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

[morphogenia]

Kamala holds up her hands defensively. She really didn't intend for it to come out that way. "I know! I totally apologized the one time I got mad at him for being a jerk and punched him the arm." She pauses for a beat. "The next day. Things were kind of heavy at the time." Kamala explains. If it seems like she is stalling for time, it's because she is. She already knows she can't hide how badly she misses her parents from even a blind man.

Kamala sighs heavily. "No, it's just me. To be honest, I thought I was the only one from my Earth until I talked to Karen. She's really good at cross-referencing stuff unlike Frank."

[blindninja]

"No it's fine." Matt picks up his fork again and moves the 'meat' over the spaghetti a bit, long enough to hopefully assure Frank before he sets his fork down again and goes back to nursing his coffee. He probably was expecting Daredevil to be a lot more adaptable to all these sudden changes and just roll with the punches. But it's not Daredevil sitting with Frank at the table right now, and Matthew is just a man. All the new scars and the paleness of his skin can attest to that.

"He wouldn't assault a blind man," Matt comments dismissively. He might have a few disparaging thoughts about the Avengers but there's a special place in his heart for the boy from Brooklyn who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, who is incidentally also technically a veteran. A much higher opinion than the big green wrecking ball, the billionaire playboy or the tourist with a hammer, anyway. If Matt knew anything about Steve's stance on Registration he'd be scoring even more points.

It's hard to feel happy for Frank when 'I did it, Red' means he went Rambo somewhere and shot someplace up, leaving a pile of bodies in his wake.

"How do you feel, Frank?" Matt can't help but ask. He's not asking it like an adult would ask a child 'what do you have to say for yourself?' He just wants to know. "Are you at peace?"

[blacksky]

She allows him to explore to his heart's content even if it's a bit of a tease. Even Elektra knows better than to get him excited here. Having Matthew bleed on her will be sexy for about five whole seconds before he passes out cold beneath her.

She laughs softly. Matthew certainly wasn't wrong to assume that. "And I did. He looks worse than usual if you can believe that." Is she referring to his constantly bruised face or just his face in general? It's both obviously. "I'm not answering that if you're going to be so dramatic about it. You make it sound like he beat me. I was the clear victor." Really that's all that matters. Also don't press too hard on her abdomen. For reasons.

[blindninja]

Oh. [He starts to prop himself up on his elbows but then he reads her heartbeat and the way her shoulders slump a bit, how her eyes move. And he decides that maybe getting excited or happy for her isn't the reaction she would want.

Settling back down quietly, he blinks a few times and listens to her body language without saying anything.]

Yeah. I guess that... I mean you try not to tell yourself that you screwed something up, or that they just didn't want you. But reunions don't always go how you picture it might have. In your head.

[morethan084]

Yeah.

[They don't usually end with you getting powers, and your mother trying to kill you though. Not to mention finding out that your father had murdered a lot of people to try and get to Daisy.]

I go by Daisy now. Just thought you'd probably want to know that.

[Because her 'original' name never sat well with her and just brings up memories she'd rather not think about.]

[blindninja]

'The only one from Earth' almost gets a laugh out of Matthew. Derisive jokes about believing in God but not aliens aside, he isn't sure he can take these allegations seriously until he can sense one standing right in front of him. Of course, she's not joking about her loneliness, and he shouldn't belittle her. He can tell that she feels as alone out here as she describes.

Frank's got a very specific set of skills. In the he will find you and he will kill you kind of way. Matt has a lot more faith in Karen too when it comes to figuring this kind of thing out.

"We'll look after you until we get home, alright?"

[blindninja]

Daisy huh. I'll remember that. [If this is the point where he's supposed to sit up, clutch a fist of air, raise some overly excited eyebrows and proudly proclaim that after 9pm he goes by 'Daredevil', sorry to disappoint but it's not happening.]

Did you ever go back? Visit our caretakers?

[morethan084]

[Daisy laughs bitterly at his question. Although it was a fair one to ask, Daisy absolutely hated that place.]

No. As soon as I turned eighteen I left.

[And never looked back.]

Why? Did you?

[blindninja]

He's in no shape to do anything other than feel her out, and he knows it. He's not going to try and undo any buttons, zips or clasps. He just wants to hold her, feel her skin, make sure that she's real and that she's not going to die on him again. And then he will give in to his body giving out on him and demanding time to recover by shutting everything else down.

"I don't like that he hit you, that's all." So, Matthew's a little overprotective. And you can drop him and Frank into space and they'll still be tempted to have a go at each other. That's not exactly news.

[resleeves]

"Probably back on Earth."

So, you were just the luckiest, weren't you, Matt? You got to show up here, sick and vomiting, and you were about to get your own comfy closet. Sighing, Kovacs reaches down to grab his bicep and squeeze, a warning that he's going to yank Matt up so Kovacs can at least drag his ass down to the crew quarters.

"I can take you but if you puke on my shoes, I will make you eat them," Kovacs tell him. Maybe with someone else that would be a joke but he's serious. It would be mildly entertaining, watching a man eat a shoe. Belly laughs for days.

[blindninja]

[He has the strangest feeling like he was there. It's been some time since Midland Circle, or his injuries would be more severe. Someone must have pulled him out of that hole, and he can remember the smell of the musty old rooms with the old, scratchy sheets. The sound of rosary beads clacking against each other. The feel of a damp cloth on his forehead, the sound of robes swishing around thighs and ankles. The cadence of a Hail Mary echoing down the corridor, Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. It felt like going home.

Maybe it was just a dream.]

No. But I dream about it, sometimes. [He'd been a little troublemaker before his senses went haywire. And then he was just troubled. They probably wouldn't want him back.]

They always used to try and comfort me, telling me losing my sight was part of God's plan. That I would be called to a higher purpose. [So that's how Matthew ruined his life. He put on a Halloween costume at night and helped those that the law couldn't help. Because he was called to action, and he has to use these gifts. He has let one father down and he will not let down his father in heaven, no matter the personal cost.]

I think... I might have taken that a little too far. I don't want them to see me like this.

[blindninja]

It's too fast. He can't move that fast yet. He can feel his stomach lurching into his throat like he's about to hurl again and he tries to yank his arm free with a frustrated noise.

"I'm fine." He knows Tak is being deadly serious. He doesn't need to spend that long in the vicinity of this guy who's probably half a foot taller than him to know that he's a grade A asshole. Matt's in no shape to fight back. He doesn't want to eat a shoe.

"I'll just die here."

[morethan084]

[Maybe Daisy would have been more well liked if she didn't constantly argue against the nuns when it came to bible study and every religious ritual they had to perform. For some of the kids, like Matt, they took solace in religion. Daisy had just been hurt one too many times to actually believe that prayer worked. More than anything she wanted to be wanted, and it never happened. Without fail, her foster families always gave her back.

Of course now she knows the real reason behind all of that, that it was SHIELD protecting her. Still, the damage was done.

She isn't sure what he means by taking it too far, but he looks like hell. So she assumes that has something to do with it.]

What really happened, Matt?

[oorah]

Frank never doubted Daredevil was a man, even one with human weaknesses. He'd seen them, with the mask on and off alike. Maybe more on, even. It's why he's watching Matt so carefully like he might combust right before his eyes. Like it'll be on him when something terrible inevitably befalls him. He grunts noncommittally at the quip, Steve seems alright honestly, but he's just as lost as the rest of them. No special superhero insight to be found. And it's not like he has super great opinions of the Avengers, then again, he doesn't think about them too much except when people around here ask about aliens. Then he can't be happier to tell them the story. Maybe it's because he was overseas, but he feels a disconnect to the whole event like it didn't come way too damn close to leveling the little house his beautiful family was in. Then again, didn't really matter in the end, did it.

How does he feel? He comes back to the conversation with an uneasy expression writ over his face. Should he tell Matt about all he's endured here? Would he even care? Would he believe him? And furthermore, does he even want to get into it when he'd finally managed to move past the whole event? Frank doesn't feel patronized to, though, that doesn't even really cross his mind. Still, sarcasm comes easier than true self-analysis almost always.

"Well, I'm on a haunted space station that wants to kill us all, so yeah. I'm a yogi master." He laces his fingers and sets them on the table, abandoning his food since Matt doesn't seem to be eating either.

[morphogenia]

Kamala turns her head to properly stare at him. It's not that she thinks he's incapable or anything. The offer is what gets her. Karen and Frank are there for her. Neither have them have outright told her they were looking after her in place of her parents though. "We just met and you're already offering to take care of me?"

[blindninja]

I was fighting with my ex. [He's deliberately leaving that vague so that she can assume it was a shouting match about financial debt or something and not a physical altercation, and he won't correct her for thinking as much.] Building came down on us. It was just-... really loud.

[Maybe she was asking about a lot more than that, but that's all he's offering until she clarifies.]

And then I came to. One floor up.

[morethan084]

[Daisy almost asks how he survived that, but then she remembers seeing that woman with Kovac and...

Shit. It's a good thing he can't see her because tears are welling up in her eyes. There was a very real possibility he died back there and he just didn't know it, and she sure as hell was not about to be the one to break that to him.]

That must have been one hell of a fight.

[It's said as a joke, but there's a lot of it that doesn't exactly add up. Buildings don't just fall like that.]

Has anyone told you where we are?

[blindninja]

Matt gives Frank his signature constipated lineface look, the one that says the blind man is glaring without being able to glare.

"How do you feel about killing everybody you set out to kill," Matt reiterated, his voice gaining a dull edge to it. Also, Frank said a lot of things at him earlier, but Matt's pretty sure he never said anything about 'haunted'.

"I'm asking about closure, Frank. Whether you even know what that is." Because displacing difficult emotions in lieu of trying to protect someone who isn't Lisa Castle and everyone else here in this damned place is not closure. Would Frank's wife even have wanted this of him? Did he even think of that when he was pursuing his blood-soaked agenda? Or did he just want to make everyone else hurt the way he'd been hurt?

[blindninja]

"I know I don't look like I can do much, but. I used to work with Karen." And. Date. Among. Other things. That's another awkward conversation for another awkward time. Hopefully never, since he's wrecked their relationship as well.

"Maybe everyone here can work together. Find a way home."

[oorah]

"What the fuck difference does that make, here?" Frank snaps, eyes flashing, though he's still careful not to raise his voice. He knows he doesn't have to anyway. The truth is? He doesn't know. He'd been about to figure that out when he'd woken up here instead. "We're all just tryin' to survive, and at least that's something I'm damn good at."

Maybe that was a little too telling, honestly. That he feels more at home in a place that's terrorizing him than in his own city. Still, Matt has to know what he's asking isn't fair. After another beat if Matt can manage to keep his mouth shut, Frank will open his again.

"It feels... empty. The same. Better, worse. I'm glad they're gone. That they can't hurt anyone else." That doesn't mean he's glad he's alive. It doesn't really mean... anything, in the end. "So much happened you don't know dick about. Ask Kamala if you want to fill in the gaps." Since thanks to Matt he'd had to tell her every gory detail. Nightmare fuel, she'd said. Well, try living it.

[blacksky]

She is waiting for that. Elektra, surprisingly practical when it comes to the important things, already is planning on getting him another jumpsuit and to get him cleaned up as best she can. There's food and water to fetch too, but by then Francis will sure come crawling back to care for him. He's very predictable when it counts too.

"We were fighting, Matthew. It'd be strange if he didn't put up some sort of defense." She reaches out to trace his jawline with her fingers, pinching the end of his chin affectionately once she reaches it. "If you must defend my honor, I will allow once you've recovered." She pauses dramatically. "... And if you don't wear a shirt while you do it. For safety reasons." It's not like she ever objectifies him.

[morphogenia]

"What? That's totally my line! I know you're blind, but I'm... petite and have a baby face. Literally no one takes me seriously! You at least have an inspirational story going on over there." It totally goes over her head that is kind of an offensive thing to say. She means no harm as usual.

Kamala switches gears because she needs to make sure he gets this right off the bat. "Oh but, total reassurance? We actually all do work together to find a way home. We had an off time when this place was literally torturing us, but otherwise we're actually a good team! We've had several wins lately." If it sounds like she's bragging, it's because she's that proud of the others.

[blindninja]

It's complicated. Our relationship. [He's not even sure if they're still exes.] She's here. Her name is Elektra. And we'd talked, sure. I'm not sure I've... heard everything about this place, though. [He was sheltered, all things considered. And everyone from home wanted to protect him despite knowing who he is and how he can handle himself. Elektra, Frank. Even Karen.]

[morethan084]

[Was she dead too?]

There's a lot about this place that doesn't make sense, but I'm guessing you know we're in a space station at least, right?

[She could sit here and list everything, but did he really want to hear about all of the shitty things that have happened?]

[blindninja]

"Kamala isn't your daughter, or your priest!" Matthew snaps back with his voice raised, his hands coming down hard on the table as he gets up too quickly to his feet. Standing up too fast was clearly a mistake. Not only did he draw unwanted attention over, all the blood rushed up to his head and combined with the smell of synthetic food it was too much for his body to handle.

He winces and withdraws, clutching his head with his right hand as the sudden onset of vertigo made the bright lights and the machines buzz too loudly, the ship groaning in his ears. The rest of that 'you don't get to go on your killing spree and unburden yourself on someone else's kid and it's not fair on her and blah blah blah' lecture fizzles out abruptly as his boots stumble a few centimetres backwards and he grabs onto the edge of his table with a white-knuckled grip.