The Devil Everybody Knows
By
Padraig Fagan
This
one-shot is set just before The Murdock Papers. On that note, my hat goes off
to Brian Michael Bendis, easily the greatest DD
writer since Miller, and the guy who got me hooked on comics to begin with.
This
is the first time I've tried to write a superhero story. Any opinions –
positive or negative, I can handle criticism – trannasinarus@gmail.com
Bank robbers. Idiots.
Who the hell thinks they can pull off a decent bank robbery in
The first of the police
cars are less than two blocks away, but they still won't be here in time. These
guys have lost their calm. Didn't take long.
It all went wrong with the
security guard. Policy in any kind of financial institution these days is:
somebody tries to rob you, let them. But what works in theory doesn't always
work in practice. And now the guard's on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
I can still hear his heart beating, but only just. Then they go nuts and all I
hear are my eardrums exploding.
Only one of them is smart
enough to try and run when he sees me. Unfortunately for him, he's the same one
who blasted the old guard with a shotgun. The club flies from my hand and
shatters his jaw before he gets two steps, then, stumbling and trying to cry
out but failing, he cracks his head on the marble tile floor and goes limp.
He'll be fine, but that's really going to hurt later.
I really shouldn't be
doing this. The F.B.I want my head, and the Federal
judgeship that goes with it for the guy who makes the case. The whole world
knows that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Ten minutes ago I was pushing my way past
the gauntlet of reporters who've made the street outside my office their home
away from home. Every day, I spend more time defending my ‘innocence' than
anything else, and then I go and do something like this.
Foggy still begs me to
stop every day. Ben Urich is convinced I've lost it, and
now I've lost Milla, too. Ben filled her and Foggy in
on his wonderful theory about my failing sanity, and she made a run for it.
Foggy sticks around, but he's terrified. Whether for me or of me, I
can't even tell. Maybe both.
Why am I still doing this?
Within five seconds, three
more of them are down. No more broken bones, but two of them are out for the
count, and the other cowers in a corner, nursing his sore hand and already
purpling face. The fifth and last of this wild bunch doesn't plan on going
easy. The woman he has a stranglehold of makes a pretty good shield. She's
taller than him and strung out on the adrenaline rush of what's happening to
her. She won't stop struggling, but he's strong enough to hold her and keep the
gun on her. All she does by struggling is make him
harder to hit.
The police are outside.
Three cars so far, and more on the way. But they can't
come in yet. Protocol dictates they wait for a tactical team and a negotiator,
or at least someone of rank. They won't be any help here, and they know it.
This is out of their hands.
The last bandit's getting
impatient. "Back off, Murdock!" he screams at me for the third time, "or I'll
blow this bitches head off!"
Why in God's name am I
still doing this?
Her lavender perfume mixes
with buckets of sweat, and I hear two things that scare the hell out of me; her
racing heart, and the old pacemaker attached. She's
young, barely into her thirties, but her heart is weak as a kitten. Most likely
since she was an infant, considering that pacemaker is so old I can actually hear
it. This has to end soon.
Luckily, she realizes that
too. In one last desperate attempt, she twists in his grip, and stumbles when
he pulls her roughly back, knocking him off balance too.
Now.
Turning away from him as
she falls, the woman gets herself clear and pisses him of with an accidental
kick behind his left shin. Before he can even attempt to turn the gun on her
again, the club whacks him between the eyes, followed immediately by my fist as
the other hand knocks the gun from his grip. He's already beaten, but it's been
a bad start to the day, so I throw in a kick between the legs just for my own
satisfaction. Doesn't feel quite as
good as it did with the Owl, but still. I have a lot of anger to work through
these days, and with Bullseye, Fisk, Hammerhead, Owl
and even Frank Castle locked up in Rykers, I have to
settle for what I can get.
It's all over, and the
cops storm in, covering the two conscious bandits first, then the others. One
of them moves straight to the woman I'm standing over, and whispers to me, "The
Feds are on the way." I'm glad for the tip, even though I already knew. Kitchen
cops tend to make a sharp distinction between what's legal or illegal and
what's right or wrong. The whole place would have crumbled years ago,
otherwise.
I'm out in the street just
as they turn the corner. A cable shoots from the billy-club,
and as I lift into the air, I hear all the usual cracks, like "Hey, Murdock,
what colour is my shirt?" I've heard that one about a
thousand times by now.
The first of four F.B.I cars
screeches to a halt, and the guy in the passenger seat jumps out wearing a flak
jacket and brandishing an MP5K. The driver is out a second later, pistol drawn,
but the safety's on, and her attention isn't on me as
much as the scene inside the bank. Angela Del Toro - the next White Tiger if
she ever admits to herself that she wants to be -breaking in a new partner.
"Put it down!" She hisses at him when he screams at me to surrender. "There's crowds all around, and you'll clip yourself with a
ricochet before you hit him." The
other cars have all pulled up by now, but they all no better than to try to
take a shot at me here. They'll wait until they think they have me cornered,
when there's less chance of them hurting somebody who stops to watch the
action.
Why the HELL am I still
doing this?!
Just before I disappear, I
hear the woman's heart rate normalizing, and she calls faintly after me. "Thank
you."