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Summary: “Why won’t you tell me?” Murdock mumbles, defeated.Frank pointedly doesn’t think of the reason why. The warehouse, Karen, Nelson, the headlines, Fisk.“Don’t matter if I tell you, you won’t feel it. Gotta remember, Red,” he rubs a palm through his face, “it’s what you gotta do.” Frank has to figure out how to guide Matt through the painful process of recovering his memories at the same time he deals with Fisk and the fake Devil. Notes: So, about the sheer size of this series. I had no idea that was going to happen. I got a little carried away hahaha Poems and excerpts taken from (in order of appearance):Blood and stone, Rae GouirandAdvice from Dionysus, Shinji MoonPaper cuts, Natalie Scenters-ZapicoMemory is sleeping, Sanna WaniFever 103, Sylvia Plath Happy reading! Breaking point; The point at which a person gives way under stress. The point where a situation becomes critical. It only breaks; it does not change. It only goes from one to many. SHATTER This is the art of living with a ticking heart. Red doesn’t mention overhearing Frank on the phone, so he doesn’t bother wasting time wondering if he did. Doesn’t matter if he’s being a stubborn sh*t and trying to buy himself time before another let’s-play-twenty-questions or not. Frank isn’t wasting his breath on that when he has more important things needing his attention. When he’s not sure what to do with the kid, not sure what to do with Karen, him and Nelson. Fisk and the Daredevil copycat. And he sure as hell doesn’t know how to deal with this not being a mission anymore. Because it isn’t. Maybe it was, at some point, in the beginning. Back then when Red called, desperate in a way Frank had never heard before. And Frank had gotten there too late and Red’s efforts hadn’t been enough and he had to watch him drag himself over the bloodied warehouse floor with his skull bashed in. Killing half of the Costa family on that mansion? That was a mission. Shoving a gun on the back of the surgeon’s head had been a mission. Bringing Red to the cabin too. And then he found him in the bathroom, hands shaking and unable to coordinate a single limb. Mumbling over and over again and probably not even realizing he was doing it. The same name, until his voice was barely there. He sat on that porch and heard Red lose his mind just a little bit more, saw the man behind the mask and the glasses. And then it didn’t feel like a mission. Didn’t feel like scorching sun hot in his nape, boiling water inside the canteen that barely quenched his thirst. Didn’t feel like fingertips bitten and dry from handling gunpowder. It felt like the park. Hearing the first bullet fly, the first body drop. Red wakes up again, chest getting stuck in an inhale that never leaves. It’s the third time already tonight and Frank wished he could say he was surprised. Stopped trying to fall back asleep when it became clear it was a bad night. “No, no don’t-” “Red.” “Have to, I have to get to- Frank-” a wounded noise leaves his wobbling lips and Frank sits down on the bed, sighing in exhaustion and dropping the thermal by his feet. “Where- I gotta-” “You did, it’s all good now.” Red’s nails claw into his arms before digging deep, steadying himself. Frank uses a hand to untangle his fingers from him, holding his hand tight. Lets him try to fight it before he recognizes the weight anchoring him down to Earth. “Frank,” in a whisper now, he always does that. “Frank, they’ll see us move.” “They won’t, we’re out, remember?” “No, no, I have to- Frank, did I get to them? Did I stop them?” He flinches at every little hiss of breath squeezing through his teeth, wild eyes bobbing all around the room as if expecting someone to jump at him. “We got out?” Frank’s eyes instinctively jump to the sutures in his head. The scabbing over the incision from where bone poked through. Carefully cards two fingers through silky hair, the color slightly dull with lack of proper nutrition. “You did, we’re out. Mission’s over,” his hair is growing too long. Needs a trim. “you can rest now.” “S’over?” Frank swallows over the dryness of his mouth and parched throat. Gets close enough to kiss Red’s forehead, but doesn’t. “Yeah, it’s over, Red.” Closes his eyes, presses his lips together in a tight line before pulling back. “S’over, you can rest now.” Still holding tight to his hand, Red sleeps again, breathing slowing down gradually. Like there was some measure of peace in the contact, in the assurance. Red barely remembers a thing when he wakes up. Frank lets it go, like all the other nights before. As many things lately, Frank isn’t sure about letting Murdock alone in the safe house, but he wanted to check out his apartment, resupply too. He knew of a few things he could get from Turk Barrett, a few others from a former military lady he knew back in the day. When he’s got his supplies, he heads to Hell’s Kitchen. Not unexpectedly, there’s no news about the shootout at Murdock’s place and the attack in FDR Drive was attributed to a turf war or some bullsh*t. He does a few rounds, makes sure there isn’t anyone watching the place before he goes in, climbing up the stairs through the front door, this time. The door was replaced, but there were crime scene tapes crossing them out. The hallway had bullet holes from both sides and blood stains that hadn’t been washed out. The couch was destroyed and so was the kitchen table, which was just as Frank remembered it, so far. What stood out were the overturned drawers and the missing laptop and case files Frank remembered from when they came a week before. Stupid. He goes back to the safe house with the nagging feeling that he found something but just didn’t know what - a piece in the puzzle that he couldn’t match yet to a bigger picture. Red is putting away the red gift box he still slept with sometimes, when he thought Frank wasn’t looking, inside his gym bag when he walks through the front door. The airflow makes the garbage bag taped to the window frame inflate outwards before settling back. He’s used to Red acting a bit like a wild creature, tilting his head this way and that to fish for tells and details, a bit like a deer did to check for disturbances or predators around it. Sniffs the air sometimes like a fox hunting its prey. In the last week, they laid low and Red got the time to explain a bit to him about his senses, the accident. In return, Frank was quickly getting used to questions, prodding him for memories, trying to trigger new things out of him. Stupid things he wouldn’t usually be bothered to learn. “High-school? Uh, I remember graduating, I think. I had just broken up with a girlfriend, I think, what was her name?” He had frowned from where he was doing the exercises for his right arm. “Anyway, she found out I like guys too and was a bit disgusted, I think. She said she didn’t want to date a ‘fairy’.” Frank had scoffed humorlessly from where he was scrounging for a meal. “What did you say to her?” “Nothing,” Murdock shrugged, “but then I went and kissed a guy in front of the whole class after the graduation ceremony.” Frank had snorted. Of course he f***ing did. “I think we dated for a while, but I’m not sure.” He prods him about memories of his Dad, of his training and school. Sometimes, he goes too far without realizing it. Asking things about Red’s adult life is the surest way to get him to have an episode. It’s no surprise that, when he does remember something - a bar he used to like, the smell of the cheap drinks they served there -, he shuts down for the rest of the day. But there are a few things Red seems to be able to hold on to, Frank thinks, watching that clever glint in his eyes as Red sniffed the air. “You went to my place.” Frank grunts. Walks to the desk to take off his stuff. Keeps his handgun in the coffee table where he can reach it if he needs to and sits down on the couch, sends Red a look. “Take your goddamn feet off my ammo box.” “It’s comfy.” Frank scoffs, annoyed at Red’s little smirk. “Looking for the people after me?” “Nah. Just checking.” Murdock nods. Worries his bottom lip with his tongue in a way that Frank’s been getting real acquainted to. “Say it, Red.” The redhead acknowledges it with a subtle shift in his direction before he shakes his head. “When we met...” he frowns as if staring at a particularly difficult math problem. Frank has a hard time not getting lost in the sight of a pouty lower lip. “I went to you, didn’t I? In a hospital?” His heart does a mild leap in his surprise. “You were hurt. You smelled of... grief and anger. I remember walking inside and calling your name but then it all goes hazy.” Any expectation that he remembered anything about Karen and Nelson seeps out of him and Frank leans against the couch’s back rest. It’s the first solid memory he talked about that happened past his eighteen years old. “Yeah, I,” he swallows back down the urge to prod. Knows how well that ended up the last time. “When they got me in custody I was in a bad shape.” “Hm,” but Murdock seems lost in something else now. “I dreamed about the bombings.” Frank’s confusion must be audible in his breath or heart or whatever it was Red used to track those things, because he feels the need to explain. “In Hell’s Kitchen? I was close to one of them, I don’t know why. And then...” his eyebrows crease down in a frown. Fingers come up to scratch at the itching scab on the side of his head and drop back down once Frank catches his wrist in a firm hold. “A man was dying. I don’t know. He had a funny accent.” And Red for the life of him can’t make sense of it, apparently. Frank sighs, stands up. Takes two bottles of beer out of the dingy fridge and brings them back to the couch. He had been banking on Red remembering something about his double-life but he clearly doesn’t and that complicates a whole lot of things. Matt picks at the label of the bottle, staring sightlessly ahead, and doesn’t drink for a while. Frank chugs some of his own down, checking on him from time to time. Makes sure he’s not about to flip and tear his hands in broken glass again. The wounds from the other time were only now healing. He thinks for a moment Red’s about to ask him all the questions he’s refrained from asking, since the cabin. Why didn’t Frank take him to the hospital, why didn’t he ask anything else about the hallucinations, why did he get hurt in the first place. But instead he- “Why won’t you tell me?” Murdock mumbles, defeated. Frank pointedly doesn’t think of the reason why. The warehouse, Karen, Nelson, the headlines, Fisk, the fake Devil. “Don’t matter if I tell you, you won’t feel it. Gotta remember, Red,” he rubs a palm through his face, “it’s what you gotta do.” Murdock looks about to protest heavily before he exhales shakily. “Do you think-” he stops. Shakes his head. “Say it.” “Do you think that when my head heals...” Red trails off. Frank doesn’t need him to finish the thought to see where’s getting at, though. He looks at him, then, head tilted back to drink the rest of his beer in one go. Looks at the scabbing wound in the side of his head, hiding loose bone held together by flimsy wire, and remembers watching every step of that surgery. Piece by piece of dirt and debris pulled out of the brain and the bone. Doc wasn’t a neurosurgeon, couldn’t do much besides getting the bone in place, hope for the best. Curt, the last time he checked in with him, had thought Murdock’s memory was behaving unusually, that the episodes during the night sounded like flashbacks and, some, night terrors. It indicated trauma, according to him, not TBI-related memory loss. Also said that, besides helping Red reconnect with his environment and memories, he needed to give him a safe space, that he needed a safe way to deal with the traumatic event that led to this. That this had all the signs of being Dissociative amnesia. “Yeah, maybe.” It’s not really a lie, but Red must hear it. Frank waits for him to say anything, ask anything. Stews in the tension and waits for the silence to snap like a rubber band pulled too hard. They don’t speak a word. Red finally takes a swig of his beer. “I can go with you.” Frank’s heart must be telling Red how not on board he’s with this, pounding furiously on his chest, bruising his damn ribs all over again. Enough that Red tries using that f***ing lawyer voice of his, probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “I’m not going to get in your way but I can handle myself, you know I can-” “F*** that, Red, you can barely tell up from down when you walk up those stairs and you wanna track mercs with me?” Kid was out of his goddamn mind. Frank was seriously considering tying him up to something and leaving him behind. Maybe kill two birds with one stone, chain him to a chimney, get that head of his remembering other times. But if Fisk sent more people this way, he’d be alone and tied up and- sh*t. Not an option. “I’m a good tracker. I’ve been trained to take down enemies under extreme duress, I can-” “Shut up. You shut your mouth.” He doesn’t need a show and tell on the seventy-three shades of f***ed up of the kid’s childhood. Take down enemies under extreme duress, Jesus f***ing Christ. But Red isn’t lying. He may not remember being Daredevil, but his body remembers fighting. Knows fighting. He can be a sweet guy and he puts up a good front, but that’s half of it. There’s the other half - the devil, the soldier, the man he was trained to become. Both tearing at each other as fast as they mingle and overlap. Frank sees it in his tensing muscles, his clenching fists. The gracefully balanced pose he still holds even when way past exhausted or when his migraines hit. Elbows tucked by his waist, ready to attack. Got him imagining Red, scrawny for his age and with the same fiery stubbornness, being taught by that ninja a**hole in a basement. Getting beaten down and jumping up again, cleaning the blood off his nose with small hands and pushing forward, attacking a guy twice his size, unbothered by the power imbalance. Little Red doesn’t get out of his head even when he stares at him, then: very much grown up and, yeah, maybe not exactly tall but built lean and solid more like a martial artist than a brawler like Frank. Still very much easy to pin down. And then he hits that head of his and what will he do? Pick up the pieces of the devil from the ground in the off chance of saving him a second time while every cop and scumbag in the city is after him? But then again, Red won’ stay still. Got enough energy and control over himself now that he won’t just sit back and obey. Better to take the a**hole with him, make sure he doesn’t brain himself trying to follow Frank through rooftops. F***’s sake. Frank grabs at his collar and pulls him close, enough so they’re breathing into each other’s faces. Huffs like a bull against his face and tightens the hold when Red makes a poor attempt at escaping, shows him he has no chance fighting Frank. Not like this. “You disobey one word I say to you once we’re out that door, just one goddamn word-” “Yes, sir.” Frank growls at the taunt in his voice. He misses drowsy doped up Red from a few days ago. “You think this is funny? Those guys, Red, they’re no joke, and I don’t care what f***ed up war you were trained to fight in, kid, you’re in no condition to.” They’ll mow right through you, he thinks, heart pounding, and you won’t stand a chance. Useless trying to make Red understand risks. He never did. Or if he did, he never let that stop him. “You’ll do what I say, when I say it, the way I say it, do you understand?” “Yes, Frank.” He lets go of him when the air becomes two hot between their faces, rubs at the back of his scalp. The thought of Red, those mercenaries and the warehouse flash like lightning. “Goddamn it.” No coming back now. He produces a spare knife and shoves it at Red. Isn’t surprised at the disapproving frown. “You need it you use it, got it?” “I’m not killing-” For crying out loud- “You don’t need to kill sh*t. You’re down for the count but you’re a fighter, Red, you know where to hit and you hit goddamn hard.” Red’s look changes, turns curious. Frank knows that look. Frank just threw him a bone and Red won’t stop chewing on it until he gets to the marrow. “Did I fight you before?” He sighs. There’s no use lying when Red will know. “Yeah.” “You said I was a lawyer.” Frank evades the question, turns around to check his gear once again before they leave. “You said you were trained.” “No, don’t do that, tell me- ” “Got no time, Red, you know? We’re leaving-” Murdock slams his hand on the table, a mug breaks - Frank hadn’t seen him coming. Had forgotten how fast he was. How quiet he could be. It’s the first time he sees the Devil in those hazel-green eyes since the warehouse. The first time he thinks the kid might use that knife to gut him open like a fish. He sees him hold himself back from pouncing on the last second, his knuckles strain under his skin, his muscles twitch. The strength and the technique is there, but his body can’t handle it and Red knows it. “I have a right to know something that concerns me.” “Got nothing to say to you, Murdock, I told you before-” “Bullsh*t! It’s my life, my life , that you’re keeping from me!” Frank slams his own gun down. “You’re goddamn right I am!” It’s enough to shut Red up, taken aback. Even f***ing angry like he is, Frank’s can’t take the sight of those youthful doe eyes of his. Those sutures in his head. His goddamn head. “Didn’t ask for permission, Red, and I’m not begging for forgiveness, not now. I sure as hell didn’t ask to be here.” Red’s hand slides off the desk. Hangs lifelessly by his thigh. “Why are you then?” Frank rubs at his scalp and turns his back to him, collecting his handgun and shoving it in the holster. “Because it’s my fault, Matt.” He shakes his head, refuses to look back as he strolls purposefully to the door. “It’s my own goddamn fault.” The ride is silent. Frank would usually opt for walking, the bar’s at a forty minutes distance if he’s going at breakneck pace, but it’s not an option with Red’s head still on the mend. Certainly not a good idea if they need to make another hasty escape. Calling Karen had been a good idea. She gave him what she knew about the dead bodies mysteriously disappearing from the morgue before they could be processed and the FBI is, apparently, unaware of it. There was no mention or even a rumor of the shooting at Red’s place around the New York Bulletin. Only reason she knew about it was because a neighbor of Red’s, former client, called her when she came home to find the the wall full of bullet holes. Other neighbors she talked to mentioned giving statements to two cops in particular and told that they should keep quiet since it was part of an ongoing investigation. Someone was covering their tracks. And if Frank’s info checked out, Fisk’s appeal had suspiciously fast-tracked a few steps. Evidence proving his innocence notably appearing out of thin air. It wasn’t anything too big to get him out of prison yet, but if Frank knew one thing about Wilson Fisk, is that he knew how to play the long game. He shoots a glance at the desolate picture slumped on his passenger seat and huffs. Decides to throw him a bone before that kicked f***ing puppy abandoned-in-the-rain look got under his skin. “A while back, Red, you... you helped on the arrest of this scumbag, Wilson Fisk.” That gets him a delicate slant of his head, curious eyes peeking owlishly up. Fingers twitch - the gesture is gone too quickly for Frank to unravel it. “Guy was a piece of sh*t. Think he was charged with some white collar crimes, but the stuff you couldn’t prove, Red. He got a lot of people killed. Had a network, a lot of bad guys under his hand. You put him there, Red. And a bunch of corrupt cops and politicians. Did a good job too, from what I heard.” Matt offers him a small genuine smile in the admittedly poor attempt at appeasing. It fades too soon. “But a few weeks ago, he made a deal with the Feds. Offering intel on his competition, some major players in the city. Got himself a deal to keep his girl clean. Got shanked right after that too.” “On purpose, I’d imagine,” the quick-witted little bastard mumbles, turning his head back to the window. Frank nods, if only to test those senses of his. Not surprisingly, Red notices it. “Where is he now?” “A penthouse,” the word comes out as a derisive scoff, hands squeezing around the steering wheel, leather creaking under the pressure. “Watched 24/7, or so they say. But it don’t sound good, Red. Guy’s too much for the Feds, the system can’t handle ‘im.” Well, actually Frank didn’t think the system was equipped to deal with anything more serious than armed robberies, didn’t think there was any place for rapists, murderers and scumbags like Fisk to “reform” or “pay”. People like them, for Frank, there was only one way to pay. “Why is he coming after me?” Isn’t that the question. How the hell did he manage to connect the dots between Matt Murdock and Daredevil when, so far, most people didn’t? Frank had done so by chance. Recognized those plush pink lips and the smooth, velvety tone: May I call you Frank? With that vulnerable intonation of someone trying too damn hard to help something that’s beyond saving. And then once he saw it, he saw everything. The purposeful drag of his shoulders, making himself smaller - and when he forgot himself, his posture would change, his jaw would set tight, elbows tucked in, spine straight. He doubted himself for a good while, too, until he spotted him through his scope on that rooftop. “You put him in that cage, Red, but I don’t know the details. Hadn’t met you back then.” Murdock mulls over the information with a thoughtful pose, nails picking at the delicate webbing between each finger. Thumb from time to time rubbing at his knuckles. A nervous tic of some kind. Frank tongues away the bad taste in his mouth, the back of his front teeth. “I remember someone dead,” he stops moving, shoulders tense. Waits for Red to continue. “A woman. An old woman. Was it him?” “You remember, huh?” That was new. Red’s been getting better, but he’s still a mess. The indifference he showed during the first week in relation to his lost memories was gone, too. Kid was trying. Hard. “I was-” He takes a deep breath and tries again. “I was standing in a morgue, I was.. furious. And- and I felt guilty. I could smell her, she hadn’t been dead for long. Someone was crying, I think, but I don’t remember who. I don’t remember anything. God damn it- ” “Hey,” kid is holding his head again, fingertips lightly tracing the edges around the wound. “Hey, take it easy.” “I’m fine.” He doesn’t look it. His body sways lightly as if fighting off vertigo, his face lost color, his lips wobble before he bites down on the lower one. Slowly lets go. “I’m fine.” Frank keeps his eyes on the road and his ears on the passenger seat, alert for another breakdown until Red finally slants back. Dipping his head to rest against the cushioned seat. He’s careful when he asks. “What else you got?” Red sighs before answering. “I remember her, I don’t remember the Fisk guy. Ahm. I remember... a warehouse of some sort. By the docks. I was really hurt. And there was something burning. I jumped through a window, I think, or crashed into one, but-” he huffs in frustration. Frank nods in acknowledgment. That seems to get Murdock out of his head. “What else do you know about Fisk?” The marine only sighs. “Not the time now, Red,” and it isn’t. The bar matches Karen’s description and, if her info was right, at least three of the mercs that turned up dead on Red’s place frequented the place, including Martin Wallace, the leader Frank shot in the knee. He can’t take Red inside, though. Even without his beard, Frank still has a chance that Martin and Army Jacket lady didn’t recognize him in the middle of the firefight. Has a small chance that the a**holes inside won’t, either - people usually only recognize the skull. He stops a block away from the place, turns the engine off and sighs. Now to the hard part: “Red, you gotta stay her-” “You won’t go alone.” Christ Jesus- “Yeah, I will. And no offense, Red? But you’re no good as back-up right now.” Murdock scowls, those pretty lips twisting down. “I thought we talked about this.” “No, Red,” he takes his gun out of the holster and checks the mag before shoving it back in. “You talked about it. Ran your mouth like ya always do. I said you could come, I didn’t say we’d play Batman and Robin. Now you stay inside-” “You can’t go in there alone!” “I can and I will, Red, for f***’s sake. What happens when I have to use this, huh?” He asks, waving the handgun around. Red’s expression changes. “Yeah, you’ll either freeze or panic, Red, and I ain’t judging you on that, but I can’t have you on my conscience-” “I’ll wait on the rooftop, then.” Frank stares at him in disbelief. “In the roo- What the f*** do you mean, you’ll be on the rooftop? You and your f***ed up head, you wanna hang around rooftops? You’re out of your goddamn mind-” Murdock just frowns with that determined expression of his that had him taken aback more than once before, and earned his respect way too many times for comfort. Frank can’t look away from the strength Red manages to gather even then - so much like wild fire, burning everything it touches, and f*** if he's not getting burned alive, too. He shakes his head, heartbeat erratic. Rubs at the back of his head. No way he’s stopping the kid from doing what he wants to short of tying him up or knocking him down. Damn if he doesn’t want to. He takes the spare burner he arranged for in his supply run, dropping it on Red’s palm. “You stay here, you listen close.” F***’s sake, terrible idea. “You hear anything suspicious, you call, if I need you, I tell you. If I say I don’t, Red, if I tell you to stay, you stay. I don’t care what happens inside that place, I don’t care what you think you gotta do, I tell you to run away, you run. Do you understand? Do you, Red? Because if you don’t just say it, I ain’t scraping your body off the floor again, I’m not doing that.” Murdock considers him carefully, his expression softening slightly. Frank wants to wipe it off his face. “Yes, but,” ah, f***, “if you get in trouble, I’m coming in.” “ If I tell you to stay,” Frank gets as close to him as he can without taking a bite of those goddamn lips, “you stay.” Murdock’s eyes flash, staring back fearlessley. Frank growls under his breath before standing up and slamming the door shut. No f***ing way Red will stay put. He’s still trying to pick apart the aggressiveness from the sheer worry he caught on Frank’s voice when the creak of a door opening and closing a few yards away gets his attention. “Whatever is on tap.” The marine grumbles, Matt tilts his head towards him, picking apart the sound of the gun clinking against his belt when he sits on the bar stool. The wood whines softly under the added weight. “Looking for work, amigo?” The woman has a thick accent and a deep voice, she sounds tall, but he’s too far to make sense of it. “Nah. Buddy of mine? Got his crew slashed to pieces, tryna find what the f*** happened.” “You mean Marty, yeah?” “Yeah, I was outta town for a while, find out he was shot...” Matthew is reluctantly impressed with how easily Frank blends in, how his body language shifts and adapts, even his vocabulary. He’s good at reading the environment, the people around him. Good at playing them, too. He heard that once, right? I look scared to you? Frank was tied up, wasn’t he? Matt remembered coming in and Frank had been a mess, his lips were bloody, he had broken ribs, his foot was... what had happened to his foot? One batch, two batch- Why was he there? He was Frank’s lawyer, he met him at the hospital. Why would he go after him alone? “Last I heard, Marty took his crew and went after some white collar lawyer, King’s orders. No one knows what happened much, some people think it was the Devil.” “Daredevil?” “Yeah. I don’t know much about it but you saw what happened at the warehouse on 47 th . Guy flipped.” Wrongness creeps into his guts and his skin crawls, immediately zoning out of the conversation. His brain turns to static, his ears focus solely on the dizzying sound of blood rushing through his veins. Feels his skin itching in all the places he can’t scratch, knuckles creaking with how he clenches his fists. He does his inventory again. Frank had suggested the idea after he suddenly came up with some memory exercises, which he’s quite sure his friend (what was his name again?) had been the one to pass it on. What does he know? He knows Frank told him he was a lawyer. He knows there were suits and ties and case files on his apartment. He knows that he trained for the war for years. He doesn’t remember how many it was. He doesn’t know if Stick left or not. He thinks that he did. He knows Frank told him he didn’t have family but that he had friends, he knows no one has come looking for him until now. He knows Frank Castle is a mass murderer. A vigilante. A man tortured by loss who, somehow, thought Matt’s life was worth saving. He knows Wilson Fisk wants him dead. He knows he was Frank’s lawyer, but Frank said they fought before. He was there when Frank got tortured (by who? Why?). Frank knows about his enhanced senses (how?). Matt tilts his head back and, like he did all the other days since Frank’s memory exercises became a thing, tries to build chronology. Dad and Lindsey before the accident. Accident before Stick. Stick before High School. High School before bombings, before the burning man. All of that before Frank. Murdock’s always get back up. Grandma died. Dad tells him not to waste food, they’re both a bit skinny. Lindsey shares lunch with him. She’s his only friend. He drowns on the pool, Dad comes to save him. He drowns on the river, no one comes to save him- A man crosses the street ( I can’t see, he remembers screaming, I can’t see) , chemicals burning, his hands bright red, collecting around his eyes, ears, nose, mouth. The sheets on the hospital bed feel like sandpaper. “Hey, Mia, who’s this joker?” He heard his Dad win on TV. He waits for him on the kitchen so they can celebrate together. He hears the gunshot. He runs to the alley- “Marty’s pal. Was askin’ me about what happened at the lawyer’s.” The nice lady officer talks to him. Someone takes him home to pack his things. There’s nowhere for him to go, they take him to St. Agnes. Sister Maggie guides him inside. Everything was too loud. “Huh. Marty never mentioned ya.” “Just back.” “Military?” “Former.” “Don’t I know it.” And then everything is a blur. Vague recollections here and there. He kept training, he went to college. He walked inside an office space and- He can have the view. He said that. He remembers saying that- “Wait wait wait, I know you-” “F***!” “It’s the Punisher!” “Put the gun d-” Bang. Matt immediately jumps up and out of the car, listening hard through the vertigo of moving too quickly. Tries to track down the heartbeat he’s been waking up to for what feels like forever. A whispered voice. “Stay, Red, don’t you dare-” a grunt and the sound of knuckles against flesh. Another gunshot, and Matt is stuck to the sidewalk, shaking, mind going blank just right to the point that it all comes rushing in. Frank’s in danger. “Don’t you f***ing dare, Red, stay there-” Another gunshot, his legs shake. He can’t. He can’t stand there and listen to him die. Can’t wait back and listen to him get hurt. He’s slamming the car shut and running towards the bar in a second, following the sound of Frank’s heartbeat. Stick’s voice hammering down the break in his skull: get up and fight. He finds a window in the back. As long as he manages to hide his presence, he’s got the higher ground. Wounded and in disadvantage or not. So he’s careful to slip through the window quietly, taking the knife out because he stands no chance against the vertigo if he throws a kick. The blade whistles through the air, perfectly sharpened. The room smells of mold and dust, a refrigerator hums, stacked with frozen meat and foods Matt can’t identify by scent. The first person he finds stands at the short hallway by a bathroom, heartbeat speeding up and a gun in his hand, a thick bandana around his neck. There’s too many people inside the main room. Matt can’t risk him making a sound. He grabs him on a choke hold instead, and avoids a headbutt against his fractured skull by sheer dumb luck, squeezing the man’s neck tighter until he goes pliant and slumps on the ground. Another gunshot rings, someone screams in pain and falls to the ground. Matt rips the man’s bandana and folds it, doesn’t question himself for a second as he covers his eyes with it. The cloth stinks of cigarettes and muscle memory kicks in as he carefully ties it around his head, loose enough not to press against the break. “Jesus Christ-” Frank sees him before anyone else does. By then, Matt’s already slashing the tendons from a guy’s shin and dislocating two knees from another one, the movement making his brain feel liquid inside his skull. He thinks he almost faints, vomit rising up to his tongue before he swallows it back down. He keeps moving - Frank’s already bleeding. In between curling down to escape a gunshot, Matt keeps track of the man’s injuries (broken nose, bruising cheekbone, bleeding lip, knife wound in upper arm and right knee). Matt has to take him out of there. A man lunges with a broken bottle and Frank just barely manages to escape it. Matt’s senses can’t follow it all, he dodges a kick and gets hit by another before he slashes at someone’s shin, once, twice, until they go down. He kicks them on the face, hears something break (zygomatic bone and a teeth) and the man falls unconscious. By then, Frank’s got the broken bottle stuck to the man’s face as the other screams and goes down. He gets lost in the noise. Doesn’t know how. Maybe because he’s too worried about keeping people away from Frank, he doesn’t pay enough attention to his immediate surroundings. He’s hazy but fights purely on instinct - takes an arm and breaks it, kicks the back of their knees and dislocates the other arm. Elbows them in the face, the person goes down. Two people come at him at once, and Matt’s barely managed to dodge the first before the second one’s brains are all over his face, Frank having shot her with a borrowed shotgun. There are sirens coming near. They’re outnumbered. Frank’s hurt. He tries to kick the first guy, the one smelling of cocaine and cheap beer, but he’s twice his size and Matt’s losing the battle to his pounding migraine, the nausea and uncoordinated muscles and Stick’s voice, weak, get up, get up and fight. “Red!” He’s kicked in the back as he attempts crawling away and a rib protests, his arms stop responding, Matt immediately curls around his head. Someone kneels in his chest and he gasps in agony, something breaks, Matt screams. “Hey! Hey, get off him, you a**hole, I’m right here! Come an’ get me!” “Whiz, it’s the guy! Take the jeep ‘round the back!” Cocaine and Cheap Beer makes some kind of gesture, the words muffled in his own overgrown beard, but the pain chomps at his ribs, and Matt’s lungs won’t work properly. He can hear the rib creak and shift. Stray tears run down his face as he gasps again. It hurts and he should use the pain to ground him, bring him back to the fight, but his head is so, so heavy- “HEY! If you touch him you’re dead!” Frank’s roar feels too far, echoes distantly. He slashes a man’s throat and punches another before he’s held back by two, three other people and Matt has to fight. Get to work, Dad tells him, get to work. And he tries, muscles jump and spasm as he tries getting up as soon as the pressure on his chest alleviates, only to have a large booted foot stepping down on his neck. He wheezes, choking in coughs that can’t come out, fumbling to hold onto the foot pressing him down, trying to push it away as he squirms. Moving makes his ribs burn and shift but he can’t breathe. He can’t, can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t fight, can’t help Frank, can’t- “Hey, hey hey let him go! Let him go! I’m gonna watch you die, you hear me? I’m gonna watch you die, you piece of sh*t!” The pressure under his eyes increase, his lungs deflate and burn until there’s nothing else, his fingers stop responding, his arms do too. There are bright spots of pain all over him. Vaguely, he thinks he’s never heard Frank sound so desperate. He comes to it and he’s being dragged away. Frank’s still being held back as he fights. Every time he puts someone down there’s another. Someone pulls the black cloth from his eyes. Who does this guy think he is, Daredevil? Nah, Daredevil- “RED!” Frank’s voice is far. Matt feels the damp atmosphere of the room from which he got inside the bar. Frank’s voice shatters as he fights against the people holding him back and then there’s gunshots, several. He hears five bodies fall, someone screams, more shooting. Frank drops low. “Goddamn it, RED!” But Matt is already in the alleyway by the bar. His back dragging against grimy concrete until red-bright pain shoots through his shoulder blades and back and he thinks he screams. One of the two men dragging him laughs. Broken glass from the bottles discarded by the dumpster now stuck deep to his skin, Matt feels the world shift and go dim, flickering in and out of focus. The Devil is just at the edge. Weak, he says, a voice that sounds like Matt’s at the same time it reminds him of Stick, get up and fight. The world tilts, he’s dropped against metal, the impact jostles the broken rib and the big pieces of glass and he chokes out a moan. The Devil smiles, hovers over him as the doors close. Will you let them get away with it? He asks, face comes so close to his, it might as well be his own; you’re soft. Get up. Fight. Time passes as the world moves. He’s too heavy, still wheezing to breath, throat swelling and hot from the abuse. The shards puncturing his skin shift with every breath and so does his broken rib. His head pounds, his lungs burn. Get up and fight. It feels like he’s far out of his own body when he finally does. Adrenaline burns like fuel through the pain, he jumps at the driver and grabs him from behind in a choke hold. The car swings to the left before the man, Whiz, gets it on the road. Cocaine punches him on the mouth before Matt manages to kick him in the face, his ribs scream at the movement. Matt’s not strong enough to knock him out as efficiently as he usually would. Which is why Whiz manages to choke: “Shoot him-” “We need him alive to get the money!” “They’ll kill him any-” he strengthens the hold, Whiz chokes, the car swings left and right. Cocaine aims at kicking him right in his broken ribs, and keeps kicking, Matt growls, bone cracks, Cocaine keeps kicking. Another crack, but Matt’s at home in the pain. He smiles sharply through bloody teeth, the driver finally goes out. Cocaine jumps to get a hold of the steering wheel and Matt lets the Devil out. He digs his fingers into Cocaine’s beard and hair and drags him away from the wheel, leans back to kick him hard enough in the face to send his head through the window. He’s knocked out cold. Whiz wakes up with a wheezing inhale, flails just enough for Matt to be unable to get a hold of him before he clenches his hands on the wheel. An elbow is launched at his face and he feels blood trickle down his nose. Pressure builds in his lungs from not enough air passing through his swollen trachea. Despite Whiz’s best efforts, the jeep derails. Matt’s ribs are shoved right against the passenger’s seat, jostling the break. He screams, Whiz’s nails dig into his forearms. The car side hits the safety highway fence before spinning left and crashing into a lamppost. Matt’s body lurches forward towards the windshield, he loses consciousness. He should’ve f***ing known Red wouldn’t stay put. Murdock would rather put his neck on a ringer to hearing someone get hurt and do nothing. That’s exactly the bullsh*t that put them here in the first place. But they took Red. They’re going to f***ing die. Frank digs his hands around the knife trying to gut him and pulls the shaggy man back with a roar. Takes the handle and stabs it through his eye. Finds his gun forgotten on the floor and shoots the next two coming at him. Through the window, he can see the jeep taking of, a trail of blood left on the back doors. Turns back to the room - there’s still six a**holes in the room with him. He shoves the gun with the empty clip back on his pants, pulls the knife out of Shaggy’s corpse. “Come on,” he growls, “come on.” The only a**hole with any remaining ammo tries to shoot him, but kid can’t aim for sh*t. He’s by far the youngest among the others. He disarms him quickly, breaks his wrist before he takes the gun to himself and shoots two heads and a stomach before running out of bullets. Shoves the gun away. “Come on!” He roars. Frank barely feels it as he mows through them, punching and stabbing and breaking necks and arms. Gets a knife stuck to his hip but barely feels it. He has one mission, put all of them down. He leaves the kid for last, shaking and cradling a broken wrist, looking younger than he probably was. Frank lips his way, huffing like a bull as applies pressure to the skin around the knife in his hip, pulling it out with a shout. “Who came to you?” “W-what?” Frank puts the crimson-covered knife against his neck. “Gonna give you one more chance, kid. You either take it or you don’t, your choice.” “I I I don’t know man, I don’t know what you’re- oh God!” He steps on his ankle, makes sure to press down on it until the kid screams and goes down. The guy babbles and screams through tears. “Okay, okay okay okay-“ “Fisk, he hired some of you to kill the lawyer, who came to you?” “This weird British dude, man, I don’t know his name, I don’t- I SWEAR! I don’t- please!” “You have something, man, better sell it.” Red’s running out of time and Frank’s running out of patience. This only ends one way, but the kid doesn’t have to know that yet. “He- He’ll kill me, man.” “I won’t be that generous.” The desperation sets in quick. “Look, I’m not lying, I swear, this guy came to us, told Marty to find the lawyer, said he’d pay us good, that’d Fisk would owe us a favor, that we’d get protection from the Feds-” Frank’s fingers loosen around the knife before he clenches the handle tightly. “And then the agent dude came and asked Marty about-” “Agent?” “Yeah, man, a Fed,” Frank leans back slightly, looking down at the man, searching for any lie in his face. “Blonde dude with a psycho smile, wanted to know how the lawyer got away, who was with him. That’s all I know man, I swear-” Frank nods. Looks down at the man, couldn’t be in his thirties yet. Red would- Sh*t. Frank turns away, marching out from the bloodied bar and to his car. There are sirens approaching and no goddamn sign of Red. He calls Micro when he loses the tracks three blocks away from the bar. He goes back to the safe house and he waits, trigger finger tapping against his upper thigh, muscles jumping, jaw working. He waits until he’s about ready to jump off of his skin. Two hours later, it pays off. As soon as David’s text message pops on the screen, Frank’s down the stairs and slamming the car door closed. The address is close to the High Bridge, a few blocks from it. They were either taking him to the Bronx or out of the city altogether. Lieberman warns him beforehand, so he’s not surprised by the crash scene. He is, however, taken aback by the abandoned cop car by a tall tree. He doesn’t find the big bearded guy or the shaggy haired one that took Red as he approaches the van. No body. Although he does find brains and blood splattered all over the windshield. Someone got shot in the head. His heartbeat doubles, his body snaps alive. This is not happening, goddamn it. No way- “Goddamn you, Red.” He calls Lieberman with his heart perched underneath his Adam’s apple, pounding unsteadily. “David, I need you to-” “Frank, you gotta get out of there.” He frowns, mostly by the urgency he detects. “What’s going on?” “The masked guy you’re looking for, he just left the crash site fifty minutes ago-” he thinks his pressure drops too suddenly, black spots threatening to show up at the corners of his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose to get back in the game. “Now, there’s units being dispatched to your location, because the cops who got there, sh*t, sh*t sh*t sh*t-” “Spit it out, Lieberman.” “The car, look at the car!” “What-” but he doesn’t need to ask more. Frank saw and did things that haunted him sometimes, at night. Not as much as his family’s death, but ghosts all the same. Occasionally, he was still surprised. Two cops got there alright. He finds them both in their respective seats, eyes carved out of their skulls and placed on their laps like some sick joke. Frank cusses under his breath at the state of them - stomach shot through, the most painful way to die in his opinion. Hands tied behind their backs, so they can do nothing about it. “You see who did this?” He rasps against the speaker, taking a step further to find their wallets. They were still warm. “No, the cameras went down for twenty minutes. Right after your masked friend ran away.” Frank sighs, feeling for a pulse he knows he won’t find. They’ve been dead for a while. “I’ll call you later.” “Just... soon, Frank.” He huffs a breath through his nose. “Yeah.” One thing he knows, they were placed here. They didn’t die in the car, there wasn’t enough blood for that. Displayed. For either Red to find or him. Which either way meant Fisk knew. Frank opens the wallets, turning them around to pull both driver licenses out. He reads the first one, his jaw clenches. He looks around again, checking for anyone hanging out, before opening the second one. He closes it with a snap. F***. Fisk knows. He had suspected the bald a**hole did, but this is enough confirmation. Fisk wants him or, most likely, Red to know he does. Wants to mess with his head, get him to do something stupid. He looks at the licenses again. Cusses under his breath. Matthew Ramirez, the first one says. Richard Murdoch, says the second. He rubs his palm down his face with a curse, throwing both wallets back but keeping the driver’s licenses in his hands. Left with two dead bodies displayed like some next-level psychopathic bullsh*t he didn’t Fisk was capable of, a message he has no idea how to take and no sign of Red. For the hundredth time that day, he calls the burner phone he gave Murdock. There’s still blood on his knee where he did a hack job of stitching the knife slash closed. He picks at the blood stained denim. For the first time, the line connects. “Red?” “Frank,” crushing weight suddenly lifts from his shoulders, he closes his eyes, pressing the phone tight to his ear. “Frank, don’t know where I am.” “That’s fine,” he swallows thickly at the small, blank voice echoing close to his ear. He’s either dissociating or he lost too much blood. “It’s alright, Red, why don’t you try describing the place to me, yeah?” “Popcorn, peanuts, cotton candy.” Not very helpful, but Frank will take it. “There’s a... there’s a carousel, I think. I’m, I’m - I’m sitting by... I don’t know where I am.” Frank inhales brokenly, bloody fingernails reaching to scratch at the back of his scalp. Wonders how did Red’s messed up brains took him there of all places. “I’m coming to find you, yeah? Just stay where you are.” “Kay.” “Red,” he sounds too weak, that’s no good. “Sunshine, are you hurt too bad?” No answer, Frank starts moving, closes the car door one handed as he presses the phone to his shoulder, turning the engine on. “Red, I need you to tell me, are you hurt?” “There’s.. glass. Glass in my back. Broken rib. My wrist hurts. My throat hurts, s’hot.” “Alright. I’m coming, we’ll take care of ya, just stay there, Red.” Frank disconnects the call and chances a glance at the two bodies displayed inside the cop car. The city was about to burn and it didn’t even know. A text message from David arrives when he’s on his way to Central Park with some pictures of Red in surveillance cameras heading to the carousel and a link to a video on Twitter. Punisher sighted at bar massacre. He turns off the phone and focuses on driving. NOISE There is a buzz in my right ear that never goes away, no matter how hard I hit the side of my head for loose change. Most mornings I wonder who I can pray to that will make sure I never have to survive waking again. Lisa’s voice is a hammer working through his skull trying to break out from the moment he turns off the car. He’s staring at the grass then, eyes fixed to it, to the fences, remembering her little feet running around there for the first time. She hated shoes at that age, learned to take them off months before she learned to speak Dada . She was two? No, Frank missed her second birthday. Went to Iraq with her still sleeping most of the day and came back to her crawling all around the house and taking her first steps. Broke down on the shower after she started crying, didn’t recognize him. No, she was three. Maria was having a hard time at the office and Frank took on most of the chores when he was home. Started taking Lisa to the park almost every day. He showed her the bugs. She was terrified of butterflies and ants and grasshoppers, but for some reason she was fascinated with the ladybugs. Frank never knew what exactly she found so amazing about them, but her little body would light up and she’d squeal and clap excitedly at every single one she found. Sitting there on his car, he could feel the ghost of her weight over his shoulders. The feeling of holding on to her little legs, running around the grass and hunting for bugs. She loves rubbing her soft little palms over his shaved head. Fuzzy head Daddy, she’d say. The sound of the “z” coming off more like a “sh”. Fushy head Daddy. He had a twinge on his shoulder back then, from dislocating it overseas, but he’d hold her forever on his back even if the pain killed him. He leaves the car with a lump tight in his throat. Walks past the entry gate where he could still hear Lisa’s and Frankie’s laughter sometimes and heads to the carousel with the weight of Frank Castle’s corpse on his shoulders instead of the ghost of Lisa’s - father, husband, marine. He doesn’t look at the grass, there are no ladybugs in the trees. Red is on the same wooden bench Frank had sat on, couple of years back, knowing the Irish were coming for him. Dad, dad, look! “Your family,” Frank closes his eyes at Red’s weak voice, his neck mottled with bruises and slightly swollen. Frank finally turns his whole attention to him. “It was here.” Frank suddenly wants them both to leave this place. Stop staining their memories with the now. But he can’t fight the tide. God knows he can’t fight Red by this point. “Yeah,” he looks down at his own hands. Can’t pick the blood away from his fingernails. It’s stuck to him now. “It was.”After a minute that takes too long, he stands up, restless. His back turned to the carousel and his front to Red, he crouches in the floor, daring to put a hand around Red’s right knee. There’s a huge, nasty bruise forming all over and around his neck and Frank wants to kill them all over again. “Gotta get you out of the street, Red,” Fisk’s men are probably looking all over for him. And half the city’s scumbags too. They had to disappear for a while - lay low. Frank finds Red’s cold hands with his, stained with blood just as his own. His eyes reflect the carousel lights, the few that are still on; almost like he’s watching it. Almost like he can hear what Frank can, too - the song, his kids’ laughter, the screams, the gunfire. “There’s,” Matt swallows thickly through a lump in his throat, and Frank sighs at the tears he can see reflect light. “There’s this noise in my head. Sometimes I think I know what it is, but-” He chokes down a sob, his whole chest moving and straining with the effort and Frank instinctively brings him closer, tightens his hold around his hands. “It won’t stop and I don’t know why-” Frank gathers him by the nape and brings their foreheads together, hissing softly at the pain when their noses bump. “Just listen to me right now, Red, yeah? You can do that. Just me, now.” Holds him up, like he did so many of his men when they got lost in the gunfire. Like he held Maria and his kids, once. Doesn’t know how to give half of the things he knew how before - comfort, the easy affection and trust. Can’t find it when he thinks about it and doesn’t try, not usually. “You listening?” “Yeah.” “What can you hear?” In a whisper now, right by his ear. Brings him to bury his face in his shoulder. “Your heart,” Matt mumbles, “your lungs, your breathing, your bones,” he shuffles forward, shaking with the effort it takes. “Your heart,” he repeats, a hand fisting the back of his jacket tightly. “Yeah,” he rasps out, looks at the sky so he doesn’t have to stare at the grass and the trees. Holds Red’s face cradled against his shoulder for a little while more. Just a little more. “We gotta go, Red, c’mon.” Frank can’t always distinguish the emotional flashbacks from the mood swings, even if they happen a lot. This time, it catches Frank unaware. He doesn’t know what sets it off - if it’s sheer exhaustion or if it’s something he hears that Frank can’t. He’s bandaging Red’s ribs in silence, carefully as to not upset his injured back, when suddenly the redhead is full-out weeping. “I’m sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” “Sh*t, Red, not this sh*t again.” A strangled sound leaves him, like he’s being torn apart, and Frank’s head is a wasps nest, a beehive buzzing and slamming around inside his skull as he finishes taping his broken ribs. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-” He catches Matt by the forearms and holds him together as much as he can as he watches him fall apart. By then, Red’s speech is barely coherent and Frank has no idea how to snap him out of it. Fat, heavy teardrops washing him blood-stained cheeks. “Sorry, I’m sorry-“ “Stop that, you’re okay,” he cradles him as much as he can. There was little of Red that wasn’t either injured or bruised, including that neck of his that got his voice so weak and thin. “I got you, Red, you’re alright. Calm down, now.” He does stop, minutes later, when his body is drained and he’s not all there. Frank guides the redhead to his cot and he falls into deep slumber. Stares at the stretch of pink, shiny scar tissue in his head for hours. His cup of coffee grows cold in his grasp.
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amused
adored
drained
adventurous
