TRBL @ Foggy's, 10+ GUNS

August 08, 2018:

The Mexican Cartel gets wind of where Foggy Nelson has stashed the young informant known as Taggy, and attack. Heroes rush to his defense…but a clash of values complicates matters immensely.

Hell's Kitchen, New York

It's still looking real rough around the edges.

Characters

NPCs: A bunch of gang members, and Taggy, emitted by Kingpin

Mentions:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Two can keep a secret if one of them is…

Blah, blah, blah.

Truth is, it's hard to keep secrets in certain types of neighborhoods. It's hard to track the flow of information in some parts of town. The right (or wrong) people can piece together little bits of information. An abuela's off-hand comment here. Some street lookout's there. The information slips and slides through unpredictable channels, a whispering wind of trouble. Sometimes those winds blow away harmlessly. The little bits and pieces never make it where they would need to go to create any type of trouble. They get mangled in a game of word-of-mouth telephone, and then they come to nothing.

This is not one of these winds.

Accompanied by a blustry, storm-tinged real wind that howls across New York City tonight, weather threatening rain both by smell and by now-dark skies that were grey all day without ever delivering, the whispering wind of trouble howls across one mostly cleaned-up Hell's Kitchen street like a far stronger gale. This one has indeed brewed up trouble.

The gale comes in the form of people who start trickling towards Foggy Nelson's building one by one. One figure, then two, then five, then ten, heartbeats serving up a warning thunder in their chest, swaggering, tense gaits broadcasting both a desire and a willingness to do some real violence.

Of course, the same process that brews up storms can also brew up salvation. It may be that other bits and pieces have reached friendly ears tonight. Or semi-friendly ears. Warning that the Mexican Cartel has found their snitch, and they intend to clean him up themselves…before the man known as the Kingpin takes it into his head to 'clean up' any more of them. The boy known affectionately as "Taggy" is the last member of the gang directly connected to the bombings, and even if the Kingpin weren't a factor they can't afford to leave him and his conscience alive. He could drag every member of their gang down, bargain with their lives for his own freedom and future. They aren't about to let it stand.

Of course. Friendlies could arrive by luck, too.

Luck's always good.

Foggy Nelson's apartment is a rent-controlled unit just a few blocks up from Nelson and Murdock — and location that was mysteriously spared from Fisk's explosions for reasons that Foggy hasn't figured out yet. Maybe it was the fact it was nestled between two recently gentrified structures, and thus would have been too much of a risk to explode, or perhaps it was the Chinese laundromat and dry-cleaners that always had rather unusual clientele.

But, the little old Asian lady behind the counter at the dry-cleaners never gave Foggy much trouble for his suits, and always talked favorably of his father's butcher shop, and so Foggy tried not to give it much thought. Tonight, he's more than thankful that his tiny one-bedroom apartment exists, because who knows what Claire would have done if he hadn't been able to provide Ricky a safehouse.

It's well after dinner, and Foggy has changed into his PJs — black PJ bottoms patterned with the STAR WARS logo and paired with a vintage Episode VI t-shirt. He's plopped down on the couch next to Ricky while they watch the movie Stardust — the third movie in what Foggy has dubbed 'Ricky's Pop-Culture Education, Because Dude What Do You Mean You've Never Seen The Princess Bride?'

The Lawyer hands Ricky a bowl of popcorn while the dulcet, comforting voice of Ian McKellen begins his perfect narration. "I swear, dude… the main character… dead-ringer for Matt. Of course, I can't convince Matt of this because, well… Matt's blind. But seriously, same goofy-ass smile."

Frank Castle doesn't care about Taggy. He doesn't even know about Taggy, except in that the last Cartel guy he 'talked to' said that there was a snitch at a certain location that the Cartel was aiming to deal with the snitch personally. It's great when the cockroaches scurry out where they can be stomped all at once.

The rain-heavy wind tugs at Frank's hoodie, and he walks quickly, with his hands shoved into his pockets. If he knew he was going to be dealing with a half score of Cartel members, he would have brought his… no, but he has a bag of fancy-ass boomerangs in his crashpad instead of his carbine. Who the hell uses boomerangs, anyhow? As he spots the skulking figures down the street ahead, he ducks into an empty doorway, mentally counting his bullets as he actually counts shitbags. It's going to be close. This could get ugly. Frank can do ugly. He starts forward again, just walking down the street with his broad shoulders hunched like he was just trying to get somewhere beyond the fracas-to-be.

It's a good thing that Foggy Nelson's best friend keeps his ear to the ground. Or rather, that his best friend's ears are so good they can hear goings-on on the ground even while he's swinging from rooftop to rooftop like an off-brand Spider-man. For all that the gangs of Hell's Kitchen have scurried to the four corners of the outer boroughs and diverted the Devil's attention, Matt's patrols always begin and end with his battered neighborhood.

He's just getting his start tonight when he hears the whispers in the one non-English language he actually knows, the clink of gunmetal, the heavy footfalls in some loose and threatening formation. And in an instant he knows exactly what they've come for — and for whom.

He takes his burner and enters in a quick text: TRBL @ FOGGYS 10+ GUNS

And then another to Foggy's cell: CARTEL OTW GET DOWN

And then he's off,, parkouring through the rain and wind as fast as his legs can carry him, footfalls steady on the slick rooftops. A leap, a flip, a hurdle, a swing and then flight. It all carries him to the rooftop ledge where one Frank Castle approaches the steady trickle making its way towards Foggy's house. Just another pedestrian for now, at least in Matt's view. Let him pass to avoid crossfire. Line up your shot. He scales his way quietly to the second-floor fire escape, hiding in the shadow of a neon light. They'll never make it through that front door, he pledges: ready to pounce as soon as the first of them try.

Elevator or not, Claire is taking the stairs. Call it a side effect of being around people with super fueled metabolisms, enhanced work out programs, or both, but any little thing she can do to try and keep fit and not be too much of a hindrance? It's become part of her routine. She made it into Foggy's building ahead of the various storms and she's just starting up that first flight of stairs. There's no arsenal at hand, just several bags of groceries. The baguette -is- a day old, though. Hey, savings are important when feeding a teenage boy. Let's see how long she can remain oblivious to the trouble brewing outside on the streets….

It's a late night at Stark Tower. Usually, Kinsey would be on her way back to Gotham, to finish out her week at the Garage she still ostensibly operates on the waterfront —ather than over to Danny The Iron Fist of K'un-Lun's mansion, to take a shower in the nicest shower ever constructed by human hands. And see Matt, I guess. That too.

Tonight, though, she's sitting at a holoterminal in her office, putting the finishing touches on something she has yet to tell anyone about. Gleaming in hues of black and grey, presently held aloft on intelligent armatures in the corner of her office and rather dramatically lit from the bottom-up not for any utilitarian reasons but because Tony Stark is sort of a drama queen, a Stark-built suit of power-armor dangles above the floor. Lighter and sleeker than the usual configuration of features based on the Iron Man template, hybridized with Six's home-brewed equipment, it's a fluid, alien assemblage of shapes in light-absorbing matte greys and blacks. Metamaterial coatings worth more than anything Kinsey has ever owned in her entire life make it dodgy on the eye.

Her phone buzzes.

TRBL @ FOGGYS 10+ GUNS

Kinsey side-eyes the vectored display in front of her, luminous in the dim air of her office. Her eyes refocus through it, fixed on the suit in the background. Almost finished. ….Basically finished…

None of these ten guys take note of the dude on the fire escape.

None of them take note of the 'pedestrian'.

They're all focused on the door to the building. The first one reaches out to open it…just open it, nobody wants to draw attention on the street after all. One hand on the door and then…

Well. And then stuff probably starts happening.

Foggy's cellphone buzzes on the laminate countertop, the lawyer having forgotten to turn his phone back off from silent mode. It takes the second notification for Foggy to realize it's buzzing, and he hands back the bowl of popcorn so he can get up. "This better be an emergency," he tells the Universe as he shuffles to the kitchen.

He leaves Ricky to watch young Dunstan Thorn get seduced by a lovely girl who can turn into a bluebird. "Fucking hell, man," Ricky says to the TV. "Bitch turns into a bird? What the fucking use is that?"

"Hey, imagine how many Cartel bangers we could hide you from if we could just turn you into a finch and shove you in a cage?" Foggy picks up his phone. He taps into his text messages.

"Oh, yeah, right… okay." Ricky at least values the upsides of being bewitched into something small and innocuous, but… some of that cliche male fragility just can't help but bleed through. "Fuck a bluebird, though. I'd ask to be turned into a eagle, or a hawk, or some velociraptor shit."

"Just 'raptor,' dude." Foggy's response is automatic as he reads the text. Then he blinks. "Uh, shit. Shit, shit, shit shit. Ricky! We got incoming! Bedroom!" He then starts tapping away at his phone. HOLY SHIT. OK. Which is really very, very useful.

To senses as fine as Matt's, Frank is either completely oblivious to the danger around him or… nope… his heartbeat accelerates slightly as he approaches the rearmost Cartel member, but it's definitely not a fear response. But he doesn't act right away, no he goes past them, ducking his hooded head like the usual New Yorker who doesn't want to make eye contact as he slips in front of the last couple of Cartel members — and keeps going. Frank's outnumbered and outgunned, that means evening the odds however he can, like waiting until half the targets or so are inside the door and then doubling back. He drops a burner phone just past them, takes another half-dozen steps, then stops, turning around to 'look' for it, and heading back closer to the rearmost Cartel members.

How precisely does Matt make out Frank's heartbeat among a crowd of the near-dozen that are slowly making their way towards the front door of Foggy Nelson's apartment complex? Perhaps it's the same way that a classical music aficionado can suss out the particular string instruments in an orchestra? Whether by heartbeat or slightly-off behavior, however, Frank moves himself out of the non-combatant section.

That leaves other possibilities, though. Undercover cop or fed, perhaps. But either way, it help free up Matt for action, and he possesses none of Frank's reservations — or more charitably, strategic acumen — for splitting your enemies. Besides, his aims are different: letting some pass through makes it that much more likely that one of them will make it up to a defenseless Foggy Nelson and his temporary ward. Not acceptable.

And so, when that leader's hand reaches for the door handle, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen leaps quick and quiet from his perch on the fire-escape to try to land on the man feet first, red batons raised in the air.

Still in the land of the oblivious, Claire makes her way up the stairs, humming away as she makes her way up that first flight of stairs. It will go faster if she hums or some such, right? Work on stamina and cardio at once, doing two things at once. And hey, if it adds a few steps to her count for the day as she skitter bops from one side of the stairwell to the other in some oddly timed accidental choreography to what's happening a few rooms away? All the better. The tempo picks up and she sings out, oddly covering the sound of a masked man leaping into a fray. "She got horns like a devil pointed at me and there's nowhere to run from the fire she breathes."

The sound of the back of that suit rippling open, quiet clicking, would on any other occasion produce a dopamine hit in Kinsey Sheridan sufficient to propel her into the upper atmosphere. She hasn't put it on often, and hardly put it through its paces yet, and the thought of doing that would usually make her night.

But Foggy is in trouble. Matt, too. She's by no means certain she can get there in time to help them, even with the suit. Plus, see above: she hasn't put it on often. There's a learning curve, and she isn't entirely sure where on that curve she presently is.

She was a test pilot in another life, though. It's probably fine. It's — it'll be fine. Totally fine.

She hustles to get out of her work attire — Ann Taylor's Loft does not design for power armor compatibility, for some reason — and into a bodysuit. Stepping into the armor, having it lace and lock behind her, feels like sliding into an extremely expensive, high-density glove. Note to self: ask Tony where the hell he got her measurements with this kind of accuracy. …Later, though.

The world shades over in glowing HUD, systems checks paid attention to with some small portion of her focus as she leaves her office, making for the nearest launch bay in the tower. You're welcome, Tony's windows.

The spectacle of a man in a devil suit slamming the first member of the cartel to the steps of the apartment building hard enough for the crunch of bones to be heard is certainly enough to a) buy Foggy time to hunker down in the bedroom, b) give Claire more time to sprint up the stairs while delivering most excellent theme music and Six more time to leave Stark Towers the polite way… c) turn any and all attention away from the man with the burner phone gambit, and…d).

"D" would be the sudden click click click click click click click click click of nine guns cocked, ready, and aimed in Daredevil's direction.

Frank's phone clatters on the ground, and then someone is landing on the lead Cartel member. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Or the enemy of your enemy, in this case. Well, there's a distraction, time to use it. There's going to be gunfire in the street in a moment anyhow, so he might as well start the music. There's no silencer on the simple 9mm Baretta pistol he draws from the right pocket of his zip-up hoodie, so it clears the cloth quickly. Then there's an impact, the gun fires, the bullet cracking into the facade of the high-rent apartment alongside Foggy's building, and the pistol is spinning into the night, shock radiating out from Frank's right hand.

Castle doesn't pause, however, not when he's practically in the midst of a large group of enemy combatants, all with firearms. Instead he bites back a curse and lashes out with his left hand, a jab at the neck of the nearest Cartel member, looking to put him off-balance so that he can pull the man over his hip, doing his best to introduce face to concrete at violent speeds.

Ricky is shoved back into the bedroom, and Foggy slams the door shut. He's got something in his head that should probably not be there because he's on the other side of that bedroom door instead of tucked away with Ricky. He hears Ricky shove something up against the door per their previous drills (always be prepared…), and breathes out a slow exhale. "Okay. Now what."

He grabs his phone, looking over it just before his entire body recoils at the sound of the gunfire just outside. He knows that Matt doesn't use guns, so his immediately assumption is: the Cartel is shooting at Matt.

Leave it to Matt Murdock to leap feet-first into a situation that leaves him surrounded by nine cocked guns ready to put Jane Foster's second-skin super-suit to the test. Boots meet face, meet chest, and the momentum sends both Matt and his first victim to the sidewalk pavement. He rises cat-quick, red sticks still in hand. In this situation any sane man might dive right in to disrupt those guns.

But no one who knows Matt has ever accused him of being sane. He dives in alright — going low and fast to close ground and put himself right in the middle of them for a couple of reasons. First, it increases the chances of friendly fire and makes them less likely to shoot. Second, for a man who lives his life in 360 degrees with no peripheral vision or line of sight, being surrounded just gives him more things to hit.

So far, so rational. But where Matt flips the script is by sending one of his metal escrima sticks singing for the one gun that isn't aimed at him. What sends Frank's pistol shot high is a jab of that metal baton for his strong right hand, sending the the bullet into the wall of the apartment complex rather than into the skull of a Cartel gang-banger. That warning glance is for Frank, but the rest of his fury is for the gang that's briefly startled by a gunshot from persons not them. It gives him the split second he needs to become a dodging, weaving, kicking whirlwind, aiming for guns and joints with every kick, sweep, and strike of his batons.

Next song on the playlist is coming up. Claire's still snaking her way boppily up the stairs, eyes mostly closed earbuds in as she sings along. "There is no peace here, war is never cheap dear, love will never meet here, it just gets sold for parts. You cannot fight it, all the world denies it. Open up your eyelids, let your demons run." She's just about to start in on the head bobbing not quite headbanging part when that shot rings out, making it past the strident and slightly dischordant riffs.

Open your eyelids indeed. She jerks around to look over her shoulder and make sure there's no one RIGHT on the stairwell after her. There's time? Oh good. Time to start booking it up the next flight or two before stopping. Why? Well she may not be equipped to fight the cartel with some French bread. The nurse can, however, do her best to illustrate the wonderful immune boosting powers of vitamin C. She spills out the bag of produce, oranges and apples among other things spilling and bouncing down the steps in hopes of giving any charging cartel members something to trip on in a moment. Okay, so it probably won't work like it does in a Warner Brothers cartoon, but a girl has to try.

"I really need to take some self-defense classes," says the woman who's mightiest weapon may be the single grapefruit doing its best imitation of a half ass bowling ball one lazy, hollow thumping stairtread at a time.

The city streaks by in the dark, lights glistening, winking in starry array below her, and it's…eerily quiet, actually. Kinsey, only recently accustomed to (finally) incorporating the rocket components from those boots Peter Quill left at her Garage, appreciates the feeling of security — she's pretty sure that if she flew head-first into a building wearing this thing, the building would get the worst of it — but finds the silence weird. She's used to the buffeting, whistling pressure of air against home-brewed costume components, not…whatever this is.

It makes it easier to hear her heartbeat as she streaks across the sky like a stealthy meteor: beating hard and fast, in time with the mantra in her skull, not unlike the last time she descended upon Hell's Kitchen at emergency pace: please let them be okay.

The announcement of her arrival is subtle, but for one Devil of Hell's Kitchen, unmistakable. Lights across the block begin to gradually wink out — including those in the apartment building containing one Foggy Nelson. Granted, she doesn't know that Frank is there. She doesn't know that any such thing as a Frank Castle exists, much less that he's there, and may require light to see by, and is in some sense on their side. What she knows is that neither she nor Matt need any such thing.

Frank throws his target hard into the concrete, and at that speed and at that angle, he's out cold. He's also probably got himself a dangerous head injury, which could kill him if left untended but which hasn't done the job yet.

The cartel member had just gotten that door open, which is why a lone grapefruit makes careful commentary on this situation by rolling slowly out of the building. It bounce, bounce, bounces down the steps and goes splat, filling the air with a rather incongruent and strong citrus scent. Claire might realize nobody is even in the building yet by the way her fruit just sort of rolls down the stairs with no further comment whatsoever.

Daredevil lives up to his name. Shots are fired, but most hit the door where he was. Suddenly there are shouts as two of them get a broken arm and one of them manages to prove 'friendly fire isn't' by shooting his fellow Cartel member in the heart. And that's before it becomes the night the lights go out at Foggy's.

Cast into darkness, the cartel members swear and at least have the sense to stop shooting. A few of them do try to pistol whip the superhero in the eye of their storm.

About when that grapefruit starts its bowling-ball impression down the stairs, Claire's phone comes to life and Foggy's contact flashes across its screen. Up just a couple flights, Foggy is pacing in front of his door with his phone at his ear, and the tip of a baseball bat dragging behind him. He's muttering anxiously, "Come on, come on. Pickup, pickup, pickup."

More gunshots from below has Foggy wanting to go leaning out his window to see if he can spot Matt. He finds some sick reassurances in the fact that, if Matt had been shot, they probably would have stopped shooting. More gunfire probably means that Matt is still on his feet and wrecking havoc.

And then the lights go out.

"Fuck. What now."

…and this is of course when a little window pops up in Six's view and the familiar face of one Tony Stark can be seen. Holding a coffee mug as he sips it. It bobs a little bit, likely due to Dunce doing the camra work. "…so!" He sounds so cheerful. "Since I'm going to assume since I'm getting shots fired reports from where my lawyer lives this isn't just a joyride." He says without preamble.

"Call if you need help. Try not to bounce off too many buildings your armor isn't as thick as mine. And there is a protocol in the system called 'Lancer'. Don't activate it unless you have something you really want to break. Like. A meta. Or a tank." A pause. "I'm pretty sure it won't explode."

IS HE SERIOUS?!

…it is Tony. So maybe not.

"Have fun storming the castle and all that. I promise I won't be judging any of you."

Frank isn't quite the whirling dervish that Matt is, but he's quick and obviously trained. He's also a bit of a berserker, apparently. The warning glance from the masked man spikes Castle's anger, and he turns it to the unfortunates in front of him. He takes a fist to the side of his head, sending him staggering to his right and his vision swimming, but comes back into the fray snarling — even as the lights start to go out. While he can still see more than just shadows against the background glow, he closes with another Cartel member, throwing an elbow, kicking for the man's shin, and then grasping for the Cartel guy's shirt to try and throw his face down onto Frank's knee. He wants physical contact before the lights go out entirely. And then it's dark, and he has the sense not to curse, at least not yet, even as he keeps hold of the Cartel member's shirt with one hand and drags the heavy blade of his Ka-Bar from the sheathe at his side with the other. Maybe the nutcase with the horns just has a problem with pistols, right?

Daredevil might be a force of nature in a fight, but he's far from invulnerable. In the midst of all that ducking and rolling and crouching one of those attempts to pistol-whip him strikes true, landing at the base of his skull. He cries out in pain and rage, bending down lower for a moment before rising up to redouble his efforts. Still: Just a man, he reaffirms for the cartel soldiers.

The cartel soldiers remaining. A few are nursing broken bones, one a devastating head injury from Frank Castle's pavement stomp, and one —

A jolt stronger than the impact of that pistol butt takes him when friendly fire snuffs out one of the soldiers. He puts that death on himself, because he is what he is. No one else dies tonight, he tells himself quietly, before proving it with a hurling of one bloody-faced cartel member against the apartment facade and a closing of the distance with Frank as soon as he hears the beginning of that slide of metal against its sheathe. "Not in my neighborhood," he shouts. "You draw that knife and I break your goddamn hand this time."

Well hey, they may not be in the building yet, but it's too late to go clean up the fruit now. Because SOMEONE turned out the lights. At least if any of them fleep upwards, they might have some spills and thrills in their future. The other bags are put down as a line in the sand defense (Sorry, the ice cream's probably going to melt, Ricky) as Claire tries to quietly sidle up the last flight or two. The earbuds have gotten unplugged from the phone in the upheaval, so at least the cord isn't about to snag her. Shhh. Quiet quiet so no one will…

A big. Bright. Sun. Smiley face pops up on her phone display in her pocket. And the phone, free from the confines of plugs and cords, is free to loudly sing out to the stairwell. Foggy's ringtone? "Here comes the sun, here comes the sun. And I say … it's alright." Because darn it, he just doesn't seem terribly foggy!

Claire fumbles the phone out of her pocket with one hand and tries to feel for a door out onto a hallway with the other. Hopefully on the right floor now, but who's keeping track? "Why don't safehouses ever work," she hisses in greeting. "Can you shine a flashlight under your door or something?"

Taking that dizzying step off of Stark Tower into open air in largely untested power armor: check.

Flying to Hell's Kitchen without crashing into any buildings: check.

Killing the lights to give a few well-equipped metahumans an edge: checkity-check.

Sticking the landing on top of Foggy Nelson's building: ch-…uhhhhh, okay, no. That one could use some work.

Kinsey manages to leave only faint marks on the surface of the roof, sending up a cloud of gravel grit and streaks in the tar paper underneath. On her back, she stares up at the night sky and her expression darkens as the HUD begins to helpfully identify constellations.

Could you kill that module, please? Do we really need that right now?

<I think it's part of the navigation package,> Five says.

What are we, sailing to the New World??

By that time she's found the edge of the building, and she leans slightly to look over the edge. The helmet processes the scene in spite of the lack of light, picking out and identifying, then tracking individual targets. She sees Matt. Sees a group of opponents with firearms. Sees Matt rushing toward-

Who the hell is that?

<Searching.>

It takes only moments. Five spits out several grainy images from security footage they've already been trawling — things in and around Hell's Kitchen, before the bombings — but no name to go with it.

He doesn't seem to be on the side of the gun-toting pack of Matt's opponents. I don't recognize him.

<Maybe just try not to land on him,> Five suggests.

So, she doesn't. Three seconds later, though, she lands on someone else.

Tony is soooo judging.

At this point, there are only about three left who can even put up a fight of any kind. Three who have not been landed on, knocked out, broken, slammed around. Right around the time someone in a power suit lands atop one of their buddies in the dark, they decide they're going to take advantage of the vigilante's spat to get the Hell out of there. It may be possible to catch them, but they're running like hell.

Meanwhile, the one Frank is very close to stabbing pants sharply, awake but dealing with a broken nose, a ringing head, the loss of his gun. His heartbeat is hard and fast. He's older than Ricky. But like Ricky, he's not even a full adult yet. Or if he is, he just hit the age of majority. In this moment, he's frozen, rabbitlike, adrenaline surging through him as he's caught between larger-than-life personalities: a devil in the dark, a silver angel, and an avenging murderer who might well be straight out of purgatory.

When Claire picks up the phone, Foggy whips his head around to the door. "Yeah, sure, okay. One sec." He turns his phone out to shine around the front hall, and finds his spare flashlight. His hand is shaking when he closes his grip around it, and then he breathes slowly. Claire can hear him say to himself: "Okay, Fogs. Seriously. You got this." He turns on the flashlight and immediately kneels down so he can start shining it under his door. "Claire, you see it?"

Frank Castle is a stubborn asshole. This much will become known across the neighborhood as he becomes known across the neighborhood as more than a boogieman for bad guys. The knife stays sheathed at the shout, but Castle endures a gun butt to the back and a shot that passes far-too-near-for-comfort to his left ear in order to turn toward the sound of the voice, deliberately wrap his right arm around the stunned Cartel youth's neck, and try to snap the vertebrae with a twist and a pull. Because the hell if some guy in a devil costume is going to tell him he can't kill one of his targets. And something heavy lands on one of the Cartel guys. Heavier than a guy in a devil suit. It's not Six's fault, she's wearing powered armor. And armor changes things. A lot. Even more than fleeing targets.

Kinsey's here, says first the fading lights and then the sudden and very different-sounding impact of her landing on one of the remaining cartel foot soldiers. He doesn't let himself think too much about those differences now, not with —

Not with this Punisher ready to kill someone whose heartbeat is fast enough and light enough to register as a young man, if even that. Matt Murdock draws a line in the sand, and the sudden spike in Frank Castle's heartbeat tells him that the bloody-minded vigilante means to cross it out of sheer spite, if nothing else. That pause and brief bit of warning, give Daredevil enough time to send that baton sailing towards the shoulder that wants to pull that boy's head off its axis.

SCORE! The little dancing light poking under one of the doors lures Claire in. She hangs up and stuffs the phone in her pocket on the way to Foggy's apartment. Fingers drum against the door to let him know she made it. And once inside, is it time to collapse and take a breath of relief? No. Time to stand still so she won't trip ass over teakettle in an unfamiliar space. And time to start making a plan. "Do you have a sheet or something we can cut up to use as masks or something? I'm going to need to go down and help and I'm going to need an assistant. Where's the kid?" Time to test out Ricky's first responder/making hard choices instincts.

With a jangle of the chain and turn of the deadbolt, Claire is allowed inside. Foggy, still in his Star Wars PJs, looks at Claire with big, nervous green eyes. He thumbs to the bedroom door. "Gotta knock three times and let him know its you. I got some crap in a laundry basket by the closet. Clean. You get down to Matt, and I'm going to wait about five minutes and then call the cops, okay?" He looks toward the window and then back to Claire. He wants to ask her if she knows if Matt is okay, and his throat bobbles a bit. But then he's moving off to the window, letting Claire get herself all prepared to play nurse downstairs.

Oh, yeah. Bones totally break. Several bones. That power armor isn't Iron-Man-heavy — Kinsey isn't even Tony-Stark-strong, which is saying something, because he's an engineering nerd who subsists entirely on whiskey and, who knows, probably Fritos — but it's heavy enough, and it's fair to say she doesn't have a great deal of practice in pumping the brakes.

When her target crumples, she half-turns toward the sound of footsteps. The HUD picks out the outline of three people sprinting elsewhere. It would be no trouble to catch them in her present kit, but her concern is really for Foggy, now that she's determined Matt isn't full of bullet holes and bleeding out on the sidewalk.

This is why she winds up in the air again. Outside of that window she knows belongs to him, just in time to meet Foggy arriving on the other side, coincidentally. He seems to be…fine? She recognizes the other person in there with him that she can see. The third heat signature in his home is behind another door and in any case appears to be trying to keep a low profile — probably not a threat.

So: she lifts one hand, thumb and forefinger ringed, in the gesture for 'okay.' Not a question so much as a confirmation.

Frank Castle is an outnumbered, out-classed stubborn asshole. The impact of the baton twists him around, sending pain and then disturbing numbness down his arm, and frees the young Cartel foot soldier. The young man gets a shove of one knee, and then Frank glances around for the nearest weapon. Unfortunately, pistols are difficult to see amidst fallen bodies when all the nearby streetlights are out, so instead he turns and lurches into a run — in the same direction the remaining Cartel thugs departed moments ago. Three of them, and he's got one working arm and just a knife for a weapon? He can take them. Probably. He can certainly try. After all, he promised that lawyer he'd get something good about the bombs from them.

Taggy doesn't keep a low profile all that long. Spurred on by Claire, he seems terrified but lets her dress him in a sheet mask…

"Man, this ain't gonna fool nobody, what even is this, Nurse-lady?"

But he still comes down to assist her. Reeking of terror, his heartbeat thundering at three times the normal speed, looking ridiculous in a mask made out of dino pyjamas that he sweats into with all his might. But he starts following her direction and hanging in there.

The young cartel thug lets out a gasp as he hits the ground hard, panting, scrabbling backwards, terror sort of ruling his every action right now, but not quite in any kind of a shape to get up and run anywhere.

Meanwhile, three are rapidly disappearing into the night with one Frank Castle in hot pursuit.

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