Work Text:
The Courage of Stars
Part 1
Present day
“Rise and shine, Red.”
Matt woke with a start, and it took a moment for him to orient himself. He wasn’t in his bed in his apartment, and Frank most certainly wasn’t there. Those two facts hit him like a bucket of ice water to his face. Everything else came in slow waves. He was in the front seat of Maria’s SUV. Max and the kids were snoring loudly behind him. Maria was still behind the wheel humming along to the low melodies coming from the speakers.
“Where are we now?” Matt whispered, sitting up in his seat and wiping a hand across his face.
“Just passed the Virginia state line,” she answered, stifling a yawn. “I think it’s time to pull over the next time I spot a motel.”
Shaking the sleep from his brain, Matt ran his fingers along the face of his watch. “It’s almost one-thirty. You’ve been at this for almost six hours after working a full shift. Don’t you think we should have stopped a while ago?”
He could practically hearher shrug. “Did Frank used to try driving straight through everywhere when he was with you?” she asked instead. “That always used to drive me crazy. One time he even drove from New York to Orlando without stopping for more than half an hour. He wouldn’t even let me drive.”
“Yeah. He was an asshole about that. Wouldn’t let me drive either,” Matt joked.
“You couldn’t be any worse than Frank was at about the twenty hour mark, I’d say.” She let out a husky laugh as the car turned. “I see a Motel Six. I hope you like lumpy mattresses and questionable sheets.”
Spring, 2012
“Rise and shine, Red,” Frank whispered, running a knuckle down Matt’s cheek.
Nuzzling into the touch, Matt tried to ignore the pain shooting down his back from having practically turned himself pretzel-shapedin the front seat of Frank’s Impala. “How much farther do we have to go?” he asked with a yawn.
“We’re there.” Frank kissed his head lightly. “You slept from Pennsylvania on down.”
“Frank, the GPS said it was a ten hour trip. You drove the whole way down without stopping?” Matt asked incredulously.
Frank let out a chuckle. “Did not. I stopped in Virginia to take a piss and get gas. Max and I even took a walk. I can’t help it you slept the whole goddamntime.”
“You made a ten hour trip in less than seven.”
“Did not,” he repeated again. “I made a nine and a half hour trip in six hours and thirty-seven minutes. I ran into the landlord’s office to pick up our keys before I woke you up.”
If his husband didn’t sound so damn proud of himself, Matt probably would have been pointing out that the speed limit existed for a reason. Instead, he cracked his neck and reached for his cane. “Well, what is Holly Ridge like?”
“Like any other fucking military town. Service stars in every god damn window and red-white-and-blue bullshit coming out their ears. Saw a nice view of the ocean comin’ in though,” Frank added as an afterthought.
“Sounds like your kind of town,” Matt murmured with a chuckle.
“I think it is gonna be my kind of town,” Frank agreed.
When they’d first gotten together, everything had to be kept under a certain amount of secrecy thanks to the DADT policy. Frank’s career in the Marines demanded it, and to be honest, it had suited Matt well enough back then too. Neither man was ready for any kind of long-haul commitmentback then. Frank was newly divorced, and Matt had just finished off yet another horribly destructive relationship. Still, it hadn’t taken long for the sneaking around to take its toll on both of them. Now, after nearly five years together, it was going to be an amazing change of pace to be able to be out together—in a military town, no less. For that reason alone, Matt had a feeling this was going to be his kind of town too.
“Let’s go take a look at our new home,” he said with a big grin. Without warning, Matt found himself suddenly airborne. He gave a startled cry and wrapped his arms around Frank’s neck.
“If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it right,” the larger man whispered into his ear as he walked. Though he fumbled with the door a bit beneath Matt’s rear, he managed to get them through. “Welcome home, Red.”
Present Day
Matt flopped on the mattress,too exhausted to care that the whole room smelled like mildew. The springs creaking beneath him gave way more on one side than the other, and he had a feeling he knew why. Letting out a disgusted sigh, he decided to sleep fully-clothedand on top of the covers rather than beneath them. His body have beenready to give up the ghost for the day, but his mind was still whirling.
It had been nearly two years since he’d stepped foot below the proverbial Mason-Dixon line, but it felt like much longer. He thought about Holly Ridge daily and missed it almost like an amputee would miss an arm, but he’d still never imagined himself going back. They’d made their home there togetherand going home without his husband just felt wrong. His insides were all screaming that he should beg Maria to turn right back around and head for New York. Curling his knees to his chest, Matt had to once again remind himself exactly why he was going back.
Spring, 2012
“Hello there, neighbors!” A loud voice called from the doorway. Frank and Matt had left it open as they ferried in the last of their things from the car. Matt, being a New Yorker, felt his guard instantly raise as he heard two pairs of footsteps moving down hall.
“Annie!” Frank cried out in reply from behind him. Matt felt a whoosh of air as his husband raced to the door to greet the mythical Annie Hammond—he presumed—at the door. There was a squawk as Frank swept her off her feet in one of his famous bear hugs that only a select few people ever got.
“You try that with me, boy, and I’ll knock you into next Christmas. You hear?” the second woman piped in with a withered voice. “Now, give Mama some sugar and introduce me to that pretty husband of yours, Frankie.”
Frank let out a hearty laugh and did as he was told. “Mrs. Edna Anne Hammond, may I introduce my husband, Matthew Michael Murdock,” he introduced with a faux-drawl accent.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hammond,” Matt said, holding out his hand. To his surprise, the old woman held it rather than shaking it.
“Stand up straight now and let me get a good look at you,” she commanded. As he did what he was told, she began clucking her tongue disapprovingly. “Not sure what in the good Lord’s creation they’ve been feeding you up there, boy, but we’ll get some meat on those bones soon enough.”
Annie laughed. “What my grandmother means, Matt, is that she’s going to enjoy showing off her cooking skills to a new audience and you look like you could stand to eat that kind of thing for a while before hitting the treadmill. She’s already fattened me and my wife up.”
“Thanks for the translation,” he said, sharing in her humor. “I’ve been hearing stories—some of them almost too much to believe—about both of you from Frank since we met practically. It’s great to finally meet you in person. I was starting to think all of his friends were imaginary.”
The comment earned him a playful swat on the ass from Frank, and his husband wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’malmost afraid of what you three will get into together,” he teased.
Present day
“Annie. Annie. Annie.” Matt’s phone skittered across the nightstand. Groping for it with one hand, he brought the other across his roughly stubbled jaw.
“Hey,” he murmured into the handset sleepily.
“Hey, yourself,” the voice on the other end replied. “Still planning on coming?”
“I told you I was,” he said irritably. “We stopped in Virginia so Maria could sleep. We’ll probably grab breakfast and finish the trip.”
“It’s a little late for breakfast, Matt. It’s almost twelve-thirty,” Annie said with a little laugh. “I’m sure Maria has the kids up and fed. Knowing her she probably found a mall to bum around in until your sorry ass was up.”
“Damn.” Matt sighed heavily and let his head flop back against the flimsy pillow.
“You know you don’t have to do this, right? No one expects you to...”
“I expect me to,” he cut in.
“All right then. I guess I’ll see you sometime between supper and breakfast.”
After he hung up the phone, Matt pinched his eyes shut tightly and tried to will away the headache that was building between his brows.
They’d ended up getting charged a fee for late check-out by the time Maria and the kids made it backfrom the outlet mall and they were back on the road. Matt wanted to be pissed off at her for just leaving him there to sleep, but he couldn’t be. He knew this was no picnic for her either. She’d practically dropped everything to help him. In the end, he decided not to even bring it up once they were back on the road.
Lighting the candle on the last of the jack-o-lanterns on their front porch, Matt took a moment to simply enjoy the clean scent of the fall air. Back in New York, the air had always been heavier and tinged with some less-than-savory aromas mixed in, but here he mostly smelled the ocean and the crisp scent of falling leaves.
“Christ, Red, you bought enough candy to give the whole fucking town sugar shock,” Frank murmured from behind him.
“I didn’t want to run out again. Besides, you can’t tell me you haven’t already been eating the Reeses. I can smell the peanut butter from here,” the blind man said, tapping the side of his nose lightly. “Never underestimate my superpowers.”
Frank laughed and wrapped an arm around Matt’s waist. “Admit it; you’reloving this suburbia shit.”
Nodding, Matt leaned back into his husband’s arms. “I do. Way more than I thought I would.”
Holly Ridge was the proverbial Mayberry. It felt like a community in the way that seemed to get lost in the shuffle of larger cities. Everyone seemed to know everyone, whether they were military or not, and people actually dropped by randomly to their neighbor’s front doors to say “hi” or invite them over for a backyard BBQ. Matt had lived in his apartment back in the city for almost four years but only knew his immediate neighbors by name. Here he could rattle off the names, occupations, hobbies, and families of at least fifty peopleout of just his housing plan alone.
Trick-or-treat was just another example of what he loved about the small-town life. Last October had come as something as a shock to him when not only did more than sixty kids show up at their door by the time they ran out of candy, but the parents actually stayed to talk for a few minutes and socialize as they stopped. This year, Matt had put together over a hundred baggies filled with candy and had hot spiked cider warming in a crock on a small table beside the Adirondack chairs on their tiny front patio. From down the street, he could hear the spooky house sounds coming from a radio on at Annie and Kelly’s place. On the other side of the cal-de-sac, he knew that the Fosters were setting up a tub to bob for apples,and dozens of their other neighbors were getting their own little touches ready for the influx of kids that would be coming in the next hour.
“Got your costume on?” he asked dreamily.
“I look fucking ridiculous,” the marine grumbled. “Don’t see how I ended up agreeing to this shit.”
Matt smiled, but didn’t say a word. Frank hadn’t actually put up much of a fight when Matt had suggested dressing up as the greatest closeted gay couple in history: Captain America and Bucky. Annie had enthusiastically helped Matt shop for the outfits and even stopped over to paint a small mask around Matt’s eyes to make him look like Bucky Barnes out of the old comics that he remembered from childhood. He knew that despite his current complaints, Frank was actually enjoying this too. He hadn’t tossed the red,white, and blue suit back at Matt when it was presented to him and had even tried it on without too much swearing. It would be a lie to say that picturing his husband dressed up as the first man he’d ever fantasized about wasn’t a major turn on, but he would wait until all of the kids were home to tell Frank about it.
The kids started roaming the streets not long after Matt had lit their pumpkins. Most of them they knew from other events at Lejeune, but a few were either new to the area or had driven in for the safe place to trick-or-treat. Frank made a point to tell Matt what each younger kid was dressed asat first, but then many of the older kids seemed to get a real kick out of explaining their costumes in great detail. A few even had to be ushered on to other houses by their parents when their explanation seemed to go on for a bit too long—like the kid who wanted to make darn sure that Matt knew the difference between Kyle Rainer Green Lantern, and Hal Jordan Green Lantern. By the time the last of the ghosts, ghouls, princesses, and power rangers were off the streets, Matt was ready to snuggle onto the couch with his husband and an another glass of that spiked cider.
Instead, he heard his husband’s phone chirping behind him as they hauled in the crock and the remaining candy.
“Shit!” Frank cursed, slamming the cauldron shaped bowl onto the counter. “Looks like I’ve gotta go to the base.”
“Now?”
Frank kissed his forehead. “Duty calls and all that bullshit. You knew things were going to be different once I got promoted.”
Matt felt his heart sink, but he forced a smile anyway. “You’re right, Captain America. Go swap uniforms and defend truth, justice, and the American way.”
The joke earned him a light elbow to his ribs and another kiss. They both knew that if Frank was being called in this late, that he would more thanlikely be deployed somewhere to do something that he was not able to talk about—even with Matt. Humor was one of the only ways Matt could survive these kinds of things.
Not even ten minutes later, Frank was on his way out the door. He stopped long enough to kiss Matt again on the lips. “See you around, Red,” he murmured against the top off Matt’s head.
“See you around,” Matt replied, burying his face in the crook of Frank’s neck.
The first time Frank had gone overseas had been the worst. The goodbye alone had almost killed Matt. He’d gotten so emotional just trying to put everything into words that he wanted to get out that he’d just turned into a mess. Frank, on the other hand, seemed almost stoic to the point of beingunfeeling. What Matt said in a million words and what Frank meant in only few weren’t actually that different. A half dozen missions and “training exercises” later, they had finally managed to pareit back to just “see you around.” It hurt less for them both to pretend that it wasjust another day in the office.
Once the door shut behind Frank, that was when Matt finally let himself feel it all. He listened to the car pull out of the garage and poured himself an extra large glass ofcider. He’d always known that being with Frank was going to involve nights like this, but damn if it didn’t hurt to know that his husband was going to be in harm’s way somewhere in the world,without Matt having any idea where that somewhere was or why he needed to be there. In his wildest dreams, Matt imagined what life would be like without the Marines, but he knew that the corps was a much a part of Frank as his own heart.
“Sempre fidelas,” Matt muttered aloud. Always faithful.