(Almost) Murder in the dance floor (for streetlevel )

[hawk_shot]

With her thumb, Kate tried to get it out. She dug, finger by finger, under the rim of each one of her nails as she tried to dig out those mucky red lines that had once been Matt's blood. Her hands were still shaking.

Looking back, she should have known. Deep down she knew, Matt and Kate had spent the day warning each other not to do anything stupid at the Black and White Ball the Fisks had hosted, inviting anyone influential at the city of New York. And not so very smoothly, Matt as his girlfriend's plus one. It was a recipe for disaster and they both pretended to have it all under control.

Things started well, even if by this point the water was starting to boil. Kate's gown flowed as she made her way through the crowd, always clocking Matt, Fisk and the task force around them. She had eventually spotted Jack too who, still warmed her heart with how graciously she treated her despite of how her mother had framed him for her crimes. It's shocking how you can misjudge a person sometimes.

But, before Jack could warn her about his conversation with Fisk, the Mayor had sent one of his people asking Kate to join him in a private room for a chat. Kate could feel Matt's presence on her back as the door closed behind her. She knew his ears were in the room with them too as Fisk, as charming as a murderer can be, reminded her of their first encounter. The fight during Christmas Eve. He made it clear that he knew about Kate's gig now as a vigilante. The demand for a monetary contribution from Bishop Security's behalf had not been all that subtle. A tax to keep his rabid guard dogs off her neck.

By the time Kate walked out of the room, her hands shook with frustration. She should have heard the water boiling by then.

It had all happened too quickly then. The dance, the gunshot, Fisk pushing Matt off himself as if he was trash. Her friend being down on the floor, red blossoming on his white shirt like a deadly rose. While Heather called for help Kate had placed both her hands on the wound while the ambulance came over, blood staining the silks of her dress. His blood giving her red gloves, blood still clinging to the rim of her nails no matter how many times she washed her hands at the hospital.

It was strange and tense and horrible, waiting. Matt might be stable now, but Kate and Heather barely broke the silence in the room until Kirsten showed up.

Comments

TY for starting!

[streetlevel]

The world swam. Sounds, not sights, registered first. Murky as though underwater. They made his head pound. Scents came next, horrible scents of death and decay, of sterilization that couldn't hide the bodies wasting away. Matt hated hospitals. He'd hated them ever since he was a child. That mix of fear and revulsion had never truly gone away, but he was too drugged to feel the full weight of that anxiety. The past mixed with the present in his haze.

Dancing with two women. No, three. That slow spin with Vanessa, where she danced on a knife's edge that neither of them was certain he wouldn't aim towards her. Foggy. He still hadn't gotten the full truth out of her, but Matt knew she was lying. There was something infinitely frustrating about knowing things that people wouldn't admit. To hearing Fisk threaten the people around him, peeling back the thin veneer of civility because it was inconvenient. That white suit housed a monster who would not change, not because he couldn't, but because deep down he didn't want to.

That was where they differed. Matt, too, had gotten his hands dirty when he'd shoved Dexter off that roof. Making the split second choice now to save Fisk's life at risk of his own was in no small part to not be that person again. Whether he wore a lawyer's suit or the Daredevil mask, Matt didn't want to house a monster. He wanted to be a better man. He wanted to win, but not on the terms the Fisks had set.

There was someone with him. Someones? It was so hard to tell with the drugs. His senses came in waves, sometimes faded and far away for him, sometimes so blistering that he felt he was going insane. He couldn't regulate himself and his powers like he usually did, but he was too groggy to do anything about it.

So he said the first name that came to mind as he fought his way back to the world.

"Kate?"