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Frank Castle didn’t do soft. He didn’t do feelings, or late-night confessions, or the kind of shit that left a man exposed. He did guns, and graves, and the quiet that came after both.
So when Matt Murdock showed up at the safehouse on the Lower East Side at 2:17 a.m., smelling like cheap whiskey and rain and the copper tang of someone else’s blood, Frank almost shut the door in his face.
Almost.
Instead he stepped aside, locked it behind the blind lawyer in the ruined red suit, and went to the kitchen for the bottle of Jameson he kept for nights exactly like this.
Matt didn’t sit. He stood in the middle of the bare living room like the floor might give out, head tilted the way he did when he was listening to things no one else could hear.
Rain still dripped from his hair. The mask was gone. His eyes were open, unfocused, red-rimmed.
“You look like shit,” Frank said, pouring two fingers into a chipped mug.
Matt laughed. It cracked in the middle. “Yeah. Feel like it too.”
He took the mug when Frank offered it, drained half in one go, and didn’t even grimace. That was the first warning sign. Matt Murdock could hold his liquor like a professional, but he never drank like he was trying to drown something. Not in front of Frank, anyway.
Frank poured himself the same amount, leaned against the counter, and waited.
It took three more pours and the better part of an hour.
Matt paced. Talked about nothing at first—the weather, a case that had gone sideways, the way the city smelled after a fight in the rain. Then the words started slipping sideways.
“I can’t sleep,” he said finally, voice low. “Not really. Not for years. I close my eyes and it’s just… noise. Heartbeats. Sirens. People dying three blocks over and I can hear it, Frank. I can hear the last breath leave their lungs and I can’t get there fast enough. Or I get there and it’s already too late and all that’s left is the smell.”
Frank didn’t interrupt. He rarely did when Matt got like this. The lawyer had a way of circling the real wound for a long time before he stuck the knife in.
Matt’s hand shook when he refilled the mug himself. Whiskey sloshed over the rim onto his knuckles. He didn’t wipe it off.
Frank set his own mug down carefully. Crossed the room. Matt flinched when a hand landed on his shoulder, then leaned into it like he’d been waiting for permission.
“You’re not failing anyone,” Frank said. Flat.
Matt’s breath hitched. He turned into Frank’s chest like the words had cut the last string holding him up. The mug dropped. Whiskey soaked into the floorboards. Frank’s
arms came up around him without thinking, one hand fisted in the back of the red suit, the other cradling the back of Matt’s head.
“I’m so fucking tired,” Matt whispered against Frank’s throat. “I don’t know how to stop.”
Matt pulled back just enough to find Frank’s mouth with unerring accuracy. The kiss was messy, desperate, all teeth and whiskey and years of things neither of them had ever said out loud. Frank tasted the apology in it, the hunger, the raw need to feel something that wasn’t pain for once.
Clothes came off in pieces. The suit was already half-destroyed; Frank tore the rest of it. Matt’s hands mapped Frank’s scars like he was reading Braille, slow, deliberate, lingering over the newer ones, the ones that still pulled tight when Frank moved wrong. Frank let him. Let the blind man learn him by touch while he dragged his own palms down the hard lines of Matt’s back, the dip of his spine, the sharp cut of his hips.
They made it to the mattress on the floor eventually. No sheets, just a thin blanket and the sound of rain against the windows. Matt ended up on his back, thighs spread around Frank’s hips, chest heaving. Frank braced over him, one hand planted beside Matt’s head, the other stroking slow and deliberate between his legs until Matt was dripping, cock hard against his stomach, mouth open on soft broken sounds.
“Frank—”
Frank pushed in slow. Watched every shift in Matt’s face, the way his brows drew together, the way his throat worked, the way his hands scrambled for purchase on Frank’s shoulders and then just held on. Matt was tight, hot, trembling around him like the sensation was almost too much. Frank stayed still once he was fully seated, forehead pressed to Matt’s, breathing the same air.
Matt’s voice cracked. “Don’t be careful with me.”
Frank’s laugh was rough. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
He pulled out almost all the way and slammed back in. Matt arched, a raw sound tearing out of him. Frank set a hard, steady rhythm, deep, relentless, the kind of fucking that left bruises and made the headboard (or in this case the wall) take the impact. Matt met every thrust, legs locked around Frank’s waist, heels digging into the small of his back like he was trying to pull him deeper.
“Harder,” Matt gasped. “Please— Frank, I need—”
Frank gave it to him. Shifted the angle until he was grinding against that spot inside Matt that made the blind man’s whole body seize. Matt’s cock leaked steadily between them, untouched, and Frank finally wrapped a rough hand around it, stroking in time with his thrusts.
Matt came first, sudden, violent, like something had snapped inside him. He clenched down so hard Frank saw stars, spilling hot across both their stomachs with a broken cry that sounded like every name he’d ever lost. Frank fucked him through it, relentless, chasing his own edge until the tight heat and the way Matt kept shaking and whispering his name dragged him over. He buried himself deep and came with a low, guttural sound, pulsing inside Matt in long thick spurts until there was nothing left.
They stayed locked together for a long time after. Frank’s weight pressed Matt into the mattress. Matt’s fingers traced idle patterns across Frank’s shoulders, mapping scars he’d already memorized.