Damsel in Distress, My Ass

14.2 - Curious

co-written with at_anycost and whattingawhat


Mac had taken his lunch break to visit Danny in the hospital. He had finally decided that Danny must really be in some kind of pain for the hospital to be able to keep him in here this long. And between all of the injuries the Doctor's had rattled off for him and the way Danny looked physically covered in bruising and scars, Mac had no doubt that that was the case. Mid-visit, weariness had taken Danny with the help of the pain medication being pumped into his system.

Sighing, he looked across the hospital bed to Buffy. For a few moments he didn't say a word, but once he'd gathered from the look on her face that they both knew what was being left unsaid, he decided to say it anyway. "Look, Buffy. I think we both know that your statement of what happened in that warehouse isn't fact. Please don't assume that I'm not grateful. I am. I have an entire lab and a few Detectives who are more than happy to have Danny alive. But I need to know what really happened there that afternoon."

Buffy pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, trying to figure out exactly what to say. She obviously couldn't tell him the truth. They were in a hospital. He'd have her locked up. She ducked her head and reached over to lace her fingers with Danny's regardless of the fact that he was asleep. She shrugged, still stalling for time. "A guy in a bat costume helped me but he told me I couldn't tell anyone." Of course he wasn't going to buy that but that's what the stalling was for.

"Does it matter? Ask the bad guys what happened." It wasn't that she thought they were going to tell the truth.

"I've gotten eight different accounts from a dozen men. A few of them have the same one." Mac sat back in his seat, smoothing his tie down the front of his shirt. "So assuming that the version that's the most used is the closest to an accurate account as I'm going to get, I want to know how you did it. The best theory I have is that you had a very lucky day and caught them all off guard. Which would then make you extremely lucky to be alive."

Buffy gave Mac a bubblegum bright smile, cardboard and totally fake. It was her I'm a blonde cheerleader ask me how smile. "I'm a very lucky girl. I'm like Irish lucky but not Irish." The smile faltered and she sighed. "I'm a martial arts teacher. I work with teenage boys all day long and if I can't kick their asses they're going to pay attention to me for just long enough to check out my ass and that's it." She raked a hand through her hair and shook her head. "They're right. I caught them off guard and I had a lucky day. I'm not stupid but most people think I am. I walked in acting exactly like they thought I should. Asked where the rave was, checked out what was going on and distracted them by letting them think I thought the whole handcuffs thing was kinky gay sex."

Mac wasn't sure that he bought that either. It was closer to what he thought the truth might be in the back of his mind... a truth that still didn't quite make sense. In any case, he didn't like that fake smile. He saw it too often from criminals sitting across the table from him in interrogation room after interrogation room. And it was as well as speaking down to him and a complete lack of respect for his intelligence and position. He cleared his throat and leaned forward for a moment before standing up. "I understand the martial arts. With that kind of training you could take down a handful of the average mobsters in the City without blinking an eye if they were unarmed. The problem is that they're more apt to shoot first ask questions later. We've collected thirteen men who were in that warehouse or in the vicinity of it... not counting Fred Hirsch himself. You're telling me that none of them aimed their weapon at you while you were beating their buddies unconscious?"

"They aimed. I'm fast," Buffy responded. She'd gotten grazed but that healed days ago without any scar to show for it so she can't mention it. "I'm faster than most people." She looked up at Mac but she remained sitting. "It looks exactly like it is. I know you know they shot at me because you've found bullets so I can't tell you that they didn't. And I don't want to lie to you. Danny likes you. He respects you and from what he says, you've been really good to him. It's not my fault if you can't believe what you're seeing, what evidence tells you happened."

"The evidence says you beat down all those men and avoided a rain of gunfire. Your fingerprints are on the chains that linked Danny's cuffs to the wall, as if you fisted them and held tight, then smudged them when you pulled... the threads of the screws were ripped out of the wall. Your blood was there too." Mac answered, looking closely for a scratch on Buffy and not finding one. "I know what the evidence says. And like I said, I'm grateful despite the impossibility of it all. People never cease to amaze me. I can thank you for whatever the truth is and I think that's all I can do."

Buffy nodded, stared down at her hand linked with Danny's. "Trust your evidence and remember what's impossible varies from person to person. If you can't do that then...Clark Kent was there with me and the mob is strangely lacking in kryptonite." The smile she gave him was a real one, not mocking or overly bright. Just Buffy. "Maybe it was adrenaline. You know Mom's that lift cars off babies and things like that. They hurt him and they were going to kill him. I had to do something."

He reacted to the genuine smile by nodding slightly and lifting his shoulders to shrug lightly. "Some things just can't be explained. We all had to do something. Anyway, I need to get back to work. You're staying here with him?"

"Yeah," Buffy nodded. "They tried to get me to go home once. I'm pretty stubborn so I'll be here until he goes home. Thanks for stopping by. I know it means a lot to Danny."

Once again, he looked to Danny in the hospital bed. If he could, he would take all those bruises and scars from him. "Goodbye, Buffy."