Log: Matt & Miles, then Matt/Miles/Bobby!

[x-daredevil.livejournal.com]

Miles interrupts Matt's workout. Matt's ipod suffers for it.



Ear buds firmly in place, Matt bounced lightly on his feet, jabbing at the punching bag before moving backwards and spinning into a round house, wailing on the hanging bag. Sweat glistened as he attacked the heavy bag, shirt discarded a while back as he worked out his frustrations. Thank goodness for gyms.

Miles was finding himself in the gym more and more these days. Maybe some nervous energy to burn off that would normally have been channeled when out Spider-Manning it up with Peter. Or maybe the presence of other super-powered superheroes was in itself inspirational to work on his fitness. Whatever the cause, he was down there again now, humming along softly to the Kanye playing on his StarkPhone. He waved at Matt when he entered the gym, then remembered that Matt couldn't actually see him, and loudly called out a greeting to him instead.

With his music playing through the headphones and his concentration at the task at hand, Matt didn't notice Miles at first. Normally music, even with headphones, didn't hamper his hearing significantly unless he wore the sound dampening ones to help him relax, but the combination of headphones with music and concentration worked pretty well to keep him in his own little world. Striking the bag again in a new attack, it was a very good thing he wasn't actually fighting a person.

And a good thing for the equipment that Matt's mutation didn't include super-strength, Miles thought. A mischievous idea crossed his mind as he watched Matt pummel the bag. He turned off the music and stuffed the earbuds into his pocket, and, quiet as a mouse (or a spider? a spider-mouse?), crept up behind the man and poked him on the shoulder.

Whirling around on autopilot, Matt immediately attacked this new that without registering who it was. His fighting style was a mix of boxing, gymnastics, judo and other martial arts that he'd studied over the years, meant to hurt and catch people off guard.

Superhuman reflexes and a spider-sense saved Miles from immediate squishification, but he wasn't in top form just now, and Matt's backhand slipped through his defenses. A lesser man would have been sent sprawling, but Miles just staggered back a few steps. Shocked that Matt of all people would strike him, Miles unthinkingly struck back, slipping under Matt's guard and to press a hand on the older man's bare chest. The venom blast that hit a second later was as weak as Miles could manage, but the jolt of electricity stung worse than a novelty electric chair on the Coney Island boardwalk arcade.

Shaking his head, Matt stumbled back a few steps, the music in his ears going out with the electricity. "Miles?" He asked, breathing hard and tugging the now useless earbuds from his ears. He hadn't realized how much he'd been in his own world. Then again, when he could hear everything, being able to narrow and limit that was a wonderful thing sometimes. "Shit. I hurt you?"

"No," Miles scoffed with all of the bravado of a teenager, gingerly rubbing his chin. "What the hell was that about? I thought you had that whole Toph Bei-Fong thing going on with your ears."

"Music and earbuds," Matt pointed out. "Turn it up loud enough and concentrate on what I'm doing and you get a distracted Daredevil," work this past week had been hell, and he'd been working out his his frustration and anger at it all.

Going to grab his water bottle, Matt slipped an ear bug back in his ear and took his iPod from the arm holster it was in, pushing the button on the bottom to wake it up. Nothing. Trying a few more times, he went back to Miles, "Did you break it?" He asked, handing it to the teen.

"Did I?" The device didn't work for Miles either so he handed it back. "Sorry. I didn't know my venom blast does that. Warren could replace it, though. But seriously, keep up with the times and get yourself a StarkPhone." Miles cocked his head to the side in a curious gesture, taking in Matt's frazzled form. "You okay, bro?"

"Starkphones are more expensive," Matt replied idly, slipping the device back in the holder, "and there are more adaptive assistance apps for the iPhone still," but Stark was catching up. Thankfully, this was just an ipod for working out, not his phone. Then he would have been mad. Sighing, he took another sip of water as he cooled down, "Yeah. I'm fine. Just a long week at work. Needed to get it out, you know?" Normally, he would have patrolled, but that was difficult in Westchester. "How about you?"

"What could be so bad about being a corporate lawyer that makes you beat the hell out of stuff?" Miles asked rhetorically. Although come to think of it, if he were stuck with a bunch of stuck-up old men in suits, he'd probably be about ready to go on a mindless rampage himself. "Never mind. You're lucky I'm so awesome, though. You could've really hurt someone else."

"You know the high school bullshit that drives you nuts?" Matt asked, then continued without waiting for an answer, "It doesn't stop after high school. It just continues." He poked at his ipod, then sighed, "Fine. Since you took that punch like a champ, I'll take you for...whatever. A milkshake," like kids ever actually did that since his grandparents time. "And to get me a new ipod."

"Sure, Gramps." Miles took his phone out from his pocket and typed a quick text message. "Maybe Warren'll lend us his credit card so he can fix what I broke. I really am sorry about that, though," he lamented. "I really didn't know my zap did that. I've only ever used it against bad guys before. You're my first not-bad-guy."

"I think it was justified," Matt assured Miles, "It felt electrical. Given electronics...makes sense. Not too many bad guys probably go out to commit crimes with their ipods and if their phones get zapped well....they shouldn't've been doing the bad stuff," like he shouldn't've hit Miles. It was an accident, but still. "Is it too much to hope that you have a driver's license?"

"I'm only fifteen. And a half." That was an important clarification to make. "I don't even have a permit yet. My roommate might, though. He could take us to the Apple Store." Miles was sure he could find some use of the Worthington black card to repay Bobby. "You can borrow my phone for now, if you want. Hope you like hip hop."

"I'm going to shower, you see about a driver. Or use uber, whatever's easier," He'd ubered plenty. Not being able to drive sucked. "Meet you downstairs in 30?"


Grabbing Bobby, Matt and Miles head to the Apple store at the mall to get him a new phone.



Malls weren't Matt's favourite place to be, but Apple stores meant malls in Westchester. Another reason to like the city, but beggars and choosers and all that. Thankfully, they had managed to bypass the city bus since Bobby had his drivers license, which helped a lot and despite the busy craziness of the Apple store, get another iphone with minimal hassle. The girl had even set it to have accessible settings from the get-go. He would still need to download his apps and get everything situated, but this was a good start.

Now, they were sitting at the Nordstrom cafe eating a snack. Matt had put his foot down against the noise and insanity of the food court. He was not dealing with that. "What are you doing to my phone?" he asked Miles, "Let me get it how I want it."

Miles waved off Matt as he and Bobby tinkered with the new phone. He had to stifle his giggling as they explored the app store for new additions to Matt's inventory. At least Matt couldn't see their impish grins. "Your stuff's all on the Cloud, right? Tell me your password and I can get all your music and stuff back."

"Dude, that one right there!" Bobby said, insistently pointing to a soundboard app on the phone with a sticky finger, his other hand clutching an Orange Julius. "Oh shit, um," he said, pulling his finger back and seeing a bit of ick on the screen. "hold up a sec." He reached for a napkin and carefully cleaned the stuff off. "That one's awesome though." It had a billion different fart sounds on it so clearly it was a must-have.

He was going to regret letting the teens set up his phone, he just knew it. The good news at least was that he doubted that there was anything they couldn't undo. "Yeah, it is," Matt agreed. Thank goodness for backups, "password is 'jackthedevil310.'" And now he'd have to change it. Great. He had remembered this one the longest.

Miles rapidly keyed in the password and instructed the phone to retrieve the backup. And then to download Bobby's suggested app. "There, that's like 50% done now," he said as he selected the fart tone "Moonlight Whisper" as Matt's text message notification. "Who's Jack the Devil?"

"My dad," Matt explained, "he died when I was a kid, but he was a boxer and you know how Muhammad Ali's catch phrase was 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee?' My dad was known as Jack 'The Devil' Murdock," which helped explain why he went by Daredevil now, too. "After he died I went to live with my uncle, his husband and their son."

Miles handed the phone to Bobby so he could take a couple mouthfuls of his DQ Blizzard. "That's bad password security," he mock-scolded. "Something personally relevant that anyone could know? That'd be as bad as Bobby doing, like, 'gogojohntavares.'" He paused for a second and turn to his roommate. "That's not actually your password, is it?"

"Pfft, no, it's tavares91 an-" He stopped and forced a chuckle, shaking his head. "Psych, that's not it either." Bobby put down his own ice cream and took his phone out, pulling up its settings and fiddling with something while attempting to hide the screen from the others. "Hey, did you say 'gogojohntavares'?" He was totally going to steal that, only maybe leave out the 'john' part, no one would ever guess that one.

"At least is not 'password' or 'I forgot my password,'" which he was totally guilty of using one it college. "Don't do anything that won't fly at work," Matt added, not trusting the two teenagers.

"My friend Peter" - Miles glanced knowingly at Matt for a second - "He made his email password '1735877998.'" Miles remembered it exactly. "Which is the decimal equivalent of 'Gwen,' his girlfriend. Anyone could've guessed that. So I helped him and changed it to the decimal equivalent of my name. Much better security that way."

"Yeah...I'm pretty sure you win the geek award," Matt had no idea about decimal name equivalents or anything like that. He would have never guessed anything like that either. "Do not geek out my phone so I can't use it. It needs to be functional for the blind guy, not cool and tricked out." He suspected he just crushed Miles dreams.

Miles sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. "I'm not a geek," he protested. "And there's no reason your phone can't be both. You'll be the freshest lawyer in the place wherever lawyers work. The law house."

"Milesy's right, you're totes going to be the man in the law house with this phone." Bobby added with a nod. "Ooh, hey, find an app that makes that hammer noise, when the judge dude bangs it on the bench!" That had to be an app Matt would need, right?

"I don't see judges!" Matt protested, but he was grinning. That could be a fun one. And he was damn good at trial litigation. That was what he wanted to do. "...Yet."

"You don't see anything," Miles helpfully reminded Matt. "Oh hey, there's a Law & Order app. Chung chung! Lawyers need quick access to summaries of every episode, right? For research purposes?"

Matt flipped Miles off. "All 45 seasons?!" he asked, aghast. That was terrifying! "I will accept the do-do Law and Order noise. I do NOT need the episode summaries, that's too much!" At the rate the boys were going, he wouldn't have any memory left on the device!

"That's been on for forty five years? Holy shit man." Bobby's eyes went wide as he did the math as to how long ago that was. "I didn't know they had television back then. Or did it start out on radio? That'd explain the DUN DUN being so loud and all, actually." He scratched his chin at that deep thought. "Pfft, they're all the same anyway, the cops catch someone and then the law, you know, laws them. But why isn't it called Order and Law, if that's the case? Huh." Man, he was having some really deep thoughts today.

Bobby raised good questions and Miles wished he knew the answers. "Maybe it's alphabetical order," he suggested as a response to the last question. "Law & Alphabetical Order, heh. All right, I think we're done here." Satisfied with their customizations, Miles handed the phone back to Matt and then went to town on his neglected and half-melted Blizzard. "Trust us, we've made you life about ten times easier."

"That remains to be seen," Matt took the phone and slipped it back in his pocket, he would see what the boys did later. And if he had to return to the Apple store to get it undone, then at least he had fun now.

(end?)