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Three weeks.
Three weeks, and the kitten still doesn’t have a name.
Though she’s certainly made herself at home, especially when it comes to Frank, who, incidentally, has also started to make himself at home. His duffel lives by the door and his coffee mug is always in the sink. Sometimes Karen wakes up in the middle of the night and finds the couch pillows slightly askew and the blanket folded neatly. It's evidence of him slipping out sometime after she’s already gone to bed. But he's always there in the morning.
The police scanner’s quieter these days, too. Fewer whispers in the news about Hell’s Kitchen most ruthless vigilante. The bruises he wears across his cheek bones and knuckles are faded, with fewer new ones popping up in their wake, and he hasn't bled on her couch in weeks.
The kitten follows Frank around like a shadow, settling on his lap when he and Karen sit on the couch together, perching on his shoulder when he makes coffee in the mornings, curling up on his pillow at night, even waiting outside the bathroom door while he showers because he refuses to let her in.
It's painfully adorable, but Karen would never dare say that to Frank. He knows it though, despite the fact that he continues to call her "little shit.”
They’re on the sofa together one evening, Frank at one end, with the kitten asleep in the crook of his arm, and Karen with her long legs stretched out on the cushions as she reads over a case file. The scratch of paper under her pen is the only sound for a while, until she catches him watching her with a trace of a smile.
“What?” she asks, pushing her socked feet into Frank’s leg and wiggling her toes against his muscled thigh.
He shakes his head, wrapping a hand around her foot and squeezing. “Nothin’.”
Karen lifts an eyebrow. “You were staring.”
“I like watching you work,” he says with a small shrug.
“Uh huh, I’m sure you’re as riveted watching me read this file as I am actually reading it,” she says, rolling her eyes playfully.
Frank smiles, enough this time that Karen can see his teeth, and it makes her pulse flutter. “What can I say… I’m a simple man.”
Her gaze lingers on him, and then his fingers press into the arch of her foot. She lets out a sound that’s dangerously close to a moan and drops her head back against the cushion. He chuckles and pulls one foot into his lap, sliding the sock off with careful hands, thumb brushing over the soft skin on the top of her foot. His calloused fingers against her skin feel like too much and not enough, and she absently wonders what those rough hands would feel like on the rest of her body.
“You don’t have to do that,” Karen says, lifting her head to find him still watching her.
“I know.”
She takes a slow breath, trying to calm her racing heart and is glad for the distraction when the kitten wakes from her nap, blinking bleary eyes up at Frank. She nudges her tiny head into his free hand like she’s offended his attention is elsewhere. He rolls his eyes and scratches behind her ears.
“God forbid you go five seconds without pets,” he says dryly.
Karen watches his fingers move, slow and sure, both on the kitten and on her, and her chest aches with something warm. “She needs a name,” she says, nudging his knee with her other foot.
“She’s got one,” Frank says, slipping off that sock and tossing it to the floor to join the other.
“Little shit is not a name, Frank,” she says with a sigh.
“Eh, it suits her.”
“Ok, well, you’re not wrong,” she says. “But, I’d really rather not have the vet techs calling that out into the waiting room any time I take her in for something.”
Frank laughs — a real laugh, full and rough — and it’s such a rare thing that it catches Karen completely off guard.
“I’d actually pay good money to see that shit,” he says.
She tosses a pillow at his head, and he catches it, dropping it to the floor so quickly that the kitten doesn’t have time to be startled. She doesn’t even flinch, just rolls over and shows her furry little belly.
“All right, all right,” he says, glancing at her tentatively as his fingers move from Karen’s feet, pressing their way up the back of her calf. “Cat names?”
She gives him a subtle nod, just enough to let him know he hasn’t crossed any lines, and her chest tightens at the duality of this man next to her. It’s never been lost on her that for as violent and deadly as he is, he treats the things and people he loves with more care than anyone she’s ever met.
“Cat names,” Karen says. “What about Willow?”
Frank scrunches up his nose and glances down at the kitten but doesn’t say anything.
“Ok, not Willow,” she says. “Daisy?”
“Too… cheerful,” he says, pursing his lips.
Karen can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her. “For someone who’s content calling her little shit forever, you sure do have some strong opinions.”
Frank gives her calf a soft squeeze. “Well, if you’re gonna make me name her, it’s gotta fit, right?”
“Right,” she says, biting her bottom lip to keep from grinning like a lovesick fool. “Did you have one in mind?
He hesitates, scratching at the back of his neck, something Karen knows he only does when he’s nervous. “I do, yeah.”
“Yeah?” she asks, sitting up a little straighter, enough that her leg slips from Frank’s grasp.
He gently reclaims her foot and sets it back in his lap. “Dolly.”
“Dolly,” Karen says, looking at the kitten then back at Frank. There’s a slight blush on his cheeks that usually follows these rare moments of vulnerability. “I like it.”
He finally looks at her, his dark eyes widening slightly, like he expected pushback. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says, reaching forward to rest her hand on his forearm, suddenly needing to touch him even though his hands have been on her for the last 15 minutes.
Frank tugs her toward him, tucking her into his side, something he’s been doing more and more of over the past few weeks. After a beat, he sighs and settles back into the sofa. “Lisa used to love Dolly Parton,” he says, answering the question of “Why that name?” before Karen can ask it. “Used to dance around the house singin’ along to all those old songs. Real loud, real off-key. Drove Maria nuts.”
Karen’s breath catches, sending a sharp ache into her chest, the way it does every time he talks about his family. When she looks at him she expects to see tears in his eyes, but he’s smiling. The kind that crinkles the skin around them, and God, she thinks she’d do anything to see that smile all the time.
“She had this little backpack with rhinestones on it. Had Dolly’s face on the front,” he continues. “No idea where she got it, but she wore the damn thing everywhere she went.”
Karen doesn’t say anything, just rests her head on his shoulder, wanting to give him the space to share more. When he doesn’t, she says, “I think it’s perfect.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. His voice is quiet and raspy. He glances down at the kitten who’s now licking one of her paws with single-minded focus. “Still gonna call her little shit, though.”
She laughs into his shoulder. “Of course you are.”
Karen is dead on her feet when she arrives home from work a few nights later. She stayed late to help Foggy wrap up a motion he planned to file in the morning and is running on fumes by the time she steps through the door.
She’s in the middle of thinking about the long, hot bath she plans to take, when Frank’s voice floats through the apartment. She stops just inside and quietly closes the door when she realizes he’s talking to the cat.
“I know you hate the brush, but you gotta let me do it,” he says, his voice soft and unguarded.
Karen slips off her shoes and takes a few steps toward them, leaning against the entryway to the living room. Her heart skips when she sees them. He’s sitting on the floor with his back against the couch. Dolly is on her side between his bent knees, purring as he gently runs the brush over her orange fur.
“Attagirl,” he whispers, running a hand over her back.
Dolly’s ears perk up and she rolls over onto her feet and trots toward Karen. Frank’s eyes follow the kitten, tracking its path until his gaze meets hers.
“Hey,” she says, bending down to scoop the kitten into her arms, keeping her eyes on his.
“Hey.” He ducks his head and smiles up at her in a way that’s almost shy. Karen expects him to shutter that softness and shove the vulnerability deep into its padlocked box, but he doesn’t. She realizes he stopped doing that with her some time ago.
She sits down next to him on the floor, tucking her legs under her, and nearly sighs out loud when he drapes an arm across her shoulders and pulls her into his side. She melts into him, letting his warmth seep into her. Dolly, never one to take a hint, disrupts the peaceful moment by leaping from Karen’s hold onto Frank’s shoulder. He hisses through his teeth when she overshoots the landing, sinking her claws into him to keep from sliding down his back.
“Goddamnit, Dolly,” Frank grumbles, prying her from his shirt and holding her up until their faces are just inches apart. She blinks at him then licks his nose, and he sets her down on the floor. “Ya little shit.”
Karen has all but given up on trying not to laugh at these moments between them. They’re too precious, too fleeting, and she wants to enjoy every single one Frank gives her. She lets a smile spread across her face.
“What?” Franks asks, flashing her a matching grin.
“This just…” she starts, biting her bottom lip and watching as his gaze drops to her mouth. “It feels good.”
His eyes linger on her lips for another beat then he exhales a settling breath, leaning in so his forehead rests against her temple. “Yeah,” he rasps, so quietly that Karen nearly misses it.
For a long moment they’re completely still, the implications of that small admission lingering between them. Frank shifts back, his brows furrowed like he wants to say something he can’t quite put words to.
“Frank?”
“You know me, Karen,” he says, finally, eyes fixed on the floor like he's still afraid to really let her see him. “I don’t let people in. Not like this. Not anymore. But you… I tried pushing you away, God knows I tried. You're just so goddamn stubborn, you just wouldn’t budge.”
Karen feels her heart start to race, not because this is a revelation, but because it’s not. They’ve been here before, had this same conversation before, but this time it feels like they’re standing at the edge of something more — And instead of stepping back from the ledge in retreat, it feels like Frank might go forward right over the side, taking her with him.
“Frank, what are you trying to say?”
“I don’t know how to do this anymore." He looks at her then, his gaze searching, like he’s trying to find the answers to everything in the depths of her eyes. "I used to. It wasn’t perfect, but I used to know how.”
Karen’s head is spinning with every word he speaks. She knows what he’s trying to tell her but needs him to say it plainly — for her and for himself. She’s seen glimpses of the man beneath years of anger and violence and grief. She’s known he never lost his humanity, not completely; that he’s capable of being better. He just has to want it.
Finally, finally, it seems like he does. And all she wants to do is close her fingers around it, careful and slow, and remind him she’s not afraid of his sharp edges.
“Fuck, this is coming out all wrong,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
“It’s not,” Karen says, resting a hand against his cheek. “It’s not.”
He nods and blows out a heavy breath, like maybe he believes her. “Y’know, Curtis once said to me that most people are just looking for a place to be happy to stand still in. And I thought I’d lost my shot at that when I lost my family,” he says, voice wavering. “But Karen, I think I could find it again.”
“You wanna stand still with me, Frank?” she asks, brushing her thumb over his cheek bone.
“Yeah,” he rasps, looking her directly in the eyes. “Yeah, I do.”
Then he leans in — not all the way, just close enough that his breath ghosts across her lips — and rests a hand at the base of her throat. His hand is warm and steady against her cool skin, and it sends goosebumps skittering down her spine.
“You sure?” he murmurs. His voice has a roughness to it that makes Karen's heart kick. His eyes flicker between hers like he’s searching for any trace of doubt, but there is none. There hasn’t been for a long time.
"I'm sure."
The words are barely out before he closes the space between them. His breath stutters right before their mouths meet, and then he exhales this low, broken sound, a half sigh, half groan, that knocks something loose in her chest. It sounds the way her relief feels, like years of tension and too much wanting and never enough time, finally given room to breathe.
The kiss isn’t rushed or desperate, the way she expected, but it’s not tentative either. It’s deliberate, slow and deep and aching, like he’s taking the time to memorize her, savor her.
Karen's hands find his shoulders, then slide up to the back of his neck, and he’s so solid and so real under her touch that it almost hurts. She tilts her head, parts her lips, and Frank takes the invitation without hesitation, slipping his tongue into her mouth and deepening the kiss.
He tastes like mint toothpaste and smells like soap mixed with something warmer — smoky, unfamiliar, intentional. It takes her a second to place it. He’s wearing cologne. Frank always smells good in that clean, fresh kind of way that's layered over hints of coffee, leather and gun oil. It's familiar and comfortable and inherently him.
But this? This is different. This is on purpose.
He wanted to smell good for her.
She's unable to catch her breath and pulls away slightly, resting her forehead against his. Frank grazes his thumb over her lower lip, his other hand tangled in her hair as it lightly grips the back of her neck. The way he's touching her is simultaneously unraveling her and holding her together.
Karen opens her eyes and sits back to find Frank already watching her, his usually shuttered expression open and soft. “You okay?” she asks once her heart has slowed to a more manageable pace.
He huffs out a short breath through his nose that sounds a little bit like disbelief. “Yeah, I’m good,” he says. His voice is rough and breathless. “Just, uh, sorta can’t believe that just happened.”
“Me too,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper.
She closes her eyes, just for a moment, and can almost feel his lips moving against hers again. Her stomach swoops, but it’s not the anxious kind or the kind she feels every time she’s tried to make him stay but had to watch him walk away from her instead. This feels like safety, like rightness. And the only thing she can think is, finally.
“You gonna tell ‘em? Murdock, Nelson?”
Karen blinks, surprised at the abruptness of the question and the hesitancy in his voice. She studies him for a beat — lines crease his brow, and worry mixed with a bit of self-loathing floods his face. It’s an expression she knows well because it’s one she’s worn before.
“Hey,” she says softly, running her fingers through the hair at his temple until he meets her eyes. “You’re not a secret, ok? But I won’t tell anyone anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“Just figured they’ll notice at some point. Murdock’s got ears like a goddamn bat,” Frank says. He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but Karen knows better.
She smiles, though, because he’s not wrong. Matt will clock the change in them the second they’re all in the same room together. “I don’t care if they know, but we’ll do this in whatever way makes sense for you. At whatever pace you need.”
Frank blows out a breath, like he’d been expecting a different answer. “Thank you.”
Karen leans in and kisses him softly at first, then again, and again, until Dolly decides she’s had quite enough of not being the center of his attention. She tears back into the room Tokyo Drift–style, skidding around the couch and sliding across the hardwood straight into Frank’s leg.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, obvious fondness for the kitten bleeding through as he picks her up and sets her in his lap. “We’re tryin’ to have a moment here.”
Karen just laughs, scratching gently under Dolly’s chin. Frank catches her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. It’s soft and tender in a way that is so unlike him, and her throat tightens because he's finally letting her see the man he's buried beneath all the guilt and fury. And it feels so good, not because she was right about him, but because maybe, finally, he’s starting to believe it too.