The PTSD angle had been one that Matt had expected to come up within minutes of taking Frank’s case. Something within him had known that Frank would push back against it, maybe because he had heard the man’s heart, how steady it was, and how he didn’t do anything different between holding a gun and putting a bullet through someone’s head besides let out a light exhale, and that was more to do with focus than anything else. Taking on the Punisher case in the first place had been insane. He knew that Frank would have the time of his life in prison, knew he would tear through criminals like the best of them, but yet he had remained determined to … do what, exactly? Get him off with murder? Reduce the sentence? Get him put in a mental institution where Matt was pretty damn sure, even now, that he belonged? Or was Matt just trying to prove something to himself, trying to give the firm something to focus on besides how much he was lying, trying to keep Reyes the hell away from the Punisher case?
Honestly, Matt hadn’t really picked out the answer from the list that came to him. He assumed that working together in his mind, they had all managed to convince him. Karen had agreed with him automatically, which had only served as a means to spur him on. He knew why she did it. For some reason, she saw a part of herself in Frank Castle, saw someone that deserved a strong defence, someone that deserved respect, even. Matt hadn’t really had time back then to wonder why that was, at least not until he was on the docks that night and heard Karen’s heart thumping when she thought Frank was dead, but now he had nothing but time.
Nothing but time, and a reminder of what had happened a year ago, a reminder that continued to pop up regardless of what Matt did to encourage him to stay down. Fighting back against Frank wasn’t like putting Turk behind bars, or getting meth dealers off the streets. Fighting with Frank was exhausting purely because of the psychological weight behind everything. Frank got in his head like almost no other enemy (besides, of course, Elektra. Considering the fact that it was Elektra, that was more a compliment of Frank than anything else). There was no doubt that he was well trained, that he posed more of a threat in a hand to hand fight than Matt had expected, but the true challenge in dealing with the Punisher was the fact that sometimes, Matt didn’t really want to stop him.
“I suppose it depends on what you’re protecting,” Matt argued, “or what you think you’re going to.” Daredevil basically relied on the fact that everyone was a coward. His reputation was well known, most criminals knew that he wouldn’t murder them in cold blood and leave their bodies on spikes for their families to see, and that meant that he had to get more than a little creative with his threats, and with the damage that he inflicted. Matt had to make them believe that there were things worse than death. The fact that someone could do that back to him, though, was something that he was fighting back against. “Not advice,” Matt said, though that much was obvious. The muscle in his jaw twitched nonetheless. “Insight, if it’s possible. I’m guessing you have to have some kind of system for picking who you murder, right? It can’t be random.”
There was a definite edge to Frank’s words. He was hard to get a read on, even with the insight that Matt had, far more than the average person. Matt had sat with him in that graveyard, had been saved by him on the roof, had talked to him more times than he could count in between and after those occasions, and still he had absolutely no idea what was going on in Frank Castle’s head. In college, he was taught that to appeal to the jury, you had to get into their minds, had to root around in there to see what worked. He monitored their responses, how their bodies changed to his words, and altered what he was saying to meet their specifications. With Frank, that was impossible. “What do you call what you do now, then?” Matt asked. “A vendetta? Revenge? A hobby?” Matt didn’t speak at that, didn’t argue against it. Maybe he was scrambling. Maybe Frank was one of the few people who managed to get that response from him consistently. Maybe a whole lot of things that he didn’t want to think about came to the forefront before he pushed them right back down again.
“Okay, now you sound like someone else I know.” Only Elektra could make something so threatening seem like a pick up line. It was the curve of her words, maybe, how Matt could tell she was smirking while saying them. Or maybe it was the fact that they were both naked when she said it. Either way, it definitely wasn’t as appealing when Frank was describing it. Getting into bed with Fisk was dangerous, trying to double cross him would get anyone killed. “The Irish tried that,” Matt reminded him. “Getting the one over on him. So did the Yakuza, Madame Gao, everyone else. We got him put away, but what you’re saying, we know he’s not done. He’s not down. What makes you think you can take him out even if I stepped back?”
Protecting people like Fisk wasn’t what Daredevil was for. If Frank wanted to kill Fisk, he would kill Fisk. But if Matt knew about it, and did nothing, wasn’t that the same thing as murder itself? This was where the line got blurry. Father Lantom was very clear about it, stated that watching while bad things happened was the same thing as doing it himself, but Matt wasn’t entirely sure, not that he would ever admit it out loud. “So what would you have me do?” Matt asked. “You want me to do what you do, Frank, is that it? You want me to kill every person that sells drugs on the street because they got in deep? You want me to murder a man trying to provide for his family, even if it’s in the worst way possible? Not every criminal deserves that punishment.”
Matt swallowed thickly. Frank had a way of putting every single one of the moral arguments that he had in his own mind into words, making them harsh and biting, cutting through the cool wind that blew across the rooftop. “I can’t save everyone,” Matt said finally, “and neither can you, with your bloodshed, with your guns and your violence. You can’t save everyone either.” Matt wasn’t entirely sure whether saving people was what Frank was fighting for, or if in his mind, he was killing the people who hurt his family all over again, that in some way it would make up for what he lost. Like he had said before, he couldn’t get a read. “He won’t get past me,” Matt said finally, though he wasn’t entirely sure of that inside himself. “He’ll come for me first. I was the one who put the final nail in the coffin, not the lawyers, not the judge. Me. And I’ll take him down again, put him back where he belongs, for longer this time.” Fisk, though, knew what the criminal system was like, what the justice system was like. He wouldn’t risk parole on killing Daredevil. It was playing chess with Bobby Fisher, and the only way to end it seemed to be uprooting the entire goddamn board.
Everyone had a turning point in their life, something that happened to them that changed who they were on some basic level. Back in the war, Russo used to call it the point of no return. He’d look at a guy in the trenches, see something cross over his face, and he’d just know. He’d turn to Frank with a nod, something somewhere between grief and some sick pride in his eyes, and he’s say it. He’d say there’s no coming back from that like it was some badge of honor to be irreparably broken. Frank learned how to recognize it, too, learned how to see it in someone’s face before Russo turned towards him, learned to look for it, to wait for it. Some guys, it made them better at what they did. Others, it made them worse.
It wasn’t just something that happened overseas. It could happen on a guy’s home turf, too, happen anywhere. Frank was of the belief that it was inevitable, that at some point in their life, everyone came to their point of no return. Sometimes, it was getting served with a pile of divorce papers by a stranger when you’d thought for sure things were looking up. Others, it was flashing lights and sirens pulling up your driveway with awful news, the kind that knocked the air right out of you. Some people, they got hit with several, got pelted with moment after moment of terribly things that they’d never recover from. Frank wasn’t sure how many he’d had. He figured each bullet that tore its way through his family had counted for one, figured he’d had another waking up in that hospital, another when he realized Schoonover was at least partially responsible for what happened to Maria and the kids.
Murdock had to have had at least one, and Frank knew it. Nobody climbed out their window in the dead of night all dressed up in red kevlar with horns on their head if they hadn’t faced the unfaceable, no one figured they could singlehandedly end crime in Hell’s Kitchen without killing someone if they hadn’t had a moment when the world was crushing down on them and they couldn’t get air into their lungs. If not for the annoying, condescending way he tried to push his ‘no killing’ bullshit on everyone else, Frank might’ve felt for the guy. (Maybe there was a part of him that still did regardless; Maria always said he was a goddamn softie.)
“Nah,” Frank countered, glancing to Murdock carefully. “Doesn’t matter in the end. In the end, everybody breaks. You can trust me on that.” Hell, Frank knew he’d probably break, too, if someone put enough pressure on him. It didn’t matter how strong a person was, how much they had to fight for, eventually everyone gave in. Human beings, they ran on survival instinct. Every nerve in their body, every instinct in their brain, it wanted to live. Their lungs would do anything to keep drawing breath, their heart would do whatever it took to keep beating. You couldn’t win out against a drive like that. “This about finding some way to stop me? That’s what you want, isn’t it? I tell you my system and you think you can get there before me, put ‘em behind bars before I put ‘em in the ground?” He snorted again, rolling his eyes. “Wouldn’t matter, anyways. I don’t know until I know. Until I work my way up the ladder, ask whoever I’m taking out who they work for, who they work with. They don’t hesitate, you know? They’ll sign their buddies’ death certificates if they think it’ll get them a few extra days of living.” The distaste was clear in his tone. Back in the Marines, every guy in Frank’s unit would’ve died for the guy next to him. Out here, they’d sell out anyone for a shot at another extra heartbeat.
For years, Maria had known Frank better than he knew himself. She knew what he was hungry for before it even registered to him that he needed food, knew what he was going to say before the thought popped into his mind. He’d joked once that he wouldn’t know who he was if he didn’t have her around to tell him, and he hadn’t realized how true it was. In the Marines, miles away from her, he’d lost himself. He’d spent months on tour not really knowing what he was doing, following orders he knew were wrong. Then, he came home to her, and it was like a missing piece sliding back into place. And then, just like that, she was gone again. He wasn’t sure she’d recognize him if she saw him now. He wasn’t sure he recognized himself, either. It was sad to say it, but the person who knew this new Frank Castle the best was probably Murdock. The guy was a constant pain in Frank’s ass, but Frank couldn’t deny that half the reason he annoyed him so fucking much was because Murdock did seem to understand what went through Frank’s head. He saw the understanding in his face, saw it for a split second before the man shooed it away and went back to clinging to his morality. It was infuriating.
Letting out a sharp laugh, Frank shrugged his shoulders. “You wanna know what I call this?” He gestured to the gun, as if to clarify what he meant. “I call it taking out the trash. It’s not a vendetta, it’s not revenge, it’s a goddamn chore. It’s a necessity. It’s something I’ve gotta do so my house won’t stink. This isn’t some moral debate for me, Red, it’s not a question. This? This is simple.” Murdock, of course, wouldn’t like that. He wanted it to run deeper, wanted there to be some huge, endless gap that separated Daredevil from the Punisher. He wanted Frank to be crazy, to be after something he couldn’t relate to, to be wrong. He wanted it so bad, and Frank figured it must’ve driven him crazy that it wasn’t the case.
“You got smart friends? Gotta say, that’s surprising.” It might’ve been, if he hadn’t known who was under that mask. Karen was one of the sharpest women Frank had ever known, and as much as he hated to admit it, Nelson wasn’t an idiot, either. They might not want much to do with Murdock now, but they’d been his friends once. They’d cared about him up until the moment he’d stopped letting them. Murdock might’ve been an asshole, but he managed to attract smart friends. “The Irish, the Yakuza, Gao, they’re all a bunch of goddamn idiots. They wanted to take him out in a way that would let them take his power. They wanted to take over for him, to take what he’d built and have it for themselves. They made it complicated. Me? For me, it’s simple. It’s easy. It’s one shot, one round, one kill.” There was more to it than that, of course. The other gang leaders, when they’d been gunning for Fisk, had wanted to make it out the other end still kicking. They’d cared more about whether they lived or died than whether or not they finished the job. That had never been a driving factor for Frank, never been something he worried about. If he died taking Fisk out, he was fine with that. If killing the Kingpin meant the Punisher bit the dust, too, that would be all right.
“I want you to take some fucking responsibility,” Frank snapped, voice gruff and deep and angry. “I want you to recognize that your way is bullshit. That it doesn’t work. I want you to understand that when you put these guys behind bars, when you have them sent to jail for a couple months, a couple years at most, it doesn’t change shit. They get out, they do the same shit over and over again. They go to parks with loaded guns and they open fire. They kill children, Red, kids. So, yeah, if it’s between putting down a man ‘trying to provide for his family’ and keeping someone from burying their goddamn kids, I’ll pull that trigger every goddamn time. You wanna stop me, I’ve told you how. You can stop me with a bullet or you can get the hell out of my way. That’s what I want you to do.”
Frank was breathing hard now, worked up and angry the way only a conversation with Daredevil could make him. The guy had a way of getting under Frank’s skin that no one else on Earth could replicate. Laughing bitterly, Frank shook his head. “Don’t tell me about who I can and can’t save. I know. You can trust me on that one, Red, I know I can’t save everyone.” Hadn’t he seen that spelled out for him plain in the park that day a million years ago? Hadn’t he heard it punctuated with every bullet that ripped through his children, ever drop of blood that spilled out of his wife? Frank knew he couldn’t save everyone. He’d always known that. “But hell, at least I’m doing something real. Something permanent. What about you, Red, huh? What do you do? At the end of the day, what kind of difference do you make?” Not a big enough one. Not anything close to big enough. “Christ, Red, he already did. He already got passed you, already slipped through whatever hold you think you had on him when you put him behind bars instead of in the morgue. You put him back in prison, he’ll get out again. Guys like him, they always do. He’ll get out again, and again, and again, and he won’t stop coming. He’ll never stop coming. Maybe this time he comes after you first, yeah? Maybe this time he comes gunning for you and you put him back in. What’s to say he won’t save you for last next time? Or the time after that? There’s only one way to keep them safe, Red, one. Don’t pretend you don’t know that.”