Matt had a problem with Frank Castle and Frank Castle had a problem with him and they were handling it.
Karen didn’t need to stick her head into it, nor did Foggy or Claire or Jess or any-damn-one else for that matter.
What the hell ever happened to privacy?
Matt appreciated his people, really he did. They were the only thing keeping him on the right side of sanity 90% of the time, but man, that 10% was a kicker. Frank fucking Castle loved to sit in that 10%. Just sit there, breaking people’s faces, shooting people in the head, the heart, wherever else it was sure to end it all, like a god of death. Like he had some kind of motherfucking God-given right to judge another human being’s fucking worth—breathe.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Breathe.
Okay, good, back to baseline.
He couldn’t get too riled up. It would scare poor Becky and she’d only been with him for a month now; she didn’t deserve to go out via boss-induced heart-attack, and he didn’t deserve to have to interview 9 potential secretaries ever again.
He got through half a stack of paperwork before he found himself grinding his teeth to thoughts of how Frank fucking Castle pissed him off in a way he hadn’t felt since he’d been fifteen years old and chucked back into the orphanage for the fifth and final time.
Foster families didn’t work for him, it turned out. He hadn’t helped this by running away from the last two, but anyways. Fifteen year-old Matt had a lot of shit to work through. He’d been filled with teenage rage and mutiny and way too much power and way too much fucking responsibility. The only person he thought understood even an iota of what he was going through at the time had been the holy Father.
He absolutely loathed himself for it, but the longer he thought about it, the more he realized that what he really wanted to do was drag Frank’s ass to church. Maybe then he’d become the local priest’s problem again, not Matt’s.
Ruminating on those thoughts made his guts recoil and the devil snarl.
Despite Frank’s goading and name-calling, Matt really wasn’t the proselytizing type. Altar boy, what the fuck ever. Matt had nearly gotten expelled from no less than two Catholic schools for being ‘unable to meet the standards of acceptable conduct’ in the classroom. Not that anyone needed to know that. Foggy would probably take it poorly and then would probably accuse him of playing the innocent, shy blind kid act from the very start of their friendship and honestly? Even if that was true (which it wasn’t, Matt could admit that he was just naturally shy and awkward around new people), he sure as shit didn’t need an earful about it after the shitty week he’d had.
As far as he was concerned, Frank needed the church or to find God at the bottom of a fucking bottle, and Matt didn’t actually care where or how he find his way, he just needed it to happen soon. Like, yesterday.
The guy had been hanging around Hell’s Kitchen for the last week, waving his guns and setting up shop in the corner of roofs and just generally antagonizing Matt. He said that he’d get gone as soon as he got his mitts on a guy named Gruber, but it had been a week and still no Gruber. Frank was a nationally and internationally known assassin. He could not possibly be this incompetent. He had to be dragging this shit out just to fuck with Matt.
Matt was about ready to find this Gruber asshole himself to offer as a human sacrifice to the altar of Make Frank Castle Leave.
Frank thought this was hilarious, the dickhead. Apparently checking on Castle six times a night did not come across as a message to move on; it came across as ‘obsessive’ and ‘endearing.’
Matt wanted nothing more than to break the dickwad’s teeth and guns. The order didn’t matter. The bastard would probably smile about it, just watch with that smug-ass bloody grin on his face. He’d probably just keep telling Matt to hit him harder, he’d say his fucking ‘yeah, Red, give it to me. You’ve got better than that in you. C’mon, give it to me. C’mon, kill me, you fucking coward—’
Matt realized that he was standing. And that his office window was broken.
His glass office window.
The stapler was missing from his desk.
Oh god.
Becky was fine. Becky was not hurt. Becky told him that it was okay, everyone had those kinds of days sometimes. Becky went home a little early.
The new rule was that before Matt went out Daredevil-ing, he had to call Foggy and tell him about his day.
This almost always resulted in Matt bitching relentlessly about a minor problem he’d had and Foggy humming agreeably and doing the thing where he empathized far too well and reminded Matt that even though the day was shit, he’d still done such-and-such for so-and-so, so really it wasn’t a complete waste.
It kind of took some of the wind out of Daredevil’s sails. Sometimes. A little bit. Maybe a lot.
He’d swallow his tongue before he told Foggy his dumbass feeling talks were having their desired effect.
He called Foggy on the way home because the sooner he got the talk over with, the sooner he could try his luck beating Castle’s head in and dragging his hulking ass to St. Michael’s.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he growled into his phone as he half-jogged the last few blocks to his apartment building.
“Hi, this is Foggy—”
“Fogs, I threw a stapler at Becky. I didn’t mean to, I said sorry. I’m just going to fucking explode—”
“--able to answer the phone right now—”
“Oh, for the love of—"
Matt would later maintain that the noise he made when Deadpool scooped him up off the steps to his apartment was a yelp. It was not a scream. It was not a scream.
“Dude, take it easy, it’s just me. You’re with me tonight,” Wade told his ass fondly. Matt was just collected enough to remember that they were in public and he was not wearing the suit. He strategically opted for shouting and shoving at Wade’s back ineffectively over cramming his fingers into every pressure point he could reach.
He heard several people on his street whispering fiercely to each other, debating whether the better course of action would be to call the police or to shout for Daredevil to save this poor blind man. Oh, the irony. One guy shouted at Deadpool to let him go and Wade just stopped and turned towards the guy slowly, intimidating the shit out of the poor soul, while Matt tried to knee him in the tit.
Wade carried him down the street as if assault and kidnapping in broad-daylight was the norm. When they got just past Santiago’s around the corner from his house, he punched Wade as hard as he could in the kidney. He dropped him and laughed, congratulating him on a punch well-executed.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Matt snapped, hauling himself off his side where Wade had dropped him.
Wade didn’t say anything, but he leaned in close. Matt figured he was grinning wide in his face.
“I told you! You’re with me tonight. We’re going hunting!”
Matt couldn’t help but perk up at that. Wade always had interesting, absolutely bizarre people and shit he needed back-up for. The last time, Wade had sent him in first and told him to do the flashiest, most ridiculous acrobatics he was capable of to distract the most recent ring of smugglers while he changed out their crates of weapons for crates of bubble-gum. Matt lived for impractical parkour. And, Wade didn’t need to know, but his flat-out refusal to tell Matt where he found that much bubble-gum got him all excited and shit.
He couldn’t help it. Drama and mystery. It was a vigilante’s dream.
Matt caught himself. Castle, Murdock. Eyes on the prize.
“I’ve got my own shit to do tonight,” he told Wade. Wade grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“But! But! But!”
“No! It’s important!” Wade let go of him. He wasn’t exactly lying. It was important. The most important. If everything went well, he’d be doing the Lord’s work.
“Okay, fine. I’ll help. Then we go do my thing,” Wade declared.
Matt stared up at him, brain blank. He hadn’t expected support. He hadn’t planned on support. Oh shit, if he told Wade what he was up to, Wade would ask why, and he could not say out loud that he was bringing Frank to Jesus.
“Uh,” he panicked, “You don’t have to—”
“No, no. Lemme call Spidey, your baddies are never a two-man job.”
His heart spasmed.
“No! It’s okay, it’s not, uh, one of my usual guys. Just, uh, just—”
Wade paused in trying to find his phone.
“Oh, no shit? A new guy then? You felt him out yet, Red?”
“Absolutely!” Because vigilantes say things like ‘absolutely,’ Murdock, Christ where’d you learn to lie, a nun?
Wade leaned his weight back a little. His heartbeat slowed down. He was concerned. Or Suspicious.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“You okay there, Red? You got some complicated things going on with your face.”
“I-I’m fine. J-just—”
“Dude, the stammer is cute, but a dead fucking giveaway, what stupid shit are you up to?”
“I’m n-not-not stammering! And I’m not up to anything!”
Wade’s eyebrow raise was powerful enough that he didn’t have to see it to receive its full effect.
“So now you’re not up to anything. Is that right?”
“Yep.”
“No ‘important shit’ to do?”
“That’s right.”
“Huh. Well, that’s convenient.”
“Uh-huh.” Matt swallowed hard.
“Great, so you can come hunting. Go get your suit, sweet pea, daylight’s a-burning. We’ve got to pick up a gallon of glue before we go.”
Wade left him in the alley with the implicit understanding to meet him back there once it was dark. Matt grabbed at the sides of his head and swore.
Becky had asked him if he was okay three times in an hour. It probably had something to do with the way he was clutching his head.
Needless to say, Operation Mother Teresa was a failure. It was over before it even started. And on the way home from helping Wade put up some enormous posters (which he swore were tasteful and strategic), he tripped right over Castle’s latest hovel.
Castle caught him before he hit the ground and asked him why he was covered in papier-maché. He asked Castle where the fuck Gruber was and they’d reached an impasse. The impasse ended with Castle snorting at him and telling him to go home and take a bath.
Which first of all, was insulting as shit, he would shower like an adult. And second of all, he refused to let Castle have the last word.
Unfortunately, his mouth was as exhausted as the rest of him and decided to go with:
“You need Jesus, Frank.”
Castle laughed and patted his helmet and told him again to go home and take a bath. He mumbled to himself ‘a nap wouldn’t kill ya either’ and it was all Matt could do not to throw himself at him in that second.
No. He had to be reasonable about this. Frank was frighteningly like Wade in this aspect. If you went at him in a fury, he’d just pin you down and sit on you until you gave up. He’d gone home instead to come up with a new plan.
He couldn’t exactly think of one while Becky was seconds away from calling Foggy to talk him out of the panic attack he wasn’t having, though. Why, WHY did he give her Foggy’s number? He can hear her pausing every couple of minutes to touch the phone before shaking her head and letting him have a few more minutes to prove her wrong.
He wasn’t doing a great job, he’d admit that.
He sat up straight and took several deep breaths. Shook his head and his shoulders and buried himself in paperwork. He resolved to talk to Jess about it; she’d call him an idiot, but she wouldn’t call him petty, and he needed an objective opinion on the situation.
“To church?”
“Yeah, like nothing I’m doing now is having any—”
“It wasn’t a question, asshole. I was repeating your bullshit back to you to help you recognize it for what it is.”
Matt frowned and stopped bouncing his knee. Jess got up to get another drink. He deflated and groaned, sliding down until only his back was on the seat of the chair. Jess plonked an extra glass down on her desk for him and filled it with whiskey.
“Listen, I get that you want to help Castle see the light or what the fuck ever, but seriously, that shit is above your paygrade,” she told him gravely. “If you fight him, he’s just gonna tell you to kill him. And if you don’t do that, then he’s just gonna shoot you in the head. There’s no winning here. Just leave him to whatever the fuck he’s doing, Murdock, it’s not worth your effort.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Matt moaned, “He doesn’t spend every waking hour of his existence ruining your life.”
Jess sat down heavily behind her desk and kicked her feet up. She took a swallow of whiskey.
“Aren’t you and Nelson doing some kind of mating dance?”
Matt groaned louder and evacuated the chair for the floor. Jess didn’t stop him. She took another gulp of whiskey.
“I don’t want to fuck Frank, why does everyone think I want to fuck Frank?”
“Maybe because all you talk about is fighting him and that’s basically your way of flirting.”
Matt slammed a hand on the floor and glared in her direction.
“I do not fight to flirt.”
“Uh-huh, ‘cause you and Nelson totally don’t do your weird lawyer thing during sex.”
Matt opened his mouth and then shut it. He laid back down. Jess cackled.
“You’re supposed to be helping me, Jessica.”
Jess stood up and put his tumbler of whiskey on the floorboard next to his head.
“I am. Drink.”
Matt drank.
“Don’t fuck with Castle. He’s fucking your girl Karen anyways, you don’t have a shot.”
Matt broke the glass.
Foggy told Matt that Karen was a grown-ass woman capable of making her own bad decisions and he wouldn’t let Matt have his phone back until he calmed down and sobered up enough to form compound sentences.
In the meantime, Matt took his (not even that drunk, Foggy, geez) pouting self to the roof.
God hated him, so the kid and Deadpool showed up asking him to go with them to some damn place in Manhattan and all he could do was angerly flail towards the roof access door and say “He won’t let me,” in possibly the most petulant tone he had in him.
Wade started laughing too hard to speak.
Peter was taken aback.
“Double D, are you drunk?”
“I am not even that drunk,” he argued, more to Foggy than anyone on the roof. Wade started choking and slapping his chest. Peter tilted his whole body and sighed.
“You know, of all people—”
“Red, I need your fucking nose,” announced the man of the hour. Matt might have been drunker than he thought not to hear Castle climb onto his roof--his roof--with those monstrosities he called boots.
Frank stopped and didn’t come any closer.
“The fuck is wrong with my boots?”
Wade had graduated to shaking silently on his knees. Peter’s whole body lit up in tension and Matt remembered that he’d never encountered Castle before and that was for the best. He told Castle to get fucked to minimize the damage he’d have on the kid. Castle didn’t move.
“I need your nose,” Frank told him, unusually patiently.
“You’re fucking my other best friend,” Matt shot back, aiming for equally patient, but not quite making it out of petulant territory. Frank adjusted his stance, the bastard. His heart ratchetted up, though. Matt scowled at him. There was a rapid-fire heartbeat drumming below Castle’s, which Matt belatedly realized was the kid being shocked. He could only imagine the poor thing’s face.
“You’re bad for her,” he told Frank irritably, “She’s already—already got a nose for trouble. She don’t need your dick making any more of it for her.”
Castle snorted.
“Don’t see how that’s any of your concern, Red. Listen, you help me out with this and I’ll be outta your--”
“If you get her pregnant, I’ll kill you.”
Ha. Apparently the way to throw Frank off balance was to threaten him with pregnancy. Good to fucking know.
“I’m not gonna knock your girl up.”
“’Scuse the fuck outta you? Karen’s not my girl, we were only a thing for like, a week, didn’t even go anywhere.”
Frank’s heart didn’t like that, of course not, the jealous prick. Wade made a delighted noise somewhere behind him and whispered, ‘this is the best day of my life.’
Frank put his head down and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Nelson!” he called, “Your boy is up here communing with the powers that be and Deadpool, you sanction that?”
“Fogs don’t own me,” Matt growled at him.
“Matt,” snapped Foggy’s voice from the stairwell, “Inside, now.”
“You don’t own me,” he told Foggy. Foggy’s heartbeat was…unamused. He was giving off unhappy sounds and feelings and smells. Oh shit, he was way drunker than he thought.
“You own me as much as you want,” he amended in Foggy’s direction.
“Inside, Matthew,” Foggy repeated. “What are you doing here, Frank? And uh, Wade was it?”
Peter answered for Team Red.
“We were just leaving, thank you Mr. Nelson, sorry he’s drunk.”
Smart boy.
“Well, I needed Red to scent someone out for me, but obviously that’s not gonna happen tonight,” Frank told Foggy. Matt took off his glasses to glare at him properly. He jumped when a hand grabbed his bicep and pulled, he jerked away until he realized that it was just Fogs trying to steer him towards the stairs. He was so thoughtful, wow.
“Is it a life or death situation?” Foggy asked. Frank chuckled.
“Well it’s gonna be.”
“Oh good, you’ve still got your shitty sense of humor,” Foggy said.
The last thing Matt heard was Wade’s fading laughter.
Matt woke up to a piercing headache and the devastating realization that he’d fucked up his chance to get Castle to church. If he’d had one more drink, he would have transitioned from Aggressive dickhead Matt into Affectionate-Earnest Matt and no one was immune to Affectionate-Earnest Matt. Foggy had told him this many times over the years.
Affectionate-Earnest Matt could have played on Castle’s domestic/fatherly impulses and persuaded him to take him to St. Michael’s for a late-night, highly inebriated Hail Mary.
He groaned into the pillow and sulked for ten minutes before Foggy had enough of him and came in to pour ice water on his head.
The plans for Castle had to be put on hold while he made Foggy less mad at him. He was refusing to speak to Karen (he couldn’t remember why but it was important) so he called Jess and demanded assistance given that, technically, she was the one who got him in trouble to begin with.
Jess told him to buy apology flowers like everyone else and hung up.
Normally, he would have just charmed the florist into picking a bunch of flowers for him, but he had a splitting headache and no patience for charming. The guy at the stand that morning was also new and frankly shit at describing what was in each bouquet. As politely as he could, he abandoned this florist and went on the hunt for another one.
He ran into Spidey on the way, because of course he did. The kid was very concerned (and disappointed, Matt could hear it in the way his words drooped). He told him he’d come that way to check on him and asked him why he’d decided to get shit-faced last night. He wanted to explain it was normal for people to get wasted on Friday night, but that wasn’t entirely fair, so he sighed and asked Spidey to walk with him.
He collapsed on a bench in the nearby greenspace and rubbed at his temples. Spidey gingerly sat down next to him.
“So?” Peter nudged.
“Frank Castle is the bane of my existence,” Matt told him simply. Peter was only more confused.
“That’s the Punisher, right? Is it because he’s having sex with your friend?” he asked. Ah. Right, that’s why he and Karen weren’t talking now. Had Matt told Karen they weren’t talking yet?
“Yes,” he started, then frowned, “Wait, no. No, yes. It’s like one in a bunch of things.”
Peter cocked his head and leaned his weight forward towards the end of the bench.
“Like?” Damn, the kid was a therapist. Matt routinely didn’t fuck with therapy so he almost snapped at Peter that it was none of his damn business, but then he remembered that he was the one who initiated this conversation.
“You want the long answer or the short one?” Peter didn’t miss a beat.
“The long one.”
Your funeral, kid.
“He kills people and says that I’m one bad day away from being him. He will not keep the fuck out of Hell’s Kitchen. He will not let me get a word in edgewise. His assholes and problems are becoming my assholes and problem. He is fucking my other best friend. And no matter what the I do, he refuses to change or take his burning dumpster of a life somewhere far away from mine.”
Peter giggled a little at the burning dumpster imagery.
“Double D, don’t take this the wrong way, but like, it doesn’t sound like this guy is your problem.”
Matt stiffened.
“Of course he’s my problem he’s in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“I think you might be making him your problem.”
The kid and Jess were aligned. Maybe this was fate telling him to shut up and listen.
“Say more, wise one,” he encouraged, doing his best to ignore the headache.
“Well, it just sounds like he’s just doing his thing and he’s not interested in being saved and stuff. The more time you spend trying to do that, the bigger deal it is for you, but that’s still having no effect on him. He’s not the one obsessing over his, uh, savior, or whatever. This is getting kind of religious, is that weird?”
“Nope, not weird,” Matt encouraged through the increasing desire to find a fountain to drown in. The fucking child was right. Jess was right. He was the one making a big deal out of this, Frank didn’t give a shit. He wasn’t gonna change. He thought watching Matt try to make him was entertaining though. Jesus Christ, he’d just spent the last week as free entertainment for Frank during his stakeout. If he’d just gone with Frank last night, the guy would have been out of his hair by now.
He put his head in between his knees and groaned in frustration. Peter twitched, wanting to touch but scared to. Good. Matt didn’t want touch, he wanted to suffer.
Peter settled for settling into the back of the bench and patting his knees softly.
“So, uh,” Peter finally said after a while to break the silence.
Matt slung himself back upright and took the resulting vertigo as his penance.
“Will you help me pick some forgiveness flowers for Fogs?” he asked. Peter lit up, excitement billowing off him like heat.
“For Mr. Nelson? Sure! What kind of flowers does he like? My aunt was telling me the other day that flowers have all kinds of meanings, like roses are for love, obviously, but sunflowers are for good thoughts and stuff.”
“What kind of flowers mean ‘I’m sorry I’m an aggressive dickhead?’”
Peter laughed.
“You’re not an aggressive dickhead, Double D. You just care a lot about people, maybe a little too much sometimes. My aunt said hyacinths are the best apology flowers, but they’re almost out of season. Hold on lemme google it. This says white tulips or daffodils will work, too.”
“Which ones are hyacinths?” Matt asked.
“They’re blue, bell shaped with starfish shaped bottoms. They grow in clusters, like grapes.”
“They’re out of season?” Matt clarified.
“Well, nearly, they’re mostly a spring flower.”
“Nearly is not ‘out of season;’ c’mon kiddo, we’re gonna hunt down some forgiveness flowers.”
Peter popped up faster than him, rattling with excitement. He grabbed his arm and dragged him up and back towards the street.
Foggy was very pleased with the forgiveness flowers and anything that made Foggy happy made Matt happy, even though they were hands-down the strongest smelling plants he’d ever encountered.
“I’m sorry that I’m an obsessive jerk sometimes,” Matt told him. Foggy vibrated with happiness and wrapped Matt in a hug.
“Me too, but you’re my obsessive jerk. I just wish you’d drink smarter, not harder when you go see Jess.”
He nodded.
“Sorry I’m weird about Castle, too,” he mumbled into Foggy’s hair. Foggy snorted.
“If I didn’t know this was a territorial thing, pal, I’d think you had a crush on him.”
“I DO NOT.”
Foggy laughed.
“I don’t. I really, really don’t.”
“I know, man.”
Matt got a hand on each side of Foggy’s face to hold him steady, to make sure they were making eye contact.
“I don’t. I love you like an idiot.” Foggy leaned forward and kissed him.
“Like I said, I know.”
Foggy dislodged his hands and ruffled Matt’s hair, then headed out of the kitchen to finish watching the game. The Yankees were losing, but not by enough that Foggy felt safe allowing it to go on unsupervised. He flopped down on the couch.
“Karen says she’s sorry for not telling us about her and Frank, by the way. She didn’t sound sorry, but she said sorry. I’ve claimed I-told-you-so rights on our behalf, so I think we’ve just gotta let them do their thing.”
Matt chased after Foggy into the living room to climb into his lap and give him another kiss. Foggy laughed and pulled him down so he was laying in his lap. Matt pressed his face into his thigh and let himself doze.
Karen was absolutely not sorry, not even the slightest bit, but the instant remorse she inspired in Frank when she scolded him was fucking worth it to Matt. He didn’t even feel bad about tattling on him about their most recent interaction (it had entailed the sentence: “You’re only aiding and abetting me if we get caught, Red, and we ain’t getting caught”).
Frank grumbled and mumbled and growled, then dutifully scared the shit out of his target to the point that they fled the city. Frank packed up shop and set out to follow them up-state.
He gave Matt an infuriating hair ruffle before he left.
“Until next time, Red.”
“Stay out of my city,” he snapped back.
Frank chuckled and wandered off to say good bye to Karen. Foggy let Matt scream into a pillow for a few minutes when they got home and then asked him what he wanted for dinner.
“Justice, penance, and moral support,” he told him. Foggy hummed.
“’Kay, Santiago’s is always out of penance though, so can we sub it for mushrooms, or no?”