4274/Morning in Hell's Kitchen

Morning in Hell's Kitchen
Date of Scene:	14 April 2018
Location:	Hell's Kitchen, New York City
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Daredevil, Claire Temple

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Daredevil has posed:
Sleep doesn't find Matt.

After Elektra leaves he sinks down into his chair and tries some of that 'bullshit meditation', trying to lock away the pain of their parting the same way he does physical hurts. He meets limited success. Then, rising, he paces and broods, trying to think his way through the questions Elektra's departure and words have planted in his mind.

Firm answers elude him, so he lays down to try and sleep, stretched out on his couch, but with the smell of Claire and Elektra still clinging to it's frame. It was a lost cause. He tosses, turns, thinks, and finally just settles in to listening to the city and the slow rhythm of Claire's heartbeat, whiling away the hours until Claire finally stirs or the sun rises. Whichever comes first.

Claire Temple has posed:
She knows that her head hurts before she opens her eyes.

Claire wakes with a groan and lifts up onto her elbows for a few moments to assess, then flops face-first into the pillow in denial and swears at the quick pull she feels on her new sutures. This ninja stuff sucks, she decides.

Claire gives up the idea of holding the blanket-and-sheet fort within a few minutes, then slowly sits up and takes in the full experience as her head swims. She closes her eyes. No nausea, there's a plus. "Ugh, dammit," she mutters as she stands up, a hand stretched onto the bed behind her for stability.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt can hear Claire wake before the groans, in a way, he's relieved, though as he reaches tugs on the threads of his senses that lead to her, he inspects her condition, with regards to the wound.

"You okay?" Matt calls as he turns, swinging his legs off the sofa to sit, then stand.

Coming towards the bedroom, Matt offers an arm, "Need a hand?"

Claire Temple has posed:
"Uh, yeah," Claire says, coughing lightly as she reaches out to put some weight on Matt's arm. "Think I need to get some more water," she says as she steps alongside Matt and walks with him out to the couch.

She pauses along the way to stretch out her neck back and forth. "Feels a little surreal this morning," she says, glancing around.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt nods, "Well let's get you sitting down and I'll grab you some water," he says leading her towards the couch.

"And what's surreal? The ninjas or the whole you being in my place newly stitched up instead of vice versa," he says offering a little joke.

Claire Temple has posed:
Claire parks on the couch cushions and slumps a little, letting her arms rest on the cushions as she eyes the early morning daylight feuding with the flashing billboard outside. She grunts and rubs her eyes. Being up this early is overrated, but the colors aren't too horrible to watch.

"Kind of the whole catastrophe, there, Murdock," she replies with a snort. "Make a trip to the bar, watch ninja battle royale with some audience participation, then find myself getting a little more of my own medicine than I bargained for. Great sheets, though, good sleep," she says, her voice only slightly dry.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt can't see the lights but he gets the gist from Claire's reactions and yanks the blinds down on the way to getting water. They don't blot it all out but some.

"Well, kind of normal for me," he says about the night. "Well, not really the ninjas so much, that's sort of wild."

He fills up a glass and brings it back to Claire, holding it out for her. "And yeah, they're pretty great," he adds about the sheets.

"But how are you?" he asks, "Really?"

Claire Temple has posed:
"Normal for you," Claire says, shaking her head. "No kidding. It explains so much," she deadpans as she accepts the water, which doesn't stay in the glass for long. "Wow, thank you," she says as she rests the base of the empty glass on her thigh. "Guess my fluids are still running a little thin."

It takes her a few minutes to reply to Matt's inquiry, and she stalls by looking around the room and belaboring the obvious. "Elektra left, I heard that," she says. "I'm... Matt, what the hell was all that last night? You two talked for a while," she says softly.

Daredevil has posed:
As Claire knocks back the glass, Matt nods, "I can tell," he says about her fluids. "More?" he asks, holding out his hand for the glass. "I'd offer a beer, but I'd probably be the one needing stiches after making a suggestion like that." Beer bad after blood loss, even Matt knows that.

That question, Matt grimaces at it, hand lowering for the moment while his other runs through his pillow tousled hair. He thought about lying, about playing it off like he did the ninjas but in the end decides not to. "It was Elektra and I breaking up," he says expression showing some of the pain he's locked away. "For real this time."

Claire Temple has posed:
"Water only, please," Claire agrees with a nod, giving back the glass for a refill. "Let's hold off on the beer until at least two weeks from now," she continues in agreement, shuddering to think what would happen after trying beer for rehydration.

Matt's revelation stuns Claire silent for a few moments. She opens her mouth, then closes it for a second after reconsidering her words. She decides on an easier path. "Breaking up. For real," she says, returning Matt's words with less grace than she returned the glass, but waiting for what comes back in either case.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt smiles wryly, "Good plan," he says and goes to get the water and comes back again.

He catches some of Claire's reaction through his senses, "Heh," he says. "Yeah," he says guessing at some of what she might have been planning to say.

Matt continues tentatively, the humour in his tone falling away, "I guess, I always held on to hope that somehow it'd be different and we'd-" he grimaces. "-Anyhow that it wasn't really over. But it's clear now, it is." The matter of fact words are delivered in a leaden voice. "Anyhow, that's what we were talking about."

Claire Temple has posed:
Claire sips this glass of water a little more slowly, if only because her wheels are busy turning enough to distract her from worrying about her own physiology.

"So..." she says, taking a deep breath. "You'd been holding onto that hope for a while. And you're... sure... now?" she asks.

Okay, time to be blunt. "What did it?"

Daredevil has posed:
Water delivered Matt moves to one of the chairs and sinks down thinking it over. "Yeah, I'm sure," he says with a nod.

It's the next question though that gives him pause. He mulls it over, literally wrining his hands. How much could he say? He goes with the truth stripped of details. "I keep making things worse for her. I try to help but it doesn't work, so, we agreed it was best for us both if we walk away and stop trying to reclaim what we had. It's gone."

Claire Temple has posed:
Claire gets about halfway through the glass of water and sits it on the coffee table, regarding the rim of the glass for a few long moments, then watching Matt's fingers in their agitation. "I remember someone making a few attempts on her life last night, too. Sword and everything. And you intervened on her behalf.

"I'm kind of wondering what had to happen for you to get from that moment to realizing that you're making things worse for her," she says. "That boulder you two have didn't move because of something you figured out while you were meditating." Her voice is kind.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt nods, "That was in the moment, something I'd do for anyone," he says about coming to Elektra's aid. "Beside she was fighting to save us," he says playing it up as professional courtesy.

"You left out a word there," Matt remarks with a laugh exhaled, though the humour is exists for a moment then its gone. "She lives a dangerous life, one she can't leave and if I keep trying to force my way of doing things on her, she's going to end up dead. As it is last night, leaving those guys alive, it makes her look weak and tells the people who want to hurt her she's vulnerable. I can't kill, but I am not going to expect her to die for my beliefs either," his face takes on a helpless expression. "There wasn't any choice."

There was more to it than that, but even this part of his pain ran deep.

Claire Temple has posed:
"So what you're telling me," Claire says after considering this, and then taking another sip of water to make sure she's carried all the numbers correctly, "is that Elektra's been getting herself into a bunch of rough scrapes recently, it's an occupational hazard, and that the source of her danger is a known issue," at this she pauses and gives Matt a raised eyebrow look, "that so happens to include ninjas."

She takes another drink from the glass and rubs her eyes and down the side of her face. "Talky ninjas, even," she says. Claire sighs and looks intently at the ceiling trusses.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt's caught up in a tough spot. On one hand Claire is one of a very short list of people he trusts completely, but on the other Elektra's business wasn't his to share. He falls back on his legal training, denying the premise of the question, "Elektra's in trouble with a lot of people, but the point is, I could have done something to help her and I didn't, now we're stuck with how things are, and I can't make things harder for her, not when it's my fault." There we go, didn't take long for Matt to use his two favourite words, did it?

"Anyhow I can't do that to her, not unless I'm really as selfish as you said I was."

Claire Temple has posed:
"Don't you pin this on me, Murdock," Claire says, pointing a finger and gesturing with the now empty glass. "I call it like I see it," she says, "and it sounds like that call's bothering you a lot. Sounds like you wanted to break it off with Elektra because you didn't want to go down that track." She shrugs. "Sounds fair.

"So now how are you living with it?" she asks.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt shakes his head, "I don't blame you, Claire," he says. "But you were right, I was being selfish, and as a result Elektra got hurt," he says before offering a tight, sad smile. "Want had nothing to do with it, but, yeah, I couldn't go down that track. Neither of us wanted it."

He gives that question some thought. "I could give you all the poetic crap, like a piece of me has been ripped out, how I am swallowed whole by guilt for what I did and that I couldn't save her from it, couldn't make it right, and it'd be true, but the truth is I don't know. It's made me question a lot of things."

There's a little "Heh," from him then. "Before all this, before we got together again," to a certain value of together. "When I wouldn't sign the contracts to get that money for Nelson and Murdock, Elektra sent me these files on people I'd stopped, put in jail, about how quickly they got out and all the damage they did when they had. How nothing had changed and somethings got so much worse. It was her way of trying to make me change my mind about killing, and it didn't work, but those files and what happened with Elektra, they made me realize something else, I am not helping. As Daredevil and with Elektra, all I do is make things worse, I don't know, I think it's better if I walk away from the both of them." His tone is testing, as though (and he was) speaking those words out loud for the first time to see how they felt.

Claire Temple has posed:
"Mmm-hmm," Claire offers, digesting. "It sounds like there are a few things here.

"Remember when you told me about having only a few strings on the money for Nelson and Murdock, and then I told you about just a few strings would be used to hang you? Then you told me they were emotional strings... but you didn't say anything about how." Claire shrugs slightly, lifts her hands in a waving gesture. "Sounds to me she was in on that hanging angle pretty hard.

"And what exactly aren't you helping? I mean, some dirtbag tries robbing someone, you stop the robbery, he goes to the precinct, gets to do time. If he comes back out and starts on a violence spree because he's pissed at Daredevil, how is that your fault?" Claire raises her voice slightly, though she softens her gesturing when a squeeze on her deltoid reminds her of the previous night.

"Was Elektra trying to convince you that once you got involved, you had to be responsible for everything after that? Because I think there are some people who would disagree a lot on that." She gives a small 'hmph.' "They're pretty damn opinionated, too."

Daredevil has posed:
"Heh. I know how it sounds, but I didn't sign the contracts because of the files, or the strings, in fact they made me dig in my heels even deeper. It wasn't until she told me she was really trying to do good that I signed, that I believed that maybe we could be together again. The files were her lashing out because I couldn't see my own hypocrisy, I believed all those people in the files could change, but not her. Also, she told me not to sign."

"And also the killing thing," he adds as an afterthought.

The rest, well, that was the argument he'd used himself. "Yeah, I thought that too, but, I don't know," though the very real example of Claire right in front of him makes a strong counterpoint.

"Hm, so I've noticed. So, what then? You think I have my head up my ass on this?"

Claire Temple has posed:
"Yep," Claire replies, popping the 'p' and not bothering to pause. "Look, if those files were enough to get you to think about quitting, that's the hanging part, and if she told you not to sign...? She went and put all of that forward and then told you not to sign? That's..." Here Claire shakes her head, not really able to give Elektra's methods a context she herself would believe. "And as for the killing, be serious.

"That hypothetical mugger, if you killed him when you stopped him, don't you think word would get around? And what do you think that word's gonna be? Take it a step further. Say you stopped a violent child abuser. Just how much more do you think it would help if you killed *him*? In front of his kid?" Claire frowns and cants her head to regard Matt. "She didn't make her case, Counselor. Do you feel a need to make it for her?"

Daredevil has posed:
"Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain, is the righteous man who gives way before the wicked," Matt recites. "Trust me, I've heard the sermon before Claire. The rules are about more than me, but also the example it sets, and what it does to the community. I wasn't tempted, not on that part, and to be honest, I might be reading the whole 'wanting me to kill' thing into it. It's more that she didn't want to be judged for what she did." At least that seemed to be the case now if it had been different in college.

"The rest, I don't know, but I do believe the fund was meant to be something good, and she'd really given up when she told me not to sign. Anyway, it doesn't matter, the contracts are signed and Elektra and I might see each other again, but what we had, it's over. It has to be, I won't be responsible for her death."

He sighs then, "As for Daredevil, you make a good example of why he's needed, and," he cocks his head. "If those ninjas know who I am, I might not have a choice in the matter."

Claire Temple has posed:
Claire groans at that last bit. "Not quite the vibe I was going for, there," she says with a sigh. "You think it's likely? It's not like they saw you in the suit." She pauses, then shakes her head. "What do I know? Assuming they don't know would be stupid, but do you suppose they've got you ID'ed as both Matt Murdock and as Daredevil?" Claire's expression is one of alarm, but she can't answer her own question to settle her concern.

Daredevil has posed:
Matt mulls it over. "They know I'm a meta at least, or at least, not blind. Though I suppose it's a bit of a leap between blind guy who can fight and Daredevil," he says considering. "Anyhow, I'll be careful about keeping the line between the two drawn, maybe take a break from the suit for a couple of nights. Let things settle, see what happens." As for his ID being blown, it was or it wasn't, but he'd put things in place to help if it was. "I am sorry, Claire, I'm going to handle this, and make sure that it doesn't come back to either of us."