At first the sound of the gunshot was so loud, so piercing, so engulfing that he did not recognize the stabbing pain in his side. There had been a silence in which he'd turned toward the light scrabbling of feet, someone turning, someone pulling a metallic object from its holster… and he'd been too late to move out of the bullet's path before the sound of gunpowder igniting enveloped him.

He crouched immediately, still not feeling the pain. His ears were ringing sharply, his sense of hearing momentarily taken out of commission. The concrete was rough against his hands and he refocused, feeling the man run away from the scene through the alley's pavement.

Why would he run? Matt thought. He could smell rank sweat, some fresh, some a few days old, on the man's body. It smelled like fear chased with a tang of pain. The perspiration was laced with several opiates, an amphetamine and something else he couldn't place. The man was still high, it could be nothing, the sound of a siren a mile off in pursuit of someone else…

But Matt's hearing was returning and there were no sounds of sirens near enough the man would be able to hear, no other humans within a thirty yard radius even curious about the gunshot. None were leaving their apartments, no one even calling 911. So why would he run?

And then there was a metallic smell in the air, and Matt was confused for a half a second. He hadn't injured the man, there had been no blood drawn in the brief fight. Spat. The sound of a single drop of liquid hitting concrete. Not rain. Warm, hot even, thicker than rain…

The man was not worth pursuing, he determined. From their brief encounter, he knew nothing of interest to Matt. Matt stood sharply, and only now as his head swam along with a sudden, sharp pain in his side did he realize the blood smell, thick in the air, had been his own.

He remained standing but unmoving, sweeping his surroundings for threats before turning his senses on his own body. A swath of his side was boiling, electric, feeling as though the prongs of a taser was being pressed against it. Hot blood was soaking the area of his shirt and spreading against his skin, cooling and congealing the further it got from its origin.

He felt himself begin to shake and willed it away. It wasn't that bad, the bullet went in under the skin about half an inch and straight out the other side intact. There was skin and fat and a little muscle damage, painful but nothing vital had been hit. Nothing broken. He'd had worse. The man who had run had been a lousy shot. The pain was bad enough though, and he had to will himself even to move.

He stumbled in the first couple of steps, staggering to the brick wall of the nearest building before forcing himself to stand normally. He felt acid rise in his throat and swallowed it harshly. His stomach felt like it was caving in on itself.

He took a few seconds to pull the burn phone out with shaking hands, dialing Claire's number a little too slowly and raising it to his ear. One ring, two rings, three rings. He waited. On the fourth ring the call transferred to an automated voicemail box. He waited for the beep and then hung up and dialed again. Same response.

Claire's apartment was six blocks and a fire escape ladder from his current position. If she didn't answer the phone, odds were she was still at work. Still, she had supplies and if he could stay together enough to break into her place, he could patch himself up.

Fortunately, there were few people out and about this time of night, and even fewer who cared to notice blood on a black shirt. He'd had no other reason to choose the color.

Walking normally wasn't an option without significant pain, and he compromised to stumble slightly, leaning into his injured side and correcting as needed to stay on the sidewalk. The dizziness helped to sell his implied story that he was a drunk returning home from a night at the bars. It was more from pain than bloodloss, he decided, though as he approached the 6th block and the soaking of cold blood reached his knees he started to wish he'd paid more attention to that from the beginning.

People began to stir in the apartments around him, and a few early risers made their way to the street. For now they were hurrying to offices and bus stations, not paying attention to a man in all black who was staying as quiet as possible. That would change, he figured, when the sun came up.

He'd been out all night, he realized, and this injury would leave him another few hours behind in getting to the office. If he hurried, he would be able to catch an hour of sleep and pass it off as a missed alarm…

He made it up the fire escape with the last energy he had, screwing his eyes closed and storing the previously dulling pain somewhere distant as he ripped the wounds open again. He collapsed, gasping, on the landing by her apartment window, feeling a fresh measure of blood well out of the exit wound. He closed his eyes, his whole being exhausted and stressed to breaking from pain. He clasped at the injury, hoping it would stop bleeding in case the very real chance he would pass out came to fruition.

Matt pressed a button on his watch. Five forty-eight, AM. It chirped calmly. He moaned just quietly enough that anyone on the street at the end of the alley wouldn't be able to hear him. He let his body settle, to rest for a second before contemplating breaking into Claire's apartment in the hour before she got home.

The city was waking up several floors below him. The scents of three different cafes and four bakeries, four variations each of fresh aftershave and stale alcohol met his nostrils passively. The sound of his own blood oozing through the grate below him and dripping slowly to the pavement below that.

…And the sound of a heartbeat in the apartment next to him. Claire was home, and she was awake. There was no relief, or anger, or really any other emotion in the realization. it was only dogged pragmatism that made his bloody fist hit the glass sliding window. Again. She was in the other room. Again. She didn't hear him. Again. He was getting so tired. The exhaustion of three days with little sleep combined with the pain combined with the bloodloss was taking the fight out of him. He let his fist hit the grate, incoordination finally getting the better of him. He finally heard her footsteps padding across the carpet.

He let his mouth form a weak smile. "Hey Claire. Great morning, huh?" He whispered, and passed out.