OP, your prompt wouldn't get out of my head! I hope you enjoy this ^_^
*
The videos are terrible. The quality sucks. Karen saves them in a playlist that grows every time Google alerts her to the appearance of new one. Most of them are grainy, shot from a distance; if you and your camera phone are in a position to get a close-up of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen in action, odds are good you're busy getting the shit beat out of you.
There are exceptions, of course. Most people the Devil saves run when he tells them to run, but some can't turn themselves away. Some have to stand witness. Those are the people Karen understands.
(She remembers in flashes: cold rain, the ache of bruising around her throat. Breaking glass, her helter-skelter run down the stairwell to get out to the street, to see what was left of the Mask and her attacker after their fall. Determination, visceral determination. Fire and steel.
Did she realize, back then, just how much of it was fire?)
Sure, plenty of people who film Daredevil - even the ones who owe him their lives - are out to see how many hits they can score on YouTube. But Karen knows that's not the whole story. She knows the feeling that sweeps through you in the moment a savior comes, when you never expected nor dreamed of any but yourself. The wild thump of your heartbeat, the dizzying shock of hope. She knows what it feels like to to see your pain taken willingly on another person's shoulders. What it's like to be spared.
Karen has her favorite videos. Tonight, she finds another.
The problem with writing - any time, but particularly to a deadline - is that it requires focus. The other problem with writing is that you do it while sitting in front of a distraction box. Karen dicks around, clicks around. She keeps a pair of earbuds in her top left drawer, and when she sees the thumbnail for the latest Daredevil video - by the timestamp, uploaded tonight, and probably filmed just minutes ago, while she’d been sitting comfortably at her desk - she pulls them out without looking away from the screen.
The Devil’s frozen in a fighting stance, fist raised at his shoulder, ready for a lightning jab. His mouth is open. The shot is close enough for her to make out the angry arch of his parted lips. She's going to hear him when she presses play, she knows it, she knows it. She seats the headphones firmly in her ears, clicks the button, and drinks it in: Matt's guttural, wordless rage.
She thinks of it that way purposefully. Matt's rage. The same woman who puts six bullets in a man can be transfixed by the magic of a ceiling made of glittering lights; the same man who wears one suit to punch assholes into the ground can wear another while he’s putting them away in court, and still quietly, desperately, miss the sky.
She never believed that part was a lie.
It’s a short clip. Ninety-four seconds. The fight was half-won before the filming even began, was probably half-won from the first punch; the Devil is burning with fury, and his opponent’s an amateur, landing only the weakest of hits. The clip ends when Matt, mid-swing, grits out, “Didn’t I tell you to go”; the screen goes dark, and Karen’s left without an ending, left without seeing him win, and she’s hitting the replay button before she realizes it.
It’s short, but it’s a good one. She can see the Devil’s grin, that wide, dangerous thing. She can hear his huffing, grunting breaths, and his animal roar when the offender tries to slip away. She can see that he has no interest in being careful. She can see that he doesn’t want to stop.
Karen sees someone who understands.
When she picks at the threads of her anger, Karen keeps finding new patterns in the weave. But this one emerges over and over: the number of times Matt said no, said stop, said safe, when he could have been saying me too.
Six views, seven. Doing her part for the uploader’s hit count. At first Karen’s eyes were glued to the screen, but by now she’s just listening, blackness behind her lids, volume cranked up painfully loud. She's hit with a jolt every time she hears Matt grunt.
Ten views, eleven. Karen’s feeling warm, heat at the center of her body, heat at the back of her neck. Her fingers are twisted up in knots on the desk in front of her laptop, and that's for safety, she realizes when she looks down at her bloodless knuckles, that’s to keep them from landing warm and restless in her lap.
Standing, Karen pops out her earbuds, presses the laptop lid closed. Runs a slightly trembling hand through her hair. It's time to go home.
[FILL] Matt/Karen, Daredevil's rage/violence turns her on [1/?]
*
The videos are terrible. The quality sucks. Karen saves them in a playlist that grows every time Google alerts her to the appearance of new one. Most of them are grainy, shot from a distance; if you and your camera phone are in a position to get a close-up of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen in action, odds are good you're busy getting the shit beat out of you.
There are exceptions, of course. Most people the Devil saves run when he tells them to run, but some can't turn themselves away. Some have to stand witness. Those are the people Karen understands.
(She remembers in flashes: cold rain, the ache of bruising around her throat. Breaking glass, her helter-skelter run down the stairwell to get out to the street, to see what was left of the Mask and her attacker after their fall. Determination, visceral determination. Fire and steel.
Did she realize, back then, just how much of it was fire?)
Sure, plenty of people who film Daredevil - even the ones who owe him their lives - are out to see how many hits they can score on YouTube. But Karen knows that's not the whole story. She knows the feeling that sweeps through you in the moment a savior comes, when you never expected nor dreamed of any but yourself. The wild thump of your heartbeat, the dizzying shock of hope. She knows what it feels like to to see your pain taken willingly on another person's shoulders. What it's like to be spared.
Karen has her favorite videos. Tonight, she finds another.
The problem with writing - any time, but particularly to a deadline - is that it requires focus. The other problem with writing is that you do it while sitting in front of a distraction box. Karen dicks around, clicks around. She keeps a pair of earbuds in her top left drawer, and when she sees the thumbnail for the latest Daredevil video - by the timestamp, uploaded tonight, and probably filmed just minutes ago, while she’d been sitting comfortably at her desk - she pulls them out without looking away from the screen.
The Devil’s frozen in a fighting stance, fist raised at his shoulder, ready for a lightning jab. His mouth is open. The shot is close enough for her to make out the angry arch of his parted lips. She's going to hear him when she presses play, she knows it, she knows it. She seats the headphones firmly in her ears, clicks the button, and drinks it in: Matt's guttural, wordless rage.
She thinks of it that way purposefully. Matt's rage. The same woman who puts six bullets in a man can be transfixed by the magic of a ceiling made of glittering lights; the same man who wears one suit to punch assholes into the ground can wear another while he’s putting them away in court, and still quietly, desperately, miss the sky.
She never believed that part was a lie.
It’s a short clip. Ninety-four seconds. The fight was half-won before the filming even began, was probably half-won from the first punch; the Devil is burning with fury, and his opponent’s an amateur, landing only the weakest of hits. The clip ends when Matt, mid-swing, grits out, “Didn’t I tell you to go”; the screen goes dark, and Karen’s left without an ending, left without seeing him win, and she’s hitting the replay button before she realizes it.
It’s short, but it’s a good one. She can see the Devil’s grin, that wide, dangerous thing. She can hear his huffing, grunting breaths, and his animal roar when the offender tries to slip away. She can see that he has no interest in being careful. She can see that he doesn’t want to stop.
Karen sees someone who understands.
When she picks at the threads of her anger, Karen keeps finding new patterns in the weave. But this one emerges over and over: the number of times Matt said no, said stop, said safe, when he could have been saying me too.
Six views, seven. Doing her part for the uploader’s hit count. At first Karen’s eyes were glued to the screen, but by now she’s just listening, blackness behind her lids, volume cranked up painfully loud. She's hit with a jolt every time she hears Matt grunt.
Ten views, eleven. Karen’s feeling warm, heat at the center of her body, heat at the back of her neck. Her fingers are twisted up in knots on the desk in front of her laptop, and that's for safety, she realizes when she looks down at her bloodless knuckles, that’s to keep them from landing warm and restless in her lap.
Standing, Karen pops out her earbuds, presses the laptop lid closed. Runs a slightly trembling hand through her hair. It's time to go home.