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 know what to do.
I'm writing this note while the chapter's fresh. I usually take a night to digest, run through some last minute edits, and respond to comments. But it's done. This chapter, whatever changes get made, it's finished, and I don't know what I do.
Readers, dear Readers, you've given me so much. I hope this chapter gives back. Thank you. Enjoy.
"I'm an apostrophe.
I'm just a symbol to remind you that there's more to see.
I'm just a product of the system, a catastrophe,
And yet a masterpiece, and yet I'm half-diseased
And when I am deceased
At least I go down to the grave and die happily…
Whatever it takes
'Cuz I love the adrenaline in my veins.
I do what it takes
'Cuz I love how it feels when I break the chains."
~Imagine Dragons, "Whatever It Takes"
Chapter Fifty-Four
"No."
Frank rolls his damn eyes. Kid's swaying on his feet, vastly outnumbered. Attacked from every side. And there he is, ready for the next round.
The ninjas lunge. Frank moves; there's one on the roof of the van, arrow poised for the kid's head. Elektra puts a stop to that shit. She takes a small but bold step forward and the Hand backs off. Most of them train their weapons on the rocking door of the transport.
But Frank doesn't stop. He lets out a yell and tackles Red into the doors, and they duke it out for several beats. "You wanna die for him, is that it? Is that it, Red?"
He isn't smirking, but he ought to be, the little shit: "You wanna kill me for him?"
Frank clocks his head into the van. Red sways on his feet, knocked senseless, and Frank grabs him, wrapping him up in a headlock. He puts the gun in the only direction the bullet's gonna make a difference: under Red's chin.
"You won't," Elektra snarls.
"You bet your ass I will. Ask him. Go ahead and ask him. What's my heart doing, Red? Am I lying? Am I lying about shooting you in the head? AM I?"
He doesn't loosen the headlock in the slightest, so the only thing that emerges from Devil's crushed windpipe is a wheeze. Sure, the kid's putting up a fight, but Frank's not caving. He lowers his voice for the Devil's ears. "I'm sick of this shit. Sick of ninjas. Sick of getting sidetracked. Sick of you. Nobody's nothing should not protect piece of shit like Wilson Fisk. It fucking shouldn't, Red."
The fat man launches another attack from the inside of the van, body slapping wetly against the doors. Blood spatters through the crack onto the pavement beside Frank, reigniting Red's fighting spirit.
Frank boots Red to the back of the knee, knocking the kid even deeper into the headlock, putting more weight on the barrel of the gun. Must hear the fucking trigger, 'cuz Red lightens his struggle. He wraps his hands around Frank's forearm and holds on tight, never lets go, and fuck. They're going over the edge together.
Silence reigns. Even Fisk goes quiet. A glance to the van doors sees his bloodshot, bulbous eye peering through the dark. The deep rumble of his voice emerges from the blackness: "What are you waiting for, Castle? Shoot him."
"You wait your turn," Frank hisses. Then he puts as much strength as he can into choking the kid out. His thoughts spiral when his efforts fail. Would be so easy. One batch, two batch, penny and dime. Pull the damn trigger. Red's head explodes into pulp. The bullet knocks against the inside of his bulletproof costume. No more Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Not ever. Ninjas couldn't even bring him back from that shit, could they? Show him the great pile of nothing in the sky before dragging his ass back to life? Turn Red into one of them. One of hers.
The feel of the kid's fingers on his wrists comes back to him. Frank's arms strain from the weight of Red in his arms. Ain't so little anymore, Red, not now that Frank knows where he comes from, knows the shit that made him who he is.
Frank crushes his face into Red's dopey helmet. Nearly stuffs a horn in his eye from how hard a hold he's got on the kid. He adjusts his grip, savouring the expression on Elektra's face from the two of them locked together. Elektra, eyes aflame, lips crushed in a thin line: Frank wants to hold onto that sight for the rest of his God damn life, however long that happens to be.
He stares her right in the face as he leans in close to Red's ear. "I got you, Red. I got you," Frank declares raggedly. Loud enough that she can hear. Harsh enough for her to worry. Heart pounding hard enough that even Red might believe he'll take the shot. She orchestrated this little nightmare, but she isn't calling the fucking shots anymore, because he's got the one shot that matters.
Fisk lets out an engaged roar and begins slamming into the van doors again. He rams the doors at a slower pace but shows no sign of stopping, no more than any of them.
"You tell your ninjas to stand down," Frank orders. Fuck, why hasn't the kid passed out yet?
"The Hand demand retribution," Elektra says.
"I'll give it to 'em." He easily dodges a blow to his face from Red, who is still fucking conscious and still fucking fighting. The door knocks him in the back of the head when Fisk rushes it again. "You still got shit with me after that, you take it out on me. But it's you and me. Get him –" Frank yanks the kid's head for emphasis, "- the hell out of here."
The fury drains from Elektra's face and her eyes go shockingly cold. Debating. Calculating. Christ, he wants to know what her heart's doing, what she's thinking. If she buys this. If she sees how perfect an out he's given her. She isn't gonna have to give the order by choice, after all. She can do it for Red. Everything she does tonight, she can do it for Red.
Frank pulls the trigger down till it's a hair's breadth from firing to really get her attention, letting his breath huff and puff into Red's ear - got you got you got you…
Red's knees start to buckle. Thank Christ.
"Open the door," Frank orders her.
Elektra's face hardens, every feature shifting into blades before his eyes. She tilts her head ever-so-slightly, and the ninjas respond. They lower their damn weapons. One of them, his eyes go wide, breaking rank to express his surprise. Over who gets to kill Fisk or Red's continued survival or Elektra's sudden appearance at Frank's side: who the hell knows. Who cares? The ninja does as he's ordered, moving to the head to the pack.
She comes to the back of the van, and Frank twists the kid between them as far as he can without exposing himself to the ninjas. Elektra unravels the Billy from the door handles. Red falters. Frank whips the gun aside. He shoves the kid, hard. Sends him stumbling, dazed, into the waiting pack of ninjas. But it's not that easy. Red comes round swinging, putting his full weight into the blow.
Pain explodes through Frank's cheek. He's thrown to the side. Blood splashes onto the pavement from his mouth. Red lets out an enraged yell when the ninjas grab him. Freaky sight in the streetlamp, the devil doubled over in a coughing fit, growling through a ravaged throat as he gets hauled away by so many black clad figures. A disobedient demon getting dragged back to hell. Arms outstretched towards Frank and Elektra and the rattling doors, as if salvation's pushing through rather than Wilson fucking Fisk. Wilson Fisk, who's shouting over the fight, "I will show mercy to the one who kills him!"
The Devil's yell drowns out Fisk's ramblings, and it's the yell that gets Frank. That mix of anguish and anger. Heard the Devil holler like that a couple times since Grotto and it never fails to bottom him out. Doesn't help that the kid's hands end up behind his back, that he stamps against the pavement to stay put only to get dragged back, boots scraping against concrete. That fucking leg threatening to snap like a twig from how hard the Devil's pressing down on it.
One of the ninjas flips their katana round: blade down, blunt-side forward. He goes to punch Red out, but damn it, they took too long. Red's all fired up. He ducks. The punch hits one of the other ninjas. Red gets an arm free, grabs the newly dazed ninja by the head and uses him as a fucking weapon. He smashes the ninja into the others. Jesus, the scrap in this kid. The sheer will. Frank lets the sight of him kicking ass hover in his periphery as he and Elektra get the Billy off the back of the van. The two halves of the Billy snap back together, and Elektra swings the weapon down by her side.
They get the back of the van open. Fisk charges forward, but Elektra is so fast. She lays him flat like he's nothing, then sweeps a hand towards the fallen Kingpin in invitation. "He's all yours."
Frank hops into the back of the van.
"STOP!" Red lunges, but he's got no leverage against the ninjas.
"Have they not gotten rid of you yet?" Frank demands.
Red lets out a cry, knees connecting with the pavement. But he's fighting. Always fighting. "Elektra, stop this. Let him go. Let Frank go. Let the cops go."
She sighs wistfully. Like what a beautiful dream he's given her, what a lovely idea, but it's not going to happen. But she's got a good head on her shoulders. Elektra knows what is, what was, what never will be, and Red's unspoken promise of take me instead no longer holds sway. It isn't enough to simply have Red. She needs Fisk dead, and she needs Frank to be the one to do it.
Frank has no intention of letting her down. Bullet in the fat man is just as good as a bullet to the kid's head. Serves the same function. Meets the same damn end. They always agreed to this when the leg was healed, and the leg is fucking healed. The Devil's back to doing his dumbass Devil shit. Let the world chew him up and spit him out for his compassion and his mercy and his hope. Let her have him, Elektra wants him so bad. Let her listen to his whining and his bitching about widows and orphans, about second chances and Santa Claus. About how tonight wasn't her fault, about how she can do better. How he forgives her.
The gun slips in Frank's sweat-covered hand. He tightens on his grip on it, fits it perfectly into his palm, under his fingers. It's on me, he tells himself. All this shit. Fuck Red and his forgiveness. Frank was made for this. Shoulders built for rifles; hands built for pistols. Whole body designed to kill. Fisk's death belongs to him.
As if he can hear, Red shouts another, "NO!" He puts his whole body into it, by the sounds of things, calling out more bullshit as he does. Frank blocks him out. Blocks it all out. It's him and Fisk, and it's always been him and Fisk. Then it's him and Elektra. Then it's him and the rest of the ninjas. Him, alone, as it should be.
The fat man jerks back into consciousness on the ground. He coughs, sputters. Attempts to rise. Frank kicks his ass down onto the floor of the van. Aims the gun between Fisk's eyes. Tracks a line down to Fisk's bloody mouth. He's earned the bullet as much as Frank's earned the opportunity.
"One batch, two batch –"
A dull thud of impact sounds from behind him. A body hits the pavement. Frank glances over his shoulder to see a stroke of red slung across a sea of black. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen finally down for the count.
The hairs on the back of Frank's neck prickle up. Goosebumps run down the length of his arm. He tightens his finger on the trigger. "One batch, two batch –" and nothing happens. It's quiet. There oughtta be noise, oughtta be fight. Oughtta be an idealist in a Hallowe'en costume looking to intervene. Jesus fucking Christ, Frank takes a minute to fume, because in his mind there oughtta be the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
Elektra walks into the van. With Red unconscious, she needn't pretend. "The bullet works best when you fire it," she notes.
"I'll show you how a bullet works best," says Frank, taking aim again. Could put the bullet in her instead. Crack the fat man's neck. Get a front row seat to the Devil being chopped limb from limb by the zombie ninja brigade, 'cuz there ain't no way Elektra isn't taking him with her when she goes.
At that moment behind him, Red lets out a groan. His boots scrape softly against the pavement, so softly the ninjas don't change what they're doing. So softly the ninjas don't sense him coming until he attacks, red and pissed, in Frank's periphery, and in the midst of his last stand, a silver shock of a blade comes towards his back.
The ninja, the surprised one, breaking rank. Disobeying orders.
Frank shoves a toe into Fisk's side. "Not this time, you piece of shit," he says, whipping the gun around to the attacking ninja.
Elektra is already off and running by the time the bullet hits. The ninja's head snaps back in a firework of blood, and the sound of his katana clattering against the pavement is lost in the ensuing battle.
The fight comes in fragments. Single sensations that collect and snowball. Starting slow then rolling faster and faster.
His fist connects with a ninja.
The crack of a bullet. Heat rushes past his ear.
Pain in his leg – from the shot? No, this is a throbbing ache. This is swelling, strain.
Frank's boots hit the concrete. The van doors slam behind him, knocking Matt's senses back in the present just in time for the Billy to slap into his hand. He's about to rush the Punisher when Fisk's heartbeat registers. He isn't dead. Why isn't he dead?
Elektra slashes past on a charge. She's scooped up a katana from one of her own and weaves it through the air on approach. "Seems we've forgotten who we belong to," she says reproachfully before tearing into her army.
Matt falls into step beside her. Punching and weaving. Sidling up to her as she curses out the Hand, reminds them who she is. Reminds them who the Black Sky is. He's aware of Frank on the attack, straight into the eye of the storm. Bowstrings snap; arrows crack against the pavement. Frank cusses under his breath that he hates the fucking ninjas, and he's only too happy to grab another gun from a drugged cop and one batch, two batch, penny and dime his way through the Hand.
"Couldn't just let me have him," Frank says angrily. "Couldn't just get the hell out of here.
Matt scoffs, chucking the Billy to take down the archers. One of their weapons drop. Another pitches off the side into Frank's hands. "Couldn't just shoot me in the head," Matt parrots, catching his Billy on its return flight. "Couldn't just kill me when you had the chance." He bashes a ninja across the back of the head. "How many times have you had the chance now?"
BANG.
Another bullet rushes past his head, catching the ninjas that's come up behind him. Matt recoils, disoriented. Is he dreaming this? Is he still passed out? The fluid in his inner ear won't stop churning and bubbling. Fisk's heartbeat sounds so loud. Elektra's voice rushes to and away like a tide – "You live for me. You die for me. That's all you do."
The battle crashes over him, and Matt sinks back into muscle memory. He throws another couple of punches, knocking back another member of the Hand as far as he can before his arms fall at his sides. The ninja quickly recovers, lunging forward, and Matt braces himself for the blow. He can ride it out. Take the ninja to the ground.
A rolling barrage of a heartbeat appears. The ninja gets grabbed. He chokes from the grip on his neck. Then there's a crack, a thud, and the all-out assault of Frank Castle's respiration pounding straight through the armour into Matt.
For a second, he surfaces again. Breaks through the veil of adrenaline into the cold, crystal-clear present. His blood runs hot, skull throbs. His own heartbeats gather inside of his chest, pressed tight with Frank's, locked up inside him by the thought that Fisk is still alive and Matt doesn't know why.
A ninja appears with a puff of breath and a stroke of steel. Matt pushes Frank out of the way of the blade before they both turn and take him down together, Frank delivering the final blow. He grabs Matt by the shoulder when it's over, and Matt grips Frank's wrist, riding Frank's strength all the way onto his feet.
He pats Frank on the shoulder a little harder than good-naturedly. "Thanks."
"Fucking –" Frank goes off under his breath as he charges back into battle.
Matt stays with him, trailing in the wake of that heartbeat, that right swing, that mean left hook. He runs interference, busts a couple of jaws, a limb here and there. He breaks from Frank when a ninja tears open one of the van doors. Matt twists the ninja's knee but misses the katana swinging towards Fisk's prone leg. Frank doesn't miss, however. He barrels into the melee, shoves the ninja back and fires saying, "If I don't get him, you don't neither."
"You could though," Matt says.
Frank damn near shuts the van door on him.
"Aw, don't get sweet on me now." Matt stays on Frank's heels like this isn't the last time he ever does. Like this is another night clearing buildings and chasing down thieves. Like Frank's got rubber bullets in that gun, and they're gonna patch each other up later, trade war stories on the fire escape. Drink shitty coffee.
"Ain't gonna be here forever, Red."
An arrow springs into the air towards them. Matt takes Frank and Frank takes him and they roll each other out of the way. Then Frank's back on his feet firing, and Matt's senses lose him in the chaos, fixing on Elektra instead. She's locked in combat with one of her own, one the remaining few.
She cuts the ninja down at the knees. "You don't have any right to question my orders," she points out.
The ninja growls from under his shroud. "You are our weapon."
Matt releases the breath he's been holding. He can't bring himself to listen, but his ears seek out the squelch of the blade thrust through the ninja's chest. Elektra, heart racing with terror and excitement, overjoyed that he said it aloud, that he put it in no uncertain terms, so she could say, "I am nobody's weapon."
She yanks the katana from the ninja's chest and cuts off his head.
Matt rushes to join her as a command cuts through the sounds of the battle. The air churns and swirls before streaming away into the nights. "What's happening?" Matt asks, and is chilled when Elektra's heartbeat answers for her. The thrill of her kill gives way to confusion. She doesn't know.
He listens hard to the rooftops, to the side streets, scrolling through Frank and Elektra's sounds to a long channel of breaths racing off into the night.
The fighting with the cops ceases in the distance and he understands: they've left. The Hand are gone.
Radios screech. Cops shout. The ninjas are in retreat, they're falling back. Streets are clear. The teams finally get on the move, down side streets, through the alleys. Sirens blaring and boots pounding on the pavement. Yelling. Tactical equipment clacking and clunking. Every available officer from every available unit headed straight from the fallen transport vehicles.
Matt races back to the van. Elektra grabs him on route by the neck and pushes – "COME ON" – causing him to stagger a few steps before he stops, locking his knees.
"I'm not leaving," he says, centring himself within the chaos by using her breath and Frank's war drum heartbeat as guides. The Punisher looms nearby with a loaded gun. Not that he needs it. Not for Fisk, whose heart has grown very, very weak. HIs pulse is a tender crawl, a mewling thing.
Matt backs away from Elektra as if scalded. "I'm not leaving."
She shoves him. "Fisk is getting what he deserves! He owned that prison. Your precious system made him king of his very own criminal castle, and you want to send him back there?" She huffs, disgusted. "You talk about justice and morality, but you want to save his life. Save Frank Castle's life."
"Save your life," Matt notes.
Elektra lets out a low laugh, a dark laugh. "I thought we couldn't save each other."
"No, but you can save yourself. Now. By going. Finish what you started here." The cops are moving fast. Any second the first ESU team is going to be storming the street. Frank will finish his slow march towards the van, kill Fisk while he has the chance. Get sent back to Super Max having killed the Kingpin. "You are nobody's weapon. Prove that."
She hits him in his broken ribs. Matt staggers back a pace, gasping. He deflects when she tries to hit him again. Can't help but notice Frank isn't returning to the melee. He's standing there, infuriatingly blank. Infuriatingly quiet.
Matt grunts. He tries to stop himself from shaking. "It's the right thing to do, Elektra."
The sound she makes: disgust. The notion that there is a right, that there's a way to measure it and keep score, disgusts her. Rather than argue the point, then, she attacks: "How will you protect your precious city from behind bars."
Matt pushes her back. "By putting Wilson Fisk back where you can't get to him and he can't get to anyone else. By being there the next time a riot scares him into leaving."
"The Hand will have control of the city."
"The Hand will try. But there will always be people fighting. There will always be people trying." God, he could say their names now, out loud, like a prayer. Foggy at his new law firm, Karen at the Bulletin, Claire with her clinic. Rina, terrified, who musters the courage to staunch blood loss for a stranger and challenge the big, bad Punisher with politesse. "There might only be one Devil of Hell's Kitchen, but there is a whole city of people looking to defend against injustice. And you can be one of those people," Matt tells her. "You keep saying that none of this matters, but it does. All of it. Especially if there's nothing else."
Elektra tries to break from him again. Matt doesn't let her. "Go get them."
"What about him?" She gestures towards Frank. "If he leaves, will you?"
Frank grumbles. A blank slate. A monster buried deep in a cave. God damn it, if he were any closer, Matt would punch him, shake him. Drag him back to the street kicking and screaming.
"I'd never know," he admits.
"Three blocks or thirty is all the same to your ears," Frank mutters in reply.
A wave of pure revulsion rushes through Matt. He forces his legs to stay steady beneath him, to stand tall against Frank's cynicism even as it leaves him feeling physically ill. "I'm that simple." Even now, after everything, he's still the dumbass who stood under a falling ceiling, the pathetic, deluded half-measure. Nothing but trouble from start to finish.
"You'd take him to prison with you?" Elektra asks him.
Matt answers, "We could share a transport." Can't punch Frank, but that doesn't mean he isn't going to get his licks in somehow. "Maybe even be cellmates. What do you say, Frank?"
"I say fuck off, Red."
"He's lying," Matt says with a smile.
Frank's heartbeat is a steady, disappointed march, a Marine cadence. "Jesus, they better send your ass straight to solitary."
"I'll see your sorry ass there."
"You won't see shit. It's fucking solitary."
Elektra's own pulse soars. Unbelievable. "You wouldn't allow yourself to be arrested."
"I'll leave when you do," Frank says, resolute as ever even as Matt's senses flitter between them. He blinks under the mask, focusing, focusing. Something's happening. More than the low murmur of Fisk's heartbeat tapping against the inside of the van. More than the lingering fuzziness from the blow he took to the head. It hits so many of his senses at once and yet seems to hit them not at all. Akin to the way allegiances shifted during their fights. Frank and Elektra go from being discordant tracks, two incongruous scores playing at the same time before suddenly coming together in a twisted harmony.
The heel of Elektra's boot claps against the pavement; Frank's own tromps in affirmation.
Then Elektra's clutching at Matt's cheek in parting, her lower lip trembling, and Matt can't hear her say another word. He just can't. This is it, it's over. She can finally be free. The Hand means more to her than Wilson Fisk.
He pushes at her. "Go."
She holds him just a moment longer and her hand still drops too soon, always too soon, and she disappears into the night.
There's a long beat. Chaos from every side street. Wind running through the cityscape like an exasperated sigh. Fisk's sad patter of a death knell fades into the background. Matt listens to Frank next to him, still armed, still fighting. How fitting that their last moments together are going to be stuck in a standoff over the fate of a man like Wilson Fisk.
Who's still alive.
"You could still go," Matt tells Frank. There's a path over the rooftops that could easily lead someone with Frank's training to freedom. That sniper rifle's waiting, ready to take a shot as Fisk is loaded into an ambulance. After Matt's in cuffs.
"You going?" Frank asks.
Matt laughs. Shakes his head. "No."
"Hm." They scan the street. "You hear the cops coming?"
"Yep." From all over the place.
"That one of them humming Metallica?"
The question throws Matt. Frank's heartbeat is still this perfect bassline: dispassionate, unfazed. This is any other night, any other war. But sure enough, Matt listens, and past the thunder of bootheels storming the streets from every direction, the screech of tires, and rattle of weapons, there's one member of the ESU humming as he marches on their location.
"Enter Sandman," Matt says.
Frank grabs him by the back of the neck and yanks him till they're chest to chest. The sole surviving soldiers planning their last stand. The heaviness in Matt's heart finally hits him full force, and he holds onto it. He holds onto the ache, the honesty, the rawness, and ugliness. He anchors himself under Frank's hand, in front of Frank's war-torn heart. Let it be the last thing he feels before the cops get them, before they rip the mask from his face and put him in chains.
"Till you're sure he's safe, right?"
Matt nods, slowly. "Yeah. Till I'm sure."
Frank tugs at him for emphasis. "You mean that?"
A rush of cold passes through Matt from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. "You know I do."
Frank seems to vanish again. Worse this time. His hand drops. He steps back. And he takes all the air with him as he walks towards the first wave of cops coming onto the street.
There's shouting. Weapons aiming. They radio for back-up; they've got the Punisher in their sights. "Yeah, yeah," Frank grumbles, dropping to his knees in front of them. "You got me." And they do have him. Arms tugged behind his back, zip tie to his wrists.
There are scant seconds before the crowd hits the streets, before the helicopter is there, spotlight blaring. Matt uses every single one of them to run, to dodge the gunfire, to latch the Billy onto an awning and heave himself onto the rooftop.
Then he runs.
Happy reading!