Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: Frank goes looking for Red and finds the Devil.
Season 3 speculation.
Author's Notes: I haven't produced a chapter this quickly in months. Thank goodness, because I have every intention of finishing this fic before the new season drops on October 19!
Readers, dear Readers, thank you for your time, your kindness, and support. We are at T-minus ten days from the newest – and, by the looks of it, most brutal – season of Daredevil so far. I hope you enjoy. Cheers!
Three
Watching the city descend into darkness, watching the rooftops transform into the devil's playground, it's uncanny. Hell of a thing – doing something so often it's commonplace only to find that one day, it isn't – that's what hunting for the Devil is. It's usual, but it's also weird as fuck. Frank's got the same eyes and same instincts; he's armed and out to do the same as he's always done. But the Devil. The fucking Devil. Kid took the book and flipped it on its head. Words are in the same order, but they don't make sense.
Curt doesn't help. He takes the information Frank gives him and starts drawing all sorts of conclusions, some of the helpful, lots of them…irrelevant. Curt reads into things that don't matter for the mission. They got more important shit to do than wonder why the Devil hasn't reached out to anyone since coming back from the dead.
They also shouldn't have ditched the rope and chains they were gonna bring. Frank's still seething about that. Curt seems to think that the Devil needs to come nicely or not at all. The hell does he think happened in the church? If talking was gonna work, it would have worked last night. Devil's much more interested in chucking people across rooms and throwing 'em into walls.
Frank says as much into the radio and earns a disappointed hiss of white noise in response. "Yeah, let's wrap the injured guy in chains. Good thinking, Frank."
"Better than the alternative."
"What? Respecting his wishes? That's worse than locking him up in chains."
Frank sees where this is going: "The Devil isn't –"
"How much faster I'd've gotten your ass to group if I–"
The police radio buzzes. Break-in. Four guys on the run. "Gotta go to work, Curt," Frank says. He puts his vehicle in drive and lets the flood of adrenaline drown out the rest of Curt's snarky diatribe. Putting his ass in chains is different. It's different. Him and the Devil couldn't be more different.
Cops have the thieves apprehended by the time Frank reaches the area. Devil put them down for the count and slipped back into shadows. Time to start tracking. Frank gets his ass up high, surveying the city from the Devil's eye-view. There's blood splashed on the brick above where the last thief fell. Aspirated or spat – Devil's bleeding from the mouth or his lung. If it's the latter, he isn't going far.
Curt comes in over the radio, straight into Frank's ear: "They've got sighting down 42nd."
Frank hoofs it, leaping over the rooftops, chasing a phantom. Chasing the idea of a phantom. Devil's willed himself completely invisible save for the bloody handprint he scraped on an access door. The path is coming to an end with an intersection. So what's the plan, then, hero? Swing across like the fucking webslinger in Queens? Nah – Frank spots a blur of shadow taking a hard left down the next block. Devil's clipped his wings, or maybe he doesn't feel so much like flying with all the blood coming out of him.
Instinct takes over, and despite his pace, Frank feels like time is slowing down. He's got eyes on the Devil, but there's somebody else. Whole lot of somebodies, potentially. This area's surrounded by vantage points. Takes a sniper to really see them, to appreciate just how exposed this area of the city is. Frank scans the surrounding rooftops, the windows. Where would he go, if he was hunting the devil with a rifle? The more impossible the location, the better. This shooter can make a bullet go just about wherever he wants.
Frank skids to a halt, eyes back to the shadow of the Devil. Kid's entering a leap across an alley. Frank arms himself, takes aim, and fires before he starts in with one batch, two batch, penny and dime.
The Devil's struck. He flops out of his perfectly executed flip like he's hit a wall, midair, before falling into the alley. He's still in view when another round strikes the brickwork across from him, a round that would have hit the Devil, had Frank not hit him first.
Frank jumps over the edge of the rooftop and out of the sniper's line of sight, holstering his weapon as he does. "I got him," he tells Curt, relaying the location of the alley. Curt can get there, block off the mouth, locking the Devil into the snarl of buildings and laneways in the block. But Frank isn't halfway to the ground when he sees the Devil climbing his way back onto the roof from the alley where he fell. He's taking a path directly back into the sniper's line of sight.
"Fuck, Red!" Frank hisses. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"What is it?" Curt asks.
"I told you we should have brought chains," Frank grumbles, though what the hell chains would have done at this particular moment is a whole lot of nothing. He stops on a fire escape ladder, pulls out his gun, and takes as much time as he can lining up the next shot. Not the ribs, not the head: somewhere that'll hurt, that'll take the Devil down, but won't risk exacerbating one of his existing injuries. "One batch, two batch –" Frank fixes his sights on the Devil's left forearm, "- penny and dime."
He fires; the Devil's hand slips. Frank immediately sets up another shot on the Devil's right arm and fires again, knocking him to the ground.
"He's down," Frank tells Curt, and he drops down too, racing off to meet the Devil in the alley.
The Devil is crawling out of a dumpster when Frank arrives. He looks like absolute hell and moves like a crushed spider, limbs shaking in odd directions as he marches forward for another fight.
Frank sighs. Fucking hell, not this again. Devil should have gone down a long time ago. Hell, he would've gone down tonight if he kept climbing that wall. "Don't do this, Red," Frank tells him.
The Devil doesn't stop walking towards him. "Fuck you, Frank," he says, launching into an attack. "You shouldn't have come here."
"I shouldn't have come here? I just saved your life, you piece of shit! You could've been decorating the side of this building! That what you want, Red? You want to die?"
Red's only answer is to yell. "I'll take that as a yes," Frank chides him. "Yes-fucking-please. Kill my ass. Should've let that asshole do it. I should've-"
They land on the pavement, exchanging blows: the Devil aiming for Frank's face and stomach, Frank aiming for the Devil's injuries. Anything to slow him down. Rubber bullets clearly weren't enough to knock the fight out of him, another point of contention between him and Curt. Should have brought the tranqs, but no, had to respect the kid's wishes. Better to stick to bare-knuckle brawling the kid. Because that worked so well last time.
The Devil throws him; Frank lands on his feet and comes back, strategizing. He tries to knock the kid's shoulder out of joint, but the Devil dances with him, riding the twist to his arm with ease. He knees Frank twice in the chest, then grapples him, rolls him, grabs him by the neck and shoves him up against the wall.
"STOP."
Frank grips at the kid's arm, fuming. "Oh, now you want him to stop? Now?" Curt draws near the melee, his hands in his pockets. Cool as a fucking cucumber while the edges of Frank's vision blacken and fizzle. "Get him, Curt. Get him off me."
But Curt isn't speaking to him: "You the Devil of Hell's Kitchen?"
The Devil presses his hand even more tightly into Frank's neck. "I'm Daredevil."
Curt nods. "Frank calls you Red."
"Frank's wrong."
"God damn it, Curt." Frank bashes at the kid's forearm. Kicks at the kid's chest. Chokes. "God damn it –"
Curt ignores him. Focuses on the kid: "You got another name?"
"No."
"Alright, Daredevil." Curt holds out his hands inside of his pockets, palms open in invitation, in politesse. "I'm gonna need you to put Frank down."
The Devil turns to him, the black expanse of his mask one giant, unblinking eye in the dark. "Is he going to leave me alone?"
"Probably not," Curt says, "But if you keep strangling him, I won't either." He holds the silence for a moment before adding, "Look, if you're not gonna kill him, you're just pissing him off, and I'm the one who's gonna have to deal with him. That makes you my problem."
The Devil throws Frank in the pavement, hard enough that he can't retaliate, at least not immediately. He watches fat drops of blood splash in a circle around the Devil's feet, fresh from his knuckles, his arms, his mouth and nose. This close, he can see the tremors wrecking the kid's black clad figure, can see the mess that he's made of himself even without the sniper's bullet splattering him against the wall.
If Curt notices the state of the kid, he gives no indication. "Thanks," he says, hands still in his pockets. "My name's Curtis, by the way."
The Devil smirks, taking another step back. "I don't care what your name –"
He doesn't see it coming. Frank barely does. Curt moves so damn fast – hands out of his pockets, arms stretched out in front of him, than BANG. The gun goes off. A silver dart leaves the chamber and buries itself in the Devil's side. He steps too late, reaches too late, tries to get away too late. All his actions too late. Can sense danger, smell fear, heart whispers hundreds of yards away, but he never picked up on Curt.
He staggers into the dark to Curt at first, gait sloppy. Knees buckling. The drugs'll kick in quicker with him being such a mess, but he's still fighting, and he decides to run rather than hand himself over.
Frank unpeels himself from the pavement and watches the show. "Thought you said no tranqs."
"Not for you," Curt says. He tosses his head towards the Devil of Hell's Kitchen collapsing in the dark. "Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation? Go get him. I'll bring the car around."
The walk to the Devil eases the burning in his neck. Frank arrives to the kid clinging to a fire escape ladder, the strength draining out of his bloody limbs, his mouth hanging slack from his jaw. He breathes raggedly, fighting. Fighting so God damn hard that Frank doesn't stop him from trying: trying to climb the ladder, trying to get his legs under himself, trying to hang on while his hands loosen their grip.
Frank catches the kid when he falls and hangs onto him, marvelling as the same hands that tried to climb away pound against his chest, claw at his shoulders. The Devil tosses himself to the sides, needing to get away as if there's something for him to get away to, as if there's somewhere to go that Frank won't follow. His yells wilt and wither with every passing beat, the rage succumbing despite his efforts, despite it being bigger and badder than the Devil himself. He isn't being torn up by the world; he's being torn up from the inside-out.
"Hell of a thing, isn't it? Hell of a thing, Red," Frank says, and leaves it at that. It's all a hell of a thing. The dying, the coming back, the fighting, and all so you can die again.
The Devil grunts and gives Frank one last push, and then he drops, limp, against Frank's arms. Night resumes its ugly quiet. Blood gleams black over the exposed half of the Devil's face. His breath is bubbles and wheezes, but it keeps coming, one right after a-bloody-nother.
As he heaves the kid up into a lift, Frank feels a strange absence on his chest. Kid wasn't strong enough to do any damage with his last attack. First time ever he didn't leave a bruise.
Happy reading!