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The space of time between the support beams of the building giving way and Frank waking up to a wide eyed teenager in a black and white veil staring down at him was nebulous at best. At worst, and much more honestly, it simply didn’t exist. As if time had folded in on itself like the scientists were always trying to explain in the sci-fi novels he read.
(Probably in real life too, given the way the world was going, but Frank was still fighting to keep science fiction firmly on the page where it belonged, and not pay attention to that kind of thing.)
So, the reasonable conclusion was he was experiencing a head wound rather than a distortion in the space time continuum. Meanwhile the young woman in the nun costume was trying to keep him from getting out of the cot he’d found himself in.
Not a costume, he’d soon learned. An actual nun habit. As was the typical fashion in the basement of the convent he had apparently found himself dragged to after the firefight he’d been in had ended with a brick of C4 and he hadn’t gotten clear of the building in time.
Convent slash church slash orphanage.
Slash, apparently, secret triage center hidden between the crypt and the laundry room. It was a truly bizarre situation, and he’d been almost too amused by it all to complain too harshly when another, much older nun had swept the younger woman aside and had unceremoniously begun to poke and prod at his various bandages. She had been short in both stature and patience, her tone clipped and clearly annoyed, but hadn’t made any sign of calling the police or even showing the slightest bit of fear about who she was bossing around.
A fact which she clearly understood, as she referred to him exclusively as Mr. Castle.
She hadn’t answered a single question he asked related to how he had gotten to the church, nor any about why a convent in New York City had such an impressive accumulation of medical supplies. All she did was tell him what time food would be ready and then smacked his hand when he’d idly picked at the bandage on his face.
She’d also corrected him when he’d called her the wrong name with a scoff and an eye roll.
“I am not the Mother Superior.” She’d paused, but it felt more like an assessment of him than a concern for her own safety before she made her decision, turning her back to say it like it wasn’t important. “It’s Sister Maggie.”
Sister Maggie had given away nothing else but her own annoyance at the situation, and Frank couldn’t exactly explain the dots he had connected. Couldn’t vocalize it out loud. All he could say was that he wasn’t surprised when Red had shown up several hours later. Materializing out of the darkness in the way that he had that was both annoying and impressive and even more annoying again for how impressive it was.
Frank had rolled his eyes, still uncertain if the motion translated to however it was Red navigated the world, and leaned back on the cot. “I really should have guessed sooner that your base of operations would be a crypt. You’re one more communion away from just impaling people with crosses at this point.”
As predicted, the ribbing had instantly melted away the battle stance Red always defaulted to, giving way to shoulders hunched in annoyance as he scoffed at Frank. “If it’s too gothic for you, you’re free to go. The nuns aren’t going to keep you prisoner.”
Frank had glanced around the room, considering his surroundings for a moment as Red lurked in the corner. “Why here?” Was all he’d asked.
Red paused at the question, a silence that Frank couldn’t interpet. “When a building fell on me, this is where I ended up. Figured it’d be good enough for you too.” His tone was light, mouth twitching up at the side in the closest he ever really got to smiling at Frank.
Frank knew about Midland Circle. Knew about the skyscraper that had come down. The rumors of Daredevil’s disappearance from Hell’s Kitchen coinciding with the collapse. He wanted to make a joke about three stories of a shitty construction job not being quite the same as 80 stories of steel and glass. He wanted to ask if Red was joking, if he really had been under all that rubble. He wanted to ask if he really was a demon because Frank couldn’t see another way he would have made it out.
He thought of Red, flesh and blood and snark and holy indignation underneath several hundreds of thousands of tons of metal and held his tongue tight against the back of his teeth.
…
They were never going to keep Frank for long, these secret nun nurses of Red’s. His injuries were unfortunate, but nothing that really needed a hospital. Not for guys like them, anyway. His nose was broken (again) and his wrist wasn’t moving quite right, but it never really had since the last time he broke it. Red wasn’t doing his twitchy head tilt thing, not screwing his nose up when Frank dared to shift his weight, so he assumed everything internally was more or less where it was supposed to be.
Three days, was what Sister Maggie had told him, hazel eyes stern and tone firm despite the foot of height he had on her. She had to be a hundred pounds soaking wet, but Frank had been raised Catholic. Had grown up getting his knuckles smacked and his ears tugged by exasperated nuns, and he wasn’t about to question Sister Maggie’s authority in the basement of God’s house.
And so he stayed. Three days of letting his bones get a head start on patching themselves back together and then he’d be on to the next job. Three days to rest his aching muscles and not worry for just a moment about who was trying to kill him next. Unlike Red, Frank knew he was mortal and occasionally needed a moment to catch his breath before the next fight.
Red flit in and out of the basement in that time, all restless energy that seemed to have nowhere to go as he vanished and reappeared at random. Frank thought about asking after his day job, more as a point to what he should be doing than an actual interest, but Red seemed wound tighter than normal. Frank was too tired to go starting a fight with him over nothing at all.
It took a few hours into Frank’s stay, of alternating browsing the limited selection of second hand books available and trying to listen to the world outside and above, for Frank to realize there was a source to Red’s tension. A focal point that wasn’t the church itself.
Every time he and Sister Maggie ended up in the same space, Frank watched as Red’s hackles went up before he just as quickly forced them back down again. He barely spoke to her, but never moved far out of the way if she needed to get by. Didn’t make himself scarce any time she arrived like he was trying to avoid her. It was a bizarre mix of anger and fear but it led to no outburst, no snide comments or evasion attempts.
Sister Maggie seemed almost alarmed every time she and Red crossed paths, not frightened but just surprised, and then, just like he did, she would force her face flat again in record time before she continued on with whatever task had brought her there. She almost never turned her head towards him, kept her face pointedly looking in another direction - but Frank caught her staring. Out of the corner of her eye, she was always watching Red like a hawk, blinking back forward to only a moment before she was focused on him again. Always with her face pointed away.
It was the kind of consistent staring she shouldn’t have been able to get away with, not by someone who could see her eyes.
Which meant she knew Red was blind.
The air between them was odd, but not cold like Frank might have guessed at first. It was just tense, a bubble waiting to burst.
…
Red was back just as Frank was getting ready to leave. Frank did his best to ignore him - a feat he’d grown proficient in over the years of working on and off with Red - as he packed up the few things he’d had on his person when they dragged him in. He’d lost the guns he’d been carrying into the fight, including the one that had been strapped to his thigh. It was a mystery Red swore he couldn’t explain.
Sister Maggie had shown up to escort him out, but she’d stopped to talk to Red by the stairs first.
Everything Frank had could be gathered in less than a minute, but he took his time, halfheartedly pretending to look around for something as he watched them out of the corner of his eye.
It was the longest he’d seen them interact or speak more words to each other than a passing greeting or comment. Red wasn’t a particularly large man, even with the Kevlar, but Sister Maggie was a slip of a woman, and Frank could barely see her around his frame. His head was angled down, listening as Sister Maggie spoke, her voice too quiet for Frank to pick up even in the quiet of the crypt.
They were both tense, but they didn’t seem to be fighting, voices both steady and soft as they went back and forth for a moment. And then he saw Sister’s Maggie’s hand move, slow and obvious, like she was dealing with a skittish animal, before it came to rest on Red’s cheek. Instead of tensing further, of pulling away from her touch, Red leaned down to her height and Frank stopped pretending he was packing to watch as Red accepted the kiss she pressed against the other side of his face.
Red didn’t turn around when she stepped around him and made her way over to Frank. If she cared at all that he’d seen the exchange, she didn’t let on, but Frank thought her face looked brighter than it had before, the edges of a smile flirting across her severe mouth. Her eyes seemed bright in a way that might have suggested the edge of tears, but she blinked and it was gone.
“Well, Mr. Castle, I would say it’s been a pleasure, but we do try not to encourage lying in the church.” It was a smile now, just a small one, but it made her look brighter, like he could see the vibrant young woman she’d once been. Maybe she still was, when she wasn’t trying to intimidate violent vigilantes in the church crypt.
Frank grinned back, scratching at his stubble as he stood from the cot. “Thanks for everything, Sister. I know you’ve got better things to do than look after my - I mean, me.” He pivoted quickly, not for the first time stopping himself from swearing in front of her out of habit. She gave him the same look she had every other time, her smile turning mean and amused in a way that made him think she wouldn’t care about his language. Even after everything he’d done though, swearing in front of a nun still felt wrong.
He nearly jumped when she took one of his hands in both of hers, the amusement never leaving her face but looking a little softer now. Her hands were dry and gentle against his calluses and scars. She squeezed once. “Good bye, Mr. Castle. Please, don’t come back.”
He laughed as she dropped his hand. She meant it, he knew she did, but he also thought maybe if he was ever in a real bind, she would open the doors again. She left without another word, without ever looking back over her shoulder as she passed Red and headed back up the stairs. Frank could only just hear the last echoes of her footsteps receding into the church by the time Red finally turned around.
Frank narrowed his eyes as Red approached. “Can I ask you something?”
Red hesitated, but there was no surprise. He knew the question was coming. His nod was almost imperceivable, but Frank would have continued without it anyway.
Frank hadn’t been in the crypt long, had only known Sister Maggie for less than a week, but he’d already crafted some theories, gathered data and put a few things together. Two possibilities jumped out right away, the first the seemed more obvious from the outside but ultimately the least likely, given what he knew about Red, which left option two.
If it was, as he assumed, the second possibility, then voicing the first was almost a guarantee to upset Red. Which meant it was the only reasonable course of action.
“How long have you been sleeping with a nun?”
Predictable as always, Red didn’t disappoint. He didn’t so much jerk in his step as become overwhelmed with a full body spasm, head whipping back and limbs twitching like Frank had shocked him physically instead of just metaphorically. The strangled sound of alarmed disgust wasn’t something Frank had ever heard another human make.
The laugh it pulled out of Frank was louder than he expected, the force of it tugged at every bruise and strain and sore muscle he had, but it felt good. Worth the pain. He pressed his fist to his mouth, trying to avoid his still broken nose as he got himself back under control. Tears were beginning to gather at the corners of his eyes but he ignored that as he grinned at Red, still standing too rigid in his indignation, like a cat with his hair all on end.
“Oh shit, Red…”
“I’m not-” Red’s mouth twisted in that bizarre way he had. When he got worked up enough it was like his facial muscles stopped following the laws of human anatomy and just went rogue to try and get the point across. Frank had been trying and failing for months not to find it endearing. “It’s not like that,” he finally said, apparently unable to even voice the idea of sleeping with Sister Maggie long enough to deny it. He looked vaguely ill.
Frank waved him off, not trying to keep the laughter out of his voice. “I’m just fucking with ya.” The church had given him a bag, a pack to replace the one that was buried under the rubble. He felt a bit silly still, heaving it over his shoulder when it was nearly empty. Sister Maggie and Red’s relationship was none of his business, and he’d never been particularly nosy, but he could still see her hazel eyes glaring up at him. Familiar hazel, and he couldn’t help but press. “She your aunt?”
Red hadn’t really relaxed, but his posture had melded from disgust to his usual annoyance with Frank. At the question, he didn’t so much tense as he went preternaturally still, hardly seeming to breathe as it stretched between them.
Frank didn’t tell him he didn’t have to answer, didn’t insult him by giving him permission he didn’t need. He just waited.
After a long minute, Red’s shoulders eased slightly, chest rising again as he breathed and forced an obviously fake calm. His tongue passed over his bottom lip, snagging Frank’s attention a split second before: “She’s my mother.”
The words didn’t register for a moment, too heavy and too unbelievable for Frank to take them at face value.
His mother. Daredevil, The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, Red - his mother was a fucking nun.
It explained so much and opened the door for twice as many questions than before. Frank tried to file the information away for later, to move on and revisit it at another time, but the file didn’t seem to want to go into the drawer it was supposed to.
“Of course your mother is a nun,” was what he managed to say, still rapidly turning the information over in his head like he might be able to force it to make sense.
Red’s face scrunched again, confusion and annoyance in a war that neither was going to win.
“Why’d you guess aunt?”
Frank shrugged. “Seemed about the right age. Wouldn’t have guess mother -why the fuck would I- but I should have, knowing your weirdo bullshit. You look alike though. In the face.”
Red had been part way through a scoff at Frank’s insult, but went frozen again at his assessment. “We do?”
“Yeah,” Frank agreed easily. His tone was light but he had a familiar feeling itching under his skin, a warning pulse of danger, like he was creeping close to somewhere he shouldn’t go unarmed. “Face shape,” he said, immediately feeling the unfamiliar burn of self consciousness, unaware of when he had gotten so familiar with the shape of Red’s face to recognize it on someone else. He pivoted, turning to something easier. Something more obvious. “You have the same eyes.”
He’d been stepping carefully, trying to watch where he put his feet, but he’d made an error somewhere, had misread the situation and stepped straight onto a landmine. Red twitched, leaning back just far enough that Frank knew it had been involuntarily, his next inhale quiet but sharp enough that Frank felt it under his skin. His mouth moved, but Frank didn’t think he was trying to speak.
Red didn’t say it, but the reason for his reaction was obvious.
He hadn’t known that.
Frank jerked his head away, surveying the rest of the crypt like the way out of this conversation was a riddle the statues might be able to help him out with as Red visibly tried to get himself back under control. “Uh, you’re going to want to go out the back. Into the courtyard by the dorms.” He said, rubbing for a moment at his helmet, clearly forgetting he was wearing it before he dropped his hand back down. “It’s the easiest way to get out without going through the front. It’s difficult for anyone not in the church to see you go that way,” he finished, voice a little shakier than usual.
“Got it.” Frank nodded once, hand gripped tight around his near empty bag, and told himself to walk away.
Red got on Frank’s last goddamn nerve every time they had to interact. Frank hated the way he spoke to him from his high horse, with the holier than thou indignation and naivety he kept trying to make Frank’s problem. Hated the way he got in the way and had to make everything harder than it had to be,like God himself had tasked him with it. He hated the way he liked how Red fought, how he had trouble looking away when Red let himself go, and he hated the way he couldn’t stop thinking about the way his muscles moved under his skin or the mean curl of his red mouth for days afterwards.
But of everything Red had ever done to him, Frank knew this was going to be the worst.
Red had his chin tilted at an angle, like he was staring at the floor with his mouth in a soft twist of a concentrated frown. His shoulders were still back, forever locked in a fighter’s position even when he was at rest, but he wasn’t paying attention to his hands. The fingers of one hand were curled around the other as he held them in front of his chest as if in prayer, thumb worrying across the back of his hand in an absent motion.
His eyes were still covered by that stupid mask, but Frank had seen him without the mask. He knew what Red’s face looked like when it was open and exposed, how he couldn’t seem to control his facial expressions without a great deal of effort. Frank could see it without meaning to now, the divot between his brows and the focus that would be in those too big hazel eyes.
Without meaning to, without wanting to, Frank could suddenly picture the little boy who’d grown up in the orphanage. Little Red, but before he’d been Red. Back when he’d still been Matt. Been Matty maybe, to someone who cared enough. Lost and confused and needing someone else to tell him it was going to be okay but already knowing they never would. That he was already alone.
Frank didn’t know how a nun for the mother fit into that Oliver Twist tragedy, but he knew it wasn’t an easy piece. The edges clearly still jagged, but it wasn’t any of Frank’s business. None of this was. He didn’t want to know about Red’s nun mother or his private personal hangups. He didn’t want to know what color Red’s eyes were or how young and alone he could look when he thought about his mother.
He didn’t want to think about little Matty, blind and alone with something righteous and violent boiling under his skin.
He didn’t want to be the one to tell him he had the same color eyes as his mother.
“The fuck did you bring me here for?” he asked, his tone sharper and meaner than he meant for it to be.
Red’s head snapped up, fingers still worrying around each other as he frowned in confusion at Frank. “You were hurt-”
“You brought me to your fucking mom,” he spat, anger burning through him as hot as embarrassment. This was always what it was with him, worse now in the years since he’d been legally declared dead, but never really new. Any emotion that got too strong, any feeling he didn’t know how to deal with, it all circled back to rage. Familiar and comfortable. “You two clearly have issues, but do you really hate her that much?”
Red’s frown was deepening, twisting in a way that suggested his entire face was wrinkled in confusion at Frank’s sudden hostility. He’d been lost in thought, clearly not expecting an outburst. “Do I…what?”
“I’m not like you, Red. I’m not a pussy. I’m fucking dangerous. People die. And you’re a fucking moron, because you brought me to your goddamn mom.”
Red remained confused, irritated at the edges but nowhere near the level of anger Frank desperately needed him to reflect back. “You’re not going to shoot a nun, Frank.”
Frank scoffed. “Not what I meant.”
Red tilted his head back, jerking his chin up in a way that Frank had learned meant he was rolling his eyes and gave a tired sigh. “You wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.” It was said so dismissively, so simply, that Frank felt it like a slap.
As if it were that easy for him. That much of an obvious answer.
Red brought Frank to his nun mother, with whom the relationship was obviously rocky, because Frank needed help and it hadn’t even occurred to Red that Frank might have done anything to put her in danger.
It was such a far cry from their early days, of Red calling him a psychopath and Frank-
Frank didn’t know how to deal with it, or the way it felt like pouring gasoline on the fire he could feel cooking inside his chest.
Red had turned away from him again, a slight shift in his attention that meant he was lost in his own head. His arms were crossed but Frank could see where his fingers were twitching against his elbows, restless and uncertain as he fell back into wherever he had been before Frank had tried to drag him out.
It took more effort than he liked to pull himself away, to march with deliberate steps away from Red. He knew he didn’t glance up at Frank’s retreat, knew he probably even barely registered him leaving.
After all, Red grew up in an orphanage, he’d gotten used to handling his shit on his own.
Frank ground his teeth as he hiked the bag up higher on his shoulder, giving a nod at the young nun he’d met three days ago as he passed her in the hallway. Part of him wanted to say he was sorry, whispering it under his breath where he knew Red would hear, but the notion was almost as stupid as it was embarrassing. He didn’t know what he wanted to apologize for any more than he could explain the burning rage in his chest at the idea of Red bringing him to meet his estranged mother.
Except that wasn’t really true. Because Frank wasn’t stupid. Frank knew why he was embarrassed and sorry and angry all at once.
He was angry because Red was stupid enough to trust him.
He was embarrassed at how much it meant to him.
He was sorry he didn’t deserve it.