Chapter Text
“So,” Matt starts.
He’s standing behind the bar of Josie’s, pouring two glasses of whisky. Since the dive has become the unofficial headquarters of the resistance against Mayor Fisk, it’s usually got at least a few other people hanging around, but this is one of the rare times when he and Karen are alone, all of their various allies out on other business. Josie hasn’t come down from her apartment upstairs, and the space is quiet, the day’s remaining sunlight filtering in through the newspaper covered windows.
Karen looks up from where she’s perched at the bar, bent over her laptop, eyebrows raising when she sees the look on Matt’s face.
“Uh oh,” she says, half serious. “That’s your ‘we need to talk’ face.”
She holds out her hand for one of the glasses. Matt gives her a small grin.
“Oh, no. These are both for me,” he jokes gently. “Get your own.”
Karen rolls her eyes and doesn’t move her hand. Matt slides one of the glasses over to her. It’s a relief to him to not have to pretend he’s using the tricks of a blind man to operate in the world, and he clings to that feeling, that openness he has with Karen. He doesn’t want to lose it, so he tries to manage his emotions and his judgement.
“Come on, Matt, spill it,” Karen says, laughing nervously. “You’re freaking me out.”
Matt takes a sip from his glass, wincing a bit at the taste.
“Ugh. Good to know Josie hasn’t changed her booze supplier.” He’s stalling, and Karen can tell. She raises an eyebrow at him and takes her own sip, remaining silent, waiting for him to speak.
“So,” Matt starts again. “You, uh, you talk to Frank recently?”
Karen’s face stays carefully neutral, but there’s an uptick in her heart rate that she can’t hide. It’s clear she wasn’t expecting this line of questioning. It’s been weeks since the night she’d summoned Frank to rescue him, and neither of them had mentioned the other man in the interim.
“Nope,” she says nonchalantly, toying with the whisky glass in her hands and not looking up at Matt.
“You, uh, haven’t seen him since… the night you got back into town?”
Karen laughs, unable to hide her bitterness.
“Frank was pretty blunt that he wasn’t interested. In helping us,” she adds quickly, “So no, I haven’t seen him. Or talked to him. Radio silence.” Karen takes a deep sip of her whisky and finally looks up at Matt. “Why?”
Matt clears his throat and looks awkward.
“I’ve seen him around. Not long enough to talk to,” he quickly adds, sensing Karen’s sharp look. “He’s just… he’s hanging around the AVTF base and some of the outposts. Seems like he’s doing surveillance.” Matt shrugs. “Guess I thought maybe you’d asked him to, since he didn’t seem so keen on it when I brought it up.”
Karen frowns.
“I haven’t asked him to do that, no,” she says slowly. “He was pretty unambiguous on what we could expect from him.”
“I thought maybe if you’d spoken to him privately… he might have, uh… changed his mind.”
Karen runs her hand through her hair, sighing. She takes a bracing sip of whisky.
“What are you really asking me, Matt?” Karen asks, looking up at him. Matt doesn’t answer immediately, taking a sip from his own glass and considering it, running his fingers over the smooth surfaces as he delicately chooses his next words.
“What’s going on with you and Frank?” he finally asks bluntly.
Screw delicacy.
Even though Karen must have known the question was coming, a burst of anxious adrenaline shoots through her body, leaving her heart beating faster and her stomach fluttering.
“Nothing,” she says, trying to keep her voice calm, but it has a bitter tang. “Nothing’s going on.”
It’s not quite a lie, but it’s also not quite the truth.
“It didn’t seem like nothing,” Matt notes, leaving the observation open for her to reply. Karen fidgets, before remembering that her every move is like a signal flare to Matt, and she stills.
“Last time I saw him, before, we…” she pauses, pressing her lips together in agitation. “... had a disagreement.” She shrugs and runs a hand through her hair, heart beating fast. “Hadn’t spoken to him since.”
“Must have been some disagreement,” Matt comments neutrally. Karen huffs and nods.
“Yeah. You could say that.” He can read her emotional state clearly, can hear the muscles in her throat tighten and the way she struggles to swallow around her expanded airway. Knows that this means she’s feeling a lump in her throat and is trying not to cry.
Matt stays silent, waiting for Karen to compose herself. She manages to swallow a gulp of whisky, coughing slightly as it burns her, but it seems to help because he can detect that her breathing comes more easily after that.
“Karen,” Matt finally sighs. “Look, can we stop dancing around this?”
“Dancing around what?” Karen asks, “I’m telling you the truth.”
“Around the fact that I know there’s something between you two! I heard your heartbeats, okay? I know. I know .”
“Okay, well if you already know, why are we even having this conversation?” Karen retorts, defensive, her voice rising. “I don’t know what you want me to say here, Matt!”
“Okay, well, how about you start by explaining how you fell in love with a mass murderer!” Matt explodes, losing the grip he has on his temper. “Christ, Karen, what is wrong with you?!”
Her reaction is instantaneous.
“Nothing is wrong with me, Matt,” she snaps back immediately. “And don’t call him that!”
“Well, he’s murdered a massive number of people! It seems like an appropriate label,” Matt snarls. “What, you want something more sensitive? ‘Freelance executioner,’ maybe? ‘Human offboarding consultant?’ ‘Life termination associate?’” He’s almost shouting at her, now. “Whatever you call him, it doesn’t change the fact that he kills people!”
“Yeah, he does,” Karen barks back, standing up to stare Matt right in the face. “Murderers, and rapists, and human traffickers! I don’t agree with what he does, but I’m not going to waste my sympathy on people who are actively working to make the world a more horrible place!”
“It doesn’t matter who they are, Karen, it matters that he’s the type of man who’d choose to do that! He has no right to decide who lives and who dies, but he– he goes out, every night, playing judge, jury and executioner– playing God– and it’s completely and utterly wrong. He has no right!” Matt is shouting now, his pulse and Karen’s hammering in his ears.
“Yeah? So why aren’t you going after him?” Karen challenges. “If he’s so morally repugnant. He’s been in the city for years and you’ve done nothing to try and stop him. Why hasn’t the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen put him in prison? I’ll tell you why, Matt. Because he’s saved your life. He’s saved mine, and hundreds of other people’s lives. Without Frank, we’d both be dead. You may not agree with what he does, but you know it’s necessary.”
She’s breathing hard, the heat of blood radiating from her cheeks.
“And you know what else? I don’t think you’re angry at me at all. You’re angry at yourself, because now you’ve got a taste of what it’s like to be Frank. When you tried to kill Poindexter, you chose vengeance instead of justice. And you hate yourself for it.”
The room goes silent.
They both stand, on opposite sides of the bar, glaring at one another, cheeks flushed, breath coming hard.
Matt backs down first. He puts his hands on the bar and leans down, bowing his head, trying to take deep breaths to calm himself down. Karen lets out one last sharp exhale and turns away, running one hand through her hair and putting the other one over her mouth, like she’s trying to take back some of the words she’s spit at him in anger.
“Goddamnit, Karen," Matt whispers finally, his voice wrecked. "You’re right."
“Matt–”
“No, Karen, you’re… you’re right. Not about everything–” he cracks a tiny, crooked smirk, and Karen huffs a miniscule laugh, “but… I was on that roof, and… when I heard his heart stop–” Matt breaks off into a sob. “I didn’t care. We were on the edge of the building, and Poindexter laughed … I knew it was wrong and I tried to kill him anyway. God help me, I wanted him dead. I wanted revenge.”
Karen has crossed her arms over her chest, holding herself, watching her best friend wrestle with his actions, and her heart breaks for him. She approaches the bar and puts her hands on his.
“Matt, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No. No, it’s the truth. I just…” he closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath around the tears in his throat. “Frank said it to me, once. He said that I was just one bad day away from being him.” Matt laughs bitterly. “He was right.”
Karen shakes her head.
“No, Matt, he wasn’t.” When Matt tries to pull his hands away, she grips them tighter. “He wasn’t . Because when you found out Poindexter didn’t die, you let the courts give him the punishment he deserved. You made a mistake, but you fixed it. You didn’t kill him. You’re not a murderer, Matt. You’re not .”
“But I tried, Karen,” Matt whispers, the tears coming hot and fast before he can stop them. “I knew it was wrong. Vengeance belongs only to God. But in that moment, I just didn’t care. I made the decision to do evil. It doesn’t matter that Poindexter survived. I meant for him to die. And in my soul, in the eyes of God– that makes me a murderer.” He sobs it out, brokenly— the confession that he’s been holding back for over a year. Finally giving words to his grief and his guilt.
“Matt,” Karen says quietly, “I’m not Catholic. I’m not a priest. But what I know is that when he lived, when he sucked in that breath on the concrete, you stopped . You let the ambulance take Poindexter away. You let him get medical attention. And you let him go to trial, and be sentenced by a judge, and sit in prison. You could have killed him easily at any point. But you didn’t. One moment of weakness… it’s not the same as what Frank does.”
Matt takes in a shuddering breath.
“And what’s more,” Karen continues, “I know you wish you could take it back. And if I know, I’m sure God does too.”
Matt lets out a strangled noise.
“I just… I miss him so much,” he sobs haltingly.
“I know, Matt,” Karen grips Matt’s hands tightly. “I miss him too.” Her eyes are full of tears, but she doesn’t let go of Matt’s hands, and they fall unchecked down her face. “Foggy was the best of us. And it’s not fair, but it’s also not your fault.”
Matt’s hands are clenched into fists on the bar top, Karen’s smooth ones wrapped around them. He slowly relaxes, and turns them upwards, fingers clasping around Karen’s slender palms. She squeezes reassuringly.
“I don’t know what it’ll take for you to forgive yourself, Matt,” she says softly. “But you are deserving of forgiveness. You are . And I know Foggy wouldn’t want you to hate yourself for what happened to him.”
Matt nods, trying to believe her, his face sticky from the dried salt of his tears. Karen extricates her hands from his, and rounds the bar, grabbing a clean rag and running it under cold water in the sink. She approaches Matt and raises a hand to his glasses before pausing, waiting for him to give her permission. He nods, and she softly removes the dark lenses, gently beginning to wipe the salt from his face, with a tenderness that threatens to make him cry all over again.
“I’m sorry I shut you out, Karen,” Matt says quietly. Karen nods.
“I know you are.”
She continues to wipe his face clean, and then gently indicates that he should close his eyes with her fingertips. He complies, and she presses the cool rag against his puffy lids, soothing the red and inflamed skin.
“I’m sorry I left.” Knowing Matt’s eyes are covered, even though he can’t see her, seems to give Karen the strength to say it.
Matt reaches up to place his hand on her shoulder, putting just enough pressure to comfort.
“I know.”
Karen takes Matt’s hand and places it on the rag over his eyes, gently indicating that he should hold it there. She lets go and pours them both another tumbler of whisky and leans back against the bar, sliding down until she’s sitting on the floor, legs bent at the knees. Matt hesitates for a moment, and then slides down to sit beside her.
They sit in the silence for a moment, both of them coming down from the unexpected emotional rollercoaster. Matt can hear Karen’s pulse beginning to slow, her muscles relaxing, as they both process their fight.
He feels better, now that it’s out in the open.
“So,” he clears his throat, “I can’t help but notice we’ve gotten a bit sidetracked.”
Karen laughs incredulously.
“You still want to talk about… that?” she asks, looking at him like he’s crazy.
“I just want to understand,” Matt replies, earnest now. “Karen, I’ve known you for a long time now, and it was… I’ve never felt your body react more strongly to anything than it did when you saw Frank that night.”
“That’s not fair, Matt,” Karen frowns.
“I know it’s not fair. But I can’t… I can’t just turn it off. I couldn’t help but notice. And now I know, I can’t just un-know. You’ve always kept secrets from me — and I’ve kept them from you,” he hastily adds, as he senses Karen’s face twitch into an expression that can only be described as ‘that’s a bit rich coming from you’.
“But I want there to be no more secrets between us,” Matt continues. “You don’t owe me an explanation. But this feels… important.” He stops, and waits.
Karen is quiet.
“I get that, Matt, I do,” she finally says softly. “I don’t want there to be any secrets between us either. But I don’t know how to explain it. There’s… I don’t know of a word that fits.”
“You’re in love with him.” Matt states this gently, keeping any judgement from his tone. Letting her sit with it for a moment. He feels her heart speed up again, smells the cortisol–stress– coming from her pores, along with the bitter tang of adrenaline.
Karen takes a deep breath and sips her whisky.
“Yeah,” she whispers. It’s the first time she’s ever admitted it out loud.
“How long?”
Karen sighs.
“I don’t know. A long time.”
“The trial?”
She shakes her head.
“No. I was sort of seeing someone else at the time.” She gives Matt a little side eye.
Matt winces. They’d hashed that out before, but remembering how he’d handled his double life would always be a bit of a sore spot between them.
“I just wanted justice for his family. And I wanted to expose the conspiracy. If anything, it was selfish. I saw myself in him— someone who’d been set up by the system and had to murder because of it.” She sighs. “And I knew what it was like to lose everything like that, in the blink of an eye. How your world goes from being one thing and then overnight it’s just… completely different. Like gravity has turned upside down. And to have that moment haunt you.”
“Frank would only talk to you,” Matt remembers.
“Yeah, well. He liked that I called him on his bullshit. Respected me. I think it helped that I wasn’t actually a lawyer,” she teases. Matt chuckles.
“Well, he wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to talk to anyone else.” Matt takes a sip, grimacing again at the taste. He can feel the whisky beginning to do its work, his muscles slowly relaxing, and knows Karen is feeling it too.
“So, not the trial, then. After he escaped?”
Karen bites her lip.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“The night on the docks, when that ship blew up… I was there. I heard you arrive with Brett.” Karen frowns, remembering. “I heard your heart when the ship exploded. And later, when I was fighting the Hand, and he came to help… I know you saw him. I heard you say his name.” Matt’s voice is soft, as gentle as she’s ever heard it. “I misunderstood, then. But it makes sense now.”
Karen closes her eyes.
“I didn’t know,” she says quietly. He can’t tell what she’s referring to— That Matt was there, or that she had already fallen.
“Can you tell me what happened while I was gone?” Matt asks softly, putting his hand on hers. Karen takes a deep breath.
She tells him about the homeless man who wasn’t a homeless man, about a beer in her apartment and a request for help. She tells him about a CIA analyst who’d been killed, shot while resisting arrest for a charge of treason, whose body was never recovered from the water. She tells him about flowers in the window, about a rough voice pleading for her help.
She tells him about tears by the river, a kiss on the cheek, so hesitant and soft that it might not have happened at all. How it shook her to her core with a realization she wasn’t ready for but felt like pieces falling into place.
Matt listens as she tells him about explosions, gunfire, tear gas, smoke bombs, about looking down the barrel of a gun and thinking she was about to die. About a body appearing in front of her, taking the bullets with her name on them. About another man’s arm violently gripping her, locking her against certain death. How he’d made her a promise, and he’d kept it, and how he’d silently told her how to save herself. How after the explosion, she’d found herself lying on the floor of an industrial kitchen, covered in debris, dazed and not knowing which way was up, but how the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was his face. How his gaze bored into her as though willing her to be unhurt, fingers gently combing through her hair to cradle her head in his hand.
Matt frowns when she tells him about a gun pressed to her chin, shielding her savior in turn, using her body to protect him the way he’d protected her. About a moment of peace, of shared breath, of something unspoken not because of fear but because it didn’t need to be said at all.
He frowns harder when she tells him about a hospital, about three dead women, and a girl, and a frame job. About how she’d offered another way, a way they could be together, and how he’d pushed her away so hard they’d never spoken again.
It’s quite the eye-opener.
Figuratively speaking.
“Jesus, Karen,” Matt breathes when she finishes. Karen laughs, her voice a bit looser now with the whisky she’s been sipping to wet her throat as she speaks.
“I know,” she says. “What a shitshow, right.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not what I was talking about.” Matt shakes his head. “You never told me it was so bad.”
Karen shrugs.
“It just seemed easier. Not to talk about it. Probably not the advice a therapist would go with, but I kept having nightmares about Lewis and I wanted to just forget it.” She pauses to put her hand over her mouth, but then drops it down as though she’s made a decision.
“And I didn’t want you to know about Frank,” she admits. “You’d just come back… and we were rebuilding, you know, and I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”
Matt frowns but nods. It’s fair. If he’d found out about her feelings for Frank Castle back then, well, he probably wouldn’t have taken it well. Not that he’s taken it particularly well now, he thinks dryly, but at least they’re having a conversation.
“And… what he does… it doesn’t bother you?” he hedges, not wanting to get into an argument. But he has to know.
Karen’s forehead wrinkles.
“Of course it bothers me, Matt,” she snaps. Then, in a softer tone: “But… It’s complicated. It’s never changed the way I feel about him. I knew what he was right from the beginning, and I… it happened anyway.” She shrugs, looking away.
Something occurs to Matt about the timeline of her story, and he asks the question, trying to give Karen a bit of a reprieve.
“Where was he when Poindexter attacked you as Daredevil?” Matt wants to know. “Seems like that would have been something he’d want to get involved with. Kicking my ass and saving you.” He tries out a gently teasing tone and is rewarded with a wry smile.
“He was out of town,” Karen replies, almost wistfully. “He got a clean slate from Homeland after he accidentally did them a favor. Tried to hang up the vest, retire. It, uh, it didn’t stick.”
Matt snorts. Understatement of the century.
“So, what now?” He asks her, taking her hand. Karen looks at him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what happens now? With Frank?”
Karen frowns. “Nothing happens. He’s made his decision. And I’m not going to go chasing after him.” She shrugs. “It is what it is. I’ll move on.” Matt can’t help but notice she doesn’t seem entirely convinced on this last point.
“Karen,” Matt starts, and he feels her begin to pull away, so he grips her hand harder. “Karen, wait. C’mon. You have to know that he… that your feelings aren’t one-sided.”
“It doesn’t matter, Matt.” Karen succeeds in disentangling their hands and wraps her arms around herself. “He won’t… he can’t give up his war. And I can’t–” she stops, her voice wavering. Takes a few deep breaths and tries again. “I can’t watch him disappear into the Punisher. I don’t even know how much of Frank is left.” She closes her eyes and leans her head back, resting it on the bar behind her.
“But–”
“Just drop it, Matt.” Karen begins to get up. “I’m done talking about this.”
Matt gets to his feet, following her lead. He really wants to talk about this some more, but he can feel Karen’s distress, the pain that the subject is causing her, so he makes a conscious effort to pull himself back.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll stop. I just… I want you to be happy, Karen.” Matt can’t resist getting a last word in, and Karen rolls her eyes.
“How about we focus on taking down Fisk and then worry about my love live,” she quips sarcastically, going back to her laptop and settling onto the barstool. “I’ve got some more digging to do here. If you want me to be happy, how about getting me a grilled cheese and a Diet Coke from the bodgea?”
Matt laughs. “Anything for you, Miss Page.”
“Damn right,” Karen grins back.
Matt puts his glasses back on and grabs his cane, leaving Josie’s through the service entrance at the back. Making his way to the nearby bodega, he ruminates on the conundrum of Karen and Frank. Two people who were each trying to save the world in their own way, attempting to atone for one moment they could never get back. He understands a little more, now, even if he still balks at the idea of Karen’s love for a man who has chosen to viciously hunt New York’s criminal population rather than deal with his grief like a normal person.
But he guesses he can’t really talk about dealing with grief in a healthy way.
Matt remembers Elektra, remembers the fierce and burning way he loved her. Thinks about how even though they disagreed, even though she’d slit a man’s throat in front of him, it hadn’t changed the way he felt about her– not at the core, anyway. He’d been disgusted with her actions, but he’d never stopped loving the woman underneath.
Well, love the sinner, hate the sin, right?
Father Lantom always said that love was the key to redemption. If Frank allowed himself to love Karen, really love her, would it help to heal his grief? Help him to grow around it, so it didn’t consume him? Would loving Karen allow Frank to let go of the Punisher?
Matt consider this. Considers how miserable Karen had felt when she spoke of how Frank had pushed her away, the distress coming from every cell in her body. How it had been almost a decade since she’d last seen the man, and yet her heart still sped up for him. How the chemicals in her body reacted to even speaking his name.
Matt thinks of all the people he’s lost and a hand squeezes around his heart. Would it be better if he had pushed them all away, not letting any of them close, in order to save them? Would he sacrifice knowing them, to spare himself the pain that had blossomed by their loss?
He’d tried that, and it hadn’t worked. He needed them. They were part of him. They kept him grounded, kept him sane (well, as sane as anyone who dresses up in a suit and jumps around rooftops as a freelance crime fighter can be). And Foggy, and Karen, and Father Lantom– they’d known what he was, and they’d chosen to stay anyway. They knew the risks, knew the dangers, and it hadn’t mattered, they’d stayed by his side.
They thought he was worth it. They thought his fight was worth it. And even if he didn’t feel like he deserved them, deserved their friendship or their faith, well, wasn’t it ultimately their choice?
Matt chews on all of these thoughts as he enters the bodega and orders a grilled cheese (American cheese, white bread) for Karen and a BLT for himself.
By the time Joey behind the counter has bagged up the sandwiches and sodas, Matt has decided on something.
He has to talk to Frank.