A/N: A thousand thank yous to you all.
This fandom is the best.

She has been through hell.
So believe me when I say,
fear her when she looks
into a fire and smiles.

~E. Corona~

"Karen, you've got to give me something to work with here."

Her fingers still sank into the warm fabric around her with one hand. Battered heels hung from the other, nudging against her leg as she paced quicker than comfortable along the dark sidewalk. She couldn't do this right now. There was no space left in her tired psyche for what it would require.

Only one of the pair of men remained at her side in the shadows, the other disappearing with a knowing look to his eyes as opportunely as he'd arrived – though a dwindling, unseen presence rose the small hairs at the base of her skull and had her glancing toward the rooftops every so often as she moved along the streets. It could've just been paranoia, but at least it briefly distracted her from Matt's endless plea for understanding.

She'd known he was a liar and that he was required to be good at it in his profession. But she never could have prepared herself for one of this caliber.

"Just say something… please?"

The strain on the word somehow fanned at the flame creeping around her heart and did enough to dull it – just enough. Matt had always been good at that though, she supposed.

There was a dark poetry to the sight when she stopped short at the base of her apartment stoop and turned to find him, the soft glow of the front lights just barely edging his masked face from where he stood in the building's silhouette. He had kissed her sweetly, over and over again the last time they'd shared this particular small space together and she had believed she found her first taste of happiness in a city that seemed determined to squelch it from existence – it could have been lifetimes ago now.

"It hurts to be left in the dark without answers doesn't it?" She asked with the frustrated tilt of her head, doing what she could to keep the unwarranted sense of betrayal wound safely in her chest and off her tongue, where it had been building since the day she'd walked into his apartment to find a strange, gorgeous woman in his bed. A resigned sigh fell from her. "What do you want me to say Matt?"

Karen could feel his attention on her, heavy like stone, though he faced the street.

"I guess I just want to know that you're okay…"

It was sincere as always and did something to chip away at her already cracked composure. She couldn't stop the icy breath that hissed its way out in a bitter laugh.

"Why now and not a few weeks ago when we needed you in court?" Her brow lifted. "When we were doing everything we could to win the biggest case of your career… Or what about when I was helping your best friend after he got shot to shit, huh? Where exactly were you then?"

His head dipped for a moment and a pair of horns caught the light.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you…"

And that shattered her into a million sharp edges.

"That's just it!" She snapped, her heels tossed recklessly onto the ground. "You never give me a chance to believe you – or a reason to for that matter. Trust is earned Matt, and this," she pushed her finger out from the front of Frank's jacket and drew it up the length of him. "This is not the way to do it. I'm not your client anymore. You don't have to protect me from this shit…" Her shoulders fell as she took a steadying breath. "You were just supposed to be there for me while I dealt with it…"

He shifted uneasily in the night, the entirety of him seeming unsure of whether to draw closer or away.

"I was always there if you needed me."

"Yeah, just a call away right? Just like for Foggy?" She returned, knowing every bit how bitter she sounded, but she could repeat the answering message of his voicemail by heart and for weeks it had been the only way she or Foggy could hear his voice. A troubling thought nearly knocked the poison and air from her completely. "Does he know?"

Matt went silent, deciding to take the step that would press his back against the bricked building. His head tilted wearily toward the black sky and Karen knew the answer before he spoke it. Her stomach churned.

"How long?" She asked low, breaking the silence, hot tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

"A while now," he murmured finally. "…Karen I owe you an apology that I could never…"

"I don't want anything from you Matt," she breathed, facing away from him to hide her injured expression and retrieve her shoes. Discomfort contorted her features as she struggled to bend forward. "Not anymore. Not your lies, or bullshit…" Sharp eyes stopped him at the edge of the shadows. "And especially not your help."

She had just made her way up the concrete stairs and slipped her key into the front door.

"It's Frank, isn't it?" He asked from somewhere beneath her, and the flat question curled in her core and froze her cold - the same sensation that would arise every time she'd silently asked herself the same thing.

Rounded eyes peered down over the banister. "What?"

"I'm blind, not neglectful, Karen." He said, soft as the night. "He's all over you."

Karen cocked her head at him like he was truly as insane as Frank had called him out for being.

"What the hell does that even mean?" She asked defensively.

"I hear things. I know what he's been up to." Matt nodded toward her. "And I know that's his long coat you're holding around you so tightly… He's been helping you, hasn't he?"

It was a statement more than a question and she found herself taking a step back from it, finding a sense of comfort in her body being hidden from the glinting red eyes of his mask behind the railing. A part of her wondered if he was even really blind or if he had lied about that too.

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"His actions make it my business, Karen," he returned fast. "He's not a safe man to be around."

She gave a humorless laugh at that, recalling the multitude of times she'd argued the same notion with the man himself, using both her fevered words and accidental recklessness to successfully prove him wrong every time. Matt always decided to give a shit when it was far too late.

"And you are?"

"He lives by different rules…" He pressed. "Acts on different morals – or lack thereof."

"You mean he kills people." Karen said bluntly, where he wouldn't. They'd shared this dance before.

"And you seriously don't find anything wrong with that still?" He returned harsher, a dash of disgust weighing on his voice, reminding her of their last 'date' at his apartment and making it known that he recalled it just as clearly. "You saw what he did to those two men back there Karen."

So the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had a superiority complex. What a great headline that would make. Frank's frustration with him back at the warehouse had been a puzzle to her at the time, but now with every sentence this infuriatingly judgmental side of Matt spoke, another piece fell into place.

"Yes, I did," she nodded tightly, a new sort of heat burning away the moisture from her eyes. "But you didn't see what they were about to do to me, Matt." She drew every wisp of the flame within her to her tongue so he could get a taste of it too. Her jaw clenched hard. "And you don't know a goddamn thing about Frank Castle."

She turned her back to him, jerking the front door unlocked with the sharp twist of her key and shutting it hard behind her.

It was supposed to feel better once she was alone in her apartment.

The dirt of the day shouldn't have been able to reach her this high up, hidden behind the protection of locks, and brick and mortar, and drawn windows. They'd been fixed somehow, but she barely had time to fixate on it before she was shedding the layers of her clothing, hanging Frank's jacket on the hook by her door and ripping open the remaining two buttons that had desperately attempted to hold her ruined blouse closed at her navel.

Her reflection stared back at her, jaded in the bathroom mirror. She looked like shit, a thick layer of grime etching her face that never really seemed to come off for long no matter how often she bathed and fresh blood staining the closures over the knot at her temple. Red on white. She blinked her eyes away.

The scalding hot water burned at first but she held still beneath it, letting it wash down her hair and back for a long time before she eased her arms against herself to let it rinse the blood from her wrists with labored breaths – and holy shit it stung, like burning thorns dragged against the screaming skin.

The curse on her lips morphed slowly into a bone shaking laugh. One that sounded mental to her ears and chilled her as she lost herself in the steam.

This wasn't her; the easy going girl from Vermont who found solace in her family and rolling, green hills. Losing one meant having to abandon the other and she would swear right then that her sanity had been left behind somewhere along the way, lost somewhere in the unfamiliar city streets that she had once sought out for refuge.

There was nothing of the sort to be found here. Just more and more lies, and cold steel, and conscious-less animals ready to defile anything they could sink their claws into.

She could still feel their touch on her skin – her neck, chest, shoulder – as tired arms gave every last bit of energy they had to scrub the sensation away. Silent tears fell now, colliding with the droplets of water that sat heavy on her lashes and trailing as one down her face.

There was no fight left to give. Nothing to stop the void in her chest from breaking and spilling through her like molten lead.

And for a long while, she let go, allowing it to flow freely from her and mingle with the tinted pool of water at her feet.

Frank had recognized those shitbags the moment he spotted them. They were Fisk's. He'd seen their pictures stamped in the corner of numerous case files and was well enough aware that Karen was not their first victim – and would not have been their last. So now the sick fucks wouldn't be able to put their hands on another woman ever again.

He only came down from the rooftop after she had let herself inside, giving him enough time to patch himself up and set his lookout point. If Fisk's influence was growing beyond the walls of the prison, the failed hit on her tonight would not be the last, leaving him the the immeasurable task of figuring out why and keeping Red out of his goddamn way-

But she was doing part of the work for him.

Overhearing their conversation below hadn't been his main objective, but it ensnared him like a vice.

A certain degree of moroseness reached his ears, coming in almost equal amounts from the pair, but taking different forms as he pushed her to the point of no return. Frank had been right about that too – she really loved him. But something changed when she snapped, voice dripping with so much ire that Frank's brow rose with it, and he nearly risked a glance over the edge to be sure they weren't about to start swinging.

She was something else entirely after that, her words slipping through her teeth and fusing with his own name as he was thrown up in the mess, and it struck him hard – the way her voice grated beneath the weight of her defense, too familiar for comfort.

After she was safely inside, he tucked his rifle against him and descended to her fire escape, telling himself it was more to appraise the window repair men's work than anything else – which he had paid them very well to do right, and it seemed like they had, minus the phone call that he was almost certain she wouldn't have been able to answer, regardless. It would take some serious firepower to shatter them now.

His more legitimate suspicions were confirmed as he sat with his back pressed against the wall, the chill of it reaching him through his vest and shirt, and he swore he could feel her despair shaking through brick with each of her drawn cries – ones that he knew had been building within her from the moment he'd found her bound and displayed.

The sudden need to move was almost startling in its unyielding grip on him – to do something, anything – but he could not be what she needed right now, not from his distance, so he only bowed his head and shared her suffering.

It had gone silent for a long while, the hum from the pipes in the wall fading as water slowly came to rest. The night was a cold one but Frank paid it no mind. Instead he listened to the occasional whine of a kitchen cabinet being opened or the pat of soft steps against wood, but the sounds of the restless city would've drowned them out to the distracted ear.

It had to have been why he missed the sound of her moving across the room, the sudden slide of the window at his left leaving his hands tight around the gun in his lap. When her head peered out, damp hair tumbling over the shoulders of a thick, white bathrobe, his fingers fell loose against it and the faint look of contentedness that touched her eyes when they found him through the dark was something that he decided would never sit quite right in his gut.

Karen ducked out the window and Frank watched fixedly as her bare feet stepped gingerly across the icy steel. Without missing a beat, she eased herself down the wall to sit at his side, the fresh smell of her floral soaps catching in the breeze and drifting all around him. It was her mission, it seemed, to throw him a curve ball like this every time he thought he had her pinned and faithfully believing he'd be there to catch it.

He would never let himself be so arrogant as to feel it had somehow been earned.

"How'd you know I was out here?"

His eyes flicked downward toward the motion of her crisscrossing her legs and tucking her toes beneath them, the long robe sheathing her like an ashen gown. It left their knees touching and the warmth there lingered.

"I didn't," she admitted softly with the small lift of her good shoulder. Her fingers fidgeted in her lap. "I just hoped you would be."

It drew his eyes to hers and he had never seen them so swollen, the deep shadows beneath them nearly matching his waning bruises.

"It's cold tonight. You should go get some sleep." He said, doing everything he could to put conviction behind the request – but it was just that.

Karen's eyes traded his for the skyline.

"You're one to talk." The retort came from her sounding as weary as she looked, but lacked any real frustration. She shifted the smallest fraction closer, her shoulder brushing against him as she used his steady form to relieve some of the pressure from her own. "It's bad for your health y'know, sleep deprivation."

His low scoff rumbled through them both. On any other night he would have called her on her piss poor diversion.

"You're frustrating as hell, you know that?" He sent back with the draw of his brow and it was her turn to rock them with soft laughter.

He couldn't help but glance tight lipped at the phenomenon of such a thing, given the shitty circumstances she always found herself in. There was a strength to her that he would never know for himself, that knew no bounds, the way she walked in and out of haunting situations as if she were the one to be afraid of.

But even so, they were always determined to leave their mark on her, the sight of her skin when she raised a hand to tuck her hair behind her ears effortlessly snapping him back to where they sat.

"Let me see your wrists."

She complied almost too easily, holding her hands up before her so that wide sleeves fell to bunch at the creases in her elbows. The wounds had been washed thoroughly, shown plainly enough by the sheer angriness of the area. He set his gun down along his legs and pulled the last of his roll of bandages from his pants pocket, angling himself toward her and doing what he could to ignore the sensation of her soft hand over his as he wrapped each of her wrists and bound them with just enough pressure to stop the bleeding – just as he'd done a thousand times before.

"Thank you," Karen whispered, looking more at the skull on his chest than at him, as his fingers were tying off the final knot.

It wasn't the first time she had thanked him. Nothing new. But this time she was in his hands. Too close. Smelt too good to him, like a breath of fresh air free from the god-awful smelling city. Breathtaking in the sharp edges of her brokenness.

He released her, shifting back a safe distance against the rails opposite her.

"Don't thank me yet ma'am. I need you to tell me something first."

Frank watched her frame grow tense.

"Is that why you're here?" She asked him carefully. "What is it, Frank?"

"Fisk." He said the name and gauged her reaction to it, watching as it turned soft shivers from the cold into full on trembles. She wrapped her arms tight around her and swallowed. "Why does he want you dead?"

A heavy silence hung in the air, leaving her rigid as the steel beneath them by the time he broke it again.

"I'm giving you a chance to tell me before I find out in ways you're not gonna like."

Her attention snapped on him like a spotlight.

"You wouldn't…"

"I damn sure will. Whatever Fisk knows, I can too. Won't be all that difficult either." Frank held his ground and her poignant gaze as she so clearly tried to decide whether or not to believe him. It reminded him of a small diner and the widening of blue eyes at the mention of guns over coffee. He was barking up the right tree. "But I owe you a chance to be honest with me first. This is it." He was direct with her where he would not be with himself. This was nothing more than a drop of water in an angry sea and he was excruciatingly aware that he could never fully repay her for what she'd lost in his name. He would start by keeping her alive.

"I…" She hesitated, her eyes falling to her lap. Whatever she'd done, it ate at her still. He could see so in the sickness of her expression and paling of her skin. "If I talk about it, it makes it real Frank. And I-I can't…" Her words were cut off by her hand rising to cover her mouth. He knew this look.

"Were you protecting yourself?"

Her face crumpled before him. She nodded soundlessly into her hand.

And for a short moment he could only rap his finger against the barrel of his gun while he watched her fight her demons, her eyes drawing shut tightly as she struggled to hold them in and not fold forward. The words he knew he should say refused come to him, his ability to scare the monsters away disappearing from his grasp just as quickly as he'd become one.

"Then they deserved it," he finally spoke soft, and it was all he could give her because it was all he believed. "Whatever was done to you would've been done to someone else and they might not have had the brass to walk away from it alive."

Her eyes opened, tearless and timid on him and he'd seen this before too. "You bastard," she sent through the space between her fingers, and it was a desperate attempt to smother the fact that she knew he was right.

"Now that's more like it." He met her gaze in earnest until the tension slowly made its way from her shoulders and she uncoiled, letting her hand fall to her lap. His eyes followed it before they lifted back hers. "I don't know what kind of trouble is comin' yet, but it's best to be ready for anything." Her .380 was warm in his hand when he pulled it from the back of his belt. He held the safe end out to her. "One of those assholes tried to pull it on me. Keep it on you. Not in your purse. They go for that first every time."

Karen hesitated before she took it from him, lips parted, her hand hovering inches from the grip.

"After what you've just learned – you give me my gun back like…"

Frank pressed it into her hand.

"Changes nothin'. I've seen the way you hold this thing." He couldn't stop the lift of his lip. "Practice makes perfect ma'am."

His words had been the right ones for once and he watched as they released her from some sort of internal chains. Something in him lightened with it as she rolled the weapon over deliberately in her hands for a moment, until her gaze shifted between it and her wrapped wrist. She went cold as ice before his eyes.

"I get it now." She trailed the pad of her thumb across the hammer of the gun before she looked up at him, a dozen emotions flickering across her face before stopping at unquestionably stoic. "I need you to know that."

The silence between her borrowed words spoke volumes and he grasped her meaning almost immediately – and fuck did it hurt to watch something so beautifully pure in intention become so irreversibly corrupted by necessity. She had put herself on the line for him to not lose a similar fight the night before, only to be forced over to his side of it a single goddamn day later.

He could only nod back at her, his mind already devising a plan to give this defiling city the proper cleaning it so desperately deserved.