Daredevil Prompt Post #11

[ddk_mod]

THIS POST IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
HEAD OVER TO PROMPT POST #12.

Keep filling prompts on this post! Make sure to link any new fic on the complete or work in progress fills posts so it doesn't get missed.

Please read the current rules before commenting on this post.


Mod Post | Discussion/Off-Topic Post | Writing Challenges
AO3 Collection | Searchable Prompts on Delicious | Fills: Completed & WIPs
Previous Rounds: #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10
Other Prompt Posts: Marvel Comics | Jessica Jones | Luke Cage

Any prompts related to Luke Cage, even if they focus on Daredevil characters, must go on the Luke Cage Prompt Post until 31st October.

Rules:

• General
  
  1. YKINMKATO. Play nice. Respect others. If you don't like something, scroll on.
  
  
  2. All comments must be anon. If you would like to be politely banned to avoid anon-failing, leave a logged-in comment on the mod post or pm the mod account.
  
  
  3. Subject lines should only be changed if you're posting a prompt or a fill (indicators like OP or Author!Anon should go in the body of the comment).
  
  
  4. RPF is allowed. Crossovers, characters from the extended Marvel Universe and comics canon are allowed, but must relate to the 2015 TV show in some way.
  
  
  5. Prompts focusing on characters from Jessica Jones should go on the Jessica Jones Prompt Post, but crossovers with Daredevil can go on either post.
  
  
  6. Prompts that are exclusively about the comics should go on the Comics Prompt Post.
  
  
  7. Drop a comment on the mod post if you have any questions or problems.


• Prompts
  
  1. All types of prompts are welcome.
  
  
  2. Use the subject line for the main idea of your prompt (pairing or characters, keywords, kink).
  
  
  3. Warnings are nice, but not mandatory. Get DW Blocker if there's anything you really don't want to see.
  
  
  4. Reposted prompts are allowed once one round has passed - e.g. prompts from post #2 cannot be reposted until post #4. Please include a link to where it has been previously posted.


• Fills
  
  1. When posting a fill, either add [FILL] (or something similar) to the subject line, or change the subject line to the title of your fill.
  
  
  2. Announce your fill on either the Completed Fills Post or the WIP Post.
  
  
  3. Long fills can either be posted over multiple comments, or posted on AO3 and linked back here.
  
  
  4. Multiple fills are always okay.
  
  
  5. Fills can be anything! Fic, art and vids are all welcome.

Comments

Fill: Stars May Collide 1a/2

[(Anonymous)]

More details about the civilian’s medical situation in part two. Dialogue was 100% inspired by and shamelessly stolen from previous nonnies’ posts. Title from Come What May (Moulin Rouge), my Pandora station had love songs on the mind.

+ + +

Josh’s vision was greying when a lot of aggressive and dangerous vigilante slammed down onto his thigh. Abruptly, everything flared white and his entire body arced up even before the pain hit.

First he’d been grabbed because a couple losers decided they wanted a hostage when they were robbing a bank with cooperative tellers, then they grabbed him because he was waiting his turn in the lobby because he’d lost his ATM card in a mugging last week. The idiot robbers already had a teller filling their duffel bag with quite enough money that nobody needed a hostage. After that, his life quickly downturned into this fresh sense that he was being punished for being that annoying guy that needed to get over himself.

Some idiot cop had drawn his weapon when the bank robbers had seemed close to running away without their Trusty Hostage. Well, maybe not an idiot, Josh had to admit, but the cop’s impulsiveness had spooked the robbers and then there had been two gun barrels pressed against Josh’s head while a cop looked ready to fire in their direction. Some hysterical woman walking three dogs convinced the cop to lower his weapon, which almost helped, but then Josh had been shoved into the back of some creepy grey cargo van and had ended up in an empty parking garage where one of the pathetic excuses for a bank robber had accidentally fired his gun into Josh’s fucking leg.

It was just bad luck that the Robber With The Asymmetric Goatee had fired a bullet into Josh’s thig. Asymmetric Goatee hadn’t panicked because of Daredevil until after the gun had already fired. Then both bank robbers had been panicking and Daredevil had started throwing punches.

Those movie tough guys? The ones that took a bullet and then just kept running? He was pretty sure all of those scenes had been written by people who had never been shot, because he’d crumpled to the floor like the useless fast food worker he was. He was not an action star and he wasn’t even brave enough to ask his friend to go to coffee with him.

Daredevil had knocked both of the guys out, fast, and had left both handguns in different pieces several feet away. The bank robbers were bound together with the same zip ties they hadn’t bothered using on Josh, actually. They were in a parking garage, somewhere, and focusing on the translucent cheap white of the zip ties helped Josh try to forget that blood outside of scary movies was a very startling shade of red. It also was pooling around him fast. That was probably why Daredevil had done a pile-driver with his fucking knee into the hole in Josh’s left thigh, maybe, but it hurt.

When he could think in something that wasn’t static, Josh noticed that Daredevil was keeping his knee pressed into Josh’s thigh. It hurt, still, but his leg didn’t look like a squirting fountain anymore. Daredevil tilted his head, looking down at Josh, but kept his attention on his phone.

Daredevil was making a phone call and keeping his red-suited knee pressed into the ragged denim that had been blue before it went dark with blood.

“I’m in the FedEx parking garage at 49th Street and 12th Avenue. Fifth floor. A man has been shot in the thigh, Yes, he was bleeding, I can’t estimate how much blood he’s lost. Not currently, ma’am, I’m holding pressure. With my knee, ma’am,” Daredevil said between pauses while someone else must be talking. Probably 911, that was the smart place to call. His voice was gruff but hardly the uneducated mook that third shift always assumed. He turned his face toward Josh. “Can I get your name, sir?”

“J-Josh. Josh Henderson. I was at the New York Community Bank, and they grabbed me for a hostage.”

Daredevil relayed that to the dispatcher, word-for-word. “This is Daredevil,” he added. “I’m staying with him until EMS gets here.”

Josh thought about breathing while Daredevil and the person on the phone said a few more things, something about his breathing being regular and pulse being about 110. The weird part was that Daredevil hadn’t even touched him to try to get a pulse, but when Josh tried to time it out, his pulse was at nearly two beats a second. The better part about leaning back into the grey was that his leg hurt less.

“-osh. Josh,” Daredevil said, gently shaking his shoulder with one hand. He was leaning across Josh’s torso to reach, limited because his knee was still digging into Josh’s thigh. That suit was probably a total bitch to clean, dry-cleaners weren’t all that private and neither were laundromats. It was probably going to be an awful day’s work getting all that blood off of it. Josh’s blood. It was redder than the suit.

“Blood can be tricky,” Daredevil agreed. Either Josh had been babbling out loud or the guy was psychic. “I recommend talking about something else, but keep talking to me. Those guys over there are unconscious and the paramedics are on their way.”

Probably not psychic, then. That was good, the guy’s reputation was scary enough without that. “Well. Don’t want to talk about being a hostage, or the part where there is way too much blood outside of me. Um. If you ever stop at the record store down the street from the bank, you should ask for Desiree. Well, if you’re in this outfit, more, but she doesn’t work that late. She thinks you’re cool.”

“Desiree?”

“My best friend.” Josh was probably dying, the crazy vigilante said that talking helped… if anything would keep him from feeling grey and numb inside, just pretending that he’d see Desi again would probably do it. “What would you do?” he asked in a sudden fit of inspiration. Daredevil didn’t know him or Desi, he couldn’t join the few friends he’d told that kept harassing him to take the chance and maybe ruin everything. “If you fell for your best friend.”

Daredevil didn’t even hesitate. “Try to stay away from whoever he’s dating, tell myself he’s better off with them, and spend a lot of time punching something.”

Josh blinked up at the orange-tinted light on the ceiling. There were a lot of dead bugs in the casing. Then he looked back at the scary-ass vigilante who still looked a tiny bit like someone had showed him an adorable puppy then said that puppies hated vigilantes so he should stay away. That was what Claudia said, anyway, minus the vigilante part. “That’s a strangely specific answer.”

Daredevil muttered something.

Josh didn’t give up. This was the best thing he’d heard all day. If the Man Without Fear was too scared to tell someone, then maybe Josh wasn’t just a giant loser. “It’s just… I feel like a stereotypical dipshit. She’s my friend. Desi is my best friend and we have known each other for years. I did not get her through the breakup with Shawn because I wanted to get in her pants, we have been actual friends since high school.

“I am not some asshat who whines about friend-zoning. Being her friend is great,” Josh continued. It was weird, getting his rant on flat on his back on a concrete floor, but so was having a vigilante’s knee kind of dangerously near his junk. “I just… it feels like lying, now. The movies all act like I’m only holding us back from happy ever after and all I feel is greedy.”

“Y-yeah,” Daredevil agreed. “Like it isn’t good enough already.”

“I figure she’s going to find out eventually, though,” Josh continued. “A couple other friends figured it out on their own. If one of them tells her, or if she figures it out, then I’ve been pining for her and it turns into a way bigger deal than if I just told her and got shot down like a braver guy. Just, y’know, the guy she’s been friends with for years also noticed that she is gorgeous.”

“Then they wonder why you didn’t say it sooner,” Daredevil agreed quietly. “It’s hard when they actually don’t keep secrets, they don’t work that way. I- um- well. Vigilante stuff,” he said, swallowing hard. “It’s similar.”

Josh knew that look and shouldn’t feel glad that someone else was with him, but it turned out that misery really did love company. He wasn’t alone, Daredevil was in the same boat. “Same friend that makes you want to punch bank robbers?” he suggested brightly. That was his ‘I’ve been at the counter for 10 hours straight and if one more person smugly mentions they’d never be stuck working fast food I will end him’ smile, mostly, but with friends it mostly meant that he was being a shit and he knew it.

Daredevil actually fidgeted for a second, though the knee in Josh’s thigh stayed steady. “Yeah.”

“Wow.” Josh took a moment to marvel about how his life could be worse. “He didn’t take the vigilante thing well?”

“It’s not something I would expect him to take well.”

“Yeah, well, it is something that you’re doing.” Josh motioned grandly to his leg in its pool-o-blood. “Personally, I really appreciate you being here and being a vigilante right now. I do not think either one of them would have put pressure on for me and nobody else could have gotten here fast enough.”

“Thanks.”

“Really, though, that sucks,” Josh said with admiration. “I mean. I really should just mention to Desi that I’m interested If all else fails, hey, if I do actually live through this- and if I don’t you are completely not to blame, those idiots didn’t notice you until the goateed dude shot me- maybe the whole tragically avoiding death thing will help it not be terminally weird. I mean. I’m figuring there will be nice painkillers at the hospital- again with the I do not blame you, I do understand that not bleeding out is great.”

“You should.”

“You and me both,” Josh decided. “C’mon, it’ll be great. You can tell your friend that I insisted. I am the tragic New Yorker that got taken hostage when the assholes already had money going into their bag.”

“He said no more secrets. When he found out about…” Daredevil made an odd gesture that seemed to involve the outfit, the blood, the unconscious robbers, and the very welcome wail of approaching sirens. “I’m lucky he talks to me at all. If he found out I was holding that back, too? One more secret and he’s gone.”

Josh worked his arm up off the floor to make some emphatic kind of gesture, anything really to pretend his arms didn’t feel numb. He managed to point at him, but that only left Josh noticing that Daredevil looked nearly as pale as the guy bleeding out of his leg. “Hate to tell you this, dude, but you’ve already got a secret.”

The look on Daredevil’s face… well, Josh thought that his pining was tragic, but Desiree was amazing. She’d known him when he was an acne-covered nerd and had stayed friends with him as he transitioned to the acne-speckled nerd that was working through an online computer science degree. If she did turn him down, it was going to be weird for a while, but he could soldier on through it like the time when she was dating Shawn and the absolute jerk didn’t want her talking to any other guys.

Daredevil looked like he’d been shot, almost, but maybe part of that was just how loud sirens could resonate in a parking garage. Josh turned his head to see a couple cop cars and an ambulance all pulling close.

“Use me as your excuse,” Josh said firmly. “Trust me, people that do not see this shit every day think you’re supposed to get all this dramatic stuff like life flashing before your eyes and life-changing epiphanies. I am going to tell Desiree that I want to date her and you are going to tell your friend that you didn’t want to make things awkward.” He was talking fast, and keeping his voice low while the police started to get out of their squad cars, but Daredevil was listening.

“You didn’t want to make things awkward, you won’t say anything else about it unless he brings it up, but you wanted to clear the air. Maybe bring beer or whatever along to apologize with or even better to drink together, because whether or not it goes well somebody needs to be drunk after that.” Josh was pretty sure somebody would need a drink, anyway, because if his advice was shitty he’d not exactly be able to tell.

Josh was maybe a lot too punch-drunk on lecturing a willing vigilante, because when the cops escorting the ambulance had their weapons drawn, all Josh felt was anger.

“Hey! Could we please not shoot the guy putting pressure on my leg,” Josh barked in his best ‘do not ever have sex in the office again or I will tell regional management’ voice. “This very nice Good Samaritan was on his way back from a costume party when he decided to not have me bleed out of my thigh.”

One of the paramedics was peering from behind the police officers. The other was already on his way over. When one of the cops tried to grab him, the giant of a man in blue scrubs turned slowly. “Sir,” the paramedic said evenly with all signals that ‘sir’ was an insult. “I am a combat-experienced medic and Army veteran. If we do not get a tourniquet on that man’s leg, we have zero chance of this encounter ending with an alive civilian. Past that we are not risking a tourniquet on the damn potholes. Mattingly, call in an airlift.”

Josh decided the big paramedic was his second favorite person. Well, third favorite, because Desiree was always first and Daredevil still made a strong case for second. The big man worked some apparent tourniquet just above the vigilante’s knee-pin. When the paramedic yanked it tight, he checked his work for several seconds before nodding. “Alright. You in the mask, ease up slightly,” he said. The paramedic smiled a few seconds later. “Great. Unidentified concerned citizen, I no longer need you to keep pressure.”

The taller cop had already holstered his handgun. He checked the pulse on each bank robber before looking back to his partner. “Bob, these guys shot an unnecessary hostage. I vote we wait on the next paramedic units for these two and unfortunately missed whatever parkour shit Daredevil played right when the tourniquet went into play.”

The broad-shouldered cop nodded slowly. “Just this once.” He looked over the scene again before nodding. “We don’t have the body cameras and nobody’s given a shit in two weeks that our dash cam is broken, there isn’t a scrap of audio anybody’s going to get. Hell of a lot of blood for somebody to photograph, though. Thanks for staying on the scene, Mr. Samaritan, but I imagine the DA doesn’t need bonus testimony on this one. The less you’re involved the more easily these two stay in jail.”

“It's your lucky day. Go talk to your friend,” Josh muttered. The paramedic glanced at him, puzzled, but Daredevil nodded once before ran away from the group and jumped out the damn window of the fifth floor parking garage.