Foggy the Miracle Worker
Part 3
Clint landed the plane a few minutes later, having called for medical assistance and a gurney with strong restraints, then got up from his seat to see Hulk was indeed sitting on Daredevil’s legs, and holding his hands pinned to the deck at his side. Daredevil’s face was turned away, and Clint could hear him gasping and sobbing at the same time. As he got closer, he could also smell vomit; there was a small pool of it next to Daredevil’s head.
Clint pressed the button to open the hatch, and Hulk took that as a sign to let go and start shrinking back into Bruce Banner again. Daredevil rolled over and got to his hands and knees, trembling visibly. Then he must have felt the vibration as the hatch hit the deck of the helicarrier, because he scrambled to his feet and made a shaky run for it. Fortunately, he collided with one of the medical personal and they both fell over.
“Grab him!” Clint shouted, coming in to help. “Restrain him!”
Fortunately, the medics were experienced in that sort of thing. Four of them descended on Daredevil, each grabbing an arm or a leg, and in carefully synchronised movements, they lifted him up, got him onto the gurney, covered him with a blanket, and strapped him down. Clint found himself wondering if they practiced such things as part of their training, or if they’d had to learn it solely through experience. He knew he’d been part of that experience at least once.
“Don’t untie him,” Clint said. “Consider him violent and unpredictable.”
“What’s going on?” It was Bruce at his side, looking even more miserable than he usually did coming out of a Hulk transformation. One of the medics stepped forwards with a blanket, and Bruce pulled it around his shoulders.
“We’ll need a gurney for Steve, too,” Clint said. “He’s lost his strength.”
“Right away,” the man said.
“Did I hurt anybody?” Bruce asked, then indicated where the medics were wheeling Daredevil away. “Did I hurt him?”
“We only needed Hulk to hold him down,” Clint said. “You didn’t hurt him. Much.”
Bruce looked unhappy at the “much” but said only, “I thought he was on our side.”
“He was, until he got stung, and now he thinks we’re the enemy. He can’t hear, and Natasha thinks he can’t see anything, either.” Clint reached out for Natasha, who was only just then coming down the ramp. “How’s your arm? Is it broken?”
“Maybe cracked,” she admitted. “How’s the sting?”
“Still hurts like hell.”
“Looks like it’s swelling,” Bruce put in. “I can see that from here.”
“We’d better get to medical, then.” Clint made a face, and although Natasha didn’t, he knew she felt the same way.
All three of them walked along the corridors, making room for the gurney that was carrying Steve to race by, and Natasha said, “Those things sting you, and get your aim. They sting Steve, and get his strength. Then they sting Daredevil, and get both his hearing and his sight? That doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe it stung him twice?” Clint asked.
“It didn’t. I was watching. It stung him once and Hulk grabbed it right off him.”
“So you’re saying that Daredevil had to be blind before this,” Bruce said, “because the spell took his strongest attribute away, and if he were blind, his strong point would have been his hearing.”
“Yes,” said Natasha.
“So now we have to find a way to communicate with him so that he knows we’re friends and not enemies,” Clint mused. He wore hearing aids himself; he could only imagine what it must be like to suddenly be blind as well as deaf. No wonder Daredevil had reacted with panicked violence.
“Easy enough to scan his face and run it through facial recognition,” Natasha said.
Still in his Iron Man suit, Tony he met them at the door to the medical bay. Apparently he had caught only the last sentence of their conversation, because he said, “Already did that. Guess what, his name’s Beeman. Seriously. Except his first name is Scott, not Bumble. Scott Beeman, he’s a low-level mutant, tried to apprentice himself to Doctor Strange, went well for a year or two, until he was apparently seduced by the dark side of the Force, then he went off on his own and began to create giant bumblebees.”
“No Sith?” Clint asked.
Tony shrugged. “Maybe he was inspired by his own name. Imagine what he’d come up with if he were named Fisher.”
“Or Dickens,” Bruce said quietly. Clint grinned, and Tony pretended to be offended. “Hey, I wanted to say that!”
“We were talking about Daredevil,” Natasha said with her best disapproving face. “If we can get his mask off, we can find out who he is.”
In the medical bay, Daredevil’s gurney was next to Steve’s, who was telling the medical staff about the giant bumblebees. They had cut away the Captain America uniform, and Clint could see where Steve’s left arm was red and swollen. Two male nurses were attending Daredevil; one had pushed back part of the blanket and was holding his arm down, despite the strap, so that the other could put a large padded cuff around his wrist. They’d already done the other side, and as soon as they were finished, they moved down to his legs. As they started to unlace his boots, Daredevil thrashed as much as he could, which wasn’t very much. Clint felt sorry for him.
A nurse approached Clint. “Agent Barton? If you’d like to come this way, please.”
“I’ll be with you in two minutes,” Clint said. “We just want to find out who Daredevil is.”
The nurse turned to Bruce. “Dr Banner?”
“I’m fine,” Bruce said. “And I want to see who this Daredevil is, too.”
The nurse set her eyes on Natasha, who ignored her, and it was Tony who spoke.
“All of us. Together,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long, in case you were planning to check me over, too. Not that I’m hurt, but I might need some tender loving care after Aimless here shot an arrow into my suit.”
The nurse smiled her best professional smile and went back to Steve’s side of the room.
Natasha went around to stand at Daredevil’s head, then ran her good hand over his cowl, checking to see if there were any fastenings she needed to be aware of. Sensing that Natasha was there in her official capacity, the nurses stepped back to let her get on with it. Daredevil jerked his head away, but Clint caught him and held him tight despite his efforts to get free. Working together, Natasha and Clint pulled the cowl back and away, evading Daredevil’s attempt to bite, and laid his face bare.
Tony flipped his faceplate down again to transmit the image to his AI. There were bruises and scrapes over the lower half of Daredevil’s face, and although his eyes moved, they didn’t focus on anything. He looked both defiant and scared, and he strained against the cuffs.
“Matthew Murdock,” Tony announced as the information came in. “Partner at Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law, located in Hell’s Kitchen. Oh! In the picture on file, he’s got sunglasses and a white cane.”
“We’d already figured out that he was blind,” Natasha said. Daredevil turned his head and started to vomit, and Clint moved away in disgust. The others followed, and the nurses moved back in to take their place.
“Who’s Nelson? Can we contact him?” Clint asked, watching one nurse undo the strap across Daredevil’s chest, then try to cut the man’s uniform open. It seemed to be lined with something impervious to normal scissors; the nurse went to a drawer and came back with heavier shears.
“Getting an address … now,” Tony said. “Here. Franklin P. Nelson. I can fly over and pick him up if you guys want?”
Natasha pulled her phone from an inside pocket. “Let’s call him up and talk to him first. Give me the number.”
Obligingly, Franklin Nelson picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Is this Franklin Nelson?” Natasha asked.
“That’s me,” he replied amiably. “How can I help you?”
The nurse unpeeled Daredevil’s uniform, folding it away to the sides, and Clint could see the huge red swelling on his upper abdomen, with a dark spot in the middle. He wondered if his own back looked the same, because it certainly felt like it.
“My name is Natasha Romanoff, I’m with the Avengers. You might have noticed an incident earlier this evening in Hell’s Kitchen?”
“The Avengers? Black Widow?” Nelson sounded surprised and somehow wary; a tone of voice that Clint was familiar with. So many people thought they were being pranked when a real member of the Avengers called up.
“Your partner Matthew Murdock was injured in the incident,” Natasha went on. “We already know he’s blind, but he was deafened as well. ”
“Oh, g-d, Matt,” Nelson exhaled.
“We need a way to communicate with him, tell him that he’s safe and the … incident is over,” Natasha said.
Nelson thought for a moment, then exclaimed suddenly, “Braille! He’s got a Braille printer in the office, we can print out something for him to read. With his fingers.”
“That’s perfect,” Natasha said.
Go to Part 4
Clint pressed the button to open the hatch, and Hulk took that as a sign to let go and start shrinking back into Bruce Banner again. Daredevil rolled over and got to his hands and knees, trembling visibly. Then he must have felt the vibration as the hatch hit the deck of the helicarrier, because he scrambled to his feet and made a shaky run for it. Fortunately, he collided with one of the medical personal and they both fell over.
“Grab him!” Clint shouted, coming in to help. “Restrain him!”
Fortunately, the medics were experienced in that sort of thing. Four of them descended on Daredevil, each grabbing an arm or a leg, and in carefully synchronised movements, they lifted him up, got him onto the gurney, covered him with a blanket, and strapped him down. Clint found himself wondering if they practiced such things as part of their training, or if they’d had to learn it solely through experience. He knew he’d been part of that experience at least once.
“Don’t untie him,” Clint said. “Consider him violent and unpredictable.”
“What’s going on?” It was Bruce at his side, looking even more miserable than he usually did coming out of a Hulk transformation. One of the medics stepped forwards with a blanket, and Bruce pulled it around his shoulders.
“We’ll need a gurney for Steve, too,” Clint said. “He’s lost his strength.”
“Right away,” the man said.
“Did I hurt anybody?” Bruce asked, then indicated where the medics were wheeling Daredevil away. “Did I hurt him?”
“We only needed Hulk to hold him down,” Clint said. “You didn’t hurt him. Much.”
Bruce looked unhappy at the “much” but said only, “I thought he was on our side.”
“He was, until he got stung, and now he thinks we’re the enemy. He can’t hear, and Natasha thinks he can’t see anything, either.” Clint reached out for Natasha, who was only just then coming down the ramp. “How’s your arm? Is it broken?”
“Maybe cracked,” she admitted. “How’s the sting?”
“Still hurts like hell.”
“Looks like it’s swelling,” Bruce put in. “I can see that from here.”
“We’d better get to medical, then.” Clint made a face, and although Natasha didn’t, he knew she felt the same way.
All three of them walked along the corridors, making room for the gurney that was carrying Steve to race by, and Natasha said, “Those things sting you, and get your aim. They sting Steve, and get his strength. Then they sting Daredevil, and get both his hearing and his sight? That doesn’t add up.”
“Maybe it stung him twice?” Clint asked.
“It didn’t. I was watching. It stung him once and Hulk grabbed it right off him.”
“So you’re saying that Daredevil had to be blind before this,” Bruce said, “because the spell took his strongest attribute away, and if he were blind, his strong point would have been his hearing.”
“Yes,” said Natasha.
“So now we have to find a way to communicate with him so that he knows we’re friends and not enemies,” Clint mused. He wore hearing aids himself; he could only imagine what it must be like to suddenly be blind as well as deaf. No wonder Daredevil had reacted with panicked violence.
“Easy enough to scan his face and run it through facial recognition,” Natasha said.
Still in his Iron Man suit, Tony he met them at the door to the medical bay. Apparently he had caught only the last sentence of their conversation, because he said, “Already did that. Guess what, his name’s Beeman. Seriously. Except his first name is Scott, not Bumble. Scott Beeman, he’s a low-level mutant, tried to apprentice himself to Doctor Strange, went well for a year or two, until he was apparently seduced by the dark side of the Force, then he went off on his own and began to create giant bumblebees.”
“No Sith?” Clint asked.
Tony shrugged. “Maybe he was inspired by his own name. Imagine what he’d come up with if he were named Fisher.”
“Or Dickens,” Bruce said quietly. Clint grinned, and Tony pretended to be offended. “Hey, I wanted to say that!”
“We were talking about Daredevil,” Natasha said with her best disapproving face. “If we can get his mask off, we can find out who he is.”
In the medical bay, Daredevil’s gurney was next to Steve’s, who was telling the medical staff about the giant bumblebees. They had cut away the Captain America uniform, and Clint could see where Steve’s left arm was red and swollen. Two male nurses were attending Daredevil; one had pushed back part of the blanket and was holding his arm down, despite the strap, so that the other could put a large padded cuff around his wrist. They’d already done the other side, and as soon as they were finished, they moved down to his legs. As they started to unlace his boots, Daredevil thrashed as much as he could, which wasn’t very much. Clint felt sorry for him.
A nurse approached Clint. “Agent Barton? If you’d like to come this way, please.”
“I’ll be with you in two minutes,” Clint said. “We just want to find out who Daredevil is.”
The nurse turned to Bruce. “Dr Banner?”
“I’m fine,” Bruce said. “And I want to see who this Daredevil is, too.”
The nurse set her eyes on Natasha, who ignored her, and it was Tony who spoke.
“All of us. Together,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long, in case you were planning to check me over, too. Not that I’m hurt, but I might need some tender loving care after Aimless here shot an arrow into my suit.”
The nurse smiled her best professional smile and went back to Steve’s side of the room.
Natasha went around to stand at Daredevil’s head, then ran her good hand over his cowl, checking to see if there were any fastenings she needed to be aware of. Sensing that Natasha was there in her official capacity, the nurses stepped back to let her get on with it. Daredevil jerked his head away, but Clint caught him and held him tight despite his efforts to get free. Working together, Natasha and Clint pulled the cowl back and away, evading Daredevil’s attempt to bite, and laid his face bare.
Tony flipped his faceplate down again to transmit the image to his AI. There were bruises and scrapes over the lower half of Daredevil’s face, and although his eyes moved, they didn’t focus on anything. He looked both defiant and scared, and he strained against the cuffs.
“Matthew Murdock,” Tony announced as the information came in. “Partner at Nelson and Murdock, Attorneys at Law, located in Hell’s Kitchen. Oh! In the picture on file, he’s got sunglasses and a white cane.”
“We’d already figured out that he was blind,” Natasha said. Daredevil turned his head and started to vomit, and Clint moved away in disgust. The others followed, and the nurses moved back in to take their place.
“Who’s Nelson? Can we contact him?” Clint asked, watching one nurse undo the strap across Daredevil’s chest, then try to cut the man’s uniform open. It seemed to be lined with something impervious to normal scissors; the nurse went to a drawer and came back with heavier shears.
“Getting an address … now,” Tony said. “Here. Franklin P. Nelson. I can fly over and pick him up if you guys want?”
Natasha pulled her phone from an inside pocket. “Let’s call him up and talk to him first. Give me the number.”
Obligingly, Franklin Nelson picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Is this Franklin Nelson?” Natasha asked.
“That’s me,” he replied amiably. “How can I help you?”
The nurse unpeeled Daredevil’s uniform, folding it away to the sides, and Clint could see the huge red swelling on his upper abdomen, with a dark spot in the middle. He wondered if his own back looked the same, because it certainly felt like it.
“My name is Natasha Romanoff, I’m with the Avengers. You might have noticed an incident earlier this evening in Hell’s Kitchen?”
“The Avengers? Black Widow?” Nelson sounded surprised and somehow wary; a tone of voice that Clint was familiar with. So many people thought they were being pranked when a real member of the Avengers called up.
“Your partner Matthew Murdock was injured in the incident,” Natasha went on. “We already know he’s blind, but he was deafened as well. ”
“Oh, g-d, Matt,” Nelson exhaled.
“We need a way to communicate with him, tell him that he’s safe and the … incident is over,” Natasha said.
Nelson thought for a moment, then exclaimed suddenly, “Braille! He’s got a Braille printer in the office, we can print out something for him to read. With his fingers.”
“That’s perfect,” Natasha said.
Go to Part 4