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: Usually, I'm able to post on weekends, but I have spent the past two weekends out of town. I apologize that this chapter is coming so late, and I'm afraid that the next chapter may be another two weeks in coming (thanks, report cards!). But I am so happy to get it posted tonight!

I'm so grateful for the patience and support with this fic. It has developed well past where I thought it would, and there's still a fair way left to go, a lot left to do. I want to thank you, Readers, for your time, your energy, your patronage. Thank you!

"Disarm you with a smile

And leave you like they left me here

To wither in denial

The bitterness of one who's left alone."

~Smashing Pumpkins, "Disarm"

Chapter Twenty-Five

Elektra's apartment is a penthouse suite, the dimensions of which remain a mystery even once Matt becomes mobile again. He uses the crutches as a cane, tapping out a narrow hallway outside of his room. It brings him left to the master bedroom, right to the kitchen, living, and dining area.

The whole space resists reading. Where Frank's apartment was cluttered with sensory stimuli, a disorienting mess of sounds and smells and drafts, Elektra's space is carefully controlled. The air is filtered and temperature is consistent. Sounds are muffled. Matt makes out the ghostly scents of service staff lingering in the space, but Elektra's smell is the strongest. She is deeply embedded in every nook and cranny. This has been her home for a while.

What's worse is the calculated nature of it all. Matt wanders into the master bedroom, larger and grander than his, and the smells become frenzied. The air tussles with competing aromas – sly perfumes softening the Tiffany-blue tang of jewellery; a few outfits, their tags still attached, mingle with the cloud of fresh bed linens, cast aside. Elektra was deciding what to wear between silk, satin, and bamboo. Soft fabrics.

Matt's t-shirt prickles at his skin suddenly in alarm, the smell cloying his nostrils. The open bedroom door takes on new meaning. He retreats back down the hall.

There's a terrace attached to the kitchen and dining area, one that wraps around the corner of the building. Matt lets himself out into the city's torpor. His excitement fades almost as quickly as it appears. The penthouse is so high up that he has no sense of depth, no sense of distance. He can't hear a ninja breathing down his neck from the rooftop any more than he can place which direction the roll of the Hudson is coming from.

Matt re-enters the apartment, buzzing with frustration, with anger, unable to shake the feeling of ropes tightening around his arms and chest. The sense that he's imprisoned in more than just body the longer he's in the apartment. Elektra has had four days to decide which doors to leave open, which doors to lock; what to wear, what to leave lying on her bed.

He avoids the couch where Elektra is currently lounging to make a lap of the sitting room. It's massive; he aches all over by the time he's halfway around. But Matt perseveres. He wants to know this place. Where the weapons are; where the exit is, how many people are waiting on the other side; how many more tenants there are in the building and if they're affiliates of the Hand: everything. Matt wants the lay of the land.

Eventually, he finds what he's searching for: the front door. Elektra hovers in his perception, feeling closer than she is by how locked down Matt's senses feel. His focus keeps leading back to her, always her.

"Matthew?"

He plays with the handle. The doors are unlocked, but that hardly means he's free to go. Muffled sounds of activity play on the other side. Matt catches the aromas of shoe polish, leather jackets, and folded steel. "We're under guard."

"Naturally."

"From someone coming or someone going?"

She avoids the bait just as she's done since he awoke. Instead, Elektra shrugs. Matt rounds on her, glowering.

Elektra's face pinches. He can hear her brow furrowing, the slight purse in her lips. He remembers the nuns at St. Agnes's making similar expressions when one of their charges was being willful. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Matthew. You're not a prisoner; you're a patient. A terrible one. Three surgeries in two weeks. It's like you don't want to be able to walk again."

"So I'm free to go." He wants to hear her answer and the heartbeat that goes with it. The flurry of her pulse as she rushes to keep him contained.

"Of course!" but Elektra finds a loophole, as usual. "When you're suitably recovered."

"According to whom?"

"The doctor."

She is always happy to defer authority to people she can control. Matt listens to Elektra's hands playing against the rich embroidery on the throw pillows. He stifles his irritation; God, she could pretend she isn't enjoying this. She definitely plays innocent well enough.

Elektra shuts down his unspoken accusation, "I'm not holding you captive."

"But you are holding me for the time being."

"As you recover? Absolutely."

"That's not-" he isn't going down that road with her. It's a trap he refuses to play into. "You know that I'm not staying here."

She huffs, disconsolate. "That's gratitude for you."

"I'm grateful. I'm grateful for everything you've done. But I told you before: I won't be party to this."

Elektra abandons his line of argument for logic. "What is your rush to be out of here? You're not going to be fighting Wilson Fisk like that. Not going to be fighting anyone like that."

But this isn't about him; it's about the people making a play for his city, about the ways they intend to do it and the ways he has to stop them no matter what state his leg is in. That includes her.

Matt tells her as much: "You will."

Elektra scoffs, "I don't have anyone to fight right now. The Hand are standing down, awaiting orders."

He taps a crutch against the door. Footsteps tread gently across the carpet towards him from the outside. "They're armed," Matt notes, recalling the short burst of steel that came through the crack in the door.

"They're a ninja army, and I'm the Black Sky! Their Chosen One! Of course they're armed!" Still, Elektra shrugs, "I made it clear they're not to use their weapons on you."

"Just on people trying to get into the building."

"People trying to get on this floor," Elektra nods to him knowingly. "I hope you're not expecting someone."

He matches the barb with one of his own: "You are."

Her heart beat elevates ever-so-slightly, loath to have given part of the game away. She unfolds her arms, though, and stands up from the couch, causing her pulse to return to its resting rate. "I don't want us interrupted by anyone," she allows him that much at least, before adding, "You nearly died, Matthew. I won't have that happen again, and I'll use any resources in my power to make sure it doesn't."

When it's clear he doesn't want that more than staying here, Elektra softens her tone to one of genuine understanding. "You're not party to anything," she promises. "I keep telling you, Matthew. I have everything I want."

"What happens when you don't?"

He's happy she doesn't bother to answer. Having it said aloud will compel him to do something both foolish and necessary. There has to be something he can do, somewhere he can go, someone he can call. But Frank's in the wind; if he is coming back - if - the Hand is poised to stop him, and Matt doubts Elektra gave her guards the same orders for dealing with the Punisher as they did Daredevil.

The doctor arrives, and Matt can't help but be surprised by the sudden change in atmosphere. Sound cuts through the controlled quiet. He makes out the muffled sound of an elevator opening, of footsteps padding down the hall. A draft rushes into the sitting room, giving Matt an impression of the space beyond the front door. Three ninjas stand in wait. Armed, dangerous. They can't be all of them, merely the ones set to defend this floor.

The door closes, cutting him off so abruptly that Matt relives all those untethered feelings from waking here. Thankfully, he finds a new point of focus quickly.

"Doctor."

Sato makes her way slowly into the sitting room. She sets her kit on the coffee table near where Matt's leg is resting. Her heartbeat is an unrepentant march in her chest despite the tension building throughout her body.

He lets the silence stand between them. The longer he does, the more her nerves tighten. The shallower her respiration becomes. She holds her tongue while pulling on fresh gloves, arranging and rearranging items from her kit.

She reaches for his leg; Matt moves it out of the way. He checks that Elektra's heartbeat is still in the master bedroom before asking, "How long?"

Sato plays oblivious. "How long what?" It's a bad fit on her, especially given how much she knows. Being privy to Matt's confession has made her second guess her reactions. Work is the only thing that comes naturally, and she isn't getting the chance to use it as a buffer for fear.

"How long have you been working for the Hand?" Matt listens to that heartbeat of hers for leverage. "I'll know if you're lying to me."

Her pulse enters a light jog. Hard call as to whether it's out of insincerity or fear. "Since Sunday."

"This time," Matt challenges her.

She takes the correction in stride, drawing a few measured breaths to calm herself down. "I didn't want to come back. I wasn't going to ever come back."

"Then why did you?"

Sato has a hard time conjuring the words necessary to explain herself. Finally, she whispers, "I couldn't let them go back to Metro General."

Her heartbeat flutters from the half-truth. There's more to the story than just that. Matt presses, suspecting the real cause of her mutiny even if she won't say it aloud: "You'd rather work for them?"

She snaps, "I'd rather the devil I know than the one I don't."

"Rather a sword to your neck than a gun to your head," is more like it.

"I can anticipate the sword better than the gun."

He tries to form a counterargument, but there isn't one. What is he going to say - that Frank wasn't planning on killing her? That Frank isn't going to kill her now that she's betrayed him? The best Matt can muster is, "If you think the Hand will give you protection from Frank, you're wrong."

Sato doesn't react. She must not be banking on protection. Maybe she doesn't need it.

Matt's blood runs cold. "What happened to Frank?"

Sato's tension mounts. Her next breath is a small one. Matt feels a sickening twist of relief and dread in the same miserable instant. "I don't know."

"Is he alive?"

"I…don't know."

And there is pain in not-knowing, real gut-wrenching horror inside her. Certainty would give her peace of mind, but Sato seems to have enough grounds to fear for her life from more than just the army of ninjas.

Just like Elektra sees fit to post guards outside the apartment door.

Sato continues, "He rode with you and stayed during your treatment, but I don't know what happened after we left the facility."

It's the first truly honest thing she's said this whole time.

Matt combines Sato's explanation with what Elektra told him. His memory is a mess of jagged edges and smoke. Moments of clarity crumbling into hazy recollections. But that hand on his sternum – he feels that so damn clearly. The expectation on both Sato and Elektra's parts is equally palpable. Frank Castle is alive and free and quite possibly coming for them.

He can't…he can't think about that. It doesn't make sense. None of it does. Frank Castle doesn't stay just to leave. He doesn't stay. He wages efficient, bloody wars: gets in and gets gone. Sato has good reason to be afraid if he's gunning for her.

Matt's mind springs into action: "Did they take his phone?"

"I don't know."

"Did they take yours?"

Sato's pulse takes off in a sprint.

"Doctor-"

But Elektra is strolling down the hallway, commenting about what they should have for dinner that evening. Sato makes quick work of removing Matt's cast, pretending that this is what they have been up to the entire time. Her pulse gets as close to its resting rate as it can once she settles into routine.

Elektra rubs him on the shoulders. Matt is careful to relax under her grip, to give nothing away that she can use against him. Frank might be coming after Sato; he doesn't want to give the Hand a reason to join in the hunt.

"His leg looks good," Elektra comments. "Maybe it'll stay that way this time?"

Sato gives a small, curt nod. It's the best she can manage with so many enemies at her throat.

Matt wants a great opportunity to talk to her, but he doesn't get the chance. Elektra already gave them the opportunity to get reacquainted. She stays, supervising as Sato changes dressings, making pointed small talk. Everything that comes out of her mouth is a thinly veiled reminder of who is in charge, who's calling the shots. Matt isn't the only one who feels it. Sato's respiration remains slightly elevated the whole time. Her pulse is a fearful tremble in her chest, not to mention a stunning case of déjà vu. Him on her operating table, her life on the line: this is how they first met.

…and yet it's different somehow. Sato begged Frank to spare her. She bartered for her life. The fact that she doesn't try that with Elektra tells Matt everything he doesn't want to know.

He wants her phone so badly he almost asks for it before she goes, but Matt has already gotten Sato into enough trouble. He can't ask her to make the call for him without bringing Frank to Sato's door. So he settles on, "Take care of yourself, Doctor."

"You too," she replies.

The second the doors close, Matt turns to Elektra. He doesn't have to say a word. She heaves a gargantuan sigh.

"You can stop acting like I'm going to kill everyone who steps foot through that door. Or have them killed for that matter," Elektra laments.

He counters, "I will when I trust you're not going to do that."

She can't help but laugh. "Could I ever do anything to convince you?"

"No, probably not," especially not after what she's done to Fisk's men.

"Everything I've done, I've done for you, Matthew."

The fact that she truly believes that leaves Matt reeling. He keeps waiting for her to be lying, keeps waiting for her façade to drop, but Elektra can be so terrifyingly unguarded at times. Sher offers her neck so easily, too easily, and Matt's seen it be a sign of submission as many times as it's been a trap.

Either way, Elektra wins.

Matt meditates away from the eerie stillness of the apartment for a few hours before his memories catch him, unbidden. He thinks it's Fogwell's at first. Work, sweat, and leather aged to perfection, jabbed to life with every new punch that hits the bag. But then there's metal and gunpowder, a cot that smells like his sheets and his sickness, rusty pipes and calcification, and Matt has to get the hell out of his headspace before it eats him alive.

This isn't different, he tells himself, shaking the last Frank's apartment out of his thoughts. This isn't worse. There is no golden age of his being kidnapped: Elektra's methods are just a softer, dressier version of what he's already lived through. She's Frank with history and capital, nothing more.

He grabs his crutches, hobbling away from the screaming doubts inside his skull. Lantom's conversation about influence mingles with the Punisher's oath that no one else dies tonight, and Matt's strange belief that Frank was telling the truth.

Dinner is served on the couch so Matt can stretch his leg. He isn't hungry, but antibiotics make him queasy on an empty stomach. He forces himself through the meal so that he can stave off infection another day.

Elektra gets up suddenly, mid-bite, and disappears into the kitchen. She returns with two glasses, one smelling of agave and the other reeking of amber and malt. A tumbler is pressed into his hand. Matt almost puts it down on principle, drug interactions notwithstanding. Elektra doesn't let him.

"Oh, have a drink with me." She plops back down on the couch next to him, her leg pressing into his by something akin to accident. Her tequila smells sweet by comparison. "It's barely a finger. You won't even notice you've had it."

Her glass taps against his. Matt hesitates before taking a drink. He can't deny the appeal, though drinking with her brings him back to an uncomfortable place, one where he is aware of the strings she's pulling. Of the fact that she was dead but is no longer.

Elektra nurses her drink, seemingly reveling in the emotional chaos she's created for him. She makes it worse: "It's been so long since I had a drink with someone."

Matt takes a sip that engulfs him from the inside. Warmth washes through him, easing the tension in his muscles. He asks again, "How long have you been back?"

This time, the answer matters. "A few weeks. The Hand didn't give the ground long to cool." She wraps two fingers around his wrist gently, like she's checking for his pulse. "Left me with one hell of a scar. Want to see?"

Matt doesn't so much give permission as fails to stop her. Elektra guides his hand to her waist, then up, under her loose, cashmere sweater to a line of scar tissue on her abdomen. Matt's fingers shake; they still remember what her blood felt like as it rushed out of her body. His heart waits in pain for hers to beat, convinced this is the end.

"What was it like?" he doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to ask. Shouldn't ask. It isn't for him to know. And yet, "What was it like to die?"

Elektra holds his hand to her waist, letting her warmth seep through him. The silence between them billows like a fog above a rainy street, unforgivingly cold. "It was like…falling asleep. A deep, dreamless sleep. A perfect sleep. It didn't hurt, Matthew. I wasn't afraid. I was with you."

He's barely noticed moving towards her, placing his other hand on her side to brace himself. Her breathing is the only thing keeping him afloat. "And after? What…what happened after?"

"I woke up."

"No, no," oh, God, her heart rate is speeding up. Matt grips her, trying to slow her down. He wants to hold onto this as long as possible, the moment before he asks the question. Elektra removes one hand from over his and presses it to his shoulder blade. "Before that. After…" he stumbles over the words. "When you were…"

She hasn't slowed down. Her pulse is a worried rattle, a dreadful patter in her chest. Not from deception: from the lack of it. Elektra is on the verge of breaking a painful truth to him.

"There was n-"

"Stop." She tries to continue; Matt shushes her again. He listens hard, forcing his hearing through the concrete walls. The elevator doors are definitely opening. "Someone's here."

Someone unexpected, if Elektra's pulse is any indication. Their hands fall away from each other. She rises from the couch. "Time to leave," she takes Matt by the hand. He hops onto his good foot, swinging his left leg off the table, but he doesn't move away from the couch. He's too busy listening to the thin popping sound ringing out once, twice, three times; there are two dull thuds, some groaning, a crunch of impact. Stomping follows. Weapons jangle. Combat boots pound against the floor.

Matt positions himself in front of Elektra as the front door swings open.

He hears Elektra's mouth closing. She unleashes a disappointed sigh through her nose. The ninja in the doorway has a similar response. Of course, he also has a gun to his head, one Matt hears prod impatiently when the silence reaches its pitch.

"Say it."

The ninja's scowl is audible, but he does as he's told. "There's a Mr. Castle here to see you."

Then his kneecaps get shot out from under him.

Happy reading!