Fisk knew about it, of course. He was a real motherfucker like that (Matt was in a very bad mood). When Matt dressed himself to go, Fisk handed him a manila envelope. Matt reached in to check, but he knew from the weight and feel that there was a blown-up photograph inside. “What is it?”
“It’s for Mr. Nelson.”

So he wasn’t going to describe it. “Is it graphic or violent?”

“I assure you, it contains nothing of that nature,” Fisk said. No lie. So Matt didn’t even have that in his arsenal. “But it’s for his eyes, not yours.”

Matt clenched his jaw but swallowed his pride yet again. He already had a frustration headache. He didn’t need to make it worse. “Fine. But after this, you leave him alone. That’s our deal.”

“If you honor it,” Fisk said, “I will do the same.”

Again, no lie. Life was not cutting Matt Murdock any breaks today.

Foggy wanted to meet in the abandoned offices of Nelson and Murdock. They’d been unable to break their lease and it was against the landlord’s policy to sublet it, so it sat open and empty in some prime corporate real estate. Matt supposed Foggy was paying the bills. It wasn’t right, but Matt would make it up to him. Eventually.

Foggy and Karen were waiting for him. Karen bounced off the edge of the empty desk and hugged him. He didn’t invite it but he didn’t do anything to stop it.

“You look like shit, Matt.” Foggy didn’t mince words, but he wasn’t angry, either. He sounded tired.
Compared to how he was a month ago, Matt imagined he looked pretty good, but he didn’t really know. He let Karen disengage from him before he said anything about the other presence in the office, hidden behind the door to his old office. “Frank.”

Castle stepped out of the shadows. It was night and the only bulbs humming were the ones in the main room. “Red.”

“You guys know each other?” Foggy said. “As in, like you’re friends?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re friends,” Matt said, and turned his head in Frank’s direction. “I heard you were in Tampa.”

“I came back,” Frank said with customary succinctness. He was only packing a glock in his back pants and a tiny sidearm in an ankle holster, so he wasn’t here to fight.

“How was it?” He only knew of it from the newspapers; Frank had been busy down there.

“Hot.”

“He calls you ‘Red.’” Foggy was incredulous. Even a little amused. Matt had a lot of follow-up questions about how Foggy was okay with Frank being there, but that could wait. “I can’t imagine where he would have gotten that.”

“I’m aware of the color of the suit,” Matt said. He wanted to smile, to joke around about it like old times, but he was exhausted. He came into the building already drained. He wasn’t truly up for this. “I didn’t want to do this, but I suppose I have to.” He pulled the envelope out of his jacket and handed it to Foggy. “I don’t know what’s in it.” When Frank’s weight shifted precariously, Matt added, “It’s a photograph.”

“We’re not going to be threatened by Fisk and his minions,” Karen said with her usual indignation. “Whatever he has on you, he doesn’t have the right to do this. You can’t –

“Karen,” Foggy said. His body sunk like a stone into the only chair after he pulled out the single picture, his posture one of someone who was truly horrified, and maybe also punched in the face. His heard was racing. “Be quiet for a minute, okay?”

“Foggy – “

“Shut up. Please.” Foggy was really pleading with her. He was on the verge of tears as his fist balled around the heavy paper. “Just – don’t.”

“Fisk said it wasn’t anything graphic,” Matt said. “He wasn’t lying.”

“Then he thought – “ Foggy couldn’t manage words. “He thought – he has a different opinion about things. I mean, shit.” He put one hand on his forehead. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Fuck it all, he would kill Fisk. “What is it?”

“It’s um, a picture of my sister Candace,” Foggy choked out. “Asleep in her dorm room at UC-Berkeley. Taken from ... I think this is the hallway? Someone was in the hallway and he opened her door when she was asleep and took a picture of her? I mean, fuck, that means – Fuck.” The agony in his voice wasn’t making Matt’s night any better. “What does he want?”

“He wants you to leave me alone.”

“Is this about Jessica? Because her behavior – Look, I didn’t ask her to do that. That was all her.”

“I know. Fisk knows.”

“She’s fired, okay? You can tell him that.” He tore up what was left of the envelope the photograph came in. “What has he done to you?”

“...Nothing,” Matt said with a shrug. “He’s done more or less nothing.”

“Are you here of your own free will?” Karen asked. Matt noticed how Frank protectively flanked her.

“Vanessa suggested it,” he said. “But she didn’t threaten.” Well, that wasn’t really true, but there wasn’t a better way to explain it.

“‘Vanessa?’”

“Yes, I live downstairs from her. I call her by her first name,” Matt replied. “All things considered, they’ve been very polite to me.”

“Are you apologizing for them?” Foggy asked. “Doesn’t Stockholm Syndrome take some time?”

“You asked me what he’s done, and I’ve told you.” Matt fiddled with his cane, which found a grove in the carpet. “I don’t know what he was thinking originally, when he found me. I wasn’t in ... good shape. And from there, I don’t know what his thinking is. But no, he hasn’t hurt me, and as long as I do what he says, he doesn’t intend to.”

“‘What he says,’” Karen repeated. “What does that mean?”

Matt shrugged. “I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

“What does he have on you? Other than the Daredevil stuff?”

“I don’t think he needs Daredevil,” Matt said. “No one would believe him anyway. He threatened you. Both of you. He gave me a photo, just like he did with Foggy, of the two of you at a bar. You didn’t know you were being photographed. Or, that’s what the description said.”

“That’s it?”

“He didn’t need anything else,” Matt said. “Fisk’s threats are abstract, but they’re real. He killed so many people already, just because they got in his way. He knows pressure points.”

“You’re not responsible for protecting us, Matt,” Karen said defiantly.

“And does Candace have a Frank Castle in her life, too?”

“She shouldn’t – “

“No, Karen. He’s right,” Foggy said. “I’d do anything to protect my sister. Fisk knows what he’s doing. He has me, and because me he has Matt. And no one’s too amenable to the punishing Fisk plan, right?” That last sentence was deliberately said to the room.

“Right,” Matt said, again in Frank’s direction. So Foggy was a little uneasy about Frank’s involvement, whatever it was. He was here for Karen, and maybe he felt some loyalty to them by adjacency. “That is not the answer to this problem.”

“If you want to be Fisk’s bitch, have it your way,” Frank said. Same for Foggy, it was implied. Karen didn’t weigh in and he didn’t mention her. Fisk hadn’t directly threatened her – yet – and that was probably the only reason he was alive.

“Didn’t you fight Fisk in prison?” Foggy asked.

“Not one-on-one. He’s too smart for that,” Frank admitted.

“He also got you out of prison,” Matt pointed out.

“I think he wanted to get me out of there after he tried to have me killed,” Frank said. “I was probably a liability. If he thinks I think I owe him something, he’s wrong. And unlike you, I’ll pull the trigger. So he’d better fucking stay clear of me.”

“I think it’s safe to say that he’s come to that conclusion,” Matt said. Maybe that was why he hadn’t threatened Karen.

“So what do we do? I mean, we could try to dig up something to blackmail him back with.”

“Because that went so well for Ben Urich,” Foggy pointed out. He sounded like he had a stress headache now, too.

“Don’t bring Ben into this.”

“I can if I think Ben wouldn’t want us to make the same mistakes!” Foggy shouted, then shrunk back. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him up, but we have to remind ourselves what we’re dealing with. And what could Fisk possibly have that we don’t already know? All the charges brought against him? The possibility that he killed his own father?”

“Fisk killed his own dad?” Frank asked.

“Manslaughter at best,” Matt said. “And he was a kid at the time, so anyone could argue self-defense. It might actually have been in self-defense for all we know. His dad had some violent priors. The point is, we can’t use it. And we shouldn’t. Then we’re no better than him.” He pointed his face directly at Frank. “And whatever you’re thinking, don’t say it.”

“Does he know you’re here?” Foggy asked. “Wait, sorry, no duh. He gave you the photo to deliver.”

“But if he knows Frank was here – that might change something.” Karen was trying her best to be hopeful. “He’ll he can’t just come in and mess with anyone.”

Matt was all the more curious about Karen’s arrangement with Frank Castle, but it wasn’t the time or place. “If you think it will help, I’ll tell him. But it doesn’t actually change the situation. He wanted to destroy me and Foggy for representing Hoffman. Now, I don’t know. He might be softening.”

Foggy almost laughed. “Softening? Really? This guy sent a ninja to kill you. And he almost did.”

“I think maybe Vanessa’s presence is doing something.”

“His girlfriend!” Karen slapped her hand on the desk. “Why didn’t I think of that. There’s got to be something on her that we can – “

“No.” Matt didn’t hesitate. “She’s off-limits. She’s not involved in this.”

“But my kid sister is fair game?” Foggy demanded.

“Maybe for him. But we don’t play by his rules. We have to be better than him or what are we even doing this for?” Matt demanded. Plus he didn’t want to imagine the rampage Fisk would go on if something happened to Vanessa. If she got so much as a scratch on her from some kind of scuffle he might burn down Hell’s Kitchen. “Look, she’s a calming influence. And I need that right now. So she’s out of the discussion.”

Karen made a noise like she wasn’t completely convinced, Frank didn’t reveal whatever his own thoughts were, but Foggy relented. “Yeah, okay. But what are we going to do? We can’t just sit on it. We can’t watch this happen to you.”

“Nothing bad is happening to me,” he said. “It’s weird, okay? It’s a really weird situation. But they’re not hurting me. Fisk didn’t take me out when it would have been easy. I don’t know what he’s planning now, but I don’t see what else to do but wait for the next move. Unless anyone has any other suggestions that don’t involve someone innocent getting hurt.” He waited through the silence. “I didn’t think so.”

“Matt,” Karen said as he turned to leave, “don’t blow us off.”

“Blow you off? Last time we spoke, you punched me in the face and told me to get out of your life,” Matt said.

“Oh, come on,” Frank said. “I’ve punched you plenty of times.”

“You’re not Karen.”

“Matt has a point,” Foggy said. “Though I will say that if he hadn’t been super injured every time I wanted to punch him, I might have punched him a lot. But at least I didn’t shoot him.”
Matt didn’t expect Frank to apologize for that. “I see we’re working with a very low bar. For the record, I’m still sorry about lying to both of you, but I’m not going to keep apologizing.”

Karen sounded like she wanted to say something, but Foggy beat her to it. His tone was far more conciliatory. “We just want to help you. Everything else – we can deal with that later.”

“Okay.” Matt nodded. “If you want to see me without alerting Fisk, you find me at church. Other than that – just assume he reads my texts. Assume he reads everything.” He grimaced and turned back. “It was nice to see you again.”

He stepped out, and before he even shut the door they were arguing.