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 feel like a lot of this fic has been about striking a balance, especially with Frank. It's one of the reasons I ended up staying with his perspective here. There are questions that only Matt can answer, but those, I felt, could wait. I found the dialogue here worked better from Frank's POV.

I had to estimate Matt's ages for some of the events mentioned here. If I'm mistaken, please let me know and I will make corrections. I'm also aware of what the show implies about his mother; I have my own theory. I may or may not explore it in this fic.

Readers, dear Readers, you are lovely and amazing, and I don't deserve all the kindness and support I've received since I started posting. Thank you! Please, enjoy!

"I'm a hurricane.

I'm a freight train.

Ain't the right way,

But it's the only way I know.

So when my bones come tumblin' in

I did it to myself.

Will you still let me in?"

~Dorothy, "Shelter"

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The kid's trying to get his breathing in line, but it's a wasted effort. Counting is no match for his leg. The rhythm deteriorates. Five counts in and his breath catches on broken bone.

Frank refuses to wait for the smartass remark he knows is coming: "What is that?"

"What's what?"

"That thing you do with your breathing: what is it?"

Red flinches, purses his lips. He tries counting again with his eyes closed this time. "Meditation," he says on a measured exhale.

Frank unpacks the layer of damp gauze from the incision. The wound looks really good for five days out of its third surgery. The stitches aren't pulling quite so hard, meaning the inflammation's down. Things are pink and red along the side of the kid's leg. Bruising from the compound fracture is in full bloom, but without the weeping and seeping of infection, even that looks promising. The initial wound, the slash on the back of Red's calf, it's knitting up nicely too.

He gets his heart back in line before scoffing. Fucking ninjas can bring themselves back from the dead, but they can't fix a broken limb. Frank douses the whole thing with saline. The temperature of the liquid helps Red find some relief. "Your dad teach you that?"

"No." Red struggles for breath amidst a small laugh. "Meditation wasn't really his style. The man who trained me: he taught it to me. Said it would...harness my focus, manage pain, help me heal."

"How's it working out for you?"

"Right now? Not great."

Frank drapes the incision with a layer of wet gauze. He smooths it flat. Red gets to a three-count rhythm. Small victory.

"You do the same thing, you know," he says in a tone approaching conversational. Gone is that pop psychologist tone of a man trying to bond with his captor, which makes it sound all the stranger to Frank's ears. It should be a powerplay; it isn't. "When you're…when you're looking down the barrel of a gun? Your heartbeat slows right down. Could keep time with your breath."

Frank doesn't want to hear that. He rebuffs, "What'd your dad have to say about that? You listen to his heartbeat too?"

He only meant to shut the kid up, but Frank's shot to kill. Red can't play it cool enough to hide his wounds. "Yeah, I listened to his heartbeat. I couldn't really stop myself then." His voice gets really quiet, "He didn't know."

"Excuse me?"

"He didn't…" Red gets his voice back to a normal volume, "My dad, he didn't know. I never told him about it."

Why the hell is Frank not surprised? Won't tell his best friend that Fisk is out to kill won't tell his dad he has supersonic hearing. Frank opens a roll of bandages and starts wrapping them at Red's ankle, balancing Red's shin on the length of his forearm to support the break. Red tries to hide his gasp; Frank directs his focus away from the break.

"Your mom, she…"

Another kill shot. "Stop, Frank."

"Just asking."

"No, stop. Stop." His leg shakes in Frank's hand. He reaches out for it, breath in disarray, fingers trembling. Frank stops trying to wrap the damn thing up and eases the limb down.

Takes Red a long time to get back to being verbal, but his first words are, "I never knew her. My mom."

The tone isn't quite as final, as grave, as the one he reserves for his dad, but that doesn't mean anything. Plenty of reasons why Murdock didn't meet his mom. Frank starts wrapping the kid's leg up in bandages again, this time pausing between rounds to let the limb rest and give Red a chance to breathe. He runs interference when the kid gets too quiet. "She dead?"

Red stiffens, his only defence, but he doesn't tell Frank where he can shove that question. He says, "Yes," and that's the end of that, but Frank's responds with, "Fair enough," because he's knows a lie when he hears one.

He doesn't bother asking about Dad. Red's playing with the wall and locking his jaw, trying to look as dangerous as possible while he's in repose, his injured leg balanced like a newborn along Frank's forearm. He comes back to the conversation with a swing of his head. Sunlight reflects the moisture in his lower lashes. "You uh…" he sniffles, wipes his eyes, "You popped some stitches."

"Shit," he didn't realize. Frank starts unwinding the bandage, searching as he goes for a breakthrough bleed.

"No, no – you. Your back."

Frank twitches, running a diagnostic. The sting of the wound is more pronounced on one side, but it's the blood that gives it away. He feels heat oozing over his skin. "You hear that, Red?"

A laugh, a small one. Guess the kid finally hears how ridiculous he sounds. "I smell it." And then, because what he's said isn't ridiculous enough: "You got a needle and thread in that kit of yours? I can stitch it back up."

Frank gets back to bandaging. "Seen you do some crazy shit, Red. And all due respect? But I'm not about to let a blind man go poking a needle into my back."

"There are other ways to see."

"No, there isn't."

A smile breaks over the kid's face: honest, matter-of-fact, a little smug. "Bet I can do a better job than whoever did 'em in the first place."

That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Karen's stitches are slapdash: some too deep, others too shallow; some spaced too far apart while others are too narrow. Red can't possibly do worse, even working blind. But still. Kid can't work a needle and thread with his hands shaking like that. And even if he was steady, there's a difference between throwing a punch and stitching someone up. "I'll take care of it." Couple of steri-strips, he'll be fine.

They're quiet again until Red's leg is back in the cast and resting. He lies on the cot, recuperating. His hands gradually ease into stillness. The one untangles from the sheet and the other lowers from its spot on the wall. Meantime, Frank gets cleaned up. Balls up the bag of bloody gauze, bandages, and gloves for disposal. He throws the saline- and sweat-soaked towel from under Red's leg into the growing pile of laundry on the far side of the room.

He grabs the scissors and steri-strips from the first aid kit. Heads into the bathroom, tearing off his t-shirt, slashing at the dressings wrapped around his upper chest. Blood streaks down from under his right shoulder as he lifts the bandages. Stitches jut out from the wound in an underbite that's a few inches in length. Frank shoves a hand towel against the area and sets about clearing a space for the adhesives.

The blood runs too damn quickly, and when he tries to reach, the wound's mouth pulls open wider in mockery.

Frank throws down the steri-strips. He keeps the towel pressed to his back with one hand, grabs the scissors with the other, and marches out of the bathroom to Red, who is just sitting there on the cot. Back against the wall, hands folded in his lap, a resting expression on his face that threatens to give way, any second, to a smirk. He's silent as Frank digs through the first aid supplies for gloves and a suture kit. He plays blind when the shit is shoved in his face, only responding when Frank says, "Fucking get on with it, Red."

Christ Jesus, the kid doesn't have to smirk for Frank to know it's there. Every move he makes and the way he makes it – him grabbing the stuff, him moving to the edge of the cot, him snapping on the gloves and opening the suture kit – it's so precise, so defined, conducted with so much fucking patience. Like listening to "I told you so" played on a continuous loop.

Frank tries to shut the silent mockery up by grabbing the chair he was using before, when he was dressing Red's leg, and moving it. Bringing it right in front of where Red's sitting and slamming it down against the floor. But God damn if that doesn't make Red's pride swell louder. If that doesn't make the gleam in his eyes brighter. Frank can feel the smirk against his back when he lowers into the chair. The wise-ass slash on Red's face making friends with the wise-ass slash on his back.

Frank wraps his free arm over the chair back. He keeps the other looping around his chest, staunching the blood flow, while Red gets his ass ready. "Say a God damn word," he dares the kid. "You say one God damn word-"

Red doesn't. He pushes the towel and Frank's hand away from the gash, and he gets to work. He clips away at the torn sutures and peels them out. His fingers trace over the length of the wound, checking for other stragglers.

He sniffs once. Checking for infection? Frank cranes his neck to look. Kid's got a look of wonder on his face, like he's seeing God in the break of Frank's skin. "Elektra wasn't trying to kill you," he notes.

"I noticed that," Frank replies, easing his head back round.

"The Hand coats their weapons in poison. Only a few people know the antidote. You would have been dead days ago."

The minx must have had one katana cleaned off just for him. "Lucky me."

"Who stitched you up?" Red asks.

Couldn't have asked that damn question before, when Frank was working on him instead of the other way around. "Why?"

The kid chuckles. "Because they did a terrible job. Stitched up your back like they were sewing a hem."

"You know a lot about sewing hems?"

"Know a lot more about sutures."

"You get your ass kicked that much."

Another chuckle, but the kid makes no attempt to deny it. "I used to-" he goes back to where the sutures popped and sticks the needle in, "-used to stitch my dad up after his fights."

"Before or after you went blind?"

"Both." The skin pulls together. Frank plays through the motions in his head, matching them up to Red's movements. Fine – the kid knows what he's doing. Jesus. "He used to give me a shot of whiskey beforehand. Straight from the bottle. Make sure my hands were steady."

"You asking for a drink?"

"You got one?"

There's a bottle of bourbon somewhere in the apartment. A dust-covered holdover from the previous tenant. No point in getting it out though. With the way Murdock's working, the stitches'll be in before he gets a drink. "How old were you?"

"Don't know," another stitch goes in. "Eight, I think, the first time."

Frank considers the thought. It's too easy to imagine Red as a kid, small for his age, holding a whiskey bottle with two hands. Pinkies in the air as he pulls his boxing-dad back together. Coughing and crying, "How can you drink that, Daddy? How?" when he snuck a sip of beer – no, wait. That's Frank Jr. Eight years old and curious, not eight years old and providing first aid.

"He died when I was ten…but I had gotten pretty good at this."

Frank notices. He lowers his right arm off the chair back to make the skin easier to work with. The pull from the stitches feels stronger where Red's been working. "Sorry," he says, because that's the only thing to say.

Red's quiet. He works another couple of stitches. "Yeah," he's sorry too.

They let the silence stand for a while, Frank especially. Respect for Red's Old Man. Respect for Red. Raw deal, losing Dad that young; Mom out of the picture. Lisa and Frank Jr. would have been fine if he'd died on tour. Maria held down that house like a fort. But ten-year-old Red, blind as shit, would have gone straight into the system.

Frank has to get away from the thought. Bad enough he can't shake tiny Red giving his dad stitches, now he's reliving those groggy moments in the cemetery after the Irish. A helluva Marine, he'd told the kid, and that was before he knew about dear, dead Dad.

"It was Karen," he says.

The kid stops. "What?"

"Karen. She stitched me up."

"You went to Karen?"

The thought of Red as a kid – giving his dad stitches, sipping whiskey out the bottle, struggling as a ward of the state – recedes. Frank revels in the tension building behind him. "Didn't have another option. Got my ass dropped off by an active crime scene. Cut up, beat up, had to act fast."

Another stitch goes in, and Red pulls it a little too tight. "You tell her what happened?"

Frank doesn't bother answering, because they both know he told her. Walked up to her house with a broken nose, bleeding to death from behind, without Red: hell yeah, he fucking told her.

"You shouldn't have told her." Oh, here they go. Red punctuates the sentence with another stitch. "Elektra knows about Karen. She'll find her. And Karen…she won't leave-" tug, "-this-" tug, "-alone-" tug.

"Not your call," Frank informs him coolly.

The tugging stops. Red stops. He struggles to find the right questions. "Did she help you find me? Damn it, Frank, does she know what Elektra's address is?"
"She pointed me in the right direction." Red ties a knot in enraged silence. Frank spares him another second of worrying about Karen's future. "They're not going to trace it back to her, Red. She's got no reason to go snooping around with you out of there. Besides,

I had help getting into the building."

"What do you mean?"

Frank rocks his shoulder blades, testing the sutures, trying to shake that chill crawling up his spine from the kid. Telling Red won't make him less worried, but it will give him piece of mind about Karen. "Sato texted me. Mid-afternoon, yesterday. Sent me the address and pictures from inside Elektra's place. You done?"

The kid's lost in thought. "Sato texted you?"

"Floor plan. Layout. Pictures of the guards." Frank shrugs his shoulders. "You done?"

Red trims the thread and needle. He rips off the gloves, balls them up for the trash. Frank leaves him sitting there, caught between seething and curious. He grabs a fresh roll of bandages from the kit and goes back into the bathroom for his discarded t-shirt.

"Why would she text you?" Red asks again, genuinely curious.

"Don't care, Red." Not going to save Sato one way or another. Besides, what's really important is that, "Your girl put a target on my back, not hers." And Frank's really hoping he doesn't have to race the Hand to get to her. He also adds, for Red's benefit, "Not Karen's neither."

The kid's not done yet. "But why text you? Sato wouldn't want to open herself up to that kind of suspicion from you or Elektra."

"Oh, Jesus – the hell does it matter, Red?" Frank stands in front of the bathroom mirror. He grabs his last hand towel from under the sink and cleans the blood of his back, catching a glance of the stitches in the mirror. Well, God damn, the kid's work isn't just better than Karen's: it's fucking immaculate. Neat, spaced evenly. Frank's acutely aware of how secure the sting is on his right side versus the loose tear of stitches on his left.

He tears into the roll of bandages. Pulls the white fabric across his upper chest, easing it behind him. Red appears in the bathroom doorway. The bandage falls from Frank's hand at the same time and streams towards the floor. He manages to grab it before it hits, but it tangles in his hand, transforming into a knot. There's no way to get the wound dressed like this. Wordlessly, Frank hands off the bundle of dressings to the kid. He holds one end to his chest; lets the kid work out the kinks in the rest of it.

"Everything that Sato did was to save her own life. Helping you put her at risk with the Hand," Red notes, detangling the strip of bandage. "You should put some gauze on this."

"She wanted to save her life, she shouldn't've sold your ass to the Hand," Frank declares. "And it's fine. Wrap it up, Red. Let's go."

"You put a gun to her head," Red remarks.

"I took the gun away from her head," Frank corrects him. "Won't make that mistake again" The kid starts pulling the bandage flat over Frank's back and passes it around to his front. Frank rolls it over his chest, then hands it back.

"I was dying, and I was the only reason you were keeping her alive. She didn't have a choice, not if she wanted to survive."

"Said it yourself, Red: people always got a choice. And don't say you're going to stop me from doing what I'm gonna do, Red. Going to save the life of a God damn mob doc who handed your ass over to a ninja cult: I get it." Frank cusses under his breath, "Probably going to catch the fucking bullet for her, you get the chance…"

Red's head bobs low between his shoulder blades, but Frank can feel it, that fucking smirk. Darker this time, like he's telling a bad joke. It's gone when his face returns over Frank's shoulder in the mirror.

The bandage is tied off. Frank grabs his t-shirt off the floor and tugs it over his head. He isn't out of the bathroom when Red pipes up, "She saved my life."

"Ain't nothing. Lots of people been saving your life lately."

"She sent you pictures of the guards," he adds. "Obviously didn't tell Elektra about this place."

Frank almost pauses on his march. Almost. The memory of Sunday night emerges, unbidden. His conversation with Elektra. Sato's assurance that his interests lay with Fisk, not the Hand. Frank continues walking until it's gone. Doesn't change a thing: not what's happened or what he's gonna do.

"You should eat something," he calls back from the kitchen, changing the subject.

"She probably saved your life too," Red replies, sounding downright cheery.

Frank stays his course: "And take your God damn antibiotics! Don't have a doctor on call anymore."

Silence. Christ, the kid better not be working up to some smartass remark. "Got me, Red?" And so help him, he says anything other than yes or no.

"Yeah," Red finally says without a trace of his usual attitude. "I got you."

Frank waits. Nothing happens. Kid's being sincere, or at the very least, he sounds like he is. It's enough that he's not talking about Sato or ninjas or anyone else Frank hasn't killed. "Good." He pours himself another cup of coffee.

Food shuts Red up for a while. He digs into one of the containers that Rina dropped off the week before, barely taking the time to reheat the contents, and then pops one of the mammoth capsules from the bottle Frank left on the nightstand. The bottle of T3s, identifiable to Red by sound or weight or some other sense of his, goes ignored. Kid settles into a seated position on the cot, legs stretched out in front of him with his back against the wall. He's in for more of that meditation, and Frank leaves him to it. Trash needs to be taken out. Car could use some work. Anything to get out of the damn apartment for a while.

Red's in the same position when Frank comes back in a couple hours later, but he hasn't been meditating the whole time. His glasses have found their way onto the nightstand along with his cell phone. They've been living in one of Frank's duffels since Sunday night; Red would have had to do more than meditate to find them and get them in order. The phone is even plugged in, charging. Like he actually intends to use it.

Frank walks past, but he throws a glance over his shoulder to make sure he sees what he thinks he sees. The bottle of T3s – it was on the far side of the table before. Now it's closer to the cot, and Red's water glass is mostly empty.

He gets out of the room. Stands in the kitchen in silence, lost in the unfamiliar sight of a newly-clean Tupperware container sitting next to the sink. He has to take a second, remind himself that he didn't wash this one, that it's Red's doing. For some reason, that makes it stranger, though: the dish. It combines with the meds and charging cell phone and the quiet kid to fill him with this useless anticipation. Wasted energy.

Fuck, he's tired.

He splashes some water on his face, scrubbing it into the bristles of his hair. Dries himself off with the dish towel Red left hanging through one of the cupboard handles. Then Frank walks out of the kitchen and drops onto the mattress waiting for him outside the doorway. He doesn't fall asleep. If Red pops out of meditation from hearing ninja-breathing, Frank'll be up and at 'em. But he follows the thought of dishes to the morning of the carousel. To Lisa elbowing his hand at the breakfast table so he'll look up and see her smiling.

Frank holds that thought: Lisa beaming at him like the summer sun on Central Park. She's going to be blood and pulp soon, spilling out of his arms. So Frank thinks about dishes. He thinks about the table. He thinks about the kitchen and the house. And he lets Maria, Lisa, and Frank Jr. hover in his periphery, just slightly out of focus, where the bullets whizzing through his brain can't touch them.

The cot creaks. Furniture rattles. A foot hops across the floor towards the far side of the apartment. The bathroom window claps open. Red's headed outside.

Frank gives himself a few more minutes, just a few more minutes, but the chill from the breeze breaks upon his back. He rouses, grimacing. Bones aching and stiff, back burning. This is why he doesn't take breaks. Gives pain a chance to find him. He stand up, stretching out. The cool air helps. It bites through the tension in his limbs and sends goosebumps shooting down his arms.

He heads towards the cot. The kid's shit is still packed in a bag underneath. Frank digs through the contents, finding only t-shirts and books inside. He leaves it. Heads to the far corner of the apartment where he keeps a cardboard box with a few articles of clothing inside. Frank grabs the first hoodie he finds, then marches double-time to the bathroom.

Red's looking his way when he sticks his head out the window. Frank balls up the hoodie and tosses it. He doesn't wait to see if the kid catches it. He ducks back into the apartment and beelines for his bed, fully intending on catching a few more winks before Red really gets going. Before they need to worry about the ninjas coming out to play.

It's a while later before the kid comes back into the apartment. Frank opens his eyes as a burly shape crawls through the bathroom window: Red's wearing the damn hoodie.

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