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New York winters hurt like hell, but the pain might as well be adrenaline to Frank. The effects are beginning to wear off on the drive home, his bloody hands cradling the steering wheel as he guides the car through the worst parts of the city to the run-down dump of a building that houses his apartment.
He should be grateful—he has running water, a heater that works sometimes, and a toilet that only rattles a little every time he flushes it. It’s more than many have, and it’s definitely more than what he had overseas.
Frank pulls up to the building and parks, getting out and throwing his hood up to hide the damage done to his face. He slings his duffle over his shoulder and heads inside, slipping past a couple of teenagers who are definitely high off their asses and probably should be studying for a test or some shit instead. His heart twinges as he hears the girl gasp in pain, probably as the boy sticks another needle in her, and forces himself to keep going.
They don’t need him. He doesn’t need them. What he needs is a shower, food, and twelve hours of sleep.
It’s freezing in his apartment when he gets inside. He has to smack the heater a few times to get it to start working, and once it does, he heads to the bathroom to wash the blood off his skin. It goes down the drain, water stained pink. It’s a wonder, really, how he doesn’t have inches of the shit caked all in the grout of the shower walls.
When Frank finally gets the last of it out of his hair, he gets out and dresses before moving to the kitchen. He managed to avoid getting seriously injured, just a few bruises and scrapes that’ll heal enough on their own.
He’s in the middle of microwaving some week-old lasagna when there’s a knock on the door.
Instantly, the gun in his silverware drawer is in his hands, loaded and ready to go. He opens the microwave to keep it from beeping, the rest of his attention devoted to the front door. No one knows he lives here, not even Madani. Maybe it’s those teenagers—
—except the voice on the other side is gut-wrenchingly familiar, strained and broken around the edges.
“Frank?” the voice asks. “It’s me.”
Frank lowers the gun. “What the hell?”
“Please, I need to come inside.”
Frank opens the door without hesitation, and standing in front of him—not even standing, just hunched-over—is Matt Murdock. Not Daredevil; there’s no trace of that god-fucking-awful suit anywhere. This is the lawyer who nearly fucked Frank over, the guy who gets into way more shit than he’s supposed to, all starched button downs and freshly-pressed slacks, ties tied too perfectly for how little vision he has.
Except Murdock’s shirt is covered in blood, some of it fresh and some of it not, the white of it almost completely overtaken by red. The knees of his slacks are torn. He’s missing his tie. His face is a mess of blood and scrapes and bruises. And despite it being below freezing outside, he doesn’t have any other layers on.
“Jesus, Red,” Frank says, reaching out and yanking him inside by his ice-cold wrist. Murdock yelps. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“I got jumped,” Murdock chokes out, like Frank will believe it. Frank releases him and scoffs to let him know he thinks it’s bullshit. “Fine, I’ll tell you, just—”
Murdock takes one step forward and falls.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Frank says, shutting the door and locking it before rushing to him, helping him get to his feet. Murdock hisses in pain. “Sit down. Hang on.”
He leaves Murdock on the couch and cranks up the heat a little before going to the first aid kit in the bathroom. He doesn’t know where Murdock is hurt, only that it’s bad. A hospital would be better, but knowing Murdock’s line of work, this one would be hard to explain to the doctors.
So Frank it is.
“How’d you know where I was?” Frank asks as he returns to the couch carrying the first aid kit, a bowl of warm water, and a few towels and washcloths.
“I heard you,” Murdock says. “I followed you from your job—interesting how you left them alive.”
He’s trying to make conversation, divert them from the real questions, but Frank isn’t gonna let him get away.
Frank’s gonna go with it for now. “Yeah, maybe I’ve changed,” he says sarcastically. Murdock snorts. He touches the buttons of Murdock’s shirt. “Can I take this off?”
Murdock nods, and Frank makes quick work of the buttons, leaving Murdock in his even-bloodier undershirt. You almost can’t tell that it was once white. There are slashes along it that reveal gashes in Murdock’s skin, weeping red and dark with dried blood. He looks like a fucking crime scene.
To save him the pain and the trouble, Frank decides to cut the shirt off. He heads to the kitchen and returns with scissors, and Murdock flinches when Frank accidentally presses the one of the blades to his skin to get both of them around the fabric.
“It’s okay,” Frank says gently, laying a hand on Murdock’s shoulder. “I’m just getting you out of this.”
Murdock relaxes a little, then, but only once he hears Frank set the scissors down does the tension fully ease from his body. “Sorry about this.”
“Ruined my whole evening,” Frank shoots back, and despite the pain he must be feeling, Murdock smiles. It’s a quick, fleeting thing, but it warms Frank up almost as well as the heater does. Gently, he peels the fabric away from Murdock's skin. “Where does it hurt the most?”
“My back,” Murdock says. Frank cranes his neck and finds that Murdock’s back is, indeed, wrecked to hell-and-back, scrapes like road rash covering most of it. Long cuts go along his shoulder blades and ribs, some of them fresher than others. The copper smell of it is somehow so much worse than when it’s Frank’s fault that it’s there.
“Who did this to you?” Frank asks, gently brushing his fingers along one of the gashes. Murdock shivers, a small noise leaving his mouth, and Frank draws back.
“I don’t know.” There’s something in his voice, the abject frustration and defeat, that makes Frank’s chest hurt. “I didn’t—I didn’t get anything to let me know. No smell, no voices, nothing.”
“Like a ghost,” Frank says, popping the kit open.
“Like a ghost,” Matt echoes, agrees.
There’s another moment of silence while Frank wets one of the washcloths and gets the cleaning solution ready. But Murdock, sitting there, hunched over, looks smaller than he ever has before, and damn it, if that doesn’t make Frank feel like shit.
Maybe he and Murdock got off on a rocky start, but him like this is one of the worst things Frank has seen in a while. Murdock doesn’t deserve this. He’s too good.
“Hey,” Frank says quietly. He waits for Murdock to look in the direction of his face and finds himself staring into those dark, vacant eyes. “Why’d you come to me?”
Murdock clenches his jaw. He seems to be struggling for words, his chest heaving, and Frank lets him work it out on his own. It’s another minute before he speaks again.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Murdock says just as softly. Frank doesn’t need to hear his heartbeat to know that this is the most honest Murdock has ever been with him.
Frank lets out a breath. “Okay.” His heart is beating heavily in his chest. “Okay. I’ll get you cleaned up, Red. You can—” The rest of the sentence catches in his throat, and he lets it die there, its ghost slipping out from between his lips. You can trust me.
Murdock’s hand finds his thigh and squeezes. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” Frank says, Murdock’s touch ending all other intelligent thoughts he might have about this, thin fingers digging gently into him.
Without another word, he gets to work.