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: After several massive rewrites, it became apparent that these events needed two separate chapters. Since the beginning of this story, I've really tried to give the emotional beats space, to let them stand on their own, and there's A LOT of beats landing – literally and figuratively – so I divided the action between two chapters.
Also I'm going to need an epilogue.
So my original projection of only two chapters left is inaccurate. There's actually three chapters left after this one. Oy. On the bright side, most of the next chapter is already finished. I just need to fine-tune the chaos that comes with writing an all-out war (for those playing the home game, that's surprise #857 in this story).
Readers, dear Readers, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you on this journey with me. I am still aiming to finish this fic by the end of July. I do hope you enjoy this chapter.
Cheers!
"Farewell, I've gone to take my throne above,
But don't weep for me
'Cuz this will be
The labour of my love.
Here we are, don't turn away now,
We are the warriors that built this town."
~Imagine Dragons, "Warriors"
Chapter Fifty-Three
Matt's cheek drags against the ground as he lifts himself up. He relishes the small nip of cold, the clean kiss of concrete. He centres his thoughts there, in the chill, away from the oil slick of his thoughts, the quicksand sink of his perception. Melvin warned him the brace would be uncomfortable, but the clamps at his knee and ankle hurt, throb. His attention gets caught, as poorly circulated as the blood in his shin.
He pushes himself up without really thinking, muscles sore with fatigue but drawn to the sounds of Elektra and Frank's melee; the distant shouts of cops cut short by katanas and snapping bowstrings. The pounding on the street has stopped, replaced with a trundle of heavy footsteps, a behemoth of polyester and prison detergent looking for cover from the tufts of ninja breath bearing down from the rooftops.
War in every direction. Matt twists between them, weighing his options, but then a bowstring snaps from the rooftops above, an arrow shatters against the pavement near the lumbering giant in the street. And if that's not an invitation, Matt doesn't know what is, because he's running. Praying that Elektra and Frank don't kill each other. Praying the ninjas take some mercy on the cops. Praying walking target Wilson Fisk manages to find cover.
Fisk's heart is a drum line with its own set of acoustics. Like Frank, it spikes and dives on a dime, but unlike Frank, the sound of Fisk's heartbeat funnels through his neck, and his whole bassline gets a tinny twist. The sight of the Devil causes an immediate change in rhythm.
"YOU!" Fisk shouts. "I want told you were dead!"
"You were told wrong," Matt says, leaping into action. The Hand fires down around them from both sides of the street, so he wrangles Fisk out of the way.
Fisk, in turn, wrangles him. Roaring. Yelling.
It's not like the prison. Matt wasn't prepared then, not for the lunge of Fisk's heart or the sudden explosion of power from across the table. And even then he couldn't respond, not as Matt Murdock. But as the Devil, Matt slips out of Fisk's grasp. He follows the slash of arrows on the air, smirking when he notes the sudden change of the arcs, the frustrated recalculations of ninjas. Orders to contain or kill Fisk competing with orders not to harm the Devil.
Matt's blood goes warm, and the warmth blankets the pain in his leg, and every pump of his heart, pull of his muscle, snap of his knuckles; every close call, every narrow gap between Wilson's hands and the ninja's arrows, they becomes his prayers. Matt plants several punches on Fisk's abdomen, kidneys, thighs. He runs the Billy wire around Fisk's neck and tugs, hard, away from an arrow.
They tuck behind a bus stop on the far side of the street. The plexiglass gives them some cover, but that doesn't stop the Hand from trying to break it. Matt hears their breath streaming off the rooftops like the run-off from a bullet-riddled water tower. Some travel to the surrounding streets, holding down the perimeter against the NYPD. Others hold a perimeter around him and Fisk.
Fisk reaches; Matt dodges, realizing too late that Fisk's leg is headed his way. A strong kick lands him on the pavement, knocking the breath straight out of his lungs. He tears hard on the Billy, earning a sputter and a tilt from Fisk. Matt uses the time to scramble out of range. The move works until Fisk charges forward and drops his foot hard onto Matt's chest.
Ribs crunch. Matt lets out a yell. Fisk's heart rains down upon him from above. "I was going to save you for last. Destroy your cops and your judges, your lawyers. Before I raze your city to the ground!"
Matt yanks the Billy hard to the left. Fisk chokes on those words. "Poor planning, Wilson. You want the city, you have to go through me."
Fisk lets out a choked bark of a laugh, the snapped leg irons on his ankles clinking as he winds up for another blow. "With pleasure!"
Dodging the stomp is easy. Dodging the next is not. Matt drags his legs out of the way, but Fisk still captures his left ankle under the soft sole of a prison-issue shoe.
The brace stabs into his leg.
Matt refuses to scream. He puts all the pain and rage into the fight for his leg: tugging at the wire on Fisk's neck, kicking Fisk with his good leg. The pressure on the brace increases with the rest of Wilson's weight, threatening to snap the hardware, threatening to twist the leg, threatening to break him anew. Fisk absorbs the impact, shockwaves rippling through his gigantic form, giving Matt the clearest sense of their growing proximity. Goliath bearing down on David.
Matt bucks at last, diving for Fisk, and takes a punch to the face for his efforts. The Billy is knocked from his hand. The concrete catches him. Glass trickles down from the cracked bus stop. Another arrow strikes the plexiglass, threatening to bring down the structure around them. Thankfully, Fisk lunges, and while Matt fights against having his neck grabbed, his left leg is freed, and the brace holds strong.
He's slammed against the Plexiglass wall of the bus stop. Silence pervades from the streets. No breath, no heartbeats. Concrete and brick hold him and Fisk in their standoff. Matt can't even hear the sounds of the police in the distance anymore.
Matt grips Fisk's wrists, his hands so pathetically small. His kicks lost in the girth of Wilson Fisk, and with the structure crackling behind him,
"I intended to take my time with you, Devil. To really earn my happy ending. But I suppose I've waited long enough. I delayed gratification even as I was punished for waiting. Punished for my patience. Punished even now by the filth you've allowed to thrive in your city!"
Fisk punctuates the words by punching Matt's broken ribs, and pain knocks Matt's attention out of the bus stop, away from the dull ache of his own wretched heartbeat (he did let them thrive, he did) to the thump of footsteps breaking across the street. The death rattle heartbeat and huff of respiration thundering through the shattered glass wall behind him; next to that, whisper-soft movements, stealth breathing. Trained, callused fingers gathering a firearm from a drugged cop's holster accompanied by a sai singing on the chill breeze.
The mask hides the sadness in his eyes, revealing only the smirk as it twists across his features. Fisk's heartbeat doubles. Matt presses his weight against the crackling wall of the bus stop. "This isn't punishment," he declares.
Behind him, filtering through the spider webs of cracked glass comes the low rumble of Frank's voice: "One batch, two batch-"
Matt speaks over the thunder of Fisk's heart. "It's hope."
"-penny and dime."
The first bullet finds the exact mark where the cracks meet. It snaps through the glass, searing a path along Fisk's neck. The second bullet hits Fisk in his exposed side. He grunts, grip loosening, and Matt bashes Fisk's arms away. He lands two feet on the ground – both legs throbbing from varying degrees of pain and fatigue – and Matt wrestles Fisk to out of harm's way before Elektra arrives.
Matt defends against her as best he can, but there's a difference in fighting Elektra. She doesn't ever pull punches. Intends to kill every time she enters the ring. But she moves through him with such cruel and effective brutality. A complicated cruelty. She tosses him over her shoulder to get at Fisk.
Frank, meantime, has come around from the other side of the bus stop, and he's moving with the same kind of purpose as Elektra, suffering none of Matt's efforts to deflect against him. "Frank, no," and, "Frank, stop," and, "Frank, please." The Punisher hisses at him to fuck off and slips into he battle with Fisk easily. Too easily. Almost like Elektra's holding a place for him.
Because she is holding a place for him. Elektra Natchios, the Black Sky, living weapon of the Hand, stabs her sai through the meat of Fisk's arms, his legs, his sides. Non-fatal blows, all of them. Her final act is to drive her weapon home beneath Fisk's shoulder. He roars, flailing from the hips into the nearby building, into he streetlamp, trying to knock her off. Elektra's too fast and too cunning for all that. Her fingers squelch tightly against the pommel of her sai, and she wields the weapon like a joystick, driving Fisk this way and that with torn skin and shredded muscle. Fisk's rage fuels her excitement; God, she loves this game, loves to have her claws dug into so many people at once. Fisk dancing, roaring; Frank joining the brawl. Matt trying to fight his way between them and getting forced back.
Matt retrieves his Billy. Throws it. Gets the gun out of Frank's hand before Frank can finally use it. Elektra knocks the Billy aside before it can return to him, so Matt rushes the three fighters, his senses calibrating, searching for the spot between them. He dives, finds his way, and lands inside the ridiculous tangled knot of human violence. The blows taking on a whole new frustrating oscillation between death strikes and iron clad defences. Matt can't predict what he's getting into: he grabs Frank mid-killing stroke and nearly takes the Punisher's fist to the face when Fisk inserts himself into the fray. They both switch targets and each punch Fisk together.
The fight rolls back into the street. Matt retrieves his Billy. He tumbles through Frank and Elektra's defences. He grabs Fisk and uses Elektra's sai to drive the mammoth man the same way Elektra did, gulping mouthfuls of blood as he does. There are holes up and down Fisk's arms from Elektra. A cauterized gaze across his neck from Frank. Fisk's racing pulse starts sending off alarm bells in Matt's head. The more pissed off he stays, the more blood he loses, the faster he dies, even without Frank and Elektra's help.
Something's thrown behind him: Matt can't tell what with all the noise Fisk is making. He throws a few punches, knocking Fisk senseless. Then he turns his attention to cover. Swaying on his feet. Head spinning. So tired. Hurting in places he didn't know he had. Fisk's heart hammering into his spine, Elektra's clawing at his insides, and Frank's – God damn it, Frank's heart is a steady volley of gunfire. Unceasing war.
Matt's blood really turns to ice when he senses the gun. Purposefully hurled close enough for him to ear, far enough for him not to be able to do anything about it. Frank's calluses graze over the handle. Elektra hovers in near silence, the transaction complete. She aimed for Fisk's shoulder when she could have had his heart and Frank aimed to graze Fisk's neck when he could have had his head, and they did it for the same reason and for very different ones.
The street becomes so clear to Matt in that moment: the traps laid and the strings pulled; the orders given and the promises that hang in the balance. The bonds between them, fragile and yet unshakeable, are giving way to the weight of the violence they've wrought. Elektra and Frank advance, side-by-side, a tenuous alliance that threatens to shift at any moment, especially when Elektra issues a signal that brings the Hand into the street. Bowstrings draw taut; blades sing on the winter air.
Cover. They need cover.
The prison transport doors rattle in the winter breeze.
Matt drives Fisk as close as he can get, dodging the advance of ninjas, the lightning-fast motions of Elektra. The back of the van sits in his senses as a hollow void, an echo chamber for soft ninja breathing and Frank's gruff respiration. Matt lines Fisk up and moves to kick him through the open doors on the back of the van. He doesn't think about the move, doesn't have the time. There's too many of the Hand around to really consider how much pain it's going to cause, kicking at Fisk. He just does it, the loss of life looming: just raises the limb and gets to work, only to have Fisk grab his leg.
His left leg.
Frank doesn't hesitate. Of course not. It's the leg. It's the God damn leg.
BANG.
The bullet rips a fresh hole through Fisk's arm. He cries out, recoiling. Matt kicks him into the back of the transport, slams the doors, and tangles his Billy wire around the handles. Ninjas grab at him; Matt battles them off and hurriedly tugs the wire of the Billy taut. More shots ring out, bringing the ninjas down around him, but then Fisk charges from inside the van, bashing into locked doors. Matt's knocked back, straight into Frank's stampeding form.
He hits the ground. Frank hits the door, laying into the Billy wire with his free hand. It's disorienting, all the sound, all the motion. Ninjas teeming around the van, Fisk yelling and Frank roaring, the wet slap of meat echoing from inside the transport vehicle. Blades and bows at the ready, but they're lying in wait. When Matt focuses to discern why, all he notices is Elektra stalking the street towards him, proud as she pleases.
Matt springs on Frank to get his attention, knocking him into the doors of the transport in the process. Frank launches back but stops short, choking. Fisk has reached through the crack in the doors to wrap his meaty hands around Frank's neck.
Adrenaline surges through Matt. He throws himself into the door, knocking it shut on Fisk's wrists. There's another yell from inside the van, vindicating this time, especially when Frank pulls free and rolls out of the way.
Matt grabs the Billy and tugs, hard, locking the doors shut just as Fisk rams them again. "I will murder every last one of you!" he roars, throwing himself into the doors like a battering ram, body slapping wetly with every thrust. "I'll kill your armies! Your families! Every last person who has ever heard your names!"
"Shut up, Wilson," Matt says with a sigh. He turns around to face the two looming heartbeats behind him along with the cloud of undead respiration. He and Frank almost immediately end up in another tangle of blows. Elektra lunges, and Matt finds himself moving with Frank to hold her off. Then the alliances shift again, and Matt battles them both back, brawling them into the pavement with the last vestiges of his strength.
He rises unsteadily to his own two feet, head handing briefly from the weight of them. The armies of them: Frank, Elektra, Fisk, the Hand. He's surrounded, completely surrounded. Blood drips out of his mouth, under his suit. Every breath hits his broken ribs; every step throttles his mending leg. But he holds the line between them and Fisk, God damn it. He holds the line even as the ninjas creep atop the van, bows drawn and ready to fire; katanas singing on the air. He holds the line as Fisk threatens him and pounds at the door and bleeds to death; as Frank curses him with one round left in the chamber; as Elektra says, gently but firmly, "Get out of the way."
Matt draws his hands into fists at his sides. "No."
Happy reading!