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Frank thought a lot of things about Red.
About The Devil. Daredevil. Murdock. Matt.
All stupid names in Frank’s opinion. Red suited him better.
The Devil was probably the stupidest of all. I didn’t pick it, Frank. Though Daredevil wasn’t much further behind. Again, I didn’t pick it. Murdock was so unfortunate he almost felt bad for little Red, having to deal with that on top of everything else life had heaped onto him. I genuinely can’t tell if you’re just trying to be rude or if you’re actually just racist. Matt was too human. I…Frank, I am human. You know that right?
Frank knew. He just liked, every now and again, to hear Red say it out loud. Maybe to remind Frank, but maybe also a little to make him remind himself.
They didn’t always fight together. They didn’t even frequently fight together, but sometimes things just lined up in a way that Frank refused to classify as either good or bad, and they ended up on the same trail.
It had been the same shit as always, just under a different name. Drug dealers this time. The real deal, not kids trying to be inconspicuous in the alleyways, but the main runners, meeting suppliers at what was supposed to be an empty warehouse. The drugs weren’t the reason Frank nor Red were really after them, but putting a stop to that felt like a bonus.
They’d split up shortly after they’d arrived, Red slipping in through an open window, high enough it hadn’t been considered a priority to guard, while Frank had taken the perimeter, eliminating any threats -with beanbag rounds, Red, don’t be a bitch about it- before they could notice anything was amiss inside.
The bored guards outside hadn’t been an issue, but the armed security just past the bay doors had given Frank a bit of a run for his halfhearted promise to try to use nonlethal force. The problem was, nonlethal was much more difficult and time consuming than simply painting the concrete with brain matter, which meant Frank was slightly behind schedule when he finally made it to the sounds of Red’s fight.
He had intended to be backup, and he didn’t intend on slouching the responsibility. Frank took up his position alongside a wall of half broken crates, the stock of his gun pressed hard to his shoulder just in case anyone seemed about to slip past Red’s defenses, but he doubted he would be needed. Not with the way Red was fighting tonight.
It’s something my dad used to say, Red had told him one night, speaking low and slightly detached, the way he always did whenever he shared something about himself. About his past. There never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to his sudden decision to share. Frank half wondered if he was just talking to himself when he did, forgetting Frank was even there. When he’d go dead eyed in the ring and just turn into a monster as he beat the shit out of the other guy. He called it ‘letting the Devil out’.
Frank had never met Red’s old man, and he knew exactly three facts about him. He was a boxer, Red had loved him more than anything in the world, and if his version of letting the devil out was anything even close to Red’s, he was a fucking force to be reckoned with.
Because Red didn’t act like that devil business was a metaphor. Red was a fucking demon when he fought.
For everything he’d done and everywhere he’d been, Frank knew he’d never seen anything move the way Red fought. He moved like he was created to fight, like everything else he could possibly do with his life was just tossed on at the end like a bonus if he ever got bored of the incredible way the universe had decided to put him together. Every move was coordinated, almost liquid in the way he ducked below punches and arched himself out of the way of kicks.
Everything about him was power and speed, moving in ways Frank knew he hadn’t been able to bend at even in his prime, before delivering hits hard enough that Frank could hear the other guy’s bones snap from across the room. A pipe flew clumsily past Red’s head and he dispatched of its thrower so quickly, Frank wasn’t even sure exactly what he did to get the guy to make that exclamation of pain before he was slumping to the ground in a spray of blood.
A few drops of it hit Red’s chest plate, but the marks were lost among the myriad of streaks already decorating it. The red and black of his stupid devil suit made it hard to tell what was clean and what was filthy with blood, but the entire picture came together to create something so unsettlingly otherworldly that it hardly mattered. Blood streaked across his mask and was running over his chin, either from a lost tooth or a broken nose, or maybe none of it was his at all.
The bandages on his hands were a darker red, the color so thick it looked like they’d been dyed and not just stained. Blood was flecked and splattered across his chest, the wet spots glowing against the matte red and black. It was running down his chin, dripping onto his neck in a way that reminded Frank of an animal after a hunt. If he had turned right then and had taken a bite out of one of the men on the ground, Frank couldn’t say he would have been too terribly surprised.
Red tilted his head in that unnatural way he had, assessing the last man lying prone at his feet, or maybe the room as a whole. His shoulders were still hunched, fists curled at his sides as he remained locked in fight mode, his body clearly uncertain how to proceed without something else in front of him to punch. His lips curled back in what might have been a grin or a snarl or maybe just an animal reaction to the adrenaline still coursing through him.
Frank, for all his flaws, was 100% human. There was no mutation, no alien DNA or secret government experiment gone wrong. Just normal government black ops shit that went sideways and a stupid jarhead they’d tried to make a patsy. Just a human man with a short fuse and the memory of his daughter’s limp weight in his hands and nothing left to lose.
Red was a different story.
This was why he couldn’t call Red Matt. Matt - Matthew- was a human name. A normal name for a normal man, and Frank for all of his eye rolling at Red’s choir boy bullshit, didn’t think he would ever fully be convinced that Red was human.
Frank could see it in the way he moved, the way he slipped when he stopped talking. When he stopped trying to force himself down into that tiny box whose walls were made of religion and society and legality. When he let the devil out and went out hunting for blood.
He’d never tell him, had to keep the thought down low, but Frank thought he understood why Red didn’t kill. Not because God told him it was wrong, and not because of the law or whatever other bullshit Red liked to tell whoever had to listen to him talk about it. No, Red didn’t kill because of that animal thing inside of him.
He didn’t kill, because Frank was almost positive Red might like the feeling a little too much.
Red didn’t kill, because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.
It had to have only been seconds, not more than a brief pause in the chaos of the night, but Frank felt time slow down for the first time in a while as he stared at Red’s form in the half light, his chest rising and falling with the effort to breathe through the fight he’d just finished.
In those brief seconds Frank thought of the leopard he’d once seen while on tour, dragging a carcass up a tree. Thought of the way its fur had shown in the sunlight and the blood had marred those distinctive spots. He thought of the sound his old man’s GTO had made when it started up, that deep vibration that echoed in his chest. He thought of the glint of moonlight on his Ka-Bar, the kick back of his gun against his muscle, of the look Maria gave him over her shoulder the first night they spent together.
The last one kicked him back into reality, and he cleared his throat, spitting the taste of copper out of his mouth before he lowered his gun. Red’s head jerked the other way, a dog picking up a scent, as Frank finally approached.
He could forgive himself for the mix up of his thoughts, blaming it easily on the adrenaline and the scent of blood in the air.
He thought of that leopard again, of the way its muscles had moved beneath its fur as it had dragged its prey up that tree. Of Red’s fist slamming into the jaw of an idiot who didn’t know when to get out of the way. With a silent prayer of an apology to Maria, he begged her to understand - it was hard to see a predator move the way they did and not think it was a thing of beauty.
Frank had meant to grab Red’s arm, try and jerk him out of whatever blood fueled stupor he’d lost himself in, but his hand landed instead on the side of Red’s face, thumb pushing hard against his jaw as it swept through the blood not yet dried against his stubble. If Frank still felt fear as strongly as he used to, he might have been worried about getting bit.
“Easy there, Alter Boy, they’re down for the count.”
Red exhaled low and long, and Frank watched the struggle happen. Watched as Red tried to fight back that inhuman part of himself to resemble something decent. He made a sound almost like a huff - like he knew he should be annoyed with Frank but was going through the motions just because he thought he should. He didn’t pull away from Frank’s hand.
The idea of Red, of this wild cat in the shape of a man, tucked into a suit and tie and handing over legal documents at the courthouse and calling a judge ‘your honor’ was almost a joke.
“Not for long,” Red finally managed, his voice low and thick. “We need to get going.” He tilted his head in a way that if Frank wasn’t careful, he might have said seemed like he was pushing further into Frank’s touch.
Frank thought of the heavy weight of a knife in his hand and the smell of gunpowder. He tried not to think of Maria’s skin beneath his fingers as he dropped his hand to Red’s shoulder.
Red was still tense, still poised to pounce at the slightest provocation. There was a hum beneath his skin, stronger than blood but not quite animal enough to call a growl. It burned beneath Frank’s fingertips, under muscle and blood and bone and leather. He squeezed once before he let go, but knocked their shoulders together as he turned.
“Then let’s get fucking going.’
Red gave a sharp incline of his head instead of a nod. He leaned away and spat a spray of blood, some of it flecking across the face of another man on the ground. The blood was bright red, a superficial wound in Red’s mouth, nothing to distract Frank from the blood still humming too fast through his own veins.
With a swipe of the back of his sleeve, Red halfheartedly cleaned his mouth before straightening back up. When he turned back to Frank, the pull of his lips couldn’t have been anything other than a grin, wide and vicious and sliding straight through Frank’s chest.
“Let’s get fucking going,” he echoed back, voice low and too excited for the amount of blood still smeared across his pale skin. His footsteps were almost silent as he led the way back out.
Frank slung his gun back into position, finger on the trigger and stock his shoulder, focusing on the weight in his hands, and not the sound of echo of Maria’s soft sigh against his ear.