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 nothing to say about this chapter. Actually, that's not true. I have a lot to say, but brevity has never been my strong suit. If I start, I won't stop, and I think I'll let this speak for itself.
Readers, I can't thank you enough for sticking around on this story. I couldn't have made it this far without your kind words and support; your time and your engagement and your energies, thank you so, so much. Please, enjoy.
"You were red,
And you liked me 'cuz I was blue,
But you touched me and suddenly I was a lilac sky,
And you decided purple just wasn't for you."
~Halsey, "Colors"
"Art is not what I create.
What I create is chaos."
~Halsey, "Colors – Stripped"
Chapter Thirty-Six
Frank grabs the God damn kid by the collar of his shirt before he can put himself in the line of fire. Which he tries to do the second they enter the living room.
"Don't," Red mutters, tearing himself free.
Frank gives nothing away. Puts his heartbeat nice and steady like his breathing. Holds his hands by his sides, the barrel of a gun pointing out from his sleeve. Not thinking about the kill, not thinking about the kid, not thinking about anything. Occupies himself with details, calculations. The thickness of the drywall, their visibility through the living room windows; the distance from Elektra and the katana she has hanging from the back of the chair.
Sato. Her strength (decent) and her speed (low) and her potential for retaliation (growing). She's going to have to step it up from conversation if she wants to stand a chance in this room.
Speaking of… "This it?" Frank asks. He isn't looking for interruptions. Red nods. They're alone.
Elektra regards them coolly. "Sorry to disappoint you-" she's not, "-but I thought you'd enough excitement for one day."
"We have."
"Speak for yourself, Red. The day ain't over yet."
Frank waits for another move on Red's part, but the only thing the kid's done is changed his expression. That compromise they made is written all over his face: if Frank finds her first. Well, Frank shrugs, he fucking found her. Finders fucking keepers, Red. No matter that Elektra delivered her straight to him. This can't count as a broken promise if Frank puts a bullet in the doc right now.
Unless Red leaps into the line of fire and takes the shot for himself.
Frank stops. Takes stock. Reminds himself who the real enemy is. Sato is going to die easy; she obviously isn't a priority for the Hand if they're dangling her as bait. Elektra, however, is playing several games at once with this new move. She's positively glowing: basking in baby blues and pinks from the billboard swirling through the window while the living room lamplight paints her face gold.
"Spoken like a man who loves his work," she purrs.
"Elektra," Red warns her.
To Frank: "Why don't you put the guns on the table?"
Fat. Fucking. Chance. But it's not really an offer anyways. The guns aren't a threat to her and she knows it. "Why don't you make me?"
Elektra laughs, "Oh, I'd love to! But we both know how Matthew feels about us fighting."
"I'd say he's pretty used to disappointment."
"Frank, put the guns on the table," Red says.
Frank gives a few seconds of mock consideration while his heart slows down before simply stating, "No."
"Maybe he's waiting for you to ask nicely," Red's girl chides him. "Or maybe he knows you're not quite as attached to your no-killing rule as you once were, Matthew."
"Elektra-"
"Your double standards are getting stronger," she continues in brisk, pleasant tones. "I kill a ninja to save your life, save both our lives, you tell me to get the hell out of yours. But Mr. Castle, here, dispatches five sentries responsible for reconnaissance and defence, and you're thick as thieves."
"You're just going to bring them back from the dead."
Damn, it's the most convincing lie the kid has ever told. Frank almost believes him as he says it. The level of dismissal in his voice, the contempt, it's drawn from the dark place inside Red, the place that leaves him at the tender mercies of monsters and men and what he sees as varying degrees of wrong.
Elektra counters perfectly. "Not everyone affiliated with the Hand gets brought back."
Sato's spine straightens. What little colour she has drains out of her face. The verbal battle between Red and Elektra rages on:
"Where's the cast?" he demands.
"What's your hurry?" Elektra repartees. Her words hit Frank square on his mending nose, and he whips his face out of the line of fire. "Surely you don't have other people to visit, places to go? Matthew saw all his friends today."
Fuck this shit. "Anywhere but here," Frank mutters, detached from the conversation. Then, before Elektra can say more, "Quit wasting time. Said it yourself: no fighting. Give him the God damn cast."
Elektra folds her arm across her chest sternly, and her voice descends into a delicate pout. "I want the doctor to put it on him."
Sato's body floods with new fear. Frank almost shoots her and Elektra both on principle. "Oh, for fuck –"
"It's why I brought her." Lie. "She can inspect his wound while she's at it, make sure it's not infected again."
"He look like he's got an infection to you?"
"I'd have to ask the doctor," Elektra replies sweetly.
Sato doesn't disappoint. "…I'd have to look at the wound."
"Don't do this, Elektra," Red says. He lets the desperation show in his voice for her benefit, no doubt, because the next stage is crucial. He knows what's coming. "Give me the cast."
"Tell him to put the guns down."
…blah, blah, blah. Jesus, the two of them. Frank isn't listening. He catches sight of Sato as she slips a hand into her coat pocket, feeling for something. The impression in the fabric is quick and fleeting, but Frank already has an idea of what's in there.
He lets his pulse soar. He shoves the gun out from his sleeve, raises his arm, and –
"FRANK, NO!"
- bang.
Matt throws a punch at Frank's face and lands it just after the bullet leaves the gun. Sato cries out. Matt's crutch clatters onto the floor. His head spins from the momentum. He goes to catch his weight on the ball of his other foot when he remembers about the break. How he's already had one compound fracture and isn't looking to get another and he really should have factored his broken leg into his assault.
That none of this occurred to him before he threw the punch is probably what Foggy was talking about at the church earlier.
He compensates for the terrible decision by making a different one, grabbing Frank by the coat lapels and dropping off his weight onto Frank's chest. The clumsy tackle takes effect in slow motion. Frank's knees give out by degrees. "Guess I'm not so tiny after all," Matt wants to say, but then they're on the hardwood.
Shocks rattle through his bad leg; Matt stacks himself on his good one and winds up for another blow. Frank's fist wraps into the buttons of his shirt; Matt rebuffs him with a punch to the face. But Frank won't be deterred. He puts his other hand on Matt's left knee to secure the broken leg. With his fist, he lines the knuckles over Matt's sternum and pushes. It's the makings of a punch without any of the force. The controlled pressure, the slow motion. Speed isn't the goal and neither is power. "Listen," Frank tells him in a voice so low only he could hear. He gives Matt's chest another nudge. The motion is accompanied with a mantra in Matt's head: got you. I got you, Red.
So Matt listens: hard. To the rattling of metal on the hardwood – Frank's gun, dropped; close enough that it wasn't thrown in their melee. Frank simply let it go, freeing up a hand to balance the broken leg. Elektra's heart is a jazz rhythm, giddy at the violence she's witness to, and beside her there's soft gasping. A tremulous rattle of air over a shuddering body. A heartbeat that's wild with pain and terror but shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
Matt gathers details from his other senses: the fresh scent of blood on the floor, heady and rich, but no accompanying bone or viscera. Rattling through the floorboards indicates movements. Rubber soles of sensible shoes, the kind a doctor would wear on rounds, squelch against his apartment flooring.
Elektra rises from the armchair at last, stalking around to get a better look at what Frank's done. Sato scrambles away; breath coming in sharp gasps. The sound Elektra makes sets Matt's blood to freezing with how cold it is. "Nice shot," she says sharply. "Unless, of course, you were aiming for her head."
Frank gives nothing away, not outwardly. He jabs his knuckles tightly into Matt's chest and holds the broken leg still. "Abdomen hurts more."
"And is that all you're going to do?"
"No." Another nudge to the chest: to Elektra, it looks like emphasis, but Matt senses more.
Elektra coos, parodying sympathy. Matt senses her lowering, then there's more blood, and Sato's groaning. "Keep pressure on that, Doctor. Seems the big, bad Punisher seeks retribution for your betrayal. Shall I give it to him?"
"I did everything you asked," Sato pleads, her voice a near whisper.
She cries out anew. "I wasn't talking to you," Elektra scolds. "Matthew?"
Matt lunges against Frank's grip. "ELEKTRA!" His nails scratch against the floorboards and his broken leg screeches from the motion. Frank shoves him in the direction of his good leg; Matt lands on the floor.
"Well, Matthew?" Elektra asks as Sato quiets. "Now that you're all for killing members of the Hand, what's one more?"
"She's not…" but she is. Sato's allegiances to the Hand have solidified by this point, regardless of why she came by that decision. Nevertheless. Matt hops onto his good leg and makes his way painfully across the room. It's slow going. "She's not some mindless drone!"
Elektra's heartbeat is a rallying cry. "So those ninjas deserved it because they can't think for themselves, but she can and still chooses to serve the Hand-"
"And what about you, Elektra?" Matt demands. Frank is approaching from behind, gun restored to its rightful place in his grip, and by the sounds of his heart, the next shot isn't going to be for a kneecap. Matt holds his position in the line of fire. "You know how to be good."
"So I need to die in order to square with your precious morality?"
"No, you have to choose."
Elektra's voice becomes a harsh whisper, a blade for his ears only. "They brought me back to life. What choice do I have?"
"The same choice as her! You're-" a faint sound appears. Fingers scraping against fabric. Sato tries to get control of her breathing. Matt keeps an ear on it but continues, "You're both under threat, Elektra, to do the wrong thing and live, or do the right thing-"
"-and die."
"-and fight," Matt corrects her. Plastic clacks. He struggles for clarity, but the sounds are too faint amidst the chaos of desperation surrounding him. Sato's heartbeat can't get any faster. He tilts his head away, toward the thunder of footsteps. The Punisher slows to a halt. "Let her go, Elektra. Please. Do the right thing. Whatever she's done…she doesn't deserve this. She can choose to do better. You can choose to do better."
Elektra's heart becomes a slow march inside her chest. Matt holds onto the sound for dear life, letting it drown out the smell of blood on her hands and the rapturous happiness with which she greeted this brutality. He's successful until her next question, "And what about him? Where do his choices rank with regards to your precious morality?"
"It's the same."
She isn't listening. "You know he's going to kill her. This was a practice shot."
"He doesn't do practice shots."
"I don't do practice shots."
Their answer comes almost in unison, and the way their voice comes together, a tenor and a gravelly bassline, plays against the acoustics of the room with twisted perfection.
Elektra smirks sadly. Matt knows, because he's wearing the same expression on his face. Their respiration is out of sync. "Let her go," he orders.
But he's lost her. The way her pulse falls out of stride with his, the way she recedes from the world on fire. It's the night with Roscoe Sweeney all over again, only this time she stays right there in front of him as she goes.
"What a coincidence," she says, voice oozing with lilting menace, "I don't do practice shots either."
"ELEKTRA."
The smell hits Matt, faint but oppressive, of the item Sato has finally drawn from her pocket. A wave of nausea runs through him, fresh as that night in the animal hospital. He rushes, thoughts jumbling. Words in disarray. The need to save Sato and protect Elektra reach a point of conflict where the best Matt can muster is saying their names.
They both move too quickly for his senses: Sato with her needle, Elektra with her hands. Matt tumbles into their fray, putting himself in front of Sato to defend her against Frank. Fresh blood spills out of her abdomen. She slumps against the wall, but her heart raging defiantly against the threats in the room.
Elektra, meanwhile, tears the newly emptied syringe from her shoulder. Her pulse is succumbing to the contents. She punches Matt in the arms, wrestling with him. He defends himself as weakly as possible.
Frank moves into a better position.
"No," Matt tells him, letting the devil out in his tone. "You do what you do, I do what I do, Frank. You so much as point that gun in her direction, and we'll see just how badly I can fuck up my leg."
Pretty badly by the feel of things. His leg is in agony.
"That's on you," Frank snarls.
"You sure about that?"
He doesn't have to focus for Frank's heartbeat to reach him, that war drum across the room, but doing so lets Matt hear the exact moment he knows that Frank is standing down. The moment he goes from geared up to at ease.
Matt turns his attention back to Elektra. She twists away from his touch, hurt and disgust radiating off her in waves. Her features flutter: eyelids, lips, hands, legs. One by one drifting away.
He begs one last question of her: "Are they coming, Elektra? Are the Hand watching?"
The sound of her pulse unfolds below him like a lotus flower. Matt has half a mind to ignore her, the answer is so obviously a trap, but like all of Elektra's games, it's one he has to submit to. "I told you I came alone, Matthew," she whispers with her last moments of consciousness. Distantly, he feels her shifting until her waist is lying flat under his palm, the scar left by Nobu's blade perfectly evident under his sensitive fingers. A gesture just for him. Matt tries to pull his hand away, but he sits there, frozen, rapt. Deserving of her wrath. "I came alone."
She passes out.
Matt's aware of Frank sighing. "What?" he demands.
Frank's reply is simple: "Fuck."
Frank puts Elektra to bed while Matt tries to staunch Sato's bleeding.
"You hear anything, Red?"
Matt simply replies, "No." He doesn't hear anything that is of any concern to Frank. Elektra must have been telling the truth about coming alone.
He doesn't know what to do with that.
The air is compressed between him and Sato, a solid wall of heat and iron pulsating with the shocky tendrils of her pulse. He helps her take off her coat, balls it up, and presses it to her left side. The bullet ripped a hole just over her hip, and the scent of metal from the wound tells Matt there's no exit. The bullet is still inside. A superficial wound, considering the shooter.
Got you, Red.
Sato gestures weakly to the bathroom. Her hands retain their surgical stillness. "The cast is in there," she says, arm falling back to her side. Frank moves quickly to retrieve it. Meanwhile, Sato puts her other hand on the coat and pushes until a groan escapes her.
"You got that?" Matt asks.
"Yeah, I got it."
Matt lets go. "That needle – you had that for her?"
Sato shakes. No. Matt understands: it was for Frank.
Frank makes a sound from the bathroom. A scoff. His pulse goes into that spiral of irritation, of disappointment.
"What is it?" Matt asks.
"It's red."
"What is?"
"The cast." Frank emerges from the bedroom bringing the smell of Melvin's lab with him. "It's red."
The smell of fresh body armour settles Matt's nerves. Melvin must have used the same materials as the suit for the exterior.
Sato makes a similar observation, earning another disappointed grunt from Frank. He disappears back into the bathroom and proceeds to dig through the cabinet under Matt's sink for who-the-hell-knows-what. "Red as your fucking costume," he says, "All it's missing is a pair of horns."
"You don't wear horns on your foot," Matt says. Obviously.
More irritation. The digging stops and the cupboard slams. "You better not take this as an invitation."
"You better not give me a reason," Matt growls.
"Your leg isn't ready to carry your weight," Sato rasps. "It needs another four to six weeks minimum."
Frank goes to say more on his way back into the living room. Matt hears his mouth open and his pulse thrums in warning – but Matt stops him before he can speak. Footsteps are coming up the stairs. Perfectly audible, non-ninja footsteps. Matt raises a hand to his mouth. Sure enough, the footsteps come to stop at his apartment door.
Knocking. "Murdock? You there? It's Detective Mahoney."
Sato's blood has gone cold on his hands, calling the rest of this mess into harsh clarity. Gunpowder and Frank Castle and Elektra; Doctor Sato and her wound. A cast made out of the devil's body armour. Foggy and Karen badgering the NYPD for days to come and check on him.
"One minute, Detective." Matt needs a minute. More than a minute. But he's already rising back to his full height on a leg that barely supports him so he can hop over to the kitchen and wash the blood off his hands. Mahoney's got a partner with him, one who's pacing on the spot, looking for action in the right place.
Matt points in Sato's direction and murmurs as sternly as he can, "Don't you touch her. Don't you dare touch her, Frank." His only response is the sound of the lights switching off. The mere knowledge of darkness brings out the calm in him. His leg grows stronger on his way to the kitchen sink. He washes his hands quickly, then heads to the front door.
Frank's heartbeat lingers at the bedroom doorway, but the second Matt opens the door to talk to detectives, he can hear it slinking towards Sato through the dark.
Matt can only imagine how this looks for Mahoney: him, his left leg hidden behind the door, standing guard at the threshold of a darkened apartment. The partner was antsy enough without the visual, but he starts flicking at the clasp on his holster double time when he looks at the space.
Mahoney plays it cool. His heartbeat competes with Frank's for steadiest rhythm. "Evening, Murdock."
Frank, by the sounds of it, is just standing there in the living room, lording over Sato as she bleeds. Matt makes a fist around the door handle. This had better not have been his plan from the beginning. "Detectives."
"Got a noise complaint from your neighbour. Said she heard a gunshot."
Matt shakes his head. "No gunshot here, detectives. I did have a-" he points into the darkness, scrolling through his furniture for something that would replicate the sound, "-bookcase fall over while I was cleaning." The lie unfolds in his brain so clearly and so perfectly that it leaps out of his mouth before he can think about how it sounds. "I've been out of town."
"Yeah, the whole precinct heard about you being out of town," Mahoney says tiredly. "Had your friends burning up the phone lines trying to figure out what had happened to you."
"I'm sorry, Detective. I didn't think I needed to tell people I was going."
"Neither did I, but try telling that to Foggy Nelson." Try telling anything to Foggy Nelson is what Mahoney means to say. "Where were you, you don't mind my asking?"
There's a faint whimpering sound from the living room. Neither of the detectives hear it, but Matt does, loud and clear. He wishes there was some way to tell Frank to knock it off, but he's got no ground here. Invite the detectives in, they all go down. Punisher kills Sato for crossing him or the Hand does it for hurting the Black Sky. Ninjas launch an assault for Elektra's honour. And he makes Fisk's job a whole lot easier by getting sent to Super Max all by himself…
So lie, Stick snarls at him. Nut up and lie.
First time he ever has to thank Stick: "I've been doing outreach through the church with some orphanages in the state. There's a child in Albany – blind – who's been having trouble adjusting. They thought I might be able to help."
"You got people at the church that can confirm this?"
Matt raises a brow. Mahoney's heart isn't really in this line of questioning, and even if it was, he's gotta do better than that to rattle a public defender. "Do I need to, Detective?"
The partner flicks at the snap on the holster one more time. It's a gesture Frank must hear, because his pulse booms, nearly drowning out the detective's voice when he speaks, "Awfully dark in there, Mr. Murdock. There a reason all your lights are off?"
Mahoney pulse shoots up, pissed: "He's blind, Mike."
Behind him, Matt can hear Frank's heart hammering at a similar pace as he whispers, faintly, "He's fucking blind, asshole."
Mike recovers quickly. The assholes always do. "You mind we come inside, Mr. Murdock? Have a look around?
Sato stops breathing. Frank approaches her.
"Please," she whispers. "Please…I…"
"Only way you leave is I let you," he reminds her.
Matt can't help his hand from shaking on the door. He puts on his best public defender's voice again, "Actually, I do, Detectives. I-" Sato's breath hitches. Frank's hand is clamped over her nose and mouth. The faint scent of tears breeze down the hallway. The sounds of their struggle are such that only Matt can hear. He responds the only way he can: by knocking his bad leg against the door, rattling the broken bone. Playing his pain for focus, for fury.
"It's all right, Murdock," Mahoney interrupts him. Irritation stretches his voice thin. He and Mike are going to have a conversation about this in the car. "It's not necessary. The NYPD have more important things to deal with tonight."
"Two detectives on a suspected gunshot duty does seem like a little much."
Mahoney sighs. "Been by your place for less lately, Murdock." But he wanted to make sure Matt was all right, with there being other gunshots in the neighbourhood. His pulse says as much. "You have a good night."
"You too," and just in case there's any confusion about who he's speaking to, "Brett."
He closes and locks the front door to the sounds of the detectives' retreat, Mahoney grumbling on the way downstairs, "You call yourself detective, Mike? Geez…" Matt's hobble down the hall is excruciating. His swelling's up. His leg jostles wetly like an overfilled water balloon. But there are still three heartbeats in the apartment. There are still three heartbeats…
Crack. Bones snap.
Only two heartbeats left.
"No." Matt tears at the wall. He swings his broken leg for leverage no matter how much it hurts. "No, Frank…"
Frank isn't anywhere near Sato by the time Matt gets into the living room. He's retreated to the windows, his body an aural landscape of solemnity, of duty. There's a giant glaring silence beside the armchair that used to be Doctor Sato. She's already getting cold, fading from the world on fire.
…happy reading.