Matt heard everything happening in the alley clearly from a distance. He picked up his pace again, bought the medicine in what amounted to a near robbery, and immediately hurried back to the alley.
"Dad! Bucky passed out!"
In her panic, Miaomiao blurted out the familiar word still lodged in her heart.
With the situation so urgent, Matt had no time to correct what she called him. He took out the medicine he had just bought. "Give him the fever reducer first, then we'll treat his wounds."
Matt had swiped the half-full cup of water the clerk had left on the counter while buying the medicine. Miaomiao awkwardly propped Bucky up, trying to give him the medicine but unable to figure out how.
"Let me."
Matt could no longer bear to "watch" her fumbling and stepped forward to help. Somehow, though, he triggered Bucky's defenses. Even unconscious, Bucky clenched his fist and nearly struck Matt in the throat as he approached.
"Bucky!"
Bucky seemed to recognize the girl's voice through his haze. After two seconds of hesitation, his arm slowly relaxed.
Matt did not dare try approaching again. He could only step back and let the girl do it herself.
Between the inexperienced girl administering the medicine and the uncooperative man taking it, Miaomiao struggled for quite some time before finally getting it down his throat. Just as the two of them were about to continue treating Bucky's wounds, a piercing police siren suddenly sounded on the street outside.
The shrill siren drew closer, tearing through the dim silence at the mouth of the alley. Its grating wail grew increasingly clear, unmistakably heading straight for their neighborhood. Every nerve in Matt's body went taut, and his heart sank.
Like Batman in Gotham City, the Clinton District's Daredevil had remained an