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 don't remember the last time a chapter for this fic came together as quickly as this one did. It's not simply a matter of length, either. I flew through this chapter. I had written it so many times in my head since this fic started that it was easy to put it onto the page.

Today is the two year anniversary of when I started posting It Takes a Village. I couldn't have made it this far without any of you, Dear Readers. Thank you for joining me for this long haul, this crazy adventure. Enjoy this chapter! Only three more to go!

"I guess you better go and get your armour."

~Jordin Sparks, "Battlefield"

Chapter Fifty-One

Chains twist around him. Motion brings the air crashing down overhead. Matt struggles, but sleep's bound to him, and try as he might, he can't get unbound. He sinks deeper under the weight of the restraints, till the musty basin of canvas surrounds him, till the room pushes at his shoulders and catches his hands and reassures him, "Matt, take it easy. Shh…it's okay. It's okay."

Soft voice. Soft hands. Soft wrists. Matt pulls at the fleeting sensory cues, receiving sparks of textures, scents, and sounds before his perception diffuses into smoke. Fighting drains his reserves; his hearing cuts out for several long, dark moments. Is he still in the trunk of the car? No, that was a long time ago. Matt retraces his steps through the fight in the warehouse, the fight in the alley, his mind pausing on the wet snap of Frank's body around Elektra's sai. Her voice – low, husky, coiling like smoke, the words lost under the sound of his attack.

Then Matt rushes back into a grapple with a wool coat and scuffed up shoes; with cheap shampoo and cheaper soap.

Heartbeats ram against Matt's ear drums, and it takes him hearing his name again to finally figure it out. He tugs his arms away even as he tightens his grip. "Foggy?"

That voice: "Lie down, Matt." The slight push to his biceps. Matt starts to do as he's told. He falls more heavily into the grip at any rate, his strength draining as Foggy holds strong and sees him back onto the cot.

Dizziness obscures the room. Matt fixes his senses on Foggy, his chest aching with familiarity, with difference. Frank Castle's heart never stepped so lightly; his grip always left bruises. "What are you doing here?"

"Castle called me."

Matt's focus wavers. He can't keep his thoughts and perceptions clear at the same time. "Called you?"

"Yeah. Said you were trying to go after Fisk, but you were in no condition to do it." Foggy tugs the blanket back up to Matt's shoulders. The warmth is almost enough to put Matt back to sleep. "He wasn't lying."

Matt huffs, marveling at how easily Frank makes his own truth. He nudges the blankets off his shoulders with arms that feel too heavy for the rest of him. His senses seem to recede with it, riding the edge of the blanket like debris in an outgoing tide. "And you just…you came?"

Eyeroll. A powerful one. The centre of gravity in the room rolls from the floor to the ceiling. "No. I almost didn't take the call. And then I almost hung up because the Punisher phoned me. You remember – the guy who blew up half the city and then declared in a court of law that he wouldn't stop blowing up the city? The one who shot you in the face?"

"Was a long time ago…"

"What?"

Panic races through Matt. He remembers himself. "Nothing."

Foggy gets back on track. "I didn't just drop everything and rush over here. I had to really think about why the hell I would do something like that. Why the Punisher would call and tell me to do something like that."

Matt senses he's being asked a question, one he can't answer. Calling Foggy doesn't make sense, not with how well and firmly he's been dosed. "I don't know."

He doesn't listen for if Foggy believes him or not, and Foggy doesn't give him much of an opportunity. "Do you know where we are?" Foggy asks. "Do you know how many bullets there are in this room?"

"Lots."

"Lots!"

"Explosives, too," Matt adds.

Foggy slaps a hand against the frame of the cot and stands up, furious. His heartbeat isn't so light on its beat anymore. "Why? Why do you always do that? Why do you always make it worse?"

The tone in Foggy's voice, the one of genuine hurt, of betrayal – it doesn't matter that it was a bad joke that caused it, Matt can't stop the giant pang of guilt putting his abdominals in a vice grip. "Sorry. I'll stop." There's more. Something else he's supposed to say. Foggy's respiration lies in wait. "I don't know why he called you. I'm sorry that he did. I'm sorry that you came."

Now it's Foggy's turn for guilt. He stops walking, his volume dropping low, dropping quiet, as if there's a volume where Matt won't be able to hear how bad he feels. The accusing tone comes back as quickly as it disappeared. "Have you been in Hell's Kitchen this entire time?"

"No. We got here last night."

"Just in time for Fisk to arrange a transfer."

Damn it: Fisk. Matt's mind plays catch-up with the last things he remembers before passing out. Most of his memory is the sting of floor against his kneecaps and Frank warbling boredly for him to stay down, Red. "That's not…" Matt struggles out of the thought before he can feel the blackout again, that terrifying curtain over his remaining senses. Shit, it's still happening. His memory of what Foggy's said diffuses. Matt clings to the current topic of conversation. "We didn't know that was going to happen."

Foggy's heart charges out of hiding. "Did you have something to do with it?"

The force of the question knocks the air clean out of Matt's chest. "How could you ask me that?"

"Did you?"

"No!" but Foggy doesn't buy it. Matt clarifies. "Not…not directly." He works frantically against the rising tide of Foggy's retreating footsteps. "It was Elektra. We fought her last night."

Accusation gives way to understanding. "There was an explosion in the Bronx. That was you?"

Matt sighs with gratitude. "Yes."

"She got away."

"Yes."

"And then she went after Fisk?"

"So that we would go after Fisk."

"You just used the word 'we' five times to talk about you and Frank Castle!"

Matt rolls his eyes, his memory improving. "Four."

A Foggy-shaped burst of energy in the world on fire splits through the dank haziness of Matt's senses. "Stop doing that!"

"What do you want me to say?" Matt asks lazily, his jaw slackening. God, he's so tired, and he can't afford to be tired. Fisk's transfer is probably well underway. All-out war has probably broken out on the rooftops as the Hand seeks retribution for what happened in the Bronx.

"I don't want you to say anything," Foggy snaps, and Matt's hearing is back on him again. "You said everything you needed to over the phone."

Matt wills himself not to go there. To the raised voices and the muffled sounds of Foggy tearing up. "What time is it?"

Miraculously, Foggy lets his attention be diverted. "Little after eleven."

"Fisk's transfer?"

"Underway. Finally." Foggy heaves another sigh. His shoulder slump inside that new, expensive coat of his. "Wasn't enough red tape to keep him at Super Max. Not after the riot this morning."

Matt sits up. He stays his course even as the world careens unsteadily around him. "I have to leave."

"Of course you do."

He swings his feet onto the floor, but he stops himself from rising. Something's missing. Something's wrong. Matt reaches, patting down his left leg. The cast. His cast is gone. He scans the room in search of it and comes up with nothing.

Damn. "He took it."

"Who took what?"

"My cast. Frank took it." Matt buries his face in his hands. Even though the haze of sedation, he can hear the warning screech of his bone inside his skin, feel the impression of Elektra's boot where she knock his foot out from under him.

He doesn't have time. For any of it. For the pain or the drugs or Frank's games or Foggy's feelings. "I have to go."

Foggy catching him by the arms gives him an excuse to sit back down on the cot, but Matt was headed that way anyways. His thighs aren't ready to hold his weight, and he can't shake that anchor around his neck, the one dragging him down, down, down…

"Stay down," Foggy says, and Matt quakes when he does. "You've been out since I got here. Completely insensate. What the hell happened? Did he-?"

"Frank gave me something." Matt waves a hand before Foggy can get too carried away with the confession. "I'm fine. It's fine. It's wearing off. Moving'll help. I have to go."

"He drugged you."

Why is Foggy so hung up on that? "I'm the only one –"

Another eyeroll flips the room again. "Who can save the city."

Matt grabs Foggy before he can walk away: "The only one who can stop this! You really think Fisk is going to get transferred to another prison? This is an opportunity for him to escape. And that's if the ninjas and the Punisher don't tear this city apart trying to get to him first."

"And who's fault is that?"

"You're right. It is my fault. So let me fix it. Let me fix all of this. Fisk, Elektra, the Hand, Frank – all of it."

Foggy tears himself out of Matt's limpening fingers and walks away from him.

"Foggy, don't –" Matt bites down on his bottom lip. Hard. Waking himself up and shutting himself down at the same time. Damn it, Foggy, don't…what? Don't walk away? Don't take this personally? Don't be like this? Every way he could possibly end that statement makes him an idiot, and he is an idiot. He's an idiot for letting this get so out of control.

"I'm sorry." The words are out of his mouth before can stop them. Tears well up in his eyes. Matt grips his knees to keep from falling back into the wall, to remind himself that the world is a still, still place even as his head spins round and round. He can't hear Foggy's footsteps, can barely make out Foggy's heart over the wet thrust of blood into his skull. The strain of his emotions bobbing on the surface, unable to be buried beneath the chemical fugue.

"I'm sorry," he says it again, but Foggy's still retreating the same way he did when he found out about the mask. The same way Frank retreated when things got messy, useless, needy. Matt grips the frame of the cot, mentally promising to tear this safehouse down when the night's over. He's going to tear down all of Frank's safehouses and all of Elektra's properties. He's going to make sure they have nowhere else to go in this city.

Just like him.

And Foggy – Foggy can go back to his new life, his new job, his new coats and shoes and girlfriend, but before he goes, he's going to have something torn down too. "I'm sorry for the phone call. Not what I said but…but for how I said it. You…you didn't deserve that."

Matt can feel Foggy's eyebrows moving into that inverted V shape right before he says, bewildered, "You think this is about the phone call?"

"What…" Matt wracks his brain. "What else would it be about?"

Gesturing: violent gesturing. Matt can't figure it out until, "You can't even stand up right now!"

"I need…"

"What? What do you need?"

Do I have to spell it out for you? and don't make me say it flash through Matt's brain in brilliant, burning letters. "Help," Matt snaps, "I need help. I can't…can't do this alone, but this is something I have to do. Please. Help me fix this. Help me make this right."

"Help you fight a war. One you're in condition to be fighting."

"But one only I can fight. Fisk and Elektra'll burn through the cops; Frank is going to burn through them. All three of them will burn through the city. You know that. I have to go. Now."

"And do what? How are you supposed to help the city like this?"

Matt has no idea. The thought of trying overwhelms any actual plans. His mind is sluggish to respond when he tries to think of possibilities. "The suit and mask are in my duffel. The man who made them for me, he's been working on a brace for my leg. Take me to him. I'll make my way to the East Side from there."

"You. Can't. Stand."

"So give me a ride to the East Side!"

Foggy takes a deep breath, and Matt can hear what he's about to say before he doesn't say it. Just as well, since if they start on the subject of what the hell is wrong with you, they're going to be there all night.

"You wanted to be involved," Matt reminds him.

"It's too late for that," Foggy warns.

"But it's not too late for this. There's no law that can stop the fight that's coming, not without help. So I'm going. And you might be able to hold me back right now, but eventually these drugs are going to wear off, and the city is going to be caught in a crossfire and more people are going to get hurt. And there won't be an opportunity to being people to justice: not Elektra or Fisk –"

"Or Frank?"

Matt sighs. Swallows. "Or Frank."

"You really think you can help if you go now?"

The devil emerges: "I think Frank Castle called you for a reason, and I don't know what it is, but right now we are doing exactly what he wants."

Foggy doesn't say anything. His heartbeat hangs squarely in the room, a persistent thump-thump-thump that won't give up, even when Matt's given him nothing but reasons to do so.

He groans then, loudly. "Why? Why do I want to do this for you!?"

"Because Frank Castle doesn't want you too." Foggy scoffs. Matt offers another answer more forcefully: "Because it's the right thing to do."

It's the wrong answer: "Driving you to your death is not the right thing to do!"

"I am not going to die!"

"You don't know that!"

"Neither do you!"

"Wilson Fisk? Ninjas? Your ex-girlfriend, the NYPD, and the God damn Punisher?! Against one drugged-up guy with a broken leg."

"Who else is there? Who?"

"You are such an asshole."

"I said I was sorry about the phone call."

"This isn't about the phone call!"

"I'm sorry that Frank dosed me. I'm sorry that I broke my leg. I'm sorry about the riot at Super Max, that Fisk's being transferred. I'm sorry about Elektra and ninjas and the attack on Metro General and…and Nelson and Murdock and Frank's case. I'm sorry for all of it, Foggy! I'm sorry!" Matt gasps sharply, the tears a cold shock on his cheeks. His saliva thick in the back of his throat. His head spinning, his limbs heavy, his guts churning. He claws at his cheeks, drags his aching, spinning head out of his hands, but looking gathered and feeling gathered are two very different things. Especially with Foggy Nelson's Little Engine That Could heartbeat in his ears racing forward, forward, forward, still holding on, still fighting the good fight. Still there, in the room with him.

It's worse, somehow. God, why is it worse?

"Help me." Matt says it to distract himself, and it works. His entire being falls in line behind the thought. His city is in trouble, and he is going to save it. "Help me make this right."

Foggy's heartbeat is his only response.

Happy reading!