A/N: Small trigger warning for this chapter, please be advised.
It's also just a bit heavier with language but writing for Frank is just too much fun. Enjoy!
Virtue is an angel
but [he] is a blind one,
and must ask Knowledge
to show [him] the pathway
that leads to [his] goal
~Horace Mann~
The Bulletin was already buzzing with the news.
Karen flicked on the small television in her office, not even having enough time to sit down before the headline flashing along the bottom of the screen snatched every ounce of her attention.
String of Serial Abductions in Hell's Kitchen
One witness after another were shown on the streets giving their firsthand accounts to the pushy blonde reporter, some covered in blood that wasn't their own, crying for their stolen loved ones, and others too injured to speak as they were rushed off camera by EMS.
They mentioned the Devil, one shaky voice spoke into the microphone. That if he didn't come, they would all die. The young woman's sodden eyes seemed to look straight through the screen and into hers. Please Daredevil, please, you have to stop them.
And it struck Karen that this was exactly what whoever this was wanted to happen. Public coverage.
If they were looking to draw the Devil out of hiding with his past, she wasn't safe here, wasn't safe at all, not with the amount of news stories their names shared. And she would not be putting her co-workers on the growing victim list.
Of course Frank had been right.
Karen slung her purse over her shoulder and bolted, dodging Ellison's concerned expression, and pulling the door shut securely behind her.
She hadn't made it fully out of view of the building before the foul smelling rag was forced over her nose and mouth. The fight slipped quick from her muscles, leaving her view of the bustling city morning just beyond the parking lot to fade to an all consuming black.
There was a chill to the early morning air and Frank couldn't help but favor it. It went well with the coffee that warmed his palms, his dark jacket now blending in with the herds of people rushing along the city streets in similar attire and making it much easier to move inconspicuously among them like the ghost he was supposed to be. Even in broad daylight. Still, he pulled his black baseball cap low over matching eyes and kept his head down, occasionally skimming along the faces of people too busy in their own worlds to pay him any attention.
The steady stream of stimulation combined with lack of sleep was exhausting. He preferred the mostly empty streets of the city at night to this, but there had been more important things to tend to and there was work to still be done.
He only had to make it to 57th street, out of the armpit of the city, though clinging just close enough to it so that the smell never really left the air. The apartment was a shithole, but he could see the Hudson from one dingy window and the endless green of Central Park from the opposite, the smog and sirens and aging steel of Hell's Kitchen consuming every square inch of space in between. Staying in the same place for too long was never a good idea but it had become a base camp of sorts, and now with the arsenal of new technology to experiment with, somewhere safe and off the grid to store it was a necessity. And you really couldn't beat the view from the roof.
The flashing traffic light had just granted him permission to cross 53rd when he heard it – the muffled sound of distress that came from somewhere above in the apartment building that hugged the corner behind him. He turned around on the alert, eyes searching the area for any signs of trouble, but only found patrons looking down at their electronics and shuffling past him to make it across before the light changed. Not a single damn one of them had noticed it.
He had been close to blaming sleep deprivation before it sounded again, this time more loud and afraid – young.
Faster than he could formulate a full plan of action, the remaining coffee in the small paper cup became a stain on the pavement. He was moving, pushing past a few people and earning an ignored curse or two along the way.
He made it up the concrete steps and stopped at the buzzer panel. It was a cheap one – just like the one he'd broken through to get into Karen's apartment once or twice. He tucked the thought into the archives of his mind and pressed the intercom button down with his thumb, rapping his forefinger against the microphone at the same time to create static and mimic the sound of being buzzed in.
The lock gave open just as easily as he hoped it wouldn't and he slowly moved through the entrance, hand ready at the pistol he held just under the edge of his jacket.
It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the place, the few fluorescence that still worked flickering sadly along the ceiling. The stairs whined beneath his feet as he ascended the first couple floors, stopping to listen and clear each of their hallways before he moved on to the next. From what he could gather, the building seemed relatively quiet, its tenants either already escaping its confines for the day or still in drug induced stupors, judging by the smell of the place.
It wasn't until the fourth floor that he noticed the busted lock on the apartment door at the middle of the hallway, the crack in it sending a strip of sunlight cutting across the stained carpet. Shadows passed through it, back and forth in swift motions.
Glass broke. A choked sob followed.
He moved again, gun drawn, steady and soundless, keeping his back parallel to the wall. He stopped right before he reached the door, kicking it open in one swift motion, and glancing in from behind the protection of the wood frame.
It took him a second to sort out what was happening.
There were two of them, dressed from head to toe in black and red, the lower halves of their faces cloaked in the neck of their robes. A pair of katanas pointed in his direction and gleamed in the natural light from the broken window. His eyes thinned. He'd seen some comical shit since his watch began, but the Kitchen seemed determined to serve up something new and more staggering every day.
His attention dropped to the dying man at their feet, blood falling lazily from the deep slit in his throat. At the same time, soft cries came from beneath the small coffee table at the center of the living space, sobering him like a punch to the gut.
The two assailants kept their blades in his direction as they shifted toward the young boy.
Frank took aim, but before his finger could press back the trigger he was under attack.
They were unnaturally fast, maneuvering over the furniture like it wasn't even in their path, and with the swipe of a blade, his gun was knocked from his hand sending a loud clack through the air when it bounced against the tiled floor. He ducked just in time for the second swing to blur across the space just over his head, using the forced positioning to spear one of them. Frank's shoulder punched hard into the attacker's ribcage, sending him flying backward against the far wall.
He grabbed the tac-knife from his boot and rose to see the other one making a mad dash for the table. Frank caught him by the shoulder, one arm wrapping up under his arm and tight around his neck, his loaded hand stabbing deep into the man's chest two – three – four quick times leaving blood, warm and slick, to coat his fingers. The man fought against his grip, swinging his sword wildly in one last, desperate attempt over his shoulder. It caught Frank high on the arm and with the electric jolt of pain, something red awoke inside him.
He trapped the man's wrist in his hand, the fiber of his muscles tightening fast around the sinew of the man's throat and with a satisfying snap his head fell crooked against his body, lifeless along the ground.
Frank stood over him for a moment, ragged breaths shaking through his chest. His attention flickered between the hunched masked man against the wall and terrified eyes – they turned away from him and Frank's followed – to the lifeless older man, sprawled face up beneath the windows, draped in a pool of scarlet and drowned in his own blood.
A growl scratched from his throat when he crossed the space to snatch the still-living intruder up, dragging him by the shoulders of his robe around the corner into the small kitchenette. He tore the mask from his face, fingers wrapping tight into the fabric on either side of his neck.
"Who sent you?"
Frank traced the smallest bit of healthy fear in his face, but his eyes gave away the arrogance of experience and targeted training. He was proud of his work and it would be the death of him.
The toe of Frank's boot planted hard against his rib-cage repeatedly.
"Who sent you, asshole? Why were you here?"
The only answer he received was a low groan and defiant silence. The man spat to the side and lifted his chin.
"Okay," Frank nodded, dropping to a knee and putting the weight of it down hard on his chest.
Unforgiving knuckles crashed into his jawbone - cheek - temple, again and again until he finally raised his hands between them in an attempt to block the onslaught and cried out in a foreign language.
Frank paused, drawing harsh breaths between parted lips. He watched as blood trailed out from the gaps where teeth should have been. The man released a choked cough and red spattered down his chin.
"Devil…" His accent was thick around the curse. He coughed again, a gurgled sound of wet breath. "To draw out the Devil."
Frank's hand fell. Of fucking course. Ole Red was good at making powerful enemies, but this was getting old, fast. He was too much of a chicken to do anything worth a shit about it, so someone else – someone innocent – was always left to pay the price.
If they wanted a devil, they would get one.
Frank pulled the man's head up against the wall, just enough for him to clear his mouth.
"Where?"
He shifted quick in Frank's hold, but before he could reach for whatever he was going for at his hip, the blade of a knife indented the tanned skin at the man's throat.
"Where?" He repeated between his teeth.
The address would be the last words to escape him before he was left to choke on them.
Frank stood and moved to the sink, methodically washing away the blood from himself and the steel blade, as he did what he could to steady his chest. The kitchen was small, most of it now splattered in the evidence of his handiwork, including the family photos held against the old fridge by colorful, magnetic letters. He diverted his eyes, but not fast enough for him to miss the name spelled out in them.
Tucking away his knife into his boot, he turned the corner to find the boy trembling in the same spot, his back pressed against the far corner leg of the table, hands clasped tight against his ears. Death surrounded him. When he finally cracked his eyes open enough to notice Frank, he flinched back, palms shooting out in front of him defensively, and Frank was left to imagine what he must look like to the child at that moment, a monster masked in blood and bruises.
He held open hands out to either side.
"You're alright," he tried, but the lie was bitter on his tongue, reminding him of every broken promise he'd ever made. He pushed them far back and went with a solid truth instead. "I'm not gunna hurt you, Erick."
The kid's shoulders drooped in relief and it was almost heartbreaking how easily his innocence allowed him to trust nothing more than his word. Sad sobs soon followed, shaking through his tiny frame.
"My dad…" He cried, crawling on hands and knees to look over at the man beneath the windows. He hesitated under the table's edge. "They were after me. He tried to stop them and they... They killed him."
The boy moved to the man's side. Frank looked away.
"It's not your fault kid," he said, gathering his wits about him and cursing himself silently. He had just taken the life of two men with his bare hands, but couldn't look a crying child in the eye. Coward.
A long stretch of silence followed, broken only by soft sniffles and rolling sobs. Frank would glance over every so often as he lifted the corded phone from the wall, dialed 911, and hung up right after a voice asked for the emergency.
"Do you help the other guy?" The boy's soft question maneuvered its way through him and furrowed on his brow. "The one they were looking for?"
Frank faced him and moved a safe distance closer.
"How do you know who they're lookin' for?"
The boy swiped the back of his hand beneath his nose and sniffed.
"Because he saved me once." His small voice was raw and broken in his throat and Frank had to consciously keep his hands still. "I was kidnapped by bad guys and he brought me back to – m-my dad."
Frank's jaw twitched. God damn him. Every time he came close to having a good enough reason to rip the horns from the Devil's head, it was taken away by the grating reminder of their shared cause. If he could only see the shit his methods left behind – Frank had tried his damnedest to show him – and this right here was the exact reason why, leaving him to rescue the same victims from the brink of hell a second time, but not before they'd been permanently scarred. Never before.
If they were trying to draw him out using his previous rescues, he was sure alter boy's list was long and riddled with unsuspecting targets. Especially those he watched over even when he wasn't wearing the mask.
He turned to pick his gun from the floor, sliding it into his holster and tucking it out of sight from watchful eyes.
"No, I work alone. You got any other family around here kid?"
Timid eyes flicked from his father up to where he knew the gun was beneath Frank's jacket.
"My aunt. She lives upstate." He replied shyly after a moment.
Good. Out of the city.
"Listen," Frank felt the weight of his past creeping up on his shoulders and he steeled himself beneath it. "Things are going to be different now without your dad around, but there's nothing you could have done about it, you hear me?" He waited for an affirming nod before he continued. "Help's comin'. Tell them about your aunt. You'll be safe there."
Sad eyes rounded with renewed fear. The boy looked over toward the dead man robed in black.
"If I do, will they come for her too?"
Frank met his eyes. Something tore in his chest.
"No. They won't."
And it was a promise birthed by the burning need for rightful retaliation.
He would duck out the fire escape only after hearing the sound of the police moving up the hall, the broken thank you just barely registering on the child's voice as he descended the ladder quickening his steps and turning fiery rage to fuel.
Karen's mind came alive first, wretchedly slow, but still faster than her body could match. The sluggishness in her bones rolled off her inch by inch, replaced instead by searing pain. She blinked deep sleep from her eyes.
A rope, anchored high above in the shadowed ceiling was wrapped tight around her wrists, trapping her hands together over her head. Her brain snapped awake and she tugged against her bindings, the skin there already raw and her injured shoulder muscles screaming. If she could just get the knot down to her teeth – but the taught twine gave no inch of slack. Instead, she gathered the strength to press herself up onto her bare toes, taking some of the pressure of her body weight off burning arms.
Thin fingers bent forward in contorted positions as she strained them to reach the tie. It mocked her just out of her reach, expertly set so that its victim could see their escape right before their eyes, but never reach it.
The fear only strengthened her focus and she searched the space for anything that could help her.
The contents of her purse scattered the ground a few feet away. Sandbags were piled on old pallets, dotting the wide space all around, and the air was thick with the smell of iron and stale water. It was a warehouse of some sort, lit by only the dim, orange streetlight shining through scattered rusted holes high along the walls, and the realization instantly brought on the engulfing sense of déjà vu. She blinked away at the imagined sight. Red on white.
Her phone rang from somewhere nearby and she turned on the balls of her feet to find it – blood turned to lead in her veins when she found them, instead.
Two men watched her from the shadows, the faint light reflecting off the sickly sheen of their foreheads. Even with their profiles skewed by the darkness, she would never forget their faces.
One was bald, the side of his head where Foggy's bat had struck it still, month's later, an angrier color than the rest of him. The other had a decidedly ugly tattoo that sheathed his skin from neck to wrist.
Frank was armored down in his vest and set up on the rooftop well before the sun fell below the skyline.
He kept busy while he waited, cleaning the barrel of the sniper rifle across his lap and setting the sight a second time to be sure that no one undeserving would see the light of a new day. More than just that though, it was a distraction. One that kept him from giving in to the strange inkling that toyed with his mind and made him want to pull out the burner phone from his jacket pocket and call Karen. He had asked her to stay home after seeing the first few abductions reported in the early morning news, but if there had been anything for him to take from their time together, it was that self-endangering defiance burned in her blood almost as hotly as it did his own.
He was pressing the last of the bullets into the clip when he spotted them on the neighboring rooftop, the saintly star of the show himself, joined by an exotic looking woman he'd never seen before.
Frank knew well enough from the faint screams and shouting that resounded every so often from the building between them that the captives were being held there. And if he could hear them, Red could too.
"Just make it to the roof," Frank said flatly, as if they were standing side by side instead of a hundred yards apart. He waited for the small tick of his helmet before he sat back down against the rafters and continued his watch.
They had put down each and every last one of them, the rooftop now plagued by sores of bodies sheathed in black.
Red had lost someone. Frank had watched it happen down the scope of his gun, unable to get a clean shot. But at the end of the fight, while a maskless Murdock pressed his head down against her body, he was busy scanning the growing crowd below through the darkness in search of a familiar face.
When he didn't find it, he knew he'd been right. Something was wrong. News of what was happening had to be circulating by now, and if she hadn't found herself caught up in the middle, her curiosity should have led her right to it - right to him.
He gave her a chance to answer her phone, just in case his suspicions were wrong.
When she didn't, he tracked the signal instead.
Karen's heart went wild in her chest and she thrashed against the rope, wrapping her fingers around what she could of it and pulling with every ounce of panicked strength. Fisk's voice mocked her at the back of her mind. Beads of crimson traced down her forearm, but there was no room in her senses for pain anymore.
She watched helplessly as they stalked toward her, tugging and tugging at the rope until her muscles turned numb. A scream built within her, but a tattooed arm held the pointed blade of a knife in her direction and it caught thick in her throat.
"Ah ah ah," he tisked, snaking forward to catch her chin in a filthy hand. "Scream and you will get every bit of the punishment you deserve – pepper spray and all." He added scornfully, and was close enough that the foul stench of cigarettes and gingivitis gagged her.
"Sure would be a shame," the bald one added, circling too close behind her. "Boss man said to take you out, but me and my buddy here think it would be a terrible waste of talent."
"I'd rather you just kill me," Karen bit out with all the poison she could muster. She felt the weight of fingers tugging at her hair. It rose bile in her mouth. "Get away from me," she jerked her head, but tattooed fingers slid to her throat and tightened.
All at once, hands fisted in the roots at the back of her head and tore at the buttons on her blouse.
"Get off!" She gasped, thrashing against them and kicking her feet until one connected square into the arch between her captor's legs.
The man hunched forward with a growl.
"Hold her still, will ya!" He hissed past her when he straightened. His hands fumbled to unlatch the buckle of his belt and Karen's stomach dropped when pain morphed into something foul in his eyes. "This could have gone way better for you…"
The sound of metal tearing against metal drowned out the last of his words, but to her ears it could have been the screaming curls of a fortifying lullaby. Karen forced her gaze beyond them to watch the large warehouse door lazily rolling up and open.
Three sets of eyes squinted at the pair of glaring spotlights that shown in from either side, draping the world in blinding white. A broad figure stood between them, traced in light and shadowed by darkness, looking every bit like the angel to her right then that his devils drove him to be.
All hands fell from her skin as the men scrambled for their drooping waistbands.
"I could say the same." It passed her lips almost distracted as she basked in the flooding warmth of relief.
Karen looked anywhere but down as Frank cut through the rope around her wrists with practiced precision.
As soon as she was free, he shrugged his jacket off, exposing the newly spray-painted skull on his vest, and dried blood etched around a deep slit in the skin across his left arm. He draped it around her shoulders and pulled it closed at the front over her torn blouse.
"You hurt anywhere besides your wrists?" He asked, his eyes running over the plains of her flushed face and neck before he fully released it over to her.
Her fingers wrapped tightly around the hems in an attempt to stop them from shaking. The warmth and scent of it were steadying.
"No. I- um, I'm fine." She nodded too fast, the face he made letting her know that he didn't quite believe her. "Thank you." She met his eyes in earnest, but couldn't stop herself from glancing again at his gaping shirt sleeve. "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry about me. Let's get out of here."
Before the cops show up. He didn't have to say it. There was no way anyone within a mile radius would've missed the sounds that had come from the men at their feet. Frank held a stabling hand beneath her elbow as she maneuvered herself around them, storing the thought away somewhere dark and sated in her memory.
As they made their way to the entrance of the warehouse, something metal cracked loud against the wall, echoing in the air and shattering the pair of spotlights faster than Karen could flinch.
The sudden darkness was nearly as blinding, but this time a figure stood between them draped only in the shadows of night. Before her eyes could focus on who it was, Frank's form shifted from her side to halfway in front of her, his gun pointed forward and trigger finger ready.
"It's just me," the faceless man said and the sound of his voice piqued her curiosity.
Frank visibly relaxed before her, though his gun remained raised.
"I ought to pop the shit out of you again for that." Frank huffed, knowing well that a dramatic entrance and a couple busted lights were the least of his sins.
A mirthless chuckle came from the shadow. "You had your chance. What happened here Frank?"
"The same thing that happened back there, Red," Frank sent back, dropping the gun to rest against his leg, and sounding tired. "Just cleaning up your goddamn mess."
And if Karen hadn't been innately interested before, she sure as hell was now. But she bit her tongue and listened.
"Don't give me that shit," Red pushed back, and Frank liked him like this, liked knowing it was there inside him, always ready for a good fight. "I never asked for your help."
"Oh yeah?" Frank asked, bobbing his head in feigned agreement. "Well if I hadn't stepped in, there would've been another little boy trapped in that shit storm, you know that?" He stepped forward, turning to briefly meet Karen's eyes and pointing a finger toward the mangled bodies behind her. "And those two bastards in there, you know about any of the shit they've done, Red? What they would continue to do if I didn't send them straight back to hell?" Something smug pulled at Frank's lip and if he could have only one thing right then, it would be the ability to give Murdock his eyesight back just long enough for him to see what he'd caught those assholes about to do before he put them down. Just so he could do so all over again. "You know, you talk like you're some badass shrink who thinks he's better than everyone he preaches at, but you wanna know what I think?"
Red threw out his hands. "Oh, please do tell."
"I think you need to see one yourself." Frank walked right up to him. "Because you're fuckin' nuts if you think what you're doing is helping this city."
The Devil snarled, shoving his hands against Frank's chest and sending him backwards a few steps.
"What would you have me do, huh? Mow down everyone who gets a speeding ticket?"
Frank snorted and squared up.
"Don't give me too much credit, Red. You've killed just as many people as you've saved." Dark eyes thinned. "Probably more than me."
And right before the two men collided, it all clicked together in Karen's swirling mind, sending her emotions on a roller coaster ride from hell. The bruises and strange behavior in the office. The voice, familiar to her ears – The self-righteousness…
"Matt?"
Karen called his name and the man in red froze in his tracks.
Frank's eyes drifted to her, his fist lowering slowly from the air as he pieced out what was happening between them. It added another little tick to the growing list of reasons he would kick Red's ass every chance he got.
He really did lie to her a lot.