Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Frank?”

Frank whipped around, fists still clenched, but the figure who’d apparently just landed on the far side of the roof wasn’t the threat tonight. Wouldn’t be a threat any night, really, even if this was the first time they’d crossed paths since Frank’s return to the Kitchen. “What’re you doing here, Red?”

“Heard you yell.” He came over to stand a few feet away from Frank, head tilting as he rested his arms on the top of the half wall that circled the roof and stared out over the city. Or gave the impression of doing so, anyway, even if Frank knew damn well that it was his bat ears doing all the work.

“Not that kind of yell,” Frank said after a minute, turning to match his stance. As per a couple knuckles bloodied against a taller piece of brickwork, he’d just been taking out some frustration on the universe. Not exactly unusual these days. “Still doing your thing, then.”

It wasn’t a question, but Red answered anyway. “Half wasn’t a select half.”

“Yeah.” A pause. “How’d your lot come through?”

Fingers curled against the top of the wall. “Foggy’s gone. Karen too, but you probably knew that.”

No reason for Frank to deny it, but there was no way that those losses hadn’t cut Red deep.

“Theo—Foggy’s brother—is trying to hold things together at the shop, but their dad went too, and their mom has taken it pretty hard. And Jess and Luke made it, but not Claire or Maggie.”

Frank couldn’t place a Claire or a Maggie, but Jessica Jones was the name of the truck-throwing brunette who’d made the news with both Red and the bulletproof guy from Harlem for tearing up a child trafficking ring a month or two back, so it followed that the bulletproof guy was Luke.

“Danny’s gone too, but Colleen’s doing what she can.”

Danny being another superhero-type if Frank’s vague recollections were worth anything, although he couldn’t have given any details if he’d tried. Colleen was a complete blank.

“Otherwise?” Red shrugged. “Some clients did and didn’t, some neighbors did and didn’t, all of that.” A snort. “Landlord didn’t, which is making things in my building fun. You?”

“The kids you know about,” Frank said after a minute. “The kids who did and the parents who didn’t. Doc I served with who ran a sort of therapy group for vets didn’t. Couple secret squirrel types I’m pretty sure did, but they haven’t been in touch.” A fact he was okay with, all things considered. “The other guys in the group, some others….” He echoed Red’s shrug. “Yeah. Did and didn’t.” Either way there was no one he that kept in contact with anymore.

Red’s shoulder knocked against his, and for a moment Frank hesitated, but he already knew that Red was weirdly easy to talk to. Always had been, even back when Frank’s primary desire had still been to knock his teeth in. And right now he needed it. God help him, he needed it.

“Shouldn’t’a done it,” he said quietly. “Thought I’d be okay, but I’m gonna fuck it up. Just about did not half an hour ago.”

A head tilt.

“The kids. Figured...hell, I figured I know ‘em, you know? They know me. I’m already there, got there as soon as I could after Leo’s call about their parents disappearing, and the last thing I wanted was to see ‘em taken away and thrown in with strangers. Leo’s only fourteen so no way social services would have let them be, and you hear things about siblings getting split up, dragged into shit like you lot broke up, all of that. And whatever else I might be, I was a parent once upon a time.”

“Yeah,” Red agreed. “That’s why I got you the paperwork.”

“Yeah,” Frank echoed. He’d been pretty great about it too, all things considered. Hadn’t even made any stupid comments when Frank had called him out of the blue and blurted out the whole mess, just asked Frank to send copies of his and the kids’ identification. And way quicker than Frank had expected notarized custody papers had arrived declaring that Peter Francis Castiglione was Sarah’s cousin-by-marriage and Sarah and David’s second choice to raise their children if anything ever happened to them. A pretty normal piece of documentation for responsible parents to have drawn up right alongside their wills and all that, and with their first choice—whatever name Red had put down, assuming they’d ever even existed at all—listed as snapped with both adult Liebermans, the social service workers had been and gone in way less time than Frank had expected. Frank blew out a bitter laugh. “‘Cept it was never me, you know? I was gone so damn much, Maria was the one who….” He shook his head and then turned, sinking down to sit on the flat of the roof with his back against the wall, a shield between him and the rest of the city. After a minute Red mirrored his movements.

“Maria was the one who what?”

Frank shook his head. “I grew up around here same as you did, and you ain’t that much younger than me so you probably heard a lot of the same crap I did. ‘Cause I said so, boys don’t cry, just wait ‘til your father gets home, all of that. Hell, I see a nun even today and you best believe I’m keepin’ my damn knuckles out of sight.”

Red laughed.

“What? Twelve years of Catholic school, believe me, that lot doesn’t let you get away with shit!”

“Not arguing considering that I spent a little more than eight years in a Catholic orphanage. They’d pretty well laid off the rulers by then, at least at St. Agnes, but I probably spent a solid quarter of my time there scrubbing floors and pews and whatever else they could think of, reciting Hail Marys and hoping Sister Catherine never found out what I had to say in between prayers because I like my ears attached, thank you.” His grin grew slightly. “Drove a couple of them absolutely crazy that they couldn’t just make me write lines like the other kids.”

Frank echoed the laugh despite himself, reaching out to thump a fist against Red’s shoulder. “You know, that kind of explains a few things.”

Red tilted his head back again the other way, and then he reached up and pulled off his cowl, scrubbing back messy brown hair before turning eyes that never quite focused towards Frank. “So what’s wrong, then? I mean, yeah, it’s different now than back when we were kids, but you’ve obviously figured that out.”

His laughter died and he blew out a breath. “Wasn’t so much figuring, as...well, Lisa wasn’t exactly planned, but even if Maria’s parents were assholes about it and mine weren’t much better given the whole not-married thing, Maria herself was so determined to do things right that half an hour after the doctor confirmed it she was on the bus to the library. Came back with this stack of books like you wouldn’t believe; she must have checked out the whole damn child development section.”

Red smiled, and he shook his head.

“Don’t get me wrong, we had the wedding and all of that, too, but she had her priorities. And it’s not like I’m stupid. Enlisted right out of high school, sure, but it wasn’t ‘cause I couldn’t do bookwork, and Maria’s pregnancy was the kick in the ass I needed to go talk to the brass and figure out what I needed to do to go for a degree and OCS and all of that. Make sure I could do right by ‘em. But I swear, not a single textbook I ever read was half as complicated as all of those how-to-kid books. And then Lisa was there, and even if I was thanking God that I got to be stateside when she was born it was somehow worse because she was just so little, and what the fuck does ‘validate their feelings’ even mean when you’ve got a screaming baby who wants her damn bottle? Feed the kid, even I could figure that out. But then I’m in and out, and every time she’s getting older, walking and talking and all of that, and Maria’s pregnant again but this time I’m in country and don’t even get to meet my boy until he’s thirteen months old. And now it’s both of ‘em getting older, and there’s more stuff I’m supposed to do and say and all that, and I know it don’t get me wrong, but I just kinda let Maria handle things because I only had so much time, and it was damn hard to say no when I was always going to have to leave again. Even when Frank Jr. got to runnin’ his mouth—he was always the worse one for that—I just....” He closed his fists hard. “And then it was the last time and I wasn’t shipping out again, and I guess I would have had to figure it out or Maria would’ve kicked my ass, but they were gone before it mattered.” He forced his hands open again, running one across his face to wipe away the wetness. “And now I’m here, and I haven’t got anything figured out at all.”

“What happened tonight?” Red asked quietly.

“Kids were fighting. It’s been happening more and more lately. I mean, they’re both trying, they’re both good kids—great kids—but they’ve been through hell these last couple years. Even before the snap there was a whole stretch where David wasn’t around, had convinced them he was dead down to a funeral, even, and then a whole bunch of traumatic shit tied up with the bastards that drove him to do it. And then they got him back and it was okay for a while, but losing both him and Sarah in the snap tore open everything all over again.” He blew out a breath. “At first it was just surviving, same as for all of us, but I think things finally started sinking in a month or so ago, and it’s pretty obvious that neither of ‘em like what they’re seeing. Not that I blame ‘em. And even if we talked through moving here, even though they were both pretty clear that they wanted to start over somewhere that doesn’t have so many ghosts, it’s....”

“It’s a lot,” Red said when he trailed off.

“Yeah. Didn’t help that most of the places I had staked out down here weren’t exactly suitable for children, either, something that somehow didn’t occur to me until we were looking at what was basically a closet with a hotplate and a cot.”

“You’re not—?”

“Nah, we’re okay now,” he interrupted quickly. “Two bedroom downstairs,” he thumped a heel against the roof, “and I got no issues with a couch so they’ve each got some privacy, but it’s still less than they’re used to. Or more, maybe, as far as the whole togetherness thing goes. Leo seems all right, not happy but holding it together probably better than any of us—Leo, Lisa, Maria, Karen, anyone who thinks men are tougher than women needs his damn head examined—but Zach’s been having a real rough go of it. He got into some trouble upstate too, that’s part of the reason the whole starting over thing came up in the first place, but he managed to get himself suspended today, and at three weeks in that’s not a great beginning. And hell if I know how I’m going to deal with it since even if I don’t have jack as far as time off banked I’m damn sure I don’t trust him alone for the rest of the week, either, but that's tomorrow's problem because Leo was picking at him about it after dinner, and even if she shouldn’t’a been he had no call to take a swing at her.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I know it’s not the first time, although it’s damn well the first time in front of me, but it landed hard and rocked her back enough that she fell and smacked her head against the counter. And I just about belted him, Red. I mean, my hand was moving. I’ve never hit a kid in my life, and I just about knocked him across that room.” His breath was shakier than it should have been, and he scrubbed a hand across his face again.

“‘Just about’ means you didn’t,” Red said.

“No, I only scared the fuck out of him and sent him running off to his room sobbing. Scared Leo right along with him I’m pretty sure, even if she didn’t say so, because she barely even let me check the lump on her head before she was in her room behind a locked door too. Thought I was doing okay, but it turns out I don’t have a damn clue how to do the parent part of parenting, Red.  I think of those books and remember a bunch of 'not that' and tonight was a definitely not that, but....”

“You didn’t,” he repeated. “Look, I don’t know much about kids. I wasn’t very good with them even when I was one. But speaking as someone who’s been a scared, angry orphan with a habit of using his fists a lot more than he should, I can say that having someone there, someone paying attention, matters a hell of a lot even if you do get some stuff wrong.”

“Not if it’s the kind of ‘stuff’ that means using fists on a kid. I mean, hell, my pop might've busted my ass a few times when I was being a little shit, but even that’s something you don’t do now never mind—”

“You didn’t,” Red interrupted. “And you aren’t enough of an asshole to not apologize, so I doubt you caused as much trauma as you think.”

“Yeah? Based on what?”

Red was silent for long enough that Frank didn’t think he was going to answer, and then he shrugged slightly and leaned his head back against the wall. “You’ve got to think that a guy who shows up at an orphanage offering to mentor some little blind kid must have had a background check done, right? Even if he’s blind himself, it’s not just, ‘Hello, person-who-somehow-goes-by-Stick, please take Matty, he turned ten yesterday and spends most of his nights screaming his head off about things that no one else can hear. You two have fun now.’”

Frank tensed, all of his attention going to Red because even if he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, he was damn sure that not only was that not it, there was no way that anything good followed that kind of hypothetical.  And he hadn't forgotten what had happened to Billy, as much as he tried real hard not to even think that name anymore.

“Course background checks don’t tend to include questions like ‘Do you belong to an ancient ninja cult dedicated to the eradication of an even more ancient ninja cult, both of which really, really like child soldiers and aren’t in any way above recruiting blind kids with dialed-up senses?’ so it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Red continued.

“You’re shitting me.”

“You think I learned to fight like I do from a couple Karate classes at the YMCA?”

“I have no idea how the fuck you do anything you do.”

Red's lips twitched. “Yeah, okay, that’s kinda fair. But if you want proof, just think about those ninjas on the roof that night way back when. Not the usual Hell’s Kitchen crowd, yeah?”

“Not with the whole black pajamas and swords thing,” he admitted.

“Well, they were from the other side, the even more ancient etcetera. I told them to take their damn war somewhere else, that I didn’t want anything to do with any of it, but Nobu wasn’t much for listening. And then Midland Circle, if you heard anything about that, that was them too. Danny’s kinda like me except it was the monks in K’un-Lun that got him instead of Stick—from what I heard they never liked Stick much so they had that going for them, at least—and for all our sakes never ask Danny about the dragon.” A pause. “Guess you couldn’t do that any more anyway.”

Because Danny had been on the list of those who hadn’t made it. “And the woman on the roof?” Frank asked before he thought better of it.

Red’s head dropped. “Elektra. She was one of Stick’s too, even before me. Wasn’t exactly supposed to be, but…well, that part gets real complicated real fast, and it’s another thing not worth digging into these days.”

“Fuck,” Frank said. Not that he’d had a clue what he’d stumbled onto when he’d seen Red and the woman fighting those black-clad weirdos, but he’d seen Red’s girl go down and had known damn well who he owed a favor too. He hadn’t spent any time considering any of the rest of it except maybe that those ninjas were just as stupid as Red when it came to bringing melee weapons to a place that begged for sniping.

“Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that Stick was fucking brutal, and it still just about killed me when he walked out. You aren’t that, at least not towards kids, so maybe give yourself some grace and them a little credit.”

God save him from the Catholics. Or at least one specific Catholic. Frank shook his head. “How long did he train you? This Stick.”

“Two years and change? Something like that, anyway, he was gone before I was thirteen.  I wanted a father, he wanted a soldier, pretty obvious in retrospect that we were both going to end up disappointed but he’s the one who did something about it.”

Frank didn’t consider walking out on a twelve year old the sort of ‘doing’ a man ought to consider an accomplishment. Which….

“Look, just give it a couple days,” Red said. “See if I’m right. And if you need somewhere for this Zach to be while you’re at work this week, you can leave him with me. I’m in the office by seven-thirty most days and don’t have anything on the court docket until next Wednesday so it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“You’re shitting me,” Frank repeated.

“Nah. If he’s got stuff from school he can bring that to work on, or there are a few things around the office that need doing that I keep putting off since they’d be a hell of a lot easier with working eyes. And I can pretty well guarantee he won’t be able to disappear on me.”

Frank felt a flicker of amusement. “He’s not gonna know that.”

“Nope.” Red grinned and then shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not great with kids, but I should be able to manage one for a couple days. And there aren’t...there aren’t as many of us left as there should be. Be pretty stupid not to pitch in where we can.”

Frank opened his mouth and then shut it again because he wasn’t wrong. And realistically it wasn’t like there were a lot of other options. “Thanks,” he finally managed. “But if you even think about turning him into a baby ninja, I’m taking you down.”

“Noted.” He scrubbed at his hair again and then pulled his cowl back on and stood. “I’ve got to get going.”

“Look, you get into trouble, you can call,” Frank said, standing as well. “Especially if you can’t get hold of your super friends. I’ll play by your rules best I can, but I’ve still got some gear tucked away, and….” A shrug to match Red’s. “Not a lot of us left, like you said.”

A head tilt and then a nod and then Red took a few steps back before launching himself forward, up and off the roof wall and onto the fire escape of the next building.

“Showoff.”

Chapter Text

Frank shifted his tool carrier onto his shoulder as he pushed open the outer door to Red’s office.

Matt’s office.

That had been the toughest part of leaving Zach with Red—Matt—thus far, remembering that Red had an actual name, and more to the point that he needed to use it. It wasn’t quite as hard when they were face-to-face, mostly because the business suit and tinted glasses were a damned effective variant on urban camouflage, but unlike most of the enhanced sorts floating around Red didn’t have his real name associated with his alter ego, and he had good reason to keep it that way.

A couple good reasons in Frank’s opinion, given how stupid both Daredevil and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen still sounded.

And even if ‘Red’ wasn’t technically associated with said vigilante either, Frank had better sense than to risk it when he knew what he’d go to in a fight.

Unlike previous afternoons there was no one sitting in any of the chairs in the waiting area when he entered, and the sound of Zach’s chattering as he rounded the corner towards the single open inner office brought him up short.

The first morning Frank had done the appropriate adult-type things, introduced Red to a distinctly sullen Zach as Mr. Murdock and all that, but even if he’d immediately corrected it to Matt and welcomed Zach in with an ease that belied his comment about not being good with kids, Zach hadn’t reciprocated. Which hadn’t come as a surprise, but the language that had come out of Zach on their walk home would have landed Frank with a mouth full of soap once upon a time, and as it was Frank had still dressed him down pretty thoroughly. Giving Red shit for being a pain in the ass in the general sense was one thing—not appropriate for a kid, maybe, but not something that Frank could come down too hard on considering he’d done it more than once himself, and no doubt Red’d been exactly that in keeping Zach from slipping away—but the kind of slurs Zach had used were never going to fly.

The lecture had taken enough that Zach had been politely sullen since, and given his behavior this morning Frank had expected more of the same to finish out the week, but at the moment he sounded almost cheerful.

“—not a color,” Matt was protesting when Frank stepped through the open door into the office, tapping lightly on the frame as he did so.

“Is so,” Zach returned, and then swiveled to look at Frank, thrusting an arm in his direction. “Tell him.”

“Hey,” Frank said, and then frowned at the object in Zach’s hand. “Tell him about the pen?”

Matt’s ‘hello’ was mostly drowned out by Zach’s triumphant, “Exactly. It’s a pen so it’s a color.”

“I think you missed some steps in that argument,” Matt returned, although he didn’t look particularly put out as he pointed towards a file cabinet against the wall. “Put it in with the rainbow ones, and then put that basket with the scrap paper out front, please. Far away from me.”

“Gonna put a sticker on it, too.”

He grabbed both a half-full basket of other pens and an odd looking device off the cabinet and ducked out past Frank.

“Do I want to ask?”

“I turned him loose with the braille labeler on Karen’s files this morning,” Matt said. “Or her file folders, at least, and then we got a few other things I’ve been putting off done this afternoon, too, but he’s really fond of the labeling.”

Frank glanced in the direction Zach had gone. “I hope to hell you’re checking the accuracy of those labels.”

Matt’s lips twitched. “Yeah, I’ve been spot checking.”

Frank tilted his head back to confirm that Zach was still messing around with something in one of the cabinets out front and then shifted to lean against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “What’s the problem with the rainbow pens, then?”

“Black. Blue.” Matt pointed to two holders on his desk and then two more baskets on top of filing cabinets on opposite sides of the room. “With some court documents it matters, and Foggy always sorted that kind of stuff automatically so I didn’t have to think about it. Now….”

His jaw tightened, and Frank kept his mouth shut. At this point everyone had their own techniques for pushing through.

“Anyway, Karen used all kinds of colors for her stuff,” Matt continued after a moment. “Maybe to make it easier to find specific notes during investigations or something like that, I don’t know, but I accidentally grabbed one of hers a couple weeks back and ended up on the wrong side of a twenty-minute lecture on purple ink and professionalism from a judge who’s had it out for me since the Thompson appeal.

“Asshole.” Not that Frank knew the judge, but still.

“Mostly, yeah.” He shrugged. “Some of the requirements are there for a reason, like I don’t appreciate it when I get documents that OCR has trouble deciphering either, but if that ink hadn’t smelled reasonably close to blue I would have noticed. But anyway, Zach and I dug through all the drawers and folders and everything, and now every pen in the place has been tested and sorted and I’ve got a supply here that I know I can use. And anything weirdly colored is up front for kids to scribble with when they come in with their parents instead of lying around somewhere for me to risk grabbing.” He tilted his head. “Unicorn is not a color.”

“Ith-o,” Zach tried, back beside Frank again.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Frank said automatically, and then frowned because while he’d dropped Zach off with a full lunchbox, he’d have expected that to have been emptied hours ago. “What are you eating?”

Zach swallowed and then licked his lips. “Sopaipilla. Mrs. Ortega brought a whole plate when she came for her meeting earlier.” He gave Matt a vaguely guilty look. “There might only be one or two left.”

“All yours,” Matt said, and Frank made a quick grab for Zach’s arm before he could dash back.

“I don’t know how many you’ve already had, but I’m gonna say it’s been enough, especially since I’ll be starting dinner when we get home.”

Zach groaned, but Frank was damn sure he'd eaten a whole lot more than the one he’d just finished, because he didn’t object further.

If Frank found himself stuck in an apartment with a sugared-up preteen this evening, he and Red were gonna have words. Although a plate full of sugar would go a long way in explaining why Zach had softened towards Matt, especially if it had been coupled with some tasks that he enjoyed.

He opened his mouth to tell Zach to get his stuff packed up, only to pause at the object in Zach’s hands. Frank knew what braille was in the general sense, obviously, but when Zach handed it over at a gesture and he ran his fingers over the letters on the circular drum—presumably letters, given the English printing underneath—he could only distinguish general roughness. “You can read this?”

“Hm?”

Frank suspected that Matt knew exactly what he was talking about, but considering Zach’s presence it was a fair enough response.

“He took your labeler,” Zach said, before looking up at Frank. “And yeah, he could read everything I typed earlier. He said after he accidentally dumped a can of peaches instead of pasta sauce onto his spaghetti when he was a kid he had a reason to learn that was way better than homework.”

Normally Frank would have pointed out that he’d asked Matt, but the rest of that statement was far more concerning. “Canned pasta sauce? Really?”

“It tastes fine.”

“For the sake of every Italian in the city, I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just say that.” He paused for a moment and then stepped forward to set the labeler on Matt’s desk. “You know what? You done working?”

“Me?”

“No one else in the room for me to be asking, unless you went and put the kid on the payroll. It’s Friday and for once your waiting room is empty so you ought to be.” At least with his regular job, and even if he was planning to go out tonight, and he probably was, there wouldn’t be much point in starting a patrol now.

“I guess,” Matt agreed slowly.

“Good. Get your stuff. You too, and don’t forget your jacket.” Frank slapped Zach’s back lightly.

Zach nodded and turned to find his things; Matt stayed where he was. “Why?”

“Because I just decided what I’m making for dinner, and since I don’t need my nonna crawling out of her grave to smack me senseless, it ain’t comin’ out of a can. Move.”

Matt shook his head, but it seemed more a reflex than an actual refusal. “You don’t—that’s not—you don’t have to.”

“No. I’m offering.” Frank shrugged. The invitation had been a spur of the moment thing, sure, but he didn’t regret it. First because he was right and pasta sauce out of a can was a damn sacrilege, and second…. It wasn’t that he owed Matt, exactly, even if he kind of did for the babysitting at least, but despite the fact that Red could be a sanctimonious ass when he was in the mood, Frank still got along with him better than most. And he suspected that the same was true in return, probably even more so now with so many of Red’s—Matt’s—friends gone.

Whatever. Even if he was more used to the Halloween costume version than the actual suit one, they could manage an hour or two in each other’s company without trading hands.

Matt was still staring, or at least facing in Frank’s direction and not moving, and Frank snapped his fingers to get his attention.

“Come on. Get packed or whatever. You ought to come meet Leo anyway.”

Another moment of stillness, and then Matt’s head finally dipped fractionally and he pushed himself to his feet, reaching for his briefcase. Once he’d decided he moved pretty quickly, though, and by the time Zach managed to jam his scattered collection of homework papers into his backpack and dug his windbreaker and lunchbox out from behind a chair, Matt had his computer and a selected set of files buckled neatly into his briefcase and the whole thing zipped and slung over his shoulder.

“Ready to go?” Frank asked when Matt’s head tilted in his direction. “It’s not too much of a walk.” At least in terms of streets, and if Matt wanted to make a comparison to the more direct rooftop route he could wait until they were alone.

Matt nodded and gestured for him and Zach to exit first before locking the door behind them and unfolding a cane, and the trip from his office to the apartment was...weird.

There wasn’t really another word for it.

It wasn’t like Frank had never seen a blind person navigating the streets of New York before. Hell, it wasn’t even like he’d never seen Matt using a cane before. Granted that his head had mostly been tangled up in his shitstorm of a trial and his ‘options’ at the time, a mindfuck not exactly improved by the realization that the lawyer in the red glasses who wouldn’t shut his mouth was the same guy he’d spilled his guts to in a graveyard not so long before, but he’d still seen it. But having fought both alongside and against Red, he’d pretty much accepted that the guy didn’t understand words like caution or hesitation or even God damned common sense most of the time given his habit of bringing sticks to gunfights. This whole tapping his way along the sidewalk thing….

Real fucking weird.

“Frank, the light changed,” Zach said, tugging at his sleeve.

“Right. Yeah.” He nudged Zach to go ahead but snagged the top loop of his backpack just to be safe because the kid was definitely doing more bouncing than normal. And Matt matched his pace without comment, the same as he’d been doing for the whole trip.

When they reached their building, Frank sent Zach up the stairs first to tell Leo that they had company and then looked at Matt. “Wasn’t kidding before when I said I don’t have a clue how you do what you do, so if there’s anything I should know—like, say, specific details on how to avoid blowing your cover because I haven’t exactly been around a lot of blind guys either—now would be the time.”

Matt’s head tilted, probably following Zach’s progress, and then he shrugged and smiled slightly. “For myself I can pick up most anything in a room, or at least anything big enough to matter, from air currents and echoes. But for a normal blind person in a new space the usual process would be for someone to describe it and identify important things like bathrooms and exits, and then they’d walk the perimeter and count steps to any major furniture or trip hazards. I’d suggest letting the kids do a tour if they’re okay with it since I doubt they’ll know any better than you what to expect, and if they get a few details wrong it’s not going to matter.”

That sounded reasonable enough, especially since with the way their apartment was laid out all of the common spaces were combined in one large central room with the bedrooms and bath tucked off down the hall. “Works for me,” he agreed. “I need to grab a shower before I start cooking anyway.”

The first sign since leaving the office of the Red that Frank was familiar with showed abruptly in a twitch of Matt’s lips. “Wasn’t gonna say it.”

Frank scoffed, but before he could comment on what Red had looked like after a few of their fights, Zach and Leo stuck their heads out the door on the next landing.

“Frank?” Leo asked. “Zach said you brought a friend?”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that,” Frank muttered, which got a huff of a laugh from Matt, and Frank jerked his head towards the stairs. “C’mon.”

Introductions didn’t take long, and since Zach looked excited at the idea of showing Matt around and Leo clearly had no intention of being outdone by her little brother, Frank freed up some space for Matt’s briefcase and jacket on the stand by the door and then left them to do the tour that Matt didn’t need anyway.

He’d been a Marine long enough that he couldn’t have spent more than ten minutes in the shower if he’d tried, but even so by the time he’d gotten cleaned up and changed the kids had managed to finish their tour and had Matt sitting between them on the couch in front of the television, explaining their usual Friday night programming to him. Or at least attempting to explain, although the alternating—and frequently competing, given Zach’s volume—explanations would have been a lot even for Frank.

“Guys, take it down a notch,” he interrupted. “The neighbors aren’t interested. And how ‘bout I borrow Matt to give me a hand for a bit while you get things queued up?”

Zach made a face, bouncing abruptly up onto the armrest and then down again onto the couch proper, and Matt pushed himself to his feet so quickly that it would have been funny under other circumstances.

“I’ll finish catching him up,” he assured Leo when she started to object. “But if you want to watch last week’s episode again before dinner, you’d better get it started.”

That was sufficiently convincing to trigger an argument, albeit one of the acceptable sibling sort rather than the kind that Frank needed to break up, over the remote control, and Matt stepped in Frank’s direction as the kids grabbed pillows and slid down to the floor in front of the couch.

“That’s what you get for feeding a twelve year old way too much sugar,” Frank informed him quietly as they circled around to the other side of the kitchen counter separating the cooking space from the rest of the room.

“Funny.”

“True, especially since Leo’s used to having to match him.”

“Oh.” He grimaced. “Sorry. Mrs. Ortega always brings a plate of something with her since money’s pretty tight with both her husband and daughter-in-law….” A quick shrug. “I didn’t even think about it when he asked if he could have some.”

“’S’okay,” Frank relented. It wasn’t hard to figure how someone without kids wouldn’t think about naming a limit on snacks, especially if the plate was sitting somewhere out of sight. Or whatever the analog was for a blind person, although ‘out of hearing’ would take some work for Red. “Just don’t be surprised if he’s awfully lively for the next couple hours. And what I’m supposed to fill you in on, if you weren’t following, is their favorite show, which streams new episodes every Friday. They usually try to rewatch the previous episode before it starts, hence….” He gestured towards the kids. “It’s theoretically about some kind of space high school, but between the love octagon and the robot battles I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone actually go to class. Oh, and sometimes dragons show up.”

“Dragons in space?”

“Makes more sense than the vampire living under the gym floor. Or at least I think he’s a vampire, but honestly, who the hell knows.” Frank paused. “Actually, no, wait, they have had a couple classroom scenes, but only biology because that teacher is a secret alien spy. If you’d like to know who or what she’s spying on, well, at this point I’m curious too.”

Matt grinned. “And here I thought I was just missing something obvious.”

“Nope. I mean, I remember singing candlesticks and mermaids and shit so maybe I got no business talking, but it feels like kids’ programming has gotten really weird. But there are weeks where it’s about the only thing the two of them can agree on so I’m not gonna be the one to throw a wrench in.” Frank shrugged and then turned and pulled open the door of the fridge. It might not be strictly polite to put a guest to work, but hell, Frank wasn’t the sort to sit around while there was something to be done, and he suspected that Matt would feel the same. And Matt already looked a lot calmer than he had trapped between the two kids on the couch. “I assume it’s safe enough to hand you a knife and trust you won’t land part of your thumb in the peppers?”

Matt put his back to the kids and flipped him off, which was fair enough, but before Frank could grab the vegetables in question, the obvious occurred to him.

“You want a t-shirt?” He hadn’t thought about it when he’d invited Matt straight from the office, but while Matt had lost his tie along with his jacket, he was still in a white button up that probably wouldn’t be the best where pasta sauce was involved.

“Oh.” One hand touched his collar lightly. “Yeah, that’d be a good idea.”

By the time he’d changed and put his dress shirt in his briefcase, Frank had the fresh stuff lined up on the counter and the spices waiting by the stove. And while he’d never seen Red use an edged weapon, Matt’s grip when he took the knife Frank offered wasn’t the kind a chef would use. “Smartass.”

Red’s—Matt’s—grin returned. And then he grimaced and put the knife down on the counter, reaching unerringly for the sink and one of the tomatoes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Pesticide spot.” He tilted his head towards the kids and then apparently decided that they were invested deeply enough in their show that it was safe to speak normally. “I know you can’t smell it, but I can. It’s one of the reasons canned stuff is easier for me; it’s consistent, and these days once processing starts people aren’t really involved so there’s nothing getting re-contaminated.”

For his part Frank would have said that cutting people out of the food-making process wasn’t a good thing, but while he was used to blaming Red’s bat ears for most of his ridiculousness, he could kind of understand when you threw in a few more enhanced senses. “Well, scrub as much as you want, then. I promise I washed my hands.”

“I know.”

Frank dug out the cutting boards while Matt cleaned the vegetables to whatever level he considered appropriate, and then they traded places so Frank could rinse the boards before putting them both on the counter.

“Do what with what?” Matt asked, picking up the knife again and gesturing at the vegetables.

“Peppers diced, onions sliced, and don’t worry about the garlic, I’ll smash that up. And I’ll deal with the tomatoes, too.”

A nod.

“Usually we just end up eating in front of the television on Fridays given the timing of the stream release,” Frank admitted as he started up the pan on the stove, giving it time to heat while he rough-chopped the tomatoes. “Not sure what your preference is.”

“Television’s fine. I can’t usually make much of it even when dragon space high school isn’t involved, but it’s not going to bother me if you guys watch.”

Frank barely articulated the ‘hm?’ as he reached for the olive oil, but it was apparently enough because Matt shrugged before sliding the diced peppers to one side of his board to make room for the onions.

“Screens are one of the things I can’t do, at least not without help. Recognizing an actual person walking across an actual floor, sure, that’s nothing, but the whole sound stage recording whatever?” He shook his head. “They don’t—can’t—record what I need, and even if they could no television or computer would be able to project it.”

“Huh. So no TV or movies at all?” Not that Frank didn’t prefer books himself given a choice, but while he’d never really thought about it before, he’d have guessed offhand that a guy who couldn’t see would gravitate towards something with sound attached.

Matt shrugged. “If someone describes what’s happening, sure. Or there’s something called audio narration that basically adds a description of the events happening on screen to the soundtrack, those are doable too. You used to have to special order DVDs and there weren’t a lot of titles available, but some of the streaming services have started offering it as another language option right along with Spanish or French or whatever.” A quick smile. “Sort of, anyway. Karen always tried to put those on, but Foggy tended to get into arguments with it.”

“Got a feeling I’m going to regret this, but arguments like what?”

“Oh, like their narrators sometimes get weirdly melodramatic. Or at least weirdly determined to get their money’s worth out of the thesaurus. Foggy did a lot of description real time for me when we were in school and after a rough start got pretty good, but where he’d just say that some character walked into the room and maybe looked to be in a bad mood or whatever if the dialogue didn’t immediately give that away, the audio narration will have them stalking or marching or promenading, and it comes across about as weird as you’d think. I mean, when’s the last time you used ‘promenade’ in conversation?”

Frank snorted. “Hell, Red—shit, Matt, damn it.”

That got a grin. “Honestly, I figured that was going to happen a lot more often than it has.”

“Well, if you had a normal name it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Wh—” Matt tilted his head towards the kids and then just as quickly back to Frank. “How is Red more normal than Matt?”

“The other one, genius.”

Matt groaned, and Frank shook his head and then checked the oil and tossed the garlic in, following it with the tomatoes.

“Vegetables ready?”

“Yeah.” Matt tapped the cutting board and then stepped aside to let him grab it.

Once the peppers and onions were in, Frank added the spices as well and gave everything a stir before checking the clock. It would take some time for it all to cook down, and he wouldn’t start the noodles—maybe rigatoni instead of spaghetti tonight?—until then, so he went ahead and rinsed both cutting boards down again and then turned back to Matt. “Beer?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Matt demanded. “For me it was two hours—or maybe an hour and fifty-five minutes, whatever—of wanting to find a damn trombone section to throttle!”

“Hey, at least you could have left. I was stuck in a tent in the middle of a damn sandstorm in the middle of a damn desert with an LT who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about artistic merit!”

Matt broke down and started laughing first, although Frank wasn’t far behind. “Fine, okay, we’re agreed that Citizen Kane is crap. But if you even think about coming near me with Rashomon we’re gonna have issues because I wasn’t okay with those damn flutes, either.”

“You know, if I’d known how violent you get about marching bands, it would have made things so much easier the first time we met.” A pause. “Well, the second time, at least. All the Dogs of Hell used to play trumpet, didn’t you know that?”

“Fuck you.” Matt flushed abruptly and turned guiltily towards the kids, and Frank snorted.

“Altar boy. They’re out and have been for a while.” Their show had been as incomprehensible as ever, although Matt’s expressions as the three of them had attempted—attempted and mostly failed; Frank had more sympathy for Matt’s fellow lawyer now—to keep him up to speed with what was happening on screen had at least made it more interesting, and they’d found a movie afterwards that not only did both kids agree on, it had actually offered the audio narration option that Matt had mentioned.

Unfortunately while the first movie had been decent, its sequel had been bad enough that even the occasionally overenthusiastic narration hadn’t been enough to hold anyone’s interest, and Zach had fallen asleep sprawled out on the floor as soon as his sugar rush had worn off with Leo not far behind. Matt and Frank, on the other hand, had somehow ended up in a debate about even worse movies. Which, yeah, Citizen Kane was way up there, but when it came to a couple of the others on Matt’s shit list, Frank couldn’t see how it was the film’s fault if Red’s drunk college buddies had failed at reading subtitles.

“I swear, I will find the rhythmic gymnastics,” Matt said, jabbing a finger in Frank’s direction.

“Trust me, R—Matt—you come near me with a musical and I’m not going to care what the dance moves look like, I’m just pitching you out the nearest window. Which for you would probably be a graceful exit.”

He wasn’t sure if Matt’s response was a laugh or a choke, but either way he figured that it was a point for him which was good enough.

Matt’s smile abruptly faded as his fingers touched the watch on his wrist. “Shit, I’ve got to go. It’s probably not going to happen tonight, but….”

Frank understood how that sort of thing worked as well as anyone, and he nodded and stood along with Matt, picking up his own empty bottle and then snagging Matt’s as well. “You good to get back?”

That got him a very odd look, which in retrospect was kind of fair, and he sighed.

“I know you you are fine, but rooftop parkour in a business suit is bound to look a little odd to anyone who spots you.” And while he didn’t go out now, not with the kids as his priority...well, back when Frank had been patrolling, if he’d run across a blind guy tapping his way along the street at this time of night he would have kept half an eye on him just in case because Red hadn’t done that much to improve the neighborhood.

“Wouldn’t be my first time, and it’s the safer way back,” Matt said, shrugging.  "People don't tend to look up too much."

Frank knew that as well as any sniper.  “You know, somehow the ‘not the first time’ part doesn’t even surprise me. You want to hang on to the t-shirt, then?”

Matt tilted his head.

“It’s black, unlike that button-up of yours.” Frank echoed his shrug and then detoured to the kitchen to put the bottles into the recycling. “You can bring it back here whenever, or I’ll grab it from you sometime.”

“Thanks,” Matt said. “You don’t need a hand cleaning up or anything?”

“Nah, looks like most everything we left soaking is about ready to be dropped into the dishwasher. I’ll get the kids put to bed and then wipe down the counters and kick it off before I crash.”

Matt nodded and Frank followed him to the door waiting as he pulled his jacket back on, tucked his cane into his briefcase, and then cinched it down across his back far tighter than it had been earlier.

“If you go all the way up the inner staircase, the door at the top won’t be locked. Or you can use one of the fire escapes if you want, but I’m pretty sure the one on the east side is starting to rust through in a couple places.”

“I….” Matt shook his head. “Thanks. Just...thanks.”

“You too,” Frank agreed, not particularly interested in dealing with specifics either. “Good hunting.”

Chapter Text

The ATM beeped and then asked if he wanted a receipt, and Frank snorted. For all the big things that had somehow either remained functional or had been jammed back together with spit and baling wire, there were ten times as many little ones—like, say, paper roll refills—that had fallen through the cracks. But it could be worse, this ATM got restocked with twenties on a regular enough basis that he could count on it for grocery money, which it turned out was an important consideration when your neighborhood was full of tiny stalls that demanded cash but your new job was the above-the-table sort where you left the worksite with a check every other Friday rather than a crumpled roll of bills.

Oh, well. At least the landlord was happy enough pulling from the VA pension account Madani had set up on the grounds that the whole city would be better off if he didn’t need to work with others, and anything David and Sarah had prepared for the kids could wait on figuring until they were old enough that the whole technically-kidnapped thing was less relevant.

Frank tucked the cash into his wallet and started back up the street, only to pause at the next intersection. Zach had asked before school this morning if Matt was coming over again to watch movies with them, and while the question had startled Frank into silence, Leo’d paused in her dash across the living room with her almost-forgotten math book tucked under her arm to declare that that’d be fun and Matt was nice. She’d then dragged her brother out the door before Frank could give an actual answer, not that ‘Of course not, where the hell did that come from?’ hadn’t been the first thing that popped into his head, but….

Matt’s office was in the opposite direction from the vegetable stall he’d planned to stop at, and after a moment Frank swiveled. Odds were that Matt would be the one to say ‘No’ and ‘What the hell?’, assuming he was even in the office today, but last Friday night had gone surprisingly okay. Better than Frank had figured. And it wasn’t like it was any trouble to throw on food for four instead of three, especially if the fourth meant a hand getting it prepped.

Anyway, he ought to grab his t-shirt back since Matt hadn’t gotten around to dropping it off.

When he reached Matt’s office the outer door opened as easily as it had last week, and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not mostly because he still hadn’t decided if he’d temporarily lost his mind in coming here. But Red’s bat ears would have clocked him by the time he’d reached the threshold anyway so there was no point in turning back now.

Once again being Friday meant there was no one in the waiting area so he continued on to the inner office. “Matt? You in—”

Matt made a strangled sound, shoving his computer away from him and leaping to his feet as Frank turned the corner. Wires tore themselves from his ears in the process, and when he grabbed up something from his desk, Frank froze.

“Easy, Red, just me.” He kept his arms at his sides and did his best to telegraph no-threat with his posture because he had a real healthy respect for both Red’s aim and the amount of force he could put behind a throw. And right now Red didn’t look so good.

His head tilted, nostrils flaring, and then he let out a breath and set the stapler back down. “Frank. Shit. Sorry.”

“No harm done. Figured you’d have heard me coming, but I guess that doesn’t work so well if you’ve got headphones in.” That or if his mind had been on other things, which was pretty clearly the actual case. “What’s wrong?”

Matt turned away, one hand coming up to scrub at his eyes. “Nothin’.”

“Well, there’s some bullshit.” Even if he’d had his glasses on the tear streaks would have been impossible to miss; without them there were obvious red rims around his eyes too. Red—Matt—wasn’t exactly one of his brothers, though, someone he might have had a solid idea about how to shake things out of, and for a long minute they were both silent. “Come on, ain’t like you ain’t seen me lose it a time or three,” he finally offered, taking a step closer.

“Haven’t,” Matt returned with a scowl that might have been funny in another situation.

As it was Frank started to open his mouth to ask what the hell that meant since he was damn sure he hadn’t hallucinated any graveyards or boats or rooftops anywhere along the line, only to break off with a roll of his eyes. “Heard, then. Whatever. You know damn well what I mean.” He moved the rest of the way up to the desk, grabbing one of the empty chairs and spinning it around so he could sink down with his arms crossed over the back. “Seriously, what’s up? Bad case? Or just issues with that new cut you’re sporting?”

Matt tilted his head and then touched his jaw lightly before scoffing, about what Frank’s reaction would have been if someone had asked him about a similar injury. No doubt he’d been in a fight somewhere along the line, probably two or three nights ago if Frank was any judge, but it was barely the sort of thing worth a swipe with an alcohol swab.

A moment later Matt pulled his own chair back around and dropped down into it, and Frank kept his mouth shut as he reached out to run his fingers over his computer and the other items that had been pushed away when he’d lurched to his feet. When he reached the headphones his eyes closed for a moment, but surprisingly enough he also took a hard breath and started talking. “Pretty typical case, actually. Tenants’ rights issue, and since the landlord and two of the three tenants in question are still around, it went back onto the docket as soon as there was such a thing. But Hollis filed for discovery Wednesday which means I’ve got to get the rest of these transcripts checked so I can hand them over by the end of next week.”

“So?” Not that Frank knew much about lawyer crap, but that sounded more like an annoyance than something that would be tearing Red up.

“So it was Foggy’s case. We always kept each other briefed on the in-progress stuff, but he—he and Karen—did all of the research, the interviews, everything.” Matt disconnected the headphones from the computer and hit a key, and Frank closed his eyes in understanding as the voices of both Karen and Nelson, along with a third man that he didn’t recognize, came through the speakers.

“Shit. How much of that do you have to listen to?”

Matt stopped the recording and swiped at his eyes again, face still angled at the computer. “Just finished hour three of eleven, and that’s only for this case. Even with half the court system still more patchwork than anything else they’ve started a big push to get through the backlog, and some of it’s just sorting through paperwork and signing off on ‘Forget it, no one left to care’ which actually has its own form now because here’s to bureaucracy, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to wait to see where all of our cases fall to get their records prepped. Not if I want to be able to do my job even reasonably competently, anyway. So all those files of Karen’s that Zach was labeling for me last week, anything else Foggy had that he didn’t get to before….” His fingers curled against the table and he took another sharp breath. “Once I know what’s what I’ll be able to start on the filings, stall some and maybe cull a few of the rest, but there’s still plenty gonna come due real soon.”

“Shit,” Frank repeated. If someone said that he had to listen to dozens of hours of his family’s voices; hell, even Curt’s or David’s or Sarah’s right now...well, it wouldn’t happen, but if it did he’d probably be looking a whole lot worse than Red.

“Yeah.” Matt’s head finally lifted a little, although his next breath still wasn’t as steady as he’d probably have preferred. “Would've been better if I’d started earlier, I guess, but with everything else going on it just hasn’t been a priority.”

Frank was pretty sure there was no ‘better’ when it came to that kind of thing, and either way it didn’t take much to figure what his priorities had been. And they sure as hell weren’t something Frank was going to argue, not given the mess immediately following the snap and the shithead opportunists that had come after.  Especially since he doubted he’d heard about even a tenth of what had gone down, tucked up with the kids as he had been. “How do you figure your numbers?” he asked slowly. “I mean, it’s a yes or no question, right? You’ve either got a client or you don’t, and if the answer’s no the file goes in the trash. That should get rid of half of them right there, and the lists are all publicly available now.”

“It’s….” He sighed and shifted again, eyes finally settling a bit over Frank’s left shoulder. “Okay, on the criminal side that’s close enough, I guess. There’s a little more nuance to it, but if there’s no defendant it pretty much is case closed. But we actually handle a lot more civil than criminal stuff here, and most of the criminal cases we have were mine in the first place so they aren’t the ones getting to me.”

“What do you mean yours? Or his for that matter? Didn’t you usually work on stuff together? You did on mine.  Which I guess was good for me since you couldn't even be bothered to show up half the time.”

Matt made a choked sound that under other circumstances might have been a bark of laughter. “First of all there were ninjas, so bite me, and second of all you should never use your trial as a reference for anything, ever. It wasn’t even a trial, it was a farce at best.”

"What does that mean?“

He shrugged slightly.  "Well, the timeline alone, do you know how much discovery usually goes into a murder case? Never mind evidentiary hearings, witness depositions, witness qualifications, pretrial motions?”

“I don’t even know what most of those are,” Frank admitted. Not that he hadn’t figured for himself that the whole thing had been pretty fucked up, but the specific details hadn’t much mattered at the time. Still didn’t, really.

“Doesn't much matter when they're shortcutted to nonexistence, I guess," Matt said, echoing his thoughts, "but basically the district attorney trying to force a DNR was somehow the least corrupt thing that happened, and there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself say. I mean, Foggy hates—hated—your guts for what you did to me, and even he was about ready to explode when your public defender openly announced that he’d made an agreement with the DA to get you dragged off to Delaware and a needle put in your arm while you were still unconscious in the damn hospital. That’s disbarment across the board, hell it’s practically criminal charges across the board or at least it should have been, and no one even blinked.”

Frank didn’t figure that cleared up much of anything, but letting Matt be indignant about his actual job seemed to be making him feel a little better so whatever. He’d take it.

“Honestly, the only thing that happened during that whole trial that I’d call normal was that our jackass client decided to run his mouth when he shoulda kept shut.”

That, however, was a bit much, and Frank snorted. “Fuck you too, Red.”

His lips twitched. “Anyway, to go back to your original question, something big like a murder trial would put both of us in the courtroom, but for most stuff one lawyer is plenty and we just kept the other up to date for bouncing ideas off of or if we needed coverage or whatever.”

“Okay. And you can’t use the client-or-no reasoning with the rest of the cases because?”

“Because civil is a beast sometimes?” He shrugged. “That was true before the snap, and it’s not like things have gotten better since. I mean, take this case.” He gestured at his computer. “Old building, a landlord who didn’t keep up with maintenance like he should have, a roof leak that triggered some ugly mold growth, and now there are tenants dealing with breathing problems but he’s insisting that since he fixed the roof eventually their ongoing health issues are entirely their responsibility.”

“Cheap-ass piece of garbage,” Frank growled.

“Yep. And not unusual, like I said; Foggy had three more similar cases, and I’ve got two. But this one slotted back onto the docket real easy given who’s still around, and for the same reason proceedings’ll go on about like normal. Problem is, even if they weren’t, and even if it couldn’t, the mold problem didn’t get snapped. If the only survivor was the six year old with asthma as opposed to him, his grandfather who filed on his behalf, and the neighbor with the headaches, well, suddenly the entire case would be a minor with health problems, and he and I would both be up shit creek.”

Frank’s confusion must have registered to Matt’s senses somehow, because his forehead creased for a moment and then he started again.

“For the purposes of this conversation assume all lawsuits involving minors have to be filed by their guardians. And if that guardian has disappeared for whatever reason, the best outcome would be a delay, but in reality you’re almost always looking at a dropped case and an entirely separate filing. Which, if the new guardian moves in with the kid means the health problems keep coming and any resolution is now twice as far away, and if the kid gets moved elsewhere then it becomes a fight to get him any kind of post-exposure treatment never mind damages. Plus if they do move there’s also a new tenant to worry about because you know that landlord’s not going to remediate or disclose on his own.”

“Isn’t there a health department you could sic on that kind of thing?” Because at least the last part didn’t seem like it should be Red’s problem, although God knew the guy was a dog with a damn bone when it came to letting things go.

“Theoretically yes. Realistically they weren’t all that responsive even before the snap.” His jaw tightened. “I already know that some of it I’m just going to have to let drop, and I hate even thinking about it, but I’m not going to have choice.”

Frank snorted, and Matt tilted his head. “Already knew you were the stubbornest asshole I’ve ever met,” Frank said. “Just wasn’t gonna be the one to say it today.”

Another flicker of a grin. “Pretty sure you ain’t got any business talking.”

“So maybe just hope for it to be the fuckup landlords who got snapped?” Frank asked after a moment. He knew damn well it didn’t work like that, but it wasn’t like he had any better ideas.

And hell, if he had, Matt would probably already have thought of it. He’d always figured that the guy was smart, or at least that the lawyer version was although the common sense part was still real questionable, but listening to him rattle through what was obviously some pretty complex shit as easy—hell, maybe even easier—as Frank cleaned a gun was maybe a little impressive.

“Even if it was that wouldn’t necessarily make things better,” Matt said. “Again, whatever the suit was about, that problem is still there, and while you can always hope that the inheritor or next of kin or whoever realizes that the previous landlord was an ass and steps up to fix the issue first thing—”

Frank scoffed.

“Yeah. I can—do—hope for the best, but I’ve also suffered through more than a few headaches courtesy of real estate shell games played by people trying to hide the fact that they’re slum lords, and there hasn’t exactly been a universal improvement in human nature since the snap.” His shoulders slumped a little, and he swallowed hard. “And either way, it’s going to mean going through….”

A whole damn bunch of recordings of his dead friends, Frank finished mentally. Or dead family, more like. And while he hadn’t thought a lot on Matt’s comment about growing up in an orphanage, it did pretty well imply that he didn’t have any of the blood sort left. “There’s no computer trick or whatever to make it easier?”

“Not really. I mean, the first thing I do—the first thing everyone does, unless they contract out to a professional firm or have someone in-house doing the job—is run everything through an audio transcription program, but accents, multiple people speaking at once, background noise from whatever, they introduce enough errors that someone always has to review and correct. Transcription discrepancies are not the kind of thing you want landing on you in court. But since I can’t see the damn screen I’m stuck alternating between the recorded audio and the screen reader, and when the screen reader fails it’s down to the braille reader which can only handle so many characters at a time. It’s not that it’s not doable, just….” His head dropped a little further. “It’s just going to be a lot of long days.”

“Yeah. Fuck.”

“Sorry,” Matt said abruptly, straightening again. “I shouldn’t have—you probably just came by to get your t-shirt back, didn’t you? It’s back at my place, I—”

“S’okay,” Frank interrupted. “We might as well stop there first anyway.”

Matt tilted his head. “First?”

“Yeah, gotta swing by the grocery store, too. Or vegetable stall, at least. Hard to make gnocchi without potatoes. But might as well let you get changed into something a little more normal before we head that way.”

Matt’s head went back in the other direction, and as amusing as it could have been, Frank sighed because it seemed like he was actually going to have to say it.

“Food. Ridiculous teen drama nonsense. Movies of varying quality. You saw the routine last Friday, and the kids decided you should come back, so your place, vegetable stall, our place.” He pushed himself to his feet, turning the chair back around. “Come on.”

“But…”

He didn’t quite seem to know what his argument was, and Frank took a minute to scan the room, but there wasn’t much to be seen from inside the office. “You got a bathroom around here somewhere?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Matt stood as well and gestured vaguely. “Take a right out the door, it’s at the end of the hall.”

“Good, you oughta go wash your face.”

He blinked and one hand swiped at his eyes again, this time almost absently, before he shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve got to spend at least a couple more hours on this.”

“Tonight? If you’ve already done three today, that seems like plenty.” Not that he really had anything to judge by, especially when Matt had already said that there were eleven hours of recordings just for the one case, but he did know that the guy had looked pretty messed up when he’d walked in and that was without the fact that he’d been able to walk in without Red’s bat ears picking him up in the first place. “Take a break. You can’t be being you all over the Kitchen at noon tomorrow anyway so you can catch up then.”

“Kind of by definition me, noon or otherwise,” Matt said after a minute.

“Lawyer. Go wash your face.”

Chapter Text

Frank had enough Spanish to get a general sense of the thanks and reassurances that Matt and an older woman were exchanging at the outer office door, but most of his attention was on the man in the suit fuming by the window.

Suit guy had been scowling since Frank’s arrival. Or, more likely, since before Frank’s arrival, but it had only taken one look for Frank to decide that the best place for him to be was between suit guy and the two boys working on some sort of complicated structure involving scrap paper and tape at one of the tables, and never mind that both parties had seemed intent on ignoring each other until the woman now with Matt, probably their grandmother, had told them to pack it up.

The fact that Matt hadn’t so much as acknowledged suit guy upon exiting the inner office and escorting the trio to the exit seemed to have made him even angrier though, and while Frank was fairly certain he was unarmed, he was also just as glad that there was no one else around.

Matt finally stepped fully back inside, allowing the outer door to swing shut, and Frank let himself drop down into one of the chairs along the wall. Suit guy hadn’t looked at him either, at least not beyond an initial sneer when he’d first entered, and Matt could take care of himself.

“Pete?” Matt asked, swiveling in his direction. “Did I hear you come in?”

Matt would remember the name he used, or at least was supposed to use, in public. “Yeah, just—”

“We have an appointment!” Suit guy interrupted sharply.

“Oh, Mr. Hollis. I didn’t hear you.”

Frank kept his face studiously blank at Matt’s butter-wouldn’t-melt tone, and somehow he wasn’t surprised in the least when Matt turned back towards him before this Hollis could say anything else.

“Give me a few minutes, would you? This shouldn’t take long.”

“Sure,” Frank agreed.

It wasn’t so funny a couple minutes later when suit guy made what looked an awful lot like an attempt to get a foot in front on Matt’s on their way into Matt’s office, and while Matt managed to ‘stumble’ and stomp on the creep’s ankle instead, Frank made a mental note of the name. Matt could take care of himself, sure, but the fact that this guy thought getting physical with a blind guy was somehow okay…. Not that Frank did dark alleys anymore, not with the kids to think about, but it wouldn’t hurt to have it tucked away, just in case.

Ten minutes later and the creep was on his way out again, somehow looking even more pissed off, but Matt looked pretty tense too as he stood in the center of the outer office, hands clenching and unclenching and his focus on the door.

Frank pushed himself back to his feet, scuffing his boots a little harder than he needed to as he headed over. “You all right?”

Matt’s shoulder’s twitched. “Yeah.”

“What was that about?”

“Nothin’.”

“Right.” Frank was starting to suspect that Matt was incapable of admitting an issue unless it was dragged out of him, and after a moment he knocked their shoulders together. Remembering a little too late that Matt was in a business suit whereas he’d just come from a construction site, but since Matt only scoffed and elbowed him back, he figured it didn’t matter. “Asshole tried to trip you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, well, asshole’s pretty accurate. He’s not usually quite so blatant about it, but I was baiting him pretty bad in court yesterday. And earlier.”

“Yeah, well, he looked to be older than six,” Frank returned, “so he can get over it. Do other people try that?”

“No.”

“You sure?” Not that he knew why it mattered; again, Matt could take care of himself. It didn’t sit right, though. When Frank had a problem with someone, he let them know. Sometimes with his fists and sometimes with bullets, but at least it wasn’t that sort of nasty, sneaky shit.

Matt shrugged. “Not for a long time. He—Hollis—was part of this clique back when we started at Columbia. Pack of rich spoiled brats with some pretty specific ideas about who ought to be there, and neither a butcher’s nor a boxer’s kid were anywhere on the list. The rest of ‘em figured out pretty quick that Foggy and I weren’t actually what you’d call good targets and got over themselves, but Hollis was never very bright. And he can't—won't—take a hint, even when he knows I can run circles around him in court.”

There wasn’t much Frank could say to that, but before he had to try, Matt shook himself.

“So what’s up? I wasn’t expecting you to stop by for a couple more hours. Oh, and there’re churros in the cabinet if you want a snack. Mrs. Ortega left a plate.”

At least he’d expected Frank this time. The last couple Fridays he’d still managed to look surprised when Frank turned up at the door. But Mrs. Ortega had brought tres leches cake last week, and the piece he’d snagged before dragging Matt back to the apartment had been pretty damn good, so Frank wandered over to take a look. “Yeah, I didn’t mean to be here so early either, but I didn’t think to look at the clock when site shut down. If I had I’d’a just headed straight home, texted you to bring yourself by when you’d finished up, but.…” It was his turn to shrug as he snagged one of the churros.

“Did something happen? I thought you expected to be on that site for another couple weeks.”

“We will be, but there were some issues with some of the ratings on the safety equipment now that we’re working as high as we are, and the foreman’s stickler enough to call ‘em on that sort of thing. Which, if it was just me I’d say fuck it, not that big a deal, but some of the kids are pretty much that, and it’s not the kind of thing that anyone’s going to play hardball on anyway. Not now. Figure they’ll have everything sorted by Monday and we’ll be good to go again, no harm no foul.” He downed the churro in a couple bites and then shrugged and licked the cinnamon sugar off his fingers. “Anyway, it is early so I guess I should get out of here and let you do your job, but you’d better show up tonight because Zach’s got Spanish questions, and apparently the shit I picked up from a couple of the guys in my unit doesn’t qualify me to correct verb conjugations. And might possibly land him in detention.”

Matt grinned, and then it slid away and he tilted his head.

“What?”

“After that, I’m kind of ready to get out of here too. No more appointments, and people don’t tend to drop in on Friday afternoons, so what would you say to hitting the gym?”

“Like the kind of gym where people’d look the other way if I wanted to beat up a blind guy?” Which was maybe a little tactless on Frank’s part given that some asshole had just tried to take advantage of Matt’s blindness to trip him, but hell, he and Red had done a whole lot worse to each other. And while he still worked out, he hadn’t had a decent fight since going up to stay with the kids.

Matt’s grin returned, and this time business suit or no, it was definitely Red behind it. “Depends on the day, but the place stays locked up most of the time now so we’ve got good odds. Although as last I checked you were the one who took most of the beatings.”

Frank punched his shoulder and didn’t pull it as much as he might have otherwise. “Remind me again which of us ended up chained to a roof with a cracked-up helmet?”

They stopped at Matt’s place long enough for him to change into street clothes and stuff a couple pairs of t-shirts and sweats into a gym bag, and if Frank figured that the borrowed workout clothes would be on the tight side for him given his heavier build...well, he could fight in his work gear, sure, but that didn’t make it his first choice. He’d manage.

When they reached their destination, it didn’t look like much. The last unit at the end of an old brick strip mall, the peeling paint on the papered-over front window declared it to be Fogwell’s Gym, and between the yellow tint to the paper and the grime built up around the front entrance, Frank guessed that it had been out of operation for a good couple years. Matt picked the lock on the side door with impressive ease, though, and once inside it was obvious that most of the fixtures of an old-style boxing gym were still intact and somehow a lot less dusty than he’d have expected.

“Well, these’ll come in handy,” Frank said, thumping one of the ropes on the center ring as they made their way towards the locker room. It sprang back smoothly, which was both surprising and all to the good given that he and Matt were probably both going to end up bouncing off them at some point. “And you’re really not worried about someone walking in?”

“Nah. There’re still a few guys in and out and a janitor who sweeps up and stocks the towels, but they’re all pretty much weekends-only at this point. And after a couple times someone forgot to lock up and some kids got in and made a mess, one of them fixed the doors so everything relocks automatically anyway. Anyone so much as tries a knob while we’re here and I’ll know about it.” He dropped his bag onto the locker room bench and opened it, tossing one of the bundles of clothes to Frank.

“You know this place pretty well, then.” Frank stripped off his shirt and then paused as the obvious occurred to him. “Butcher’s or boxer’s kid. Your old man woulda been the boxer, then.”

“Yeah. And it was always just the two of us, so I spent a lot of time doing homework in the corner while he trained.” Whether it was a blind guy thing or just a him thing, he didn’t seem to care any more about modesty than another Marine would, stripping down as he spoke. “The original Fogwell died back when I was a kid, and then the son who took over had a heart attack maybe five or six years ago. Not fatal, but it took its toll, and even though he tried to keep it going for a couple years after, there weren’t too many new boxers willing to give a shot to an old gym like this in the first place. When he didn’t have the energy to rally the few who did turn up….” A shrug as he pulled the workout clothes on. “His son officially owns it now, but he was never into boxing and mostly just keeps it open in memory of his father and grandfather. A place for the old regulars to get together on Saturdays, although I figure he’s bound to sell it off eventually and it’ll get turned into a fancy coffee shop or something.”

“Coffee, hell, the last time I went into a place like that someone asked me if I wanted oat milk,” Frank said with a snort, pulling on the sweatpants and checking the ties. “Still want to know how the fuck you milk an oat.”

Matt laughed and reached back into his bag, pulling out a roll of tape and starting on his hands with practiced ease.

“Was your pop any good?”

“Lost more than he won—24 and 31 at the end—but he could take a punch.”

“Runs in the family, obviously. Although that explains a few things about the way you hit, at least when you aren’t pulling crazy ninja shit.”

That got a flash of teeth, and when he finished he tossed the tape to Frank. And after Frank finished and dropped the tape back into Matt’s bag, Matt led the way back into the main room and hopped up into the center ring.

“Any chance there’s a light or two we could turn on without drawing too much attention?” Frank asked. If the answer was no it was no, there was still enough light coming in through he front that he could manage, but he wasn’t the demon in the dark that Red was.

“Oh. Right. Uh….” Matt tilted his head, swiveling, and then he pointed to the back corner opposite the locker room exit. “Should be a switch there, I think. It’s not the overheads, but if I remember right it’ll give you a fair amount from the back without making it obvious to anyone passing by. Good enough?”

“Let’s see.”

“Not something I’m gonna be doing anytime soon, hence your problem.”

Frank snorted despite himself. “Shove it, smartass.” As soon as he hit the switch one of the light bulbs sparked and went out, but the other two did about what Matt had described, and Frank nodded in satisfaction and then swung up into the ring as well, rolling his shoulders as he straightened. “Nothing that’ll traumatize the kids come dinner, yeah?”

Red’s grin returned, and he held out his hands. “I can work with that.”

Frank tapped knuckles with him lightly and then they both took a step back and brought their fists up, and Frank wasn’t surprised in the least when Red attacked first. Frank was the heavier of the two, almost all of the delta being in muscle mass, he had the longer reach if only marginally, and he’d spent most of his adult life in the Marines which theoretically gave him an advantage in training. And while he suspected that the last was entirely theoretical given what he’d seen Red do, the first two were absolute fact.

Red equally absolutely didn’t give a shit, and that fucker was fast.

Frank stepped back out from under the shower spray and swiped at his face, confirming that his split lip had stopped bleeding. Neither of them had been aiming to do real damage, but they didn’t define damage in quite the same way a civilian might, either, and over the course of Frank wasn’t even sure how many bouts had both picked up some cuts and bruises that were going to be a few days in healing.

It felt good.

“What happened to your old man, anyway?” Frank asked curiously as he shut off the water and grabbed for a towel. ‘Always just the two of us’ implied that Matt’s mother hadn’t been in the picture for whatever reason, but while the record Matt had rattled off meant that his father must have had a few years under his belt, if he’d been fighting when Matt was in school he should still have been reasonably young when Matt had hit ten. And an orphanage.

The other shower had shut off a minute or two ago so there was no way Matt hadn’t heard him, but his reply took longer than Frank had expected. “Kitchen Irish. Got in with ‘em after the accident. Medical bills, mostly, since going blind ain’t cheap, but being blind has costs too. It was just supposed to be a loan, just until he won a couple more fights, but….”

“That ain’t how it works,” Frank finished, heading back around to get dressed. “Shit.” He’d seen that story play out more than a few times. “Guess I sort of figured you were born blind, all the crap you do,” he admitted after a minute.

This time Matt’s reply came faster. “Nah. You couldn’t have told me from any other kid in the neighborhood up until I was nine and got caught in an intersection when an old flatbed lost control. Barreled through, crunched up a couple cars, and clipped me, although that part coulda been a lot worse. Lots of bruises and cuts, but no broken bones. But the barrels it was carrying were full of some kind of toxic something and not all that well sealed, and I was flat on my back when they came down around me. One minute I was staring up at the sky, soaked through and wondering what the hell happened, then my dad was there yelling for help, for me to stay still, all of that, and then my eyes started to burn and the world went black.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of his face. “I guess they still look pretty normal except for the whole not-focusing thing, or at least that’s what people tell me, but the retinas, the optic nerves, basically everything that matters was completely burned out.”

“Shit,” Frank repeated. “And the trucking company didn’t have to pay for any of that?” Matt was the lawyer, but that seemed like it should have been a given.

“Should have, sure,” Matt agreed, “but they were in the wind. Turns out that people who transport toxic waste on unlabeled, poorly maintained vehicles without bothering to secure it correctly tend to cut other corners, too, and it was easier to disappear back then.” His lip curled. “There was a lawyer who came to the apartment once, not too long after I got out of the hospital, but considering he was one of the asshole sort looking for payment up front with no guarantees of anything it was just as well that Dad told him to get lost.”

It was no surprise that that was the kind of thing he’d take offense to, not when he took on hopeless murder cases for no money at all and let other clients pay him in baked goods, but Matt continued before Frank could say anything.

“Anyway, maybe six or seven months after the accident Dad still hadn’t paid the loans off, because of course he hadn’t, and a couple guys came to the gym to talk about a fight they’d set up for him. The odds were for him to go the distance, which meant a nice payoff for them if he went down. I wasn’t supposed to know, obviously, but the same stuff that took out my eyes is almost certainly what sent the rest of my senses off the charts, and even if they were pretty erratic until Stick got to me, my hearing was holding pretty steady that day.”

“He didn’t take the fall.” It wasn’t much of a guess on Frank’s part, not given what Matt had already said.

“No. A couple rounds in and he got Creel into a corner and wouldn’t let him back up. I fell asleep at the table waiting for him to get home that night—not unusual, I always had to listen to the fights on television since he’d never let me go with him—woke up at a gunshot, and followed the blood and sirens to find him dead in an alley. Bullet hole in his forehead.”

There was nothing Frank could say to that so he didn’t try.

Matt stood and then frowned, digging around in his bag until he found a glasses’ case. “What about your parents?” he asked as he pulled them out and slid them on, the red lenses neatly hiding the fresh cut along his left eyebrow. “Guessing they’re not still around, either.”

“Nah, but it wasn’t…it was just the usual sorta thing. I wasn’t so much an ‘oops’ as an ‘oh, fuck’ fifteen years and change after they’d given up on the idea of ever having kids, and my old man hit seventy the year after I enlisted. Mom wasn’t far behind, and if both of ‘em lived to see me and Maria get married and then Lisa born—complete with some real old school Catholic opinions on the timing, let me tell you—they weren’t exactly in the best of health by then. Neither of ‘em made it to her first birthday, and no one was surprised.”

Thinking about it now, it was hard to know how to feel. When he’d been a kid his parents had always been the odd ones out. Mistaken for grandparents far more often than not, with arthritis and smoker’s lungs that meant that he couldn’t remember them ever running around and playing with him the way he’d seen his friends’ parents do. By the time he’d hit ten they were never even asked to lead scout trips or coach Little League or supervise field trips anymore; by the time he’d gotten to high school they’d been too tired to even come down on him the way he’d deserved when he’d made his few chickenshit attempts to run wild.

Old-fashioned too, maybe even more than he’d realized, and he knew full well he’d picked up a fair amount of that, although it still depended on the day—hell, the situation—whether he saw that as a good or a bad thing.

And either way, when he was a kid they’d always been there. Dad had played catch after school with him for as long as his hands had held out, and even if he’d never coached had still come to every game Frank had ever played. Mom had had him in the kitchen with her damn near every night while she was cooking, alternately fussing at him about the homework he didn’t give a damn about and insisting that her son was never going to be one of those silly boys who only knew how to use a microwave. And then there were people like Matt, like Amy, like Leo and Zach and a whole fuckin’ lot of kids now, hell, even like Billy as much as Frank tried not to think about him, who’d either lost everything or never had it in the first place, and how had it taken him so many years after his parents’ deaths to notice how good he’d really had it?

Matt’s head was tilted in his direction he realized a moment later, and he waved it off, snagging Matt’s bag and stuffing in the borrowed workout clothes before standing as well. “What do you think about Vietnamese for dinner? Do a pretty good chicken congee.”

Matt’s head went back the other way, forehead creasing.

“What, you think all I know is Italian?”

He shouldered the bag and turned for the door. “Only thing I’ve seen you cook before. Smelled other stuff, but….” A shrug.

“Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.”

Matt snorted and paused at the door, and Frank went quiet until he’d let them back out onto the street and unfolded his cane.

“I was making a point about canned fucking pasta sauce, just for the record.”

“I’m never gonna hear the end of that, am I?” Matt asked as they started walking.

“Nope.”