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Matt exhales harshly, followed by greedily gulping up lungfuls of air, wincing occasionally from the lances of pain that stab through his still-fresh bullet wound. Savouring the comfort provided by his couch — no, his home one last time, he tries to commit things to memory; the smells, sounds, sensations.
He attempts to tether his focus to the sensation of couch fabric in hopes it can ground him. Perhaps, the fibres brush against his skin like a gentle touch, pulling him away from his frenzied senses.
Well, it doesn’t work like that. Not in the slightest.
Instead, it feels like sandpaper that will rub his skin raw and red. If his mind’s eye squints hard enough, he can just about pretend that he’s sinking into solid brick and concrete, which would actually be much more preferable. (But it’s wrong, because he shouldn’t be able to feel it through his suit if he wore it, shouldn’t be able to hear a curtain blowing so close if he were on the streets, and he shouldn’t be able to smell the lunch he packed yesterday if he wasn’t home.)
Matt’s head throbs like it’s about to vibrate out of his skull, creating a dull ring that fades in and out alongside random conversations like waves lapping at a beach. He's unsure whether he prefers the pain of the bullet wound or his migraine.
He pointedly ignores the smell of aftershave laced with traces of gunpowder and coffee lingering near the kitchen. He pretends to not have noticed the difference in displaced air around the head; his head. He pretends he did not relax the minute he heard that familiar heartbeat.
The whirr of helicopter propellers and the all too familiar shriek of police sirens certainly don’t help with Matt’s headache. Unwanted adrenaline seeps into his system and seeps into his blood. It screams at him to go, to leave, clawing for the embrace of his suit and the cool breeze that surrounds it. But instead, it settles to the bottom of him unevenly, suppressed by exhaustion yet still present, making him uncomfortably twitchy.
He really should go, listen to his mind that also helpfully supplies that Fisk’s special task force is coming with the intent to kill. Time is ticking; Matt knows that, and so does he. Yet, Matt can’t find it in himself to be bothered, weighed down by overwhelm and overdue fatigue. It all seems so pointless now that he thinks about it.
He’s not too sure he even has the intention of making it out alive.
“You’re pretty much the last person I expected to find here.” Matt comments absently, sighing as he begins to hear the shifting of fabric and tapping against marble.
“You know you’re a wall-to-wall asshole?” Frank growls and Matt thinks he can feel the vibration in his chest. “Power goes out, and you got nothing to make a goddamn pot of coffee in this house.”
“Well, not everybody lives in a fallout shelter, Frank.” Matt should stop now, demand Frank to leave, tell him it’s not his fight. He should tell him to shut up so he doesn’t aggravate his wound or worsen his migraine. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t do any of that.
“Is that a new costume? What do they call you now?” Frank snarked, ignoring Matt’s retort. “Nightgown man?” He pushes himself away from the counter and begins to walk to the closest window.
“Yeah well what about you? Aftershave and a haircut. That all for me?” Matt teases, a smirk tugging at his lips as they ease back into familiar banter. He knows it’s not actually—
“Yeah.” Frank nods, pulse strong and steadfast like always. “Yeah, I did it for you.”
It sounds like an admission. Matt can’t even pretend that the thunderous heartbeat pounding in his ribs is Frank’s. It echoes throughout his body and under his skin, reverberating to a delicate spot he dares not acknowledge.
He swallows a mouthful of saliva and licks his chapped lips. “I thought this wasn’t your fight.”
“Yeah, well, I got a phone call that changed my mind.” Matt’s finger twitches from where it rests on his hospital gown, ignoring the bloom of discontent in his chest and the tang of what surely cannot be jealousy in his mouth.
“Care to be more specific?”
“No, I do not.”
Matt sighs tiredly, finally letting his head fall back to rest against the couch. He makes no move to get up.
“Tick-tock, Red. Time’s ticking and I’m pretty sure you know that better than me.” Frank drawls, knuckles knocking against a window, drawing Matt’s attention back to the outside world.
His migraine comes back into focus as he tries his best to ingest the information collected by his sensory input, skimming over buzzing lights and colognes. He attempts to concentrate on police conversations over wailing sirens and friction from rubber and asphalt. It’s difficult, and Matt only manages to pick up small bits and pieces that tell him nothing.
Eventually it becomes too much for him to handle, Matt’s senses picking up faster than what he can process. He moans in pain, bringing a hand up to cradle his head while the other crinkles his nightgown, flinching as the motions seem to also exacerbate his shoulder wound.
Frank’s head snaps towards him, heart rate spiking slightly at the sound Matt makes. “Hey, Red. You good?” He stalks towards Matt, reaching the couch in a couple of strides, reeking of cortisol and emitting body heat like a radiator. “Nap time’s up, we gotta go.” Frank mutters, placing a gentle but steady hand on Matt’s shoulder and squeezing lightly.
The sensation still makes Matt jolt, even if he’d expected it. He cannot deny the way his breath hitches and his pulse hastens. He unconsciously begins to map out callouses and wrinkles of Frank’s hand through the thin polycotton like mycelium, acutely aware of the heat from the hand that rests firmly on his shoulder. It burns him like a brand and Matt prays that it stays.
“Have you ever had a building fall on you?” Matt asks suddenly, head tilting back to stare vaguely at Frank with a self-depreciating smile. The hand on his shoulder tenses, grip tightening as Frank exhales sharply.
“No. This about Midland Circle?”
“Yeah.” He answers honestly, and in another beat, “You’ve heard about it?”
Frank snorts, “Whaddya mean, ‘have I heard of it’? Of course I have, that shit was all over the news. I’d be surprised if there’s someone out there who hasn’t heard of it.” He hesitates, before adding, “Also heard about the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen goin’ missing around the same time.”
“Hm.” Matt nods, head tilting away from Frank to dip his head and angle his ears, listening around in a vague scan of the perimeter. He knows they’re closing in, but nobody’s even reached the building yet. He still has time. They still have time.
“What did it feel like? What— what was it like? For you, when it fell.” Frank asks after a beat or two, taking his hand away from Matt’s shoulder. Matt barely restrains himself from reaching for it, for more. He misses it already, clinging onto the phantom warmth from the grip on his shoulder that grounded him; tethered him.
“... I was underground, there was this huge structure beneath the building— probably hundreds of feet deep. We were at the bottom yet I could still hear the bombs going off, loud and clear. The pipes probably magnified the blast— I could smell the gas from all the way down there.” Matt blinks hazily, recounting the memories recorded by his senses. “But the explosion was only the beginning.” He mumbles solemnly, head lolling against the couch.
“Walls and floors and ceilings crumbled like chalk, foundations being reduced to dust, burst pipes and snapped wiring as well.” Matt’s fingers fiddles with his nightgown as he pauses momentarily, letting the recollection catch up to him. “I could hear glass shatter and the way they splintered into even smaller shards.”
“The furniture was next—” Matt begins again, “or, it all happened at the same time. It’s hard to tell since I couldn’t concentrate, it would’ve been pointless overstimulation anyways.” He sighs, having a change of mind and trying to smooth out his wrinkled gown. “There were couches getting ripped apart, vases and pots shattering like glass before them, tables splintering and snapping. The sounds were muffled, sure, but I could still feel the vibrations from all the crashing and breaking. It felt like holding a blender that had a bunch of sticks and rocks shoved into it and turned it on.”
“You mentioned ‘we’, who else was there, Red?” Frank inquires curiously, shuffling over next to Matt and resting his elbows over the backrest of the couch as he leans over it, tilting his head to face Matt.
He’s oddly close, so close to the point where Matt can taste the chili he had for lunch and the last cup of coffee he had from his lips. Matt knows that the chili Frank had was made by himself because he can smell garlic powder and onion lingering in the fabric of his shirt. Matt knows that Frank cleaned more guns than he brought with him, and the exact brand of gun oil he uses even though Matt himself doesn’t use guns.
Matt turns away from Frank, licking his lips as he shivers from something electric in the air, taking a momentary break from the sheer flood of Frank invading his senses. It’s outrageously addictive, a chaotic and unyielding ambience that Matt associates very closely to Elektra — yet, Frank’s is different in his own way.
“Elektra.” He replies, tilting his head back to face Frank, although he makes no effort in pretending he’s looking at him. “I was with Elektra.”
“Ain’t that your girl that died in your arms? The one on the rooftop?”
“Yeah… It’s complicated.”
Frank snickers, “Yeah, no shit.” Matt makes a face but doesn’t elaborate further, choosing to return to the original topic.
“When the building actually started coming down, I remember talking to Elektra. I remember telling her we were going to die. I remember kissing her and trying to focus on her presence to ground me.” Matt exhales sharply. “It wasn’t… death that I was worried about, not at all— I never had any intention of making it out of there alive in the first place. It was… everything else.
“You see, when the building began to actually collapse in on itself, it had also let everything else come down with it, like a dam that had been broken. Wood, insulation, dust, ash, glass; everything that was in Midland Circle all came down on me— on us. Now, because the structure was so deep, it took a while for things to reach us, but that also meant I got the luxury of getting to know the downpour of debris very well. Everything started shaking, and I could feel the tremors from everything through the ground beneath me, through Elektra, through the air between us.
"It was more than just overwhelming and painful, it was like if you owned every electrical device and shoved it into a small room before cranking it up to the highest setting."
He pauses again, taking a few shaky breaths in a way that Frank has no way of understanding. “By the time things finally fell on us I wasn’t sure if the pain I felt was from the sheer sensory overload or being crushed by the remains of Midland Circle. But I knew one thing, and it was that I would die there.”
“It didn’t work, clearly. But it almost did.” Matt adds after a beat of silence that has somehow turned uncomfortable. He’s not too sure when the intimate quiet between them had gone stale, but it makes his heart clench in discomfort and desperation stirs in his blood. “It was selfish, I know. I just— I didn’t think I would be able to live without him being a part of my life, but that also meant that the people I cared about could be in danger because of it. I thought that if I died, I'd have nothing to worry about.”
Frank shakes his head and clicks his tongue, exuding disapproval. “Yeah? And how’s that worked out for you?” It feels like a slap to Matt’s face, although he probably deserved it.
“So what? Is this you telling me you wanna kill yourself?” Frank snarks incredulously. And Matt laughs, a genuine giggle bubbling out of him. And he’s pretty sure his bullet wound has made him delirious because he thinks he hears Frank’s heartbeat stutter at it — or maybe something else granted that he didn’t imagine it skipping a beat in the first place.
“Well, since I’ve already experienced a building collapse on me, I figured maybe I could try it the other way around. See how it feels.” He quips, shifting around on the couch to get a little more comfortable.
It’s a bad joke, Fisk’s men aren’t here to explode the building at all — there’s still residents going about their nightlife a few floors down; they’re here for him, and him only. Well, they’re probably after Frank too now that he’s here. Although, probably not if he leaves.
Unfortunately, Frank does not take the hint. He stays rooted where he is, cocking an eyebrow at Matt as the sound of a chopper emerges into focus, along with varying searchlights shining into the building.
Matt exhales a pained sigh and groans, “You aren’t gonna leave even if I tell you to, are you?” Frank snorts at that with a playful grin, seemingly taking joy in Matt’s suffering as he shakes his head.
“I made a promise to get you outta here alive. That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.” Frank snaps, finally pushing himself off and away from the couch. He begins to pace around the room, flicking his gaze from window to window in a sweeping manner. “I’m not gonna let you do this to yourself, Red.”
His pulse is steady and unwavering, thrumming with resolution and renewed purpose.
It sounds like a vow.