Archive of Our Own ^beta

October was warm that year, but it did little to help with cold nights and the cold bed Matt had to lay down in, trying to understand how he lived years of his life like that, how there was a life without Foggy in it.

It was the blink of an eye and it was the longest month of his life and before November came with a soft flutter of falling leaves, the graves were settled and wooden crosses all around started to turn into stone.

Foggy had a life insurance. It paid for the gravestone, and the girls' college educations, probably.

Matt didn't even remember Foggy mentioning that, but he found he had one too. He needed to use the screen reader because Foggy never really translated the documents to Braille. It was just something he was in charge of, and Matt was pretty sure it was largely just a precaution. And if he was afraid of either of them dying, he certainly wouldn't have assumed Foggy would be first.

But Foggy was gone.

More than half of the world was gone.

Even Father Lantom and Maggie.

Even Marci. Her business partner, Jen, survived, but she was in a car accident following the large amount of traffic incidents that resulted from disappearing drivers.

At least some people had bodies.

Matt only had the memory of a sickening scent of ash.

Foggy was gone.

Karen was gone.

Marci was gone.

Half of the Nelsons were gone and Matt couldn't bring himself to face the other half.

At least he still had the girls.

God, his little girls.

Julie.

He stood in front of the name, unable to see the dates he had memorized, and realized briefly, with a sickening definitiveness, that he was a single father.

There was almost no one left that he knew.

All the familiar heartbeats faded, a terrible new feeling of getting used to the silence.

All but one.

It's been a while since he recognized a sound of someone he knew walking by, and it was almost midnight on All Saints' Day in a cemetery.

He raised his head and vaguely 'looked' in the right direction, defiant, pointed, making it clear.

I see you. Come over.

Foggy was gone.

Everyone was gone.

Matt was starting to understand it.

***

There was a time when Frank wanted people to understand what he was going through.

There came a time when he wanted to take it back.

Some events in life you just couldn't prepare for. Tragedies so terrible it never occurred to you they may happen. The park shooting was something Frank wouldn't see coming, but at the same time something he knew happened to people. That was the point of the Punisher, after all. Not just revenge, but reassurance it wouldn't happen again.

That was something he could do.

What could he do against aliens with world ending powers, when even all of the Avengers together have failed?

It was All Saints' Day, which meant the cemetery was busy - busier than usual, although the usual looked very different since the Snap. Death taught people to value life. But even now, with the night falling, the air becoming cold and the streets deserted, the cemetery was finally peaceful and empty.

Frank knew how to blend in with the crowds, but this wasn't a mission. He lit his lanterns, and said his prayers, his faith long since flickered out like a the flames of the open candles in the wind, but the meaning behind them keeping him whispering the words. It was strange to think that it wasn't even a year, yet felt like a lifetime already, the wound still so fresh and already so scarred at once.

And a myriad of other cut around it.

He wanted to visit Karen's grave too. She lay in the same cemetery, but in a different section. Closer to the gates in the fresh alleyways paved only by the thousand steps for now.

He stopped in the middle of the main path, eyeing the brightly lit up sea of new graves. He didn't know which cross was hers, would be looking for it normally, but he recognized the lone figure in the distance.

He didn't move, vaguely considering turning back, sitting with Maria for another while until the cemetery deserted fully, or maybe just going back (not home, not anymore) and coming back to light a lantern for Karen another day, when the man sensed him, that blasted strange omnipotence, and looked straight at him in a way that made him feel naked even knowing he couldn't actually see him.

He raised one hand low. A clear gesture to come over. The graves were side by side.

Murdock probably took care of Karen's memorial.

Both were adorned with a fresh arrangement of chrisantemums and a few candles. There were no more on Nelson's grave than Karen's. Whatever family he had had probably been just as decimated.

He didn't say a word, just knelt down and put the lantern on the ground, took out his lighter, pressing uselessly on the button.

"Here." He turned around to see Murdock offering him a pack of matches. He lit up the lantern and stood up.

"Thanks." He muttered, unsure of how to act. "I... Um, I'm not sure how much that's worth but you got my condolences. Sounds stupid, the whole I know how you feel shtick but... You know."

Murdock chuckled, although there was no mirth in it.

"You do know."

"I do know." He let out a deep breath, and it danced white and visible in the cold night air. "Wish you could see it, Red." He sighed. "Night's beautiful. This place never really looked this much like people care as long as I remember."

"I can... I sort of can. Air's warmer, thousand of flickering flames. Every moment, one going out of burning down. But each of them there. Significant, marked with the overwhelming stink of parafin and a fading layer of leather gloves or perfume or lighter fluid. Scents of people leaving them, and so many fresh flowers. It's... it's vibrating, almost."

They stood in silence, sharing space and grief, until Murdock spoke up, seemingly out of nowhere.

"How do you--" His voice broke, and Frank was suddenly hit with a realization he's never seen him like that. Out of the horns he wasn't a preacher, the confidence and determination gone to reveal under all that he was, still, just a man. "How do you do it?"

Frank chuckled darkly, sound ripping out of his throat before propriety could stop it.

"You know damn well I don't, do I, Red?"

He didn't answer, but Frank watched his fingers go white gripping the cane tight.

"Hey. You know what I said, how you're a bad day away from being me?"

Murdock made an inquisitive sound.

"I didn't mean it."

"Didn't you?"

"Well, you're here, aren't you. Didn't hear any reports of Daredevil going rogue." Then it hit him. "Didn't hear any at all, really. Or seen you around."

"Don't really." He swallowed down his pride. Or maybe his pain. "Don't really have anyone to leave the kids with. Or the heart to. I... I haven't been to the office. Work from home. Don't want to drop them off at the daycare cause I'm scared when I'm back they won't be there. Stupid, isn't it?"

Frank felt his own throat grip at the admission. He thought, at least Murdock still had his kids. But maybe that was worse. He wasn't sure what he would have done if Frankie and Lisa survived. Would it be easier? Easier, no, but maybe he wouldn't have... Would he be enough for them? Or would he have failed them?

"Nothing stupid about trauma, Red. You got someone watching them now?"

"They're spending the night with their grandmother. But she can't be there all the time. She doesn't live close - plans to move here, I think, but that's not something you can do overnight. And she's one woman and she just lost her husband and all of her children, and her health isn't what it used to be. She wants to see them when she can but I can't, and don't want to use her as a babysitter."

"And a real babysitter?"

Murdock smiled, and there was something more genuine if still sad about it.

"Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't really trust a stranger with them. Even if I know they're not lying."

He wasn't sure what possessed him to say what he said next, but he didn't really regret it, per se.

"Well, if you need help... I know how to change a nappy."

He expected Murdock to laugh, brush it off as a joke. Maybe scoff and walk away, maybe politely refute him. He didn't expect Murdock to let out a stifled sob and smile at him like he actually meant it for the first time.

"I may take you up on that."

***

Even hearing the sincerity in Red's voice, Frank didn't really expect him to take him up on the offer. But it made sense, in a way. Murdock was left alone with a three people business and two kids. When Frank showed up at his doorstep after getting the call, he opened the door with a kid sobbing in his arms and the bags under his eyes clear without the glasses.

"Frank. I... Thank you."

That was all he ended up saying. The rest of the conversation was just explaining the girls preferences and needs, making introductions and saying goodbyes. Red put on a suit, his glasses, an armor as much as the red horns, and he was out of the door, but Frank couldn't help the feeling he really should have turned him around and back to bed.

It was too late though, and he had no right to lecture anyone on how to deal with grief, so he just focused on the girls, on acting normal, on remembering how to be normal and how to take care of kids.

It hasn't been that long since he last had to cut up a banana into smaller slices. A while longer since he took care of a two year old in the middle of a tantrum, but turns out, some things you just didn't forget.

It was good.

Red's kids, to no surprise, were an absolute delight. Bit cranky, especially Julie, the older, who seemed too grown up, too aware of the finality of death, too good at putting her nose up and pretending she didn't miss her other dad. But they were polite and didn't cause problems, maybe intimidated by a first time with a stranger or simply well-behaved.

It hasn't been that long, has it? Too often Frank didn't want to admit it, but it hasn't been. Yet at the same time it's been an eternity, and he forgot his hands could be gentle, could hold out to tiny fingers and braid hair and not just pull the trigger.

Maybe at the end of the day he should have been the one thanking Murdock.

It was almost too easy. Slipping back into old habits. It was not the same, and he didn't call Julie Lisa by accident or anything like that. Thing about kids was they were people too. Different and unique, and Julie and Jackie were nothing like his own kids, even when they did things that reminded him of the past. He was almost relieved about.

And he loved them. Didn't take more than the nine hours for Murdock to go to work and come back for Frank to figure stake outs on the roofs nearby wouldn't be a bad idea.

The world was a dangerous place since it ended and damned if he was going to let any harm come to another kid.

It was almost too easy. Almost.

The day did end up with Jackie getting a bath after using the three seconds he let his guard down to dump strawberry jam in her now literally strawberry blonde hair, but well. Frank remembered that that was definitely normal too.

And by the time Murdock was back he wouldn't even know what happened, if it wasn't for Julie joyfully relying the tale. Well, at least it got her out of her mournful funk. And the bastard would have probably smelt it anyway.

At that point the kids needed to eat long ago, so Frank cooked. It only made sense to suggest sitting down with Murdock, sharing the meal with Frank actually being able to eat instead of focus on where Jackie's food goes.

Jackie was asleep by then, and Julie insisted she was too old for naps but with both her father and Frank busy she didn't have much to do, so she ended up on the couch with TV on, dropping dead before they were done.

The small smile that slipped onto Red's face just before he whispered that her heartbeat settled and she was asleep looked good on him, as brief as it was. Frank busied himself with washing the dishes as he went to put Julie away in her own bed and close the door behind her, trying to figure out if he should stay of leave, but Murdock answered his question, taking two beers out of the fridge, handing one ot Frank once the dishes were done and falling onto the couch with the weight of the entire world behind that drop.

"Thank you." He said, once again. Frank didn't answer. Figured it wasn't much to thank him for. They sat in silence, going through their bottles, shoulder in shoulder in the room full of scattered toys and memories. Frank could see frames with family pictures that looked all too familiar, and he thought about the way he would have put them all down if it was him.

But Murdock couldn't really see them.

And the memories were always there, not needing any reminders to sneak into your intrusive thoughts.

"How do you do it?"

Red eventually broke the silence, the same question that was probably on his mind since the beginning, so Frank didn't laugh this time. He took his time, trying to find an answer that wasn't a lie.

"I won't tell you it gets easier." He sighed softly. "Cause it doesn't. But you find out there's still people out there in the world worth knowing. Still some things worth living for."

Red seemed to think on it.

"Like revenge?"

"Nah." Frank said. He didn't say what it was instead. Wasn't sure himself.

Murdock put his bottle down on the coffee table and Frank felt the full body shudder that went through him. Not from cold, he bet.

"I keep... I keep catching myself wondering, what if it was different. Wishing it was different. That I could have just faded away like all of them, and it wouldn't be my problem. Or that--" His voice was raw, like he was on the verge of crying, but he seemed determined to get it out. "--that Julie and Jackie didn't still need me anymore. And I don't, I really don't wish they weren't there but middle of the night in the bed that still fucking smells like him, because I can't bring myself to wash the sheets because then it won't and that'll be even worse, I think, but maybe it'd be better for them, to not have to go through this too. They've been abandoned already. But I don't mean it. Not for them. But at the same time I wonder if it'd be easier, for me, if I was like you. If I didn't have to make myself keep going because they need me. Because I don't want to keep going, I wish I could just... stop but that's probably just plain suicidal thinking, right?" He let out a choked up, bitter laugh. "So I catch myself on all that and want to go to confession and apologize, repent, let it out. So I catch myself on all that and want to go to confession and apologize, repent, let it out. But then I remember Father Lantom isn't there anymore either. So I don't."

So Frank said the only thing that he knew to say to that. Maybe some smart people would tell him if it was the right or wrong one, but he knew from experience it was one Murdock probably needed.

"That's normal, you know. It doesn't make you a bad person." Then, after a moment of thought. "Or a bad father."

He couldn't really leave after that, so he took the bottles, his empty and Murdock's unfinished one, and he poured the leftover beer in the sink. Red didn't protest. He told him he can stay over if he still needs some work than, in case the girls need a distraction once the wake up. The affirmative answer he got sounded relieved. Murdock got some documents, be it ones he actually needed to work on or not, and just drowned himself in work for another few hours, probably trying to work long enough what he could pretend what happened on the couch wasn't real. Frank left after Red showered, making him promise he won't go out despite knowing he wouldn't.

Maybe he was just trying to establish a sense of normalcy between them that was long gone.

They didn't say a word about this being a one-time thing, despite the clear assumption.

Frank showed up the next morning anyway.

Murdock looked just as bad and exhausted, and it was a testament to that that he actually looked surprised to see Frank. He let him in anyway.

And then again, and again.

He stopped looking surprised, stopped saying thank you. But he allowed himself to show to Frank exactly how grateful he was, and at some point, Frank found himself late into the night, on the couch, with another beer and the girls asleep, sharing silence, and Matt offered him to stay over if he didn't want to go back this late.

So he stayed.

It was a surprisingly comfortable couch. Frank wasn't sure how much of it could be attributed to the furniture itself and how much to Murdock-- no. Frank thought.

Not Murdock.

Matt.

***

Matt started going back out on the streets a couple weeks after Frank started staying over. Once he realized it started happening more often, once it was clear he could rely on Frank being there and could afford to go out.

Frank pretended it was fine that he didn't even tell him. It's not like they didn't both know he knew it, after all, so there was no need to.

He pretended he didn't lay down on the damn couch awake until three, four, five am, listening to the quiet thump on the roof, pretended he didn't hear the soft sniffs that sometimes accompanied Matt coming back and not catching nearly enough sleep despite knowing one of them should. Stitching Matt up when he moved particularly sluggish.

Too often.

Matt was being careless, wearing black instead of the kevlar, running into fists instead of ducking away from them. But Frank knew better than to ask him to be careful.

Normally, Matt Nelson-Murdock, Frank was certain, was a good dad. A great dad.

But at the time, he was not doing great as a dad.

Or as a person. Or at all.

But that didn't matter. It was a lie, Frank knew it was a lie, but it also wasn't. It was a painful truth he lived himself. You didn't matter, not until others were fine.

Matt allowed himself to self-destruct again because he knew he could afford to, with Frank there.

But Frank couldn't afford to let him keep doing it, because Frank wasn't actually their father, and they needed him there.

And yet, he didn't say anything.

He stayed on the couch, and went to get groceries, and stopped Jackie from crying, and when Julie asked he brushed her off with dad being tired, and missing daddy, and technically it was the truth, but they both knew better. Julie truly was too smart for her age in a way that reminded Frankie of Lisa. She was more muted, though. Less direct. Pretended she was fine even if she wasn't.

God.

Red's daughter through and through.

He forced Matt to sit down to watch a movie with them a couple of nights. Didn't even really turn on audio description, not like Matt would actually be paying attention, but he made him stick his ass on the sofa, and let Julie crawl over him, Jackie tug on his hair, and make them feel close to him and have some normal family time without Matt actually having to do anything.

He thought, maybe foolishly, that maybe it would be good for Matt too. And it was, he knew it was, and he knew Matt was sorry and aware of all the ways he was failing them, he saw it in how gently but tightly he held them at times, but it wasn't enough.

Wasn't enough to fix it.

Frank stayed on the couch, even when Matt took the girls to their grandma for the night. Even when Matt pretended he wasn't there, running his fingers over some book without reading, just waiting for the night to fall.

"You can't keep going like that." He tried. Matt didn't answer him.

"They need you. Not a goddamn babysitter, they need a dad." Matt twitched, but didn't answer.

"What if I left? He asked and he thought for a moment Matt would ignore that too, but he answered.

"You won't." He said, and he sounded inquisitive and certain at once, somehow, and Frank's silence probably showed him bloody well enough he wasn't wrong. He closed the book and locked himself in the bedroom after that.

Frank felt both like he was slapped and like he would have had more luck talking to a damn wall.

But Matt was right. He wouldn't leave.

He couldn't even really blame Matt for how he was acting. Not really. At least Matt didn't go on an actual killing spree. For all that Daredevil's opponents tended to show more roughed up than usual recently, they continued to be consistently alive to turn in. And sure, Matt was acting both immature and manipulative, but he was there for his kids even if he was emotionally absent, providing for them by making sure someone else was there when he wasn't.

Matt, the asshole that he was, was being like that because Frank let him.

But Frank did.

Fine.

He was his kids' babysitter now, and he would embrace it. He wasn't Matt's.

He killed more than forty people when his spouse died. Or at least that's how many they had papers for. He would let Matt get his temper tantrum the way Red allowed him his. Allowed in the vaguest meaning of the word. He wouldn't leave.

Not because the girls needed him, because who they really needed was Matt.

But because Matt needed him to.

Until Matt was ready to be back, he would be there.

***

"Frank?" Maybe he shouldn't have let the girls call him by his real name. It posed a risk. If they used it in public, people had a higher chance of recognizing him. Worse than that, it created emotional attachment. But uncle wasn't something he would be okay with. And a fake name would just feel wrong. So here he was.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Will you read to me?" It was a thing. Matt, for all that he was a great father when he had the mind for it, never really read to them. Frank figured it out quick enough. Braille books for little kids were rare and expensive, so it made sense for his husband to take care of that and Matt deal with other things. But Nelson was gone, and Matt, even if he wasn't all absent, couldn't read most of their books. So Frank did it.

"Sure, sweet--" He answered absent mindedly, a habit, an obvious agreement. He didn't actually look at the book Julie was holding until now.

He managed to school his features to not freak her out. Take it off her hands with reverence, and catch his breath.

She didn't notice his misstep. Run off to the bedroom to settle in bed. He followed, not letting himself think too much, not letting himself make her wait.

No tomorrow.

No putting it off.

One batch, two batch.

He had no idea where they had the book from or if they had it already before he told Red. They must have. Matt wouldn't buy it because of what Frank told him, would he? That would be fucked up, taking children's book recommendations from a half-dead grieving man you just got arrested.

It must have been a coincidence.

That didn't make it better.

He had no idea how he made himself do it. Maybe it was the fact Matt, for all that he was literally three steps away at the kitchen table, genuinely couldn't read it instead. Maybe it was the fact he didn't know if Matt would do it instead even if he could.

So he sat down on the floor by Julie's bed, a scene he tried not to think of as too familiar, and he opened the pages he had memorized, and he read the words, not hearing them, his voice, by some miracle, not shaking.

He read it through, until the end, even as Julie dropped off halfway.

Maybe like some closure, like Lisa could hear it from above, like he didn't fail her in even such a small task. And then he got up, and kissed Julie's forehead, and Jackie's, and closed the door quietly on his way out, knowing he was full on shaking by then.

Matt didn't even notice.

Matt didn't notice anything these days.

He was blind in a way Frank knew he never has been.

So Frank left him to his brooding, to pretending the world ended when it refused to, and took the steps up to the roof, barely managing to make his legs work before he reached cold outside air, collapsed to the ground, his back, ironically, against the roof. He wanted to laugh, thinking back to his and Red's early encounters, and the Red he met back then that no longer existed.

He wanted to laugh but when he opened his mouth a quiet sob ripped out of his throat and Frank was tired, he was so tired, like he told Matt back then, and he thought, once, maybe he'd stop one day, but he never did. So cried, and cried, allowed himself to let it out, let out all of the pain he pointedly avoided acknowledging in months, allowed himself to cry in a way he hadn't in years, even before that April.

And then once he was spent and dry and possibly hypothermic, he went back in to sleep on the couch again. Matt didn't seem aware he left at all.

Sometimes he envied Matt the indifference.

***

There was Frank's toothbrush in the bathroom, and two towels on the rack. The towel was actually Matt's, because Matt had stupidly nice quality fabrics, but it was Frank's towel. The sofa never really got made up anymore, the sheets just permanently on it and the actual living space moving to the armchairs, and the chest of drawers in the living room mysteriously emptied itself of its previous contents and filled with Frank's clothes and whatever scarce belongings he used to have in his flat.

Which he couldn't remember when he last slept in.

It was pretty obvious Frank has basically moved in. Hell. Frank was doing more parenting for the girls than Matt was.

That was not how it should be. He had to face it.

It wasn't nice, exactly. Frank was constantly living in the shadow of Matt's depression and still trying to use tricks and deceit to get the girls some illusion of normalcy and family time, and his situation was pretty impermanent and strange, basically living with a... with a... he wasn't even sure if he and Matt were friends. They were some sort of rivals with grudging allyship and respect for each other before this. And now they could have been closer than ever if Matt wasn't further away from reality than Frank has ever seen him.

So nothing about that was nice. It fucking sucked.

It still felt good to get up in the morning and have something to do other than stare at wrong empty walls, be able to focus on taking care of someone instead of thinking of hurting others, to have that faint memory that this, this was supposed to be what he did. Being a father. Even if he wasn't.

Not to Julie.

Not to Jackie.

(Not to Lisa and Frankie anymore.)

So pretending felt good at times, made him feel wanted and useful, but pretending was all it was.

Frank was just temporarily doing Matt's job until Matt got better.

Except Matt refused to get better.

He was working late hours, and Frank was sure he didn't actually have enough clients to warrant it. When he wasn't he brought work home and even in the rare moments of free time at best all he did was stare at the wall. He was going out more and more. Practically every night, Daredevil would out there, unusually violent, and unusually careless even for him. He was coming home late and he was coming home hurt and half the time he wouldn't even let Frank see it to make sure it was fine.

Frank was enabling it.

He knew he was. Matt was only slipping because he trusted Frank would be there for his children but goddamit, it had to eventually end. Those girls, those two wonderful girls, they deserved better.

So when he put them to sleep once again instead of Matt, brushing off Julie's concerns like they weren't also his own, when Matt's feet hit the roof with a soft thud almost at dawn Frank was there, at the door, blocking his entrance.

"Frank." Like that, in all black and with blood all over him, Red looked vicious. Dangerous in a way he never did before with his preaching and endless hope. Frank knew this was the man people feared. Too bad Frank never did. "Let me in."

"No." There. Frank said it. This was ending, there and now. "You gonna listen to me or do I need to tie you to the chimney again?"

He saw the hit coming before Red even knew he was making it. He was geared up for a fight coming up there, and although he knew damn well they were evenly matched, Red didn't have his head on his shoulders properly now.

But he needed an outlet. He needed to let out that anger, maybe he needed to hit something that it was safe for him to hit in a way vigilante work quite wasn't. Frank knew the fight, as brutal and clumsy as it was, felt good even for him. Red must have craved it.

Red must have needed it.

Red was still emotionally compromised and it took Frank no time to catch him getting sloppy. He let him dance, and once Red was spent he pinned him down.

To the goddamn chimney.

He deflated like a burst balloon. Frank's arms went from keeping him down to holding him up and they both ended up on the ground, Frank gently easing the mask off and letting Matt break down.

The tears flowed freely, hot in the freezing air, gathering up in icy tracks on his cheeks. He doubted Matt even noticed the cold, sobs wreaking through his hole body as he collapsed against the wall and Frank's shoulder.

And Frank let him.

It was good. It was fantastic, and a relief. To know that Matt still held all that pain. That he was just hiding it. That he wasn't quite broken.

So he held him until his cries quieted, until his shaking subsided, more cold and exhaustion than grief in it. And then Frank spoke up.

"Hey." He asked gently, barely a whisper, afraid to break the spell but needing to know if Matt could hear him at all in this state.

"Hey." He answered. It's been so long since Matt listened. Since he answered.

"I didn't know your husband very well, you know." It was the truth. He got to know Matt and Karen when they broke all the rules helping him, and got to know Stahl and Walters in the courtroom. Nelson was always more in his peripheral vision, someone he was vaguely aware existed but didn't matter to him at the time. Few things did. "But he seemed like a good guy. Think you could tell me about him?"

At first, he thought Matt would ignore him. Maybe hit him again. But Matt just took a deep breath and let out a watery laugh, and started speaking.

"I miss him." He said.

"I know." Said Frank. "You will keep missing him. You don't need to stop."

And Matt spoke. He spoke of the scent of cinnamon, and candles at Christmas, and the sound of a heartbeat he could recognize anywhere. He spoke of awkward first encounters, and being young and stupid and students, and struggling not to fall out of a narrow bed they were stubbornly sharing even before they were a thing. He spoke of walls he spent years putting up crumbling with the onslaught of subtle care, of a night of confessions and river of changes and making a step because Foggy made all the ones before.

And then he spoke of reconnecting with Maggie at the wedding, and visiting Saint Agnes, and meeting Julie.

He spoke until there was nothing more left to speak of, so Frank took over and described him the soft colors of the sunrise and cloudy horizon, and by the time he was done, Matt was getting up, holding out his hand out to Frank.

"I can hear Jackie's heartbeat pick up." She was waking up.

"Is she crying?"

"No." He smiled. "I think she just needs to lay in for another while. I'm going to... I'm going to stay in. I don't have appointments today and the office can go unopened one day."

It was not what Frank expected.

It was more, and it was enough.

He certainly didn't expect Matt to take an old photo album off a shelf after breakfast and open it. To show their daddy to the girls. But also... show Foggy to Frank.

Invite him to look too. To see their wedding photos, and old Columbia polaroids and awkwardly cropped baby pictures of Foggy holding Jackie, still so tiny and helpless, photos clearly taken by a blind man just pointing vaguely in the right direction and hoping for the best.

Frank wished he could show him his photos with Maria back. To return that show of trust, earn it, thank him. But there was nothing to thank him for, really. In a way, it was Matt's way of apologizing.

But it was fine.

Frank understood it. He didn't begrudge Matt his pain.

All that mattered was being ready to learn to live with it. He was going to be there to help him do that.

Like Matt once did for him.

***

Christmas arrived with an overwhelming amount of commercialized pressure to be happy Frank couldn't force himself to feel.

It was hard to imagine it was only the first Christmas since he's been widowed, that less than a year ago he and Maria were making plans to take the kids on a Disney cruise he should be on at that moment, and instead was standing over their graves, with no kids.

Hard to believe, that his world fell apart so recently, in the objective passage of time, when it felt like a small eternity. That the world had ended for everyone else barely over two months ago, that Matt went through a personal emotional apocalypse of his own and Frank ended up putting aside his mission of revenge for a mission of caretaking for him in a timeframe shorter than it took him and Maria to have their first date after meeting.

Time passed in strange ways.

That was the crux of the problem. In the grand scheme of things he just helped Red out with something for a while. It didn't mean anything - didn't mean to Red what it did to him, because Red, Red still had a family and was just going through a rough patch. Frank had nothing.

Then he kind of had Red, but he didn't have him.

It was Christmas, and Matt and the girls were spending it with their grandmother and what other relatives have survived around the country. With family. Family Frank didn't belong to.

He was here, away from the couch that didn't feel temporary anymore, away from the flat he didn't have a right to be in with its inhabitants away, and where he belonged.

With his Maria. With his babies.

Someone put a little bench by the grave opposite theirs. When Frank sat down on it, it was still light out.

It was dark now. He should go back, actually sleep. He couldn’t send the entire night outside, as much as a little part of him was tempted to.

It would be stupid, and he'd end up catching a cold, probably. He lay on rooftops with a rifle enough nights but it was December, there was actually snow around, and Frank should have put on a warmer jacket - would have if this was a mission. But it wasn't. This was a visit. So Frank was wearing the Nice Black Coat, the one Maria made him wear on Sundays and when visiting family, the one he grabbed from home the one time he went back to take a few things too precious to be left behind.

The one he would inevitably catch pneumonia in if he stayed outside for two days when there was a... not good, but good enough flat he could go back to.

He sighed and stood up, feeling tear tracks frozen on his cheeks, stinging lightly, when he heard the snow squeak lightly under someone's feet. He checked his watch. Ten to midnight. He looked in the direction of the footsteps, clearly coming towards him, and nearly held his breath when he recognized the glint of the red lenses.

He controlled his breathing carefully instead. Wouldn't do to let the bastard know.

"What are you doing here?" He asked eventually, once Matt stopped next to him and made the cross sign over the graves.

"Going to midnight mass, of course." Matt answered, as if it's obvious, which is partially was - it was Christmas, it was midnight, they were near the church. That's wasn't what Frank was asking though, and they both knew the path to church certainly didn't lead through this particular alley of the cemetery. But Matt was like that. Two months practically living together and making Frank's life hell, he still could completely disarm him. "Come on." He said, like they arrived there together, like it was the plan to attend church together all along, like it wasn't a question.

So Frank went.

He followed Matt like a lost kitten, sat in the pew with him, far enough in the back of the church to not feel horribly uncomfortable with it, his beard grown in enough to not be instantly recognizable, certainly not in this setting.

He didn't sing, nor really spoke any answers or prayers, even if he found himself quietly surprised to remember them all.

He knelt when it was time to kneel and stood up when everyone else did, though, but when time came to take communion, he stayed behind as Matt got up. He wasn't the only one, even on Christmas, and there were some invisibles lines he just didn't want to cross. There was just enough faith left in him to recognize it as significant, to not want to taint the experience for appearances sake.

When they left the church, Matt asks him if he'd be around after Christmas, and Frank grunted out an affirmation and some weak wishes for him and the girls, and then that was it, with Matt smiling at him (it's been too long since he saw Matt smile) and walking away.

Frank watched the snow fall in the streetlamps glow, and thought of the way this picture was always one of his favourite, the cold and the white winter and the holidays lights so magical, so homely and different to the desert he worked in.

This year he dreaded it, but now, watching Matt walk away, as bittersweet as he found it, he realized maybe the magic was still there, even if not for him.

When he got back to his apartment it felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with him putting the heater on late.

***

Frank came back after Christmas, and bravely survived the girls onslaught as they thanked him for the gifts he left them and regaled him with tales about their holidays. He smoothly evaded any questions about what he's done and things settled back to normal.

Bit too much for Frank's liking at times.

Matt didn't get better overnight. He never expected him too. So yeah, it was still their normal, a lot of the time, their normal being Frank dealing with everything like a good little housewife who didn't complain.

But Matt tried.

He was trying, making an active effort to change even if the first couple weeks that only worked out one tenth of the time. But he initiated those movie nights that Frank begun as a way to get the girls family time when Matt was too emotionally unavailable himself now, suggesting it when clearly he was still struggling with anything more.

He stopped bringing work home.

Apparently the Walters woman, the one from his case, left the hospital just before Christmas, and since she needed work and Matt was swamped with work in a too big office, they ended up partnering.

It was a double edged sword. Frank watched how even as Matt didn't drown in paperwork thanks to it, he drowned in a fresh wave of grief that came with someone other than his husband sitting at the same desk. But he actually slept now, thanks to her, and that was enough.

He even started being careful when going out and telling Frank when he needed stitches.

And he prayed.

Matt never stopped going to church. He took the girls like clockwork at eleven every Sunday, but it felt automatic, even Frank could tell. But that Christmas, sitting next to him, looking at him more than where he should, Frank saw that Red was slowly coming out of his cocoon, and regaining faith. In God, and with it, in the world, and maybe himself.

Although maybe that was a wrong metaphor. Matt wasn't quite coming out of a cocoon yet. He was spinning himself into one, still hidden but reworking himself in silence so he could eventually leave it out ready for the world.

Ugh, he was getting mushy and losing the plot. All that mattered was that Matt was making progress. He liked rosaries. Frank figured it out early, didn't need to see him not praying to notice the stupid amount of them scattered through the flat. He must have enjoyed the way they offered something more to him than just the words - tactile experience that could connect him to the world in a way sight detached him from it.

He had a favourite, Frank realized. It hung on the bed rail in the bedroom and when he started praying again, that was the one he would use.

Frank took it in his hand, once, gently rolled the beads between his fingers. It was light, not the best quality, plastic. Nothing special.

Funniest thing, however, was - and Frank wondered if Matt was aware of that, if he could feel it and that's why he liked it, or if he simply didn't know - late in the evening Frank could see him, sometimes, either in the bedroom or sitting in the armchair, both sharing space and silence, and the fingers deftly jumping between beads always visible to Frank even with the curtains drawn to hide the billboard light. Because Matt's favourite rosary, in the light of the day, was the ugliest slightly transparent milky kind of neon green. In the dark, it was fluorescent. There was some beautiful kind of irony to it. Frank never mentioned it, just in case Matt didn't know that and decided to switch rosaries upon learning.

So Matt didn't get better overnight. But he got better, well enough that Frank didn't feel like he was keeping his household alive and more like he was just there for support.

And that, that helped Frank get better, in a way he barely even realized he wasn't good. Matt's slow return was a relief. A ray of normality on the horizon.

Before he realized, Frank found himself staring at the calendar turning to April and the reality that it's been a year sinking in. That explained why his heart felt so heavy.

Matt knew, he thought. Certainly noticed from Frank, if he didn't. But he didn't say a word, except to busy himself with putting the girls to sleep when Frank left, quietly reassuring him that he was actually going to be there and not fail at parenting the one time Frank wasn't going to be there. He didn't ask Matt to come with him.

He walked to the cemetery, the same familiar path, the one he was taking on the regular now, and it was a wonder the police didn't ever catch him there, simply visiting them, with how often he did it.

He sat on the bench, and didn't talk to Maria for once, not sure what there was to say, didn't sing the kids quiet lullabies, his throat too tight, just sat there, with his hands in his pockets, hunched against the traitorous cold of spring breeze, and simply allowed himself to be with them.

It was similar yet so different to that night in November, when his grief had first settled and Matt's was still fresh. The cemetery was darker now. The world didn't need much time. It moved on, and once again, people stopped caring. He didn't. Wouldn't, never, but as he knelt to put the three lanterns on the stone, one bigger and two smaller, each in a different color because he was a sentimental bastard, he actively made an effort to think, before leaving - not of the time he wished they could have had more of, but of the time he was grateful they had at all.

He walked away with two more lanterns still clinking against each other in the plastic bag he carried them in. One for Karen. One for Nelson.

Nelson-Murdock.

He stopped at that grave. Made a cross sign over it, even if he wasn't sure Nelson was as religious as his husband. Considered, briefly, talking to him the way he did to Maria a lot of the time. What would he even say? Ask if Nelson was alright with him being there for Matt, or reassure him that he was? He huffed out a chuckle and thought the better of it. He stuck the empty plastic bag in his pocket and left.

Matt stayed up. Didn't give any indication that he stayed up for Frank, or even raised his head when Frank walked in, but no more than five minutes later he left the kitchen with a quiet goodnight and went to his bedroom.

Frank was surprised he had no nightmares that night.

Steadily, relapses became a rarity and Matt's progress turned steady. Summer, for all that it was pure hell in terms of temperatures, seemed to actually bring Matt out onto the final stretch. Maybe it was the fact he was forced to go outside when the flat became stifling with the windows that don't open, or maybe the way he could pretend to not be blind if he left his cane behind, everyone already wearing sunglasses anyway.

(Frank thought Matt's self-consciousness about his eyes was unwarranted and would love to see them more often, but he wisely kept those thoughts to himself.)

He got to take the girls out to the park, play with them like a normal dad, actually go back to being present and active and there for them. It was beautiful to watch.

When the Snap's anniversary rolled around, everyone and the media talking about it, memorials everywhere and sober atmosphere in the air, a mix of sensationalist emptiness and genuine depression in the pieces, Frank felt like he was holding his breath for that final straw.

Matt was quiet, but he got out of bed, went to work, and even managed a weak smile at Frank over dinner even if it didn't reach his eyes. They took the girls to the cemetery together, during the day, because Jackie was still a toddler and Julie only thought she was all grown up and they need to sleep at night, not wander around. Frank just pulled a beanie on, his beard by now neatly trimmed at a bushy length and hair long enough to curl, and he felt comfortable enough to be there, to stand on Matt's side so he could lean on him even as he realized Matt didn't need to anymore.

Even so, Frank stayed.

Enough people have left.

Enough people were lost.

They didn't need to lose anymore. They supported each other and it was good. He liked to think Matt liked having him around, maybe even more now that he was no longer an emotional zombie and able to appreciate it.

Besides, Frank liked to think the girls would miss him.

***

It got... domestic. disgustingly domestic and normal and it didn't hit Frank until he actually realized other people knew him and recognized him as the guy who lived there.

Not Pete, the occasional babysitter.

Pete, the guy who lived there. Fuck, did he even renew the lease on the safehouse? It was Natalie, the kid from downstairs, who made him realize it was even worse than that.

He was taking out the trash, and she was taking out the trash.

"Hey, Frank." She seemed to catch herself once she dumped the bag out, but it was too late. "Um, Pete. I mean Pete." She tried to correct herself but there was cheeky defiance in it, not actual slip, not any ounce of real nerves.

"You're not afraid of me, huh?"

And he wasn't even surprised, or nervous himself (she was like sixteen and a hundred pounds soaking wet), just sort of resigned. He got sloppy and he knew it, and this was something - maybe a wake up call, or maybe a sign it was fine.

"I mean, I was at first. When I realized. But then I realized I also now know you, pretty well even." They chatted before. Run into each other at the mailbox, in the corridors. She borrowed sugar and asked him to help him out with delivering some heavy science project to school once because her mom didn't have a car. "And a lot of your growling is just an act. All bark and no bite."

Coming from a kid, it felt like a goddamn insult. He was the Punisher, for goodness sake. She was a high schooler.

"Oh, I can bark alright."

And the brat laughed at that.

"I know you can. But you know who deserves it. I think it's pretty obvious you're actually a good guy, Frank."

It was Franks turn to laugh.

"Am I? Never heard that one before. Pretty sure most people would disagree."

"But would they? Come on. I know you have friends, but you also have more allies than you realize, I think. It's just kinda ridiculous how many times the police didn't catch you, isn't it? And your alias is basically the same bloody last name, Frank, and your entire disguise is at most a hoodie and a beard. And you go traipsing around all the time, everywhere, half the time showing up around shady shit. It's not that no one recognizes you, it's that they ignore it."

He didn't show around shady shit all that often. He only started backing Matt up more often recently. And he promised that Castilione was actually fine, because phonetic similarity of last names did not stand any legal ground. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"Because they're afraid of me."

"No, because they approve of you. Think about it. Somehow, when those copycats show up, it's always obvious they're not like you. They're actually violent. They're the bad guys. People want those gone, but not you."

She spoke with the kind of confidence only teenagers had, when you were young and thought you can take on the world. Frank remembered, because when he was her age, he was exactly like it.

"Because officially I'm already dead and gone."

"Come on. Everyone knows you really aren't.. Maybe they're just glad for it, and prefer you alive."

She walked away, leaving Frank with a trashbag in hand, and a lot of thinking to do. Maybe he would shave. The beard itched.

***

Frank had not paid much attention to the fact he actually also got hurt that day in the park. He had other things to think about. More important, more tragic thoughts that kept him busy. He did pay attention to the bullet hole in his head until he had to.

Until he was curled up on the floor because he tried to ignore the pain long enough he didn't make it to bed when he collapsed. Until he had to admit defeat and crawl onto the sofa and not reemerge for two days.

Frank had known, vaguely, migraines were bad headaches people got. He never had migraines before, however. Never truly understood the sheer intensity of 'bad headache' that it meant until suddenly, he had to live with it.

The good news was that it wasn't like a bullet wound. The pain built up and he knew when it was coming, and as much as he hated it, he could put the gear away and hide in a hole and wait for the world to come into focus again.

The bad news was that everything else about it sucked. Those were the days he missed Maria the most, wishing she was still there for him to hide his face in her stomach, that he was in the big, soft bed of theirs instead a lumpy mattress at the cheap safehouse, that it could be nothing more than a temporary hindrance instead of a physical manifestation of a pain he carried around all the time.

They didn't happen all that often, from what Google told Frank, which was glad for. But they still happened too often for his liking. (Any time at all was too often.)

After the Snap, when Frank basically moved in with the Murdocks, he almost forgot about them. When the first one hit, he just stayed in his stupid flat, in his stupid bed, in the stupid four walls of loneliness and regrets, and didn't eat anything or move besides to the bathroom and waited for the world to stop being so fucking much.

He understood why Red didn't have ticking clocks. He smashed his own around his third migraine. He was a bit useless after them still, but managed to actually get himself back outside and go to Murdocks because frankly, seeing the girls sounded like possibly the only thing in the world worth keeping eyes open for.

Maybe Red wasn't missing all that much being blind. The world was too fucking bright and colorful and aggressive.

He had eventually ended up with an attack when staying over. It was only a matter of time considering he was staying over all the time, but it didn't make it any easier.

Matt didn't even notice. It was around the time when Matt was not quite there still, so it was no wonder he didn't notice. Frank wasn't sure how he made it through. He was thankful only for the fact it was school day, for the fact the girls were out of the house, that schools already reopened and that he could curl up on the couch and try not to vomit once they left.

Making breakfast and getting them ready that morning was physically harder than any mission he was on as a marine.

Good thing the apartment was already set up to accommodate doing things without looking, because that one, as if to spite how much Frank didn't need it, lasted for over three days, and he still felt like shit before and after, moving around with eyes closed and sleeping with a pillow over his head.

He didn't realize that the neon buzzed before then. It wasn't all that loud, but it was definitely audible.

Jesus Christ, how did Red live like this.

That was, blessedly, the last one Frank got for a couple of months. He was happy to be free of them and almost forgot how annoying they were, to the point where when the next time symptoms appeared he almost missed them.

When the dizziness and fatigue came, he assumed it was just the exhaustion from the week. He got quiet, and sure, his body felt all tingly but that was not weird considering he was out with Red the night before, right?

It was only when he noticed the black spots dancing around his vision that it hit him.

Shit.

But this time, Matt noticed. He didn't really plan on hiding it. He didn't bring attention to it, the last time, but it was Matt's indifference that made him miss it. This time, it was no wonder Matt realized even before Frank thought to mention it, with those stupid senses of his and how attuned they became to each other.

"Are you alright?" He asked once the girls were put to sleep and Frank and him were sat at the kitchen bar together, nursing a cup of tea instead of a beer - maybe that was a sign to just how domesticated he's become, too. "You feel warm."

"Just... feel a migraine coming."

Matt didn't say anything to that. Maybe he knew Frank needed the silence, or maybe there was nothing to say. But when they were done he didn't move the mug to the sink, because the mugs would clink, and he was careful not to move the chair against the floor when he got up.

"You should take my bed tonight." He whispered eventually, and Frank wanted to protest, because really, the couch was fine, but his words were just... not working great, and Matt was already leading him to the bedroom, and forcefully sitting him down and his mattress and...

"Wow. Your bed is soft."

Matt let out a quiet breath, almost like a laugh, and then he was gone. Frank didn't protest more. He took off his pants and went to sleep in the t-shirt and boxers, and thought that Matt's bed really was stupidly nice.

It no longer felt as nice in the morning, because the entire world felt on fucking fire, not in the nice, poetic, superhero way of Red, but in the burning at stake way an attack always did. There was no ticking clock - that was the first thing Frank noticed, for some reason. The next was hushed voices coming from the kitchen, Matt talking to the girls in a low voice that they needed to be extra careful and quiet because Frank was not feeling well.

The sounds, as gentle as they were, were enough to be uncomfortably aware of them, but Frank found himself strangely happy to have them instead of the usual cold silence of the safehouse.

It was pretty great, actually. Matt even brought him water, and some fairly inoffensive food and for once Frank didn't want to puke - it wasn't the worst he had, as bad as it was still, and he was grateful for it.

Jackie crawled into bed with him, at some point, despite Matt's attempts to stop her, and Julie followed suit once Jackie was given official permission from Frank. They were actually quiet - quite a feat for a three year old especially.

It was.. it was nice.

Not that migraines sucked any less suddenly, but having someone there, having someone take care of him...

Even with his skull feeling like it was splitting in half and sweating out of his body he managed to get hit with it like a truck, his throat suddenly feeling raw and dry.

It felt like having a family again.

It wasn't Maria and Lisa and Frankie, but Frank didn't need them to be. They were Matt and Julie and Jackie, and they were there, and they were everything good left in this godforsaken post apocalyptic world, and Frank realized, his breath leaving him, that he felt exactly the same way about them.

About the girls, sure but also... about Matt.

He felt exactly the same way about Matt as he did about Maria once.

He wasn't quite sure what to do with that epiphany quite yet.

But he didn't think he minded it.

***

Frank recovered from the last migraine in record time, which meant he didn't have to, fortunately or not, spend another night in Matt's bed. It took Matt less than a week after that, however, to take over and fall sick himself.

It was ironic, really.

It wasn't the stab wound to the side he got when fighting the Irish that took him out. It wasn't the dunk in the Hudson in cold November air that managed to lay him down. It wasn't Daredevil's risky endeavours at all.

It was first snow.

He ducked bullets and swords and strange poisons without issue, and in the end Frank told him that he should have taken the scarf when December came with snow and Matt took the girls to the part to enjoy it. Matt didn't. Only thing stronger than Murdock lack of self-preservation skills was Murdock stubbornness.

And did that stubbornness know no bounds.

"What the hell are you doing, Murdock." Frank didn't call Matt just Murdock in months. Matt deserved it now, however, because he was running a hundred degree fever and standing up in front of his open closet. "Next words out of your mouth you better tell me your senses got all fucked up and you mistaken the doors to the bathroom."

Matt didn't even have the decency to pretend to be shamed. The bastard acted all innocent and clueless.

"No, I didn't. It's Sunday."

"Astute observation. So your brain didn't fully fry yet. What about it?"

"It's Sunday. Mass is in an hour."

Frank wanted to laugh. But he was nice. He didn't.

"You don't actually think I'm going to let you out there in the middle of winter with fever, do you?"

Matt sent him an impressive glare, although it would be a lot more impressive if it hit Frank and not his left shoulder. Some things super senses couldn't quite fix.

Frank sighed and grabbed Matt by the shoulders, literally physically forcing him back into bed. Matt honest to god pouted.

"Listen. Matthew." He emphasized the word and Matt squinted at him. Mission successful. "Ain't no way you're gonna win this in your state. Get back to the damn bed, let me put on a mass on the radio for you, and I can take the girls to church, okay?"

Matt looked up at him, force of habit he carried out of childhood, and he really did channel perfect puppy eyes like that.

"You'd do that?"

And fuck, but yeah, Frank would. He knew it mattered to Matt, and Frank always wanted his kids to grew up with the right rules and morals and routines too. He was always bad at spiritual shit but he took Lisa and Frankie, and he'd take Julie and Jackie when Matt couldn't. It really wasn't that complicated.

And damn the Murdock puppy eyes.

"Course, Red."

And that was that. Apparently Matt really was sick, because he didn't argue more. So Frank closed the bedroom door, putting the radio next to Matt's bed but not turning it on, telling Matt what time to tune in for mass but secretly hoping he'd actually catch some sleep, bundled the girls into their puffy coats and their pom pom hats and then they were out.

It was a short walk to the church, although much longer with two excited children and enough snow to play in, but they did, in the end, make it on time and mostly dry. Frank put them in the back in a pew, unzipped their jackets so they didn't overheat in the warm church and settled in for the service. They were still too young for communion both, which was good because Frank would feel a bit lost if he had to go with Julie, so the mass was altogether uneventful, although when it was over all Frank wanted was to head out, because it did feel a bit wrong to be back in a church without Matt.

Unfortunately, small children did not make for quick tactical retreats. Jackie had to give the angel at the altar a coin. And another. And another, until it finished nodding its head and singing its carol and Frank felt grateful when he had no more spare change to offer her, even if she looked disappointed.

"You'll get more next week with dad." He told her, and she seemed to immediately forget her woe and finally follow him out.

Unfortunately, they stayed behind long enough for the priest to ambush Frank outside the door.

"Frank. I didn't expect to see you here."

What was it with everyone who wasn't supposed to knowing him and who he really was?

"Father Lantom." He greeted politely, because Matt talked about the guy enough he knew his name and Frank had manners. Killing people every now and then didn't mean he had to be rude.

They thought Lantom got snapped too, at first. He reappeared a couple months later and it turned out he was visiting family in another state when the thing hit and ended up in hospital, in a coma, without documents. He was only able to give them his name after he woke. His return was a small miracle, both in itself and how it affected Matt.

The girls had run off to play in the snow after a good morning. Frank sighed, and settled in to accept the unwanted conversation, allowing them to enjoy themselves for a while at least.

"I didn't expect to see you here without Matthew." Lantom remarked. "Admittedly, I didn't expect to see you around here even with Matthew, as much as I'd like that."

Frank snorted. He was a smart guy. Had a point.

"Matt caught a cold."

"Ah." Lantom sighed, sounding a bit too knowing. "Is it... bad?"

"Nah." Frank turned to him, to look at him, actually put a sincere expression on. He knew Matt's priest was onto Matt's nightly activities and helped patch him up a couple of times. "It's actually just a cold."

"Well, then I'm glad to hear that. I suppose."

It was awkward. Frank almost forgot how to make small talk, let alone with a priest who was practically a stranger. He seemed like a good guy, let Matt run around beating people so clearly he must have been somewhat unorthodox...

Although who knows with priests. Wasn't there that whole thing with confidentiality of confession and mobsters being very religious?

He considered just coming up with some way of excusing himself and taking the girls back, and he wasn't above bribing them with chocolate if necessary, but clearly Father Lantom wasn't done talking.

"You know, I've actually heard quite a lot about you."

Frank stopped himself with laughing. Would probably be rude.

"Yeah. Everyone who reads the papers did."

"Oh no, that's not what I meant." The man seemed altogether unmoved by the reminder. "Although I watched your trial. It was quite the show." God, way to put it. "But I didn't mean that. Everyone heard about that and drew their own conclusions. I heard about you from Matthew."

That... that was different. Certainly unexpected. Maybe it shouldn't be. Basically living together and raising his kids, Frank shouldn't be surprised Matt talked about him to other people.

But he was. Because he wouldn't have expected Matt to want to.

"I, um..." He sighed, still trying to figure out what to do with that knowledge. He got enough preaching from Red, he didn't need Red to start a club. "I don't suppose it was any good."

"Oh no, it was only the good things." Lantom replied, all too cheerily, and Frank found himself rather confused by the conversation once again. "He wasn't very well, after Franklin's passing."

Franklin? It took Frank a second to connect the name to Matt's husband. Matt certainly never called him that.

"Yeah, he... he just needed a little time. Losing your spouse is hard."

Frank got it. Matt just needed some support to get through it, and he did.

"Maybe." Lantom looked at him in a way that made him feel exposed. "But you were the one who was there to help him so he could take that time. And he appreciates that. I, for one, appreciate it. Someone needed to drag that boy back out and remind him there's still a place for him among the living. Lord knows he would have never done that himself."

"He would." Frank said, because he believed it. But he knew what the priest meant. "But I was happy to help him."

"Look like you're still helping him."

Frank felt defensive all of a sudden.

"That a problem?"

"Quite the opposite. I wouldn't mind seeing you around here more often."

Laughing at that would probably be rude so Frank just sighed.

"Not my scene. You heard about fifth commandment, Father? I'm not a hypocrite."

He was more than put off when it was Lantom who laughed.

"You got married in a church, Frank?" He asked, out of nowhere.

"Yeah. I did. We'd go every Sunday back then, with the kids."

"Matthew didn't, but you probably know that. He couldn't." Yeah, cause he married a man. Frank wasn't sure what that got to do with anything besides maybe just piling up on top of things that made coming here seem not worth it. "But..." Lantom continued. "He still shows up. Church was never for the saint, you know. It was always for the sinners. Although, loving someone too much... that's not a sin."

And he just left. Walked away with a goodbye and a wave to the girls, and Frank watched him go, understanding the way Matt described him as a great man, but somewhat grating.

***

So fine. Maybe Frank loved Matt. Didn't mean he had to do anything about it anymore than he planned to go to church ever again after Matt got better.

He stuck his feelings deep down next to all the other things he didn't think about daily and chose to ignore them, because they would just complicate everything and Matt didn't need them right now. He was still not quite back to himself, after all. Probably would never be, but no one expected that.

He was enough just as he was.

They had a balance. They were friends, emotional support for each other in an increasingly fucked up world, partners - in life and in crime.

In the mornings they'd both get up to the same alarm clock, and Matt would dress himself and the girls while Frank prepared breakfast and put on the coffee to brew. It was something he allowed himself to embrace.

There was only so many ways you could draw a smiley with ketchup on a cheese sandwich, and parenting was a routine, a collection of repetitive tasks. Frank learned it all once and he couldn't unlearn it and it would make no sense to pretend he didn't know how to do things, so he... He acknowledged that it was habit and not new. He allowed himself the familiar tasks and remembering doing them the last time.

Sometimes it still hurt but it was good. It allowed him to grieve in a way he never did properly.

Matt was certainly more active at night these days than Frank was (and he wondered why that was, sometimes, if it was the fatherly role he accidentally stepped into again that stopped the blood lust or something else) but when the girls weren't home, staying with their grandmother or at a sleepover, the Punisher still crawled out onto the streets and followed Red around. He even only shot at kneecaps.

And then Matt just... stopped, again.

Frank had no idea why.

It wasn't a relapse, exactly. He was fine. It's been two years since the world had gone to hell. Two years that was not enough time for grief to run its course. Frank new his own didn't with more time than Matt's, so he didn't expect it to. But the anniversary came and passed without any issues. Frank even spent Christmas with them, grandma Anna off to another corner of the country where some surviving cousins just had a baby of their own.

It was good.

Then Matt had just... withdrawn. Started avoiding Frank. And that was the problem. Matt didn't relapse.

He just distanced himself from Frank specifically.

Just as they found that harmony, something that worked, it stopped working, and Frank had to accept it.

But he didn't want to.

It shouldn't be, but it was harder, somehow, to watch Matt be a good father, manage on his own and be happy, than it was to watch Matt struggle. And Frank wasn't ashamed to admit it, at least to himself. It fucking sucked, to realize that once again, he wasn't needed.

He couldn't even remember the last time he was at his flat. At some point he started sleeping over even in the empty apartment, so he went back just on principle over the weekend Matt and the girls were visiting her grandma. Just to remind himself that was actually how it was supposed to be. Just to remind himself the fold ouch couch at the Murdocks wasn't his.

He tried to follow Matt's cues. Tried to distance himself too. Started leaving more. At night, as the Punisher, on the nights Red stayed in (and if he needed to blow some asshole's brains out to deal with his own thoughts, so what?) and during the days, just wandering the streets when the girls were at school, or coming back to his flat to refamiliarize himself with that shithole and at least attempt to associate it with... if not home, then something akin to it.

It didn't really work.

It didn't feel good, knowing he was no longer needed, and no longer wanted. But Matt never said it outright, and Frank couldn't bring himself to ask if he should leave.

Couldn't bear the idea of never seeing the girls again.

Never seeing Matt either.

(Maybe he would see Red, maybe he'd avoid him, but that was different than Matt at the breakfast table.)

Couldn't bear to lose yet another family.

***

Matt may have made a mistake.

Granted, Matt made a lot of mistakes since Foggy's... loss. He still couldn't quite think of Foggy's departure as death, as something so final, when there was nothing to prove it, no body, no pain, no wound. When Matt couldn't hold Foggy at the end, when all that happened was Foggy just there and not. It felt like a dream, a haze, but Matt let it affect him too much, and he started going around half asleep, half a ghost, and without Frank, he probably would have made even more mistakes.

He was ashamed to admit it, but he knew it was true, and he knew that for the first half a year, maybe a year, Frank was parenting the girls more than Matt was.

Matt wasn't proud of how much he needed Frank's help. But he was grateful he received it.

He wasn't sure why Frank even stayed. Why he was so endlessly patient, why did he allow Matt to act like a spoiled child, like a shell of a man. But Frank did. He was like a calm in the storm, and Matt felt swept off by the wind, Frank kept him grounded.

He got used to having Frank around.

Came to like it - came to expect it. At some point he realized he couldn't really imagine their home, their family, without Frank there. Which was stupid - because Frank had no obligation towards them. Frank slept on the couch, for goodness sake. He was just around to help Matt with babysitting, temporarily, except temporarily was going on three years already and it hit Matt at some point.

He wanted Frank to stay.

Wanted Frank in his bed, by his side, on... on Foggy's side.

And that was the problem. The feelings came crashing down with pain and guilt, and even though Foggy was... dead (he was dead, he had to face it at some point) it still felt like he would be cheating. Like he had no right to fall for Frank, because he was married, he had a husband. Like he had no right to fantasize about Frank in his bed because the only empty spot in that bed wasn't empty, it was Foggy's.

So he tried to ignore them.

That was the mistake.

Turned out ignoring the way Frank made his heart beat a notch faster somehow turned into avoiding Frank because he got a tad bit paranoid about being transparent and it was a lot harder to figure out how not stare when his own version of staring didn't actually involve looking. He was certain that Frank would know how hyperaware Matt became of him, so Matt just tried to minimize his interactions with Frank.

But that was a horrible idea.

Because it made Frank sad.

Matt felt like the worst scum once he realized what he's done. Frank got quieter - which was saying a lot, considering Frank was never loud to begin with. But when he spoke, he sounded sad, and he started actually leaving the apartment. At some point Matt completely forgot he didn't actually live with them, and only remembered once Frank's steady presence begun to disappear on the weekends. The worst thing about it was that he knew Frank wasn't doing it because he stopped being comfortable with them. He was doing it to make it easier on Matt. He was trying to give Matt space he thought Matt wanted.

The problem was that Matt didn't actually want space from Frank.

He wanted the opposite.

He just needed time. He wasn't ready yet.

He wasn't sure when he would be ready but he knew damn well he couldn't let Frank just walk away before that happened.

And it wasn't just about him. The girls would miss him, saw him as another parent, Julie already asking Matt quietly about why Frank was away more. She had emotional intelligence of a kid way older than her age - Matt always contributed that to Foggy, for all that they weren't actually her biological parents. (For all that Foggy didn't get to spend that much time with her, he pointedly didn't think.)

He knew he needed to fix it. Needed to do something before Frank disappeared one day and just didn't come back. Knew it was on him, not just because he was the one who had withdrawn first but also because Frank was the endlessly patient one, the one who had given Matt space since the start and let him make all the moves.

It was just... Matt wasn't ready.

He asked Frank to pick the girls up from school and daycare, and he left work early to actually get to be the one to cook dinner for once.

(Jen gave him an all clear. She was very accommodating like that, which he suspected had something to do with her coming back from the hospital with a weird heartbeat and secrets he chose not to call her out on. He had no fucking right to call out any lawyers with secrets out.)

He even made spaghetti with meatballs despite it being more work, because Jackie liked it better than normal bolognese and although he wouldn't admit it, Frank did too. He set the table, put a bottle of coke in the fridge to chill, and listened to Frank and the girls from the moment they went into his radius, enjoying the stories about their day and Frank's attentive hums. He was great with them. That was probably what Matt loved the most about him.

(He didn't even notice his own slip on the L word.)

Frank hummed in surprised appreciation when he opened the door and smelt the pasta, and it made Matt preen internally despite his nerves. He listened to Frank usher the girls to wash their hands, hung their coats up. He smiled when they finally entered the kitchen.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." Frank seemed almost suspicious of the good mood. Matt couldn't help but relate to it. "What's the special occasion, Mr. Workaholic? Got plans for the afternoon or did your office burn down so you couldn't stay?"

Matt rolled his eyes (he hoped it was still effective - Foggy refused to tell him if they worked well enough for it) and shrugged.

"I just thought maybe we could take the girls shopping." We, he tried to emphasize. Both of us. "I think it's high time we get a new couch. A fold out, you know. Something more comfortable, since you live with us." He tried to make it sound casual, and knew he failed miserably. But Frank's heart stuttered a bit and he thought it was a good kind of skip.

"Yeah. It'd be better on your back. And my back when I don't make it to the bed after patrol." He whispered the last part quietly enough for the girls, absorbed in their food, to not notice. "Maybe even some guests if we ever had them."

In case Frank's fold out couch sleeping arrangements didn't end up permanent hung in the air, the implication clear but subtle. That wasn't important yet - he just needed Frank to know he belonged there.

"That'd be... that'd be nice, I think." He coughed out eventually, and Matt found himself smiling through the rest of the meal.

"Does that mean we are going to IKEA, dad?" Julie perked up immediately.

"Yep." Frank answered for him. "And you better be on your best behaviour. You know even your dad may not be able to hear and find you in that labyrinth."

Matt chuckled. It was going to be a good day.

In the end, neither Julie nor Jackie got lost.

Frank did, but Matt managed to find him and get him back. Just on time.

He was the one, the next day, who assembled the new couch, cursing under his breath so the kids didn't hear because well, Matt was blind, and it's not like he could have helped. ("Swear you've somehow done that on purpose, Red.")

But he did assemble it, and he did wake up with less creaking in his bones the first night on it - which made Matt feel terrible for making him sleep on the old couch the entire time before that.

He wasn't ready yet, but it was fine, because Frank, the ever patient, wonderful Frank, would wait for him. He even went back to his old home, the actual house, not the shithole of a safehouse he slept in but the gravestone to all the memories, and came back with dried tear tracks on his face, a couple photo frames and a guitar.

He played for the girls and Matt, the sound sweet and clear despite lack of practice, and Matt thought he belonged there. Not on the fold out couch, they'd get there yet, but there. In this apartment, in this family, with his kids and with him. Even there, among Foggy's memories.

It was still hard for Matt to accept that Foggy was dead, that was true. But he knew if Foggy truly was dead, he would want Matt to keep living.

And he was trying his damn best to do just that.

***

They found a new balance and fell back into a routine. Once again trusted and comfortable and working, yet simultaneously more tense and easier. There was an understanding between them now, an unspoken agreement that no matter how, they're going to stand by each other.

An unspoken question of how that will look.

The girls, naturally, didn't pick up on that tension though. Thank God, because if Matt saw either of them actually affected by the weird sexual, romantic, whatever tension they had been harboring, Matt would just have to ask Frank to shoot him.

So no, the girls were blissfully unaware of the way they were dancing around each other. But they weren't oblivious. They were smart, and caught onto things and Matt saw the way Frank moving in officially made them happy and secure - especially Julie. Julie's entire life was signified by changes and uncertainty and Matt knew he contributed to it significantly himself, not always in good ways. He was sorry for it, and glad that maybe this time the change was for something more permanent, something Julie could trust in.

But they both caught onto the fact that Frank was a more stable part of their life now, and it was Jackie who took it as a cue first, not with Frank himself - Matt would know, Frank would have told him, or he would be able to tell from Frank's behaviour - but with Matt.

"Dad?" It was Jackie, she was still at that age where she could sense when things changed but didn't much care for subtlety about how she felt about them. "Where did papa go?"

Matt stilled his hands, careful not to tug on her hair in surprise, and then slowly continued brushing.

"You mean Frank?"

"Yeah." She replied happily, kicking her feet a bit. Matt tightened his hold on her hair, hoping no little strands escaped with her wiggling. "He does all the stuff you do, so he's like our dad too, right? But you're already dad, so can he be papa?"

Matt closed his eyes, focusing on the hairband, ignoring how his heart sped up, a mixture of grief, because Jackie didn't even really remember that Foggy was her other parent very well, and hesitant joy because maybe it wouldn't be so bad not to be alone. And Lord knows Frank deserved it, deserved to hear it after all he's done for those kids over the years. Matt knew damn well he would never admit it but he'd love to.

"You'll have to ask him." He answered her eventually. He could hear Julie now, listening in from her doorway. "But I don't think he would mind."

Jackie hummed in agreement, with the happy kind of conviction only four year olds had.

"But where is he, dad."

Matt chuckled. Frank was out since last night. He was following out a lead he found, chasing time sensitive information since Daredevil had a day job and wasn't really able to help.

"He'll be back soon, promise."

"You are bad at answering questions, dad. But you're good at doing my hair so it's fine." He shook his head and turned it around a bit for Julie's benefit, raising his voice so it carried better.

"And you, young lady, never heard it's not nice to eavesdrop? Are you all packed and ready?"

"Yeah." She huffed, bag slung over her shoulder as she moved to the door and abandoned the illusion of stealth. "And I wasn't eavesdropping. You're the one to talk anyway." She huffed under her breath, because she was all grown up now, and learned to backtalk. Matt wanted to scold her, but he knew better. It was true. He was bad at trying to create even illusions of privacy and pretending he didn't hear things.

He go the girls out of the door, and reached the office, and didn't even stumble hearing Jen's heartbeat instead of Foggy's in that office for a change. But still the only thing he could think of the entire day was Frank.

Frank as papa. Frank as another parent to the girls, Frank as his partner. Frank as everything Foggy used to be, once - not that Frank was in any way the same or even similar to Foggy. But the feelings Matt had for them started blending dangerously.

He wasn't ready.

He wasn't ready yet, right?

Or was he just trying to convince himself? It wasn't like Frank was going to make the move, after all. Matt knew that. Frank was painfully polite and a hell of a gentleman for a serial killer. He would give Matt all the space he needed, even if it killed him. Waiting for Frank would be admitting defeat because this card was in Matt's hands.

He wasn't ready yet, but what if he would never be? He couldn't wait for himself to get better, he had to do something about himself to do that. Foggy beat that into his head all too many times. And he was tired of wasting chances. God knew how many of them they would still have before aliens attacked again and everything went to shit for good. At times Matt felt like they were already living in a post apocalyptic book, and the writers just never got it right - post apocalptic worlds simply still had taxes, and giant billboards advertising discounted toasters and people moving on. First the Incident, then the Snap. Sometimes it felt like they were on the clock, just waiting for another shoe to drop. And was he willing to put Frank off so long until something exploded and he wouldn't be able to fix it anymore?

No, Frank didn't deserve that. They didn't deserve that.

It was just... he still missed Foggy.

His thoughts where still on that when he came back from work that day, trying to herd Jackie in through the door instead of her escaping up the stairs to the roof. Frank was back. Matt could tell from a block away, even without his entire mind occupied by the man. He didn't smell of blood or sweat, he noted now that they were actually inside, so he had enough time to shower. In fact, there was a pleasant aroma of roasting meat coming from the kitchen.

"Hey." He leaned against the wall, the girls flying off to leave their things everywhere but in their intended place. "Smells good. What is it?"

He couldn't really tell, but something about the answering silence made Matt certain Frank was giving him a look.

"Like you didn't already sniff every spice in that, you scamp."

Matt just smirked. Yeah, definitely a look.

"Hey, would you mind um... would you mind taking the girls for a walk in a while. I need. I need some time alone." To think. To be ready for you. I'm trying.

"Sure. Everything good? Or is this for work or something."

"No, it's just... it's nothing bad. I just need a moment to myself."

"Sure. I can take them to the park or something." He said it just on time for Jackie to be leaving their room, and her selective hearing instantly activated.

"I wanna go to the park!" She climbed up on the kitchen stool, Matt putting his foot down on the legs of it to keep her from rocking it. "Can we go to the carousel, papa?"

He heard the way Frank's heart went into overdrive, both their breaths held. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to step in, redirect Jackie's idea somewhere else, or wait for Frank's reaction. Wasn't sure how much of this was the idea of going back to the carousel, with his kids at that, with children he could lose again, and how much was the papa thing.

"Yeah." Frank finally answered, before Matt could decide. "Yeah, we can do that."

And that was it. Julie joined them at the table, and Frank served the food, and it was like nothing has happened safe for the way Frank's heartrate and breathing were still all over the place. Matt put his hand on top of Frank's gently, and kept it there, and focused on his plate.

He was happy to hear Frank's heart finally calm down somewhat.

Frank and the girls left after dinner, Matt insisting he'll clean up. Frank seemed ready to protest it, but once he got reminded he still needed to get Jackie into her shoes he conceded he had other things to focus on. By the time they were out of the door Matt had the dishwasher loaded up and all the clutter from the living room floor sorted, left with nothing else to distract himself from his feelings.

He sighed, and shuffled off to the bedroom, kneeling on the floor in front of the closet and feeling in the back for the item he was looking for.

It was still there, barely moved for years, somewhat dusty by now - the simple wooden box of photos, the latch struggling slightly since Matt and Foggy started adding to the pile he already had from childhood.

He did actually take it out a couple months before, showed Frank and the girls the photos. Of their daddy, and their dead grandfather, and the memories they never lived but that were precious to him. But he didn't play the audio. Never once since Foggy's death.

The idea of hearing him again, knowing he was no longer there...

Suddenly, Matt needed it. Needed to hear him, remind himself that once, Foggy was real, and amazing, and Matt's.

He fumbled with his phone, opened the app, run his hands over the photo on top reverently. He had no idea what it was. Wouldn't know until he actually played it.

His throat was tight as he directed the camera at the code.

"Hey, hubby." The slightly tinny voice came from the phone speaker, Foggy's melodic tones muted by the machine but still unspeakably familiar. It was their damn wedding photo. Of course it was. Matt felt the first tear fall down his cheek as the recording ended, pressing the play button again and fumbling with the box to grab another one.

...you're standing next to your dad in your glasses...

...we're laying on the grass in front of the lecture hall...

...I think she's your grandma. I don't really know who to ask - sorry, buddy...

...Marci's stacking full shot glasses on your forehead...

...we were at St Agnes, and Jackie made her first steps...

Matt's face was streaked with tears, sobs coming out of him in heaved breaths by the time his fingers touched the bottom of the box. He pressed play, over and over again, not really caring what was in the photo - just that Foggy's voice was still there, that he still had some piece of him left.

By the time he heard the front door slam open and TV turn on, he had no tears left to cry, just sitting there on the floor, feeling empty. The bedroom door opened and closed quietly, and Frank carefully picked up all the photos, strewn rather carelessly all around him, arranging them back in the box, and sat down next to him, and Matt only felt safe, putting his head on Frank's shoulder, letting himself lay bare before Frank, strip his masks, expose his heart, and knowing Frank would take good care of it.

He already did.

***

Frank had no idea why the hell he agreed to it.

(Because he'd do anything for them. Take a bullet for them. That was the whole problem.)

He could have suggested something else. Could take the subway and find a mall with a carousel, or suggest some other activity, or hell, he'd take them as far as Coney Island.

But Jackie meant that carousel. So he'd take her to that carousel, to the past, to the future, and if he watched the shadows over his shoulder the entire way there, it wasn't paranoia. It was no longer paranoia when it already happened once.

It wasn't like it was the first time he'd come back there. Just the first time he had two tiny, breakable human lives that could be snuffed so easily with him.

He buried that thought deep down and threw away the key, but stayed vigilant, hyper aware of every leaf falling around in the park as the found themselves at the carousel. Julie seemed uninterested in the ride, too old for such childish things (Lisa used to be like that too, pretending she was only going for Frankie) and he had no real reason to push her since Jackie was old enough to go alone.

She called him papa again, when she explained which horse was the best one, tugged on his hand and dragged him around and he loved every second of it.

He walked around, to the other side of the carousel, still able to watch but further away from prying ears, sensing the way Julie was measuring him up.

"Spit it out, kid."

He ruffled her hair and she viciously slapped his hands away. She was a shy kid with anyone outside the family, but Frank, Frank wasn't an outsider. Hasn't been for a long time.

"It's not. It's fine if you don't want her calling you that." She didn't look at him as she spoke, eyes set on the repetitive movements of the carousel. The park was, except for the demons haunting him, quiet and safe.

"Calling me what?" He asked, despite knowing very well what she meant.

"Papa." She whispered, eventually, and he hoped he didn't imagine the longing in her voice. "It's fine if you don't want us calling you that."

Us.

He didn't miss the change.

He watched Jackie wave at them as her horse passed their side of the carousel. Let himself take a moment to compose his answer, to pick all the right words.

"You know, I used to bring my kids here. Lisa and Frankie." He told the girls about them before. Not in much detail, but well...

"I know. I'm not dumb. I have Internet. I know who you are." She smiled, a bit sadly. She was too smart for her own good, and she read about every man he killed off Wikipedia and still she stood there, asking if she could call him papa.

Maybe Lantom was right. Maybe God did care. Frank had no idea why the fuck he would have taken his family from him, but he also must have sent him this one, because Frank really didn't deserve it.

"And you don't mind?" He asked her. Voice devoid of judgement, trying to indicate that he didn't care what she answered. She took her time too.

"I... I know it's bad." Yet she didn't sound so convinced. "But I think you and dad are heroes."

Ah. So she figured out Red too. Maybe not so surprising, with all the clues and the fact the suit was literally in their closet. Hell, Frank caught Matt air drying it in the bathroom once after he tossed it in the laundry.

"I don't think you should think that, but something tells me you won't listen to me if I tell you that."

She grinned at him, and he felt his heart grow three times just from that.

"But... back to your first question. I don't mind if you call me papa. In fact nothing would make me happier than that, okay?" He pulled her close, into a tight hug, and leaned down to press a kiss to the forehead. Jackie jumped off the carousel as it finished and run forward to join them.

The wind danced in their hair, the air quiet, with only casual conversations and carousel music, no screams, no blood, and hid children alive in his arms.

He turned around later, once the girls had their fill of fresh air and fun, and looked at the carousel once again. Silently thought another goodbye to Lisa and Frankie and grabbed Julie and Jackie's hands, and thought that it was a shame, that they would never get to know their siblings.

When he came back, he felt happy but emotionally exhausted. He silently rejoiced when the girls chose to watch TV, going over to the bedroom, knowing Matt would probably be there.

He found him on the floor by the door, back against the wall and knees tucked to his chest, surrounded by a mess of old photos and with eyes red from crying.

He put the photos back neatly in the box lying next to them and mirrored Matt's position next to him.

When Matt's head fell onto his shoulder, he moved his arm around to hold him closer.

Clearly, they both had a long day.

"Julie asked me if they can call me papa, when we were out." He said, eventually.

Matt hummed in acknowledgement, but didn't comment further, so Frank continued.

"I told her I'm more than okay with that." Then... "Are you okay with that?"

And Matt... Matt laughed. Chuckled, a bit hysterical and his voice hoarse, but genuine. It turned into a cough.

"Frank."

He waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't seem to plan to.

"Yeah?" He asked, eventually.

"I'm glad you're here with me."

Yeah. Yeah, Frank was too.

***

Frank was gone.

Matt was planning to suggest he stay, but the only thing Frank was afraid of was apparently other people. Not mobsters, murderers, rapists and drug dealers. No. Frank was afraid of Anna Nelson.

Matt sighed, only just noticing that his heartbeat was getting out of range.

He sent him 'asshole' by text, whispering into the phone so the girls wouldn't hear him and went back to preparing the table. Leave to Frank to set the roast in the oven and help prepare a party he wouldn't attend.

He thought they were over this, honestly.

Sure, Frank had never been great around normal people. If he couldn't shoot his way out of the situation, he tended to struggle. He was painfully polite for a mass murderer, a true gentleman, but a conversation with a neighbor took out a lot out of him. Foggy's family terrified him on a whole another level.

If he didn't know Frank was a better person than that, Matt would think he was glad that most of them were dead.

It was mostly Frank's own insecurities still making him feel like he was intruding, probably. A fold out couch over two and a half years later wasn't enough for Matt to say he didn't contribute to that. Coupled with the way Frank seemed slightly afraid of Foggy on the rare occasions they met, especially when Foggy was in his attorney mode (the only mode he had around Frank, because Foggy, in turn, was afraid of Frank - and well, Foggy at least had valid reasons) it made sense that he had a healthy dose of respect for the Nelsons.

But Matt really wished he stayed.

It wasn't like Anna didn't know about him. She just didn't know who he was, and it's not like they had to overcomplicate it. Matt suspected that after everything she had heart about him, even Frank's entire Punisher deal wouldn't be enough to make her hate him - but they didn't have to tell her. With his hair long enough to curl up now and without the skull on his shirt, no one would suspect him of being The Frank Castle, even if he introduced himself by Frank. Or he could go with Francis, or hell, even Pete - the girls wouldn't question it, they heard it enough on shopping trips or when he dropped them off at school, once he accepted people didn't look close enough.

(He still tended not to go out without a hoodie. Matt was alright with it, because Frank's hoodies were all old and worn and made him feel cozier, especially if Matt grabbed his elbow for guidance or shifted just too close to him on the couch and their shoulders brushed.)

But at the end of the day, Matt thought, he had no right to judge Frank for not wanting to meet the family when Matt couldn't even give him a clear answer to whatever they were.

And Anna was Matt's husband... Matt's past lover's mother. But they both knew he wasn't coming back. It was finally sinking in, after years.

"How are you holding, Matty? You seem better." The girls monopolized their grandma whenever they could, but it was late and even Julie eventually dropped off right there on the couch.

"I am better." He smiled at her. She was always there for him, from back when he and Foggy were only friends, through all the ups and downs, even when she wasn't fully there herself or couldn't do it in person. "I had some help."

"That mysterious friend of yours?" There was no judgement in her tone, but Matt still found guilt creeping into his.

"It's not really like that. Foggy..."

"Foggy's dead, dear." It was just a statement of fact. One neither of them would ever fully accept, but that was true nonetheless.

"I know." Matt sighed, quiet but true. "I'm just not sure Foggy would fully approve who I'm falling for."

And there it was. Out in the open, for the first time, Matt admitted that this was really happening. He was falling for Frank, or maybe had fallen already.

"Foggy wouldn't want you to be alone. He'd approve of you being happy. And I think you know best who's good for that." She brushed his hair away from his forehead in a motherly gesture that still made him ache. Foggy had given him so much. Had given him a family. "And you're too harsh on yourself, Matty. I don't think you're really capable of loving someone who's not a good person at the core."

Matt chuckled.

Frank was. Even if not everyone could see that.

"And the girls only speak well about him too. Come on, Matthew! Your children literally call him papa!"

Matt's head shot up, surprised by her words. They didn't do it at dinner, which could only mean...

"Wait, they've done that before? We've only had that conversation this week!"

Anna laughed.

"Jackie has been doing so in front of me for weeks now." She whispered to him, conspirationally. Matt sighed. She had a point.

"His name is Frank." He offered, quietly, hesitantly.

Anna smiled at him and hugged him.

"Give yourself a chance to be happy again, son."

***

Frank felt a bit like he was a kid again, barely an adult who only thought he was grown up, falling in love for the first time, dancing around their feelings.

Not in a bad way. The tension of complicated feelings they've been carrying had been replaced by nervous anticipation, and it was clear they finally both acknowledged their attraction and that they wanted to do something about it - it was just about the when and how and who would make the move now.

It was... exciting, in a way.

They've had a long three years, so Frank didn't really feel the need to rush this either.

When Matt dropped off the girls at their grandma after mass on All Saints', Frank felt his heart beat a bit faster, the two of them left alone. Which was fucked up, frankly. It was not the happiest day. And also a church holiday. But Frank supposed he had worse sins on his conscience than finding a long walk in the park and spending the day with his maybe partner on November 1st romantic.

And well. They've already been to the cemetery in the morning. Hell, even Frank went, although he drew the line at going into the church. So when they put on their jackets again and left to walk back at eleven, it was part the longing to be with their past loves, part the sentimental wish to revisit that first night they met in the cemetery. Not the first they met, but the beginning of this whole thing.

Although they had met in another cemetery before that too. Damn. He and Red apparently had a somewhat spooky theme.

The place greeted them with the sea of flames again, lit up in remembrance, showing that at least once a couple months, people cared. It was almost perfect picture of that night three years back.

Frank reached out, somewhat uncertain but seeking comfort, to link his fingers with Matt. Matt accepted, squeezing his hand. They visited Foggy and Karen's graves, full of lanterns and flowers and signs how many people still cared. And then Maria and the kids graves, with only what they left earlier that day. Frank put down another bouquet. It would have felt wrong, to come empty handed. And they deserved for their resting place to be just as beautiful, for everyone turning their eyes away as they passed them to know, that they weren't forgotten. That they were remembered, avenged, loved.

They lit lanterns and prayed and just stayed for a moment, in silence. When Matt eventually spoke up, his voice echoed almost too loudly in the night, but gently.

"Maybe... Maybe it's time to let them rest."

Maybe it was.

Frank didn't know Foggy very well but he knew what Matt with Foggy was like. Not that he knew Matt that well back then - but those glimpses were enough. There was a world of difference between the Red he remembered, full of determination and conviction, the Counselor Nelson-Murdock who thought with the kind of unrockable belief few had, and the Matt Murdock he knew now, who may have managed to close the wounds of rage and grief and desensitized indifference but they still left scars behind. Matt smiled again, but there was nothing of that playfulness that Frank came to associate with him in the past. But that was fine. Neither of them were the same people they once were. Maybe, in a way, that was the entire point. The Frank from before and the Matt from before may have not been suited for each other. It didn't really matter if they would have worked as a couple, because they weren't single - but who they were now, they were exactly what they needed from each other.

When they came back home and took their coats and shoes off, Matt grabbed Frank's hand back the moment he could, started pulling him further into the room. He had a smile on his face. Smaller, different than the charming shark grin. No, Matt would never be the same, but he was perfect the way he was, so Frank let him lead him, pretended his heart wasn't beating out of his chest and Matt could easily tell.

Pretended he didn't hold his breath when Matt took him over the treshold of the bedroom.

"Stay with me?"

Forever. Frank wanted to answer. He just grunted an affirmative instead and kissed Matt's forehead. As romantic as the whole thing was, he let go of Matt's hand to go back to the living room and grab something to sleep in from the dresser. He knew Matt's skin wouldn't survive him going to bed in jeans. And going to bed naked, as nice as it sounded, was going to come later. And Frank would not sleep naked in November anyway. The apartments heating system was old.

So they didn't have sex that night, but in a way just laying next to each other, looking at each other and listening to each other, it felt more intimate than anything explicit could be. They drifted off side by side, in silence, feeling content.

The next morning Frank woke up smiling, to the feeling of Matt's fingers on his cheek. He just shaved, so he wouldn't find the stubble, but he mapped out smooth skin, hand ghosting over Frank's skin, lightly tickling. Frank let a small chuckle escape him.

"That tell you what I look like, Red?"

Matt hummed, and smiled dopily, and Frank thought it looked really good on him.

"Not really." He shrugged. "But it feels nice doing it."

And he leaned in, their lips finally meeting, months of pain and love and sharing everything building up to this moment.

Something settled in the air, made it easier to breathe.

***

Kissing Frank for the first time - it wasn't quite like kissing Foggy. But the feeling of rightness that came with it, it was strangely similar, and not at all bad.

The folded up the couch, and kept it that way, and Julie seemed all too knowing and smug about it for a nine year old.

Not much changed. They got a dog, at Frank and Jackie's insistence, and that was more of an adjustment than actually being with Frank.

Being with Frank was the easiest thing he'd done in the past three years - it was everything they were doing already, just made natural, without hiding, without pretending, out in the open and able to hold each other through it.

Frank could wrap his arms around Matt's waist in the morning when he was making a scramble. Matt could leave his can behind and lean on him openly, and he knew he was smiling more.

He was quite back yet, not back to himself and who he used to be before - maybe he was getting there, or maybe he would never be. He knew Frank wasn't either. But he was willing to accept who he was now.

He used to think, for too long, even after he realized that Frank made him happy, that he wasn't ready for it.

Wasn't ready to commit, wasn't ready for a relationship, wasn't ready to move on, wasn't ready to be happy.

He was ready now.

He was ready for whatever the future would bring.