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Post by fan4 on Mar 25, 2007 22:20:27 GMT -5
Daredevil: The Man Without Fear! #5 Guardian Devil Part 5: The Man Without Hope Written by Jason Blankenship Edited by Aaron Martel Five Years Ago…He lay there, sleeping softly, his well muscled form belying the bookishness of his chosen career path. Jennie set the food down on the nightstand and sat on the bed next to him and smiled. “You’ll always be my superhero, Matt.” He smiled. “After last night, I half expected you to try to make a constellation for me.” She gasped in mock shock and thumped him with a pillow. He grinned and thwapped her back with his pillow. “You know, for someone as shy and quiet as you are, you’re a beast in the sack. I mean, seriously…” Matt teased. She hit Matt again with the pillow. “Fine, be that way, Murdock, I didn’t hear you complaining last night.” He grabbed Jennie and drew her close to him, “Who said I was complaining now?” As the two of them kissed, Matt Murdock realized that here, with Jennifer Walters in his arms, this strange woman who captivated him with her sense of heroics and how they could change the world, yet dedicated wholly to the law, that he had found something that he didn’t even realize he had been looking for. Matt Murdock had finally found peace.
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Post by fan4 on Mar 25, 2007 22:24:14 GMT -5
Today
Assistant DA Jennifer Walters’ patience was clearly running out, and she was trying her hardest to maintain something resembling decorum.
“If you didn’t pull the trigger, then how did the police find cordite residue on your hands? Why did they also find your prints on the murder weapon which was found not 3 blocks from your apartment?”
Randal Jones sighed, “I dunno, maybe I’m being set up? You ever think ‘bout that? Or you too busy making sure yo’ daddy spend his money well on that college ed-jucation?”
“Mr. Jones, that is enough…Mr. Murdock, Mr. Nelson, if you cannot control your client…” Judge Quesada was as less than pleased as Ms. Walters, and it showed.
“No further questions, your honor…defense’s witness.” If Matt could’ve seen the glare that Jennifer shot him as she sat down, he might’ve been reluctant to stand.
“Mr. Jones, where exactly were you the night of September 23rd?”
“Well, I was out ballin’ wit’ Shorty, that cat’s got a mad hoops game, y’all…and then after that we met up at Josie’s with 8-ball, Scoots and Stick.”
Matt raised an eyebrow for a split second. Stick?
“We had a few drinks…and I went home with Yvonne, cuz 8-Ball wundin’t ‘specting her. After that, the cops come banging into my crib and straight up jacked me.”
Matt nodded. “Is it true you don’t even own a gun, Mr. Jones?”
“Not a hand gun…makes too much noise…if you gonna take a man out, you shank his ass...no noise then.”
Matt sighed. If I didn’t know that he was innocent…
“This is ridiculous, your honor!” Matt turned to Jennifer, who was on her feet and addressing the judge.
“C’mon, I mean, clearly the defendant has the motive, the means and the opportunity to have killed Dwight ‘8-ball’ Washington, and all Mr. Murdock and Mr. Nelson are trying to do is make a mockery of the justice system by ending this in a mistrial because they couldn’t FIND a law book between the two of them.”
Matt and Foggy spoke as one, Foggy rising to his feet. “OBJECTION!”
“Sustained…you watch yourself, Ms. Walters.”
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Post by fan4 on Mar 25, 2007 22:25:47 GMT -5
“Ms. Walters… Jennifer, wait!” Matt had rushed to flag her down before she had left the courthouse after their session had recessed for the day. “That was a low blow, and you know it.”
“Oh please Matt…you were the guy who swore up and down to defend people and find justice because the system works, and here you are defending a coked up gang-banger who shot and killed the boyfriend of the woman he was sleeping with. It’s not rocket science to figure out what happened there.”
“He’s innocent.”
“C’mon, Matt…I know that you pride yourself on being able to tell when someone is lying…but this time you’re wrong…he’s guilty. Why won’t you see that?”
Matt smirked, and years ago, she would’ve given the world to see that playful smirk, but now it just infuriated her to no end.
“Because justice is blind.”
“Go to hell, Murdock.”
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Post by fan4 on Mar 25, 2007 22:36:21 GMT -5
Matt walked the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, trying to wrap his head around Jennifer’s words.
I’m trying to bring justice to the city by working within the system. Saving the innocent and not defending the guilty. But there are lawyers with far less scruples…maybe she’s right…but then again can one man really make a difference? In a world where a man’s lifestyle brands him forever, can one man really help?
He didn’t realize until the scent of old sweat hit his nose just how lost in thought he was. He stood inside the old decrepit gym where his father had trained. The place that was the nocturnal education of a lonely blind boy.
It seems in some ways, I’ll always be that boy, longing to be a fighter, torn between my oaths and heart. What can a man like me do? What difference can I make?
Matt pulled his jacket off, and undid his tie, taking care to fold them and lay them on an old folding chair. He then began hitting the heavy bag with the practiced ease of a man who’d never stopped training, never stopped blowing off steam. With each thud of his fists on the bag, he heard the chanting, the tormenting calls. Daredevil. Daredevil. Daredevil. And soon his anger came flooding out, a torrent of pain and frustration of everything in his life catalyzing in the thunder of his fists.
“Don’t be like me, Matt, I don’t want you a misshapen washed up old has-been boxer… you use your brains and become a doctor or a lawyer. Promise me, Matt.”
"You only got one sense? You keep trying to find me with your ears. Your eyes don't work, not the rest of you."
"No, I didn't. Not that it matters much anymore, Murdock... seems I went a wee bit o'erboard and killed the doctor...I jus’ wish the system worked, Matt..."
"Well, I know that you're a principled man, so I know that I could threaten you, and it wouldn't get me what I want. So, what I'm going to do is ask, how would your boy survive without his father? I mean, a blind boy, all helpless and alone... Hell's Kitchen is no place for a kid like that, especially without a father."
“Matt, I’m sorry, but until I figure out this whole thing, maybe you and I shouldn’t see each other...I’m sorry…I love you…”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were blind, let me help you.” “Can’t you see your client is guilty Murdock?” “Dammit Matt, we need clients who are rich and guilty so we can pay the bills!” “Does this defense come with a two drink minimum?” “The blind lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen? I’ve heard of you…heard you only deal with the innocent…so how’s business?” “C’mon, I mean, clearly the defendant has the motive, the means and the opportunity to have killed Dwight ‘8-ball’ Washington, and all Mr. Murdock and Mr. Nelson are trying to do is make a mockery of the justice system by ending this in a mistrial because they couldn’t FIND a law book between the two of them.”
Matt’s scream was as primal and furious as any man had ever uttered and with a final thundering echo, he knocked the heavy bag loose from its rusted chain.
He stood there, panting, nearly spent, his anger and frustration at the world nearly drowning him in a sea of hopelessness.
“Do you feel better, Matthew?”
He spun, and felt the old nun emerge from the shadows of the gym. He sighed, “I feel a little better, Sister.”
“I’m not surprised…the son of ‘Battlin’’ Jack Murdock taking out his frustrations on gym equipment…whoever would have guessed?”
Matt felt the woman’s soft smile and genuine warmth from her. She reminded Matt of someone, but he couldn’t quite remember who.
“So, you knew my father?”
“Yes. Jack was a friend. I also remember a much younger and livelier Matt Murdock causing no end of mischief with his friend Lester…a shame what happened to that boy."
“And now, I see a man being eaten at by his failures, drowning in his tragedies…and I ask you, Matt Murdock, why don’t fight? If the world is as hopeless and lawless as you think it is, why do you not fight against it? Stem the flow of madness, even if it is with madness of your own?”
“I…made a promise…”
The nun smiled. “I don’t seem to recall your father making you promise not to have a hobby…after all, now that there's a team- what are they called, fabulous four?- and that Spider-man fellow is swinging over Midtown, super-heroes are back.”
Matt scoffed, “Super-heroes…men in masks without a concept of the law.”
“Maybe not…but they understand justice…”
Matt paused and then he remembered the nun.
She was singing, softly, and the sound was simultaneously comforting and alien. She seemed to notice that Matt was vaguely awake.
"Don't be afraid, Matthew." Matt reached up, searching for her in the darkness. His hand felt metal, cool and hard. He didn't know how, but he knew it was a cross.
"Go to sleep, my son." He nodded, the drugs still making him drowsy, and again drifted to sleep.
“You’re the nun who visited me when I had my accident…who are you?”
“I’m your guardian angel, Matthew.”
“Idealism is something a guy like me should never have…it’s just one more thing they can take away from me…”
She sighed and walked into the shadows from whence she came. “Not if you fight for it…What are you fighting for, Matthew?”
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Post by fan4 on Mar 25, 2007 22:39:26 GMT -5
Matt sighed as he stepped into his apartment, the weight of the four walls bearing down on him. He went through the motions of getting undressed and getting ready for bed.
He lay in the bed, when a scream and the echo of footsteps caught his attention. He looked out his window and saw a woman in her mid-twenties running from three guys dressed in biker leather.
"Not if you fight for it…What are you fighting for, Matthew?" She rounded a corner, trying to lose them in an alleyway, but she didn’t know the streets real well, and found herself cornered. She whirled around, and they were blocking her exit, and grinning maliciously.
In an instant there was a dark blur that descended on the approaching would-be rapists. A tornado of fury and elbows. A rain of fists and knees.
Two of them dropped before they realized what had hit them, and final one dropped to one knee as the dark blur broke his leg with a well placed kick.
Her savior was dressed in a black sweat suit, and a black bandanna obscured his features. The bandanna didn’t have eye holes, which made her wonder how he could see.
“Who do you think you are?” the thug cried, trying to sound tough despite his sobbing.
He smiled a grin that was lean and predatory, “You don’t want to know…stay outta Hell’s Kitchen.”
He turned to the woman, and she smiled and brushed a blonde strand over her ear, glancing at the ground for a brief instant.
“Thank-“ When she looked back up at where he was, he was gone. “You…”
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Post by fan4 on Mar 25, 2007 22:40:46 GMT -5
Foggy wanted to scream as the hand clamped over his mouth and the knife blade made slight contact with his skin. He looked down, terrified at the white gloved hand.
“Now lis’en, Mr. Nelson, and lis’en well, yer me ticket to gettin’ at ol’ daredevil, so why not be a good little hostage and come quietly…”
His kidnapper’s face emerged from the shadows enough for Foggy to see a grinning maniac in a dark mask with a target on the middle of the forehead.
“Be an awful shame fer me to hafta kill ye.”
To be concluded
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