Chapter Text
It feels like a cosmic joke, the kind that was too good to be true, too good to happen to a man like him. He was huffing the scent of lavender and linen in the air like an addict chasing a high.
It feels like a memory, like the kind that’ll leave him before long, and so Frank clings to it; he clings to the Santa Claus bullshit his Devil believes in, and holds on to the hope.
And just like that, his new lawyers are standing before him. The fluorescent lighting glints softly like a halo on Murdock’s dark hair, making the strands shimmer in shades of auburn and copper.
A halo for the Devil , Frank muses. He watches the curve of the other man’s supple mouth. He knows that mouth, if nothing else, knows how terribly he had wanted to kiss that mouth in the graveyard. It’s him, it has to be.
The bumbling other half of Nelson and Murdock reeks of indignance so potent it practically makes Frank’s eyes water.
“I’m gonna need a…verbal confirmation if we’re gonna continue,” The blonde, Nelson says, spitefully. But Frank can’t be bothered to acknowledge, he can’t do anything but stare. His eyes never leave Murdock. There’s a soft blush, a powdery pink that bleeds down his pale cheeks, scent dripping lavender and linen into the air and it hits like a narcotic. Frank pulls at his cuffs, metal on metal clashing, Murdock’s lower lip trembles, a pretty hand with bruised knuckles adjusts his red-tinted glasses.
Nelson’s sigh cuts through the stiff, fragrant air, “Look you asked us to represent you. In order to do my job-”
“-I’m guilty.” Frank interrupts thickly. It’s the answer they want, but it still makes the room tremble at the unflinching way he says it.
“Great, uh…” The other Omega drawls nervously.
“I’m not talking to you.” Frank adds gruffly, breathing turned labored as he studies every inch of his mate, restrained hands itching to tear at his cheap suit. He thinks of the promise he’d made in the graveyard, pretty little Devil sittin’ in his lap. His mouth grows wet.
“What?” Nelson balks.
“Him.” Frank grunts. Murdock sucks in a shaky breath and it’s nearly surreal seeing his whole face, his whole emotive, angelic face. Soft skin that he knows the taste of and short stubble that he knows the scrape of, red lips and blank red lenses hiding his eyes - still hiding his eyes.
“I need to talk to him alone.” Frank says.
“Absolutely not.” Nelson snaps instantly, with an admirable amount of nerve. So…he knew?
“My colleague is-”
“Foggy,” Murdock’s voice is soft and so fond, and something territorial rears its head inside of Frank, mine , he thinks as his eyes linger on the lithe shape of his lawyer, “It’s fine.”
Nelson looks like he wants to argue it, but relents and shoots Frank a withering glare before moving toward the door. A heavy cloud of honey and salt hangs in the air as soon as the other Omega is gone.
“Christ,” Frank rasps, watching as his mate slumps against the door with a long breath, forehead pressed against the boarded up window.
“That you, Red?” Frank asks with a knowing lift of his lips, he knows the answer, but the question makes his Omega squirm with a whine stalling in his throat.
“‘S what I thought,” Frank slurs with a lazy smile, drool gathering in his mouth.
The air is dense with his scent too, pine and sap overshadowing copper and gunpowder. His blood feels like it’s frothing in his veins, like his whole being is buzzing with excitement. His cuffs give a creak when he tugs at them a third time.
“Frank,” His Red hums, it’s a gentle warning, but hearing his name leaves those lips, watching his fulls brows pinch together with an expression of yearning, of helplessness, leaves Frank pulling harder to get free.
“Don’t,” He adds more firmly, adjusting his glasses and pulling at his tie.
“C’mere,” Frank grunts, a growl clinging to the back of his throat. He watches as he pauses at the line of tape, teeth digging into the indecently pink swell of his lower lip.
“Look at ya,” Frank breathes, voice full of hunger as his eyes rake over his mate, the way his suit clings to the breadth of his shoulders and chest, the way his belt is cinched tight around his narrow waist, the teasing flutter of full lashes beneath those glasses.
“Closer,” Frank adds, watching him deliberate over crossing the line.
“Frank, please.” His mate pleads and the sound goes straight to his cock.
“We should be talking about your case.” Right, lawyer. His mate is a lawyer by day, vigilante by night…
“We will,” Frank assures softly, lips pulling into a crooked smile. He watches as his Omega toes at the line some more, the line he shouldn’t cross, but clearly wanted to.
“What do I call you, huh?” Frank asks after a beat of silence.
The Devil cranes his neck back, hands braced on his hips, drawing too much attention to spots that Frank was aching to dig his teeth and fingers into.
“Matthew…” He says softly, almost earnestly.
Matthew , Frank thinks, rolls it around in his mind, savoring the sensation of it. The Omega prickles when Frank lets out a snort, thinking of the chime of church bells at midnight.
You a Catholic?
Once.
“Saint Matthew, huh?” Frank hums fondly, licking at his teeth, inhaling the cocktail of their scents swirling in the air.
“So, you’re not a shrink,” It makes the kid laugh, “Thank Christ.” Frank rumbles with laughter too.
“Still charge by the hour,” Matt adds, a big, deliriously smitten smile on his face and Frank never wanted to make good on a promise the way he did the one he made at the graveyard, in that moment; he wanted to take him, claim him, fuck him proper.
“Lucky me,” Frank says and means it.
Only so many things could happen when two Alphas were locked into a room together. Few of them could be good.
Of course, matters took a nosedive the moment Reyes and Frank were sharing the same space. Foggy wasn’t optimistic even Matt’s presence by Frank’s side could tame the unrivaled energy the maniac was putting off.
It wasn’t looking perfect, but they had managed to get the death penalty off of the table, gen pop wasn’t exactly a win, though Foggy might beg to differ, but it was nearly impossible to miss the way that bit of information had soured Matt’s mood. The DA wasn’t budging on that though, and Foggy wouldn’t exactly mourn if a couple of whack jobs in prison wanted to take a shot at the Punisher.
The process now was simple, all Frank needed to do was say three simple words. He had said them before, sure it had been in an attempt to get Matt alone, but all he needed to do now was say them again.
Guilty, your honor.
Three simple words and they wouldn’t have to see the psycho again…
“How does the defendant plead?” The Judge asks, the air is stiff with tension, it creaks and cries with every breath and Foggy thinks he’s graduated to filling pools, rather than buckets, with his flop sweat.
He nearly blacks out at the subtle curl of a growl so nail-bitingly primal in the back of Frank’s throat that hinges before his answer. He looks larger somehow, puffed up in his hospital bed, with Matt standing at his side. It’s a challenge and pure machismo, typical Alpha dickery - nothing that coincided with the court of law.
“I plead not guilty.” Frank grits out, jaw tense as he grills Reyes under a piercing stare.
“You hear that, witch?” He adds with a snarl, “I’m gonna watch you burn right along with me.”
Panic erupts within the confined space of the hospital room, and all Foggy wants is to drag him and Matt as far away from this case, from this ward, from this man as fast as humanly possible.
“You hear me?” Frank barks amidst the panic in the room, tied down, yet he’s the only one in control.
Counselor, please control your client .
It was the last thing Foggy heard before he saw his best friend lunge beyond the line of red tape. He glimpses Matt’s palm curling around the width of Frank’s shoulder. Bail was denied and they’ve got a court date coming up, all within the span of a few stuttering heart beats before he, Matt, and Karen are standing in a conference room trying to remember what they were doing here in the first place.
“What’d you say to him?” Foggy asks suddenly, the words leave his mouth without consulting his brain first, or being passed through a filter. They’re too accusatory and he hates the way it sounds.
“What?” Matt asks in return, nearly disbelieving, on the verge of being coy.
“Three hours ago, he was pleading guilty,” Foggy says, abandoning his suit jacket, tacky with sweat around the underarms, to the back of a chair.
“Why did he change his mind?”
For the first time since arriving at the hospital, Karen crosses Foggy’s periphery, luminescent blonde curls bobbing by the closed door, where she’s wringing her hands together.
“Maybe he just wants the truth.” She supplies, and if he didn’t know the truth about Frank Castle, about what that man was capable of, Foggy might be swayed by her optimism. It gives Matt an out though, a rationale beyond the chemical compulsion that drew him to the madman in the hospital bed.
“About Grotto, about his family, about the…”
“...the cover-up.” Matt agrees, hands on his hips, his glasses riding low enough on his nose that Foggy could see the glimpse of his soft hazel eyes beyond the rounded silver rims.
“I mean, if we go to trial, then it all comes out, right?” Karen adds, a naively hopeful lilt in her voice.
“There’s no ‘if’. This is happening.” Foggy exhales, he can feel his blood pressure climbing, which means Matt could probably sense it too.
“Trial of the century.”
This was it, the People v Frank Castle would start next week.
Trial of the century, Matt doesn’t think that comes close to the truth. He tries to replay the events in his head, tries to figure where things had gone wrong, or if they had ever been right to begin with.
He thought they had finally gotten a foot in the door, Foggy’s opening statements had set an offensive tone for the trial, they had come out of the gate swinging. Bringing in a tear-jerking character witness had given them an inch when they had needed miles, but it was something. They had something .
Their last shot had been getting Frank on the stand.
I’d like permission to treat the witness as hostile, your honor.
When had they ever been anything else to each other, anything other than hostile?
I’m gonna tell you exactly what kind of man you are…
Standing in that courtroom, across from his Alpha - the one he had never asked for - heart pounding and voice breaking, bondmark throbbing beneath the ironed cotton blend of his dress shirt; chafing with every breath.
You’re the kind of man this city needs…
The curdling, acrid scent of strawberry jam and the supple scent of a worn leatherbound book wafting from behind him, clashing nauseatingly with aroma of blood and gunpowder, each inhale rending his hindbrain to shreds.
Frank Castle is actually a good man, he just, he doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong anymore.
Every time he thought about it, his mind stilled there, idling over the words he had said, over the argument he had agonized over in that courtroom. He longs to run his fingers over the raised surface of the words, to split their narrative from reality, like peeling muscle from bone.
Frank is a good man, a good man who stole a piece of Matt, a good man who chose the lesser of two evils. A good man who found a way to make the Devil obey without killing him.
I’m not a bad guy, Red.
His knuckles had been bloodless with how tightly he had gripped his cane in the courtroom, breath stuttering out as Frank unraveled.
I know what I did,
Matt had felt the phantom sting of the green felt against his cheek, the heavy weight of Frank’s body pressed against his back.
I know what I am,
So did Matt.
One day, that was how long he’d spent mulling over the events that had effectively tarnished his legal career and very nearly shattered his friendship. 24 whole hours. His evening plans are straightforward, involving a couple beers and sweating out double his usual dose of scent blockers while investigating some whispers about the Yakuza.
That was the plan until he got home, he’s halfway to the fridge when he feels something shift in the air. It’s infinitesimal and for a moment, Matt is almost certain he’s imagining things, deluding himself into thinking he’s hearing something from two blocks over.
But it hit him like a gunshot, BANG , over the carbonated notes of his German beer, the sweetness of copper and hot grit of gunpowder.
Frank .
He thinks it’s on his clothes, that scent, charred into his skin, irreparably a part of him, lining every breath, haunting him…
His hands shake with the urge to strip his clothes away, to be clean of the scent, to be clean again, unsullied by this unimaginable source of pain and pleasure. He sucks in a breath and it weeps more potently in the air, his chin starts to quiver.
Matt can feel the heat of the billboard wafting through his windows, it’s electricity, pure light, illuminating the space in ways only Matt can see .
The heat in the air spills over Frank’s silhouette, blocking him in Matt’s mind in rough swathes of red. He’s dimension and form and fury.
Words feel caught in his throat, too complex for the shimmering state of his hindbrain, glowing with pheromones.
“Counselor,” He greets coolly, like he wasn’t responsible for all manner of ruin in Matt’s life, “lookin’ for some a’that attorney-client privilege,” He takes a single step forward, the thick sole of his boot sending a vibration that paints him in brilliant clarity in the darkness. The intention in his words is unmistakable, but the seductive drip of his want, prickling aromatic pine and fresh sap coloring the air makes it all the more obvious.
It feels too sudden, too close, too much. Yet, his body doesn’t argue, bile burns in his throat as slick begins to spill damningly between his thighs. He hates himself for wanting this.
The rumble of Frank’s brassy, gruff chuckle wrings a soft, submissive sound out of Matt.
“Frank,” Matt rasps, his throat is too dry, his body too hot.
The Alpha only grunts an affirmative sound as indication he had heard Matt at all, as he strides forward in Matt’s direction.
“Y-you - Frank you were in prison, how did you - how are you here ?”
He rumbles another laugh, warm breath tussling Matt’s hair. A hard hand digs through the fabric of Matt’s suit jacket, pressing at the scarred flesh that makes him moan like a brainless, cock-hungry Omega.
“A buddy of yours pulled some strings,” He grunts, kneading the spot with cruel intention. A few buttons from Matt’s shirt clatter to the hardwood floor when a brutish fist seizes the front of the fabric to keep Matt from falling to his knees.
“Wha-” Matt gasps, mouth hanging open as he swallows a breath that was purely Frank, “Who?”
Frank chuckles, a mean sound that grates on Matt’s nerves. The rugged bridge of his nose presses to Matt’s shirt collar, inhaling a hungry breath,
“Thassit, huh? All I gotta do is get close and that pricey college education falls right out of that pretty head?” Frank laughs, rough lips lingering near Matt’s hypersensitive ears.
A whine boils in Matt’s throat, utterly degraded, cheeks warm and eyes brimming with tears.
“Who did-” Matt attempts again, brain going sluggish as Frank heaves him forward effortlessly by the splitting seams of his dress shirt. He crooks a knee between Matt’s thighs, allowing the strain of Matt’s unaddressed erection to feel a bit of coarse friction.
“What’s that, Red?” Frank teases in a husky voice, the kind that leaves Matt’s hindbrain flush with a mantra of Alpha, Alpha, Alpha.
“-Want…” Matt slurs, slumping into Frank’s space, sliding further against the dig of his knee, feeling more slick saturating the snug material of his boxer-briefs. A growl blooms in Frank’s chest, it’s pleased, hungry.
“Whaddya want, Angel?”
The purely debased sound, so primal and desperate Matt exhales, is pressed wetly into the fabric of Frank’s shirt. The words sound so tender, so eager to please. Matt’s hips rut forward mindlessly.
His hindbrain latches onto the pet name with unrivaled force, his mind is a puddle that bubbles greedily, Angel, Angel, Angel.
“Want-” Matt huffs, body going slack at the possessive dig of Frank’s palm against the swell of his rear.
“Tell your Alpha what you want,” Frank growls, slurring like there’s sloven drool spilling from the corners of his mouth. The dizzying reality of being so desirable urges Matt’s hips forward again, the delicious spark of friction earning a grateful sound low in his throat.
“Wanna know how you got out…” Matt says finally, voice tapering into a moan, rationally he feels stubbornly proud.
Frank shoves at him, annoyed, Matt slides off of Frank’s knee, still upright with Frank holding him up. He’s smiling faintly even though the scant space between them makes his hindbrain cry out.
Matt manages to find his footing, staggering to lean against his kitchen countertop as Frank stalks away from him, scent sour and heart rate fluttering.
“Just,” Matt begins, breathless, body begging where he leans into the cool surface of the countertop, the contrast stinging the searing heat of his flushed skin through his clothes, “Just tell me and then, then we can…”
“We can what, Red?” Frank grits back with a cruel curl of amusement in his voice.
“We can figure it out,” Matt supplies with a sigh.
Frank snorts, “Ain’t nothin’ to figure, next time I see Fisk, I’m putting him in the ground.”
Fisk . Matt feels dread seize him suddenly, stuck in its icy clutch.
“Wilson Fisk - he let you out of prison?” The realization leaves Matt reeling, rational mind and hindbrain warring.
“Christ,” Matt wheezes, lifting a shaking hand to rasp over his stubble.
“Frank, we need to-”
Another biting laugh, “ We don’t need to do shit. You really think that piece of shit deserves a second chance, huh? A second chance to come after you?”
The air is charged, it’s too warm, too electric, heavy with the scent of Frank and the waning scent of Matt’s previous dose of blockers.
“You’re dumber than I thought if you think I’d let ‘em try it.”
Matt listens to the plodding weight of his footsteps across the hardwood, head aching with the whiplash of Frank’s philosophy. Boiling the words down to a single, syrupy sentiment: mine .
He hears the groan of his coach as Frank sinks into it cushions with a grunt. His ears prickle at the obnoxiously loud hiss of a zipper being undone. Dread holds him tighter and remembers the heat of his erection, throbbing between his wet thighs.
“Done talkin’ now, Red. C’mere.” Frank beckons from the couch, shrugging off his coat while he waits.
“Now.”
Tears spring anew in Matt’s eyes as the command overrides any autonomy he might’ve naively believed he still possessed.
The kid is a pain in the ass, his fucking pain in the ass that fights every step forward he takes. A pain in the ass that is too oblivious to see that Frank was tryin’ to keep him safe. He fights the command like he’s walking through wet cement, stuttering and slow. It’s a useless fight, but he fights it anyway.
“Kneel,” Frank instructs, mouth twitching between a snarl and a smile as he spots another salty sweet tear shimmering down from behind the red lenses of Matt’s glasses.
He doesn’t have to force it this time, just wait as his Devil lowers himself to his knees obediently, still in his pressed suit and tie. Milky skin beneath his ruined shirt is on display, soaking in the color of light from the billboard bleeding through the window. That was more like it.
“Atta boy,” He hums, watching the younger man twitch on the floor, mouth puckered tight like he’s trying to swallow the urge to whine. Didn’t really matter to Frank, nah, he has something else for the kid to swallow.
“Don’t that feel better? Bein’ where you belong, hmm?” He coos with a cruel smile as he spreads his thighs plenty wide to accommodate his mate. He sinks a possessive hand into Matt’s hair, feeling the soft auburn strands glide between his callus-heavy fingers.
Frank uses his free hand to pull the cumbersome weight of his erection from the undone opening of his fly, giving the length a long, lazy stroke. The scent of skin and arousal is thicker in the air and his stubborn little mate looks drunk on it, cheeks wet and mouth red.
Matt goes tense when Frank reaches down to pluck off his glasses, rigid like glass that was threatening to break.
“There we go,” Frank breathes fondly as he finally witnesses those gorgeous, unseeing eyes; they’re bracketed by creases that probably deepen when he smiles, and full lashes that he’d only gotten a glimpse of in the hospital. His nails scrape along Matt’s scalp until a pleased sound spills from between those full lips.
There’s a seasonal Christmas ad playing on the billboard, something vibrantly red that casts Matt’s unguarded expression in hellish light. It rivals all past experiences as one of the most beautiful things Frank had ever seen. It’s the kind of thing that makes an asshole like him want to sign the cross, and makes him want to thank whatever god made this possible. His broad thumb pauses over Matt’s mouth, feeling the gentle give threatening to invite him into the heat of his mate’s mouth at the barest hint of pressure.
He pulls his thumb away, feeling the heat of Matt’s disappointed sigh wash over the exposed, velvety skin of his cock. The thick, flared tip weeps a lone bead of liquid arousal that reeks of pine and sap at the sting of his warm breath.
“Whaddya waitin’ for,” Frank breathes, staring down at his mate’s blank, blinking stare. Watching the way Matt subtly scents the air, the hard bob of his Adam’s apple.
A pale hand comes up, with scarred knuckles and calluses to wrap tentatively around the girth of Frank’s cock.
Frank doesn’t give any instructions, just lets the kid do what comes naturally, lets him tap into something primal. Balmy, warm breath hits the underside of Frank’s towering erection, and a growl stirs in his belly.
“That’s it,” Frank slurs as he smells the first waft of lavender and linen in the air, crisp and clean and grounding as Matt’s fingers ghost along Frank’s cock. They get stuck around the swell of his knot that refuses to fit through the opening provided by his undone zipper. They tremble as they creep back up, mapping the terrain of the flesh and hot velvety skin leading to the pulsing pink tip. The kid’s fingers are wet with pre-come, his mouth hanging open with every damp breath.
Frank curls a brutish fist around his cock, giving himself another stroke, twisting his wrist as he neared the thick head, letting a few fragrant drops of his musk drip over his clenched fist and glitter on his knuckles. He wordlessly lifts his fingers to his mate’s face, the digits hovering just beneath Matt’s nose.
Watching the way his expression melts in response as he inhales the concentrated scent of his Alpha, utterly devoid of thought, of purpose, beyond what Frank wanted him for. It is a damn sight to behold.
The air is so potently ripe with Matt’s arousal, he thinks the kid is probably swimming in slick, all he can smell is honey and salt. It’s euphoric as the tentative warmth of Matt’s eager mouth spreads over the broad, bloated tip of Frank’s cock, watching that dark head of auburn and copper descend upon his length with a wanton moan.
Frank let out a booming growl that ricochets off the walls as Matt’s mouth takes him deeper.
The billboard is advertising something different now, some pricey faux scent, the light it showers into the apartment is powdery white that bathes the Omega between his thighs in a heavenly shade. He looks like an angel, hot mouth straining, drooling mindlessly around Frank’s cock.
“That’s it, Angel ,” Frank breathes proudly, a hand in Matt’s hair, and Matt moans a sound so pathetically needy that it starts a feedback loop. More praise and more pleading.
“Shoulda done this sooner, huh?” Frank huffs, his head falling back, torso pulled taut at the way he arches into the bliss of Matt’s mouth.
“Shoulda knotted that pretty mouth the first night I had you,” He adds, feeling Matt dig his hands into the meat of Frank’s thighs with a yowl, looking for nearness and leverage as he forced the harrowing length deeper. He breaches the back of Matt’s throat with little resistance, the slick flesh pulls snug around him, but the kid doesn’t buckle, doesn’t gag. Tears leak from his hazel eyes, spilling into Frank’s lap, saturating the denim of his jeans.
Matt’s throat accommodates him like he was made for it, and Frank is liable to think maybe he is. Like maybe his Saint Matthew was made to sin.
“That what you want, baby?” Frank groans, “Want your Alpha to bust that jaw open with his knot, hmm?”
The kid’s in his lap, face flush degradingly with the teeth of Frank’s zipper, boneless as he swallows around Frank’s cock. He lets out the occasional strangled sound of bliss, hips stuttering against one of Frank’s boots.
Frank eventually heaves Matt off of his cock, stringy saliva and slime dripping from his red, ruined mouth. He slurs a weak sound, like he wants to get stuffed up again, and Frank is more than happy to oblige.
“Look at you,” Frank groans, feeling his mate nuzzle at the wet weight of his erection, drinking in the musk and hot flesh.
His hand is hissing over the damp stubble on Matt’s cheek, marveling at the state of his Omega. The touch is fond, traitorously close to being loving.
The kid dredges his tongue over the flared slit at the tip of Frank’s cock, swallowing another dribble of thick Alpha musk.
Frank thinks he can spend an eternity like this, just him and the Devil. The urge to say it sits heavily on Frank’s tongue, his hindbrain is howling in delight at the prospect. He thinks after all the Blacksmith business is done with, after he can get closure for his family, maybe, just maybe, he could try his hand at something else…something new.
Matt is mouthing at the underside of his cock, dragging his swollen lips along thick pulsing vein there before latching to the head of Frank’s cock with mindless satisfaction. Frank’s knot aches hotly with the urge to come, to paint his pretty mate in another glaze of white, to breed that pretty mouth and fill his belly to the brim.
An audible digital chime cuts through that lustful fog, an automated female voice chirping the same sound over and over:
Elektra, Elektra, Elektra!
Frank gropes for Matt’s phone and finds it tucked into his blazer’s interior breast pocket. His Omega doesn’t fight particularly hard, but Frank knows it’s ‘cause he’s dick-drunk as all hell.
Pulling the device into his palm, Frank glares at the screen, ignoring the way Matt is whining between his thighs. He isn’t familiar with the name, but Frank knows she sure as shit isn’t a work friend calling at this time.
“H’llo?” Frank answers the call gruffly, using his free hand to get his mate back to work.
There’s a beat of silence over the crackle of the speaker before a pompous voice answers, “You’re not Matthew.”
Frank chuckles, mostly to hide the possessive growl in his voice, “No, shit, what gave me away?”
There’s an authoritative tinkle of laughter on the other end of the line, and the kid must know it pisses Frank off because he takes Frank back into his mouth without hesitation; sucking hard.
“Adorable. Where is he? I have business I need to discuss with him.”
“Busy,” Frank grunts back into the speaker.
“Doing what?” She snaps like every entitled fucking Alpha he ever had the displeasure of encountering.
Frank doesn’t think about his next move, doesn’t deliberate over it, he just does it. He brings the phone’s speaker as close as he can to the wet, sloppy suction of Matt’s moaning mouth over Frank’s harrowing want.
“That answer your question?” Frank asks with a smug smile as he pulls the phone back to his ear, letting out a contented purr as Matt swallows cleverly around his girth.
This time when she laughs it’s stilted and harsh, trying too hard to remain reserved, polished.
“I take it you’re the ape that left that hideous mark on him, no wonder he’s been ignoring my calls,” She breathes through her teeth with vitriol.
He can envision a sneer on her face, he assumes it’s pointy and aristocratic like her voice sounds. He hears the crackle of a faint high-pitched growl through the speaker. She’s pissed, good, that made two of ‘em.
“I’m assuming he never told you about me - the college sweetheart who stole his heart,” Her voice oozes self importance , “The college sweetheart who wants back what’s hers.”
“That right?” Frank grunts through the phone, voice as level as he can keep it. His hindbrain was molten in his skull, throbbing at the thought of anyone trying to take what is his.
“How’s about this, Princess - You want ‘em, come get ‘em.”
He ends the call, throwing Matt’s phone across the room, it feels like there’s rage flowing through his veins in lieu of blood. Like it’s all he is. Can’t even think about the fact that Matt is trying to calm him down, warm, wet hands stroking his thighs and eager, supplicant tongue swirling over the head of Frank’s cock.
Frank tears Matt off of his cock with a frustrated growl, watching his soft, ruined mouth gape.
“Red,” He grits between his teeth, an unforgiving hand in Matt’s hair, “You wanna tell me what the fuck that was about?”
The fog fades and Matt is left with the taste of his Alpha in his mouth, the bitter scent of him in his lungs. He feels shame and loathing overwhelm him as he sits on the couch, knees sore, jaw aching, and dress slacks wet.
Even now trembling at the shattered state of his life, he still bleeds slick like an open faucet.
Frank spends the next half hour pacing through the apartment, even as Matt tries to explain the predicament. But he knows, he knows what he’s in for - Elektra is stubborn and spoiled and entitled - she wanted her cake and she wanted to eat it too. And she’d rise to the challenge that Frank set, she is an Alpha just the same.
There’s nothing just in the bestial rage that Frank embodies as he paces through the living room, the stone-cold intention that Matt can smell drip into his natural scent.
Frank is walking around like he’s living in the dark ages, like Omegas still have to be fought over for ownership, like they were still considered things, rather than people. It makes Matt sick, to be fought over like a piece of meat, there’s no room for it within the confines of the law; but there’s the part of him, the part that exists outside of the law, the part of him that Frank owns too. God help him, he couldn’t have Frank kill someone for him .
The scent hits after a moment, the briney scent of caviar and the intoxicating sweetness of chardonnay…
Elektra. The scent of her makes his tongue burn like her favorite tequila.
Matt senses her, lingering on the landing of the rooftop stairs, her posture is languid and at ease. Her wrist is limp like the only thing missing is a glass of something expensive.
“Matthew,” She croons, it’s familiar and aching.
“Ape.” She adds acidically in Frank’s direction and it makes Matt wince.
“Elektra,” Matt begins, trying to smooth things over before they get any more out of hand.
“Just a minute, darling,” She calls, it’s unbearably condescending. She blows out a breath, exhaling a sputtered laugh that’s too mechanical to be natural.
Matt can feel Frank tense, chest heaving and shoulders tight.
“Ooh, not exactly your type - big and boorish and brooding - too boring for you, Matthew.” She chirps like Frank isn’t standing there and Matt loathes every moment of it.
“So, how much?” She asks, and Matt flinches at the way Frank’s temperature spikes like a star that is going to supernova. He prays she has the self-awareness to quit while she’s ahead.
“Elektra, please st-”
“Matthew,” She cuts in, smiling too sharply, “grown ups are talking.”
Frank has yet to say a word, to do anything other than burn in blistering anger.
“Elektra!” Matt insists stubbornly, he didn’t bow to her will. Though his outburst is just as easily ignored.
“How much is your life worth, Mister-”
“Castle,” Frank answers simply, voice thundering with authority and grit that makes an ill-timed wave of slick seep through the tacky material of Matt’s underwear, “Frank Castle.”
Matt has a hard time believing even someone as utterly disconnected from reality as Elektra could’ve avoided the current news coverage of the Punisher, the damn trial of the century…
“And I thought I was the most interesting company you kept,” She replies smoothly, but he can still hear a subtle uptick in her heart rate; a faint flutter that belays the truth.
A silence settles in the air and Matt hates it, wants to shatter it, he wants to wrap himself up in a scent that shouldn’t comfort him, but does. He wants to be back on his knees, jaw aching and all, wants to have Frank purr pleasant obscenities into his ears. He wants Frank to call him Angel , instead of regarding him like he is the Devil.
“So,” Elektra blurts with a coy crinkle of her nose that pitches her voice higher, “you won’t take the money?”
Frank snorts a sound that’s pure gravel, hissing like gunpowder between his teeth, “Not on your fuckin’ life,”
Matt’s hindbrain glows at the subtext, crying out: keep me, keep me, keep me - kill for me.
“Excellent,” Elektra chimes with manic excitement, “Shall we?” She asks politely, yet beneath her polished upbringing, Matt can’t help but notice the way she froths with adrenaline and dopamine at the prospect of killing the other Alpha - Matt’s Alpha, for ownership. She’s just as crazy as he is.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
Matt is sure he can hear it then, his world caving in on itself. He doesn’t think, he just moves. He springs across his apartment with ease, chest to chest with his Alpha. Breathing labored and unflinching.
“Frank, don’t, don’t do this and say it’s for me.”
He refuses to plead, to beg for this dignity.
A hand comes up, and Matt thinks he’s gotten too comfortable with Frank touching him because he doesn’t suspect the way his palm clamps around Matt’s throat. It grips him tight, but Matt doesn’t submit to it.
“Don’t get in my way, Red - not tonight.” Frank grits between his teeth, shoving Matt back against the wall in frustration. His consciousness flickers as his hindbrain floods his system with pacifying hormones.
Matt hears them ascend the stairs to the rooftop entrance, content to go off and kill one another, not for him, simply for the right to say they owned him.
Then comes the insult after the injury, “Stay.”
Matt is left in the silence in the bitter, deafening silence, like a trophy to be claimed when the warring was done. His body is gripped with by helplessness as his feet remain stuck to the spot his Alpha commanded him to be in. Frustrated tears burn in his eyes as he hears them circle each other on the concrete. The sound of Frank’s boots are heavy in his ears, Elektra’s stilettos are decidedly sharper.
They begin trading blows, Frank’s punches bludgeon the air like a sledgehammer, Elektra’s jabs are lighter, faster, more precise; Frank shrugs them off like bug bites. When he finally lands his first blow Frank makes it count, Matt hears the wind knock clean from Elektra’s lungs, her equilibrium shifts and she briefly connects with the pavement. She springs to her feet with a curse. She’s moving slower, favoring one side. He can hear something metallic split the air around it, a blade, something small, discreet.
Matt trembles at the sound of it splitting Frank’s skin, his Alpha lets out a grunt. Matt can taste the copper in the air.
Elektra had drawn first blood.
He couldn’t stay here, he couldn’t just let this happen. He couldn’t obey. His body feels sluggish, complacent, mind fogged over.
Matt pulls at his tie, tugging the garment away though he still feels like he can’t breathe. He wraps the fabric taut around his blanched knuckles.
His hands coil into fists, shoulders going tight as he listens to the sound of Elektra spitting a mouthful of blood onto the roof.
Elektra knocks away the dropgun Frank pulls from his ankle, slashes at him with the dagger she’d kept hidden.
Her head collides with the pavement when Frank sweeps her feet out from under her, all Matt can smell is the tang of adrenaline and copper. They’re still fighting, trading blows with more ferocity, the ugly wet crunch of muscle and bone meeting.
“Goddammit,” Matt huffs, legs unresponsive as he gropes for the banister.
He palms at the wall beside him, feeling the cool, durable surface. He considers the wall, then considers himself. He swallows hard, lifting the fabric of his tie, blowing out a single sharp breath before biting down on the length of silk. Another sharp breath through his nose, before he does something he never thought he would.
He rams his head against the dry wall with a grunt, saliva and pain wheezing through his teeth, saturating the fabric of the tie as he grows dizzy. Nausea roils in his stomach as he staggers back, feeling the bloom of pain along the crown of his head. Matt stumbles for the wall again, tie between his teeth as he surges forward a second time. Blood spills hotly from a new opening hidden beneath his bangs. It clings to the lashes of his left eye.
Matt swallows, bile stinging the back of his throat, his bondmark throbbing as he braces to hit himself a third time.
He pauses, hearing a stutter in Frank’s otherwise strong, steady heart beat - a hiccuping war drum in his ears.
He hears the subtle, gruff muttering he’d come to associate with his Alpha.
The fuck are you doin’?
Well, that remained to be seen, didn’t it?
Matt bit down on the tie, blinking through the blood beading around his left eye. Bringing his head to meet the wall with brutal force. Consciousness comes and goes as he slumps to the stairs, spit-soaked tie hanging out of his mouth.
He feels a smile pull on his lips as his senses dull with his consciousness fading, groping for the stairs, toes flexing in his shoes, muscles going lax.
They’re going at each other longer than Frank thought it would’ve taken him, but he has to give the bitch credit, she’s still on her feet; barely.
His knuckles are split from punching her in her perfect teeth, the rest of him is wet blood, both of theirs.
“C’mon,” Frank spits, and she slinks into a defensive position, her expression is heavy, blood, but her eyes are still manic.
Frank raises his fists, shoulders tight, posture tense as the rooftop door is thrown from its hinges, colliding with the opposite wall with a bang.
His eyes adjust quickly to make out the silhouette, there are no horns, but Frank knows the Devil - his Devil.
Something in the way the other man is staggering forward holds Frank’s attention like nothing else. Matt’s standing there, blood on his face, hands at his sides like he wasn’t afraid of anything, a dead look in his unseeing eyes.
It pries open a primal part of the Alpha, staring in the face of a man without fear. It’s an irrational want that consumes him, peels away all of his brutality to unveil a gentility he wasn’t sure he is capable anymore. But it’s there, existing within him, a soft-hearted part of him that loathes having broken something so beautiful.
The stinging heat of that bitch jabbing that butter knife of hers into the sloping muscle of his back, pulls Frank’s attention just as quickly. It jumpstarts the heat frothing in his blood. Frank snarls, grappling with the lithe Alpha, despite the way her bloody palm jerks the knife in his back.
He brings an elbow to her face, hard, eliciting the sloppy crunch of blood and bone as she staggers to the ground with a dazed expression.
Frank is wheezing wet breaths beyond the blood in his mouth, it dribbles down his chin as he staggers toward the prone form of the other Alpha trying to steal what is it.
He brings a brutal fist to her face, another shower of blood spews from the mangled mess he’s making of her pretty face.
He rears his fist back, busted, bloody knuckles intent on colliding with her face once more when another body crashes into his. It’s sudden and jarring and it throws him off balance.
Matt’s body slings atop his, they fit comfortably together and maybe that’s why Frank doesn’t anticipate the onslaught of blows the other vigilante rains upon him. Maybe it’s the guilt that keeps him from fighting back.
He brings his forearms up to block, vision dark with blood as he rolls the Omega’s body off of him. The Devil is far from done, though.
They collide again, Matt working relentlessly through a flurry of punches and kicks, unflinching anytime Frank throws a fist back.
Frank knows better than to think this has anything to do with anyone other than him. At some point Frank stops pulling his punches, he gives the kid what he wants, what he needs.
The scent of lavender and linen feels burnt on his palate, corrupted in the air as they go at each other.
Frank staggers away from Matt long enough to deal with the original reason they were on the roof. Yeah, maybe his mate is off his rocker, maybe he is the goddamned devil, but damn if Frank was gonna let anyone try to take that from him. The other Alpha is listless, her blade still stuck in his back as he limps toward her, twisting a hand into her hair matted with blood. He drags her across the roof, injuries protesting, until they arrive at the lip of the rooftop.
He’s poised to break her neck, snap it beneath the weight of his boot over the edge of the rooftop, quick and clean as he could manage in his state.
“Frank,” Matt calls, voice thick with blood, “Frank, I can’t let you do this.”
“Oh, enough of the bullshit, Red,” Frank snarls, bringing his boot up to Elektra’s head, watching the way her eyes widen as realization dawns on her. He won.
He hears the cock of a hammer over his shoulder, and he lets out a breath. He turns slowly to find the Devil, his Devil, pointing the dropgun he’d previously kept on his ankle directly center mass on Frank.
Frank lets out a ragged breath, eyeing the gun, and eyeing Matt.
“You finally gonna take that shot, Red?” Frank asks, a hint of pride and cruelty in his voice. Matt’s expression softens, big hazel eyes wet with blood and tears. It’s like the devil that’s in him is gone for now, like it had been beaten into submission.
“I don’t want to,” Matt admits, voice cracking.
“Whaddya want then, huh?” Frank huffs, voice harsh with a growl.
“ My Alpha…” Matts croaks and damn if that doesn’t hit Frank harder than any bullet could ever hope to.
Matt is vaguely certain he’s concussed, and Frank’s bleeding from a myriad of wounds, but that doesn’t seem slow either of them as they tumble into Matt’s bed. Frank had physically dragged him down the stairs, and Matt was far too happy to let him.
Frank is far from gentle as he shoves Matt down onto the silk sheets, pine and sap, and honey and salt seep into the air.
His shirt is already in tatters, it doesn’t last much longer when Frank tears at his clothes with savage intent.
Frank’s own clothes soon follow, ruined long sleeve black shirt, and heavy denim jeans, cumbersome black boots thump against the ground. Matt tastes fresh blood in the air, and recalls the knife Elektra had jammed into Frank’s back.
He offers to pull it out, but Frank merely growls at him to stay on the bed, like a good boy.
“Gonna listen to me this time, Angel?” Matt trembles, mouth dry, fingers guiltily brushing the dried site of the self-inflicted wound along his forehead.
“Yes,” He slurs, his tongue feeling thick behind his teeth. Faintly, the taste of Frank lingers in his mouth, beneath the tang of blood.
“Yes, who?”
“Alpha.” Matt murmurs, the word feels unbearably right on his tongue. His body going devoid of tension on the bed, legs spread like honey, like they should’ve been back in that biker den. Frank groans a deeply pleased sound that sinks straight into Matt’s hindbrain.
He lets Frank mold and shape him like clay, bend and twist him between warm palms, thick with calluses. Matt ends up on his stomach, his face is tucked into a pillow, and his ass is in the air. Frank pulls the muscles, spreads them until the point of aching, slick dribbling down from Matt’s hole.
Matt presses a whimper into his pillow, silk rasping against his cheek, at the first gluttonous probe of Frank’s tongue against his hole. The sensation is overwhelming and debilitating and too much.
He squirms on the bed and is rewarded with a burning slap to his ass and the sting of Frank’s teeth along the back of Matt’s thigh.
“Stay still.” His Alpha orders, and so he endures the white-hot pleasure that burns too bright. The velvety wet pressure thrashes over the sensitive ring of muscle. Frank’s tongue doesn’t stop, just presses in deep, digs around swallowing down the fresh slick his efforts earned.
His cock is stiff against his stomach, pinned down to the bed, weeping watery pre-come down onto the silk sheets.
Frank’s unrelenting tongue pushes and prods at the quivering flex of Matt’s hole, spreading him open, grating along glowing nerve-endings. Frank groans straight into the velvety clutch of Matt’s heat, and Matt sobs into his pillow, cock spasming between his thighs.
“Gonna come?” Frank grunts, slick mouth panting against Matt’s thighs.
Matt gives as close to a nod as he can manage and Frank responds by digging his tongue deeper back into Matt’s snug entrance. Matt isn’t sure if he’s dripping more spit than slick down the backs of his thighs.
“Come,” Frank says before pressing his face back between Matt’s spread cheeks, lathing any available flesh in saliva and affection. A salacious mix weeps down his perineum. And Matt comes, his orgasm rushes against him hard, he feels the hot spread of come against the sheets. They cling wetly with fresh spend to his belly. His release is agony and bliss raging within him. Inevitably the endorphins slow to a smolder, and he slumps into his pillow bonelessly. He feels weightless.
A hot glob of spit lands demeaningly on his winking hole, when he feels the thick head of Frank’s cock drag through the moisture. Matt groans, more drool and mangled words into his pillow.
“That’s it, Red, relax.” Frank huffs, angling Matt’s hips higher, the fresh tang of more blood prickles across his palate. The heat of Alpha’s body presses to him, flesh to flesh, earns another spurt of warm release into the sheets.
There's a hand in his hair, a wet mouth reeking of lavender, linen, honey and salt lingering close to Matt’s bondmark. For once he actively listens to his hindbrain, angling all the softest parts of himself in offering.
“good boy,” Frank whispers the praise full of pride over the tender skin of Matt’s bondmark, slick-soaked mouth dragging over the raised surface of his bonding gland. He cries out at the sensation, body boneless and supplicant.
He feels the press of Frank’s want against his hole, feels the elastic burn of the muscle acquiescing to the pressure.
His second orgasm rolls around nearly instantly after Frank crams the entirety of his monstrously large cock into Matt’s entrance. It’s sudden and stinging and his cock is half hard against his stomach, limply dribbling out more come.
Matt’s eyes flutter open midthrust, pillow cool, but damp beneath his face, he isn’t sure if he’d been crying or drooling or both. His whole body spreads around the intrusion of Frank’s cock, thoroughly used muscle clinging to the sloppy mess of Frank fucking into him. There’s sweat on his skin and dried blood flaking off of Frank’s back, the knife is still there, Matt can just sense the prick of it grinding against the muscle in Frank’s back.
He feels like he’s on the verge of dying, the puddle of his come on the sheets is partially dry, and he tries to think of how long they’d been like this. However long they’d been like this, Frank hasn’t faltered, hasn’t stopped.
Matt whines a sound pitched low in the back of his throat. There’s suddenly a hard hand in his hair, peeling him away from the pillow, warm breath hits his cheek before he’s unceremoniously dropped onto his pillow. Matt fits into the warm imprint his body had left behind. The smarting clap of Frank’s hips connecting with his rear rings out in Matt’s ears. It’s all he can hear, all he can feel, delirious pleasure.
“Fuckin’ perfect,” Frank rasps, hips hammering forward, snug entrance clinging to his Alpha’s thick manhood like it belongs inside of him - as far as Matt was aware, it did.
His body feels gelatinous, muscles turned to liquid beneath his skin, beneath the heat of Frank’s body. Pleasure splits him open with every thrust, digging deep like a knife into his belly. When Frank stabs into him, it isn’t blood that leaks out of him, but slick, tangible want.
He flexes around the width of his Alpha, purrs an unintelligible noise into his pillow as vibrant sparks of pleasure skitter like third-degree burns over his nerve-endings.
His next orgasm is dry - he’s lost count of how many times he’s come undone - not adding to the puddle of spend drying on his stomach, the feeling is a writhing ball of glittering sensation bursting his belly. This one pushes him over the edge of the waking world. His hearing is blurred, olfactory senses hijacked by the scent of his Alpha thick on his tongue, the chafe of the silk sheets and Frank’s scars on his skin scramble his acute senses.
It doesn’t feel like sleep though, there’s nothing restful in the way his limp, unresponsive body is pulled taut over his Alpha’s cock.
It’s the additional pressure of Frank’s swollen knot gliding into the overworked muscle of his ass, that tears Matt into bleary consciousness. The deeply possessive growl Frank rumbles against Matt’s neck makes his body coil tight, whining in a hoarse voice that doesn’t feel like his own as Frank’s knot begins to tie them together.
A molten liquid heat floods Matt’s body as his Alpha fills him to the point of bursting. Frank slumps onto the bed with a groan, the motion making his knot tug at Matt’s abused hole.
Frank mutters a little something that Matt struggles to make sense of while his Alpha rearranges them as delicately as he can while they’re tied.
He starts drifting to the sound of Frank’s breathing, hypnotized by the occasional lazy twirl of Frank’s broad tongue over the topography of scar tissue surrounding his bonding gland.
They fall asleep, Matt thinks they do, at some point. Because they eventually wake up too, not in the clear headed way, but in the way where the world is still fuzzy, not yet on fire.
Warm breath beats on his nape.
“You ever been tied before?” Frank asks in a whisper, voice barely above a growl, a warm hand petting down Matt’s side, drawing a pattern across his bicep.
“Yeah, once, when I was in college, with Elektra...it was nice, but she uh, she got bored pretty quick.” Matt answers honestly, and even in his hazy existence, with the vibration of Frank’s breath making his world buzz, he still feels stupidly self-aware. Like he’s overextended a part of himself, like Frank knows he wants this to work, and it’s a weakness.
“Stop,” Frank grunts at a few frantic breaths, and the quiet rumble shears through his panic.
“I-” Matt stutters, he isn’t sure what he’s stuttering over, an explanation, an apology.
“Stop,” Frank grunts again, softer, breath warm on Matt’s neck, tickling his bondmark. He flexes experimentally around Frank, still buried inside of him, and the hand tracing patterns on his arm slinks down to his hip.
Frank gives a gentle rock of his hips and Matt can feel the amount of spend his Alpha had pumped into him.
“I’m not bored,” Frank huffs, “Fucking tired from breakin’ that pussy in - but not bored, never bored.”
Matt feels his face flush hot, the filthy rumble of Frank’s ensuing drowsy laughter only making his blush burn hotter.
“It’s not my pus-”
“Red,” Frank interrupts, too much syrupy sweet fondness in his voice, “Sleep.”
So he does.
When he wakes, body throbbing like an open wound, he finds his bed empty. The scent of Frank lingers on the sheets, on his skin. Matt listens for his heart beat but doesn’t find it, he listens for Elektra’s too for good measure, but she’s gone too.
He hopes he’ll smell burnt coffee and buttered toast, blood and gunpowder - but he doesn’t, not in the way he wants to. Instead he smells the chalky medicinal aroma of pills on the nightstand, beside his alarm clock.
Matt knows what his scent blockers smell like and gathers the tablets in his palm, along with what he knows is aspirin and something else…something sweeter . He cautiously runs the small pill between his fingers, agonizing over the familiar scent. It takes him a moment to realize it’s contraception. There’s something so uncomfortably practical about it that makes his skin crawl.
He feels around for the glass of water that is astutely waiting for him, to swallow the pills in one go.
There’s a crumbly granola bar waiting for him too, but Matt elects to ignore it as he finishes the glass of water.
Placing the empty glass down, his fingers bump something else on his bedside table. His phone.
He taps the screen, listening as the screen reader chirps an alert.
One (1) new voicemail from BLOCKED
He taps the screen once and the screen reader begins to play the message. His stomach is tightening, cramping around the myriad of medications he’s taken.
“Hey, Red,” He pauses the recording as a whimper works its way out of Matt’s throat at the sound of Frank’s voice, all gruff and heavy.
After a breath, he plays the remainder of the recording.
“Listen, you, uh, you know I got business to take care of,” There’s a shuffle in the recording like Frank was adjusting the phone, “You know that’s there’s shit I gotta do.”
“The night I had you on that rooftop, you, uh, ya asked me if I could walk away from this life, if I could walk away from this mission. And shit, I was an asshole about it, but truth is I can’t start somethin’ -” His voice hitches in the recording and Matt feels a tear trickle down his cheek , “-Something new until this is finished. I need ‘em gone, Red. I need this done…”
He sounds tired and Matt can sympathize.
“And maybe when this is over,” His voice trails off, wistful, dangerously hopeful, “maybe, maybe, yeah, maybe… ”
Maybe. It feels dangerously close to a goodbye, and Matt clutches at his phone breathlessly.
“I don’t know if this is something I can come back from but…if I do,” His breath goes buttery soft, like there’s a smile on his face, “Be seein’ ya, Red.”
And maybe, just maybe, that’s all Matt can hope for.