Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for handling direct link communications in multi-link systems. An example method generally includes transmitting, to a first wireless station via a direct link between the first wireless station and one or more second wireless stations affiliated with a multi-link device (MLD), a data frame comprising a transmitter address field set to an address of the MLD, which is one of a plurality of addresses associated with the MLD and the second wireless stations being affiliated with the MLD for multi-link operations. The method also includes communicating with the first wireless station via the direct link.