542/Defendersmeet

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Defendersmeet
Date of Scene: 25 May 2017
Location: Hell's Kitchen, New York City
Synopsis: Jessica Jones brings Karen Page by Claire Temple's place for some treatment after a minor scuffle. Unfortunately, the Winter Soldier was already there. He almost goes unnoticed up until Daredevil shows up.
Cast of Characters: Winter Soldier, Jessica Jones, Karen Page, Claire Temple, Daredevil




Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier has a bad habit of getting shot. Part of it is due to his utter fearlessness, his arrogance, and his solid belief in 1) his own prowess 2) the strength of the serum in his blood. Part of it is because when you go up against a couple dozen members of the Irish mob, eventually /something's/ gonna find its way past the kevlar.

This something -- a 9mm buried shallowly in his right arm -- is a step up from the .380 that said hello to him the first time he required the Night Nurse to have a look at him, but it's still not anything that the Soldier considers debilitating. Claire's just finished up pulling out the bullet and is just starting on the stitching when she gets a call.

The atmosphere in the apartment rapidly becomes an atmosphere of 'oh shit.' Or at least, it does on Claire's part. The Winter Soldier's attitude is mostly 'who cares, I'll kill them if they cause trouble or blow my cover,' etc. etc., which earns him a harangue from Claire about how these are friends and he emphatically cannot kill them regardless of what they do.

Then she shuts him in her bedroom, where he proceeds to stay away from windows and be really quiet. He's thinking about just leaving out the window, but the stitches aren't finished, so he takes a gamble on just sitting tight.

Jessica Jones has posed:
It's not that Jessica Jones is exactly doing the 'hero' thing, despite the fact that she's certainly been getting the phone calls after the debacle at the docks which made half the city think she was some idiot to call in the event of trouble and half think she was a murderer. Sure, okay, she's taking the cases. Whatever. And sometimes she maybe helps some people. It's no big.

And yeah, yeah, okay, //fine//, when she sees some woman getting //mugged// she //might just// throw the mugger into the East River with a snarl of, "Get a life, freak."

And when she realizes the woman he was mugging is already bleeding from his stupid switch blade, she might sigh and put pressure on the wound. And then she might grunt, "Come on, let me get you to someone who can help." And then?

She might just take this woman to Claire Temple.

She is holding Karen up, the scent of Wild Turkey so strong on her breath and person that she might well light on fire if someone strikes a match nearby. She reaches up with her fingerless gloves and bang-bang-bangs on the door. "Claire! You home? It's Jones!"

Not that she wouldn't know that, cause Karen actually was polite. And called ahead. While bleeding. Karen's great that way.

Karen Page has posed:
Yes, politely bleeding Karen Page. The legal secretary is leaning against Claire, a little woozy and in pain, but also with her purse still intact and her phone in her hand. It seems she was the one that interrupted Claire's other patch up job. That seems to be a recurring theme in Claire Temple's beleaguered life. "Hello, yes, is this Claire Temple? I need a bit of help as I seem to be bleeding and this gruff woman with a scarf and smelling of booze said you could help?" She did not exactly state her name, though she can assume that Claire might know Jessica. It sounds like she makes an impression.

The blonde woman gives Jessica a bit of a smile, eyes a little watery from the pain, but she does not yet cry. "Do you always drag people to random apartments after helping them from a mugging?" she asks Jessica with a raised eyebrow. "I could just go to the hospital, you know. I think they're set up for this sort of thing."

Claire Temple has posed:
This is her life now, is Claire Temple's most recent mantra, as she closes the bedroom door on the obvious not-from-around-here metal-armed man who has /killed a lot of people in her brief time of knowing him./

Not so long ago, she did everything she could in life to keep her head down, stay off the radar, and live life as guardedly solitary as possible, and now she's keeping identities, and stolen medical supplies littered all through her apartment, and a strange and not sensible at all UNPAID moonlighting career, and secrets! Keeping so many secrets, most of them for other people, and now some of her own.

The most glaring of which she stores away safely just in time for the knock on the door. In the midst of cleaning up leftover bloodied gauze and throwing used towels into the 'biohazard bin' for future sterilization, making it look in every way NO ONE UNSEEMLY WAS HERE, the nurse alerts only to the bang on the door.

It takes moments, but it opens, answered by a flushed, harried-looking Claire. Nothing really out of the ordinary for her, the woman whose job is to clean up after an entire crappy neighbourhood.

"C'mon in," she says to both ladies. "Couch is free." Karen's comment about /hospitals being perfectly good/ earns a laugh from Claire, because seriously! They are! Well, not so much when she's not on shift, she's basically their best, damnit. "It's fine. Knowing Metro Gen at this time of night, you'd be heading for a seven-hour wait. Everything OK? What happened?"

Daredevil has posed:
Daredevil has been out on his nocturnal adventures. Which sounds way more fun than it actually is. It mostly means lurking around on fire escapes and in dirty alleys waiting for something to happen. He's also been investigating, and that investigation brought him across a new kind of street drug. Or, it could be an old brand cut with something and pushed by a different outfit. He's a smart guy, but he's not a chemist.
He does know someone who might have that information, and although the Devil of Hell's Kitchen tries not to lean on Claire more than he has to (which has meant letting himself bleed a few times - call it Catholic penance) there are times when he needs to make use of her particular skillset.
When he's dressed in his work clothes, rather...the //red// work clothes, going through the front door is too conspicuous. So he shimmies up the fire escape. He stops when he's found a good perch to listen to see whether or not Claire is alone.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Daredevil's nocturnal adventures would have also brought a strange realization, as he scopes the streets of Hell's Kitchen -- someone else seems to be wandering around the neighborhood lately, and this someone else hasn't been shy about racking up a body count. The various gangs in the area aren't really happy.

The reason is innocuously sitting around in Claire's half-closed closet right now, listening placidly to what's going on in the front room. Two women, his sharp senses tell him. One bleeding, the other either currently piss drunk -- or recently very piss drunk. The injury the first woman sustained doesn't seem too serious, which gives the Soldier hope that they'll be gone soon. He's antsy enough to just leave within the next five minutes, though.

He's so focused on the three women, due to the fact one wrong turn could have them coming into his hiding spot within seconds, that he uncharacteristically does not notice that another presence has joined them on the fire escape up until Daredevil has already gained his perch and stopped moving. Warily, he cocks the hammer of his pistol.

He has no idea that even such a soft, tiny sound, muffled by so many intervening walls, is clearly perceptible to the senses of the man outside.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica helps Karen to the couch without comment, being actually rather gentle about it in spite of her gruffness, just sort of flipping a hand in Claire's direction at '7 hour wait' once Karen is down and settled. See? She knows what she's doing. Claire. Not hospital.

The woman stomps over to the wall and goes to prop it up. "She got stabbed by an asshole," she says, oh so helpfully. She realizes her hand is covered with Karen's blood. She's very concerned about sanitation, so she wipes her bloody hand on her jeans a few times. It adds to the general grodiness of said jeans, which look like they could get up and walk off on their own at this point.

She crosses her arms. Then she grimaces a little bit. "You need me to...boil water? Or something?" She gazes doubtfully and dubiously into the kitchen.

Karen Page has posed:
As Karen is placed on the couch, she winces and leans back a little bit. She has no idea that Daredevil is outside the window or that the Winter Soldier is cocking a gun in the closet. "I can deal with a wait," she says even as she huffs a bit in pain. There's a bit of a smirk at Jessica's smug hand gesture, thinking she's won.

"Sorry to burst in on you like this," she apologies to Claire. "I work for a lawyer's firm, I was trying to get some information for a case, but I stayed a little late, I guess. I generally don't mind walking late at night, but I think, some people are trying to scare me off from doing my job."

Claire Temple has posed:
The curtains are usually drawn on Claire's fire escape window, and especially tonight -- though that is pointless to someone like Daredevil.

Inside, also equally unaware of the man in costume hidden out on her fire escape, and aware of the other man not in costume hidden in her closet though not aware he's currently cocking a gun, goddamnit, Claire pretends normal -- or, well, pretending normal comes easily as she immediately switches into genuine, appraising concern at Karen Page's injury. She rolls up her blouse sleeves and reflexively snaps on a pair of rubber gloves, already coming in close to lean down toward the seated woman to carefully assess the site of the injury.

"Everything's pre-sterilized, Jessica," Claire calls to that request for help. She's prepared. She has to be. "What you /can/ do, though, is make yourself a cup of coffee." She gives her a stern, slanted look. Girl stinks like a brewery. And she did not just wipe blood on her pants. For Christ's sakes.

"I'm Claire," she repeats to Karen, with a far gentler tone of voice, back in nurse mode. She runs a physical, even checking her pupils, while patiently listening on the legal assistant's introduction. "And no apologies. It doesn't look too bad. I hope you kicked that guy's ass."

Daredevil has posed:
Daredevil can figure out a hell of a lot about what's going on inside from his perch on the fire escape. He knows how many people are there. He can smell blood, even through the panes of glass. He knows that Mr. Henderson downstairs just put too much cayenne into his taco beef and is going to have hearburn all night.
Well, OK, some of that is experience with Mr. Henderson, who happens to be a client of Nelson and Murdock. He thinks he can handle more spice than he can and once made them a pot of chilli.
What he doesn't know is that Karen is one of the ones bleeding. He'd have to be a little bit closer to pick out the smell of //her// blood. Ew.
Even though he knows someone is crouched in the closet, he //was// going to wait a little longer. The sound of a cocking gun, though, is what he interprets as a clear threat.
Without hesitating, he jams his elbow against the window in a precise way that shatters it. Then he moves through the broken glass and makes a beeline for the closet. His billy club is out and in his hand. Priority one: disarm the closeted man.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The sound of the shattering window immediately escalates the Winter Soldier into 'defend against threat' mode, himself. Interestingly, he's not just defending himself under these circumstances. Some unacknowledged part of him is also defending Claire, who he perceives as BEING ATTACKED RIGHT NOW. Or at least having her home broken into.

He couldn't explain the impulse to protect if you asked him, nor verbalize where it came from nor why it suddenly seems important. If he thought about it too hard, in fact, there'd be a pain ripping through his head to rival the worst migraine known to man. Fortunately, he isn't thinking about that too hard right now, though.

He's busy kicking open the closet door -- revealing his masked, black-clad form, which is definitely not ANY kind of reassurance -- and snapping up his left arm to guard against the club he sees the other man is armed with. The gun doesn't come into play yet, thankfully, perhaps due to some rapidly-dwindling hope that this situation can be resolved without having to fire shots, which automatically makes everything five different kinds of inconvenient.

The sharp smell of blood accompanies him, too, as he moves: blood, and another deeper metallic scent. This emanates confusingly from his covered left arm, along with the distinctive whirring sound of machinery -- the clicking articulation of steel plates.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Karen explains her own most recent life now, and Jess has an opinion on it.

"Should hire a private detective," Jones replies to Karen, with a shrug. "Me, to be precise. That way you don't have to get stabbed by assholes." Logic!

"So not a mugging then." But now the wheels are turning, and brown eyes narrow. She had her own reasons to be in that particular part of the kitchen. She can't help but wonder if they intersect.

Claire orders her to make coffee. Claire is one of the few people on the planet who she likes, so she starts that way...

Only to hear the window break.

Her reaction is swift and instant. She shoulder checks the door of the bedroom to go intercept whoever thinks they're going to FUCK with Claire Temple and the blonde lady. She doesn't spend time analyzing the two men; if she did, she might recognize the man from the papers in the red-clad form, but right now it's just...two people who don't belong in this apartment! She just runs forward and tries to barrel them into the wall, snarling, "Claire, get her out of here!"

Karen Page has posed:
"I'm Karen," Karen introduces herself to Claire with a bit of a smile. "Karen Page." As Claire moves to inspect her injury, she tries to be a good patient, as best she can. "Thanks for doing this. I take it you know..." she looks up at Jessica Jones - the woman who helped her on the street.

"You're a private detective?" There's a nod, that could really come in handy later. "Well, he did try and take my bag. I think they wanted my notes." Who knows for what. People who rob law secretaries are generally not up to something good.

Then, however, the window breaks open and Karen gives a yelp, quickly putting an arm over her eyes. There's another yelp as the closet door bursts forward and a man with a metal arm and a gun steps forward. "//What// is going //on//?"

In the chaos, however, she notices the red, the horns, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen's suit. Her eyes focus on him. "Wait!" she calls out, trying to stop Jessica from attacking Daredevil. "He's one of the good guys!"

Claire Temple has posed:
Almost simultaneously, Claire shrieks out in absolute, unguarded shock as her window shatters to admit one certain Devil of Hell's Kitchen, whom blurs inside at such an initial, forceful speed that she cannot parse details through her own buckshot of adrenaline.

She does, in her partially leaned-in position, try to shield Karen against the direction of the clamour and arriving body, because it's her patient, goddamnit, and her apartment is /supposed/ to be a safe space...

And then her eyes widen with realization and horror. It's the /Devil/, it's him, her friend, and he's responding to --

-- on cue, the Winter Soldier bursting free from her closet where she last stashed him, and oh God, oh God, oh GOD, oh dear sweet Jesus no --

-- and now Jessica Jones is barking something at her and going after them BOTH and SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET KILLED IF SHE DOESN'T --

Right on par with Karen, Claire doesn't waste time to do exactly the opposite as asked of her, chasing down where a deadly FIGHT is bound to happen and desperate to make it stop. "STOP! StopstopSTOP it's good it's GOOD IT'S GOOD!"

Daredevil has posed:
The black-clad man is certainly a calvacade of confusing smells and sounds. But Daredevil doesn't really have time to consider that. Unlike some of the other enemies that the Winter Soldier may have come up against, he knows it's useless to strike that arm. Better to avoid it. Instead of striking with the billy club, he uses it as a brace to deflect the blow as best he can. He is a fast son of a bitch. A metal arm throws his ability to read him off a little bit, but it's still pretty good.
It's definitely good enough to dodge a barreling private investigator. He moves, slippery-like, getting back from the other two. His head snaps over before the owner of the apartment appears. "Claire? There's a guy with a gun in your closet." The tone is almost accusatory, and the tone of it might seem faintly familiar to Karen. That is, if she's not distracted by bleeding and an apartment full of maniacs.

Winter Soldier has posed:
A lot of things happen at once.

Focused on the red-armored man in front of him, his left arm still up in a guard, the Winter Soldier reacts a little slowly to the barreling private investigator. He only has time to snap his attention over, turn, and lift his pistol -- giving Jessica one heart-stopping moment of staring down the barrel -- before she slams him back against a wall.

The force of it clearly surprises him. He keeps ahold of his pistol, just barely, readjusting it so it points low at Jessica's side in some attempt at self-defense.

There's a guy with a gun in your closet, Daredevil observes.

The masked figure's blue eyes narrow, but there's a smirk in his voice when he says, "She knows. She put me in there." His gun waggles a little against Jessica's side. "You wanna get off me? You're really not my type."

Jessica Jones has posed:
Daredevil dodges Jessica; it's probably for the best as she dimly registers 'he's a good guy!' Oh yeah. That guy. K.

Meanwhile...there's a gun, and a smart-ass. And Claire is yelling it's okay. She has her fist back like she's going to punch him in spite of the gun and in spite of the yelling, just because she feels like punching someone. But it dawns on her.

She's got a gun in her side.

Jessica Jones looks slowly down at this gun.

Her lip curls up in a slow sneer, and her eyes narrow. Her tone is very flat. "Don't worry, asshole. Your gun's too tiny for me."

She gets off of one Winter Soldier and backs up slowly, fists still raised, still mantling protectively in defense of the two women, even with all these reassurances flying around. There's just too much adrenaline in her system, too much chaos in this apartment, and one too many guns out for her to be too willing to relax yet. She's ready to block bullets with her body if she has to. Which is a terrible policy for her, but...better her than Claire or Karen, to her mind.

Karen Page has posed:
Shoving herself upward from the couch, Karen tries to get Jessica to stop attacking Daredevil. The guy in Claire's closet? She can't speak for him. 'Claire' he says. So, Daredevil knows Claire? She looks between the masked man and the Nurse she's been brought to after being stabbed. "Y-you--" she looks between them all. "You know each other?" The questions is more for Claire and Daredevil, but it also includes Winter Soldier.

She stands right by Jessica, trying to pull her back from the gun in her side. "Let's just-" she winces at the movement moving against the stab wound. "-Let's not get any bloodier, right?"

Claire Temple has posed:
There's a guy with a gun in her closet, interrogates the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

The look on Claire's face reflects her quiet eternity of suffering. "Yeah..." is all she can say to that.

Thankfully, though NOT very helpfully, the Soldier explains the situation to everyone, and when Jessica finally lets him go, the nurse weaves in to try to insert herself physically between the masked, armed man and the rest of her strange group of houseguests. "It's fine, OK? It's fine," she asserts, and probably pleads too, with upraised, still-gloved hands. "It's cool. He's with me. It's a long story, and /he's not going to hurt anyone./"

Over her shoulder, she cranes the Winter Soldier a quick, and very severe glance. Right?! orders her flaring eyes, and not rhetorically. Put the gun away!

Her eyes filter over faces, one of them masked, giving a substantial look to the still-ornery Jessica. Chill, please? Only at Karen's voice does her attention waver over, and at the question, the nurse pauses visibly, a glance at Daredevil. Claire then relents. "Yeah. Happens when you're in the biz. We need you to sit back down, Karen. You're hurt."

Her eyes flicker back at Daredevil. "Trust me it's all good?"

Daredevil has posed:
There are a lot of things that the Devil of Hell's Kitchen can fake. Body language is still a hard one. He straightens visibly when Karen appears. He cocks his head and sniffs the air. "You're bleeding." He's pitched his voice a little lower than normal, though he doesn't go full Batvoice. That shit's hard on the throat.
He cocks his head in the direction of the other scuffle. "If we're all friends of Claire's, then no one should be pointing guns at anyone." His tone is even, reasonable. The billy club goes back to the holster on his belt. "I trust you," he says to Claire. He's still got his freaky senses trained on the other two, though.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Jessica doesn't take the sassing lying down. In fact, she returns fire. The Winter Soldier's brows raise. "Oh, you want a bigger gun? Cause I got a b--"

This is, thankfully, when Claire cuts in loudly with IT'S FINE, EVERYTHING IS FINE. Just about the same time as Karen inquires incredulously if everyone knows everyone else. The Winter Soldier lapses into wary silence at that, his gaze tracking back and forth between the gathered individuals.

He's not going to hurt anyone, Claire says. Then she LOOKS at him. Right?

He looks back, a long saucy time, before he spins the gun unnecessarily and reholsters it. Folding his arms, he leans back against his wall. His right arm is leaking blood where the few stitches Claire managed to put in have all popped out, but he doesn't seem to either notice or care.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Jessica allows Karen to pull her a bit back, and then Claire to insert herself. And then, to Karen, "Jesus. Quit it. Get back on the couch before you bleed out or something."

And then The Winter Soldier is going on about how he can produce a bigger gun. She snorts, another withering look crossing over her features. "Keep it in your pants there, Rambo." She finally drops her hands. Cuts her gaze over to the Devil. And then? She finally shrugs, her heartbeat settling back to something a lot more apathetic.

"Right. Going to make that coffee."

And then she just...disengages. She stomps into the kitchen and starts making coffee. Just like that. The rich aroma of the stuff will flow through the apartment soon enough. She trusts Claire too, and if Claire says that the guy in her closet is someone that she wants in her closet, well, that's a whole lot of kinky shit she doesn't even wanna know about. The Daredevil is less of a concern; she's aware of who the guy is now that she's gotten a look at him, and he's showing concern for Karen rather than throwing around smart-assery, ergo, he was here because he was trying to protect Claire too.

All of this adds up to some sort of 'cool story, bro, I can stop giving too many fucks' now in the mind of one private eye.

Karen Page has posed:
There is a lot of flurry and action as Karen remains a bit hunched over in pain while she attempts to restrain Jessica. It's not a physical restraining: she saw her fling a guy into the East River, she knows she has no chance of doing that. It's instead an attempt at a verbal one.

Daredevil's apparent shift in demeanor at seeing her is met with a freeze of her own. Does he remember her? She doubts it, but who knows. "Yeah," she tells him succinctly. "I got stabbed outside. She - " There's a gesture to Jess here. "Tossed him into the river and brought me here. I didn't know you guys knew each other." It's almost as if Hell's Kitchen is only a couple of blocks on a small island. Weird!

Once it seems like everyone is disengaging and not about to put bullets or batons into each other, Karen edges back to the couch and drops back onto it with a wince. "I'm glad that's all settled."

Claire Temple has posed:
When confirmed by Daredevil that he does trust her, Claire looks him at him and then away, her expression strange mixture of warmth, appreciation, and guilt. Just kept a literal six-foot, metal-armed secret from him -- Jones too -- and they still profess to trust her. Trust is such a precious thing, lost once and lost forever. She hopes her decisions don't come back to bite her.

"Thanks," she says, finally feeling her exhaustion. It isn't helped when her attention skirts back to her broken window, pulling in the over-warmed New York night breeze. Claire sighs noisily.

Daredevil and the Soldier seem not to be about to kill each other, Jones is sobering up, and poor Karen is making her way back to the couch. First thing's first. She cranes a glance back at the Winter Soldier. He might not have noticed his bleeding, but she does. "You. Find a chair. You're next after I'm done with Miss Page." With that, she walks away, apparently to trust him, trust everyone involved, because it's true: Everyone here, officially now, is a friend of Claire Temple. At least, strangely enough, in her eyes -- legal assistants and drunk PIs and Soviet assassins included. She makes her way back to the couch, trading pairs of gloves. "Everyone, meet everyone else. I might be all your guys' nurse, but I draw the line at hostess. Ya'll can introduce yourselves."

Daredevil has posed:
To be totally fair, Daredevil has people trusting him who probably shouldn't. One of them happens to be in this room. He tilts his head, 'looking' at the others in the room in his own peculiar way. "Why were you in the closet?" This to the metal armed man.
What he really wants to do is rush to Karen's side and make sure she's all right, but that would be more than a little suspicious. Besides, keeping his distance is better for his cover at the moment. The last thing she needs is the nasty shock that the blind man is a superhero. "Claire. Are you sure she shouldn't go to the hospital?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
Keep it in your pants there, Rambo, Jessica snarls. It's hard to see with the mask, but his eyes tell plainly: the Winter Soldier is grinning at her, and not nicely.

He holds silent otherwise, though, mercifully. This would probably be the juncture at which people would expect him, a reclusive Soviet assassin, to //leave//, but his stitches are not finished and like hell he'll let some uppity Hell's Kitchen residents chase him out. He does retreat to a far wall, however, folding his arms and leaning there as he waits. Blood dries slowly on his arm.

Claire enjoins them all to introduce themselves, cause she's OUT. The Winter Soldier does not introduce himself.

He just cuts a glance at Daredevil when he asks, very pointedly, why he was in the closet. "I was here first. She didn't want me scarin' the regulars."

He lazily rolls his neck, popping it. "Wonder why."

Jessica Jones has posed:
Poor Claire.

She only THINKS Jessica Jones is in there getting sober.

She's...certainly pouring a cup of coffee. That's happening.

Unfortunately, she reaches inside of her leather jacket and withdraws a tiny sample size bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. It smells sharp and rich as she pours it into her coffee cup, then pours the coffee atop it. She tucks the empty bottle away again, figuring Claire's too busy to notice.

"Jessica Jones, PI," she says, to the room at large. Maybe out of guilt because she's only doing about...oh, 3 quarters of a cup of what Claire wanted her to do. She'll make up for it by introducing herself like a human. She also waits to make sure nobody is looking (as best she can in this particularly observant crew) and slides open Claire's fork drawer. She pulls out some cash and sticks it in the fork drawer. Then she closes it. Claire has never asked for money for the work she does in her living room, but that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve some form of compensation for her hard work. And Jones doesn't want to have a conversation about it, so she just sticks random bills around Claire's house whenever she gets the chance. Business hasn't been too bad lately, after all.

These acts complete, she comes to prop up the doorframe between the kitchen and the general living area, scowling contemplatively at all and sundry.

Karen Page has posed:
As Karen returns to the couch that both Claire and Jess have told her to return to, she relaxes into it, despite the pain. No one is attacking each other any more. This is fine. "Karen Page, legal secretary and apparently mugging victim." That does it for her introduction. She's been stabbed, she can be short with that.

Though the question is for Claire, Karen answers it for herself. "I had the same question. They said it'd be a couple of hours long wait, which is why---Jessica brought me here." She pauses a moment before using the other woman's name. She's attempting to learn what's happening here. Looking at the Winter Soldier, she narrows her eyes a bit. "I don't believe 'I was here first' is a proper name, though," she calls him out on that. "I guess we could just mesh it all together into Iwasherefirst, but that's not exactly a proper name, per say. Or even a code one."

Claire Temple has posed:
Poor Claire, indeed.

She reassumes her spot on her own coffee table, her back-up medkit already out at her side, perched there to see to Karen currently taken refuge on her poor, poor couch. That couch has seen so much blood in its time. And so much more.

"She could go to the hospital," she replies Daredevil, matter-of-fact, "but it'll be a waste of time. Clean and shallow." Her attention and dark eyes lift on Karen, and Claire offers a tired half-smile. "That's some high-class stitching on your skirt. Saved you from the ICU. The hospital will do the same what I can do here, just with sloppier stitching."

With that, she gets to work, arranging shots of antibiotic and a local, which Claire administers with such a deftness that the needles cause little pain. Her turned back doesn't lead her on to Jessica making hot toddies or stashing hidden cash flows -- she'll sigh at finding this one like all the others before -- but she does get to witness Karen egging on the Winter Soldier, who's being a bit of a jerk but otherwise behaving himself.

"He's a friend of mine," Claire announces, simple as that. "He's on the level." She's absolutely not sure of that, but she can sort the rest of it later.

Daredevil has posed:
Daredevil is not about to say 'hi, I'm Daredevil,' so he just skips the whole introduction thing. He and the Winter Soldier have that much in common at least. "I don't think anyone here is exactly...regular." He can feel what Jessica is doing with the booze, and with the money. The money thing makes him grin a little. He may have done something similar at some point - but he doesn't comment. "Except...you," he motions towards Karen. "And maybe the private eye, but..." he trails off.
He stands there awkwardly for a moment, then clears his throat. "I should...go. Claire, I'll come by another time." And then, sheepishly, "...sorry about the window."

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier's frost-blue eyes move back and forth between the few people who do introduce themselves. Names get filed. Karen gets frowned at. "It's all you're getting," he says, and leaves it at that.

But something weird happens when Claire says 'he's a friend of mine.' The Winter Soldier gets really quiet, but not in the way he's been quiet thus far. Not the quiet of a lethal predator at rest. This quiet is a bewildered sort of quiet, a surprised silence that hears something familiar about that kind of outreach -- but loses whatever thought came briefly to his mind before he can fully grasp it.

He frowns, shakes his head infinitesimally, as if to clear some cobwebs. Weird. He zoned out a little there.

He watches Daredevil cautiously as the other man makes to leave -- is this guy going to be hanging around every time he comes by for a patch-up -- but doesn't aggress or say anything further.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Daredevil goes to excuse himself. Jessica gives him a nod of farewell, which for her is the height of Emily Post politeness. What she does not give is any commentary on whether or not she is ordinary or not.

"The Terminator," she suggests to Karen, with a shrug. Apparently the Winter Soldier is going to be dubbed with various old movie names until Jessica gets bored with the game. She's watching the whole room, so she does note the man's weird moment, but it's mostly in the way she notes everything. It's investigative habit that draws no conclusions, that today means nothing to her at all. Claire says he's a friend, so she doesn't even look at him that much longer. Instead, she focuses her attention back on the woman on the couch.

"When you're done getting stitched I'll take you wherever home is, Page," she says. "I'll make sure it's clear for you too."

Karen Page has posed:
A friend of Claire's. Karen is here by way of invitation to get sewn up from a a mugging and intimidating gone wrong. If Claire is vouching, she doesn't feel incredibly comfortable saying much more about the subject. Especially if Claire seems to think that man in her closet is a friend of hers.

With a moment of clarity, Karen calls out to Daredevil. "Why did you come here in the first place, though?" She doubts it was her mugging, or the man hiding in Claire's closet. Though, it's actually possible that is the reason. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen tends to show up in a lot of random places. The suggestion to call the Winter Soldier Terminator is met with a smirk. "Terminator it is," she agrees, as there is no other ready name for the man and she takes Claire's warning at face value.

Instead, she looks at the woman with a smile. "Thank you." It's sincere, though laced with a bit of inescapable pain. Jessica's offer is met with a smile. "And thank you. I wouldn't even be here without you."

Daredevil has posed:
As curious as Daredevil might be about this odd group of visitors, he doesn't want to linger. The longer he's here, the more Karen might get suspicious.
And if she's going to find out, he doesn't want it to be like this.
Karen's question is met with a slight nod. "It's better that you don't know." Then he starts for the broken window. "Claire. Private investigator," pause, "Terminator." And then he's out the window, and down onto the street. He barely makes a sound as he drops.

Claire Temple has posed:
"Four stitches," Claire says encouragingly of Karen's battle wound. "That's all. I'll have them in in a shake."

Miss Page is still sassing at the Winter Soldier, but the nurse takes that as a good thing. It's always a promising prognosis when someone has enough spirit left to get saucy. Certain the local anaesthetic is doing its job, she sterilizes the spot and quickly begins tying two of the four as-promised sutures, her handwork careful and precise. There will be little-to-no scarring to ruin Karen's future bikini days.

Her eyes avert briefly to Jessica when Karen thanks her. Claire's giving her a similar sort of look. Something not a thank-you, but its cousin: I'm proud of you. Even the Soldier seems to have slipped into an uncharacteristic quiet, more than enough to earn a glance from her, searching and questioning, though nothing she says out loud.

The work only pauses when Claire's attention rivets back up at Daredevil, who can only suffer so long to stand there awkwardly, in costume, among a full party. He at least apologizes for the shattered window. She gives it another aggrieved look, looks back at him with slanted, dark eyes, like something sharp is waiting on the back of her tongue -- didn't realize I could trade 'sorry' in a replacement at the glass store, she wants to snark back. But it's him, and her soft heart folds its hand fast. She sighs and forgives. "It's fine," is all she says. "Warn me before you stop by?"

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier frowns at his new appellation. He does not get that reference. It's really obvious he doesn't get that reference.

"Chto za akhineyu ty nesesh'," he complains.

He doesn't like the delay on Claire working on his arm, either. He seems determined to wait out the others, however, whether because of some sense of urgency or just because he's contrary enough not to be driven out by a gaggle of ladies and a guy in a devil suit. He looks balefully at the broken window as the latter takes his leave, but otherwise continues to hold his silence.

After a time, he almost seems to enter a standby mode, even. Most people, when idle, look like they're thinking about something. This man looks blank like he's not thinking of anything at all.

Jessica Jones has posed:
Oh Jeez. Thankful looks. Looks of friends being proud of her and shit. Jessica gets this weird look on her face, the one that says she isn't entirely emotionally sure what to do with those sorts of things: half of her likes them and half of her feels like an asshole when they are directed her way.

So...she drains her coffee and puts it aside. She drops her head and hunches. She mutters, "It's just shit anyone who can do //does//."

The Terminator starts complaining in Russian. Jessica looks up and gives him an unreadable look. She glances back to the surgery in progress. Then she glances back at the soldier on Standby Mode.

That does get a bit of her attention. Not conclusion, but she does study this Human on Standby Mode phenomenon silently, her head tilting to one side.