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Buck had been shot before.
In his line of work, gunfire was a given, and being shot was always a risk. Although, since being employed by Wilson Fisk, Buck found that the bullets often were not aimed at him, but rather were fired by him. He supposed it was going to have to happen eventually.
When the shot rang out, it broke the tension between Daredevil and the Kingpin and instead invited in chaos. Buck had moved without thought. He’d simply moved to protect the mayor, using his own body as the shield. Buck Cashman was nothing if not the mayor’s loyal knight, bound by the rules of the game to put himself in the line of fire in the event of a check. One moment Fisk had been antagonising Murdock; the next he could see the lawyer and Page fleeing to the right and then felt himself being pulled along by two members of the AVTF just behind Fisk himself. As they moved, his hand covered the wound in his gut, as though his body were aware something was wrong but his mind hadn’t quite caught up yet. The blood pooled through his fingers, warm and wet as it slid down his hand. It created a trail of dots behind them like a row of ladybirds.
He did not know the names of the men holding him up. All of the task force agents began to blend together after a while, just men in the same helmets and the same uniforms, armed with the same guns. Regardless, they followed Fisk back into the courtroom and placed Buck down onto the floor in front of the judge's bench, and just like that, Buck Cashman stopped.
Buck hadn't had the pleasure (or displeasure) of stopping since he had been waiting for Daniel in the apartment his friend had sent him to. When he had been positive that the man had finally had a change of heart and was herding BB Urich right to him. It seemed like such a long time ago now. He remembered thinking he might take Daniel for one of those hot dogs that he liked after the deed had been done as a sort of peace offering or apology. The consideration almost made him laugh now. Nothing would have made it feel better; he saw that now.
His gut burnt. He kept his hand pressed against the hole, his head resting against the sturdy wood. Heather had trailed behind the men and was now at his side, her own hands covering his for when he inevitably gave up the ghost on keeping pressure. He felt colder than usual. He could bet Daniel was colder.
As clammy and disoriented as he was beginning to become, he surveyed the courtroom. Fisk was giving orders to men with guns, Sheila pacing at the other end of the room, and Hochberg standing in the middle aisle between the benches, putting on his best ‘I’m a great guy’ voice and calming the spectators to the now-abandoned case.
—
“New York is in a state of emergency. Following today’s miscarriage of justice, we were once again attacked by a vigilante.”
From the judge's bench, Wilson Fisk addressed the city. From the floor beside it, Buck Cashman addressed the fact that he may very well never see the city again.
“My aide has been wounded.”
A fleeting thought flashed across his mind: I deserve to be.
It was there and gone again so quickly that he almost didn’t register it in his shock-induced mind. While Fisk went on and on in his deep, rhythmic voice, Buck retreated into his own head. He had never much been a believer in the concept of karma; it made for some quips if he ever thought about becoming a comic book hero but was otherwise meaningless to him. But today he couldn’t help but wonder if his being shot was some form of cosmic punishment for enacting justice (was it justice?) on a man just trying to do the right thing (he was hiding the girl).
If he lay down here, he might be a sad imitation of the way in which he had left Daniel. He wondered if any of the men in this room with him helped to dispose of him. He wondered which of the men with guns cleaned up his friend.
You were the man with the gun.
Buck only came back to reality when he felt a second presence kneel beside him. It wasn’t Heather; no, she had refused thus far to leave his side. In truth, she was likely applying more pressure than he was to the wound.
On his right side, Wilson Fisk knelt. The Kingpin did not go to his knees often, nor did he go to his knees for just anyone. Perhaps for a wounded knight, bleeding for his king. He raised his hand to Buck’s cheek, those hands that had inflicted so much damage. But in this moment, they did not hurt, they simply held. When Buck met his eyes he could have sworn he saw sorrow. He thought the man might be remembering an old friend and hoping this did not resolve itself the same way.
—
Buck didn’t know when he started shivering but understood that once it had started, he could not make it stop.
He’d shaken when he’d stood over Daniel. His voice had shaken when he’d told Daniel that he did not enjoy having to hurt him. All he’d had to do was give over the girl, and he would have still been here. Perhaps he would have been here in the courtroom with them, at his side instead of Heather. He probably would have said something funny, distracted him from the thought of dying.
All I had needed to do was let him go and he would have still been here.
But he had shaken the whole way back to City Hall. His body had known something was wrong, his mind just hadn’t caught up. All it took was one moment of rest for him to feel the familiar ache in his chest. He hadn't even been able to clean up his own mess. If faced with it, Buck did not know if he could've put Daniel in the boot of his car like he'd done so many others. He did not know if he could have cut Daniel up like a criminal or put him in the ground like a dead pet. Daniel hadn't been a pet; he had been a friend.
What is followin' his orders gonna do for you?
How long till you're on the floor with a gun pointed at your head?
Heather draped a second jacket over his shoulders, Hochman's, he thought, but he hardly even looked at her. The jacket did nothing, he was still cold and still and (on the floor) stuck in this fucking courtroom. The title of 'fixer' felt wrong now. He had fixed nothing. All he had done was kill and break and ruin. He had never met Daniel's mother (Gloria. you know her name. You killed her son, use her name.), but his friend had spoken so fondly of her that he felt he knew the woman. He hoped he would never know her. It had been almost two days, someone had surely informed her by now of Daniel's death; the men with guns? BB Urich? The blow would be delivered no softer from different mouths. He certainly hadn't fixed anything for her.
"I'm on the floor, Daniel," he murmured. His eyes were closed and his skin clammy from the fever creeping up on him. Briefly his eyes opened, just a slit, and he could see Wilson Fisk heading for the courtroom doors where the protestors were slamming against them from the outside. When the doors opened, for a moment Buck was sure that the protestor standing there was Daniel.
Daniel the protestor was dead in one hit.
Daniel, his friend, was dead in one shot.
This world would see Buck dead soon enough, and he would deserve every minute of it.