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: Wading through the emotional landscape of season two has been, simultaneously, one of the most valuable and exhausting experiences as a writer of fanfiction. It's honestly one of the reasons I stuck to one-shots for so long. As a result, I am not mincing words when I say that this chapter kicked the crap out of me, and even after all my read-throughs, edits, and agonizing, I'm left with this lingering feeling that there's more work to do. But that is for a later chapter.
Readers. Lovely Readers. Amazing readers. I'm sorry for the long break between chapters. I'm sorry for the radio silence on my part. There is nothing I enjoy more than hearing from you, and I usually like to respond to everyone in a timely manner before my next post. I didn't mean to go so long without updating. I hope this chapter was worth the wait. I'm looking forward to posting more soon! Cheers!
"It's something I said
Or someone I know
Or you called me up
Maybe I wasn't home.
Now everybody needs some time
And everybody knows
The rest of the lines
In everybody else's show."
~The Dandy Warhols, "We Used to be Friends"
Chapter Fifteen
Breakfast gives them a chance to regroup. Foggy's coat comes off. Karen's shoes are kicked to the corner. Matt's leg throbs. He eats less out of hunger than distraction. The anger stewing from the armchair is louder than his injury.
Karen peppers the silence with questions, and Matt does his best to appease her. He isn't hungry. The pain in his leg is. It gnaws a jagged path through his body until fire is the only thing Matt feels.
No matter how subtle Karen tries to be, her inquiries aren't benign. "You said you knew what borough you were in? Where is Frank now? What has he been doing while you've been at his place?" Matt gives her what he can: that Frank has a second-floor walk-up. There's a few neighbours he's never met. He's been too drugged up to know exactly what Frank has been up to, but her asking means that the Punisher hasn't punished lately. His activities are nothing if not newsworthy.
She finally comes out and demands to know where the apartment is. Matt sighs in defeat. He doesn't want to lie to her, but he can't give her the whole truth either.
Foggy, miraculously, comes to the rescue. His bagel is half-finished on the table. There's a fire burning through his hunger too. "You don't want to know that."
"You don't want to know that," Karen snaps, harsher than she intends if her heart rate is any indication.
"No, I don't, and neither should you," Foggy stops her before she can tear a strip off him. "And it has nothing to do with my not-caring about Matt. It has everything to do with what happens to you, Karen, which is…" he hesitates, loathe to admit what's really going on, "…which is something Matt must care about too."
"Frank Castle wouldn't hurt me," Karen declares.
"Okay, it's scary that you believe that. Downright terrifying, in fact. But that's not my point or Matt's point, I don't think. What are you going to do if he tells you what borough Frank's in?" Foggy doesn't give her a chance to lie, though Karen's about to. She's got a flimsy delusion resting on the tip of her tongue, ready to let loose, one she promptly swallows when Foggy adds, "You're going to go investigative journalist on him until you find Frank's apartment."
She gives nothing away, not to Foggy, but to Matt, Karen's disappointment at being known fills the room. She forces herself to breathe through Foggy's accurate prediction of her endgame: "And even if you don't roll up to Frank's front door pretending to have just been in the neighbourhood, knowing where the Punisher is – knowing where Matt is – puts all of you in jeopardy."
"Puts you in jeopardy too," Matt adds. Trust Foggy not to mention that, to place Karen's well-being before his own.
Foggy plays off his selflessness as anger for being part of the Daredevil's circle – "Yeah, don't remind me" – but the way he takes to pacing again is proof he hasn't been thinking about himself. He's been thinking about Karen. Heaven help him, Foggy's been thinking about Matt.
Karen doesn't notice. She would say something if she did. "Hogarth wouldn't let them take you in, Foggy. She'd want you for Matt's defence."
Matt waits for Foggy to shut down that line of thinking: that he would take on Matt's defence. Surprisingly, Foggy doesn't. "It's not the cops I'm worried about."
"The cops have nothing to suggest you two were involved," Matt notes. "There's a lot of dangerous people in Hell's Kitchen who won't believe that though. Even more who have it in for the Punisher."
Karen can't dispute that. As much as she'd love to double-dog dare the criminal element in Hell's Kitchen to bring it on, she's outgrown enough of her naiveté to think better of it. Her body shifts between them, Foggy and Matt, disquieted by their ability to harmonize despite their animosity. She flicks the rim of her coffee cup, plotting, growing more and more frustrated as the impossibilities of their situation dawn on her. Her heartbeat spirals out of control. "So we're supposed to just sit here and let you disappear with the Punisher?"
Before Matt can point out the obvious fact that he has been disappeared for a month without Frank's help, Foggy huffs in disbelief. "Why is that only troubling for you in relation to Matt?"
"He didn't shoot me in the head, Foggy."
The lameness of her excuse doesn't hit until after she's said it. Her efforts to deflect are weakening in the face of Frank Castle. Matt empathizes - Frank has that effect on people – but Karen isn't an idiot. She knows better than him or Foggy what kind of fire Matt's playing with by being in Frank's company.
Foggy doesn't bite. Yet. He still credits Karen's idealism for her ardent defense of the Punisher, not whatever happened to give Frank insight into her feelings about Matt. "Uh, he didn't try to shoot you in the head specifically, because shotguns aren't known for their precision."
"He wasn't aiming for me," Karen retorts, because her first excuse wasn't lame enough. Her respiration is a flurry of conflicting emotions. She needs the spotlight back where it belongs. "He was aiming for Matt. And Matt's the one going back to stay with Frank. Willingly."
He hates the way she says it: out loud, as a fact. When Matt goes through the motions back to Frank's apartment, he doesn't have to acknowledge all the reasons it's the wrong thing to do. "He knows who I am, Karen," as if he would call the police otherwise. "There's a bag full of my stuff at his place, along with my armour. The cops would never catch him, but he'd make damn sure they caught me."
"No, that's not it," Foggy snarls. He points his finger on an imaginary point that Matt is trying his best to hide under a worst case scenario. "Don't you pin this on him, and don't you dare pin this on us. This is about that crazy devil of yours."
"Why is that such a bad thing, Foggy?"
"Because it's not right, Matt! Not what you do or what the Punisher does is right!"
"The law isn't-"
"Yeah, yeah, the law isn't enough. I get it," Foggy throws his hands down on the back of the chair. He has an argument here, but it's about as lame as Karen's he-wasn't-aiming-for-me nonsense. "Can we at least agree that what you do isn't enough either? Not this vigilante business or whatever you want to call what Frank Castle does?"
Matt hesitates. He told Foggy once before: he is done apologizing for who he is. "Agree to disagree."
Foggy throws his hands back into the air and wanders into the static of Matt's skull. Pain has finally started tearing into his focus. Won't be long before he's a shell on the couch. He has to put a stop to Foggy's next argument before it comes. "Things are happening in Hell's Kitchen."
Karen is gentle, exasperated. From the understatement as much as the resentment brewing in the apartment. "You're going to have to be way more specific."
"I don't know the extent of it yet," Matt tells her, buying himself some time to think of a better reason than his ill-advised visit with the criminal Kingpin of Super Max. He's stricken with the vivid and all-too-plausible idea of Karen scheduling a meeting at the penitentiary and landing herself on Fisk's hit list as well. Frank provides him with an excuse. "The night my leg…" Matt doesn't want to say it. Yet another dose of reality he can't put into words. "Frank was tailing some guys. He said they worked for Fisk."
"You believe him?" Foggy asks.
Karen doesn't have to ask. Her questions are focused on the logistics instead of the validity of Frank's claim. "How is Fisk running operations from Super Max?"
"It doesn't matter, Karen," and truly, it doesn't. They're never going to cut off Fisk's ties with the Kitchen. "What matters is what he's trying to do. Fisk running operations is going to set the other players on edge."
Foggy scoffs, "Punisher running operations is going to set them on fire. Literally."
"And the devil of Hell's Kitchen is down for the count," Karen adds half-heartedly.
"Down," Matt insists, "but not out." There has to be things he can do on one leg to make lives difficult without getting killed. Hell's Kitchen needs him. Foggy needs him. Fisk isn't going to let his quest for vengeance go. In fact, the devil's absence will likely call for an acceleration of the awful things Fisk's planning for the lawyers who put him away. And that's before the Punisher gets involved.
"Yeah, not out," Foggy scoffs. Matt can tell his leg is being scrutinized. The fire inside him gets hotter and more pronounced the longer Foggy stares. "Not yet."
The static in Matt's skull masks the anger and worry he senses buzzing away in Foggy's corner of the apartment. Or maybe he doesn't sense that at all: maybe he misses that. He feels residual echoes of ice packs and sutures, Aspirin and Foggy. Always Foggy.
"If Fisk is back, he isn't going to let us go," Matt states quietly. He doesn't want to prompt the question about how he knows this; he wants it to sound like a logical suspicion. "You need to watch out for him, Foggy."
Foggy's accusing tone masks his concern. "What about you?"
Matt isn't interested, "You have more to lose."
"Yeah, I do, but it also means I'm harder to get to," Foggy's gaze passes over Matt's leg again. "Guess it's a good thing you have the Punisher."
"Yeah."
Foggy groans, "I'm being sarcastic."
Matt isn't. He wishes he was, but he isn't. "Yeah."
Muttering, "God damn you, Murdock."
"Even I heard that," Karen scolds him half-heartedly. She sounds worlds away from their current conversation, lost in thought.
"Wasn't trying to hide it," he drops back into the arm chair,
Matt is prepared for this, "It's fine, Karen."
"No, it's not fine, Matt," the atmosphere in the living room jitters from her own frustration. Adrenaline and tears make for a heady combination of scents. She is a whole new kind of worried. Her heart is on a wild ride inside her chest.
"What is it?" Matt asks.
She doesn't know what to say, or she doesn't want to say it. The silence stands for a good, long while. Matt can practically hear her ideas colliding. "There's been…disappearances. People have been going missing in Hell's Kitchen. Starting around the same time that you disappeared."
Foggy's voice is soft and sad for her sake, "Karen thought you were one of them, once she found out you hadn't been home."
"Better than assuming he was dead," Karen snarls, because that was obviously Foggy's assumption. His heart clomps guiltily through the next several beats.
"That wasn't my only assumption," but it was definitely the first.
Matt stops them. His mind is already reeling from the information. "You think Fisk is responsible?"
"I didn't," Karen replies. "I don't…think I do now, but it's plausible. The men who have gone missing, they're small fish. Guys with records, yeah, but small-time stuff. Theft and assault, mainly. Some of them had former ties to Fisk's operations, and I recognized a few of the names as former clients."
"Cops haven't reported a suspicious string of missing persons," Matt would have heard about those on the police scanner. Unless the person doing the taking was better than the cops.
Karen tosses her head. "I have contacts in Hell's Kitchen."
"Criminals," Foggy declares.
"Some of them, yes, but at least they're willing to talk," she declares. Karen Page for the defence, your honour. "And they're scared right now. Whoever is responsible for this is careful. There's no trace. Which is why the cops haven't reported it, and why I've had trouble tracking it."
"Almost like the people or person responsible has military training," Foggy says.
Karen rebukes his suspicions immediately, "Or that they have greater resources."
Matt sides with her, "When Frank makes people disappear, the cops know about it. I would know about it."
"Would you?" Foggy prods him. "You said he kept you out for two days. You don't know where you've been."
"No," Matt places Frank at the apartment as often as he can in his memory. There are gaps from his medication, but that serves as confirmation of Frank's presence. He hasn't gone out while Matt's been impaired, and when he does, it's never long enough to disappear someone from Hell's Kitchen. "It's not Frank."
"You think it's Fisk?" Karen asks. She does. Or she wants to.
"No," this doesn't sound like Fisk either. "Fisk is careful. His name used to be a well-kept secret, but he doesn't have that kind of power in Hell's Kitchen."
"So who do you think it is?"
How Foggy knows that he already has an idea is unnerving. Matt wishes they were strangers, that they couldn't read each other like open books. That Foggy's respiration didn't scream insight into Matt's thoughts, and Matt didn't give himself to Foggy away so easily. So eagerly. "I don't know," Matt lies, leaning back into the couch as if he doesn't. His stomach churns. His heart races. The rooftop is empty, silent, but phantom breaths ripple down Matt's spine.
Turns out its Karen, whose heart is already racing to figure out who is responsible. "Fisk would have the resources."
"But not the motives," Matt points out. "Why would he cause his own people to disappear?"
"Maybe he's planning something. Building an army. Plotting an escape from Super Max."
"Karen," Foggy moans.
"What?"
"Investigating a string of mysterious disappearances is dangerous enough without the suspicion that it might be a man we had a hand in sending to prison. Like on a scale of one to Matt-is-rooming-with-a-professional-mass-murderer, that goes all the way up to eleven."
"I'm not going to bury my head in the sand, Foggy!"
"That's not…that's not what he's saying," Matt knows because he wants to say the same thing to her. "You need to be careful, Karen. You need to make sure that whoever this is can't get to you too."
"I don't need the devil to protect me," she states flatly.
"Good, because the devil can't protect you."
"Thanks, Foggy."
Foggy doesn't engage. "The devil's out. Punisher's…punishing. Fisk is on the loose. And some rando is picking small-time felons off the street without leaving a trace. Instead of taking your requisite two-steps towards danger, can you please observe at a safe distance for a while?"
"And…what? Let this happen? We're the only ones who know this is happening," Karen reminds them.
Matt groans. He can't believe he's about to do this, but Karen isn't about to back down from the unknown, lethal as it may be: "What if I asked Frank to look into it?"
Not for the first time, Matt wishes for silence. Instead, the room is a hurricane of sounds, each more horrified than the next. Foggy's pulse reigns supreme amidst the cacophony. He is waiting for Karen to supply a response, but God help her, she's considering it. "No!" Foggy's body temperature drops and then rises with his rage. "Absolutely the hell not!"
He waits again for back-up: none is forthcoming. Karen is mulling over the option quietly, muscles tensing as the lack of options dawns upon her. Foggy groans before starting another furious lap around the apartment. He stops beside the couch, hurling his words directly at Matt. "I can't believe you." He corrects himself, including Karen, "I can't believe you two! The man is a lunatic mass-murderer! He has taken shots at both of you! And instead of locking him up, you want to give him more reasons to rip Hell's Kitchen apart!"
"What do you want, Foggy? You don't want me investigating missing persons-"
"I don't want you getting hurt, Karen! Which is something I can guarantee will happen if Matt invites Frank Castle to use this neighbourhood for target practice!"
"I don't have to invite him," Matt points out.
"That doesn't mean you give him something to shoot at," Foggy declares.
Nobody moves or speaks in the apartment for a long time. Foggy's right, of course. Karen knows it. Matt definitely does. He has no intention of introducing Frank Castle to the people responsible for making Fisk's cronies disappear. But he can't tell Foggy that without allowing Karen to stay on the scent, to wander into the darkness that even he, Matt, doesn't fully understand. So he stays quiet, cradling her heartbeat in his skull against the screech of pain in his calf.
He almost doesn't notice the sounds of fabric swishing. Of footsteps traipsing behind the couch.
"Foggy!" Karen calls after him.
"I did what you asked me to do, Karen! I came here, made sure he was alive. I'll even keep up my end of the deal: I won't file a missing persons' report. But if Frank Castle starts blowing up Hell's Kitchen on some yellow-brick quest for what he calls justice, you better be the next one who disappears, Murdock."
He heaves a final, shuddering breath, seething the whole while with old hurt and new fury. The apartment rocks with every remaining footstep before rattling as the door slams in his wake.
Karen sets the living room shaking by trembling. She dusts off her lap, starting to rise, "I don't want you to tell Frank about this." Matt thinks she's going to leave too, but Karen ends up standing in the living room, lost, while Foggy charges off down the street. She drops her face into her hand, cradling her temples for a few seconds before scrubbing her palm against her skin. "You shouldn't tell Frank about this, I just…I can't stand by and let Wilson Fisk or anyone else tear this neighbourhood apart again."
"None of us can," but that's not the point. Fisk is bad enough all by himself without someone else playing a terrifying game of hide-and-seek. "You can't do this alone, Karen. Foggy's right."
She hums, "Foggy's right. Of course, he's right." And then, because it has to be asked, "What happened between you two? You…you wanted to make things right with me by showing me the mask. Why didn't you try to make things right with him?"
"There's nothing to say," Matt admits.
"God damn it. God damn both of you," Karen jabs a stockinged foot onto the floor, unable to contain how pissed off this is getting her. Matt empathizes. She directs her next comment towards the broken leg throbbing next to her. "I mean…God damn you slightly less because of your leg."
"Thanks," Matt replies glumly.
She gives nothing else away. "Can you blame him – or me – seeing you like this? Knowing where you're going? That you're going there willingly?"
"It's not the broken leg," or the fact that he's staying with Frank Castle. Foggy is pissed off about more than those things.
"The broken leg doesn't help."
No, the broken leg only hurts. Matt changes the subject, "How did you know I was missing?"
Karen's heart returns to its usual rhythm. They're back in familiar territory. She She takes a seat on the arm of the couch. "Wasn't easy. You're hard to track these days."
Matt doesn't disagree. Abandoning his day job and civilian life has given him more time to perfect stealth as the devil. "You've been tracking me?"
"For the paper." Her heart says otherwise, pattering away in her chest. Karen doesn't let her deception stand. "For me. I thought it might help me…understand."
"Did it?"
"I…don't know, maybe…understanding wasn't what I was looking for?"
"What are you looking for?"
Karen is telling the whole, sad truth. "I don't know."
Matt wishes it was different, and yet, the unknown comes with greater comfort than Karen abandoning him at the apartment with Foggy. She's here. She's searching. Those secrets she has buried inside her are stoking her curiosity as much as the revelation about his abilities. "Let me know when you do."
Her hand hovers over his knee for a long moment. Matt absorbs the heat from her palm through his sweatpants. He waits for her to pull away; she doesn't. She lays her fingers onto his knee. There are words, so many words. Her lips are loaded with them, but she doesn't say a damn thing. Maybe she's already said them all to Frank.
There has to be something he can do on one leg, something that keeps her and Foggy safe.
"What time is it?"
Karen reaches for her purse. She digs in the pocket for her phone, activating the Lock screen. "1:45." The phone drops back into her bag, sticking against leather (wallet) and clanking against plastic (TASER) on the way down. "Let me guess: you have to meet Frank."
He listens carefully to her respiration, measuring what he knows about Karen lying with her telling the truth. Hard to believe she handed him the lie on a silver platter, but there it is, waiting for him. "Yeah. 2 pm. I'll take a cab."
"I'll drive you."
Matt expects as much, "You need to be gone before he arrives." He can't have her following him: not where he's going with Frank and definitely not where he's going now.
The rooftop is still silent.
Karen sighs, "You call me, then, tonight. From Frank's."
"Don't look into these disappearances," Matt counters.
"Call me."
"Okay."
Karen concedes, "Fine."
Her lying only bolsters Matt's resolve to go. He has work to do.
Happy reading!