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: Apologies for the delay in posting! There is a lot going on in this chapter, and I did not want to make a mess of it. I hope – I HOPE – that this lives up to the expectation being built into the story. I hope that the characters sound true to their season 2 selves.
I feel like addressing the tension between Foggy and Matt, since it didn't exist in their final conversation during season 2. I didn't question it when I started writing this fic. In my mind, there was always tension. There was anger and hurt and betrayal despite that cordial parting of ways in the season finale. I think I'm channeling a lot of what I'd built into my headcanon between these two. I can find canonical evidence to support my reasoning, and I will be delving into that more as the story progresses, but this chapter draws as much from the show as the themes of my previous fanfics. I hope that this is believable.
Readers, readers, readers: you're lovely. You're wonderful. You keep me coming back when I think I'm too tired to keep writing. Thank you for not giving up on this fic. I hope you enjoy this. Cheers.
"You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well, you said that we would still be friends,
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over."
~Gotye feat. Kimbra, "Somebody I Used to Know"
Chapter Fourteen
It takes them forever to arrive, and yet the pair of heartbeats in the hall appear too quickly. Matt goes from hating the knots in his stomach to wishing he had a moment more alone with them. Just him and his nerves and his pain, waiting out the Schrodinger's cat knocking at his apartment door.
His last interactions with Foggy and Karen play through his head. Foggy, at peace with the dissolution of Nelson and Murdock, packing up his half of the office. Sad but not regretful. Karen, increasingly on edge from fear and betrayal. Matt told her everything: about Stick, about Elektra, what little he understands about the Hand. He told her about his abilities, about the mask, why he kept it a secret. Karen had listened patiently, her heartbeat oscillating between a murmur and a gallop. The smell of tears building steadily in the air despite her best efforts. Then she quietly admitted that she needed time, and Matt said he would give her all the time she wanted.
That was over a month ago, and it would have likely been longer if he hadn't gone missing.
Matt gets himself propped onto his crutches. He pats down his pockets, searching for his glasses, forgetting that he hasn't worn them since before the break. Karen knocks again. "I'm coming," but not without his glasses. He wants a wall against them, Karen and Foggy, so they can't see him lying by omission about who he's been staying with for the past ten days.
His glasses on still on the kitchen counter where he left them. Matt's skin recoils from the sensation. They feel strange against his face, clamping against his nose and hooking around his ears. Even before bunking with Frank, he hasn't been wearing them. He hasn't needed to wear them. After closing down the office, Matt switched to freelance, primarily online. Work he could do from home on his own schedule. Just enough to pay the bills without interfering with the mask. How Karen knew he was missing would have required some digging on her part. Matt left the same day she did. God only knows who Frank dug out from under that beam.
Karen and Foggy certainly don't. Her breath hitches when the door opens, and Foggy's heart enters a familiar I-knew-this-was-a-bad-idea rhythm. "Matt," Karen breathes. The tray of coffees and paper bag of bagels she's carrying start to shake. Matt backs down the hall to get out of their way. She doesn't move. "Oh, my God, Matt…"
"Hi, Karen," her heel finally cuts a clean A-sharp on the hardwood. Foggy's loafers pad softly behind her. He smells different. He moves differently too. No more ill-fitting jeans and second-hand tees for Foggy's weekend apparel. He's wearing a button-down shirt and pressed slacks under a jacket so new he forgot to take the tags off. They scratch between layers of clothing as he walks. His wardrobe costs more than they made in all their time at Nelson and Murdock, and he doesn't seem the least bit ashamed of it. Well, maybe a little, when he comes into Matt's proximity.
"Foggy," Matt nods.
"Matt."
The way Foggy says it, his name, with forced aloofness, is a warning shot down Matt's spine. They agreed separation was for the best. They left on what could almost be called positive terms. Yet Foggy's seething in secret. He doesn't want to be here, Matt's broken leg be damned, and Matt can't ask why without getting them off to a worse start.
Karen's hand is moving towards his shoulder; Matt dodges the touch, hobbling back to the couch. "I uh…I take it you two have been doing well?"
"Well, we're both walking on two feet, Matt," Karen charges towards the living room, galvanized by the sight of him. She puts the coffees and bagels on the coffee table before moving to help Matt get settled on the couch. He reassures her that he's got this, he's got this, as he gets his throbbing limb elevated onto the stack of pillows he made. The sutures pull against the swelling in warning that he never do that again.
Matt draws a steadying breath. "I'll be back…" he forces himself to speak through the broiling agony in his calf. "I'll be back on two feet again before you know it."
Foggy hasn't moved past the hallway arch. He's maintaining as much physical distance as he can given the circumstances. "You see a doctor?"
"Yeah," Matt replies.
"A licensed one?"
"Yeah," so there, Foggy.
He isn't convinced, "In a hospital?"
Matt shrugs, "Close enough."
Foggy scoffs, "There's no 'close enough' to a hospital unless you went to a hospital-"
Oh, God damn, here it comes. Matt tries to put a stop to him before Foggy can really get going, "My leg is fine."
Too late: "-and we all know you didn't go to hospital, because you never go to a God damn hospital-"
"I can't go to a hospital, Foggy."
"-and you're not staying with Claire, so-"
He shouldn't know that. Matt tries his best to glare at Foggy, knowing full well it's never worked but needing to do it anyways. "Oh, Claire? You called Claire? I thought you were staying out of this."
"You're right. I was. I need to stay out of this."
"Foggy!" Karen stops him mid-turn to leave. She casts a glance between the two of them, breathless from their recent exchange. "Would you come in here, please?"
"What's the use, Karen? You really think he is going to tell us anything? About how he broke his leg or where he's been for the past ten days or who he's staying with? He agreed to meet with you so you wouldn't file a Missing Persons Report." Hard call as to what infuriates Karen more: that he's accusing her or that it's true. Matt's palm itches to take hold of her hand, to anchor her against the realization that she's been duped. He pulls his hands onto his stomach to keep from reaching.
Foggy continues his tirade unabated, "Mission accomplished, Murdock! Looks like you're not missing. We won't file that report. Get well soon. The city needs you or something."
He charges towards the apartment door.
Karen clatters after him, whispering at him the whole way about how he needs to be here, she can't do this alone. "He listens to you."
"I can hear you," Matt reminds her. She clams up immediately but pats Foggy on the shoulder to redirect him back into the living room. He marches in and plants himself in the arm chair across from the couch.
"How did you break your leg?"
"Foggy," Karen implores him. She doesn't want it to be this way.
None of them do, Matt least of all, but he has to side with Foggy: this is the way things are between them. The room is overflowing with hurt feelings and skin-crawling discomfort. Best to press onward. "How did you break your leg?" Foggy demands.
"A building collapsed."
"Thought you could sense that kind of thing."
"I can," but damn, he wishes Foggy didn't know that. "I was pushing someone out of the way."
"Who?"
Matt shakes his head, "It doesn't matter."
Wrong answer. He should have said he doesn't know. "It doesn't matter" is an obvious code for "I don't want to tell you." Now Karen's taking after Foggy. She sits down on the table next to the tower of pillows supporting Matt's broken leg. She picks up a coffee for herself more to give her nervous fingers something to play with than to drink. "Who?"
Matt buckles under the weight of their stares. There is a short distance between who he saved and where he's staying, and he isn't ready for Foggy and Karen's judgment, their continued interrogation. "If I tell you-"
"No," Foggy shuts him down.
Fine. "Frank Castle."
There's a flicker of time where Karen's heart shudders before resuming business as usual. Matt catches the sound by accident. He isn't listening to her specifically. He's reading the room, trying to figure out the best way to dodge a logical accusation about whether Frank's the person with whom he's currently staying. But the tremor in Karen's respiration reminds him of the one she wore after putting Fisk away. She has buried her secrets deeper than a hole in her apartment wall. Evidently, she stowed some of those secrets away with Frank Castle for safekeeping, or maybe he was with her when they were born.
She hides her mysteries so well. "…Frank Castle is still in Hell's Kitchen?"
Matt almost blurts out, "No." He stops himself before digging himself a deeper hole. "I guess."
Foggy is no longer bullshitting people for Matt's benefit and takes the liberty of asking, "Why would Frank Castle stick around in Hell's Kitchen? He's still public enemy number one in New York. The FBI are never going to take him off their Ten Most Wanted list."
"Not that he deserves to be on there," Karen mutters.
"He is a mass murderer, Karen," Foggy says, stunned.
She fires back, "Well, Matt is a vigilante."
"I've never…I've never killed anyone."
"He's never killed anyone."
They say it at the same time, like it's the old days. Nelson and Murdock for the defence, your honour. Matt turns his senses onto Foggy and takes brief shelter in the protective march of Foggy's pulse, in the warmth he exudes. It's gone too soon, and Matt shivers on the couch.
Karen hangs her head in defeat. She didn't really mean that. Not entirely. "What were you and Frank doing together?"
"We weren't together," Matt replies. "I was checking out a disturbance. He was tailing some guys. We ended up in the same basement, and the ceiling came down."
"And broke your leg?" Foggy asks.
"Yeah," Matt agrees. He can tell from Foggy's tone this is leading somewhere and has no desire to follow. Nothing good comes from where Frank Castle's concerned. He decides to save Karen and Foggy the question. "Frank…he uh…he saved my life."
"He get you to the doctor?"
"Yeah," among other things: splinted the leg, put Matt up while he recovers, put up with Matt's shit while he recovers. Jesus, now that Matt thinks about it, Frank hasn't killed anyone since they became roommates, and only once was not for lack of trying.
He prepares to go on the defensive, but neither Karen nor Foggy put two and two together about where Matt's been. Their concern is more for the injury. Karen flicks at the rim of her coffee cup, inquiring, "How long are you in the cast?"
"Twelve to sixteen weeks," he says. "Maybe longer."
Foggy's ensuing eye-roll is more comforting than condescending. He and Karen both know it's going to be longer.
Probably why Karen's next words are, "You can come stay with me. Until you're back on your feet. Both of them."
"No, Karen-"
Even Foggy joins in, "Karen-"
She turns on him, "He can't-" she remembers Matt is in the room with them. "You can't stay by yourself. Heightened senses be damned. You come home with me. My house is all one level. What? Why are you both shaking your heads?"
"Because that is a terrible idea," Foggy declares.
Matt finds a gentler way of saying it, "I can't, Karen. You have a job and a life. I can't…I won't come in and mess that up for you."
"You wouldn't be messing it up, Matt."
He levels his glasses in her direction for the illusion of a hard stare. Karen succumbs inasmuch as she keeps talking. "You can't do this on your own."
"I'm not on my own," Matt answers.
"Who are you staying with, then? Foggy said he phoned your nurse friend, Claire, and she hasn't heard from you," Karen's voice trails off, bearing a sadness and hurt that Matt's gone so far from them. She swallows, gathering her resolve. "You should be with friends right now, Matt. And as far as I know, all your friends are in this room."
"Friend," Foggy corrects her. "All your friend are in this room."
Karen slams her coffee onto the table and shoots up to her full height. "God damn it, Foggy," she hisses, marching away from them both.
Matt tracks her heels in a small circle on the far end of the apartment. Her respiration is elevated, and she's burning up by degrees with frustration. "Karen," he has the words lined up and ready to go about how this isn't Foggy's fault. He's the one she needs to be mad at. But with Foggy sitting right there, seething, watching Karen draw a circle in the floor with her high heels, Matt stays quiet. They agreed it was for the best, and it is.
Karen disagrees: vehemently. "I thought if we were all honest with each other, things would be better."
"They are."
Foggy glares at him for across the room. For two people who aren't friends, they've certainly maintained a habit of saying things at the exact same time.
Matt continues, "This is better, Karen. You both…you both deserve better than the mask."
"Yeah, and what about you? Don't you deserve better?"
"The city-"
"The city – screw the city, Matt. We thought you were dead! You could have been dead! Instead, you're holed up somewhere with a broken leg. And Foggy, stop acting like you don't give a damn."
"I don't give a damn," Foggy states flatly. His heart powers through a few beats in worry – maybe he does give a damn – before settling into the angry rhythm that Matt's come to know so well. "No, I don't. I used to. I used to give a lot of damns. The kind of damns that get a guy to crawl out of bed at three o'clock in the morning and nurse his dumbass vigilante-friend back to health after he's beaten half-to-death in a screwed up quest to save the city. And then said vigilante-friend told me where I could shove those damns. I am all out of damns to give."
Matt snaps at him, "Then why did you come here, Foggy?"
"I'm here for her. Karen. Because she is my friend and she is worried about you."
"So why are you so pissed off?" he senses Foggy's shock. "Since we're not giving damns about things, I guess you don't give a damn if I listened to your heart."
"I will break your other leg, Murdock." He means it too.
Matt decides to go down swinging, "Why are you so pissed off?"
Foggy really doesn't want to say. He leans back in his seat, quietly fuming. His body shifts subtly towards Karen. That's why he doesn't want to say: his reasons are going to upset Karen.
"I didn't want to come here," Foggy lies by half. The anger simmering away beneath his shaking exterior is for more than getting dragged to Matt's apartment. "And now that I am here, your leg's broken, and I have half a mind to drag your dumbass back to my apartment and make sure you're back on your feet in twelve weeks. But I wouldn't be getting you back on your feet. I'd be saving the devil of Hell's Kitchen."
Foggy finishes speaking, and it's hard to tell that he was lying in the first place. His body isn't ridden with traces of dishonesty. Everything Foggy's said is the raw truth, just not the whole truth, and Matt is cut deeper by his former friend's tone than the throbbing pain in his leg. Those late nights with Foggy tending to him, the mornings of having fresh blood cleaned off his head before rolling into the office, Matt comes to understand anew. He really thought Foggy hated the devil on principle. He wanted to believe that Foggy's anger was fueled by a righteous, legal code. Turns out, Foggy hated the devil because the devil was getting his best friend killed.
Matt hangs his head, grateful that his glasses are covering his eyes. He can't let them know he's dying on the couch. "You don't have to worry about me," he admits quietly, hoping that Foggy won't agree with him.
A fool's hope, as always. "I don't," Foggy retorts. "I worry about Karen."
"And I worry about you," Karen reapproaches. "So come and stay with me, Matt, please?"
"Karen, I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't," her heart is doing that thing. That horrible flutter of utter desolation like the world is falling to pieces and there's nothing she can do to stop it. Matt tries to put her back together, "I'm fine. I promise, I'm fine."
"At least let me know the person you're staying with," she relents, dropping back onto the coffee table. "You said it wasn't that old guy, Stick. Is it someone he trained?"
"No."
"Is it someone you knew from the orphanage?" Karen pleads, fishing for clues.
Matt shakes his head, "I'm fine." Foggy's respiration starts to spike. "Just trust me when I say that I'm fine."
"No way," Foggy's laugh is bitter, breathless. He scrubs at his face.
"I'm fine," Matt says over the thunder of his former friend's heart.
"No. No way, Matt!"
Karen tosses her head between the two of them, "What is it?"
"He is such a hypocrite, that's what. He is – you are! You are such a hypocrite." Foggy launches himself out of his chair and paces in front of the windows.
"One of you tell me what the hell is going on!" Karen snaps breathlessly.
Matt tells before Foggy can, "Frank Castle. I'm staying with Frank Castle."
Karen's heart does a sad little dip. Shock tightens her voice to a shrill whisper. "Frank? You're staying with Frank?"
"He saved my life," Matt offers. "I'd be dead if it wasn't for him."
"You'd be walking on two legs if it wasn't for him too! Among other things!" Foggy points out.
Matt doesn't care what Foggy has to say. He's too busy listening to Karen's shallow respiration, the way her heart rate leaps inside her chest to match Foggy's furious pace. How quickly she switches from fear to anger. She has to get up and pace too, scoffing as she does, "You are such a hypocrite."
He is, but that's beside the point. "I didn't know where else to go."
"To the hospital. To the police!" Foggy declares. "Anywhere except home with a guy who hangs people from meat hooks!"
"I couldn't get to the police. I passed out after it happened. I woke up in a butcher shop with a mob doctor about to do surgery on my leg. Frank…he kept me out for the next two days. I didn't…I didn't know where I was." A cold rush of shock runs through his veins as he tries to retrace the route they took this morning. There's so much city between his place and Frank's that he'd never be able to retrace. "I still don't know where I was."
Foggy says nothing. He slows his pace in front of the windows in an effort to not give a damn. To remind himself that this is all Matt's stupid fault. He is not to sympathize with the broken man he used to call a best friend and partner.
Matt doesn't blame him. He sits on the couch sullenly and waits, instead, for Karen, who is reeling from the information. Her compassion takes a backseat to her amazement. "So you save his life, and then he kidnaps you, and when you get your cell phone back-"
She has to know he considered calling the police. "We have seen what he can do to people who come after him."
"We've seen what he can do to you," Foggy jumps back in on the conversation, "or do you not remember getting shot in the head?"
Karen waves a hand to pause the conversation on that point, "He shot you in the head?"
Matt winces, glowering in Foggy's general direction. There's some things he didn't tell Karen. Taking a bullet to the head, courtesy of Frank Castle, was one of them. "I was wearing my mask at the time. The bullet…" but she isn't listening. Karen is too damn angry to hear. She draws a deep breath, begging the universe for strength. Matt gets back to the original topic of their conversation, "I couldn't call the police without exposing myself as the man in the mask. And Frank…Frank saved my life."
"After you saved his," Karen notes, calming somewhat.
"Yeah," Matt agrees, relishing the sound of her heart rate decreasing. That is, until he recognizes the sound as resignation. Karen is resigned to this: his risks, Foggy's anger, their relationship in shambles.
Nobody says anything for a long time. For them, Matt supposes it's a silent eternity, but for him, it's a bitter opus. Controlled breathing, softly boiling anger, piteous stares at his leg; speaking of, the damn thing is screaming. Matt feels the pain throbbing in his ears, rattling his molars.
"I take it Frank didn't drop you off with any beer," Foggy notes glumly.
"No," Matt replies with a sigh. He could use a beer. His leg could use a keg or two.
Karen gives a small, bitter laugh, and tries to turn it into a joke. "They do call him the Punisher."
Foggy gives a short exhale through his nose: the closest approximation of a laugh that he can muster. He returns to his chair. He grabs the paper bag and digs for a bagel, handing one to Karen and tossing one to Matt. "In lieu of beer," is all he says.
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