Chapter Text
If they’d thought it through, the scientists would have added a cautionary note to Frank Castle’s file.
UNSUITABLE FOR EXPERIMENTATION, perhaps.
HANDLE WITH CARE, even.
MAINTAIN A SAFE DISTANCE, most likely.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t paid close enough attention to the latest round of test subjects acquired through shady deals. Prisoners that no one would miss. Criminals that had worked their way through the system again and again. Fodder for experiments that could change the world for the better.
Even if these subjects ended up being a minor footnote in a scientific paper that could never be published, the world would thank them dearly for their sacrifice in the long run.
*
. Frank
Frank has been arrested before, so this should be nothing new: get booked by bored cops, spend a couple of hours in an isolated cell as they tried to figure out what the hell to actually do with him, before eventually Frank would get bored and fight his way out of there. He’s been ready since the moment those cuffs locked around his wrists: from the moment he’d wound up hauled into a police station, he’d started contemplating whether it would be worth using his one phone call to ask Red for help, or if it would be better to wait for him to catch wind of the situation himself and come strolling on down here, smirk on his lips.
Didn’t play out that way.
No interrogation. No phone call. No lawyer. All Frank got were whispered conversations in the hallway between cops who kept looking at him for too long, one particular asshole with a razor-thin scar over his mouth paying way too much attention to him. It had been just enough for Frank to work out that something was wrong here, more wrong than just his dumb ass slipping up enough to get arrested in the first place.
He’d been half-way through coming up with his plan to get out of there when it happened: a bag over his head, a needle in his arm, and the sound of voices around him telling one another to hurry up and get it over with.
Three days ago, he’d woken up in something like a hospital bed. No windows in the room, only the harsh buzz of fluorescent lighting. With rock walls and uneven floors, this place feels more like an underground cave than a medical setting. There are several other beds around him, a couple of rows of them lining the walls. From what he can see through drug-fogged eyes, each bed has another sorry soul like himself: restrained by cuffs, and with a blue IV drip feeding them enough sedatives that it’s hard to think, never mind speak.
There are doctors making rounds occasionally. Doctors, or something like that. Frank’s been trying to track them, trying to figure out their schedules, but with his mind floating in-and-out he’s having a hard time holding onto the information for long enough to do anything with it.
They’re not checking in on their patients for their health, that much is clear. Frank has a couple of bruises from the fight that got him arrested, but nothing exciting - nothing that needs a hospital visit or a gaggle of medical staff staring at him.
They cluster around the end of his bed, deep in discussion. Frank’s trying to listen in, picking up hazy fragments of sentences and words that don’t quite make sense. They’re reading his vitals, monitoring stats, tweaking the levels of the drugs firing into his system with enough fervour that he doesn’t think it's just sedatives any more.
“What is this ? ” he asks, words crumbling into one jumbled mess. Nobody even glances up at him. “How…?” He can’t get the questions to form into something coherent - not that it matters. There’s no one listening.
“Another couple of days,” one of the doctors suggests to their colleagues. “He’s almost ready. A strong candidate.”
“We can try out the new batch,” someone suggests. “See how long this one survives.”
He makes an attempt to snatch at one of them as they get closer to the bed - the chain of his cuffs rattle, but there’s not enough slack or movement to let him grab hold of them like he wants to do.
“This one's got some fight left in him,” one of the doctors laughs.
“Good. He’ll need it.”
He groans and thinks about snapping bones with his bare hands - but then someone is fiddling with his IV and the smoke around the edges of the room gets darker once again.
He fades slowly, in and out. People in the beds around him move and change. They get wheeled out and they don’t come back: replaced by some other poor idiot, chained to the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Frank thinks there’s a ticking clock he’s not aware of, and he needs to clear the fog so that he can get out of here, but his time runs out - too soon.
A porter’s hands coming for the bed. The water-stained ceiling shifting above him as they wheel him out. He tries to talk but no one's listening.
He blinks and he’s in another room, hearing the sound of the heavy lock closing behind him: inside, it’s crowded with a team in white lab coats with stern expressions on their faces.
They must have pumped up whatever meds he’s on if he’s losing time like this. He yanks at his cuffs but it’s like pulling against concrete. They barely even rattle.
There’s a machine in this room like something from science fiction: dark metal, foreboding wires and a humming, buzzing sound that promises nothing good. The bed is locked into position underneath it and he can’t do anything as they hook him up to it, the twitching of his muscles ineffective and broken. His jerking attempts to fight it off are nothing more than an irritation as they pierce his skin and wire him up.
“Wait, wait,” he tries to mutter, the syllables like cotton wool in his mouth. “Wait.”
One of the doctors makes eye contact with him as she hooks up the wires to his skin, little pin-pricks of pain with every single one. “The whole country thanks you for your service, Mr Castle,” she tells him - and it’s so damn earnest, every single word. If he could make himself move, she’s close enough to headbutt and break her nose for it. “You’re going to help us change the world.”
She means it. Whatever they’re doing here, they really believe in it.
She smiles at him like that might help the message get through, and then delicately slots a bite-plate between his teeth. He tries, ineffectively, to clamp his teeth down through her fingers as she does it.
“Everyone, clear the room,” the doctor says as soon as she’s done - and the whole crew of scientists stand back like they’re ready to watch a bonfire ignite.
“I’ll kill you,” Frank growls around the plate, the clearest words he’s said in days. He pulls at the cuffs and wants to imagine he feels the slightest bit of give. “All of you.”
“Experimental Dose 24,” the doctor intones formally, as if Frank hasn't spoken at all. “Cleared to proceed.”
There’s a lever near the door that Frank notices for the first time when one of the scientists reaches for it. It’s made of iron, heavy and intimidating, and it’s connected to the machine they’ve wired Frank into.
And when they crank the lever, the world dissolves into white-hot, screaming pain.
It’s everywhere.
Every limb. Every nerve. Every cell.
Whatever juice they’ve dosed him with ignites all at once and electricity pumps through the wires straight into his muscles. The shit they've dropped into his veins shrieks through his blood. To the side of the room, the scientists are taking notes on the sound of his pain and all Frank can think is, This is it, this is how I die.
Not going out swinging in a blaze of glory, just an anonymous death for some pseudoscience bullshit.
It flashes through his mind, all the times he should have gone.
The Marines. Bullets flying. Billy’s smudged, bloodied face and adrenaline-fueled grin at his side.
The carousel. Maria. The kids. The permanent hollowing of his heart.
And later: Schoonover, Rawlins, John goddamn Pilgrim, Billy again, an endless flickering line of enemies and moments that should have taken him out, blood and guts and pain and all of it, all of it, would have meant more than this shit.
The lights above them flicker. He bites down so hard on the plate that he’s in danger of losing a tooth.
In the sea of endless, static agony, he feels his body rewiring around the pain. Shifting. Adapting. Relearning what it needs.
He’s not dead yet, he hears them saying as it feels like his bones start to break and rebuild all at once, How is he still alive?
His muscles feel like they’re burning and reforming from embers. He can’t breathe. Can’t move. The machine above him keeps on buzzing.
Is it working? The scientists are breathless. Laughing in wonder. It looks like it’s working .
His spine arches from the bed like there’s any way to escape this - but, this time, the chains connecting his cuffs to the bed start to creak under the strain.
When an eternity has passed, all that’s left behind is the constant raw raking of his nerves. Finally, impossibly, they crank the lever again and the pain silences. Abruptly.
Frank is left with his own ragged, desperate breaths and the excited buzzing hum of the scientists as they realise his heart is still beating. He blinks as he stares up at the tangle of wires and heavy, distinct machinery above him. Feels the echo of screams in his nerves. Thinks about all the others that have laid in a bed just like this and hadn’t made it the whole way through.
Experimental Dose 24, they’d called it.
The air feels like untamed fire as he drags it into his lungs, but it brings his heart back to its regular, steady beat. The sedative isn’t drowning out his thoughts any more. Everything is clear for the first time in days - and he feels good.
There are residual embers burning in his muscles, but they don’t slow him down as he yanks at his wrists. Every time he’d tried that for the past few days there has been nothing but drug-slowed residence and the warning clang of metal-on-metal. This time, the cuff snaps like it’s made of nothing more than fraying string.
He huffs air from his lungs and pulls on the other wrist to hear the same satisfying snap as the other cuff gives way.
He rolls his shoulders, his neck, and settles into a body that feels better than it has in decades, maybe since long before the war. No residual pain. No constant aches. No thrumming in his empty head.
Perfect clarity.
The scientists start to panic, surging towards the locked door like rats from a sinking ship, as Frank levers himself out of his hospital bed for the first time in days. He stares at them as he yanks the wires from his muscles, then hops down from the bed. Bare feet on the concrete floor.
“You’re telling me you’ve ran a couple dozen of these tests,” he says as he advances on them slowly, “And you never had a plan for what to do if someone survived?”
They’re scrambling with the lock now. Panicked.
Frank walks towards them, blood running down his skin from where he jerked the wires free. He thinks about the people in the hospital beds beside him who had been wheeled out of there and never came back. He thinks about being secretly traded into this place by the city’s corrupt police force, like every single thing about him was disposable and forgettable. More than anything, he thinks about the fervour in the doctors’ eyes when they had spoken to him.
You’re going to help to change the world, they had told him with all the passion of a cult leader.
They probably hadn’t quite meant it like this.
He switches from steady steps to preternaturally fast between one heart-beat and the next: crossing the space between them, grabbing the first person he reaches and throwing them, no weapons - but they sail across the room and crash into the concrete wall with a crunch. They drop to the ground, no longer moving.
And, oh…
That’s good.
There’s something feral in the way that Frank smirks after that. Predatory. Blood on his teeth.
Fighting comes naturally as he reaches for the rest of them, throwing himself into the crowd like a wolf into a flock of sheep. They’re not scientists, they’re torturers: human traffickers, trading prisoners like disposable livestock. So there’s no room for guilt or hesitation as he does what The Punisher has always done best - but this time it’s better.
This time bones shatter like porcelain. Blood splatters like confetti as he smashes skulls and snaps necks. When they fight back it’s as if they’re moving in slow-motion, limbs dragging. They don’t land a hit, and Frank is done with them before his heart even has a chance to start beating faster.
In a matter of seconds, they’re slumped on the ground, every last one. He has blood on his knuckles. Under his fingernails. For a moment, he stares blankly at the door - remembering that it’s locked. Remembering their scramble at the keypad.
Calling himself an idiot for trying it, he reaches out for the door handle and pulls. It’s not a hard pull. He’s barely trying.
And the whole thing comes off its hinges with a screech of angry metal.
“Huh,” Frank murmurs. He chucks the door aside and flexes his fingers. He can work with this.
Walking through the underground hallways, alarms start to blare: red flashing lights in the tight spaces. A siren on repeat. Frank huffs through his nose and assumes that sound means there’s more guards on their way - but after days chained to that hospital bed unable to fight them off, he could do with a little fighting back. A chance to bare his teeth at the assholes who tried to do this to him.
He keeps walking down the hallway at his own steady pace, only stopping in a supply room to change his hospital gown for some new clothes: ill-fitting shoes, a non-descript t-shirt that doesn’t quite fit, and sweatpants too loose and too low. Somewhere out in the universe, he’s sure Matt Murdock must be laughing at him for the goddamn awful outfit for this particular episode of his life, but luckily for him that particular pissy guardian angel isn’t here right now. He can do what’s needed without anyone sniping at him about the sanctity of life or the miracles of the justice system.
Yeah, the ‘justice system’ is exactly what had landed him and all those other dickheads here in the first place.
He strides back into the ward just in time for bullets to start flying, a stream of extra guards stomping in his direction - he darts behind cover, giving himself a second to analyse the room: how many guards, how many guns, how he’s going to do this?
And he’s still thinking like himself, like the Frank Castle that was thrown into an unwinnable war and told to defend himself and his men with a limited number of bullets and a rapidly dwindling supply of hope. He’s still thinking like he’s only human.
When he springs into action, it’s so much more than that: it’s easy. Faster. Stronger. Closing the distance between himself and the guards is a child’s game. Yanking the guns from their hands is even easier, and after that it’s not even a fight any more. They get a couple of wild punches in, one of them leaving a black eye behind, but once Frank’s fist makes contact it’s over. It’s just blood splattering hot onto Frank’s face.
The other patients in their beds don’t react to any of it. When silence falls again, Frank looks around at them and weighs it up: there’s a strong chance that all of them were snatched from jail, just like him. Maybe some of them are assholes, people that deserved to be arrested just like he had been.
But there’s a fair few that might’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Frank hates that the voice in his head still sounds like Red.
He could get out of there and leave them to rot - but he knows what the Devil would do. Save anyone he can, even those who didn’t deserve it. Just thinking about it makes Frank give a frustrated groan, but he listens all the same. Steps over the bloodied guards and tends to the first man he comes to in the bed, just flicking the clamp on the IV to stop the sedative from dripping its way into him and then reaching over to snap the chain holding him to the bed. As a rescue, it’s not particularly dramatic, but this shithead should be able to get himself out of here once the fog clears.
By the time he’s done, Frank has unhooked another ten captives. He doesn’t hang around for them to wake up and start pleading for help, just carries on with what he should have been doing in the first place: getting out of here.
Another couple of messy, easy fights, and then a metal stairwell leads him up and up to the surface.
It’s a bright day outside. Perfect sunshine. Feels like it might be mid-morning. Frank tilts his blood-splattered face towards it, able to feel the itch as his black eye is already starting to heal. Too fast, too much.
With a mindless step forward, Frank takes a breath and tries to clear his head enough to wonder where the hell he needs to go now. In the back of his mind, his stomach roaring, he wonders if there’s any way to persuade a diner to serve him breakfast while there's still someone else's blood drying on his face.
*
After being captured, and held for days, and experimented on, it doesn’t take Frank long to come to the only shitty conclusion that’s left to him: super-serum.
Full super soldier Captain America nonsense.
It’s not like human experimentation is unheard of, with scandals leaking out of the government on what seems like an annual schedule. Frank’s never bothered tracking it - PR stunts, he always figured. Back when he was deployed, the government tinkering around with chemicals and medical trials had always seemed a thousand miles from the reality with his crew on the sand. Science fiction.
Now he’s got that science fiction running through his veins. He holes up in a shitty hotel room, stains on the wall, and stares at his hands like he’s waiting for them to do something of their own volition. He flexes his fingers and there isn’t even an ache. Nothing lingering in his back either, nor his muscles where they should be stiff and tired from imprisonment. The cuts from where the wires had been inserted under his skin heal up quicker than they should. Everything feels fresh. New.
He remembers all this from when he was a kid, hearing stories in history class about Captain America long before they defrosted the guy - when all of this was a weird historical anecdote. A ‘Did You Know?’ question from day-time quiz shows.
Nowadays, he’s lost track of who’s carrying the shield. They seem to swap it around like a trading card. And Frank’s had more to deal with than following superhero gossip in the tabloids - none of that world has ever seemed real to him. None of it has mattered as much as the burn of a bullet through his head or the aching, empty hollowness in his chest as he woke up to a world without his family. Compared to that, some kids in tights fighting killer robots on a flying island had been a joke.
Maybe it still is. Maybe Frank’s the punchline.
He turns his hand over as he sits on the edge of his hotel bed and flexes his fist again - and he can feel it, threading through his muscles like steel cords. He hasn’t exploded in over-the-top muscles like the old propaganda claimed Captain America did, but all the same there’s something far beyond human in his veins. He feels like he could power through a wall or even knock down an entire damn building if he wanted to.
And, sure, he doesn’t care for the bright colours and skin-tight suits: that’s Red’s domain. Half-assed do-gooding with a Halloween costume is never going to be Frank’s thing.
But a little extra fire power? Something he can use to really rip his way through all the people that deserve it?
Yeah. Frank isn’t gonna say ‘no’ to that.
*
He doesn’t try keeping his head down or hiding his tracks.
It’s not like he’s spray-painting a Punisher skull on the walls as he starts his mission, but he’s not disguising it either. There are people in this world that deserve to die: now he’s got the extra powers to help them along.
He keeps his distance from the few people that actually matter to him, a rule he hastily constructs to keep them safe. No Curtis, no Liebermans, no Karen. No Murdock.
It’s the last one that grates. Out of anyone in Frank's small roster, Red might be the only one with any experience in this kind of thing: he’s got his own super-senses weird kind of shit going on. Frank’s never had a chance to ask him how it all happened and he’d bet that he’ll hate the story if he ever gets to hear it. Something tragic. Something to explain that note of sadness Red always carries with him, even when he’s smirking in a courtroom or beating the shit out of criminals.
Annoyingly, he’s the one person that Frank could ask about all of this. Extra annoyingly, he’s also the one person that Frank’s really got to avoid.
Frank’s always had a long list of people to take out: the city has no end of darkness and Frank has more than enough to keep him busy. With their latest stunt, the crooked cops and their deal with this cut-rate human experimentation cult have rocketed themselves to the top of his list. He’s been camped out on a building at a distance from the police station for a couple of hours now, watching them come-and-go through a scope, waiting to catch sight of the asshole that sold him out in the first place.
It takes a while, the sun beating down on his back, but Frank’s used to patience - the only difference now is the serum in his blood, swirling through every cell. He can almost feel it calling on the old bloodlust, enhancing every instinct, even the worst ones. Even the ones he tries to keep under control.
Good becomes great; bad becomes worse.
Frank remembers that line from his history classes too, always trumpeting just how great Captain America had become for their nation. Staring down his scope at the entrance to the police station, imagining how he’s going to rip this guy to pieces for what he did to him, Frank isn’t sure where he falls on that spectrum. He’s not sure he wants to know.
He’s rescued from his own thoughts when the officer finally walks out of the station: average build, middle-aged, thinning hair, faint scar over his top lip. Frank recognises him from his arrest, and from the dodgy arrangements made down at the station. This asshole is responsible for the hushed phone calls with unknown callers making sure that Frank never officially entered the system - Frank and dozens of others before him, whoever looked like they wouldn’t be missed.
Frank watches him leave the station and tracks his movement through the streets. Looks like the guy is on a lunch break, maybe, hunting down something to eat with the single-minded precision of someone who isn’t losing a wink of sleep over the people he’s sold out.
Frank’s fairly sure he can help with that.
He traces the guy from his position, only abandoning the scope once he starts taking turns that Frank can’t follow. At that point, Frank gets to his feet and the hunt becomes physical - no longer just tracing from a distance, watching through a scope and planning. No, he’s on the move now, haunting the man from the rooftops.
A wolf on the prowl.
It’s usually Red’s shtick, jumping from roof-to-roof like a ballerina on steroids. Frank’s always been too old for that shit, no matter his age, but it’s different now. It’s easy . When he needs to move from building to building he doesn’t even have to think about it. He just jumps.
And when he needs to corner the officer, all he needs to do is take one step off of the roof.
His heart still races when the perfect opportunity presents itself, survival instincts not yet caught up with his new capabilities. He jumps from the roof into the side street, wind rushing by his face, before he lands heavy on the ground right in front of the man he’s been hunting, right at the lip of an alleyway. Feels the impact all the way through his legs - but he feels it in the same way a baseball bat feels the ball.
It’s worth it for the stunned, horrified expression that starts to bloom on the officer’s face as he realises the situation he’s in: exactly who is standing in front of him, exactly where he came from, exactly what this means. Frank Castle isn’t rotting in a grave behind an illegal scientific institute.
There’s a split-second where it looks as if the guy is going to start talking right away, perhaps angrily demanding answers, but he makes a different call - bolting instead, running as if he’s somehow going to make it past Frank and onto the busy street half a block down.
As if Frank’s ever going to let that happen.
He still lets him run for a step or two, just enough to let the guy think he might have half a chance of getting free. He lets the hope sink in, then he grabs him by the arm - he yanks so hard that something might dislocate there and then, then he drags him down the alleyway. Shoves him into the wall so hard that the bricks dent behind his back, an explosion of dust crushed into his spine.
“Surprised to see me, huh,” Frank says, pinning him like a cat stepping on a mouse. “Or just surprised to see me alive?”
“Look, I don’t know what you heard. I don’t know what you think is going on, but I got nothing to do with it,” the officer scrambles. Frank can almost see the brain cells firing around inside his skull, bouncing off the empty walls. “I was just doing my job, that’s all. Making calls. Getting people where they need to go, you know. It’s all above board.”
“Yeah,” Frank agrees easily, his hands clenching hard enough on this guy's arms that bruises blossom in real-time. “I believe you. All above board, huh. All those regulations telling you where to send people you don’t like, is that right?”
“No. I mean, yes. But not like that, you’re making it sound wrong.”
Frank keeps him squirming for a little while longer. The sad thing is that he doesn’t even need to apply pressure, not much - he’s not hurting the guy beyond a firm hold, and he’s not even asked any questions before the officer starts dribbling answers at him. Protocols. Phone numbers left in a bar that cops are known to frequent, a whisper-network of incentives for cops to pass over problem-prisoners: the ones that nobody is going to miss. The ones that can disappear real quiet before they even hit the books.
Apparently it delivers a nice bump to the bank account too. Different amounts, spread out over a couple of weeks.
Frank bets that Red would be excited by that: it sounds like a paper trail, like something that they could pull together into one big binder and deliver to a court, to that legal system he loves so much.
They’ve got a perfect witness in this snivelling sack spreading his employer’s secrets before Frank even works out what questions to ask next.
Red would love it.
But Red isn’t here.
No, it’s just Frank here now, staring at this officer like he’s not even sure he’s human. “Tell me,” he insists, cutting through the string of pleas for his life. “The number you called. The people you spoke to. Where are they?”
“It’s not like they gave me an address,” the officer whines - but it doesn’t take much more than a hard stare to squeeze out the few details that he has. It’s truly not much more than a phone number and the details of which bar they use to recruit helpful officers, but it’s enough to point Frank in the right direction.
“You’re gonna kill me now, aren’t you?” the officer says like it’s just occurring to him. “I told you everything I know. I told you everything. I didn’t even do anything.”
“You sent me to die. And how many others?” Frank asks. “You sure all of them deserved it too? Sure, I’m a piece of shit, but what about them? You think you vetted them all properly?”
It’s not like Frank cares about the sanctity of life when it comes to taking down criminals - but he also knows this dickhead hasn’t stopped for more than two seconds to think about any of the people he sent down into that pit. He knows it was anyone that pissed this guy off, anyone that looked at him wrong, and his hand clenches on the officer’s arm hard enough to make his bones creak like a wooden plank under too much weight.
And then Frank pushes back, takes a step away, and watches. Just waits.
There’s a clear route from him to the end of the alleyway. This asshole could make a run for it if he wanted to. Hell, maybe he can even make it far enough to shout for help, and then Frank’s really going to get a chance to flex all this new strength and durability.
Something tells him that’s not going to happen, though, and the guy proves him right when he comes out swinging. He’d have been too slow even before Frank had this poison shot into his veins, but that doesn’t really matter now.
He dodges the punch. It’s not about the violence.
It’s about having an excuse for what he’s going to do to him next.
*
It feels like he’s pulling at an exceptionally long, exceptionally thin, exceptionally annoying string. Contacts leading to hints leading to dead ends. Whispers and rumours. Scared assholes ratting out other scared assholes, but none of it leading to the top of the pyramid.
Frank keeps waiting for this serum to seep out of his veins - to wake up one morning and find himself back to normal, as if his reflexes might dull again and the newfound strength might seep from his muscles. There’s been no movement on that front so far: his hands still threaten to shatter the porcelain of his hotel room sink if he clings too hard, and bruises fade from his skin entirely within a day, if that. It’s clinging on even a week later.
Now he’s got a new lead - and after seven days of ripping through bad guys and leaving a trail behind him, he’s losing some elements of caution. There’s not as much need for watching from a distance and carefully tracking movements when he can just charge straight in there without fear: and it feels better. It feels like he’s doing something.
Tonight, he’s standing on the roof of a warehouse that supposedly supplies some of the weird-ass science machinery to these psychos. There’s a rooftop entry, a real pretty skylight, and Frank is staring down through it as he contemplates just how badly he wants to just straight through the glass and start lighting them up.
Reckless, Frank.
The logical depths of his conscience still try to whisper through the rest of his thoughts, past the heavy beating of his heart and past the new strength in his veins that screams at him about how easy this will be. Find the bad guys. Stop them. Isn’t that what all of this has been about? The whole damn time?
His eyes are wide and glazed, distant, as he stares down through frosted glass and sees the foggy movement of warehouse staff within, but he’s still alert enough to hear the feather-light touchdown of footsteps behind him on the roof. Without turning, he already knows exactly who it is: he knows that his evening is probably about to get a whole lot worse.
“Don’t need your help on this one, Red,” he cautions him without taking his eyes off of the glass.
It’s not as if he even expects Matt to listen, really. Just needs to hear the warning outloud.
“Didn’t expect to find you here,” Matt admits, walking closer to him. “Didn’t even know you were back in town.”
Frank wonders if that’s a lie. Maybe if he had Matt’s tuned-up hearing he’d be able to pick it up right away. All Frank has, though, is this strange new serum running through his veins. Reluctantly, he tears his gaze from the skylight and looks at Matt instead.
Matt looks as good as he always does, of course. Frank’s used to that at this point - it barely hits him any more, not the way it used to when they first clashed, or on the first few occasions they learned how to work together. Back then, he’d look at Matt and it was like it set off something burning inside his gut. The cut of his jaw, the sprinkle of stubble that always promises to graze against his skin, the pink invitation of his lips. All of it framed by that damned mask. Yeah, Frank really used to struggle. It led to messy arguments as the only damn outlet he had for it.
Now, Frank’s as immune to it as he is to the itch of an old war wound. He can look at Matt, standing beside him with his stupid-ass devil horns and his overall veneer of determined righteousness, and carry on talking like he isn’t always thinking of the best way to get his hands on him. Frank is getting way too old for crushes and the ship sailed for unrequited love a hell of a long time ago. All he has left is the embers of long-past irritation and an aesthetic appreciation for a man who somehow manages to make a red-leather devil-suit look good.
And it looks good, sure. It still looks stupid.
“Not been back long,” he says, without even knowing if that’s a lie. Depends on the scale. He doesn’t need to mention his long detour into the literal underbelly of the city. “Been busy.”
“Anything I’d want to know about?”
“Probably not,” Frank admits. “I’m not here for a lecture, smart-ass.”
Matt tilts his head in acknowledgement, as if it’s that easy to get him to turn his sermons off. He nods at the skylight. “Then what are you here for? Same as me?”
And that’s one hell of a question - because Frank knows the reason why he’s on this roof: he knows every drop of blood and pained answer and dead body that led him to this particular location. He also knows the exact trail of vengeance that he’s hunting down: tracking down every goddamn asshole responsible for signing off what was done to him, and making sure they burn.
But what about the boy scout? What’s got the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen up here sniffing about?
He hedges his bets and shrugs. “Something strange going on in there. Thought I’d check it out.”
There’s a long, steady pause. Matt tilts his head like he’s picking up on a thousand different signals, none of them making sense. Even with the mask blocking it, Frank can imagine the pissy little frown on his face, the expression he pulls when all his little puzzle pieces don't quite add up the way he wants them to. It's annoying. It's cute.
Frank could take pity on him and provide him with more information.
Doesn’t.
“What about you?” he asks instead.
“Something’s been ripping through the city this week,” Matt answers, slow and thoughtful as he turns away from his curiosity around whatever signals Frank is giving off. “A pile of dead bodies. I’ve been following what I can, piecing it together. Whoever is doing it, I think they’re looking for something. And I think the next step is here…”
“So you figured you’d track me down to yell at me about it?”
“Not this time. You’re off the hook - no bullets at the crime scenes. No guns at all.” Matt looks genuinely unsettled, and for a moment Frank almost feels guilty for keeping the full details from him. “Whoever’s doing this, they’re… enhanced.”
That fucking word.
Frank stares at Matt blankly. “Like you,” he prompts.
That gets him another pissy little twist of Matt’s mouth, like he finds it distasteful to think of himself that way - but Matt’s the one that rubs shoulders with She-Hulk and represents goddamn Spiderman, he can own up to what he is for once.
What they are, Frank realises, but it doesn’t sit right with him either.
“Like me,” Matt reluctantly agrees, “But different. They’re strong. Fast. Resilient.”
There’s something kind of flattering about hearing it like that, considering Matt doesn’t know that it’s him. Frank flexes his hand, once, and feels it all lancing through his veins again - and watches that look on Matt’s face, that little “something’s going on and I don’t know what it is yet” look that the mask can’t hide.
Matt ends up with a sigh and a gesture towards the skylight. “If they’re following the trail I think they are, this is their next stop.”
“So you thought you’d turn up and, what, intercept them? Pick a fight with a hulk with your little sticks and hope for the best?”
Frank gets the Devil’s smile in response to that comment - sharp and vicious, all well-placed confidence. Just when Frank thinks he’s immune to the Matt Murdock charm, he goes and throws something like that at him. Asshole. Absolute asshole.
“I wanted to drop by and find what they’re looking for first,” Matt explains, “And if I happen to run into the person ripping their way through my city…. I’m sure we’ll talk it out.” He’s still got that smirk on his lips like he knows he’s the Devil incarnate, and it makes Frank want to either shake him, punch him or kiss him. A combination of all three.
Matt walks to the edge of the skylight and tilts his head, no doubt mapping the entire damn warehouse below and every single one of its occupants.
Frank just stands there, waiting. Watching him. He feels the weight of everything he’s not saying aloud hanging between them, and he knows there’s going to be hell to pay when it comes out. It says a little something about him that there’s a part of him that’s looking forward to it.
“C’mon, Frank. You going in? Or did you want to hang out on the roof all night?”
Matt abandons the skylight and walks over to the fire escape instead, all grace and determination.
He doesn’t even glance back over his shoulder for his last familiar warning. “Remember. No killing.”
Frank takes a breath and starts to follow after him. “No promises,” he grumbles - but it’s not just banter, it’s not just falling into their old routine.
Frank came here to kill every last bastard that had been involved with what was done to him.
And he’s not going to let even Matt fucking Murdock get his way.
*
The truth is that this shit really is easier when he’s got Red along for the ride.
Frank’s never going to admit it aloud, but that radar sense really works - he could’ve done with someone like Matt in his unit out in Afghanistan, sweeping the field without even needing to move a muscle. Through the warehouse, Frank follows his lead for once, letting Matt guide them through a maze of bland, blank hallways.
Frank opens up a couple of closed doors even when Matt tells him not to bother, and it’s a little frustrating when Matt is completely right every time: all he finds inside is the musty scent of old paperwork or sealed up crates ready to ship.
Matt’s got a destination in mind, walking straight past every empty room without sharing any of the details with Frank. Frank’s just along for the ride at this point. He figures Matt will take him right to the heart of it, right where he needs to go, and that’s the point at which their missions will divide.
They reach a meeting room at the heart of the building. It’s long past midnight, but even Frank’s dull ears can pick up the sound of bored voices from inside the room - and he’s not sure how many machine-part warehouses tend to have emergency meetings of their execs after dark. He’s also not sure how many of them require a single armed guard on security outside the door.
They hesitate just around the corner, but Frank rolls his eyes and gestures for Matt to continue and finish the guard off: this isn’t the fight he came here for. If Matt wants to flip around and show off to take one bored security guy down, he’s welcome to it. Frank’s real interest is with the people on the other side of the door.
Matt slips forward like a wraith on fire, and all Frank does is lean around the corner just to watch him - grace and fury, moving like someone holy choreographed it for the whole damn universe’s pleasure. He’s there before the guard knows what hit him, a sharp punch then slamming the guy’s face down onto Matt’s knee. Even from a distance, Frank hears the crunch of someone’s nose. He knows that sound all too well.
The guard slumps to the ground unconscious and Matt steps past him, Frank just a half-step behind - knowing that this is it: this is what he came here for.
They open the door to the office, and Frank has half-a-second to take it all in before the rage takes over.
There are a set of men in crumpled suits around a board table. They all look like they’re sorely in need of some good sunlight, but they’re currently basking in the glowing light of a damn PowerPoint display instead. Someone’s talking about bespoke units shipped. Custom orders. Prices based on functionality and deliverables.
And there’s an image on the screen. It means nothing out of context, but Frank’s still glad that Red won’t be able to see that twisted machinery on the screen, an example of exactly what they ship from this warehouse.
Frank recognises it perfectly.
It’s the parts for the machine they used to break him. The wires they hooked into his skin to remake him into the soldier they thought they wanted. Large, metal, unknowable. Recognisable.
Frank isn’t sure what happens next. He had plans to shake them down, to interrogate them - to find out who they’re supplying and keep following the links in the chain.
But he sees those images and everything else disappears.
“One batch, two batch,” he breathes out. Beside him, Matt twitches and starts to reach out. “Penny and dime.”
After that, it’s just rage. It’s just red.
He grabs for the nearest dickhead in his cheap-ass suit and picks up him - then slams him down so hard onto the desk that it breaks in two like rotten timber.
Grown men start scrambling for the door like feral rats from a ship. Frank grabs them, feeling bones break under his hands, necks snap, smelling blood in the air that might even be coming from him, a cut opened up on his forehead - a wild fist in the chaos, maybe. A lucky hit he forgot to block.
And then there’s Red.
Shouting his name.
Trying to snap through.
"Frank,” Matt tries again. “Frank, damn it, stop .”
His hands grab Frank’s arm to stop him the next time he swings, and Frank remembers this too well from their fight with the Irish, years ago - Matt’s uncanny hands intercepting him before he can land a killing blow, but this time it’s different. This time Frank can shake him off like it’s just an annoyance, and keep on moving.
“Frank, listen to me: I need you to listen to me.” Matt sounds so damn urgent. Pleading with him. It’s almost tempting to stop and listen to him, but Frank’s heart is thumping and the serum is swimming through his veins and all he can think about is the worms still crawling through this room, the ones that he hasn’t picked off yet. The people that helped do this to him.
He starts advancing on them - and Matt, ever the hero, rushes in front of him. He’s not even fighting any more. His hands are raised like he’s trying to hold back an angry tide. No, it's more than that. Like he’s calming a wild beast.
Maybe that’s all Frank is now.
“Out of my way, Red,” he warns him.
“You don’t have to do this, Frank. We can figure this out. Whatever’s happened to you, I promise you we’ll figure it out. Me and you. C’mon, buddy, work with me here.”
Me and you.
There’s a part of Frank that likes that, how it tickles his brain just right. A promise that he doesn’t have to be in this alone. That Red is on his side.
If Frank was anyone else, maybe that would even work. Maybe the soft, pleading tone in Matt’s voice would get through to him.
“One more chance. Get out of my way,” Frank warns, “Or I will put you down.”
Matt’s mouth twitches back and forth like he’s deciding whether or not to smile. “Yeah? You gonna take me out too, Frank?”
Behind him, Frank can see the survivors of the boardroom crawling for the door, scurrying over their dead colleagues like vermin. Their PowerPoint slides are still proudly on display on the wall behind Matt and it all makes Frank wish he could yell at the top of his lungs until this was over - but he’s not getting that luxury. Not until it stops.
They’re nearly at the door now. Nearly escaped.
Fuck it.
Frank steps forward, eyes locked on the retreating cowards - but he’s ready for Matt’s attacks all the same. He’s ready for that ruthless grace, Matt always moving like a hurricane that knows how to aim.
There was a time when all Frank could do was brace himself and try to keep up. And now?
Frank catches Matt's fist before it lands, picks him up off the floor with one hand braced tight against the front of Matt's chest - and throws. Hard.
It’s as easy as tossing trash into a wastebasket.
But Matt is flung straight across the room and slams into the wall on the other side with another crunch just like the guard’s nose. Frank hears the smack as the back of his skull hits the wall and for the first time since they entered the room the red rage that’s flooded his vision starts to flicker.
The suits are still crawling for the door. He thinks some of them are crying. This is the perfect moment to pick them off - but then there's Matt.
With a frustrated groan, he crosses the room to Red instead. Matt’s still on the ground, groaning too - something low and pained, like he’s still trying to pull himself back together and keep going. Frank’s got to hope the suit and the helmet protected him from the worst of that impact, but Matt’s moving slow and groggy like there might be something bruised or broken under all that kevlar.
“Easy, easy there, Red,” Frank breathes as he kneels down in front of Matt. He guides him up to sit propped against the wall, heaving for breath, and it feels as easy as moving around those dolls Lisa used to play with. Like he’s just nothing. Matt’s head lolls back against the wall and he pants like every single breath is costing him something. “Careful. Not too fast.”
Matt’s tongue wets his lips and Frank feels his hands starting to come for him - clutching at his arm at first. Clinging. It’s not like he’s trying to hold Frank’s hand; it’s more like Matt’s still trying to restrain him, even when he’s half-a-step away from losing consciousness. That’s Matt, alright. That’s the one thing that helps reassure Frank that he hasn’t done any permanent damage. “What…?” Matt pants. He doesn’t form the whole question. It’s not like he has to.
Frank shakes his head. “Long story,” he claims. He dodges it and brushes his fingers against Matt's jaw while he studies him worriedly. “You need to stay out of my way on this one, Red. I mean that.”
He sweeps his gaze over Matt: Frank has shaken him, sure, and he’s going to need a hell of a lot of patching up when he eventually gets himself home, but it’s not something that’s going to need an immediate emergency drive to the hospital, or a desperate plea with Curtis to teach him over the phone how to save this guy’s life. Bruises, a little blood, maybe something worse hidden by the suit - but nothing life threatening.
Frank gets back to his feet and ignores the rasp of his name from Matt’s lips. His eyes linger for a few moments on the slide that’s still trapped on the visual display, the clean, clinical photos of those twisted metal pieces burning their way deep into his memory.
Ignoring Matt’s call for him to wait, Frank turns to leave the chaos of the meeting room - its smashed furniture, broken walls and dead bodies. The executives are still mid-escape elsewhere in this warrenlike building.
If there’s a single one of them still breathing, Frank’s going to make sure that’s damn-well fixed before he leaves.
And, this time, he can't let Matt slow him down.