"Frank, may I call you Frank?"
Frank stares at him. The sentence is like a trigger pulling in his mind, and the bullet ricochets, suddenly connecting all the little idiosyncrasies he's been noticing about Murdock since the first hospital visit, when, with eyes closed, he heard Murdock's voice and thought he was someone else.
The half-formed syllogisms that have been welling in his subconscious break forward like waves, slamming into place one after the other.
His first reaction is bewilderment.
It is a little surprising, after all, to find the vigilante he's been scrapping with turn out to be a blind lawyer.
His second reaction is incredulity.
A blind lawyer representing him. More than that, representing him. After all their disagreements. After all that shit on the rooftop.
His third reaction is amusement, which shows in a curl of his lip, because Murdock choosing to represent him, well, that's so unbelievable it's downright funny. You're mad, man.
And his fourth reaction, as he leans back and looks at Murdock again, is the sudden introduction of a feeling he hasn't entertained before with regard to either of Murdock's incarnations.
On the rooftop, he had said there was no difference between them. But now he sees he was wrong. He and Matt Murdock are nothing alike.
Because Frank is in Murdock's power now, for a change, and Murdock isn't doing a damn thing to take advantage of it. When he has every reason to do so, too. In fact, he's doing the very opposite.
If Frank was in Murdock's position with a man like himself opposite, and felt the way Murdock feels about the Punisher... Well, they wouldn't have ever arrived in the courtroom.
This feeling is respect.
Murdock's principles run deep, far deeper than he imagined. Murdock is a man hanging on to justice like a pit bull, whether it means being a vigilante by night or a lawyer by day. When it means representing the man who chained him to a rooftop, tormented him, and shot his client in front of him. When it means representing the Punisher because no one else would, and when he saw that he could fill the gap, his moral principles compelled him to do it. Frank doesn't consider himself courageous - you don't need courage to kill the men who murdered your family - but what Matt Murdock does takes courage.
Frank changes his mind. Their methodologies may be different, but in the end, both Matt Murdock and Frank Castle are the same.
They are both men of deep conviction.
But there are some casts of mind you cannot alter, and so Frank Castle joined the Marines, and Matt Murdock went to law school.
If he got out of this and back on the streets, Frank thinks, he would let Murdock alone, let him go about justice in his own fashion. He would stay out of his way. Respect between equals demands at least that much.
Now Murdock - Daredevil - his lawyer - turns and addresses Frank directly: "I have just one question I want to ask. What happened that day? The day your family was so tragically killed?"
Frank meets Murdock's blind gaze.
He knows where this is going. If he cooperates, they'll tar him with the brush of insanity, paint him as a mental flake, and he'll get off lighter. He hates the idea, but his newfound respect for Murdock suggests that he cooperate, and he agrees with it.
So it's too bad he has to screw Murdock over instead.
The slightest hint of regret colors his decision. But there's one thing he needs to do - his eyes flick to the guard standing in the first row and all he represents - and Murdock is in the way. And unfortunately, the only way to get around Murdock is to steamroll him.
"It's okay, Frank. I understand it's difficult."
It wasn't his family's story he paused over, he need not be upset at the misinterpretation - but the statement irritates him.
"Do you? Do you understand? 'cause I don't think you understand shit."
He sees the flicker in Murdock's jaw, knows he's making things harder for him. And really, it's too bad that Murdock doesn't understand. He doesn't understand where Frank's been, doesn't understand where he's going, and doesn't understand why he does what he does. And Frank might have to work with him on the case, but that doesn't make Murdock less of a pain in the ass. And one pain in the ass deserves another, right?
Murdock turns away, jaw still clenching, but he doesn't turn away completely, and Frank watches his inner struggle closely with a mixture of annoyance and admiration. God bless the man and his ridiculous moral convictions, he's actually going to keep on trying to save him.
"Permission to treat the witness as hostile, Your Honor?" he asks, and Frank thinks, I'm not the only one with some hostility here.
But when Murdock turns back, he's not only starting on a last attempt to convince the jury Frank is something other than a belligerent and dangerous mass murderer. He's also answering Frank Castle directly.
Vigilante to vigilante.
"I'm gonna tell you exactly what kind of man you are," Murdock says, and there's a different steel in his voice, the underlying hardness Frank recognizes even more clearly as the voice of Daredevil. "You're the man this city needs."
He sits back in surprise -
"Because, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we all know that this city needs help. Needs it now."
- and realizes that this is the way Matt Murdock takes advantage of power imbalances. Cunning bastard. He has a captive audience, a soapbox stage, and the social authority conferred by an advanced law degree, and he's going to milk it for all it's worth.
With precisely chosen rhetoric and deft advances from one point to the next, just as surely as he is defending the Punisher to the jury, Matt Murdock is defending himself to the Punisher.
Despite himself, Frank is impressed. It tempers his growing anger slightly.
"Because this city's been sick. And the cops, they can't fix it alone. They need - we all need - men and women who are willing to take on the fight themselves. The kind of people who risk their lives so that we can walk safe at night in our own neighborhoods. The ones our esteemed District Attorney here is trying so hard to destroy! New York needs these people.
"We need... heroes. They help they offer... and the hope that they provide."
Like Daredevil, maybe? The pause over "heroes" is obvious, but Frank ignores the comparison because he knows a contrast is going to follow it. And follow it does, perfectly timed.
Murdock is looking at the jury but Frank knows he's looking at him when he says, "Frank Castle wanted to help, but he took it too far. He shot people, he killed people."
He glances at the jury to see how they're taking this. It irritates him that Murdock is telling people he's a hero, because it lumps him in with the likes of Daredevil and that's not where he wants to be. It also irritates him how Murdock then uses the categorization as a straw man to knock him down.
But at the same time, it touches something in him... to think that his actions might mean something to the people of Hell's Kitchen, that they might bring relief to someone else besides himself.
And without warning, an elderly black woman meets his gaze. He knows the look in her eyes in an instant. It's not nervousness at making eye contact, it's not disgust or repulsion, it's not even impassivity.
It's disappointment, and it cuts him to the quick.
He drops his eyes.
"It's against the law, and he broke that law many, many times."
And with that the pain winks out and his resolve returns. Let them be disappointed. The law didn't help him and it won't. The formalities of law are merely a way for people to stamp social approval on their executions, that's all. And unlike Daredevil, he has never worked for their approval. Why, if he did, he'd be a lawyer too.
No, Frank Castle isn't interested in the law. He's interested in justice.
"Now, I don't like him any more than you do, but here's the thing, he's not a common criminal. He's not malicious in intent. Frank Castle is actually a good man! He just... He doesn't know the difference between right and wrong anymore."
The hell?
"And he doesn't need punishment for that. He needs help. Our help."
And this is all he can take.
Frank grits his teeth to keep in the expletives.
Of all the most condescending things Murdock could say, this is it. Frank does not need help. Frank knows the difference between right and wrong very clearly. Frank knows it better than Murdock, and that's why Murdock punches people and Frank punishes them.
He changes his mind again.
He's going to have no problem steamrolling Matt Murdock.
"That's the kind of man Frank Castle is. And now you have to decide what kind of jury you want to be."
Frank looks at the jury, gauging their response. With Murdock's speech ending, his moment is about to arrive.
He's ready to give Murdock a piece of his mind. That's the kind of man Frank Castle is, yeah?
Murdock thinks he can use the court for his own purposes. He thinks he can manipulate it, turn it into his personal soapbox. He thinks he can lodge a defense for Daredevil inside his defense of the Punisher, and he does, weaseling it in like a parasite. He thinks he can make an argument for Daredevil's moral superiority right in front of Frank's face, and it'll be a double win, because if the jury decides in favor of Frank Castle the defendant, they're also deciding against Frank Castle the Punisher.
And Murdock thinks Frank is just going to have to roll over and take it. Because if Frank wants to win the case, he has to cooperate. So Murdock has him over a barrel.
Frank would think little, really, of cooperating just to win the case. After all, isn't he planning on cooperating with worse to get where he wants?
But there is no way he will be manipulated into conceding the moral argument to Daredevil.
And that suits him just fine, because he wasn't planning on cooperating anyway. There's a verbal message with his name on it containing an open invitation to go right where he wants and get exactly what he wants, bypassing all the cowardly restraining idiotic formalities of the law. He could ask for no better.
Murdock says Frank is a good man?
Bullshit. Frank knows he is not good.
But he is right.
Murdock thinks he has the upper hand because he's the lawyer and he has the floor.
But Frank is in the witness box.
Murdock's shoulders drop, then, and he relaxes. He seems to think he's done a good job, and Frank imagines he sees a little self-satisfaction in his expression, at how he's managed to slip in some self-promotion along the way. Then he turns and starts walking back toward the defense.
"No further questions, Your Honor."
He's done.
Which means Frank's moment has finally arrived.
It's time for the Punisher's response to Daredevil.
"Your, ah... Your Honor. Can I say something?"
And it's time for the Punisher to be on his way.
A/N: The courtroom scene in 2x08 is fascinating and Jon Bernthal is an excellent actor. He doesn't have obvious expressions. It's just a twitch here and there, an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth... but he expresses volumes. You can see a lot in his face when Murdock meets him, both in the hospital and in the courtroom. I think Frank guessed at Murdock's identity in the hospital, but didn't confirm it until the courtroom. I tried to catch what must have been a confusing bundle of emotions at those moments.
And while writing this, I came to appreciate Matt more. I hadn't realized how many double entendres were going on in his speech, I discovered it in the writing process, and honestly, I'm not sure if Matt Murdock realized all of it himself. But if he did, and planned it notionally in advance, that's pretty clever of him.