Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: You know you've got problems when Frank Castle is lecturing you on the importance of friendship.
Or: how Matt's broken leg becomes the least of his concerns.
Warnings: Spoilers for season 2.
Author's Notes: So...many...trailers...
I am so excited for Luke Cage, I cannot even begin to articulate how awesome the trailer was. Finally, a release date! Thirteen whole episodes of awesome! And don't get me started on The Defenders promo, which already has me headcanoning Stick berating this ragtag band of vigilantes. Jessica is just going to love him, I'm sure.
As for this fic, I have been excited about the next few chapters since I started. I hear your requests for Foggy and Karen – I promise, they're coming! Lantom should be making an appearance soon too.
Thank you, Readers, for your patience and support. I'm happy to have this ready to post so quickly. Please, enjoy!
"We've become a big business.
Oh, a galaxy merger.
The two of us a big bang…
The irresistible force met the immovable object"
~Jane's Addiction, "Irresistible Force"
Chapter Eight
The first time Matt wakes, the whole world comes crashing down on him. He pulls his head back into the pillow. Sounds flood him, the big and the small set to the same volume in his ears. "You're fine, Red," Frank booms over the flood. "Go back to sleep." Remarkably, that's all he needs to fall back out of awareness.
Next time, the dark is quiet, less menacing. A heartbeat thunders dimly nearby. Matt reaches out waiting for Dad's bruised face to meet his outstretched fingers. Instead, his hands are guided back onto his stomach. "You're fine, Red. Sleep. Jesus…"
The time after is worse. Matt breaks through a veil of sweat and fire to find that he can't remember. He goes from the fire escape to the cot with the hours lost in between. He knows there was pain and heat and chatter, but nothing's stuck. The details have drained out of him. For once, his brain is really and truly black.
"No, no, no…" Matt moves to sit up. There's only one explanation: he's been drugged, deeper this time, and it's changed things. The sounds and smells that used to make sense don't. He can't focus. He could be anywhere. They could have done anything, whoever they are.
"Red."
"What did you do?" he takes a swing. The drugs make his punch sloppy and weak, caught easily by Frank, whose hands seem to engulf Matt's. God damn him. God damn him and his apartment. Matt's already stuck here, and the bastard has gone and taken his memories captive too.
His struggling continues in spite of Frank restraining him, guiding him back down. "Listen up, Red. Doc gave you something extra that you haven't come out of yet."
Of course she did. On whose orders, Matt doesn't have to guess. "What did you do? What did…?" his leg feels thicker. Where did the rest of it go?
"We fixed what you did," Frank gives him a solid push, and Matt ends up back on the pillow, not happy about this. Not happy. "Yeah, yeah," the Punisher grumbles, "Sleep, Red."
He does.
The fog finally clears and takes up residence in the other parts of Matt's body. His joints are stiff, he can't flex his muscles, and every part of him is heavy, really heavy. Sounds filter through his ears from the Bronx waking too. A construction crew starts work. Restaurants prep for breakfast. One of the neighbours slams their door and takes off down the stairs for work.
"Morning, sunshine," Frank sips at his sludgy coffee. "You with me?"
Matt nods once. He can't muster the strength for his head to make a return trip. His lets his jaw fall open. Words are lined up to go on his tongue, and they come out in a rasp. The dryness of his throat won't let him speak.
Frank tucks a hand behind his head, and Matt's whole brain lights up with emergency alarms, klaxons; bells, whistles, sirens. There's a lot of nerve endings on his scalp that he didn't know he had. Trust Frank to agitate them all. Matt puts up a good fight; one thing he's never weak enough to do is struggle. The rim of a cup is pushed up against his lips despite the effort, and Matt takes a few sips of metallic water before being lain back down.
He tries again to speak, succeeding this time, "The hell did you give me?"
"The hell did she give you," Frank corrects him. "Doc slipped yah a mickey, Red. You blacked out a bit."
Matt draws several breaths to quell his wicked case of the spins. "She…did this?"
Frank makes a sound to affirm, "Wasn't too happy none, you fucking up her hard work."
"Yeah, that makes two of us – ach!" his experimental toe-wiggling earns him a sharp flare of pain, but at least he knows his bone is set properly. He might get out of this with full mobility. "She did a good job."
"You helped."
It bothers Matt that he can't confirm. The blackout eats away at him. He lays in silence, allowing Frank to elaborate. "I heard blindness causes your other senses to compensate, but shit. Doc couldn't tell when your bones were in alignment. You could. You weren't conscious and you could."
Matt ignores the comment about his altered mental status. He draws the quilt further up his chest. Another donation from Rina, this one unbloodied. His fingertips play across the stitches and fabrics, a meager distraction from what happened last night. What the hell did he say? What did he do?
Frank gives nothing away. His awe over Matt's abilities is as regimented as his frustration over Matt's behaviour.
Matt changes the subject, "Foley and his guys?"
"Alive," Frank says, none too happy about it.
Relief floods him. Matt releases the breath he's been holding since Frank took off, "You didn't kill the doctor either."
"Never said I did, Red."
"Never said you didn't."
"You believe me – I said I didn't?"
"…no." But Matt thinks it would have been nice to know. The continued survival of people around Frank is useful information, as are the number of corpses he collects. There was definitely a corpse in the butcher shop that night. The fact that it wasn't the doctor registers as bittersweet. "She's saved my life twice."
"Don't make that into a good start. I'm not going to keep her alive so she can save your dumbass."
"Then why are you keeping her alive?" Matt demands. He loses grip on his vocabulary for a second from how easily his thoughts twirl. Her death has weighed on him for three days whether he's been aware or not. "There are…there are plenty of doctors…in this city. Plenty of people you can threaten and then disappear."
"She had information. Addresses mainly. She did some research for the Japanese a while back: epidemiology or some shit." Matt parks up at that. He pays extra close attention to Frank, waiting for signs of guile. Of suspicion. He receives none. Frank chats on, "Why the hell they need an epidemiologist for their operation is beyond me. Doc too, but she claims they were on the verge of some major breakthrough before they disappeared."
Matt's mouth is dry again. Hope has his heart clawing against his sternum, desperate to cut and run back to Hell's Kitchen. Back to her. "The doc say what it was?"
"She said she doesn't know. They didn't tell her. Research only."
"You believe that?"
"I do," Frank says, sounding like he believes a lot of things about the doctor that he didn't before.
Matt finds his breath, willing it back under his control. He can't afford to lose his cool. "Did…did she say where they went?"
"If she knew, she would have gone with them." Another sign she doesn't know much about the Hand's activities: they wouldn't leave someone important behind for Fisk to find.
Excitement dissipates as quickly as it comes. Matt settles into himself, quieter. The Japanese's major breakthrough and disappearance can only mean one thing in his mind, and it is the best news he's heard since the doctor was alive. "Thank you," he tells Frank, "for letting her live."
Frank finishes his coffee, dropping his Styrofoam cup onto a table next to the bed. Glasses clink when he does. Matt guesses vials of medication. "Said it yourself, Red: plenty of doctors in this city. I didn't do it for you."
He didn't even do it so much for the information. Matt knows the Punisher has ways of finding hidden addresses, tracking down people who don't want to be found. He also knows a thing or two about women in Frank's life: not only do they tend to survive, they tend towards Frank. Rina brings him soup and soft blankets. She calls the random number he gives her and stays with his supposed brother until help arrives. And Karen…
Matt's thoughts go astray. He doesn't want to think about Karen. Her hands on his tie. In his hair. Telling him that the Punisher isn't all bad. That maybe his killing people is a good thing.
He gets back on topic, "Thank you for not taking me to the hospital then."
"Yeah," about that. "Don't get used to it, Red. You do anything like you did last night, it won't be the hospital where I leave you. It'll be the nearest precinct with your devil costume stapled to your chest. We clear?"
Yeah, he's clear, but Frank isn't, so Matt spells it out for him, "I am not going to let you kill people."
"Don't have much of a choice in the matter. I got work to do, and I'm not looking for your permission any more than I am to be held hostage by your busted leg."
Boy, Frank sure has a funny way of showing it. Matt laughs, "Why am I here, Frank?" He's been too fuzzy to wonder the past couple of days, but he doesn't have a better answer now that his thoughts have cleared. "I've been nothing but trouble for you. Why keep me around? And don't tell it's because I don't have anyone. That's bullshit, Frank, and you know it."
Oddly enough, Frank doesn't fire back. He answers calmly, coldly, like he's been putting the words together a while, "My fault your leg's busted, Red. Mine. You told me that ceiling was coming down. I heard you shouting over the gunfire, but I kept on shooting. Next thing I know, you tackled me in the chest, and the whole God damn building came down on you."
Matt isn't sure what he's hearing. The words don't have a matching sensory correlate in his brain, "I don't remember."
"Well, I do," and Frank's pissed at himself for it. Punisher doesn't make dumbass mistakes like that; he saves that shit for the Daredevil.
"I don't remember," but the memory isn't erased in the same way last night is. Three days injured, drugged, dozing, leaves Matt's recollection of the basement atrophied. The details slip-slide through his brain space, escaping his grasp when he tries to put them in order. Gunfire is a given. The ceiling would have creaked and splintered before it came down. Matt remembers waking up on the floor better than how he ended up there. But warning Frank sounds exactly like something he would do. Pushing Frank out of the way? Doubly so.
"You're here 'cuz I put you here," Frank declares. He sounds weird without the pride of his convictions. Matt's leg is absolutely his fault, but he gets no satisfaction from having benched the Daredevil. The break is a stupid mistake, one Frank intends to fix. "I'm sorry about that, Red. Should've moved out of the God damn way."
"I thought you didn't hear me," Matt realizes. He was shouting and Frank was shooting, and he thought his warning was unclear.
So he jumped.
"Yeah, I thought you were trying to get me to stop shooting. Lying's not really your thing though, is it?" Frank scoffs. "What the hell kind of a lawyer doesn't lie?"
Matt allows himself a smirk. He has earned that much, "The really good ones."
Frank doesn't dispute him. If Matt didn't know him better, he would call Frank's silence an act of pity. "Doc says you're off the leg for another two days."
"Damn."
"You think of anybody who can take you off my hands-"
"No," Matt hates having this conversation. The meds make it hard not to think about the people he wants to see - Karen, Foggy, her. That he wants to see people bothers him enough. "No. There's no one."
Frank doesn't press – he doesn't care. "Then quit your bitching. Not keeping you here forever. Get back on your feet – without killing yourself, I'll take you home. Mess that leg up, I take you to the precinct."
"What if I stop you without messing my leg up?" Matt asks.
"Jesus…" Frank gets up and walks away.
"Frank."
The footsteps stop. Matt props himself up slightly to give the illusion of meeting Frank's gaze. He wishes he had his glasses. He doesn't like the way his irises creep to the lower left corner of his sockets, the way he can take aim with every other part of his body except them. He waits for the telltale spike of frustration in Frank's pulse or, worse, the slow, sympathetic crawl of a heartbeat. He heard it before, in the butcher shop, when Frank first got a look at his eyes, and he does not want to hear it again.
He doesn't: Frank has physiologically stopped giving a shit about his eyes. Matt wants his glasses back with renewed vigor. He thought pity was bad, but Frank's desensitization means that his eyes have been open a lot. He's been seen, known. The Punisher knows him.
Matt tucks his head into his shoulder slightly, "I probably would have jumped anyway: knowing you heard me or not."
Apparently, Frank doesn't know him that well. "Jesus, Red…"
"That ceiling could have killed you."
"That ceiling could have killed you. So…what? Better you than me?"
Matt doesn't think about it like that: "Better my leg than your life."
"Your math sucks, Red."
Except it doesn't: "You're still here."
"Yeah, I am," and he can't figure out why that's a priority for Daredevil.
The police scanner fizzles on; radio chatter eases into the space. Matt revels in the clarity. His senses fall back in line, cooperating after days of garbling details. Sound ripples off of the walls, furniture, and clutter. Matt smells oil, metal, gun powder, canvas; below that, sweat, ink, dried blood. He lets it in, lets it all in, eagerly collecting the details. Frank's desk and the tools hanging above it are on the opposite wall. Crates of munitions are stacked in lines at the foot of the cot. There's an old, moth-eaten foam mattress in the far corner that is heavy with Frank, obviously where he's been sleeping when he can. Canvas wafts from the space near that. Canvas and stuffing, suspended from a rusty chain in the ceiling. All of it heavily laced with skin, sweat, and blood.
Matt makes a fist on his chest, the smell painfully clear to him: punching bag. An old school one from a prior tenant, though Frank's fists have been all over it.
"…Murdock's place?"
He shuts out the space, honing in on the police scanner completely.
Mahoney's voice comes on the radio, more frustrated than usual, "Negative, dispatch. Nobody's gone to check in on Matt Murdock."
"Franklin Nelson called this time."
The name hits Matt like a punch to the chest.
Sounds like it hits Mahoney the same way: "Did he file a missing persons report?"
"No. Neither did that Page-girl from the paper when she called."
"Then you can tell them both to deal, dispatch. The NYPD is not –" his cell phone rings in the background, "Oh, hell, no. Hold, dispatch. Got Foggy Nelson on the line."
Brett doesn't broadcast his side of the conversation with Foggy. Matt imagines how poorly it goes.
He flexes his left thigh, wondering what the cost of rolling onto his right side would be. He wants away from Frank and the ensuing conversation. His broken bone burns in polite, "Fuck off." Matt stays put begrudgingly.
Frank, as per usual, rubs it in, talking over dispatch's next comment about an unrelated B&E. "Foggy Nelson…that your legal partner, Red?"
"Yeah," Matt says through a partially locked jaw. He wants out. Every inch of him, every cell in his body, wants out: of this conversation, of this apartment, of this identity. He wants to disappear in the devil and never come back. He wants Matt Murdock to never have existed. "Former legal partner."
"Takes a lot of guts to call a courtesy visit into the NYPD."
One thing Foggy and Karen have in spades is guts. Matt retreats from the conversation as best as he can physically, rolling his head towards the wall. "Yeah, well, I haven't been home for three days," and he really didn't think anyone would be missing him, least of all the best friend he shoved away and the ex-girlfriend who's pissed at him. Calling the cops seems a little extreme though. Are they looking to turn him in? How the hell do they even know he hasn't been home?
Frank is purposefully silent. "Whatever you want to say, don't," Matt warns him.
Mahoney comes back on the radio, "All units, be advised: Foggy Nelson is an asshole."
"10-4, detective," someone replies with a laugh.
A warmth creeps through Matt's chest, one he ignores, though he can't help but wonder what the hell Foggy said to Brett. Shortly after, Mahoney radios in that he's checking out suspicious activity on Matt's street. "Better go check it out," Mahoney says, not at all thrilled about the situation.
"So you got nobody, huh, Red?"
Matt can't wait to get back on his feet and answer Frank's question properly. With his fists. For now, "Shut up, Frank," will have to do.
Surprisingly, Frank concedes. "Alright," he replies, dropping into his desk chair, "Matthew."
Happy reading!