Even If We’re Just Dancing in the Dark

By Izzy

No, had there not been that period when Murdock was presumed dead, they probably would’ve instead reconciled eventually, and Frank would’ve honestly been glad for her. He would’ve put away all thoughts he had on the alternate possibility, the one he’d have been left to believe probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.

He was still having grave doubts of it doing so even as he nonetheless let her climb all over him as she pressed him back into her couch and kissed him the way he’d already imagined she would kiss, fierce and hungry and knowing she had him, because of course she did. It was a good thing one of them was comfortable in what they were doing. Sure, once he might have known where on her to put his hands, or just moved them without thinking. But now, they were frozen on her.

She noticed, and pulled away. “I want this,” he said hastily, because he didn’t want her thinking otherwise. “I…really do.” It was still very recent news to him that he did, but the certainty of how he felt about her had already settled around him, same as it had in the immediate days after he’d first met Maria.

Way too much of this was going to remind him of Maria. He knew that already too. It shouldn’t; it wasn’t even that he was trying to find her in Karen again, or any stupid shit like that. But for a decade and a half now, his whole sexuality had been so wrapped up in his wife it was hard for him to think about sex and love and not associate it with her. Even those girls he’d slept with before meeting her had all run together in his memory, a general history of adolescent macho idiocy and only starting to get over it at the beginning of his twenties.

Smart Karen, looking like him like she’d already figured everything out. Or at least enough of it to say, “It’s all right. You can want this and still not be ready for it tonight. We don’t have to go further than you’re good with.”

It was the kind of consideration he wouldn’t have expected, though really, he should have, when this was Karen. It was also way too much of a relief for him to protest.

In the end, they stayed on the couch and clothed from the waist down that night. Technically, Karen’s bra even stayed on, though the cups came down, and Frank had his mouth on succulent breasts, her cries of pleasure startling, but good enough to drink. It was a taste, he knew, of what he could get, if he could only stand getting it.

Later, when they were resting, but he still had his face pressed into her chest, close enough to hear her heart, another memory of Maria hit him hard. A week into their engagement, when they’d been almost the same position, except fully postcoital, and it all had sunk in at once, not just what was coming, which he’d already wanted for too long to fear as much, but just what his wife-to-be could do to him, with so much as a word, or a smile, or a breath, or, of course, more potent ammunition.

For nearly a year, that had been both the best and the most terrifying thing to ever happen to him, at least until he’d held Lisa for the first time. Eventually he’d grown less afraid of what his wife roused in him, the passion, the vulnerability, the love so overwhelming he thought it might break him.

But he’d spent two years never expecting to deal with any of that again, and now he’d been completely unprepared. Even his and Karen’s limited contact that night had been so much, and that was nothing, he knew, to what he was capable of feeling, what he had in the past, and might now again.

“Frank?” Karen whispered, worried again, as he reminded himself to breathe, to keep it together, to remember that he trusted Karen more than anyone else still alive, that he could let this happen with her. Probably. Eventually.

***

It was a week after that, before he went to see her again. She knew he was all right during it; they had ways of communicating that now, and he wasn’t going to let her get anxious. He knew her patience would only last so long, but she’d give him a week.

He found himself distracted a lot. The latest construction job was one that required him to stay focused during the day, so he did, but he didn’t get much reading done at night. Karen had found and woken up some part of him he hadn’t killed as much as he’d thought, and now couldn’t get rid of. His hands craved her skin, his own skin craved hers, his body and blood itched for her. He woke up in the morning aching and lonely, and not even in the way he had been, but in a new way, one that screamed him to have his loneliness assuaged.

He’d known all along he’d have to go back. She’d known it too, he thought, since she looked almost bemused when she opened the door to find him there. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I shouldn’t have kept you waiting. And honestly, I still don’t know if this is a good idea, or how much I might keep you hanging.”

“What are your main objections?” she asked, very calmly, like this was an interview. She stepped back, and closed the door behind him when he came in. “Can you not do this because of your wife? Do you fear we can’t make this last? Do you…do you object to me?” Her voice wavered just a little on the last one.

“You know it’s not you,” he sighed. “Mostly the second, really. Maybe a bit of the first. I mean, I know she’d want me to move on and all that, but…you’ve already had one man break your heart and then run off to get killed.” And that, of course, was if his longtime suspicions about him and Matt Murdock having one very huge thing in common weren’t right. “Do you want to go through all that again?”

“Matt…” she turned away, walked several steps slightly hunched over, as if she was suddenly ashamed.

He realized why: “I wasn’t the only one remembering someone else too much, was I?”

She went to her couch and sat down. He followed her there, carefully placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not at all the same thing,” she said. “You were married to Maria for years. Matt and I never really got off the ground. Hell, physically, the two of us have already gone further than I ever did with him.”

That was surprising, but currently unimportant. “I’m not…I do want you, Karen. What you yourself are. But what do you want?”

“You,” Karen said, and the firmness in her voice was reassuring. “What you yourself are. And yes, I’m sure about that. I’ve been for some time. And if it doesn't last, then at least we tried. I think anything that would break us apart completely would do the same to us as friends if we weren't more. So I don't think we'd lose anything there. If it might hurt more, that's a risk I'm willing to take if you are.

It’s just…well, if you’re experiencing it worse, I don’t really need to explain, do I?” She took a deep breath, and looked up and at him. And there is was, the face of the righteous, the determined, the face that still reminded him of Maria at moments, but it was her own nonetheless, and it was as her face he had fallen in love with it. “I want to have what love I can, and I want you to have what love you can, and I want us to take that, and apologize to no one, living or dead, not even each other.”

It was forgiveness in advance, and a request for the same. Frank could do that.

***

They went from there. Starting with that night, in her bed, Frank remembering how to touch a woman again, how to be tender. In some ways, his memories served him well. Karen was like Maria, and like him, in that she greatly preferred her sex soft and romantic, practically girly, and lucky for her Frank had stopped being embarrassed about what he liked a long time ago. Although even if he no longer denied to himself that he wanted it, receiving tenderness was once again much harder than giving it, mostly thanks to how the past two years had changed him.

That was the thing that stood out to him, how old they both seemed. It wasn’t entirely a bad thing; they knew what they wanted, could easily tell each other things it had taken him and Maria months or even years to figure out and vocalize. Plus he knew how to do a few things it had taken him that long to learn. Off course his skillset had been very much tailored for one woman, but some of it worked out well.

But they were both also roughened around the edges. Her too, although it would take her some time to tell him the details of why, and how. She was careful not to push him too far, retreating her hands or mouth or body the moment he gave a sign it might be too much. In return she set restrictions of her own, ones he would only learn the reasons for later. Nothing he even minded all that much, but he still felt sad for it, in a way.

Before that night, Frank had usually been careful about how often he visited Karen. He’d been a little worried someone might identify him, and didn’t want to get her in trouble. Also, he’d often felt like he was bothering her, no matter what she said. But in the days after it, he barely spent more than a few minutes in his own apartment at a time; usually enough to just grab a book and/or a change of clothes.

Soon, almost every morning was spent in breakfast and early chores, the ones Karen liked to get out of the way before she went to work, if she had time. Evenings, he now read or played the guitar while sitting near her, while she worked away on her laptop. On more relaxed nights, she cooked, occasionally trying to teach him how to make something, though the majority of them they either got takeout or used the microwave. When the news got to be too heavy, sometimes she’d flip over to TV Land, or they’d watch part or all of a movie. She went and bought the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Blu-ray, which was something she’d apparently been meaning to do for years, when she learned how much he’d liked it when he’d been younger.

Sometimes he looked at the expiration date on his lease, and wondered if they’d last that long. He thought of just packing up what was left and bringing it over. She’d probably even get the picture of his family framed and put it next to the one of her with her old bosses. Keep the dead in their place of honor, and live on.

But he still couldn’t believe they would last. He knew, right in his gut, that he hadn’t lain his guns down forever, and he didn’t know how she’d react when he inevitably picked them up again. And as the trial of Wilson Fisk got its date and started to move in, Frank grew more and more certain the other shoe was about to drop.

***

He had to admit, though, he hadn’t expected it to do so in the form of a not so dead Matthew Murdock. Also known as Daredevil, which was much less of a surprise.

Of all the secrets that came out from him and Karen both when he did, him being alive was the only one that truly blindsided Frank. In fact, on the day most of them came to light, his main worry was how the altar boy was going to react to the whole thing where Karen had killed Fisk’s thug. He got ready to have words with him if he went all “Thou shalt not kill” on her over it. But thankfully, even he had the sense not to go after her for that one.

By the end of that day, also, a few things had become clear to Frank. Such as that Karen’s feelings for him were still exactly as they’d been. Also, she was determined to ignore them, and Murdock was determined to ignore everything, to tell himself she was Frank’s now and that was that. He appreciated the moral integrity of it all, except for the part where he still couldn’t believe he and Karen were going to last, and that meant her giving up Murdock for him now wasn’t worth it. Especially when once he had a clearer picture of them both, he couldn’t help but note they were kind of suited for each other.

But there wasn’t really time to figure out what to do about that, what with Fisk currently doing his level best to kill all three of them, among others. Which did result in her witnessing just how brutal Frank could get, especially when his quarry had just tried to kill her. Yet she clung as tightly to him as ever afterwards. “I’ve got things to be scared of other than you right now,” she said to him at one point, which was fair enough.

Even after they pretty much broke Fisk, at least for the time being, Frank ended up in a final fight with the whackjob with the bullseye tattoo on his forehead who made one last attempt on Karen. It was with a wild blow that he bashed his skull in, after he himself had so many wounds he was pretty sure he was about to bleed out.

His vision was already starting to go fuzzy when Karen knelt over him, talking frantically with Claire Temple over the burner phone. He tried to reach up to touch her face one last time, but he didn’t have the strength.

After she hung up, she tried to speak to him, but her sobs cut off her words. Frank gathered the strength to speak. “It’s better this way, you know. We wouldn’t have…tell Murdock if he’s not better to you this time around, I’ll come back from the dead.”

“No,” she protested. “You’re not doing this, Frank, that’s not how this is happening!”

He was smiling. At least the last thing he saw would be the face of the last person he’d loved. “I know,” he whispered. “You’ll grieve. It hurts like nobody’s business. But you’ll be okay; you’ll go be with the man you belong with anyway. I love you.” Having said what he needed to, he finally went on into the black.

***

He should’ve reckoned with his continuing inability to die. A few days later he woke up in the basement of Rand Memorial, where Temple ran her clinic for the vigilantes.

Karen was there, in a chair next to his bed. “You’re awake,” she said. “Claire asked me to advise you as soon as you were that there are no moral judgments made within her clinics’ walls, but if you try to kill any of her other patients, she will kick you out.” Every syllable she spoke was sharpened; it felt like a slap across the face.

Murdock was also there. He’d been standing a little bit away, talking on his phone, but on seeing Frank was awake, he came over. “Afternoon, Frank. Karen’s mad at you.”

“I noticed.” This wasn’t surprising, either.

“What the hell do you think you’re about?” she hissed to him. “Going and telling me who I belong with like that, like you’ve got a right to make that decision for me? Like I should be relieved for you to be dead and out of the way?”

“Oh come on,” he said. “I thought you had sense enough to know what I said for yourself.” Except of course she didn’t, because ideals and feelings inevitably won out with her. “I never expected you to spend the rest of your life putting up with the Punisher, even when I was the only one in the picture. And if you try to tell me you don’t still have feelings for him there, well, you could confirm to me she’s lying right away, couldn’t you, Red?”

“That still doesn’t mean you make that choice for me,” she said. “What, were you planning to run away and leave a note on my coffee table, if you hadn’t gotten nearly killed?”

Frank hadn’t thought that far ahead, but it might have come to that. Though he wasn’t sure he would’ve even had the strength for it. Much as he’d known it would be for the better, he’d still dreaded the day he’d have to give her up from the start.

Before he could figure out an answer, Murdock asked quietly, “Karen, which of us do you want? Do you know?”

Karen drew herself up, and tried to sound aloof as she said, “I don’t know yet.”

Frank suspected it was a lie even before Matt shook his head and said, “Karen…”

When she looked around, suddenly fidgety, Frank said, calmly as he could, “Karen, if you do know, it’ll be less painful for all three of us if you get it out right now. And you don’t have to be sorry. You said yourself, take what love we can, and apologize to no one, not even each other.”

But that made Karen laugh bitterly, before saying, “Fine, you want the truth? The truth is, I’ve been trying to answer that question for the last few days, and every time, the answer’s always ‘both.’ I’m a greedy bitch who doesn’t want to give either of you up. I know I have to choose, of course, and I really don’t know which way that’ll go, but I’ll hate it either way, and you two don’t need to go preaching to me about why of course I’ll be better of choosing the other one-Matt’s been doing it to, Frank, did you know that? Just shut up, both of you, before I choose neither of you!”

As she stormed away, Frank, not wanting to deal with the rest of that yet, just demanded, “You really think she’d be better off with me? Exactly how bad are you? You weren’t planning to be an idiot about her again, were you?”

“I…I’d hope not to be,” said Matt softly. “But I don’t know. Honestly, I feel like it would be just as easy for her to lose either of us, because I’m going to be Daredevil again, and yeah, Frank, I know you haven’t seen your last fight.” He sounded resigned on that last one.

“Well,” said Frank. “Maybe it’s just as well, then, to leave her to choose on her own.” The thought was even a little relieving.

“It would be…” Matt paused, looking very lost in thought. Then he said, “Unless…what if we didn’t make her?”

***

Frank had never thought, before hearing that suggestion, that he would ever be willing to share his woman with another man.

Then again, he’d never thought he and Karen would ever really cross that line, before they did. Not too long before that, he never thought he’d ever outlive his quest for revenge. And of course, before that, he’d never thought he’d ever be left in the world with his family dead.

One week of being subjected to Matt Murdock’s best lawyering skills, seeing the look on Karen’s face when she first learned what he was proposing, and the strangest conversation he’d ever had with a visiting Curtis later, he let his lover and new co-lover lead him out of the hospital.

The first question was who would be sleeping where on what nights. Matt’s assets were all frozen, and he had nowhere to live. Nelson offered to put him up some nights, but ultimately, he was going to live with Karen. But her apartment only slept two, unless someone was willing to sleep on the couch.

Karen and Matt both used Frank’s injuries as an excuse to insist together he sleep in her bed for another week. “I’ve been to your apartment,” said Karen. “There, all alone, is the last place you need to be right now.” Matt could do the couch for that long.

He was in and out a lot that first week anyway. Fisk had gotten Nelson kicked out of his firm, and the two of them had decided to try going into partnership again. Karen stayed with Frank as much as she could, even after he finally persuaded her he did not need to be attended at all times. He’d gotten through far worse physical states with no company at all, though he was pretty sure telling these people that would have the wrong effect.

He was also privy to the first arguments between Matt and Karen about how often he was going to go out as Daredevil. After those, Matt sounded relieved when they themselves sat down together and talked shop about protecting her, next time she went after a dangerous story. That was even one of the arguments Matt had made to Frank for agreeing to the new arrangement, that it would keep them both on hand, “and she’s not going to stop any more than we are.”

The main argument there was how they would deal with anyone who went after her. In the end, they compromised. Matt agreed that if there was no other action that had a strong chance of saving Karen’s life, he would be willing to kill. Frank agreed he wouldn’t kill if it truly seemed unnecessary. “And for what it’s worth,” he said to Matt, “I hope on the night it becomes necessary to kill, it’s me shadowing her. I don’t want you to ever have to do that.”

“Let’s hope neither of us has to,” said Matt, because he liked to be hopelessly optimistic when it helped him stick to his principles.

Frank might admit to himself, if not to anybody else, that he’d become fond of Matt Murdock. He’d already kind of been of Daredevil, and now of course he understood what made him tick. Kind of. He was definitely feeling protective towards him too. If only because he still didn’t really believe Karen would keep him in the end, so she’d need to keep Matt.

It should’ve been at least embarrassing, when the last morning of that week, Frank woke in the early hours of the morning, and heard unmistakable noises coming from the living room. Karen was trying to be quiet, but she’d never been good at that, and Matt was letting out soft grunts and groans that actually made Frank’s dick twitch slightly, in some weird sympathy or something. But he didn’t feel embarrassed, maybe because he was aware that, in the future, Matt was going to be able to smell everything anyway. When it came to him hearing it, fair was only fair.

And he honestly didn’t feel jealous either. He was too glad to be there at all, maybe. That he’d fallen asleep with Karen snuggled up to him, face buried in his neck; the bed was still warm from her. That Matt would make the three of them a good hot breakfast when the two of them were done.

No, he mainly felt sadness, that this was a picture he could only, at most, be uncomfortably shuffled into. And some strange longing, he couldn’t quite pinpoint for what.

***

At first, after Frank was finally allowed out, most nights only one of them slept in Karen’s apartment. Either Matt was sleeping in Nelson’s, or Frank was sleeping in his own.

Frank now actively hated sleeping there. No mental reminders about past nights or probable future nights could change that. He ought to be used to bare walls, a cold bed, the knowledge that he deserved no better anyway. But instead they felt like they were choking him.

He tried to keep that to himself. But Karen had gotten good at figuring out things about him, and Matt was good at figuring out things about people in general. And maybe Matt didn’t like being exiled either. She did, apparently, get him to admit the reason he’d had silk sheets in his old apartment was because his skin was actually too sensitive for cotton sheets to be comfortable.

They sometimes ate together in the evening already. So when, over dinner, she explained the situation with the sheets to Frank, she then said, “I’ve been thinking anyway. If I’m getting new sheets, I can also get a larger bed. One big enough for three. You each can sleep on either side of me, if you don’t mind having the other there. Then I’d only need to be alone with each of you for sex, and that’s much easier to manage.”

In terms of pure distance, Frank had slept that close to other men on deployment. Hell, it would be harder for him to get used to such luxurious sheets. Matt didn’t object either.

Not that Karen got him to stay in the first night they had the new bed in the house. “I might come home with a story,” he told her before leaving.

Karen was restless as she and Frank did the dishes, and he played a song on the guitar as she tried to work. She’d pretty much given up by the time he was done.

Then she said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, in that diner that night so long ago. About how the people you love hurt you.”

“Karen,” Frank said, “if I’d known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have said that to you.” He’d learned enough about her past since to realize just how those words might have come across to her.

“But you were right anyway,” she said. “After what happened…I always thought the boyfriends I had after that were mostly okay, but the truth was I never let them get that close to me. I couldn’t trust them. And then there was Matt, who seemed so noble and good…well, he is, of course, just more complicated than I realized. And he hurt me. And I hurt him. You know, right after that speech he gave at your trial, I told him he wasn’t a hero, and I knew how much that would hurt, even if I didn’t know everything then, on some level, I understood enough…and it’s not the last time I’ve…

“And you, oh, God, you.” She sounded both like she was about to laugh and like she was about to cry. “I realized just how much I cared about you when I was yelling you were going to be dead to me. I heard that gunshot and I felt like I was being shot through myself. Not the last time there either. Hell, you two are going to hurt me every time you go out into the night. Even though I understand. Even though I’ll probably help even you again, sooner or later. And I know I’ve hurt you. It’s okay, you don’t have to confirm, or talk about your feelings, or anything like that, but I know I have.”

Frank was grateful for that, but he quietly nodded anyway, because yeah, she had. And she was going to tear his heart apart on the day he finally pushed her to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore. Not that it was any use to say that, since she wouldn’t believe him.

“I told myself all that in the hospital, you know, when I was trying to figure out which of you I was going to choose…” She shook her head. “I didn’t care. I couldn’t get myself to. I understand what you meant when you said that now.”

For a moment, Frank almost wished she didn’t. But no, he told himself, she was like him and Matt both, and the sooner the both of them accepted that, the easier this all would be. Even though that, too, would cause them pain, to know what Karen was doing to herself.

Not long after that, when he was on his back between soft silk and soft skin, Karen pressing kisses to his chin, his neck, his collarbone as she rode him, her body moving so easily beneath his hands, Frank knew every moment with her was worth all the pain to come.

***

It wasn’t long after that when he did indeed find himself back in the fight once again. And when that resulted in a building falling down and Karen and Matt getting asked too many uncomfortable questions by the cops, Frank knew he had to leave town. At that point, he didn’t know if he’d ever come back. Especially since by the time he left, he was the latest person everyone thought dead in a building collapse; only Matt, Karen, Curtis, and Lieberman knew otherwise.

Besides, that was the easiest way to let Karen go and leave her to Matt. Maybe even staying away for just a very long period of time would do the trick there.

Lieberman prepared the van, rigging it up so he and Frank would have a secure line to each other. Frank just let him do it. It wasn’t like he ever had to use it, after all, and he doubted his friend would, unless he found out something he thought Frank really needed to know.

He was pretty sure it was Sarah Lieberman who put up the photos. The first was the one of Maria and the kids. The second was a photo he had never seen before. From the sweater Karen was wearing in it, as she leaned against Matt, he thought it pretty recent. Sarah had left a post-it on top of it, on which she’d written, Go back to them when you’re done. Never mind that Frank wasn’t even sure what he was doing at that point.

Still, by the time he was halfway across Pennsylvania, he felt the bone-deep ache of missing them both. That was only to be expected with Karen, of course, but he missed Matt too, far more than he thought he would. For some reason he couldn’t get the guy’s laugh out of his head.

It was fair enough to have that photo there, he decided. Karen had long been family, and he was now a man who had loved four people more than life itself, instead of just three. And he could admit to himself he cared for Matt, had learned to respect him and what he was, and anyway Karen loved him. Like it or not, he was now family too.

When he went to ground in Ohio, he spent about a week refusing to read news, determined not to hear anything about what was going on in New York. It helped that said week ended up being much more eventful than he had entirely planned on. But it also ended with the discovery that he’d been followed, and he couldn’t even run further, because the friend he’d made would be left vulnerable if he did. It meant he had to be grateful Lieberman had put that line in, as he asked for any information he could get on who might have been following him.

He ended up spending two months in Ohio, ones that turned out to be more good than not, especially after saving Amy won him the favor of her father. Eventually he stopped worrying about further pursuers coming to town. He could stay there indefinitely, he thought, live quietly under the protection of the sheriff. The guy still kept his distance, and even his daughter would only ever get so close to him; no one would hurt or get hurt by him there.

And then he got the message from Lieberman, telling him one of his copycats had decided to target all the other vigilantes, and also those associated with them. “Honestly, I don’t think he’s going to last until you get back here,” it finished, but it didn’t matter. He should’ve known better than to know he could ever leave two people who insisted on stalking around at night with targets on their backs.

He knew, when the only thing he left behind in his apartment was a letter with For Amy written on top of it, that he would never come back to this town. Though as late as that, he told himself that once he got back to New York City and maybe dealt with this whole copycat problem all together, he’d take off again. Maybe go to Wyoming. Lisa had always wanted to see Yellowstone.

***

Maybe he even would’ve done it, if the events his return sparked off hadn’t ended with him once again in the hospital basement. Nor nearly as badly injured this time, and only for a couple of days, but that was long enough for an angry Karen to show up with Matt in tow once again.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You were hoping I’d forget about you, or get mad and reject you if you came back. Just for that, I forbid you to get another apartment, since I’m pretty sure your lease was up last month. You’re living with us from now on.”

Frank Castle was becoming aware that when Karen Page gave him that kind of interdiction, her word was law.

All the same, the first morning back in the apartment, well, it was like being back from deployment. The bed being so big and soft didn’t exactly help. He’d slept in, and both Matt and Karen had needed to go to work, so he was left alone. He wasn’t sure what he ate for breakfast, or how long he paced around the place afterwards, feeling the need to go somewhere, be anywhere but within these too familiar walls. But he wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. Curtis was busy that morning, and there was no one else he was willing to inflict himself on when he was in this state.

When he opened the closet, it was it was with the thought of grabbing his coat anyway. It wasn’t even in there; he’d forgotten that he hadn’t hung it where he’d always hung it before he’d left.

He was brought up short by the sight of two boxes at the closet’s bottom. He’d left them in his apartment when he’d run. Getting them out would’ve run too much risk of being identified, and he hadn’t judged anything in them worth it. It might have been less risky a retrieval for Matt, if his superhero buddies had helped him out, but Frank didn’t know if they would’ve.

On top of them had been placed the photo of his family, in a new protective sheet. They were lucky to have gotten it out of the van intact, if slightly more damaged than it had been; the photo of Karen and Matt hadn’t survived. Under it was a sheet of notebook paper, on which were scribbled numbers in Karen’s handwriting. When Frank looked at them closer, he realized they were measurements, for potentially having the photo reframed.

Several emotions hit him hard at once, not least the cross thoughts that she should’ve asked, especially as he became aware that once that photo was put in one of her frames, it became part of this household; this became the new place all four of them belonged to. But finding it there, on top of his boxes, thinking of her keeping them all these months, Frank was so overwhelmed by feeling he fell to his knees.

He was still there, still trying to get his bearings, still feeling too trapped in his skin, when the door opening caused him to leap up, before Matt called, “Frank?”

“In here,” he called, though he knew Matt knew where he was. “I’m all right.”

“Sorry, but you don’t entirely sound it,” said Matt as he came in. “I just came up here to check on you-Foggy’s downstairs-you found the boxes? I…I hope you don’t mind that…that we…”

“Kept the evidence hidden,” said Frank. “Probably for the better. We should probably disperse everything throughout the apartment. At least the photo’s safe for people to see. Nobody will know who they are.”

“She…she would’ve asked, before she framed it,” said Matt. “She made that very clear to me. Was making a point, about asking first. She’ll probably make it to you too.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed, “that makes sense.”

“Hey,” Matt very gingerly reached out. His hand only brushed Frank’s arm, but he felt the warmth from it like he had Matt’s enhanced heat-sense. “You don’t have to agree to anything. She’ll be mad, but she’ll understand in the end.”

Frank needed his head clear, but that helped. “I know,” he said. “Thanks.”

***

Frank hadn’t been entirely confident that the two of them were completely out of danger, even though he’d killed the guy who’d been going after them. Late in the afternoon he ended up going out to check on something related to that, and it was dark by the time he got back, traveling over the roofs because that was what he’d been doing for most of this excursion. From there he could also get back to Karen’s apartment via the fire escape.

He’d left a note, and he supposed he should’ve guessed that Matt and Karen would either come after him anyway, or make the obvious use of his absence. Tonight, apparently, they’d trusted him enough to do the latter. He briefly considered going back up to the roof and just shooting the breeze for fifteen minutes or so, but he was tired and hungry, and it was nothing he hadn’t heard before. He trudged into the bedroom, drawing breath to tell them to carry on, he was just going to get a sandwich or a shower or something.

The sight of them stopped his breath. Karen was half on her back, half on her side, holding Matt pressed flush against her. Her fingers had been running up and down his skin, and they’d obviously been kissing, through for the moment they were frozen, looking up at him. Their faces were flushed, Matt’s hair messed up in a way that simply had to be called “adorable,” him looking embarrassed, her, looking torn between that and gladness to see him.

What Frank then wanted to do, more than anything, was crazy enough. He never really knew what caused him to actually say, “I’m sorry, I just…I’m tired, and I don’t know if you two are any safer than you were when I left here-didn’t hurt anyone, so you should be happy, Red-and I’ve got the bad habit of missing you guys these days, and I’m not going to be up for sex for at least a day or two, maybe longer-I once refused Maria sex for two weeks after getting home, until I could trust myself with her again…but I really just want to hold you, Karen, and at this point I don’t even care if he fucks you, I’ll just lie there…I know, I know, you’d both mind my being there…”

“I wouldn’t,” Karen interrupted, sounding surprised by her words even as she said them. Also meeker than she ought to ever be. “In fact, I think…I like the idea.”

“Being held by both of us at once, you mean,” said Matt softly. They sometimes went to sleep like that, but when all three were restless sleepers, it didn’t always end well. He seemed to consider it. “Frank, the first time the two of us made love, the last morning you were here after…everything, you heard us, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Frank confirmed, and waited. This would be different, he thought, being right there. But he felt strangely ready for that.

Finally Matt said, “All right. Come here and join us.”

They shifted about until Karen was half-lying on a shirtless Frank, and she and Matt kissed for a while, until they were both breathing heavy and ready to resume. Frank closed his eyes, and lost himself in the sounds she was making, the softness and warmth of her body as it shifted around, skin sliding against his own bare skin, the smell of her arousal so strong he didn’t need Matt’s senses to feel surrounded by it. It was shockingly intimate to be so focused on her pleasure, distracted by neither the pursuit of his own nor even the task of causing it, just enjoying it alongside her.

Except Matt’s was a presence too, and one that wasn’t in the least unwelcome. Frank let it all wash over him. His lower body stayed out of it, though he thought it might not have had he been in a different state. But hearing them both come left him, too, relaxed and satisfied.

Later, after they’d all showered, and were waiting for a food delivery, Frank looked around the living room, and said, “The bookcase on the end. You think maybe we could put the picture of Maria and the kids on it, by the lamp?”

“Yeah,” Karen said, with that little smile and voice brimming with so much more. “We can do that.”

***

The first time he did make to love Karen after getting back, about five days later, Matt wasn’t there. That was just for the two of them, her pulling him on top of her, him kissing her face and hair before whispering mushy things which he meant every word of. They rocked back and forth, her drawing him in with each thrust using her entire body, until he could feel her pulsing around him in time to their rapid breathing, faster and faster, until she was done, and he was with her. They stayed in place in the moments afterwards, and Frank tried to process the thought, I’m staying, she’s keeping me, this lady’s ain’t ever letting me go if we can help it. He still couldn’t.

The second time, Matt came home and walked in on her on top of him. Which of course he would’ve known about long before Frank had the previous week. But neither of them had been in a state to hear much, and like she and Matt had, they froze in place, which caused him to freeze too.

Then he asked, “Karen, can I put my hand on your back?”

Karen looked at Frank, who nodded, then said, “Go ahead.”

They finished like that, Frank zeroing in his gaze on Karen’s face when he could keep his eyes open. When she came, she came hard, bucking like crazy, but Matt managed to keep his hand on her sweat-slippery skin the entire time.

It became something that happened occasionally, one of them touching or holding Karen while she had sex with the other. Also, it was only natural they should start helping out, working Karen’s clit or her breasts, or just gently kissing her while she was being eaten out. There were a couple of times where Frank found himself with the stupid urge to fistbump Matt when they were done.

For the moment, though, it mostly only happened when one of them was too tired or otherwise unable to get it up. They knew Karen’s history, they knew the situation she’d been in every time she’d had two guys fucking her at once in her younger years, and neither of them were about to ask her to potentially relive those memories. The closest they ever got to that was those times one of them found he wasn’t as tired as he’d thought he was; when that happened, Karen would dismiss her first partner to the shower before throwing the second onto his back, an exercise in control they made no protest to. Hey, they both liked being on their backs.

Initially, Frank in fact thought Matt was like them when it came to what he wanted in bed. He was intense and passionate, and adoring, sometimes kissing Karen all over her arms and legs before he got his mouth between the latter. Although that was one thing: Matt loved cunnilingus. Not that Frank didn’t enjoy it himself, or at least had with both Maria and Karen, but Matt’s enthusiasm was something else. Frank first figured the senses must give him something extra out of it.

But also, Frank slowly came to think, Matt liked being submissive. It was relaxing for Frank, too, to know there was no chance of hurting his woman, that she was handling things. He’d equated sex with conquest too much as a teenager; it was easier for him, now, when that was made impossible. But Matt, when he laid himself out before Karen, or knelt at her feet (sometimes while Frank was the one having sex with her), seemed to want to be conquered. Beyond what Karen was likely to at all like doing to him.

He kept his thoughts about all that to himself, though. Even if he’d been inclined to talk about that kind of thing, which he wasn’t, it was their business to settle between themselves.

***

The time Frank actually did die, he would later be selfishly grateful for it. While neither Karen not Matt were among those who died with him that day, watching the whole damn world get crazed with grief, not to mention a lot of confusion, followed by rage, well, that would’ve been hard. Not to mention that if he understood what happened right, the chances of all three of them surviving wouldn’t have been the best, so if he’d lived, one of them probably would’ve died. They themselves were lucky they both lived.

So some scary things left New York a little fucked up again, but not nearly as damaged as it had been six years back. Then there were reports of aliens landing in Africa, with Karen giving him the quick history of Wakanda, which apparently had been news recently. The three of them had the TV on, watching the news, Karen on the phone, waiting for someone to actually tell the world what the fuck was going on, when Frank felt wrong, and then he felt like he was floating apart, and then Karen screamed, and then he looked down to see himself literally crumbling into dust, and then it was over.

In his memory, it was right after that he was suddenly sitting on the couch again. The TV was on again, and Karen was on the phone again, and she dropped it and screamed again when she saw him. Matt came running into the room, followed by the Lieberman kids, who looked a little older than they’d been last time he’d seen them. Then they were all four of them hugging him, Karen shamelessly pressing kisses everywhere her mouth landed, even Matt laying a couple near his ear.

They didn’t stop until Matt’s phone started chirping, “Foggy. Foggy. Foggy.” That caused Matt to wrench himself away with a, “He’s alive too! Oh God, he’s alive too!” His face was already flooded.

“Oh God, yes, and your parents,” Karen was addressing Leo and Zach. “Where were they when they died? Do you remember?”

“They died?” Frank asked. His mind hadn’t caught up yet, and the thought of these two kids losing both their parents, after that year they’d endured without their dad, sounded terrible.

But it was all right now, he learned soon enough, because they were alive again, just like he was, and Nelson was, and half the world and possibly also half the universe was, and since Matt and Karen had apparently taken their kids in while they’d been dead, the five of them soon found themselves on much closer terms. Frank supposed one had to expect changes when the crazy shit happened.

It was some time before either Karen or Matt was willing to let Frank out of their sight for very long. It even resulted in Matt staying home every night for over a week, which Karen was clearly very glad for.

Later, when he was off pestering Nelson instead, she talked a little of just how badly he’d coped. “Neither of us did well,” she said. “Losing both you and Foggy…we felt unmoored.”

“Must have been hard, that he’d died,” said Frank. He’d heard them both, Matt especially, talk about Nelson enough to understand not only how much they both cared for him, but what he symbolized to Matt especially, the good guy that, in their view, deserved all the good things, and more than they did, and never deserved to be the one to die. Like what Maria and Lisa and Frankie had been to him.

“It was you, too,” Karen replied to that, “and for both of us. If I tried to tell you the number of times Matt picked up something that smelled too much like you in the days afterwards and he had tears in his eyes and then we were both crying all over again…”

That made sense, Frank thought. Matthew Murdock got attached to everyone.

He heard a little bit about it from Zach and Leo, too, who had witnessed it. They had apparently been able to figure out he was Daredevil mostly because he’d been so grief-stricken he’d gotten careless. They’d proved able to keep the secret, though they did end up telling their parents, who could also be trusted with it.

“Still,” David said to Frank at one point, “Sarah crumbled in front of me, you know, before I died after her.” Frank supposed that still had to be a hard thing to live with, even if your wife didn’t stay dead. “And even now, I wonder, are any of us really us? Are we weird doppelgangers created by mysterious universal powers? Are we even here now, or are we having a collective dying dream? It could fuck all of our minds, if we think about it.”

Frank shrugged. “I don’t.”

***

Another thing that had happened while he’d been dead: Karen had acquired a strap-on. “We ended up going for it once the world calmed down and tried to resume something like normal life," she explained to Frank while looking at him so cautiously. "Matt’s, uh, liked being on the receiving end in the past.”

“It’s okay,” said Frank, “I know that wouldn’t all be by other women using strap-ons. I’ve known he’s bisexual for a while.”

The having sex with the third party present thing was already happening a little more often than it had before the whole dying and coming back thing. It was probably only a matter of time before one of them made the obvious suggestion. The first time it became clear Karen was going to peg him with Frank present, Matt went ahead: “You know, you don’t actually have to just hang around while she fucks me. I mean, you could penetrate her vaginally if we can figure out the angles. That probably wouldn’t…” And Karen was nodding; she was willing to try it.

Frank had never even fucked a woman without being face to face with her. Even when they tried to make it as simple as possible, with him and Karen both on their knees on the mattress and Matt bending forward in front of her, it was a clumsy and too-long affair, actually getting himself into her. It was worth it, though, just to hear the delighted inhale of Karen’s when he finally managed it. Of course, she was moving both forward and backward, and the three of them had to figure out a rhythm together, but he found it helped to hold onto her, burying his face in her neck and keeping time with her pulse beneath his cheek and around his dick.

He would’ve thought that enough to focus on, same as he usually did in these scenes, with Matt just providing a pleasant background. But there were sounds coming from the other man Frank definitely had never heard from him, or really anyone at all, tiny wails and desperate whimpers mixed with incoherent babbling. It got him to open his eyes and look, and he thought he had never seen anyone look so abandoned and wild and needy, not even Maria during the most passionate of their reunions. It was such a powerful sight he couldn’t help but keep watching, following the curve of Matthew’s back as he writhed against the sheets, catching glimpses of his screwed up face as he pressed his head into the pillow, follow the pattern of his hips until he was timing his own thrusts with it.

Of course Matt came first, loud and violent to the end. Karen groaned, and Frank was done, coming even before Matt had stopped moving. Karen’s breath was feverish, and when he got a hand down to her clit she was coming within a minute.

There was no kicking anyone out of bed then; it would be a few minutes before any of them could move. During which Karen commented, “Actually, I think maybe we could do double penetration. I mean, you haven’t always been on the bottom, have you Matt?”

“I haven’t,” said Matt. “Still, the men I’ve penetrated have been a bit bigger than you.” He sounded a little anxious. Frank didn’t bother say anything, just let Matt read him as still completely relaxed. Obviously with Karen’s size, the only way this was ever happening was them using difference orifices, which honestly felt like it wouldn’t cause nearly as much physical intimacy between the two men than what they’d just done had, at least on Frank’s side of it.

Even with that setup, when they did go for it about a month later, Matt apparently got an hour free in the afternoon beforehand and spent it just stretching Karen out with his fingers. When Frank learned that in the evening, he wasn’t sure it should’ve turned him on as much as it did. But he could imagine how good he’d been with her, how gentle and thorough, how attuned he probably could make himself to her body. There was more than one way he did his part in keeping their woman safe.

Karen probably knew that, too, and she stayed relaxed until she stopped being so for the right reasons, when she was clinging to Frank and moving back and forth between them, and was clearly just lost in sensation, not thinking about anything she shouldn’t have to be thinking about.

Frank was so focused on her, on her movements and pants and moans and how tight she was clenching around him, that it was only near the end that he noticed Matt was losing it hard too. Not as much as he had while being fucked, but more than he’d seen him do during normal intercourse, his knuckles white as they gripped Karen’s sides and kicked-out sounds coming from his mouth. He briefly wondered what the senses might make this one like for him, but didn’t really think about that too much either.

***

For the most part, Karen still didn’t invite very many people into her apartment, and most of those she did, she did so when she was fairly sure Frank wouldn’t be there. It was easier for the world to think Matt was her only man, so another one in her home would be hard to explain. The only real exception was Foggy, who knew everything, and seemed to have pretty much cheerfully resigned himself to it. This was especially true after he died and then came back, which was also when he got involved with fellow resurrectee Dinah Madani. Frank still didn’t know how they’d even met, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Nowadays around Frank he had the habit of talking about the various questions people asked him about his “actual-death experience,” as he called it. Most of Pete Castiglione’s co-workers didn’t even know he’d been among the dead, so Frank didn’t get worse than occasional ramblings from David, who didn’t bother him about talking himself that much. Foggy Nelson had died in the courtroom, in the middle of one of those cases he and Matt now occasionally took apart from each other, actually comforting a hysterical prosecutor after her entire team had dusted up-as had the defendant, “So at least my services weren’t needed anymore anyway.” That meant people remembered him, which meant he still got attention.

The thing they asked him the most about was whether he was sure he had absolutely no memories of an afterlife. None of them did. A few people were claiming they had, but those were obviously lies. The Vatican had taken an official line that God had not permitted anyone to remember. “Even as lapsed Catholics, I suppose we could both use that one, except it doesn’t seem to work. People keep insisting that surely I at least heard my dearly departed relations calling to me before I evaporated or something.”

Never mind that if what Frank had once believed was true, he probably still hadn’t been in company with his wife and children.

Despite her involvement with Foggy, he didn’t see Madani much, although Foggy did keep them both aware of how the other was doing. He got the impression Homeland was still dealing with the fallout of half the Earth’s population dying, the shit that hadn’t stopped just because they’d come back. When they did meet, they mostly exchanged knowing looks. They understood each other without talking.

The third visitor to the apartment he met with was Trish Walker. That was by accident; he unexpectedly got home early one afternoon and found her and Karen having tea. Even as he introduced himself as Pete, the name feeling out of place here at home, Walker was looking him over as if she recognized him, and wasn’t sure what to do about that.

“I’m so sorry, Pete,” Karen said so smoothly. “I thought you were coming later. We just have to talk about something really quickly, Trish,” and led him into the bedroom.

They stayed in there long enough to come up with a way to portray him to Trish as a reoccurring source of hers without actually stating that, and when they emerged, they went through their lines. Frank doubted they fooled her. He doubted it even more when she said, “Look, Karen, I know you have to keep some things confidential, but you know I’ll keep your secrets. You’ve kept mine.”

“Yours aren’t professional,” said Karen. “Not that I don’t appreciate…” She drifted off, and looked at Frank.

“I know when it’s time for me to go,” Frank said on cue. “Good day, Ms. Page, m’am.”

He killed an hour in a coffee shop, trying not to remember too much Frankie’s weird phase where he’d watched every YouTube clip of Patsy Walker he could get his hands on. He himself had been just a couple years too old for her show when it had been on, though he remembered that theme song, how it had gotten stuck in everyone’s heads.

“I’m pretty sure she knows and that she won’t tell anyone,” said Karen when he got back. “She’s…she doesn’t want to lose any more friends right now.”

Frank had heard about that situation already. It must have been enough, he supposed, since no one showed up in the following days to arrest them.

***

It started as a normal Saturday morning. Matt had gotten home very late, and when Frank and Karen started kissing, he still slept peacefully on her other side. He woke up at some point, because Frank saw him eyes open and faintly smiling, but he seemed content to just lay there and listen.

But Karen hadn’t been sleeping enough the past few nights either, and it wasn’t long before her fatigue showed. “You’re not up to this right now, are you?” he finally asked regretfully. He’d have to jerk off in the shower, he supposed, when he finally tore himself away from the warmth of her head and arms cradled against his.

“Frank…” Matt said, hesitant.

“Yeah?” Frank asked, confused. He could probably tell how tired Karen was more than Frank could; what might he be about to suggest?

He sure sounded nervous as he said, “Listen, this…this is just a suggestion I’m throwing out, and if you say no I’ll never bring it up again, but…what if…what if you and Karen stay as you are right now, you’ll keep your focus on her, of course, but then I could just slip down and suck you off?”

“What?” Frank froze up, probably enough so for Matt to instantly detect it, and certainly Karen did, as her face turned anxious, looking back and forth between the two men.

“I mean, straight guys do that sometimes, right? Get blowjobs from other guys, and then just sort of ignore that it’s another guy doing it? And you’ll have Karen right there, so it’ll be really easy for you to-”

“Easy?!” Frank demanded, stumbling back out of bed in his sudden rage. “What, you think I’m that kind of guy, the kind that would do that?” The memories were flooding him now, the words he’d heard said, the ugly laughter he’d sometimes heard, the thought, much later, that maybe he shouldn’t have forgiven Billy for partaking as easily as he had. “Just because I was in the military, huh? Told myself it wasn’t even cheating? Whatever else I did, I never would’ve betrayed Maria like that, not with anyone.”

“No, of course not,” said Matt hastily. “I didn’t…didn’t mean that at all. I just thought…maybe now…look, it’s fine, as I said, we don’t have to-”

“And you would’ve been fine with that?” Frank demanded, because that was part of his anger at the whole thing. “My God, Murdock, do you have no respect for yourself at all?” And he stormed off and into the bathroom.

It was only when he was in the shower that he realized how the two of them might have taken that display. He’d have to tell them, he supposed, that it had not been a case of gay panic, because it truly hadn’t been. He could even point out to them that he’d shared a bed with Matt, watched him have sex with Karen, let him observe them doing it, and even had sex with her at the same time Matt was doing so, while knowing the guy was bisexual, so if he was going to gay panic, he should’ve done so a long time ago.

Except that wasn’t entirely true, since all the while, he had honestly never thought Matt Murdock was going to want him. Even now his doing so made no sense. He could forgive what Frank was, sure. He might even like him, or care about him. But how could it have gone beyond that?

But that was fine, he told himself. It wasn’t like Matt was ever going to make a move on him again. And he was scheduled to have lunch with Foggy that day, so Frank would sit down with Karen while he was out and explain why he’d reacted the way he had to her, before she dragged it all out of him anyway. It was a conversation he could get himself to have with her, if not with Matt.

***

Matt avoided him for the rest of the morning, and Frank let him; it would be better after Karen had talked to him. She spent it on the couch, with her laptop open, but mostly just napping. He himself did the laundry, because the pile had gotten big enough that someone really needed to.

For lunch, they made themselves soup, and when they sat down, Frank forced himself to start talking. “It did happen in the military. Even when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in place, you often knew which guys were…” He knew not to use the first words that popped into his head there. “And there were guys apparently so desperate for dick they’d suck yours and not ask you to do anything. And there were guys who were willing to let them, just to get them sucked. Billy was one of them.”

“I see,” said Karen, in that tone that indicated she’d guessed the rest already.

He continued anyway. “I remember thinking, when I was nineteen and one man talked about a guy who’d done it, ‘Your fellow grunt just did you a huge favor. Least you could do is not talk about him like that.’ And at that point, well, I’d finally stopped trying to convince people I’d slept with that many girls, but on the rare occasion it did happen I was still bragging, and not in too nice a way, but even when I’d been seventeen I’d never...not like they...” He shook his head. “I knew by then I didn’t want to be involved in any of that shit.”

For a moment or so they ate their soup in silence. He couldn’t tell what Karen was thinking. They’d each gotten some idea, now, of what the other was like as a teenager, how he had slept with girls for all the wrong reasons until not very long at all before he had met Maria, who was lucky to have avoided him until then. But he tried not to talk about it too much, simply because at the same age, she’d been victimized by young and older men both who’d been much worse.

“Honestly?” she finally said. “I’m not sure Matt wasn’t being more logical about it than anything else. Because he really does love oral sex. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or a woman he’s going down on, he loves it both ways. And, well, you know how I am.”

“Karen.” Frank now felt more appalled, because yeah, he did know Karen had her issues with blowjobs, and it had meant he’d had to wait for them from her, but he’d thought her fine with it now. “If this is about you not wanting to blow me, I can do without. It wasn’t all that long ago I thought I’d be doing without any sex for the rest of my life. We don’t need Matt to fill in for you or something crazy like that.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to at all,” she told him. “It’s just…complicated.”

Frank let her leave it at that. “I know what Matt would say,” he said. “That this isn’t like that, and I wouldn’t think any differently about him afterwards, and maybe that’s true. But I can’t just use someone like that, not anymore.”

“It’s all right,” said Karen. “I’ll tell him that, and I’m pretty sure he’ll understand.”

He assumed she did when he was out attending Curtis’ group the next day. Matt didn’t say anything when he got home, but he didn’t run away either. Two days later, when Karen was no longer too tired for it, Matt stayed still against her flung-out arm and just listened. For the first time, Frank thought not only about what Matt might be paying attention to, but who, if it was just to Karen, or also to him. But he quickly decided he could live with it anyway. They could get themselves back to normal without talking about it, and on that night, Frank thought the whole matter over.

***

But it wasn’t, and that wasn’t Matt’s fault, or even Karen’s. It was his own.

It all started a week or so later, when he came out of the shower to the sight of Matt being pegged. Not the first time he’d seen it from the front by then. In the past, he’d mainly observed that have Matt on his hands and knees before her brought out a new side of Karen. She could hold him down, hiss at him to hold still, be hard and aggressive, and when Matt cried out for harder, she gave it to him. He’d even heard her whisper things in his ear; he liked it when she called him a good boy.

Except now, Frank couldn’t take his eyes off Matt’s face. It wasn’t even that sexy a sight objectively, all flushed red and grimacing. But he could see his lips move as he let out strained pleas, his eyelids flutter up and down, and he could almost see the breaths he was letting out with each thrust.

He wondered for a moment if Matt ever pretended it was a real dick in him. If it was Frank’s. Though he hoped not, if only because that wasn’t nice to Karen.

Then the image came to him, of Matt spread out before him, pushing back onto his dick with that crazy ass of his, skin hot and sweaty beneath his large hands.

He hastily turned and walked through and out of the bedroom as quickly as he could manage without being too loud. He didn’t let himself breathe until he was safely at the kitchenette and splashing cold water onto his face, waiting for his erection to fade.

His denial about what had happened, and attempts to convince himself it at least wouldn’t happen again, lasted until the next time they did double penetration. Both men kept strictly to their side of Karen, and Frank was in the back, which meant he was completely occupied at first, getting into Karen without hurting her. But then he was in, and while normally being both pressed against Karen and inside her was enough to make everything fall away, now, he kept hearing the sounds Matt made every time Frank himself thrust, and yeah, there was no way he wasn’t feeling that. He sped up slightly, heard both their moans, until he came when he heard Matt do so.

It kept on happening. Frank considered asking them to cut out all the three-way sex things and even third person present during the sex things, because he knew they’d do it and ask no questions, even though he also knew what they’d assume about why. But he wasn’t sure it would help anyway, because that wasn’t even the only time he was thinking about it. It started creeping into his head during idle moments, or when he was in the shower.

He tried to tell himself it made no sense. He’d never seriously wanted another man in his life. But then again, he’d spent most of his adult life wanting no one at all but Maria. From the moment he’d seen her smile in the park, it was like everyone else in the world had quietly been shuffled into the “not an object of romantic or sexual interest” category. He’d noticed when women were attractive objectively, but he’d done the same for men, too, Matt included. That hadn’t changed until he’d found himself wanting Karen, and then, again, there’d been only her. Until now.

As for those years before meeting his wife, well, the truth was, he couldn’t remember whom he’d been attracted to anymore. Whom he’d slept with had been dictated more by who’d said yes. (In retrospect, he thought most girls had seen through his bullshit.) He had surprisingly strong memories of looking up and down some of the bodies of the older marines, feeling what he remembered as being admiration. He wondered now if it had just been that.

Had he been lying to himself all this time, about what he was? He could see it. He wouldn’t have reacted at all well when he’d been younger, if he’d believed himself to be anything but straight.

Even now, he didn’t like his own thoughts. Even if Matt wanted it, he hesitated about being that guy, about pinning him down and being all rough like that. It was all well for Karen to do it; she didn’t have his physical strength. Even when he’d been at his most callous towards girls, he’d been against actually hurting them any, wanted to make sure he didn’t. And of course he thought about Matt’s original proposal, and yeah, he knew that mouth would look good on his dick, but thinking that way, even knowing he’d be looking at Matt, made him feel like those assholes he’d talked about to Karen, the ones he never, ever wanted to be *anything* like.

He knew if he asked, Matt would say yes. The certainty made him even more scared to ask.

***

It was Matt, as her official emergency contact, who first heard that Karen had been admitted to Metro General. When he first called Frank, he didn’t even know anything besides that. It took Frank half an hour after that to get away from the construction site (last time he worked at that one, if he could help it), and he was on the bus to the hospital when Matt called again. “Someone poisoned her coffee,” he said, then sobbed loudly before adding, “She’s stable right now, but they don’t know if she’s going to make it or not.”

They’d both remembered, too, what had happened last time Karen had been in the hospital, when the nurse had turned out to be on Fisk’s payroll. He stormed in and ended up yelling at the poor receptionist when she initially refused to even confirm Karen was there. Lucky for both of them word got up, Matt came down, and basically lawyered Frank past her.

The situation was as it had been when she’d first been rushed to the hospital after collapsing in her office. Nor had it changed when Foggy lawyered his own way in with no news, even though he’d dropped in on the Bulletin's offices en route. “Want to hire Jessica Jones?” he asked. “We know she isn’t on anyone’s payroll.” He obviously did not want Frank looking for the responsible party himself, maybe didn’t want Matt doing so either.

They hadn’t made a decision about that, and the situation still hadn’t changed, when the nurse finally insisted they get out. “We’ll call you if there’s any change in condition, and one isn’t likely before the morning, anyway,” she said, and Matt nodded slightly; she genuinely believed that, at least.

“And don’t you two dare go to the roof,” Foggy hissed as they left. “I’ll call Danny and have him go there with strict orders to send you home.”

Never mind that there was no way either could manage sleep. Instead when they finally got into the apartment, for nearly a minute they both just stood there, trying to get themselves together enough to do anything.

Then Matt pulled Frank into a hard embrace and burst into tears all over again. “I can’t lose her,” he wept to Frank. “I can’t take another loss.”

“Neither can I,” Frank murmured into his hair. “I have nobody without her, Red. Nobody.”

“That’s not true,” Matt snapped. Then he thought about it, and hastily added, “I mean, you have the Liebermans, and Mr. Hoyle, and…”

Frank never knew why that was what caused him to kiss him. Maybe it was just to shut him up.

Then they were going all hot and heavy, no holds barred, and wow, could Matt kiss. When they broke apart, the other man gasped, “Still want to suck your dick. Like a lot. Right now.”

Frank gave it another moment’s thought, then said, “Should at least suck yours first.”

“You put your mouth on my dick and I might just come in it within two seconds.”

He meant it as a warning, but Frank just chuckled, “I don’t have to worry about my lack of technique, then.”

For good measure, he spent time getting his mouth on Matt’s throat and chest and stomach first, everything he’d spent the last month and a half wanting from only a few feet away, and only now did he admit to himself just how much. So his first experience of sucking another man’s dick lasted barely half a second before he was coughing jizz onto the floor (that was going to be a bitch to deal with), but the crazy sound alone that came out of Matt was worth it.

So was the slackened look on his face even as he pushed Frank against the wall and went directly for his fly. And Karen hadn’t been kidding; he went at it with a wild hunger that was probably also caused by the day’s events, but maybe not entirely. It turned Frank on, and made him feel full, somehow, though it also broke his heart a little. He didn’t last much longer than Matt had.

Once again they were left getting their bearings, Matt looking too wiped to even stand back up. Several minutes passed, as the full implications of what they’d just done sunk in.

Then Matt said, “We shouldn’t kill whoever did it. Because probably someone else paid them to, and Karen will want to know who. As will the cops, but…”

“All right,” said Frank, the decision made. “If she lives.” Because if she died…well.

And no, they were not going to talk about if they’d try to stick with each other if she did. Frank couldn’t stand to think about that possibility. He didn’t think Matt would bring it up.

***

Karen lived. Frank regretted he couldn’t let the bastard responsible for poisoning her know he’d lived only because she had. But the Punisher being connected to the capture would’ve raised way too many questions, so Daredevil had to do the actual act and get all the credit on his own.

They told her what had happened, of course. She smiled, and said, “Well, that makes everything much easier.”

The last night before she came home was the night they decided to properly fuck for the first time on a bed, to have that one to themselves. They hadn’t had time for anything besides quick handjobs and another exchange of blowjobs while they’d been chasing the would-be assassin. Which still felt a little strange for Frank, who had always engaged in sex and violence at separate times in his life.

The first time Frank had fingered Karen’s ass open, Matt had been talking him through it. It was a good thing Frank was now more experienced, because while Matt was talking at the start, even helping Frank aim for his prostrate, a few hits to that and Matt was reduced to moans and whines. Frank found himself running a hand over his back, his hips, his legs, and swore he could feel the skin shiver at his touch.

Then he was in position, and staring down at the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen helpless before him, though he was face down, to keep things simpler. Before he could stop himself, Frank was asking, “Would you really let me do anything to you right now?”

“God, yes,” gasped Matt, and Frank absolutely believed him.

He’d never had any lover in his full power like that, not really. Certainly not either Maria or Karen, who had always both been willing to push back when pushed too far. He could hurt Matt without even realizing it.

It was the scariest moment Frank had ever experienced in bed. He almost retreated, told Matt he was sorry, but this he couldn’t do. Only how badly he wanted this man kept him in place. Gingerly he took hold of his hips, felt the heat coming off him.

“Please, Frank,” Matt whispered, and the trust of it, more than he had deserved at any time, let alone after all he’d done, was everything. Every exhale he made was half a whimper.

Frank focused on those as he pushed in, even as he groaned himself with the pleasure of it. He pressed himself against Matt, thought about how loud his heart had to be in the other man’s ears. “Frank,” Matt said. “You don’t have to get too rough. I know you don’t like that. But remember, I’m sturdy. Make me feel it.”

So Frank let himself use his strength. He built up to it, putting a little more force into his thrusts every time Matt whispered “Harder,” until finally he wasn’t using any words any more, just more of those moans and crazier sounds as Frank gave it to him firm and good. He made little hitching noises, too, when Frank pressed his kisses into the back of his neck and over his shoulder blades, able to feel that too. Frank did it all as he wrapped himself around him, even as thrusts straight onto his prostrate every time sent Matt bucking and surging up and down.

Matt came with a long and easy groan, the tension flowing out of his body, opening him up even further for Frank to go deep. He still shuddered with each thrust, and let out a dazed “Oh,” when Frank himself filled him.

Frank wanted to keep holding him. He wanted to try to squeeze them into the shower stall together. He wanted to just lie there until Karen showed up, and then just pull her in, and never let either of them go ever.

“How did any of this happen, Frank?” Matt asked. “I know, you don’t know either. Think Karen could figure it out?”

“Have her put a timeline and a diagram up on the wall?” replied Frank. “Might work.” Matt laughed.

***

Karen was there, however, the first time Matt fucked Frank. She even offered to let him fuck her. They’d already had Matt in the middle like that, and Frank definitely wanted to be there himself. Some other night; he wasn’t sure he could handle it yet.

So she curled herself up in front of him and held his hands as Matt’s fingers first pried him open. He was as gentle as he could be, but Frank still felt it, probably more so for the complete lack of control. He’d fucked Matt face to face after that first time, but he was glad to be on his stomach himself now, able to press his face into the sheets if it got to be too much. When Matt pushed three fingers in, Frank was relieved for the pain; it felt grounding.

Then one of them found his prostrate, and the sensation flared through him, leaving him panting, especially when Matt then jabbed at it several times. Shit, no wonder he loved being fucked so much.

Even after he stopped, Frank was close to breaking, limbs trembling as he tried to pull himself up to make it easier. “Frank,” Karen asked very quietly, “are you ready for this?”

“I’ve been as ready as I’ll ever be for days, Karen,” was his embarrassingly breathy reply. “Please.”

It was so hot, going in; Frank felt that more than the pain. Matt went slowly, so slowly; Frank wondered if he’d ever been this careful even with Karen. Or maybe he was making sure Frank felt every inch of the dick sinking into him, and oh, he did feel it.

Matt’s hands were steady on his back. Karen’s were soothing in her hair and on his shoulderblades. They passed over his collarbone, but couldn’t reach below in their current positions. Matt was waiting for Frank to tell him to move. Making a decision, Frank whispered, “Turn me over. No, don’t ask me if I’m sure.”

So they did. Frank wasn’t sure how much more Matt could tell when there was only air between his ears and nose and mouth and skin and Frank’s wrecked face and heaving chest and leaking dick, but he felt the exposure to Karen’s gaze, much as she’d seen it all so many times.

She pressed a kiss to his mouth, then his chin, then his nose as Matt pushed back in and started to thrust. When two sets of arms wrapped themselves around him Frank gave himself up completely, relaxing into their grips even as he pushed back to move with Matt, and when Matt hit his prostrate again he didn’t hold back his moans. They came fast and thick as they found their rhythm and angle, Frank even getting his hand down between Karen’s legs until she took it and put it where she needed it, and even guided him to the pace she wanted until he could keep it up without thinking.

That was good, because by then Frank couldn’t think anymore. Everything was Matt’s dick in him, and kiss after kiss from Karen, and her soft and wet on his hand, and Matt’s pants on his chest, and both of them now bending over him and their arms around him-until Matt brought a hand away to jerk him off even as he cried out and came in Frank’s ass. He could do things with his fingers alone that blew Frank’s mind, and Frank came all over them, slumping down onto the bed, his hand the last thing to still after Karen too came, rocking forward hard until she nearly fell on both of them.

Frank was still trying to get his bearings when they both of them gathered him, kissing and touching him freely, until they had him cradled between them, and he felt their caresses all over his body, the warmth of them almost painful against his heart. It was crazy, he thought, how sweet, kind Karen was looking at him like he was the precious and beautiful one, rather than she, how Matt, who prided himself in having never taken a life, was reaching over to hold the hands that had taken countless ones.

When Matt whispered, “I love you,” and Karen, who’d said that to him long ago, just pressed her head against his, Frank felt himself start to crack. “I…” he started.

They could detect the warning, but Karen just whispered, “It’s all right, Frank. You’re allowed to cry,” and Frank did, the tears falling into her skin, into Matt’s, as they kept him close and safe as he wept.

***

It was after there’d been an attempt on Daredevil too that he who’d made the one on Karen finally talked, and they learned Billy Russo had woken up, recovered, and escaped custody. Everyone had lost track of him in the chaos that had followed the death of half the world, and even Madani hadn’t really had the chance to find out what had happened to him. Frank was pretty sure she was beating herself up over that.

When it finally came to the two of them facing each other down again, down by the Hudson where they’d met before Frank had known, Billy mentioned to Frank he hadn’t targeted Karen because of his connection to her, or even known he and Daredevil were well acquainted until a month or so previous. “They were just both of them too close to finding me out was all.”

“Yeah,” and spite of everything, Frank found himself grinning with genuine pride. “They’re both of them good at catching snakes, better than me, when it comes down to it. You can go ahead about kill me tonight, but the two of them? You can’t stop her from publishing what she’s got, and he’ll find all the people you’ve got left sooner or later. They’ll still take you down.”

“And what if I take them down?” He still had his old grin; it looked hideous with his new sliced and stitched up face. “Don’t think I don’t know where you live, Frank, and who you live with. And I noticed, you know, that Daredevil seems to operate out of the same building. And I did an analysis of his fighting style. I’ve been wondering if anyone’s noticed all the signs that guy does not use his eyes, especially since it’s not really a secret he’s got some ability to detect things others can’t. And here I was wondering why he was so interested in my people. I probably would’ve figured it out earlier, honestly, except your living situation confused me at the time. I really never had thought you’d be a fag, Frank.”

“Yeah, well, I never had thought you’d be a traitor,” Frank retorted. Strange, how he felt nothing now but a grim resolve. Also a little disappointment. The ideal outcome of tonight would’ve been dropping him tied up on Madani’s doorstep, since he’d have suffered the most that way, but now he couldn’t let him live.

Later, Frank would wonder if Billy had said what he’d said because he was determined on having either victory or death. But ultimately it didn’t matter if he’d been manipulated into killing him; he’d have done it anyway, once he knew he had to, just to protect those he loved.

In the end, the whole fight was shockingly emotionless for Frank. Even the further taunts Billy tried to throw him off with, some of which might have hit a year or so ago-the one claiming Matt and Karen would never keep him would have-just didn’t anymore. He finally got hold of him and snapped his neck, and felt nothing at all. Not even when his final action was to smile at his killer.

It was better for everyone involved if Billy’s body was never found. He returned to Hell’s Kitchen with it disposed of close to dawn, which was when Daredevil finally found him; Frank had deliberately thrown him off his scent early in the evening. “He would’ve exposed you,” he said, before Matt could say anything, knowing he’d immediately know the rest. Though he then added, “It wouldn’t have been just us that would’ve suffered, you know that.”

“I do,” said Matt, sad, rather than angry, at least for the moment. They made the rest of their way home without a word.

***

He woke up a few days later to the sound of Matt and Karen scrambling around their living room, Matt swearing that he knew “where it landed” and Karen sounding doubtful. He remembered Matt had an important early morning appointment that day, one that could last the whole morning, though after that he and Foggy might crash in the apartment for a working lunch.

His attempt to make it sound like it was out of convenience had fooled no one. Hours before their final confrontation, Billy had gotten rumors of a Frank Castle sighting going, and Frank was now laying low until it was determined he could do otherwise. Not the best situation when he was still all tensed up from the fight, and both his lovers were trying not to leave him alone too much. Matt was also trying not to bother him too much either, though. He’d never gotten angry this time.

“See? Here’s your tie.” Karen had found it. A pause, while she presumably helped him get it on. “Have a good morning, Matt.”

“You too,” he said, almost too soft for Frank to hear, and then, louder, “You, too, Frank. He’s up.”

Frank managed to get himself up and a bathrobe thrown on before Karen came in. She was still in her own robe, the new ivory silk one Frank and Matt had saved up to buy for her birthday. “So you’re up,” she said.

She had been angry. He’d been able to tell that, even though she hadn’t spoken about it to him, told him her grievances, which was unusual for her. He wondered if maybe she wasn’t even sure what they were. He’d had a bad habit of getting the ladies in his life angry at him without them knowing why from childhood on.

When she sat down on the edge of the bed, he sat near her on it. “This entire time,” she said, “I’ve been trying to figure out what to ask you without you blowing up at me.”

He wasn’t going to, he thought; that danger was passed. He still felt irritated, and not up to responding.

At least until she finally asked, “Are you here now?” and he knew she didn’t mean physically.

He had to think about it, before finally saying, “I think so. I think it’s a little easier, when I’ve done this for weeks instead of months.” Not that being back in the apartment only hours after killing his foe had been a good idea, but he had to try to cope. “But…” Be honest, he told him. Treat this like group therapy, where he’d sometimes shocked himself with his own admissions. “I think there’s part of me that’s never coming back. Though most’ve that might have been gone by the time you first met me.”

“And you’ll never give up the fight completely, will you? Unless you live until you’re not physically capable of it anymore. You lost your chance at that when you lost them, I think.”

“The Fisks are still out there,” he reminded her. “And you and Matt, you’ll piss off more powerful people before you’re done. You’re not going to talk me out of doing what I have to, to protect you two. Yeah, I know you two can protect yourselves, Matt especially, but you know how he is, and…”

“I know,” she said, and her voice was so goddamn gentle. “Just…we need you to come back to us. Promise me you’ll at least try? That you’ll care whether you live or die?”

He already did again, at long last. “I’ll try as hard as I can,” he murmured, before kissing her, strong and deep, hands immersed in her long hair. “I promise,” he whispered in the air between them. “I’ll always try.”