Matt hisses as the antiseptic hits his skin.

"Sorry," Frank mutters, not sounding very sorry. What world has Matt entered that the Punisher, of all people, is patching him up in his own safehouse?

He closes his eyes and focuses on the feeling of Frank's hands wrapping gauze around his cuts and prodding at his bruises. One of his hands comes up to knock against Matt's forehead, and Matt grimaces.

"Still intact, I see," Frank says, like he hadn't done that just to annoy Matt. "A hard, stubborn head will do that for ya."

"It's not like he shot me in the head," Matt says irritably. "He only pressed his gun against it."

"Only, huh? You can't see the massive bruise you're sporting right now, but I can tell you it's bad, along with all the other ones from who knows what." Matt knows: an eraser, some newspapers (which gave him impressive papercuts), brick shards, and the metal lid of a trash can, pilfered from a random Hell's Kitchen alleyway. Someone's gonna be missing that very soon.

"Says the one who got shot in the head and survived," Matt grumbles, shrugging one of Frank's sweaters on to hide from the cold and Frank's assessing gaze. After a few moments, Matt sighs. "You should be with Karen right now."

"She and Nelson have Mahoney watching their backs."

"You're better," Matt insists. "We thought Fisk would target her first, because..." Because.

"Finish the sentence," Frank says, a suddenly dangerous note in his voice.

"Because she killed James Wesley," Matt says, "and told Fisk about it, to his face. She's not safe and you know it."

"She's as safe as she can be right now. She's not the one the feds are after, and she can protect herself."

"And I can't?" Matt explodes, standing up suddenly and then immediately regretting it as everything flares up.

"Sit down," Frank growls, pulling him back onto the beat up couch with a harsh tug on his wrist that makes Matt suddenly aware that Frank could probably dislocate his shoulder right here, right now without breaking a sweat.

But he doesn't. He hasn't. He won't. He kills criminals but won't rough up the lawyer trying in vain to stop him. This contradiction has been driving Matt insane, among other things.

"Didn't mean it that way," Frank says, and that's as close to an apology as he gets, Matt knows. "And anyways, Karen's a liar. I killed Wesley."

What?

"Shot him right there from a building away, stared through my rifle scope all night for the perfect shot, and when the bullet pierced his skin there was blood everywhere, covering the ground and the windows, blending in with the brick wall..." Matt really did not need that much detail, thank you very much.

"You're lying," he says instead, very quietly, suddenly losing all the fight inside of him and slumping into the couch cushions. He remembers Karen's shaking voice when she told Foggy and him all about what she'd done, and she had sounded so unsure of herself, so unlike herself, that all they could do was assure her of her innocence, her blamelessness, that it had been self-defense, and why hadn't Matt known before? Why hadn't he been able to protect her, or Foggy, or really anyone in Hell's Kitchen from Fisk's wrath?

"I'm not," Frank says simply, like that'll convince Matt, like his casualness about murder is supposed to be the end all be all for him.

Matt shakes his head. "She did kill him," he says, "and I don't blame her for it. If I was in her situation and I was capable of it, I can't be sure that I wouldn't have shot him, too. I can't blame her for it. Did you think I would? Did you think I'd hate her for it?" Silence. Matt knows he's got him. "We've lost so much in this fight already without adding a broken friendship to the mix."

A pause. Shifting on the couch beside him. Then, "I underestimated you, Murdock." And it is weird, to be underestimated for his adherence (or lack thereof) to religion and a moral code rather than his lack of sight.

"Why'd you save me today?" Matt asks him. "And the last time, too. Why'd you save me then? I wanted to ask you but I was a bit concussed, so I forgot."

Frank snorts. "Understatement."

"I want to understand," Matt says. Fisk has knocked him down again and again, today included, and he needs something to make sense in his mess of a life. If this, out of all the things wrong with his life, is what shifts into place, then so be it.

"You guys were my lawyers," Frank says.

"Bullshit."

"Let me finish. You guys were my lawyers, when nobody else really wanted to represent me, when public opinion was against me. When it seemed like the whole damn world was against me, you guys swooped in to save the day." Matt groans. Frank chuckles a little. "It's true. You, and Nelson, and Karen...you guys believed in me, and fought for me, when nobody else did."

Matt rubs at his sore knuckles for a bit. "And that means something to you?" he asks quietly.

"In this world, yes," Frank says. "You need every bit of kindness you can get."

"There's not much of it," Matt admits.

"Yeah, but you fight for it anyways, even when it hurts you." He pauses, considers. "You're the good still left in the world. I'm just here to make sure you don't leave it too early." He laughs a little. Matt frowns.

"Maybe it's not too early," he says. "Maybe my time has passed." He thinks of all the cuts and bruises and scars he's amassed, rubs his wrists with the ghosts of shackles on them before letting go.

"I can't believe that," Frank says, voice firm.

Matt doesn't know what to say. "...I thought you weren't a religious person."

"Fuck you, Red."

"You should give Foggy and Karen nicknames, too."

"They don't have signature glasses like you do."

"Where are my glasses, anyways?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?"

Matt sighs, feeling so tired and done with the world and his mess of a life. But his job isn't done, not yet; he can't leave this world, not yet, possibly never, if he can help it. "Are Foggy and Karen really safe?" he asks, voice sounding smaller than he'd like.

"Mahoney's one of the good ones," Frank says. "Nearly had a heart attack when he caught a glimpse of me, but still. He's got everything under control."

"I highly doubt that."

"Relax," Frank says. "This war will be over soon."

"You've been through war, Frank. You know this isn't it," Matt says, feeling resigned.

"Seems like it to me. You've been fighting battles with Fisk for the past three years. And yet you haven't lost yourself. Now's the time to end it."

"You make it sound so simple, when I know that you know that war is anything but."

"Survive this fight and you'll make it to the end," Frank says, simply. "I'm not one for lying, y'know."


More dialogue-based than whump-based, but I really wanted a conversation like this to happen between these two, so here lol.