Chapter 2
There’s a knock at the door around 7am and Amy stirs from her sleep on the couch, stiff and startled. He had offered his bed to her a few times, but she kept declining, claiming she wasn’t tired. Matt crosses the room and raises a hand.
“It’s okay. It’s a friend.”
“Did you call, and or text, this friend?” She’s up straight now, feet on the floor.
“No.”
“Is this a regular morning routine for you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it’s a friend?”
“I just do.” Matt opens the door.
“Can you smell them? Like their cologne or perfume or B.O. or something? Is that a part of the special senses thing?” Amy is practically crawling over the other end of the couch to peer over.
“So strangers get to know your secret now? Strangers?”
The man is short and oddly a mix of chipper and bitter.
“I didn’t tell her.” Matt sighs. “And just because I said it was a friend, doesn’t mean they know everything about me,” he turns toward Amy. “You can’t just say -“
“Was it the smell? Or footsteps?” Amy’s eyes and grin are wide.
“I already hate the fact that he can smell everything about me from when I’ve showered to the last thing I ate. I don’t need it brought up before I haven’t even caffeinated yet. Speaking of which!”
The man sets a plastic drink carrier down on the counter.
“Thank you, Foggy.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Foggy takes his own cup and grimaces after a sip. “It’s really shitty coffee. Cheap, aka free, coffee, though.”
“Free tastes great,” Matt raises his cup in mock toast. “What are you doing here?”
“Karen filled me in, from an undisclosed location. I wish I had undisclosed locations. We need one. Like a base. A superhero base.”
“You’re not the biggest supporter of my extracurricular activities.”
“Yeah, but I’d be a bigger supporter if I got to hang out at a super secret base with neat gadgets. And then I could have a code name.”
“Oh my gosh,” Amy stands suddenly. “I was on the run, and then in a plane, and then here. I haven’t showered and you can smell me! Gross!”
“It’s not that bad,” Matt shakes his head.
“Not that bad is what people say when it’s really bad. I lived in a crappy trailer in hiding with Frank with no hot water, but I never had to worry about him super-smelling me. Not that he smells like roses anyway.”
“What does Frank Castle smell like? Blood and bullets? Stubbornness and stubble?” Foggy hums to himself.
“There’s a shower through there, if you want,” Matt shakes his head and points. “Towels in the closet.”
“And when you come out,” Foggy digs in his bag, “breakfast!” He waves a paper-wrapped sandwich above his head. “Karen insisted that if you were going to be playing babysitter, then you at least have to feed her.”
“I’m not a baby.” Amy crosses his arms.
“And because I know that you never have anything more than rice and old Thai and Tylenol on hand, I had my brother make his breakfast special sub.”
“Not one for me?” Matt looks mock disappointed.
“None for you!” Foggy holds the sandwich far away from his friend.
Amy is standing in the hall for a long moment, just watching them with a calculating gaze and a slight tick upward of the side of her lips.
“Are you two - a couple?”
“Couple of crime-fighting lawyers.” Foggy smiles and slaps Matt on the shoulder. “But are we romantically entangled? I don’t know Matthew, are we? You don’t call me back. I wait up for you late at night, wondering what you’re doing. I provide for us.”
He’s still listing off reasons that they’re basically married and how dare Matt be such a poor partner when Amy shuffles away to the bathroom. It’s weird. They both seem like they’ve been through the ringer. She’s been around enough suffering to see that. And yet, here they are, joking. Frank and Curtis didn’t joke. Frank and her didn’t joke. Okay, well, she joked with him but he never really joked back.
Outside of the bathroom, though, the conversation had turned serious.
“She’s just a kid, Foggy, and her life is in danger. How was I supposed to say no?” Matt sits with his coffee.
“Like this, ‘no’.” Foggy raises his arms. “See? Easy.”
“He dropped her off in the middle of the night.”
“You make it sound like he left a baby in a basket on your welcome mat.” Foggy runs a hand through his hair. “We’re talking about Frank Castle, here, Matt. He’s dangerous. The people and the shit that follow him around, are dangerous. And I’m saying that while standing in a room with you. This isn’t just another normal other-Matt mission.”
“None of those are ever normal,” Matt smirks.
“Very true, but still. If these people, whoever they are, are bad enough news that Castle is coming to you for help, then maybe you should bring in some help of your own.”
“Like who?”
“Like, Jessica Jones or Luke - or Danny.”
“They have their own problems. Besides, these are just regular criminals as far as we know. Regular people going after one person. This isn’t the fate of New York or anything hanging in the balance, Fog.”
“Yeah, but it could be your fate hanging in the balance. Or your identity. Using your loft to house the bait? Really? And when cops show up to a gunfight here, you’re gonna say what? A gunfight, that might get tied to Punisher, no less, if that’s discovered, who both you and other-you have a connection to.”
“I don’t like it either,” Matt frowns. “But I do have a connection to Frank. If this goes sideways, we can always say that the girl came here looking for a way to get in touch with him.”
“That’s flimsy and you know it. You’ve already been involved in enough coincidences the past couple years. How many more before people put it together?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Foggy huffs. He takes a breath, readying to argue more.
“I’m not doing this for Frank, or in spite of him. I don’t want anything to do with him or anything he’s involved in. But,” he gestures toward the bathroom, “she’s a kid, Fog. A kid who, no matter how much she’s trying to hide it, is scared. Terrified. These people butchered a couple of teenagers and left them on display for Frank to find. They’re not going to do the same thing to her. Not if I can help.”
“You’d be real annoying, Murdock,” Foggy shakes his head, “if you weren’t so damn noble.” He lifts a single finger. “Wait, no, still annoying.”
“Can you cover for me today?” Matt’s sigh is more of a chuckle.
“With who?” Foggy gestures aimlessly. “Karen, who is being put under Punisher-protection? Our clients who are just banging down the deli door for legal help in exchange for baked goods? Or my brother, who is going to be devastated that he made your favorite turkey sub for nothing?”
“You got the notes on -”
“On the tenement case for Mr. Fletcher, yeah. We’re meeting this afternoon. So, hey, if you get done babysitting before then, feel free to swing on by just in case his wife decides to take matters into her own hands with a baseball bat.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Oh, I know I’ll be fine. It’s their landlord I’m worried about. That woman is scary. She’s legit threatened to quote ‘beat that skinny hipster’s brains out’, twice. Hey, maybe the two of you could team up. Vigilante partners. You could use a sidekick.”
“I thought you were my sidekick.”
“Whoa, oh ho. I, am in no way, anyone’s sidekick. I’m the main-kick. The one-who-shows-up-to-work-and-keeps-us-running-kick.”
“Karen shows up.”
“Well, at least you're recognizing your own faults, Matthew.”