Open

[blindninja]

» WHO? Matt Murdock & OPEN
» WHEN? Now
» WHERE? Deck 6 => 6.27 => Deck 5
» WHAT? Arrival
» WARNINGS? TBC

Arrival Hall (CLOSED to Frank Castle)
It's cold.

He's not where he was before. He knows that much. He squeezes his eyes shut and lets his senses go, scanning his surroundings like an uncalibrated radar. Metal. Lots of metal, clanging, banging. But everything is wrong. Lighter, like things are floating even when they're not. People are talking. Laughing, maybe. But distant, like the next apartment building over, or somewhere down the next block. The fine hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck stand with the low buzz-hum of the vessel, creaking, engine churning like an old ship, suspended in space.

It's like a hangover, except. He feels heavy even though he's light. Shackles on his feet. His head hurts. Everything hurts. And God, what is that noise?

Less of a waking up, more of regaining consciousness as Matt rolls over with a pained cry and a grimace.

His hand crawls over to the smartwatch, trying to mute the beeping and humming and screeching grating against his ears. What day is it? What time? What happened? He clutches the device with one hand and runs the other hand down his body. Daredevil's gone. Only Matthew. A jumpsuit covering the bandages. Stitches. Blood. No pearly gates, no apostles. No questions to answer about how he's lived his life, whether he's lived it well, whether he's repentant. Paid enough of a price. Just a jumpsuit... and a pair of boots?

"...lectra." Talking feels like rousing up a sandstorm in his throat. He groans and struggles to his feet, using energy he doesn't have to drive him forward. Out. Just the one thing on his mind.

I have to save her.

He gets blood on his palm as he presses his hand over a wet bandage, stitches having been ripped as he sluggishly stumbles deliriously down the corridor. His boots clunk along at an uneven, unsteady pace. Everything is too loud. Too cold. Too heavy. There's blood on the wall where he braced himself against it. And then there's a door. Everything flickers behind his closed eyelids. Black, red, black, red, black, black, black...

Room 6.27. Where everything's a little quieter. And he can just focus. Keep the red lights on in the dark.

6.27. Matthew. Chapter Six. Verse Twenty-Seven. 'Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?'

Hn. That's funny. The chuckle bubbles to the surface. For all the pain He's inflicted, God still has a decent sense of humour.


Departure Lounge (OTA)
He doesn't take kindly to being dumped in the med bay, but there's not much of a fight he can put up against Frank Castle in his current state. He's not sure how long he's been resting there, but when he's well enough to orientate himself again, he's not staying in the med bay. The machines are noisy. He has questions. He's scared.

Matt makes it two steps out of the med bay before space sickness kicks in. The sheer wrongness of the gravitational pull throws him off, throws everything around him off. He sinks down to his knees and clutches his head, curling up against the wall. He looks pale, like he's about to throw up.

Comments

[blindninja]

He's not sure how to read any of that. Their blood might be floating inside their bodies all wrong but a heartbeat's a heartbeat and he can tell something's not right. Didn't they find the body? Or has something worse happened?

All of that is forgotten when Frank says she's alive. Matt's eyes widen and he can't hear anything else.

"Where is she?" No, he didn't hear any of what Frank had said after that even though that information might be as important if not arguably more so than the fact that his undead ex-not-ex is back for the third time.

"Is she hurt? I need to- I need to find her."

[blindninja]

A part of him knows he's not in New York, but with all these familiar people from home coming to visit and all his senses off-kilter you could probably try to convince him he's upstate or somewhere he's never been before where gravity is not what it should be and some of the people he cares about is here.

He doesn't want to throw up all over Karen so he holds her for now, steadying himself. He doesn't want to go back to the med bay but he's not putting up too much of a fight when she leads him back there. He's in some emotional turmoil after having spent some time with Elektra and now Karen's here, and he's half-expecting a slap for jumping down into Midland Circle like that. Those same old arguments they would have had about Daredevil dancing in and out of retirement. Maybe he's just lucky he's in such bad shape.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he manages with one of his small, sad laughs as he sits back down on the bed he'd only just managed to crawl back out of, feeling defeated on all fronts.

"I didn't do this. Wherever we are." Oh, he's getting dizzy again.

[blindninja]

There's a young woman. Not-quite-child but still much younger than him. Running up to him. Clonk, clonk, clonk comes her boots, louder and louder until she's within projectile vomit range and that is not how he wants to greet her so his eyebrows furrow as he turns closer towards the wall. Her bangles clink and rattle against his ear as he tries to focus on something else to dull his hearing. This is officially the worst hangover he's ever had.

"No," he groans. God, who would let Frank Castle anywhere near children? His hand, still with its faint tremors, goes up to the bandaid. Hello Kitty? Are you serious? Matt starts trying to rip it off.

"I'm--... was. His attorney."

[oorah]

"You need to stay here. I'll make sure she finds you." So that's how to get Matt to listen. That's a good one and he lets out a breath, honestly relieved. He knows he doesn't have to let Elektra know he's here, somehow she already knows. #justninjathings or whatever. "She's a little hurt. We had a fight." But it had been cathartic too, he knows, for both of them.

He sits back down and waits for Elektra to find them. Then that will be his cue to leave.

"We made up." He knows you were on the edge of your seat waiting for that one.

[blacksky]

She lets out a breath of laughter. He does have a point. No one has ever supported their union. There were many times they didn't support their union. She knows they love each other. God it barely took a minute before she was back at his side in the grand scheme of things. Matthew has clearly had a change of heart after what he's been through in her absence.

"We are quite unpopular together." She admits as he nuzzles her neck. Elektra inhales sharply. He knows that spot is sensitive. She hates that he's distracting her. She wants this seed planted before he goes on another martyr bender. It certainly doesn't help hearing him say that he'll protect her. It breaks her heart that he wants to. There's no way he can keep that promise. More importantly, it's simply nice for her to feel valued by anyone. Her eyes well up again, but she restrains herself this time from giving into her emotions. "I'll protect you too. You know I will. If something is outside of our control, I want you to know it doesn't mean you're any less for it. If you can't protect me from something we can't perceive, don't hate yourself for it. Please, Matthew."

[blindninja]

Matt grits his teeth and he looks like he might try decking Frank again even with the threat of Max by his side, in that awkward sort of 'how dare you hurt my girl' kind of protective way Matt gets even though she could hold her own just fine. At least if he's angry he's not going to turn on the waterworks and burst into tears.

"She'd kick your ass," he mumbles instead when Frank said that they made up, breathing out through his nose and swallowing the lump in his throat.

Their last conversation plays over and over in his head. The way they die. He doesn't know how either of them made it out of that one, but he's not going to question miracles as long as she's okay.

[morphogenia]

She's going to grab his hand to stop him from pulling it off. The fact that this weird guy is his attorney is... well weird. Kamala is less concerned about the backstory here. Her concern is the fact that the bleeding man is trying to take off one of the things that stops the bleeding. "Will you knock it off? Okay it's totally cute, but you also need that! You're going to get an infection!" She huffs. "You're blind anyways so for all you know Hello Kitty is super manly protection against germs!"

[oorah]

It gets a laugh, warm and round for a change in pace. Matt's anger is familiar and he welcomes it, as long as the guy does what he's told and lets this place heal him. He doesn't need that on his conscience too.

"She did." Kick his ass. Pretty thoroughly, even if he couldn't feel it at the time. He sure does now. "You'll get a front row seat to round two, how's that?"

[subplot]

"It means that the last thing I knew, you were supposedly dead." She snaps a little, getting him situated in the bed. It's not fair to take her frustration with his being here out on him, particularly since the frustration is there because she's guilty that she's happy to see him again. She shouldn't be happy that Matt is trapped here. Terrible things happen here.

"Frank and I have been here for months now. We both woke up here at the same time."

She sits on the bed, frowning as she starts to look him over. He's in terrible shape, and she doesn't know where to start.

[blindninja]

He's very rarely ever not on a martyr bender but he would appreciate that she's giving him a chance to prove her wrong. He doesn't know how long he's been out of action, how long she's been here before him. The kinds of things that happen to people here. All he knows is that they're both alive and he'll do anything to keep it that way this time. Anything to make her heart beat less quickly when she's talking about the worst case scenario like this.

"Okay. Okay. Don't be upset." He pats her hair, closing his eyes and just breathing her in like he has to make sure she's real. He's not letting her walk out on him this time. And if she is going to try, he's definitely coming along.

"I don't like it here," he says quietly after a lull. He's referring to the medical bay but she can freely interpret it as this whole place in general. Everything was noisy. And wrong. Wrong like an off-balance kind of wrong. Like somebody stormed in here and broke gravity, flung it in his face and made him deal with it.

[blindninja]

Frank's also lucky that he showered and brought the dog with him, because Matthew might get the ugly kind of jealous if the marine smells like Elektra.

"Where are we Frank?" He's willing to behave like an adult and talk now. Funny how bringing the Greek goddess up in a conversation and unconsciously positioning yourself as the gatekeeper to seeing her again makes Matthew sit still like a good puppy and endure whatever lecture he's about to be given.

"what happened to my city?"

[blindninja]

That look flashes across his face. The same one when he said 'I'm doing it again'. His shoulders start to rise like he's going to be defensive about it, but he looks guilty, and frustrated. Maybe the Matthew Murdock she met is the blind lawyer seated next to Franklin Nelson when they just haphazardly threw their law firm together, the only two people in the precinct who believed her. The one who can meander around a courtroom and take everyone apart using just his words, but can't pour himself a cup of coffee. But that's not him and he's actually sick and tired of being sick and tired of having this fight.

His shoulders slump and he curls loose fists in his lap. He doesn't want to lie down even though every part of his body is screaming at him to just stop being so tightly wound and angry all the time, and just take it easy for a while.

Matt's lips part and he takes in a breath like he's about to say something. Only the words don't come to him just yet. Because he knows 'I'm glad you're okay' is going to launch her into one of her 'you don't get to do this to me' talks. So he's going to own what he did, because he's not sorry about burying what was left of the Hand. He's not sorry about protecting his city.

"I stayed behind. In Midland Circle." He lowers his head, running his thumb over his palm. "I chose my city over you. Over Foggy. I chose Daredevil over you. And I can't- I won't-" He swallows the lump in his throat even though it feels like eating razorblades. He sounds as physically and emotionally exhausted as he looks. "I won't be made to feel sorry. For who I am. I'm only sorry that you thought I was a better man."

[blindninja]

"It doesn't sound manly," Matt retorts, looking slightly irritated. He's not sure how 'it's totally cute!' is supposed to translate to 'super manly protection against germs'. She's clearly not cut out for being a saleswoman. "How old does he think I am, eight?"

He lets Kamala hold his hand because he can't stay irritated at a teenager who Frank probably won over with ice cream or soldier talk or something, and he leaves the bandaid on.

"How do you know Frank?" Matt asks tentatively. 'Did he miss and shoot your schoolbag' is on the tip of Matt's tongue.

[subplot]

Karen does him a favor and eases off trying to look him over. She's not a nurse, she doesn't know what she's doing. It's likely she'll only make things worse. But it's hard to fight off the urge to push him hard at the shoulder and just force him to be still. It's for his own good, and despite what she assumes he thinks, she does care enough about him to want what's best for his health. He has to go and run his mouth though, something he's so good at doing. Whether or not he means to insult her she isn't sure. It really doesn't matter though, does it? The fact is that he does, and she's grateful that he can't see the look of hurt on her face.

"I learned a while ago that you're willing to choose just about anything over me, Matt." It comes out forcibly flat, because otherwise emotion might seep into her tone and betray the fact that he still is able to make her feel like shit.

While she wants to make him feel like he should choke on his words, the hurt that's stabbing at her is quickly giving way to anger. "God, Matt, do you hear yourself?" Her tone rises and she moves off the bed like he's burned her and she needs to get away. The sound of her heels clicking on the floor is loud as she paces the room. The right thing to do would be to just leave. He's exhausted and she can see that. But Karen sinks her teeth in and won't let go when it comes to Matt, because she's tired too and all she wants is to have her friend back.

"I'm not Elektra. Save your apologies for her."

[oorah]

Frank's hopelessly bruised face screws up, but he's leaning forward now, trusting Matt not to swing at him again. If he's wrong, Max won't be so forgiving this time, so he feels relatively safe in the faith he's placed in the other man. Also he gets to give his space speech now, something he's been looking forward to if only because he gets better at it every time!!

"It's still there, as far as we know." And he won't accept an alternative, no matter how much Karen and others might like to speculate. He's getting back to New York where and when and how he left it and everyone is going to shut the goddamn Hell up about it. It's one thing they might actually come to agree on in time. "This place is called Reverie Terminal, it's a space station. No one here knows exactly where that is, but the last known date here was 2654."

Yeah, it all still sounds insane so all he can do is shrug his shoulders and let out a tiny sigh.

"We're gonna find a way back, okay? Karen's all over this place figuring out its secrets. She's gonna get everyone home."

[blindninja]

"That's not true," he insists. He had one of the better nights he's had in a long time that night he went out with Karen, minor hiccups aside, and their relationship was going in all the right places before he put his personal life at the bottom of his list of priorities. He loves Karen even though he thinks she doesn't 'get' him, not in the same way Elektra does. Elektra who loves him for the angry, passionate, stubborn man he is. He might have had to lie to Karen for much of their relationship, but Karen inspires him to be a better man, and he wants to believe that he could be that man.

But Karen also doesn't get to turn this into some argument over how he's never let go of his ex, because Elektra's not like your typical ex when there's resurrected/immortal undead mystical ninja cult business involved.

"Don't- it's not about Elektra." It is utterly and completely about Elektra, but not in the way that he thinks she's thinking. "This is about us. We didn't put where we were going on hold because of Elektra. You wanted me to recover from this 'Daredevil' disease before it killed me."

Well, she was right in the end. It killed him. In a way he died at the hole at the bottom of Midland Circle. And now he has to answer for the mess he's made.

[blindninja]

Matt just sort of blank stares at Frank as he's talking. He tilts his head and then he leans in a little closer. It's almost comical, the way Matt sniffs a few inches away from Frank's face and then raises his cold hand, pressing the back of it against Frank's forehead.

He has no doubt in his mind that Frank is telling the truth, in so far as Frank believes this reality for himself.

"Are you under the influence of any mind-altering substances?"

[subplot]

"Don't -" She turns and points at him like he'll be able to see it, like he'll actually be intimidated by the gesture. "Don't you dare think for a second that I'm jealous of Elektra. She's my friend here, Matt. And she deserves better than you dying on her."

That's probably not the best way to try and tell him that Elektra is here, but if she knows her friend, she'll be here in no time at all. Karen still strongly cares for Matt, though the affection for him no longer is romantic. He's her friend, one of her closest friends. And she owes him her life. But she's not about to let him think that she believes it's Elektra's fault that things didn't work out between them. She's not jealous of Elektra. She's furious because she remembers how upset Elektra had been over Matt several of the times they spoke.

The anger inside her seems to deflate all at once, ending with Karen standing at his bedside. She wants to punch him right now so her hands knit together, and she realizes that this conversation has to calm down before she ends up saying things she'll regret.

When she wanted him to recover from Daredevil, she didn't understand how it was a part of him. Not until she became close to Frank and understood the Punisher was part of who he is. It's not something that he can turn his back on and shed away. Matt can't either, and she's trying to accept that. She just doesn't want to ever admit to him that she's mad because it feels like he's lied to her the entire time she's known him. They can't go back and change the past though. All they can do is work harder to make sure things go better from this point on.

So for once, Karen doesn't say anything more. She's willing to let the argument lie there, because he looks like he's two seconds away from dying.

[oorah]

Oh. My. God. What an infuriating man. He tolerates the closeness, wrinkling his nose at the sniff, and doesn't even react to Matt's hand on his face at first. He feels warm, like a furnace, like always. But no clamminess, no sign of fever. He's just the same old Frank Castle, unhinged but every bit as confident in his perception of reality as he was on that rooftop. After a moment, he can't take it anymore and he slaps the other man's hand away with an almost feral sound under his breath.

"You're a human lie detector. You know I'm tellin' the truth. And you're gonna need the space rundown if you're gonna last two seconds here." Frank doesn't wait for Matt to get with the program, he's listing safety protocols. "Keep your communicator on you at all times - already failed that one I'll find it for you. Keep your boots on at all times. You lean back or click your heels together in the case of no gravity. This already happened once and it will happen again, so don't be an asshole about it. You always walk with the spin of the rings, I bet you can feel them if you concentrate instead of accusing me of being on drugs. They keep us on the ground so we like it when they move, but if you go too far counterspinwise you're gonna regret it. And I'm not holding your hair back."

God, what else? There are so many moving parts, he's trying to remember them all and cram them into Matt's head while he's given the chance.

"Gym's on Deck 4, that's one up from here. You have to work out, every day, we lose muscle mass every day we're here if we don't. Mess Hall is Deck 2, I can show you how to work the replicators. The coffee's shit but the protein bars are okay. Everything else is at-your-own-risk though we've got a team of nerds on 'em now and they are getting better... Oh. Chapel. Deck 1. Karen and me found it, I'll, um. There's no priest or anything there but maybe you'll like it. When you're feeling up to it, I'll take you there."

Okay, so he lost the angry dad steam somewhere along the way, sue him!!!!!

[blindninja]

Yeah Elektra has had to put up with a lot. Matt can tell that Frank isn't drunk, but he can't tell much else if he's swallowed something. 'You're in space, idiot' would explain the imbalance and a lot of the disorientation Matt's feeling, but the New Yorker who's never left New York finds that hard to believe. How did he even get to space? Who on Earth would send a blind man into space? He's not trained for this.

The information overload floats around like background noise, and Matt absorbs some of it the way he tends to absorb information quickly even though he's finding it difficult to focus. He doesn't like the communicator. It buzzes. He doesn't like the boots either. They're heavy. What rings? Frank would it kill you to slow down and talk to your lawyer like he's the dumb one in this professional lawyer-client relationship?

Matt tilts his head the other way and blinks at Frank but otherwise doesn't say anything to acknowledge that he heard any of that. He clenches his teeth and his brows furrow.

"...Karen? Karen Page?" Frank had mentioned her before but Matt's thought Frank's mind was still in lalaland. Elektra's alive and Karen's here? That's great going to be. Awkward.

[oorah]

He knows he went too fast, that he'll have to slow down and give the speech again when Matt is actually willing to listen. Max gives a soft doggy groan and flops over like he's had just about enough of this bullshit, thank you. Hard same, Max.

"Someone's catching up. Karen and me have been here 82 days now. Elektra came a few weeks after us. New people show up every day, no one knows how or why." Frank isn't really thinking of awkwardness or reunions now, just keeping Matt alive. Because if he really stops to think about it... he's basically dating the guy's ex, in space. And he slept (platonically! hello!) with his other ex last night. Yeah, it's a good thing he's socially the worst otherwise this would be real awkward already, thank goodness for small miracles. "Look. You're in 6.27. It's 8 doors to mine, I'm 6.19. You're not gonna want me helping you but it's too damn bad now."

[blindninja]

"Wha- She died on me - again!" Matt couldn't help but exclaim even though it felt like he was going to get a heart attack. He was sure they still had time to get out when he figured out she'd regained her senses, however slim their chances were at getting out of there alive, but she kept fighting him. And it's not that he blames her for what had happened or didn't want to stay behind with her, or that he wouldn't have made that decision again in a heartbeat, but that's not fair to put that on his shoulders.

Just talking about it made Matt upset again, like he can feel the distant rumbling in the dark and the weight of certain death coming after them. And just that helplessness of not being able to save her, of having tried talking and failing, fighting and failing. That inevitability of knowing that he would lose her again. It twisted inside him like a knife in his belly.

He always looked more vulnerable without his glasses, like he's always worn them as his armour and never learnt how to hide his emotions. He wants to grab something and throw it across the room and the only thing stopping him is how much it would scare Karen to see him like this. This is not how he envisioned coming back from Midland Circle.

"It's not Daredevil, is it?" The tears well up in his eyes, but he refuses to shed them. As his anger burns white hot, he withdraws and ponders what his own reflection would look like. Whether he'd scare his nine year old self with how old and angry he's become. He looks like he's in more pain than the flesh wounds could ever inflict on him.

"It's me." He swallows. "The Devil didn't drive you out of my life. I did."

[blindninja]

82 days? Matt's been out of commission for almost 3 months? That can't be possible. It felt like just yesterday that he spoke to Karen at the precinct.

Oh God. That would have been the last time they'd have spoken if he had died. And Foggy. He was so proud of Foggy for making headway in Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, fighting their good fight in that monstrosity of a law firm. He never told him he was sorry for lashing out at him at Josie's.

Matt looks distraught. He barely registers the numbers. 6.27. 6.19. Are they talking about the Bible? Whose chapter?

No, you moron. The room numbers. Important talk happening here. Matt licks his bottom lip and nods though his eyes seem more glazed over than usual when he turns his head towards Frank.

"...yeah."

[oorah]

Yeah, he's not processing any of this, is he? Frank lets out a little sigh in defeat, hanging his head for a few seconds before making a decision.

"When Elektra gets here, remind her to show you the space video. It'll tell you all the shit I just said that you already forgot. And you'll actually listen to her, so. I'll find you later and give you your device. Start brainstorming a username." It's all very mundane and probably stupid, and yet: important. Because he's not letting anything bad happen to Matt, no matter what's been between them in the past. Frank can pretend it's because of Karen and Elektra, but he'd do it anyway, for his own peace of mind. He gets up with a scrape of his chair and gives the man in the bed one last look just as he sees a familiar dark-haired beauty approach.

"See you around, Red."

This is where he makes his dramatic exit by poking his dog with his boot to get him off the floor and Elektra and Frank probably give each other a high five hand hug on the way past. He's tagging out, my dude, but much to Matt's chagrin he'll be back soon.

[subplot]

He makes her feel sorry for him, makes her want to hug him. Her skin is crawling with the effort it takes to remain inactive and passive. She can't comfort him right now, not when he's working through these emotions and moving past his self-loathing. Her hand rests over his, giving it a gentle squeeze. She's here with him, she's not going anywhere. At least not until he falls asleep for some much needed rest.

"Well..." she starts to respond, hesitating. Just how honest should she be here? Karen doesn't really think that over much. She just goes for it and will later realize that she probably should've been a little less blunt and open. "Yeah, you did. I'm not going to chase after someone that doesn't respect me enough to be honest."

Trying to make that all water under the bridge is proving harder than she thought. That doesn't stop her from giving his hand another light squeeze as she leans in to press a kiss to his forehead. He's too warm and she frowns but she guesses it's better a slight fever than cold and dead. Her lips linger against his skin for a few moments as her hand slips up to press against his cheek. She can't say that she forgives him. But she can show him that she wants to move forward and try to do so.