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The Alps suited her. The towns were clean, the people polite, the food refined. Her villa was beautiful and worth every cent they’d paid. It almost made the separation bearable. Vanessa absentmindedly rolled the stem of her empty wine glass between the pads of her thumb and fingers and appreciated the vista. It wasn’t exile, not for her. She would’ve been perfectly content to live the rest of her life there, but her lover wouldn’t. And so, she had to get some affairs in order. A man appeared at her elbow holding a manila envelope fastened with string. “The information you requested.”“Thank you, Johann,” she said to her servant who understood the gratitude was genuine, and that it was also a dismissal.“Let’s see what we have,” she mused as she unwound the string that held the envelope closed. She withdrew the contents and thumbed through it: photos, testimonies, legal documents. She set a few pieces aside, but kept most of the packet together. “Finally.” She held up an 8x10 photo of two people at a reception desk in an opulently decorated lobby. The older man’s features were hard to discern because he was looking down. He didn’t matter. He had been dealt with. The younger woman however, very fair skinned with long blonde hair, was perfectly framed in the shot almost as though she was posing for a camera she didn’t know was there. A cold smile crept across her face. She put the larger stack back in the envelope, set the smaller stack aside, and went to find Johann. She would need him to arrange for their courier to take it to the States.***Matt had been having a shit day, month, year, two years, oh hell, let’s just say decade. It had its highs, and the highs were pretty wonderful; getting into college, then law school, with generous merit-based scholarships. Graduating summa. Earning his JD. Elektra. Karen. Foggy. That feeling of freedom when he was running and leaping off of rooftops, of not having to hide his abilities. It was certainly enough to keep him going when the lows got low.But Jesus, were the lows low. Elektra (again). The dissolution of Nelson & Murdock. More cuts, bruises, and breaks than he could remember. Stick coming back (goddamn Stick). Goddamn ninjas, for that matter. Fisk. Mrs. Cardenas. Ben Urich. The machines rising up and trying to kill them all (he briefly though of Foggy’s offhand remark when they first moved into their shared office space, and then quickly blocked it from his mind). Aliens, aliens, invading New York. From a hole in the sky. Science wasn’t his favorite subject in school; social sciences were more his forte. But he was still pretty sure that that wasn’t supposed to happen. And hell, while he was cataloging the greatest hits of the century, might as well add in assholes crashing planes into the twin towers. And if he was going to go to pre-college events, might as well add in his dad’s death and not knowing his mother and being raised by Sisters, most of whom were pretty okay, but a few of whom were terrors. To top everything off, he had just had a fight with Karen about nothing and everything, about the same old shit they fought about.He tried to remember there were good times, because the present, the immediate present, kinda sucked.There was a new player in the drug game who was pushing something pretty potent. Chatter amongst the lowlife alternated between the latest party drug and MGH. The symptoms included euphoria, which quickly turned into delirium, which occasionally turned into delusion, which a couple of times resulted in someone declaring himself to be Daredevil and leaping to his death off a six story building. Tonight was just supposed to be intel gathering.  Go put the fear of God in an amoral chemist, figure out who he was working for, what he was really cooking.Unfortunately, when he arrived at the lab, which was really small and unassuming for the research allegedly going on within, he was confronted by an oddly-dressed man who was prepared for an attack. Most civilians, when confronted by Daredevil, were startled or outright scared. This guy was not cowed. He skipped the witty repartee part of the dance and went straight to flinging things at Daredevil.Matt easily dodged the flying glassware and what he suspected was a hot plate, and tried to talk the guy down, but he was having none of it.And then there was the matter of his lab attire. Granted, Matt didn’t have much first-hand knowledge in this area, but he suspected glass bowls weren’t OSHA approved head gear.The man wearing the fishbowl on his head alternated between ranting about Daredevil and bragging about his product, all the while flinging glassware, metal objects, and chemical bottles at him. So, Matt gave up on trying to have a peaceful discussion and threw his billy club. It hit Fishbowl center mass and cracked a rib, but it also ricocheted into a gas cylinder that started making an ominous hissing sound. And that was the moment things went from irritating to awful.On the upside, he got confirmation that, no, his senses weren’t going haywire, and yes, the guy was wearing something that looked like a fishbowl. That confirmation, however, came from the least helpful source possible.Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, aka that case that started as a disaster and ended with him and Foggy splitting, showed up sporting five firearms, a pair of knives, and what was very likely a flashbang grenade.To say he and Frank had a complicated history would be an understatement.Frank figured out Daredevil’s civilian identity very quickly. According to Frank, he was certain during the trial, when he was on the stand. Matt kind of suspected he knew in the hospital, but given that his memory then was spotty, maybe he knew and maybe he forgot. Either way, Frank was one of a handful of people who knew that Matt Murdock and Daredevil were one and the same. And of course there was the trial. Yeah, a lot of the blame rested on his shoulders, but Frank was an active participant in that debacle. On top of that, there was Frank shooting him in the helmet, and all the fights, the bruises and cuts and concussions they’d given each other.  And how could he forget that time he chained Matt up, taped a gun to his hand, and told him to kill him, lest he kill Grotto.But after all of that mess, culminating in Frank taking care of the Blacksmith, and then Elektra’s death on the rooftop, they’d both been alone. Really alone, like going days on end without talking to another living soul. Eventually, they tacitly declared a cease fire. Matt quit trying to apprehend him, and Frank either stayed off Matt’s turf or left his heavy weaponry wherever he stashed it when he wasn’t using it. Matt would find him on a rooftop, and they’d talk about nothing and everything.  They’d shared coffee, sometimes food, occasionally wisdom.  Since then, they’d both pulled themselves back together, more or less. Matt made nice with Karen, and he was pretty sure Frank was working with someone, or maybe someone was helping him, but he didn’t ask and Frank didn’t offer. Frank had mostly steered clear, and Matt hadn’t settled on what he’d do if and when he saw him again.“Long time no see, Red,” he called out as he burst into the lab. “Fishbowl head’s mine, though. You can go home now.”“Not gonna happen, Frank,” Matt replied in a tired voice.  “No one dies tonight.”“Heard that one before. We’ll see how well it works for you,” he responded as he ducked a blow to the head. “He’s pushing bad meth. It skips the buzz and goes straight to psychotic berserker mode. And you know this or you wouldn’t be here.” He twisted his leg around Matt’s and knocked him to the ground.“We don’t know what he’s pushing, but it’s not meth,” Matt countered. “That’s why we’re not going to kill the source. We need to know who he’s working for.”“This lab is churning out drugs that have killed six kids in the past week.” Frank cursed as Matt disarmed him and wrenched his arm up hard. He broke the grapple, grabbed another pistol, and trained the .357 on Fishbowl, who seemed to be breathing through clenched teeth (hard to tell, what with the fishbowl hat) trying not upset his cracked rib while he snuck around to all the gas cylinders in the room.“My name isn’t Fishbowl, it’s Mysterio!” he snarled, cranking a knob on a regulator.Frank smirked at the name. Matt kicked out at his hand as he pulled the trigger, forcing the bullet wide. It winged Fishbowl, tearing a furrow in his arm that probably hurt like hell and would certainly scar, but wouldn’t to cause him to bleed to death. Fishbowl hid himself behind the open door of an upright freezer, as though that would protect him from the Punisher. Frank stalked towards his prey, Ka-Bar in one hand, pistol in the other. Matt rushed Fishbowl, knowing that Frank wouldn’t shoot through him to kill his quarry.His timing couldn’t have been worse. This day, this week, month, year, decade—every time he thought he had found rock bottom, it seemed like God handed him a bigger shovel. This time, God skipped the shovel and drove up an excavator (wow, he was torturing this metaphor).Fishbowl wasn’t just using the freezer for cover; he was retrieving something from it. As Matt closed in, he removed the cap from a vial. Frank trained his pistol center mass and fired. Matt’s momentum carried his head right in front of Fishbowl’s chest. The bullet ricocheted off the side of his helmet, which absorbed a lot of the energy of the shot, to be sure, but that still left a hell of a lot of energy that it didn’t absorb, all of which went into Matt’s skull. Concurrent with Frank’s shot, Fishbowl had thrown the sample, which turned out to be a fine, crystalline powder. It hit Matt full in the face. He was protected from the nose up by his helmet, but completely exposed below that. He inhaled a lungful before he could think to hold his breath, but the bullet stunned him too much to be able to do even that. It coated his nose, his throat, and his mouth. He heard Frank yell “Goddamnit, Red!” right before his world on fire went black.
When he came to, head still ringing from the bullet to the helmet, he wasn’t in the lab. He was a ten year old boy sitting at home, up past his bedtime, waiting for his dad to come home after his greatest victory. Slowly, he drifted off, until he heard a loud crack outside. In an instant, he was wide awake, and before he could process it with his rational mind, he knew something was terribly wrong. He’d smelled that smell before, a few months back when the Garrisi boy was shot a block over. He grabbed his cane and ran out, following the smell, until he came to an alley guarded by a pair of cops. He shoved his way through, still following the smell, and knew that his world had just been turned upside down. He touched—he had to, even though his senses already confirmed it was his father. Where his father’s face used to be was a mess of warm, sticky flesh. “Dad! Daddy!” he yelled, as though the plaintive cries of his child might summon Jack back from beyond death. Then the cops were at him, pulling him up by his arms, but not roughly. He lost it. He flailed and kicked, cried and yelled. When the paramedics arrived, someone wrapped him in a crinkly blanket and hugged him until his thrashing stopped. He spent the night at the police station because they couldn’t find someone to take him on such short notice. He had no family; his maternal grandmother had passed the previous spring, and she was the last of it.

The scene shifted. He was dressed in his best clothes and pulling at a clip-on tie. A woman with a gentle but firm voice wearing way more cloth than anyone he’d ever met told him to pack a trunk and a suitcase. Yes, he could keep his father’s memorabilia, yes, he could bring his few toys, no, he could not bring his father’s chair. She loaded him into a cab and they made the short drive to the orphanage, where she showed him to a room with five beds in it, and told him the second to last one was his. She gave him a pat on the back and told him to unpack. Instead, he curled into a ball on his bed and cried until he fell asleep.
Matt briefly snapped back to the lab. He was vaguely aware that Frank was shouting, but he couldn’t make sense of what he was saying, and anyway, it sounded like he was at the other end of a tunnel. He thought he felt someone slip an arm under his shoulders, when he became unstuck in time and space and was transported back to the fateful day when he lost his sight forever.
He saw an old man in the crosswalk. A truck was coming too fast, and it wasn’t slowing down. Before he could think, he was on his feet, sprinting at the man. He shoved him with all of his might. Passersby yelling at the driver to stop finally got through, and he braked, hard. But it wasn’t enough. He hit Matt, though not as hard as he might have. Matt heard people around him screaming, and then loud, metallic thumps. Whatever the truck had been carrying must’ve fallen out when the driver tried to avoid hitting Matt. One of the barrels hit the ground hard, and the force of the impact blew the cap off, spewing its contents into Matt’s face and across the asphalt.

Once the shock of surviving the getting hit by a truck passed, he tried to take stock of his situation. He was flat on his back. Bumpy asphalt dug into the back of his head, and he saw the blue sky fade into gray. His father’s face appeared above him and promised everything would be okay, but then that faded into gray, then black, then nothing. Every stab of pain was like a stake through his skull, every smell so strong he thought he would vomit, every sound so loud as though his skull was amplifying it. “I can’t see. I can’t see!”
He shifted back to the present (was it really? The rest of it felt so real).  He understood in some corner of his mind that he was in a lab fighting an oddly dressed man. He smelled the metal, blood, and oil that he had come to associate with Frank. And then things went from awful to godawful. The world tasted purple and smelled like sunshine. He felt Beethoven’s 5th symphony through his fingertips, and everything sounded like plaid.The synesthesia faded (how long was he out? A second? A minute?), but his radar sense didn’t return. He thought Frank was in front of him, but he wasn’t sure. Fishbowl wasn’t within reach of his senses.  He heard the hiss of the gas cylinders, the whoosh of cryogenic liquids spraying across the floor, felt the change in the density of the air around as it was replaced with… he didn’t even know, but certainly not oxygen. The warring memories of his father telling him to get up and a fever dream of a Sister telling him to stay down and rest were drowned out by the sound of a freight train in his ears, which crescendoed until it was deafening, and then everything went still.

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The chatter Frank had been picking up from the lowlifes on the street was that there was a new, super amphetamine that would make you super powerful. He used some enhanced interrogation techniques to trace it back to a particular lab, and he was going to end it that night. When he got in there, he saw Red beating up someone who probably wasn’t a chemist, and assumed that if he was there, the intel was good. He should’ve staked it out first, should’ve confirmed the drug, shoulda, shoulda, shoulda. But he didn’t, and now he was, as his buddy Sgt. Murphy would’ve put it, “tripping balls.”When Fishbowl threw the powder, Frank was far enough away that only traces reached him. He had CBRN training. He knew how to hold his breath and power through until he could put on a gas mask, which would be fine if he had a mask to put on. Trace amounts got into his mucous membranes, and before he could stumble around looking for a chemical shower or an eyewash, let alone finish off the bastard with the stupid headgear, his vision started to swim. Reality gave way to surreality. He looked down and his legs were melting into the solid floor, which had gentle ripples like a placid lake.
“Oh!” Maria gasped. She looked down, confused to see a red stain spreading across her chest. Before she could say anything else, another shot hit her, an inch to the right of her heart, and she fell.

“Mom!” shrieked Lisa. Frank lunged towards his children, instinct kicking in when he heard the gunshots. Before he could reach them, a shot hit Lisa in the face, snapping her head back as she fell over backwards. At the same time, a three round burst hit Junior in the stomach, who had been standing behind his sister, dropping grass in her hair. It tore a hole in his son, and in that instant Frank knew that his world had been upended. All the training, all those years in the service, awards for marksmanship, all of that meant shit now that his reason for being a good man were gone. He knew they were gone, even though blood still bubbled out of Maria’s chest, even though Junior still had a pulse. He’d seen these wounds before, and knew the survival rate. Lisa, the apple of his eye, was closest, and he crawled over to her and cradled her perfect form in his arms, the same as when he’d held her when she was born. The next thing he knew, he felt a sting on his head, and then his world went black.
Reality came back in fits and starts. He was on the floor in a lab. He propped himself up enough to see Red lying next to him. His vision swam. Red’s body morphed into his daughter’s, and he thought to himself stupidly, “too bad Lisa wasn’t wearing a helmet. Maybe the devil could’ve protected her when God wouldn’t.” His mind dragged him back into the past.
He stared at Maria, beautiful, fiery Maria.

“I’m pregnant,” she repeated.

“What… when… but… how?” was the most he could articulate. He was a four months out of the seminary; he’d dropped out after a semester because he went in for all the wrong reasons. Kandahar had done a mindfuck on him. He had enlisted, he’d done his time, and he could get out if he wanted to, so he did. He got a degree on the GI bill, even graduated early. All that discipline instilled by the USMC translated to excellent study habits. While the kids fresh out of high school were addicted to instant messaging and playing Halo, he was taking max credits every semester and working twenty hours a week. He entered the seminary after graduation because the darkness that took over in Kandahar still haunted him, and his ma always wanted him to be a priest. In retrospect, those were stupid fucking reasons, but hey, hindsight’s 20/20, or so they say. Shortly after dropping out, Maria picked him up in a bar one night when he was nursing a pint and his sorrows. They had a fling, which turned into something more. But they’d been careful. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She giggled nervously. “See, when a man and a woman give each other a special hug…” she began.

“But we…” he began, unable to say it out loud.

“Condoms fail. The pill fails. Apparently they can both fail at the same time. We should go buy a lotto ticket.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked away. “I’ll take care of it. I just thought you should know.”

“I want to help,” he said, finally finding his voice.

“You wanna pay for it?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Anything I can contribute.”

Maria visibly relaxed. “Planned parenthood quoted me $600. I have an appointment next Tuesday at nine.”

“What? No!” he protested.

She gave him an incredulous look. “I’m not going to keep it.”
“It’s—You can’t—It’s our child!”
“It’s a clump of cells. It looks more like a fish right now than a baby.”

“I meant it when I said I’d give whatever I can contribute,” he pleaded. “I will support you and our child. I will marry you. I will protect you for the rest of our lives.”

“Frank, we’ve known each other three months,” she said, not unreasonably. “Four months ago, you thought you were going to be a priest. I’m still in school, you’re a line cook. There is no way this math works. There’s nothing we can give this child.”

“We can give it a family. Two parents. Love and food. That’s all a kid needs.” Frank hesitated. “When I graduated, the Marines asked if I wanted to go to Officer Candidate School. I entered the seminary instead, but the offer still stands. It’ll be enough to get by.”

“I don’t want to just get by,” she protested.

“So you want an abortion instead.”

“No. But I can’t have a baby, and I’m pregnant, so…”she trailed off.

Frank sighed. “Tuesday is three days from now. I’ll swing by your place at eight. If you are hell bent on this, I’ll take you there, I’ll pay for it, and then I’ll leave you be. If you change your mind, I will support you and our child for the rest of our lives.”

Maria hesitated, then nodded. “No guarantees.”

Frank took what he could get. He gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and left her to her thoughts.

When Tuesday morning came around, he arrived at her door at 7:50 with coffee and bagels..
As she let him in, he took in her appearance. Her hair was a mess, she had dark circles under her eyes. “You gonna get dressed?” he asked, gesturing to her pajamas. He had spent the weekend mostly working; he pulled some overtime because someone called in sick. He read and exercised in his spare time, and prayed that she’d see it his way, that she understood that this child needed to be born.
After an interminable silence, she finally said, “so, you wanna go down to city hall to get married, or were you thinking a big church thing?”
He was on his knees, no recollection of how he had righted himself. He grasped hard at the edge of a lab bench. His ears rang and his vision swam, and he was pretty sure he had cracked his head on something. Everything was beautiful and profound. Each breath was a prayer, each heartbeat danced to the rhythm of the stars. He had to protect; he would die trying to protect Lis—no, Red. He would tear the world apart with his bare hands if that was what it took. He closed his eyes to fight off the dizziness from the drugs and emotions. When he opened them again, he was back in the lab. Fishbowl was gone and Red was lying in front of him, and every impulse in his body screamed “protect, protect…”The world was too loud, too bright. He could smell the blood. He focused on that and realized that he could smell three people’s blood. He dimly registered that it probably belonged to him, Red, and Fishbowl. Red was making noise, so he must be alive. The room was noisy. Right. Gas cylinders. Regulators broken, knobs missing. His vision swam again. The room was also cold and getting colder. Two dewars, one labeled liquid nitrogen, the other liquid helium both had busted regulators. “Liquid helium. That would make terrible party balloons,” he thought stupidly. He willed his brain to knock off the shit and focus. Cryogenic liquid was shooting out onto the floor, little blobs of it dancing across the tile. What looked to Frank like smoke was quickly covering the floor, which was, quite literally, freezing. He knew he had to get them out of there or they’d suffocateRed stirred again. “Dad? Daddy? Daddy!” His hands groped at the air. “They shot him.” His voice cracked. “They shot him in the head because he wouldn’t throw a fight.”Jesus fuckin’ Christ, thought Frank. He fought down the bile in his throat and ignored his heart pounding in his ears, ignored the fact that he could hear another heartbeat in the room. The solid surfaces seemed less solid, then more solid. He willed his arms to find Red’s body. He could feel when he made contact, even though his eyes said his hands were inside Red’s torso. With effort, he hoisted Red into a fireman’s carry, which was about as easy as trying to thread a needle while wearing catcher’s mitts. Whatever was in that powder was giving him a fucking trip, and the low oxygen environment wasn’t helping. He wasn’t sure if he was wading through the fog blanketing the floor, or the floor itself, but he made what felt like an amphibious egress out the back door.“Columbia Law,” mumbled Red happily as his head lolled.“Yeah, that’s where you went to school,” Frank agreed. He shifted Red’s weight on his shoulders, while another flashback threatened to make him lose touch with reality again.
He’d seen injuries; gunshots and lacerations mostly, but in all his time in the service, he never had trouble with blood. Some guys got light-headed, especially at first, but it didn’t affect him much.

He had never seen anything like this, though.

Seeing his child birthed from his wife, was a one-of-a-kind experience. To be honest, it reminded him a little of a horror movie; blood and fluid and something mostly human shaped emerging from a mass of flesh. He felt a little dizzy, and then his vision went black. The next thing he knew, he was seated in a chair in the delivery room. Once the nurses were certain he would be okay, they asked if he was ready to hold his daughter. Unable to find his voice, he managed a nod.
Maria, who had been holding the child, passed what looked like a bundle of blankets to one of the nurses, who in turn placed the baby in Frank’s arms. He wasn’t used to holding babies; he was an only child and never had much interest in other children growing up. He felt like he wasn’t holding her securely enough, but that if he held on any more tightly he’d crush her. The room was bright, and when he bowed his head to look at her, his shadow fell across her face. She slowly opened her eyes, gray-blue and unfocused, but trying, saw her father, and slowly closed them, content that she was safe. He said to her, sotto voce, “I am not worthy to receive you…” and placed a delicate kiss on her perfect forehead.  When his fucked up mind allowed him to return to the present, he was slumped against a brick wall, gasping for breath, and had fallen hard on one knee. With effort, he reoriented himself. He was not holding his perfect daughter for the first time. He was a middle-aged man carrying a babbling Catholic lawyer vigilante dressed like the devil. He closed his eyes briefly, which made the ground seem more solid.“…’lectra,” Matt mumbled.“Pull it together, Red. Those senses of yours picking up anything? Fishbowl still around?” He wasn’t sure how much time his latest trip down memory lane had cost them.“I can taste the starlight,” was Matt’s spacey response.“Great, Red. That’s real helpful.”Matt’s body stiffened slightly as he picked up his head. “No…,” he slurred. “I dunno… I can’t sense anything. I can’t sense you!” he finished in a panicked voice. “Where’s your heartbeat! Are you dead, Frank?! Are you a vampire?!”Frank vowed to beat the ever-living shit out of Fishbowl as soon as gravity acted like earth gravity and not moon gravity again. Then he would beat the ever-living shit out of whoever Fishbowl was working for, because whatever this was, it ran deeper than just the latest drug du jour.Slowly but steadily, willing himself to continue, he made his way back to his safe house, which was mercifully close. It was late enough and dark enough that he could stick to the alleys and the shadows. And so they passed unnoticed, Matt occasionally babbling about the highs and lows of his childhood, Frank experiencing his own euphoria and despair snippets of births and deaths, kills and triumphs flashed through his mind.He didn’t so much walk through the door as stumble, violating noise discipline a thousand ways. He kicked the door shut behind him, made his way to his cot and deposited Red on it. He put a hand against the wall and closed his eyes to steady himself, because the world was getting soft again. When he opened them, he saw his newborn daughter swaddled and sleeping peacefully in a hospital bassinette.He ran to the toilet and threw up. The world started to go mushy again, and he gave up fighting the surreality.
“We need air support! We’re getting fucking murdered down here! I’ve got three dead and four wounded, including Lieutenant Choi.” Staff Sergeant Castle yelled into the radio. “Forget about the fucking air strip. We can’t hold it!”

“Negative. Hold your position. You’ll have ground support in thirty. Congratulations on your Commission, Lieutenant Castle,” came the all-too-calm voice of Major Schoonover from his radio.

“We won’t last thirty!”

“Hold the airstrip, Castle. That’s an order.”

Frank cursed Schoonover, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and God, in that order. He turned to what was left of his men and saw his despair reflected in their faces. He steeled himself, and relayed the Colonel’s orders. He ordered Murphy and Jones to try and flank them from the south, knowing they’d have the best chance of surviving. When he saw it wouldn’t work, even with him on overwatch, he ordered them back. Frank got a clear shot, so he took it. The man who was stalking Murphy and Jones fell in his spot, but the shot drew the attention of the other dozen men. Garcia, his spotter, murmured wind speed and distance numbers in his ear, so he took another shot and watched another man fall. The fray of the battle fell away, and he gave into the primal, raging beast that had been lurking inside him since childhood. When they were forced out of their nest, they moved to another spot and continued picking off the enemy, even as the enemy was picking off their men. Long distance shooting turned into close quarters shooting, turned in to “grab your fucking knife and stay alive.”

When it was all over, everyone on the battlefield was wounded or dead except him. Even Garcia had gotten hit; he wouldn’t bleed out, but he was in a shit ton of pain and not fit for anything but convalescing for the next month. The interminable thirty minutes finally passed, and Schoonover himself finally arrived. Frank stood there, dirt, sweat, and blood smeared across his face and body, Ka-Bar still clutched tightly in his right hand. His teeth were bared in a crazed, feral approximation of a grin that the Schoonover mistook for a mask of triumph.
It was Red screaming “I’m going to kill you!” that snapped Frank out of Kandahar and back into New York. His rational mind registered that he heard it in English, not Pashto, as he stumbled to his feet. He had to steady himself against the sink because whatever was in that powder made moving his head too fast a bad idea. By that time, he’d registered that there was no imminent threat to his life, so his fight instinct was tempered into annoyance, and then concern when he remembered that he hauled the fucking altar boy back from that goat rodeo of a drug bust.“Red.” Matt flailed his limbs, fighting an imaginary opponent. “RED!” he bellowed.Matt regained enough of his mind to recognize that he was punching at the air while flat on his back. “What? Who is that? Frank? Where am I? What happened?” he asked in an increasingly panicked voice. “I can’t see!”Frank waited a beat to see if Red was lapsing into another hallucination.“Frank, I—I can’t—my ears!” Red flailed his arms in front of him, groping desperately at the air. “Where are you?”“Your senses blown?” Frank asked. Whatever else could be said of Frank, he wasn’t unperceptive. What he did, both now and in a past life as a Marine, he needed to be sharp, to notice details. He knew Red had an uncanny senses of hearing and smell and who knew what else. Point was, the kid’s senses were superb; possibly superhuman.“I—I can’t see,” Red replied with a note of despair.“Mm,” was Frank’s only response. “I need you to get that helmet off. You took a bullet to the head. It’s dented, and you probably have a concussion.”“Claire.” Matt pawed at a discreet pocket on his suit. Frank saw what he was doing. He knew that if he was still having trouble with solid objects, Red, who’d gotten a hundred times the dose he got, must be whacked out of his fucking gourd. So he moved Red’s hand with more gentleness than was strictly necessary, and opened the pocket for him. The only thing inside was a flip phone.“First contact.” Matt slurred. “Claire. Nurse. She’ll help.” He sank back into a fugue state. “It’s my fault he died,” he declared with sadness.“Your fault who died,” Frank questioned absently, powering on the phone and dialing the first contact as Red asked. “Fishbowl? Nah, he escaped.”“Dad, I’m so sorry.” Matt’s voice wavered.A new wave of empathy and pity and compassion for the pathetic vigilante in front of him washed over Frank. His urge was to hold him and assure him that no one would ever hurt anyone again, and then go punish the sonsabitches who did this to him. To both of them.On the other end of the line, a woman’s voice answered. “Matt? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”Frank held the phone to Matt’s mouth, but Matt seemed only capable of repeating something that might’ve been “I’m sorry” over and over again. “Matt?! What’s wrong? Where are you? Why did you call?” demanded the voice on the phone.Frank sighed and put the phone to his ear. “Matt’s hurt. I think he got drugged. He told me to call this number, and then started hallucinating again.”“Who is this?” demanded the voice that was presumably Claire.“Doesn’t matter. He’s safe with me.”“I’m not going anywhere until I know who you are.”“…Frank.”“Frank. Did you do this to him?”“No. But he said you’re a nurse and you’d help.”Claire paused for a beat. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Where are you?”Frank gave her the address and told her how to find the entrance.“I’ll see you both in twenty,” she replied, making it clear him leaving Matt alone was not an option.“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with resignation.

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True to her word, Claire showed up twenty minutes later. She recognized Frank immediately, who held up his open hands in front of him in an “I mean no harm” gesture. She took stock of the room, which was loaded with ammo crates, weapons, and field supplies.“Jesus,” she breathed.He stood aside to let her in and secured the door behind her. “He’s been like this about forty minutes, now,” he said, and gave her a brief synopsis of the events.Claire knelt beside Matt, who was still lying on his back. “Matt,” she called, donning nitrile gloves.Matt showed a glimmer of recognition and lucidity, but immediately fell back into his fever dream, his mouth forming words without sound. Then his body started twitching, as though absorbing invisible blows.  Frank offered her the mask he’d gotten off of Red with some effort, now sealed in a plastic bag. He pointed out the residual powder on the nose and cheekbone parts. She checked his pulse and temperature, and noted that both were elevated.“You get hit, too?” she asked over her shoulder.“I’m fine,” Frank replied.“You can drop the stoic act,” she shot back as she got to her feet to check Frank’s pulse and temperature. He batted her hands away. “Knock it off, or I call the cops,” she threatened.“Call the cops and I shoot him.”“If you were going to shoot him, you would’ve done it already,” she dismissed, reaching again to check his pulse while looking at her watch. “Yours is elevated, too, but not as badly as his. What are the other symptoms?”He gave clinical descriptions of the hallucinations, omitting the personal details. “It’s like the most intense dream. And then the walls start melting and the floor turns into quicksand.”“And the hallucinations are actually memories, just very vivid,” she confirmed.He nodded.“Matt thought that it might be a new street drug, or maybe MGH?”“Yeah. I had heard it was bad meth. Maybe it was both,” he said with a shrug.Claire sighed. “I know a guy who might be able to help. I’ve never treated MGH, but these aren’t the side effects of that. Or of any other drug I know of. Unless it was a combination of three or four, but then his heart would’ve exploded. You said the lab looked high tech, even though it was small?”He confirmed and gave her the location, which she recognized as a somewhat rundown industrial area.“I’m taking this, too.” She held up the grocery bag that contained the sealed helmet. Claire regarded Frank with a practiced eye. His body had gone rigid, he was clutching at the table in front of him, and his eyes were unfocused. “You having another episode?”Frank snapped back to the present and nodded.“What was it?” she asked in a clinical voice, masking her curiosity.He gave her a complicated look. “My first kill.”Claire stared back, nodded sharply, and headed for the door, already pulling out her phone to call ahead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Get him out of his armor. He needs to cool down. If his fever gets any worse, use cold compresses. You know where to put them?”Frank nodded.“Good.”  She looked him over. “Take care of yourself, too.”“Yeah,” Frank grunted as she departed.Claire hadn’t been to the Village in long time, and she hadn’t seen Stephen Strange, MD in even longer. They knew each other from their early days in medicine; she was an RN with a couple of years under her belt, he was just starting his residency. He was getting the shit kicked out of him, as new residents do, but despite punishing shifts and the mental stress, he excelled, first in emergency and then brilliantly in surgery. His ego grew exponentially with his reputation, and he treated most of the nurses with little regard. He never got too arrogant with her, because he knew she knew she could always remind him of his first rotation where he nearly killed a patient had she not caught the error on the chart. She never held it over him, though, which earned her as much gratitude as he was capable of back in those days. For his part, he saw that she was the best among her peers and respected her for that. They dated once, but he really wasn’t her type. They stayed cordial, though, even after the accident that cost him his career. She knew about his lost weekend in Tibet, and when he came back it was like he was hellbent on living up to his name.She was calling on him late, but he was a night owl. Maybe the spirit world preferred the nighttime. She sure as hell didn’t know.  “Hi Wong.” Claire smiled at the Asian man who answered the door.“Ms. Temple,” he acknowledged with a twinkle in his eye and a small bow.“You know it’s just Claire,” she teased back, completing their established greeting. She had called ahead to Wong, who would actually answer his phone, and confirmed that Stephen was both in and on this astral plane.“I’ll go get him. Wait here, please.” He gestured to a brocade couch.Claire settled herself on the ostentatious sofa. Just as she was about to pick up what looked like a polished bone that might’ve been decoration or might’ve been mystical, Stephen walked in. “Admiring my latest acquisition?”“What is it?” she asked, holding it up and examining it from all angles. “Feels like a real bone, but I don’t know what animal. It’s not from a human, and it doesn’t have a human analogue.“It’s the baculum of a raccoon.” “Baculum?” she asked, inspecting it with some curiosity.“Os penis. Penis bone.”“Aaah,” she acknowledged, setting it down gingerly using a pincer grasp.“Southerners believe it’s good luck, but as with many things, they are misguided. It has no mystical properties, though it is an excellent conversation piece.”“You having a lot of people over?” she prodded.“Not really,” he conceded. “What brings you here at this hour?”“Doesn’t your all-seeing eye or whatever know things like that?” He gave her a look, and she sighed. “I’ve got a couple of vigilantes who are tripping on something I’ve never seen before. And given the circles one of them runs in, I’m not even sure if it’s a drug or something more in your area of expertise. Your current one, that is.”He nodded. “Tell me what you know of it.”She relayed all that Frank had told her, mentioning that they were trying to clear out an illicit drug lab. “One got a trace contact, probably inhalation, maybe ingestion. The other inhaled a lot and ingested some. They’re both hallucinating, but it’s not your standard walls melting thing, ‘I can see the music,’ ego death crap. It’s like they’re reliving the most intense moments of their lives, and responding to it viscerally.” She offered him the package she was carrying. “You can look, but don’t open the sealed bag. The less affected one said that when he removed it from the other one, he got another buzz.“Do these ‘tripping vigilantes’ have names?” he said as he accepted the bag.“I told them I’d protect their identities. Enhanced Individuals, though I’m not sure if they’re both enhanced. And then there’s the legality angle. And HIPAA.” She gestured toward the package. “But it’ll be pretty obvious when you see it.”“I don’t have a lab here,” he responded in a tone as close to apologetic as he ever got. “From the description, though, it sounds like it’s not mystical. There are no tentacles or messages scrawled on the walls?”“Definitely not,” she confirmed, experiencing revulsion and relief in equal measure.  She gestured towards the package. “You still haven’t looked. That might help change your mind.”Strange removed the lump from the bag and unwrapped the brown paper. He held up the helmet, careful not to dislodge any of the residue still coating it. “Daredevil,” he murmured. “He took on the Hand in Hell’s Kitchen.” He carefully rewrapped the helmet in the paper and placed it back in the bag. “He doesn’t know what resides beneath his neighborhood.”Claire mentally filed that away for when Matt was back in fighting trim. Not that she wanted to encourage his self-destructive behavior, but she was also acknowledged that Hand was a real threat.“Do you know the address of the lab? I will astrally project myself and see what I can ascertain.”She gave him the information and then watched curiously as he went into a meditative trance.“It is unoccupied, but trashed. The fire department has been there. Probably a small explosion. Most likely condensed liquid oxygen from the cryogenic lines.”“I was told it was just liquid nitrogen and helium.” She wasn’t all that fond of chemistry, but she certainly knew what was explosive and flammable, and what wasn’t.“They’re both cold enough to cause the oxygen in the air to condense,” he explained. “Whoever they were fighting didn’t really put them in much danger. These vigilantes of yours, they’re intelligent?”“One’s very bright. I don’t know about the other, but he’s shrewd and they’ve both avoided capture, which has gotta count for something,” she affirmed.He hummed a little note of acknowledgment. “They really must have been ‘tripping’ if they couldn’t figure out how to put the knobs back on the regulators, or ventilate the place. All I saw was inert gases. He just tried to asphyxiate them.” Stephen thought for a minute. “I have an idea that might get you some answers.” He froze for a few minutes. When he was back in his body, he gestured for her to gather her things.“You drove here?” he asked.She held up her keys and jangled them.Stephen nodded. “He’s expecting us. Let me get my cloak and we’ll go."“Cloak. Of course you wear a cloak,” she said flatly. Claire was a New Yorker, born and raised. Not much fazed her, but she still couldn’t believe he’d traded in his white coat for a cloak. “So, where are we going?”“Stark Tower.”She briefly wondered if he was bullshitting her, but then considered who she was dealing with. She shrugged and they started towards midtown.He directed her towards a private entrance, greeting the A.I. by name and conversing with her on the elevator ride up.“Stephen, Steve, Strange, good to see you,” was Tony’s enthusiastic greeting. Claire briefly wondered if they were imposing, but given that he seemed wide awake and was covered in machine oil, she figured he had been working, too. “You have some mystery powder to analyze? You can have run of the lab, or better yet, you can have a genius be your hands and eyes.” He eyed Claire up and down. “Not to say that your very beautiful assistant isn’t smart. You need a job? What do you do? Magic? Medicine? Magical medicine?”“I’m an RN, and I work in a free clinic up in Harlem. Doing evidence based medicine,” she responded, cutting through Tony’s charm and giving a Stephen a mischievous glance.“There is plenty of evidence for magic,” Stephen retorted haughtily.“Oh, and Stephen, my man, you gotta quit popping in on me like that,” Tony said, diverting the subject back to one of his favorite topics, namely, himself. “Nearly gave me a heart attack. I’m a cardiac patient, you know. And then you’d be responsible for the death of a beloved, brilliant, charming, futurist. People would never get their 7th gen Starkphones. It’d be madness on the streets of Manhattan. And besides, it was kinda B&E. Friday?”“What now?” replied the vaguely Irish-sounding A.I.“Does astrally projecting oneself into the domicile of another without permission or a warrant count as breaking and entering?”“There are no statues in New York regarding unwanted astral projections,” responded the disembodied voice.“So I can’t press charges?”“It would be a futile effort and a waste of your legal department’s time.”Stephen made to protest.“Kidding! I mean, I invited you over, even after you showed up unannounced. So, what’s this mysterious chemical that will soon be flooding the streets?Claire handed him the bag containing the helmet. Tony accepted it and peeked inside. “Daredevil? I don’t know if I should work on this. He isn’t registered.” He inspected the helmet more closely.“Daredevil isn’t an Avenger, and he doesn’t do international peacekeeping,” she retorted, finally able to get a word in edgewise. Thankfully, Tony seemed to accept that as a reasonable argument and shut his mouth for a few seconds. She gave him a rundown of the symptoms, with Stephen filling in relevant information he’d gotten when he astrally visited the lab.“Should be easy enough,” Tony replied, depositing the sealed helmet into the airlock of a glove box. He scraped off as much of the powder as he could and prepped it for various assays. Once he’d extricated the samples from the glove box, he fed them into various machines. “I wish I could just point a laser at it and tell you what it is, but even though my lab might look futuristic, and it is, we still need a minimum threshold of material. These machines, however, are the best in the world and can analyze picograms of material.” He paused as though waiting for her to gush over how smart he was or how great his inventions were.Claire uncrossed her arms from her chest enough to point vaguely at her head and respond, “this is my impressed face.”Tony smirked. “You seem like a New Yorker. Are you from you from New York?”“Born and raised,” she confirmed easily. She’d seen way too much, growing up in Harlem, working in an ER for years, to be fazed by much, including a billionaire businessman glopping on the charm the way trendy bakers piled frosting on cupcakes.Tony considered the helmet, which he’d rebagged and handed back to Claire. “That… is really nice craftsmanship, and the material isn’t cheap. Who would have access to the money and the materials, and be crazy enough to do it?” He thought for a minute and snapped his fingers. “Spector. Is it Marc Spector? Please say it’s Spector. He has the means, and he’s batshit enough to do it.”“Marc Spector, the real estate speculator?” Claire shrugged. “Don’t all you billionaires know each other? Ask him if you’re so sure.”“I’ve combined the results and given you the best match for the chemical structure,” interjected the vaguely Irish voice from all around them. Three different images of the molecule appeared on the HUD in front of them. “As you can see, there are aromatics, amides, alcohols, aldehydes...”“Skip the intro organic chemistry lesson and get to the punch,” Tony interrupted.“…which all combine to form a molecule that has not yet been reported in any peer-reviewed journal,” continued the disembodied voice with a hint of asperity. “It’s really quite elegant, and in tiny doses it could have great therapeutic uses. It crosses the blood brain barrier, but you already knew that. It likely mimics neurotransmitters. It’s probably causing something like serotonin storm. Were their pulses and temperatures okay?”Claire nodded. “Both were elevated, but not dangerous.” She felt a little silly speaking to the room, but Tony and Stephen though nothing of it, so she went along.“Then you’ll just have to wait for them to come down. The other thing to worry about, however, is that methanol is likely to be one of the metabolites,” Friday finished.Stephen turned to Tony. “I don’t suppose you have any fomepizole in your medical wing? Or IV ethanol?”Friday responded for Tony. “I’m sorry, we don’t. Tony has not yet developed the habit of drinking copier fluid.”“Note to self, adjust Fridays sass levels next time I tweak the code,” Tony snarked, trying to salvage a little dignity.Next to her, Stephen smirked. “Well, you know the alternate treatment.” His ego had been humbled after losing his career as a surgeon, but he still felt the need to prove that he was medically and magically relevant, despite Friday’s snarky answers.“What, get them drunk?” she asked incredulously. “But the ethanol is going to exacerbate the effects of the serotonin syndrome.”“Yes, but it will prevent them from going blind or dying of liver failure,” he countered. “Get them drunk and then start normal saline.”“How long will it take for the drug to wear off, do you think?” Claire asked.Strange shrugged. “I couldn’t guess at the half life. It could be hours, though it probably won’t be. It could be weeks, which is also unlikely. It’s also likely that they’ll have flashbacks, so to speak.”“I agree with Dr. Strange’s analysis,” Friday interjected. “The closest analogue I could find has a serum half-life of approximately 17 days in Caucasian adult males.”“Well, there you go,” Tony said. “Mystery solved, crisis averted. Do you need a ride back? I can get you a driver.”Claire grimaced. “Thanks, Mr. Stark. I have my car, though.” She wasn’t going to make it easy for him to trace them back to Frank’s safe house.Tony accepted her proffered hand. “It was fun. If you decide you want to live the glamorous life of a superhero doctor-”“I’m a nurse,” she interjected.“Superhero nurse,” he corrected with a wave of his hand, indicating that he didn’t much care about the difference, “let me know. I can get you on the Avengers field team.”“Thanks, but your people will be covered regardless. I’d rather stick with helping those who wouldn’t be helped otherwise.”Tony shrugged in acceptance. “Your choice. Standing offer. Friday, show them to medical and have her take whatever supplies she needs.” He walked over to his wet bar, because of course he had a wet bar in his shop next to toxic chemicals and power tools. “Take this, too.” He handed her a bottle each of Macallan, Laphroaig, and Grey Goose. “Since the good doc there prescribed booze,” he explained when she gave him a weird look. “I won’t be responsible for people drinking bad stuff, especially medicinally.”Claire accepted the bottles, half dumbfounded, half grateful. Tony showed them to the elevator, and Friday guided them to medical, where she got IV supplies, sutures, gauze, bandages, antibiotics, and various other things she thought might come in handy.She turned to Stephen. “C’mon, let’s get you home.” She shook her keys.  “No need,” he said. “I’ll fly home.”“Fly,” she replied in an “are you fucking kidding me” tone.“Fly,” he affirmed. “You mocked the cloak, but it’s not called the ‘Cloak of Levitation’ for nothing.” He nodded at her as the stepped out into the night. “Be safe, Claire. Take care of your vigilantes,” he implored before taking off.Claire shook her head. She prided herself in her world-weary “only in New York” response to most of the city’s absurdities, but her current company was really pushing the limits of that.

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Once back at the safe house, Claire unloaded her haul. She handed Frank a digital thermometer. He tried to brush it aside, but she used her stern nurse face, the one that made thugs in the ER behave (mostly). He scowled but acquiesced, managing to seem menacing even with a digital thermometer hanging out of his mouth.“How’s he been?” She gestured toward Matt, who was still lying on his side, whimpering softly to himself.Frank shrugged. “’Bout the same. He’s been stuck at nine years old or so for the past ten minutes, so treat him like a kid, maybe.”Claire made her way over to Matt, checking his temperature and pulse. “He hasn’t changed physically,” she agreed.The thermometer beeped, and Frank held it out to her.“102.9. Definitely a fever, not dangerous, though.”“My pulse is 90, which is high for me, but also not dangerous,” Frank offered.“And the auditory and visual symptoms?”“They come and go.”“Well, that’s just going to make this next part that much more fun.” She set the liquor bottles down on an ammo case and gave him a false cheery grin. “You’re both going to get methanol poisoning and destroy your livers and maybe go blind or die if you don’t get really drunk really fast.”Frank inspected the bottles. “You sprung for good stuff?”“A present from a friend.”He shrugged and grabbed Laphroaig. “My ma told me not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not gonna complain about free booze. Irish coffee?” he suggested, pointing to his coffee pot.“Nuh uh.” Claire shook her head. “Really drunk, really fast. Man up and do your shots.”Frank gave her a look, but acquiesced and poured out two shots worth into the lid of his thermos. He screwed up his face as he tossed it back, and then did it all again. “He getting drunk, too?” Frank gestured toward Matt with his chin.“You’re getting drunk. He’s getting as close to alcohol poisoning as I can get him, and then you’re both getting intravenous normal saline.”“I got some in my medical supplies.” He gestured broadly with the hand holding his cup, sloshing peaty scotch on the floor.Claire looked where he was pointing. “Of course you do. Why wouldn’t you,” she asked rhetorically, in a “what the hell has my life become” voice. “You can save yours, though. The alcohol donor also gave me enough medical supplies to get you two through the night, and then some.”“This alcohol donor have a name?”“Do you really want to know?”Frank let it go and tossed back another shot.“Matt, I need you to sit up.” Claire knelt by his shoulder.“No, Stick, please, don’t leave,” he pleaded in a piteous voice, but he complied and sat up, leaning back against the cinderblock wall.“No one’s going to leave you. I need you to drink this, though. It’ll help you get better.” She reached for the bottle of Macallan and poured out a generous portion. She held the cup to his lips. “It might taste funny, but medicine always does.”Matt took a sip. A mischievous look snuck across his face. “That’s not medicine. My dad gave me this once,” he slurred. “Right before I stitched him up.” He smiled a wistful smile. Frank looked over, his face creased with concern and pity in response to Matt’s latest confession.“Well, you can have a much as you’d like tonight.” She placed the bottle on an ammo case next to his cot and guided his hand to it. “Drink straight from the bottle, if you want.”“That’s how I had it when my dad gave it to me.”Claire smiled sadly turned to Frank. “How many have you had?”“…’bout six shots' worth. I think.” His eyes were glassy and his head tilted ever-so-slightly to one side, as though it was too heavy to keep upright.“You gonna keep it down?”He nodded.“Good. Keep your buzz going. In a little bit, I’ll start IVs for both of you.”Frank was fine, but Matt needed some wrangling to keep him the right level of drunk. After they'd been very drunk but not blacking out for some time, she turned to Frank. “How are your flashbacks going?”He grunted in response.“Gonna need more information than that.”“It’s not medically relevant,” he said between clenched teeth.She turned to face him fully. “Look, I’m here. I’ve treated you both. I haven’t called the cops, and I’m not going to. But Matt’s pretty goddamn gone, so I can’t get any info out of him. You, however, are lucid. You called me, so how ‘bout you get over your macho ego bullshit and work with me.”He expelled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and with it his body seemed to deflate. “The first hallucination was the worst and strongest. I relived the day my family died. I felt everything. The grass, the cool breeze, the warmth of my daughter’s body. I smelled the blood. I smelled the turkey sandwiches we’d packed. There were other memories. They weren’t like dreams, where you just hear and see. It was all the senses It felt so real.” He gestured towards Matt. “I think he relived his father’s death and when he went blind.” He held up the bottle of bourbon. “Can I be done with this now?”Claire wasn't sure if she imagined his voice wavering or not, but either way, he looked pretty wrecked, and not just from the alcohol. She shook her head. “Keep drinking and keep talking. You can switch to Irish coffee now, if you want. Are all the memories painful?”Frank hesitated.“Skip the salacious details, if you want, but I worked in an ER for years, so not much shocks me anymore.”“No. Some of them are good. Powerful, though," Frank replied at length.Claire nodded. “How frequent? When was the last one?”“I don’t know how frequent. I’ve lost time, I think. The last one was right before you started asking me about them.”She accepted what he was able to offer. “What about Matt. What else did he say when I was gone? Was it just about his dad and his blindness?”“Almost all his were bad. I think he was telling Helen Keller jokes at one point, though.”Claire smirked. “Were his flashbacks as frequent as yours?”“More.” Frank thought for a moment. “Almost continuous. He kept reliving the one where he found his dad’s body in the alley. Had that one probably four times. That one’s the worst.”She checked her watch. “Ok, it’s IV time.” She grabbed a tourniquet and an alcohol swab.Frank protested when she tried to tie off the tourniquet on his arm. “I can do it,” he protested.“You can start your own IV,” she asked flatly.“I’ve done it before,” he responded tersely.Claire waited.“Learned in the service.”She nodded in acceptance, realizing that that was probably all she’d get. “Well, since you’re three and a half sheets to the wind, I’ll do it for you tonight.” He made a noise to protest, but she cut him off. “You probably can’t even see straight, let alone aim a needle at a vein. I, on the other hand, have started IV lines in newborns. You know how small those veins are?.”He acquiesced and proffered his left arm.She tied the tourniquet pressed her finger on a couple of veins. She gave him a thorough isopropyl swab, a quick needle stick, attached the bag, and hung it from a hook on the wall.”“Thanks,” he slurred ever-so-slightly.Claire paused. “Yeah, no problem.” She touched his shoulder gently as she moved past him to tend to Matt, who was still clutching the bottle of scotch like her cousin’s three year old clutched his sippy cup. “Matt, I need to put a needle in your arm so that I can give you more medicine.”“I don’t like needles,” replied the panicked voice of a nine year old boy who had been subjected to a battery of tests. “Please, no more tests. I’m fine! My eyes don’t hurt anymore. My head doesn’t hurt anymore!”She cradled his jaw in her hand and tipped his face towards hers. “Matt, it’s not more testing. I won’t take any blood. It’ll be one little stick, one bag of medicine and then it’s over.”A flicker of recognition passed over his face, then the slack look of adolescent Matt, and finally Matt Murdock, the adult lawyer who beat the shit out of people while wearing a devil suit was fully present. “I can’t… I can’t sense anything. I can’t see anything!”She sighed. “Matt, you’re blind. You’ve been blind for twenty years.”“I don’t even see the world on fire.”Frank sat up when he heard that, but Claire ignored him. “You’ve been dosed with a chemical. You’re drinking ethanol to keep the methanol from turning into formaldehyde. I’m going to give you an IV with saline to help with the drug and the hangover.”Matt nodded. Claire used the brief respite to start his IV line. She finished just in time, because his face went slack and he fell into another episode.“No, no, please! Sister Agatha, it wasn’t my fault! I didn’t-please, no! I didn’t do it! I’m sorry!” he finished with a piteous cry. Frank looked at Claire, stricken. Claire shrugged helplessly.“Matt, you’re safe. No one can hurt you,” Claire tried.“I didn’t steal it!” he protested. His body relaxed and he slumped against the wall. She rotated his shoulders so he could lie down fully, which he did.Matt jerked and whimpered in his not-quite-sleep. Claire rubbed at her face. “Okay. I’m not getting any sleep tonight, but I’m not babysitting him or you tomorrow. So you get a few hours of sleep, and I’m gone by sun up.”“I can’t take care of him,” he protested.“Not my problem. I promised him that when he really needed it, I’d fix him up. I’ve done that. He’ll be okay. If he takes a turn for the worse you can call me. Other than that, I’d suggest maybe calling his old law partner or their paralegal.” She paused for a beat. “You should consider moving him to his apartment. I can help you with that if you want.” She handed him a blanket, which he accepted.“We’ll move him before sunrise.” He started to drift off. “Thanks.”“You’re welcome,” Claire said with a sad sigh. She eyed the bottle of vodka, gave a “what the hell” shrug, and took a swig. “See you in the morning.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

When he first started courting Vanessa, he thought of her as his Madonna; beautiful, perfect, immaculate. He knew now that she was not that. Not that she was a whore; by no means was that accurate, and he would end anyone who would insinuate as much. But she was as ruthless as he was. She could see beauty in cruelty, and she understood sometimes cruelty was necessary. She was, to put it poetically, a kindred spirit.He proposed to her. Of course he proposed to her. It was a beautiful diamond that Wesley picked out because Wesley knew about such things, knew what to look for and knew what a cultured, refined woman such as Vanessa would value. He didn’t want to propose on a rooftop, bracing against the downdraft of a helicopter preparing to separate them for who knew how long, but needs had musted, and so he did.At first, he tried to keep her out of the dirty side of her business, and it worked until she, in so many words, said she gave her blessing to all of the messier parts of his life. So they developed a way passing messages to each other. These messages weren’t written down; there would be no paper trail for this, physical or otherwise. No, this required archaic, byzantine, and in many ways, sexier, planning. Electronic accounts and money hidden offshore were all well and good. They’d certainly be of the utmost importance in bring his plans to fruition, but that wouldn’t be the most crucial, most satisfying part of this game.He deeply resented incarceration. It was tedious and tiresome, but it was tolerable, and he could bide his time. The time also gave him time to think and plan. He was going to destroy Matthew Murdock. Matthew Murdock who had the gall to enter the prison and threaten his beloved. Matthew Murdock who tracked him (her) down to Vanessa’s gallery. Matthew Murdock who had been at the heart of the resistance during the tenement case.Vanessa resented Murdock, but she viewed him as a small, irritating player who would be easily crushed. She viewed Daredevil, however, as the reason they were separated. She wanted his hide, and he was happy to let her plot his destruction. She had some plan to render him and other vigilantes useless. He didn’t have the full details, nor did he need them. He trusted she would succeed.  He was currently having his associates research Matthew Murdock’s life. There wasn’t much; a couple of friends and acquaintances, not much family. That he would destroy them was a given, but it was the “not much family” that intrigued him. Because “not much family” was not the same as “no family.” And the best part was that Matthew Murdock didn’t even know about his “not much family.”This would be one to savor, Fisk thought, as he pawed at his wine glass and contemplated the white wall of his cell.***
The sun came up that day, just as it always did, even though Dan was gone.

He’d seen death before. He saw a cat get hit by a car when he was six. He saw his nonna breathe her last, after a protracted battle with cancer. He saw a dozen men fall down through the scope of his rifle. Somehow, he figured being this close to one of his own dying would feel different, but it didn’t. It just felt like death, that is, like one more thing that happens in life. Dan Shapiro was his closest buddy in the Corps. They’d served side by side for years. They’d bunked together, shared rations, socks, the occasional skin mag. They had the sort of bond that could only be forged through countless hours of idleness and having gone through some truly awful shit that civilians couldn’t understand. And now, Corporal Shapiro was bleeding out in front of him.

Their convoy got hit by an IED. The Humvee ahead of them took the full brunt of the blast, but his vehicle still got blown to shit. Dan’s arm was shredded, and his left leg was pinned and likely crushed. Shrapnel was lodged in his torso, and blood was pooling out of his stomach. His lips moved futilely; whatever his final words were, maybe a message, or a prayer, or a curse, was lost to the world. His eyes closed, his chest rose for the final time, and he was gone.

Frank waited for grief or rage or something to hit, but it didn’t. He chalked it up to shock; after all, he just got blown to shit, too, and maybe the close call was fucking with his ability to understand that his buddy just died right in front of him.

Once he was cleared by medical, though, he still felt… okay. He was sad his buddy was gone, but it just felt like another death, no different from his nonna’s, or what seemed like a neverending string of great aunts and uncles and distant cousins. Some tears, some food, some prayers, and the world keeps turning. There was no rage or anger at the randomness of it, no survivors guilt. He knew it wasn’t his fault and that there was nothing he could’ve done to prevent it.
Frank opened his eyes. It took him a second to orient himself and remember where he was. He took in the bare brick and unfinished wood of Red’s apartment. Claire told him he had to take care of Red, and all of his instincts were telling him he had to take care of Red. He hoped Red recovered quickly, because, goddamnit, he was not used to worrying about another person.***Karen climbed the stairs to Matt’s apartment with an armful of groceries. Their relationship was not an effortless one, but it was something they both wanted and were willing to work at. They’d had a spat the day before. He was tired and she was stressed, which was not a winning combination. She thought they were going to have a quiet evening in, as they had planned the day before, but he’d gotten some tip that he wanted to investigate. So, after a casual supper and some casual sex, he’d gotten his shirt halfway buttoned up before it dawned on her that he was leaving for the night to go patrol or something. She made a pissy remark about him leaving once he’d gotten what he wanted, and he escalated it. It was an old fight, one they’d had a half dozen times, and one she thought they’d resolved.She was pretty sure she was allowed to feel put off that he’d run off ten minutes after sex, but they’d resolved (or at least argued each other to a truce, or maybe just a stalemate) the Daredevil issue. So, she was up early on a Saturday with everything she needed to make blueberry pancakes. She’d apologize, he’d apologize, she’d cook him breakfast, they’d eat together in bed, and maybe have some make up sex. This wouldn’t be the first time they’d done this dance, unfortunately.It was a juggling act to get her keys out of her purse while still holding the groceries and grabbing the envelope someone had wedged between the door and the jamb, but she finally got the door open. Instead of an awkward conversation with Matt, she got Frank Castle standing around the corner of the door, a .357 in one hand out of sight of anyone who would be behind her. She stood there frozen, her mouth agape.Once Frank saw who it was he lowered the pistol, grabbed her by the elbow, and yanked her into the apartment.”“Jesus Christ, Frank!” she spat out, wrenching her arm out of his grasp. “What the hell are you doing here? Where’s Matt? Is he okay? Did you hurt him?!”“Karen...” Matt slurred. “I’m sorry, Karen…” he called from the couch.  She deposited the groceries and envelope on the counter and rushed over to Matt’s side. He mumbled something that might’ve been “I’m sorry,” a few times, pawed at her face, and passed out again.Karen rounded on Frank. “Did you do this to him?” she repeated.“Why does everyone keep assuming I did this to him?” he shot back. “He’s an infuriating, hypocritical bleeding heart but I don’t play with my food. I kill killers.” He gestured toward Matt’s crumpled form on the couch. “That ain’t my style.”Karen, realizing he was telling the truth, or at least telling what he thought was the truth, shook her head. “I’m sorry. What happened?”Frank related the events of the previous night, explaining how Matt was drugged, Claire had helped them, and then dropped them off at Matt’s place a couple of hours earlier, carefully omitting that he was also affected.“And what, you just took pity on him? Decided to nurse him back to health like a wounded puppy?” she asked bitingly, her reporter’s instincts telling her there was more to the story.Frank shifted uncomfortably. “I owed him one. My fault he got drugged. Was supposed to be me,” was his guarded response. “You okay taking care of him?”Karen sighed and rummaged through the cabinets to find the utensils she wanted. “I came over to make him apology pancakes. I’ve got enough for three, but I can’t babysit him all day. You probably have a lot of free time, being dead and all.” She thought she saw Frank wince, but it was out of the corner of her eye, and it might’ve been a trick of the light.“You got any coffee in there?” He gestured towards the bag with his chin.“No, just the stuff for pancakes. Matt has some in the cupboard.”“He’s out. Guess I’ll have to go get some later today if I’m stuck babysitting his delirious ass.”“I’m sorry Karen,” came the groggy voice from the couch. “About last night.”“Matt, I’m sorry, too. I’m making you apology pancakes, and I put your mail on the counter. We’ll continue this conversation when you’re not drugged. In the meantime, get some sleep,” she called back.“…’m not tired.”“Mmhm.” She turned to Frank. “I see what you mean about babysitting. It’s like when I used to watch my four year old cousin.” She stirred the batter ferociously.“…didn’t know you had a cousin,” Matt called back.“Matt, I say this in the nicest possible way: shut up and go to sleep.”“What mail?” he asked, holding onto the threads of the conversation, if not quite in real time.“I dunno. Something from your super, maybe. A 5x8 or so manila envelope with,” she leaned over to actually read the label on it, “just ‘Matthew Murdock’ written on it. Weird.” She shrugged.Frank snorted. “Who calls you ‘Matthew,’ Red?”Matt took a minute to respond. “Fr. Lantom. But he would probably just call me. I don’t think he’d leave an envelope on my doorstep.”“Maybe he knows you don’t answer your phone,” Karen muttered. Frank bit back a chuckle.“And my dad, when I was in trouble,” he continued, still taking conversations on his own time.“I doubt your dad’s sending you mail from beyond the grave,” Frank interjected.  “Karen, will you open it for me when you have a minute?”“Sure. As soon as I’m done cooking breakfast,” she called back, and then returned to the pancakes. “Shit.” She prodded at the broken husk of a pancake that was half-charred, half-oozing, and half-flipped.Frank peered at the skillet. “Pan’s too hot, and you didn’t grease it enough.”“Great,” she said, exasperated. “My boyfriend’s drugged, and the murderous vigilante guarding him is giving me shit about my pancakes.” She threw her hands up, one of which was still holding the spatula, which was covered in charred and gooey pancake. “You know so much, you do it.” She thrust the spatula at Frank.Frank shrugged, accepted the utensil, and set about scraping the now-blackened remains from the pan. “You overmixed the batter, too,” he said as he began pouring out a couple of circles into the freshly-greased pan.Karen ignored him and went to sit near Matt, taking the envelope with her.“Karen…” he pawed one hand through the air, about thirty degrees off of where she was sitting.“Jesus, Matt,” she breathed softly, moving in to touch his arm. He startled at the contact, which worried Karen even further.“The envelope?” he asked, tipping his head back as though he were too tired to keep it upright.She turned it over in her lap and looked at the label. “Just says ‘Matthew Murdock.’ You’re right, I don’t think it’s from Fr. Lantom’s. He had to sign some stuff for us for Grotto’s funeral. This isn’t his handwriting, unless he’s trying for creepy kidnapper or something.” She tore open the flap and extracted the contents. All it contained was two pieces of paper. She examined them, confused and unsettled.“What is it?” he asked when it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything.Karen opened and closed her mouth, trying to find the right words. “I think it’s a picture of your family,” she started.“My family?” Matt asked with understandable confusion.“It’s a man and a woman. Um, the man looks a lot like the pictures of your dad on the Battlin’ Jack Murdock posters. There’s a boy, maybe a year old, reddish brown hair and brown eyes, big smile. And there’s a woman with dark brown hair and eyes. Looks like mid eighties, from the clothes and the size of the bangs.”Matt pulled himself together as best he could, which looked a lot like a drunk swearing he could totally make it home on his own. “The woman’s wearing a denim jacket, frizzy hair,” he gestured vaguely with his hands to indicate big 80s hair. “I--the baby’s wearing a red shirt and blue overalls.”“Yeah,” Karen choked out.“My dad had that photograph in his sock drawer. I think it was the only picture he had of all three of us.”“Why would someone send you a printout of it?” Karen asked reasonably, with growing trepidation.“Don’t know,” he replied, his head lolling back and forth on the back of the sofa. Pulling it together apparently required all of his strength and willpower. He had the latter in abundance, she knew, but it was obvious is strength was tapped out. “What’s the other paper? You said there were two?”“It’s a picture of a nun. I think. It’s a woman wearing a conservative skirt, hits well below the knee, a blouse, and a head covering that just covers the top and back of her hair. ”“Nov….” Matt trailed off. His body went rigid and he tipped over on the couch. Karen startled and tried to shake him out of it.“He having a fit again?” Frank asked from the kitchen.“Yeah, he was kind of okay, and then he just… it’s like a seizure.” “It’s been happening on and off since he got dosed. Claire said it probably would continue, and not to worry unless he spiked a fever that wouldn’t come down. I’d take a step away, by the way. In case he starts punching at the air again.” He moved the stack of pancakes to the table, along with place settings for both of them. “He’s not spiking a fever, is he?”Karen confirmed he wasn’t, and sat to eat with him. She passed the photo of the nun to Frank. “What do you make of this?” she asked, as she helped herself to some pancakes that really did look quite delicious.Frank peered at the photo for a moment. “A novice, probably. Dominican, I think,” he said, sliding the photo back to her.From the couch, Matt gave a strangled cry of anguish. “Get Lantom. He would know. I need to talk to Fr. Lantom. Please, I need to…” he trailed off.Karen, who’d jumped up when he cried out, retook her seat once it was apparent that Matt was out again and not in danger. She cut into the pancakes, which looked so perfect she sort of resented it. “These are really good,” she admitted.When Frank didn’t respond, she looked up.He was sitting with his hands in his lap, eyes downcast. “Thanks,” he finally murmured. He picked up his fork and knife, and cut into his breakfast.Karen made a questioning noise and cocked an eyebrow at him.He finished chewing, wiped his mouth neatly with his napkin, and set down his utensils. “Last time I made blueberry pancakes was when I was home on leave, just about to ship out for the last time. Was Junior’s favorite.” He stared at his plate. “And here I am making them again for a strong-willed girl and someone who keeps insisting he’s really not tired, right before he passes out.”She regarded him critically. “You got drugged, too.”Frank made to protest.“Bullshit,” she cut him off. “You’re going on trips down memory lane and treating Matt like he’s your son. What’d the drugs do to you? Give you empathy again?”He bowed his head.“I’m sorry. Shit, I’m sorry. That was low.” She cut up more bites than was strictly necessary in order to buy sometime. “Go out. Do what you need to do. I’ll stay with Matt for a few hours.” He looked up. “But I meant it when I said I couldn’t stay all day. I have an appointment tonight.”They ate the remainder of the meal in silence.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt took a minute to appreciate the beauty of his surroundings. The silk sheets were the most luxurious things he’d ever felt; he’d definitely be buying a set even if it meant living on ramen for a month. The roses in the vase on the dresser lightly perfumed the air. He and Elektra were sprawled on her bed, tangled in the sheets and each other. The midmorning sun warmed them gently.

He nuzzled his face into Elektra’s hair. Her head was nestled on his chest near his shoulder. She smelled like expensive shampoo, strawberries, champagne, and sex. He supposed he did, too, minus the expensive shampoo. “Let’s never leave this room,” he murmured.

She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him through her lashes. “What, and have all the sex and champagne you want? You’d grow bored of it and restless from the lack of exercise.” She traced her finger across his chest, lightly enough to tickle.

“I don’t know about you, but I think I got enough exercise last night.” He rolled on his side to press his body against hers. “If you’re feeling antsy, maybe you should do all the work,” he teased with a smile. He leaned in to steal a kiss, and then another.

She returned the kiss. “You only enjoy it so much because you spend the rest of your time being good. It’s the naughtiness that you find so intoxicating.”

She might’ve had a point there. He was supposed to be in the library cramming for his torts exam that he was in danger of failing because he’d been out with Elektra too much already, but she had caught him on his way out Friday night and persuaded him to go for a ride. One thing led to another, and on Sunday morning he found himself unmoved from where they landed on Friday night, namely, her bed. It crossed his mind briefly that he really needed to leave and go study, but when he was with her, he didn’t care about anything except what she wanted and what felt good. He’d spent his life being a good boy, or trying. He tried to please his father by studying hard and applying to law school. He tried to please the Sisters by following the rules and saying his prayers. He tried to please Stick by learning to fight the way Stick wanted. With Elektra, he did what he wanted.

Or he thought he did. When it was all over, when she left like everyone else, all that was left was a hollowness that the shame and guilt couldn’t fill. He went back to Foggy with his tail between his legs, apologizing a little with words and a lot with actions. He begged his professor for a chance to retake the test, claiming a health issue (mental health counted). He dragged himself back to Mass for the first time in months and to confession for the first time in years, and was truly contrite, mostly. He picked up the pieces and reassembled his life. It didn’t quite match what it had been before she’d crashed into his life, but c’est la vie.Matt’s mind slowly returned to the present. He suppressed all reactions as he processed the sensory information he could pick up and made sense of his muddled memories. He was in his apartment; Claire and Frank had frog-marched him up the stairs after a night of drug use and heavy drinking. Claire’s saline drip had pretty much negated the hangover, which was nice. Frank was in his apartment, taking care of him. Karen was still pissed at him. He supposed he’d just have to let the drug run its course, and abide by Frank sticking around for the time being. Ordering him out would probably work as well as giving him any order had ever worked, which was to say, not well. He could fix things with Karen, though, and first available opportunity, he would try. They’d work it out and move forward together.***Karen had settled in for an afternoon of typing up notes for her latest article about everyday heroes. This one was a doctor who had been on the scene after the towers came down, who worked triage during the Incident, and who had the misfortune of being in a hospital that had been attacked by ninjas rappelling down the walls. She made a mental note not to stand next to this guy during the next thunderstorm. The article was shaping up well. She figured she’d have to omit the bit about the ninjas, but there were ways to convey the magnitude of the attack on Metro General without those specifics.Halfway through, right when the words were flowing freely, Matt started to stir. She saved her work and got to him before he was fully awake.“Matt, it’s Karen,” she announced so as not to startle him. She didn’t know what the state of his senses was, and she didn’t want him to freak out if he didn’t remember she had come by. She eyed the tranq dart Frank had left, just in case.He sat up and passed his hand over his face, as though to wipe away the sleep and the muddle-headedness.“Karen. You’re still here.” His voice was gentle, tender, even, and Karen’s heart broke a little.“I’m still here,” she assured him.“I’m sorry we fought,” he started.“Me, too,” she replied simply. Satisfied he was lucid and not likely to injure either of them, she drew up a chair. “I know we’ve gone ‘round and ‘round about the—your nighttime activities. I really don’t resent it. But maybe we can communicate better. Or schedule better.”Matt nodded. “I’ll be better about letting you know which nights I’m in and when I have to go out.”She pressed her lips in a thin line, biting back a twinge of resentment that she only got time with him when she was slotted in between beating up drug dealers. But she also knew how important Daredevil was to him, how necessary it was, and she loved and respected that part more than she resented it. “Maybe we can set up a shared calendar on our phones,” was her compromise. “But enough talk. It’s done, it’s over, it’s behind us. Let’s move forward. How about pancakes?” she asked brightly.“Pancakes, right…” he trailed off, trying to remember. “Frank made them?”She gave an exasperated laugh. “Yeah, he made them. I got kicked out of the kitchen. They’re actually pretty good. He’s not a bad cook,” she conceded as she piled a couple on a plate and stuck them in the microwave.Matt ate ravenously, and mostly in silence. Karen didn’t want to bring up the awkwardness of having some weird babysitting arrangement, because she knew he’d bristle at any mention of his infirmities, however real they might be. So she chose the second most awkward topic.“You really think your mother is alive and a nun?” she asked.“Sister.”She made a questioning noise.“Nuns are cloistered,” he continued. “She’s working in the world. And yes, I think it. I know it. It defies reason, but I know it in my gut.”“Truthiness,” she stated skeptically.“Truthiness,” he confirmed. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s not true.”“Was she at the orphanage with you?”“I think so,” he responded slowly. “But only briefly. I only have one memory of her.”Despite Matt’s reliance on the truthiness of the situation, Karen wasn’t convinced. She wasn’t not convinced, but she was withholding judgment. It was also very likely that he had something more than just truthiness, some hard evidence, but she wouldn’t press until he had recovered more. She was more worried about how the information got to them. “Aren’t you curious who sent you the picture?” she asked reasonably. “It’s kind of weird and creepy.”“Fr. Lantom makes the most sense, but none of the options make much sense,” Matt reasoned. “I don’t know why he’d leave it here, and not explain it.”“Which makes me think it might be someone else. What if someone’s setting you up, Matt?” she asked reasonably.“Who would do that?”Karen just sighed. “Do you have any powerful enemies? Or sadistic ex-teachers?”Matt shook his head. “Fisk is in prison, and this isn’t Stick’s style. He would show up and then hand me the photos.”She made a non-committal noise and a mental note to check into Matt’s mother when she had some time.***Frank had just shut the door to Matt’s apartment when the door opposite was flung open. A woman with gray, wispy hair and clothes that might’ve been as old as him stood framed in her doorway. “Who are you?” she demanded.He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and pulled his best “aw shucks” look. “Matt’s cousin,” was his response.“Matt’s cousin,” she replied suspiciously. “Matt doesn’t have any family.”Frank shrugged. “Not in New York, maybe.”She accepted that as a reasonable answer. “Out of towner, then? Where you from?”“Virginia.” He spent enough time at Quantico that he could build a cover on the fly if she prodded. It seemed to satisfy her, though.“Matt all right?” she asked, eyeing him sharply.“He got shit-faced.” Fran scowled. “Pardon my French, ma’am. And then he had a little too much hair of the dog this morning. Lawyers,” he pulled an exaggerated “you know what I mean” face. “Matt kept telling me in law school he learned law, but he also learned how to drink.”“That boy needs to take better care of himself,” she agreed. “Where you going?”He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Just stepping out to get some fresh air, pick up some groceries. His girlfriend’s over, so I figured they’d want some time alone.”Fran nodded and half-stepped back into her apartment. “I won’t keep you, then. You keep an eye on him.” She made it clear that it was a command, not a suggestion.“Yes ma’am,” Frank replied obediently, starting down the stairs.“You didn’t tell me your name, son.”“Frank,” he called up.“Frank,” she repeated. “I’m Fran.”“Nice to meet you, Fran.”***When he was out as the Punisher, he made no efforts to be unidentifiable. He might be inconspicuous until he was ready to fight, but once he was fighting, no one ever doubted who they were fighting. He knew the power of reputation. He wanted the scum of the city to know him, to see him, to fear him. Passersby might see him, too, and that was okay, because they’d tell others and his reputation and myth would grow.But it would be no good if he were always that visible. He’d evaded capture so far, and he intended to continue doing so. Having everyone immediately recognize him as the Punisher would not help his cause.And so, when he went out to scout or run errands or buy groceries, as he was then, he slipped into the persona of Frank Castle. He didn’t throw that name around, of course. Frank Castle was presumed dead, and if they found out he was alive, then he’d be a fugitive. But he made good use of the life Frank Castle had lived. He was able to use his rough charm and generic European (might be Italian, might be eastern, might be Jewish) looks to blend in with a million similar faces. It was so much easier to be alone in New York than it would’ve been in a podunk town, where you had to smile and nod at everyone you passed because that might be the only other living soul you saw that day. In New York, where there was so little physical space, mental space was paramount. Making unwanted eye contact was akin to breaking into someone’s home and reading their diary. It was a courtesy to pretend other people didn’t exist so as not to inconvenience them. In that way, he made it to his destination without so much as a glance from anyone he passed.When Karen described the photos, Red decided his ma was alive and insisted that he needed to talk to Fr. Lantom. Frank’s goddamn conscience and instinct to protect were working overtime, so he was dragging his sorry ass to church and seeking out a priest even though it probably wasn’t necessary.The easiest thing would’ve been to call, but he was concerned about electronic surveillance. If someone wanted to watch, it was the easiest way to keep tabs. He was jumpy about it, first because of the damn photos, and second because he thought he could hear a something in Red’s apartment. The whole super senses thing was new, though, and truth be told, he found it pretty overwhelming. It had taken until mid-morning for him to even understand that his senses were augmented. Prior to that, it was folded up in the hallucinations and drunkedness. He understood that his hearing and smell were enhanced, but he was having trouble sorting out what the sounds all belonged to.Thus, he decided to call on Lantom in person. He knew how to shake a tail, but thankfully he didn’t have to, so he could rule out direct surveillence. He didn’t suspect anyone was watching the church, and when he got there, he saw nothing to persuade him otherwise.The sight of the church did a number on him, though. The façade wasn’t that close to his childhood parish in Queens, but it was similar enough, and a flood of emotions came back. He managed to land on the bench out front before the full force of the memory overtook him.
He felt like he was choking, like there was a rope around his neck, and it was strangling him.

“Stop fussing with your tie,” his mother chided as she tried to smooth his cowlick.

"It’s uncomfortable,” his eight year old self complained.

“Fancy clothes always are. Jesus died for your sins. You can be uncomfortable for an hour for your First Communion. And keep your hands out of your pockets. Capisce?”

“Yes, ma,” he replied dutifully. “It’s really Jesus’ blood and body?”

“Yes, son,” she assured him.

He hesitated. “Does it taste gross?”

She smiled. “No, it looks and tastes just like bread and wine, but its essence changes. Anyone who doesn’t know better would think it was just ordinary food, but we know better. Now remember, use your right hand, don’t drop it, and don’t drink too much wine.”

“Yes, ma.” He understood that this was something important. This might be the most grown up thing yet, even more grown up than when he went to the roof for some fresh air and stumbled on the big kids having sex. “Is it normal wine, or the kind nonna keeps hidden in the linen closet?” His parents had let him have sips of table wine at special occasions, but the wine in nonna’s closet was different from that.

She eyed him sharply. “How do you know about that? Did you try it?”

“I got bored and just started looking.” He hesitated. “Yes, ma, I tried it.”

She swatted him on the backside, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to convey her displeasure. “Stop snooping in nonna’s closets. You know you only have alcohol if we give it to you. That’s brandy that she keeps in there. It’s much stronger than wine. It’s for her bridge nights. And don’t tell nonno that it’s there.”

“Sorry, ma.”

“You ask God for forgiveness, and you go to confession next Saturday.” It was clear that she was not making suggestions.

“Yes, ma.” He hesitated. “Are you going to tell dad?”

“Tell me what?” His father walked in, fussing with his own tie.

His mother responded before he could decide whether to fess up. “Francis wants to be an altar boy,” she supplied.

His father looked at him curiously and shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I was for a few years. You’ll learn some Latin, get to ring bells. You’ll have to wake up early, though.” He checked his watch. “C’mon. It’s time we get to the church. You don’t want to be late for your first communion.”

“Yes, pa.”

When he returned to the present, he checked the time. It was just noon, and the bells tolling confirmed it. It was also the first time he’d thought to time the flashback, and this one, at least, only lasted a minute or so.

Awhile back, Red had made an offhand remark about praying the Angelus, which was not unheard of, but also not that common anymore. Frank guessed that might be a reliable way of catching his priest without much of a crowd.

His hunch was right. Lantom was near the front of the church leading the call and response portions of the prayer. A handful of old ladies dotted the pews, providing the responses.

He refused to let being in a church affect him. It was just a building, after all. He caught himself looking for the holy water font, and then got angry with himself for looking (it was dry, anyway – Lent). Given the options of skulking in the back or going in and sitting down, he decided the latter would be better. The old women were already rubbernecking to see who was late, and if he stood there in the shadows, they’d just get even more curious. So, he found a pew in the back that was still somewhat shadowed, sat and waited patiently for them to finish. He wasn’t relaxed, but he easily fell into the practiced stillness he’d cultivated as a sniper. When the old ladies shuffled out to return to the noonday sun, he half-knelt, rested his forearms on the pew in front of him, and put his head down, as though in prayer. Even nosy old ladies wouldn’t stare too long at someone at their prayers.

Red’s priest, though, was sharp. He let the women depart, offering pleasantries as they left, and hanging back without making it look like he was hanging back. When the last of the octogenarian posse was safely on the other side of the doors, he approached Frank.

Frank eased back in the pew and met Lantom’s gaze. Lantom recognized him; that much was clear. “Moment of your time, Father?” he asked quietly, showing both open hands to assure him he meant no harm.

Lantom didn’t look nervous, just like he was assessing the situation. “Why have you come here?”

“A favor for a mutual friend.”

The priest considered the statement. “And does this friend have a name?”

Frank looked around. The church was empty, but this was not where he wanted to have this conversation, especially not with Christ on a cross staring him down. “Somewhere more private, maybe?”

Lantom regarded him for a moment, nodded tersely, and started walking. Frank had no choice but to follow.

He surveyed parish hall that Lantom had let him to. He didn’t register any immediate threats, but he also kept his back to a corner.

“Latte?” Lantom asked, gesturing to the fancy coffee maker.

“Just the espresso?” Frank asked hopefully.

Lantom nodded and set about making the drinks. “Francis or Frank?” he asked.

“Frank.”

Lantom made a non-committal noise.

“My parents changed it when I was nine. Wasn’t a good time to be too Sicilian.” He didn’t know why he was offering this information. The goddamn drugs, probably.

“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to turn you in?” Lantom asked as he steamed some milk.

“No,” Frank stated calmly.

“What makes you so sure I won’t?” he asked curiously as he set the drinks on the table and drew up a chair.

“Seal of Confession,” Frank replied with an offhand shrug. “You’ve got time in. You’re not going to get ex-communicated this close to retirement.”

A smile twitched across Lantom’s mouth and was gone as soon as it came. “I’m sorry about your family,” he said simply and genuinely, after a moment’s silence.

Frank stared at his cup and managed a tiny nod. “Wasn’t your fault,” he replied, because he felt he had to say something.

“I’d offer you words of comfort,” Lantom continued, “but that’s not what you want right now.” He sipped at his latte. “Your grief is yours, and no one can take that from you. Now is a time to mourn, and you will for the rest of your life, but hopefully you’ll move to a place where you can do more than mourn.”

Frank set down his espresso and sighed. “You gonna quote Ecclesiastes at me, Father?”

“I could,” he replied mildly. “I don’t think it would do much good right now. I could discuss the problem of evil, cite Augustine, Genesis, the Catechism, St. Paul, but now’s not the time for it. Later, perhaps.” He shrugged. “You’re probably familiar with all of that anyway.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Someone I knew from seminary worked in Queens for a while.” Lantom replied simply.

Frank sat up a little. There were a few priests from his old neighborhood who would’ve remembered his parents, him when he was a boy, or maybe even him and Maria.

“This friend? The reason you’re here. Was he your lawyer?” Lantom continued.

Frank jerked a tiny nod.

Lantom exhaled. “Is he…”

“He’s alive,” Frank interjected. “But he’s hurt. He got drugged. He’s raving and needs help. Thought maybe you could talk some sense into him.”

The priest chuffed a short laugh.

“He respects you,” Frank continued. “He’ll listen to you.”

“Perhaps,” replied Lantom with skepticism. “And you’re helping him because…?”

Frank clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I got drugged, too.”

“But not as badly,” Lantom stated.

“Not as badly,” Frank echoed.

“You’re taking care of him. And he’s safe,” the priest stated, pulling together threads quickly enough to impress Frank.

Frank nodded.

Lantom nodded and checked his watch. “I have a baptism in an hour, confessions after that, and Mass after that. Will he be okay until this evening?”

Frank confirmed that would Matt would hold. He gave Lantom the address, told him to be inconspicuous, and they set a time. He gathered his jacket and was about to leave when the priest held up a hand, beckoning him to stop. He paused and gave him a questioning look.

“You claimed Seal of Confession. What, exactly, is your confession?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Really?”

“It’s not a confession if you don’t actually confess to something,” was his reasonable response.

Frank barked out a humorless laugh. He returned Lantom’s look, realized the man wasn’t going to back down, and sighed in defeat. After a moment’s pause, he said, “it’s Lent. I ate meat on Friday.”

Lantom crossed his arms and leaned back. “You’re going to lie to a priest, in a church, in confession?”

“We’re in the parish hall. That’s not really in the church,” he replied, almost playfully. “And you have no grounds to say I’m lying,” he finished indifferently.

“You killed Grotto,” all lightness and gentleness suddenly gone from his voice.

“Maybe I confessed that already,” Frank parried.

Lantom conceded the point. “Your penance for eating meat last Friday is not to kill anyone for a week.”

Frank laughed in genuine surprise and disbelief. “A week? Really? You’re not going to say ‘Stop killing people altogether’ or ‘turn yourself in’? You’ve got the Punisher at your mercy and that’s what you come up with?”

The priest shrugged. “Would you do either of those?” he asked rhetorically. “Might as well make your penance something that you might actually carry out.” He paused. “Make your Act of Contrition.”

Frank regarded him with disbelief. He was met with a look that reminded him of his dad’s “don’t bullshit me, son” look.

“Sorry,” he finally replied sardonically.

Lantom nodded in acceptance of the terse, yet technically legitimate Act of Contrition. “God the Father of mercies…” he started.

“Jesus Christ,” Frank muttered as he turned and left the room.

Lantom finished the prayer of absolution, hand held up to the empty room. “…And I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Vanessa sat alone at her elegant dining room table and ate her masterfully prepared supper. The veal chop was perfect, the fennel delicious, and the Chianti made an exquisite pairing. She sipped at her wine, but she was too distracted to appreciate any of it.She despised Daredevil. He impeded Wilson at every turn. He didn't understand the good that her beloved could bring about, and that sometimes progress could be painful. And more personally, she blamed Daredevil for her exile and Wilson's imprisonment. She decided she would remove that piece from the game board. Research into ways to neutralize vigilantes had taken her down some interesting avenues. Conventional methods, for whatever reason, didn’t seem to be working on them, especially Daredevil. So she started looking into more creative solutions.The Institute for Genomics and Health was somewhere between a biotech company and a research institution. It didn’t exist anymore; all operations, all records of its existence were expunged from public record in the mid-nineties. That wasn’t the only fishy thing. It seemed they contracted exclusively with one shell company that was very likely a front for the US federal government. The amount of capital required for what they had purportedly done, and the questionable things they got away with screamed defense spending and oversight. There was no paper trail, and likely former employees had plausible alibis for the missing time in their CVs, many of which included military service. Still, some people who moved in those circles remembered the name, if not any details.Their most promising product had been a drug that was loosely described as a performance enhancer. It supposedly sharpened reflexes, improved memory, augmented both fast and slow twitch muscles, improved oxygen usage, decreased lactic acid buildup, and increased calcium deposition in bones, among other things. It had a narrow therapeutic range, though, and overdoses tended to cause interesting and not consistent results. If those could've been controlled, Vanessa saw how useful it could’ve been on the battlefield, a spiritual successor of Project Rebirth. It had been the flagship project of IGH, but five packets of the drug had been lost in 1991, coincidentally (or not) when the Starks had died. That incident spelled the start of the end for the company. IGH had survived a few years longer, but there were a couple of incidents involving children, after which it disappeared from the record.She had found Quentin Beck, one of the chemists who’d worked on it. He was in dire straits because of a series poor life choices and ethics violations which left him blacklisted and barred from working on in the field. He was willing to cook for her for what he considered a large sum, but what she considered an average wage. When she asked him to resume work on it, he agreed and suggested combining it with a chemical that some of his ethically-challenged contacts in industry had heard rumors of. Procuring that chemical required some effort. The KT sample had been isolated it from someone who was purported to have mind control powers, and it was well-hidden. She had persevered, though, and came up triumphant. Combining the two chemicals would, theoretically, under ideal circumstances, yield a biddable army of enhanced warriors, or failing that, imprison someone in his mind, or maybe just kill him. As far as she was concerned, all three were acceptable outcomes.She and Beck agreed that based on mouse trials it had promise. He emphasized that human testing wouldn't necessarily scale up from mice. The equivalent dose might act differently in humans. So they tested it in humans. It wasn’t too hard to find volunteers, because at low doses it produced euphoria and acted similar to amphetamine. It got a reputation as a good buzz, and tweakers started seeking it out. It was easy enough to create doses with traces of the drug and a lot of filler. Once the junkies were convinced that a standard dose was 500mg, omitting the filler and making it a lot purer was a good way to test the varying strengths, right up to the point where people roasted to death in their own bodies from the fevers, or their hearts failed. The KT addition also made the subjects were extremely susceptible. One subject apparently became convinced he was Daredevil after the dealer suggested that the drug would give him superhuman abilities. He jumped off a roof with total confidence in his abilities to survive. Unfortunately for that young man, he was not in fact Daredevil. The update had come in a few hours ago. Beck was the project lead (he had two underlings) and had dutifully recorded the outcome of the encounter. He was wounded, didn’t have killing in his contract, and it looked like the more murderous of the two wasn’t completely out, so he hightailed it out when he was able. He included all of the technical information about how the drug worked and failed, and what the likely outcomes were. He returned to the lab when he was patched up, after the fire department had been there, and took inventory of the damage. The importance of all of that paled in comparison to the final line.There was no body.Beck saw no body. There was no report of a corpse in any of the police or fire reports. She considered the ramifications.It wasn’t necessarily a total loss. No body didn’t mean it had failed completely, but it did mean that Daredevil had escaped the lab despite being given two thousand times what should’ve been a normal dose, and five hundred times a lethal dose. The report was clear that it was unlikely he ingested or absorbed all of that. Non-lethal outcomes were fine, but there was no one to give them orders to kill each other or themselves or cops, so that perk of the drug was a waste. It was possible they were trapped in their own minds, experiencing vivid hallucinations, but since they hadn’t been found, they had enough agency to get somewhere safe. That they hadn’t been heard from, though, could be a good sign, because both men were apt to seek revenge or retribution.She arranged for information to be passed on to Wilson. Though it hadn’t worked as intended, it didn’t fail completely, and there was still the issue of Matthew Murdock to take care of. Even if it was only temporary, taking out Daredevil benefitted them.***Matt chose, and he chose wrong. Fr. Lantom warned him about the perilous path of choosing to end another human’s life, but he didn’t heed the advice. He quickly realized that he’d made the greatest mistake of his life. He went after Fisk with the intention of killing him, of sacrificing his own soul to rid the world of a cancerous evil. He didn’t even get to Fisk before it all went to shit. Instead of finding Fisk, a ninja in flowing silk garments wielding a blade on a chain found him. Nobu proved too much. He was the better fighter. Matt fought tooth and nail, to the absolute best of his ability, because he fully understood that his life depended on it, but he was outmatched. In some corner of his mind, he realized he was damned for wanting and plotting and attempting to take Fisk’s life, and that he might have to pay up much sooner than later. Dumb luck saved his ass, when Nobu ended up immolating because of sparks caused by a lucky ricochet.
When Fisk finally arrived, Matt didn’t have anything left in the tank. Instead of ridding the world of Fisk, Fisk nearly killed him. As he crashed through the window, he prayed to God that he’d hit the water and not the pavement. It seemed somehow appropriate that in choosing to undo another person, he was undone.
“Whoa. Easy there, cowboy.” Frank ducked the punch. Matt was standing in the middle of his living room, poised and primed to fight. “Karen?” he called out.“I’m in here,” came a muffled voice from the bathroom. “He had an episode and started trying to attack me. I shot him with the tranquilizer dart you left, and he passed out. I made sure he was still breathing, but when he started to stir, I locked myself in here, because you only gave me one dart. I have one of his kitchen knives, too,” she added, almost as an afterthought.“Smart move,” he called back. He stepped out of range of a kick, which wasn’t too hard, since the tranquilizer was still in Matt’s system. Red’s metabolism must have been amped up, too, because he that dart should’ve knocked him out for hours. Even if she shot him immediately after he left, he should still be drooling on the floor, not threatening his few home furnishings with poorly-aimed kicks. He approached Matt slowly with his hands up, telegraphing his moves in case Matt’s senses were back to normal. “Red.”Matt’s head whipped toward the direction of the sound. “My name’s Matt.”“Your name’s Matt,” Frank agreed easily. “But think about it, smart guy. Who calls you ‘Red’? Here’s a clue. It ain’t whoever you think you’re fighting.”That seemed to cut through the fog in Matt’s head. The tension drained from his body as he lowered his fists and stood at ease. “Nobu.”“Yeah, no. You get pasta tonight,” Frank replied, thinking that Matt was talking about the fancy restaurant. He turned his attention to unpacking the grocery bag he’d dropped upon entry, which contained enough food to get them through a few days.Matt shook his head as he fumbled his way back to his couch. “Nobu killed Elektra on the rooftop. I fought him awhile back. He nearly killed me.” He sat heavily and leaned his head back. “Karen, I’m sorry if I scared you. You can come out now.”Frank recalled that Red had mentioned Nobu to him once before when they met on a rooftop. They’d chatted instead of fought because they were both in a pretty low place at the time, and having someone, anyone to talk to sometimes beat the alternative. He heard the lock on the bathroom door click, and Karen emerged cautiously. “I have an appointment tonight, but I can take the overnight shift. Do you have any more tranquilizers?”“I don’t need a babysitter,” Matt protested while attempting to stand.“Captain Bravado, you were just shadowboxing with an undead ninja. Park your ass on the couch and stay there,” Frank commanded. Using hand signals, he showed Karen where he’d stashed extra tranquilizers.Karen nodded. “Great. That would’ve been really useful twenty minutes ago.” She gave Matt a kiss and gathered her things. “Call me if it’s an emergency,” she called to Frank. “Otherwise, I’ll be back by 9, 10 at the latest.”***
The knife slid in easily. It was sharp, and it was no effort for Frank to make a neat incision the length of the belly, exposing the viscera. He prised open the cut, reached in, and scooped the organs out of the trout, depositing them in a bowl with the guts of three other fish and a pair of squid.
“Good, son.” It was high praise from his father. His dad was an ex-marine; served in ‘Nam, honorably discharged with a Purple heart. He didn’t talk about the war, and didn’t encourage Frank to follow in his footsteps. He wouldn’t even teach him how to shoot a gun. He wasn’t a pacifist, per se, but he eschewed most violence. Sicilians had a reputation at that time for being Mafioso thugs, and he wasn’t going to have the family name tarnished with that. After the hell he caught for getting in a fight at school, Frank knew better than to ask how to use with the Ka-Bar his dad had hidden away, but his dad did teach him how to use knives in the kitchen.
They were preparing fish seven ways for Vigilia, the traditional Christmas Eve feast. Frank wasn’t sure squid and clams should count as fish, but he wasn’t going to argue against calamari or clams and linguini.

Soon, a pile of aunts and uncles, cousins, and his one remaining grandparent would descend upon their small apartment. They’d bring even more fish and side dishes. Everyone would pile up a plate and find a flat surface so they could sit and eat. It was a cacophonous mess of family and tradition, the holiday and the meal bringing everyone together. The holiday and the meal were important enough that Joey, the insufferable twit who wouldn’t shut up about John Galt, and Francesca, the socialist, Marx-reading, “no, really, I’m moving to a commune for real,” cousin would sit in the same room and smile at each other. It brought together Peter, who thought Reagan was the second coming, and David, who hadn’t voted for a Republican since Eisenhower. Emily, the loud atheist, and Sister Johanna, OP, would give up trying to convert each other for a night.

Frank helped prepare the meal partly because he was a dutiful son, but mostly because he enjoyed it. He wanted to serve, and feeding people was a way to do that. In a few hours, he would head to the church ahead of the rest of his family, because he was also an altar boy, and he’d been promoted to the big leagues of Midnight Mass that year. That was another way to serve. He didn’t think he wanted to be a cook when he grew up, and despite his mother’s urging, he was pretty sure he didn’t have a calling to the priesthood. His future was still an unknown. He wondered where his call to serve would take him.
The afternoon passed as peacefully as it could, considering that Matt was still having violent hallucinations, and Frank was still feeling everything too strongly.Frank made supper and hated himself for how much he felt while preparing the meal. The dried spaghetti was the most real thing he’d ever handled, golden and starchy and brittle. The tomatoes were such a vibrant red, firm and juicy. The fresh basil smelled more fragrant than the any flower he’d ever smelled. He felt a pang of sympathy for the cow that had been slaughtered for the meat, saw the animal standing before him, gentle brown eyes looking at him guilelessly right before its throat was slit. He wondered if the cow’s mother loved it, if she missed her calf when it was taken from her. He wondered if this was what Matt experienced all the time, and yeah, he could see how this might make a little kid freak the fuck out.He was starting to sort out his senses, which already seemed to be fading from the overwhelming intensity they’d been amped to during the first day. It wasn’t so acutely painful and overwhelming, and he’d also had some time to adjust. He could sort out what sounds belonged to what. He identified normal household sounds, the buzz of electricity, the flame of the gas stove and the sound of the gas moving through the hosing, water in the plumbing, and that godawful billboard outside Red’s window. Everything seemed to have a reasonable explanation, so he figured his fears of bugs was a combination of paranoia and not understanding that the billboard was an affront to more than just his eyes. Speaking of eyes, the colors were too bright and too strong, and his low light vision was more sensitive than it’d ever been. He was getting antsy, too. Part of the reason he’d been out for so long in the afternoon (grocery shopping and strong-armed confessions didn’t take that long) was that he had to get some exercise, blow off some steam. He took a long walk along the riverfront. It served its intended purpose and also proved to him that his sense of smell and taste really were jacked. New York always smelled, car exhaust, sewers, piss, garbage disgusting scents rich people wore, but everything was twice, three times, maybe more intense than he was used to.The emotional effects were the hardest to adjust to. He cared. He cared so goddamn much about everyone and everything. Drama hadn’t been his thing, not the way he’d taken a shine to poetry as a boy, but he’d read and enjoyed plays through high school and then college. The intensity, the realness of the city, the people, the earth and the sky and even the goddamned pigeons reminded him of a line from a Eugene O’Neill play.
Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like a veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see -- and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning!
He understood the realness of everything, and he wanted to be a part of it.Though it took some effort, he finally made a simple supper for them both (pasta with a red sauce, some sausage thrown in for protein, Maria’s favorite—no don’t think of that). He got Red to pull it together long enough to eat, and then herded him into a shower, because the shadowboxing and panic made him sweat through his clothes. By the time the sun had set and Lantom was due over, the kid was clean, quiet, and resting peacefully on the couch, if not quite asleep.Red also started having severe and intermittent vertigo. He’d be fine one moment, then fall over sideways, moaning. It made normal functioning all but impossible because the attacks were pretty frequent. On top of it all, when he was able to control his sense of balance, he still had the same hallucinations Frank was having.Lantom arrived at the appointed time. He was bundled up against the cold evening air and had a fedora shoved low on his forehead, which wasn’t terrible as far as inconspicuous went, Frank thought. If anyone was watching Red’s apartment, they’d at least have to put a little effort into IDing priest.  Frank let him in and gestured towards the couch where Matt was attempting to sit up and identify his visitor. “Don Quixote there insisted on being out of bed. Easier to tilt at windmills this way. He’s in and out as the hallucinations hit, and he’s gotten violent a few times.”Fr. Lantom took in the information and nodded as he hung his coat and hat. He drew up a chair near the end of the couch where Matt was propped up against a mountain of pillows. He eyed him up and down, noting the pallid skin and heavy circles under his eyes.  “You’ve looked better,” he said by way of greeting.Matt quirked a smile.  “I wouldn’t know. What brings you here, Father?”“Frank sought me out. Said you were hurt and my services were needed, and that you wanted some information from me.” Lantom glanced at Frank, who was a respectful distance away, but watching attentively. “Shall we have him wait outside?”Frank set down the coffee pot. “Unless you can duck his punches, I stay. I’ll cover my ears if you want.”Matt shook his head. “He can stay.”Lantom looked from Matt to Frank and back and shrugged. “So, Matthew. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”“My mother,” he implored softly.“Your mother,” Lantom repeated. “That’s a broad topic, and one I can’t tell you much about.” The priest paused to accept a mug of coffee with copious amounts of milk, giving Frank a small nod of thanks. He shrugged apologetically. “I spent a lot of the eighties and nineties outside of New York.”Frank caught the ambiguity of the priest’s wording, and even considering his current state, he was pretty sure Red had, too. Even confirming that he had information obtained in a valid confession would constitute a violation of the Seal of Confession.Matt nodded. “What can you tell me?”Lantom shrugged. “Probably nothing you don’t already know. Her maiden name was Halloran, and her family had been here for a few generations. She grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. She had a brother who committed suicide. She had dark brown hair.”“When did she die?”“Didn’t your father tell you that?”“He said it was when I was a little over a year old.”Lantom shrugged. “There’s your answer, then.”Matt tilted his chin. “Is it?”Lantom sucked in a deep breath. “As I said way back when, people in this neighborhood have long memories. You might do better asking them than asking me.”“Is there anyone you’d suggest I ask?”“Check to see if any of her extended family is still alive.” Lantom shrugged. “I think most of them moved out of the city several years back, though.”“Thanks, Father.” Matt understood that that was all the information he’d get from the priest.With the matter of Matt’s mother out of the way, Lantom turned to his second purpose for being there. Frank watched as the priest reached into his satchel and pulled out a small bottle, a pyx, and a stole.“Frank also said you were ill and not able to leave your apartment,” Lantom explained. “I brought communion and chrism. I’d like to offer you Anointing of the Sick.That move caught Frank off guard. He wasn’t expecting that, but conceded it was actually a pretty smart call on Fr. Lantom’s part. It was theologically appropriate, and maybe it would help Red calm the fuck down.“I’m not on my deathbed,” Matt replied with a little laugh.“It’s not just for the dying,” Lantom explained. “It’s meant to bring comfort and healing to the sick. If you don’t want to, though, we don’t have to.”Matt thought for a moment and then nodded his consent.Lantom unstoppered the bottle and poured out a tiny amount of oil into a small glass dish. Matt’s body went rigid, panic showed on his face, and then he lashed out.Frank had been poised to act for this very reason. In a flash, he closed the distance between himself and Red and pinned Red’s wrists, planting a knee firmly between his shoulder blades before the other man could get another swing off. “Red! RED! KNOCK IT OFF! You’re gonna knock out your priest.”Matt tensed when he heard Frank, and then finally relaxed as he forced his logical mind to make sense of the words. Frank released him and he sat up. He rubbed his hands over his face and drew a shaky breath. “Sorry, Father. The scent of the oil hit me hard. The last time I had—this,” he gestured in the general direction of the oil “was right after the accident. I’ll be good now, I promise,” he finished, flashing a charming, albeit false smile. “Go ahead.”Frank stepped back and let Lantom continue with the ritual. He was torn between trying to block out what was going on going on between Matt and his priest, as though watching was a violation of privacy, and his valid concern that Matt would take another swing at the old man. By the time Lantom had finished administering the sacrament, and Matt was visibly more relaxed.“Thank you, Father,” he murmured softly.“You’re welcome, Matthew.” Lantom reached for the pyx he had placed on the coffee table.  Frank watched as the priest opened the small container and extracted a communion wafer. He willed himself to view it all impassively. When Lantom had finished with Matt, he turned towards Frank and held up the pyx, silently asking whether Frank would also receive. Frank shook his head almost imperceptibly, so Lantom closed the pyx and raised his hand in blessing instead. Frank remained impassive, bit back the reflexive “amen” on his tongue, and when he saw Red smirking at the entire scene he shot him a nasty look even though he knew would go unnoticed.Lantom finished packing up. “Get in touch if you need me again. Otherwise, I’ll stop by again. Next Friday sound okay?”Matt tried to protest, but Lantom waved him off. “Be careful and stay safe,” he said to both of them, but mainly to Frank, as he made his way to the door.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Fisk was led to the visitation room. He might’ve been running the joint from within while simultaneously rebuilding both his empire and Hell’s Kitchen in his image, but a certain level of pretense needed to be maintained. Thus, he was not permitted to entertain outside visitors in his cell. He had to go to the visitation room like all of the other inmates. There, he found Marcus, his Wesley-replacement advisor waiting for him.Marcus made to stand as Fisk entered the room, but Fisk waved him off and Marcus took his seat. He extracted a thin folder from his attaché and slid it across the table. “The asset we spoke of. We’ve given it the codename ‘trinity.’ The fee is steep, and precautions will need to be taken, but we can set it up you wish.”Fisk thumbed through the papers, looking over the description, the statistics, the handlers and precautions required. “This all looks fine. You’re sure you can handle the… logistics?”“We already have the safeguards in place.”“Then do it. Get in touch with Lee. He can move the capital for you.” He rose and extended his hand. “Thank you.”Marcus shook his hand. “It is my genuine pleasure.”***Franklin Percy Nelson had a fine life going. He was drawing a real, honest-to-god paycheck from one of the top firms in the city. He worked in a building didn’t have mouse problems. His office had HVAC every day, and he didn’t even have to wheedle a favor out of his cousin Mikey to keep it running. He was getting interesting work, charging an exorbitant rate for his brainpower, and paying off his student loans. And if some corner of his soul missed being the scrappy little lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen with Matt, he drowned out the voice with a nice peaty scotch. Or sometimes eel whiskey.He had a social life, too. He had a girlfriend, kind of. They (she) didn’t want to put a label on it. He kept up with his non-work friends. He pestered Brett once a month or so, partly to keep up on the goings on in the precinct, partly to annoy Brett, and partly because he liked Brett. He had his bi-weekly support group, which he kept on the “DL,” as the kids these days said, which allowed him to talk a little and listen a lot to how superheroes and enhanced individuals affected plebeians like himself.He and Karen had also maintained their friendship. They both had jobs that kept them busy, and their offices weren’t close, but it mattered to both of them, so they put forth the effort. And that day, as on every second and fourth Monday, he and Karen had their standing lunch date.The first time they went out, Foggy had just gotten his first paycheck from HC&B insisted on treating her to a fancy place where the chef was named on the menu and all the prices were in round dollars with the cents omitted. The food was good, but they both agreed that eating “the porkiest porkchop with an overpriced salad of weird-shaped leaves” wasn’t as enjoyable as ethnic holes in the wall with lots of spices. Karen had found a list of tasty cheap restaurants in the city, and they had been systematically eating their way through it.The lunch selection du jour was Ethiopian. Foggy chatted easily with their waiter, asked him what his favorites were, and they ordered that. When they were halfway through one of the brighter colored stewed things that was probably vegetal, the conversation turned to the self-destructive elephant in the room that shadowed so many of their conversations.“You and Matt doing well?” Foggy asked, wiping off some wayward oil from his fingers.“Yeah,” she said shortly. “We’re good.”“But…?” he prodded.“We had a stupid fight. We made up.” She sipped at her honey wine, still not meeting his eye.“And…?” he continued, because he could read her, and she wasn’t exactly being subtle. “Out with it, Page,” he prodded when she hesitated.“And he’s hurt,” she replied, tucking back a lock of hair and finally meeting his eye. “Again.“Is it bad?” he asked warily.“Physically, no. He got drugged with that new one that’s been causing some trouble in the Kitchen. He’s been hallucinating and raving and reliving old events. He really needs you, but he’s too proud, or ashamed, or I don’t know what to reach out.”“When did it happen?”“Friday night.” She set down her glass. “I went over Saturday to apologize, and he was… sick. He was a little better Sunday, but not by much. He can pull it together for short periods, but sometimes he just falls into a memory, or something”“You want me to be the bigger man and reach out to him,” Foggy surmised. “Again.” He ripped off a section of the injera and scooped up one of the chunky brown mushes. All the dishes had names, but they’d ordered a sampler and had given up on matching up the names to their guesses about the ingredients. He popped the bite in his mouth entirely to buy himself some time. “I’ve tried. I called early on, but he didn’t even answer. I saw him a few months ago. We spoke, but we spoke like you’d talk to someone you knew in high school and didn’t really like. ‘How’s the job, who are you dating, where are you living now,’ kind of small talk. He threw a pro bono case my way, and that’s been it. What makes you think this will be different?”Karen hesitated and picked up what was definitely a chicken bone. Probably. “I think there are… emotional side effects, too. It’s breaking down walls, or something.”Foggy shook his head. “I don’t want to take advantage of him in a compromised state, build up something, and have it disappear once he goes back to being as self-destructive as a clinically depressed lemming. It’s not fair to either of us.” He gathered up a bite of spicy lentils. “Did he ask for me?”She poked at some potatoes. “No. He’s been in and out, and not always coherent. But he keeps insisting his mom’s alive. And I’ve found a little information that suggests she might be, or at least something’s fishy about her death. I could really use your help. For old time’s sake?” She flashed a hopeful smile at him.Foggy sighed. “Where is he?”“At his apartment.”“Alone?”Karen looked down at the food. “No. But if you’ll go meet with him, I’ll make sure he’s alone.”“You’ve been babysitting,” Foggy stated. “He needs a babysitter. He’s bad enough that he can’t be alone.”Karen nodded.“But you’re not babysitting him right now. And he’s not home alone,” he continued.“No,” she confirmed.“And he got hurt on the job?”Karen looked down. “Yeah.”“The person with him now, is he like Matt?”Karen met his eye. “Do you really want to know?”Foggy gave her a searching look. “No. It’s better if I don’t hear you say it,” he replied bitterly. “That’s how you know there are emotional side effects. Because someone else is acting uncharacteristically human.” He waited for a response while she busied herself scooping up some yellow mush. “I’ll take your silence as an admission of guilt.”“Can I plead the fifth?” she asked, trying for a joke.“I’d go through the list of reasons you shouldn’t be involved in this. I assume you’re going to claim journalistic integrity and an anonymous source. Just stay safe, Karen.” He flagged down the waiter to get the check. “I’ll call him.”“No, um, it’d be better if we set up a time.”“My schedule’s really full.”“He’s not going anywhere,” she stated sadly.They agreed on a time, paid the bill, and returned to work.***
Frank had been different for as long as he could remember. As a child he was quieter than other boys. He watched, he listened, he observed. It was no great effort for him to be silent and still and obedient. He was always a little detached from everyone, feeling neither the highs nor the lows that seemed to send all those around him on emotional roller coasters. His ma thought he was an old soul and that he would make a fine priest. His dad thought he was too much in his own head and should’ve been outside with the other boys, yelling and running around. Neither of them knew of the darkness lurking within their son.

He stood over Schoonover, pistol trained on the man’s head. Schoonover wasn’t his CO anymore, and he deserved none of the respect his rank commanded. Frank saw the big picture now. He understood why it was so goddamn important to keep the air strip in Kandahar, why they were pulling seemingly pointless missions, like the clusterfuck in the Hindu Kush. Schoonover had been using his Marines to secure his opium pipeline so he could bring the poison back to the states and make a fortune off the backs of the weak and innocent.

Everything hinged on that moment, on what he chose to do next. He could go Red’s route and turn him over to the authorities, hope that Schoonover didn’t have enough money and clout to buy the entire justice system. He could preserve whatever was left of his life, honor the memory of his family. Or he could end it now, tie up all the loose ends. Schoonover was the last one responsible for the deaths of his wife and children. Reyes had tried to off him to tie up loose ends, finishing Schoonover for the same reason would be some sort of poetic balance.

He felt the recoil of the pistol in the heel of his hand. It traveled through his wrist and up his arm, petering out by the time it got to his shoulder. Schoonover slumped over. Frank left the cabin, and with it he left a piece of his past. There was just one last bit to deal with.

He returned to his—Maria and the kids’ home. It wasn’t his home, hadn’t been for a long time, if it ever was. It was Maria’s domain. She kept it and ran it. She was the one who made sure the children had their booster shots and made it to tee-ball practice. She hung the artwork, she filled the house with music, paid the water bill and made sure trash was on the curb Wednesday nights. When he was on leave, he lived in her house, slept in her bed, and then he left again. He always left them.

But now she was gone. She didn’t need the house anymore, and neither did he. He’d gone through the Sapper course in the Marines, so he knew several ways of getting rid of an unwanted structure. Flammable hydrocarbon plus ignition source and the proper mixture of oxygen was simple and effective, and he put it good use. He didn’t watch the explosion or the fire, but he felt the shockwave and heat burn away what was left of Frank Castle.
Even though the drugs were fucking with his emotions, he was still getting antsy from the inactivity, which was how he found himself acting on an offhand comment Red had made during one of his delirious rants. It was his first time “out” since that goat rodeo of a drug bust. He found it interesting to watch the beast within vie for dominance over his overwhelming urge to protect. At some point, the urge to protect gave way, or maybe made peace with the darkness and conceded that beating up Turk was a way of protecting Red.He knew of Turk. They hadn’t had the pleasure of crossing paths yet, but hey, today was as good a day as any to make his acquaintance. Finding him wasn’t hard. Turk was smart enough to know he wasn’t smart, and would never be more than a two bit thug, so he didn’t bite off more than he could chew. He wasn’t, however, smart enough to keep his operations well-hidden.“Who are you covering for?” Frank demanded. His knuckles smarted from where they contacted Turk’s skull. The mild pain didn’t register as pain so much as a message from his body telling him he was alive.“No one!” Turk yelled, groping blindly with one hand to make sure his skull was still in one piece.Frank threw a quick jab to the stomach. Turk doubled over and gasped for breath. “Who are you covering for?” he repeated.“Okay, okay! Crazyass mofo,” he gasped. “Look, some white dude in a $3000 suit hinted it might be good for me if I, you know, just let it get around that Mysterio was moving product in the Kitchen.”“Mysterio,” Frank repeated.“Yeah, crazy dude a bowl on his head. No one’s seen his face, but he’s been cooking shit. Does chemistry or something. Latest Walter White wannabe with a stupidass costume.”“Who’s he cooking for?” Frank pressed his forearm against Turk’s throat.“How the hell should I know?”Frank wound up to punch him again.“He didn’t give me a name! Hand to god! Swear on my mother’s grave. Don’t kill me, man, please don’t kill me!” His yell petered out into a whimper.Frank grabbed him by his jacked and shoved him roughly to the ground.“Oh, man, thank you, thank you! I’ll move out of the Kitchen. I won’t deal ‘round here no more!”Frank gave him a half-hearted kick for that. Normally, the beast would take over during the violence, and he would run on rage and pain and guilt and shame, but the drugs were still fucking with his goddamned head, and his heart just wasn’t in it. “You are a stupid piece of shit, but you’re just smart enough to know how fucking stupid you are. That is why you’re alive. Because you know how small you are and you stay in your place. You’re worth more alive. For now.”Turk started to grovel and thank him. Frank acknowledged the gratitude by delivering one more blow to the head and knocking him out.***The next morning, Frank deposited his coat on a hook by Matt’s door and dropped bag on the bench beneath it. He was relieving Karen so she could go to her daytime job. Cleaning his weapons only took up so much time, and he wasn’t into posting platitudes or cat memes on Facebook, so he needed some entertainment. He had a book on the Howling Commandos’ tactics in Eastern Europe and a deck of playing cards. He grabbed the book and went to the kitchen to make coffee.Karen bade them both goodbye, promising to return that evening.“You went out,” Matt stated after he heard the door shut and her footsteps fade.Frank eyed Red, giving him an appraising look before responding. “Karen had night watch.”Matt shook his head. “No, you went out.” He shook his head sadly. “Who was it? Did you go after Mysterio again?”“You getting your senses back?” Frank deflected.“Blood. It’s a very distinctive scent. They say the sense of smell is the most primal,” Matt explained with a little smirk. “You smell like blood, Frank?”Frank kinda wanted to strangle Red for managing to be that cocky while still convalescing under the care of others. He weighed the pros and cons and decided he could be cocky, too, and decided to screw with Red a little while he had the chance. So he lied, mostly to see if he could get away with it. “Killed a couple of dealers. One of them sold the batch that ended up with the kid jumping off the roof. One shot, two kills”Matt’s shoulders sank. “Please leave, Frank.”“What?” Frank eyed the man who had currently had more convictions than sense.“I haven’t had a violent episode in several hours. I’ll be fine without a babysitter. If you’re killing people, I don’t want you in my apartment. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but please leave. Now.”“Or what? You’ll call the cops on me? Knock me out and leave me on the precinct stoop for justice?” he challenged.“Yes,” responded Matt, sad and determined.“I’d like to see that in your current state.” He paused. “I didn’t kill anyone.”“Why should I believe you?”“You don’t have whatever super sense it is that lets you know when someone’s lying, so buddy, you’re just gonna have to take it on faith.” He poured out a cup of black, acidic coffee. “You’re getting scent back, so you’re not smelling panic sweat or pheromones or something. What is it? Tasting fear? No, taste is too connected to scent,” he mused to himself. “Probably not touch, so it’s gotta be hearing, unless you’re psychic or some shit. What are you listening for, Red? Breathing? Heartbeats?” He watched Matt, who was sitting straight-backed at the kitchen table and trying not to react. “Right. Heartbeats, then.” Matt still refused to engage him. “That would be pretty useful, in both your careers, I bet. Just don’t get too reliant on it. There are ways to cheat.” He grabbed his book and coffee, sat opposite Matt, and started to read.“Who did you beat up, then? Was it really a pair of low level dealers?” That provoked a reaction from Frank. “I told you. I can smell blood. You also tore some skin on your knuckles.“Turk,” Frank replied, not looking up from his book.Matt scoffed. He wouldn’t consider Turk a big fish, but he was a slippery one, and sometimes a useful one. He had his finger in a lot of pots, but only his finger. “Why didn’t you kill him?” asked cautiously.Frank sighed and lifted his head from his book. “Remember all those times I let you find me on a rooftop, no weapons, no intention of killing anyone? I understood the conditions of our meetings. You think I’d violate those terms here, now, in your home?”Matt accepted the reasoning and knew that it was the most assurance he could expect. He picked at the remains of his bagel. “Why, you want me to go finish the job?” Frank continued sardonically. “You know, authorizing murder’s just as much a sin as committing it. That’s a lot of Hail Marys, Red.”“Ah,” Matt said softly. Frank could hear the smile in his voice.Frank finished the paragraph he was on. When he realized Matt wasn’t going to elaborate, he stuck a napkin in his book, shut it and turned impatiently to him. “What?”“Fr. Lantom got to you, then.”“You go right ahead and think that.” Reading was not going to happen with Matt in that sort of mood, so he extracted the deck of cards from the box. He shuffled them a few times and tried to break them in, and dealt out a game of solitaire.“Did he make you a latte?” Matt teased gently.“Man’s lonely. I talked with him for a few minutes.” Frank didn’t look up from his solitaire game.“Yeah? What’d you talk about?”“You.”That got Red to stop needling him.Thank god for half-truths, though Frank.

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For Matt, the meet and greet with the roommate’s parents was one of the more onerous tasks in college. The parents just wanted time with their baby bird, their kid wanted to talk about how great college life was and wheedle some money or favors out of the parents. Neither his roommate nor the parents were ever really interested in the blind, orphaned roommate. He even overheard one set of parents who were concerned that Matt would hinder their child’s social and academic potential at college.

Foggy was the first roommate who was genuinely excited to introduce him to his parents and wasn’t doing it just because it was proper form or a good deed.

Anna and Edward Nelson were meeting them for lunch at a diner near Columbia. He and Foggy had arrived a couple of minutes early and were waiting outside.

“I don’t see them yet.” Foggy kept his eyes fixed on the direction his parents would be coming from.

“Is that them?” Matt asked, pointing at what he knew was a blank stretch of wall.

“What? Where?” Foggy whipped his head around. “Damn you, Murdock!” he cursed when he saw Matt was teasing him. He punched him lightly in the arm, grinning. “You’re a troublemaker, is what you are.”

“I’m not the one who keeps falling for it.” Matt grinned back. He was nervous. He couldn’t remember being this nervous, not even when he had to introduce himself to Random Roommate #3 (aka Foggy). He and Foggy got on like a house afire. Matt had had friends in the orphanage, and in undergrad, too, but not like this. Those friends were people who’d eat with him in the cafeteria, study with him and share audio recordings or typed notes (it didn’t hurt that Matt was always an exceptional student), occasionally hang out and watch a movie or whatever. They didn’t develop into deep, lasting friendships, though. When they parted after graduation, neither Matt nor the other parties put much effort into keeping in touch.

This friendship was different. With Foggy, it was immediately comfortable and relaxed, like they’d known each other for years and just picked up again after some time apart. He suspected Foggy had a crush on him for the first couple of weeks, but that dissipated and neither of them made it awkward once Matt made it clear he wasn’t interested. Matt desperately wanted this friendship, his first real friendship in so long, to thrive, and so he’d worked himself into a nervous lather the entire morning leading up to their lunch date. Neither going to church nor going for a walk after Mass did anything to alleviate it. Foggy had tried to calm him down, joking around to put him at ease and assuring Matt that his table manners were much better than his own, and his mom was going to love him, especially after she found out he spent the first part of the morning in church.

The Nelsons snuck up on them while Matt and Foggy were busy teasing each other. Matt was his most charming self. He greeted them politely, shook Edward’s hand, and found he was unable to put up any resistance to being pulled into a tight hug by Anna. His father was the last person to hug him like that, right before he left to fight in his final match. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and followed them into the diner.

Foggy was often right about people. His prediction about Matt and his parents was no different.

Edward was easy with him in a way few people were. He didn’t act as though Matt wasn’t blind, but he didn’t point it out or ask basic questions like he’d never met a blind person before. (“Dad’s been a member of the Lions Club for years now,” Foggy had explained earlier. “I’ll have to thank him for the scholarship, then,” Matt had replied).

Anna, mother of five, and so used to being a mother hen, found it no great burden to adopt a sixth child. She was indeed tickled to find out that Matt had gone to church earlier that morning. “It was always a fight to get Foggy to go, and at our Labor day cookout, Candace announced that God was dead and she was an atheist,” she tsked. “That girl acts as though she’s the first seventeen year old to discover Nietzsche.”

Matt found that he loved them back. They were genuine, unpretentious, hardworking people. They reminded him of his neighbors from when he lived with his father. People like them were the heart and soul of the Kitchen.
They all chatted easily over a lunch of giant sandwiches and egg creams. Foggy insisted that Matt would graduate summa (“He studies all day long! He’s aced every quiz!”). Matt listened greedily to every bit of banter between the three Nelsons, all of the teasing and the embarrassing stories.
“And then Sister Haney called and said ‘that son of yours is going to come to no good. The boy is as dim as a foggy day. He and the Smith boy covered themselves in chalk dust and then hid all of the erasers, spread dirty wood shavings and hamster droppings in the hall, and released the class pet into the Kindergarten room!” Anna finished, barely able to get the words out through her laughter at the story that had become family legend.

“She said to clap the erasers!” Foggy chimed in, in what was clearly a well-rehearsed narrative. “She didn’t say against what! And she told us to clean the hamster cage. Neither of us had ever cleaned a hamster cage—“

“Maybe you should’ve listened when she explained what to do,” his mother interjected.

“So we took the cage in the hall,” Foggy charged on. “Smitty held Mr. Whiskers while I tried to dump the shavings into a trash can. Mr. Whiskers bit Smitty, so he dropped him, and then the little beast ran into the Kindergarten room. The Kindergarteners were, shall we say, excited, to see it. One might’ve been so excited he lost bladder control.”
Matt marveled at how easy and normal it all felt. Just ordinary people out for an ordinary lunch. Parents visiting their child at college, everyone delighting in each other’s company.
When it was time to leave (the waitress had been giving them the stink eye for a good half hour), Edward paid the entire bill despite Matt’s protestations. Anna drew Matt into another tight hug and asked what he was doing for Thanksgiving.

“I’m planning on staying in and studying. Need to keep up my grades for my scholarships.”

Anna eyed him sharply. “Studying’s important, but surely you can carve out a couple of hours to eat with us.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” he demurred.

“I just invited you, didn’t I?” she chided him lightly. “We’re eating at four, which means we’ll really eat at four thirty, but get there by three thirty if you want to stake a claim on the special rolls. Come by at noon if you want to listen to the game and console Foggy when the Lions lose.”

“I’ve won more than I’ve lost on them,” Foggy interjected.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll find a way to lose this year,” his mom teased back. Matt grinned. He knew Foggy didn’t care much about football, and he certainly wasn’t a Lions fan, but he had apparently lost money to an uncle years back on the Lions’ annual Thanksgiving game, and it had turned into a yearly ritual. Matt wasn’t sure if it was stubbornness, pride, or Stockholm syndrome that kept him putting five bucks down on the Motor City Kitties.

As he walked back to campus, he felt like he was surrounded by a warm glow. It took a few minutes to comprehend what he was feeling: he had a family again.
He heard Karen tapping on her phone. She kissed him, told him Foggy was about to come over, and that she’d give them some time together.His stomach bottomed out as he heard the door open, the light click of her heels fade away as Foggy’s heavier step grew louder. Karen whispered something to Foggy that Matt couldn’t make out, and then left.“You know your priest got in touch with me?” Foggy said by way of greeting.“Foggy?” He was equal measures happy and irritated by Karen’s setup.“The one and only,” Foggy replied. “You wait till you need something out of me to get in touch?”“Fr. Lantom? When? Why? How?” Matt asked with understandable confusion.“Jesus, Murdock,” Foggy replied softly. “What the hell did those drugs do to you? And to answer your questions: yes, Fr. Lantom. A few days ago. Looking for information about your mother. I assume he still had my contact info from when we buried Grotto.”Matt turned his head towards Foggy. “I thought Karen asked you. It’s good to see you,” he said softly.“She did. Which you knew already since you knew she set this up. She and I have a standing lunch date, as you also know.” Foggy put the beer in the fridge, snagging two, one of which he offered to Matt, who declined. “And yes, she told me about your latest… infirmities.” He sat down opposite Matt. “I don’t know anything about your mom’s family. I asked my parents if they knew any of the Hallorans, and they don’t know much, either. They’re asking around, though. Siblings, cousins, neighbors, Rotary club buddies. Someone’s bound to know someone who knows something.” He stood up and paced in front of the windows, looking out but not seeing anything. “What makes you think she’s alive?”Matt found it difficult to articulate. He didn’t have a concrete logical progression that convinced him his mother was alive, but rather a sense of a larger picture, the shape of which he could barely discern. The photos in the envelope were the catalyst, but they weren’t the proof. He’d known pieces for a long time, but hadn’t realized that they were pieces until the drug trip made his mind more fluid. They’d made it hard to function at all, but he also experienced ego death and became one with the universe. He’d had a religious experience where he saw all of creation as knowing God and being one with God and emanating from God. And bits and pieces of half-remembered things came back to him and set themselves together like the outline of a jigsaw whose center was still in pieces. A comment one of the Sisters made the day he met Stick. Weirdness when he was sorting out paperwork when he aged out. The general taboo on the subject of his mother among the Sisters at the orphanage. He couldn’t know logically, he just knew in his gut. But he had to say something to Foggy, so he said lamely, “just a comment Sr. Anne made once.”Foggy nodded in acceptance. Matt knew that Foggy knew it wasn’t the entire story, maybe wasn’t even most of the story, but mercifully, he let it go, and Matt offered up a silent prayer of thanks.  “They missed you at Christmas,” Foggy said, both sad and accusing. “And Thanksgiving. And the Fourth. And Easter. Jeanie’s graduation. My mom’s birthday. And pretty much every cookout, gathering, meal or celebration you used to come to.”Matt opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the words. “It—I didn’t want to make things awkward.”“You don’t think it wasn’t awkward for me?” Foggy shot back. “You’ve been at every family gathering from Thanksgiving of our L1 year on. Half of my cousins think we’re dating. They kept asking why we broke up.”Matt tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. “I bet Marci loves that. I’m sorry. Please tell them I’m sorry.”“Tell them yourself. You were family, Murdock. They’re not offended you didn’t show; they’re hurt because they’re worried about you. They miss you. You weren’t invited because you were my roommate or my friend, you kept getting invited because they loved you,” he said as his voice cracked. “Sometimes I think my mom would’ve traded me for you. You always kept your side room clean and hung up your towel, and you never put your elbows on the table.” Foggy tried for a joke and only half failed.“The Sisters at the orphanage had me trained well,” Matt responded with his own failed joke. All he got in response was a sigh. “I’m sorry.” His shoulders sagged.Foggy looked at him sadness and compassion. “Me, too,” his voice wavered. He scrubbed at his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. “We’re not partners anymore. I like my job and I’m not leaving it. I have interesting clients and interesting cases, and money. I don’t have to buy the cheapest underwear when I need new underwear. I can buy slippery silk boxers, and I do. I don’t worry about making rent. I have a 401k and a Roth IRA, and a diversified portfolio with growth investments and index funds. I know what growth investments and index funds are. I can leave food on my plate without worrying about wasting calories.” Matt made to speak, but Foggy cut him off. “Not that I leave food on my plate—I choose things I like to eat and I enjoy eating them. But I could leave food on my plate if I wanted to.”Matt finally managed a real smile. “I’m glad you’re doing well, Foggy,” he said sincerely.Foggy nodded. “I just nodded. Karen said your senses were blown, so I don’t know if you knew that or not.”“I didn’t,” Matt admitted.That earned compassionate look from Foggy. “We’re not partners anymore, but I was hoping maybe we could be friends again?”“We’re friends,” Matt protested weakly.“I haven’t heard from you in months, Matt! You throw one pro bono case for a superpowered inmate in Georgia my way and then you just disappear again? You need to do better than that. We can do better than that. Don’t you get it? You’re the brother I never had. I have four sisters. Four!” he mouthed with mock horror. “I know more about moisturizing and accessorizing than the most women and half the gay men I know. What was your plan? To end crime in New York by, what, punching criminals until they stop committing crimes? Are you actively courting nihilism?“You need to be Daredevil. I get it, Matt. Really, I do,” Foggy continued, his face etched with sadness and sympathy. “You think you’re protecting people by pushing them out of your life. And yeah, the Daredevil ride is a crazy train full of… I don’t know. Crazy things that ride a crazy train. The metaphor breaks down at some point. But Karen needed time and space. You gave her both, and now she wants to stand by you. As for me, all I ever wanted was my friend.”“We’re still friends,” he said quietly. “I miss what we had, too. But I need you to understand who I am. And maybe you think it’s broken or self-destructive. Maybe it is broken or self-destructive, but it’s who I am. I know I haven’t been reliable lately,” Foggy snorted at the understatement. “But what I do—I need to do it. Not just for me. For the people who fall through the cracks. For Karen. For Frank.” Foggy’s face hardened at the mention of Frank.“For Frank,” he parroted back. “About that. Why is he staying with you? Are you insane? I mean, more insane than jumping off roofs dressed like the devil?”Matt made a vague gesture with his hand. “It’s a long story.”“I’ve got some time.” Foggy crossed his arms and leaned back.He sighed and continued. “We were both drugged. He’s not killing anyone. I haven’t been – I haven’t been able to take care of myself. He’s helping.”Foggy grabbed at his hair in frustration. “Seriously, Murdock. You’re shacking up with someone who makes Travis Bickle look like a paragon of mental health because he got dosed with some empathy drug and is treating you like a stray puppy. The man has a bigger taste for blood than Dracula.”“Travis Bickle?” Matt asked, genuinely confused.“You know, Taxi Driver,” he responded.Matt looked at him blankly.“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to ME?” Foggy elaborated in an awful DeNiro impression.A sad smile twitched across Matt’s face as he recalled watching it with Foggy their first year in law school. He’d always suspected that Foggy’s narration had improved a lot of movies. “I don’t know if it was an empathy drug. I relived some of the most intense moments of my life, and then I felt like I was connected to everyone. I don’t know if he had the same experience. He didn’t get as of it much as I did, and he hasn’t had as much trouble with vertigo or… gravity.“I really am sorry. Maybe what I said, back when you found out about Daredevil, maybe that’s what we need to do. We can move on from here. Our friendship has changed. Everything has changed. Maybe if we can both accept who we are now, we can salvage something.”“I feel like we’ve been here before,” Foggy said.“We have,” Matt agreed. “We can ever go back to what was. You can’t cross the same river twice. But every day, we can choose to start anew and move ahead.”“Someone was paying attention in classical philosophy,” Foggy snarked, earning a grin from Matt. He sighed. “All right, Murdock. You win this round. But if you don’t show up to Easter dinner, I’m going to get disowned. It’ll be awful. My dad will leave his bottle cap collection to Candace.”Matt was unable to keep a straight face. “You’ve been complaining about inheriting that bottle cap collection since I’ve known you.”“That’s not the point!” Foggy smiled back. “Fine. I’ll sic my grandmother on you. You know how she gets."Matt nodded meekly. “I’ll bring her a bottle of Jameson.”“Good.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt sat in Sister Monica’s office. She was the principal of the high school at St. Agnes. He liked her; she had a PhD in anthropology and was a whip smart, no nonsense woman with a wicked sense of humor. But right then he did not enjoy being in her company. She was talking about his college options. The further she went in her spiel, the more his heart sank. As with so many capable but poor young people, the cost of college looked like an insurmountable obstacle. Matt had no income and little chance of landing a job suited for someone visually impaired that paid well enough to cover college expenses. The cursed money his father left him wouldn’t be enough to cover tuition, room, and board for four years, let alone graduate school.

“Your trust won’t cover it all, especially if you want to go to law school, too,” she explained. “But you have exceptional circumstances. First of all, because you are an orphan and a ward of the state, you qualify for certain grants. Second, because you have no parental income and, all things considered, not a lot of personal wealth, you will qualify for more financial aid. Third, St. Agnes is a good school, your grades are excellent, you’re on track for a Regents’ diploma, and you scored a 1480 on the SAT. Fourth, I hate to be insensitive, but many entrance essays are about overcoming personal adversity. You have that in spades, and your disability will merit further consideration from many schools. You’re an exemplary student and young man. You’ll have excellent letters of recommendation, and you would be a desirable applicant even without the diversity factor.”

“I don’t want to get in just because I’m blind,” Matt protested.
“It won’t be just because you’re blind. But your blindness doesn’t not matter. Yes, it looks good on paper for schools to be able to show off unique cases like yours. But you have much to contribute to any school you apply to. Not just the blindness, but also your socioeconomic demographic. You will get an education in the classroom, but you’ll learn as much by interacting with your peers who come from different backgrounds. They’ll also learn from you. It sounds soft and touchy-feely, but it matters a lot more than you might think.”
At her urging, he cast a wide net. He spent a bit of his father’s last winnings to apply to colleges he’d like to attend, colleges he thought he could get into, and colleges he thought he had a reasonable chance of getting scholarship money from. In the end, it didn’t matter, because he was offered a full ride to a couple of schools he was interested in and picked up other scholarships and grants that covered incidental expenses. He graduated debt-free with his nest-egg intact.

A combination of exemplary grades, a ridiculously good LSAT score, and another personal statement about overcoming hardships meant that he was able to let the blood money continue to accrue interest. Columbia Law offered money, and again, he was able to pick up outside grants and scholarships.

Sr. Monica was right. The coursework was vital, of course, and he didn’t neglect it, but interacting with students from all manner of backgrounds was just as important. He was also able to give perspective to other students, some of whom had little contact with people outside their rarefied world of boarding schools, yacht clubs, and debutante balls. He learned to move in the world of the political and economic elite, but he was never quite comfortable there, nor would he ever be wholly accepted. The street-level, amongst salt-of-the-earth people who knew from opening fire hydrants and jumping subway turnstiles was where he belonged.
Matt started his morning ritual. Since he’d recovered from Elektra’s death, every morning that he was well enough not to count it as a sick day, he’d shower, make coffee, and check his email and his bank accounts. He had some instruction in personal finance, but the freshman level course he’d taken didn’t cover what to do when your homicidal ex-girlfriend dies and leaves you seven figures in bank accounts and stocks in various countries, so there’d been a learning curve, but he was mostly caught up.All that meant that he had enough not to have to have a steady income to pay for rent, food, dry cleaning, or the many replacement canes he needed when he inevitably flung his into some dumpster.Understanding how blessed he was, he chose to serve his community, mostly because he could. After the demise of Nelson and Murdock, he decided to offer free and very reduced priced legal services to the denizens of the Kitchen who mostly needed help with wills and appointing guardians and straightening out visas. He worked out of Josie’s because it didn’t come with the baggage of the Nelson & Murdock offices. He and Josie enjoyed each other’s company, though they showed their affection by mostly insulting and teasing one another. But he could be found a table near the back most days during the sad afternoon hours at a dive bar.Once he was done monitoring his bank accounts and portfolios, he turned his attention to his one case that was slightly more complicated. Al Rademacher, a fellow St. Agnes alum, was in need of a defense attorney because he’d gotten busted for possession, and had priors, years ago, which were threatening a more serious sentence. Matt thought he could manage to get just probation and community service, since it was just pot, Al had been on the straight and narrow for several years, and he was truly contrite about his one moment of weakness brought about by running into some old (literal) partners in crime.Matt made a mental note that he also needed to call Josie during business hours so she could let any potential clients know he was laid up. He also didn’t want her to worry, not that she’d ever admit to it.***Claire had asked Matt to take the case of another enhanced individual who’d been wrongly convicted and subjected to medical experimentation and torture that almost certainly had not received approval from any IRB. Matt knew that HC&B would have the resources to better investigate it, so he passed it on to Foggy, who in turn asked Jeri whether they should take it. Jeri said yes and turned around and assigned Foggy to it. Reading through the monstrous details in statments from former Corrections Officers and inmates was giving him a headache and making him question his faith in humanity.On his way back from a coffee and donut (and mental health) break, a pissed-off woman smelling of rotgut nearly bowled him over. “Watch it. Jesus.” She tried to steady herself and overcorrected. “Jeri hired a lawyer with hair like that?”“Sorry, miss,” he stammered, reaching for her elbow to steady her.“I’m as old as you are, asshole.” She jerked her arm away and got a good look at him. Recognition dawned on her face. “Nelson,” she stated, rather than asked.“Yeah, that’s me. I mean, I’m him.”“Smooth,” she snarked back. “You’re better in court,” she relented. “The Castle case.” She pulled out a scrap of paper from bra, scribbled something on it, and pressed it into his hand. “Be there.”“Oh, I have a girlfriend. I mean, kind of, I mean, I shouldn’t date clients… do you need legal advice? You should talk to my secretary, Linda. She’ll schedule you an appointment.” Foggy mentally kicked himself for managing to fail at grownup speech.The woman rolled her eyes. “You think I come here and ask random people for legal advice? And don’t flatter yourself. You’re not my type,” she finished with a moue of distaste. She glanced around quickly but discreetly, taking care to make it look like she wasn’t looking around. “Carl Lucas.”A flicker irritation passed across Foggy’s face before he willed himself into an impassive mask. “Yeah, um it’s a date,” he finished lamely with a goofy smile. “Nice to meet you…” he called as she departed.“Jessica,” she supplied.“Jessica,” he repeated under his breath. “Wonderful,” he thought to himself. “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”***He arrived five minutes early to the appointed location; a true dive bar that quietly turned out pretty respectable pub grub and wasn’t catering to the ironic crowd. He settled in and ordered some cheese fries and beer, because the last thing he’d eaten was some pad thai delivered to his office hours ago.Jessica slid into the booth. She had apparently made a pit stop at the bar, because she was carrying an entire bottle of bourbon and a pair of glasses.“So, you really have a girlfriend, or were you just bullshitting me?” She set the bottle down with a thunk. Foggy tried to grab it to pour out drinks for them both, but she yanked it away before he could reach it. She poured out three fingers for herself and half a shot for him.He eyed his glass. “Really?” She just glared at him. He shrugged and tossed it back. She gave him her best bitch smile and pushed the bottle across the table to him.  He accepted it and refreshed both of their glasses. “To answer your question, I really do. Mostly. We’re not putting labels on it.” He beat her to a cheese fry. “Been together a year now. We met in law school.”“Getting serious, huh.” She somehow managed to make every word seem cynical and brittle.“Sort of.” “Neither of us has too much time to get too serious. And we work for the same firm.  And then there’s the whole Jewish thing. Namely, she is, and I’m not. Not that she really is. I’ve seen her eat a bacon cheeseburger on Yom Kippur, but no one else better suggest that she eat a bacon cheeseburger on Yom Kippur.” He shook his head with a knowing look of terror. “Mostly, her mom grumbles about her dating a goy. I do get brownie points for being a lawyer, though!” he finished brightly.Jessica smirked at the verbal effluent pouring forth from Foggy.“Why did you want to talk to me?” He poured them both another shot of bourbon. “I assume it’s not because you’re interested in lapsed Catholic/Jewish relationships in New York City. Those have been going on since there have been Catholics and Jews in New York City.”“What kind of work has Jeri been giving you?” she asked reaching for his cheese fries.He nudged the basket towards the center of the table, so she could reach better. “I can’t discuss that. Client lawyer privilege and all that.”Jessica shoved another cheese fry into her mouth. “I know why she hired you. Do you?”“She said she was impressed with how I handled the Castle case, especially considering my partner flaked out and Castle had his outburst on the stand,” he replied evasively.She nodded and motioned with her hand that yes, that was kind of right, but it was mostly wrong. “You impressed a lot of people during the Castle trial. But some people have been paying attention to other things.” She skipped his glass and poured herself another two shots of bourbon.“…What other things?”Jessica gave him a measured look. “Vigilantes.”“I defended him because he had a legitimate claim of traumatic brain injury, and everyone deserves the best possible defense,” Foggy countered with three quarters of the truth.“Not that vigilante. The one with horns.”Foggy’s breath caught. “I don’t know Daredevil.”Jessica rolled her eyes. “Sure you don’t. Let’s talk about your ex-partner instead. Blind, huh? I bet he bumps into lots of things, gets lots of scrapes and bruises.”He set down his beer. “What do you want, Jessica?”She tossed back her drink. “Do you know how he was blinded?”“Sure. Lotsa people in the neighborhood still remember. He saved an old man’s life, and toxic waste or something got in his eyes.” Foggy watched her reaction without looking like he was watching her reaction.She nodded and beat him to the fry he was eyeing. He pulled a sad puppy dog face. “Cut it out. Even I need to eat if I’m gonna drink like this.” She shoveled a couple of fries in her mouth. “IGH.”“IGH?”“It was a company. It’s been scrubbed from the record, might not as well exist. ‘Institute for Genomics and Health.’”Foggy made a face. “Sounds like some sort of eugenics thing, like Cold Spring Harbor, or Nazi Uebermenschen, or the Super Soldier program. Purify the gene pool and breed the strongest.”Jessica ignored the interruption. “They had a contract with Rand.’” She took a big gulp of the mid-shelf bourbon. “You know Jeri started at Rand Corp., back when it was just Rand Chemical?”Foggy nodded. Just as he knew Jeri had done her due diligence before hiring him, he’d investigated his potential employer. He had dodged a bullet with Landman & Zak, narrowly avoiding getting swept up in their ethics scandal, and had no intention of ever getting close to something similar again.“Matt ever tell you who was hauling the chemical that blinded him?”He shook his head. “No. He didn’t like to talk about it much. Just said that they offered to pay his medical bills, gave them a small settlement, and after their lawyer was done, the small settlement was pretty much gone.”“Three guesses.” She watched with amusement as it dawned on Foggy.“Rand?” he mouthed quietly. Jessica nodded in confirmation.“Wow. Holy shit. Matt and his dad got screwed.”Jessica nodded. “That accident was the reason they stopped hauling waste through Manhattan. Now it goes via barge, so if there’s an accident all we have to worry about is mutant fish or turtles or some shit.” She batted his hand from the fry she wanted. “I don’t have the whole picture yet. But some players keep coming up.”Foggy deflated. “So Jeri hired me to keep close to Matt.” He’d thought he was finally out from under Matt’s shadow. He’d busted his ass on the Punisher case, and he’d done good work for Jeri so far, but it all kept coming back to Matt.“That doesn’t sound like alpha male successful trial lawyer talk to me,” was her caustic reply.Foggy just gave her a look. “Do I strike you as an alpha male? I mean, I know with this physique you might be confused…”She just rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, Matt’s a person of interest,” she continued more gently. “But Jeri wouldn’t have made you that good of an offer if she didn’t think you were a good all-around investment. And she knew someone was going to make you an offer sooner rather than later. Hell, she headhunted you before you even had your CV updated on LinkedIn, and there were a couple of other firms eyeing you, too.”Foggy stared into his drink and shook his head. “How do you know all this?” he asked quietly. “Does your PI work involve snooping through HR files?” Because, just like he’d investigated Jeri before accepting the offer, he’d pieced together who Jessica was before showing up to the meeting.She smirked. “Who do you think ran the background check on you?”He shook his head and chuckled. “Jeri finds unique, unconventional talent.”“A-fuckin’-men.” She raised her glass in salute, and then drained it before he could respond in turn.“So, you want to bring a case against IGH? That’s going to be difficult if there’s no record of its existence.”“No. I do not want to bring a case against IGH. I don’t want you to, either. Use it in the Lucas case; I can’t control what you do there. But I’m requesting that you go no further than that files on that particular patient. Even with medical privacy, there are things in there that don’t need to see the light of day. Your partner might appreciate it if you don’t pull too hard on that thread.”“Among other people, I’m guessing.” He gave her a pointed look over the top of his pint glass.“Among other people.”“I do this, or rather, don’t do this for you, will you do something for me?”“Yeah, I’ll give you the friends and family rate. Oh, wait, I don’t have those.”Foggy clutched at his heart in mock agony. “I thought we were friends, Jessica.”She rolled her eyes at him. “Fine. What do you want?”“I need you to dig up a little bit on a piece of Hell’s Kitchen history.” He scribbled a name on the cocktail napkin and slid it to her.Jessica eyed the name. “What do you want on her?”“Anything. Everything.”“Standard disclaimer. You might not like what you find. Murdock know you’re digging into this?”“He asked me to ask around. I think he meant having my dad ask the customers in his shop, but you’ll do, too.”“You sure know how to charm a girl,” she snarked.“I am an alpha male, after all.” He puffed out his chest and tried to keep a straight face.Jessica was more successful in keeping a straight face. “I’ll let you know when I have something,” she said as she swiped the last cheese fry.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Frank knew that the drug was loosening its hold on both of them. He was feeling compassion and empathy and an urge to protect in measures he hadn’t felt since the night his daughter was born. He also knew that Matt was lucid most of the time and only occasionally wobbled from vertigo. It made him both easier and harder to take care of. He traded one set of challenges for another, kind of like trading off the 24/7 care a baby needed for the emotional and psychological challenges young children and tweens presented.He’d taken more overnight shifts than he’d planned on. Karen was okay with taking them, as long as Frank gave her a decent supply of tranq darts, but unsurprisingly, Matt was not as okay with that set up. First, he was afraid he’d genuinely hurt Karen. Second, the day she did have to drug him, he took the rest of the day to get back to normal. Third, and this was unspoken, he didn’t like Karen seeing him like that.Matt had recovered enough that he was getting fidgety from being cooped up. Apparently he didn’t sit still well (big surprise). Frank had tried to channel the energy into something productive. He’d suggested Matt do some legal work, which worked for a bit, but it did nothing to use up the physical energy. Matt was wound so tightly he was practically vibrating, and it was throwing them both off. Frank’s second idea was to set up a speed bag, which helped, but clearly something was still making him antsy. Between sniping and seminary, he knew of a few ways of stilling the mind, which he figured was what Matt really needed.“Red.”Matt stopped pacing. “Yeah?”“You got a rosary?”Matt looked confused, as though it was the last thing he’d expect Frank to ask. “Yeah, packed away. Why? You want one?”“Go say it.”“What?”“Five decades. Whatever the fuck mysteries are your favorite.”“Why…?” Matt asked cautiously.“You’ve been fidgeting for an hour, and you’re starting to drive me nuts.” Frank folded the paper so the crossword was neatly framed.Matt stopped pacing. “That’s not really something I do.”“Oh?” Frank started filling in the easy clues.“It’s a meditation.” Matt shrugged. “My grandma made me say it sometimes, but I hated it then, and then Stick taught me how to meditate, so I never needed another form.”“Well, then go gaze at your navel or whatever the fuck you do, so long as you do it quietly and in one spot.”“Grumpy old man,” Matt muttered under his breath. He complied, though, and sat and started breathing quietly.Frank sighed and tried to return to his crossword puzzle. Fucking kid, he thought as he was sucked into a moment from several years ago.
“You can’t treat them like they’re your platoon,” Maria chastised.

“My platoon behaves better,” Frank grumbled back.

“They’re children,” she explained.

“They’re spoiled and undisciplined,” he countered.

“No, really, they’re not.” She threw the dishcloth into the sink, punctuating her words with a loud ‘whap.’ “You’re not around little kids. You don’t understand how it is.” She stalked out of the kitchen.

Frank sighed. This had happened before; this would happen again. He had a Kitchen Pass to engage in the sorts of activities the military wanted him for. He knew Maria understood why he took the assignments he did, and that those assignments would necessitate him being away a lot. It didn’t make the absence and day-to-day life any easier on her, though. Her parents were both gone, and while her sister would babysit and she had friends through the kids’ school and her part-time job, she had a hard life running the household and raising the kids, largely alone.

If he had just a few days or a week or two of leave, homecomings were joyous throughout. Everyone was excited that Daddy was home, he was eager to see his family and he was gone before the honeymoon period wore off. But if he was at home for a longer stretch, if he had to actually settle down into domestic life, things got testy around Day 10 or so.

He found her in the bedroom. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, fingers laced behind her head. He sat at her side. “I’m sorry for being an idiot. I didn’t mean to insult what you do here.”

“I know.” She reached for his hand. “It’s been a long day. They were tired and hungry, and they got grumpy.”

“It doesn’t excuse their behavior.” He didn’t want his kids to be “those kids,” the ones other parents didn’t want over or were an embarrassment in public.

“It perfectly explains their behavior,” she pushed back.

“I never threw a fit like that in a store, nor would my parents have let me.”

“You probably did. You just don’t remember it. And if you start in on ‘kids these days,’ I’m going to call you a grumpy old man.”

“I might be a grumpy old man,” he joked. “I suppose I should go make sure the kids know I still love them.”

“Of course they know you love them.” She sat up and snuggled her head into his shoulder, so he wrapped his arm around her. “Go tuck them in, then get some sleep yourself. Remember, you told Joe Vucetich you’d chaperone the baseball outing tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” His stomach flip-flopped a little at that. Walking into a firefight was one thing; wrangling an entire Little League team was in a completely different category.
***Matt wasn’t sure if it was the drugs or the living arrangement, but Frank seemed… softer. He was eating better than he had in the entire time Matt had known him. Matt’s senses were still shot, little better than an average human’s, but he knew Frank had been cooking from scratch because he had been feeding him. Frank normally subsisted on ramen, canned soup, canned vegetables, and instant coffee, which was nearly as distinctive of a smell as the gun oil, blood, and metal that typically defined him.But now Frank was cooking. More than that, he wasn’t killing. Matt had asked him point blank if he had killed Turk. When Frank lied about killing the dealers, he’d been halfway across the apartment, and Matt couldn’t hear his heartbeat. His hearing had improved enough that he could pick it up and the breathing, which was a little easier to track, with Frank sitting across the kitchen table from him. Frank’s heartbeat had remained steady. He left Turk alive.Frank was also more congenial than he had been. He talked more often and more easily. He offered pieces of his past that he never had.The flashbacks were calming down, too. He still got them, but instead of being a near constant stream of memories like the night he got drugged, it was just a few a day, and nowhere near as intense as the first few. The last one had been more like a vivid dream rather than the most real nightmare he’d ever experienced.Matt surfaced from his time spent in meditation feeling much better in mind, body, and spirit. Stick would’ve sneered at the spirit part, but Stick was an asshole who was leaving him alone at the moment, so he could go screw himself. He was pissed and a little ashamed that Frank had had to order him to meditate, and also that he needed it as much as he did.Frank looked up from his crossword. “You good, Red?’“Better, yeah.”“Good. I swear to Christ, you’re more hassle than babysitting an entire goddamn little league team.”“You do that often?”“Once or twice.” Matt smirked at the thought of Frank trying to wrangle a bunch nine-year old boys, but before he could tease him about it, a memory took hold. He heard Frank call “Red?” as though from far away and through a tunnel right before he slipped twenty-five years into the past.  
Right as his class was preparing to go to lunch, the classroom phone rang. Matt's teacher answered it, was silent for a couple of seconds, thanked the secretary, and hung up.

"Matt, you're to report to the Principal's office."

A collective taunting and foreboding "oooooh!" rose from the rest of the class. Matt was generally known as a goody-two-shoes, so even though it was unlikely he was in trouble, it was fun to pretend he was and tease him about it.

"Your father is here to pick you up. Pack your things," his teacher informed him after she had shushed her class.

Matt nodded, packed his bag and grabbed his jacket, and went to the office.

He gave his dad a confused look. His dad said, "All right, Matty, time to get you to your doctor's appointment.” Then he WINKED.

Matt gave him a questioning look, but played along.

Once they were clear of the nosy secretary and the school grounds, he asked, "so, where are we really going?

His dad flashed two tickets at him. "Got a pair of tickets for the Mets' doubleheader this afternoon."

"Really?!" Matt was fairly ambivalent about baseball, but everyone in the neighborhood loved it, and he followed it so they wouldn’t think he was weird for not knowing anything about it. But he’d never been to a game, even though most of the other boys in the neighborhood had been, and was envious of the boys who got to go with their dads.

"Really,” his dad confirmed. “Good ones, too. Right behind home plate."

"But how? That must've cost a lot!" Even at seven, he was acutely aware of how tight their finances were.

"Mr. Sweeney gave me them for the last fight."

Matt wrinkled his brow. "But you lost that fight."

His father looked away. "Said it was the wrong match up. I shouldn't have taken it. This is his apology."

Matt felt special being on the subway in the middle of a school day. He was surprised his father would pull him out of school for something fun, but he wasn't going to protest.

The seats really were great. He was close to the action, he could heckle the batters and the ump, almost felt the crack of the bat as it connected with the ball. They had hotdogs and sodas, and they split a bag of peanuts. They stayed for both games, sang “Take me out the ballgame,” and watched the sun get low in the sky. As much as he wanted the day to last forever, eventually the last pitch was thrown, the last out called, and it was time for everyone to return to their lives.

Matt felt a warm glow all about him as they rode the subway home. Time with his dad, when his dad was doing things with him, not working or training, was precious. It had been a perfect afternoon.
When he was back in the present, he was aware of Frank hovering near him.“Another episode?”Matt shook his head. “Nothing. It was nothing.”***Lantom climbed the stairs of the apartment building, clutching a small. There was no way he would violate the Seal of Confession, but his heart broke for Matthew nonetheless. In Rwanda, he’d seen war orphans hoping against hope that papa hadn’t really died, that mama would return any day. He’d watch their growing despair with each passing day and month. He’d known adopted children who never knew that their parents weren’t their birth parents, and had to help pick up the pieces once the family secrets were finally aired. The Seal of Confession was an awesome thing in the traditional, full of awe, way. He could not even tell Matthew that he knew the fate of his mother, even if he didn’t reveal what that fate was. But this, this he could do.He was mildly surprised when Frank answered the door. Frank eyed him sharply, and Lantom returned the gaze. A silent conversation passed between the two men, culminating in Frank jerking a tiny nod and stepping aside to let him enter.He greeted Matthew, who was sitting at the table with his laptop and braille reader. Matt smiled a genuine smile, and asked why Lantom was making a house call.“I’m sorry I can’t give you the answers you’re looking for, but I have some information on your mother that perhaps you would like to know.” He glanced at Frank and added, “I don’t know if you want this to be a private conversation…”“He can stay,” Matt replied, stowing his computer. “I don’t want to hurt you if I have an episode.”Lantom regarded him shrewdly, shrugged, and sat. He pushed a shoebox across the table. “I talked to some people in the neighborhood, asked around about your mother. How much do you know about her?”Matt gave the synopsis his father and maternal grandmother told him. He knew her name, that she was born and raised in Hell’s Kitchen, she was younger than his father, she had a brother who died young, that she had dark hair and eyes. When he was a boy, he asked why he didn’t have a mommy. His father got a funny look on his face, told him that his mommy was with God, and that was that. When he asked his grandmother, she just started crying and said it was too painful to talk about.“That box contains some mementos from people who knew her. Unfortunately, most of the things people had were photos, but I asked around, and those people asked around. She ran track,” he continued as Matt pulled a couple of medals out of the box. “Sprints and hurdles,” he narrated. “She also had a sharp wit. She went through a punk phase and pierced her nose. Her mother, your grandmother, did not approve. She listened to London Calling on repeat for half a year. Several people described her as idealistic. She’d jump into something whole-heartedly, but it wouldn’t last. Anarchism, communism, objectivism, straightedge…”Matt went through the items in the box one by one, with Fr. Lantom narrating. There was a movie ticket stub for Return of the Jedi from a first date, a candy gram slip she’d sent to a boy during her sophomore year, half of a “best friends” locket she’d shared with a girl in fifth grade, a friendship bracelet she’d made for another girlfriend, a paper crane she’d folded out of a page from a comic book, a ring she’d folded out of a dollar bill, a few more trinkets, and a thumb drive.“I had some people who knew her record memories they had of her. There are twenty-two audio clips on there. You may never have known her as a mother; you may never know what happened to her, but now, maybe, you can start to know who she was.”Matt’s raised his head to acknowledge Fr. Lantom’s incredibly gracious gesture of kindness. His glasses hid his eyes, but his cheeks were damp with tears a long time coming. “Thank you,” he whispered.Lantom placed his hand on Matt’s and gave it a little pat. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I can’t give you more.”When he and Matt had discussed all that they needed to, and he’d finished his third cup of coffee, he bid Matt goodbye, asking whether he might see him out and about soon. Matt confirmed he would. Lantom assured him he could show himself out and that Matt needn’t get up, and he just wanted a word with Frank before he left. He made his way over to the kitchen, where Frank was leaning against the counter, sharp-eyed, but relaxed in body. Frank met his eye as he approached.Lantom gave him a questioning look, silently asking Frank if he was ready. Frank shifted uneasily.“Really, Father…” he said with mild exasperation.The priest gave a little shrug. He knew Frank would comply, and he knew Frank that knew that he was going to comply.Frank crossed his arms and shot a glance over at Matt, who had his headphones back on and was probably listening to the memories of his mother. “He’ll hear,” Frank protested for form’s sake.“I thought you said he lost his senses,” Lantom replied.After a brief pause a funny look crossed Frank’s face, and he nodded. “I lied in my last confession,” he started in a voice just above a whisper.Fr. Lantom waited patiently, giving no reaction.“I said I ate meat on Friday, but I didn’t,” Frank elaborated.“So you did abstain from meat,” he clarified in a tone devoid of judgment.“Not on purpose,” Frank shot back somewhat defensively, as though he had to justify his lack of sinning to the priest. When Fr. Lantom made no reply, he continued, as though he owed further explanation, “I had a vegetarian MRE that day. That was all I ate because I was busy. And it’s enough to get by for a day.”When it was apparent that Frank felt he’d explained that he really hadn’t committed that particular sin, in order to prove he really had committed the sin of lying later, Lantom prodded, “anything else you’d like to confess?” “No,” he replied, voice still barely above a whisper, as he relaxed nearly imperceptibly.Anyone else (excepting perhaps Matt, Lantom mused) would’ve missed it, but he had honed his ability to pick up on tiny cues over decades of ministering to people of all walks of life. Satisfied that he’d gotten all that he would get from Frank, he told him to extend his no-killing penance another week. “And say a prayer for your family,” he added, almost as an afterthought.Frank shot a challenging look at Lantom. “They don’t need prayers, and I don’t pray.”Lantom acknowledge Frank’s state of mind with a small nod, but he wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. “You used to,” he stated. “Try it once more. Just one prayer. It’ll cost you nothing.” He waited Frank out until the latter sighed and nodded a quick acknowledgment of the penance.Without prompting, Frank offered another terse Act of Contrition that may or may not have had a kernel of honesty in it. Lantom absolved him, which Frank tolerated enough not to storm off. He looked over at Matt, who chuffed a quiet chuckle. He still had his headphones on, and his fingers were busy Braille display, so Lantom figured he was amused by something on his computer. He bade goodbye to both of the men, and exited into the cold but beautiful promise of spring.Once he’d locked up behind Lantom, Frank moved into the dining room part of Matt’s Loft. “The hell’s so funny, Red?”“Nothing,” he replied, unable to suppress a grin. “Just something on my computer.”“Uh huh,” Frank grunted out, unconvinced. “You know, lying’s a sin,” he deadpanned.“So I hear,” Matt quipped, letting his amusement seep through.“That so?” Frank challenged. “What else did you hear?”“Nothing. I stopped listening once I realized what was going on. Had my headphones on, too. And my hearing’s still shot.”“Clearly not completely shot.”“It’s not back to normal, but apparently I can still hear better than the average bear.”“Funny,” Frank said, moving towards the couch so that he could attempt to ignore Red in relative comfort.“Is that the trade you worked out? You confess, he doesn’t turn you in?” He waited through Frank’s silence. “You know, legally it doesn’t have to be a proper confession. Religious counsel is covered, too.”“Glad to see you’re feeling better, Red,” he replied because a reply was necessary.“Actually, I am. I’ve only fallen over from vertigo once today, and I can hear your heartbeat from about six feet away now. In related news, I’m going out for a bit. I’ll make you a deal. You don’t tell Karen I’m suiting up, I don’t tell anyone you’re seeking religious counsel.” Matt was unable to keep the mirth out of his voice.“Red, I’m not a couples therapist. You wanna sabotage what you got going with Karen by continuing to lie to her, you go right on ahead.” He figured he aimed well, because Matt was silent for a whole half a minute.“She’ll put it together eventually. She just doesn’t need to know I’m going out before I’m one hundred percent.”When Frank finally looked over at Matt, he understood why he was going out. He nearly laughed at the sight of Matt in his full, armored suit, and a piece of black mesh tied around the top half of his head. “Uh, yeah. You go do what you need to do. Just try not to get killed, ‘cause I can’t hear your heartbeat from the next block over.”All he got in response was the sound of the roof access door shutting quietly.**It felt good to be running and jumping again. He wasn’t back to normal but after several days of inactivity, he was antsy.The other reason he was out in his Devil suit was that he needed a new helmet. The old one was contaminated, and whoever Claire talked with agreed that they couldn’t guarantee that residual chemical hadn’t been adsorbed or absorbed by the material. He’d wiped down the body of the suit and tried to see if it would send him on a trip the way Frank had a second dose when he took off his helmet but it seemed clean. The mask however, wasn’t guaranteed ever to be safe to use again. He knew he couldn’t chance having another flashback during a fight, so he’d have to call in a big favor from Melvin Potter.When he got to Potter’s workshop, Matt found him at one of the tables, bent over some fabric.Melvin looked up and laughed. “I can guess why you’re here.”“I need a new helmet,” Matt said, feeling like Captain Obvious.“I can see that. Take another shot to the noggin?”Matt shook his head.Melvin shrugged. “It’ll take a few days, but I still got your measurements, and I’ve been working on this great idea. I saw this show on Netflix, where these gangsters in England sewed blades into the brims of their caps. We could do that with yours. The horns, maybe. I’m workin’ on a coat with blades in it. Betsy’s worried about me. Says there’s violence ramping up. Says I need to stay safe. Check out this piece.” He beckoned Matt over to his drafting table.Matt walked over and made like he was peering down at the project on the table. He gently touched one of the sleeves. “Sawblade?”“Yeah. Sewing blades into fabric. No one will mess with me with this on!” Melvin moved over to another work bench and got the form he used to fit Daredevil’s helmet. “Same as the old one?”“That’d be great,” Matt said gently. “No blades for me, though.”“It’ll take me five days or so. Come back next Monday.”“I will, Melvin. Be safe.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt’s grandmother placed two bowls of stew and a plate of bread on the table and then sat opposite of him for supper. She was babysitting, as she did semi-frequently, when his dad was doing day jobs, or had to travel, or do other grown-up things. Matt knew his dad and his grandma didn’t like each other much. She wasn’t his dad’s mom, but his mom’s mom. His grandma was mostly okay to him, even if she had a temper and sometime got maudlin. She was in a good mood, though. Matt had been good for her all day, had behaved in church, hadn’t gotten into anything, and had drawn a lovely picture for her to put on her fridge. They were both relaxed and content and about to tuck into some delicious-smelling stew. Matt waited for her to say grace—she always did—and he knew better than to so much as touch his spoon before she had finished.

This time before she started, she turned to him and said, “you say grace with me, Matty.”

“I don’t know the words,” he responded. He had just turned five and had, at her insistence, managed to memorize the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be. He was much more interested in memorizing the words to the rubber ducky and ladybug picnic songs he saw on Sesame Street, but he was also a dutiful child, and so, with the promise of a few cookies, he’d committed the most important prayers a Catholic should know (so said his grandma) to memory a month or so ago.

“You’re old enough to learn them. I’ll say them, you repeat. How’s that?”

“Okay, grandma,” he said obediently.

She taught him the prayer phrase by phrase. They went through it three times that way, after which she made him say it all the way through on his own. He repeated it flawlessly, matching her phrasing and intonation, though as with the other prayers, it didn’t register it as words or phrases so much as syllables to recite.

She praised him for being a good boy, and they ate in silence for a few minutes.

“Grandma, why do we say grace?”

She dunked her bread in her stew. “Because it’s good to thank God.”

“But why for food? Why not for water, too? Or clothes? Or toys? Or rent money?”

“You should thank God for all of those things, too, but food’s special. Even says so in the Our Father. ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’”

“Why?”

“Because you can live without toys,” she explained. “You can even live without rent money.”

“You can’t live without water. I heard so on TV.”

“That’s true, but it’s easy to find a drink of water. It takes a lot more work to make a meal. And because cooking is so much work, everyone eats together, and that makes it special.”

“Why don’t we thank the grocer or the farmer?”

“You can be thankful for their work but the food comes from God. Everything comes from God. At a meal, you say grace to thank God for giving you enough food to keep your family alive. In the olden times, it was harder to guarantee food for a meal. There weren’t soup kitchens or food stamps if you got hungry. If you ran out of food and didn’t have money, you starved.

“It’s good to eat together. Think of special events like holidays. There’s always a big meal. Every meal is sacred and something to be thankful for” she continued, giving a surprisingly nuanced take on it.

Matt was glad that meals were both sacred and good, because he liked to eat. Typically, her take on pleasure was that if it felt good, it was a sin and you had to go to confession and say a rosary. He was really glad he wasn’t old enough to go to confession, because saying the rosary took forever and it was really boring. But he could enjoy meals without guilt.
Friday evenings could be wild, but usually not until after dark, so Matt reserved the suppertime hours for prepping, serving, and cleaning up a meal at the Clinton Mission Shelter. It was affiliated with St. Agnes; some of the Dominican Sisters worked in the school and the orphanage, some of them worked in the kitchen and shelter. He started doing it shortly after Elektra died because after a solid month of grieving, feeling sorry for himself, and not wearing pants, he realized he needed to leave his apartment at least occasionally. Helping “the least of these” seemed like a good place to start.It quickly turned into a ritual for him. He enjoyed the work and found the people, both the guests and the volunteers, companionable and interesting. Many guests were homeless, but some were people living on very tight budgets in one of the most expensive cities in the world. The volunteers were a mixed bag of people from various walks of life. There were kids doing community service hours for school or service organizations, other professionals like himself, one woman who frequented the kitchen as a guest when her fortunes were worse and was now “paying it forward,” Sisters from St. Agnes, and a rotating band of priests of various orders.Sometimes he was able to steer the guests either to his pro bono practice, or another lawyer who might help be able to help. Sometimes, he was just someone who could listen without judgment. And always, he felt that he shouldn’t enjoy it so much, that it wasn’t truly giving of himself if he got so much out of it.“Hey, man,” Malcolm called when Matt walked in. “We got sandwiches, lentil soup, carrot sticks, and mashed potatoes on the menu for tonight. You wanna help Father Jordan with the carrots? He’s at your 2 o’clock.”“Sure,” he replied, as he cautiously tapped his way to one of the prep stations. The man who was presumably Fr. Jordan greeted him cordially and shook Matt’s proffered hand. They divvied up the tasks and decided that Matt would peel and Fr. Jordan cut the carrots into sticks.   Fr. Jordan was a Jesuit priest who had just been assigned to New York. Matt’s senses registered him as a tall, African-American man who was built like a weightlifter or a wrestler. When Matt asked where he was from, he got a novel in response.“I’m from all around. I’ve lived in cities before, but not like this,” the priest explained. “Grew up in Virginia, mostly. Lived abroad when my dad was stationed overseas—Army brat,” he clarified. “Did some mission work in Jamaica and Kenya. Nothing I’ve seen is quite like New York. You a native, I take it? You got that look about ya.”“Hell’s Kitchen, born and raised,” Matt confirmed. “What do you think of New York, so far?”“It’s a hell of a town,” Jordan replied.Matt chuckled. “For better or worse, it is,” he agreed.“I hear we’ve got our own devil running around here, too,” Fr. Jordan went on. “A little on the nose if you ask me, but he gets the job done, from what I hear.”Matt reminded himself to fumble the carrots and feel around for the bowl to aim the peelings at, like an ordinary blind man. “Do you approve of his methods?” he asked.Fr. Jordan screwed up his mouth thoughtfully. “His methods? Maybe.”Matt chuffed a disbelieving laugh. “Really?”The priest shrugged. “Depends on the context. I haven’t been here long enough to have the full picture. I don’t know the devil’s heart, so I can’t judge his motivations. I’m not a pacifist, though, if that’s what you’re asking.”“You’re not?”“Don’t let the collar fool ya, son. I understand that there’s a time and a place for physical force, as long as it’s not done for its own sake or to excess.”Matt hid his wince. He knew that a dark, hidden part of himself enjoyed the means that Daredevil employed as much as the end he achieved, or tried to achieve. The devil was always pushing to take it one step further.“You’re the lawyer working out of Josie’s, right?” Fr. Jordan continued.“The same,” Matt affirmed.“What about you? As a lawyer, what do you think of Daredevil?”Matt hesitated. This question hadn’t gotten any easier to answer than when Karen asked him way back during the Punisher case. “Officially, I’m supposed to say that vigilantism is wrong and we should let those institutions we set up for that purpose handle it.”“But…?” Fr. Jordan prompted.“But I see that the system fails sometimes.” Matt shrugged. “Probably makes me a hypocrite, but I can turn a blind eye, pun intended, towards what Daredevil does, especially in light of some of the corruption scandals that have arisen in our police department.”Fr. Jordan shrugged. “No one is required to become a martyr,” he agreed. “That’s official Church policy. And there’s certainly precedent in Christianity for helping the disenfranchised. Not saying I give him carte blanche, but in the absence of effective policing, I see no problem with citizens’ arrests.” He dumped his small stack of carrot sticks into the bowl. “You’ve been here through the whole Daredevil thing; what’s the consensus? From what I hear, people are mostly approving.”“Hell’s Kitchen has never been the happiest place on earth,” Matt started carefully. “It’s always been poor and ethnic, and just as it was starting to clean up, the Incident occurred, and in the vacuum it left behind, crime reestablished itself and flourished. I think Daredevil is just trying to protect the good people who are being preyed upon.” He turned more attention than was strictly necessary to the carrot in his hand. “I’m glad he’s here. I wish he weren’t necessary.”“Such is the fallen world in which we live,” agreed Fr. Jordan. “But if you’re right, and his intentions are to protect, not to punish, then he’s fighting the good fight. He sees an ideal world and is fighting to attain it.”Matt was silent for a moment. It was a hell of a compliment, but he couldn’t betray that it was directed at him. “In that, Daredevil and I are in agreement. I’d hope that’d be the dream of everyone.”“Me, too,” Fr. Jordan replied. “But we both know it’s not.”“No, it’s not,” Matt echoed.“Yo, Matt!” Malcolm called, interrupting the introspective silence that had fallen on Matt and Fr. Jordan.“Yeah?”“I forgot to mention. Maybe you know already. The whole staff of the Clinton Mission Shelter is going to be featured in the Bulletin for one of their ‘Everyday Heroes’ profiles. You have anything to do with that?” he teased. Malcolm knew Karen wrote the articles, and he knew Matt and Karen were dating. Other than Foggy, Karen, Fr. Lantom, and Frank, Malcolm might be the person who knew the most about him. He realized this spoke volumes about how little he socialized.“I just talk about what goes on here. She pursued the story herself,” he said with a smile. “She mentioned you were on the shortlist of subjects she wanted to cover, but I didn’t realize it was happening. I’m glad it’s going through, though. Everything that you do here is a real benefit for the community.”“More publicity never hurt,” Malcolm replied as he buttered bread. “Maybe it’ll bring in more donations, and we’ll be able to offer milk at every meal.”“The guests would certainly appreciate that,” Matt agreed. They weren’t able to offer milk all the time, and when they had it, they made sure to prioritize children and the elderly, and then it was always the most popular item.“Whoa there!” Malcolm ran over to a pair of middle school-aged girls who were supposed to be cubing peeled potatoes, but were also waving their knives around as they chatted between themselves. “What’s the rule? Knives on the board when they’re not being used for cutting. I don’t want to have to tell your principal that you girls lost fingers here, because then she won’t let you volunteer here anymore, and I’ll lose my best servers. The guests will revolt if Katy and Addison aren’t the ones to hand them their sandwiches,” he teased gently.“We’re sorry, Malcolm. We’ll pay more attention,” Addison called back, as they resumed cubing potatoes, still giggling over what a boy said to Katy during social studies.“Hey, Malcolm. Is Sister Agnes around today?” Matt asked casually.“You called, Mateo?” came a voice with a trace of a Puerto Rican accent, muffled by what smelled to Matt like a stack of hams moving quickly through the kitchen. The small woman deposited three hams next to Malcolm and grabbed a giant carving knife.Matt wiped his hands dry and reached into his pocket for a copy of the photo that appeared at his door. “Do you know this woman?”“What, no small talk today?” she teased as she leaned in to get a good look at the photo. “Looks like an old picture of Sr. Margaret. She’s been away on missions for years, just stopping in for a bit here and there. She’s back for a little while now, but she’s on retreat until Sunday. Why? You looking for someone to practice your Spanish with? Am I not enough for you anymore?” she teased with mock sadness, clutching at her heart melodramatically.“Nadie te puede reemplazar,” <<No one could replace you>> he responded with a smile. And it was true. Sr. Agnes was sassy, whip smart, and definitely irreplacable. He thanked her for her help with the photo. “She speaks Spanish?”“Yep, she’s been working in Central America on and off for a while now. “El Salvador, Costa Rica, Mexico for a stint.” She started into one of the hams with the knife that was the length of her forearm, letting slices of ham fall onto the table next to Malcolm, who layered them with the bread. “After she got out of the pen, that is,” she muttered under her breath, too soft for anyone without enhanced hearing to pick up.Matt forced himself not to react. His body seemed to be pulled in two directions. His stomach was falling through the floor, and the world started spinning around his head. He must’ve wobbled, because the next thing he knew, Fr. Jordan’s hand was clamped on his arm and wrestling him back upright.“You alright, son?” he asked, giving Matt a searching look.“You sick, Mateo?” Sr. Agnes chimed in. “Are you sure you should be around food?” She eyed him sharply.“I’m not contagious,” he assured with his lawyer smile. “Just having some issues with vertigo lately.”“Hm.” Well, you stay seated, then. We’ll put you on distributing silverware today. And make sure you eat, too.” She grabbed one of Malcolm’s slices of buttered bread and thrust it at Matt, who accepted it meekly.“You’re the best,” he said with a genuine smile and an elbow nudge.“And don’t you forget it!” she chirped back.***Saturday passed unremarkably. Karen had the day shift, and they both used the downtime in the afternoon to catch up on work. The tedium was briefly interrupted when the electricians showed up to fix the outlets in Matt’s apartment. Apparently, whoever did the wall outlets when the building was converted to lofts half-assed the job, and none of the outlets were grounded properly. The superintendent had been scheduling times with all the tenants to get everything up to code.Matt’s hands stilled on his Braille reader. He listened to Karen’s heartbeat, calm and strong. He smelled her presence, a combination of her unique scent and her almond-scented shampoo. He felt her breathe. Each breath disturbed the air, and he could feel the rise and fall of her chest. Each breath was a gift; each moment of life was a gift. God knew he’d had enough tragedy in his life to understand the fragility of life, and that every moment should be celebrated. That was an impossible ideal, though. No one could (or should) live as though each moment was glorious and precious, but every now and then the stars aligned and he was truly thankful to be alive and to be in possession of whatever small blessings he had before him. He offered up a tiny prayer of thanks for the incredible woman who was willing to stand by him throughout all of the drama and insanity that was his life.Karen looked up from her computer and rolled her head and shoulders to work out the stiffness. “What’s up?” she asked Matt, who was looking in her direction with a funny little smile on his face.He kept smiling for a moment. “Just enjoying the view,” he replied, ignoring her groan at the bad joke. He felt her smile back, though, and for a moment, he knew they were both truly, deeply thankful that they had each other.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt bound into his grandmother’s apartment. His shirt was torn, his knuckles skinned, and dirt was streaked across his face, but triumph informed his entire being.

He pulled up short as he rounded the corner. His grandmother was standing there, feet planted, hands on her hips. “Matthew Michael Murdock, what on earth happened to you?!” she demanded. She was watching him because his father was doing some odd jobs so they could make rent. It was a nice day, and there were plenty of kids in the neighborhood, so she sent him out to play in front of her tenement so that he would be out of her hair.

“Jimmy was pickin’ on Patrick and made him cry. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t and then he started pushin’ me, so I popped him one right in the mouth. He just sat down and looked dumb, but he left Patrick alone!” he said triumphantly.

Her eyes narrowed and her bloodless lips were pressed into a thin line. “You were fighting?”

Matt, sensing that she was not nearly a proud of him as he was of himself, hesitated and tried to justify himself. “He started it! I just stood up for Patrick. He’s little, and Jimmy was gonna hurt him!”

The next thing he knew, before he could get another word in, his grandmother had slapped him hard across the face. “You stupid, wicked boy! How many times have I told you not to fight with the other children?! You’re going to end up just like your father, just a stupid pug!”

This wouldn’t be the first time he’d been on the receiving end of what she considered punishment, and what he considered a beating. He had no intention of letting it get to that point again. Before she could hit him again, he was out the door, slamming it hard behind him. He could absolutely outrun her, but she could outlast him, so he went to one of his hiding spots. It was enough of a climb and well-enough hidden that she wouldn’t find him before his dad got done with work. He’d miss supper and probably go to bed hungry, and his dad certainly wouldn’t he happy about him running off, but his dad’s reaction was guaranteed to be better than his grandmother’s.

From his perch, he listened to the sounds of the city around him. There were some kids playing stickball in the street, yelling at each other, both taunts and cheers. He heard the rush of water farther down the block where someone had opened a hydrant. There was the incessant rumble of the never-ending traffic. He heard neighbors yelling out their windows at their kids, at each other. Radios were playing music, televisions airing soap operas, and a couple of disinterested pigeons were making strangled cooing noises. He sat, he listened, and he thought.
He thought about how unfair it was that his grandmother hit him. She shouldn’t have hit him because he did the right thing. He stood up for Patrick, who was kinda funny in the head, and who couldn’t defend himself. Why was she allowed to hit him if he couldn’t hit Jimmy? It wasn’t fair. If there were rules, they needed to apply to everyone. They needed to be enforced for everyone. Yes, he decided. He would study rules when he grew up. He’d make sure kids didn’t get hurt, especially when they were trying to do the right thing. Now, though, he knew what to study.
Eventually it grew late enough that he knew his father would either be at his grandmother’s or their place. He knew he had to come down from his hiding spot and face the music, but he did so with a clear head and a joyous heart. His father was always harping on him to study, but he never said what to study, as though just enough time spent studying is what got you ahead in life.  Matt knew his dad wanted him to be someone who uses his brain for a living, not his fists, and now he finally knew how to do that. He’d dedicate his life to studying rules and making sure they were applied fairly so that no one would hurt kids ever again.
Matt was through with his sick week. Nevermind that he wasn’t a hundred percent yet; he needed out and he needed to exercise both his body and his mind. He woke earlyish and went down to Fogwell’s to blow off some steam. Neither Karen nor Foggy would begrudge him working a heavy bag for a while. After a quick shower and breakfast, he suited up in his lawyer costume and headed down to Josie’s,Josie was uncharacteristically gentle with him. It wasn’t unheard of for him to take breaks from what was more often than not a volunteer gig, but he hadn’t taken a week’s vacation since he started. She had also seen him banged up on previous occasions, and was justifiably worried that something serious might’ve happened. He lied and said he caught the flu late in the season, and that it knocked him on his ass for a week.After sharp-witted pleasantries, Josie and Matt settled into their silent routines. Josie busied herself upkeeping the bar, and Matt settled into a booth to do some work on a couple of low-urgency cases he’d had on the back burner. His workload ebbed and flowed. Some days, he’d have several people come in, some days just one or none. Most of the problems he handled were things that could be resolved relatively quickly, though occasionally he got more complex cases. He had suggested billing rates, and he asked those who were able to pay to do so, but never turned anyone away because of financial hardship. Between the money he made with his law practice, and the much larger sums he was making on interest, dividends, and straight up growth on the portfolios Elektra had left him, he was able to live very comfortably, though he chose a more austere lifestyle out of preference and habit.That day was a quiet one. No new or returning clients showed up, and he was able to get some good work done.Josie’s assistant, who came in to unload the shipment and do some work in the back, also brought the lunch she’d requested him to pick up. She grabbed the pair of sandwiches, dropped one next to Matt’s computer, and sat across from him. “Pastrami on rye.”“Thanks!” He saved his work and pushed his computer aside. Part of the agreement for Matt camping in her bar was that he provide lunch twice a week. It quickly turned into a pretty regular lunch date that they snuck in at an opportune moment in the afternoon. They alternated who bought, and that day it was Josie’s turn.“I think your girl’s running out of ideas,” she said after they’d eaten in companionable silence for a minute.“Why’s that?” Matt looked up.“She wants to interview me for her Everyday Heroes piece.” Josie smirked. “Imagine that. Putting a dive bar next to a doctor who was there when the towers came down, or the kid who raised a bunch of money for starving kids in Africa.”Matt had known her for years, and knew that underneath her hard exterior, she was pretty soft, and that she was flattered by Karen’s interest. “You provide a place where people can just be without judgment, a center for the community.”“This ain’t exactly Cheers,” she snarked.He grinned. “Everybody knows your name…”“Because it’s on the damn window!” She grinned back.“I mean it, though. It’s a place where people of different classes and stations in life mix. It’s a part of the community. It helps define the community.” He continued working on his sandwich.“You make it sound like church.”“You probably see more people in any given week than any one church in Hell’s kitchen.”“Speaking of church,” she said as she looked over at the man in a clerical collar who’d just walked up to the end of the booth. “Father. Here to see Matt?” She gathered the remains of her lunch and stood.“No rush, it’s not urgent,” he replied. Matt recognized the voice as Father Jordan’s.“I was finished anyway. Gotta get back to work. He’s all yours.” She gestured at Matt.Matt nodded at her as she got up to leave. “You should do the interview.”“Yeah, yeah,” she called over her shoulder as she returned to the bar.“Matt. Father Jordan. We met at St. Agnes’ on Friday night.”“Father Jordan,” Matt greeted him warmly, not letting on that he already recognized him by voice, shape, and scent. He extended his hand, and the priest shook it. “Please, sit. What brings you here?”“Just in the neighborhood,” he joked. “I was hoping to squeeze a favor out of you, and possibly send a client your way,” he continued more seriously.“Shoot,” said Matt, gesturing for him to go on.“They’re one and the same. There’s a kid in the St. Agnes afterschool program who is a DREAMer. She’s got college acceptance letters and everything, but she needs help navigating the path to citizenship. I’ve heard you’ve been able to help out some people with such issues; maybe you could help her?”“Of course. I can make an appointment to talk with her at St. Agnes some afternoon. And the favor?”“She wants to be a layer. Maybe you could give her some hands-on experience with what a lawyer does, show her what a day in the life of a lawyer looks like?”“I hardly have a typical practice,” he demurred.Father Jordan managed to both nod and shake his head simultaneously. “That’s true, but she doesn’t know any lawyers, and you’re a kid from the neighborhood who made it good. Maybe you can tell her about the range of opportunities a law degree offers, and also what a kid from your background needs to know but hasn’t been taught before undergrad? Soft skills.”Matt briefly thought back to his “mentor.” Any outsider would’ve viewed Stick as abusive, and even Matt himself acknowledged that his defense of Stick’s methods had echoes of victims defending their abusers. He wasn’t sure he knew how to mentor someone.When he didn’t respond immediately, Father Jordan continued. “If it helps, don’t think of it as a ‘Big Brother’ sort of relationship. She’s 18, and she’s mature beyond her years. Consider it more of explaining the outs of your profession to an adult.”Matt nodded. He could do that. Father Jordan said he’d e-mail her contact info, and have her get in touch with Matt.“Thank you so much for that. We’re really trying to get one on one mentorship with those kids going.”“If you need a cop, get in touch with Brett Mahoney.”“That’d be great!” Fr. Jordan replied, as he jotted down the name.“If you want a reporter, I can ask Karen, too. She’s my girlfriend,” Matt continued.“The more the merrier. I’m really excited to get this off the ground. St. Agnes has had great programs for younger kids, but its program for older kids hasn’t been much lately. Just trying to round up people with talents to share. I’m gonna be teaching a jujitsu class.”“You know jujitsu?” Matt’s curiosity was piqued.“Black belt,” he confirmed. “Did it all through grade school and high school. Taught some classes during college, and picked it up again once I was out of the Army.” He looked up as a middle-aged woman with a small child in tow peeked around into the booth. “I won’t keep you; looks like you got someone who needs a lawyer. I should get going, too. Thanks again, and see you ‘round.”“See you, ‘round,” he called back. He turned and greeted the woman. “Hi, I’m Matt Murdock, how can I help you?”Yes, he thought to himself. This was much needed. He could never give up the law.
***
Frank made his way back to Matt’s apartment after what was becoming a regular grocery run. When he ate on his own, he ate canned vegetables, MREs, instant coffee, and anything else that was cheap, portable, and had a long shelf life. Caring for someone else was different, though. The bare minimum of calories, vitamins, fat, and protein might be good enough for him, but it wasn’t appropriate for someone he was responsible for.He had the key in the lock when he heard the door behind him open.“Frank.”“Hi Fran.” He turned to greet Matt’s neighbor.“Matt still sick?”“He’s on the road to recovery. A few more days and he’ll be back in fighting trim.”“Hopefully not actually fighting. That boy gets more cuts and bruises than anyone should have.”“Ain’t that the truth,” he replied.“Tell Matt I talked to the security people for him.”Frank froze. “Pardon?”“About his whatchacallit, ah, Q clearance. I answered their questions for him. Don’t worry, I didn’t make up any stories.” She cracked a grin. “But next time, tell him I’d appreciate a heads up. They scared the bejeezus out of me. Government agents with badges showing up at my doorstep.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Ballsy move in Hell’s Kitchen.”Frank cocked his head and processed what she’d said. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’ll pass on that information. You know Matt, leaving people out of the loop.” He made a “what are you gonna do” face.She nodded ruefully. “Like that partner of his. Foggy. Don’t know how many times he came up here banging on his door and bellowing because he couldn’t get ahold of Matt.”“I know exactly what you mean. I’ll be sure to let him know about his clearance.” He smiled a crooked grin. “Take care, Fran,” he said and went inside.“You working for the DoE now?” he called out by way of greeting.Matt looked up, letting his fruitless investigation into his mother go for the moment, not deigning to dignify the nonsensical question with a response.“Your neighbor. Fran,” Frank continued. “Said she was visited by some people from the government. They were conducting an interview of people who know you for your Q clearance. Now, I know what Q clearance is. She probably doesn’t, otherwise she’d have known it would be strange as fuck for you to be handling nuclear secrets.”“Fisk.” Matt shook his head.“Yeah?” Frank asked as he put away the eggs and milk. He was a passable cook when it came to supper, but he had perfected his breakfast recipes years ago. He was actually looking forward to making French toast, and the sensation of desiring something, of hoping for a future point to come because it would be enjoyable, was foreign and discomfiting.“He’s gotta be behind all of this. No one else has the means and the reach to pull this many strings.”“He certainly hates you enough,” Frank agreed. “Question is, what are you gonna do about it? He’s locked up safe and sound.”“Kinda like Monopoly,” Matt joked. “Get your game pieces in place and then ride it out in jail while everyone else is running around, landing on your properties.” He sighed and responded more seriously. “I think I have to treat the symptoms instead of the disease for now. Make sure he can’t do any lasting harm until I can build a case against him.”Frank made a non-committal noise, and Matt let him be.They both kept their thoughts to themselves. Each knew the other was gunning for Fisk as soon as he was released, and each hoped to beat the other to him. Hashing out that argument again was futile.***Matt was feeling pretty good. He knew he wasn’t back to normal, and he suspected that some of the effects, namely the vivid, emotional memories brought about by the slightest triggers, might persist. Still, he was mostly over the dizziness and hadn’t had any violent hallucinations in a couple of days. His senses were getting there, too. Every day, he could sense farther and farther out. He could hear Fran in her apartment. She was cooking liver and onions. He could hear the cat in heat in the alley. He could feel the changes in the air Frank and Karen made when they moved around the apartment, when they slept, when they were relaxed, when they were lying.When his senses first started returning, it was a little like when he first became aware of them, shortly after the accident. It was like being in a crowded restaurant. Most people could naturally filter out the ambient sounds and smells and focus on their dinner partner. Both then and now, his senses, or maybe his brain, made that difficult. He heard, smelled, and tasted everything. It was like having to follow the conversations at every table all at once. But he’d learned to control it once before and he found it was much easier to do it the second time.Even without augmented senses he would’ve been fine living on his own again. Indeed, he’d had the urge to send Frank and Karen on their respective ways almost from the start. With some hindsight, he conceded that they were right in not leaving him alone for the first few days. After that it had become a routine, and after that, he found that he… liked… the company. He would’ve been fine if Karen had chosen never to leave, and in his innermost heart, he hoped that she might broach the subject. As for Frank, he knew that Frank wasn’t killing anyone, and with the exception of Turk, hadn’t even beaten anyone up. It seemed that either he or the drugs had a civilizing effect on the man. He had always retained hope that there might be some chink in Frank’s armor that would allow a real human connection in again, and that through that connection, Frank might be saved from himself. If allowing him to babysit was what it took, then Matt was willing to pretend he needed a babysitter, at least until he could convince him to adopt a dog or something.***Frank hadn’t completed the last penance Father Lantom had assigned. Sure, he hadn’t killed anyone since before the night everything went to shit, but he had also agreed to say a prayer for his family, which he hadn’t done yet.He’d put it off for whatever reason, or a host of reasons. He didn’t pray anymore. He wasn’t going to compose his own words, and all the traditional prayers he knew rang hollow. Yet, he’d given his word, and once upon a time, that meant something.When he told Father Lantom that his family didn’t need his prayers, he was both honest and earnest. Traditionally, prayers were said for those in Purgatory. His attitude towards God alternated between indifference, revulsion, and righteous anger, but none of that was mutually exclusive with believing God would do right by his family. If God was the God he’d been taught to believe in as a boy, then his family didn’t need prayers. If God wasn’t that god, then God could go fuck himself. Maybe the God of his childhood should go fuck Himself, too.That meant that as far as traditional prayers went, the Our Father was out. He would not hallow God’s name, nor would he acquiesce to God’s will. He wasn’t too keen on forgiving anyone’s trespasses, either.Nothing else seemed appropriate, so he settled on a Hail Mary for Maria and their children. He double-checked that Matt was absorbed with his research, and maintained his poker face as he prayed for the first time in ages.   Hail Mary, full of grace—She was graceful. She brought light and art and music into their home.The Lord is with thee—The Lord goddamn better be with her. He owed her that much.Blessed art though amongst women—Maria was first amongst women in Frank’s eyes. Once she entered the picture, he had eyes for no one else.And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus (Lisa and Junior).—The children certainly were his salvationHoly Mary, mother of God—since Jesus had done jack shit for himPray for us sinners,--Far be it from him to claim to be otherwise.Now and at the hour of our death. Amen—He didn’t want prayers, he wouldn’t ask for prayers, but if either of those mothers was going to pray for him, then so be it.He looked up to find Matt looking at him curiously. “Everything alright?” Matt asked.Frank looked away. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”***Things were progressing nicely. He had three years served and an exemplary record. No disciplinary action against him, no complaints; he was a model inmate. He’d be eligible for parole in a year, and would likely get it based on his good behavior and the overcrowding situation. His lawyers had ensured he was tried at the state, not the federal level, and the prosecutor didn’t pursue a RICO case, so he was able to maintain his holdings.In the meantime, he’d been rebuilding his empire from within the confines of the prison. It was like a game of chess for him. He could take his time, be methodical, and always have the end game in view. Perfectly above-board business deals were progressing in a way that would allow him to own significant real estate in the city. That would bring with it capital and influence, and those translated to power. His father had been wrong about many things, beating his mother and him top among them, but he’d been right among many things, too. Power came from being in the right circles. Even with a criminal record, he could set himself up to be a legitimate businessman once he was out. That he had people doing dirty work for him so that he could set up the legitimate business was of little consequence. He had plans to keep the two separate.Vanessa had been in contact, and she’d even visited a few times, but officially, she was working in the European art scene. She still owned her New York gallery, but she had handed off management of it to her assistant, who was running interesting, popular, and uncontroversial exhibits.  The official story was that she was strengthening ties with a few up and coming European artists. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Simply having her physically out of New York took some of the pressure off of them both. There was no mention of either of them in the Times or the Bulletin, no sightings of her for bored reporters with the attention span of gnats to cover. When the time was right, after he was paroled and had sufficient human interest pieces and maybe the memoir out, she would return, and the star-crossed lovers would be united. And then they would rule the city as king and queen.But to enact that plan, he needed to eliminate the nay-sayers. Matthew Murdock would have to go. If Franklin Nelson couldn’t be bought, he would be eliminated, too. He was unsure which would hurt Murdock more; seeing his best friend corrupted or killed. Perhaps he would do both. Frank Castle was a mad dog, and the only thing to do with those was to put them down.And then there was the woman, Karen Page. If only he’d listened to Wesley right after the Union Allied scandal. Wesley wanted to neutralize Page, but he had thought she’d already done the damage she’d do. He didn’t expect she’d be so tenacious or stupid, but she’d turned into a genuine threat; a reporter with scruples and little instinct for self-preservation.  That alone would’ve been enough to have her killed. But then Vanessa sent the photo. He didn’t really understand why it’d taken so long to get the security camera footage from the night Ben Urich had visited his mother. His tech geeks said something about how computers access memory. He didn’t understand it, but that didn’t matter. He had photographic evidence that Karen Page was with Urich the night they harassed an old woman with Alzheimer’s. She would die painfully for that. Her family didn’t seem much interested in her, nor she them, so he chose to leave them untouched. It would be fewer arrows pointing towards him. He could create a narrative of corruption for Matthew Murdock that would create a plausible story in the eyes of the uninformed for the elimination of those close to him.Vanessa had kept him apprised of the vigilante situation. It seemed that her plan had hit a few snags, namely that Daredevil and Frank Castle both escaped the lab, and neither’s body had turned up. No body meant they could be alive, but there had been no reports of either of them sticking their noses where they didn’t belong since that incident. He trusted Vanessa would be able to handle the situation, but he was also moving on a hunch, and had ordered closer surveillance of Murdock.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt was back to being Matthew Murdock, Esq., but not quite to being Daredevil. Thankfully, things had been quiet. His senses improved rapidly; each day he could focus farther and farther out. He supposed that his brain was relearning how to process and filter the input, because he was noticing things he hadn’t before, or maybe that he’d trained himself not to notice. Or maybe his neighbors (and by that he meant anyone in a five block radius) had more dogs and spent more time banging pots and pans than they used to. So, between it being pretty quiet (the cops did actually do their jobs, for the most part), and his senses and reflexes still recovering (he was having some trouble creating the mental maps that were required for actually leaping off buildings and such), he stayed in and worked.Tuesday nights pricked at his conscience. Malcolm Ducasse, the community organizer who did a lot of work through St. Agnes, including the soup kitchen, ran a support group called “Heroes and their consequences,” which met on Tuesday nights. He wanted to go. He knew that he should go, if for no other reason than to hear unfiltered thoughts, both good and bad, about how Daredevil and others affected non-vigilante or superpowered citizens. The few times he’d gone he’d heard people talk about how Daredevil saved them from grievous bodily harm, cleaned up the neighborhood, and renewed their faith in humanity, but also about how Daredevil scared them or their children, how Daredevil had injured someone badly enough that he had over a hundred thousand in unpaid medical bills, how Daredevil was a slippery slope to the Punisher. The support group was sort of like Confession for him, and not rambling conversations with Father Lantom in which he unpacked a philosophical problem, but actually going to him with a contrite heart and asking for forgiveness for something he knew was clearly wrong. He felt better after going, he knew it would ultimately be good to go, even if it might smart a bit during the ordeal, but he made every excuse in the world not to go, and mostly let the excuses win.There was also the little snag that Foggy frequented the group. He knew from both Malcolm and experience that Foggy didn’t make every meeting, that he was typically there the second and fourth Tuesdays, and that his caseload impacted even those dates. Still, the first time Matt had screwed up the courage to go Foggy was there. Neither was expecting the other, and neither really wanted to see the other. They were civil, but it was awkward, and even people who didn’t know either of them could feel the tension they brought to the room. Matt had attended a few times since then, but on weeks when he knew Foggy wouldn’t be there.It would’ve been an off week for Foggy, but he also had to admit that the man without fear was really a man who just powered through the fear, and that bodily harm scared him a hell of a lot less than fear of mental assault. So, he worked on the Rademacher case while he watched the time tick by. First, he missed the point at which he’d have enough time to get ready. Then, it was too late to make it there even if he booked it. Then the meeting start time passed. Then the “fashionably late” time passed. Then, the “too late to be worth it” time passed. Finally, the meeting ended without Matt having left his chair, even to get a glass of water. A flood of guilt and relief washed over him, and he was free until the next week.Coward, he thought to himself.***It was inevitable that Frank would track down Mysterio. During his breaks, when Karen was on Matt-sitting duties, he was rattling cages and checking in with Micro to see what he’d pulled up on Mysterio.David Lieberman, aka Micro, wasn’t working for him, and was barely working with him, but both of them understood that they were resources the other might find attractive, and they used each other as such. They had complementary skillsets, and sometimes their objectives aligned.The short of it was that Mysterio was not so mysterious. Quentin Beck dropped out of a chemistry PhD program at Berkeley and had a CV that indicated he was both a dilettante and also not that bad at chemistry. He went on to work biotech, but got fired for violating safety protocols too many times. He’d then had a string of jobs of increasingly less prestige, straying further and further from his original training in organic synthesis. He’d worked for a wine maker, tried to start up a craft brewery, and eventually found his way into the special effects industry. His disregard for safety regulations eventually caught up with him, and after an accident where several people were injured and one killed, he disappeared and resurfaced as Mysterio.For the past couple of years Mysterio had been cooking drugs. He started out with the banal; meth and ecstasy were an easy way to make a buck, but his formal training as a chemist and experience in biotech elevated him above all the other idiot would-be Walter Whites. That skillset brought him to the attention of one buyer who wanted an untraceable performance enhancer and also his current employer, who was a ghost, albeit a rich one.Micro finally came through. The last time Frank got in touch, he was able to provide a short list of likely places Frank might find the oddly-dressed man. Micro had also put the time into surveilling the locations, and once provided with the list, and Frank had double checked his work. Thus, he knew not only where and when to find him, but also which location would be most appropriate for gently questioning the man.He got the jump on him late one evening. Mysterio, or maybe Beck, was sitting in a modest office at a worn desk. He had a laptop open in front of him and various papers scattered about. He looked like what Frank though a middle-aged chemist might look like. Because of the surveillance camera footage and the in-person monitoring, he knew that he wasn’t always dressed like a bad sci-fi villain, but seeing him up close was still a shock. He was wearing khakis and a blue button-down shirt undone at the collar. His hair was neatly trimmed but uncombed, and he was hooked up to a portable oxygen cylinder like an emphysema patient. Frail, Frank thought. He looked frail.Frank quickly analyzed the setting and decided that it was as favorable of a set up as he was likely to get. He stepped out of the shadows and made his presence known. As was his way, he led with his gun. He had promised Father Lantom he wouldn’t kill anyone for a week, and he would do his best to honor that promise, so he had rubber bullets chambered. If it came to it, though, he knew many other ways to end a man’s life. For the first time in a long time he hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.“Beck.” Frank trained his pistol on him. He used his left hand both to steady his right hand and to keep a flashlight trained on his quarry’s face. He was silhouetted in a dark doorway, and he knew this all-but-blinded his target.Beck froze.“Hands where I can see them,” Frank ordered in a quiet, emotionless voice.Beck complied, slowly removing his hands from his keyboard.Frank inched his way in the room, keeping the light and the gun trained Beck. Once he was close enough, he dropped the flashlight and grabbed Beck by the wrist, twisting his arm behind him. He pulled the tubing off of his head and turned off the oxygen cylinder. “I don’t like it when you play with pressurized gases. Last time, you tried to suffocate Daredevil and me. Don’t want you to get any clever ideas about what you might do with something flammable.” He patted him down and searched the desk to ensure there were no weapons secreted away. Satisfied that the most dangerous thing in the office was himself, he backed off of Beck.Beck’s breathing was labored. “You think I’d explode an oxygen cylinder with myself in the room? Not everyone is as crazy as you.”“You don’t look so hot. Cancer? Emphysema? I’m guessing you don’t have much time left, and we already know you’re not above showboating,” Frank said, continuing on his original line of thought. “I’ve seen men who don’t have hope, and they tend to take people with them when they go. I ain’t going out that way. Not today.”“I assume you’re here to kill me, then. Go on, then. You’re right. I don’t have much time left,” he wheezed.“What’s your rush? Got some questions first.” Frank angled himself so his back was to a corner. “No fancy headgear today?”Beck shook his head dismissively. “That apparatus only works for short periods. I’m too weak to use it now anyways. I’m sure in your eyes I deserve death for what I did to you two, and whatever else you’ve dug up from my past." With the light gone he was able to get a good look at his visitor. He scrutinized Frank. “It didn’t work.”“What didn’t work?” Frank knew that he had time, that no one would be by Beck’s office, and that Beck didn’t have any silent alarms set up. He was content to let his quarry agitate himself. Self-intimidation could be as effective as active intimidation.“The drug. You’re on your feet. Daredevil’s okay, too, isn’t he?” Frank didn’t reply, and Beck took his silence as confirmation. “He’s okay,” he nodded mostly to himself. “They’re watching him, you know. The dose he got, he should’ve died from it, or gone crazy. Not crazy like you. Permanent psychosis. It should’ve destroyed neurons. But it didn’t. He recovered. Shit. IGH was right.” He rubbed at his face, lost in thought.Frank waited him out. When it was clear no reply was forthcoming he prodded him. “IGH?”Beck smirked. “No, I think I’ll leave you guessing on that one. If you don’t know, then you don’t have clearance for it. I don’t wanna die a traitor, after all.”Frank let the last statement hang, hoping that letting Beck ruminate on the fact that he was going to die would persuade him to be more cooperative. “Who are you working for?” he finally asked“I’m sure whoever I dealt with was not the person controlling the purse strings.”He continued waited him out. He’d long since learned that allowing a subject the space to talk could yield fruitful results.Beck sighed. “I have weeks left, if my doctors are to be believed. I’ve made a mess of my life’s work. This was my last shot at redeeming that or saving my own life. Both failed. I even thought, maybe, if I was able to take down the vigilantes, maybe that would mean something. But you guys are small change, just like me,” he taunted. “What does a guy with a fuckton of bullets matter compared with a Norse god? What does a chemist who made some bad calls matter compared to the one successful Super Soldier? Abraham Erskine changed someone Hitler would’ve put into the camps for being a drain on society into someone who looked like a Nazi wet dream but was the paragon of the American ideal. All I’ve created is some delusional junkies. And… no.” Beck shook his head, lost once again in thought.Frank eyed him critically. He was paler than when they’d started. He watched as Beck moved slowly and deliberately, telegraphing all of his motions.  He opened one drawer, then another, retrieving a folder and a few sheets of paper. He scribbled something on one sheet and slid the folder towards Frank.“This is like a B movie. Maybe a B minus movie.” His body was wracked with a coughing fit that took a minute to recover from. “I worked on those for awhile, as I’m sure you know. Special effects. It’s how I ended up like this.” He gestured towards the oxygen canister. “Cut too many corners, ignored safety regulations, ended up inhaling some stuff that gave me lung cancer. I’ll spare you the technical details; it’d probably go over your head anyway. But I just don’t care anymore. Vigilantes live, vigilantes die, what does it matter. IGH succeeds or fails, who cares. Jura Pharmaceuticals wins or loses, it’s all the same. So take the info. Do whatever with it. Either way, I’m done.”Frank moved slowly to take the file, keeping his pistol trained on Beck. He nodded curtly once, and started to back out of the room.“You’re not going to shoot me?” he taunted. “Isn’t that what you do? Punish bad people?”Frank shook his head. “You’re going to die soon. No need to waste a bullet on you.” He paused as though he was considering something. “I’ll let the cops know where you are, though. You can live out the rest of your miserable existence in jail.”After a moment, Beck nodded back. He reached for the water bottle on his desk. “Watch out for the other one.”Frank froze. “What?”“Daredevil,” Beck clarified. “I was telling the truth when I said he should’ve died. That much of an overdose killed every animal and person we tested it on. If he’s still alive, there’s a reason, and you should watch out.” He held Beck’s gaze. “I’m listening.”“Drug tolerance,” Beck replied with a hint of smugness.Frank edged back into the office. “He’s been exposed before? Thought you were cooking something new.”Beck shrugged. “It’s new, but new builds off of old. The files are heavily redacted; I don’t know what all happened, and it was so long ago. But the mice we exposed to a slight overdose the first time were able to accept progressively higher doses subsequent times. What was it like? The trip? Was it good? Several of the junkies said it was the best high they’d had.”“You didn’t sample your own product?”“Of course not. My brain is worth more than a cheap buzz or a data point. Was worth more,” he corrected.He tugged at the chain he was wearing around his neck, and pulled a small, round pendant with a bulge in the center from under his shirt. “The therapeutic dose was measured in the micrograms. At the milligram level, it killed nearly all subjects. Tens of milligrams, it killed the pre-exposed. Let’s see what two grams does.” He raised the small disk, held delicately between his thumb and two fingers, as though he was toasting Frank, shoved it in his mouth, and bit down hard.Before Frank could react, Beck slumped forward onto his desk with a little whimper. His eyelids fluttered, tiny jerks shook his body. His breath came in short, frenetic gasps. His face flushed, and the veins in his neck and temples bulged. His body tensed. His unfocused eyes went wide, and then his whole body went slack.Frank approached slowly while keeping his gun trained on him. He reached out to feel for a pulse, but found none. He used the desk phone to dial 911, and left the receiver off the hook, near Beck’s head. When he heard the voice on the other end of the line connect, he turned to leave.  He knew everyone, both Beck and anyone he might interact with, was better off with him gone. He wondered idly why he felt so conflicted by what he just witnessed.***“Mr. Nelson.”Foggy bit back the “Mr. Nelson’s my dad,” response that was always on the tip of his tongue for that question. He might be a fancy lawyer in a four figure suit pulling in six figures a year, but he still felt like a kid from the neighborhood playing at being big.“Hi Linda, what do you have for me?” was his more appropriate response, and he gave thanks that he’d finally installed that filter between his brain and his mouth.“Miss Jones dropped it off for you while you were in your meeting. Your 1 o’clock is now your 2 o’clock, which is fine because your 2 o’clock canceled and will reschedule. So you have time to eat lunch today! There’s takeout in the kitchen. Susan picked up a whole spread from Greenberg’s. Last I saw, there was still reuben and some spicy potato salad left…”“Thanks.” He accepted the proffered envelope. “Want me to grab you something?”“Refill on coffee?” She held up her mug.“Sure thing,” he replied with a grin.After procuring and distributing food and drink, he settled into his desk to work through lunch. But first, he skimmed through the contents of the envelope. Inside was a life. Birth certificate, baptismal certificate, photos, diploma, marriage license, mug shots, newspaper clippings…He pored over it all, connecting the dots, filling in the gaps with reasonable inferences. “Goddamn. Matt was right.” He tucked all of the papers back in and picked up his phone. “Linda, please schedule Murdock for 9pm tomorrow.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It'd been so long since Frank had touched a woman. It wasn’t that he denied his carnal desires, but apparently for him, violence was more necessary than sex. On top of that, there had been no opportunity during his last few missions, and then there was the clusterfuck that was Kandahar. He thought he wanted out of the service after that, and he'd served two active duty tours, so he decided to take the GI bill money and get a degree.

He remained chaste throughout college. At first it was because he didn't have the energy to chase tail, and the tail that chased him didn’t interest him. After a while it became a habit, and later, when he seriously started considering the priesthood, his abstinence borne of ambivalence became an abstinence of choice.
Last night had been desperate and necessary and right. He was a month out of seminary. He didn’t fail, not really. It was discernment, his spiritual director said. He discerned that his vocation was not to the priesthood, which was fine, his spiritual director also said. Still, this was the first thing he'd set out to do that he hadn’t completed, so it stung. He'd found a job as a line cook, and one of his work buddies convinced him to grab some drinks after their shift. Frank knew his buddy was trying to cheer him up and pull him out of his shell. Maybe it worked a little, because a half an hour in, he realized that the woman next to him was hitting on him. Maria flirted, chatted him up, and offered to take him back to her place. It felt like falling, but he wasn't sure why or how, as he hadn't started out at any great height.

He woke but didn’t stir. He looked at the woman next to him, her back turned so that the morning sun made the pale skin on her shoulder blades look golden. He took in the room. Last night had been frantic with both of them running off of lust and booze. He hadn’t taken note of his surroundings beyond woman, bed, secure space. Now, though, he inspected her room with mild curiosity. It was awash in colors. A strand of Christmas lights framed the window, the bedspread was a bright blue, wood tones of the dresser and nightstand warmed the room, and her clothes painted a rainbow in her closet.  He looked at the corkboard covered in photos of friends and family. He noted the dresser with jewelry and makeup and other feminine things. He glanced over at a stack of books; primarily psychology and child development, but a few 18 and 19th century English novels, too. All of his surroundings stood in stark contrast with his own quarters. After years in the military, college, and seminary, he replicated that setup with his own apartment. He had a twin bed, neatly made, a foot locker, a small stove and sink, and a small collection of books, mostly military history and theology. He paid no attention to colors or form. Everything was functional, and that was what mattered.

The alarm went off, rousing Maria. She groaned, stretched, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I've got class in a half hour." She left the dismissal unspoken but clearly implied.
He allowed himself a few more seconds of comfort, reposed in her bed. He reached out and gently ran his hand down the curve of her spine. "When can I see you again?"

She looked over her shoulder at him and cocked an eyebrow. "Maybe sometime later this week. I can meet you after you get off work again." She continued with her morning preparations.
He mirrored her ritual and started getting dressed. "How about before work? I can take you out for coffee, or maybe lunch?"

She grabbed his phone off the dresser and tapped at it for a minute. "I just put my number in. Call me." She flashed him a quick smile. "But now I really do need to go."

"Yes, ma'am," he teased.
***Karen was supposed to relieve Frank and take night shift, but she finished what she needed to ahead of schedule, so she grabbed some gelato and went early.To her dismay, when she arrived, Frank was sitting on the couch, reading a newspaper, and Matt was nowhere to be found. She gave him a look, silently asking the question to which she already knew the answer.Frank rolled his eyes and nodded. “Lancelot went out to get his new helmet. Should be back before 9, when you were due over. I offered to go get it for him, but I think he wants to keep me away from Potter.”“Potter?” Karen asked, finally finding her voice.“His armorer. Guy’s kinda simple, or something. Does good work, though.”“You use him?”“Nah, I can get military grade hardware. I don’t need a custom job. I mean, look what he did to Matt. They call him the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, and dude puts horns on Red’s helmet. Think of how he’d dress up the Punisher.”Karen giggled at the mental image which could go a few ways, none of them PG rated, all of them absurd. “Well, I’ll deal with him when he gets in. You can go, or you can stick around for gelato.” She raised the bag, trying to entice him. She hadn’t talked to Frank one on one since the night of the Blacksmith incident, but she wouldn’t mind it now. There was an attraction between that that wasn’t sexual, though at one point it could have been. No, in Frank she saw someone who understood the primal parts of her that she kept so carefully hidden, someone who cut through the bullshit of “beyond a reasonable doubt” and mens rea and statute of limitations. “He better just be getting his helmet and not fighting. That man doesn’t have the sense god gave chipmunks,” she said as she hung her jacket.“I’ve seen guys with bombs strapped to their chests who had more consideration for their survival,” he agreed. “What flavors did you get?” he asked, nodding towards the gelato.“Rose, hazelnut, and tiramisu.”“Give me a little of each.”“What’s the magic word?”Frank heaved a put-upon sigh. “Please, Miss Page, could I have a little of each?”“Of course,” she replied lightly, portioning out bowls for both of them and stashing the rest in the freezer. She handed him his bowl and sat to eat with him.“This is really good,” he said with genuine approval.“It’s from the new place two blocks over, next to the pizzeria.” She sampled the flavors.After a few minutes with no sound by the clink of their spoons on the bowls, Frank finally broke the silence. “Whatever it is, say it.”“Say what?” Karen pretended her gelato was very interesting and kept her eyes on her bowl.“I don’t know. But you’ve had something to say me for a while now. Out with it.”She looked up. Frank had his head bowed over his bowl. She figured he picked up on her brittleness, but now that she really looked, she could see that he was also bracing for something. She hesitated. “This is a really inappropriate question, and you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.”“Go on.” His voice was emotionless.“When you first… how old were you… when you first killed someone?”Frank blinked and relaxed ever-so-slightly. “Nineteen.”“Nineteen,” she repeated. “What—how did you feel? How did you cope with it?”He regarded her critically. “It was easy.” His voice was flat. “It was too easy. It didn’t affect me much at all. That’s what made it hard, at first. I thought I should’ve felt more. Other guys, they’d throw up, they’d get drunk, they’d cry, they’d wake up with nightmares. Me, nothing.”“Oh.” She fell silent again.“Why do you ask?” he prodded.Karen tucked back a lock of hair and stared at her bowl.“How old were you when you first killed someone?” he asked, turning the question back at her.She dropped her spoon. “What?”He gave her an even look.“I—How…” she stammered, unable to articulate a coherent thought.“Just a hunch,” he replied with a shrug. He scraped the remaining traces of gelato from his bowl.“You wanna lick it clean? I won’t judge,” she deflected, her voice brittle.“Thinking about it. It’s damn good,” he replied steadily. “So, how old?”She hesitated. “Twenty-four.”Frank nodded.“The first time.”That got Frank’s attention.“It was my brother.” “I’m sorry,” he said at length.“Me too,” she replied bitterly.“And the second time?”Karen sighed and nodded slightly. “Three years ago.”“That’s the one you wanted to talk about,” he stated to no one in particular. “What happened?” He kept judgment and emotion out of his voice.She took the time to finish her gelato and compose herself. “You can’t tell anyone. Matt doesn’t even know.”Frank nodded.“When we were investigating Fisk, we stumbled onto something he didn’t want anyone to know. His mother was still alive, even though he was pretending she had died years ago. We found her. She told us about how he killed his father when he was twelve. He beat him to death with a hammer. They hacked the corpse into pieces and disposed of it in the Hudson. Afterwards, Fisk’s right hand man figured out that we were there. He kidnapped me, drugged me, and threatened to kill everyone I knew and loved before killing me.” Karen stopped to take a few deep breaths. That fateful night with Wesley felt like it was both a lifetime ago and yesterday, and how well she coped with it varied on a day to day, or sometimes minute to minute basis. “He got cocky. He put a gun between us on the table. And then his phone rang. It distracted him just long enough for me to grab it. He bluffed, I called it. I pulled the trigger. And I kept pulling it.”Frank exhaled. He wasn’t sure what Karen wanted from him: approval, absolution, or maybe just someone she could finally unburden herself to.“How did you feel?” he asked, turning another of her questions back on her.“Panicked, justified, relieved, panicked, sick. In roughly that order.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I got drunk, threw up, cried, had nightmares. Not necessarily in that order.”“That’s pretty typical,” he said gently. “You didn’t report it, I take it.”She looked at her hands and shook her head. “No. I wiped down the table and the gun, and threw the gun into the river.”He waited for her to look up again. “Do you regret it?”She shook her head. “Killing him? No. You’ve seen how Fisk operates. He would’ve destroyed everyone I love. It wasn’t an idle threat.”“You neutralized the threat to your safety the only sure way,” he agreed. Karen acknowledged him with a tiny nod and then took both of the empty bowls to the sink because she couldn’t keep still any longer. She wondered if Frank’s benediction made what she had done better or worse.
***
As Matt approached Potter’s workshop he immediately sensed something was amiss. He couldn’t hear if any lights were on, and certainly none of the machines that he used were powered on. He didn’t sense Melvin’s shape anywhere in the space, either. He stepped in cautiously and called for him.“You promised!” came an angry and terrified roar. Melvin, dressed in the finished version of the worrisome suit he’d been working on when Matt stopped by last, rushed him. “You promised!” he repeated.“I promised what?” Matt dodged the charge and had his billy clubs out in an instant.“He hurt her!” Melvin cried as he threw a haymaker, which Matt dodged easily. Melvin might have blades and brute strength, but he wasn’t a seasoned fighter.Matt swept his leg out and knocked him on his back. “Who got hurt?”“Betsy! You don’t even remember, and you promised!”Something metal whirred by Matt’s head, missing by a few inches. Saw blades, he realized. Potter was working saw blades into his gear.“Who hurt Betsy?” Matt threw one stick, which hit Melvin in the chest. It winded him, but not long enough for Matt to pin him.“I don’t know! He was angry about you!” Melvin fired off another sawblade, which winged Matt’s shoulder. It stung, but the armor held.Still slow, senses are still fuzzy, Matt registered. “Is she okay now?” He dodged a punch and returned one of his own.“She’s in the hospital. Metro General. Her arm…” Melvin landed a kick, which smarted, but wouldn’t do any lasting damage. Matt took advantage of Melvin being off balance and took him down hard. That time, he was able to pin him.“Melvin, it’s me. I don’t want to hurt you, and I didn’t know anyone wanted to hurt you or Betsy. I’ll take care of her medical bills. But I need to know what you know about her attacker.”The anger finally gave way to sadness, and Melvin started to cry. “I just wanted to keep her safe, and now she’s hurt because of me.”“No, not because of you. Because of bad people who chose to do bad things. Tell me about him and I’ll put a stop to it. I’ll make sure he never hurts you or Betsy or anyone ever again.”“I don’t know! Betsy said he was just yelling about colors and trinity. He said she was a message not to help Daredevil.” He tried to choke back his sobs. “I don’t know what that means.”“I don’t either. But I’ll find out. Was he tall? What color hair? Any other things she noticed?”“Tall, I guess. And blond. Dirty blond. That’s all I know, I swear.”“I believe you.” Matt eased some of the pressure off of Melvin. “If I let you up, are you going to try to hurt me?”Melvin shook his head, tears and snot running down his face. “I’m sorry. I see now it’s not your fault.” Once he had collected himself, he went over to a corner where a black trunk lay. “I have your helmet. All done. Same as the old one.”Matt approached cautiously and accepted the helmet from Melvin’s outstretched hand. “Thank you.” He pulled it over his thin black mask.“Isn’t it hard to see through that much stuff?” Melvin asked curiously, still shaking and hiccupping from sobbing.“I don’t have a problem with it.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie, Matt reasoned. “I need you to do one more thing, Melvin.”He looked at Matt warily, as though his desire to help and his desire not to endanger or disappoint Betsy were warring within him.“I need you to put away that armor and promise never to use it again. You won’t need it. If someone comes by asking about me, you tell them that you aren’t helping me. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Your armor has saved my life, but it shouldn’t cost you yours.”Melvin shook his head. “No, no, no. You’re a good guy. I should help good guys. I want to help good guys. That’s my choice. Betsy said I should learn to make my own choices.”Matt sighed heavily. “I can’t force you to do otherwise, but I wish you’d reconsider. And please, put away the armor. If it doesn’t get you killed, it’ll certainly get you arrested if you ever take it outside.” He showed himself to the door. “Be safe, Melvin.”“Hey,” Melvin called.He stopped.“Maybe you could send her flowers? She likes flowers. Those blue ones, like in that one painting.” He paused, searching for the word. “Irises. She likes irises.”Matt nodded. “Of course. I’ll send some over first thing tomorrow.” He made a mental note to let Brett down at the station know to watch out for Melvin and to talk to Betsy about getting mental health services for him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt alighted on the rooftop of his building and knew there was trouble waiting for him. Frank and Karen were both there. He could hear them, smell them, feel their shape. He could also hear trouble on its way up the stairs to his apartment.He flung open the roof access door and raced down the stairs, hoping to head off the impending disaster. “Frank,” he called out urgently. “Get up on the roof. Now.” He started stripping out of his Daredevil suit as fast as he could.Frank and Karen were seated at his table, with playing cards laid out between them in some pattern. They looked up, confused.“Unless it’s undead fucking ninjas, it can wait. I’m finally gonna win a hand.” Frank didn’t so much as turn in his seat.“No you’re not,” Karen countered cheerfully.“Only because you’re cheating.”“I am not!” she protested.“You taught me this crazy game, and you keep making up more rules.”“Frank. Out. Now.” Matt repeated. But it was too late. There was a knock on the door.Karen got up and checked the peephole. She seemed satisfied that it wasn’t whatever dire threat Matt feared, and opened the door.Foggy walked in and hugged Karen hello. Matt froze, half undressed. Frank dropped the cards in his hand, not even caring that Karen would be able to see them.“Shit. You.” Foggy dropped his messenger bag. He faced Frank full on. “You need to leave now.”“Good to see you again, counselor. You know I don’t blame you for the trial. From what I hear, we both ended up better off.”Foggy turned to addressed Matt. “I know he’s been babysitting you, but I will not be here while he is. He’s not my client anymore. He is an escaped convict. You have one minute before I call the police.”“Karen declared me dead. No one’s looking for me,” Frank shot back.“Oh really. Because unless Karen’s forging death certificates for the coroner now, the state of New York considers you alive and a fugitive. So leave. Now.”Frank grabbed his jacket and the pack of supplies he’d brought over. “I was just on my way out. Karen’s got the overnight shift anyway. Don’t play cards with her, though. She cheats.”“Frank—“Karen started.“I’ll be in touch,” he called back as he closed the door behind him. Matt made to chase after him, but on his way to the door, Foggy planted his hand firmly in his chest. Figuring he’d be able to get in touch with Frank at a later date, and not wanting to imperil his fragile relationship with Foggy, he stopped and addressed the situation in his apartment.“I’m sorry, Foggy. I didn’t know he’d be here,” Matt called softly.Foggy clutched at his head with both hands. “Matt, are you trying to be the death of me? You’re out patrolling already, you’re letting the Punisher hang out at your place, and your girlfriend is playing,” he glanced at the table, “I don’t know what she’s playing, some trick taking game, against him. For chocolates, apparently. And winning.”“It’s two handed euchre, and yes, I was winning,” Karen replied. “He’s not, well, I won’t say he’s not dangerous, but he’s not killing anyone—““Lately,” Foggy interjected.“Lately,” she agreed, “but he wouldn’t hurt any of us.”“That’s not the point!” He paced in Matt’s kitchen. “Do you know how much trouble we could all be in, knowing where he is, not turning him in?!”“You don’t know where he is anymore,” Matt countered. “If it makes you feel better, you can call the police and tell them you saw him here.”“Damnit, Murdock, why do you have to be so reasonable and make this so difficult? And put on some damn clothes!”Matt looked down, apparently having forgotten that he was just wearing boxer briefs until Foggy had mentioned it. He padded off to his bedroom to grab some pants.Foggy turned to Karen. “Were you really cheating at cards?”“What? No! Okay, maybe I forgot to tell him about the ‘screw the dealer’ bit, but no. He’s just really bad at cards.”Matt emerged from his bedroom attired more appropriately for company. He beckoned Foggy to sit. “I’m not so infirm as you might think. It wasn’t unsafe for me to go out tonight, especially since I wasn’t patrolling. I know there are ethical and legal issues regarding Frank, but I had a good reason for letting him stay.”Foggy crossed his arms. “I’m listening.”“He’s hasn’t killed anyone since he’s been here. I think being around people was good for him.”“Really. I hear it was the drugs.”Matt winced. Foggy clearly wasn’t going to let it go, so he changed the subject rather than fight about it. “You said you wanted to meet. What brings you here?”Foggy opened up his briefcase and held up the folder Jessica Jones had given him. “Before I hand this over, I need to know you’re one hundred percent sure you want to know. Once you know, you can’t un-know.”“It doesn’t matter if I want to know,” Matt responded softly. “I need to know if she’s my mother.”“It’s not in Braille. I can read it to you, or Karen can if you don’t trust me. I can also make PDFs if you want.”“Tell me,” Matt commanded quietly. “Please.Foggy took a deep breath and started reading. Matt listened as Foggy went through a litany of facts. Margaret Grace Halloran, born June 17th, 1968, in Metro General, Clinton (Foggy scoffed at that) New York City. He continued with facts Matt already knew because he’d been partly raised by his maternal grandmother. Maggie’s grandparents, her brother. Stuff he’d learned from Father Lantom. Schools, hobbies, boyfriends. Jack. Him. Matt finally motioned for him to stop talking. “Foggy, all I need to know is if she’s alive.”Foggy looked up from the packet, regarding Matt with sadness and compassion. “Yes. She’s alive.”Matt shuddered, his breath coming out somewhere between a sigh and a sob. “Where is she?”Foggy forced himself to continue. “She was in El Salvador until about a month ago. She’s in Hell’s Kitchen now. St. Agnes’. She took her vows nearly twenty years ago. She’s been in and out of the city since then. Mostly out, but she always came back between missions.”Karen slipped onto the couch next to Matt, sliding an arm around him, but he didn’t notice and continued to sit there rigidly.“She was at St. Agnes when you were.” Foggy’s voice wavered. “Not for a lot of the time, but for several months over the years. The Mother Superior at the time, Sister Immaculata, forbade her from having contact with you or with any of the children. This was apparently violated once, and only once. She was punished and sent to Guatemala for two years after that.”Matt continued to sit ramrod straight with his hands balled into fists tight enough to turn his knuckles white. “Continue, please.”Foggy detailed the various missions Sister Maggie (apparently she went by her given name, though the name bestowed upon her upon taking her vows was Therese) had been sent on. “And she did time, too.”“Excuse me?” Of all the things Foggy might say, that wasn’t high on his list of expected details.“The Y-12 incident. A group of anti-nuclear protesters breached the perimeter at Y-12, which is a national lab that does nuclear weapons work. They were in for hours and hiked over two miles to get to the appropriate building, upon which the spray painted anti-nuclear slogans. She apparently used her own blood to scrawl a message, too. She was sentenced to federal prison and served a year.”“My mother is alive, chose not to have contact with me, and is an ex-con.” Matt’s voice was impassive, though his body radiated tension.Foggy set the file down on Matt’s table. “I know this is a lot to process. You look like you just got hit by a train, so I’ll let you get some rest now.” He gathered his things and started to leave, patting Matt on the shoulder on his way out. Matt placed his hand on Foggy’s before he could go.“Wait.”Foggy looked at him expectantly.“I—You need to be careful,” Matt started. “I think people around me are at risk, or will be soon.”“Are you bringing another ancient grudge match between undead ninja cults to Hell’s Kitchen?”Matt shook his head. “No. At least, not right now.” He hesitated, not knowing whether he wanted to get into his relationship with Melvin Potter, which he was pretty sure Foggy wouldn’t approve of. “I think Fisk’s got some plan in motion. Tonight, when I was out, I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t patrolling. I went to visit someone who’s helped me. Someone close to that person got hurt, as a message to him not to help me.” He waited for Foggy’s condemnation, silent or otherwise.“Thought he was in jail,” Foggy responded pointedly, as though he knew Matt was withholding something critical.Matt nodded slightly. “And he’s still pulling strings from within.”Foggy waited him out.“I went to visit him in the midst of the Punisher/Blacksmith craziness. He threatened me. And you.”Foggy carded his hands through his hair, trying to process the information and refrain from throttling Matt for not telling him about the threat to his personal safety. “And you got another civilian caught up in your crazy,” Foggy finished rhetorically.“He chose to,” Matt countered. “I asked him not to anymore, but he said he still wanted to help. And the person who got hurt said something about Trinity. Now, I know a few things that could mean, nothing that actually means anything. Do you have any thoughts?”Foggy shrugged. “God. The girl from The Matrix. The College in Dublin that Oscar Wilde attended. Atom bombs.”“Bombs?” Matt asked.“Yeah. Remember, the first nuclear test? Codename Trinity. It created a brand-new mineral on earth: radioactive green glass.”“You think Fisk got his hands on a nuke and is going to bomb me?” Matt asked incredulously.“Somehow I think someone in the intelligence community might have noticed if someone were trafficking weapons grade uranium in New York,” Foggy replied. “You should let Brett down at the station know, though.”“It’s definitely a warning,” Karen agreed, looking paler than usual. “If Fisk is really back, if he’s running things from within, then no one, not one of us is safe.”Foggy paused in front of the window facing the garish billboard. “So, why hasn’t he done me in already? I’m easy to find. I don’t have a secret identity. My name’s on my firm’s website. I’m all over social media.”“I don’t know. I think it’s the calm before the storm.”Foggy nodded, and gathered his things again to go. “For me, nowhere’s safe then. I might as well go on living my life while watching over my shoulder. I can’t exactly hide in a fallout shelter until this passes.” He had his hand on the doorknob and turned back one final time. “Keep in touch, Matt. For real this time. Keep your phone on.”Matt nodded. “I will. Be safe.”When he couldn’t hear Foggy’s footsteps anymore, Matt deflated and slumped against Karen.She ran her fingers through his hair, and he leaned into the touch. “Before you try to send me off somewhere for my own safety, no.”“You’re a mind reader now?” Matt teased.“You’re an open book.”“You should go,” Matt murmured.“I already said no.” Karen kissed the top of his head. “It is not good for man to be alone.”“You’re quoting scripture now?”Karen shrugged. “I went to Sunday school as a girl. But it’s true. It’s not good to be alone.”Matt nestled in closer, and they sat in silence.
Alone alone alone alone alone. In the end he was alone. “Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide.” He read that morality play in high school. Only Good Works will stand by my side, he remembered. Had to do good works because he had nothing else. Alone.

He sat alone in the police station, numb and dumbfounded. He was an orphan now. No mom, no dad, just alone in the world. One of the officers took him to the vending machine and offered to buy him anything he wanted, so he had a coke and a handful of pretzels in his belly, more because she insisted he eat something than actual hunger.

Stick crumpled the plaited bracelet. That ice cream cone was the first act of kindness anyone had shown him specifically since his dad had died. Sure, the Sisters were kind, and some even liked kids, but they had so many to care for, and they couldn’t show favorites. Matt had violated some unspoken contract, and now Stick was going to leave.

“The martyrs, the saviors, they all end up the same. Bloody and alone,” Claire cautioned, one foot out the door. So much blood.

“You gonna try and convince me it’s worth another shot?” Foggy loaded up the banker’s box with the personal touches he’d accumulated over the brief tenure of Nelson and Murdock.

He was about to leave when he thought to ask, “did you want me to convince you?”

“Was hoping you would, was relieved when you didn’t.”
Matt opened his eyes. Karen made an inquisitive noise. “I just spaced out for a minute,” he assured her. “We should get to bed.”They both got up and got ready for bed. “It is not good for man to be alone,” rang through Matt’s head, as he and Karen snuggled in to his luxurious silk sheets together. Despite everything he’d done, much of it underserving of love, he was not alone. He had people who loved him despite his faults, and who refused to abandon him. His thoughts wandered as he drifted off to sleep. Frank left, he thought. Frank is alone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt was bored. It was a rainy day, and his dad was working, so he was stuck in his grandma’s apartment for the afternoon. It was time for chores, and he was supposed to be dusting. While cleaning the bookshelf, curiosity got the best of him. The photo albums were forbidden unless his grandma was looking at them with him, and she never let him look at one particular album. He pulled the thick, brown book off the shelf and opened it. The start of the book was black and white photos of people he didn’t know wearing old clothes. He flipped through those pages quickly, until it jumped from old, faded photos to relatively recent photos. He recognized the settings; the neighborhood, St. Agnes church, and the very apartment he was sitting in. He watched two children, a boy and a girl, grow from infancy to their teenage years. Then the boy disappeared, and there was just the girl. He’d had a growing sensation of familiarity, and his suspicions were confirmed when he came across a picture of the girl looking over her shoulder and laughing. His dad had that photo in his sock drawer, and sometimes, when he thought Matt was asleep or not watching, he’d take it out and kiss it, or, sometimes, talk to it. He started over from the beginning of the color photos, and watched his mother grow up all over again.

“What are you doing?” His grandmother had apparently finished mopping the kitchen and came over to check on him.

“Nothing.” He snapped the album shut. Her tone made him uneasy. He’d spent enough time with her to be able to read her moods, and this one indicated trouble might not be far off. “I’m almost done dusting. I was just looking at the pictures.” He shelved the book and swiped the cloth along the last two shelves. “Was that my mother?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

His grandmother sat in her armchair, which was adorned with hand-crocheted doilies on the arms and a scratchy afghan folded over the back. “Yes, that was Maggie.” She picked up her knitting needles, which was neither an invitation to nor a prohibition from asking further questions.

Matt sat delicately on the couch. She’d covered every possible horizontal surface with sheets and towels so he wouldn’t dirty her home. It made him feel like he didn’t belong, like he was intruding on her space and sullying something. “What was she like?”

The only sound that filled the apartment for a minute was the click of her knitting needles. “Didn’t your father tell you? He sure bogarted her after they met. I barely saw her once she started seeing that boy.”

Matt shook his head. “He doesn’t talk about her. He just gets sad if I ask and says she’s with God now.”

She looked up at him quickly and looked way as quickly. “That’s right. She’s with God now.”

“But what was she like before she went to God?”

He listened to the click of knitting needles for another minute before his grandmother spoke. “She was my only daughter. She was so happy as a young girl. Clever and witty. Older, she was stubborn and proud. Heedless, too smart for her own good, but stupid in all the areas that really mattered. Like boyfriends.”

Matt winced.

“She started throwing her life away after… after her brother died. She fell in with your father, and I didn’t see her much. And then you came, and I saw her less.” His grandmother was quiet for a minute. “She gave me my only grandchild.” Her face bore a complicated look; Matt wasn’t sure if she was sneering at him, about to cry, or looking at him affectionately. “Enough talking. If you have this much time to talk, you can go dust the bedrooms.
 
“Yes, grandma.” *** Matt knocked on the side door to the Clinton Mission Shelter administrative offices. It wasn’t time to serve, or even prep, but he knew a few of the Sisters would be there, including the new one who’d just assigned there a few weeks ago. “Supper will be served at 5—oh. Matt.” Sr. Agnes started unlocking the door once she recognized that it was one of their regular volunteers and not someone trying get an early supper. “You’re very early. I didn’t know you were volunteering today. We won’t start prepping for this evening’s meal for another few hours.” “I know, Sister.” He used the smile that Foggy said was unfair because it was too charming. “I’m here to see Sr. Margaret. She’s expecting me.” She shot him a sharp look, nodded, and turned to walk towards the living quarters. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll go get her.” He sat in an ancient armchair and took a few deep breaths to block out the sounds of the shelter and his heart pounding in his ears. After an interminable wait that also felt like it only lasted a second, a wisp of a woman appeared in the doorway. Matt stood. She might’ve been frozen to the spot, because she didn’t come in any further and made no sound. “M—Sister.” Matt tripped over the word he’d never assigned to any woman in his life. “Sister Margaret,” he finally managed. “Thank you for agreeing to this meeting.” Sr. Margaret snapped back to the present. She nodded sharply. “Thank you for including me in the discussions as to whether this meeting would take place." Matt inclined his head. “Of course.” Getting to this point, this meeting, had taken all of the soft skills and half of the professional skills he’d acquired along the way. He’d approached the Mother Superior first. She was relatively new and had been apprised of Sr. Maggie’s unique situation, but had different ideas of how to handle the situation than her predecessor. She’d taken the request to her boss, who’d taken it to her boss. At some point the bishop and then the Cardinal both tried to stick their noses in, at which point Matt pointed out that it wasn’t a Diocesan issue, and they could kindly butt out. He explained that he had approached Mother Superior out of courtesy and deference to the Order, the Church, and Sr. Margaret’s vow of obedience. They were within their rights to debate this all on grounds of Canon Law, but perhaps they should consider the actual human element and cast an eye towards mercy. He also pointed out that he could circumvent all of them by contacting her directly, insinuating that it was a plausible option for him. He then withdrew his claws, put on a charming smile, and suggested that perhaps they ask Sr. Margaret her opinion on the meeting. They did, Sr. Maggie agreed to it, and the meeting had been arranged.  “I figured that you deserved to have an opinion in the matter,” was his concise response.” She nodded. “I thought, perhaps, that you’d had enough choices taken out of your hands,” he continued, choosing his words carefully. “I didn’t want to be responsible for one more.” Sr. Maggie looked at him with bright eyes. “You’ve grown into such a wonderful man.” He wanted to offer to hug her, but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. Despite all of his poise and grace when running and leaping as Daredevil, the best he was able to manage was a little lurch. She covered for him. “Can I—can I hug you?” she offered. Matt nodded his thanks. “Yes,” he replied with gratitude. She embraced him surprisingly tightly. When she pulled back, she cupped his jaw in her hand, eagerly taking in every detail she could, as though it was the last time she might see her son. “I haven’t hugged you for two decades. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Matty,” she whispered. Matt let her guide him to the couch. “It’s okay.” “No, it’s not,” she replied emphatically. “But thank you for saying that.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Even before his father died, he’d fantasized about his mother. He wondered what she was like, how her voice sounded, whether they liked the same foods, if she was athletic or artistic. But now that the moment had come, now that the dead was restored and sitting before him, he was tongue-tied. He opened his mouth and closed it stupidly a couple of times. So she took pity on him. “I suppose you have a lot of questions for me,” she started. Matt found his words. “You might say that.” He kept the emotion out of his voice. “Your first question might be why I’m here and not dead,” she continued when he didn’t. “Yes, I know your father told you I died. I don’t resent him for doing so. After what I did, it was easier for everyone that way. Better you think you had a loving mother who died young than a mother who didn’t love you enough to stay,” she spat out bitterly. Matt felt her tension; her heart was racing, her palms were clammy, and her breathing was rapid and shallow. In the few days since he’d found out she was alive, he’d run through a dozen scenarios. In some she hugged and kissed him and wept over him. In some he screamed at her for being selfish and leaving him and his dad. In some she begged for forgiveness and said she’d leave the Order for him. In some he accused her of being a terrible mother, of putting everyone and everything above him. Instead, he just asked quietly “did you love me?” He surprised himself by how blunt and accusing the question came out, and Maggie reacted like she’d been punched her in the gut. “Yes.” Her voice was on the edge of breaking. “Of course I loved you. I loved you more than anything.” Matt pulled himself together enough to respond. “But you left. Was it dad, then? Or me? Or you just loved God more than us?” She stared at her hands and fidgeted with her rosary. Matt was briefly reminded of his grandmother, her mother. Nervous, pious. “This will sound hollow, but please believe me when I say I loved you more than I’d loved anything. I still love you. I think of you every day, and I pray for you every night.” Matt couldn’t keep from making a small noise of disbelief. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, and when I consider what I was supposed to… what a mother is supposed to give her child, it’s not. Please let me try to explain.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “Did you spend much time with my mother?” Matt nodded. “She babysat me sometimes. When I was younger.” “Did she ever say that the Murdock boys have the devil in them?” He nodded again. “I heard that constantly growing up. Your father’s family was a bit… rough. She thought of the Hallorans as lace curtain Irish. The Murdocks definitely wasn’t. My mother didn’t like them, so naturally I couldn’t get enough. And then once I got pregnant, your grandmother had nothing but insulting things to say about all three of us, especially when we never married in the Church. I’m sure you know that story by now, since you’ve found me. “I want to hear it from you,” he implored softly. Maggie nodded and drew a deep breath. “I was seventeen. Your father was twenty. I was a senior in high school, he was working part time jobs and training to box. He chased me a little. I liked the attention. I liked him. My brother had just committed suicide, and I was acting out out of grief and rebellion. Who better to date than a guy my mother hated, who also had the devil in him. We’d gone out a few times. Things happened, and after a few months I was pregnant with you.” Maggie paused, unsure how to phrase the next part. “Was my mother… did she treat you well?” Matt gave a wry smile. “For the most part. The bit about us all having the devil in us is pretty twisted now that I think of it, but usually she said it when I’d gotten into something she thought I wasn’t supposed to.” He got lost in memory for a minute. Hindsight and the wisdom of age clarified some things, and he now knew that his grandmother had a capricious temper, which had resulted in some unprovoked outbursts and unfair punishments “She was from another era, and expected different things from children,” he finished graciously. Sr. Maggie gave him a knowing look. “That sounds like her. Perfectly nice until she’d fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. She never liked the Murdocks. In her defense, they were a pugnacious lot. Your paternal grandfather beat his wife and your father. There was a lot of alcoholism, too. So, naturally, that made Jack that much more interesting when he showed interest in me, and naturally, that sent my mother into a fit of rage, especially when she found out I was pregnant. I graduated, got kicked out that day, and gave birth to you a few months later. The three of us lived together in your father’s tiny apartment for a while, and for a while it was good. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anything. You were a perfect baby. You were so good and sweet and beautiful. For a little while, I was happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.” She paused and dabbed her tissue at her eyes. “But,” Matt prodded her gently, but firmly. She took a deep breath. “But I got scared. I became paranoid something would happen to you. Someone would come in and kidnap you. I’d drop you. You’d choke to death. You’d just stop breathing in your crib. People said it was normal, that every new mother worries about their child. But it didn’t get better. Then I started playing through paranoid situations in my mind. What would I do if society collapsed. How would I protect you in the event of a nuclear war. How would I keep you safe. What would I have done if we had to hide from a death squad and you started crying. Would I suffocate you to keep everyone else safe, or let us all be killed? What would I do if we were dropped in the midst of a cannibalistic tribe that wanted to eat you?” She grinned bitterly. “I know this sounds completely far-fetched and paranoid, and it was. I see that now. But at the time, it was all so real and pressing. It became all-consuming. I stopped taking care of myself. I didn’t eat properly or sleep enough. I withdrew from your father. He didn’t understand what was happening, either, so he couldn’t help. He supported us with what little fight money he could get and doing odd jobs, so he was busy and tired, too.” She stopped, looking at something that wasn’t there, remembering and reliving. “And you couldn’t take it anymore, so you left?” Matt asked when she didn’t resume speaking.Maggie shook her head vehemently. “I could’ve continued if that was all. I was miserable and paranoid, trapped in my head, fighting my own mind. But we were surviving. No, the reason I left is because I started thinking about hurting you.” Matt startled and shifted in his seat. “I didn’t, thank God, and I never wanted to. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I would envision myself just snapping your neck, or crushing your skull, or just suffocating you. I was terrified I’d actually do it someday and be helpless to stop myself.” She paused to remember, her eyes unfocused as she relived her greatest shame and pain. “Your father came home one night for supper. I’d cooked dinner for all three of us, and… when I looked at you, I just saw a demon. You were a demon. I started yelling and was going to hit you, when your father pushed me away from you and snatched you up. I saw him holding a demon, and then you changed back into you, a terrified, beautiful baby. If he hadn’t been there…” She paused to compose herself. “I left then. I ran out with just the clothes on my back. I was homeless for a while, I drifted a little, and eventually found my way back to the Church.” She smiled ruefully. “I was seeing demons. It was either time to do spiritual battle or find an exorcist. Luckily, they pointed me in the right direction and found me a psychiatrist instead.” “That’s when you were diagnosed with post-partum psychosis,” Matt said, finally understanding. “Yes. It happened quickly; I ceded parental rights. Your father asked for a divorce, and I agreed. He asked that I stay out of your lives. We all agreed it’d be for the best. I’d been living and working at the Clinton Mission Shelter, earning my keep, so to speak. I began my postulancy shortly before your third birthday. That lasted about a year, at which point I became a sister. Normally, I would’ve been exempt from consideration, with the history of mental illness and having a child, but strings were pulled and caveats were made. I was not to have contact with you or work with children. I was to live independently for a time, and outside of New York, too.”“Which is when you got your rap sheet,” he supplied. “Yes,” she confirmed. “I had done some mission work in El Salvador and saw how destructive American interference could be. When I came back I protested at the School of the Americas and got arrested for it. The School of the Americas was a Department of Defense program that--” “I know what it is,” Matt replied softly. “I understand why you would have wanted to protest that.” She smiled. “That is one part of my life where I have no regrets. It was the right thing to do, so I did it.”“But that’s not your only arrest.” “No. As you know, I’m sure, I was involved in the Y-12 break in. They refine uranium there. I and three other protestors cut the chain link fence, hiked in two miles, and spray painted anti-war slogans on the building. We weren’t found for hours. We were peaceful and didn’t destroy anything, didn’t compromise the nuclear material, and we didn’t resist arrest. I plead down and ended up serving a year in federal prison.” “Was it worth it?” Matt asked gently but curiously. “I still believe in the cause, and I accept the consequences of my actions,” she replied with certainty. “I do not regret it.” Matt accepted her statement at face value. Though he personally wouldn’t have chosen to break into a nuclear facility, and working as a lawyer, a vigilante, and a volunteer for the dispossessed of Hell’s Kitchen had given him a certain amount of pragmatism, he recognized too much of his own idealism in her actions to pass judgment on that. He chewed on the inside of his lip thoughtfully, willing up the nerve to get to the questions he really needed answered. “Did you visit me? At St. Agnes?” She looked at him sharply. “How did you know?” “I—I don’t know. I just know. Not then, but now, looking back, it seems like I always knew it.” Maggie sucked in a deep breath. “You were hurting. Your senses were out of control. Every little noise or smell would put you over the edge. And then you hurt yourself to try to make it stop. I was back in New York by then. There was a new Mother Superior. She let me see you once, and then watch you from afar.” “You told me it could be a gift. What had happened to me. Did you know what was going on?” He remembered a whispered benediction cutting through the darkness smothering his world.“Not the specifics. But I recognized that you were going through something similar to what I had experienced. Your head was betraying the rest of you. I just hoped to impart to you that, if you let Him, God could produce good things even from something that looked like pain and suffering at the time.” “Was it worth it? Matt asked, carefully keeping his voice neutral. “You’ve done great things, Matty,” she started. “Not me,” he interrupted. “You. Is the life you have now worth the one you gave up?” She bowed her head. “You can’t weigh lives against each other, or possibilities against what actually happened. Would I make the same decisions? I don’t think so. If I had known, if I had found the right doctor, the right meds, if if if. I regret losing you every second of every day. If I could have changed things, I would have. But I can’t. All I can do is pick up the pieces and move forward. I did what I could to ensure you were cared for, that your money was protected so it’d be there when you needed it for college. I pray that God has made the best of the mess I made.”Matt understood that sentiment. It echoed what Father Lantom had once told him, that he couldn’t know how God might one day use his work, or bring about good despite human ignorance and evil. “Me, too,” was his only reply.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt was fine physically, maybe even better than before, if he was going to be honest with himself. Mentally, he was doing  as well as could be expected considering he’d just discovered his mother, long thought dead, was alive, a Dominican Sister, had watched him from afar (and occasionally up close), and never contacted him in twenty years, excepting once. Karen had given him space and time to process it, which he accepted gratefully, especially since she didn’t point out that he needed it. He repayed her by making a reservation at her favorite brunch spot. She tucked into a stack of orange ricotta pancakes, and he approached food coma status after overindulging in challah-French toast. It was time and money well-spent, though, and they both left feeling relaxed and cheerful.The walk back to his apartment was pleasant. Trees were budding, birds were singing, and the weather was starting to break. All in all it had been a beautiful Sunday morning.That all vanished in an instant when they returned to his apartment. Upon returning, they found another envelope stuck between the door and jamb. In it were a few photos printed out on 8.5x11” paper. He heard Karen’s pulse spike, felt the flush from the adrenaline, then the shivering as her body tried to compensate. In a shaky voice, she described them to Matt, whose mood slid from happy and well-fed to pure dread.Karen narrated the photos for him.The first was a grainy security cam still. Karen stood in the ornate lobby of St. Benezet, where Wilson Fisk’s mother had resided. Next to her stood Ben Urich, head down and looking at something long-since forgotten. The second was a photo of Foggy entering the lobby of HC&B. The third was a photo of The Punisher and Daredevil stumbling away from the lab the night everything went sideways, and the fourth was a still of Matt leaving the Clinton Mission Shelter. The last piece contained three pictures: God poking at Adam’s finger from the Sistine Chapel, a screen grab of Trinity from The Matrix, and a dark obelisk in the desert. The first two were x’ed out, and the last was circled.He grabbed Karen by the arm and pulled her down the stairs. “We can’t go in now. He heard that conversation about ‘trinity,’ which means my apartment’s bugged. He’s just taunting us now.”They relocated to a café near his place and waited for Foggy to show up. He was the first and only person they called, and he agreed to meet in a neutral location.When Foggy arrived, he slapped an RF shielded bag on the table. He’d picked it up on his way over. “Phones go in here,” he announced. “Just in case Fisk has some way of hijacking them.” Matt and Karen shot him inquisitive looks, but ultimately complied. They then proceeded to discuss what they knew, what they could surmise, and what they planned to do. He accepted the photos Karen offered. “Huh.” He peered at the last sheet and then set it down.“What?”“I, uh, just never noticed how much my boss looks like Trinity from “The Matrix.”Matt was wound too tightly to appreciate Foggy’s tangents. “I wouldn’t know.”“Maybe we can focus on the problem at hand?” Karen suggested. She kept her voice light, but tension radiated off of her.Foggy hefted the duffel bag he had brought. “I have tools. I’ll give it a look-see. Let’s head over to your place.” Matt didn’t want anyone going back into his place, but Foggy volunteered to enter the apartment and check the outlets. Matt figured that the bugs were new, because Fisk would’ve used more information against him had he had it. The electricians who fixed the grounds were prime suspects. “I apprenticed under my uncle Jimmy for a summer. He was a master electrician. I picked up some along the way. Also, I took physics in college. Distribution requirements,” he said as he made a face. “Long story short, I can poke at wiring without electrocuting myself.”“Look at you, Foggy. Fancy lawyer who’s handy around the house, too,” Karen teased lightly.“That’s why Marci keeps me around,” he quipped back.“He didn’t send a picture of the inside of your apartment, so it’s probably just a microphone somewhere. If he went to the trouble to bug it, why not put in a camera?” Foggy dropped his duffel in at the foot of the stairs in Matt’s building, and girded himself for battle with the outlets.Matt shrugged. “I don’t know if the apartment’s been unoccupied since the incident at the lab. It’s probably harder to mount a camera inconspicuously with sighted people also in the place than it is just to plant a mic.” It was a weak answer, but he didn’t have a better one. It also didn’t really matter, because Fisk had access to everything that had been said and done in his apartment. In addition to hurting him and his friends, it meant he also had material with which to blackmail him. He had evidence that Matt was harboring a known fugitive. Matt racked his brains trying to remember if he said or did anything that could directly implicate Matthew Murdock in Daredevil activities. “Maybe he didn’t want to have someone watch that much footage, or didn’t want to deal with all the data. The result’s the same, though. We’re all in danger. Can you get ahold of Frank to let him know?” He ignored the sound of Foggy’s teeth grinding as his jaw clenched at the mention of Frank.Karen shook her head. “No. I don’t know how to contact him, and he hasn’t contacted me. In the past, when he’s wanted to tell me something, he’d just… find me.”“How about we worry about Mr. Sunshine until after we deal with this problem.” Foggy wrapped a scarf around his face as a makeshift balaclava, just in case there was video surveillance. He joked that his disguise was the opposite of Matt’s, in that his eyes were exposed but the rest of his face was covered.Matt and Karen sat on the steps and waited until Foggy had finished. He dropped another RF bag containing a couple of smashed mics into Matt’s lap. “That’s all I found. As you predicted, they were in the outside wall outlets. For what it’s worth, the grounds are grounded properly, too.”“It’s safe to go back in, then?” Karen asked.Foggy shrugged. “As safe as anything is with you, Murdock. If you’re still worried, put some music on really loud while you have important conversations. You could get a professional in to sweep the apartment, too.”“Music will do for now. Thanks, Foggy,” Matt said sincerely and gestured for them all to head up.“I’ve been rattling cages. People who won’t say who they work for. They’re afraid to say his name,” Matt continued slowly. “It feels a little like déjà vu.”Foggy gave an exasperated sigh. “He-who-must-not-be-named. Is there any answer to the unspoken question that isn’t Fisk?”“Voldemort?” Matt offered weakly.“He’d probably leave fewer bodies in his wake,” Foggy muttered. “That’s kind of stupid on Fisk’s part. Isn’t that like a calling card now? I mean, people know he exists this time around. ‘Ooh, I don’t know who I work for. We don’t say his name,’” he said in a faux-spooky voice, waving his hands for effect.“It still provides some level of anonymity,” Karen pushed back.“People can’t squeal if they don’t know who they’re working for,” Matt agreed.“Plausible deniability. No direct line tying things back to him. Unlike us.” Foggy sat down heavily. “He heard all these conversations. He heard you and Frank talking about whatever, he heard Frank and Karen playing made up games—““Two-hand euchre is not a made up game, and I was not cheating!” Karen interjected, defending her honor.“Fisk heard me acknowledging Frank was here and choosing not to turn him in. Do you know how over all of our lives will be if he acts on this?! Disbarred, prison, or worse!” Foggy ignored Karen.“I’ll stop him.” Matt cocked his head, sensing that Foggy and Karen were both bristling at his statement. “We’ll stop him,” he amended.“We already stopped him,” Karen pointed out. “And it’s done fuck-all. How much more can be done legally?”“We build a case that he’s still engaging in criminal activity.” Matt sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as much as them. If Fisk was going to come after them through the legal system, then they’d counter it through the legal system. If he decided to come after them through other means, well, he had some experience in that sort of war, too.***It took five minutes of dithering, picking up his burner and setting it down, sitting, standing, pacing around his apartment, but Matt finally dialed the number.“Matt? What’s wrong? Are you hurt again?” Claire blurted out as soon as the call connected, not giving him a chance to even say hi.“Hi, Claire. Nothing’s wrong, and I’m not hurt. Look, I need a favor.”“You’re such a charmer,” she deadpanned.“I know, I owe you,” he replied. “For everything you’ve done. I could buy you chocolates and flowers. The flowers might not match, but I could pick out the best-smelling ones.” He hoped she could hear his smile through the phone.“Your girlfriend’s cool with you buying random girls flowers and chocolate?” she teased. “What do you need?”“Tell me how to get in touch with Frank.”“You don’t have his number?”“No.”“And you don’t know where his safe house is because you were out of it the entire time you were there.”“Yes.” Matt listened to the hiss of the call that told him she hadn’t hung up.“Are you going there to bring him in?” she finally asked.“No.” Someone probably would have bring Frank in someday, but today wasn’t that day. He owed him that much, at least.“You’re trying to save the Punisher, aren’t you, Matt?” she asked rhetorically.Matt hesitated. “I just need to talk to him.” He swore he could hear her shaking her head over the phone.She hesitated. “I suppose me telling you will be more straightforward than any other method you might devise,” she began, before giving him directions to Frank’s place. After a pause, she finished, “I like tulips and salted caramel. Stay safe, Matt”“You, too, Claire.”***Matt debated how he should approach Frank at his safe house. Going as Daredevil might draw attention from his neighbors and might provoke Frank. Going as Matthew Murdock, Esq. might change the dynamic of the relationship, putting them back into lawyer/client mode. The thought of dressing in civvies, as he’d done for the past couple of weeks while they’d cohabitated made him feel naked. Ultimately, the choice boiled down to breaking into Frank’s domicile but feeling personally protected, or being invited in and feeling personally vulnerable. In the end, he decided to take a leap of faith and dressed in his civvies, with his glasses in his pocket. Frank had earned that much trust, at least. If he pulled the hood of his jacket down far enough, he could pass for sighted, which would draw less attention on the way there. He wasn’t ready to have this conversation without his glasses, though, and he knew Frank wouldn’t begrudge him that.“Frank.” He knocked softly. “I know you’re in there. It’s me.” Matt could almost feel the man on the other side of the door weighing whether or not to open it. “If you don’t let me in, I’ll just sit here for awhile. Your neighbors are out, but I’m sure they’d love to talk to the guy camping on your doorstep when they get back in.”He heard metal slide past metal as Frank undid the various chains and bolts securing the door.“Get your ass inside,” Frank said, more tired than pissed. “Ballsy move coming here dressed like that.”“Figured it’d draw less attention than the costume.” Matt paced idly, half taking in the surroundings for the first time, half avoiding confronting Frank directly. He found it cave-like. It was a basement room of primarily concrete. The small, narrow windows were barred on the outside and covered with heavy curtains on the inside. The air was close and still. There were ammo cases upon ammo cases, canned food, instant coffee, caustic soap, oil, bleach, blood, oh god blood. He turned his attention to the corner where Frank’s cot was tucked. It was clean and neatly made, but Matt could still smell himself and his costume on it as well as Frank’s scent. He shook the thought of how vulnerable he’d been when he was last there from his mind. He finally broke the silence. “You said you’d be in touch.”“Yeah, well, I reconsidered. Figured I’d cut some of the crazy out of my life.”Matt winced. He was used to hearing from Foggy and Karen and even Claire how he complicated their lives. He’d accepted the guilt and dealt with it the way a good Catholic would, which is to say he mostly just let it weigh on him. Hearing it from Frank made him wonder if maybe the complications of his lifestyle went further than he thought. “Sorry.”Frank rolled his eyes. “No you’re not. What do you want?”“Fisk is coming for you. He bugged my apartment after we got drugged. Foggy found it in the outlet after Fisk left a taunting photo letting us know he’d heard everything that was said in there.”Frank sat down at his table and started to clean a pistol. “How long’s it been there?”“Not too long. I think the electricians put it there when they were fixing the wiring.”Frank took a moment to process the information. “You came all the way, dressed like that, to tell me to watch my back?”Matt sat on a footlocker. “No. I came to thank you for what you did for me, and to ask you to stay amongst the living.”“Still trying to save my soul, eh, Red?” Satisfied that his weapon was clean, he reassembled it and placed it on the table.He shook his head. “Your soul’s your own business. I’m just trying to save you from yourself.” He turned to face Frank full on. “Humans are social creatures,” he began.“Appealing to my humanity. Novel tack. I’m surprised no one’s tried that before.”“And you’re no different,” Matt continued, ignoring the sardonic comment. “You’ve cut yourself off from people; friends, family, and all the support and culture and society that comes with that. But when you were… taking care of me,” he forced the words out, “it was easy for you to fall back into the rhythm of life. You went grocery shopping. You cooked meals. You read books and played cards. Hell, Fr. Lantom got a confession out of you. Probably two. Karen’s worried.” I’m worried, Matt thought. “When you first told me you were in seminary,” he started slowly, “I told you that you would’ve made a terrible priest.” Matt thought back to their rooftop conversations when both of them were aimless, and he was at a particularly low point.“You going somewhere with this?” Frank asked, equal parts curious and exasperated. It was well-trodden ground for them, and they both knew it.“I stand by that assessment,” Matt continued. “You weren’t cut out for the priesthood.”“Well no shit,” Frank sniffed. They both knew the statement was true, and also that it didn’t need to be reiterated.“You should’ve been a monk,” Matt pronounced. He listened as Frank’s breathing hitched for half a breath, and he heard a stutter in the rhythmic motions of Frank cleaning his weapons. “You have discipline and asceticism in spades. You have no problems with belief.”Frank scoffed, but Matt didn’t let him get a word in. “You believe. You know that. In your cause, in your ‘war.’ Maybe even in God still. It’s your faith you lost. Faith in the government, in the justice system, probably in God, too. Give it another shot. Try existing amongst people again. Now, I know you won’t turn yourself in, and if you did, all the inmates would recognize you and be gunning for you. So, maybe, take what you’ve built while you were taking care of me and start a new life. You’ve lifted enough cash off of the various criminal elements you’ve killed that you can start a new life. Hang up your spurs. Go somewhere where no one knows you. Redirect your energy. God knows you have enough of it. Create rather than destroy. Blend in and live.”Frank reached for a second gun, disassembled it, and cleaned it silently for a minute. Finally, he nodded towards to door. “Don’t look for the dead amongst the living.”Matt sighed inclined his head slightly. “See you ‘round, Frank.” He turned and left.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Red thought that just he, Foggy, Karen, and Frank would be the target of Fisk’s ire. Based on what Karen told him about Wesley’s reaction, though, Frank figured anyone who Red cared about was at risk. So, while Red was taking care of Foggy and Karen, Frank took it upon himself to scope out targets a bit farther afield.Claire was probably okay, at least for now. He was going to check on the soup kitchen where Red volunteered soon, but before that was a more challenging target.He timed his arrival at the church to coincide with the tail end of confessions. It was unusual these days for a priest to devote as much time to that particular sacrament as Lantom did, but it seemed to work for him and his flock. There were penitents lined up, and not just those old enough to draw social security. It seemed to strengthen the faith of his congregation and his ties to them.The last person in line, a tiny woman on the far side of eighty who couldn’t reach 100lbs with a ladder, confirmed for him that it was Fr. Lantom was in the box. She then cooed over Frank praising him for being so pious when so many of the young kids these days had no use for the Church, but real men knew how important Jesus was, all the while motioning for him to sit next to her. She told him he reminded her of her grandson who was a sergeant in the army. Frank gave a sigh of defeat, smiled politely, and sat down next to her.He waited for the line to move. Finally, the old woman took her turn and emerged from the booth. When he didn’t make to get up, she clapped a bony hand on his shoulder, told him it was his turn, and that she’d told Fr. Lantom to wait for one more person even though time was up, and not to be nervous, because God would take care of him.He realized not going in might arouse her suspicions, so he thanked her and made his way into the confessional for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.He knelt at the grate and quashed the reflex to cross himself, opting instead to rest his forehead on one hand because his hands had to go somewhere. He studiously ignored the small crucifix that hung above the grate while trying to figure out how the past several days had led to the absurdity of the Punisher in a confessional. The last time he’d been in a box like this was when he made his last real confession (him and Lantom fucking with each other the past two times didn’t count). It was near the end of his first semester in seminary, and he’d been unraveling. The coursework was fine, the regimented religious life was fine, serving as an acolyte was fine.What wasn’t fine was people who hurt children. He was halfway through The Brothers Karamazov. The intellectual brother was trying to taunt the religious brother with the problem of evil, demanding that he rationalize the suffering of even one child. In the face of a child being used as hunting quarry and torn to shreds by a pack of hounds on a master’s whim, abstract talk about Christ dying to atone for all sins rang hollow. In addition to that, at the time the Church was in the throes of the sex abuse scandal. It seemed like every day new allegations came out about atrocious cover-ups, heinous crimes against those least able to defend themselves perpetrated by men who were tasked with serving them and acting in persona Christi. The final straw was a chance encounter with someone he’d known from the old neighborhood. It had left him reeling. Nikki had recognized him when he was buying lunch one day. They’d taken their pizza slices to the park across the street and caught up.  When he mentioned he was in seminary, she got a funny look on her face and told him about how her uncle had molested her for years. When she finally confronted him about it, after years of cutting and drinking to numb the pain, he’d apologized once and expected that to be the end of it. Seems he’d confessed it to their parish priest, desperate and contrite each time, vowing never to do it again. But he kept slipping up. The priest, bound by the Seal of Confession, was not able to do anything beyond admonish him and beg him to stay away from his niece. Would he, she asked, protect the sacrament or the child if he were confronted by that situation?At the time, he didn’t have an answer for the question. He knew what he would be bound to do by canon law, he knew what he thought was right, and the two did not overlap.He’d been at his wits’ end. He’d gone to confession to confess his desire to enact lasting harm on another human being outside the scope of a soldier in war, and his inability to forgive another their trespasses. The confessor recommended he spend some time in prayer and with his spiritual director to see whether he really had a vocation to the priesthood.The sound of the slide being drawn back snapped him back to the present. He wasn’t sure if he’d just had a flashback from the drugs or had just been overwhelmed by the intensity of his last confession. He tried to confirm Lantom was on the other side, but the angle and lighting made it impossible to see.“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been... several years since my last confession.” If Lantom wasn’t on the other side, he could fake his way through. If he was, Frank hoped he’d recognize his voice.After the briefest pause Frank heard Fr. Lantom’s response. “Welcome back. What would you like to confess?”Hearing the familiar voice allowed Frank to relax as much as he was capable of. “It’s me. I came to tell you you’re in danger.”On the other side of the screen, Fr. Lantom hesitated. “Is that so?”“Red made some powerful enemies. They’re gunning for anyone he cares about. You’re on the list.”“Is this a confession or a story, Frank?”“What do you think.”“And you’re telling me now, in this place?”“If I didn’t come in it would’ve looked suspicious. That old woman before me--”“Yeah.” Lantom agreed. “Do we need to do it in here, then?”Frank weighed the options. He really didn’t want to explain to the priest how Red’s mess spilled over onto everything he touched while kneeling at a screen with a crucifix looming over his head. There were, however, other people in the sanctuary, and he couldn’t risk them seeing him and Lantom walk off together. “Here’s fine.”Lantom waited for Frank to continue.“Like I said, Red made some powerful enemies. Fisk is still pulling strings from within prison. He wants Red and everyone around him dead. You need to get out of town, lay low for awhile until it blows over.” He evaluated the priest, who remained impassive. “You seem pretty calm about a death threat”Lantom sighed. “I was in Rwanda,” confirming what Frank had suspected, namely that the priest had seen some shit. “Do you know how many people I’ve buried? Do you know how many children? How many war orphans? How many women raped and then hacked to pieces with machetes? How many people who died to drug and gang violence? And then the people who died by your hand?”It was a rhetorical question, so Frank made no comment.“I don’t,” Lantom pressed on. “I’m ashamed to say it. I lost count around two hundred. I’m old. I’ve been a priest for fifty-three years. I’ve seen death and war. I’m not seeking death out, but I accept that it is a part of life, and for me, it will come sooner rather than later. I have faith in the mercy of God and that what awaits beyond death will be greater than life. So, I will call the police and let them know that an anonymous tip said there’s a death threat against me, assuming you consent.”Frank nodded. “Yeah.”“Thank you. And then I will continue living my life, shepherding my flock, and chasing down the ones that stray. Because I have faith.”Frank rolled his eyes.“Not just faith in God,” the priest continued, “but faith in people. I have faith that law enforcement will build a case against Fisk that will keep him from ever harming another person. I have faith that even those who might do me harm can be reminded of the goodness within them.”Frank scoffed.“But you, you’ve long since left your faith in people or God behind,” Lantom went on.Frank understood that the priest wasn’t asking, so he felt no need to confirm.“Your lack of faith caused you to take the law, both man and God’s into your own hands.”“You this rough with all your parishioners, Father?”“Didn’t take you for someone who would want to be mollycoddled. You’re a grown man who’s made his own decisions. I have no doubt that you both understand and accept the consequences of those decisions. But tell me this, has killing all those people satisfied the blood that was shed?”“That’s not the point,” Frank pushed back.“Then why do it?”“I need to.” He silently cursed himself for getting sucked into the conversation, but couldn’t force himself out of it, either.“An eye for an eye will make the world go blind.”“That’s Gandhi, not Christ.”“Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Tell me this, why do you feel you have the authority to take a life?”“Because something needs to be done. No one else is, so I step up.”“We have police and judges. These are matters for the courts, for God to decide. Not individuals. Not you.“The justice system,” Frank scoffed. “The justice system doesn’t work. Fisk isn’t being reformed. He’s not isolated from his victims. He’s still doing the same shit, sorry, the same crap he used to, just from within, where he’s bought off the guards. Someone needs to take care of the crime.”“You have no faith in the criminal justice system.”“I have no faith in anything but my ability to aim a gun,” Frank retorted. “As for the criminal justice system, firsthand experience didn’t instill a lot of confidence in me. Now let me ask you, there are provisions for capital punishment. Why are you so opposed?”“Because all life has value and it should be a last resort. The Church’s provisions for capital punishment are reserved for exceptional circumstances, where there is no infrastructure to properly incarcerate someone. When possible, life should be preserved.”“Somewhere where the rule of law has broken down or isn’t enforced?” Frank offered.“Yes.”“Like Hell’s Kitchen.”“No,” Lantom replied immediately. “It’s flawed. Justice and law enforcement here is flawed, but it’s not completely broken. There are still people working on the right side of the law, for the right reasons. The ends can be obtained another way, and they certainly don’t justify your means.”“Your means don’t justify the ends!” Frank shot back. “It’s all well and good to preach about loving one’s enemy and turning the other cheek, but there is no point in that if the end result is the destruction of the injured party. You want to pretend that the evil they’ve done just goes away, that it doesn’t matter anymore. Starting over with a clean slate is great in theory, but it doesn’t actually work out in practice.”“That’s not the objective of reconciliation,” Lantom explained.” You don’t start over from the beginning. You move on from where you are at any given point. Starting over from the middle, if you will. It’s true that you can’t cross the same river twice. What was will never be again. And you don’t have to forget what was. But you must be able to let go of the bad in order to move forward. Reconciliation, forgiveness, they don’t mean not protecting oneself. We are all entitled to life, and we have no obligation not to protect that. No is required to become a martyr.” Lantom sighed. “You’ve delivered your warning, and I thank you for it. You’re free to go, unless there’s something else on your mind.”“Not going to strong arm a confession out of me again, Father?” Frank needled.“You invoked the Seal of the Confessional at our first meeting,” Lantom pointed out. “Frank rubbed at his forehead. “Thought I had to. To protect Red.” He listened to the silence from the other side. “I was drugged. I wasn’t thinking right. You suggested it and I went along.”“Is that so?” Lantom asked.Frank sighed, thinking back to the lie he told the first time and confessing the lie the second time. “No, I guess I didn’t. Is that why you’re still here now? To get me to confess? You think absolution’s going to matter for someone like me?”“Is that why you’re here now?” Lantom turned the question back on him.Frank passed his hand over his face and sighed. “Fine. You sure you want to hear this?”“Go on,” Lantom encouraged.Frank shifted his weight to relieve some of the stress from kneeling for so long, unfixed his gaze, and started reciting. He led with Grotto’s death to see if that’d provoke a reaction from the priest. When it was met with impassive silence, he continued.“I killed some Dogs of Hell, a couple dozen Irish mobsters, a pawnbroker, some dirty Marines I served with, and my old CO. That’s just since I’ve been back in the city.”Lantom said nothing and waited for him to continue.“I killed dozens of enemy combatants. I’ve lied, stolen, missed Masses, neglected prayers. I beat Turk senseless and watched as another man kill himself. I picked fights with my wife, and I used porn and jerked off. I’ve used the Lord’s name in vain, and I consider myself to be beyond the bounds of God’s mercy.” Frank finished in a bloodless tone.Fr. Lantom gave Frank a moment to see if he was going to add anything more. He finally pronounced Frank’s penance. “Say a rosary for your soul, and resolve to stop killing.”“I don’t have a rosary.”“Well, do your best by counting, then. Make your act of contrition.”Frank stared into the confessor’s side. He couldn’t see Lantom, but if Lantom looked he’d be able to see him. “No.”“I can’t absolve you if you don’t.”“I’m not contrite. I’m not looking for forgiveness. I’m who I want to be and where I want to be. Matt said all religious counsel, not just valid confessions, is exempt, so we’re both protected. And you know this. So I ask, why this charade?”“Why? Because I believe in grace,” he replied simply.Frank shook his head and made to leave. “I hope you really believe what you said about forgiveness not meaning laying down, because Fisk is coming for everyone who means anything to Matt.” He rose from his knees, pushed the heavy curtain aside, and stalked out of the church into the night.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Matt, squirmed, trying to make himself comfortable on the metal folding chair. As much as he didn't want to, he found himself in a circle of two dozen people in one of the multipurpose rooms at St. Agnes. As an olive branch to Foggy and moral support for Karen, he’d agreed to attend the evening’s “Heroes and their Consequences” meeting. Foggy went primarily to listen and understand, and Karen was there researching for her latest “Everyday Heroism” article for the Bulletin. Thus, he found himself sitting in a circle of two dozen others, some of whom he knew, talking without filters about how Daredevil and others of his ilk affected their lives. It was unfiltered opinions that he needed to hear to keep perspective on his work, but it was still an uncomfortable situation.He’d also arrived late and missed the introductions, so by and large, he didn't know the people who were speaking. While he could follow that many voices, it took effort and was starting to get tiring. He'd obviously identified Karen and Foggy immediately, and a there were a few others he knew. Fr. Jordan had held true to his word and was present, presumably to get a feel of the neighborhood. He’d spent enough time around Fr. Lantom, sitting and sipping coffee, or separated by a the grille in the confessional, or just around the church that he knew his shape and scent and heartbeat as well as he knew anyone’s. He didn’t know that Fr. Lantom attended these meetings, and it pricked his conscience that his crazy life had so infected those around him that his priest needed a support group to deal with it. He knew Malcolm led the group, and despite being the calming presence that grounded everyone, he also held a tension in his carriage that betrayed an old trauma. The rest, though, were unknown to him, so all he could do was match voices to shapes and scents in chairs."I've been working with our Rep to introduce legislation mandating that insurance carriers cover damage caused by EIs," said a voice coming from Matt's 2 o'clock, roughly eight chairs away from him. Without really registering it, he noted that the speaker was an overweight male, mid 40s, who liked Old Spice. "EIs?" asked a young male voice."Enhanced individuals," offered Malcolm. "Sort of like flood insurance?" asked twenty-something male with a hint of a Puerto Rican accent."Exactly like flood insurance," Old Spice replied. "And much like determining whether an area is a flood plane, we are working to designate areas likely to be affected by enhanced individuals. Mostly it's New York right now, but there's some data to support LA and San Francisco, too. We're also working to ensure catastrophic events caused by EIs are eligible for relief efforts from FEMA.""Superheroes aren't acts of god, or forces of nature. They're weapons," interjected a female who’d smoked a cigarette before the meeting. "They were created by people to use superior force to guarantee certain outcomes. They are, by definition, weapons. Now, we can pretend that they can do good, but that's lipstick on a pig. It's wishful thinking, like Project Plowshare.” “Project what?” asked Old Spice.“How are Captain America educational videos the equivalent of using nukes to make highways?” Puerto Rico asked. “So you admit that it’s as suicidal to have EIs around as it is to keep nukes around?” Female Smoker countered.“Mutually assured destruction prevented…. mutual destruction,” offered Older female wearing Oil of Olay. Matt got her point, but thought that it might be too oblique for those who were getting angry to notice nuance. “What’s Project Plowshare?!” Old Spice insisted again.“And they will beat their swords into plowshares,” supplied Fr. Jordan’s. “The good Father is right,” Puerto Rico. “Project Plowshare was a program the US government started in the 60’s. They wanted to re-purpose the nuclear arsenal for peacetime uses. Mining, excavating, that sort of thing.”“And they actually did this? The just blew up nukes all over the place?” thirty-something female voice with a Queens accent.“Some,” young female with an accent from the western US confirmed. “There’s crater 33 stories deep in the Nevada desert because of Plowshare.”“Why do you know that?” asked Queens.“I’m from Nevada. You know the US government still blows shit up out there? Crap. Blows crap up. Sorry, Fathers,” “Nothing I haven’t heard before,” Fr. Jordan dismissed genially.“What happens in Vegas stays in—“ Young Male started.“Don’t.” Nevada cut him off. “Do. Not. Fucking. Say. It. Sorry, Fathers,” she muttered again, sounding not the least bit contrite. Matt heard Fr. Lantom suppress a little chuckle. He knew by now that his priest didn’t care much about profanity, or even taking the Lord’s name in vain, as long as one wasn't so imprudent as to do it in a church.“What I was saying,” Female Smoker continued, “is that, despite whatever noble intentions these so-called superheroes have, despite their patriotic or sob story origins, no one can deny what they are. They’re dangerous. They're weapons, and we can’t rely on them or the people running them to have their moral compasses aligned with true north. All it takes is one incident, one girl blowing up an embassy in Lagos, to screw us all over. Just like plutonium bombs, they cannot be harnessed for good without also accepting disastrous consequences.”"They're people, Fr. Lantom pointed out. "They have agency. They aren't run by others, or at least not all of them."“What do you propose we do,” asked Old Spice. “Lock them all up?”“If they won't submit to government registration, oversight, and control, then yes,” insisted smoker female. “Even the ones who haven’t done anything wrong? You want a Gitmo for EIs,” countered Old Spice. “We still have habeus corpus in this country, right? How do we find them all? Self-reporting? Mandatory inspections?. They’re people and citizens with rights. They’re innocent until proven otherwise, and they deserve all of the freedoms and protections promised to every human and citizen. You can't make merely being an EI illegal anymore than you can make being a pedophile or a Yankees fan illegal. The actions may be illegal, but all of the harmful actions caused by EIs are already covered by standard assault, murder, destruction of property, and terrorism laws. And let's face it, the latter hurt a lot more people than the former.""We have sex offender registries," Smoker Female countered."But only for those who've acted on their urges. Their actions are illegal, not their beings. Absolutely, register convicted felon EIs, but I don't want the government registering people for the equivalent of thougthcrimes," Old Spice replied. “We have an obligation to protect the innocent. If you or I were to have a momentary lapse in judgment, or even a psychotic break, we’d kill, what, a few dozen people? If one of these people were to experience the same, they’d kill hundreds, thousands, maybe millions. How do we stop the Hulk? What if he got loose in a major city? Oh, just a few hundred thousand slum dwellers in Mumbai dead, our bad? We’ll just knock him out until the next time we need him. Uh oh, started another robot uprising. Hope they’re here for hugs and rainbows this time, instead of launching a chunk of the Earth’s crust high enough to make the dinosaurs go extinct. It’s okay, though, because his company means well and he employs lots of people, and he flew a nuke into a space hole, so we owe him, right?” Smoker Female wasn't going to cede the argument without a fight. "I don't want the government to start criminalizing people simply by virtue of who they are," Old Spice explained."I want the government to protect me from threats, foreign and domestic," Smoker Female countered."I can see things are getting a bit heated here, and both Alyssa and Charlie bring up good points," Malcolm mediated. "We have some new faces tonight. Esther, right? Maybe you'd like to say something?"“Sure," came a frail but dignified voice. "Daredevil beat my neighbor’s grandson within an inch of his life. True, he’d gone astray. He was running with a bad crowd, and he was probably doing some illegal things. But he wasn’t stupid, and he supported his mom and brother with both of his jobs. Now they don’t even have that income, they’ve got hospital bills, and he gets seizures. I know that what he was doing was illegal and was hurting the community, but what Daredevil did just shifted the damage. Another boy will come along to fill his place, and now there's one more person who can't contribute anything to society.”The room was still quiet; no one was sure how to respond to that. Matt’s heart beat harder at having his sins exposed to a roomful of people, a some of whom knew him in both guises. He reached out with his senses. Foggy’s breathing hitched. Karen was torn between looking at him and not looking at him. He stretched a little farther and focused on Fr. Lantom. The old man’s heart was unchanged. Matt knew his priest knew of his violent tendencies, but he’d never got into the details of his fights. Having confirmation that Fr. Lantom knew of the worst details and that those details didn’t affect his opinion of Matt both comforted and shamed him.A middle aged woman who smelled of almond shampoo and hairspray broke the silence. “I’m sorry to hear of your neighbor’s grandson, Esther. Alyssa's original point is a good one. The enhanced crowd can do terrible things or great things. When they do either, it can go so far beyond what us normal people can do.“As a lot of you know, I’ve been coming to these meetings since they started. Two years ago, some Russians involved in human trafficking hauled my husband from our car, beat him severely, and kidnapped our son. The police couldn’t or wouldn’t find him. It later came out that the Russians had some protection because they were involved in the ring Fisk set up. Whatever the case, our son was gone and my husband was in the hospital. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen—he wasn’t Daredevil then—found our son. He fought his way through a dozen men to rescue our boy.”“So, we should give him a pass on breaking someone’s skull because he might rescue women and children,” Alyssa challenged.“A lot of you know that Matt's a lawyer and has been doing a lot of pro bono work in the Kitchen,” Foggy cut in. “Esther, he’d be glad to help your neighbor's grandson navigate the resources available to him. Right, Matt?”Matt nodded and managed to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Yeah, of course.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket for a business card, which he handed to Foggy, who passed it to the woman. “I’m at Josie’s most weekday afternoons. Have him or his grandmother stop by and we can discuss the options available.”A lull fell over the conversation, which was broken by a male voice that had also joined the meeting late. “I had a run in with one of the powered crowd,” All eyes turned towards him."A bit over a year back," he continued. His hands played nervously with the zipper on his jacket. "I wanted to help her. I tried. She put me through a wall."Matt's focus on the newcomer was diverted by another new figure who slipped into the circle quietly. A moment's focus told him that it was his mother and that she was as surprised to see him as he was her. He didn’t allow himself to register recognition, and she didn’t call to him.“And she’s the reason I'm the way I am now. I have pain. I have to take pills. They did things to me because they did things to her.” He stood and started pacing. "And him. The original Star Spangled Man. The only one of the super-powered lot who chose it. He chose it and now I, now we, all of the rest of us, have to live with it. He didn't do it for himself. He chose it so he could help. He did it for others. And none of the rest, certainly not that bitch.""Hi, I'm Malcolm. What's your name?" Matt could tell he was trying to defuse what was becoming a tense situation. "Will.""Hi Will. I'm glad you came to discuss Enhanced Individuals. This is a place for everyone to discuss how they've been affected, good and bad. I gotta ask you not to use that language against women," Malcolm said kindly but firmly."Oh, it's a safe space, is that right?" Will asked sardonically."Yes, it is." A little steel crept into Malcolm's voice."But it's not safe for 'Enhanced Individuals.'"Matt felt the tension in the room grow and heard Smoker Female grab her purse and jacket, excuse herself and mutter something about finding the ladies' room. "Oh, that's right. Run away from the scary enhanced man. It's her fault, and it's Rogers' fault. Perfect fucking man. Tactical genius, tall, handsome, made perfect moral decisions every time. But his war was easy. Winners and losers, good and bad. They wanted more of him, so they kept trying. They made people like me. Maybe the rest of us weren't perfect, but neither were our wars. And what about the people who made me? Just chasing the fucking goal Rogers set. They made us because of him, and they made sure they'd be able to control us in ways they never could control him. And now they whore me out like I'm some tool to be used by whoever can pay."There was a murmur of activity as people whispered amongst themselves about what to do. A few others had gathered their things to leave, as Will's ranting became more unhinged. Matt nudged Karen to get her to go, but, intrepid journalist that she was, she kicked him back and hissed that she was going to see this through. Matt turned to Foggy to beg him to leave and take Karen but was interrupted when Will pulled a gun. For a fraction of a second, everyone was still, and then all at once, the room broke into a flurry of activity. Most of the screamed people ran for the door. He swung his arm to the left and pointed the gun directly at Karen's head. "You will all stop and listen to what I have to say or I will blow her goddamn brains out."The room fell silent."You,” Nuke gestured with his gun at Esther. “I don’t want to hurt you. I have no business with most of you. Plug the sink and fill it.”Matt heard her, joints creaking from arthritis, beads in her necklace clicking faintly, move towards the sink and comply.“When I say so, you will take out your cell phones and throw them into the sink. If I see anyone trying to call the police, I will shoot her. If I hear sirens, I will shoot her. If any of you do anything I don't like, I will shoot her. Any questions?"Matt listened as the group obeyed, one by one. Everyone dropped a phone in the sink, and Will seemed satisfied, thought Matt sensed that Puerto Rico had two phones and only threw one in the sink. Will started pulling people aside and forming a second group. He shoved them roughly into a supply closet and secured the door. Matt knew this had to be Fisk's ploy, and his suspicions were confirmed when those left out were the people he knew. He was initially surprised that Fisk knew of his mother, but then recalled who set him down that path to begin with. He tried to run the calculus in his head, figuring out the best way to take out Nuke without getting anyone killed. Foggy grabbed his arm just above the elbow, mirroring how Matt would hold his arm when he used to guide. Foggy had always known that that was the wrong way to guide a blind person; Matt had been amazed at how thankful he was when he didn’t have to explain it to his new roommate all those years back. Thus, he knew that Foggy was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t sure what.Before they could work out a language between them, Karen went to drown her phone.“Recorder, too,” Nuke said.“It’s not on,” she protested. “It can’t make calls.”“Don't care. Don't need a record of what happens here.”Before she could comply, Fr. Jordan rushed Nuke. He managed to pull the gun away from Karen's head, but couldn't disarm Will. They struggled over it briefly, and Fr. Jordan got a good punch in at Nuke’s jaw. In one smooth motion, Nuke reclaimed his gun, threw Fr. Jordan off of him, took aim at Fr. Lantom, and pulled the trigger. Fr. Lantom clutched at his stomach and fell to the floor. Maggie screamed. Karen was on the verge of hyperventilating. Matt heard crying was coming from the closet, and his own heart threatening to beat out of his chest.“I TOLD YOU NOT TO PISS ME OFF! I’m a weapon! They made me a weapon. I have a job to do, and I have to do it. You made me shoot an old man.""All of you. Get in the chapel." He indicated the door that led to the small side chapel. "You and you, move him," he said, gesturing at Fr. Jordan, Malcolm, and Fr. Lantom, who was lying on the floor with a hand pressed to his stomach."Will," he started as mildly as he could, considering his priest was bleeding out six feet away from him. "He sent you after me, right?" Matt took the silence as confirmation. "You want me. Let them go and I'll stay." He waved a hand to try to hush Karen. "Fr. Lantom needs an ambulance. None of them have wronged you or your boss. Please. Let them go." He tried to put some distance between himself and Will and the rest of the group. "You don't have to do this," he continued. "There are people who can help you, protect you."Nuke pressed his gun to Matt's side and shoved him closer to the rest of the group. He herded his hostages into the small chapel and gestured for Fr. Jordan and Malcolm to deposit Fr. Lantom on the floor. Matt realized that the small room contained the entirety of his friends and family, including a dying priest who'd done as much to keep him on the straight and narrow as anyone else, and a mother he hadn't known he'd had until days ago.Matt scanned the area for anything he could use as a weapon and came up short, excepting a couple of candlesticks that would probably break before they could do any real damage. Will had to be enhanced. The way he'd thrown Fr. Jordan, from the shape of his body, the smell of chemicals (amphetamines, adrenaline, and something else unnatural) told him that he was dangerous and had just taken something that would probably distill it all into adrenaline-fueled rage. "You know what they code-named me?" Will asked, not bothering to wait for an answer. "Nuke. And after what that stupid little bitch was saying tonight, it fits, right? I came out of WWII, just like Captain America."Of course, I wasn't in WWII, just like the nuclear warheads that exist today were made after the war. The originals were prototypes. Proof of concept before the government ramped up the production line. No, our nuclear stockpile was made after the original. Like all the failed supersoldiers after Rogers. Like Jones, and everyone else dosed by IGH. Nuke was gesturing for them to sit against the wall when Matt finally made his move. His loved ones were far enough away that he didn't need to worry about hitting them. He had the element of surprise, and he hit hard and fast, causing Nuke to stumble forward. "Hunh," he grunted as he spun around faster than a fighter his size should've been able to. "Y'know, he said that you were Daredevil, but I just didn't believe him. Guess I was wrong." He traded a kick for a punch and sent Matt reeling into a pew. "I saw your files," he taunted. "That chemical that blinded you? Precursor to the shit they injected into me. You and me, we're the same. Failed experiments for unwinnable wars. Not as strong or as fast or as moral as the original, though."Matt wasn't holding back, but his attention was split three ways. First, he knew that Puerto Rico had called the cops and told them to come quietly, so he was straining for sounds of radios in patrol cars. Second, he was monitoring everyone else, making sure Nuke wouldn't hurt them, and trying to see how Fr. Lantom was doing. Third, he was trying to fight, both to distract and to incapacitate. The police wouldn't be there for a few minutes, and they were unlikely to storm it given that they knew it was a hostage situation. He drew in a sharp breath as Nuke threw him into the altar and his back hit the edge hard. Stick would tell him that he was using his armor as a crutch and it'd made him weak, but the thought passed quickly. He wasn't able to entertain much resentment towards Stick, being too occupied with dodging Nuke's hits. "Karen, get everyone out." He barked between attacks. "Foggy, get Fr. Lantom medical help. I'll try to draw him away from you.""I got instructions to make you watch me kill all of these people. They're all going to die because of you. I got enough bullets, but I don't need 'em. I can just snap necks or crush skulls." He smirked as he connected an especially brutal attack that hit Matt square in the ribs, cracking at least two, possibly three. "I was told to make you watch them die, and I thought it'd be a mess getting everyone in one place, but here they are. You did all the work for me. You're a failed experiment, but you get to live on your own, have a life, a career, loved ones. But you don't fucking appreciate it. Your shit is so crazy you've driven them all to a support group just so they can deal with your fucked up baggage." He wheeled around and shot two quick rounds at Karen and Maggie, both of whom were trying to get everyone out. One bullet found Karen's forearm, and Matt heard both bones shatter. The other bullet struck Maggie near her right sounder. Matt heard Foggy yell for Karen. Malcolm caught Maggie before she hit the ground, and Fr. Jordan rushed Nuke. "You think you're a super soldier, huh, son?" Fr. Jordan asked rhetorically. "Army? Special forces?""Something like that," Nuke sneered back, turning partially towards Fr. Jordan."Me too," Fr. Jordan growled back. He connected with an uppercut, which distracted Nuke long enough for Matt to immobilize his arm, dislocate his shoulder, and strip the gun from his hand. He kicked it across the floor and shouted at Foggy to eject the clip and the bullet in the chamber. Nuke kicked out at Matt, throwing him off balance, and lunged at Fr. Jordan, throwing him to the ground. Fr. Jordan's head hit a pew on the way down, and he lost consciousness."Just me and you now. Your friends get to watch me beat you, and then you get to watch me kill them," he taunted. "Fitting to kill the Devil in church, huh? He demanded it be here. He knows how important this shit is to you. He wanted you to see it defiled with the blood of your friends and your own violence."Matt heard Malcolm trying to talk Maggie down and apply pressure to her wound. Foggy had taken the bullets out of the gun and stuffed them into a donation box next to a stand of votive candles. Karen was trying to tend to Fr. Lantom, and was being tended to herself by Foggy. Fr. Jordan was stirring, but still disoriented. He knew he had precious little time left to incapacitate Nuke and get Fr. Lantom medical care, but much to his chagrin, Nuke wasn't slowing. He didn't even seem winded. Matt was fighting as though his life and the lives of those he loved depended on it, which they did, but he was also still recovering from the original drug trip. On top of it, he had two cracked ribs, and wasn't popping amphetamines or whatever it was that he could smell on Nuke. He dodged, jumped, blocked and struck to the best of his ability, but the best he could do was fight him to a draw. He didn't want to think about the worst that could happen. He heard Fr. Jordan's breathing change as he fully regained consciousness, and heard Fr. Lantom, clearly in a lot of pain and very weak, call him over to his side. He was rewarded for his momentary lack of total focus by Nuke flinging him halfway across the chapel. He cracked his head on a holy water font and crumpled to the ground. Maggie screamed in shock, but her injury made it come out as a whimper. The others reacted, too, but not just to Matt being thrown. Frank Castle in his finest Punisher regalia walked in the main door and stalked up the aisle. "Was listening to the police scanner. Better than Netflix. Heard some shit going on down here. Figured I'd come check it out."Matt heard the arrogance and bravado masking the concern he knew Frank had for Karen especially, but probably himself, and maybe even Fr. Lantom. "Oh good, more playthings," Nuke growled as he charged Matt. "Wait your turn, though." Matt calculated the angles on the fly and realized that Nuke was positioning himself such that Frank couldn't get a clean shot. Given what he'd said about super soldier programs, drugs, and the way he was fighting, Matt wasn't even sure a bullet would stop him. Nuke charged. Matt used his remaining agility and speed to his advantage. At the last minute, he turned enough to catch Nuke but avoid the full force of the blow. He used their combined momentum to drive the other man's head hard into a stone windowsill. It was the first real opening he had, and he took it. He had him on the floor in half a heartbeat. He grabbed him by the hair and smashed his face into the stone tile, breaking his nose and teeth with a sickening, wet crunch. He did it a few more times for good measure. In the next instant, he had his foot slammed back of Nuke’s neck. “Matty, no!” Maggie called, whispering through clenched teeth and pain.Matt hesitated for just a moment to sense his injured mother reaching out to him, desperate to save her child from himself. Malcolm was shushing her and trying to keep her still to avoid exacerbating her injury. He could feel Fr. Lantom's eyes on him, and heard him whispering prayers for Matt's soul and for his own. Before he could turn his focus back to Nuke, a shot rang out, the echo reverberating off the walls and floor of the chapel. He smelled the blood and knew that there was nothing left of Nuke to save. He inclined his head slightly to his left where the Punisher stood, Glock still aimed at the remains of Nuke’s head, as though he might try to stand up again.“That's my move, Red. Not yours,” Frank forced out between gritted teeth. He lowered his weapon. "This the best Fisk could throw at you," Frank spat out with as much swagger as he could muster."I think so," Matt gasped, still reeling from the gunshot and the smell of brain tissue and blood."Good. Cops are on their way. Tell 'em whatever you want." Frank spared a quick look at Fr. Lantom, met his eye and muttered “Sorry, Padre.” He put the safety back on, holstered his piece, and walked out the side door of the chapel. “See you ‘round, Red.”The sound of the door shutting behind the Punisher broke the spell that had frozen everyone in place. Matt, who still had one foot on Nuke, fell away from his body and leaned heavily against the wall, shaking all over. Malcolm assured Sr. Maggie that Matt was okay, implored her to keep still until the emergency crews arrived, and went to release the rest of the hostages. Fr. Jordan knelt at Fr. Lantom's side and listened closely as the latter whispered something to him.Foggy collapsed heavily in a pew. “Jesus Matt, sorry, Fathers. God damn, I mean…”Fr. Jordan came over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Breathe, son. You’re going to be okay,” to which Foggy managed a shaky nod. “Go ahead and lie down for a bit. It’ll take a few minutes for the adrenaline to even out.”Foggy awkwardly leaned back on his elbows and then lowered himself the rest of the way. “My grandma yelled at me once for doing this in church.”Fr. Jordan managed a quick smile. “I think everyone here will understand.” He made his way over to Matt and looked him over with compassion. “Matt,” he said softly as he gestured towards Fr. Lantom. Matt nodded and made his way over to his priest. "Father, I'm so sorry." Lantom squeezed his hand. "Protect your city, Matthew, and protect yourself." He closed his eyes, his face went slack, and he breathed out his final breath.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Marcus approached Fisk’s cell, where he found his boss dining on an expensive cut of beef paired with a red wine the man probably didn’t appreciate.“Mr. Fisk?”“Yes? What is it?” Fisk glanced up from his meal.“Nuke, sir. He was killed.”“By Murdock?”“No, by Castle.”“That’s… unfortunate. I had more use for him. But it is the cost of doing business.” He stopped to cut another piece of his filet mignon, barely warm in the center and dripping red with blood. “And the others?”“His mother suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. It missed her lung. Page’s radius and ulna were shattered. Both will live, but both will experience lasting effects of their injuries. Lantom died. The other priest lived. Misters Nelson and Ducasse both escaped without physical harm.”“This weapon was far less… efficacious… than you promised.”“Sir,” he agreed.“Nevertheless, it wasn’t a total loss.” He stopped to take a sip of the wine. “And Murdock?”“… He survived, sir.”Fisk balled up his hands.Marcus backed out of reach, as Fisk was still holding his steak knife. He wasn’t able to discern any English words in the ensuing verbal tirade, and once Fisk had flung his plate against the wall, he decided it was a prudent time to recuse himself from the situation. He nodded at the guards, who escorted him beyond the cell block gates.****Scene with Fr. Jordan confronting him, giving him Maggie’s rosary, scaring him that she’s deadU, confessionMatt startled awake when he felt something drop into his lap. It took a second before his mind and body fully registered his situation. The aches in his body informed him of the previous night’s activities. The crick in his neck made him reminded him of where he slept. Hospital waiting room chairs weren’t designed for sleeping, and he briefly regretted not going home. He pushed that thought aside and reminded himself that sleeping in the little chair kept him near his loved ones. Well, some of his loved ones. Fisk used Nuke to try to destroy his life. He hadn't wholly succeeded, but he'd wreaked enough havoc to hurt Matt deeply. He'd hurt Karen badly; she had hours of surgery to repair her arm and would need months to recover fully. He'd thrown his mother back into his life expressly for the purpose of ripping her away. In that he partially failed, but it was a near thing. Nuke only winged her. The bullet went through just below the shoulder, just missing her lung. Had Nuke not been shooting from the hip, he'd probably be burying two people.Because while he'd only wounded Maggie, he'd had that extra second to aim properly at Fr. Lantom. The bullet nicked his hepatic vein, and the priest simply bled to death. Matt excoriated himself for not ending it sooner, not getting EMTs to them faster, not getting Fr. Lantom to a hospital sooner, but the doctors informed him that a couple of extra minutes wouldn’t have made a difference. He hadn't been this torn up about anything since the night his father died. He alternated between wanting to scream and hit things, which he did a few times before he got to the hospital, hence the splint on his hand, and wanting to throw up, which he also did before arriving at the hospital. No words, however reasonable or kindly meant would assuage his guilt. His selfish actions caused another innocent death. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear both is father and Fr. Lantom gently chiding him, informing him that they made their own decisions and lived their own lives, but he pushed those voices away in favor of his own pain. Matt snapped to the present. He felt for the object, which turned out to be a rosary. He ran his fingers thoughtfully over the smooth beads and cocked his head towards his visitor.Fr. Jordan eased into the chair next to him. "Maggie's. Found it in the chapel. Must've fallen out of her pocket."Matt whipped his head towards the priest, expecting the worst."She's fine," he added quickly. "Or, she'll be fine. No imminent threat to her life, but she's going to be in some pain, and she'll need PT." He gestured to the rosary. "Figured you might like to give it back to her when she wakes up.""Did you... How? You knew? Who else?" "It appears it’s an open secret at St. Agnes now." "Oh." Matt wasn't up for conversation, but Fr. Jordan gave no indication that he was leaving anytime soon, and he didn't know him well enough to sit in silence with him. "Is that where you'll be working?"Fr. Jordan stretched out and tried to make the chair more comfortable. "No, I'll be taking over for Fr. Lantom. That's why I was brought up here; to assist him with pastoral duties. Seems I'll be doing more than assisting now," he finished sadly. "Those are big shoes to fill," Matt said because he needed to say something. "Don't I know it. He was my spiritual adviser when I was a novice. Best one I had. I was dealing with some stuff after I left the Army. He wasn't a soldier, but he saw some stuff, as you probably know. Helped me put things in perspective."Matt nodded. "He had a knack for that."Fr. Jordan hesitated. "He asked me to look in on you." When Matt said nothing, he continued. "He was worried about what you might do, and what his death would do to you. He said you'd blame yourself. Was he wrong?"Matt passed a hand over his face. "He was not wrong." "If his death is on anyone other than Nuke, and I'm not saying it is, it's on me. I was the one who rushed him in a hostage situation with an armed man. I thought I could disarm Nuke. If he hadn’t been enhanced, I would've disarmed him.” Jordan bowed his head and took a moment to compose himself. “He died at peace, sustained by his faith."  "His death was meaningless," Matt replied softly. "It wasn't because of age, or sickness, or natural disaster. It was because of another person."Jordan shook his head. "It was a death. Death happens. Death is a natural and inevitable part of life. Don't try to look for meaning in his death. Look for meaning in his life. You want to do justice to his memory? Live how he would want you to live."***Talking with Fr. Jordan helped. He didn’t feel good, but he didn’t feel like he was going to die of misery, either. He was Murdock, and he wasn’t going to stay down. He had to take the next step, make the next move in the struggle that was his life. He took a page from Fr. Lantom’s book and decided to tend to those who needed him most.He sat at the bedside of Sr. Margaret. He knew with his brain that she was his mother. But even though he really did forgive her, he couldn’t bring himself to call her “mother.” He’d never applied that word to anyone who’d acted like a mother towards him, and it didn't feel right to start applying it to the woman who a week ago was a stranger to him.She was recovering well from her injuries, all things considered. She got lucky and the bullet went through cleanly, just barely missing the top lobe of her right lung. Her doctors were confident she’d pull through with minimal lasting consequences, though she was going to have PT, pain, and a nasty scar.He’d been keeping vigil for a couple of hours and was just starting to drift off when he heard her stir.“Matty!” she called out softly. He could hear the smile. She made to reach for him.“Stay down. You need your rest,” he responded kindly, matching her smile.As she awakened more fully, she became more aware of her injury. “That sounds like good advice,” she agreed, lowering her hand and relaxing back into the bed.”“I’d hope so. I got it from you.”Maggie made a questioning noise.“It’s the only thing I remember you saying to me. From back when they brought you in to St. Agnes, when my senses were going haywire and I’d hurt myself.” Matt smiled softly at the memory. “Dad always said ‘it’s not how you hit the mat, it’s how you get back up.’ And he was right, mostly. But you taught me that sometimes the next move in a fight is to wait. You said all you gave me was life and then you were gone. You gave me that, too.” His fingers idly played with her rosary, which he still clutched tightly.Tears brightened her eyes. “Matty, you’ve turned into such a beautiful person. I don’t deserve you, and I don’t deserve to be in your life. I don’t understand how someone so good came out of me and the mess I made. I don’t expect it, and I won’t ask for it, but I hope one day you’ll forgive me.”“Hey now,” he chided gently. “You pulled yourself out of the pit of despair through sheer force of will and faith. We should all fail so spectacularly.” He cocked a playful smile. “It’s clear you’re not a lawyer.”She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.“If you were, you’d understand the statute of limitations.” He reached over and grasped her hand, raising it to his lips to kiss the back of it. She took the opportunity to run her fingers through his hair, which he allowed.  “Oh, almost forgot this.” He pooled the rosary into a little heap on the hospital bed. “Fr. Jordan picked this up in the chapel.”She shook her head. “I want you to keep it.”He made to protest but thought better of it, and instead scooped it up and pocketed it.“Thank you,” he said softly.***Since she was out of surgery, Matt’s next stop was Karen’s room. She was awake, more or less. He handed her a chocolate and marzipan bar and a bouquet of flowers that probably looked nice, but a smelled boring because greenhouse flowers were bred for show, not unique aromas. He greeted her with a kiss to the cheek. Her eyes were glassy from the painkillers, and she was hooked up to an IV pumping her full of antibiotics. Her doctors were worried about further damage to her elbow, so she wasn't cleared for release. “I’m not going to be great company,” she got out with some effort. “They gave me the good stuff. And Foggy’s not much for talking right now, either.” She smiled a little and tipped her head towards Foggy.Foggy was dozing in the chair next to her bed. “Whowazzitnow?” he mumbled as he woke. “Jesus Matt. You scared the shit out of me.”“Thanks for keeping her company while I checked on Maggie.” He turned back to Karen. “How are you holding up?”“Pretty well, all things considered. The surgery went fine. I have four pins in my arm.”“She’s part cyborg!” Foggy chimed in.Karen couldn’t keep from grinning. “I am not part cyborg. I’m in a lot of pain, and the Fentanyl isn’t doing jack shit. My arm looks like something Dr. Frankenstein stitched together, and I’m going to miss the deadline for the ‘Everyday Heroes’ piece on the Clinton Mission Shelter staff.”“I’m sure Ellison will understand,” Matt started.“It’s not him I’m worried about disappointing. It’s the shelter staff. They deserve the attention for the good they do. Instead, they're going to be known as the place that some drugged-up lunatic killed a priest before The Punisher killed him.”Matt cocked his head. “You have your notes for it?”“I lost the transcripts of the interviews, but I have some notes.”“I’ll ghostwrite it for you.”She shook her head. “If you write it, take the byline. I don’t mind. People might like reading from the point of view of someone who’s been working with them for a while.”Matt gave a small nod. He noted with concern that Karen tried to click her button for more pain meds, and that it had maxed out.“Go, get some sleep. Both of you.” When Matt and Foggy made to protest, she just glared, knowing Matt would feel it somehow. “Besides, I don’t have super senses, but I can still tell you both need showers.”“Might as well go before we get kicked out for the night,” Foggy agreed.  “Karen needs rest, too.”Matt kissed her again. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”“I’m not going anywhere,” she slurred, already starting to fade.
***
Matt was completely wrung out. The emotional whiplash of finding and nearly losing his mother again, of Karen getting injured (again) because someone took umbrage with Daredevil, of being responsible for Fr. Lantom’s death (despite whatever Fr. Jordan said, he would always blame himself at least in part), of nearly killing a man out of vengeance, all took its toll. All he wanted to do was take an hour long shower to wash away his pain, physical or otherwise, and then crawl between his silk sheets and sleep until noon. Instead what he got was the scent of gun powder, blood, and metal paired with a heartbeat he knew all too well skulking around a rooftop two buildings away.  So instead of getting some much-needed sleep or taking that much-needed shower, he donned his devil suit, poured out the last of the coffee into a thermos, and hit the rooftops.“Frank,” he called out softly, announcing his approach.“Red,” Frank called back. He was seated with his back set against a chimney, knees up and hands loosely resting on them. Matt handed him the thermos of coffee, which Frank accepted.He sat opposite of Frank and tried to relax. “So,” he began.“Yeah,” Frank agreed.They fell silent. Neither felt compelled to break it prematurely."Karen gonna be alright?" Matt nodded and related her injuries and prognosis. "She'll live," he concluded, "but there will be consequences." "There always are, Red." Frank swigged at the coffee. "And the others?""Maggie will be okay. The bullet did a lot of damage, but missed all the important bits. Fr. Lantom died before the EMTs got there last night." Matt paused. "But you knew that already.""Seen a lot of gunshot wounds in my day," he agreed. "I knew both those outcomes from where it was and how they were acting. I didn't know how bad Karen's arm was fucked up." After a moment, he added, "sorry about your priest.""Me, too," Matt agreed. "Funeral's in two days, 11 AM. You should go. It'll be crowded, and you can blend in."Frank screwed up his mouth. "Funerals ain't my thing, Red."They sat in silence for a minute, each man considering the losses he'd faced for the life he'd chosen. "Thank you,” Mat said eventually, his voice barely above a whisper. When Frank made no reply or acknowledgment, he added “for saving me.”“Didn’t have a choice,” Frank relied through clenched teeth.“Not in the lab. In the chapel,” Matt said softly.Frank shifted uncomfortably. “He needed to die.”“According to your metric of who deserves punishment?” Matt asked neutrally.“Yeah.”“You know anything about him?" Frank's pulse spiked. "Lemme guess, a reject Super Soldier?"Matt looked up, startled."There were rumors that the Army kept at that research. Everyone suspected the experiments were still going on, but no one had evidence. Made sense. Their one success was too valuable not to keep trying, human cost be damned.”"They'd given him some chemical cocktail, and then ran him using uppers and downers," Matt confirmed. He’d finally gotten all of the info, including the full story of IGH that Foggy had promised Jessica not to divulge. He’d always suspected that the company’s documents about the chemical in his accident were incomplete, and he knew that it wasn’t just blind ninja training that allowed him to track like a bloodhound or hear heartbeats blocks away. Knowing that he, Jessica, and apparently Nuke were all victims of IGH’s hubris didn’t make things better, though.At length, Matt began speaking, composing his thoughts carefully.  "You were okay with killing him?”Frank scoffed. “You really need to ask, Red? Drugs wore off awhile back.”“Even though he was ex-military, a brainwash, drugged man?” he continued. “I remember awhile back, during one of our rooftop chats, you said you wouldn’t punish James Barnes for what he’d done as the Winter Soldier. You said he was a POW, tortured and forced to comply under duress, and couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. What’s the difference between Barnes and Nuke?”“Bucky Barnes wasn’t actively trying to kill a roomful of civilians.”Matt cocked his head. “You wouldn’t have used lethal force on Barnes,” he pronounced at length.“What are you getting at, Matt?” Frank asked impatiently.Matt looked up. It was the first time Frank had called him by his name, not Red, or Daredevil, or some other pejorative. He chose his words carefully. “Thank you for keeping me from crossing that line,” he said very sincerely.“You better get your temper in check or it’ll happen again, and I won’t be there to save you from yourself.”“I know,” he replied quietly. He got up to return to his apartment. The night was quiet, and he really was very tired. He walked over to Frank, telegraphing his moves. After all this time, after all they’d been through, he knew Frank wouldn’t take him as a threat, but his instincts made him treat Frank like a dog who’d been beaten. Despite all the best intentions, he might still get bit if he startled him. Matt removed a small, crude envelope from a concealed pocket and passed it to Frank. “Fr. Jordan found this in Fr. Lantom’s belongings. He asked me to get it to you.” Frank gave a confused look, but said nothing and accepted the small package. Matt turned to head home. “See you ‘round, Frank.”Frank counted to one hundred before he replied “you, too Red,” knowing that Matt would still hear him. He turned the packet over in his hands. It was a page torn from a book, folded roughly into an envelope, and taped shut. He gently prised the flap open, which caused the entire sheet to unfold, revealing a plain wooden rosary and a tiny scrap of paper folded in quarters. He rolled his eyes and smirked cynically, but pocketed the beads nonetheless. He unfolded the little piece of paper. It read:
“Dear Frank,

I know you used to like literature. This isn't Shakespeare or Blake, but it’s from one of my favorite books.

Sincerely,

Father Lantom”
He skimmed the highlighted passage and then read it sotto voce in case Matt was listening.
“’What a pity Bilbo did not stab the vile creature, when he had a chance!’

‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need.’

‘I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death.’

‘Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.’”
Frank crumpled the page into a ball and dropped it on the rooftop. He kept Fr. Lantom’s note; he'd burn that later so there’d be no paper trail linking the priest to him. Nothing Lantom or Tolkein had to say could fill the void created by having family ripped away. He kept the rosary, though. He wasn’t superstitious enough to feel bad about pitching it, and he wasn’t one to swim long in nostalgia, but it would be a reminder of a brief time when he once again had a purpose to protect rather than kill. He’d put it in the small cache he kept in the safest of his safehouses, next to the crumpled photo of his family. ***A rooftop away, still as a statue and hidden in the shadows, Matt stood with his head tilted to one side. He understood what he heard, and he smiled. He headed back to his apartment to take a half hour shower and sleep for twelve hours. Tomorrow would be a new day.