Work Text:
“I don’t believe you don’t care, Frank”
Damn Karen and her ability to always, always, read him so well, seeing the things even he didn’t want to admit to himself. She called and he came, not only because he asked for a favor, but because the favor was Matt. I need you to bring him out alive.
They almost didn’t make it. When that damned grenade got launched, his first instinct had been to wrap his body around Matt, to let himself take the brunt of the explosion. And then in a split second, after he jumped and before Matt used one of his gadgets to prevent them from smushing in the street below, he realized neither he nor Matt would have come back to Karen.
But they survived, he and Matt, and Karen was there to take them away, to take care of their wounds. Of course, Frank had decided to mend himself, the corner of his eye fixed on Matt and Karen – it made the wounds hurt less, to see his girl slowly making his Red whole again.
Frank never realized when he started to think of them as his. Sometimes between saving them countless of times and disappearing from their lives, because Matt wanted to have a goddamn lawful existence and Karen deserved to have a life free of their bullshit.
That’s why, even now, he lets them go, to find the reason why Foggy got killed. They would be better without him directly in their lives, he thought – not that he wouldn’t follow them, quietly and secretly, because Matt was hurt and Fisk was still after him, and he would not hesitate to hurt him or Karen. He would keep them safe, these two people he found himself tied to.
—————
“So… you talk to Frank a lot?”
Karen wanted to laugh at his face, and maybe at herself too. She had made the mistake of falling in love with two emotionally detached men who couldn’t admit shit about their feelings for her or each other.
“You sound like you are jealous.”
“Back at his place, I heard your heartbeats.” He said, nonchalantly, and Karen wished she could just tell him to fuck off, but in the chaos of the city, this was probably the only place, and the only time, she could try and talk some sense into him.
“You heard mine when I saw you? Or his when he looked at you? Did you not notice that after you fell from that roof, his arm still hovered around your shoulders, like he didn’t really want to put distance between your bodies?”
Karen knew what it felt like to be the center of Frank’s attention in the middle of danger, when his protectiveness turned on you and became an innate part of all of his movements and actions. It was intoxicating and incredible.
“I don’t really know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Karen abruptly closed the file, going down on her knees in front of Matt. He was clearly embarrassed, and trying to deflect the subject like any good lawyer… but she wouldn’t have it, not tonight, not after almost losing both of them.
“Yes, I called Frank to ask for a favor, but you know what? He didn’t even let me finish when I told him you were in danger.”
“He cares about you, Karen, and he knows you care about me – he didn’t want to see you losing another friend. It’s nothing more than that.” From the way Matt said it, it was easy to tell that he was trying to convince himself, that something was preventing him from fully believing what he was preaching.
“If you really believe so, you are dumber than I thought.” She caressed his face, smilingly sadly at the way he relaxed against her touch. “Think about it, Matt, and when all of this is done, we will talk about your feelings.”
—————
Matt should have expected Frank would have gone to wipe out the whole task force alone – it was classic Frank’s behaviour. But when he heard it on the radio, straight before burgling into Fisk’s office, he still cursed and started running on the opposite side, getting to Red Hook quicker than he thought possible.
Frank saved him, and he has to repay the favor, for him and for Karen. It’s just that, he keeps telling himself, when he appears in front of them a bunch of seconds before what remains of the Anti-Vigilantes task force burgle in.
Matt has a rule, about not killing when he can avoid it, but the knowledge that they are here to hurt Frank, to kill another person he cares about after he lost so many, rewires something in his brain. By the time they are done, Matt and Frank are the only ones left breathing.
“Thanks, Red” Frank says with a cocky smile (Matt doesn’t see it, but he knows, for sure, it’s there), and he is grateful that after the conversation with Karen, he called Heater and broke things off (he would have felt guilty, at doing it over the phone, but Heater had told him that it had been over for a while already, and he hadn’t had in him to lie and contradict her).
Because now he doesn’t have any moral obligation to not push Frank against the wall and take that cocky grin off his bloody face with a kiss, that is all powerful dominance and not delicate softness. Even though they cling to each other (to assure each other they are safe, they are alive), even though Frank’s arms wrap around his hips to bring him as close as possible.
And when they finally separate to breath, Frank whispers in his ear, “I wish Karen saw it.”
—————
Frank texts Karen that they are both okay, and then they are off, cleaning the mess of New York by brute force once again. It’s only when all is said and done that they find Karen, in a hotel room in Manhattan.
As soon as she opens the door on them, she brings them inside, taking note of their injuries before hugging both of them at the same time. She doesn’t care about the blood or the wounds, she just needs to touch them, to ground in their presence for a few moments.
“Don’t ever, ever, do that again to me” She murmurs with her face planted in Frank chest, her hand grasping Matt’s arm.
Then they separate, and Karen finally looks at them, at the way their bodies tend to gravitate towards each other, and she can’t help but smile. “I have a feeling you two talked things out, am I right?”
Frank and Matt look at each other, quickly, and then Matt is kissing her while Frank pulls down the zip of her dress, because they are not two to talk and they need Karen. All goes down in a blur, bodies meeting and hands intertwining through soft moans and whispers, and for a moment, anything outside of this room stops existing.
When, hours later, Frank and Matt finally let themselves fall asleep, with Karen sandwiched between them, she smiles, thinking that as long as they are both at her side, nothing else matters – New York may burn, but they won’t ever let Karen go down in flames with her city.