bang.

Matt had been more than just a little determined in his avoidance of The Punisher. Of course he couldn't ignore the man entirely; they seemed to end up foiling each other's plans every other night, especially with Frank becoming more and more active and gaining both police attention and a fearsome reputation that rivalled The Devil's and Wilson Fisk's combined. Hell's Kitchen was running scared and even the police were dumbfounded how to deal with the situation. How could they catch a man no one could match? He had gained the supporting cries of the scared, the victims and the oppressed - they spoke of Frank Castle like a guardian angel - and the criminals hid themselves away, shivering with fear in alleyways where they had previously gone to prowl. They cursed Frank, but could do nothing about it. The Punisher was like smoke: barely visible, fleeting and uncatchable, but potentially deadly. It seemed the only one pro-actively stopping his rampage was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. But while Daredevil dove into the situation, kicking the Punisher's rifle away or throwing his club at Frank's hand as he raised his handgun to execute some low-level drug dealer, their trousers swimming in piss as they pleaded for their life, Matt Murdock stayed as far from Castle as he could. Matt Murdock was the one with the Soulmate, after all, and he was dogged in his determination not to address the elephant on the rooftop. 

Frank, it seemed, felt the same way.

He felt so strongly about it, in fact, that he often chose to shoot at his Soulmate rather than speak to him. It was a pair of strategies that Matt knew were bound for implosion, although he wasn't expecting Karen to be at the centre of it. It was quite possibly the last thing Matt expected after a relatively quiet night's patrol, when he was woken to an urgent, panicked banging on his front door. 

It was early - no later than six, with the sun barely breaching the horizon - and he was sluggish to react, still half in a dream filled with blood and gore. Another heavy, desperate thud, and Matt picked out two heartbeats. One, he was sure, was Karen, while the other was slow, sluggish - a man. An injured man. He opened the door slowly, feeling incredibly vulnerable in his loose t-shirt and lounge pants despite the abilities that rested underneath his skin.

All that faded when he inhaled. 

"Matt," Karen hissed, moving inside and pulling the injured man bodily behind her. She unceremoniously pushed Matt backwards and he stumbled: partly for show and partly because he wasn't expecting her to be so physical with him. "Shit," she cursed, noticing her actions and hesitating, eager to help him but torn between continuing further into the apartment. A wet, half inhale made the decision for her and instead, she shut the door with her foot and dragged the injured man to the couch. 

She dragged Frank to the couch. 

Matt took a shaky inhale, tasting the air a second, a third, a fourth time, because that was definitely his Soulmate. He cleared his throat before: "Karen," he asked, letting a little of the panic he was feeling creep into his tone, "what's going on? Is someone with you?"

"Is he blind?" Frank asked bluntly, slurring just enough to indicate he'd lost a lot of blood and was probably not fully aware of what was going on. 

"Karen?!" Matt knew his voice was climbing through the octaves, but he was on the verge of a panic attack. Part of him wanted to scream, because Matt had been avoiding the man before him; the other part felt like ripping every limb of the people who had done this because his Soulmate was spitting up blood in his apartment. 

"I'm sorry, Matt," she pleaded, tears beginning to prick her eyes, "I didn't know where to go." 

"Karen," he snapped again, trying to keep his rampant emotions in check. He felt unstable; they swinging from desperate concern to fury before landing squarely in panic and cycling back again. Shit, he thought, this fear for your other half is worse than they tell you it is. And it really, really was. 

The woman hesitated, hand clutching tightly onto the first-aid kit she'd pulled from underneath his sink. Matt crossed his arms, partly to stop himself from reaching out to either smack or hold the man lay five feet from him, because it was becoming incredibly difficult to pretend when it was his Soulmate half sprawled, bleeding out, on his couch. "It's Frank Castle," she finally said and Matt let his mouth open as he deflated. 

"The Punisher? The Punisher?!" Matt replied before taking a deep, long breath in, settling himself so he could focus his attention on tracking Frank's heartbeat. "Have you forgotten I'm a fucking lawyer, Karen?"

"You brought me to a lawyer's place?" the man snorted, chuckling weakly. 

Matt ignored him before taking a deliberate sniff. "I smell blood, is that him?"

"Yeah," Karen said, voice wobbling, dabbing at the man's wounds insufficiently, but Frank wasn't clear-headed enough to stitch the wound himself. 

"Fuck," Matt cursed. "Where's he bleeding?" Gunshot, shoulder, by the flow of his blood. Fractured wrist and he'd clearly done a number on his leg - glass was embedded in the tissue and there something else on his thigh bleeding too. What the hell had he been doing? And how the hell did Karen find him? He'd lose his shit if they were together, he thought.  

"Shoulder, leg and arm," Karen rattled off, voice high and breathy, hands nervously fluttering over the injuries. "Shit, I-I can't stitch," she confessed, "I mean, I did sewing, but wounds...but he-he can't go to a h-hospital," she hiccupped, "oh I-I don't-"

"I can do it," The Punisher insisted, reaching for the thread. Matt almost snarled at him. 

"Shut up," he hissed instead before slowly sitting beside him, almost straddling his leg so he was close enough to assess, and repair, the damage. "Karen get the scissors from the kitchen and the vodka from underneath the sink, and pass me the thread." She hurried off, pressing the needle and thread into his hand.

"How the fuck you going stitch me up, blind boy?" Frank snorted, shifting away before snarling at the pain. Matt almost slapped him. When Karen came running back he directed her to Frank's shoulder, told her to hold pressure there, tight, while he dealt with the man's leg. He cut off what remained on his trousers, took one swig of the vodka to steady his nerves, before he poured half the bottle over his Soulmate. The Punisher growled, furious, but immediately Matt was working, fingers nimbly pulling glass free, stitching and bandaging what he could as he went. It was gruelling work, with the only sounds the slick of his fingers through blood, Frank's pained half gasps and Karen's occasional whimpers. When he'd finally finished on Frank's leg, he moved to his shoulder, seating himself in the man's lap so he could clean and dress the wound without making the man move. The uptick in Frank's heart took Matt a minute to adjust to before he began. By the time he was ready to splint and wrap Frank's wrist, the regular bustle of New York was thrumming outside, settling into a familiar rhythm of sirens and horns that began to fill Matt's ears. 

Neither Frank nor Karen had said a word, although their breathing suggested they'd both been tempted to several times during the process. When he clambered free of Frank, content that nothing was bleeding, externally or internally, he stepped away, simply moved to the other couch and collapsed onto it face first.

"Huh," the Punished muttered, half amused, eyes pinned to Matt's form. "Your boyfriend did an alright job, Karen," Frank chuckled, although he was still clearly weak. 

"He's not -"

"I'm not -" They both stopped, Matt shaking his head into the couch cushion. There was a pause.

"Thank you Matt," Karen said, moving around to touch him, pat him? - Matt wasn't sure, although he sensed when she changed her mind, instead lingering on the edges. 

A sigh was building in Matt's chest and he rolled onto his back. "Go into the office Karen," he ordered, "act normally. Tell Foggy I'm not well and don't say a word to anyone. Your clothes," he could smell the blood stains on the shirt she was wearing, "if they're bloody, then burn them."

"Matt -" she protested. 

"I'm not going to turn him in Karen," Matt scowled, "but you shouldn't be involved." She went to protest again, spluttering indignities. "And," Matt cut in sharply, "if anyone were to discover this, it would be best that the blind, sometimes clumsy man had a couple of alibis, right?" He glared in her general direction. "I'll stay here and play nurse until this asshole's ready to walk his sorry ass out of my apartment without bleeding over the floor." His tone left no room for argument, but still Karen tried. Eventually Frank chimed in. 

"It's all good here, Ma'am," he said with a smile, turning on the charm to a hundred. She hesitated but eventually Karen nodded and left, but only after announcing she'd be back later. 

Then it was just the two of them. 

"You going to punch me, sunshine?" Frank snorted, laughter breaking the silence. "You look like ya might."

"Don't call me that," Matt ordered, ignoring the pull in his chest to go and curl up by his Soulmate's side.

"Alright then, Murdock," he said, smirking as Matt turned sharply, the question of how the hell he knew his name perched on his lips, "You're a lawyer, Murdock, and ya work with Karen," he snorted, "I ain't stupid." Matt scowled. 

There was another silence. Then:

"How'd ya know how to patch me up?"

Matt ignored him before sighing. There was no real harm in this. "My Dad was a boxer," he began quietly. "He lost a lot."

"Huh." A pause. "Pretty skilled though, considering."

"Considering what?" he replied, voice tight. "That my eyes don't work? There are plenty of other ways to see, Castle."

"I didn't mean-"

"Doesn't matter," he rasped, growing tired.

There was a long, heavy silence which Matt spent listening the steady thump-thump of Frank's heart. There was an intake of breath before: "You single, Murdock?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," he responded, drowsy.

"Just makin' conversation."

Matt heaved in a breath, reigning in the warring emotions rising within him. "No, I'm not seeing anyone."

"Huh."

Another silence.

"Why?" the lawyer prompted, curious. 

"Would'a thought a pretty guy like you'd have the ladies hangin' off your every word," the marine replied with a snort. 

"I'd prefer it be the guys," Matt shot back, ignoring the startled inhale that anyone else would have missed. Frank's heart skipped in his chest. 

"Gay?"

"Bi," he corrected. 

"Huh. Karen sure seems t' like ya. She looks at you all doe-eyed."

"Wouldn't know," Matt replied, a little too sarcastically if the way Frank's head turned was anything to go by. "Besides, she's not my type."

"And what would be your type?"

There was a moment of silence, Matt not sure if he should reply, but he found himself unable to deny Frank anything when it came to this. Fucking Soulmates. 

"Kind," he murmured, "passionate, loyal, brave, patient, funny," he paused before smirking, "and of course, easy on the eyes."

Frank laughed at that. "Ah well Murdock, good luck, I don't think there's anyone out there with all those qualities now-a-days."

"I did meet someone," Matt replied, unable to help himself, "he could have been all of that, I'm sure. But he doesn't have it in him to try. He won't ever care for me like that. In fact, I don't think he even gave me a second thought."

"How'd you know?"

"Because he rejected me," the vigilante whispered, "after I said the words on his wrist."

There was a sharp, violent inhale and the tension in the room doubled. The air was suddenly charged and heavy, anger lacing the molecules. There were rules, expectations about Soulmates, and Frank's actions violated almost all of them. To confess what he had done out loud was voicing the taboo he had committed. If their interaction were within normal society, Frank would've been ostracised and persecuted for his dismissal of Matt. 

"You met your soulmate?" finally came the hushed question.

"Yeah," Matt nodded, dragging a hand through his hair. "I did. He said mine and I said his and he knew, I knew he knew, but... nothing, he didn't - I mean..." Emotions were crawling up the back of his throat and threatening to overwhelm him. 

"Guy's an idiot," Frank said gruffly, awkwardly, as though he wanted to be anywhere else. No doubt he did. It must be hard for Frank to dismiss actions he himself had committed.  

"He was scared, I think," Matt muttered.

"Scared or not, no one should ever just walk away from their other half after that. I mean, no excuse, none."

Matt huffed out a laugh, incredulous at the statement. "Don't blame him, really," he scowled, almost to himself, "after all, I'm all kinds of fucked up."

Frank made a noise that was halfway between a surprised whimper and raged snarl, clearly stunned at the words, but Matt was suddenly bone weary and far too tired to continue the conversation. He stood abruptly, moving to the side and pulling a blanket from the cupboard before walking it over to Frank. "Don't get up without help, you'll tear your stitches, and I don't need you bleeding out on my floor" he ordered, voice unyielding. "You need the bathroom then shout, otherwise I'm going to bed for an hour." And with that he turned on his heel and stalked away, painfully aware that Frank's eyes followed his every step.