Fratt/RedCastle makes me happy. This is set after Daredevil Season 2 and before the Defenders and Punisher. Although it maybe assumes that Frank killed every last member of the gangs that killed his family. Just, instead of working construction and trying to be a normal guy, he went back to Hell's Kitchen to gun down violent criminals. Because we all know which of those two Frank finds more satisfying.
Idiopathic neuropathy is the inability to feel tactile sensations. I did some basic research, and then I gave it my best guess/made it up. Ergo, I make no claims to medical legit-ness. XP I had this idea for a while, but when I started to rewatch Haven, Nathan's Trouble triggered me to actually type this out.
(-)
Frank woke up on someone's couch. He knew that because he could see the couch. The problem was that he couldn't feel the couch.
He couldn't feel anything. There was a terrifying void around him, sucking away reality except for periphery bits. He could smell coffee. He could taste some herbal shit flavor that he didn't remember drinking. He could smell the freshly laundered blanket covering him.
And, oh, a glance to his right showed him the Devil of Hell's Kitchen sitting in an armchair and staring at him. "What the fuck, Red?" The grumble wasn't very fearsome as Frank tried to sit up, only his body didn't seem to work like it should. He could barely lift his torso, and it just slumped to his left, further into the couch.
"Can you feel anything yet, Frank?" was the calm reply he got.
"You bastard. What the fuck did you do to me?" Frank seethed and tried again. He was working blind, unable to feel his body moving, but his muscles weren't completely shot to shit. Except they were, as he again seemed to suddenly lose his ability to move properly, flopping to his right and falling headfirst off the couch.
He didn't hit the floor. For a moment it was like he was suspended. But then he saw that Red had caught him. He growled, but his next words were lost as Red spoke after he tucked Frank back onto the couch.
"I didn't do this to you, Frank. You saved me from it. You don't remember?" Red's voice was soft and almost reverent. Jesus, the kid was never going to stop preaching about the good in him now.
But given something other than the void to focus on, Frank did start to remember. There were painted horses and ruined faces lingering, but that was just a fact of life. It started when he ran into Red; well, when Red ran into him fists-first to make his life difficult.
Frank could have picked a different area of New York to operate from, but, a truth he wouldn't admit to anyone, he actually enjoyed the company of the Devil. Even if he was an annoying sanctimonious shit who wanted to stop Frank at every encounter, Red made things interesting. Beating the shit out of each other, trying to plan to stay under his radar long enough to get things done; it was all new, a new routine and individual that settled itself as "normal" in Frank's fractured brain. When so much was carousels and screaming children, a familiar masked face with accompanying banter and flying fists was welcome to take the more prominent parts of Frank's thoughts.
After they started fighting, someone else wanted in. Something whizzed past Red's head after he was sprawled out on the ground, bleeding and weak, and some madness had driven Frank to get between the shooter's line of fire. He was wearing Kevlar, and whatever Red's fancy long-johns were made of, they weren't that good at stopping bullets.
Then, not a bullet but a needle stung his neck. Red had gotten to his feet by then and pulled Frank to cover. Frank thought he was paralyzed, but when Red smacked his face to snap him out of it, he realized that the touch didn't register. He told Red as much and didn't remember much of anything after that. Until he woke up.
"Poison? Someone wanted to poison you to not feel?" There was no question the attack was on Red; the darts hadn't started until Red was an unmoving target, and Frank was nowhere near the line of fire until he put himself in it.
Oddly, Red seemed to shiver. "Guess so." His voice was hesitant. "I think it's not just going to work itself out of your system. It did damage."
Frank couldn't feel it, but he was sure his muscles tensed. "You got a med degree I don't know about? Done some bloodwork? Why do you think that?" A dull panic was rising; Frank couldn't be handicapped. He couldn't live if he wasn't functional enough to fight and pull a trigger; that was what his life was now. More to the point, with the kinds of enemies he'd made, he wouldn't live.
"I just do. And I'm all but certain I'm right."
Frank's temper rose. "Has someone tried this before? Why did someone decide to do this to take you down without killing you? What the fuck aren't you telling me?"
The Devil sat still for a very long time. Frank was ready to ask again when he finally spoke. He faltered at first, but his words were deliberate. "I-I'm going to trust you, Frank."
And the Devil of Hell's Kitchen reached up and removed the mask that hid his precious identity. Frank just stared at him, the face only vaguely familiar before his mind added a pair of sunglasses. "My blind lawyer?"
"Matthew Murdock. Nice to meet you again, Frank." The kid's voice thinly veiled a nervousness that made him seem even younger.
Frank hadn't fully caught up. "My blind lawyer. So, you're not really blind? An act to get sympathy from the judge and jury?"
Red's face sported a brief look of indignant anger before he smoothed his expression. "No. My eyes don't work." He pushed his helmet in front of Frank's face. "Is this made for visibility?"
The opaque eye covers always did make him look even more impossible and devilish. And, no, Frank realized, it did not look conducive to seeing things clearly enough to fight. "But you've kicked my ass. You're saying I got my ass handed to me by a blind guy?"
That brought a grin to Red's face. "Yeah, Frank, that's what I'm saying. To be fair though, for not being able to see, I'm not very blind."
"Damn right. I thought you were an impressive fighter for a regular guy. You really are a damn demon if you fight like that without being able to see shit."
Red frowned, as if he wasn't sure if that should be taken as a compliment. "If I could see, I couldn't fight like I do. Sight is a distraction."
People who lose one sense get their other senses heightened to compensate. Everyone always said that. But that wasn't compensating. That was super-powering.
"How? How do you fight; how do you live? I would be less surprised to learn that you are the Devil. Blind guys are at a disadvantage and need help to function." As a scowl grew on Red's face, Frank added, "You don't."
Red set aside Frank's opinions on the blind. "I have four other senses. I can hear things in a penthouse suite when I'm thirty floors below, in a busy lobby. I can smell that you had garlic the night before last. I can taste the coppery flavor of blood in the air. I feel slight variances of temperature and air disturbance."
Before Frank could call bullshit, Red added, "I can smell the toxin and hear it spreading through you, eating away at your nerves."
Frank imagined he would have grown cold at that announcement, but temperature didn't exist. And maybe it never would again. Rage and disbelief and horror fought for dominance in him. Damn Red for getting him involved, for this happening because Red's damn crusade earned him sadistic enemies. But all that negativity stopped a moment later.
"Thank you, Frank." Red's voice was quiet and humble, like he was in awe of what Frank had done. "Really, thank you. You saved my life."
Even as that calmed Frank down and metaphorically warmed him, Frank wanted to point out that he was exaggerating. Frank got hit, and he was alive. Horribly damaged, but alive.
And then Frank considered how this would have affected Red. Frank was in a blank hell from suddenly not feeling. He couldn't imagine not seeing as well. He'd be lost, with no one to guide and protect him. And given how Red had chased off his friends, he would be just as alone and helpless.
This was a well-calculated attack by someone who knew the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and all his secrets. And it was cruel. A man called the Punisher thought it was cruel. Whoever this was really hated Red.
If it had to happen to someone, Frank would pick a pedophile, not a bleeding-heart vigilante. And Frank would certainly never want it for Red in particular, who was already operating with one disadvantage Frank hadn't known about. "Just as well, Red. Take you down to three senses and you'd be screwed.
"Very." Those eyes that Frank had never really gotten to see before seemed to be focused on him, which looked a little eerie, and Red's expression was serious, but soft. "You're staying with me. I'll help you adjust, and hopefully we can find a way to fix this."
After the knee-jerk "Hell no, I don't need Red's help" response went through his mind, Frank quickly settled on the inevitability of it. The only thing that made it more tolerable was that Red hadn't said he'd take care of Frank. Frank could take care of himself. And Frank suspected that Red's words had been chosen accordingly to tip the balance towards helpful rather than pitying. Fucking lawyer.
(-)
Settling in was a process. After Red helped him relieve himself (which was humiliating, but less so than pissing himself), he settled Frank back on the couch. Red's first task was to get Frank's hands functional again. He made Frank watch his own hand as he instructed him to flex and stretch and make gestures. While it was mostly uncontrolled twitches and jerks at first, Red used his hand to move Frank's while Frank tried to follow the directions. After a minute Red let go and Frank kept moving. The movements were awkward and imprecise, but they were close to doing what Frank told them to. He wondered how long he'd been out that had given Red time to plan all this.
Red did the same thing with Frank's left hand, and suddenly both his hands were obeying his commands, if doing a shitty job of it. Frank felt a little hopeful, like maybe he wasn't going to be a useless piece of shit for the rest of his life.
"That's right, Frank; you can do this. You're a stubborn bastard. This won't slow you down for long, and we both know it."
The fact that Red seemed to know what Frank had been thinking was unsettling. Surely mind-reading wouldn't be a side-effect superpower of blindness? Frank thought back to all the things he had thought when he was out fighting with Red, and he really hoped he was wrong.
"Calm down, Frank; I don't read minds." That statement contradicted itself, and it was far from reassuring.
Red sighed and stilled Frank's hands. "We're probably going to run into a lot of personal stuff here, and I already trusted you with my identity." He scrubbed at his face with his hands. "I'm not used to pretending to be blind in front of you, and I'm not censoring my extra reactions like I normally would."
"Why would you have to pretend to be blind if you are?"
Red groaned a little, obviously frustrated. "You remember your blind lawyer, right? Cane, sunglasses, occasionally bumps into stuff, doesn't respond to physical gestures like nods or hands extended to shake?"
Frank nodded, which suddenly made him smirk because Red nodded back and continued. "Now you remember Daredevil? Incredible reflexes and fighting skills, dodges things from behind without looking, knows precisely where to shoot chains to free himself, hears children's rhymes murmured in a room while fighting men armed with guns in the hall?"
That last one really made sense now. Red wasn't actually the Devil. He was a weird-ass blind ninja with super-senses. "I remember. What's your point?"
The groan was less restrained now. Frank wasn't picking up the point fast enough for Red's liking. "The point is that that blind lawyer could never be suspected of being an ass-kicking vigilante. He bumps into doorways in unfamiliar places and knocks things over when he's feeling around for what he wants."
Frank suddenly understood. "But you always know where everything is, so you can walk normally. And you can find exactly what you're looking for without needing to see anything."
Red had a small smile touch his lips. "If the clumsy blind lawyer suddenly dodges something thrown at him that he has no way of anticipating, or if he accidentally reveals that he heard the conversation behind a closed door down the hall, it's obvious he's better than blind. I censor my responses to all the extra stimuli so no one can tell that I function on a level higher than sighted people. But I'm used to being Daredevil around you. I'm not used to pretending to be less than I am for your benefit."
"That's good. Don't," Frank said before his mind had a chance to weigh in.
Red looked surprised. "That's…rather accepting. I know I can creep people out when I let go of both identities. When it's known that I'm a blind man, and I don't hide my super-senses."
"You're a blind ninja superhero. Yeah, you're weird as shit, but also amazing. Who else knows about the real you and is creeped out?"
That startled a laugh out of Red, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Not a hero. But Foggy found out about me. He sees my powers as invasive. Which they kind of are. It's why I was trying to assure you that I can't read minds even as I showed insight to your thoughts."
Frank looked at the man before him. His blind lawyer who had skipped out on most of his trial, but also the vigilante-nemesis whose presence had become essential to Frank's life and sanity. And this man was where those two different identities became one real person.
"So, you don't read minds; how do you know things? Tell me how you work, Red. You don't scare me."
A blinding, no pun intended, grin lit Red's face. Nelson must have reacted very badly if this was the response to his serial-killer enemy accepting him.
"We don't have time for a full explanation now; I'll just tell you as we go. But I have insight into people mainly because I can hear their heartbeat. It's an inadvertent reaction that can tell me a lot. And you should know that you can't lie to me. I can always tell."
Frank wasn't scared by that, not really, but it was a little like learning someone could read your mind. The first things you think of are the things you don't want heard. Well, Frank was struck by all the things he would need to lie about to Red, and the danger now that he knew he couldn't. It excited him. He was a crazy self-destructive bastard, after all.
"I guess that means you think that's cool?" Red asked after a few moments of silence. He wasn't hiding what he could sense about Frank from Frank, but he obviously wasn't sure if he should have told him all that truth at once.
Frank huffed out a laugh. "Like you read my mind, kid."
Red chuckled. "Keep working with your hands. Five, then 'okay', then the surfer thing with the thumb and pinkie. First right hand, then your left. Keep alternating between the two. I'm going to change and then get some food ready."
As Red moved off into the bedroom, Frank wished he could sense heartbeats. Red looked excited and pleased. Frank dutifully worked on his hands, and when Red came back out he was wearing sweats and a t-shirt. He looked…nice. Not that his little lawyer suits looked bad, and not that he didn't somehow manage to pull off the ridiculous costume. But this was more casual, more real. Not a lawyer, not Daredevil. Just himself.
He was carrying the costume though, and after grabbing the mask that still sat next to the couch, he took them to a storage area. Inside, he opened a trunk, pulled out a false bottom, and stowed the costume away. He replaced the false bottom, closed and locked the trunk, and then locked the door to the storage area.
"Keep going, Frank," Red said as he moved past the couch into the kitchen area.
Frank hadn't even noticed that he'd paused. Well, of course he hadn't. He couldn't feel anything he was doing so if he wasn't paying attention and watching his fingers move, they likely wouldn't. Pain in the ass.
Red could obviously sense his frustration because he said, "It'll get better. Even if you don't feel, your body has muscle memory. But your muscles have been weakened, your nerves stripped away, and there are other problems we haven't even touched yet. Your body can work like it should. You just have to regain your strength and retrain yourself to overcome the fact that your body relies heavily upon tactile feedback to function."
Frank rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Sunshine. And after all that we hug it out and talk about our feelings, right?"
He still couldn't see Red, but he heard him snort. "Why? You looking for that, Frank? Your hair is too short to braid, and I'd be a poor judge of what color of nail polish would complement your eyes."
That made Frank laugh, more freely than he had in a while. Red joined in, and it was a much more pleasant atmosphere surrounding them. When they calmed, Red let out a satisfied sigh. "See? However much we love to beat each other up, we can still get along. This won't be so bad."
"So we sing 'Kumbaya' after dinner, right?"
"Shut up and concentrate on making your hands work."
(-)
First chapter. Was it fun? Frank is a bit squishy, but he's also recognized that Matt is important to him. I chose to use Frank's perspective since he definitely doesn't know all that's going on, especially with his new problem, and Matt knows everything. Also, I just love Frank wrestling with the fact that his blind lawyer is Daredevil.
The physical therapy is absolutely me just trying to invent plausible exercises to help Frank.
I'd love to hear feedback, if you have a minute.