Work Text:
~
It happens again.
It hasn’t been that long since he and Frank have started doing this. Every now and then for the past couple of months, they would run across each other on a rooftop, in a back alley, in a dilapidated building. They still didn’t agree with the other’s methods, but when their goal was the same, they managed to come to an agreement. Matt had to admit that fighting alongside someone who knew about him - who knew his strengths and how best to utilize them - was much easier and more effective. It reminded him of the times he used to fight with Elektra.
Best not to think about that now.
Now he can hear the thunder outside, rain coming down in sheets, water dripping through the leaky roof and forming puddles on the concrete floor, the dozen rapid heartbeats in his immediate vicinity, Frank growling on the other side of the warehouse as he breaks a guy’s fingers with a gun barrel.
One second Matt’s jumping off a rickety scaffolding and kicking a guy in the face, and the next moment, with no warning whatsoever, he’s screwed.
There’s ringing in his ears. He can’t hear anything. He loses all sense of orientation and has no idea what’s happening around him.
He swings wildly with his billy club but doesn’t hit anything, and then pure terror fills him as he feels punches and cuts falling on him, seemingly from all sides. Every time he thinks he strikes in the right direction, he comes up empty. Too slow. Disoriented. Confused. Air shifts as a bullet flies too close for comfort and scrapes his arm. He thinks he shouts for Frank, but with his hearing gone he’s not sure and he might as well have just wished for him.
He gets punched in the temple, hard, and goes down.
~
There’s nothing to latch onto. Emptiness. Everything hurts but at the same time, doesn’t feel real. He curls up into a ball after someone kicks him in the stomach and then drops of blood splatter the exposed half of his face. He gets hit in the head - again - and then it’s all gone - again.
~
The next thing he’s aware of, someone’s removing his mask and grabbing at his throat. Fear washes over him. He scrambles for purchase on the cold wet ground and punches blindly up, hits someone in the face and then he’s immediately restrained by a pair of hands wet with blood. Matt panics. He struggles, kicks out and tries to break free and then someone kneels on his thighs and he’s being held down by someone stronger than him.
Actually, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s attacking him anymore, more like checking his pulse and breathing. Then someone’s grabbing his hand and guiding it up towards -
A wedding ring on a chain.
He reads the name of Frank’s wife and takes a deep breath, lets it out. The smell of blood and sweat around them is overwhelming, more so than usual with his hearing gone, but underneath it, close, is something else, something familiar and safe. It’s Frank. He stops struggling and desperately clutches the ring. Frank shifts off him and his hands start searching all over him, checking for any critical injuries, touching his temple, fingers skimming the bleeding cuts on his body.
Frank - he says, or at least he thinks he does. He can’t tell if any sound comes out. He wraps his own hand around his own throat and says it again and he can feel the vibrations this time. It calms him a little, knowing he’s not without a means of communication.
After that his mask is put back in place and he gets hauled up to his feet. He immediately sways, his head spinning and legs buckling. He feels his arm being hooked around Frank’s neck and then Frank’s shoving the billy club into his hand and grabbing him by the waist as they begin walking. Frank is a solid presence next to him, steady on his feet, strong and unwavering.
He knows they leave the warehouse when the air around them changes and when he feels the rain on his skin, coming down cold and hard.
He fades in and out for an indeterminate amount of time as he forces his legs to just keep moving.
~
Suddenly his calves are hitting something soft and he has the sensation of falling backwards - no, he’s being lowered down. He sits and leans back. It’s his own couch. He’d know this couch anywhere.
He’d taken Frank to his apartment a couple of weeks ago, when he in turn was in a bad shape. He patched him up and left him on this very same couch when he went to bed and in the morning, Frank was gone.
He’s gone now, too. Matt tries not to panic and he’s fairly certain he says something pathetic like Don’t go but thankfully he can’t actually hear it so he’s nowhere near as mortified as he would be under different circumstances.
Before long, Frank’s back again, sitting next to him, gripping his wrist and guiding his hand to a box - the first aid kit - and a bowl of warm water and then he places Matt’s hand on Frank’s wrist so he can feel what he’s going to do next.
Matt’s soaked to the bone from the rain, starting to shiver, and still bleeding from several places.
Frank removes his mask and places his hands on the collar of his Daredevil suit. He seems to hesitate, which is kind of absurd, because they’ve partially undressed each other before to take care of the other’s hard to reach injuries. Frank guides Matt’s hand to his throat and Matt feels it vibrate but otherwise has no way of telling what’s being said.
Come on then, Matt says and tries to start taking off his suit himself. His fingers are frozen, slow and clumsy and uncooperative. That appears to be enough (enough of a permission? was he wanting consent? because of Matt’s current condition?) and Frank takes over and peels the suit off him. He starts tending to his injuries. He stops the cuts from bleeding, disinfects them, stitches two larger wounds on his upper arm and ribs and applies bandages. He wipes away most of the blood splattered across his skin with a warm wet cloth. He takes Matt’s head in both hands and turns it this way and that, gently strokes his temple, but otherwise there’s nothing else to do.
By then Matt’s freezing, sitting there just in his underwear. He feels the cold from his skin seeping deeper into him, filling him up. He longs for his soft silk pajamas and actually, maybe…
Bedroom, second drawer from the bottom, on the right, please.
Immediately, Frank gets up from the couch. Matt’s alone again, cold and hurt and abandoned. It’s out of his mouth before he has the time to think about it.
No, don't -
Matt reaches out with his hand.
Frank’s back and grabbing his elbow as he helps him to his feet. He leads him a couple of paces and then he’s in his own bedroom and being seated on the edge of the bed.
A minute later he feels the mattress dip as Frank sits next to him and lays a soft pile of clothes in his lap. He helps him put on the long-sleeved silk henley shirt and pajama bottoms. The whole time Matt does his best not to think about how vulnerable he is right now and decides to focus his attention elsewhere.
Are you alright? Matt asks.
He places his palms on Frank’s leather clad forearms and begins mapping the surface, moving up to his shoulders and then to his chest, looking for torn fabric and the change in texture of the wetness of the jacket that would indicate blood and not rainwater. Frank gently stops him and guides one of his palms on the side of his head instead.
He nods.
Matt nods as well and then he’s being pushed back on the bed and feels the blanket cover him. Then the mattress shifts and Frank’s gone.
Matt’s teeth chatter and he lets himself focus and feel every single hurt he’s acquired today. He feels the bruises starting to bloom on his skin and the edges of all the places where his skin has been torn stinging and his head slightly spinning, and every drop of rain that chilled him and now his ears won’t work and he’s gonna be alone and so incredibly open to attack for however long it takes for his hearing to come back.
Unless.
He frowns and holds his own throat again as he says it.
Stay?
The vibration itself doesn’t have any tone to it so he can pretend he’s not aware of how pitiful he must sound.
Nothing happens, anyway. Frank’s probably long gone after this clusterfuck. He didn’t sign up for a defective ally he can’t even rely on, a nuisance he has to walk home and tuck into bed like a little child. He feels his heart rate pick up and his breathing grow more labored, yet there’s no oxygen entering his lungs and now on top of everything else he’s gonna pass out because of a stupid panic attack.
The air around him moves and the mattress dips again. The blanket is lifted and put back in place and Matt desperately reaches his arm out and makes contact with Frank’s chest.
Frank’s lying just within arm’s reach. He’s not wearing his leather jacket anymore and is suddenly dry and soft. Matt realizes he’s borrowed one of his silk pajamas and that makes him feel things he has no mental capacity to analyze in his current state.
The strong smell of blood and sweat from before is fainter and now there’s just Frank, the smell a combination of warm skin, coffee, gun oil and generic shampoo.
Matt splays his fingers over Frank’s heart. It’s incredibly steady beneath his fingers, beating a slow and regular rhythm. He feels Frank’s chest shift with every breath he takes and slowly starts to match his breathing to his. As he begins to calm down, his hurts start to move more into the background, the ringing in his ears no longer so scary because he knows that Frank’s on the side of the bed that’s closer to the door and whoever might come for them is gonna have to go through him first (and, well, good luck there). It is a novel, foreign feeling, relying on someone for protection, for safety. It should be terrifying but to his surprise he finds that it isn’t.
He closes his eyes and shivers. The blanket isn’t doing much to warm him up. Frank’s chest vibrates as he says something but it doesn’t seem urgent so it can’t be important.
All of a sudden Frank’s crowding closer and pushing at Matt’s shoulder and before Matt has the chance to tense up, he’s on his other side with his back to Frank. Frank is like a furnace, radiating body heat where he’s lying behind him, plastered to Matt’s back. His breath is fanning the back of Matt’s neck. He speaks again and the words, whatever they might be, travel through Matt’s whole body. He slings his arm over Matt’s side and curls his hand into a loose fist on Matt’s chest.
As Matt starts to get warmer, his thoughts slow down and he falls asleep.
~
When he wakes up, the world makes sense again.
It’s still the middle of the night by the sounds the city is making, people talking, laughing, arguing and having sex, cars speeding up and phones beeping, the storm rumbling in the distance and rainwater flowing through the gutter, but it’s all in the background. He focuses and senses his own suit lying on the living room floor, the first aid kit in disarray next to it and Frank’s clothes in a heap on the floor just beside the bed.
Frank’s still glued to his back, his heart roaring loud with him so close now that Matt’s hearing is back. His arm is slung over Matt’s waist and his hand is resting on his lower belly. When Matt squirms, Frank murmurs something unintelligible and gathers him in his arms even closer, pressing him to Frank’s front so they’re touching from head to toe. He pushes his face into the hair on Matt’s nape and nuzzles it with his nose. Matt feels his face heat up and has the mortifying thought that Frank’s gonna wake up and - do what? - but his breathing is telling Matt he’s sleeping deeply.
He can’t help comparing Frank’s body to the women that have shared his bed in the past. He knows it’s stupid because this is nothing like that. Yet Frank’s hand is fascinatingly large, fingers thick and calloused where they’re touching the sliver of bare skin where his shirt rode up. His arm is a heavy weight, his shoulders broad and the crotch pressed to his ass nothing like the bodies he’s used to sharing his bed with.
He’s not picky, never has been, but over the years he has learned that getting women to bed with him was usually easier and safer. Most of the women he tended to sleep with were strangely captivated by his blindness and liked to take care of him. It usually awoke something warm and caring in them and that was fine by him, thank you very much. The reactions of men who were interested in him were, with a few exceptions, usually different, generally a mix of attraction and superiority and possessiveness and pity and something else that left Matt feeling slightly uncomfortable. Although rarely posing any real threat to him, having to always be on guard, even while naked and during the most intimate moments, was simply too exhausting to have sex with men very often.
Now he senses all the places on Frank’s body where he’s been hurt tonight and knows he wasn’t lying before when he said he was alright, because it’s all just minor scrapes and bruises, none of them bleeding or requiring medical attention. When he focuses a bit harder, he senses his older injuries as well, mended bones and faded scars.
Encouraged by Frank’s deep sleep and fairly certain he’s unlikely to wake up any time soon, he allows himself a little indulgence. He holds Frank’s hand where it’s pressed to his belly, fingering the body hair, the birthmarks and old scars he finds, and wiggles a bit, pushes his ass into Frank’s groin. Frank involuntarily pushes his hips forward, presses himself closer yet, the strong arm around him briefly tightening, muscles shifting, and rubs his face against the back of Matt’s neck like a cat, his stubble delightfully scratchy. Matt shivers and feels a faint stirring between his legs, thinking of what could be.
He drifts off again, lulled by a sense of safety, warmth, contentedness.
~
The next time he wakes up, he knows the dawn is near. Sometime during the night, he’s managed to turn over and is now curled up with his head tucked into Frank’s neck and arms folded against his ribcage. One of Frank’s arms is wedged below him and the other slung over his side and resting on his back. His breathing is -
Matt tenses.
Frank is awake.
“You alright, Red?”
His voice is rusty with sleep, but he doesn’t sound angry or even annoyed.
“I’m fine,” he says and makes to pull away. He’s warm and his hearing’s back and there’s no reason for this, whatever it is, to continue.
Except when he tries to pull away, Frank doesn’t let go.
“Still dark outside.”
Matt doesn’t dare move a muscle. Frank keeps holding him and soon he’s falling back asleep, breathing growing deeper and his grip relaxing.
The sensible thing to do now would be to carefully extricate himself and try to preserve at least some kind of dignity.
Instead he clutches the fabric of Frank’s shirt and pushes his face closer to his throat, breathing him in. The wedding ring on its chain is just within reach and Matt places the pad of his finger on its inner side and traces Maria’s name again. He thinks of her, what she might have been like. What Frank might have been like with her. He holds Frank’s shirt a little tighter.
He’s gonna get up.
Five more minutes.
~
The third time he wakes up, he immediately knows several things: the blanket is tucked tight below his chin, there’s a glass of water on the nightstand, the mattress is dipping with only one person’s weight and the pile of Frank’s clothes that was discarded on the bedroom floor is no longer there.
Matt’s alone.