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: I have to say a big thank you to everyone who responded to the last chapter. I was very nervous about the exchange, and the amount of reworking the chapter went through really shook me up. I was truly humbled to received such enthusiasm from the readers. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to writing some more Lantom, Frank, and Matt in the future.
I originally thought the contents of chapter nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one of this fic would be one chapter. Because I clearly don't know how words work. On the bright side, dear Reader, this means that the real cliffhanger won't be coming until the next installment, likely around New Year's.
I'm going to be celebrating with family for the next couple of days, so I wish you all a happy/merry time with you and yours, doing whatever you're doing.
Readers, you have made this whole writing process so wonderful. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you so much for your kind support and readership. Cheers!
"I'm devoted to destruction,
A full dosage of detrimental dysfunction.
I'm dying slow but the devil try'na rush me.
See I'm a fool for pain, I'm a dummy.
Might cut my head off right after I slit my throat."
~L'il Wayne Et. Al., "Sucker for Pain"
Chapter Twenty
There's a hand cupped under the back of his head. Too large to be Elektra. Too callused to be Foggy. Too careful for Frank.
But it is Frank holding him, making Matt's scalp clench and hairs stand on end. Matt twists to escape – to the right first, until his cheek hits Frank's fingertips and it's worse, so much worse; then to the left until his ear hits Frank's thumb and that's terrible too. He tries to rise instead, but the rest of him isn't much help. He's sick and tired, nauseated and dizzy. He crawls up an inch before falling a mile back into the Punisher's waiting palm.
The closeness is suffocating. Matt feels his breath bouncing off Frank, feels Frank's breath bouncing off him. His glasses are gone again, and he can't back away when he's lying down. He can't push Frank aside. His skin crawls, but he lies there in the palm of Frank's hand. If he passes out, it'll be bad, but staying conscious means being present and aware of his own uselessness. He's a puppet, Frank's got his strings, and there's work to do. Work to do, Matty.
You need to rest…
Work.
Matt closes his eyes. Breathes into it, the burn. Proximity is the worst, the hardest. The infection is going to kill him, but he's going to live through every agonizing second of being this close to Frank Castle. Of being held by Frank Castle. Of receiving the opposite of violence from Frank Castle.
Takes forever, but Frank's hand finally slips out front under him, replaced with a bundle of fabric. A pillow of polyester, and below that, vinyl, rain: coat. Smelling faintly of Lantom. Matt vaguely remembers Frank wrapping it around him before they left the church. He opens his eyes to the darkness, ignoring the way his brain conjures a fiery phantom from Frank's body heat.
His leg is a persistent screech inside the haze of fever.
Work to do. "Lantom get out okay?"
"Yeah. He called a few minutes ago while you were out."
"You gave him your number?" That doesn't make sense.
"No, he gave me your phone. Found it on his desk when he was grabbing his stuff. Least you got that part of your getaway right."
Matt wiggles his shoulder blades. A metal surface greets him through the layers of his clothing. He's lying on a sturdier table than those in the church commons. "Where are we?"
"East side. Animal hospital."
His nose takes the bait and starts sniffing out details, none of which Matt wants to smell on top of the sour stink of his infected leg. "You called Sato?"
"Yeah, she's on the way. Needs to pick up a few things."
Matt clenches his teeth to keep them from chattering.
"You cold?"
"I'm fine."
Frank is already leaving the room.
"Damn it, Frank: I said I'm fine."
The operating room is insulated. When the door closes, Matt has only his sounds for company. Heartbeat, blood throb, stomach twisting, breath heaving. If the Hand appears – if they're already here – he has no way of knowing. They could get the jump on Frank easily. Cut him up. Storm in here. Matt rolls slightly, testing his mobility. He can't move much, maybe sit if he tries, but there'd be no use in that.
The door reopens. Frank barely suppresses a groan. "Stand down, Red." Fabric unfolds, and there's suddenly a blanket draping over his chest. The scant weight is enough to pin Matt to the table.
Gratitude hurts. Matt says thanks just the same. Under his breath, weakly, but he may as well have shouted with the way Frank's respiration climbs after it's said. Matt saves them both the torment: "You checked the place?"
Frank appreciates the change in subject. "Top to bottom. If they're here, they'd let us know by now."
There's more. Something Frank isn't telling him, something Matt half-remembers from the church along with the smell of dried blood and mucous. "What did you…what did you mean? What you said about Lantom's face…what did you…?"
Frank wants to say. His pulse says as much. But he gives his respiration time to settle before replying, "Didn't mean anything." He starts digging through a bag of supplies. The taste of gunmetal is surprisingly faint under an array of recyclable plastics. Pills clatter inside containers. Liquid splashes in bottles. Frank picked up some provisions for their wait. "You should drink something."
Matt's throat stings from thirst, but he focuses. "Frank."
The seal on the bottle snaps. Frank rounds the surgical table. Matt inches away to find a vantage point, a comfortable distance, but there's no amount of distance from the Punisher to make this comfortable. Not when he's this out of sorts. He gets himself up on his right elbow. Vertigo muddles his conception of Frank's closeness. Matt catches the bottle with his shaking left hand before Frank can get it to his mouth. It doesn't save him from having Frank catch the back of his head again.
Matt wriggles his scalp out of Frank's grasp. He almost vomits in the process, but Frank takes the hint. He lets Daredevil win this round, mostly, putting his hand on Matt's shoulder instead. It's less awful. "What did you mean?" Matt demands.
"Got bigger shit to deal with right now."
"What happened today? What are you not telling me?" Frank's heartbeat enters that unfamiliar rhythm of indecision: tell or don't tell. Matt scoffs. He uses the last of his strength to smirk. He thinks it works; Frank's pulse starts rattling like a snake about to bite. "You know I'm not going to drink until you tell me."
"Grow up, Red," Frank commands him.
Matt commands right back, "Tell me."
Frank gives a small puff in disbelief. They're actually having this conversation, then. Matt half-expects him to walk away in disgust. But Frank abandons his silence a second later by saying, "Your girl and her ninjas? They're on a tear. Carved up three of Fisk's guys – eyelids, lips, nose, hands; feet on one of them – and left 'em to bleed to death with their boss's name cut into their chest."
Matt doesn't get to ask a follow-up question. The drink he was battling is suddenly at his lips. He gets a solid mouthful of chemicals before Frank pulls the bottle away. Sports drink, blue flavoured. Matt cringes from the taste. Salt and sugar residue coats his teeth. That wretched taste is going to linger in the back of his throat, sparing him the flavour of his infection but masking sensory details that might be important. Like how many donors actually contributed to the blood on Frank's shirt. He says three; that seems low.
The electrolytes help though, as do the fluids. Some of the clarity returns to his thoughts. "You found them…these men?"
"Put two of them out of their misery," Frank admits. He thrusts the bottle back towards Matt but gives him the option of turning it away this time. Matt doesn't; using his grip and Frank's, he takes another sip, smaller this time so he doesn't offend his raging stomach. "Thought they were starting a turf war. Guess she's looking for you. Wants to give Fisk a taste of what happens if she doesn't get you back."
Matt needs to lie back down. He presses against Frank's grip on his shoulder, head falling back out of weakness. Frank catches him before his neck wrenches, laying Matt back to rest on Lantom's jacket. Matt is too distracted to feel the burn this time. Or say thanks. The echo of Elektra's murderous heartbeat is too loud and too close in his brain. She killed that boy in his apartment like it was the only thing she knew how to do, like she had been waiting to kill him her whole life. God, she wouldn't have a member of the Hand hack Fisk's men to pieces. She'd want that pleasure for herself.
"Why wait?" he finally asks aloud. "She'd been in my apartment two weeks ago. She could have approached me then, but she didn't. Why?"
"She's your girl."
"She's nobody's girl," and even if she was, Matt wouldn't have an answer.
Frank shrugs. "Maybe she didn't really want to see you."
"Didn't want to see me then, but she's willing to start a war with the Kingpin to get me back?"
"She came back from the dead, Red. Who the hell knows if she's even the same person? And if she is, you think about how shit that would be – dying for somebody, then being alive again? Having that sacrifice mean nothing?"
He is speaking from experience. There are parts of Frank that are rotting in the desert sun, remnants of bartering with a God who didn't keep up His end of the deal. Matt tries and fails to perceive those qualities in Elektra. She wears her regrets like jewellery, beautiful and threatening. Coming back to life would embolden her. She would prance into Matt's apartment as proud as she pleased.
Unless she's not Elektra anymore.
But then why is she targeting Fisk for him? What the hell does she want?
Neoprene snaps against skin. Velcro rips open. Tiny explosions rumble through Matt's leg. He groans, tensing. "It's bad, isn't it?"
Frank scoffs. "Not good, Red."
He keeps talking. Filter's gone, burned up by the same heat wafting throughout his body. "Must be bad. You wanting to call the ambulance."
"You not wanting to," Frank adds. That's just as good evidence for how bad it is in his opinion. "Deep breath," and he actually waits for Matt to take one before opening the cast and peeling it off of Matt's leg.
Matt holds his scream in the back of his throat through clenched teeth and a tense neck. A second ago he couldn't hold himself upright; now, his shoulders curl forward, his spine stretches out, his fist pounds into the table. The agony tears through his wounds, rips through his skin, coils around his broken bone like barbed wire. And when he finally draws a breath, the air is polluted with infection. He's drinking puss, blood, inflammation; sweat and dirty gauze.
He slaps a hand over his mouth, swallowing hard once, twice, three times. Frank swats at his wrist to clear a path to his mouth and nose. "Breathe, Red. Come on." Matt tries to rip the blanket in half instead as he counts himself down. Five counts in, hold for three; five counts out. Don't throw up, don't throw up, don't throw up... He lays there gasping. Frank's grip on his left thigh loosens; Matt didn't realize he was being held.
A monotonous, feminine voice chimes through his sickening haze: "Karen, Karen, Karen…"
"Damn it," Matt kicks with his good leg, jostling his bad leg, and as he groans in pain, Frank curses.
"Really, Red?" he demands, pinning Matt's bad leg down again by the thigh.
"She'll know something's wrong," Matt struggles to breathe. "I have to…I have to answer."
"Now. You wanna talk to her now."
"Karen, Karen…"
Matt grits his teeth, wheezing, searching inside himself for the right answer. Yes, no hell no. The compulsion to destroy his phone is strong, no matter how useless it would be. "She isn't going to stop unless I answer."
"She isn't going to stop if you do."
He is going to throw up. "Give me my phone, Frank."
Before Matt can catch his breath or find his voice, Frank has snapped off a glove and picked up the phone. "Here," Matt reaches for it, but all he receives a gentle push from Frank to lay his arm back down. Then Frank double-taps the screen of the phone. The call connects, and Karen begins speaking.
"Matt?"
Frank waits for the kid to shout, to throw a punch, to jostle his God damn broken leg or take off running a-fucking-gain, but Red's gone absolutely still. His breathing is quiet suddenly. There are tears in his eyes, sweat beading along his hairline. The harsh lighting in the OR makes him look dead. Frank gives him another second to crack; he doesn't. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen lies there in silence, allowing Frank to field the call.
Great. He hasn't a clue what the hell to say besides, "Ma'am."
He hears the phone rocking in her hand. Karen's voice goes up a pitch in surprise. "Oh, my God: Frank?"
Their last interaction – her: defeated, accusing, lost – blurs in Frank's brain with the destruction of his family home. Karen Page followed him to the end only to discover they were headed in opposite directions. The revelation about Red can't have come as a welcome surprise.
The quiet from the other line tells him she doesn't know what to say either. Karen takes a long-ass time to formulate a rather underwhelming, "How…how are you?"
"Busy." Red's face twists guiltily as Frank speaks before turning away. "You?"
"Busy." Her voice sounds wrong. Too guarded to be natural. Busy is an understatement for them both. Shit's going down in Hell's Kitchen, and she's taking it upon herself to see it right. As usual. "Uh…is Matt there?"
"He is," and by the looks of it, Red's accepted his fate. He rolls his head back towards Frank to greet catastrophe head on. Frank reaches out to touch his wrist – not this time, Red – but the kid pulls his arm away from the approaching touch. Fever gives his movements a clumsy sharpness.
Karen takes a breath, steeling herself against the answer to her next question. Frank can't tell if it's because of him, Red, or both. "Can I talk to him?"
Frank puts his back to the kid, no intention of putting him on the line. Red has enough problems. "Yeah, I'll wake him."
"He's asleep?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, then…no, don't…don't wake him. That's alright. Let him…let him get some rest. He probably needs it."
Red releases the breath he's been holding, as if he can hear Karen's side of the conversation. Which he probably can. Frank presses the phone tightly to his ear, casting a sidelong glance at Red. "Probably."
"He really doesn't know when to quit."
"No, he doesn't," Frank thinks he can see the makings of a sad smirk cross the kid's face.
She pauses, considering her next words very carefully, weighing whether or not to even speak them aloud. "I uh…I asked him to come stay with me today."
"Uh huh." Bet that went over real well with Red. The hell did he give her as an excuse? No way he told her about the ninjas.
She sighs. Nope, not ninjas. Karen would mention those. She believes the reasons are personal. Which they are, but the ninjas don't help. "Not that I don't appreciate everything you've done, but uh…I just thought…he would benefit staying with someone…else. Someone…lower profile. Someone who knows him outside of the mask."
Frank almost lets it slip that he's gotten to know Red pretty good over the past little while. The more the kid tries to close himself off, the easier he is to read. But Frank isn't up for the fallout, not from Karen and definitely not from Red. He stays on course with the heart of the matter. "Not my call to make," he says.
"It's not a call Matt's ever going to make. Not on his own."
Sounds like a lamentation and nothing more, but Frank already feels her voice wheedling its way through his brain. He's been implicated. Karen has planted a seed. Unintentionally, at least to her, though Frank knows she's smart enough to see that her complaining about Murdock might inspire him to act. Twelve hours ago, he would have agreed whole-heartedly. Common sense tells them both that staying with Frank is a dumb move.
Common sense tells Frank that's also not his call. Ninjas got no reason to come after her at the moment. Best to keep it that way. "Real pain in the ass, this one," he notes.
Karen scoffs. "Yeah."
Red's expression is halfway between and a laugh and a cry. Frank turns the volume down on the phone, takes a few steps away from the operating table. Tries to think of words that won't take shots at the kid's character. He's already sweating out; Red's gonna die of dehydration if he cries.
As if she can hear him, as if she knows that Red is silently falling to pieces behind Frank, Karen then asks, "He is…alright, isn't he?" Frank's about to feed her Red's old standby – "He's fine" – before she presses, clarifies, "I don't just mean physically, I mean…he's been grieving. He's been alone. He's badly injured." She doesn't say it outright, but they're both thinking how fucked up it is that Frank's the one minding the kid given all this too. "He can be a real asshole. He's been a real asshole, but that doesn't mean...that doesn't mean he isn't a good man. How is he, really?"
Karen's fishing. She always is, but this time, she's already got a bite. She isn't asking for an answer; she wants his validation on something she already knows about good men grieving alone. Or maybe it's more than that. Frank shudders, her defeat coming back to him from that night in the forest when he closed the door in the face of her redemption Maybe she wants assurances that Red isn't following on Frank's path.
"I think you just answered your own question," he replies.
She breathes, gearing up for more, but the truth of what he's said sinks in and Karen quiets again. "You can be a good man too, Frank."
"When I'm not being a real asshole?"
For a second, his addled brain conjures the perfect picture of her. Cheeks flushing with colour, blue eyes gleaming, jaw tensing as her mouth struggles between a smile and a frown. The gravity of the situation returns and drains the picture out of Frank's thoughts, but Karen was there. He remembers her. His brain isn't a total shitstorm.
Best of all, she hasn't given up on him. Not entirely. "Thank you for taking care of him, Frank. God knows he won't do it himself."
Frank listens to the ragged exhale from behind him, the one that comes in place of a scream. He hangs his head. No telling if that scream is for Red's leg, sickness, or heart, though Frank's had a part in fucking up all three. He scrubs at his scalp. The itch runs as deep as the bullet from her gratitude. From her hopefulness. "Take care of him," the priest says. "You can be a good man," she says. Meanwhile, the kid's better off waiting for God to answer some of Lantom's prayers than for Frank to be a good man.
Still, he says, "Yes, ma'am." Because the fight's not over yet: not for him, not for Red. Ain't throwing in the towel when they've both got strength for a few more punches.
"…doesn't mean he isn't a good man."
Matt lets his stinging eyes slip closed but refuses to give himself away more than that. No matter how low the volume gets, how far Frank tries to get from him, Matt's hearing finds Karen's voice in a vice-grip, refusing to let go. He doesn't want to talk about it, though: her steadfast belief in his goodness (or, as he later learns, Frank's). He's lying again, dying again, being an asshole again. She might not take his call when he finally gets the strength to phone her back.
Karen certainly expects him to call her. She tells Frank as much before disconnecting. Matt disconnects too, letting the heat carry him out of awareness as Karen's half of the conversation replays faintly in his skull.
Matt returns to the sound of the door locking, lights switching on; neoprene stretches over steady fingers, a mask distorts her breathing into a rasp. Surgical tools are unwrapped and laid out over the counter. Saline suddenly runs cold over the length of his mangled calf.
He closes his eyes, holds his breath, pretends it's Claire pressing on his sutures. His daydream can last as long as Sato's silence, which is a good, long time. She has patience that would put saints to shame and a focus that makes Matt's skin crawl faster than Frank laying his head down to rest.
Speaking of Frank, Matt's right arm itches when he appears nearby, preparing a fresh bag of saline for an IV. He turns his attention back to Sato. "Sorry," he says, twitching his right foot in apology.
Her heart doesn't break rhythm and her voice remains dispassionate as she says, "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were doing this on purpose."
"Are you sure you know better?"
She misses the joke. Because there isn't one. "I'm going to have to reopen the wound to clean it."
Matt knows where this is headed. "Don't put me under."
Frank takes his forearm out from under the blanket. The chill in the air bites against Matt's damp skin. He doesn't catch the elastic tightening around his bicep until Frank has tapped one of his veins with a needle. "Stop, Red."
"I need to be able to hear," Matt tells them both. "I-" the fresh saline entering his arm cuts him off. He shakes on the table with new chill, struggling for focus. "You need rest, Matthew,"plays alongside Dad's curt, "Work to do, Matty. Work to do," and he can't do either. He can't. He can't, but he must. He has to. He is the only one.
He stops Frank from interrupting further. "These ninjas…they're quiet. You won't know they're here until it's too late. You can't put me under."
Frank's heartbeat roars. "Not keeping you awake, Red."
"You don't have a choice."
"You're damn right I don't. She is going to be digging around in your leg-"
"You have to track them by their breath-"
"-for who knows how long-"
"-in this room, the next room-"
"-and if you think I'm gonna stand here-"
"-on the roof! The next…the next block over!"
"Oh, what, and you can?"
Here it comes: "Yes! I can hear them, Frank!"
"Bullshit, Red." But Frank believes it. Deep down, he believes it. His heart hammers out of control because he has to do something about it. "Seen you hear a man coming up the stairs, pick out opponents in a fight..."
The air in the room weighs a tonne. Matt slings breath after breath out of his tired chest, the explanation stealing his remaining strength. There's too much, and they don't have time. Sato has to start cleaning the wound. Sooner she does that, the sooner he doesn't have to be in pain. He settles on the abridged version, "My senses...they're heightened. With focus, I can isolate sensory details: sounds, smells, tastes, touches."
Frank whips away from the table. He scrubs at his head vigorously. "Bullshit, Red. Bullshit…"
"You've seen me do it. You're seeing me do it," Matt struggles to think of an argument that will convince him. "I can hear your heart, Frank. I know the difference between when you're at ease and geared up." He certainly knows now with Frank's respiration spiking. "I can smell the blood on your t-shirt, the gunshot residue on your hands, the…the…" he sniffs, focusing. "The water from where you tried to wash up."
A chill runs through him from more than just fever. Frank tried to wash up. The Punisher tried to clean himself up. Matt can't figure out what that means.
Meanwhile, Frank continues pacing. Scrubbing his head. Charging around the damn operating room. His heartbeat is relentless, a wild stallion. In disbelief? Matt shakes his head. He doesn't want to say it out loud, but her words are right there on the tip of his tongue. "Before she hung up, Karen thanked you for taking care of me. Because…" he chokes a little. The pain in his leg, already unbearable, is about to get a whole lot worse.
"…because it's not like I would do it myself."
Frank's pacing slows. His pulse begins to follow. He brushes a hand one last time over his head, thoughts churning. "Put him out," he orders Sato. "Now. Put him out."
"God damn it, Frank, you won't be able to hear them coming!"
"God damn it, Frank, you won't be able to hear them coming!"
"And you will, her digging in your leg? And…and so what if you do? You're plan's the same here as it was in fucking church. You hear them a block away, you want me and Doc to cut and run? That's what you think we're gonna do? What I'm gonna do?"
"It's what you have to do!"
Frank's body rumbles on the spot. Guilt rising. Duty mounting. "Gave that priest my word, Red. I'm not leaving."
"You gave Lantom your word you wouldn't kill too," Matt laughs so hard he cries. "Gonna be a liar one way or another tonight, Frank. At least if you leave, you'll be alive."
Back to Sato: "Put him out."
"Frank!"
She is working on loading syringes, heart hammering away in her chest. Sato hasn't made it this far by being stupid. Cutting and running at the first sign of trouble sounds like a solid course of action. But she's caught between a gun and a hard place. No choice.
Matt sees weakness and exploits it, "You are sentencing her to death, Frank. Maybe you don't care about killing ninjas, but if she's here and they come, she's gonna die!"
The Punisher's heartbeat wavers for a second. A second. And when it returns to course, it still sounds funny no matter because he doesn't have a choice either. Matt listens to the funny tremble in his respiration. It resonates no matter how hard Frank tries to sell his next line. "She was sentenced to death the second I dropped your ass on her table. She's living on borrowed time."
"THAT'S BULLSHIT, FRANK! YOU GAVE LANTOM YOUR WORD!"
"Had to end sometime…"
Sato moves. The smell of the meds in the syringe gives her location away. Matt tears out his IV port. Blood spurts out of the fresh hole on his arm. He scrambles off the table, but gets caught by Frank and pinned.
The needle burns in his thigh; Frank's hands burn where they touch. Matt grabs Frank by the wrist and lets the fire spread. "You're an asshole."
Frank shoves him back on the table. The drugs sweep through him, a wave of sickening drowse carrying him far away.
"Yeah, so are you," Frank intones.
Blackout.
Happy reading!