Matt is cornered on the roof of some random building, and he's pretty sure the only reason he's still alive is because Benjamin Poindexter has been playing with him.
Yet another metal shard just barely cuts through Matt's arm, and he winces. It's not a deep cut, actually rather shallow, but considering there are multiple of these shards buried in the wall surrounding him, he's fairly certain he's going to die very soon.
"Now what threat does a blind lawyer like you pose to Fisk, hm?" the guy asks, genuinely curious. Matt would also like to know, but it's not like Fisk has been very forthcoming, except to try to send him to his death...multiple times. But Matt survived every single assassination attempt. He has to survive this one, too.
Matt grimaces. It's not looking (hah) too good for him right now. He should really stop it with the blind jokes in mortal peril. "No idea," he forces out. "Why don't you leave and ask him?"
"Nadeem supported your firm," Poindexter continues. "He died because of it."
"You killed him," Matt bites out. "You didn't have to but you did. What did that bring you? Happiness, some sort of sick pleasure? What do you get from all of this?"
"It's my calling, my gift," he says, sounding like he's repeating somebody else's words, and Matt has an idea as to whose.
"He's lying to you," Matt says.
"You're lying to me, doing everything you can to get out of this alive."
"He's manipulating you, and you just don't see it!" Matt screams, thrusting his hands out for all the world to see. He doesn't care. How many lives has Fisk ruined in his path for revenge? How many more lives will he ruin just to get back at Matt?
Poindexter cocks his gun. Oh, no more random projectile objects, then. Matt's pretty sure there's a bruise on his lower back from a damn eraser.
"Why are you really doing this?" Matt asks quietly, leaning back against the wall as the sound of gravel being crushed underfoot comes closer. He swallows as the gun is traced along his jawline.
"Why not?"
"You've killed innocent people, with friends and family. Ray Nadeem had a wife and a kid, and you knew that, didn't you? You worked with him, and still you looked him straight in the eye and pulled the trigger—"
"SHUT UP!" he screams. He's hooked, Matt thinks. It's time to push on.
"Who are we to you, huh? Matthew Murdock, Franklin Nelson, Karen Page: these names mean absolutely nothing to you—"
"They mean everything—"
"To Fisk, maybe. To you?" Matt shrugs. "They're just names, words, really."
Poindexter growls, stepping even closer and pressing the gun to the side of Matt's head. Matt's starting to think that maybe angering the trigger-happy guy isn't the best idea. "I could kill you right now," he says, lowly.
"But you haven't," Matt points out. "What have I done to you? Why are you doing this?"
"If you're trying to make me feel bad about murdering people...I hate to break it to you, but I didn't, I don't. They deserved it."
"Maybe so," Matt concedes, "but that doesn't erase the fact that you're being used, and I think, deep down, somewhere in there, you know it."
He is unprepared for the gun to be pushed into his temple, hard, bruising the skin there. Oh shit, maybe he's really about to die. He's survived a lot but a bullet to the head really is cutting it close.
Maybe he can't survive this one.
So, he does the next best thing.
He curls his right hand into a fist, swings his arm up, and punches the guy in the face.
He's pretty sure he only succeeded because of the element of surprise.
Anyways, he uses the distraction to push the gun up, knocking it away from his head and out of Poindexter's hand, and then pushing Poindexter himself to the side. He scrambles into the other direction, trying to figure out where the stairs are, how big the roof is, how close the edge is, when a body slams into his. He hits the ground, hard, the breath knocked out of him, and then there are hands grappling at the front of his shirt, pulling him so close he can practically feel the breaths of the man who has him at his mercy.
"This is my purpose," he says.
"Don't do this," Matt tries, scrabbling at the other man's hands, and then a gunshot rings out. Matt flinches, tenses up, closes his eyes tightly, prepared to die. Warm blood splatters onto his face and neck, and he can feel it on his skin, taste the copper in his mouth. This is too familiar.
He knows this sound, but the pain doesn't come.
The hands on Matt's shirt loosen their grip, and then Poindexter, of all people—not Matt, never Matt—is falling, and it takes a moment for Matt to register that he's falling too far, falling off the roof and down several stories and bringing Matt along with him. Matt gasps, hating this sense of weightlessness until different hands, equally as trigger-happy, grab onto his arms and haul him back up onto the roof.
Matt collapses onto it like a dying man (he is a dying man) and tries to catch his breath.
"Hey, Red," Frank fucking Castle says. Matt is always annoyed to see him. Greet him. Whatever.
"I had him," Matt says, as if it's true. "I was this close to convincing him. You- you didn't have to kill him!"
"He was one millisecond away from killing you, forgive me for trying to save you," Frank says, like they've had this argument a million times.
"He's another victim of Fisk," Matt says as he sits up, trying to get someone to understand. "I wanted to save him."
"You can't save everyone."
"Fuck you."
"Fuck you."
Matt scowls. "Fisk can't keep winning like this." The desperation in his voice is growing and growing and Matt is worried it can't be contained. "He could've turned his life around."
"And he still can," Frank says, voice suddenly softer. "Look, look down there, he's moving, he's fucking alive. Happy now, Murdock?"
Matt lets out a little laugh, feeling lightheaded and hysterical and not at all relieved. Maybe the day's events are getting to him. "I can't fucking see, Frank," he says, voice fracturing. He lays his head back onto the ground, gravel digging into his skin, suddenly exhausted.
"Then you just gotta trust me on this one," Frank says, and Matt has no choice but to listen. After all, if it is a lie, he'd rather believe it than the truth. Frank sighs. "Now I don't know if you've heard," he continues, "but Fisk framed you. The feds are looking for you."
"What?"
"Yeah, Foggy and Karen are working on it."
"They're not safe—"
"You're not safe. Come with me if you want to live."
That's not suitably vague or anything. Matt follows him because there's nowhere else to go.
Look, I couldn't not have Matt & Frank antagonizing each other.
