Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: You know you've got problems when Frank Castle is lecturing you on the importance of friendship.

Or: how Matt's broken leg becomes the least of his concerns.

Warnings: Spoilers for season 2.

Author's Notes: I can't believe this is the last chapter. I can't believe that this fic is finished!

The playlist for this fic is available on Spotify. It includes the tracks from every chapter and a few I never got a chance to use but inspired this work nonetheless. This song, "Use Me," like "Light Me Up" and "Why We Fight" and "Whatever It Takes," has been with me for months and perfectly summarizes, in words and melody, the relationship Matt and Frank have built in this story. I've known for a long time that it would be the song I leave you with on this, the final chapter.

I usually close with a note of thanks to you, dear Reader. And I do thank you. So much. You can find my full list of thank you-s at the bottom of this chapter. In the meantime, please, enjoy!

"I may put you on a pedestal, but I'm not your fall from grace.
Maybe I enjoy the punishment.
Maybe I enjoy the chase…
When there's no one on your doorstep
When there's no one to deny
And when there's no one in the darkness,
I think you'll finally realize:
That it was me that held you hostage
And it was me that held the key
And it was me that made you happy
And it was me that set you free."

~Goo Goo Dolls, "Use Me"

Chapter Fifty-Six

Little disorienting, waking up. Matt lies very still, listening, mapping the strange air currents, the unfamiliar scents. The couch cushions under him still have that new smell, like everything else about Foggy these days. The linens are older, fraying and scruffy in places, but they smell like the detergent they used to share in Columbia.

Matt sinks down, drawing the blankets around his chest. The plushness of the couch throws him. Weeks of sleeping on that canvas sling has given him a new appreciation for pillows. His senses are piqued by the press of the cushions around his body, the pillow under his leg. He's about to shuffle, trying to extricate himself from their grasp, when he hears Foggy's voice: "…don't know, Karen. He didn't say. And I didn't get the chance to ask before he collapsed on the couch and fell asleep."

There's a pause in the conversation where Foggy is whispering so quietly, Matt can't hear. Foggy comes back with a stage whisper: "I'm trying to keep him from hearing us, because he probably can!" Footsteps advance towards a door behind the couch. Matt lies very still. Pretends to be asleep, even though Foggy probably can't see him.

The ruse works for the most part. Foggy's heartbeat isn't so convinced, but he releases a sigh nonetheless. "I'm worried about him. He shouldn't be alone, but I've got voicemails piling up. 9-1-1 texts to get my ass down to the station straight from Hogarth."

Karen likely says similar. Matt imagines her toeing the boundary of police tape, listening hard for loose-lipped officers, her body thrumming with scrutiny and curiosity, picking apart the party lines as quickly as they're fed to her. Foggy confirms Matt's suspicions with an almost inaudible, "No, I know you're busy. He just…he shouldn't be alone."

There's pause for a question, one Foggy answers: "He's sleeping. At least, I think he's sleeping. He should be sleeping." Foggy sounds like he needs to be sleeping, but he's going to the station. He wouldn't be so worried if he wasn't. It's the right thing to do, too, and Matt'll tell him so, if Foggy doesn't leave.

"I will. I will. You keep in touch too," Foggy says in closing. His heartbeat races back into his mouth. "Oh, and Karen? Be careful, okay? Yeah. Okay. Bye."

The call ends with Foggy's worried pulse, his cell phone shaking in his hand. He grips the door frame and crushes it in his grasp. "Okay," he whispers, shuffling around his room for belongings. "Okay, okay, okay…"

The door closes between them. Matt twists towards the sound, broken ribs catching inside his chest. He wheezes, gripping them, holding onto the pain while he distances himself from Foggy's anxious heartbeat.

God, he should have stayed at his apartment. His stupid moment of weakness, pathetic pleas while he lay on the floor, and now Foggy's spun up. Worried about him, worried about Karen. There's nothing to be worried about, Matt wants to say. Karen's fine. The city's fine. But he doesn't, not even as Foggy comes into the living room and touches his shoulder and softly, so softly, "Matt? You awake?"

Matt doesn't give an indication for how long. "What is it, Foggy?"

"I have to go to the station. Hogarth's gonna fire me if I'm not there soon. You gonna be okay here by yourself?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Don't worry."

Foggy is already worried. He pats Matt's shoulder; the palms of his hands are warm, plush. Soft skin and blunt nails, and Matt's grateful when it's gone, when Foggy's tucked the hand into the pocket of his coat. He says something about the layout of the apartment, "Take care of yourself," and then he's gone.

Matt listens to Foggy's retreating footsteps as long as he can. They disappear sooner than he expects, muffled by thick concrete. The walls absorb everything. Matt can't pick out the neighbours. He can barely hear the sounds of the city from how far up they are. The glass of Foggy's patio door rattles in its frame, a high-pitched approximation of Foggy's worried heartbeat.

He should go. He shouldn't have come in the first place. Matt pushes the blankets down to his thighs and sits up, groaning from the pain in his chest. His leg moans, threatening to scream. The draft from the balcony door beckons on his cheeks, blue and frosty, swirling from pre-dawn traffic. A walk would be nice. Pop by the station on the way to Frank's now abandoned safehouse where he'll rest up for a few days, track down Elektra, dodge Foggy's calls.

Foggy.

Matt groans again, chest throbbing. He eases back onto the pillow, curling away from the broken bones. He can't quite make it to his side, but the back of the couch rises up in front of him like a wall. He draws his right leg up till the knee touches, reassured by the solidity of it, how it looms over him, how it intervenes between him and the rest of Foggy's apartment.

His eyelids sink: he's tired. He's so tired. And he's sorry that he's so tired. Sorry to Foggy. Sorry to Karen. Sorry to Frank. His eyelids close and his jaw hangs and the strength leaves him, lulled by the litany of his apologies. Comforted by the thought that he'll be alone for a while. He'll rest a bit. Just a bit. Then he'll go.

Sounds in the kitchen wake him. Lights buzz in their fixtures. High heels clack against the floor. Plates clatter – one, two, three – followed by cutlery – one, two, three sets. A paper bag pops open and take-out containers make their way onto the counters. Chow mein, vegetable fried rice, sweet and sour sauce, chicken.

Matt rises from the pillow: thoughts cloudy, muzzy. Dizziness mounting. Pain in his head and chest a dull throb as he slowly wakes up. He lets Karen's motions bring him around. There's a novelty in her pulling lids off take-out containers, in food that's been bought and paid for, in the coffee machine not brewing behind her.

"Smells good," he says.

Karen stops. Matt feels her looking at him. He flashes a small, almost imperceptible smile. "Hi."

She straightens, putting on a good show of maintaining composure, but her fingers give her away, playing, as they do, over the edges of the take-out containers. Her heart doesn't help matters. Still, she plays it casual. "Hi. Good sleep?"

"Yeah. What uh…what time is it?"

"Uh…" Karen rotates on her heel, searching for a clock, before whipping her phone out of her bag to check. "Six-thirteen."

"PM?"

"Yeah."

Matt reels. He slept the day, and he could easily lie back down and sleep through the night. He pulls his legs off the couch, gets himself into a sitting position. His ribs burn, his head spins, but he barely notices over the chill of the day being gone. His chance to leave, gone. Now Karen's brought dinner. Soon Foggy'll be home. They'll worry and question him, and Matt doesn't have answers, at least none that they'll understand.

Karen summarizes for him, "You had one hell of a night,"

"Yeah," Matt agrees. "Hell of a night. How's…" He stops himself. It's not the right name, the one he's thinking, just the first one that popped into his head. "How are you?"

"Stressed. Worried. How are you?"

She's honest with him; Matt can be honest with her. Mostly. "I'm tired." He can hear her nodding. "But I'm okay."

"You're almost back on two feet."

"Almost." He doesn't know what else to say. "Frank told me about what you did. When I was with Elektra. Thank you."

"That was a long time ago."

"I know. I'm sorry. I was…"

"Busy."

"Yeah."

"Sounds like you've been busy."

"Actually," he realizes what she's done too late. He's revealed himself, and the expectant tone of her pulse, the confidence in it, forces Matt to clarify. "Last night was a surprise. The riot at Super Max, Fisk's transfer, the standoff –" Frank's arrest, "- it was all a surprise."

Karen lets that stand between them. "So what kept you busy?"

Matt doesn't know what to say. Things? Stuff? Damn it, this is why he should have left. He isn't ready to talk about recovery at Frank's or the fact that he asked for it. He asked to stay. After Elektra, after Sato, after everything, he wants to stay. "Broken legs take a while to heal."

She's quiet, considering the answer from all angles, and Matt does too, wondering where she will find it flawed. What point of attack is Karen going to adopt next. He's surprised when she releases a sigh. "Yeah, they do." Her arms slip down her chest, back to her sides, and she takes a step towards the counter lined with food between them. "You're probably hungry. You should eat something. I brought Chinese?"

Food sounds like a good idea. A better idea, at least, then talking. Matt rises from the couch, pausing till the room stops spinning. Then he hobbles around to the counter, his leg accepting the small bursts of weight he puts on it without much complaint. "Thank you, Karen."

"Yeah." She isn't really listening to what he's saying. One of her hands sweeps against the edge of the chow mein carton before clamping onto the edge of the counter.

Matt can't bring himself to serve. There's not enough space for him to move with all the stuff she doesn't want to say.

"I've missed you," Karen finally says.

That isn't the half of it, not by a long shot, but Matt's grateful she started small. "I missed you too." He doesn't feel it quite, not yet, but the longer he stays in her orbit, the more her absence becomes apparent to him. He hasn't spoken to her for longer, now, than she hadn't spoken to him.

"Why didn't you call? We knew where you were, who you were with. We could have…" she stops herself, not really sure of what she could have done, only that she could have. Matt doesn't interrupt. He's been here too many times, listening to her heart as she struggles to speak aloud her fears, her doubts, her frustrations.

"There was nothing you could have done," he offers.

"It's so easy," she says, pausing to make words out of what she's feeling, "to get pulled into his world. You know you shouldn't, you try to keep some distance, but –"

"Karen –"

"- but you stay."

"He didn't make me do anything that I didn't want to do." The words are out of his mouth so fast, Matt has to check them, make sure they're true. And they are. For the most part. There are some things he didn't want and Frank had to make him. Frank had to make him take his medication and make him go easy on his leg and make him take care of himself.

Karen doesn't need to hear that. She's already heard enough. Her hand comes away from the counter. Her breathing slows. Matt follows the logic of his confession, dismayed to find it contains everything he didn't want to say and Karen didn't want to ask.

Frank didn't make him do anything means Frank didn't make his stay, means Frank didn't make him not call, means Frank didn't make him go out last night.

Matt tries to ease the damage he's done: "I was already in his world, Karen. I'm always a part of it."

He senses her nodding after a time, her heart a guilty murmur. "I guess we didn't give you another option."

That's not… "That's not your responsibility."

"It's not Frank's either."

Matt presses a hand to his side to stop his stomach from tying itself into a knot. They said that, didn't they? In the beginning? God, they said a lot of things in the beginning that didn't turn out to be true. "No, but try telling Frank that."

Karen gives a small laugh. "Yeah, that's true. God…being around him. Every time. Like in the hospital after his arrest or…or when he was looking for you: I just…I remember this feeling. Not during, but after. Like I was waking up. Like I was coming out of something."

Matt thinks about the hoodie draped over the side of the couch. How claustrophobic pillows are now and the strangeness of Foggy's smooth hand and Rina saying Frank was different. Different when he, Matt, was gone. "Yeah."

Karen's gaze doesn't prickle his senses this time. She looks at him in agreement, in understanding. "He's so intense," she says, half-admonishingly, half-awestruck.

They stay like that for a moment, lost in what only feels strange in its absence. Karen returns first, her heartbeat perking up on the other side of the counter. She takes a plate from the stack and hands it to him. "You must be starving. Let's eat."

Matt accepts the plate with a smile. A real one. "Yeah. Let's."

Foggy returns near the end of Prime Time, his temper audible in his footfalls. He opens the door with wild abandon, like he's making a dramatic entrance on a sitcom. He even pauses as if for a laugh track, taking his time to inspect the scene. Liking what he finds if his heart is any indication. He slams the door shut behind him before he starts speaking. "Well, I'm doing it."

"Doing what?" Karen asks without looking up from her typing. The shame of his idleness hits Matt full-force, sandwiched between the intrepid reporter and high-powered attorney. He tries to sit up from where he's reclining on the couch, but post-concussive symptoms put him right back on the pillows.

Foggy undoes his scarf and strips off his coat with flourish. "I was requested." He tosses his satchel on an empty countertop. "Personally requested!"

Matt senses Karen putting it together about the same time he does. "Frank requested you as his attorney?"

"He did. Said I did a bang-up job last time. Would do an even better one now that I'd ditched my partner." Foggy seethes. He tromps away from them, grumbling, "It's not funny."

"It's a little funny, Fog," Matt says.

Foggy groans. He continues with his tirade, marching over to the counter where Karen left the food to fix himself a plate. "Hogarth encouraged it. Anything to get the Punisher as a client! I swear, he doesn't smile, but Castle was proud of the whole damn thing. He took responsibility: the attack on the convoy, the attempt on Fisk's life…" Foggy doesn't even bother to reheat his plate. He comes around and drops into the chair nearest Matt. "You know it was actually going well? As well as it could? But then the feds showed up with all sorts of accusations, and Frank almost flipped the table. He was cuffed and shackled, but he would have flipped that table. Probably thrown it at somebody."

"What accusations?" Karen asks.

"Terrorism," Foggy says. "Conspiracy."

"With the Hand?"

"With the Devil of Hell's Kitchen." Foggy shovels a few bites of food into his mouth before adding, with a roll of his eyes, "And the Hand. Well, they called them the ninja-bastards. But mostly Daredevil."

"That's ridiculous," Karen says.

Matt swallows the lump in his throat. He sinks back onto the couch, digging his neck against the top edge to distract himself from that creeping sensation under his skin. From the coil of Frank's voice in his head: Don't you say a thing.

"Yeah, they'll never stick." Foggy says, calmer now. "But the suggestion of it. It was like that day in court. Big, bad Punisher." He levels a stare at Matt, exhaling as if preparing a question, but then thinks better of it. Thank God. Matt is trying to breathe normally, sit calmly, like he has no idea what Foggy is talking about.

Big, bad Punisher. Challenging a fed at the accusation of terrorism…for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

"I guess I should be thankful," Foggy continues. "This whole transfer thing with Fisk has people asking questions about staffing and security at Super Max."

"That's good news," Karen agrees.

"Yeah," Foggy agrees. He releases a breath he's probably been holding since that morning. The truth finally hits him. "Yeah, it is."

Matt guesses this might be the right time. "How is-"

"Just answer me one thing," Foggy interjects, "and whatever you say, I won't get mad. I deserve to know. You owe me this. Did you two plan this?"

Matt almost wishes he could say yes to ease Foggy's frustrations, give him somewhere to lay all his anger. Alas, "There was no plan, Foggy."

"No!" Foggy stretches the word into a moan.

"Frank makes his own plans."

"You were living with him! You blew up a warehouse with him!"

"Yeah, but…not this. There was no plan for this."

Foggy's heartbeat is kind of stunned by the assertion. He runs his hand through his hair and out, back to the edge of his plate. "You really didn't know he was going to turn himself in."

Matt's body goes cold. "I didn't know till he did it." His heart sinks. Big, bad Punisher. "That's usually how it is with Frank."

Foggy and Karen are understandably busy in the fallout. Matt lends himself where he can, but the limits are clear for him, defined by his friend's professions. Karen only knows what happened in the streets; Foggy can't talk about what happens with him and his client. He doesn't hear from Elektra, but he doesn't hear from the Hand either, and that tells him everything he needs to know.

A lot of the time, Matt's alone at Foggy's, meditating. Stretching his legs. The break leaves some lingering pain, but waiting out his head injury is less pleasant. He maps the ins and outs of the apartment, treks further and further each day, always careful to be sitting on the couch when Foggy or Karen return.

Claire comes. She checks his leg and reminds he'll need to take it easy. That he's lucky he isn't debilitated and seems to have dodged permanent nerve damage. "Got somebody looking out for you," she says, otherwise keeping her verbal commentary to a minimum. Her non-verbal cues fill the apartment. Her heartbeat a series of warm judgments. She doesn't ask about what happened on the East Side and Matt doesn't tell her. But she does touch his shoulder on the way out of the apartment, and when she does, Matt puts a hand over hers.

"I'm glad you're alright," she says. "Stay that way? For a little while?"

The usual cheeky responses don't come. "Yeah," is all Matt says, and Claire gives a small puff of breath, a laugh only he can hear, before leaving. She knows what's coming.

He gets himself back in order, gradually asserting himself as Matt Murdock. Financially, occupationally, mentally. Trying to fill out the shape of his old life is like wearing an old suit that doesn't quite fit anymore. There are questions he didn't ask with Frank, things he didn't have to do, it seems surreal to do them now. Silly things that break the illusion of his being fine, that gets heartbeats asking what the hell happened to you?

"Can you not climb on the balcony rail? My neighbours think you're a suicide risk."

"How long have you been breathing like that? Are you okay? Is it your ribs?"

"I have a dishwasher," of all things, throws him off the most. Matt gets caught between passing off dish-doing as a thanks and trying to remember if they've had this conversation before. If he forgot about the dishwasher or didn't think to ask because of where he's been.

He gathers information about Frank carefully to avoid follow-up questions, the subtle flare of Foggy's pulse. Curiosity more than frustration, now, but Matt can't help feeling revealed. Exposed. Treasonous, almost. Frank's world is so intensely private, so fortified, and none of the time Matt spent in it helps Foggy, neither legally nor personally. Doesn't help Matt, either. Best to leave it where it belongs. Trust that Foggy is doing his job, that Frank is better at keeping his mouth shut than he is.

Little frightening, then, when Foggy broaches the subject. They're on the balcony. Matt got there first, needing the air and the motion and the sound. He's got an itch developing beneath his skin, the devil rousing in his veins, and thinks tonight's the night. Tonight, after Foggy is asleep. He'll check in at the station. He'll head back to his apartment. All part of becoming his old self again.

The balcony door opens and shuts. Foggy steps out into the night with a, "Damn, it's cold!" Matt's about to usher him back inside when a coat hits his shoulders. "Here," Foggy says, and, when Matt protests, "You don't need pneumonia on top of broken ribs."

"Thanks," Matt replies, slipping his arms into the sleeves, raising the collar around his neck.

Foggy comes to stand beside him at the rail, his body shaking from the chill, but there's no accompanying frustration or irritation. He isn't upset to be hunching his shoulders, sinking deeper and deeper into his scarf and coat. In fact, it's kind of like old times. The two of them, hanging out. Not fighting.

Looking back on the conversation, Matt isn't sure what triggers Foggy's question. If it's his comments or Foggy's deft skills as an interrogator that finally prompts, "What was it like? Living with him?"

For all his worrying about the question, Matt finds he doesn't have an answer. "I don't know. It was what it was."

"What did you guys do?"

"I recovered."

"Oh, come on," Foggy says without an ounce of anger in his voice. His pulse hammers away excitedly, with interest, with thrill. "You were living with him. I take it you weren't binge-watching The Office together."

"Of course not," Matt replies. "Frank didn't have a tv."

"So, what? Radio? 8-track?"

"Police scanner."

"Police scanner!" Foggy groans, having lost the guessing game.

"One of the neighbours used to play classical records."

"He had neighbours?"

Too close, too close. Now Rina's involved. Matt draws Foggy to a different topic. "I rested. He didn't."

"Did you fight?"

"Yeah, we fought, but…"

"But what?"

He didn't mean to say 'but,' but it's too late to go back. Matt senses they've reached the limits of their conversation. The fights in the beginning blur together in his mind; the fight with Sato seems so long ago. Even the fight for Fisk oscillated between against Frank and with Frank, alongside Frank. A fight that won't come as a comfort to Foggy, a fight that will push. And unlike Frank, it's a wrong move to send him and Foggy hurtling over the edge.

"But I was waiting for my leg to heal," Matt says, "and Frank, he let me do that. He wanted me to do that."

Foggy's heartbeat stays in a calm, collected line. Thinking. Making connections. Matt braces himself for the smartass remark that's sure to follow, but Foggy comes back with a poised, "Don't we all, buddy. Don't we all."

Matt turns to face Foggy, blood warming. The 'buddy' gets him first and forever, followed by the slow stroll of Foggy's pulse, the companionable quiet around them. Something's happened, and he tries to find what, but the machinations elude him. They've been so careful with each other, the both of them, that the shift must have come from elsewhere, a place Foggy won't or is legally forbidden from speaking about.

"Did he…?" but Matt doesn't ask that question. He can't. He doesn't have to. Of course Frank did.

Gradually, the ease of the moment takes hold of Matt again. No uncertainty. No questions. They're not thinking about it, Matt suspects, or maybe they've forgotten, for one blessed moment, about what's happened. Maybe they've gone back to the beginning. Maybe they've started something new.

He only breaks the quiet when Foggy's shivering grows more intense. "Come on, Foggy. Let's go inside."

"I'm fine."

"You're freezing."

"Yeah, but…" Foggy buries himself even more deeply in his jacket, "But this is nice, okay? I'll freeze for nice."

Matt eases himself back onto the rail, trying not to analyze his comfort. Trying to take it as a given that they're doing this, him and Foggy, standing outside on a cold night, enjoying each other's company. Trying not to enjoy it too much, knowing that he plans on leaving. Knowing Foggy knows that he plans on leaving. They have a long way to go.

But they don't have to get there in a single night.

Foggy lets out a groan: for himself, Matt realizes. "Okay, I have to go inside."

"I'll come with you," Matt offers.

"No, no, you don't have to."

"I want to, Foggy."

Foggy pushes open the sliding glass door. He hesitates, holding the moment, on the edge of something himself. Matt waits for the distance to emerge between them again, for the walls to go up. For it to become so much easier and so much harder to walk away tomorrow.

But, "Okay," Foggy says, the moment passing. Matt steps towards the door, reaching for the frame to guide himself back inside. Instead, his hand meets Foggy's, or Foggy's meets his, and Matt's led to the place on Foggy's bicep, the place that carries him through crowds and busy streets. The place that brings him home.

"Watch your step."

Matt does and follows Foggy out of the cold.

The night of Frank's transport to Super Max is cold too.

Matt feels the chill pulsing through the suit. Breathing hurts his mending ribs. He can't be out long; the threat of pneumonia is too great. Also, he has a feeling Foggy will check-in on him, and while he's past the point of explaining himself, he isn't ready to be questioned about this. He gets the sense that they've worked through it, or as much of it as Foggy thinks they need to work through.

But it's not over. Not for him and Frank.

He slips past the officers standing guard, through the tangle of snipers' gazes. Knocks a security camera away from the back exit. He lands on the back of the transport van. Two of the waiting officers don't notice, but Brett and Frank do. Brett, who's waiting close to the precinct door, fills up the alcove with his exasperation, while Frank, shackled in the back of the van, may as well bark, "You kidding me with this shit, Red?" Because that's all Matt hears.

Brett tells the two officers to go grab some coffee. He turns on Matt with a glare. "You bring company tonight?"

Matt stays standing on the back of the van. "Those ninjas weren't with me, Detective."

Yeah, yeah, Mahoney's pulse says. His eyeroll bounces off the walls of the precinct. "What do you want?"

"I want a moment with your prisoner."

"What'd I tell you, Detective?" Frank says from inside the van. His whole body seems to emit a low growl, a rumble of pure menace amplified by the chains they think will hold him. "Devil's obsessed with me. You don't give him what he wants, he's gonna follow me all the way to Super Max trying to talk."

"He should be riding with you to Super Max," Brett says. "You two should be sharing a cell."

Frank scoffs. "Now you're just teasing him."

Matt softens the edges of his voice, lets himself become halfway human. "Please, Detective."

Brett takes a second to check on the security at the end of the lot, make sure that his ass isn't gonna be on the line. "You got a minute," he says and steps into he precinct, hovering by the door in case this goes sideways.

Matt hops down beside the van, sticking to the shadows, but he gives Frank enough view of his masked face that the Punisher's heart flares up. Even in chains, Frank's ready for a fight.

"You okay, Frank?" Matt asks.

Frank's heartbeat starts rising in disbelief. He speaks in that old tone: arrogant, condescending. The way they first met. And yet his question walks the same fine line of plausible deniability that the hoodie and the silk sheets and the location of the safehouse. There's a whole world in his question, a world only they know.

"That it? That's why you came down here? To ask if I was okay?"

Matt plays along. "One reason, yeah."

"Oh, yeah? What's the other? Make sure I ride all the way to Super Max?"

They both know he doesn't have to do that, but Matt doesn't say that aloud. Instead, he says, "Wanted to say thank you. For everything."

The cuffs on Frank's wrists shimmy and shake. Matt expects the scrub of Frank's callused palm over his scalp, but Frank resists the urge, settling into his predatory pose as if the Devil doesn't know a damn thing about him. As if the devil can't hear that rabbit-on-the-run heartbeat of his or the pulse of blood filling the tips of his ears or that almost imperceptible softness in his voice. "Don't mention it."

"You take care of yourself in prison."

Frank straightens in his seat. His war drum heartbeat comes back, slow and steady and patient. An army waiting in ambush. A weapon buried in the earth, itching to be uncovered and borne into battle. "Not gonna be there for long," he promises.

Matt smirks. "I'll be waiting."

"Yeah, yeah, looking forward to it." He really is. Geared up Frank can't wait to get his ass out of Super Max. On his own terms this time. Matt feels him turn and fix a long, hard stare on the Devil's face in the dark.

A phantom hand creeps over the back of Matt's neck. Knuckles pierce the armour and dig into his sternum.

"Get the hell out of here, Red," Frank says, dragging his eyes back into the van. "Didn't get my ass put here to be sharing a transport with you."

The Devil's smirk smolders in Frank's brain like a God damn brand even after he slips away in the darkness. He tries to wipe it away, but the cuffs keep him from scratching that itch. Now he's got a bullet and the fucking Devil inside his skull. Noisy place, his brain, and it only gets noisier with Red's voice, with Red's words. Thank you. Won't be saying thank you next time. That's for damn sure.

Detective…Mahoney? He comes back outside with the two other officers. Got a cup of coffee in his hands. Cophouse coffee. Shit, Frank would do one of his life sentences for a cup of coffee right about now. He fixes his face straight ahead though, not wanting to show them. Not wanting them to see.

The doors fly open. Another cluster of officers stream out. Frank casts a glance heavenward, waiting for the footsteps he can never quite hear, the excited puff of breath he always seems to miss, the tug of fancy body armour he might be imagining. He hears nothing. Red's swung off into the night to chase sirens. To beat up the bad guys. To protect the city. His city.

Good. Good riddance. Frank's been waiting for this moment a long time. It's his. He earned it. Isn't looking to share. Doesn't want Fisk looking elsewhere else either. Wants the Fat Man looking right at him.

"Let's go, Mr. Fisk," Mahoney urges.

Fisk moves slowly, his injured legs barely capable of supporting his weight. Takes a couple officers to physically load him, in chains, into the back of the van. He slumps on the bench opposite Frank, torso hulking over his legs. Fat man's wearing bandages. Looking pale. Veins pulse through his lily-white, tissue skin like something that hadn't evolved to be out in the sunlight.

Couple of the officers take their seats in the vehicle. They don't seem to care as Frank leans forward, as he makes his hands into fists in his lap. "Hello, Wilson."

Fisk lifts his head, his ghostly white face contorting into a sneer. "Mr. Castle."

Mahoney slams the doors to the van.

Bang.

Happy reading!

Additional Notes: It Takes a Village was born in a group chat started by the inimitable Momentum Deferred (please go read her stuff). The brainstorming session included a number of people whose names and usernames I no longer have a record of. What I do remember is that I was feeling burnt out, and they were there to help me get started on this piece.

Since then, I've been fortunate to receive support and kindness from the good people on the Daredevil discord. I'm so happy to belong to a fandom with such wonderful members! I do need to thank Dichotomy Studios, who reached out when this fic was in its early stages and has become, in many ways, an integral part of my writing process: wise counsel, friend. I also need to point fingers of admiration/gratitude at bluesyturtle, the brilliant darling, another without whose intelligent discourse and friendship I would not be here (go read her stuff right now, too, please). One final shout-out to trappedinathoughtbubble (aka tea-understands) on Tumblr, who made the awesome banner for this fic and whose kind messages of support and check-ins and comments always brightened my days.

I was so pleased to have people contact me to translate this fic: Daladya on FF dot net started a French translation. You can also find a Chinese translation from sandunder. Sandunder also gifted me artwork based on this piece. I am so grateful for their sandunder's work and enthusiasm.

To that-dude-I-married, for understanding how much this fic means to me, for understanding how much writing means to me. Oh, and for letting me use his computer when this fic killed my keyboard.

And finally, Readers, dear Readers, I say this with every chapter, and with every chapter, I mean it: I would not be here, over two years and fifty chapters later, if not for you. Your support, critiques, and insights made it so easy to come back again and again, to tease the story out of these characters.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Thank you so, so much for helping to make this story possible. It has been a real pleasure sharing this work with all of you. I really hope that you have enjoyed it, and that you keep finding things that you enjoy reading online! Cheers!