AN so do you guys remember eons ago when I promised that there would be Good Stuff and you got a really good chapter? well this is like that, but more. like...a lot more.
also please remember that Matt, as much as we love him, is not a reliable narrator.
Matt walked into the office ready for a fight and he was not disappointed. Karen only got out one sentence before he shot her dead in the water, but Karen always did have nine lives.
"It's insurance, Matt!"
"It's destroying what little life she has left."
"Look, I've talked to Ben! I've looked him up! He's a good journalist, and he cares about making a difference." Karen was staring at him in that way that wasn't angry but was so filled with righteousness that she was ready to burn down anything that stood in her way.
Matt shook his head, mouth snarled into an unhappy line. The neatly sorted folder of Solano's papers buzzed in his hand, the only viable option any of them had. "All journalists care about is selling a story," he shot back.
"Isn't it a worthy story to sell if it keeps Fisk from murdering Claire because no one knows about her!?"
"You've known about him for a day," Matt scoffed. "How well can you have actually researched him?"
"Enough. I looked into him before, when he first started sniffing around Dugan. He's good, Matt."
Matt rolled his eyes and tossed the folder on her desk.
"Matt, I know you're concerned about Claire, but think this through," Foggy said, finally stepping off the sidelines.
"I have—"
"You don't have options," Foggy insisted. "Look at our choices. We let Claire do this alone and she dies within the week. We help her on our own and maybe we win, maybe she dies in a few months. Or, we get help—"
"From rags and cheap bulletins?" Matt demanded.
"We stand no chance against Fisk otherwise, plain and simple," Karen said bitterly. "Industrialists always win. Carnegie didn't go down when that dam of his blew out, Rockefeller never got saddled with the blame for that strikebreaking massacre, and Fisk will not stop because Claire knows he had Solano killed!"
"I've been through Solano's papers," Matt insisted, slapping a hand on the folder with righteous condemnation. "There is so much here that we can use—"
"Who's gonna verify it, Matt? Not Claire! Not Solano! For all the courts know, we made it up!" Foggy said, his hands waving sharp gun fire bursts before him.
"Solano can't have kept it all to himself—"
"By the time we figure that out, hell, by the time we even get in front of a judge, Fisk might have tried to kill Claire again and succeeded."
"I can protect her!" Matt insisted, suddenly furiously angry with Foggy, with Fisk, with the whole world for placing him and Claire in this shit wipe position. He was sick of saying the same things over and having the same arguments and no one ever bothering to acknowledge that he actually knew what he was doing.
"We can't do everything your way, Matt," Karen snapped at him. "At some point, you're going to have to accept that other people are smart, too. At some point, you've gotta accept our help."
"I don't need your help!" he snarled. "No one else can do this, so just stop interfering!"
Karen and Foggy stared at him, expressions slightly dumbstruck. Matt continued glaring, panting from his outburst, daring for them to challenge him further.
"You might wanna keep your voices down. I could hear you yelling down the damn hall."
Everyone jumped, wheeling around to look at the person in the doorway. Matt stared, barely hearing his own voice over the crunch of his two worlds colliding.
"Frank. What the hell are you doing here?"
Because, yes, Frank Castle stood in the doorway, dark eyes cutting over all of them.
Karen and Foggy shot him another look, but Matt couldn't tear his eyes away.
Frank didn't answer as he stepped farther into the office. The door swung shut with a fatalistic sort of click!
The most striking thing about Frank standing in the middle of Nelson and Murdock was that he looked so decent. He had on a tidy dark suit, a neatly pressed shirt, and even a hat. Matt was only certain it was Frank because of the hideous black eye, yellowing magnificently after a few days of healing.
And then there was his gaze. It roved over all of them, smoldering under the façade of normal.
"Is anyone gonna tell me what the hell…?" Foggy began, voice trailing off.
Matt started, clearing his throat. "I…Karen, Foggy, this is Frank Castle. Karen Page, Foggy Nelson," he said, weakly gesturing at everyone in turn. "Frank is…we go to the rings together."
"Why're you here, Mr. Castle?" Karen asked, skipping over the black eye and ominous behavior and cutting straight to the meat of the matter.
"How's that privilege thing work?" Frank asked, gaze scouring the windows. They settled on Matt when no one answered.
"Attorney-client privilege?" Matt asked.
"Yeah. If I hire you, you can't rat me out, right?"
"Uh…yes, that's the gist of it."
"Matt," Foggy said, dragging out the word as his anxiety kicked in.
"Great, you're hired."
"Frank, is this about—"
"Matt, what're you—"
But again, Frank cut them off with a few flat words. This time, they were aimed at Karen. "To answer your question, ma'am, I'm here because I think I know something that'll help Claire Temple."
Karen shot Matt a look but continued speaking to Frank.
"And how did you find out this something?"
Frank barely blinked when he said, "By paying attention when I was burning down Fisk's sill."
Foggy turned very, very slowly to Matt.
"Can we talk?" he asked, voice strained. "In your office? Now?"
"Ah…Karen…" Matt said, torn between not wanting to talk with Foggy and not wanting to leave Karen alone with Frank.
"Go ahead," she said, eyes still on Frank's face. "I'm okay."
Matt slunk into his office as Foggy slammed the door behind them.
"Matt what the hell," Foggy hissed.
Matt raised his hands. "I didn't know he would come here."
"He's the vigilante!? The one Fisk is lambasting in the news! The nutjob shooting up gangsters when he can't set them on fire!" Foggy's voice was half-strangled, trying not to be heard in the main office.
"I didn't know!" Matt protested. "He approached me after everything with Claire."
"But you knew!" Foggy's hair was in complete disarray, despite his frantic swiping to keep it in place. He turned around, attempting to peer at Frank through the dappled glass. "Does this seriously not bother you? At all?"
Matt shrugged helplessly at Foggy, thinking that, after everything that had happened, Frank was sincerely the least of his worries. He still wasn't sure how he was supposed to be feeling, with the whole everything caving in on him in the least opportune way possible.
"What if this is all a trick, what if Fisk is onto us?" Foggy asked, shifting from foot to foot since there was no room to pace in Matt's tiny office.
"No," Matt said, shaking his head. "He's been at Sweeney's too long to be a spy. There are too many rumors about him fighting the rum runners. And he'd never flip."
"But—but—Matt, he just shows up out of the blue?"
"We talked," Matt admitted, trying to think of a way to explain their conversation without detailing his madness in the ring. "I told him where I worked, after he guessed about Claire."
"He seriously puts my teeth on edge. Mama Nelson always said trust our teeth!"
"She didn't have any teeth when she died."
"Because she didn't trust them! She was speaking from ruinous experience!"
Matt opened his mouth to respond, but Karen rapped quietly on the door. She poked her head in, expression serious. "Boys, I think you might want to hear this."
Matt and Foggy exchanged a look. Foggy let out a tense breath. "You're asking a lot of me, Matt. I don't want this to be worse than it is, and it looks like we're headed that way."
Matt didn't say anything. Foggy sighed and ran a hand over his hair again.
"Do we trust him?"
"He already trusts us."
Foggy looked at him, mouth pressed into a thin line because that did not seem like much of an answer. But Matt knew that Frank would never have crossed their door, much less told them what he knew, had he not trusted them completely.
Foggy gave a curt nod, then led them back out.
Frank watched them with that lethal, animal stare as they came to a stop before him. "We got a problem?" he asked.
"Uh…no," Foggy said, glancing back at Matt. "We're…we're fine."
"Miss Page was tellin' me you all had a little attack plan all set?"
"We have an idea," Karen amended when Foggy shot her a look.
Matt clenched his teeth but didn't argue. Frank's eyes flicked to him anyway.
"We were planning on taking him to court," Matt said. "Let everyone know just what he is, what he's willing to do."
"Court?" Frank raised half an eyebrow. "You're gonna habeas corpus him until he stops?"
"Uhm not really, because we have the body and know he's guilty, so…" Foggy trailed off at Frank's look. "Uh, yeah, you've got the picture."
"Won't work."
"And why's that?" Matt asked, temper flaring from nothing at yet again being told his plan wasn't good enough.
"Fisk isn't gonna wait politely for you to practice this lawyer bullshit and then go to jail for you. He's a sack of shit that doesn't play by the rules and he'll burn through you the moment he thinks you're onto him."
"That's not—"
"Oh, for shit's sake." Frank stormed toward Matt, and immediately Matt tensed for a blow, mind whirling to how he was going to stop this freight train. But Frank just shouldered him aside and grabbed the newspaper on Karen's desk.
"This is why that's never gonna work," he growled, shaking the paper for emphasis. "Fisk's got his own paper and he can tell the world anythin' he wants from it. You saw what they wrote after Solano got bumped."
"Yeah, they blamed—"
"They blamed me because I was burr in his side," Frank said, shaking his head like he couldn't believe how dense they were being. "You read the news today? Notice how some cop got shot last night? Some Detective Blake, done over in a bad part of town he's not even supposed to be working? That's one of Fisk's guys. He's probably been the one heading up the search for Temple, and since he hasn't produced results, Fisk got rid of him."
"That…can't really be true," Foggy said, glancing nervously at Matt and Karen.
"Yeah? You seriously doubt a guy like that can't clean house? He's got the reporters to make up the truth and the cops on the take to enforce it. What do you think's gonna happen when we get Temple on the stand, Murdock?"
"They're going to tear her apart," Karen said grimly. Matt shot her a filthy look, but she just set her jaw. "Even if we manage to make it to our first court date, what do you think those papers are going to say about the brown-skinned seamstress working in Spanish Harlem that tries to point a finger at Wilson Fisk?"
"Nothing good," he ground out. "Which is why I think your idea is terrible."
"What idea?" Frank asked.
"Nothing, we—"
"I asked what idea, Red, so shut your yap and let her tell me," Frank ordered, voice little more than a bear's snarl.
Matt clenched his teeth, grinding them together so hard he almost saw spots. This was wrong, they were all wrong, why was he the only one that could see that? How on earth were they supposed to ever help Claire if they couldn't even decide how?
"We control the narrative," Karen said eagerly, hands out like they were pinning the story down in the air. "I know a reporter that is good, he wants the truth. We tell him what happened, he can write it so everyone will know what happened, everyone will side with Claire. Then the spotlight will be on Fisk. He can't do anything to Claire if the whole world is watching her and him. Whatever the court of law fails to do to him, the court of public opinion will follow through on. He can't risk offending the one thing that makes his life possible."
"How do you know this reporter will play fetch?" Frank asked. "If he wants a job in this town, he won't cross anybody big like Fisk."
"He's a reporter for a black newspaper," Karen said triumphantly. "There's no way Fisk owns it. He might not even know what happened until much later, when the whole streets are talking about it and it's too late to fix anything."
"Influence is influence, though," Frank muttered, but he had an annoyingly considerate look on his face.
"No matter what we do," Foggy said, finally speaking up, "we need more. Karen is right in that we need to attack on every side possible, but we're not working with much, here. Is there anything you can tell us?"
Frank considered, then nodded. "Yeah. Sure, I got somethin'. Fisk started workin' with the Russians."
"Working with as in 'is communist so no one will like him,' or 'is backed by the new Soviet Union and is therefore impossible to defeat,'" Foggy asked, desperation making his voice high. "Because there is a difference."
"'The Russians' as in 'a couple of czarists that don't give a rat's ass for politics.' Heard they were just business partners at first, but lately he's been using them as muscle for all his most prized places. But Fisk's been having trouble. What with me and the unions givin' him hell and a factory closing down in the west, he's got nothing to spare. The Russians will cut out any weak links they need."
"That's nice, so he'll be more volatile," Foggy groaned
"No," Karen said, eyes brightening. "So we have an ally in bringing him down."
"And you—but they're—" Foggy blinked at her for a few moments, then collapsed into her desk chair. "Tell me you have a bottle smuggled away somewhere, because I really don't think I can do this sober."
"This works, I've seen it done all the time," Karen said, that damnable righteous fire lighting her whole being. Matt could have kicked Frank for fanning it back to life.
"Give them incentive, more reason to back us than him, offer his territory or distribution, maybe, and then burn Fisk to the ground. Then he's split even further, trying to deal with the media, Claire, and his underworld connections all at once."
"And you think things will do exactly what you want because you ask nicely?" Matt demanded. "You're willing to risk Claire's life on a bunch of thugs' better nature?"
"Of course not," Karen said, mouth a grim red line. "But I'm willing to trust their greed."
"I think it's sound enough," Frank said. Matt glared at him, but he could see the trench dug in Frank's eyes, ready for war. Matt bit his cheek, glancing around the room. Karen challenged his gaze head on, while Foggy…he just looked at Matt, quiet but refusing to help.
"Fine," he snarled, digging his fingers into his palms to keep him from lashing out and breaking somebody. He was so angry with them, it ate at his sight and filled him with boiling pitch that begged to be loosed. How on earth was he supposed to get anywhere if he couldn't even trust the people in this room?
Matt shook his head and stalked to his office. He wanted to break something, wanted to rip it to shreds, wanted to beat someone's face in until his arms shook and he couldn't move anymore. He hated this he hated this he hated this.
Matt slammed the door and was a little disgusted when it didn't break. The world was wrong and he was the only one who saw any sense, who actually wanted to make sure Claire stayed safe and free with him.
What good were the papers? The papers lied about everything. They muzzled the true suffering of humanity and talked instead about taxes and baseball games and stupid useless things. They had lied in France, they had lied in Germany, and they lied here, too. And this, this was the madness everyone in the office wanted to condemn Claire to.
Matt grabbed the mug from his desk and hurled it at the door. It smashed against the frame, nearly hitting Foggy.
Shock dropped through Matt's stomach as his brain frantically tried to piece together what had happened. He hadn't heard the door open, hadn't even realized Foggy was in the room.
Foggy stared at him, all the blood having fled his face.
"I'm going to give you ten seconds to think about what just happened, and then I'm going to talk," he said.
"Foggy, I didn't—"
Foggy held up a finger, forbidding Matt to speak as he pointed at the door frame. Matt swallowed.
"Is…is Karen out there?"
"She walked Frank out. He didn't see the point in sticking around if you were done talking."
Matt gave an uncertain nod. He suddenly felt light-headed, his breath coming a lot faster than he had realized. He let out a shaky breath, trying to make sure something was under his control.
"You are out of line," Foggy said, the uncharacteristic severity in his face brooking no argument. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but it needs to stop."
"The mug was—I didn't mean—"
"Honestly, Matt, I don't give a shit about the mug, okay? I'm more worried about everything else."
Matt watched him, not saying anything. It wasn't until Foggy scoffed that he realized he was supposed to speak.
"Oh, come on, Matt. You're not sleeping anymore, you're at the boxing hall all the time, you're doing insanely stupid things like going at it with gangsters, and I honestly have no idea what's going on in your head anymore! I mean, look around, Matt. You were ready to tear us apart in there just because we didn't agree with you. We're your friends, Matt. We're here for you, no matter what. Not everything you do is a fight, okay?"
"You guys—it's not—look, I'm just trying to make sure what we're doing is the best for Claire, and you don't—"
"Matt, enough!" Foggy yelled, hands slicing through the air like he could cut Matt down where he stood. "You keep talking a like this is for Claire's sake, but it is so obviously not."
"What're you—yes it is!" Matt snapped back, his anger flaring up again. He tried to shove it down though, this was Foggy, this was his best friend, this was not someone Matt could just yell at and scream at and hit and hurt. He clenched his hands, shoving away the fear of violence and focusing on his actual physical hurt over the thought that he didn't care about Claire.
"Yeah? Was it for Claire's sake that you've been yelling at Karen like she's an idiot? Was it for Claire's sake that you were ready to brawl with Frank when he argued with you?"
"Yes."
"You are so full of shit," Foggy said, looking around like he couldn't believe Matt and wanted to see if anyone else did. "Matt, do you really—"
"Yes, Foggy! Claire is too important to sacrifice just because we want to win!"
Foggy leveled him a look that was full of uncanny nothing. "Have you told her?"
"Told her what?"
"About the papers."
"I—we haven't discussed it."
"You haven't—that was the whole point!" Foggy snapped. "That was the whole reason I came over last night! Why not tell her?"
"Claire doesn't know what's waiting for her," Matt said hotly.
"She seems pretty smart to me!"
Foggy put his hands on his hips, taking a long moment. Matt kept biting his cheek, biting his tongue, digging his nails into his hand to keep from lashing out, to keep his head. But he was so angry, a being full of black fire that blotted out everything, that saw nothing but the misery and wrath that swallowed the world and left nothing but darkness and ash.
Foggy shook his head. "Is this because you know she'll have to leave if we talk to the papers?"
"What?" Matt blinked a few times, stunned by the question. He shook his head. "No, I—"
"Oh, stop it," Foggy snapped, disgust dripping from his mouth. "If you were really so obsessed about Claire being safe, you would have taken her out of the city. She would be somewhere else, actually safe, while we do all we can to stop Fisk. Instead she's in your apartment. What's that say, Matt?"
"I'm not keeping her hostage," Matt said, so shocked and resentful at how wrong Foggy was that he barely had the words.
"No, but you're doing all you can to make sure you keep hold of her as long as you possibly can. This isn't how you love someone, Matt!"
"You have no idea," Matt snarled. He couldn't see straight, could barely think beyond the blood pounding in his ears. Did Foggy think he enjoyed this? Did Foggy think he got some sick satisfaction out of loving Claire so much that he ached but knew that he could never act on it or else she would suffer? He was a mess, a man dreadfully close to waking up a monster. Things hadn't gotten better in the last seven years and they'd only gotten worse in the last few weeks. Matt was ripping at the seams, losing his mind bit by bit, becoming wilder and angrier and crueler until he barely knew what was him and what was the devil moving him along on strings.
Matt only had so long before he lost his humanity entirely. So yes, he wanted to have as much time as he could with Claire before he had to cut himself off entirely. He wanted to know that he might have had something good, if the war hadn't gotten in the way.
"No, Matt, you have no idea," Foggy told him. "I've been watching you fester for the last decade, every day becoming a little bit less of yourself. You're afraid to live, even when you cling to the few things that could actually give you happiness. Make a damn choice, Matt! Stop fighting yourself on every little thing. If you want to actually start living again, please. But if you're determined to be miserable and alone, then stop making other people suffer because you're too much of a selfish coward to leave them altogether."
Matt opened his mouth, needing his words to fly to his rescue. But he had nothing. Foggy had run him through, killing every single defense Matt could have conjured in the process. He flexed his hands, trying to loose the pent-up energy, the incensed protests, the animals screams, but nothing happened.
Foggy shook his head and opened the door.
"Karen and I are doing this," he told Matt. "If I haven't heard anything by tomorrow, I'm going over there and telling Claire myself. She at least deserves a choice in all of this."
Matt barely saw Foggy leave, barely noticed Karen watching him from her desk. He just grabbed his things and left, hands shaking, jaw clenched, wishing that he would explode if only to stop the raging horror trying to burn him alive.
In 1889 the South Fork Dam broke, causing the devastating Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania. There is a continuing theory that Andrew Carnegie, a wealthy steel magnate and philanthropist, was involved and ultimately responsible for the failing of the dam. The scandal was smoothed over when Carnegie funded the rebuilding of the town library.
In 1914 coal miners in Ludlow, Colorado commenced a strike, demanding greater privileges and better compensation. Militias opened fire on the camps, killing an estimated seventy men, women, and children in the Ludlow Massacre. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., financier and philanthropist, was blamed for the orchestration of the whole massacre. He reformed his image by listening to the grievances of the strikers and instituting work reforms, but no true compensation was provided for the lives lost.
