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 remember when I started writing this fic. I made myself the same promises I always do with multi-chapter works – to keep it light, to limit my focus, to produce chapters an average of 2500 words in length. I have broken all three of these promises, and while I don't regret it, I look back at the mindset with which I started this fic and think, "Aw. How ridiculously naïve," because this is what always happens.

I feel that I should mention Foggy, Karen, and Lantom are coming back soon, since I'm realizing how many chapters have passed since they last made appearances!

The song for this chapter is less a song and more an aural response to the book House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, one of my all-time favourite books. I thought it was a fitting chapter title, since this is Matt's second exploration of Frank's world. The alternative title for this chapter is another Poe song, "5 & ½ Minute Hallway", which also references House of Leaves. I highly recommend the album (and the book).

Readers, dear readers, lovely readers: thank you, as always, for your kind support, encouragement, and insights. I hope you enjoy this chapter! Cheers!

"I thought you should know

Daddy died today

He closed his eyes and he left here…

He sends his love

He wanted you to know

He isn't holding a grudge

And if you are you should let go

Pick up, pick up please…? hello?"

~Poe, "Exploration B"

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Fogwell's appears in a haze of metal, must, and sweat. Knuckles clap against leather. "Matty." Dad scrubs his hair and gives him a kiss on the forehead. His voice thrums across Matt's nose, his cheeks, his eyelids, but there's no accompanying sound. Matt can't hear, can't make out the words; he lets the feeling of his dad speaking rain down on him.

His face is damp when he wakes up. Tears leave a salty taste in the back of his throat. Scrubbing at them is complicated. The blanket has wrapped around his hands and head. Actually, Matt sniffs, fabric pulling at his cheeks as he rolls over: it's a hoodie. He fell asleep in a hoodie. He fell asleep in Frank's hoodie.

Matt pulls back at the sleeves. He brushes back the hood. Frank's apartment swirls into focus around him – metal, must, sweat, Fogwell's. Dad's voice pitter-pattering across his skin. Matt curls back onto his side towards the wall, blocking out the sounds from the apartment. He replays his father's voice, reassuring himself that it's still there, in his memory. That he hasn't forgotten it.

"You awake, Sunshine?" Frank asks from the kitchen.

Matt waits for Dad's voice to come in, loud and clear – "Wake up, Matty" and "I'm right here, Matty" – before he answers, "Yeah."

"Hit the hay pretty hard last night."

Eventually. Matt spent an awful lot of time lying awake, straining to hear ninja-breathing through his own pain and questions, but he suspects Frank already knows that. He counters lightly, "You're one to talk."

"Yeah, well." Frank goes quiet again. It's not like him to be bested so easily, but he isn't about to open up about the four days he spent devil-hunting. Must not be in the mood for that conversation.

Matt isn't in the mood either. Let Frank keep his secrets; it makes no difference what his motivations are. Better that Matt doesn't know. Besides, once the dream dissipates, he's left a little queasy, dizzy, shaky. The T3s are wreaking havoc on his system, twisting his guts into knots and depleting his focus. He folds an arm across his abdomen in hopes that the heat will ease the sick feeling seeping through his chest. He knows better than to take the pills on an empty stomach, but he didn't want to hobble through the apartment in the middle of the night. Not with Frank sleeping by the kitchen doorway, permanently on the verge of waking at any moment.

And really, Matt shouldn't have wanted to take the pills at all. Nevermind that his leg trades agonizing pain for a deep-seated itch, one that starts at the broken bone and swells through his skin into his molars. Forget the twenty-four glorious hours he spent on designer drugs at Elektra's feeling nothing at all: not a twinge, not a cramp. He can handle this. He has to handle this. There's work to do.

Work to do, Matty.

He reaches for the windowsill, prying his hand out of the too-long sleeve to catch sunlight with his knuckles. It's mid-morning by the feel of things. The windowpane is cool with an autumn breeze. Matt grips the sill for leverage, easing himself into a sitting position.

Frank emerges from the kitchen, sounding better. He was a bit of a mess yesterday: that heartbeat of his was slightly elevated. Adrenaline compensating for fatigue, spiked with evasive and offensive maneuvers. Bobs and weaves around the things he didn't want to talk about. Now, Frank's back to that stable, resting pulse, a rhythm Matt uses as an anchor against his dizziness.

God, his stomach hurts. Matt tucks his arm tighter into his left side, refusing to let it show.

The performance works. Frank doesn't miss a beat. "Got some stuff to do around town today," he says. "Switch up the car, grab some provisions, that kind of thing."

"We or you?" Matt asks.

That first pronoun, 'we', causes Frank to take a small step back from the conversation, gain some distance. Matt is too tired to roll his eyes. He gets looking up, his eyelids bob, and then he's lowering his head, silently willing Frank to say something – say anything. The claustrophobia from before is gone, replaced with a new and unsettling comfortability, and they both know. And neither of them are saying anything about it.

Frank plays it casual, but his heart is hitting a beat just above normal. "Not leaving you here to get snatched by ninjas, Red. 'sides, fresh air? Sunshine? Chance to stretch your leg? Do you good."

Matt can't deny the appeal, but he isn't about to agree. Frank wants to pretend nothing's changed: that's fine. Two can play at that game. "I have a choice?"

"No."

There it is. Matt heaves his legs off the cot, lifting himself into a sitting position. Blood fills his leg, ballooning inside his cast, and he can't stop himself. He groans, grabbing the wall for balance.

Frank's pulse goes funny. A kind of low-key agitation from the sight of what, Matt can't figure out. Pain doesn't set Frank off any more than exertion. He sounds like he did with the Irish, when the Devil showed up. He didn't plan for this. He doesn't have a manual for this. Whatever it is.

Matt scoffs. Welcome to my world, Frank.

Fresh bandages and a change of clothes get Matt feeling halfway to normal. He takes his antibiotics with a few bites of a protein bar, guzzling water the whole time to uncoil his abdominals. No more codeine: Matt weathers the spasms in his leg by gritting his teeth, shoving his glasses on his face, and heading for the front door.

He's stopped on his way out by the hoodie getting draped over his head and shoulders. Frank slinks past him, closing the locked apartment door behind. "Cold out," Frank mutters. He trots down the stairs before Matt can respond.

The building is quiet otherwise. Matt expects Rina to be peeking through a crack in her apartment door, but she's not home. Gone to work, Matt suspects. The one person Frank might perform for isn't around, so there's no reason to shove the hoodie his way except for the fact that it's cold and Frank doesn't want him to be.

Same reason he gave Matt the hoodie in the first place.

"Little cold never hurt anybody," Matt states. It sounds like something Frank would say, before they ended up here.

Frank matches with a tone torn straight from the night with the Dogs of Hell: "Put it on or I make you put it on." His heartbeat flares for a second before settling back into its confident pace. He's back to never doubting himself, not for a second, and Matt's first instinct, his only instinct, is challenge accepted.

Then Frank's out the front door. Matt's alone. The hoodie is heavy in his hands, loaded with a bunch of misplaced memories – Fogwell's and Dad softening the smell of Frank's heavy artillery. They're little comfort here. He doesn't understand; he wishes he could. But every time he tries to put the pieces in order, he finds he's missing the most important part of the puzzle.

He puts the hoodie back on and makes his way down the stairs.

Frank's errands are scattered throughout the Bronx. The first meeting is a short way south of the apartment. Walking distance for Frank, but Matt's grateful for the ride. He's told to wait in a tone that suggests he might not, that he might try something instead. Matt abides; he waits...with the window rolled down. Frank's footsteps trail off into the city clatter. He stops, cuts short a man's greeting by pulling something out of his coat. A note. He's letting paper do the talking for him.

He doesn't hide it either. The second he's back in the car, Frank rubs Matt's face in it. "You get all that, Red?" to which Matt responds, "Screw you, Frank."

They drive northeast. Matt basks in the sun the whole way. He rolls down his window more, dragging his hand around the frame. The neighbourhood sparks against his open palm, alien and not. He measures the Bronx against Hell's Kitchen and finds himself aching at the comparisons. The river is muted here, enmeshed in brick and metal. Sirens seem equally muffled by the aging neighbourhoods.

Tendons crush around leather. Matt twitches out of his reverie: Frank's hand is tightening on the steering wheel. His pulse amps up to Punisher proportions.

"Wonder what those are for," Matt mentions.

Frank adjusts his grip on the wheel. He doesn't wonder. Sirens are sirens. "Same shit, different borough, Red."

Matt wants to say more about different shit in a different borough, about ninjas being alive, but he's suddenly crushed under a wall of metal that overtakes the entire car. Frank pulls into a lot where the wind is slashed to shreds. Rust abounds. Matt swallows hard against the taste of iron, of steel, of aluminium and copper. A thick aftertaste of grease and motor oil settles in his mouth.

The second the car stops, he climbs out, dons his crutches, and backs away into a stack of old car parts. "Watch your step," Frank says, his voice tattering on the scrapheaps. The sound of his car door slamming sputters against the sharp metal around them. Matt's hearing meets a similar fate as he searches for focus. Sounds flares at random volumes with no sense of depth or dimension. They're in a scrapyard, an auto wrecker, and Matt hopes to never be return to one again.

Voices and heartbeats appear. Two men, one barely out of his teens and the other about Frank's age. About Frank's build. About Frank's everything: they speak in the same military-grade monosyllables, their voices melding into one long guttural scratch. Their hearts beat to the same time they have ever since basic training. Keys and cash change hands. "I'll have it brought around," the man says, clapping Frank on the shoulder. Then the teen hops into the car and drives it towards an open lot Matt can hear nearby.

"Old friend of yours?" Matt asks.

"No." They're two men with service records, nothing more.

A different car gets brought around. More monosyllables are exchanged. Frank catches the new set of keys when they're tossed to him. Neither Frank nor the older man say good-bye to each other beyond a slight nod of their head, one Matt only picks up on because he's fixating. He's wrapped up in questions that Frank won't ever answer, if they're even questions that can be answered.

Their third stop is conducted with the same detached air of their first two. Frank leaves the parked car, without bothering to warn Matt to wait this time. He disappears into a small shop. Ancient by the smell of things. Too old and small for good security. Exactly the sort of place the Punisher would restock. Matt spends the whole time lost in thought, replaying the previous meetings over in his mind.

He makes a fist and releases, makes a fist and releases, coercing the blood from pulsing in his skull.

When Frank returns to the driver's seat, he has a bag with him, one he tosses into the back of the car.

Matt ignores the pounding of his heart. The sun burns hotly on his cheeks as the car pulls away from the curb.

"May as well spit it out, Red," Frank urges in that same, detached tone he's been using all day. The tone that tells Matt he couldn't care less: about his contacts, about anyone.

"Just wondering how you do it," Matt admits, releasing a fist one last time. Blood drains back into his leg and stays there, stinging.

Frank doesn't bother with inflection. "Do what."

"Build this network of people and not give a damn about any of them."

"I give a damn that they do their job."

But that's all. "Not if they live or die."

"Everybody dies," Frank says dismissively. "Giving a damn never stopped that from happening before. Sure as shit won't now."

Matt doesn't argue with that. If giving a damn was all it took to save lives, Punisher and Daredevil would both be out of work. Still, "You're not worried about people coming after them? Your contacts?"

"Nothing to worry about. Other people sell ammo and cars. There's always someone looking to step up."

"That's why it didn't scare you to see your buddies die overseas," Matt says in understanding.

Frank tosses his shoulders a little. The stitches on his back scrape against the bandages. He is what he is, and he isn't about to make excuses for that now regardless of what's happened, what he's done.

Matt sighs, grateful for his sunglasses. The names flood him, racing through his brain like a prayer. All the numbers he won't call, the people he can't speak to, the people he's saved and the ones he hasn't, and the ones who are better off without him. God, this would be so much easier if nobody cared. If he could breeze through the way Frank does, without holding on or worrying about being held on to. "I wish I could do that."

Sigh. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"Then what the hell's stopping you?" Matt scoffs, but Frank doesn't let him alone. "You already ditched your best friend and your girlfriend. Don't owe nothing to nobody. Give 'em up. Let 'em go."

He is never hidden enough, not anymore, and he never really was from Frank. "It's not that simple."

"Not that fucking complicated." Frank shifts a little more in his seat as he draws a conclusion. Matt waits for the admonishment the observation that he doesn't get to have it both ways. Life's better without attachments, without masks.

Frank doesn't bother with any of that though. He draws a deep breath, grounding himself. "You don't wanna be like me, Red."

Matt lets the screech of his leg drown out the warning in Frank's words and the chill flooding through his veins. Frank is stating a fact. He is promising that one bad day is coming. But he also sounds like he's cautioning Matt not to go looking for it.

His leg seethes, eager to be elevated, and rising above that is the smell of Frank's hoodie come to cold-clock his thoughts back to childhood. Matt rubs at his thigh. "The people you get, the ones you keep around, they're all good for something. What am I good for?"

The silence that follows isn't nearly as fraught as Matt anticipates. Frank seems to buzz with energy on the outside, but his respiration couldn't be more resigned. He's given the question some very serious thought lately. He's had to, with everything that's happened.

Frank's heartrate flares for just a second before resuming its regular pace.

"Pain in the ass, Murdock. You're a God damn pain in the ass."

Matt cracks a smile. He can't help himself.

The car rolls into the apartment parking lot. Matt hisses, lifting his leg off the floor of the car to keep the limb from jostling on the gravel. Frank can't park fast enough, and even when the vehicle stops moving, Matt punches the door. He hurts. He hurts so God damn much.

Frank kills the ignition. Matt diffuses into the muffled quiet. He lets his focus drift, his senses broaden. The city passes through him like a cloud. Meanwhile, the tangle of thoughts preys on him. The why and the how and the what comes next. Frank and the wounded ninjas. Karen asking him to stay with her. Foggy and how all he ever needed was his friend…

Matt focuses on his leg. The pain isn't quite as bad there.

Evening creeps softly through the apartment. Rina's footsteps signal its approach, her weary walk up the stairs to her apartment better than an alarm clock. Matt doesn't have to check the windowsill for heat to know the shadows are getting long.

He eases himself into a sitting position, wincing from his aching abdominals. The codeine is no longer to blame. This is tension unraveling. His leg gnawed at him throughout meditation, leaving his muscle tight.

Matt nestles back on the cot till he's in the corner breathing. Rolling air in and out of his lungs, running through his senses. Frank is audible through the open bathroom window. He's working on the car. The neighbourhood whistles, wails, and clamors around them. Night is approaching, and with that the threat of ninjas, not to mention the sad truth that he isn't going to make it with unmanaged pain.

His teeth chatters. He clenches his jaw, his neck, his shoulders, his fists. Breathing. Breathing. He can do this. He is the only one who can do this.

A hot rush of pain flares up through his leg and stays there, burning, a taste of what's to come. Matt launches off the cot. He gets up on his one leg. Moving'll help. Take his mind off the monster chomping below his knee.

He has to lean against the kitchen doorframe when he gets there: left leg in agony, right leg shaking. Every inch of him refusing to sink to the floor, to Frank's mattress. He staggers a little, catching the counter for more balance. Clean Tupperware scatters under his trembling hands; Matt reorganizes it into a stack. The remnants of Rina's cooking waiting to be returned.

He abandons one crutch. Takes the Tupperware with the other. Gritting his teeth against his leg, Matt gets back across the apartment. He grabs his sunglasses from the table, shoving them onto his face, and then steps out into the hall.

Rina has Chopin playing. The needle scratches occasionally on the surface of the record. Footsteps scuffle over the withered floorboards.

Matt knocks. The needle skips on the record player. Rina hisses in Russian and gives the machine a small hit, restarting the music. For a long moment, she stands in wait. Finally, her footsteps pad over to the door. "Who's there?" Rina demands.

"It's…" Matt hesitates, unable to remember if Rina knows his name. She probably doesn't. She only seems to know him as one thing. "…Frank's brother."

Rina unlocks her door and rips it open as far as her security chain will allow. Matt can hear her heartbeat racing, her breath comes in short, terrified bursts. Her voice, despite its smallness, is sharp and incisive. "Frank said you were sick."

Matt nods. "I was."

Her heartbeat settles a little. Her tone, however, does not. "He was worried about you," she states accusingly.

The thought doesn't fit. Matt rejects it outright. "Frank doesn't…really worry about people."

"You're his brother. He wanted you well." That's enough for Rina to use the word 'worry'. "It is good that you are back."

Matt sputters through the next several seconds, brain fizzling with new questions. He wants to ask her more. He wants evidence. He wants an argument, a case. What does Frank's worry look like? This could be strictly an assumption on Rina's part. In fact, that's probably all it is. Brothers look out for each other; in her mind, Frank's brother has been ill. Ergo, worry.

He holds out the stack of Tupperware. "I wanted to return these. Thank you. You're a good cook, Rina."

Rina's heartbeat climbs. "It was nothing," and then, "I made too much," and finally, "I'm sorry." Matt can feel the pointedness of her stare on the stack of her own dishes as she weighs the risks of unlatching the chain from the door. Her mind is made up after giving Matt another once over. She has to know he isn't a threat.

She closes the door, unlatches the chain, and reopens it just enough to reach an arm through, collect her dishes, and draw them back inside.

Matt waves to her. "Have a good night, Rina." Then he turns, heading back towards Frank's apartment.

Her heartbeat skyrockets. The words erupt from her mouth in a jumble: "Youneedahaircut."

A series of apologies spill out of her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but…your hair. It's getting...it's so…I'm sorry. You need a haircut. You could really use a haircut." Her voice sinks almost into a whisper. "…sorry."

Matt breaks into a sad smile. The normalcy of Rina's statement is cutting. She isn't asking questions about how he broke his leg or how Frank got beat up or if they're actually related. "It is getting a little long." He laughs lightly. "Maybe I'll get Frank to shave it off."

Rina shakes her head so violently that the whole building trembles. "No, no. I know girls. I keep the books at a salon. They cut your hair. They do a good job. If you…if you want. Only if you want."

A fist draws up tight in his chest. Matt hangs his head, grimacing. He's come so far, disappeared so much, and the simplicity of her offer manages to knock the wind out of him. "I'll think about it. Thank you, Rina."

She's nodding, about to close her door, but she rips it open again. Then goes to close it. No - she has more to say. "Don't let Frank shave your head."

Her heartbeat is a terrified jangle behind the door. She can't believe she said that out loud. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Don't be-"

She slams the door.

Matt senses her heart fluttering, anxious, horrified. "Thank you, Rina," he says again before hobbling away.

The night table catches him when he stumbles back through the door of Frank's place. Matt's careful not to spill the full glass of water there. His fingers thread through the pill bottles, rattling them. Antibiotics make a deep, dense chatter; the T3s sprinkle in their container, and a third set of pills crumple against each other. Matt picks up the container, running his hand along the outside. He unscrews the top and gets a strong whiff of Aspirin.

He's thrown back two of the capsules and the entire glass of water before it occurs to him the bottle wasn't there last night. That the water glass was near empty before he lay down that afternoon.

Matt hobbles around, taking in the things he didn't think to before. The punching bag is flush with fresh scents. Some of his clothing has been returned to the duffel under the cot while he rested, and it's freshly laundered. The Aspirin and water on the night stand seem like the last of the surprises until Matt goes into the bathroom. He sniffs out a new bar of glycerin soap in the tub. Cheap but gentler than the caustic stuff Frank had in there last week.

Matt's hearing fixes on Frank in the parking lot. Car sounds good, but he isn't taking it anywhere. No ninja hunting or other punishing. Frank hasn't left the apartment. He hasn't left.

Understanding bubbles up against the roof of his skull. Matt staggers back to the cot and slumps down on it, breathless and unsettled and fighting, fighting the whole time: the smell of the apartment, of the hoodie he's still wearing, of the small things that should have gone unnoticed. Frank is here, at the apartment, lingering in the parking lot and hovering at the desk and staying awake at night in case ninjas arrive.

And Sato knew that's where he would be. She wasn't looking to buy good graces with the Punisher; she was looking to distract him, so she helped him get Matt back.

Matt tucks himself back into the corner, elevating his throbbing leg on the cot as he does. He draws an arm tightly around his waist, pinning down his reeling stomach. Sato knows. And Rina knows. And Frank must know, at least in part, though Matt suspects Sato's true motivations are still a mystery to him. Bad enough that she played the Punisher, but Sato did it without really playing him at all.

The sound of Frank returning along the fire escape, through the window, gets Matt to uncoil from the corner. He combs his fingers through his shaggy hair, struggling against the sleeves of the hoodie the whole time. It's supposed to help him look at ease. Frank still sees right through him. "What?"

"Nothing." The reply is too quick. Frank's heartbeat starts up in alarm. Matt deflects. "Thank you."

Frank shrugs. "Didn't do nothing, Red."

Matt does his best to stare Frank down, to get him off the scent and break through his ridiculous, bullshit defences. "Thank you, Frank."

"Don't-"

"Really," he speaks more forcefully this time, fuelled by the thought that this is different. This isn't business-as-usual for Frank Castle. He might drift through contacts and hold his network at arm's length. But Sato isn't currently being hunted. The ninjas and Elektra are still alive. The devil of Hell's Kitchen is laying low with the Punisher, who isn't currently winding up for a punch. "Thank you."

Frank tromps off to the kitchen, scrubbing at his head, pulse taking off in a frustrated gallop. Grumbling under his breath the whole way that he didn't fucking do anything, so give it a rest with the pleases and thank you-s, will yah? Christ fucking almighty, he thought they were past all this.

He ends his tirade by asking, "You take too many of those T3s, Red?" As if there's no Aspirin on the night stand. As if he didn't put it there.

Matt allows himself a smirk. He feels like he's earned it. The expression fades quickly. He doesn't want to undercut the sincerity of this, no matter how oblivious Frank insists on being. "I just really appreciate everything you've done."

"Shut up, Red."

But Frank's tone is resigned: no bark, no bite. His pulse falls back to a resting rate, at ease. He pours himself a cup of coffee and re-emerges. "You take those dishes back to Rina's?"

"Yeah."

Frank disassociates. His whole body goes quiet as he disappears from the apartment. Rina.

Matt invites him back into the room. "She had a message for you."

"Hm?"

"You're not allowed to shave my head."

Frank tosses back his coffee. He drops the cup on the desk and moves back through the apartment towards the cot. Matt gets himself propped up, ready to fight, and ends up tangling with Frank's hand when the bastard ruffles his hair.

"Don't make me," Frank says, disappearing into the bathroom. He takes the threat with him when he goes.

Happy reading!

Additional Notes: Matt's line – "I wish I could do that" – gave me some apprehension while I was writing this. It seemed out of character for him to idealize aspects of Frank's methods. However, given his conversation with Claire before the Hand's attack on the hospital, his relationship with Stick at the end of season 2, and the damage he does to his friendships both in the series and this fic, I thought it worked for him here. He isn't considering the full ramifications of separating himself entirely from the people he wants to save. Moreover, I thought it provided a contrast to what's happening between him and Frank in the story.

Cheers!