhh” his mother chides, pulling him quickly away from the chaotic scene by the arm. "You mustn't say that"
"But why?"
The man smiles serenely at the little boy, looking him right in the eyes.
Even as the Taskforce manhandle him violently into their van, like his kidnappers did long ago, all he can think of is the night Daredevil saved him. Vividly, he remembers that Daredevil took off his mask to comfort him, though he has no real recollection of any of his physical features, only a hazy memory of a man who was fearless in the face of danger reassuring him that he didn't need to be scared anymore.
He only hopes that playing his small part in the resistance is enough to return the favour.
Perhaps that boy will remember him the same way one day.