capeandcowllogs | And you're right there, but I can't see you

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And you're right there, but I can't see you

WHO: Matt and anyone who is visiting him in the hospital
WHERE: A hospital...
WHEN: Backdated to Sunday night through Thursday afternoon. Please specify the time and date in your post! :)
WARNINGS: ???
SUMMARY: Matt is in the hospital and people visit him
FORMAT: Whatever you like.

Matt was pretty lousy at this sort of thing. The idea of lying still and letting people poke him and prod him and study his body never sat well with him. He didn't like having to explain away gunshot and stab wounds, or deal with the inevitable vision tests that doctors always seemed to want to perform on him. He especially didn't like that these doctors were strangers to him, people who didn't know him or know his history. He couldn't really trust these people to figure out what was wrong with him, why he'd lost his memories, or why his powers were gone.

But without his radar, he was useless. He felt so paralyzed without it, like he was broken and had no chance in the world of ever being fixed again. Now instead of being Hell's Kitchen's most feared defender he was some pitiful, strung out blind guy. It was quite a way to fall. Sure, he'd experienced a loss of his powers before, but this seemed so much more profound and terrifying. Maybe it was the not knowing how it had happened or who was responsible.

Someone had to be responsible, right? He didn't roofie himself. He didn't rough himself up. But he could remember anything since Tuesday. Whoever had done this had picked the perfect target: without his powers, he wouldn't be able to identify them anyway, with or without the drugs.

As it was now, he couldn't identify the visitors in his room, not without hearing their voices or being told they were there. He couldn't smell people, he couldn't hear their heartbeats. He could do nothing but lie in that bed and wait for some strange doctor to give approval for him to leave.

Matt was pretty sure he was going to go insane.

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It was, at the very least, a good indication that he wasn't sleeping. "Hey, hey, careful. I'm not going anywhere." Reassurance was probably one of the most important things right now. He'd been kidnapped and had... something done to him. He was clearly still out of it.

"Good to hear yours, too." Rather than move away from him and grab a chair, she kneels by the side of the bed -- just for now. Hospitals had to remain clean, for sterilization purposes. If it had been dirty, she'd still have done the same. Zatanna was taking nothing other than him into consideration right now. She slides her hand down to his, clasping it softly within her own as she tilts her head toward his to offer a ghost of a kiss to his cheek, finishing it off with the slightest of nuzzles. "I'm glad you're safe."

Edited 2011-07-01 00:57 (UTC)

He smiles, it seems almost drunken the way he does. Too many drugs in his system still, and his head is still swimming. Everything is fuzzy, but he can appreciate how close she is, how calm she is, and how happy he honestly is to hear her.

"I'm glad you're here. I'm so glad." He tries to hide the desperation in his voice, but it's almost not worth it. After everything that's happened, there's no point in pretending he isn't upset by the whole ordeal. "I didn't want to be alone."

"I'm glad that I'm here. I was worried about you, you know." She was certain that as calm as she had tried to remain in that initial contact that she had come off as more than a little worried. Even now, she was, perhaps, too calm.

"May I try to fix this? I mean, remove whatever is in your system." She had only done it with little things since her arrival here: alcohol, little bouts of sickness, so on and so forth. She'd managed to restore Pieter's sight briefly, as well. Those were good indications that her abilities remained somewhat the same (in that she couldn't allow Pieter permanent sight, for one), but this place was tricky. "I won't do anything without your permission, though."

"If you think you can..." He trails off, but he nods, to emphasize that it's an affirmative answer. Normally he wasn't too keen on the idea of using magic to mess with his head. There was a reason he and Stephen didn't always see eye to eye, and it was mostly due to Matt's general dislike of the all things magical and mystical. But he'd turned to his old friend when he'd needed help in the past, and right now turning to his new friend for a similar remedy didn't seem like such a bad idea. "Anything I can get back, anything at all, I'll take it."

"I should be able to, but I'm a little iffy about what I can and can't do here. I would, of course, stop before anything dangerous might happen." Magic seemed to frequently make people very uncomfortable. Magicians, themselves, usually didn't have it much better. A word or two and that thin hair on the back of your neck would stand on end, even if they didn't seem to creep you out. Zatanna was an exception to this because she tried very hard to relate, to be normal. That didn't mean a simple conversation might not bring goosebumps to your skin.

"If that's how you feel," she gives that hand of his a squeeze, "I don't like to mess with memories. I did something I shouldn't have, years ago. When I was younger and much, much newer in this business. I can try to help you remember what you heard and felt -- and recover the time you lost before that. It's very delicate, sort of like a puzzle or untying a mess of ribbons or wires. I'm good at it and you wouldn't be damaged, I... I promise." She's worried, uncertain. Is it okay to offer this? Should she tell him she has this ability at all? "I won't look through your memories or disturb them in any way, but I can try to bring what you lost back."

Matt trusted Zatanna. Of course, he was always a bit too trusting when it came to nice smelling, beautiful women, but that was another story for another day. The bottom line was, Zee was gentle, and additionally she was competent. Those were both qualities Matt could appreciate, along with the fact she had never tried to bullshit him. And considering the company he often kept, that put her way up on his list of respectable and trustworthy people.

So he squeezed her hand back and nodded, deciding then and there that while his memories were like a puzzle, he'd have no hope of ever being able to reassemble them if he didn't have all the pieces. This was still a leap of faith for him; he didn't understand magic, and he didn't always believe in the mumbo jumbo Doctor Strange seemed to spout, but if there was a mystical way to set things right, he would gladly go for it and face the consequences with his god later.

"Let's do this," he said. The was a sense of finality in his voice. His mind was made up, they at least had to try.

"It may take some time, so I guess it's better that I came after hours." She'd set it up with an illusion, just in case a nurse walked by and saw something they shouldn't. "It's like a giant labyrinth, full of puzzles. You'll be put to sleep, so to speak, and you'll wake up and not remember anything, unless you want to be able to recall what I did -- however, it would be like watching a movie. A mostly boring movie full of puzzle-solving." Not just puzzles, but the sort of mazes and dungeons of a video game or 80s fantasy film. Riddles and self-defense mechanisms put up by his mind and his heart and his soul and whatever made him forget to begin with. It was delicate and it took skill and patience. It took experience, which she now (un)fortunately had.

"You don't seem too comfortable with magic, so I would... almost prefer that your consciousness remain with me." It'd be like some cheesy choose-your-own adventure. There would be no way that it wouldn't bring them closer, at least when it came to trust. He'd have to hover around like a ghost as she swam oceans and worked magic that was so complicated it looked like it was hand-to-hand combat to anyone that couldn't understand. "But it's up to you."

"Puzzles, okay. I think I can deal with that," he sounded completely sure of himself, even with the sedatives in his system. He was a determined bastard, if nothing else. It was going to take a lot more than this challenge to make Matt Murdock balk.

But he would need help. He wasn't the most comfortable when it came to magic, especially when it came to illusions. Perhaps it all hit a bit too close to home for him. His blindness always made him uneasy when it came to illusions. He'd never admit it, of course, and he did his best to keep it hidden, but deep down that discomfort was there.

"We'll stay together, then. You can be my eyes." That was something he didn't say lightly. It was an act of trust on both their parts. But he trusted Zatanna to take him this far, he would trust her to guide her through this process too.

That was reassuring to her, somehow. His confidence only made her feel more confident, more able. While there was no way that she'd allow anything to happen to him, less hesitancy meant a smoother recovery.

"No, you'll be your own. I'm not sure how much you'll be able to 'see,' or how it will work, but you should be able to help guide me as much as I'll be able to help you." It would be disorienting regardless of how much he could see or how his vision came to him, if it was normal or if it was just patterns in the dark. "I'm going to do it now, okay?" Her free hand is pressed against his forehead, lightly, sliding back a little further. She probably should have gotten a chair; her legs would hurt, later. There aren't any words spoken when she taps into him, her eyes closing and lulling back into her head as her body goes limp against the bed, hand still rigid as she moves into his mind.

It's dark. But he can shape it however he wills it to. "Matt?" This shouldn't take long, she hopes. At the very least, it would go by quickly on the 'inside.'

Matt tried to brace himself, somehow thinking that if he was tense he'd be prepared for the intrusion. But nothing could quite prepare him for the sensation. He wouldn't be able to articulate the feeling, it was like for a split second all of his synapses were firing at once. It was an explosion of light and color and sound, so brilliant it was almost blinding. He had to remind himself to breathe, that way he wouldn't drown in the moment. But as quickly as it came, the feeling left. And all Matt was left with was darkness.

It didn't work. Something had gone wrong. For the first time since she'd arrived, Matt found himself doubting Zatanna. She said it would be like a maze, like a puzzle? Well, where was this puzzle? Where was this maze? There was nothing before him, absolutely nothing. Her magic wasn't working.

But then he heard her voice. She was calling to him, from somewhere in the depths of his own mind, sound waves illuminating the labyrinth before him, voice echoing and bouncing off the high walls of his mind. "Zatanna," he heard himself calling back to her, letting the familiar power of his radar display his surroundings. It was like a labyrinth, but not like the one in the 80's movie. The aesthetic was very distinctively Japanese, like something out of a Kurosawa film. In the very center, looming high above the maze was a pagoda, grant and proud, with a dozen eaves. Matt couldn't make out all the details, not at this distance, but he could sense it's presence, and he felt like he ought to got there. "Zatanna, can you hear me?"

There was no way to be prepared for this sort of thing, unfortunately. She could have spent hours talking to him and... it was doubtful it would have been any different. She'd never worked with someone, in this regard. Even with Harvey, it had been her alone. He hadn't remembered any of it when she'd pulled him out, but this was different. This was someone she cared about.

As he eases into this, so does she. Any shifting of the surroundings against his will could be troublesome, if not force her out violently. While she could stand her ground, that was never the way to approach someone's mind. Zatanna could always fix whatever was broken, but the distrust would remain.

His voice creates a path for her to follow. She's in costume here, top hat and all (it helps get her in the mood; this is a battlefield even if no war was being fought). She's careful in her movements, as if the ground isn't the ground, walls aren't walls. Soft. "I can hear you." As long as he wanted her to be coming toward him, she would be.

"Zatanna." His heart almost skipped a beat when her reflection appeared on his radar. There she was, perfect silhouette standing out amongst the high walls and random architectural oddities of the maze. In this mess of uncertainty, it was comforting to hear a familiar voice echoing and surrounding him.

Matt reached out to her, unsure if physical contact was possible in this state, unsure if anything in this vision would feel at all tangible. If he touched her, would he feel the fabric of her coat? If he reached to the nearest wall, would it feel like ancient stone, or would it vanish into mist. He had so many questions about this, but in the grand scheme of things they didn't seem important enough to ask. If he needed to know something, he trusted that she would tell him. Otherwise, they had another goal at hand.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

"Matt," she responds, a smile in her voice. Here's where it got trickier. Each mind was different, each one with their own defense mechanisms. They were created by the subconscious and by the person themselves. How they defined themselves, how they thought others saw them. Like an abstract piece of art that looked normal, was only that way in explanation.

She shifts closer in an instant, faster than the blink of an eye. "We," Zatanna corrects him as she places a hand on his shoulder, as real as he can imagine it to be, "We're going to fix it." She doesn't mean to deliberately be obtuse, but there aren't words that can explain it, not really. She allows her hand to steadily move down his arm, tips of her gloved fingers occasionally flicking the fabric there until she reaches his hand. Palm lightly pressed against his own, eventually entwining her fingers as she pulls him toward her.

She's done this more times than she'd like to admit and this part is far too familiar, hauntingly so. A pathway lights up, full of twists and turns. It's much too plain, much too boring. A few steps forward and the rest is illuminated, perfectly cliché, M.C. Escher-esque foreground, morphing out of that beautiful landscape he'd created for himself earlier. One step at a time.

It seemed most people's minds went to Escher (though his was more Convex and Concave than Relativity), somehow. Like that was the limit of the normal human mind when it came to the impossible. She didn't want to think what it could do if it was capable of being stretched further past the limit. "For now? We climb." And like that, there are stairs.

Climbing he could do. He'd lived in enough buildings without elevators that the idea of climbing staircase after staircase didn't quite faze him. Zatanna's hand securely in his, he had no hesitation in starting their ascent, though he couldn't help but be curious as to what would be waiting for them at the top. It was a world of his own making, sure, but he wasn't quite sure what darkness or light was lurking in the depths of his own mind. Matt had the sneaking suspicion that there was more broken in this world than just this lost weekend. He could only hold out hope that the most desperate and dangerous of his memories would stay safely hidden and not rear their heads during this journey.

"How will we know when we're in the right place?" The stairs seemed to lead to just more stairs. Perhaps if he'd studied more of Escher's work it would have seemed familiar to him, but for Matt this trek was completely genuine. The curving walls and unusually shaped archways that greeted them were really quite novel for him. Still, he expected their destination must lie somewhere beyond the staircases. He almost hoped that whatever it was that was broken or missing would stick out like a sore thumb, be painted with a radioactive X so that he and Zatanna could both see it. "What exactly are we looking for?"

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And you're right there, but I can't see you

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