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

Take 2

[oorah]

Matt showing up is a huge inconvenience for Frank, but so far he's taking it in stride. While he wouldn't call what they have friendship, he does care if the man lives or dies as evidenced by his hasty rescue earlier in the day. Since then, he's had time to think about it, roll it over with his closest friends on Reverie; but he doesn't come up any more bitter. He doesn't find Matt any less deserving of his help, even if he knows the man doesn't want it. He'd told him he wouldn't be an option to refuse it and he'd meant that.

He knows if this were him, Matt probably wouldn't help him - would leave him to his own devices to die or survive as he always had. But it wasn't a fair comparison anyway, and he'd had Karen when he first arrived here. She was his rock, even now. Even as he's steeling himself for what's to come. Max is with Kamala so the poor thing won't get stressed out again if Matt takes a swing at him. Also he's pretty sure all the noises of his boots and general dogness stresses Matt out in turn, so not a great combo.

Stepping off the elevator with Matt's device clutched in hand, open to the welcome screen, he strides into the medbay, careful to keep his steps lighter than before. Deliberate. His heart too is at a steady pace, and the blind man will easily be able to pick up on how strongly he smells of Karen, which wasn't the case this morning. And Karen hadn't smelled like him, so he'll know it's recent. He walks up to the man's bed, relieved that he at least stayed long enough that he's looking a little better. Someone had brought him a fresh jumpsuit and cleaned him up a little, he's assuming Elektra, but he must be restless as Hell and ready to get out of here.

Frank comes up in front of him and holds up the device, knowing Matt will hear it hum. "You think of a username yet?"

[blindninja]

When the elevator stops on this floor, Matt's eyes flutter open. First it's the footsteps that come into focus. Hazy and in the distance though they may be, they're evenly paced. With purpose. Clonk. Clonk. Clonk. Clonk. The heartbeat says Frank. The scent says... Karen? Matt's brows furrow. Matt's trying to scatter his senses, trying to let them maintain some semblance of privacy and also because he really doesn't want to know what the two of them are doing in their own space and time.

No dog, for better or worse. Matt's probably ruined his potential relationship with what could have been a four-legged friend. That same knife clinking against Frank's body, but no gun.

"What am I going to do with that? I can't read anything on it. And what's wrong with my name?" Snappy already. This is going well.

[oorah]

"Murdock's taken. Red isn't." Frank is smiling, Matt will be able to hear it. He's giving him a choice, and he won't even cheat. "It has accessibility, asshole. I set up voice-to-text." He's not that stupid otherwise he would have just handed it to Matt and let him go wild.

At least he seems to have calmed down, like he isn't about to deck him any minute. He's surprised the bandaid stayed on, though he has to admit it looks good on him.

"Just do this one thing for me and I'll take you to the Mess Hall. You must be hungry by now." Or if he isn't, his body is. He needs food to mend.

[blindninja]

"Who took 'murdock'?" Is there another one here? Yeah, he's actually taking Frank seriously. He doesn't expect to be trolled like 'hotbabe69' the way Foggy or even Elektra might have pranked him.

He's tempted to tell Frank to put whatever in there but he's just going to put 'daredevil' or 'shitattorney' or something which makes Matt scrunch up his face.

"Red's fine," he concedes in the end. The mention of being hungry has his stomach grumbling in agreement.

"Did you see my shades? I can't hear them."

[oorah]

"There were people here before. They took 'castle' too. Mine's castiglione, I'll put it in your contacts." Along with page and orchids naturally. Frank had considered bringing the glasses he'd found, but holding things over Matt's head just comes naturally and he is trying to get him to pay attention. So, carrot but also stick. One step at a time. He sets the username and hesitates over putting it on the man's wrist, asking in a strangely considerate tone, "Is it better here or in your pocket?"

Frank waits for the answer before doing whichever thing is more comfortable for Matt, then he's reaching out to put a steady head on his elbow, locking his leg against Matt's so he has something to lean on.

"Your glasses are safe. You'll get 'em if you're a good boy."

[blindninja]

Matt sticks out his arm, turning it over to let Frank strap it on. There was a slight tremor in his bandaged hand but he's not shaking, and it's not twitching like Frank's trigger finger. A couple more days and he'll be swinging a mean right hook at Frank's face if he doesn't take out his frustration at the gym.

"I'm not your dog," he mutters as he gets to his feet and starts towards the exit, following next to Frank, gritting his teeth with every bang his own boots clumsily make against the floor.

[oorah]

"No, because Max listens to me." It's in that same cheer as he pats Matt on the shoulder and nudges against him so the other man knows he's there to fall back on. But he lets him walk on his own, just directing him down towards the elevators back the way they'd come. "You'd make a shit dog anyway. You're never happy to see me."

They make their unwieldy way, Frank slowing his steps or propping Matt up as necessary. He doesn't think about how strange it is to be in this role when it's something he'd do for anyone here, or any veteran back home. They reach the elevator and he holds out his arm - mom arm - to get Matt to stop. He slaps the up arrow and hits the '2' once they're inside before turning to Matt properly.

"Lean back until the boots come on. When the elevator jumps you'll stay on the ground."

[blindninja]

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" is how Matt retorts to that instead of a 'screw you'. Apparently they can't be around each other for two minutes without bickering or slinging insults.

You know once Matt is better he's probably going to spend an hour in the elevator creeping everybody out riding up and down until he can do this without throwing his sense of balance off, but for now he just presses his lips into a thin, flat line and stares blankly through the marine. The only thing possibly more terrifying than letting Jesus take the wheel is letting Frank Castle take the wheel.

"So you've been here for months," Matt starts, trying to make small talk while the elevator is making his innards scream. "Making friends with little girls."

That is not at all what he's insinuating, but that is how it comes out.

[oorah]

He puts his hand on Matt's shoulder when it becomes apparent his balance is suffering, letting go the second the gravity comes back. Frank nods, he already told Matt he'd been here months already... but the next part has him balling a fist at his side.

"Thanks for that, by the way. I had to traumatize her with the whole sordid story." He taps Matt to get him moving, voice tight but not angry. He heads to the mess hall with a clipped gait, nudging them into the thronging dinner line and pressing a tray into Matt's hands.

[blindninja]

"I thought you'd have told her something. I didn't know she didn't know." It's not like Matt thought Frank would have been completely upfront with her, but this feels suspiciously like a lie by omission. It's none of his business though, and he'd be insinuating that The Punisher is something Frank ought to be ashamed of, which... Matt has a lot of mixed feelings about The Punisher, but that's not one of them.

Matt clutches his tray and lowers his head as if he could study his reflection. He can't, of course. The weight of it is a little strange though. He turns the tray over between his hands before lifting his head and turning towards Frank again.

"She looks up to you, Frank. I hope you'll do right by her." There's nothing more Matt could say to Frank about it that wouldn't be insulting, like 'I hope you know what you're doing', 'don't mess this up' or 'don't let her down'.

[oorah]

"I told her more than I told anyone else here. She knew I lost my family, that I was a vigilante. She's only sixteen, Red. She just needed plausible deniability." She doesn't have that now, but Frank still isn't mad. And he says 'was' like he's already retired. He had told Kamala that too. He takes one of Matt's hands while he's distracted and puts it on the buttons on the side of the replicator. "It's kind of complicated, but these things can make anything. It's not four-star, but we're all still alive. They gotta bunch of nerds workin' on 'em every day. The coffee's a lot better than it started."

Frank inputs the code for the best coffee, his fingers over Matt's so he'll learn the sequence. He lets him take his hand away then, waiting until he has a firm grip on his tray again so he can set the coffee on top of it and start putting in a code for something simple. Pasta dinner. The noodles are soggy and the tomato and meat aren't real, but it's the thing Frank gets the most comfort out of from these things. He can give Matt a full lesson on the machines later, getting himself the same meal and nudging Matt to the table he and Karen and Kamala usually sit at. He knows from experience if he glares just the right way no one will bother them.

"What? You're the only one who gets to keep a secret identity?" he teases as he sits down, immediately taking a long sip of coffee and sucking it off his teeth audibly. It's a vow that Matt's secrets are safe with him, no matter what he tells other people. Some things are just sacred, and Frank never went out there with a mask the way Matt did. He wanted people to know who he was. "This place isn't New York. No one except a few Avengers will know who you are anyway." Oh yeah, they have Avengers and they still haven't gotten back. Doesn't bode well, does it?

[blindninja]

"Was?" He picks up on the nuance straightaway. So Frank did hang up the memento mori after all. Matt hopes he'll have more success with it than the last time he tried to hang up his horns. Frank deserved to find peace more than most people Matt knew.

He can vaguely perceive the buttons and coffee's clearly the important one to learn so he picks that up straightaway. Food can wait. Besides, whatever Frank got him... did not smell like food.

Matt licks his upper lip as he balances the tray in one hand and reaches out by his thigh with the other, feeling for the edge of the table he knows he's coming into contact with. Running his fingertips along the cool edge of the table, Matt bumps his heavy boot loudly against the seat, still not used to the weight of it as he sits down awkwardly and hunches over his meal.

He knows he's going to get shit from Frank for saying grace and crossing his heart but compared to all the other shit he's already gotten from Frank so far, just trying to have a meal together pales in comparison to the usual abuse. Matt barely manages to keep a straight face on as he chews on a twirled forkload of pasta, setting the fork down quietly and licking the inside of his cheek before nursing his 'coffee'. Somebody's a fussier eater than he's let on.

"Your identity wasn't secret," Matt reminded him. Probably makes the Boogeyman thing more effective, knowing who he is when he's staring you down before he pulls the trigger. "Why would the Avengers know anyone? They didn't care when they were wrecking my city."

[oorah]

"Oh yeah, haven't caught up with you in a while. Also, I guess you were dead, or whatever. I just figured you'd bounce back, and look, I was right." Just not in the way he thought, like, at all. If he notices Matt struggling, he doesn't say anything, figuring he has to get used to space food sooner or later though he does offer up a conciliatory: "If that's too much for you I can show you how to get the protein bars. They're what I live on, mostly."

Matt isn't taking any of this in stride, but when does he ever? Frank is more patient than he looks, or then he once was anyway. He can wait the other man out if he has to. When he slanders the Avengers though, Frank has to laugh, oh man.

"Be a little louder so Cap hears you and wrecks our table, too." Though that's probably too much effort for the guy, honestly. At least from what Frank has seen. He leans over his tray, voice dropping to an octave he knows only Matt will pick up on. "I did it, Red. I got every last one of 'em. When we get back, Kitchen's all yours to dig your knuckles into bullies to your heart's content, alright. I'm out."

[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?"

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[oorah]

Frank sees the problem long before Matt does, trying to ignore the sharp spike of hurt that goes through his heart at the words. He should know better than to be completely honest with him, and yet he always tries anyway. He's always the one reaching out, even when he has to tie Matt up to get him to listen. He leaps up, worried the table won't hold the man's weight, but also not about to let him injure himself further, no matter his own feelings right now. Getting behind Matt, he wraps both arms solidly around his shoulders and attempts to ease him up and away from the table then hopefully with a gentle push: back into his chair. The second he gets Matt seated, he's patting down his front for any new tears or bleeds.

"No, dipshit," he manages gruffly, real fear clenching his heart, obvious in the way the pace picks up. "She's my friend." Frank has a few of those, now. He did always manage to pick them up wherever he went, not that Matt would know it. But he's joined the community here, when people need his help he's always there. And that includes ungrateful lawyers who didn't even try to help you the first time around, he supposes. At least Matt's right about one thing: he didn't want help then.

[blindninja]

Instinct screams to try to push Frank away, the stubborn, independent and unwell man screaming for freedom inside wanting to insist he doesn't need his help. But Frank casts a warm shadow over him, and in the darkness the calm washes over him like cold water, a moment's reprieve from the sensory overload letting him sit without incident, without feeling like he's floating.

It's just Hurricane Matthew's way, barging into a situation with insufficient information, making assumptions, running his mouth, dispensing accusations and judgemental comments left and right. And maybe after some introspection, after he's broken everything Matt might be able to manage a seemingly heartfelt apology and beg for forgiveness. But by then the damage is done and sorry doesn't mean shit anymore.

"Just leave me alone, Frank." Before he gets even uglier and says something he's going to regret. Matt buries his head in his hands and squeezes his eyes shut while the floor starts tilting at a 6 degree angle under his boots. "Please."

[oorah]

The thing is: Frank expected this when Matt arrived. He expected all of this. And he doesn't need a goddamn apology, probably wouldn't accept it if he got one. He crouches down in front of the man but doesn't try to touch him again, even as he sees a speck of red appear on his jumpsuit.

"It's not gonna happen, okay? You're here so we're in this together now."

It's as simple as that for the Marine. He puts a hand on Matt's calf to see if he can take contact of any kind. He really doesn't want to have to carry him out of here, but he will.

"Just... take a breath, focus on my voice. Shut everything else out."

[blindninja]

Matt flinches and he moves to close his legs defensively, but he doesn’t try kicking Frank so perhaps, all things considered, that could count as a win. He counts his breath in, one, breath out, one. Two, two. Three, three. Every time he gets distracted he hones in on Frank and resets the counter back to one.

Slowly the background noise drifts out of focus, like the mess hall is in a different room far away from here. The floor starts to right itself as his senses wrap around Frank, darting from heartbeat to electrical activity under the skin to those vocal cords vibrating, turning air into his voice.

“...I don’t like space.” Yeah, Matthew is whinging now. He doesn’t like space and he doesn’t like Frank. Yet what is he surrounded by, and who’s keeping him company? Story of his life really.

[oorah]

Frank takes his hand away at the flinch, standing on his knees so he can watch over Matt and catch him if things get bad. He keeps murmuring nothings, Shhh, it's okay and the like until it seems like the other man is calming down. Finally, Matt speaks up and he could almost laugh. He won't, though, knowing the other man can probably sense the way his eyes have filled with water somehow. Freak.

"Yeah, me either, buddy. Let's get up?" he suggests, voice soft and impossibly gentle as he slowly moves to get up, hand on Matt's knee for a quarter of an instant and then a more solid touch as his hand settles on Matt's shoulder. "If you're ready, I'm right here."

[blindninja]

"I'm not done yelling at you," Matt quips as he tries not to lean forward or backwards too much when he moves to stand. He hates being so dependent, especially on Frank. He might not be acting like the most grateful, indebted person on this ship right now, but he's aware that Frank's being patient with him as he grapples with his injuries and the new environment. And he appreciates it even though he isn't saying as much.

"Don't suppose you've figured out the Ubereats app," he mutters, turning his wrist with the communicator over. It's as big of an olive branch as Frank is going to get right now.

[oorah]

"You're never done yelling at me," he points out, getting a hand around Matt's back so he doesn't fall backward as he gets them both to their feet. The last way he'd ever describe the man is indebted to him so it's fine. He feels strangely responsible for all of this, slowly letting up so Matt can stand on his own, but leaving his hand on the man's elbow loosely. He snorts at the question. "Yeah, it's called don't be a douchebag and maybe Frank will bring me a protein bar." He will even if Matt is being a dick, clearly.