Crash

1. IN WHICH FRANK IS TOTALLY A WELL-ADJUSTED HUMAN BEING, NO, REALLY

Frank Castle returns to Hell’s Kitchen with a government-issued pardon, a new dog, and about ten times more trust issues than he had before.

Here’s the thing though, he’s actually doing relatively okay. Or at least, he’s been a lot worse. When your entire family gets murdered in front of you, the term ‘rock bottom’ gains a whole new meaning. Right now, he’s at, like… rock middle maybe. He’s holding on, he’s pulled himself together with enough staples and glue that he doesn’t wake up every morning feeling like there’s a bullet-hole where his heart used to be, like his head’s full of broken glass, like he can only breathe when there’s a gun in his hands and a target waiting to be cut down.

He’s got Curtis’ circle of vets, and Lieberman and his family have insistently pushed themselves into his life until now he only ignores about half their phone calls, and he’s back working construction again (minus the hipster beard this time), so. There’s enough noise in his life to drown out the silence after the gunshots, or what fucking ever.

So when Matt Murdock walks into the diner near his new apartment where he’s steadily becoming a regular, he’s feeling zen enough that he doesn’t get up and just walk right the fuck out immediately.

The guy’s clearly looking for him. He makes a bee-line for Frank’s booth and slides into the seat opposite him without so much as waiting for an invitation. Frank raises an appraising eyebrow.

He hasn’t given the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen much thought, if he’s honest. Been a bit wrapped up with his own personal crises. He was vaguely aware of the shitstorm that was Midland Circle, but he didn’t exactly keep up with the news. And then, of course, there was the fiasco last month with Wilson Fisk, which he’s frankly quite glad that he managed to miss if only because he’s not sure what he’d’ve done if he’d been here.

Murdock’s not wearing a suit.

That’s the first thing Frank notices. No stick, either. Pretending not to be blind then. And honestly, that’d been a bit of a shock, when Frank looked through the scope of his rifle at that rooftop and confirmed his suspicions that Daredevil was, indeed, his fucking lawyer. But also, there were ninjas all over the place, so all reasonable logic had flown out the window at that point.

He’s looking a bit worse for wear, if Frank’s honest. Cap pulled low over his eyes, wearing a rumpled coat that’s a size too big. There’s a half-congealed cut on his lower lip, a bruise around one eye, spreading out from the edges of his sunglasses like spilled ink. Not just that, there’s something about his face. Hollow. Drained, maybe.

“Frank,” Matt says, flatly and in Frank’s general direction.

Frank stares back at him, levelly, meeting his own eyes reflected in the other man’s dark glasses. He’s spent a lot of time staring pensively into mirrors lately, and now - now, he’s looking better. He’s looking like he’s cleaned up his act. For once not covered in bruises and cuts, with eyes that aren’t like the windows to a haunted house.

“Red,” he replies.

Something twists in Matt’s face, like he hadn’t been sure Frank knew, and he has to bite back a mean sort of laugh.

“‘m not stupid, Murdock. You think I can’t recognise the lower half of someone’s fucking face?”

“No one else seems to,” Matt grits out between clenched teeth.

“Saw your helmet come off, anyway, up on that roof,” Frank adds. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He says it without really thinking. It was a long time ago. It was a long time ago - but Matt’s jaw still does this funny sort of clench, like he’s bracing himself against a hit, and Frank’s stomach twists as he abruptly remembers what else he saw up there.

The blood. The woman. He doesn't know who she was, didn't stick around to see what happened. That was over a year ago now. But he knows some things you don't get over. They lodge like glass and even a nudge, a word, a fleeting memory can set you bleeding again.

Matt swallows hard, ignores the comment, and makes a very unsubtle attempt to change the topic.

“Heard you were back in town,” he says.

“Who the fuck is talking about me,” Frank growls immediately.

“Karen.”

Frank deflates just as fast as his hackles rose, something entirely too soft and warm already spreading in his chest.

There’s a slightly awkward silence. Matt seems uncharacteristically nervous. There’s something kinda… off about him, Frank’s noticing. In all their previous encounters he’s been guarded, but sure of himself. Sure of what he’s doing. Now there’s something almost careful to the way he’s holding himself. Like there’s loose pieces rattling around in there somewhere and he’s trying not to let anything fall out of place.

“I’ve… been away for a while,” Matt says. A bit hesitantly, like he doesn’t know how much Frank knows.

“Midland Circle, right?” Frank replies, taking pity on him. “Heard a bit about what went down - afterwards, of course.” He’d been a bit busy hunting down the last of the dogs of war. But he heard the whispers about some big superhero team-up, and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen not being seen for a while afterwards. But he hadn’t been too worried - after all, he’d done the whole ‘I’m back bitches’ from the dead himself. Twice.

Then, of course, Russo and Agent Orange happened and he’d been a bit busy to spend much time thinking about it.

But Matt shifts again now. The fidgeting’s starting to set Frank on edge, make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. There’s no threat here, there shouldn’t be. And no way Red’s scared of him, not if Karen’s caught him up on how things played out.

“I’ve been… indisposed.”  Picking his words carefully. “And I’ve only just had a chance to catch up on everything I missed while I was away. It can be a bit - complicated. Finding out everything I missed when…”

He makes a vague gesture at his face.

Can’t exactly scroll through news headlines, Frank thinks - he’s still not quite sure exactly how Murdock’s schtick works; he starts to nod, catches himself - then nods anyway, and the other man must know somehow, because he lets out a little hum and continues.

“So this weekend I finally managed to get up to date on what’s been happening in Hell’s Kitchen. And how you were involved. The bomber, the Bulletin, all that.”

Oh, God, here it comes. Frank downs a few gulps of black coffee, hair prickling at the back of his neck. This sappy shit is really not his thing at all and he’s just come off some sort of two-week naval gazing retreat out in the wood’s with Curtis’ group; he’s had enough sentimental positivity to last him a fucking lifetime-

(He doesn’t mean that, not really, but he doesn’t need this from Matt of all people, and he sure as fuck doesn’t want to think about how messy things got those few months, how close he came to losing Karen in that hotel-)

“I wanted to say thank you,” Matt continues. His angle’s a bit off, face fixed just to the left of Frank’s, but somehow he gets the impression Matt’s picking up a lot more than you’d expect. “For taking care of her when I wasn’t there.”

Frank gives a dismissive sort of grunt and flaps a hand.

“You don’t needa thank me, Red. I didn’t do it for you.”

“I know,” Matt replies, levelly. “Still.”

Another very uncomfortable pause.

“Gotta admit I was curious when you didn’t come to stick your nose in it,” Frank adds, and Matt turns his head away a little, says nothing.

There’s a rather strained silence in which Frank downs the rest of his coffee and really tries to figure out how the fuck everything that’s happened in the last year has led to Daredevil and the Punisher sitting in some shitty-ass diner with no fucking idea where they stand with one another.

Things are just - kinda weird with people now.

He knows how to be Frank Castle - fugitive on the run, the missing piece of the puzzle, the guy half the city wants dead. And he knows how to be the Punisher, that grim reaper lurking in the shadows. But Pete Casteglione? He’s still figuring that out. He’s getting there, but it’s just… taking a while to realise who he is, how he fits into his own skin now that the drumming beat of revenge isn’t the only thing spurring him on.

And Matt - Matt, knowingly or not, is a reminder of the world he’s actually legitimately trying to leave behind. The war he wants to believe he stopped fighting. And as he stares across the table at the other man now, at his scarred knuckles where his hands are folded on the tabletop, the bruises, the split lip, he can’t help but wonder who he was fighting. What criminals he was trying to stop, whose skin was splitting under his fists.

He swallows, hard, mouth very dry. Needs to say something, suddenly. To let Matt know things are different now. And if he’s honest, he’s not quite sure which of the two of them he’s trying to reassure.

“Thought you were coming in here to warn me off your turf,” he begins.

For the first time, a smile tugs at Matt’s lips - strained, a little tired.

“That too.”

“Well, you don’t gotta worry.” He leans back in his seat, something a bit too deliberate in the way he folds his arms across his chest. “I’m out of that business.”

Matt’s eyebrows rise.

“No more Punisher?”

Frank shakes his head. Matt must see it - sense it? - somehow, confirming his suspicions that this whole blind thing is not what it appears to be (hah!), because surprise flickers over his face. And then a little of something else, something that Frank can’t quite place. Not disappointment; a cousin of it, maybe.

He looks like he wants to press for more details, but after a second he bites at his lip instead and looks away. But Frank - Frank, for once, is in a sharing mood, and he leans forward on his elbows.

“Wondering what changed my tune, huh?”

“Forgive me for being curious,” Matt says, a little defensively, “You seemed pretty adamant the last time we met that there was no room in this city for half-measures.”

“I was only ever after the people who killed my family.” Saying the words still makes his heart clench. That - hasn’t gotten easier, even after all this time. But he’s learned, with Curtis, with the others, that even if it makes your throat swell and your eyes burn, as much as it fucking hurts, sharing is a release - a release same way it feels to bleed, same way it feels to fight, to have adrenaline pumping in your veins, to pull a trigger or let loose the sort of uppercuts that make someone’s jaw cave in under your knuckles.

“Once they were dead-” even then, even then you couldn’t sleep - “Once I figured out every single God damn last one of them that was involved and took them out-” or worse, Billy, you two-timing son of a bitch, I trusted you - “There’s a point you gotta let go.”

“Let go,” Matt parrots, hollowly.

“Don’t bring the war home with you.” He tries not to think about how it feels like he’s just regurgitating Curtis’ words. Like you say them enough it becomes true. “Learn to stop fighting. Or you’ll never escape. Or you’ll always be over there. Over there or back in the past or wherever the fuck the nightmares come from.”

Matt’s very, very still, his mouth open a little, clearly trained on his every word.

“I don’t…” he begins. “You’re the last person I expected to hear that from.”

Why? Cause I’m so fucked up you didn’t think I could ever get my head on straight? He can’t bring himself to be offended; he’d thought the same thing.

“A lot happened while you were indisposed,” he replies. “You’ll have heard some of it, but - people I thought I could trust turned out to be playing me. Couldn’t take them down on my own, so I had to - work with people.”

Matt mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like ‘the horror,’ and it’s so fucking unexpected that Frank has to bite back a snort.

“Wasn’t so bad,” he says. “And we won in the end, so turns out I learned all sorts of wholesome shit. Like trusting your friends and working together and that support groups can actually unfuck your head if you let ‘em.”

“Support groups?”

“Friend of mine runs one for vets. That’s where I’ve been the last few weeks. He dragged me to a lake for some sort of retreat. Some of it was bullshit - I refuse to ever unironically use the word mindfulness. But it was good to leave the city for a bit. Did some fishing. Talked about all sorts of meaningful stuff.”

He’s lucky he’s got such a good poker face because the look on Matt’s fucking face is enough to nearly make him burst out laughing. He looks - so shocked, and honestly, Frank can’t blame him; even just a few months ago he would not have expected this sort of shit to be coming out of his own mouth.

But you know, he’s a new man.

He’s a new man who has his shit together and occasionally even meditates and has all sorts of strategies for when he feels the darkness start to come creeping in.

He’s a new man, and the Punisher died back at that carousel, and he doesn’t need him anymore. He doesn’t.

“I really have no idea what to say,” Matt says finally, very tactfully, and Frank goes for another grunt.

“Point is, I’m out of it now. Karen wanted that. Took me a while to see she was right. Doing what I... what we… used to do - it fucks with your head. Like an anchor; you don't let it go, it keeps dragging you down. And I don’t need that any more.”

He says it with far more confidence than he feels. Matt looks a bit pained. And it’s not like Frank was expecting a pat on the back or anything, but he kinda thought the guy who was trying to keep him out of jail would be, y’know, a bit happier that he’s given up literally going around murdering people. Like that’s a fucking step forward no matter how you look at it. A congratulations might be nice.

And yeah, Frank’s no idiot.

Something’s off here. About this - about Matt - he just hasn’t got enough of a read on the situation to figure out exactly what. Not like they ever knew each other that well, but the self-righteous superhero he ran into all those times suddenly seems a very, very far cry from the guy sitting across from him in the booth now, with his lips downturned, bruises standing out stark on his pale face, a hunch to his shoulders like he’s been carrying the weight of the world too long.

“I see,” Matt says finally, and Frank’s eyes narrow, trying to figure out what he’s thinking. What this is.

“Why’re you dressed like a hobo then?” he demands, and Matt glances indignantly down at himself - which has to be purely for dramatic effect because Frank’s pretty sure he can’t actually fucking see anything.

“Figured you’d appreciate me not drawing attention to us,” he points out.

“Ah, right. Fisk had you on hot coals for a bit back there, didn’t he?”

“It was a mess,” Matt admits, a hint of misery in it.

“Gotta be relieved. Put him away for good this time. No more loose ends.”

“Sure,” Matt says, but he doesn’t look happy, and doesn’t really sound like he means it.

“And Karen mentioned. You and Nelson are working together again. With her too. Gang’s all back together, huh?”

“Yeah,” Matt says, “Things are just peachy.”

Another smile, but it’s fake, almost mocking. Not at Frank, not really. More… self-deprecating, maybe. What the fuck is going on here?

“But you’re still out most nights. Seen it on the news.”

“Crime didn’t stop with Fisk.” There’s a defensive note in Matt’s voice now, like this is an argument he’s had more than once. “New gangs are already rising up trying to take his place. It never stops for long. Law enforcement’s still reeling from Fisk’s manipulation. The city needs me.”

“Right,” Frank says. He doesn’t even mean it sarcastically or anything. Honestly, you do you, Red. Not like anyone could’ve stopped Frank doing what he wanted before he got it all out of his system. But Matt frowns, like he wants a fight, and-

And he’s really, really on edge. Frank can’t stop noticing it now. His shoulders are so tense they’re practically up around his ears; he’s thrumming with pent up energy, fidgeting with his cuffs, thumb running over a scab on his knuckles.

Suddenly Frank wonders if this really was just about thanking him for Karen.

Well, whatever’s going on, he refuses to be dragged into it, and after a moment he gets up and digs in his back pocket for his wallet. Matt startles a little, then rises as well.

“If that’s all you gotta say to me,” Frank says, chucking a handful of notes on the table.  

Matt nods. He gets up and fidgets, and Frank waits a moment to see if he’s gonna spit out whatever’s obviously on his mind - but when there’s nothing but silence, he turns and strides out of the diner, giving the waitress a nod and smile as he passes.

Matt trails along after him. When Frank pauses to collect his dog - lying patiently in the last weak strands of evening sunlight near the bike racks in the parking lot - Matt comes up behind him and makes a startled noise.

“You got a new dog?”

“Obviously.” He clucks and the German Shepherd stretches, lazily, with a yawn before trotting back to his side. “Here boy. Never did find out what happened to Max.”

It still sends a jolt through his chest. It’s a stupid, small thing. He had that dog, like, two weeks. But still, the thought that the Irish probably took him out back and shot him without a second thought makes thunderclouds crowd at the back of his skull.

“What’s his name?”

“Pi,” Frank grunts. He senses Matt bite back a laugh. “Not my fucking idea, okay? Let this kid I know name it. After some book.”

“Life of Pi. I’m familiar with it. It’s based on a famous court case, you know.”

Frank did not know, and quite frankly does not care, but Matt barrels on - a little more colour in his voice than there was before.

“R v Dudley and Stephens. About whether murder can be justified by necessity. It set the precedent that it cannot.”

“Sounds right up your alley,” Frank growls, a little put out.

Matt shifts. When Frank turns to look at him, he doesn’t look quite as smug as he might’ve expected. He thinks, suddenly, he didn’t kill Fisk. From what he’s heard about the shit that’s been going down in Hell’s Kitchen, he wonders if that was an easy choice. For the Daredevil he encountered that first time, he would’ve thought so. But the look on Matt’s face now makes him wonder.

“Maybe. The context of that case was survival cannibalism when trapped out at sea.”

“Yeah? Well, I haven’t sunk as fucking far as cannibalism, so don’t start preaching.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Matt replies, a bit defensively. The dog shifts, nudging up against Frank’s legs and whining, and he reaches down to scratch behind its ears. Matt opens his mouth and Frank can just tell he’s about to ask something about the name and why the fuck he was hanging out with a kid in the first place, and jumps in before he has to delve even further into his personal business.

“Surprised you ain’t got one yet.”

“What?”

“A dog.”

“Foggy’s been on my case about that for years.” A sudden, dark look passes over Matt’s face and he adds, rather sourly, “You know what will happen if I get a dog? The next person to come along with a grudge against me will kill it, same as everyone else I care about. And I’ll be worse off than I was before. The fewer attachments, the safer. It’s not fair. To put someone, something, in that position.”

It’s… uncomfortably close to a lot of the same things he felt a few months ago. David had practically dragged him kicking and screaming into a partnership. But even in his lowest moments, he’d still known there were people out there - friends he cared about. Like Curtis. Like Billy, at first.

You stayed away to try and protect him.

After his family he’d been so scared of getting hurt again. He stares at Matt now, trying to figure this out. There’s a bite in his voice that makes Frank think he’s not just saying this shit to be edgy. It’s not like him to be so bitter.

Better, better alone. Safer than people.

His stomach twists. But things are good now - they’re all dead, anyone who would want to hurt them. You cleaned up. Fight’s over.

Nothing to worry about.

Matt’s got this kicked puppy look and if Curtis was here, he’d have the right words to say. Frank can’t find them. Are you okay? It seems trite, it seems too much like caring. And part of him wishes Matt hadn’t come here tonight, part of him’s thinking don’t drag me into your hot mess, Murdock.

He’s doing fine. Rock-middle, head above water, he knows who and where and what he is.

“Need a ride anywhere?”

It’s the most he can muster; maybe he’s going soft, or maybe he’s just learned that not all of him has to be sharp edges anymore. But Matt stirs, shakes his head, straightens up a bit.

“No, thanks. I can make my own way from here.”

There’s an awkward pause. Goodbye seems a bit weird, nice to see you would be a lie. God knows how or when or why they might run into each other again. Matt turns to go and as he walks off, Frank calls out after him.

“So how’d you do it, Red?”

“What?”

Matt turns, confused, and Frank waves a hand at him.

“You’re walking just fine. I’ve seen you jump across rooftops like it’s nothing. I take it you’re not actually blind.”

“I am,” Matt explains - he glances back at the diner, but they’re quite alone; it’s late and this isn’t a busy part of town. He steps back towards Frank, lowers his voice a little.

“Enhanced senses. I can feel where the air is empty and where it isn’t. Can tell what’s in a space from how sounds echo in it. I can sense differences in temperature, air pressure, body heat. I can hear - everything. A footstep. A breath. A heart beat.”

“Useful,” Frank says. It’s not hard to take superpowered senses in stride after everything else he’s seen.

“Very.” Matt fixes him with a look he can’t figure out. “Makes it easy to tell when people are lying to me.”

Frank’s heart jolts, unwillingly. Matt gives a tight, humourless smile - then he turns and walks off. Halfway down the street he leaps up a fire escape and vanishes up into the city roofs; Frank watches him, lips pressed close together.

Lying.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out, numbly - David’s texted him again, sent some picture of one of Leo’s science projects that got full marks. Frank had come around a few nights, helped her build it.

It’s nice.

It’s the sort of thing he never imagined he’d feel again. It’s nice, and he smiles, now, but it still hurts, as much he tries to tell himself it doesn’t. It’s still a fucking stab in the chest that he’s never gonna see his own little girl again, and he stares at the empty rooftops now, stares after Matt and thinks of pain, thinks of throwing punches, thinks of the feeling of teeth knocked loose from gums under his knuckles-

Makes it easy to tell when people are lying to me.

He thinks of the steady calm of the lake, and Curtis’ hand on his shoulder.

I’m out of that business.

There’s a point you gotta let go.

Don’t bring the war home with you.

Like an anchor.

Let go-

Like an anchor-

I don’t need that anymore-

Who are you without a war to fight?

He bites the inside of his cheek, feels the blood itch in his veins, a phantom ache in his shoulder where he misses the heavy, familiar kickback of a gun.

Lying to me.

2. MATT AND THE SHIT THAT WON’T STOP STORMING

Okay, ready? So this is the giant fuckfest that is Matt’s life right now. Except it’s a fuckfest below the surface. Like the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

So they take down Fisk. For good this time (or so they keep saying but really it’s, like, until something happens to Vanessa because she is literally all the leverage they have so Matt is really just banking his cards on Fisk carking it first or else they’re screwed but that’s totally fine, nothing to worry about, they totally won, it’s not like it’s now a constant worry at all or anything-)

They take down Fisk, right, and root out all the corrupt FBI agents, and clear their own names, and they hang out at Foggy’s parents’ butcher-shop and Foggy draws on a napkin and Nelson-Murdock-Page is actually gonna happen, it’s not a joke or anything, they’re legitimately gonna get back together-

Everything is great. It’s fucking great, he never could’ve dreamed things would work out so well a month ago, or even a week ago, when it felt like they were absolutely certain to lose-

But they haven’t, they’ve won, and they’re safe, and they’re all back together, and Foggy folds the napkin up and presses it into Matt’s fingers and he can feel the lingering warmth from the other man’s hand, the indents of the pen in the thin surface, can smell the ink and a bit of spilled beer and that unfamiliar expensive cologne Foggy’s taken to wearing.

Matt heads back to his apartment.

He puts the napkin in a drawer next to the first one, and that stupid ice cream wrapper bracelet he gave Stick, and the shrivelled, deflated remains of that ridiculous balloon Karen got him one time.

He goes and stands in the shower.

And then he has a full on fucking break down.

It’s really not pretty. In fact it’s pretty fucking ugly. He’s on his knees on the tiles, water pelting down on his bare shoulders and back, heaving these horrible wrenching sobs like they’re being torn out of his throat by the fistful. Tears are streaming down his face, he can barely breathe, he can feel his chest heaving. He’s shaking all over, shaking so much he feels like he’s falling apart.

It feels like the world’s ending and he has no idea why.

No fucking idea, because tomorrow they’re gonna start getting their law firm back together, and right now Fisk is safely behind bars, but for some reason it feels like there’s this looming black creeping in around all the edges of his life and blotting out the sun.

It doesn’t feel like it’s over. It should, but it doesn’t, and suddenly it’s like the weight of it all hits him at once.

Elektra is dead.

She’s not coming back, not this time, and the entire way things played out just - fucked his head so fucking badly, and he still can’t stop thinking about it. That dead look in her eyes, the way it was her but not her, how the entire time his heart felt like it was wringing itself out.

And Stick, Stick’s dead and gone too, and even if they’d never been close, Matt still misses him. Maybe it’s fucked up, but as much as he’d hated his old mentor at times, it’d been reassuring to know he was out there somewhere. And it wasn’t all bad, was it? A hand on his shoulder. I’m proud of you, Matty.

And now-

Now Father Lantom’s gone too-

And Ray, who Matt barely knew but was one of the few people he’d actually found himself trusting without hesitation-

And his father, his father who is still a heavy weight on his shoulders, whose loss he feels ever more acutely now that he knows about Maggie. Now that he can’t stop thinking what might have been. There’s so much he wants to ask him, so much he wishes they could talk through.

So yeah.

At the time he’d been running on adrenaline, but now that the fight’s over - now, the grief hits him all at once, and it is black and consuming, and he bows his head and digs his fingers into his temples and just feels - broken, just feels this overwhelming sense of dread that if things go wrong again, who’s left for him to lose? Foggy, and Karen, and Maggie, and he doesn’t think he could take that.

It hurts.

It hurts like his whole being is a raw nerve, and as he kneels there, chest tearing itself apart, all he can think is make it stop, make it stop, make it stop-

And, I can’t do this, I thought I could but I can’t-

And it’s never gonna end, even when you win it doesn’t end.

It terrifies him, sometimes, how fucking hopeless he feels. How easy it seems to just - give up. To just stop. How tempting it is, even now, because this, the absolute consuming panic, the way his heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest, this is just exhausting, and painful, and it’s no way to live.

Anyway, that feels like it lasts forever, and by the time he finally manages to calm himself down, the shower’s running cold and he’s shivering all over, and he turns the water off and stands there in silence thinking what the fuck was that all about.

You’re meant to be better now.

He’s not, that’s becoming very clear, but by now it’s past midnight and he has work tomorrow and he doesn’t really want to spend the night psychoanalysing himself and coming to less than pleasant conclusions about his current mental state, so he gets dressed and goes to the kitchen.

This is the point where he should probably meditate, or pray, or maybe begin to investigate the possibility of therapy, but, y’know. Self care, what even is that. Instead he makes himself two very stiff drinks and downs them while clenching his free fist until his nails cut crescents into his palms, and thinks, chill the fuck out, Murdock, pull yourself the fuck together, and then goes to bed and lets the screams, the sirens, the wails he can still hear out in Hell’s Kitchen drown out the echoing memory of Elektra’s empty voice, of Father Lantom’s last gurgling breath.

“You okay?” Karen keeps asking. Now and then, quietly. This is called checking in and it’s something good friends do.

Does he not look okay? Not like he’d know; at any given moment Matt generally has no idea what the fuck his face is doing. But he always smiles and nods and says “Everything’s fine,” and, you know, it technically is.

Work is great.

Fisk is still behind bars.

There are no major incidents, no one else has been hurt or killed and they have loads of clients and he’s physically better than he’s been in ages so yes, he’s fine.

Except behold! The iceberg! He’s fine like logically he knows he should be fine. He’s fine like trying not to think about everything is a good coping strategy fine.

Fine like he occasionally gets a phantom whiff of Elektra’s perfume and has to go stand in the bathroom for ten minutes to calm down.

Fine like sometimes loud noises make him jump and freak out, just a little bit, under the sudden paranoid conviction that the entire building’s gonna come down around them.

Fine like there’s this knot in his stomach constantly, and he doesn’t know where to even start unravelling it.

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. So why does it still feel like he’s lost in the dark?

Anyway, that’s about where he is - mentally - sort of clinging with his head just above water, when the news reports start coming in.

It was inevitable, really. It’s not like Fisk was the only criminal in the city, and his incarceration has left a void that plenty of people are happy to try and fill. A couple of powerful meth dealers are the latest big thing, and for the last month they’ve been gaining a foothold in the city again, slowly claiming territory. In the worse parts of town civilians are getting caught in it, roped in by one gang in exchange for protection from another.

“This is getting out of control,” Foggy mutters under his breath, when they’re out at lunch one day - he’s watching the news on his phone, and even if Matt can’t see the screen, he can hear enough of what’s going on to know it’s the story about the three DEA agents who were killed last night trying to bust a meth lab, with two civilians caught in the crossfire and nothing to show for it.

He’s right.

It’s getting out of control.

It’s with a sort of dead, flat certainty that he knows tonight he will put on the mask for the first time since he took down Fisk. Something of it must show on his face, because when he’s leaving work that evening Foggy runs after him and catches his arm at the door.

“Matt!”

“What?”

He doesn’t mean it to come out snappy, except that he knows exactly what Foggy’s about to say. He can hear the nervous flutter of his heart that means they’re about to talk about something personal, can smell the faint, salty tang of sweat at his hairline.

“You’ve been quiet all day,” Foggy says, each word a careful step, like he’s walking on eggshells. “You okay?”

“Let’s not do this.” He’s filled with too much anxiety about tonight to beat around the bush; he’s never really been nervous about going out as Daredevil before, but suddenly it all means too much, too much. “Spit out whatever you want to say.”

“Okay, fine.” A shaky breath. Foggy’s hand’s still on his arm, a light, steadying grip. “You’re going out tonight. I can see it in your face.”

Matt swallows hard.

For a second, something like fear stabs through his chest. Foggy’s voice is carefully steady and he can’t quite figure out what the other man’s thinking. If he disapproves. If he’s gonna try fight this. But what he does know is that if Foggy pushes Matt away, if he doesn’t accept this, if he triggers another big fucking existential identity crisis, Matt just is fully not gonna cope with that. Not on top of everything else.

“Don’t start, Fog.” It comes out a bit too pleading and he hears Foggy’s breath catch, feels his fingers tighten a little on his arm. “Please, just - don’t start. I have to do this. I can’t just stand by.”

“Matt…”

“I really don’t want to fight with you right now-”

“Seriously, Matt, chill. We’re not gonna fight.” Foggy steps a little closer, shifts in front of him. Matt can feel his thrumming warmth. Imagines the furrowed crease of his brow. “I don’t want to start that shit all over again.”

“But you’re not happy.” He can tell, in Foggy’s heart and breath and the tension in his shoulders.

“I’m worried, that’s all. Do what you gotta do, just - promise you’ll keep me in the loop this time. No more secrets. I just want to know what’s going on.”

Matt swallows, hard. There’s a lot he regrets about how things went down back with Elektra and the Hand. The rift that it tore between the two of them is one of the biggest ones. That one’s on him. It was just - Foggy seemed to hate hearing about all the Daredevil stuff, and maybe some petty part of Matt was sick of getting lectured.

But he can tell, now, Foggy’s not lying. And keeping him out of things did fuck all to protect him, so maybe it’s better if he does know everything. He nods.

“That I can promise.”

“Good.” Foggy’s hand runs up his arm; the other comes up and he squeezes Matt’s shoulders - an intimate, comforting motion. “Stay safe out there, buddy.”

Matt’s breath catches in his throat; Foggy’s too close and too warm and this is all going too well; it feels like there must be a catch somewhere. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, life doesn’t work like that. That he can have the firm, and Daredevil, and Foggy being okay with it all-

That opens new doors, doors he doesn’t want to think about just yet.

So he starts going out at night again, starts cleaning up the streets the way he used to. On the one hand it’s good - it’s a distraction, and for a little while each night he doesn’t get bogged down remembering all the ways things fell apart, and just how precariously they’re holding back together.

But on the other-

There’s baggage, now, attached to all this.

He’s still just in the black mask. No more suit; even if he had Melvin to make another one (and there’s another stain on his conscience), Poindexter’s ruined that for him now. Matt can’t think about it without remembering how it was that devil that killed Father Lantom. That massacred all those civilians at the Bulletin. He couldn’t see it but he could sense it; the heaviness of the material, the shape of the horns.

And then there’s the fights. You don’t get a building dropped on you and just walk away; he’s too aware of his limitations now. How even though he’s still good, he used to be faster, stronger. Nothing used to take as much effort. Whenever he gets hit in the head he can’t help but flinch, paranoid that all it’ll take is a blow to the ear to fuck everything up again-

And at the same time, at the same time it scares him sometimes, how much he almost likes the pain - or not the pain so much as the distraction it provides him, the odd satisfaction that you are giving, giving.

Whether it’s the heat of blood welling against his skin, or the dull ache of a bruise, or overtaxed muscles. His body is a tool that part of him wants to wear out and wring dry for this city; it feels like the only way to atone for something he can’t name. Physical pain is an escape; physical pain is easy, all you have to do is bear it. It fades in time, not like grief.

And Matt’s not an idiot, he knows it’s dangerous, knows that it wasn’t so long ago he wanted to die - really, genuinely, wanted to die out there in the middle of a dark road - that it’s not a good thing that sometimes (not often, just now and then) he doesn’t put the effort in to duck fast enough or completely dodge a fist, or a swing from a baseball bat, just thinks it’ll heal anyway, or maybe it won’t, and either way at least it’s something to feel-

Like, that’s fucked up. He’s self-aware enough to realise that, and self-destructive enough not to care.

But at night when he drops into bed, bruises throbbing, sometimes if he’s exhausted enough the dark doesn’t cloud back in. Sometimes he doesn’t feel his chest tighten, he isn’t overwhelmed yet again by that terrible dread that something bad is going to happen, it always does, you’re just waiting for it, you’ll never actually make it out of here. Sometimes he can just pass out and escape, if only for a little while.

There’s a new parish priest at Saint Patrick’s.

Matt finds this out by the time he finally works up the courage to go back there for Mass. For weeks every time he tries, it feels like there’s a vice around his chest, crushing him slowly. He doesn’t know why - he was fine at the funeral - but the thought of going there for Mass and seeing a stranger standing up at the altar suddenly feels like it will make everything real.

Religion’s kinda weird lately.

He felt just - so futile before, he was practically spitting in God’s face. Why would you do this to me, fuck you for all of this, fuck you for taking them away from me. He probably owes the Big Guy a fair few apologies. And even now he feels - just sort of lost. Guilty for not being able to accept that any of this could be God’s will.

But anyway, he goes to church, and he sits at the back and tries to focus, but everything’s too distracting. The way the new guy’s voice echoes around the space, the healing scar itching across his shoulder blade, how he can still faintly smell blood from the shit that went down in this room. He closes his eyes, not that it matters, and tries to ignore the memory of Poindexter moving around this space, tries to pretend he doesn’t remember spilled candle wax and smashed pews and blood seeping into the stone floor.

If he can’t focus he can’t pray.

If he can’t pray he just feels - disconnected. Disconnected from God, from everyone around him, from his entire faith and purpose. And to his extreme dismay, the new guy is a bit of a social butterfly; he hangs around after Mass enthusiastically getting to know all the parishioners and Matt can just tell that if he keeps coming here then someone will eventually tell the priest who he is, and all about his father, and then the guy might look him up and realise he had a hand in taking down Fisk, and it’s just gonna invite questions he doesn’t want to answer.

Maybe he’s just resistant to change.

Maybe he just still misses Father Lantom, or is scared to get close to anyone new, but he stops going and he sure as fuck isn’t gonna go to confession, but that’s just another weight on his shoulders because he has a hell of a lot he needs to get off his chest, needs some sort of peace of mind-

Especially because, lately, the same regret is popping up more and more.

I wish I’d killed Fisk.

He hates that he’s thinking it, because in the moment he’d been so relieved that he hadn’t. And he’s not even sure if he means it. He knows Karen’s glad he didn’t. He knows if he had, it’d be a line he wouldn’t be able to come back from. He knows it’s not him.

But the knowledge that Fisk is still out there, that he knows who Daredevil is, that he could come back - it hangs over his head like thunderclouds, it gives him nightmares, it’s the root source of half his anxiety about things falling to shit again, and sometimes it’s easier just to think fuck it, I wish I’d snapped that bastard’s neck, I wish I’d sent him to rot in hell for all he did, he deserves it. He fucking deserves it.

And then hates himself for thinking it, and so it goes - there are things you can only tell a priest, forgivenesses you have to earn, but he can’t do it, not right now. His head and heart aren’t in the right place. So he stops going to Mass, even if he feels like he’s slowly starving his soul.

So clearly his head is sort of not a hundred percent in the right place, but you know what’s one good thing? Foggy and Karen.

Yes, Foggy and Karen. They are just the icing on the cake. There is nothing stressful about working with them at all. At all.

Remember those open doors?

It’s not like Matt’s had much time to think about it lately, on account of the series of traumatic events that went something along the lines of ‘ex-girlfriend returns,’ ‘ex-girlfriend dies,’ ‘ex-girlfriend returns from the dead and is trying to destroy your city,’ ‘proceed to fake own death and not tell friends.’  

But before all that - running through all that - here’s the kicker, he’s been in love with Foggy since nearly the day they met.

It was a silly crush at first. Just - he’d never really had a close friend before, and certainly never met anyone like Foggy - someone so genuinely kind, who can make him laugh so easily, who offers affection so freely, whether it’s an arm thrown around Matt’s shoulders or a late night cup of tea - a hand steadying him when they’re walking down a flight of stairs, or tucking a blanket around him when he falls asleep while studying.

“I’m really fucking glad we’re roommates,” Foggy says at the end of their first semester, tipsy and sappy after a few drinks to celebrate passing their exams. “I wouldn’t ask for anyone else, you know.”

Matt snorts, softly, where he’s sitting cross-legged on his own bed. Foggy’s extended family has been calling him all day to tell him how pleased they are for him and it’s only made him feel more acutely alone. But now Foggy’s words send a flush of pleasure through him, make his heart give a silly, happy flutter.

“Pretty sure having a blind roomie only made your life harder,” he begins, but Foggy interrupts him with a series of dramatic tuts. He feels the bed dip as the other man sits next to him, feels his warmth against his side and smells the beer on his breath and the familiar fragrance of his soap.

“Dude,” Foggy says - a little slurred, but with a lot of spirit - “Don’t you ever say that, alright? You’re amazing. I’m the lucky one. You think I’d’ve passed those exams without my number one study buddy? I’m serious!”

“Okay,” Matt says, and laughs when Foggy pulls him in against his shoulder, and lets himself have this, just for a moment - the warmth, the closeness, the feeling of being wanted, and tries to ignore how easy it’d be to tilt his head up a little and let their lips meet instead.

This is Matt’s curse, though, he can’t have what he wants. Even if he knows Foggy’s attracted to him, at least physically. He can pick it up in a thousand small tells. And even if sometimes he suspects Foggy might be interested, if Matt only opened up to him more.

But Foggy doesn’t know about his senses.

He doesn’t know about Stick and all the rest, and Matt’s not about to tell him. And while that secret is hanging between them, he knows he can’t pursue anything. It wouldn’t be fair. And as he misses chance after chance to come clean, he knows he’s in too deep, that he can’t back out now, that if Foggy were to find out, their entire dynamic would be founded on too many lies. Foggy would leave just like everyone else and he couldn’t bear it.

So nothing ever happens. Foggy has a string of college girlfriends, and a string of college boyfriends, and settles with Marci for a little while. Matt’s resigned to the fact that they have no chance, that nothing will ever happen.

As for his own love life - there’s Elektra, for a while, and he is madly, deeply, completely in love with her.

When that ends in tears, Foggy takes him out to get his mind off things. They go out to a club and get completely hammered and the music’s so loud it makes Matt’s head pound, but it drowns everything else out, and Foggy sticks by his side the whole time, an anchoring hand on his back.

“You can do way better than her,” Foggy says, when they sit in a booth for a while, exhausted. Usually places like this are overwhelming, the smell of too many bodies, too much cheap perfume and aftershave, too many sounds and smells and sensations sending Matt into sensory overload. Tonight he needs it. Needs to feel so much that it blocks everything else out.

He snorts a bit.

“Not really,” he mutters. Thing is, Elektra was perfect - up until she went batshit at the end, they understood each other like no one else. They were on the same wavelength, one Matt’s been surfing alone since he was nine years old. With her gone the silence is deafening.

“No, I’m serious.” Foggy’s leaning in so close to be heard over the music that Matt can feel his breath against his ear. It makes him shiver, makes long-buried desires rise to the surface. He wants to grab Foggy, pull him close, breathe him in. All he can do is clench his fists under the table. “She might be rich and beautiful and smart and, okay, I see where you were going with that, but… that shit’s not everything. It’s not worth it in the end. A good heart, that’s what you want.”

Matt swallows.

It wasn’t that. It wasn’t the money and he has no fucking idea what Elektra even looks like. It was that she knew his secret. That for once in his life he didn’t have to lie.

But he can’t exactly tell Foggy that.

“I know,” he says instead, miserably, “Right now I just want to forget.”

“More shots!” Foggy cries, and gets up from the table. Matt smiles a little, and even as Foggy heads back to the bar he tunes in on the steady, familiar thrum of the other man’s heart.

Things change. Matt becomes the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, and Foggy can’t know, and even as the other man remains the most important person in the world to him, he knows nothing can ever come of it.

Then Foggy does know and everything sucks, everything hurts, because he’s disappointed and there’s a gap between them now that can’t be bridged and nothing will ever be the same again, he knows Foggy hasn’t ever totally forgiven him, that he will always resent this.

Karen comes along, and they try things out, and Matt does love her. All of that, that’s real. That’s the first real thing he’s felt in a long time. He can sense it in her, that they're broken in the same ways. Thinks maybe they could fit together like he and Elektra did.

But then that falls to shit. Then Elektra is gone and Nelson and Murdock is no more and there’s no one, no one. Then Foggy feels so far out of reach that he might as well be on another planet and Matt misses him so much it hurts. Misses joking around with him, misses Foggy narrating things they pass on the streets, misses his voice and the funny texts they used to exchange and just - having him around. Misses his best fucking friend. That, more than any of the other horrible and deeply traumatic things that have happened in the shitshow of his life - that still sticks in his memory as one of his lowest points.

But here they are now. Nelson, Murdock and Page.

Now he can tell Foggy’s smiling when he deposits coffee on Matt’s desk in the morning.

Now they’ll even joke around about the Daredevil stuff - maybe there’s something vaguely fucked up about that, but honestly Matt’s just glad Foggy’s not angry about it, and it’s nice not having to bear the weight of worrying he’ll find out.

“What’s the other guy look like?” Foggy asks, when Matt comes in after a particularly bad night; it was raining hard and it messed with his senses a bit. He took more hits than usual.

“No fucking idea,” Matt fires back, and relishes Foggy’s laugh.

“Seriously, you alright?” He gets up from his desk and walks over, hand coming up to Matt’s jaw, gently tilting his face this way and that. Matt swallows and tries not to think about the tingle the touch sends down his spine.

“Yeah. Looks worse than it is.”

“Like you’d know,” Foggy snorts, and lets go. Matt’s skin feels too cold without his touch.  “Hey, you think I should learn some self defence? I’m thinking of taking up, I dunno, karate maybe.”

“Dear God, no. Karate would not be useful in a street fight.”

“It could be!”

“It really wouldn’t. Unless you’re at black belt level it’s gonna do fuck all unless you’re fighting someone else who’s also using karate.” He follows Foggy into the kitchen, pauses in the doorframe. “Besides, I don’t want you fighting anyone.”

“Hey, I’m not exactly raring to go either, but I believe in taking precautions.” There’s a faint tremor in his voice, suddenly, and Matt frowns, but a second later Foggy’s clapping him on the shoulder again. “Boxing, then. You could teach me.”

It’s not the worst idea he’s ever had.

“Krav Maga would be more useful,” Matt points out, “But maybe. I’ll see.”

“No you won’t,” Foggy says, and it’s so fucking lame that Matt has to laugh, reaching out to jab him with his cane - “Hey! Not fair! You’re the one who came in here and started with the blind jokes - oh my God, what about fencing?”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, if a guy came at me with one of those wobbly swords I wouldn’t mess with him!”

It’s shit like that - how easily Foggy can make him smile after a pretty rough fucking night. And other stuff - the texts to check in after nights he knows Matt’s gone out, the return of their easy touches, that make those old feelings flare up again. Not a great time, considering he’s barely holding himself together as it is.

Either way, it’s never gonna happen.

He’s hurt Foggy too many times by now to hope the other man would ever feel the same way about him.

Not just that - by this point Matt’s pretty sure he’s practically unloveable. He’s not just damaged goods, he’s fucking destroyed. He’s got so much baggage that it’ll come down in a landslide on anyone who gets too close, and Elektra is still a very, very raw wound-

Plus there’s Karen, and that’s a whole other story, because the whole thing with Fisk brought them closer together. She gets him like no one else and sometimes he still thinks about reaching for her hand, still wonders if they could be something.

He can’t have them both. Feels selfish for even wanting to.

So he’s too aware of everything, all the tension and buried feelings - and so aware of the nothing. The space between them all, the fear that what he has now is a fragile balance, it’s so good, it’s too good, and it’s been ripped away before. It could be again. He’s already too broken - he just can’t risk it.

“Frank’s back in town,” Karen tells him one night - catching his wrist as he’s about to leave for the night, a funny, strained note in her voice, like she doesn’t know how Matt will react. “He’s living as a civilian, though. You don’t need to worry. There’s… a lot that happened while you were gone.”

Matt freezes.

He hasn’t thought about Frank in a while. The only time the other man popped into his head was right in the middle of the Fisk fiasco, when he had the vague, fleeting notion that if Castle was here he’d shoot the guy without a second thought. No half measures, right?

Anyway. He doesn’t freak out. He goes over to Karen’s and he listens, and then he goes home and reads up on everything he missed, and when he walks into that diner and sees Frank sitting there, the first thing he feels is, absurdly, jealous.

Frank looks remarkably peaceful.

He looks like the shadow he was dragging around with him everywhere before has been set free. And as they sit and talk Matt just feels more and more like screaming because Frank-

Frank’s doing good.

Frank’s not weighed down by all his shit anymore. Frank’s learned to let go. Frank’s eyes don’t look so haunted, Frank’s fucking healing and here Matt is having a panic attack every second night when he remembers how many people have been killed on his watch, here’s Matt unable to sleep because he didn’t kill the one guy in the city who definitely fucking deserved it, here’s Matt barely holding himself together, unable to say so much as a Hail Mary and mean it.

Frank’s got his shit together.

Matt’s has scattered to the four winds and there’s no way he’s ever gonna gather all the broken pieces, and the only thing that gives him a sliver of doubt is the fact that with every word Frank says - let go and leave the war behind and move on, his heart gives just the littlest of skips. Not like he’s lying, but like he’s unsure.

But that doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter how you feel, right? Just what you do. And maybe Matt’s falling apart inside, more and more each day, but on the surface…

He’s holding it together enough to win cases during the day and save lives during the night. Just keep going, right?

So that’s where we are. And if Matt had to sum up his life in one sentence right now, it’d probably be something like ‘everything is awful and I don’t know why.’

Doesn’t know why he can’t stop looking over his shoulder expecting Fisk. Doesn’t know why the raw wounds of his losses aren’t even beginning to heal. Doesn’t know why it feels like his entire life is a chair tipped back on two legs, nearly about to fall - a lurch in his gut that just won’t go away. Doesn’t know why he can’t just move on.

And there’s - things, things he should talk about but is still keeping bottled up. How can he bring up Elektra with the others? How could they ever understand how it felt? He’s terrified they’ll be angry, for some reason. And that they’d be angry if he said something like sometimes I wonder if I should’ve killed Fisk and even more if he even begins to broach I wanted to die, hell, I tried to.

But every day he gets up and goes into work and pauses for a moment - takes in the smell of Karen’s sweet perfume and her laugh ringing like bells, and the warm solid presence that is Foggy and the way he knows his best friend is grinning when he turns at Matt’s entrance, and he clenches his fists and thinks, don’t fuck this up. Just don’t fuck this up.