Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Spider-Man needed information.

Rumours had started to spread last month about a fresh face in Queens. A new gang, set on controlling the borough through the drug supply in the streets. Fronts, in place of local businesses.

Peter decided that this - this here, was what Spider-Man was made for.

He didn't believe in the whispers on the street at first. Sometimes, they were only whispers. He only caught drug-deals without webs connecting them to one another, stray fights in alleyways, unrelated cases solved and wrapped in a bow for the police to take on. Cats out of trees. Old ladies crossing streets. Scattered hotspots of friendly neighbourhood crimes, presented with a flourish and a Spider-Man themed thumbs up. The thumbs-up was trademarked, of course, according to Mr. Stark and his obsession with purchasing things that Peter didn't really need. Who could blame him? The man was a billionaire, although Peter hoped he would stop throwing money in order to solve his problems.

Anyway.

To Peter - word that a gang was forming was the explanation he was searching for. Why?

Curfew. That was why. Weeks of late nights that March had put him in the bad-books with Aunt May. He was dying out here. Scraping just along the edge of his curfew, taking care to wrap up an outrageous number of drug deals, and crawling into his room just before the clock hit eleven. Aunt May was giving him disapproving looks before she sent him off to school each morning, but crime did not have a curfew! Crime didn't have school in the morning!

He was so tired during his classes at Midtown trying to stumble through the material (although Peter had already memorised most of it. Except for Spanish. He was terrible at Spanish) - that he could not believe Mr. Harrington had not noticed. Neither had the teachers. The bags under his eyes were growing by the day, as he sagged further and further into his classroom chair. Neither had Flash, now that he thought about it. If he noticed, he probably would bully Peter harder.

MJ and Ned knew, but they were his best friends. Of course, they were well aware that it was because of his secret 'internship' programme with Mr. Stark. But they didn't approve of their phones buzzing at three AM about the details of due assignments, but crime was crime. And homework still had to be done.

So. The mystery gang.

This new gang had to be responsible. Popping up like moles in the arcade game, forcing him to stay out later and later to round up criminals and the strange escalation in drug abuse in low-income areas. He knocked one down - another took its place.

Of course, it was a gang. Why didn't he notice it earlier?

His first gang!

Peter believed he was moving up in the world, dipping his toes into organised crime. Queens was full of purse-snatchers and thieves, but never an organised gang. Rounding up a group of organised, professional criminals was another first for Spider-Man, if he didn't count The Vulture and the disaster that was saving Mr. Stark's plane.

He couldn't wait to take it down.

But, there was one problem he had been mulling over. It was Mr. Stark.

The man was generous. Caring. Looking out for Peter, so he could look out for the little guy. It felt like Peter was diving into something that was different from just looking up to his hero. He was learning who the man truly was without publicity. Without fame.

But Peter had decided one long night that it was a bad idea to tell Mr. Stark that he was hunting down a gang in Queens. Not until he had followed every lead, had closed the case and could show him that he was able to do it. Knowing the man and his baby-protocol he installed into Karen, the billionaire would stop him from trying before he even said the word 'gang'.

And Peter knew he was ready. He knew these streets, knew the people who ran local businesses. Knew the people suffering every day from drug addiction across town, searching for another hit.

If Mr. Stark even cared. That was another issue carving away at his chest (and maybe, something else contributing to the late nights. He wasn't going to tell anyone about that.)

Peter was, admittingly, still wary of admitting things to Mr. Stark after The Vulture, and the ferry. Sometimes, when Peter left the Tower after an internship evening, where they messed around in the lab and Mr. Stark had him build robot models or suit prototypes and buried themselves in a fresh project - Peter wondered how invested the man really was in Peter Parker, compared to the friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Man he was mentoring. He had apologised for taking the suit, and they had gotten closer, establishing a mentor and pupil relationship, true. Sometimes they ordered takeaway. Mr. Stark let him rant about school and they made jokes about everything and anything,

But something in Peter was screaming at his gut, late in the dead of night when he came home or finished a bust, if Peter was really worth the hassle for a guy like him.

After Uncle Ben, that part of himself was still raw to the touch.

The thought of the suit being taken away again, at any moment, made his heart sink in his chest. He wasn't going to risk it.

He wasn't going to risk the lives of the people of Queens, if that technology would help him save just a few more from harm.

If Peter was in over his head, then he would call back-up. Decision made. But right now, Queens needed Spider-Man to step up.

This gang. It was secretive. He had first taken this new gang news seriously when a struggling father came to him on patrol, panting and waving him down to the ground from his web-slinging. Confused, and a little hungry since he was heading back home, Peter swung down to meet him in the alleyway. He struggled to hear the man shouting over the distracting sound of the late nightclub next-door, music thumping in his ears. But he understood the gist.

The man was being blackmailed, his business taken over. He was worried for his family. He wanted to put his daughter through college.

An infection - into Queens, from Hell's Kitchen. Or so he claimed.

Peter sent him off with a promise to look into it. He pulled on one thread, and found a thousand.

They called themselves The Cranes.

He raided his first site of The Cranes on Wednesday. It was a phone repair store, and luckily, he knew the owners of the bakery next door for a few years. That advantage allowed him to stake the place out on the following Saturday (he had to wait until there was no school or Mr. Stark to stop him), stuffing his face full of sugar donuts and drinking far too much coffee for a spider-enhanced teenager. He sat there from noon to evening. Hat and sunglasses on. Like they do in the spy movies.

And the stake-out bore fruit. He tracked members leaving and entering, and gave himself a pat on the back for a job well-done.

The following Monday, when the sun had set, he broke in as Spider-Man and webbed them up. The three men were quickly incapacitated for the police. He had been right. It was a drug manufacturing den in the dusty, sealed basement. Plastic wrapping covered the walls, that Peter avoided touching, because they were frankly - gross.

Three down. Many more to go.

He had needed more information if he was going to strike again. Dismantle it, piece by piece. He had no idea who was in charge of The Cranes, or the extent of the gang, but he was keeping his patrols closer to Hell's Kitchen, where they had rumoured to come from, and was asking nicely to any criminal he happened to web up for more information. He even said please.

He would keep trying. But it wasn't until another week that Peter got word of a fresh lead.

It sent him on that Friday night to Henry Street. Across from that decrepit, abandoned warehouse that Peter still saw in his nightmares.

It was the warehouse that changed Spider-Man's entire career, and sent him rocketing towards meeting one of the darker vigilantes of New York. If anyone even called a man like that, a vigilante.

.

.

.

It was time for him to investigate the lead.

Peter arrived after the sun and long disappeared from the New York skyline. He monitored the warehouse he was directed to from the outside, perched on the roof of a neighbouring building and wind whipping against his back.

On first glance, it looked, at least to Peter, completely abandoned. Desolate. Rotting wooden scaffolding climbed the three-story building, where moss fought with the rust to cover the sides, and it was standing solitary on the right side of the street, where the only businesses nearby were few and far between. As if people had refused to make a home nearby.

Peter looked down on the corrugated warehouse with hesitation. It was not inviting, at all. Kind of gross. He was starting to see a pattern for The Cranes. Number one: things that he wouldn't want to touch without his suit on.

The nearest business was a car wash was far down the road, out of sight and around the block. He made a note to investigate it next. He didn't have a car to clean, but who knew. Maybe before going in, he could check with Mr. Stark about a tetanus shot despite his super-healing.

Just to be sure.

The lead that had lead him there that quiet, windy night had come from a prostitute who was furious that drug use was rising in her area. Her girls, she said, as she chewed her gum - didn't need more trouble. And the customers who brought it in came from this warehouse on Henry Street.

Squatting near the edge, he strained to hear if anyone was inside. He only heard the noises of Queens, echoing back at him. It sounded quiet indoors, but it would be hard for him to know if he was missing anything until he was inside. No rain to muffle his hearing. No foot-traffic, in or out within the last three and a half hours. No cars parked on the curb. His senses weren't sending him a warning of danger.

Huh.

Maybe it really was abandoned, and The Cranes were gone already. Or, it was never used to begin with. He bit the inside of his cheek, thinking it over.

He didn't want to stake it out for longer and not get anything out of the night, when he could be traversing his regular patrol route instead. It would be worthless to sit there and learn nothing.

Unless. A grin spread across his face.

"Time for detective Peter to be on the case," he mumbled to himself.

If Peter could take a look inside the warehouse from a safe distance, he could scope it out without alerting The Cranes. His eyes tracked the boarded up windows from the front of the building, haphazard wooden planks crossing the shattered window panes. Peter wondered if there was a window on the side or the back where the wood had rotted, just like the scaffolding seemed to have done. It would give him a clear view.

His spider-sense was quiet. The building was silent. All he could pick up on was the droplets of water damage leaking through the ceiling, and the stray scuttle of a rat hurrying along the ground.

If nobody was home, that meant more information for Peter to collect. Maybe he could go inside.

After debating with himself for a few minutes, checking the time before his curfew and tapping his foot restlessly on the brick, he made a decision. Slapped his cheeks and shook his head. It was game time.

He would take a quick look. For Queens. No matter how creepy or gross it was, looming there. If he heard someone or saw anything, or his sense for danger altered him - he would simply come back again during the daytime for a longer stake-out. Maybe even ask his Guy In The Chair to check the cameras. Ned would be ecstatic if he heard that Peter was finally taking down a gang!

Peter crawled down the side of the building and faced the intimidating warehouse.

He swiftly webbed across the road and meandered around to the rear, crouching low in the shadows of looming metal and corrugated iron posts. The beams seemed to be creaking as he passed near them. Falling apart from age. He shook his head, trying to remove the feeling of being crushed under a warehouse, unable to call for help, unable to breathe. Taking a deep breathe, he forced himself to continue, and crawled over some trash cans that were tipped over. Kept an ear out for any sign of trouble inside.

When he spotted a high-window, without glass, without wooden planks, and with pigeon nests empty in the frame, he called eureka. Finally! It was a story above him, bleak and dark.

Peter webbed silently to the crook of the roof and lifted himself onto the squat opening. He squinted downwards to see what he could find.

Well. Nothing.

No sign of life. No immediate sign of crime. That was disappointing. He cursed himself. It meant that this probably wasn't the base of The Cranes, or if it was, maybe there was more information on another section of the bottom floor, and he would have to traverse the space to get it. Find an office. Warehouses had offices, right?

The space was pitch dark, and eerily black, save for the pale glow of the streetlights from his position. Peter eyed the wooden crates, and his lengthened shadow, squeezed beneath the dark sides and lit brightly from behind him, like a shadow against a false moon.

To investigate, he had to take risks.

It was only when he had lowered himself down gently onto the crates and painstakingly crawled to the ground, did he realise the scent that had began to clog up his nose. He scrunched it up and flinched.

It reminded him of bruises and cuts after a night on the streets. Or his Spider-Man suit. Or bullies.

Most of all, it reminded him of Uncle Ben.

He gagged at the overwhelming, metallic scent of blood. Because that was what he had found. Blood that sent his senses into overdrive. The fumes were strong. Stronger than Uncle Ben.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

"Please," Peter whispered into the darkness. Not this. Not The Cranes. But there was no answer. Only silence. He squinted to see further ahead of himself, make out the shadows that cornered him in place, despite the wide open floor of the warehouse. Closing in on him. He was terrified of enabling night-vision in the suit. Somehow, he knew what he would find.

Peter knew exactly what he had stumbled into. Although, he had never experienced it in the suit. Not as Spider-Man.

The warehouse was devoid of life. But maybe - it wasn't empty.

"Karen," he whispered.

"Yes, Peter?"

"Can you," he swallowed, his throat dry. "Can you activate night-vision mode for me?"

"Of course. Activating night-vision mode now."

Brown and dark-red liquid seeped from the grates above, dripping like water onto the ground. Pooling around dips in the flooring. Not water leaking. Blood.

A shadow was laying directly in front of him, horizontal. Dead. He had thought it was a sack of - of something else. Another, behind it. A man, with a silhouette of dark hair, was collapsed across the room against the wall, a blackened spray against the metal. A fourth. A fifth. Small round bullet casings flung across the room, like afterthoughts.

A sixth man. A seventh. Eighth. A bullet-proof vest, but they didn't aim for his chest. The number was rising and rising, and the room was spinning, and there was violence in the act as if it was a painting. Peter noticed that much. Bloodied, gruesome. Definitely headshots. Clinging to a table. Laying in their own wounds. A gun, stranded at his own feet. Peter gagged again.

He didn't need a danger sense to find some. The danger had come, and clearly wrecked havoc on The Cranes.

"Peter, I am sensing an elevated heartbeat and high blood-pressure. Should I contact Mr. Stark?" Karen said to him, but it sounded like vague words without meaning. Muffled.

Peter opened his mouth to respond, but shut it again. His mind was racing.

Who could have done this - this murder? Were these innocent people, caught unawares by a mass murder on a rampage? Or were these really The Cranes that Peter had been looking for, as he was starting to suspect they were?

His eyes flickered across the room, counting bodies. Some were in suits. Many held guns. It was the only thing staving off his panic attack from rising up and drowning him into oblivion. Spider-Man didn't get panic attacks. Spider-Man was better than Peter Parker.

Ha. Imagine. Peter Parker, a year and a half ago, fourteen, thinking he would be here. Frozen solid, shivering in a warehouse, looking at a massacre that he was made to stop.

That wasn't funny. Not a joke. Peter was struggling to breathe.

"Peter?" said Karen, calm and resolute as always. As programmed.

"No, no no," Peter mumbled. "Not now, Karen. Oh my god!"

"Peter, I am sensing-"

"Karen, manual override, password; Underoos! Code 24!" he gasped, clutching his chest. "Shut up!" And the AI was silent.

The quiet helped. Peter took deep breathes.

He jumped in place when his hearing picked up on a car. It meandered down the street beside the warehouse and turned the corner. Peter could assume they were coming to finish the job. Coming to kill him. He was a witness, after all. But they never came, and he listened to the tires roll away and out of his range. He fought, then - not to throw his meatballs and spaghetti that him and Aunt May had for dinner up and onto the ground. She would kill him for losing calories.

Do not puke. Bad. Bad to throw up and leave DNA at a crime scene.

Peter rode through the attack in waves, trying to remember his breathing exercises. The breathing, and soon wrestling it under control, meant that he stumbled back to his feet in a matter of minutes. That was Spider-Man. He wouldn't let it get him down.

Spider-Man didn't have panic attacks.

Seventeen. There were seventeen bodies. Some had their brains -

He didn't want to think about it. Spider-Man was in work mode. And he had a job to do.

Peter creeped forward between the unmoving shapes. Like a shadow of himself. There was a crime to solve. That was it. These people, to Peter, seemed as if they were shot that very night, and the wounds were fresh. He made a reminder to come back for the casings, so he could identify the weapon. They had clearly died, however, before Peter had even come close to the scene. He would have heard breathing otherwise. Maybe a straggler, crawling to survive. Perhaps, if he had come earlier, he would have managed to spot the culprit.

Could he have stopped this?

Peter walked further through the bodies. He imagined some, like him, had families and loved ones.

Suddenly, his eyes caught an outlier. A solitary trail of blood weaved between the scattered mess of bodies. He narrowed his eyes at the trail, following it. It ran under his feet, dripping by between his legs and weaving through the collapsed men. Almost following how Peter had just tracked between the bodies.

Maybe the culprit was doing what he was. Checking to see if the men were dead. A shiver ran up his spine. He concluded that him and this person had both stood as still as a statue in the darkness, right on that spot under hit feet, and observed the display. None of the other bodies had trails. It had to be that.

His eyes followed it, lenses flaring to brighten the image of blood stains. The mystery pattern proceeded to drip, tiny splashes on the concrete, across to a fire exit door which was shut at the eastern side of the warehouse. Peter blew out a stream of air, and felt his clammy neck stick to his hair under the mask. A clue.

Was it a survivor? Or the killer?

"Come on, Pete," he said to himself. "Grow up and go after him."

And that's what he did.

Shaking the life into himself, Peter stalked towards the door and elbowed it open, fighting the disorientation that made his balance poor and his dinner threaten to come up. The night air relieved something of the scene he had just left behind. It brought him to the cluttered alleyway behind the warehouse, stacks of short rooftops and thin aerial poles ahead.

There. Another part of the blood trail used the squat dumpster to reach the low-lying gutter of the building ahead and climb upwards. Bloody palmprints stained the ledge. Turning off his night vision, Peter clambered up to the rooftop after it, hoping to find whoever it was alive and breathing. Thankfully, his shaky frame did not need to be good at climbing at that moment. His sticky hands did all the work for him and glued to the brick, and he heaved himself upwards and across to search further.

Listening.

The drip continued. He could hear it, now. Was it an injury, or had the man gotten personal with one of his victims for a murder? He ignored the stray cat yowling, a block away.

He followed the trail onward until he heard him breathing. And then he saw him.

A figure was hunched against the skyline, limping away from him and breathing quickly, as if he couldn't get enough air. It was the frame of a tall well-built man, with curled shoulders. A duffle bag rattled, slung over one shoulder. A bullet-proof vest cloaked in black. A semi-automatic straddled under his armit. A pistol in his hand.

An arm, clutched to his side. Blood leaked along it and leisurely let gravity bring it downwards.

Not giving himself time to doubt, Peter made a decision.

"Stop!" he called firmly.

The silhouette froze. Peter carefully walked forward. He approached, until there was nothing but open space and twenty paces between them. But it felt much, much closer.

"Spider-Man," the stranger said, in a gravelled, angry voice that struck something in Peter. That he was recognised before he was seen.

The man then turned around.

At once, Peter knew he had made a mistake.

It was The Punisher. And his pistol was raised to shoot.

"Punisher," he exhaled.

The confidence knocked away from his chest. It was The Punisher of all the people he could meet that night.

In his time patrolling the streets as Spider-Man, Peter had yet to even meet another vigilante of New York. They tended to stick to their own territories. Now, he was meeting a murderer, down the barrel of his gun. And he was embarrassed to be shaking like a jackhammer. The man glared at him. Peter jittered his eyes across the injury that he held onto to, and hesitated on what to say. The wind threaded between them, and the air-vents next door clanked and spluttered. Castle bet him to it.

"That's me," he said plainly, gesturing with the weapon. "Now. Spider-Man. Are you gonna do somethin' stupid?"

Peter gulped. He hoped the man couldn't hear it.

"You left - that, that massacre in the warehouse. You murdered them all."

Castle remained silent.

"Why?" Peter gasped. "The Cranes-"

"The Cranes? What about the goddamn Cranes?"

But Peter was rushing ahead, chasing a resolution, trying to make the world okay and safe and fair in his mind again "-did they do anything to you? Something that you couldn't forgive, to move in and instead you chose to - incapacitate?"

"Did The Cranes do anythin' to me, huh? What is this? You think this is some, uh, some fuckin' revenge story, Spidey?"

"Did they?" He pushed. "Drug deals, shady - shady fronts. I heard they came in from Hells Kitchen."

"Red cleaned them out before they could even breathe. The drugs ain't shit."

"Who is Red?"

Castle ignored his question. "Not drugs. Drugs are nothing. Human traffickers. Scum of the earth. I'm cleaning up the stragglers who thought they could try make a name for themselves again. Fucking idiots."

Peter frowned. That didn't make sense. None of it made sense.

"Wait. That's - no. They were smuggling drugs. I've seen it! Not people. I thought they were-"

"You have no idea about any of this shit, do you?"

Peter shut his mouth with the snap of his teeth. The man was right.

Human trafficking. The Cranes were human traffickers.

"The rest of them? Fuckin' vermin runnin' to the next borough, diluting the drugs they used to keep the victims controlled to sell. I bet that's what you picked up on, huh?" he sniffed. "Worthless pieces of shit. They'll break up by the end of the month. I'll make goddamn sure of it."

No. No way.

Peter refused to believe that the gang he had found were only the remnants of a scattered group that had already lost. That - that had been dealing and selling people. That he was too late already.

"Let me," he breathed, trembling. Finding another point to stabilise himself. Ignoring the bombshell the man had dropped about The Cranes. He came to a sudden decision, leaving his lips in a tumble.

"Let me web it. That injury. It will seal the wound."

"Back off," the man growled, but Peter couldn't let him bleed out. It wasn't right. The man probably wouldn't even make it down to the street. Neither was murder right, and the blood and guts spraying on the walls, and the brains that squealed under his feet, and his senses going haywire -

"Please," Peter whispered. His voice carried on the wind. "And then. And then you're under arrest," he swallowed.

The man let out a gruff laugh. It was slow, and it sent crawling shivers up Peter's arms.

"You scared?" Castle said. "Stuttering like a fuckin' car engine. Never seen a gun before?" He kept the pistol steady and controlled. It didn't waver from the centre of Peter's forehead.

That wasn't why he was scared. Uncle Ben was shot, but Peter was never scared of guns. He stopped people with guns in the streets every week.

He was scared of the scene left in the warehouse, and the man in front of him. He was even more terrified by the fact that the murderer was going to die before Peter could get him help.

He doubted the man would last long without pressure on the injury, wouldn't make it to wherever he was going to patch himself up. That scared Peter. Another body to add to the pile inside, another waste of life.

It was the next thought, that Peter would have to move before the man fired his gun, that scared him more. He couldn't guarantee that his web would make it before the bullet was fired.

"I'm scared," he shuddered. "I want to arrest you. Get you help, before you bleed out, man."

"God. You're just like Red."

"I don't understand," Peter said. "I don't know what you're-"

"You don't know shit," he spat. Peter recoiled. He suddenly felt very small. "And neither do your rich buddies up in their Avenger penthouses, and your fuckin' saviour complex, and I don't have to listen to this from you. Go back into Queens. Go back and save cats out of trees."

"Just let me help," Peter pleaded again, slowly raising his arms forward from his sides.

If he could just shoot his webbing over the wound, and rely on his sixth sense to miss any retaliation, they could both make it out alive from this. But even Peter knew that it was a foolish, childish idea.

"Don't try it," Castle warned lowly. Tense. Knew he was a fool. "I'm telling you now! Don't fucking' try it!"

But Peter had to try it. The man was too pale from blood loss.

The night gasped. Peter moved.

Because there was no playing hero about who deserved to be saved, or not. Spider-Man would risk his life, to save Frank Castle's life. To save anyone's life. Whether the man had morals or not. End of.

He dived to the side and aimed for part of the man's uncovered chest next to his bullet-proof vest. Webbing shot out like lightning. The crack of a pistol struck Peter like a whip.

The impact felt like death. Because The Punisher didn't miss.

"Fuck," the man said, hissing in pain and looking down at the webbing that now splattered at his side. "Fuck! " he snapped, turning to Peter.

And then, he froze. Stared.

Pain.

Peter was down, the night spinning around him. He winced and dug his fingers into the concrete roof that he now sat on, trying to ignore the feeling of his face burning like it was doused in fire. Pushed the feeling away.

He couldn't see anything out of his right eye because it stung with burning, aching blood. It made his heart do summersaults in his chest with the stress. Not knowing what had happened. How bad the damage was. All he knew was the pain of the shot, and the ringing in his ears, and the flesh taken out of his cheek.

The gun sounded like Uncle Ben.

Castle had taken a chunk out of his face with a grazing bullet. Peter, had almost just died.

His mask was crumpled to the ground beside him, partly torn. Ripped away from the bullet that had nearly buried itself into his skull in seconds. Karen was silent, still under override procedures from Peter's panic attack earlier.

God. Peter suddenly, desperately, wanted May.

"See?" Peter chuckled, turning his jaw weakly in order to garble out the words, despite the pain. Spider-Man was brave, despite the pain. "The web - the webbing sealed it off. I've done it before." He gestured to the site of Castle's wound, now wrapped in sticky web fluid that acted as a makeshift bandage, while blood ran down the side of his head and tangled into his hair.

Peter had glued the strap of the mans duffle bag along his side, against the stark bullet-proof vest that threatened with a symbol for a skull. "It dissolves in two hours."

The man said nothing. Peter had to laugh, or he would cry.

His face was exposed.

"Who's the scared one now, huh?" he croaked, his expression crumpling despite himself. It triggered something in Castle that set the man moving again, like a steam engine ready to blow.

"Fuck!" he barked out. Peter flinched. The man whipped his head back towards him at the movement.

"Shit, kid. Stay down." There was a wild, unfamiliar look in the man's dark eyes. Reaching out over a ravine. "Stay the fuck down!"

Peter stayed, wide-eyed. He wasn't moving to begin with.

Slowly, he lowered himself further down onto the roof of the building, until he was so low he couldn't seem more passive. He knew the warning wasn't a bluff. Blood seeped into his lips from his open cheek, tasting metallic and sour.

He pinched his lips to ignore the taste.

They were looking face to face at one another, but Peter had no idea what the man was seeing in his gaze.

Maybe he was seeing terrified Peter Parker. Or maybe, he was seeing the stupidly brave Spider-Man that Peter hoped to be. But something had changed in Castle, after the bullet rocketed out of the chamber and sliced into his skin.

"I'm down," he said, his voice hoarse. "Okay?"

The Punisher stared, his jaw clenched.

"I'm - I'm not moving."

Peter had a sense that he was prey, and this was a rattled hunter. He wasn't going to move an inch.

"Okay," Castle said, swallowing lowly. Raw. "Yeah, kid. Okay."

Peter gave him a curt, sharp nod. It sent another stabbing pain into his skull.

The man sniffed, and shakily scanned his surroundings. Inspected the webbing of his wound with a careful finger. The pistol was now down by his side, smoke rising. Peter was grateful he hadn't reached for the semi-automatic.

His wild eyes kept dragging back to Peter, every time. There was a message in them that Peter didn't understand. Like something had clicked into place. Like two worlds had breached into one another, and were ready to unravel, and he was saying something that fought against the two of them to be there, in the blackened night.

"Kid," he rasped. Then nothing.

"Ye-yeah?" Peter said, wary of the silence and what it meant the man would do next.

Castle inhaled. His head swung to shake from side to side, and his lips curled into a snarl, but he visibly hesitated to say another word, choosing to jut his head upwards and stare up at the night sky instead. His throat bobbed with an emotion Peter didn't recognise.

They sat there for what felt like a heavy burden of time. Peter, coiled up on the ground like a spring, watched Castle. Castle simply watched the stars.

An exchange - sealed in a gunshot wound to the head. Saved in a life.

"I can't blame you," he murmured at last. Calmer. A façade betrayed by his strained chin and flickering eyes that never settled. Seeing something that wasn't there. "Fuck, kid."

"I'm not a kid."

The man huffed, his bloodstained fingers clutching onto the webbing at his side. "Not anymore, huh. Old enough for shit like this." Castle grimaced. Gusts of wind blew at Peter's hair, waving the free curls gently to one side. He didn't know what to say.

"Old enough," Peter echoed, soft. Old enough.

"To see shit and do shit like this, kid?" Castle bit, pursing his lips, "You're never fuckin' old enough."

The man heaved his shoulders. Rising to an unknown peak. "And lemme tell you somethin'. Whoever on that - that fucking superhero bullshit that sent a goddamn teenager to these streets?" he said, "Soldiering? Playing pretend in fuckin' spandex for the Avengers?" he hissed in a gravelled whisper, in a vitriolic murmurs that sent shivers up Peter's spine. Peter blinked away the shame.

"That fuckin' bastard sure ain't old enough neither."

Castle spat onto the concrete. It landed next to his own blood. His piercing gaze sluggishly travelled back to Peter. The man, suddenly, was mirrored over the image of Mr. Stark like a negative of a photograph.

It never strayed when he began to stagger backwards and limp away, tracing Peters features, his tears mixing with blood down his jaw. Peter wondered what had happened to the man to make his gaze so sharp, but he knew. Oh, Peter had heard. He was aware of what exactly had happened to The Punisher and his family to create the violent man he had become.

The eyes. It was all written in the caverns of his eyes. They stayed on Peter's, looking for something, until the man had finally vanished from sight.

He waited until he could no longer hear Castle clinging down the building's fire escape stairwell and stumbling into the streets to release a long, shaky breath. He collapsed into a pile of loose limbs that was supposed to represent Spider-Man. Or, someone that the people of Queens used to recognise.

Only the night witnessed the rest of his breakdown on the rooftop.

Later, when he could lift his feeble legs and walk again, Peter sent out a tip to the NYPD about the warehouse. Waited, until he could hear sirens turning towards Henry Street before swinging home. Fleeing, home.

The rest was a blur. Heaving into Aunt May's flat at the brink of curfew, bruising himself on the lip of the windowsill haphazardly. Throwing up in the sink, over and over. And a long cold shower, while his cheek slowly began to knit itself back together, careful not to wake her up with his cries. The ugliest wound he had ever received, chipped out of his cheekbone.

Through the reflection in the mirror, Peter noticed that his right eye refused to focus. Only his left saw clearly. He didn't have the energy to care.

He stuffed his bloodied Spider-Man suit into the back of his closet and curled up in bed. It would stay there until the following day. Until he could deal with what had happened. Until he had the courage, if ever, to tell Mr. Stark.

Because The Punisher had seen his face. And from the look in Frank Castle's eyes at the sight - Peter had no clue what consequences would come of it.

Chapter Text

"Friday," Tony Stark groaned, dragging a palm down his face.

His coffee sat cold on the desk. Holograms hovered around like floating mirrors, shading the workshop and his projects in a sickly blue glow.

Tony had been pacing the floor between benches all evening, trying to come up with an answer to his dilemma of a Peter problem, weaving through machinery and drilling a hole in the floor. Pete's own desk was tucked into the corner. The kid had scattered wires and a dumpster-dived camera on the top, with a screwdriver toolkit that he had borrowed from Tony and had never returned, because the boy forbid him from buying him his own mega set. As if it would cause a dent in the budget.

When Tony Stark had a problem, he tended to obsess over it. Religiously.

"Yes, Boss?"

"What about the cameras?" he asked, and flicked his fingers.  "Actually, scrap what you were processing earlier. Don't care. We've moved on to cameras. Bring up the cameras for Pete's apartment, circa meal time. Let's have a look and see if he came back from school for Aunt Hottie's dinner."

"Of course, sir. Would you like the street C.C.T.V. cameras, or localised doorbell cameras from the apartment block?"

"Street will do fine, Fri," he said, leaning closer. "Zoom us in."

The holograms flickered and suddenly, Tony had front-row seats to the entrance of Peter's apartment building from across the street. Courtesy of Friday's meddling, he watched the footage roll back to when the high-schools in Queens let out for the day.

The dull evening on rewind sped into a brighter, cloudier day covered in high-rise shadows and paused, before playing again - and Tony spotted the kid's backpack trudge past, slung over a shoulder and heavy with textbooks. Or whatever science high-school nerds stuffed into their bags nowadays. Tony wasn't down with the latest trends.

Facing the back of his head, Tony watched his brown curls shake when he turned to cross the street and jogged behind a slow moving truck. There, he ducked inside the doorway. Presumably up to his apartment. 

"And he's still inside?" 

"There is no evidence showing Peter Parker leaving the apartment following the hours of meal-time," she computed. "Similarly, there have been no photographs or media depictions of Spider-Man since then. From my understanding sir; yes, he is still inside his apartment."

"So, day five of no Spider-Man, and he decides to have a quiet night in. What the hell is he up to?" 

Tony Stark had no idea how to fix this problem. He itched his stubble, and eyed the timestamp in the corner of the hologram. 
The problem wasn't a world-ending, apocalypse-inducing Avengers problem. Tony wished it was. It would be easier. The kid wasn't doing his patrols.

Normally, Tony would be happy thinking that he was busy with homework and didn't have time for the vigilante work. Take a few days off. Little guy can wait. But the one thing giving it away was the suit. Something was wrong with his fresh-out-the-box suit notifications for Tony's monitoring system.

If Tony would bet anything, he would put his sanity and heart problems on the line that the kid would never give up Spider-Man, not even for a holiday. Never. The kid was too much like him.

That day at noon, he ran the routine check on the suit notifications. Let it run in the background while he was covered in grease under the hood of the car, tweaking the engine. The same routine he ran as every week. He nearly gave himself a concussion standing upright against the hood when suddenly, Friday announced that she had found a data wipe on Karen. Front and centre. On his own system.

Pete's doing again, no doubt about that. Tony was familiar with real enemies trying to hack him. This had 'teenage negligence' written all over it.

The updates from Karen he could read revealed less then the news reports, and the last of those was SPIDER-VIGILANTE RESCUES THREE FROM CAR CRASH printed in bold letters in the headlines. Tony had made himself into a blind fool, not checking every day to give the kid some privacy. Came back to bite him in the ass, that's for sure.

"Would you like me to go back further, sir?"

"No Fri, that's enough. We know where he is, and he's safe. At least he's not patrolling out of the suit. Won't fall off a building without me knowing about it," he grumbled. Folded his arms. All screens, and no answers. "But something is going on. I don't trust it."

"You don't trust much, sir."

"Watch it," he warned. Scrunched his nose. He knew he should leave the Peter problem alone. The kid was fine. But history had shown him that ignoring problems always ended in blowing up. Him or someone else. "You know what? Text Happy. Tell him he's driving us for dessert in Queens with the kid's aunt."

There. Look at him, being responsible. 

"He's on his way to the garage now, sir."

"Great. We'll pick up sugar donuts for the Parker's on the way. Give the kid a sugar crash. Get some answers."

Tony stretched his back and ignored the loud crack it made. Yep. Definitely getting louder with age. He yawned and moved to the elevator, and went up to the penthouse floor. Marble white linoleum floors and sleek counters greeted him with the ding of the doors. It was the brightest light he had seen since he holed himself away in the dark workshop.

"Fri, dim the lights."

He passed Pepper when he marched across the open-plan floor to collect his sunglasses, and she eyed him rooting rapidly through the drawers of the kitchen. She was lounging on the square couch in pyjamas. Her glass of wine was quickly forgotten at the sight of him.

"Tony," she said, sitting up with a furrowed brow. "Slow down."

"The kid. Peter. Superhero in diapers," he said. He turned to leave. No time.

"Tony," Pepper warned. 

"I'm heading out for the night. It's Peter," he explained. Better to show and tell. He whipped his hand into his back pocket and swiped up to the the oldest recordings from Pete's suit on his phone screen.

"What?" Pepper rose, ducking closer to stand beside him. In the video, she watched Spider-Man knock his feet against the side of a three-story building. "Is he in danger?"

"I don't think so," Tony muttered. "But the suit's footage is corrupted. For five days. And he hasn't gone out on patrol since the corruption, which erased forty-eight hours of code of Karen before that. Technically, I know nothing that happened after this." He waved the phone. 

"This is the last thing I have to explain it from that time - and he had just left The Tower last week. Sitting, eating a burrito someone gave him a couple floors up. Nothing to show for the corruption. He's found another way around Karen's programming with his high-school buddy Ted. Fred," he shrugged. "Whatever. He's wiped it. And I have no idea how long he has been able to get his grubby little hands on Karen's code. Maybe he's been messing with me for months. I locked it after last time, and he's bypassed the lock again. It makes me proud, and simultaneously - extremely furious."

"Peter doesn't want you spying on him, Tony."

"Well maybe when he learns not to come to the Tower with an injury, I'll take complaints. Process them in my office, which has a very long waiting list. That never ends." Pepper rolled her eyes. "Am I wrong?"

"Have you actually talked about any of this with him?"

"We chat. Sometimes. Bud to bud. You know."

She raised her eyebrows.

"We've gone over the rules, Pep," he sighed. "He knows where we stand."

"Does he?" she questioned, putting her hands on her hips. Uh oh. Pepper was serious. "That sounds like you told him you were spying on him for his safety after he crashed your plane, and he heard that you were spying on him all the time. Honestly. I think you need to actually talk to him, Tony. The two of you should sit down and go through why he needs these safety nets. He's only a teenager, and you're not communicating or explaining anything properly. You just give orders."

"I'm supposed to give orders. I'm the adult." 

And Tony insisted that he was nothing like his father. He only put his foot down for safety. Nothing else.

"He's not a piece of technology, Tony," Pepper exasperatedly strained to him. "You can't write code for a teenager."

"I'm doing it so he can be safe. That's all."

"Is he safe right now?"

"He's at his apartment in Queens."

"There, see?" she said gently, moving his arm to lower the phone from his gaze. It was replaying the last video clip of Spider-Man over and over, on repeat. Burning it into his brain. "Safe. Well, as safe as a teenage vigilante  can be. And what if the reason he isn't patrolling is different. From what you think it is. Maybe, it has nothing to do with Spider-Man."

"The suit was hacked-"

"What if it isn't a Spider-Man problem, and Peter also wanted to wipe something embarrassing from the suit," Pepper interrupted him, finger raised. "And nothing is wrong?"

Tony paused. Tilted his head.  "It's possible."

"You can always ask him during the day, Tony. Instead of showing up at his apartment at this hour."

Maybe he was being a bit overprotective. Pepper was usually right. But Tony wanted the boy to be better than him, and since taking away the suit was the opposite of a good idea - he had thought improving the suit's monitoring system was the right choice. So he wouldn't lose track of Pete and what he was doing again. So the kid wouldn't have to go through Happy to talk to Tony. But maybe he was ruining it. Ruining it all.

The kid was coming to the Tower later in the week. He'd corner him then. 

"Call off Happy," he called to Friday. It took all of his will to admit he was wrong.

Pepper gave him a sly smile, and wrapped her arms around him.

"At least tell him to come up to the penthouse for a coffee," she murmured, resting a head on his shoulder. "While he is here."

"Already done, Miss Potts."

"Do you think it's a girl?" Tony wondered. "I mean, about Pete. What was that girl he always talks about? Got him in the dumps with a crush. Or he has a cold. Both. And May has grounded him for sneaking out at night."

"It could be anything, Tony. Calm down."

"That's easy. I can do that."

"I'd hope so."  

"Pep, maybe I do need to speak to him more. About this," Tony said, shaking his head. "About where the two of us think we are with one another. Because I feel like I'm doing it all wrong. All damn wrong. Pep, I barely speak to his aunt."

Tony was stumbling down this road of mentorship. If he could call it that. He didn't want to break him. At that age, Tony was a messy drunk who had no idea what responsibility was. And now, he was supposed to be that symbol of responsibility. Pete was more responsible then any teenager his age, so maybe, Tony had some leeway.

"You do need to speak with him. And you're going to make mistakes. But I'll be with you the whole way," she said and rubbed his arm, before moving towards the kitchen island. "Do you want a coffee?"

And Tony huffed.

"Please. Put on a full pot. I need a cup that hasn't gone cold. Without motor oil from DUM-E."

That conversation with Pete could wait.

.

.

.

"....Peter?"

Peter leaped into the air. His face turned bright red. 

"Sorry, Ned."

"Are you okay?"  he asked. "Dude. This is like the third time."

"I'm fine," Peter said.  They walked down the school hallway in the flow of the crowd, students milling from their final classes of the day and excitedly pushing against one another to leave. Peter and Ned bounced between them using sharp shoulders and their backs. His nose was bombarding him with the smell of sweat, body spray and canteen lunch, and he could smell Ned's turkey sandwich from earlier trailing behind him.

It wasn't anything new for enhanced senses at school.

"Is your, you know, 'tingle' broken?" Ned stage-whispered into his ear, which earned him a roll of Peter's eyes.

"It doesn't break, Ned. It's, like - it's a sense," he said. Peter pushed through a group of students in conversation by the second-floor stairwell. "It only works for danger. Or, whatever I perceive is dangerous or wrong."

"Exactly. Sometimes when I stand too quickly, I see a bunch of black spots. When I blink them away, I'm fine. But that's totally another sense, and that breaks. Maybe your sixth sense has issues and thinks I'm the dangerous one."

"Nope."

"Bro." Ned said. "Come on. M.J told me you nearly fell out of your chair in Algebra when the final bell rang."

"Yeah. I remember."

"She told me it was funny," he said. "Like Pavlov conditioning."

Peter didn't find it very funny, but he had been trying to get his racing heart back under control and rid himself of the adrenaline that coursed through him at the piercing sound. 

He wasn't focused on M.J's smirk and expression in mild disbelief from her seat across from him, when he sent her a sheepish grin and crawled ungracefully back up from the ground.

It was a new low for Peter Parker. Officially. As low as the filthy classroom floor.

Flash called him a mega-loser, whatever layer of loser on the scale that was, when he slid back into the seat. Ducking his head as close to his chest as he could get to try and stop the lingering gazes on him.

"Okay," he admitted, chuckling. "It's been pretty weird recently."

"Knew it." 

Peter struggled to explain. Ned was following next to him expectantly, and now he had to find a reason as to why his danger-sense was acting unusual. 

"It's the injury from patrol, I think," he settled on. 

That sounded better than the pure paranoia that had been plaguing him since the Cranes Massacre he had witnessed. That's what they were calling it in the news. Credited it to The Punisher.

He had read every single article.

Peter refused to drag Ned down with him into this new discovery of what came with being Spider-Man, and hadn't told him the second reason why he had stopped patrolling.

Ned knew, vaguely, about the first. That Peter couldn't see out of his right eye.

"My vision is basically halved. Since I can't see as much around me, my senses think there could be someone, like, in my blind spot. So it keeps freaking out. It sucks, dude."

He had begun to brush a section of his curly hair lay flat over part of his eye. He didn't want anyone to get a closer look.

"But it's already been so long!" Ned cried. Peter shushed him when they reached the tall glass doors of the Midtown High entrance, and pulled him into a quieter corner of the hall away from the loud swarm of people breaking off into car-pool and friend groups.

Ned was right. It had already been long enough, and Peter was incredibly stressed and trying to hide how bad it was.

The wound had disappeared from the bullet that grazed his face after running into The Punisher. His face was virtually untouched and back to normal. By the time Aunt May had seen it coming home from work, it was a graze that could have come from any piece of shrapnel or material on patrol. She fussed over him with a kiss and a mug of hot-chocolate, and that was that. 

She didn't look any closer. Wasn't looking for what Peter felt stinging in his eye socket.

His right eye had yet to recover. Peter's vision was still blurry and blotted with dark spots, even when he stuffed his face full of extra calories from Delmar's to get his healing at top shape. 

He had strained to look at his pupil under the strongest light he owned, and peeled back his eyelid. It revealed the tiniest grey dots, scattered across his cornea and faintly, a weird line across his sclera. 

Peter scoured the internet for clues. Maybe some fragments of the bullet cut something super, duper small that was slowly repairing itself. Or, some shrapnel from the broken section of the bullet against the interior of the mask and Karen's system had hit his eye, and healed over. He became an expert on scientific literature for eye trauma and bullet wounds to the face overnight in a panic, searching statistics for cranial impact recoveries at night in bed with his phone glued to his face until he was too tired to hold it upright. 

He hadn't been going out on patrol, after all. He wasn't ready yet, to go on patrol. He had the time to read paper after paper. 

And he needed to get back into the right headspace for patrol, anyway. Whatever that was.

Hopefully, it would go back to normal and expel the pieces itself. Like an unwanted infection.

Otherwise, Peter would need to cover his eye with something, since the strain of squinting through both the damaged eye and the good one at the same time to look at the whiteboard during the day, while necessary, was leaving him with a shooting, aching headache.

Or worse. He would need to dig those miniscule pieces out by having surgery. And he did not want to do that.

"Look. I know. I guess I just have to wait."

Ned frowned at him, peering closer into the pupil of his right eye. "I guess. It looks bad, but only when you're really, really close."

"I'll go back to being Spider-Man when it heals," he whispered.

"Queen's misses you already. Twitter is going nuts. Well, not many people have noticed yet, but your super-fans have.  I bet Flash will tweet something stupid about it soon. Hey - do you think Iron Man could fix your eye, without going to a doctor or anything?" 

"I don't want to bother him with this," Peter grumbled. "It's fine. He'd probably tell me it's my own fault it isn't healing as quickly as it should."

"Really?"

"Yup," Peter nodded. "He's like that."

"But it's like, so cool that you have the real Iron-Man on speed dial."

He grinned. That was one thing they agreed on. "Super cool."

The two of them left through the front of the school. Dispersed students parted when an over animatedly, lively Ned explained the plot of the latest series they were watching while jogging down the entrance steps. Peter laughed at his side, skipping to the corner of the street for the way to Ned's house by the school when suddenly, he felt eyes watching him. 

He grabbed Ned by the sleeve to stop him, and the laughter trailed out from his voice.

"I need to go," he said. Scanned the surroundings. "Right now."

"Are you kidding me?" the boy whined, lightly knocking a fist against his arm. "We were meant to hang today. I downloaded that new Star Wars series to watch. The one where I said they built all the sets in real life. Like, five episodes of it!"

"If anyone asks," Peter said, and shrugged his bag strap further up his shoulder "we are hanging out. Okay?"

"Huh?"

"I have to meet, um. A family friend."

"Oh?" Ned said, then gasped. Swung his head around at the students and the cars full of parents. To the top of the neighbouring buildings. "Oh. I get it. Family friend," he winked. "Yeah, yeah, got it. Is this something with you-know-who that your Aunt knows about, or do you want me to lie to her too?"

Peter nodded absentmindedly. "Cover me on all bases."

"Ok. I'll try. Who is it? Is it Iron Man?"

"No," he said. "Someone else."

"That's so sick. You've got, like, a team now."

"I'll tell you tomorrow, Ned. I've got - um, need to go."

"Okay! See you, dude."

Peter didn't say goodbye back. He didn't do their secret handshake, before Ned turned away and left.

Inside, he was blaming the world and and his poor eyesight in one eye, worse than before the spider-bite, for not being able to see the threat that he knew was there. He sensed it. And the paranoia and fear he was keeping at bay, nipping and biting at his heels, that had finally decided to eat him whole.

He had expected this. Maybe not like this, but something world ending. Catastrophic. It didn't make him feel any better for it having arrived. 

But it allowed the paranoia that had plagued him to pay itself off. 

He steeled himself. When no-one was looking, and under the cover behind a passing crowd of older students, Peter casually slipped away with them from the school and travelled behind rows of cars and parked vehicles and tinted windows. The figure stood shaded behind a dented black van, almost teetering towards the nearby alleyway. His head was ducked low and out of sight with a hat. He was in jeans and a worn, black jacket.

He could pull of being a Midtown High parent within the busy crowd, Peter's brain fed him out of nowhere - if he wasn't on the run from the government and incredibly shady looking.

Peter's gut clenched with anxiety when he approached. His right eye throbbed. 

Frank Castle stood against the brickwork, arms folded.

"Peter Parker," he said, like a death sentence. "We need to talk."

Chapter Text

Frank lived at the biting point.

Like a live wire, like a jackboot dog, like whatever Rawlins spat at him over comms frequency in Kandahar to make him rough around the edges, crawling prone and lining up another kill in the mud.

But he was used to it.

He wouldn't have purpose. Without that rage. Without knocking the rest of the scum back down to Earth with him, instead of thinking themselves as gods above the world. Back down and in the shallow grave, as monsters and cruel men and goddamn dirt that deserved nothing but a bullet to the skull.

Well, where else would they be. Only Frank knew where. Underground.

Frank himself deserved to be there. He admitted it. Hell, he deserved it as much as they did, but not yet. Not until his job was done. One batch, two batch, and they all asked why he did the shit he did as if it was some mystery and he was out of his head.

Amateurs. Didn't know a damn thing about him.

Easy. It was all he knew. It was all he could do for his family.

Frank wasn't crazy. He was the only one in his right mind.

Lisa was so excited to start middle school. Now, Midtown High, maybe she would have been a student. This kind of school, she would have made it. Science school. If she really wanted to. 

She had already been jumping out of her skin with nerves and excitement for middle school, telling him that night when he came back that her friends were going to the same school as her, too. Skipping like she did on her light-blue skipping rope. The one with the tinsel on the ends. She always forgot it outside when it rained, and her toy dinosaurs lined up along the window when Maria opened it for some fresh air. 

The brains on that kid, and Frank always bragged about her brains, even Russo knew she was destined to weasel her way into a good grade. Thinking he would do the school run for her, and she'd be up late with her essays, and of course Frank Jr. would say it wasn't fair that she would be going first and he had to go to bed early. Little punk.

He wanted to go to middle school, too. Stamped his foot, like he did when he was just a brat complaining about Daddy being gone for so long, always at war. 

Chasing it like a memory.

Not fair, his kid had said. Agenda against the world. Jealously over school made Frank find it a little funny. Such a juvenile thing. Showed how good they were, his kids, fighting over who gets to go and learn. Nothing like him. Frank always told the boy that life wasn't fair, yes, but he'd catch up to Lisa with age. He had some brains, too, but not as much as his sister. 

Maybe he would have grown into his smarts. Two peas in a pod. Maria's brains. Not his.

Frank would be doing the school run for both of them with their lunchboxes today, if quitting that night was how things were going to go. Eager to get away from their old man, maybe they would have ran inside ducking and laughing. He would have like to embarrass them, too. Give them a big squeeze. Not let go for nothing. Nothing.

He slammed the door of the van shut, and it rattled against the frame like a machine gun.

Midtown High. Not the shithole he had been expecting.

It looked clean. Smart.

Neat, like family life and grades and sports trophies tied with a damn ribbon. Not the type of place to find a cocky kid smart enough to know how to follow orders from scheming adults, but dumb enough to try to kill himself on the streets every night. But he'd find out soon enough.

Frank rubbed his chin and spied for any cameras. Closest was at bearing three o'clock, pointed south-east. He was in the clear for surveillance, but there was a lot of dead-space. Potential to shield from his line of fire.

He stood hunched over, as far as he could get from the pick-up line for the students. Garbage can to the left, if he needed to climb. Three routes for exit. Four. If needed, he'd take a hostage. Wouldn't hurt the damn kid, but it would get him out.

His loadout was simple, part of his usual. MP5 and a M16A3 fitted with the M203 and in the truck to his right, keys in the ignition. Handgun, his good Kimber model holstered, under jacket. Old fashioned Gerber for close quarters behind. Sharpened every evening.

The children swarmed outside eager for the fresh air in a mix of ages, stumbling and laughing along, not knowing anything about the world yet except their mathematics and history that was far too long ago for them to believe it. Frank Jr. loved history documentaries about the Egyptians. Liked the music they played.

Frank took out one of the burners wedged in his back pocket and rang the only number on the screen.

"I'm here," he said, when the dial went through after two rings. 

"Okay, Frank. And what do you want me to do about that?"

"Where is he."

A weary sigh echoed over the line. A tapping, against a table. The sound of a computer whirring.

"You know, they don't always leave straight away. Teenagers get distracted, talk to their friends. He's not dead. I told you that. You've been to a school before, and you-"

Frank hung up the phone and shoved it back into his pocket. He pushed the hat further down over his head and sniffed.

He'd wait. If not, he'd scope out where the kid was supposed to be living.

He observed it idly for a while, the hectic rush of the school bell. What could have been. Tried to be indifferent about it. 

And then Peter Parker was out of the building and coming across the street.

There was that face, and it blew Frank away. Sky high. He forced himself to keep a neutral expression. Didn't want to show his cards too soon, before he got the kid's angle.

Parker was skittish, teetering from side to side. Came up to him, though. Marched up, like a soldier on a mission. Squinting at him, with barely concealed dismay.

Brave. He'd give him that much.

Frank still didn't know if it was misplaced, that bravery. The kid had practically sacrificed himself to seal Frank's wound, that knife he got to the side that had been bleeding him dry. He'd stitched it up, and it had caused no problems since, but he remembered the baby face that met him, without the mask. The one that almost had its brains blown out. Dazed and scared.

It took him back to the fairground. The last glance of his little boy, when Daddy couldn't fix the hurt.

God. He warned him. He tried to stop him. Frank was always going to fire when he moved, finger jittering on the trigger like always, him or them and neutralise the threat before it got him stabbed and gutted. War was like that. Shoot before they get to you.

When he dropped and Frank breathed and he was still standing, it all came rushing in, and he saw Frank Jr.

His heart stopped when he caught his face. Stopped feeling it. He was a dead man walking, like he thought he was from day to day, in that second, and he saw tears and a rounded chin and doe eyes and Frank Jr. and Lisa and Maria in failure and blood spilling where it should never land in that second. In an instant, he wished he was dead again.

Then it was beating, thumping to remind him there was business to finish-

-and Frank dug out a home in that feeling like a fucking trench, and sank his teeth into the rage that fuelled him against his own choice.

Crippled a damn child. Add it to the long tally.

Was this a pattern, weaved into the Parker kid? Jump in front of the damn gun, because he thought the hospital would fix him up good and new?  Parker looked eerily fine, smooth skin, as if time had reversed for Frank and his mistake was erased clean.

But Frank would remember it. The kid would remember it.

If it was idiocy and naivety, and if it was that kind-hearted naivety that made Frank aim for his head, then what the hell were the Avengers putting into him, like a lamb to slaughter? Did they train the kid, and send him out into the world?

Spider-Man showed up at fourteen. Peter Parker was sixteen years old, according to Micro's data.

Did his guardian, did she know? Did she force him?

Did they enhance the boy, super-healing and strength, wipe out any influences?

Turn him into a lab rat, science experiment for one of Starks new suits?

Or did they pick him up, trick him into enlisting?

Was he a stupid kid with a hunger he couldn't kill? Or was he a smart kid with a logical vengeance, with a dead family like Micro claimed?

Why did Frank not know about him earlier?

Questions he needed answers to. Deep down, he knew why he never asked them. Firstly, he was used to Red and his buddies, and all of the righteousness that came with the Avengers. He had never assumed that Spider-Man would be the exception and be, well, a damn kid. It was because he couldn't care less about Spider-Man and the hero agenda, that he never looked closer.

But this Parker kid. Goddamn surprise. Sent to keep him on his toes, this one.

Something had latched onto him with this. It didn't sit right, to let it stand. It wasn't a good thing to ignore it. If he ignored it, he would be doing his family and his purpose a disservice.

And Frank wasn't going to do that ever again. Over his dead fucking body.

Peter Parker looked like a breeze would knock him down. Hoodie over his shoulders, with scuffed jeans and squeaky sneakers. Curly brown hair, a little over the face as if it was growing too fast for him to keep up.

Wide, open eyes, darting all angles. Spotting the escape routes Frank had spotted, maybe.

Interesting. Was that learned, or was it habit?

He came towards Frank looking more whole and put together than he had seen during that night at the Cranes warehouse. Good sign, for Frank. Little more forwardness than fear.

It was different to see him in civilian clothing. It made sense. Matched the baby face more than the red and blue getup, Frank thought.

"Peter Parker," he drawled when he was close enough.

He was temped to grab the kid already and get away from the public eye, but kept his patience. Get him to approach first. Lisa always froze when she thought she was in trouble as a kid. Frank had to ease her out of it and calm her down, when Maria would make the hard point about bullying or rules or chores at the kitchen table. She was tough, his Maria. "We need to talk."

"Frank Castle," the boy replied.

There was a biting threat at the end of his tone, and somehow, it didn't take Frank by surprise. Fear and lack of control always gave way to anger, in the end. Gnawed at it until it disappeared and there was only rage. Kid had spunk, chin jutting out towards him. Frank wondered what the limit of it was.

"Me," he said, tilting his head. 

"You. How could you come here?"

A woman shuffled by with a younger teenage girl beside her, keys jingling in her hand. She skimmed the two of them with her cat eyes for a moment before strutting onward towards her car, and Frank saw that Parker was nervous about them. Worried about a witness. The daughter only looked down at her phone. 

Frank saw his shoulders curl, raising upwards. The kid stepped further into his space.

"Calm down, kid. I'm not here to pick a fight."

"You tracked me down. You know my name you - you know my school. Tell me. You're here for something."

"To talk."

Parker let out a gasping, shuddering laugh. "That's such bull, man."

"Is that so?" Frank couldn't help but let his scowl twist upwards into a grin. It really was a teenager he was talking to.

"Yeah. Yeah it is."

"I doubt that."

"What do you want from me?" Peter scrunched up his nose. "You kill again?" He leaned closer. "Yesterday."

Frank did kill a mark yesterday. There was dried blood crusted under his neckline, hidden from view. Curious, if that was a guess or if the kid could pick up on it.

"That's not for you to care about."

"Actually, it is something I care about, Mr. Castle. Since you know who I am. And what I do. And you came to my school."

Frank looked him up and down. Snarky, but polite as ever. Like Spider-Man.

It was confusing him.

"Friend of mine says you're smart, going to this joint. Matched the little spandex alter-ego to nearby schools, and ran the faces by me. Could pick you out of a haystack," Frank said. He needed to fish for information. "Anyone do that before, kid?"

"That's how you found me," Parker mumbled quietly.

"It's that easy, if you're stupid enough to be on the streets at night. You should be dead."

"Great. Congratulations. Doesn't say what you really want."

"Talk."

"You could have talked to me in the suit."

"You weren't in the suit, were you?" Frank spat. He spent the week waiting to track the kid down before he got Lieberman on the case for a favour.

That week, he thought Spider-Man was dead. And that it was Frank's fault.

"Sorry. Guess I shouldn't have gotten myself shot," Parker said with a monotone voice, sneering. "Sorry for helping you. Sorry for being such an annoyance. I'm so sorry, you had to come to my school. Are you going to kill me now, or later?"

"Kid," Frank pushed, growling. "You brought me to this-"

"Are you going to kill me? You shot me already."

"You weren't in the suit, and I thought you saw sense. Quit, and given up because of old me, considering the damn waste of it-"

"You're a murderer!"

"-then I thought I'd killed you. Yeah, yeah I did. And I don't hurt kids. Even if they're playing pretend behind a m-"

"Here I am. Fine. And stop calling me a kid!"

"-ask and recklessly throwing themselves at any fuckin' street rat they can find. Huh?"

Peter was squaring up to him now, and they were face to face, but he was refusing to make eye contact. Shifting in place. A teachers car alarm was going off in the distance. The street was clearing, slowly. Frank was running out of time to be here safely, without someone picking up on him, and his own anger was tumbling in his chest.

"That sound like you, Parker? Huh?" Frank barked, teetering on the edge.

"Stop causing a scene. They'll see us."

"Huh? That sound like you?" he repeated, looming over the boy, who looked anywhere and at anything but him. "Anything getting into that smart brain of yours?"

"Shut up," he croaked. It was too high-pitched and cracked for Frank to take it seriously. He thought that the kid was unpractised with threats. Ready to blow. Maybe he had never talked back before. "You don't know anything about me."

"Former NSA agent looked you up. I don't know much, but I need to know more. You enhanced?"

"Yeah, no. We're not doing this. What, you want to smuggle me?

"Kid-"

"Don't call me that!" Suddenly, Peter was too close and agitated enough to raise himself taller against him, and Frank was through with it.

"Enough. Back of and think for a second. I'm not going to fuckin' swing at you," Frank rasped and unfolded from the wall behind him.

The kid blinked in shock and stumbled back at his approach, quickly folding his arms tightly and stepping back onto the edge of the sidewalk. The anger he had witnessed had vanished.

Frank frowned. That was the quickest backpedalling he'd ever seen. It was like the kid hadn't been riled up at all.

Ah. He was more like Frank Jr. after all, than little Lisa, Frank thought.

"You want me to hit you," he said, puzzled. "Is that it?"

Parker said nothing.

"Makes it easier, doesn't it?" he muttered, studying the boy. "Less confusin'. The Punisher, out to punish, ay?"

The kid stared at him. He reached up to palm roughly the corner of his eye where Frank had shot him with the base of his hand, before letting it fall back at his side. Frank wondered if it still hurt. His lips were twisted. He looked conflicted.

"Do you really want to talk?" he said, and Frank saw a kid who was scared, and lost, and very confused.

And far, far too trusting. Borderline gullible.

"Yes. I do. But you shouldn't believe me or anyone else who says that, Parker," he warned.

The kid huffed, and kicked the curb. "I don't even know. You're an asshole, Mr. Castle. I'll believe whoever I want, got that?"

"I got that."

Parker hummed. "Okay." Frank watched him tilt his head to the side, as if he was searching or listening for something. "You want to talk?"

"I do."

"I believe you. Don't ask me why, or how." Parker looked surprised himself, that he believed Frank. "Let's talk, asshole," he said, then swallowed. "I mean, Mr. Castle. Sorry."

"Let's talk," he said.

"What - what were you going to do if I said no?"

Good question, but Parker already knew the answer, and didn't seem to care now that they had established something calmer than aggressive panic between them. Frank could tell.

"I need to talk to you. Now, or later," Frank said simply. "I'd make that happen, Parker."

The boy rolled his eyes at the threat. "Right."

Frank rubbed a hand down his face, and gestured with his head towards the van. Here was the hard part.

"Not here. Get in the van. We'll drive."

The kid only laughed, although it was dull and tired, and shaky, and Frank was taken aback by how he had changed so quickly in favour of him. Kid probably didn't even have a driving licence yet. He shouldn't be happy to be getting into a van with a stranger. At least their was some hesitance, earlier. Some fear left.

Frank thought he would have to wrestle the kid inside just to get a moment to speak some common sense into him without the police on his back. He needed to know his story. If he was in danger.

Spend too much time in one spot, and people start asking questions. 

"Kidnapped by The Punisher," Parker said, already moving to open the passenger door and toss his backpack into the footwell, which landed with a thud. He stuttered over the sight of the .367 Magnum that Frank rested on the dash, but didn't hesitate to hoist himself into the seat. "Let's make this week even worse, yeah?"

Frank scowled. He shut the passenger door for the kid.

Peter Parker was unpredictable, but Frank would adapt. 

He always did.

.

.

.

There was a frog in his throat. Should he turn on the radio?

Felt like torture, sitting in silence. Peter didn't want to be the first to break it. He didn't know what to say.

The Punisher seemed fine with not speaking a word, driving down the highway at a steady pace, and he was one of the better drivers Peter had seen. Maybe not as smooth and controlled as Happy was. The van switched lanes with the tick of the indicator, and he checked his mirrors, with both hands firmly on the steering wheel. A freshener on a string bounced with the road bumps. He saw an empty coffee cup sitting neatly in the drinks holder.

And a gun on the dash.

Yep. Totally normal car things. Peter was so, so cool with this.

They weren't going anywhere near the speed limit, and the man didn't bother to put much gas on when cars overtook them.

Castle coughed, and gave Peter a side glance. Looped the same drive again, at cruising speed. Peter read the road signs signalling the same EXIT, and Castle followed it as Peter thought he would. Maybe it really was a torture method. Designed to put him under pressure. 

"So," Peter finally winced. "They're calling it a massacre, by the way." He knocked his head back against the headrest, rolling it from side to side. There was a folded slip of green paper sticking out of the sun visor, but as curious as Peter was, he didn't feel like touching it. "The Cranes Massacre."

"Heard that," he said gruffly. "They'll stop talkin' about it next week."

Peter looked out the window. "Why?"

"What?"

"Why would they not talk about it anymore?" he asked forwardly. "Those people had families. Even if what they did was super messed up, man. How inhumane it- it was." Peter thought about how the human trafficking from Hells Kitchen had eluded him, and how stupid he had felt, beating himself over the failure. "Not even talking about how inhumane what you did to them was, either."

Castle shrugged. "You stop a few crimes, Parker?"

"Yessir," Peter quipped. "Stop them before they even start."

"Yeah. Getting ahead of the curve. Yeah, I heard about that, when I looked into you," Castle said. "You think of every single crime you stopped last month, today?"

Peter frowned. Although the night with The Cranes was a scar that still shook fear into him, like some of his major busts and successes over the last few months had imprinted on his memory - he couldn't remember everything he did as Spider-Man. Peter was always helping, and was always on the go.

It would be too much to know about every single person he helped. Every criminal he had stopped in his tracks and webbed up to a lamppost. It would be stored in Karen, he thought. 

"No, I don't. Honestly? There's far too many."

"There's a reason for that. We don't have the capacity to remember. Our brains, hell, they only take so much," he said.

"Now, civilians? They watch the news so they can reassure themselves, Parker. They want a reminder that things are black and white. Perfect. Keep track of the good and the bad and pretend they are in the good. And when they watch the news all the time, they need to hear about the next bad thing. And the next. And the next."

Peter pictured May sitting on the couch every night, scanning the news. The dark living room was washed in the glow of flickering neon's and technicolor, reporters voices layering over each other in steely, serious tones.

"I've never thought of that," Peter muttered.

"'Course not," Castle said.

Peter saw him glance towards the passenger side, and move his eyes back to the road in front. 

"You think of yourself as a civilian?" Castle asked innocently, and it made Peter's body tense up.

He fiddled with the seatbelt strap.

There it was. Castle's hands turned the steering wheel back onto the earlier stretch of motorway. 

They were officially 'talking'. Whatever the man needed to say to him, Peter was going to make sure he got his answers without putting anyone in danger.

It had to be that Peter was an unknown. Wanting to talk to him? Please. He was on the Punisher's radar. Castle tracked him down. Castle came to his school. There was no danger. The man truly did want to talk - but he could still be waiting to evaluate the threat, the vigilante who had accidently stumbled upon his work, not quite sure where it would go.

He'd give the man what he wanted. If it would mean he leaved Peter alone and never bothered him again. 

It was more like an interrogation, then a talk.

"Sometimes," he admitted truthfully. "It depends if I'm Spider-Man, or just Peter."

"Just Peter," Castle huffed, shaking his head. "Was being a normal kid not good enough for you?"

"It's more than enough," he said. "But I can't sit there with these powers, and take algebra tests, while people are dying, Mr. Castle."

Wetness in his eyes threatened to expose his emotions, but he pushed them down and looked back out the window at the moving cars and the rolling asphalt. Now was not the time to remember Uncle Ben. They looked like weird colourful shapes out of his right eye, those cars. "With great power, comes great responsibility. I have no choice. I need to save people."

Castle inhaled, and exhaled slowly. 

"Powers?" he drawled eventually. 

"Just an accident."

"Hm. What kind?"

"Not important. But, um, after it happened - well, I have, like, enhanced strength. Enough to keep me alive," he specified. The goal was not to seem like a threat to the man. He wasn't going to mention how Peter was strong enough to stop busses and lift entire buildings off of himself. "And, like, my senses are better, and I can stick to things."

"Right. Okay. How'd you heal that?" the man jerked his head towards Peter's face. A hand instinctively covered his eye. It was still aching. 

"Oh! I heal fast. Don't worry. But it's not as good as it sounds. I need to eat more food to keep up with the enhanced metabolism. They said if I don't, I could starve. Like, super quickly."

"They?" 

"Doctors," he explained, gesturing nervously with his hands. "You know, from Iron Man? He, um, helps me out sometimes. We work together. But you know that, right?"

Smooth, Peter. Very smooth.

Castle frowned. The EXIT sign approached on the right-hand side of the motorway, and he turned the wheel to veer off onto the slip road, the indicator back on again. 

"Huh. Does he," he said lowly, but the moment passed as swift as it came. "When's the last time you ate, kid?"

Peter thought the man had stopped calling him kid, but he had clearly slipped up again.

"Sorry. It's not like I'm going to starve to death, or anything, Mr. Castle," he chuckled, itching his cheek. "I had lunch."

But Peter was ignored, clearly. "I need a damn coffee. We'll pull in somewhere, later," the man said. Peter didn't know when later was. To be honest, he was kind of hungry. He could do with a burger. Or three. Aunt May had an early shift that night, so there would be some leftovers on the counter too. Waiting for him.

"Um. Fine."

The hum of the car motor changing gears shifted them through lanes. Peter was glad to be off the motorway. They rolled up to at a traffic light across a busy junction. Someone's horn beeped, and Castle tilted his head to see who it was, when a car was trying to bypass a lane of traffic, ignoring the clustered rows of vehicles in front of them. He shook his head at the action.

"I'd bet a lot of money that you're hungry," Castle stated after a long pause, hands back on the steering wheel. Peter recoiled.

"Why?"

"I ain't blind," he said. "That's the fourth time you touched that eye since I saw you, Parker."

Peter spluttered, and noticed that he was rubbing his right eye at that very moment to alleviate the stinging pain of overuse. He whipped his hand away and placed it nonchalantly to rest on the seat, glaring at the man in the drivers seat. He seemed indifferent.

How? Did this guy have eyes on the side of his head, or something?

"So?" Peter said. It wasn't a crime, or anything. "It's still healing. Like, inside."

Castle shook his head again, a grin spreading over his face. "Alright, alright."

Little did he know, that Peter had been eating more than enough to try and heal it. The reminder of that plummeted a weight in his chest. He ignored it.

They drove for another few minutes, crossing two junctions. Peter forced himself to sit on his hand, so he didn't scratch at his eye. He had a point to prove. Two could play at that game.

"Is, um," he hesitated. "You know what I would, like, bet a lot of money on?"

"Shoot," said Castle.

"This isn't your van at all, is it, Mr. Castle?"

The man was still grinning. "Damn. Locked on. Yeah. It ain't. But it's mine, for now."

Under the scent of bloody and dusty upholstery, and Frank Castle's clothing, as well as the gunpowder that permeated from his weapons, Peter smelled the scent of a man and a woman lining the van. While that stranger of a man was distinctly based on cedarwood and tobacco, Castle himself smelled like leather, and maybe gasoline. Under all that blood and gunpowder, that is.

Peter could tell he hadn't own the vehicle for long. He probably stole it.

"Called it," he said. "I can smell the difference. Hey, is that someone else's registration in the visor, or yours? Can you even register one of these things" Peter questioned. "Do you have a fake name?"

"Slow down. You smelled that?"

"Yep. Sorry."

"Huh," Castle said, squinting. In thought. "Huh. That's one hell of a nose."

Peter grimaced. "Yeah. And the blood. It's - well, it's real bad. I don't like it. That night-" and Peter cut himself off. Was he really about to complain about the stench of blood that Castle revelled in, that night at the warehouse? Complain to his face, again? 

No. He wasn't. Not when the man could still decide to kill him, despite Peter's senses telling him otherwise.

Castle said nothing. He turned a corner. 

Peter wished he could read the man's face, his stern jaw, a little better.

The Punisher was even worse than Mr. Stark with his expressions. Peter had no clue what he was thinking inside that, well, violent head.

They slowed down near a block with a gas station, and Peter assumed they were stopping, but after a quick scan Castle put his foot back on the gas and climbed his speed again again, turning back to the main road. He turned off the air conditioning. Peter picked at his nails, and examined the doors. Just in case they were locked.

Clouds rolled in out the window. Peter distracted himself with counting them. It had only been twenty minutes. It felt longer, to Peter.

"Too busy," the man said softly. "We'll find another one, kid." He glanced over.

Peter was watching him like a hawk. They briefly made eye contact. 

And it was The Punisher who was looking back on the road and skimming away from his intense gaze, not Peter this time, and the buildings were flying passed and Peter had to rub at his eye again, despite trying not to, and Castle was driving the van around Queens like a man on a mission, hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and his own nails had blood under them. It was strange. It was very strange.

"You know what we used to call taking leave during service, in the Marines?"

"What?"

"Back on the block," he muttered. "You're not a civilian, Parker. Or 'Just Peter'. You're back on the block."

Under the anger, Frank Castle was weird.

But Peter was there, now. He was going to commit. He was going to find a way to get Castle off of his back that day, and never see the man again.

And then he'd be able to go out and be Spider-Man again. Back to normal. And his eye would be fixed. Once he got over his fear of putting back on the suit.

Yeah. Yeah, that was the plan.

Hopefully.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Speckled green and clear glass shards sliced into their dirt-washed jeans along the floor. Masks thrown aside, covered in boot tracks. The low-lighting cast them all in moody shadow.

The bar was in destruction - bottles smashed, tables turned, the window blinds tugged aside and smash through the pane. Needed to happen. Matched the narrative. He took his time with it. Only the staff remained now, frozen stiff and watching Frank like he was about to finish them off.

Police were late. It's been a long time, too long if he was anyone else. Typical fuckin' pigs.

The robbers kneeled before him. Hands on the back of heads, shuddering like no-life cowards. The second man was sweating like a dog. His other arm, unraised and lopsided, twisted by his side to expose bone, and he was panting heavily. Frank made sure to wake him up from loo-loo-land with a fist to the face, and had dragged him to his knees.

Needed surgery, that arm. He didn't care if he couldn't afford it.

He wasn't in the mood to waste his zip-ties and duck-tape on these half-shot broke cowardly assholes. 

"Move," he muttered, leaning gently on the nearest table and propping his boot onto a stool, his Kimber pistol tapping impatiently against his knee, "and you stop breathin'. Got that?"

A sob. Frantic nodding. The staff held onto each other tighter from behind the counter, hair astray and sticking to their foreheads.

Frank eyed a dark stain which gradually washed over the denim around the first man's crotch.

"Jesus Christ," he said, and turned his head away, baring his teeth in disgust. These scum. It was ridiculous. "I barely touched you."

Maybe he should go open that beer.

The lady who gave them the food and drinks. She was cowering, still. Frank had long smashed her shiny smartphone against the wall. They weren't robbed. Good for her, she'd buy a new one. They'd be fine. So long as they remembered the threat he gave them about loose lips.

He pursed his own lips. Two new semi-automatics to add to the collection were sitting beside him on the table, where they would soon be moved to the van and join his stash.

Frank moved to ring Lieberman on his burner phone, and it went to voicemail. Again. Whatever the man could be doing. Frank knew it was too early in the day for family dinner, and he doubted he went away on a trip when Frank had asked him to cover them on the cameras for the evening. Lieberman pretended to be indifferent about Spider-Man, but of course he wasn't. Frank would wait as long as he needed to get this sorted out.

"Pick up the goddamn phone already. I know you're sitting in front of that computer doing nothin'," he drawled as the voicemail beeped.

David Lieberman, or known online as 'Micro', was a big fan of Spider-Man. And so were his family. Made all of this easy, so far, and Frank knew it would be easier still to continue with him down this line. Wherever it would lead.

"Things went sour with the kid. Track the phone for location. We've got work."

The second man swayed in place. Liquid spilled around his knees, his jeans turning darker.

"Fantastic," Frank huffed into the phone, and raised his eyes to Heaven. "Two for two, out here. Listen, pick up. Better sooner than later."

His gaze darkened, and fell to the broken arm. Untrained and impaired with sight, huh. Suppose part of that was his fault.

That was a shit-show. 

All it would take is one mistake, Frank thought grimly, and the kid wouldn't forgive himself. And his 'Mr. Stark', setting him up and letting him off like a wind-up toy soldier would throw him under the bus. Targeted. Media or to the masses. Frank had seen it happen on tour.

Throwing them out like cannon fodder, because the poor souls don't know any better and rely on command to point that young righteousness towards the right enemy. Or abandon them at first risk.

Shit, wasn't Frank was subject to it himself in Kandahar?

He had finally scratched that itch of curiosity about Peter Parker.

The kid was all of the things he had assumed, not split into a certain type of person. Multitudes. That was the thing with children and teenagers - they were bags of unlimited, unmatched potential. He was good, full of heart, but reckless, acting on some moral guilt from his family. That changes people. He was angry. He was kind. He was scared. He was brave. He wasn't going to stop going out as a vigilante. 

In fact, his guardian didn't seem to be that involved with his double life.

But he was going to die young without any interference, if he kept up the act of calling the bluff of people like Frank aiming to kill. Frank sighed into the phone. Disbelief at what was decision he was coming to. He was going soft.

He was thinking of his own kids, and what he would do for them in this mess. He'd approach this with caution.

"And I've got more info about our little friend. Gut was right. Something else for you to chew on."

He pressed the end button, and waited.

.

.

.

Tony Stark had been waiting to see Peter walk through that door for his internship all week. Tony was a very, very impatient man.

He started three new project in the meantime, together with a new paint coating for his latest mark of the Iron Man suit. Pep and him went out for a dinner date at that new two-star Michelin restaurant they were always trying to get to, although neither of them were present enough to enjoy it.

Tony had been moving his remnants of a fish fillet that had been plated microscopically with a scraping fork and ranting about the latest emission testing from the new section of his personal lab - Pepper was periodically on her phone, receiving phone calls about a meeting they had scheduled with the new Defence Secretary at headquarters the following month. They left early, and Tony fell asleep in record time that night. Like a baby.

Then there he was getting back into fixing up vintage car engine, the Montclair he ordered in parts from Europe as a passion project. Not as much fun as the Ford Mustang he had worked with before, but he was expanding his expertise. Sprinkle in a bit of European engineering to fiddle with, and he was thinking that Peter might like it.

Something for Tony to do with his hands, when the projects were done and dusted. Occupied him.

Kept his thoughts at bay when the sun went down and Pep went in for that early night when he couldn't, and he was blasting his rock playlist to drown out any worries about world-ending aliens streaming down into New York and kid vigilantes. 

He had become so occupied with distraction, that internship day snuck up on Tony. He was under the bonnet of the Montclair in the workshop, when Friday notified him that Peter was on his way up the Tower already.

"You know the drill, Fri," he said, twisting around in place to find something that he could wipe the grease from his hands with at last minute notice. Had time really passed that quickly? Maybe the kid was early. "Turn it down for Underoos."

There was nothing but stainless steel, glass and his tech. Well, he thought his shirt would have to do. Pete wasn't a clean freak, and he was used to creating messes in the workshop with Tony, not cleaning them up. He wiped his hands down his dark shirt, and it didn't seem to show up on the fabric.

Friday immediately dimmed the lighting to a lower setting, and the sound of screeching metal guitar and drums was lowered to a respectable level for listening ears. 

"Thanks, girl."

Tony began moving his tools from there disorderly places along the ground near the jack stands into a small pile, when he heard the automatic doors to the workshop slide open smoothly.

Pete wallowed in, like a breeze. A plastic shopping bag clutched in his curled hand, by his side. Tony's greeting never left his mouth, and instead he found himself supressing an exclamation of surprise, wrench in hand.

What the hell had happened?

The boy had a pair of eyebags that rivalled Tony's own, sagging downwards as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Which, wasn't supposed to be the thing. That wasn't the thing. The thing was that it was Tony's thing, who was supposed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Memo not received. Error.

Maybe he should listen to his little screaming ego more, telling him something was wrong with Peter not patrolling and he was certain of it. This time, it was right. 

Something had gone wrong.

"Am I in trouble?" the boy asked, when Tony was standing there gobsmacked across the room and not saying anything, and he fumbled to act natural.

"For what, Pete?" Tony joked, moving to guide him inside. "Wearing horribly cheesy science puns on t-shirts? Because, news flash - I loved the Christmas gift. Real you. Now, the both of us are in over our heads and if the fashion police get's called, you're done-zo, pipsqueak. I'm leading them right to you, bud. I'm walking free"

As his mouth moved, internally, his mind was racing.

He swung an arm over the boy's shoulders and squeezed as they walked towards the car.

Of course, Peter was also wearing a science-pun t-shirt today. It was a pair of electron's telling each other 'I'm sick of your negativity.'

"No, Mr. Stark. That's funny, but I'm serious. Am I in trouble?"

He turned to look at Peter's worried face. It was crumpled and concerned, and a bit like a kicked puppy.

"I don't think so, bud. Care to tell me why?"

He saw the boy hesitate, and bite his lip. 

"I don't know. I don't know where to start," he said morosely. "I should have called you."

Fear pooled in Tony's stomach. Karen always notified him when the kid was in over his head. The last time was a broken leg and hanging off the side of a building without web-fluid, and that was when they finally worked out the correct anaesthetic to put him under painlessly. Tony had hopped into the suit, picked the kid up and carried him to the med-bay in record-breaking time, but it still hadn't been quick enough. They had to put him under, and re-break it correctly. 

That was also the time Tony had a huge panic attack over not being able to watch the kid properly. He'd gone overprotective again, and worked his way down to lower measures since. But if this was the one time he let Peter meddling with the suit's protocol designed to help him go, presuming he needed a little more freedom - then whatever this was, it was all Tony's fault.

Or he could blame Pepper for calming him down for wanting to check on the kid. But mostly, it was himself.

Beating himself up over it, he said, "You're not in trouble. But, okay, you're scaring the hell out of me. Is this about turning off the suit protocol system?"

"What?" Peter asked. "Oh. Sorry. Yeah, okay, I can control the suit protocol when I want. Have been able to, for a while. But, I just, I should have come to you sooner about this and I was scared. And probably let Karen tell you before she was blasted."

Tony's arm was shrugged away, and Peter headed straight towards the nearest desk and placed the plastic bag on top, crinkling it open and taking out the Spider-Man suit. Tony looked down at it, standing by his side.

It was a messy bundle of fabric, and the mask looked torn to shreds. In two pieces. The glass lens of the eye was cracked open. There was a blood stain at the tear, and it covered the entire interior, and most likely, Peter's face.

Jesus. Tony placed a discreet hand on the table to hold himself upright.

"I'm really sorry. I got unlucky, and - and I was hit on patrol. By some guy I was chasing. And I was scared to tell you, because I thought you'd never give me the suit back, and it's not healing properly, and then I stopped a robbery the other day without it because, um, well it's damaged, and I think it's on camera-"

"Woah woah woah, Pete, slow down," he expelled, coughing. "Hold on. Just-"

"Sorry. Sorry," the boy said. He shoved the remnants of his mask into Tony's chest. "I think Karen is still okay, but I've kept her offline. Sorry about that, too."

"I don't - kid. I don't care about your A.I, as much as you do. I care about you. You were hit?"

"I was shot," he said plainly.

"In the head?"

"Yeah. It - it actually seems worse than it was, Mr. Stark. Look," he gestured the mask forward, and Tony slapped it out of the way.

"Okay, hold on. Slow down. Slow."

Peter waited for him, all things considered, but Tony was taking a moment to get his bearings. 

"How did this guy get a shot at you?" he breathed, pushing down the panic. The kid straightened.

"He was lucky, and I should have been more careful," Peter told him without a single drop of emotion in his voice, and it took Tony by surprise.

Almost distantly. He was looking pressingly into Tony's eyes now, but there was nothing there in his unwavering voice to indicate the emotions he had shown earlier.

Maybe he was trying to be brave for him. Or maybe, the kid was seeing it in replay in his head. Disassociating himself from it.

Tony felt terrible.

If he was feeling this bad about the kid almost getting killed, no wonder the boy had bags under his eyes. He probably felt much worse. The boy said sorry again, and Tony was through.

"Stop apologising for being hurt, okay?" he interrupted. "Let's be glad this bad guy wasn't lucky enough to hit you smack bang in the forehead," he said, and shoved the Spider-Man costume back into the stupid shopping bag so he didn't have to see Peter's blood on display anymore. 

The kid heaved out a sigh of his own, and rubbed at his eye. Tony glowered, and tried to throw a lifeline over the awkward distance between them. 

They'd need to talk about safety again, for one. Fuck. Someone got a shot in, and Tony had no idea because Pete messed with his monitoring system. He hoped that whoever it was Peter had already wrapped up him and his gang, neatly for the police to find, and was sitting in jail.

Karen would have to be re-programmed. The suit repair would take a while. Although, they were still a long way away from Tony letting Peter out of his sight after hearing about this. Grounding from Spider-Manning for the foreseeable future.

He'd have to tell May. He was sure it would go over terribly.

"I knew something was wrong. Could never get you out of that suit, unless it was broken. Hindsight's a bitch." He received a  smile for the comment. Good. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. We're dandy. We're all good."

"But it's not healing properly."

Tony remembered that he had said that, and gestured the boy closer. "Okay. One thing we do here, Underoos, is deal with problems. Big ones, small ones. Let me see."

Tony slapped the counter, and the boy hopped up onto the desk and began to swing his legs. They'd need light. Tony quickly yanked at one of his standing L.E.D lanterns he had been using to solder and wheeled it over, placing it unsteadily near the table. It lit up Peter's pale face like a flag. Tony peered closer, and gently took his face between his hands to look for any scarring or damage.

He looked the same. Tired, teenage boy.

"Seems fine. Maybe we're alright. Fri, scan Pete for me please."

.

.

.

Chapter Text

No way, thought Peter. 

But the Punisher still messaged him back, despite it.

.

On Wednesday, he had another day in the workshop with Mr. Stark, and Castle texted him right when he was digging his hand into a newly constructed metal frame. Mr. Stark was facing the other way, not-discreetly working on his head trauma analysis system. Friday had the automatic shutters lowered to half, to eliminate the worst of the sun's glare. Sunglasses indoors. Must have been a late night for him.

Mr. Stark was good. Yes, he had blood on his hands. Weapons deals in foreign countries. Selling death to the military. There were probably a number of civilians under his belt from Iron Man expeditions that had gone wrong. But he was good, and he tried to be good. Peter just doubted him, sometimes. 

But no reply came, and Peter was nervous for the following trip after school back to the Tower with the doctors, and tests, and probably explanations that he couldn't give answers to. 

He thought it was unusual that the man was taking so long to reply.

Air fled out of his lungs. He looked at the ceiling and tried to stabilise himself, before focusing back on the phone.

Dead. People dead, again, and Peter could have been out there.

He would like to say it put everything into startingly clarity, and he would put down the phone and go out and stop the man, but Peter knew - he wouldn't.

Instead, he curled up further, and gripped himself tightly and tried to stop thinking about massacres that Spider-Man couldn't stop.

Castle replied, but he couldn't focus on the words because he was getting clammy, and his skin was heating to a cold shock.

How he could be so cold and so warm at once, he had no clue. Then, he was warming again - sweating more than he did in gym. The breath was sticking in his ribs like glue, and it refused to leave. He coughed, and spluttered.

It was like a flood, how sudden it had come on. And he was being dragged away.

Things you would see in a nightmare. Don't worry about it.

Breathing. It was the easiest thing in the world.

But now, out of nowhere, he couldn't breathe. He raised a hand to his heart, and reminded himself that it was still beating, albeit quickened to a rapid and unfamiliar pulse, as as long as that still worked he would be fine. He didn't need oxygen. God. How dare he?

It was guilt, that feeling, and it was the worst he'd ever felt it. 

Peter tried to hold a breath, and it wrestled with him. Counting to five, he let it go. He breathed in and out, and waited for his body to catch up to the new programme, but it wasn't complying. In for five, out for five.

"Breathe."

Chapter Text

Peter didn't reply for a while.

He finished his police radio, instead. He was wrapped in his comforter with his phone on torch, propped against the wall, crouched in the corner of his room on the floor with his tools and the completed product. His radio. He didn't bother buying a microphone for it. Where was the need? The device would only be used for listening. He wedged the back casing on, placed it on the floor ahead, and stared.

It was night again. He couldn't sleep. It always came too fast for Peter.

He couldn't find the energy to flick the switch and turn the radio on, here, curled up and knees tight and as comfortable as he could make himself, like a piece of furniture that belonged there between two right angles.

He could look at the dark box it was contained in. Sitting at an angle. The wiring sealed in tape escaping out the side, the dodgy speaker he had inserted that still had dust between the folds of the diaphragm. Thought about why he wasn't really feeling anything at all, how Aunt May had talked to him tonight and he had no idea what he had told her. What he had said, or what he had looked like saying it.

Then, in a blink that felt like forty seconds but was more than likely forty minutes, he got off his ass as if shifting a boulder that had never moved, and decided he owed Castle an answer. Took the phone out of his drawer, and shuffled himself back into the corner.

No chance of surgery. They can't do anything, he texted.

And didn't that summarise everything that he had needed to say?

The burner phone rang once. He placed the phone beside him, face-down. This time, he let it ring out on a lower-volume, so that Aunt May wouldn't be startled awake because of it. It took time. It slid along slightly as it vibrated. As if Castle was still waiting for him to pick up the device, knowing he didn't have a voicemail to leave a message behind.

When the ringing ended, the flashing screen dulled to it's normal display and light reflection that scattered along the floor disappeared. 

It buzzed with a text message.

Peter didn't think about checking it. He didn't know what to think.

Why was this news affecting him so badly? 

Maybe he really had been ignorant enough to think his super-healing, or Mr. Stark, could fix everything.

Or he just didn't let himself step outside of denial, careful not to break the illusion that he had choice. Either way, he was devastated. Expected, with Parker luck, as things had been going, but devastated nonetheless.

It wasn't necessarily world-ending news, but he was letting himself wallow in it. Just for a little longer.

With nothing else to do after another few minutes, his attention was dragged back to the phone.

When he got closer, he turned into an alleyway and looked upwards. It would be better, he thought, to go by rooftop and avoid the busier areas of Queen's active nightlife on the ground. Right?

Tensing his fingers, he tested his grip on the mottled brick surface. It was the side of some bodega that wasn't his own, and stood squat on a well foot-trafficked street. A woman was laughing at something happening outside, probably her drunk friend who he could hear viciously throwing up in the drain, and it made him queasy out of second-hand embarrassment. When he glued successfully to the side, he tucked his boots into the dips of the bricks and clambered upwards. He pulled himself onto the top easily.

Now that he was up high above Queens, it was familiar territory.

Peter travelled as much as he could leaping between rooftops, spying down below. Without his web-fluid, he felt like he was missing a vital part of himself. When he clipped his shins against the side of a building, he swore loudly. This was to be the new normal for him. There were far too many close calls for comfort where he didn't push enough strength into his leg and reach the lip of the roof safely.

Far, far too many. It was at least safer, right now, then webbing.

But, with every action he was taking, another part of himself was returning like a lost limb.

He had missed this feeling. That was it - the feeling of Spider-Man. Or, he thought, the feeling of actually doing something worthwhile in his spare time. And when shouted something incomprehensible about creeps at a man following a woman down a darker street below him, making him turn away and abandon her in favour of doing something somewhere where there wasn't a witness on the roof, it intensified. 

He could try telling Mr. Stark that it was time to repair the suit. He could try it.

When the buildings grew taller and to the scale that Peter usually used his webbing to flip and navigate around, he scaled back down to the street with an adrenaline that brought him to awareness, newly healing bruises along his legs, and made the rest of the journey on foot. Probably safer.

Queens bloomed to life around him. Cabs sped into different lanes, shutters fell down with rattling finality, and nightclub doors opened blaring thumping, earth-shaking music into the air. A pair of rats scurried away. He looped down a street where he avoided elbow-checking a man who towered nearly twice his height, and heard and smelled Castle in the residential area before he could see him.

For some reason, Castle was at street-level. It was in the clink of something metal, and that smell of gasoline and leather. Dried gasoline.

Maybe it was a natural scent for him. Gunpowder and gasoline.

Did Peter smell like something? Out of curiosity, he smelled the bottom of his hoodie. It just smelled like their sensitive detergent from the apartment. And maybe moth-eaten age.

He tracked Castle's scent, until he saw the man's shoulders, alone in the darkness, shaking up and down as he fiddled with thickened metal chain that was wrapped around the entrance of a locked door. His combat boots were on his feet. When Peter walked up, the man turned at the patter of his footsteps.

There he was. The spraypainted skull vest was back, and the empty eye sockets glared back at Peter. Tucked underneath a leather coat. He recalled the pictures of his own skull he saw, earlier that day.

"I'll be the judge of that, thank-you."

"Now. See that?"

"I see it. It's a gun."

"How many shots can I get at you?"

"Oh, stop. This isn't training. I can practice myself. This is just you telling me how stupid I am again. Right?"

"Parker, how many?"

He flickered his eyes between Castles' intense, pushing look, and the gun by his side. It looked like a handgun. It was pretty big, for a one-handed weapon, glinting in the light and snuggly rested in the man's hand like it belonged. But he had no clue what to say. Instead, he stayed sitting, and looked anywhere but at the man pointedly standing in front of him.

"Six?" he guessed. Was that the same one he shot Peter with, or something new?

"See that?" he spat, shaking the gun. "Bang. That's your aunt when you don't come home. That's stupid mistakes. That's every little thing you decide to throw away, kid" he said, and tucked the weapon away again, walking back over to his side of the roof.

Peter focused on a spot of bird shit that splattered one of the bricks, and seethed. Seethed.

"So, more than six," he grunted eventually, pulling his legs towards his chest. "What a lesson, Frank."

"Seven, Parker."

"Your point?"

The man didn't settle back at his maps. Instead, he paced around the roof restlessly. Peter tracked him. He eventually rested his arms against the wall on the farther side of the roof. Didn't meet Peter's eyes.

"I can teach you some things," he bit out after a moment of silence. It sounded like it even hurt him to say it. "I ain't a teacher. I'd rather not, if it were my choice. But I can teach you gun safety, at least. Knowing your environment. What to do when you're backed into a corner, and how to avoid it. Can't do much else then that."

"I don't want to be taught by you," Peter said at once, instinctually. It was something he didn't even need to consider.

He didn't want anything more that put him and The Punisher on uneven ground. But it shocked him the topic had even come up.

The Punisher? Teaching Peter?

"It's wrong," he said angrily, thinking of all the wrong reasons as to why it would be a bad idea. "And it is your choice, isn't it?"

"Oh, it ain't, kid. Not exactly, cause it's different, see. Different. You know who I hear, when you talk back like that?" said Castle, and Peter was afraid of the answer and what it had to do with this conversation.

"What?" he fed into it.

"My baby girl. Lisa was her name. My sweetie, the little rascal. Pullin' faces and taking names, my girl. And she's laughing like she just watched me eat shit over one of the curbs and she's got friends coming over for a sleepover."

"What does that mean?"

"My girl. Hell, she's giggling away, not a care in the goddamn world because I didn't tell her about the disgusting fuckin' shit I was covering us all in on tour. It ringing in my ears, over. And over. Snarking back to me from the dead. And I'll never know if I made the right choice to let her be innocent. She was twelve. What could I have told her, Parker?"

"I don't know," he said. Then, "I'm sorry."

"Nothin', She was only a kid. Nothin' she needed to know about that. But she knows now. She knows, up there. Knows it all. And she's still giggling like church bells, and tellin' me to reap. Reap what I fuckin' sow. Clear them all out, Daddy. Get 'em all. And she'd want me to stop another kid like you from getting shot in the back."

Peter winced.

"It ain't my choice. It's hers."

He didn't know what to say back to that.

"I can't hear her," he decided on, and it sounded weak and pathetic and just like something he would say. "To me, it's yours."

"Sure, kid."

"And I'm sorry," he softly added, and thought he should share something too, but it seemed miniscule in comparison. "My uncle. He, uh, you know, he was shot. And I could have saved him, or told him about how I am. And these powers."

"He want you to get shot like he was?"

"No," said Peter. If he was watching now, he wouldn't want Peter to be Spider-Man. "He wouldn't."

"Then we'll do something about it. How 'bout that."

"No way," he said, but it even sounded like a lie to himself, like he was tripping himself up again. It was the grey area and it was seeping into his pores and getting into his life. "I told you I need strength training. Maybe control. Shouldn't that be a priority?"

"Making sure you live should be the first priority. Making sure others live is the second," Castle said, finally pushing off the wall and going back over to his maps. He crouched there, and fiddled with the compass.

Peter disagreed. He'd rather not hurt anybody at all, than save his life just to hurt others needlessly. "Like I said, that isn't my biggest problem!"

Castle tilted his head. "Hm. You're right, but I've got someone for that."

"The answer is no. End of. No more," and Castle scoffed. "Why are you acting like me saying no is wrong?"

"Shit, kid. You got me out here asking to keep you alive, acting like I'm the big bad Punisher trying to kill you."

"I said no. And you are The Punisher," Peter repeated slowly. Duh. "Leave. It. Alone."

Castle left it alone. To Peter's relief. They stayed on both sides of the rooftop, separated.

Peter could train himself. He thought he was being practical. Castle started looking through his binoculars again, and Peter watched him, trying to calm his drum of a heartbeat. What else was he there for, except to observe? Stop the man from committing crimes.

He thought it was going to be a long, frustrating night, but he settled in for the long-haul anyway. He spent the next hour watching the activity of map-checking and calculations, and thinking. Castle didn't speak to him again. It bored him. 

And then  - nothing.

.

"Take it easy! Christ, you're too strong," the voice said. 

"What?" Peter croaked, and blearily cracked open his eyelids through the crust that had formed on them.

"You're gonna break my fuckin' wrist like a toothpick, kid. Easy, now."

Peter tried to put together the jigsaw in front of him. It was a blurry person, and that person soon came into focus as Castle, silhouetted against the morning. Peter was sitting exactly where he had sat all night, but now Castle was crouched in front of him and holding his wrists gently. It was him, holding his wrists. Blocking out the rising sun. 

Where Peter could break them.

"Oh, crap," he said, and jerked his hands away. "Did I hurt you?" slipped out. Things were still churning into tired action. Peter was feeling as fuzzy as waking up after a long, well-needed rest. 

"No," Castle said. He didn't look tired at all, as if he hadn't been there all night and was perfectly unaffected by an overnight stint. "Go home, Parker."

Peter crawled slowly to his feet, and swayed. He was still in his darker clothing, but his hood was down. It was probably almost five in the morning, he thought. Maybe. Probably. He didn't know.

Did Castle just let him sleep there, while he staked out a damn murder?

Chapter Text

Frank stayed busy. 

New York was never hush-hush about black market deals and corruption, whether it was early in the season or late in it. Or if the weather was bad and suddenly, spontaneously, turned into the hottest day on record for this shit-stain of a city.

There was always something for Frank to be doing, and for the past few months, just like the past few years since he made himself a home out of keeping up with New York's underbelly- Frank had tried to maintain the place to an extent where he never had any free time to do anything else. Work became his free time.

The Punisher didn't take breaks.

He gutted those crooks pissing themselves scared of peering out into the night, seeing Frank looking right back through a scope in another neighbourhood, or preferably, believing rumours that he was out hunting so that the crooks prayed he wasn't there at all. Then, he usually slunk back to base and planned for what he was going to do the next day. Shrugged off his outside gear. Ate a sandwich. Worked out. Showered with the makeshift hose he had attached to the bathroom piping. Tracked. Checked his gear, ran through the same old list. Cleaned them.

Call him an old-fashioned guy, some old washed-up loser who liked that part of maintaining weaponry, that and watching bugs crawl up the walls, but it was his evening routine. Sue him.

He'd put his torch in his mouth, pulling up his desk chair, turning on the broadcast radio. Field strip the gun. Use cheap ass solvent to soften the bore, brush it up, a few more patches till it's clean. Rag for the carbon build-up and the firing pins. Rack the slide and oil it, make sure nothing is wearing away. Examine. Rinse and repeat for the next.

Before he went back out again, of course.

His wall in the safehouse - if you could call it a wall against the fact that it was really a grooved metal shutter that blocked him just fine from the street where he was staying - had been covered in pamphlets and printouts for gang activity since he moved there, and he had spread them further to the bathroom walls.

Frank didn't read books or novels. Not anymore. He had taken now to only reading criminal profiles. Boring, but necessary. And Frank had always been busy. Stayed busy. Shit tended to kick off worse if he ever decided took a moment to blink and let up on the fools.

He stayed as busy in April as he was in January, as busy as Christmas Day with gifts hand-delivered from Santa - wiping gang wars clean under his eyelids, or cutting off them trigger happy button fingers itching to blow the city out of it's slimy façade and into stupid fucking corruption news-wide. Bouncing from east to west. And the fucking news pissed him off. Irrelevant at worst, irritating at best, or completely ruining his sting because some idiot with a camera phone and a social media could decide to spread word and make them wary. Wary of pigs, or Homeland.

Frank had dragged himself back to the safehouse raging about civilian interference before, one week, but there was nobody but the chipped bathroom sink and the rack of H.E grenades to hear him complain and hiss about it.

Busy. Always busy. Always slipping by. At least he had his routine. Routine keeps people human. But now that was Frank was four months into the year, he realised something.

This year was different. Hadn't done as much work. Not really. 

He had cut through a few fools from the Snakeheads like paper, cleared that Cranes hideout, tracked down that scumbag Barajas who was cutting fet into his drugs. Didn't put down everyone he saw, not this year. There were those assholes he beat up at that joint in the suburbs trying to scam him - now that wasn't necessary, but it gave him some down time at least and a new pair of boots he may have robbed off the guy. Made something that rattled in his chest settle for the day. It meant not cashing out on more overpriced ammunition.

The waste of that shit. Boiled his blood just thinking about it.

Speaking with sleazy bums who sell overpriced goods and thinking he's going to fall for their childish tricks any day now as if he couldn't tell when to put the safety on his firearm or what a cartridge primer was, was definitely one of the things that enraged him.

He left them with broken noses, and smashed a face into the window. That was his brief February, because it had gone by in a flash. That place, the sellers place, had smelled of urine and weed and Frank remembered they were sporting so many bar piercings that it defied damn gravity and modern metal detectors.

He hadn't been impressed, and when they pushed, he snapped. Had to put his knuckles in ice when he got back to the garage - and his latest safehouse was actually the car garage with that corrugated shutter covered in pamphlets that was running out of space, and had the old staff bathroom sink with a porcelain chip taken out of the in the side that he had to look at every fucking day and night that drove him crazy, and the rack of grenades was really an old food crate -  but, because of it, he could afford to buy ice for his knuckles whenever he wanted.

Perks of not letting them raise the price. He had come back, lifted his legs up onto the old security desk for the garage, cradled his hands in the cool relief and took five. But only five.

There were also some corrupt cops he gutted. March. Two NYPD. Looked too close into their reflections and decided they could always be worse, Frank had thought at the time.

But that was it. And so, Frank thought he needed to step up his game. He had been contemplating catching Curt after the support group to grab a beer, but that could clearly wait.

He didn't like the idea of wasting his time - it was too easy for other people to sit there and stew in doing absolutely goddamn nothing, but he doubted Curt was sitting on his ass waiting for his buddy Frank to show up at St. John's and stir the pot again. Could wait. Curt would try to jump straight into his business to lend a hand. And Frank, for the most part, tried to keep him safe and out of his business.

He wasn't even going to consider the other thing. The new, obvious other thing.

The kid.

Frank had come home one morning after finally talking with the kid he shot, big fat fucking bruise on his brow, and lifted the shutter on his garage. Limped inside, and took a long look in the bathroom mirror, wiped his face, and thought about giving that Peter Parker boy who goes to Midtown High School, also known as Spider-Man, a phone.

Someone had to do something. That someone would have to be him.

The idea came conveniently - it was the best way to keep an eye on the testy situation while Lieberman scraped the data on Tony Stark within an inch of it's life, and he had a separate phone for each of his contacts already. But those contacts had known Frank for a long time.

He just met the damn kid under the mask. Either way, his guardian and his fucking 'team' weren't doing anything, he had found out. So, he gave him the phone, and asked Lieberman to hurry the fuck up already so he could solve this and fix this mess he had stumbled into by shooting at him. Whatever solving it would mean.

The chipped sink had still been there as blood spiralled down the drain, a hand dryer that didn't work in the corner, and mould up the walls when he made his decision. Had a microwave dinner later, sat there on a folded chair with his legs on the desk, and still hadn't come up with an answer for what to do after giving the kid the phone. But he hadn't had to. The goddamn phone had been enough to get on his nerves and stop thinking about any future 'next's.

Christ, the boy liked to text. A lot. 

In the meantime, Frank found himself barrelling head-first into a job that had been sitting the side-lines for a while now, all kicking off around the Elysian.

What a place. A mediocre gambling den, short of cash at the end of each month. Last he checked - Italian-owned.

The casino was nested down by the East River in Wallabout, two-floors and a basement of poker tables and cheap liqueur counters that dragged in the type of people who thought themselves middle-class enough not to lose money in a damn casino, but poor enough to chance a lick on a night out until they were attending the games and staring at that decorative ivy wallpaper every night for more. The kind of place where a man took your coat at the door. The innumerate amount of framed mirrors hanging from wall to wall that reflected the beat women shuffling in and out in heels made you feel like someone special. 

To Frank, there was nothing special about the Elysian. It tried to stand proud about the sleek cars lined around the block, the lack of neon signs replaced by cursive welcomes, but it was as sleezy as all casino are. Look closer, and the men standing by the scarlet ropes at the door covered their battered and bruised knuckles with shiny golden rings. The Elysian wasn't re- inventing the fucking wheel. It was copying it like always.

Frank had heard news on the grapevine. Something about an heir. Something to do with the Irish flocking to a shitty place like The Elysian in waves. 

Meant trouble. Meant the kind of thing Frank needed to be on top of.

And of course, Parker texted away while Frank was doing his research, messaged while he was cleaning his weapons, and sent him jokes while Frank was in the streets. When he took a sledgehammer to that one sink with the chunk out of the side to get rid of it entirely, in a blank fit of rage that turned his stomach, it was the kid blowing up his phone about apologies. Apologies for what, Frank didn't get. 

Christ, Frank had asked for an update before heading out to an old Irish club and bar notorious for meet-ups across the river, and was reading goddamn jokes while prone along a fucking dumpster waiting to see if their is any more activity or less of it. The boy was in school, and still texting him, and Frank was there trying to stay as still as possible in the daylight and fiddling minutely with the wires to install a hunting camera for more intel. He didn't have the time for it.

He had to hide his smirk at the jokes, though. Kid still had that spunk.

Frank had wanted to check up on Parker and keep an eye out at the minimum before he could make sure Tony Stark didn't bother the kid anymore.

But why he was going as far to humour him, make sure he kept those lungs pumping and stopped freaking the fuck out, making sure he was calming him down, Frank didn't know. He ditched his cover under daylight when he got no answers that day, smelling like shit from the dumpster, and soon enough, the kid ended up coming to him. Some sort of upset. The fucking gunshot wound.

The one that made him think of mistakes, and guilt. Shit was apparently permanent.

And Frank was the guy with the egg on his face who lied.

He told the kid he was in Queens.

Call it a soft spot. There he was, prepping to meet with an insider in the Elysian that very night, someone who said they had information on the Irish and that the Italian's were stirring the pot about some forgery of a will about the ownership of the Elysian and the rest of the assets. Why the casino was so important to these gangs was something fishy, hell knew, but Frank had been halfway out of Queens when he tossed his burner on the passenger seat, and running his hands along the steering wheel cursing to himself, he turned that van around, the tires squealing and burning the asphalt. 

Maybe the jokes were funny enough. Maybe he didn't want to scare the kid away anymore. Maybe the kid pissed him off and simultaneously made him so goddamn curious that he couldn't help it, and he felt obliged not to let that guilt creep back up on him and suffocate him. 

Didn't have the time for that, either.

That night, the idea ran from him before he could second guess it. Parker was curled up on top of that building with Frank like he was one cinderblock away from falling apart. Like it had started years ago and continued falling apart. Frank saw him there like Lisa, squat low and spitting verbal shots at him instead of warm at home, in a hug with his parent. Squinting at him with those young, tired eyes and kicking himself awake because he felt more responsible for Frank than the government or the police. This kid had been failed in normal life. He was stuck, tight as glue, looking for something else to feel normal.

It tugged something at him. It tugged something rough.

Frank could make things for the boy safer, at least, if he could just teach him to watch his six.

Hell, it didn't even have to be Frank. He was the worst possible option. Before Parker got himself killed being reckless, because that was exactly what would happen, Frank would be able to prevent him coming across another dead body of another kid.

The next morning, he sent the boy off in his shoddy Home Alone robber Halloween costume, which he had tried not to laugh out loud at, and decided then and there he would find a way to make sure Peter Parker learned how to defend himself properly, whether the kid wanted to or not. It was stupid for the boy to have some sort of super strength yet not even know how to throw a straight punch. Stupid.

I'm home. Also, why did you let me sleep!!1!  Frank received by text later.

He was packing up his gear after sitting there wasting time all fucking night looking at some other, less important cases, and didn't know if he regretted turning around for Parker or not. He didn't let him sleep. Parker fell asleep all on his own. The kid proceeded to send five more messages about some homework he was supposed to do before school that he forgot about. As if that was Frank's problem.

Frank was the one paying the damn phone bill. 

I don't care, he replied. 

Parker sent him a message later that evening. I don't care that you don't care. I care less than u.

Fucking teenagers. His arms hurt like a bitch because of that kid.

.

Frank didn't let his new plan to teach the Parker kid stop him from his hits. 

Although, it wasn't a choice he was privy to. Not one bit. It had begun to seep into his work like a poison.

The second time Parker came out to meet him, it was another night where Frank suspected the kid couldn't sleep, nearly a few days later. He had been blowing up his phone about the new annual budget for the NYPD precincts and giving him some long-winded explanation about crime increasing due to Spider-Man's absence, when Frank threatened him to shut up. Couldn't waste his time, despite the fact that they had continued texting every single day anyway. Parker had taken it as a challenge, and the phone rang for the first time on Frank's end soon after.

"What?" Frank barked down the line, and then remembered himself. Remembered he was trying to encourage the kid to come to him. "Any trouble?" he corrected.

"No, I'm trying to tell you it's ridiculous. Nearly six million dollars to install new display systems, when the old one worked just fine?"

Frank gritted his teeth.

"You're fucking kidding me."  

"That was my reaction too!" cried Parker, Frank's annoyance clearly going right over his head. Or more likely, he was ignoring it to piss him off. Pissing him off, on purpose. Just like Frank Jr.

"So much money, and for what? F.E.A.S.T could use only a quarter of that to completely rehaul their care system and provide free meals to the entire borough? Or if they gave it to the schools, free lunch! Instead, the NYPD-"

"Comms. Tight. I'm busy, Parker."

"You're busy?" he said suddenly soft, guiltily, as if it was tearing him apart to hear that, and Frank realised his mistake. He let the line hang for a moment, and then sighed, running a hand down his face. 

"I am, you little shit," he said, and then rattled off his location like a sick man who knew how he was going to die because of this.

So Parker had sidled up to him near the East River when he really was working on the Elysian case, in all-black like some sort of little robber again. Frank was laughing at the get-up this time, and got a dirty look because of it. He couldn't help it, but at least it was better than the spandex suit. Parker had stared at him intensely for hours, as if Frank was going to run off and start shooting up innocents. And when Frank brought up teaching him gun safety, the kid's head went like a owl's as far as possible in the other direction as if Frank wasn't even there at all. So, that was going well.

During his surveillance through his binoculars, he hadn't noticed Parker's head nodding low until it was too late. He had looked over, and found him crumpled on the ground breathing real deep against the brickwork. Again. 

The boy was exhausted. He had thought about what the kid had said, about the injury. Must have been getting to him. And something was keeping him up at night.

Frank bit the bullet and made some calls about that, but to his annoyance, they didn't pick up. What was it with people avoiding Frank's number like the plague nowadays? He gave out the burners to these people for a goddamn reason. And it was a good idea he had, about helping the damn kid with the eyesight problem. He'd wait.

Later, when he had sent the kid home, he bit into the dregs of an apple and stared at the computer screen in his garage and actually tried to get some work done for once without that kind of interference. But like clockwork, he knew Parker would keep texting him.

On the display glowed the planning permission of the Elysian. It was the fishy shit Frank had been hunting for - a hidden floor beneath the basement that had no gas or water connections, bending in the shape of an L.

The only words indicating the rooms use was the word 'storage' pasted twice, but Frank chased every lead in person, and this was a lead he would need to chase too, and his eyes traced the screen. He had turned off the lights in the garage. They had been digging into his brain, the shitty flickering bulbs plus mountains of caffeine set him on edge, and he preferred to sit in the dark, anyway.

Why wasn't it on the first set of plans he had read, as if the info had been redacted?

"Got you," he muttered to himself. Could be nothing. Could be everything. He'd follow it up.

The digital clock next to him was nearing midday. Frank hadn't slept.

He saved the file to the external drive and opened his camera feed from the Irish hideout, leaning back in his chair with a groan. It was a terrible angle, but it would have to do. He sat there and watched figures enter and leave, taking down a note of times on a secondary file. The phone buzzed beside him, and he looked at the brick device bemusedly. 

Trying to get work done was hard when this shit kept seeping into his life.

It was Parker's phone, which had stayed by his side. Tossed the apple core to the trash bag across the room before checking it.

I want it to be for all environments, but then wud I need to change the camo?  read the text.

Confused, Frank looked back on their messages with a frown. What the fuck had the kid been yapping at him about since he woke up, again?

A few jokes. Then, some sort of robot for warzones to help people. The kid had hell of a brain to be able to make something like that, and it would probably save a lot of lives, Frank had thought when he first heard about it.

The answer was yes. Obviously, it would need camo, but he wouldn't need to have it automatically change. There was only so much war to go around. Multi-terrain leafy camo for woodland, some digital DBDU camouflage for deserts, uplands. Half of all military camo patterns were shit, anyway. He'd say go for CP multicam patterns in all different terrain colours and don't bother with the rest, if he was to choose one. But was he going to give that information up to Parker?

Nah.

I know what camo to use. Tell you for a price, he sent back. He needed to find a way to convince or blackmail Parker to learn how to fucking keep himself safe on the streets. Back and forth like this, he'd gotten nowhere so far. 

I'm good, F. There's this new thing called the internet u might not have heard of, actually. 

Little punk.

I'm a primary source, Frank said. Say goodbye to your fancy smancy bot when it gets blasted.

Yeah, k, said Parker. 

They weren't even sending updates anymore. Not to Frank. It was just this shit. He put the phone back down and yawned, checking the footage again and blinking his eyes rapidly. He wasn't anyone like Micro, but the computer screen had started to look like a smeared blur of light that more caffeine definitely wouldn't fix. Fuck. Couldn't be helped.

He could do something about the Parker problem, instead. Just for a minute.

Or even better - hit two birds with one stone.

Giving up, he shoved the chair back from the desk and shut everything down, feeling his way along the frigid wall over to the block of switches. He flicked on the lights that hummed to life, took his coat and his keys, and decided to head straight back out again. Sometimes, the garage got claustrophobic - but the dull, confined space was better than some of the cheap apartments he had rented before because he could at least walk two feet in front of himself without hitting anything.

He hopped into the van and opened the garage doors. When his head was buzzing like crazy and there was no fix, down-time was never the solution. Frank decided to drive through New York until he reached the apartment he remembered, pulling up the handbrake with a creak. Parking was shit, but he found a good spot for the van around the block wedged between a parking meter he wasn't paying for and a tiny bug of a Ford, and he strolled the rest of the way with his hands tucked in his pockets, eyeing up the building. 

Curtis lived on the top floor of a block of apartments in a small toyhouse of a building.

He remembered that it at least had a working tiled kitchen and a matchbox bedroom, so to Frank, there was nothing to complain about, except for the exterior looking like the windows were installed a century ago, and never cleaned. Curt probably wiped his arms on the inside and thought the world damn was supposed to be brown. Filthy. But Frank had no pot to piss in.

And luckily, the place had an elevator. Frank jimmied open the entrance door, wedging his knee passed the dark-stained wood, and rode it all the way to the top.

He knocked twice on Curt's door. Felt he should have picked up some beer on the way. Too late now.

The man answered by peeling it open only an inch, the chain lock jiggling and hitting its limit with a bang. An eye and an eyebrow looked back at him from the interior. Same game as always with Curt, but you could never be too careful with unfamiliar knocks.

There was probably a hand cannon pointed right at him behind the wood.

"Frank," Curt exhaled at the sight of him, and then opened the door fully. And there was his friend leaning on the doorframe in a checkered shirt and trousers, looking at him up and down with a curled back lip and tersely folded arms like he was an alien, but a familiar one. Coming home late after curfew.

"Ever heard of warning a guy?"

"Yeah, Curtis," Frank said, "well, I haven't seen you in a while. It was a, uh, last minute decision. My bad."

"Yeah. Yeah, your bad."

"'Scuse me for wanting to see my buddy. Check up with you," he said, and then looked at him seriously. "And there ain't ghosts with me, Curt. Not this time."

"You sure?" The man grimaced, and glanced over Frank's shoulder. Nothing was there other than the walls, piping, and the fire emergency alarm. He wasn't dragging any problems to the door. The arms slowly unfolded. Took it's time. "Better not be. Come on in, man. I don't want the neighbours seeing you here."

Frank smirked as Curt removed himself from blocking the entrance, and Frank lumbered in behind him.

"I doubt they'd give a shit," he said. "What's the rent on this place, anyway?"

"More than you can afford," Curt huffed. "And way more than it was last year. They built a supermarket down the street, and an office, and it doubled. Man, you know how it is."

"Damn."

The square kitchen was confined, four walls and no escape routes irritating Frank like it always did, fridge buzzing in the corner, nice neat plant on the windowsill. Curt must water that shit daily. The man dragged another chair from the side of room and pulled it over to the round table until they were side by side. 

"I can get you coffee, but no beer this time. I'm not drinking," said Curt as he sat down, and Frank joined him, careful to lift up the back of his jacket for space for his handgun.

"You ain't drinking?" 

"There's a couple of guys at the support group who are having problems. More than usual. Trying to do something in solidarity, the bunch of us. We're doing the entire month dry."

Frank sniffed, and grinned.

"Ah, I guess that's nice. Yea. Yeah, bet you're suffering right now. Real heroic of you."

"Shut up, man," Curt chuckled, and shoved his shoulder. It was real good to see him again. See him happy, too.

Frank only wanted him to be happy. 

They caught up quick, Frank giving him the bullet points of what he was up to, where he was staying now. The man had a good old laugh over his shower. The asshole. He mentioned the Elysian, but Curt had never heard of the place. Curt talked about some shit going down locally, and Frank knew that if he tried solving the issues for him, Curt would be on his ass. They would have to simmer out on their own. Whoever was causing it.

After a cup of coffee was mostly drained and the stained mug placed back on the table, Frank thought he could broach the topic that had been stewing in his head about Parker.

"Say," he began, and then picked the mug back up to drink the last sip, when he couldn't think of the right way to phrase the sentence. Bit of a shitshow.

Curt immediately zeroed in like Frank was about to tell him he shot his fucking dog. There wasn't no dog around to shoot. The dog wouldn't have any space in this sort of apartment, thought Frank morbidly, but Curt was looking at him like he was bringing up old stories and old wars.

"No. No. You said no ghosts, Frank," he warned, jabbing a finger at him and raising his guard. "We're having a good time, and you're ruining it. That shit is exactly what you sound like when you're about to talk about some bullshit."

"I said nothing," he defended. He hadn't even started revving yet.

"You sound like you're about to say something that's gonna piss me off."

"Curt," he grumbled, putting the mug back down. He was serious. "It ain't ghosts."

That seemed to work, because the man replied more calmy. He sighed, and leaned his elbows on the table.

"Fine. Fine. What is it?"

Frank clenched his jaw, and tapped his fingernail on the table.  Tap. Tap.

"I have a question. That's it," he said, and then thought about how to ask it. Curt, realising that Frank was doing nothing, moved again. Stood and tensely poured himself more coffee, and shifted his chair to scrape jerkily against the flooring so he was facing Frank directly instead. "If there is, uh, a civilian who wants to learn medical skills for combat, how exactly would they go about doing that? Here, in New York?" Frank decided to say in the end.

Curt raised his eyebrows in surprise. "That's it?" 

"See?" said Frank. "Not everything is bad news, huh?"

Curt, being former SARC and field medic, was the best person to ask. Veterans tended to look out for their own. Curt was probably connected to half of the former tactical medical trainers in the city, familiar with the units who trained them and the veterans who used to. He was also good at what he did when he was deployed, and Frank knew from first-hand the quick thinking Curt showed on-site. Buddy saved lives.

Curt knew how to stop the pain, knew heli-ops extractions, knew haemorrhage control and projectile injury management.

He knew how to save people, and lived to help people. It's why he ran his support group. Curt was closer to someone like Peter Parker than some lowlife with bloodied hands such as Frank would ever be. And Frank knew Curt would know exactly how to teach the kid some medical skills.

Baby steps, just like his kids. They don't want to do something? 

Fine. Go smaller. Build it up. Kid can't possibly reject a medical class, or what Frank was looking for, medical training from a veteran - especially if it had nothing to do with offensive capability.

"They'd go to a class, Frank. A civilian class," Curt said. "Plenty of 'em in the city."

"Not tactical medicine?"

He looked at him forwardly like he was stupid. Maybe he was. Lost a few brain cells along the way. "You said it was a civilian. They learn first aid, cardiac response. Tac-med classes are for operators who need it."

"And if they need it?" Frank pressed.

"Then they'd be an operator - Jesus, Frank. Explain what you want from me. Now."

"A guy I know needs to learn tac-medicine for the field. He, uh, let's just say he can't access the sort of military shit legally. Or openly. And I'd send him to a civilian class, see" he coughed, "but the guy has bigger problems than easy first-aid. Been there, done that. Didn't help shit."

Frank looked at Curt. He was squinting at him like he didn't understand what Frank was saying.

"You want to learn tactical medicine?"

"What?" he asked. "Shit, not me."

"You're telling me that a civilian who isn't a civilian needs to know about torniquets and blast casualties, Frank."

"Damn right I am."

"Man, shut up," he said. "Shut up. Why - dammit. God, I wish I had a beer. Whatever shit your pulling, I don't understand it. This guy has to lay low?"

"He's good, Curt. Needs help," he said, dragging his chair forward and swallowing. "Needs our help. And I'm askin' about emergency medicine here, not talking about any other shit. Simple question. There's a guy I know, right, who needs tac-med training. That's it. And I can't teach the guy, because I'm - fuck, man. Shit at it. It's been too long. And the guy can't go through the traditional route, see." 

There was no way Parker could go through the traditional route. Those were mainly for EMS personnel. He needed something advanced. Parker probably wouldn't be allowed into a normal advanced first-aid class until he was over eighteen, turned away at the door. That was the kind of bullshit Frank was dealing with. Would the kid march up to Tony Stark and ask for one? Maybe one day.

Would Tony Stark give him one?  That was yet to be decided.

"Who is he?"

"Can't tell you that."

"Why does he need tac-med training?"

"Ain't tellin' you that, neither. Not yet."

"What do you mean, not yet?" Curt hissed, and folded his arms. "Frank, be real. What hole are you digging yourself into now?"

"A fuckin' big one," Frank chuckled. One that leered over New York like a huge eyesight of a tower.  "That's if I decided to start digging in the first place. I haven't even gotten close to it yet. This-" he said, "this is nothing to do with that yet. First rung on the ladder. This is basics. Safe. Well, it's safety."

Frank had another few plans for teaching the kid kicking around in his noggin', but this would have to be step one. Step two was still ignoring his calls from earlier, like everyone else a.k.a Lieberman seemed to fucking be nowadays. It wouldn't take long until he marched over there in person, or even better - sent the kid. That would stir the pot. If the boy learned to listen what Frank was trying to get through to him.

"Safety," Curt repeated, shaking his head. "Safety for some rando."

"Any good ideas?"

He waited while Curt thought about it, and hoped for the answer he was looking for.

"No," Curt said eventually. Frank exhaled. Shit. That was that. He'd have to find another way.

"I've got a bad idea, instead," Curt continued slowly, and Frank was hooked again like bait, finger curling around the handle of his mug. "I shouldn't be offering this."

"Can you do it?" Frank asked. Frank trusted nobody more than Curt with medicine. It was better than going under the radar in the city, and way better than some stranger. He tried to push on it. "You've still got it all, don't you?" 

"I do. Listen, I can teach the guy," he said hesitatingly.

"Exactly. See, that's it," he said, and tapped the table. "It's the best option."

"Maybe. Maybe I'll teach him. A day or two of showing him the ropes. Not here," he said. "At your place, or somewhere else that had to be vetted. But I'm only teaching, and he has to be trustworthy, too, Frank -"

"He is. He is, Curt."

"- and you need to triple check that me doing this, doesn't get me involved. End of. I can't do it if it ends me in some shit. But if it helps someone, then shit. I have to do it."

"I'm the last person who wants you involved," Frank said grimly. "And I'll keep you out of it. Swear on my fuckin' life."

"Well, don't do that," Curt sighed, placing a hand on the table. "Swear on your mama's life. To be frank, I don't give a shit about yours," he said, and the tension eased out of his frame. Frank laughed. "You could be halfway to hell and I'd be happy."

Frank rolled his eyes.  "Well, damn. I'd prefer to swear on your mama's, Curt, seeing as we knew each other so well-"

"Fuck you, man!"

"Nah, nah," he said, grinning. Curt could teach him. Boom. That was one problem solved. The second was wrangling Parker like a cat into learning from the man. That would be trouble. "Don't bother. Your ma is enough-"

"Ah, shut it," Curt waved away. "I'll teach your guy. Okay?"

Frank grinned. "Fine by me, Curt. Wouldn't have it any other way. And I'll act as the contact point."

Curt paused. Stared at him. Brain turning. Frank may have revealed his cards. "Ah, shit. You really came here to ask me to teach him all along, didn't you. You were never looking for a public class."

"Yea, maybe. Wanted to see you, too," he said, and leaned closer. "Two birds with one stone, Curtis."

Curt grimaced at him. "Great," he said, and slid his hand off the table. "You better pay me for my time, then, Frank. You wouldn't believe it - I'm a very, very expensive teacher right now."

Chapter Text

Peter was splayed across the ground like a wet rag. Rain pummelled his body and seeped through his skin until he felt only the vibrations in small pellets of ice dissipate on the surface. Cold, localised radiations of water drowning him deeper into the asphalt. 

The yellow stood out to him, far ahead. Yellow road markings in two long strips.

Peter, his fingers like arctic needles reaching out in front of his collapsed form, tried to touch the yellow by the nearby drain wedged beside a curb. Maybe, he thought that if he could reach it, the colour would feel like dry land, instead of this vicious water that threatened to drown him and weighed him down so heavily he felt like he was part of the city himself. Hope, in bright yellow paint.

He didn't know why he was here. He didn't know where he was, coughing and heaving and like a body of water. He didn't understand what was happening, and it frightened him.

That was a lie.

He did know where he was, somehow. He was still utterly, completely frightened, however.

The Manhattan skyline loomed above in silver needles reflecting the washed-out sky that were very familiar, and he had been here before. Many, many times.

Yes, that was it!

He was here to tell Mr. Stark something at the Tower, about Aunt May needing Iron Man's help, but he had been stopped due to his own weakness and couldn't reach the large oversized revolving doors that marked the entrance. The Tower stood in mirror of him there, tall and imposing and he swore he could see his own collapsed body on the street through the shiny glass.  Instead, he had collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

It was his own fault. His body was too heavy, absorbing all the rain and misery he had been carrying. 

Someone had lifted him - unrecognisable someone's, and they had thrown Spider-Man to the puddles on the street before he could get Mr. Stark's attention. Perhaps it had been the security guards, and Happy. Or maybe, just strangers.

The building had collapsed, Peter thought. That was it, too. Earlier that day. The apartment had collapsed inwards in concrete blocks upon him and May, and they had been trapped with The Vulture flying freely, choking in wet dust and confined darkness, and Peter had crawled here through the rain to ask Mr. Stark for help and May was still trapped. May was trapped, and he was a fish out of water, unable to do anything about her suffering. It was her tears falling from the sky, he thought suddenly, and because he thought it - it was true.

"No," he gasped, his fingernails splashing in the overflowing puddles that pooled around him, trying to crawl onwards. "Please, no. Help! Mr. Stark! May!"

But no-one was listening. Footsteps pattered passed him. Black umbrellas morphed into eyes that peered into him, and he shut his eyes tight, tight as ever to ignore them but somehow even with his eyes closed he was still witnessing the world go on without him.

Figures exited and entered the Tower, and speeding cars honked at his obstruction and veered around, splashing huge waves of water onto him and causing him to splutter and choke on the overwhelming feeling of loss. It was so strong, it stung into his chest and hurt. Hurt him badly.

"Anyone," he tried again, lifting a weak had and dropping it into the puddle. He couldn't move. He couldn't crawl. "I'll do it," he pleaded suddenly and it came from guilt. He was sorry. "I'll save her. I'll save them all. I'm so sorry, Mr. Stark," he cried. "I don't mean do it."

He didn't mean to do it. What was he apologising for? He didn't know either. He was just sorry.

Peter didn't want to hurt anyone, and he didn't want to cause any conflict, and he certainly didn't want to lie to Mr. Stark. He didn't wish anything more than to be Spider-Man again, and helping people, and not thinking about his choices, and he was sorry to everyone and everyone.

"Ned! Ned, help! Anyone - no, M.J! Please!

How could this have happened? 

When his pleading left him with more rain-drops and an immovable fate that seemed to last hours, hopelessness set in. No-one was coming for him, he decided.

"Mr. Stark, please."

He was going to drown. Whether he was sorry or not.

"No," he said again, defeated. The rain stung. It turned to sharp, wet hailstones that pelted him, pricking at the back of his neck and his arms, and tumbling across the asphalt. White and grey stones weighed down his drenched back, his shirt sticking to his skin. He would be buried in them. It would be like the Vulture all over again, stone weighing him down. Peter couldn't figure out of he preferred the stones or the water, but the crack of thunder and the water gushing around him near the drain remained the same. 

But maybe it wasn't the end, he thought suddenly.

He was so sorry.

He didn't mean to. He didn't want to.

The words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop them, and Peter was frightened, because it didn't feel like he said them at all but that some stranger had said them for him in his place.

"Mr. Castle," he pleaded under his breathe, and his other hand came up by his side to push downwards in a splash, to lift him up and out of the puddle.

"Frank!" he cried loudly, shouting to the air. "Frank! Frank Castle! Help!"

The water turned crimson.

He gagged in horror as before his eyes, the drain gushed out more water than it was able to take in, and filtered through the metal bars, sprays of red and bloody liquid spattered his body and began to pool around him and the crystal hailstones turned red and pink. Glue. It was glue, bloody glue sticking to his clothes. The yellow road markings disappeared under the wave of murky running solution, which also threatened to drown him. The hailstones morphed into bullet casings.

This wasn't any better. It was worse.

"Hey," a voice said from far behind him, but he was too busy choking and spluttering to turn around. "Hey!"

"Help!" this version of him cried instead, even thought internally he was wondering why he was watching his body do this and not stopping himself, as the image was warping and changing and turning red.

Red, and bloody. Bodies strung around him. It was a repetitive scene. 

Did this version of him not see what he was saying? What sort of moral's he was releasing by crying that name, when he and May were going to die here anyway? Did that version of himself, of Peter, give up? 

He felt lost, and stupid, and each casing was knocking into his skull like a metal jackhammer.

"Hey!" the strange voice shouted, and it was getting closer. Peter didn't want to find out if it was an enemy or an ally. It frightened him more.

Both arms trembled to lift his chest out of the blast of liquid, and then he could pull his knee and scrape it forward. He had moved some ground, and he could take in a large clean inhale of air unperturbed by the spray, but he was nowhere near out of danger. He slammed a hand into the puddle in frustration.

And then despite his progress, the asphalt suddenly disappeared.

Peter was asleep.

Suddenly, he heaved awake.

Gasped. Spluttered.

"No!" shouted Peter loudly upon waking, careening into panic. "No, no!"

"Shhh! Easy, kid. Easy now. Pete - hey, shut the fuck up!"

"No!" he yelled again. Someone was grabbing him, and he was about to die, and May needed to be saved and he was drowning in a pool of -

"Shit, kid. You be quiet, you hear me?"

"Let go of me!"

Coming into awareness, Peter wrestled with the arms holding him. He soon recognised them as one Frank Castle's when his angry glare came into focus, and twisted his nearest wrist aside. It was becoming a frustratingly common occurrence.

"I said let go!"

The man let out an unintelligible string of words that Peter could not process, and pulled away like Peter was lit on fire. Cursed in some muffled background noise over the ringing in Peter's ears. He scrambled to his feet, tripping over his own laces that were damp and sodden.

Peter didn't want the dream to come true. He didn't need Frank Castle's help, or want it, and he certainly wasn't his other self. They separated and burst apart from one another at a wide angle, and Peter tried to get his bearings for the surrounding area. Sights. Things. 

Pieces of the picture to ground himself, clutch onto in his mind with spider-webs and persistence. The new scrapes on his hands from veering backwards. The warm wind ruffled through his long, hanging hair, which he had grown even longer to slightly shadow the side of his face. Sweat down his back. The deep murky bay lapping against the pier, and rusted rings for rope bolts lining the concrete stretch of land his feet were firmly flat against. Solid ground.

They were in total darkness. Encroaching darkness. He swung his head around wildly.

"Shit," Castle swore quietly. The silhouette that Peter assumed was Castle's, one ambiguous mass of darkness, retreated to the other end of the pier, facing something far in the distance.

"No-" Peter called again instinctively, unsure if he wanted the man to stay where he was or move as far as possible in the other direction, and slapped a hand over his mouth. What the heck was he doing?

The sound of the inky water over the edge of the pier and the ground beneath him was still here. He had noted that much. He wasn't under a collapsing apartment. He wasn't drowning. He could still hear his own shrill voice. Castle was still here. The silhouettes, large and imposing, of the shipping containers were still here.

Peter had only fallen asleep. He inhaled and exhaled heavily through his fingers.

The darkness that was surrounding them was normal. Not a blackout. Not a nightmare.

Castle had set up camp here, he recalled. Somewhere along the East River.

Peter had only found the spot earlier by following his terrible set of directions. By placing himself in the mindset of what Frank Castle really required in achieving a safe stakeout location. Peter had been correct - he had found the stakeout location quicker than he had expected by a new margin, and taking the man's attention to detail and rigorous bid for vantage points into consideration - there was only one safe nook by the water that was accurate to the M.O.

It was far away from the main shipping berth zones Peter had navigated around to get there, virtually silent apart from the rising tide and rattling of loose chains in the breeze attached to rotting transit cargo. A short distance upriver and across a thinner crossing on their side of the bay was the observation point.

The optimal distance, Castle had told him hours ago, when he was slouching against a bollard along the pier, while covered in dark green rain poncho, and staring in concentrated silence towards the glimmering city. Brooding.

Peter could identify brooding when he saw it. Not to toot his own horn, but he was beginning to get the hang of how the man thought. 

Efficiency. Accuracy. The chaotic, violent side of Castle that Peter had first assumed was far more controlled than it appeared. And, most notably - testing the limitations of treating a vigilante life like an urban battlefield, manoeuvring in plans and counter-plans. 

And sometimes laughing under his breath when Peter told him that maybe if he was a better swimmer, the optimal distance would have been much, much closer. Food for thought, he had said back to him, a smirk on his face.

Peter lowered his hand from his mouth. Rolled the creek out of his shoulder, and took a further few steps back. Castle removed some rectangular blob of shadow Peter couldn't identify from his gear and rain cover, and held them up to his eyes. Facing to the north.

He rolled his shoulders again when the stiffness refused to dissipate, and frowned. He had never thought it was possible to feel like you were drowning or unable to breathe in a dream until the incident with Toomes. The Vulture. Always swooping back into his life.

After that, nightmares had become far more realistic - the pressure on his chest, the suffocation crawling up his throat and tightening there until he genuinely couldn't breathe. Of course, it had happened again that night. The body could mimic some crazy feelings. The water was new, however. How was it possible to feel cold and soaked in icy water when it was all in his head, Peter wondered.

He raised his hand over his throat again to reassure himself, when an ear-splitting roar of anger from Castle released. He flinched minutely.

The object Castle had been holding shattered further along the pier and rolled to a halt near Peter’s feet. Binoculars. Scopes. Peter didn't know, but the surprise sent a shock to his system, pooling in his chest. He glanced back at the man.

Ahead of Castle’s silhouette, overhanging the water, were speckled car headlights rolling away from his observation point.  

Peter looked at the blinking spectacle with wide eyes. Neon yellow insects, crawling across the horizon. Far away.

The targets. Castle had hurried over to look at the targets.

Whoever they were, whatever they were doing down by the docks at this hour - Peter suddenly realised they must have heard his shouting.

Had - had he been shouting in his sleep, too?

"Parker," the man said slowly, venomously. Peter could picture the vein on the side of his head bulging, the rawness in his eyes, even if he couldn't see it in the darkness.

"I'll break your wrist if you touch me again, Frank," he blurted, off-guard, staring back at the arm he had pulled that Castle had yet to use. "Don't - don't do that. Wake me up like that. You've seen that I can." Off-kilter. "It's your own fault."

Castle said nothing. Peter tensed.

Everything was always confusing in the first few minutes of waking up, especially because this was the umpteenth time this had happened in front of Frank Castle. Second time. Third time.

Peter really liked to think it wasn't going to become a habit.

He shuffled hurriedly across the pier and threw his hoodie back on with a pounding heart, which he had draped over his repaired police radio that had come with him that night, frantically tying his laces in the moonlight which had come undone in a blur. Blinked away the fog.

He'd go home early. He didn't even know what time it was, but it was still night. Didn't matter.

They were tucked between two shipping containers that were locked tight, next to a bollard with thick rope that had been fastened tight and led to no ship. Half of the stuff from his backpack was still scattered nearby. At least his eye wasn't sore. 

Now he'd done it. He hardened his resolve.

"I'm leaving," he said, "because I guess I did, um, what I came here for, huh?" Peter tied the knot extra tight.

Yeah. Actually, this had nothing to do with him, he thought bitterly. He more than likely stopped the man from killing these strangers, criminal activities or not.

Castle was a spark plug. A little flicker of electricity, something to turn the engine, and he was roaring and shouting and spitting and blaming.

"Pete," Castle began, and it was a worse feeling that it gave him now and it mixed with his indignation, because Castle, for some odd reason, had gone for his first name. 

He recoiled backwards. It was like a teacher scolding a student, and he felt like he was back in front of Aunt May when she found out he was Spider-Man for the first time. All shame.

"I won't hesitate," he spat on the ground. Peter heard it splat.  "- to throw you off the side of this fucking pier. I said one goddamn thing to you when you got here."

"I know," Peter swallowed, before scowling. "To be quiet. But, let's be honest. It's your fault. You're the one who-"

"To be quiet, right. Right?"

Indignation swirled in his stomach. "Hey! You woke me up!"

"You alert them again? You jeopardize my goddamn mission again, Pete?"

His voice reverberated against the metal containers over the lapping water, rising decibel by decibel as he spoke, and Peter's shoulder's raised in disbelief. There went the rule of silence, there went - oh Peter was irritated.

He was far too tired to deal with this right now.

"You woke me," Peter repeated. Moved to pick up his items, fumbling with fingertips stretched in the dark - his pencil case, too. Huffed. "You told me where you were. Fuck off."

Castle laughed bitterly. "He says fuck off. That's new. New one in the tank. To me, he's now - Christ. You a dog toy, squeaking like that?"

"Fuck. Off," he said bitterly. His voice was still dry and parched from his screaming in his sleep. "I - I can't do anything right with you. Get it all out, Frank. Go on."

"Where's Benny's manners gone to?" 

Peter pursed his lips.

"You - you take his name out of your mouth, if you're gonna keep talking to me, and we're going to keep going around like this," Peter said. Low blow. He wasn't going to mention the man's daughter after what he had said about hearing her voice, what he had shared with Peter about his family that he had been far too overwhelmed to receive - but he was annoyed enough to consider it. "I was loud because you woke me up. You know that. I know that."

Lisa. The daughter. His family.

Peter was curious if she had sworn as much as her father did. He had been accidentally cursing more and more around Castle, because the man seemed to slip a curse in whenever he was breathing. And now he was being blamed for starting to curse more?

"And I can curse when I want," he added. This guy was a piece of work. "You curse all the time!"

He went to pack his bag, turning away.

"And the hero turns away. But - ain't you the one who just had to have front row seats to my damn business?" Castle questioned, talking to himself.

"What did I fucking say. Am I talkin’ to - to the air here? I said - yea, run away, go on, turn away from me - I said no noise. And there you are playing pretend with your goddamn radio instead of going home at night! This ain’t a luxury hotel, this is a fuckin’ stakeout. Do you know how long I’ve been plannin’ this shit?”

"I don't care!" Peter turned away from him again, shoving more of his stuff aggressively back into his bag. "It has nothing to do with me, how long you've been planning. I don't care, Frank. I will never care. You are a monster. This is your fault, and it will always be your fault, and you woke me- you woke me up. I'm not sorry that your victims escaped. Good for them," he said. “You’re an asshole.”

"Call me what you want, kid. You-”

"And maybe you aren't a monster. Actually - hah. Maybe I'm realising you're just a bad man. You're not a monster at all. You're a man underneath it all. I’ll admit it. And I'm not afraid of you. Not anymore. So let it all out."

"You do this-"

"Because you made sure I wasn't afraid of you!" he shouted, panting. "Didn't you?"

A group of seagulls cawed overhead, and swooped lowly over the bay, before their cries veered out in the distance. Castle's stood resolutely at the end of the pier. Peter felt peeled inside out, raw on the surface and ice to the touch.

"You do this shit again, I'm throwing you into the fucking water, straight off the edge and I'm letting you get a good shock to the system,” he growled. “And I’m keeping your head under, kid.”

"You won't. Because you told me you won’t."

"All this work," he said instead. "You sent them packin'. You goddamn pleased with yourself?"

"Maybe I am."

"Huh?" he asked. "Pleased with yourself?"

"I said! Maybe I am!" Peter said tersely. "Are you done yet?"

"You better be pleased if you're gonna keep this up, because I ain't having it!" he barked, and began to pace. Peter rolled his eyes. "Not one bit! I ain't dealing with it! All you do all the time is whine about what I'm doing. Oh - yea, what's the Punisher up to, huh? Let me just mosey on down and get a good look in, see. Hero of the hour. Nosing into my goddamn business like you own the place, asking me when I’m out and when I’m in. This is the last straw. I'm telling you now it's the last straw. We're not going to keep doing this."

"Oh, like you're any better?" he hissed. "You tell me what to do, where to be, and now I can't tell you what to do? Hypocrite!"

"God, I'm fuckin' furious, kid. Get your ass back home!" he ordered. "Now!"

Peter snapped, and whipped around. He took a notebook back out and hurled it between the two of them.

Peter had no time to regret it. He didn't bother to aim. The stack of paper and card went careening off to the side and into the water like a powered rocket, the force of his extra-strong throw plunging into the water with a large splash. It billowed upwards into the air. The remainder of the spray flicked stray icy droplets onto his cheeks and onto Castle's rain trench from a distance, and Peter wiped them off indifferently.

It was a relieving cool against his flushed and angry skin.

The man took a step backwards. Away from Peter.

It was one point to Peter, zero to Frank Castle. He curled his lips back. Great. What a way to start his morning. Evening. Night.

Whatever time it was.

"Look at that," Frank dug in, retreating another step before pacing back and forth again, his boots scraping the pier. "Fantastic. Pete certainly got me, oh yeah. Spider-Man sure has a good aim. You want to try that one again?"

"Jeez, sorry for being such a screw-up, huh!"

"I've been planning this shit for weeks, Pete. Weeks! Down the drain!"

"You're swearing again, Frank. Cursing. That's a bad influence, isn't it?  I'd rather drown myself all on my own than sit here listening to - to more of this!"

"Ah, shut the fuck up!" Frank groaned, and dropped to sit on the ground, spitting onto it. Digging his boots into the pier, his hands running over his head. "Shut your squeaky mouth! I need to think. Goddamn  - fuck. Stop. I'm not dealing with you."

"The irony is really something," hissed Peter. "Because that is exactly how I see this situation." He zipped up his bag and put it over his shoulder. "I'm not dealing with you, either."

"Fine. Be my guest," breathed Frank, gesturing away. "Leave, then."

"Fine. I will!" he shouted.

"Fine by me, Pete!"

Peter twisted around and brazenly marched away, trying to find another insult he could hurl behind him at the man.

Wow! It wasn't his fault he had been woken up like that!

He came up blank, because his head was racing too quickly, and sped away instead. He listened to the man breathing heavily in place, an ambiguous shape on the pier rooted in place as he haphazardly felt his way along the side of the metal container and around a corner until out of sightline, before stopping in a slim crevice covered in cobwebs and rust.

He slammed his forehead against the cold metal and tried to match what he was hearing, resting it there. Tried to get his adrenaline down.

Frank was taking slow, deep breaths, echoing in Peter’s enhanced hearing.

What a piece of work, he thought miserably again, inhaling with the sound of his inhale from the other side of the containers. What an absolute asshole.

"It's just words," Peter whispered to himself, breathing slowly. "It's just words. Just words." Frank wasn't going to try anything. They'd been here before. Peter had just hit a natural landmine. But Frank Castle was a never ending minefield.

He felt like a deflated balloon. He dropped his shoulders, and pulled his forehead away from the container. Rubbed his cheeks.

If he wasn't careful, he would fall back asleep again, roll back into a comfortable haze and forget where he was and what he was doing. His bed was calling to him. Weighing down on him with the weight of New York on his shoulders. If he returned, however, he likely would remain wide awake, regret climbing up the walls. Trawling back across the city might not be worth the energy.

He waited. Waited there for a long time.

And then he turned back around.

Peter reached his hands out and followed the edge of the container back around to the riverside where Frank was now squatting. His breathing had quietened to a normal level after almost the ten minutes they had stood apart. He hadn’t moved an inch. Like a stone.

Peter must have really knocked him off his game, he thought to himself, approaching carefully. 

He hoped he could do it more often. If it meant more innocent lives were saved. The pull and push of the tide murmured against the chains along the pier. The rumbling of the clouds, whispers in the sky. He embraced it for a moment. 

The peace and quiet after the explosion.

Peter tried to see his expression, but it was still too dark. His neck was tucked between his knees, facing his boots. Exhausted, Peter sighed, and dropped his backpack onto the pier. Walked closer, step by step, until he was next to his folded form. His own boots were carefully placed a step before Frank's knees. Inches apart. 

Guilty. He felt  -  tired. Guilty. Afraid. Always afraid.

"Did I, um, hurt you?" he asked, looking down at the shape of his boots and the shadow of his legs, instead of at his face.

"No, kid," Frank grumbled quietly in the dark.

The man paused. He raised and lowered his arm in a demonstration of rotation, and the plastic covering over his clothes brushed softly when passing his side, before dropping it.

“Good. I mean - fine,” Peter whispered.

There was another long moment of silence. 

"The shit you threw,” Frank muttered eventually, shifting subtly. “It wasn’t important.”

Peter noted that he hadn’t phrased it as an enquiry or a question. Didn’t want to show that he cared about the answer, maybe. That notebook was guaranteed to be disintegrated by now, however. Thrown deep into the wet silt at the base of the pier.

It had been one of Peter's spare notebooks he had begun to fill in with radio reports, the first thirty pages full of copied callouts, scribbled by time and day on the margin. He was trying to figure out a pattern of crime rates by manual means - he was doubting the data from the NYPD after their awful budget spending seemed to be targeted towards wasteful amenities more than the actual city. It would be useful data to have, and he was planning on taking it to Mr. Stark and seeing if he approved.

But it was gone. Drowned. Peter would try again. It was only notes.

"No," Peter swallowed. He squatted down next to the man, careful to keep the distance between them, and dragged his boots from underneath him to sit directly onto the pier, kicking his folded backpack to the side.

"Fair enough. I wasn't going to swim for it," the man stated.

"Me neither. I don't wanna get stuck by, like, a gross drug needle. Or anything."

Frank grunted. Sniffed. "Or anything."

Peter really needed to check the time, but he didn't want to break the silent peace they had brokered. A drop of water fell into his hair from the sky. He went to speak, and then closed his mouth again.

It wasn't bad to sit like this. In the dark, in silence.

“That was a nightmare?” Frank muttered to Peter, tilting his head.

“Yeah.”

The man hummed.

Tentatively, Peter reached under and into his pocket for his phone, pressing the button on the side. The screen and his wallpaper acted like a flashbang. He flinched. Frank flinched. 

The man was lit up like a pale ghost beside him. Peter hadn't realised that he had sat closer than he had first realised. Illuminated, the pier seemed smaller in view, crushed between the dark blue and red containers that Peter recognised and the unnervingly deep and dark water. The man had a hand raised to cover his face and block the blue light ."Christ, kid. That's bright," he said.

The lines of stress over his face were stark. One dark brown eye was blown, and wider than the other as he shielded from the light. The nose was bruised. His face looked a little wonky, he thought. 

Peter snickered under his breath, and another droplet of water hit him on the forehead. He frowned, and turned the phone torch on, placing it beside him. Stretched a palm out.

“What’s so funny?”

Specks of wet ground surrounded them. Droplets of rain fell into his hair, and cooled his palm.

"It's raining," he whispered, rubbing the water between his fingers.

The older man squinted up at the sky. 

"There's another rain poncho," Frank said, after a pause. "In the pack."

The duffel sat across from Frank. Peter stretched forward and dragged it by the straps over to them, unzipping the top. He looked at Castle. The man stared straight ahead. He wasn't stopping him. Wasn’t stopping him from touching it.

He was offering, instead.

Peter rooted inside, careful not to touch anything that looked blatantly like it would kill him. From first glance, there was a lot of stuff that could kill him. He ignored the plastic boxes and weird pieces of equipment, and reached for the folded dark green sheet on the top. 

"Right. Thanks."

Frank shrugged. 

"Maybe they'll come back," Peter said, ducking under the rain trench like a blanket. It was somewhat warm. More practical than comfortable. "And they might think it was a false alarm."

“We’ll see,” Frank said, and checked his watch. Underside of the wrist. “Nothing else to be doin’ right now.”

Peter yawned.  “Yeah. They might come back.”

And settled in for the rest of the long, wet night.

.

.

.

“Iron Man!” cheered a stray voice from the crowd. 

It created a volley of whistling and whooping, and a bearded man in flip-flops and a t-shirt from the shaded platform took out his cellphone to record Mr. Stark. In response, Peter raised a peace-sign towards the camera, and hoped that it got caught on the man’s footage. He was here, too!

“Hey, guys!” he hollered to the lively crowd, waving. “How’s it going?”

It wasn't just Iron Man who could make a scene. He could totally do a flip right now. Entertain the masses. Mr. Stark wouldn’t do a flip, unless he felt desperate enough to entertain. Mr. Stark would just say it hurt his back, and complain, and maybe do a fancy flying trick in his suit. Maybe.

They were both at the Queensboro Plaza subway platform, under the blue afternoon skies as the spring air finally began to warm the glass and metal that underlaid the foundations of New York, and Peter was so, so excited. The weather had cleared. Call him eager. The old smells and sights of the city from inside his Spider-Man suit were warm and familiar. 

He was sitting cross-legged on the top of his good friend the N train, jittering with a mixture of high-strung nerves and anticipation, his legs bouncing. Mr. Stark gazed down on him from above, fully adorned in his Mark 47 titanium-gold alloy suit and hovering on repulsor fire, unwavering under his unreadable helmet. Perhaps the steel carriages of Peter’s favourite subway to ride on patrol were too grimey for him to land on. He moved minutely from side to side to stabilize himself beside the overhead subway lines.

It was sort of embarrassing that he had demanded to see Peter off on his first patrol back in the Spider-Man suit in weeks. But it was pretty cool, all the same.

Two girls hip-to-hip near the front of the gathering waved at him, and he waved back enthusiastically when they giggled, raising and lowering the automatic eye sockets of the Spider-Man suit to make funny faces.

“Hey, is that Tony Stark?”

“Is there something happening?” said another from the back. “Look. There’s two of them.”

“Spidey!” called a young boy, reaching his stubby fingers out towards them. His mother and another stranger laughed. He gave him a salute, and another peace-sign, too. It sent a ripple of scattered applause and phone cameras pointed to record the two of them on top of the train.

Peter adored seeing the home videos of Spider-Man and Iron-Man. Taken on shaky camera phones throughout the city, or printed via headlines that ran wild with pictures of Peter in his suit back-to-back with Tony Stark, arms raised and poised to fight whenever they had the rare chances to have a mission together, it was all super cool.

He never thought he would be here when he was ten and only dreaming of attending the Stark Expo for the first time.

“Checklist, Underoos” Mr. Stark said to him, and some more of the crowd turned heads and chatted amongst themselves. “Gimme the rules.” 

Peter straightened.

“No swinging, unless it’s an emergency,” he repeated, counting on his gloved fingers. “No fighting. Stay on the ground. Um, stay small. Keep the patrol short. Something to do with Karen? And, um, another one.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Mr. Stark waved off, reminding Peter of the exorbitant amount of unfair clauses and rules he had stated for his first patrol when they had finished fixing the Spider-Man suit, made in-line with Aunt May in their secret adult club they had formed.  

“Especially if it involves betting money on the Mets,” Mr. Stark continued.

“Hey,” Peter called out, annoyed. That was his favourite team. “The Mets have won the World Series twice, you know.”

“And the Yankees have won more - how many times was that?” the man said. He paused. “Thank you, Fri. Won twenty-seven times. Most successful in MLB history,” he said. “Proof that you should listen to your elders.”

“Let’s agree to disagree, Mr. Stark.”

“Stick to the rules, Spidey,” he said, and the faceplate lifted back to show Mr. Stark send a dark raised eyebrow towards Peter. It made him frown.

“I’m serious about this one. Take it easy. Do some community service, don’t try to swing on those webs of yours, and come straight back to the Tower. I’d rather you walk than try to swing and go splat onto the street from missing a web-shot.”

“But what if there’s an emergency?” Peter pressed. “What if, like, there’s a situation where I have to fight, or get there quickly? Spider-Man doesn’t just ignore trouble. It can get bad out here.” 

He was already nervous enough about finally going back on patrol after The Cranes, having put it off for so long. The headlines had gotten to him, and the horror of feeling the ghostly remnants of blood staining his suit was outweighed at last by his need to get out and help people. 

He was feeling up to wearing the title of Spider-Man again.

Particularly, it was The Bugle celebrating that he had been arrested at last for his crimes against the people of New York, in an issue laying out all the damage and destruction he had apparently raked upon the working class people trying to live pay-check to pay-check. 

With these extra rules, and his eyesight problem with distant things becoming blurry and unfocused, it was making him even more paranoid that everything would go wrong, and the Bugle would be front and centre to watch him fail without being able to use his web-fluid to swing around.

Parker luck was terrible, after all. It could happen.

“I have Friday temporarily added to the entirety of Karen’s system, and she’ll alert me. I also have your camera feed on my monitor. And you won’t be able to hack her this time. Mark my words.”

“Wait, so you’ll be watching me the whole time?” he asked curiously.

“Is that a problem?”

Peter didn’t like that part of fixing the suit. They had repaired it in Mr. Stark’s workshop during the week and added some new features - upgraded cameras, tracking, database searches. Unfortunately, it also came with some insane safety measures in place. Mr. Stark refused to tell him about the details, in the event that he and Ned found a sneaky way around them again.

Peter had no time to install some interesting features of his own, either, since Mr. Stark was more concerned about mother-henning him after the incident regarding Spider-Man time than doing some creative spit-balling and trial and error. It made that worry about Mr. Stark caring more about Spider-Man than Peter billow back up again.

He had let that slide, for now. He’d save his ideas for his medical robot Buddy and his next-gen version of the suit.

“Uh, yeah. It’s kind of shitty to be watching me, Mr. Stark.”

The man furrowed his eyebrows. “Hey, Roo, what’s with the language?”

“Oh, sorry,” Peter said sheepishly, kicking himself for letting it slip by naturally.

“Right,” the man said, confused. “Watch it.”

“What I meant was that, like. Um.” 

“Go on?”

Crap. He was making a fool of himself. 

Maybe Frank was right about holding off with the cursing. “Shouldn’t I get some more privacy? I just feel like being watched the whole time might put me off my game. I really don’t need to be babysat anymore, Mr. Stark.”

“Last time I left you on your own, Spidey, you got shot. In the head. In the face, actually. Need an urgent reminder on that one?”

“That was a mistake,” he whined. “I know I shouldn’t have dealt with it alone.”

“Or made Karen into a robot traitor.”

“Or, um, made Karen a traitor,” he mumbled, ashamed. “Sorry about that.”

“Training wheels are back on. No exceptions. We’ll try it for today, and then see where we can go from here. Take the new car out for a test drive, run it out on the road. You know the drill.”

“Mr. Stark,” he said petulantly. “It doesn’t smell like a new car anymore, you know.”

“Oh, I know. It smells like angst and body spray. Nothing can be done about that, I’m afraid.”

“Can you just go now? Please?”

“Hey, do a trick!” someone interrupted from the platform. Peter remembered where they were. Cheers and the snapping of photographs continued as people walked to and fro at the station under the awning, waving and pointing. Peter grinned and hopped up to do a handstand, swinging his legs in the air. A group of friends whooped at him.

“Keep it ground level. Nothing above two-stories, or I’m flying up there and pulling you down myself. Collect trash. Volunteer to be a lifeguard. Find a pothole to monitor. I don’t care about the fine-print.”

He lifted one arm, and started to do one-handed handstand pushups. 

“He’s back!” called a little girl, boarding the train below and giggling. The train started to vibrate and the engine was fired up. Someone pushed through the crowd and ran to catch it before the doors closed.

“Spider-Man?” said Mr. Stark.

“Do a flip!” said another from the platform. Peter spun and flipped in place to a volley of cheering. The sliding hydraulic doors beeped and shut firmly, and the train whirred and began to roll forward.

“Am I being ignored right now?” 

“Sorry, can’t hear you. Train is going! I gotta go! Sorry!” Peter said, laughing. Mr. Stark’s helmet slid back over his face and he rose further into the air as Peter left him behind.

“Be careful! I’m watching, Spiderling!” he called down to him from afar, and he fell on his back to lay on the roof of the train and watch the sky as it started to pull along. One or two people in the crowd hollered his name as it moved away, and he saw the Iron Man suit shoot upwards into a misty cloud like a missile rocket.

Rules. So many rules. They were either going to be useful for his first day back, or incredibly restricting. 

Peter relaxed as the scenery flew past, resting his head on his arms. The train shuttered above the city girder bridges through to 39th Avenue, then by Midtown, revealing construction sites and hanging cranes, glossy tapestries of grid-like sprawl and bold blocks of eclectic buildings, the grit and everyday brown and silver jungle of shops and apartments that made up Queens to the core. 

At the edge of Manhattan by 30th Avenue in Astoria, Peter made sure to disembark before the train rolled to a stop, climbing over the nearby rooftops and sticking to the sides. He’d work his way backwards, he thought as he crawled. Do a full loop, and then continue to the Tower. There was so much to get done, and only an hour to do it all!

He needed to check on all his old haunts, for one. 

Peter spent the afternoon fluttering around from place to place. Posed for a few more photos than usual, overjoyed that the people of Queen’s had truly missed him. Did some high-wire balancing on the wires of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. 

He broke up a fight or two between people without the need to intervene physically, which was good. The only embarrassment caught on camera, sure to reach Mr. Stark from wherever he was watching, was the one time he missed an overambitious leap to the next rooftop at Broadway and 31st and got a faceful of brick and concrete. His head spun for the rest of his hour after that.

It made some self-doubt slip in. Whether he was worthy to wear the Spider-Man suit again. He shook it off.

And at least he could do some good. 

Spider-Man stopped a thief on the run from the police by standing in front of him and waving cheekily, and helped a woman find her lost wedding ring by digging his hand down a gutter pipe. Gross, but necessary. 

He engaged in a heated debate with a cleaner who had apparently needed Spider-Man to vouch for her to her neighbours in a civil dispute about who owned the two square pieces of grass with trees between them. He kept bringing up the law instead of her needing Spider-Man, but it seemed like neither of them could care less about the legal route. At least he was there to stop an escalation.

“I have the right!” said the cleaner. She had a bad back, so was shouting it from her window where he was perched on the balcony, instead of coming downstairs and outside to make the argument. “The right!”

“But-” Spider-Man tried.

“Who?” shouted up the other woman from the street at the pair of them, holding her shopping bags. Peter, cringing in his red-and-blue suit, wondered if this would be caught on camera, too. 

“Her name is Marla,” he shouted down. “Your neighbour?”

“Who?”

At the turn of the hour, he took a small break to chug a soda, and then used the remainder of his precious time to actually stick close to his apartment. He sat on top of Delmars, and caught up with Karen. She didn’t seem upset with him for turning her off a few weeks ago. In fact, she was an artificial intelligence, so she couldn’t be upset, but he felt bad anyway.

“Can you tell me any of your new features, Karen?” he said, swinging his legs and waving at the people passing by below.

“I’m afraid not, Peter. That aspect seems to have been locked off from my programming.”

“Bummer,” he said. “I’m sorry. That’s kind of my fault. I was digging into your code and now we have to deal with the consequences.”

“I have no recorded evidence for this, but I doubt it was your fault, Peter,” she said plainly. Peter grimaced as he recalled that night he had been heaving and stuttering, chasing after Frank from the warehouse and trying to maintain his breathing.

At least he had succeeded in wiping the record of it. Mr. Stark had no room to be angry with him.

Peter finished his soda, and quickly checked in with some of the homeless communities around his area, before recognising that the clock had struck the time of his limit.

“Back we go, Karen” he grinned. “Spider-Man is back in action!”

And nothing had gone wrong. The swinging and fighting aspect would be another challenge.

He cheered as he slowly, ever so slowly, crawled and walked back to the Tower instead of swinging, which took far too long for comfort. He ended up riding atop another train all the way there, instead, when he got so unbearably bored of the slower pace.

.

Later, Peter received a text from Frank. 

The address had come as a surprise. Peter had not expected to hear from the man during that evening when he had begun to wind down for the day and was watching videos on his phone at the apartment, especially as addresses and locations tended to be shared to him at night. The Punisher didn’t go hunting during the day. Not that Peter was aware of.

He was finishing off a bag of chips, lazily lying on the couch when it came through, and he shot upright to read it.

Meet me here. Knock and announce yourself. No cosplay, said Frank. And that was it.

Pushed into action, Peter decided to leave a quick note for May he tucked under the fridge magnet, adding that he would be meeting with friends for the evening and not to wait up for him when she returned, and looking down at his normal jeans and science t-shirt, shrugged. Tipped back the last of the chips into his mouth and threw the crinkled packet into the bin like a basketball shot.

Score!

He didn’t need to dress for the dark this time. He could just be regular old Peter. He rubbed his salty hands on his jeans, and went to throw on his favourite hoodie - the one that said Stark Industries in big blue italics across the front. He didn’t care if it wouldn’t go down well with the man - it was his favourite! Favourites get priority.

Although, the source of the action made the hairs raise on his neck when he considered that he was meeting up with the Punisher casually during a weekend day in civies, as if he was simply going out for a regular lunch with Ned or M.J and down to the arcade.

Strange.

Omw, he sent back, locking the door with his spare set of keys on the way out. Did a little hop inside and outside to make sure he didn't forget his wallet. Don’t kidnap me again. I have too much to live for.

Peter jumped on a long city bus to the address, and walked the rest of the way using his phone map on the street grid as a guide. He flew through almost half a playlist of songs in his earbuds before he arrived at the address, tugging them out in surprise and glancing aimlessly around him when the maps announced the end of the journey.

Frank had definitely picked somewhere Peter would never come to in his life outside of the suit. He said no cosplay. Peter was feeling like he really should have planned ahead. Cosplay included.

He had wandered downhill behind a series of eclectic streets, down a long flight of steps and around the tiny exposed front of a garage door, surrounded by a brown wall and underneath a singular street lamp that he assumed was built for purpose when the darkness creeped in. He looked left and right, and it appeared quiet. The slip road to access the main streets followed a long, windy path back the way he came.

A maroon banner above made Peter think that there used to be writing on the entrance, but it had long been scraped away, the glue remaining in remnants. A tiny white sign with red front was plastered on the front. It read PRIVATE. Very kidnapping-like, if Peter was to have an opinion.

Finding no other door that seemed reasonable, and worrying that he would have to knock on the neighbouring building whose entrance was much further down the street, Peter bit the bullet and knocked twice with a raised fist. The garage door shuddered.

"Hello?" he called, listening for someone inside and raising his voice. "It's, uh, Peter!"

He said to do that, Peter questioned himself, right?

There was no answer. He dawdled there for a moment, checked the time. Fixed his hair from the long walk he had taken. Then, when it didn't seem as if anyone was emerging from anywhere near here, he banged against the shutter twice with his fist again.

"It's Peter!" he strained towards it. "Pe-ter!"

If Frank had sent him here, out of the way, just to be sitting on the rooftop above with a rifle and taking shots on somebody, Peter was going to be so, so annoyed. He would have to walk back the way he came. He couldn't climb in broad daylight. Scuffing his shoes against the ground impatiently, Peter whipped out the burner phone and checked for messages. Nothing there, either.

He was about to type a long, angry text about goose-chases and bus fares, when he heard something.

Footsteps, coming towards the shutter from the other side.

Then, he was face to face with Frank, who pulled the door above his head with two arms as it slammed and rattled against the top. Slouching in a black tank and jeans, and a head shaved short again, and eyeing Peter up and down with an unreadable and blank expression.

Peter himself immediately examined the thick chain in one of Frank's hands, wrapped around his wrist in numerous loops and over his shoulder. The sweat on his brow. Actually, there was sweat on his arms, too. Peter could smell it. Gross. There was a splatter of yellow bruising along his collarbone, and a cut on his shoulder, and behind him Peter could see the black van he had drove around in, the one he recognised from Midtown.

Huh. Where was this, again?

"You're early," Frank grunted.

"Am I?" said Peter. "For my kidnapping? You didn't give me a time. You said show up."

"That I did, kid."

Taking his hands down, he jerked his head inside. Peter stepped in past him with a hesitance of mice stepping into a lab, fidgeting with the strings of his hoodie and trying to take stock of everything and anything, and the man closed the shutter with a bang behind him.

The entrance opened out into a garage. Or so it seemed. Looked too small to be anything other than for someone rich who wanted one for their block.

Peter observed that behind the van lay a wide strip of open space, lined with few concrete pillars. But there were no rich cars to fill the small, residential space, other than Frank's stolen vehicle. Instead, Peter looked at the walls that could have been any colour under an array of post-it notes and stuck flyers, and the others that held ramshackle racks of weaponry on display. A mattress wedged into the corner, thin. A glass pane and low wall, which blocked off a tiny, dark pocket of the entire space from one side. A reception. Or something. 

Crates lay stacked against pillars. Lights were dim, weakening by the hour. A short, stout couch, torn and placed diagonally. Assortments of newspapers and knives hung in at various heights. None of the space was wasted.

Peter realised where they were in startingly clarity.

"This - this is the emergency spot?" he asked in wonder. "This is your base, right?"

"That's right," he said, strolling past Peter who had halted to take in the sheer mass of the wall Frank had chosen to use for his weaponry.

Was it safer to keep it all out like that, displayed and spread out by hooks to be taken down, or had he done it for the sense of order it fulfilled, Peter pondered to himself, before swallowing. That - that was a lot of weapons. Which would need a hell of a lot of ammo. He dragged his eyes away from it.

"Ain't homeless, see?"

Peter didn't smell as much blood as he thought he would here - the scene at The Cranes and the scent of blood still made his brain woozy, and that wasn't happening. Instead, it smelled more like Franks standard gasoline, and some bleach. The bleach was probably covering the blood. 

"Yeah, I guess you aren't," he said absently. "Were you getting some exercise in? I smell sweat."

He was in The Punisher's base. God. 

He should be freaking out right now. He was literally in the den of the beast. The villain lair. The - Peter was trying to think of more things that Ned would call this sort of location. The heart of the mastermind? No, that was cheesy. 

He was literally in the Punisher's base. He had been joking when he said he wanted to see it!

Frank unwound the chain from his wrist and hung it on a pipe overhead, and Peter's head was on a swivel trying to take in the secrets he was hiding in here. This was crazy.

"Listen to me. You come here when you're trouble. Say your name. If there's no answer, use the other ways, but leave an item of yours in the centre of the room so if I'm coming in after, I know who's broken in. Stay in the office, that one over there.  I'll show you 'em. Three entrances, which means three exits, which means if shit follows you here, you can scatter. You done with your hero shit today?"

Peter blinked. Processed. The man walked onwards, flicking on another light. Peter trailed behind him.

"As a matter of fact, I am - Mr. Stark and I fixed my suit, so. I went out today. Did you hear? You must have heard, since, um, you're asking me. Or saw me. I need to look up the photographs for that, actually. And then there was - you're not even listening to me. Are you. Why ask me questions anymore, if you don't want the answer?"

"The fat bruise?" 

"I walked into a bar. Didn't see it coming," he quipped. "Actually, I fell off a roof because I didn't see it coming. Same difference."

"Yea, you didn't see the bar coming. Got it."

"I saw it coming. I, um, just didn't make it. To it. The bar. It evaded me. It can happen. It will be gone by morning."

"It dodged."

"Yup. Definitely."

They arrived at the far wall. Peter halted so he wouldn't slam into the man's back.

Indented into the corner was a narrow, thin hallway. Frank pointed inside. Peter peered around the edge and stuck his head in to look. Cream tiles. Shattered porcelain on the floor, glass and a broken mirror, piping like snakes up and down the room. More notes, more paper and photographs. 

"Bathroom," the man said swiftly, and continued moving. Peter followed. "Behind is a staff entrance, for when the building was in use. I knocked down the wall in that last stall. It can lead to the sewers, if you know the way. Don't use it unless you really have to, kid." Peter shivered involuntarily.

"Learning something new about you every day, Frank. You said you weren't homeless, but this, um, well it's certainly something. It's tidy."

"It's shit. Don't sugar-coat."

Peter rounded the couch that the man had placed in the middle of the floor as he took him to the other end of the garage, peering inside any empty crate he could find. They stopped at the doors of what looked like a tight elevator behind a pillar, that Peter hadn't even seen when he first came in.

Frank placed a hand on the door and looked at him.

"Elevator shaft," he said. "Exit three, empty. Gets you far above sea-level again if you want to climb."

"I want to know about this exit thing," Peter questioned, confused. "You said, like, you had three exits and three entrances. But wouldn't that make it easier to be surrounded from all sides? So if someone was chasing you, they could come in from anywhere?"

Peter knew he would find it hard to relax if that was the case. Any direction, any angle. Wasn't this set-up the complete opposite for Frank Castle?

"Aren't you on the run?"

"Depends," Frank folded his arms. "One route, and you've got you're back to the wall, see. Ain't that simple. But three routes - sure, they got more time to trick. Surround you. That's if they know about all of 'em. If they don't, the forgotten ones are the escape routes. If they do - I'm assumin' we're talkin' about a team here - they split up. Cover all three. I take any one I prefer."

"Less of a force," Peter muttered. "Less of a challenge."

"That's right. I only gotta cut down one third of them. Think of it that way."

Morbid. Too morbid.

Frank strode over to the torn couch and dragged over a crate that was next to it, opening the lid. Peter followed him, and hovered awkwardly. 

"So," he said. "It's definitely, uh," he tried not to call it tidy or shit, "practical. In here." He was looking at the damp ceiling when Frank suddenly threw an apple at him, and he caught it behind his back. He looked at it clutched within his hand, the shiny fruit intact and whole.

"Huh. Guess it really is only a problem when I look at things." His senses were still intact. 

"You need to eat more. Eat." Frank shut the crate, and Peter chewed into the apple.

"Thanks. Do you have any hobbies, um, down here, or is it just creepy photographs and maps?" he said, over a mouthful. "It's, like, super practical. Not a poster or some interior decorating, or anything like that in mind? The bathroom looks spooky."

Frank looked at him. "No."

"You do. You have to have a hobby. Hey, most people do. Or, um, you used to?" he guessed. Before he must have thrown it all away for a life like this. 

"Course. Long time ago. I used to play guitar. Taught Lisa."

"Was she any good?"

Peter took another bite.

"You should get a guitar. Second-hand they can be pretty cheap. I tried to play once and man - I sucked so bad. I was so bad at keeping up with it my fingers stayed soft, you know what I mean? Couldn't get the, uh-" Peter fumbled.

"Calluses?"

"Yeah! Yeah, those calluses-"

"Calluses, yeah. Takes time," he said, and leaned back against a concrete pillar. "Pete, let me tell you that, you just gotta keep playin' until you're fingers harden, and Lisa was just the same. Like anything you do. Keep practicin'."

"I don't keep calluses anymore, though," he said. "Like, if I wanted to start playing guitar again, scientifically I don't think the skin would be tougher than any other point on my body."

"Healing?"

"Yup," he said, and knocked his fist against one of the pipes, chewing and swallowing. "Maybe if you were a singer, you'd be better off here. Good acoustics. Rent the space out to choirs and stuff and sing with them, if you weren't on the run. Like, if you could do that kind of thing. Or, you have all these knives. You should start wood-carving. You can start off with carving out birds and animals and then move onto bigger things," he said. "I've seen people make, like, human faces."

He glanced at the metal pipe wedged between the divots as a pull-up device. The chain was still hung in it.

Oh, please. He could do so, so much better. He slipped the half-eaten fruit into his hoodie pocket.

"Is this where you were exercising?"

Peter jumped upwards in one leap and stuck his hand directly onto the roof.

"Holy shit," said Frank testily. "Get down."

"Why?"

"I forgot you said you could do that. Get off my ceiling. And no, I'm not fucking carving birds in my free time."

Peter flipped upside down, and began to do some reverse sit-ups. Then, he switched to pull-ups, grinning wildly. Glued to the roof, Frank looked as disappointed as he did upright than as he was upside down, and Peter continued to do reps as quickly as he could without breaking a sweat. He preferred to workout on the ceiling. Gravity didn't apply to him unless he was actively falling.

"You could, though. And sell them, and make money."

"Okay, bug."

"Close, but no. Arachnid, Frank."

"Bug."

"Arachnid."

"What happened to Mr. Castle?"

Peter finished a sit-up, and started to crawl across the roof, inspecting the damp spots. Frank followed below him. From reverse, the place looked even less liveable. That was something different. His hair hung downwards. "Mr. Castle, I meant. That's what I meant."

"And what do you do as a, uh, fuckin' hobby?" asked Frank. "Other than build your robots, be a little nerd, and crawl around the city. And stalk me."

"That's not fair. I told you everything," he said. "You stalk me. And I do a bunch of stuff. I like to do Academic Decathlon, which is, in case you don't know, trivia and maths and fact competitions at school. Which is fun. My best friend and I went bowling over the winter, and we want to keep doing that since we found a way to keep getting high-scores. I don't know, I guess that counts as a hobby. I exercise. I - oh! Lego!" he laughed. "Lego is cool. Speaking of my friend, we built this super sick Lego Death Star from Star Wars last year. We rebuild it when we can, since we can't afford to buy more Star Wars Lego sets, but I really, really want one. Like, desperately. Or five. I'm saving money for it."

He secured a hand and flipped over, lowering himself down until he was hanging again only by one arm. Frank was looking at him weirdly. "I like to take photographs when I'm out as Spider-Man, too. On my phone."

Peter glanced down and met the man's eyes. Frank was standing there with such a weird expression, it was setting Peter off slightly. His lips were twisted in a slight, subtle smile. His eyes, though. His eyes were bright.

"What is it?" Peter asked, eyebrows furrowed.

The man shrugged.

There was still something light on his face, a glimmer in his eyes. Peter couldn't place it. He looked less burdensome, like this.

Here was Peter, and he was breaking himself against the stones of a man who had hardened long ago, and he was finding rare moments of a person underneath. Call him naive. He wasn't a monster. Peter had been thinking long and hard about that one. Throwing out his old assessment, his hard-earned hesitance.

A monster wouldn't be doing this to make sure Peter stayed safe from an invisible enemy. He was just a terrible man.

Peter couldn't help but make jokes. Act like nothing was wrong. Stay on the uncomfortable middle ground they had built. He lost his entire family. He - he was kind of like Peter, in a sense. Didn't make it right, but it made it something. A feeling surged up in his gut, one he couldn't put a name on. He pushed it down. No time to think about it.

Bad man. Still a bad man.

Shaking away the moment, he dropped down to the couch, stretching his legs. Didn't want to look at those eyes anymore. Appetite forgotten, he placed the remaining apple core on top of the crate like an art piece, and left it there. He could display things too. Didn't have to be guns.

"Stay there. No crawling like a spider. Do not move your ass from that fuckin' spot," grumbled Frank.

"Did I surprise you?" Peter said cheerfully. "I need to do that more, I-" All of a sudden, Peter heard a noise outside. He veered his head towards the direction of the van and the garage door, and quickly, spoke in shock - "Frank, someone's-"

"Frank!" shouted a stranger wrathfully, slamming a hand against the shutter like Peter had. It reverberated around the room.

Peter unintentionally found himself clutching the arm of the couch with his nails. 

Was it an enemy?

"It's Curtis. This better be the right spot, because swear to God, this is the third place I've been to. Frank!"

"Someone's here," finished Peter, wide-eyed. 

Chapter Text

"Frank!" the male voice called again. 

Peter lifted his knees part-way to his chest and clawed onto the side of couch. His legs hung there, debating.

Careful. Unstable.

He was unsure whether launching himself backwards and vaulting behind the furniture for some misguided protection from the unknown was the best plan, or if retracting into a Peter-sized ball that was one with the torn leather and sinking into it like an invisible chameleon was better. Blending in. There were no cushions like the couch at the apartment. He wouldn't have much of a chance at hiding. 

Or he could shoot himself upwards.

The ceiling was always in play. Climb the elevator shaft. Venture into the gross, disgusting sewer that was possible a labyrinth he would have to escape from. Three entrances, three exits. 

His face was uncovered, his face - was - uncovered. Oh, no.

He was just Peter, here. He was even dressed in his favourite hoodie, now slightly crumpled and creased.

"Shit," said the voice outside, tutting. Peter silently agreed.

He rushed to pull up his hood over his head with two hands for good measure, but he knew it was futile. It could be the cops, he thought. Cops! Or it could be an enemy. The beginning of a shootout. He was in Frank Castle's base, sitting on his couch. There was evidence on the burner phone that he was supposed to be there. Invited, actually.

And for a secret, secure location to have a stranger knocking against one of the doors, it felt appropriate to panic. His heart felt like shooting up his throat and his blood pressure rose to unprecedented heights.

His eyes searched Frank standing there, and it was only the subtle shift in his stance from tense to loose that made Peter feel slightly better about the situation, but still trapped exactly where he did not want to be. It meant it wasn't cops. More likely - it was another murderer.

They met eyes. Peter tried to plead with him through his gaze how much he really, really didn't want him to open it.

"I shouldn't be here," he cautioned, hackles raising. "I need to leave. Now."

"Relax, kid," he said lowly. "Stay there."

"I don't-"

"Stay."

"No, don't. I'm not a dog, Frank-" he was saying, but the man had turned towards the shutter and was pacing towards it. "I don't have a mask on. I can't-" Peter cut himself off when the garage door rolled upwards at Frank's hand and daylight spilled in. Spluttering, he quickly scooched backwards into the far corner of the old couch to place some minimal distance between the intimidating shutter and himself. "I hate you so frickin' much. I can't believe you, you-"

“Took your damn time, Frank,” said the stranger's voice, as he sauntered inside.

Frank himself raised his hands, as if to say he couldn’t care less. Wash his hands of it.

And then Peter had eyes on the visitor. 

The man was wearing a navy shirt and tie, buzz dark cut hair with a silver watch that contrasted his skin, and smooth, bootcut jeans. He got his first glimpse when they roamed slowly passed the black van, heads turned towards each other, coming further into the industrial hideout.

On first impression, Peter thought the man who entered looked as if he was preparing for a lengthy gruelling journey - a leather bag on his back, another in canvas under his armpit, a hefty dark green case clutched in one of his hands and two others on the other side. He was carrying the lighter weight worse for some reason, Peter noted, tucking it closer to his chest for balance.

If Frank glowering next to him was a bruised and rugged thing, eyes always searching - this man who had just arrived was the opposite, even with all his luggage. 

Orderly. Like someone who should be on the opposite side of the law, someone Peter would see in the NYPD.  Or so Peter thought.

Perhaps he really was a weapons dealer, some deceiving criminal mastermind, and Peter was the fool for thinking him anything but a grimy underground associate who had risen to a level where he could banter freely with The Punisher. Looks could be deceiving.

Yikes.

“I had to take my time, you know. Make the place look good for you,” Frank said, and slapped him harshly on the back. It didn’t affect the stranger at all. He took it in his stride. 

“Man, take a shower. You stink something bad,” he said casually.

“You find the place okay?”

“Know fine well I didn’t. Scared the hell out of a pensioner the block over who assumed I was there to clean the house out. Shit, man -  I apologised for the wrong address after knocking and walking on my way, but her son tracked me from the window ‘till I was gone. And I’m blaming you for that hassle, Frank.”

“Better work on your orienteering, then.”

“Address would be good. Or better yet, how about co-ords instead of your directions?”

They walked closer whilst they spoke, the shutter still open to the world. Peter wanted to retreat. If he ran now, would he be noticed?

And if he was noticed, would he still be able to escape without causing more problems further down the line?

“I can deal with old ladies,  but-” the stranger continued, and then stopped. 

Halted there, across from the couch.

Whatever jovial energy he was exuding, Peter watched it dissipate before his eyes as he finally locked gazes with Peter cowering into the backrest, no longer blocked from view by a standing pillar, backlit by the pale daylight of New York. 

Peter stared back. Gave him a little wave, like a dumbass, hoodie sleeve pulled over his fingers. 

Mr. Stark, give him confidence.

“Frank,” the stranger said tactfully. Emotions shifted on his face. He wasn't good at hiding them, Peter thought. The man looked shocked, wide-eyed, then disappointed. His face curled into a slight frown. 

Peter didn’t know what revealing expression he himself was wearing, but it was more than likely one of fear and confusion. He tried to mask it with a wobbly smile. Act casual.

Peter could totally try to act casual, but he was terrible at it, too. Frank had no such qualms. 

The Punisher collapsed onto the other end of the couch by Peter’s feet with a heaving lazy sigh, kicking his legs up onto the crate and sinking backwards. Weight of the world on his exposed shoulders. Rolling his head, ignoring the dilemma -  to Peter’s own chagrin. He glanced at Peter’s apple by his boot with disdain.

“Finish that apple, kid," he said. "Or I make a sandwich.”

“Frank,” said the stranger again warily, shifting the boxes and the bag straps over his arms. He was the image of a steady pillar in a storm. Glancing quickly between the two of them sitting, with narrowed eyes. “You didn’t.” He lowered the boxes and bags stiffly to the ground by his feet, and when he returned to full height, he looked even more furious at Frank.

“I’ve got cans,” Frank continued, ignoring him and throwing an arm over the backrest. “Canned sweetcorn, tuna. Spam. Got some beef jerky packets hidin’ somewhere. Can’t promise fine dining, but shit, it’ll do. If you want take-out tonight Curt, you gotta get that shit yourself. Kid stays here. Me, I ain’t waltzing into a Viet place for some fucking Pho just to have more cops on my ass.”

The stranger, who must be Curt, was still staring. “Stop ignoring me,” he said. “Frank, tell me you didn’t. This isn’t what I think it is. Who I think it is.”

Peter gulped. “Um. Hi?” he said.  “Sorry. I don’t know who you are either, Mr. uh, Curt. I just got here.”

Frank snorted, and Peter was tempted to kick him off the couch.

“Frank.”

“Curt,” Frank grunted. “Meet the kid. No, you’re still not getting his name yet. Safety first. Kid, meet Curt. He’s a friend of mine from service. Way back. Old as dog years, but still barking. You can trust him with your life. Shit, I certainly do,” he huffed. “Took us-”

“Stop ignoring me, Frank.” Curt raised his voice, treading a thin line that veered towards carefully concealed anger.

“I ain’t ignoring you. That what it sound like?” he said sarcastically. “You want me to lay it out for you? Seems plain as day to me what’s happenin’.”

“I want you to tell me that this isn’t who you were talking about, Frank.”

“Can’t do that.”

“He’s - what, twelve?”

“Doesn’t matter. Kid is old enough, ain’t he?”

Old enough? Peter thought he was so sure that Peter wasn’t old enough at all. That was what had mattered to him weeks ago. Maybe it was a statement he didn’t believe. Maybe Peter had convinced him to change his mind.

“Wait a minute-” he said, panic rising to a crescendo as the words were processed in his brain, filed into their separate sections. 

He was the elephant in the room. They were talking about him.

“You told him about me?” he exclaimed in disbelief, raising himself off his seat slightly.

No. Way.

“Dude,” he said, feeling like shit. “So not cool.”

For some reason, it was that jabbing, aching knife in his gut that was irritating. Betrayal. Sudden betrayal. It wasn’t a nice feeling. This person knew about him. Knew about Peter being here, and Frank had - no, he must have talked about him behind his back. Had to have. Peter didn't tell Mr. Stark about Frank. 

Was there some moral standing to be found there? Some petty or false honourable action in keeping The Punisher a secret and expecting the same in return?

It was where Peter's mind went to - the unfairness, the fact that they weren't playing by the same rules anymore, rules that Peter had made up in his head. He kept it quiet from Mr. Stark. Either way, he was offended. Secretly, though. He'd never say it out loud, because he already knew it seemed childish compared to all of their previous conversations. If he called unfair, Frank would probably tell him life wasn't fair, and then laugh at him.

He was sixteen. He wasn't a child. He was just a young adult.

Curt was surprised to see him. But not as surprised as Peter was to see Curt. At least his sense of danger was silent, and as calm as a still lake. That was a positive.

It prevented him from running away and overreacting with good conscience. 

“What did you tell him about me? I thought the kidnapping was a joke, but if - if this is really how it’s gonna go, you know I’m gonna kick you. Hard. I’ll do it. I’ll climb up the elevator shaft and escape. You know you can't stop me. You can’t keep me-”

“Calm down. He doesn’t know anything,” interrupted Frank. “Curt here was a field medic, and is a good friend of mine. Saved countless lives, instead of taking 'em. All I asked him to do today was come down here and meet you and talk about plugging up knife wounds. You need it. He doesn’t know anything about you, kid.”

Peter was still confused. Curt was here for - what? 

“He didn’t even know I was coming?” said Curt incredulously, scoffing. “Frank!”

“Pleasure.”

“Frank,” hissed Peter. “I told you I don’t agree with this. I’m not- I don’t want to-” Peter clenched and unclenched the arm of the couch. No way. No way. Peter refused to take handouts from Frank Castle. “I don’t want this, Frank.”

“No. I think you do. You’re a nerd. You like to learn. You just don’t want it from a big baddie like me, fine,” he said. “Curtis is a good man. I’m proud of him, the work he does. He’ll teach you first aid.”

“My - um. I know a nurse. I'm good. She taught me everything I would need."

“Kid," Frank said seriously. Peter frowned. "I'm not askin' here."

“So, what? You think you can make me?"

“Now, hold on-” said Curt.

“Can’t do shit to make you stay,” Frank said plainly, and Peter didn’t like it, because he was expecting another threat, a fight, something he could win and push him away, walk out of here with his enhanced strength and say ‘I told you so, loser!’.

"So you admit it," Peter tried. "You're weak. Too weak to stop me."

Frank clenched and unclenched his jaw, but his voice was steady and unphased, despite it. "That's right. But you're stayin'"

“Fuck you," Peter bit. "Put that in your - your swear jar. You set me up. Coward.

Frank grunted affirmatively. 

"Frank!" said Curt. "Would you give it up, already?"

"Yeah, yeah, you're a coward and you tricked me, asshole. You couldn't even tell me to my face."

But nothing stuck. The jabs fell flat. Frank shrugged. He didn't seem to care.

Peter couldn't make the flame catch.

He sank back in his seat and looked at his hands instead of the faces looking into his soul and seeing him like this, after his words were followed by a brief moment of silence. He could hear himself playing back, on recorded tape rolling again and again in his mind. And if Aunt May heard him acting like this, shame tumbling within him and kicking off like a spoilt brat, she would be so incredibly disappointed in him.

"Doors wide open, kid. Walk out if you think it's the right thing to do," Frank said lowly, and unusually passive. "But are you really goin' to skip out on shit you've always wanted?"

"I don't want it. You don't know me."

"We playin' the lying game today?" he continued, rolling his head and his dark eyes finally looked into Peter's own, head nodding mockingly. But his voice was still at a slow tempo. Mellow. Comfortable. "Well Curt here, see, he's a real ass. Came all this way to stand there like his head is screwed on backwards to torture you with, uh, fuckin' torniquets and splints and IFAK refills 'till you've lost it, kid. They pack a real punch-"

"Stop it, Frank!" said Curt.

"-and we're all doing it to fuck with you. Because I want to scare you with foil blankets," he continued. "I want you blind. I want you hurt. Curt, string him up already."

So, there were no guns in the bags. No weapons, no ammo. Medical supplies.

A wave of something like defeat washed over Peter.

He really was making a big deal out of something, from anybody else, he would have adored. It would be so important to know if he wanted to save more lives as Spider-Man.

He pulled his hoodie lower over his hair. “I don’t want-,” he relented, swallowing. His shifting panic clearly swerved Curt’s attention back towards him. “I don’t want to do this.”

“And you - you don’t have to. Jesus, Frank. No one in here is expecting you to,” said Curt sternly, firmly. Peter wondered what he was thinking of the pair of them. “We’re going to talk, and calm down a bit. Alright? And hopefully get some answers. An explanation of what is going on. For all of us.” At least he was rational. Taken off guard as much as Peter was.  

Peter liked him.

“Let’s start with this. Figure out what’s happening. Are you okay, kid?”

“Um,” said Peter. “Sorry, what?”

“Are you feeling okay?” Curt raised shoulders, petulant towards Frank, lowered as he turned back to place his full concern on Peter. “You’re safe?”

It made him squirm under the added attention. 

Curt raised a hand to brush over the centre of his own face. “Did he do this to you?” he said seriously. “You can tell me. I promise. Say the word, and I take you home. Or I can bring you somewhere else, if you are in danger. Away from here.”

“Oh, come off it Curt,” Frank drawled. “Really?”

“Did he?” he continued, sending the man a glare. “Does he know who you really are? And whether you did it or not, did you even give him ice?"

Peter, puzzled, copied the movement and raised a hand to his own face, and recalled the large bruising across his nose and over his cheeks from his fall earlier in the day, still tender and sore. 

His eyes widened. Oh, crap. He looked as terrible as the bruised man beside him, face yellowing like a lemon.

“Oh, no!” Peter said, chuckling with a strained voice. He waved his hands placatingly. “It wasn’t Frank. Not this time, ha. Ha. This doesn’t even hurt anymore. I, uh,  I fell off-”

“Ice pack?” Frank hissed, shaking his head. “He’ll be fine, he’s got worse. I ain’t wastin-”

“-down, I meant down the stairs. Clumsy me fell down the stairs, and it-”

“-fuck all on him that he don’t need. He’ll live. You think he needs, uh, ice?”

“-will be okay, don’t worry! It feels fine and my-"

"-kid is fine. He's not wastin' my supplies."

"-nose isn't broken for once!"

They spoke over one another, opposite ends of the couch, Peter’s high-pitched tones and Frank’s irritated grumbling clashed, disjointed and scraping, and Peter noticed that they also cut one another off.

He dropped his hands, and tightened his lips.

It left an awkward silence in its wake. One that Curt observed without speaking. 

His gaze flickered between the two of them again.

Frank’s arm was casually stretched along the top of the backrest of the couch and close to Peter’s head -  perhaps, Peter considered suddenly, not casual at all. Coiled like a spring, disguising high-strung reactivity as laziness. His own sneakers nearly touched the man’s legs, horizontal across the seat. The half-eaten apple in front of him.  Taken from Frank's supplies.

Realising the poor image it made, Peter swung his legs around and placed them on the floor swiftly, sitting on the back of his hands to stop himself from fidgeting. 

Dammit.

“I’m fine,” he said. The medic was probably safer than Frank Castle. He seemed kind. Seemed to care about Peter’s well-being, stranger to stranger.  “Really, Mr. Curt.”

“Okay,” Curt said slowly. Peter felt like he had made a terrible first impression. 

"It's nice to meet you," Peter said. "All things considered. Um. This place is pretty crap, isn't it?"

He kicked the back of his heel against the couch, and a tiny plume of dust rose from it. He was starting to feel nauseous, and it got worse when Curt ignored him and cut straight to;  “Frank. I should speak with you. Alone.”

"What?"

They were staring at each other, Curt with his folded arms in the centre of his luggage, and Frank splayed on the couch. Peter didn't want them to do that. They were totally going to talk about him. It was like Mr. Stark and Aunt May's secret club all over again. He still didn't know if he was going to stay or leave.

It was a something niggling at his brain, a ticking clock against his conscious. When he finds himself in a difficult position, Peter thought, with injured civilians and he needed a doctor, wouldn't it be better to know these skills in advance? And technically, it wasn't The Punisher. It was this man called Curt. Maybe he was already convinced of it when he first heard it. It was okay.

Right?

Curt strayed towards the garage doors and looked backwards with a raised eyebrow, and the man beside Peter groaned as if the request was larger than it was. "I ain't moving."

"I can step outside if you need privacy." Peter interjected. "I can go, and maybe keep walking home-"

Frank then pulled himself upwards, something cracking, and jerked his head at Curt back towards the garage door. "No," he said. "Stay there. And eat."

Peter hunched his shoulders and watched them carefully, as they walked back the way they came. Guess he was just supposed to wait. Like a dog.

"Roll the window down," he muttered to himself, frustrated. "Get me a pup cup."

He saw Frank hesitate by the door, and thought he was about to change his mind, or as if he had heard him. Say something to him. A warning to stay, or a bid to leave, ask him to join in the conversation.

But the man instead turned back to swing open the van door. He leaned inside, and flicked on the radio. It blasted music  around the garage, reverberating in Peter’s ears. A pop song. A radio presenter speaking of the singer, the crackle and hiss of a bad signal. It was obnoxiously loud and thrumming. 

He sent one last knowing glance at Peter. Warning him not to listen to their conversation, Peter thought. So he gave him the finger, and stuck out his tongue. Frank gave him one back. An even trade. 

And then he was out the door, and pulled the shutter down until it clattered, and Peter was under the low ceiling in Frank’s base.

Alone.

With the rack of guns and the rusty elevator shaft and the mattress, whatever that said about Frank fooling himself into thinking Peter would stay still and not investigate the private space around him, now that he was the solitary inhabitant. Their footsteps faded away until they truly were outside of Peter's hearing range. Frank had guessed correctly. Any closer, and he would hear exactly what they were discussing.

Well, Peter could do one petty better. He could mess with the man's things.

He waited a few moments, and when he knew they weren't turning straight back around, he rose to his feet. What an idiot, he thought. Peter could leave at any time, if he felt like it, flippant and lively. Idiot, idiot. He plucked the apple back into his hand and took another chunk out of it with his teeth.

Peter went to do some snooping.

It had been nearly fifteen minutes since he had arrived. Without more people to occupy it, the base was hauntingly creepy. The soul of it had left. He couldn't joke about the practical nature of it as easily, when facing off the wall of weapons, but he could at least hum reasonably loudly to the music on the radio and ignore the fear they sparked in his gut, the pipe he knocked his shin against and swore, the colour. It definitely needed paint, maybe a blue. And some red. But would the man ever spend money on paint? Nope. Peter circled the place again, tracing his fingers over some crates.

He chose one of them and ducked to look under the lid. Pantry. Tins, bags, packets. The food Frank had been talking about. And there must be a freezer nearby somewhere, Peter thought to himself, where he kept there rest.

No vegetarian food. Not likely. And there probably wasn't chocolate ice cream he could snag from the freezer, either.

Meandering around the garage, Peter took his time to turn over every inch of the place with his eyes, stopping at points of interest and picking his fingernail against some of the posters on the wall. He whistled to the tune of the radio as he made his way towards the one area Frank had not briefly introduced to him, sectioned off in the corner. It resembled an office. He peeked around the side of the glass-panelled partition. 

There, a handful of monitors hung in place. One was smashed. A computer sat perched on a long, curved wooden desk beside a rickety plastic stand. A foldable chair, clearly used well if the red colour of it had leeched as much as it did. But his eyes immediately jumped to the long police radio system on a shorter table next to it, dwarfing the wood and nearly hanging off the end as if he couldn't find a bigger table to fit the sheer size of it.

"Woah!" he whispered to himself in shock. Frank had a whole system hidden away!

It was three times the size of his own measly scrap invention, countless knobs dotting the black surface, and coils attached to a radio speaker hung on the side and curled over the top. Two layers. He had never seen something like it - well, he probably had when he was younger with Uncle Ben, who had sat him in the front seat of his police car when he was very young for a few minutes on a tour day. But that was tiny. Like, the size of an actual radio. This was huge. Peter walked over to it in awe, and placed his hands on either end of the system. It was like holding his hands out to play a keyboard, except each frequency was tapped into the crime of New York.

His fingers, over the network of his home.

It was incredible. He was feeling peeved that the man hadn't shown him this first, because he was lifting off his heels in excitement to get his hands on the thing. Making sure it had power, he carefully turned one of the switches on, and a red glow emitted the frequency. He twisted the volume up until it was audible.

"-waiting on you for 10-28."

"-working now-"

"-we'll be detecting for quality roughness, uh, being told on who that was, charging a case number."

"-copy."

Oh, if he only had a screwdriver, he could totally take off the side panelling in two seconds and check inside and scour the thing from top to toe. Frank wouldn't know the difference. He just wanted to see how it ticked. 

"Where do you keep them, Frank," he muttered to himself, spinning around to face the security computer. He went to check the desk, seeing if he had anything that could twist open a screw lying around. Tools, tools, tools.

But he quickly became distracted by something else. The posters on the wall. Particularly, the pictures Frank had hung over the table and surrounding his computer. Peter had been avoiding looking too closely at the criminal profiles Frank taped around the garage. He hadn't wanted to see. But these were different. They had no human faces, no scribbled marks or descriptions. No people.

No marks for a hunt.

He noticed that instead, he had photographs of a building. Angles, the interior and the exterior. Plans. And an article that described the award the casino had won when it opened in it's very first year. He leaned closer to read it, placing his hands on the desk to peer at the tiny font as it described celebrating the establishment. He skimmed over it, catching the name of the proud owner and supervisor of the building years ago, someone called Steven Barrucci, and the name of the place itself.

The Elysian Casino, it was called.

Huh.

Peter had never heard of it.

But why was it important enough to be placed front and centre, right by the computer?

Gripped by the urge to investigate, he took the mouse of the computer and shimmied it, but it only brought up a screen for a password unlock. Which he didn't know. He wouldn't find anymore information through the device, he realised. He glanced back up at the photographs of the casino.

"-prepare to copy, westbound on 1-90, suspect unregistered in 2004 Ford Fiesta, two vehicle collision, one collar took off- "

Driven by a whim of both curiosity and meddling - Peter took out his phone to snap his own photographs of the article.

.

.

.

Outside, the two of them huddled by a road sign and dented electrical box, veered off the side of an trash-filled alleyway - and typical as always, his friend had questions about Pete.

Frank didn't like being this exposed.

He wasn't even wearing a fucking sweater, standing on the street corner like a maniac who couldn't watch his own six and twelve at the same time. But if it looked like overkill to Curt, it was the bare minimum of wary for super-hearing shits like the kid, and not even within breathing room for someone crazy like Red, so it had to be done. He could suck it up. 

He'd suck it up.

"You've done it now," Curt said firmly, closely. Frank folded his arms. "I want to know why he's with you. I want to know if he knows who you are. This is insane, Frank -  I, I thought you were through with this after Amy."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he said in disbelief. What was he implying? "What - what are you even fuckin' talkin' about?"

"This, Frank!" said Curt like he was a minute away from jumping him. "The guy. You said guy, not kid. Did you pick him up on the side of the road, like that other one? Find him in the middle of nowhere in some slum alley, that bruise on his face, and stick your nose into his business, too? I thought you were talking about an officer, or a grown man in danger, or a contact of yours - this, this is a kid, Frank. And not just a kid. Not like Amy, not a college kid," he said, shaking his head. "This is a child. An actual child. Nearly gave me a heart attack. Thanks for that."

"Don't tell me shit I already know," he said. "I know he's a kid, Curt." 

Frank wasn't blind.

"Am I getting anything out of this at all, or should I give up now?" argued the man. Frank respected that. Curt left him alone when he needed to be alone, to get shit done. "Because something in my gut is telling me this is the bullshit you said didn't exist. I agreed to train an adult. Some rando, we said. You are shit-magnet supreme, Frank. "

"Pl-"

"Pleasure, yeah, I know," he said. "At least give me something to work with. Something about this hole you started digging. So I know you're not hoarding a kid in your base and teaching him tactical medicine so he can do some of your dirty work."

"Like what?"

"Who knows, Frank," he said. "Is he a hostage for a plan of yours? Need him to get to the big bad you were telling me about?"

"He's already the hostage," Frank spat. "And he's too young and reckless and far too fuckin' smart to think for a second that he is being used. He is a good guy. Need tac-med training. That's it. Story hasn't changed. Same old. He's just -  younger, that's all."

"Since when did you meet him?"

"Not too long ago," Frank said gruffly. "Honestly, I barely know the kid."

"'Course, right, yeah. Yeah," Curt said. "I'm getting absolutely nothing of the truth out of you."

"I ain't lying, am I? I I just met him recently."

"Doubtful."

"Doesn't matter what you believe. We should be talking shop, not this bullshit," Frank said, deciding to ignore him. "Let me do my thing, Curt. Let me do me. And you do you. That's what we agreed on. Forget about behind the scenes. Just, hell, would you just show him some stuff that would save his life, would you? Christ. Make it easy on us both. Make it easy, Curt."

It wasn't easy.

Frank took another three minutes to convince him not to abandon ship, convincing and winding his way around the topic like it was on fire and he was stamping down the flames itching and biting his legs. Remembering when he used to spend half his time placating people around him, so he could be given the go-ahead to do his goddamn job.

The world needed people who don't talk and yap about the problem 'till it's dead in the water. Frank knew that intimately, secretly, in his bones. Knew it as well as the tune of a merry-go round that woke him up every night. It needed people like him, unbound, who don't agree to play dollhouse and tea-time with bureaucracy. People who thought for themselves, and didn't follow orders.

That was who he had become.

The hoops he was jumping through for this kid. Pain in his side. Annoying jokes. Annoying kid, glued to him out of misplaced honor against the crimes of the Punisher. Spunk and humor and irritation in one. Trying to feed him and he lets that shit go to waste. Trying to help him, bury the guilt in duty, and he thinks he's trying to kill him. He told Curt it was one and done. By the next day, he could go home and forget all about it, he told him.

"I won't be the fall guy for this," Curt had said. "You can dig your own holes."

Frank agreed. He was still trying to keep the man out of it all. The less he knew about the kid, the better a chance he would miss any repercussions that came from being near the kid. Frank was doing it all beneath the gaze of a billionaire he still didn't have enough info on.

Eventually, they strode back to base. Shoulder to shoulder. His brother in arms. At least he agreed to come along. Frank heaved the shutter upwards expecting to see the same old shitty room, empty, with the same walls and the same fucking chip in the sink. 

Kid said he would run. Frank thought a coin toss would decide it. Usually, he was ballsy enough to try.

But there he was. Colour him surprised. Still wrapped within his own arms at the end of the couch like he really was a bruised up, feardy middle-schooler and not the little sixteen year-old spider-freak Frank saw. No wonder Curt was pissed off about it. Frank was the same when he first saw the kid. He was too thin. Too scrawny.

Too skittish. But good. Very good.

The boy blinked at them as they entered, scanning the faces, hoodie up and brown eyes piercing. Trying to get a read on who stands where, who said what, Frank thought. Not happening. Frank wasn't going to give him that lifeline. Throw him into the deep end with Curt and let him swim. That was his motto with his own kids. This was the first baby-step with reaching out to the boy. If he couldn't do this, Frank was chipping away at absolutely nothing. It was a lost-cause.

He whipped open the van door and turned that radio back off, watching Curt walk forward and kneel down in front of the kid to whisper something to him, wary of Frank hovering behind them.

If he didn't take to this now, he thought, he'd never take to the other plans. And Frank always had other plans.

Decidedly, he marched onwards to get some of his shit out of storage, stuff rucksack in his grip, and moved pointedly towards the public bathroom in the corner.

It was time to get the show on the road.

"Curt will show you the ropes," Frank threw out, lifting a broken pallet-base under his other arm. The two heads turned towards him, interrupted from whatever secret shit they were whispering about. "I'm taking a shower."

And he twisted it around and shoved it in front of the hallway to the bathroom, a makeshift barrier to block off monster and man, and shook it to make sure it was secure. He had never needed a door there before. Wasn't exactly the kind of place to bring guests, feed them, have them lounging about. It was nowhere near a home.

It gave him some space, at the very least. He left them to it.

Frank moved down the hall and turned on the lights, squinting at the dark cubicles reflecting a deep green and shining, far too brightly, into his eyes. The cracked tiles. The hose. The mirror. He brought his rucksack over to the sinks and threw it into one, placing his hands on the thick counter and stared into the shattered mirror to look for something he didn't know about, something he couldn't find. Took a breath, chest moving up and down. Proving the Punisher was still alive, even if Frank Castle was six feet under. He was hoping Curt would jump on teaching the kid right away.

He didn't see a chain with his wedding ring around his neck, it was bare - and a moment came of the world turning upside down and the dead rising with a cry and gravestones that whispered to him, until he realised where he was again.

But it came and went quick. Quick as a bullet. Like always.

They were dead. He was that fucking fool, that stupid idiot, who always forgot.

The ring was long gone. Lost.

Frank slapped his chest with a grunt and kept at it.

He hoisted the white vest over his head to toss it lazily onto the tile, taking a knife and cutting back any of the dressing he had left underneath across his chest, carving and peeling the layers back until it was waste on the ground next to him. Took his time. Counted numbers in his head. Routine meant sanity, sanity meant he could keep going. He stripped and did the rest, exposing skin and cut and bruise and feeling and rawness in one go, and pulled down the hose to unwind it from where he had placed it earlier.

Then he took a long, cold shower.

Frank spent a long time, far more than he usually would, hosing himself down and then towelling himself off. Didn't usually need more than a minute. Cold showers on tour. Hot showers at the house with Maria. Better to have a distinction between the two.

He re-dressed his wounds and pulled back on the same pair of pants but let the shirt go, thought better of covering it when he needed to air it out for a little longer. He filled up one of the sinks that still worked and shaved his face, scraping away any stubble, rough, maybe too rough, and then watched the drain empty in a spiral of thoughts.

Ignoring the ones that said he was making a mistake, that gnawed at him every time he heard a whiny voice call him Frank and not Mr. Castle. Him and his little hobbies. His sports, his high-school games and the fraying normal life he had despite everything of the child solider that Frank saw in him.

Bullshit. What did Frank know, what did he really know?

He barley knew the kid. He was doing this for absolvement. He was doing it because someone had to step up to the goddamn mark. For Lisa and Frank Jr. He was the necessary evil doing the chore of fixing this problem.

Fuck all. He knew fuck all.

And he didn't get to see his own grow up, and didn't that destroy his soul, tear him a new one, all bloody and painful, every single day.

When Frank finally finished, towel on his shoulders and head fuller than usual, and he shimmied the pallet away from the enclosed space - he knew at once he had made the right choice.

There, Curt was sitting on the floor of the garage. His jeans on one side were rolled up to the knee, revealing his prosthetic, but it didn't appear to be the centre of the kids attention. Not anymore, although it must have been at one point. Star of the show for the nerd. Curt had probably showed it off in full display. He had an open expression on his face, and gave Frank a nod as he returned.

He had clearly opened his med-kit. It lay strewn across the ground, gauze and winding rope and packets of chest seals taken out. The larger bag had been unzipped, and inside Frank could barely see the arm of a med dummy, hiding inside. The other bag still hid more gear, more than likely.

Shit. His friend came real prepared. That was good. That was exactly what Frank liked to see.

The kid, though. What a sight. Never so quiet.

Pete had his tongue out between his lips, legs crossed. Hunched over. He was glee and joy and intense focus rolled in one, pulling a face as he carefully threaded a needle through a goddamn banana. He even had some nitrile gloves on, although they were slightly too big for his fingers, folded over on the top of them like a last-ditch effort for a fit. Looks like he took to Curt like a duck to water.

Suturing skills. Huh.

Frank remembered the harsher days when he learned to do that, and spilled far more blood than he needed to. He learned on his own skin, enflamed and doused in alcohol. Frank was still pretty shit at doing his own stitches.

A banana, though, that was a smart choice. Fuck, it wasn't just smart. It was funny as hell.

He stifled a smirk. 

"Thought you would start at the urgent shit," he said lazily, seriously, crossing the floor. He dropped off his rucksack and went to get the chair from the security desk. Didn't need to have Curt hurting himself on the ground. Kid would be fine.

"Suturing doesn't matter if you bleed out before you get a good needle. Start with compressions, maybe. Thought you were Navy SARC, not a hospital corpsman."

He did a double-take at the police radio system on his way out.

Well, there was his theory of Pete not moving shot. Shot to shitty pieces. One of the dials was in the wrong place. Sighing, he fixed it, and continued to move the chair back out onto the floor. It wasn't the end of the world. It was on the side for public frequencies. He hadn't messed with the tactical encrypted servers for police missions.

Not that Frank could tell. Little did the shit know.

"Same difference. Don't be a dick," said Curt. He stood up and stretched, taking the chair. "I need you to be honest for a second. Do we need to cover diving?"

Diving. Of course he would ask. 

As a medic and SARC, Curtis had worked alongside Frank's platoon.

Typically, only one was assigned per platoon, and Frank was unlucky enough to get his ass. Not only did he do combat trauma care, but more often than not, the SARC was assigned as a paramedic to cover military freefall, diving, and Frank's favourite - parachuting. He knew how to cover oxygen toxicity to decompression sickness, and anything to do with reconnaissance that involved them throwing themselves out of something and into something else.

Classic Marine recon.

Combatant diving and parachute entry were key to SARC knowledge. It's why they were always assigned to MARSOC operations. It's why he was asking Frank.

Pete didn't even look at him. He as glued to the task as if one slip of his fingers would kill his patient.

"No," Frank said, then thought about it. Well, the kid threw himself off buildings every day. Couldn't hurt. "Maybe," he said instead.

"Damn. I won't ask why."

"So you're starting with the banana, huh?"

"He wanted to," Curt replied. "We'll get onto everything else in a minute. Don't we have time?"

Time. That was the exact thing none of them had. Frank didn't let himself have time. Wouldn't dream of it. He had to keep chugging like an engine. But this wasn't about him right now. It was about Pete being comfortable with Curt, and actually learning something for once so he wouldn't die where Frank couldn't stop him, couldn't step in.

"Suppose it depends on you, bug," he said after a moment, looking at Pete. The boy took a second to delay, tying a knot, and then his head shot upwards with wide-eyes. That hair of his was getting longer, Frank thought. Hung over his face.

"Huh?" he said, like a squeaky mouse. "Um, what?"

"Was askin' if we have time," Frank repeated, huffing. "That banana gonna make it?"

Pete was still looking at him funny. Like earlier, when it was just the two of them there. Strange kid. 

"Yeah," he said after a pause, nodding quickly. Then his smile came back out, like the sun. "The banana will live. I think. And, um, I can stay until curfew."

"You heard him," Frank said to Curt, who looked curious but kept his mouth quiet. Good. "You've got until curfew to fill his head full of knowledge, you hear?"

"Hear hear. When is curfew?"

Frank shrugged. 

"Mr. Curt, do you know any good jokes?" Pete said suddenly, showing him his stitches. "Franks are really bad. Also, will the banana actually be okay or is it too, um, like, messy? I feel like it's less 'life-saving care' and more 'art project'. And I did some sowing before, once, but I actually messed up the bag we were told to make and it turned out more like a hat. Like, there's not really robotics or chemistry involved, so it's totally different, and-"

Frank tuned it out, and went to go make a sandwich for the kid.

"-my hands are actually steady from that, and I tried stitches before on myself but I kept breaking them. Like, my hands were super slippery. There was way too much blood, you know? I totally thought I was dead! But it was fine and I actually got in a lot of trouble for trying it myself - oh. Sorry. Mr. Curt, why are you looking at me like that?"

Scratch that. 

Two fucking sandwiches. 

Chapter Text

Peter sat in the afterschool Academic Decathlon club feeling sorry for himself.

Kind of.

The truth was - he was feeling more sorry for his grades. And his future social life, there-after.

Questions and answers flew across the room. The window was nocked open to let in a breeze, and M.J lounged near it with her question list on a clip-board, back against the wall by the red velvet theatre curtain and negotiating answers with the rest of his Decathlon group packed like sardines on the stage.

Buzzers sounded like knives in the air. To Peter, they were the jarring sounds that signalled the worst moment of his academic life. 

"Bro," Ned gasped when Peter took his turn to shamefully reveal his report-card for the latest semester.

He took it out of Peter's hands as they sat at the old, shorter desks that were forgone from the classrooms, watching the rest of the team. Cindy was also sitting the round out, distracted by her social media by the window, but she paid them no mind with her chin resting on her hand and her fingers flicking against her notebook sheets.

Ned did a double-take. Creased it down the middle under his fingers to get a closer look, and Peter knew then he had to whip the slip of pink paper back out of his hands to avoid any more shameful scrutiny. "Bro."

He would eat it if it meant it disappeared into infinity. Goodbye, the last month of his life. But it wouldn't be that simple to erase. Digital records still existed.

"I know," he cried, bouncing his leg up and down. "You don't need to say anything, Ned!"

"Bro!"

"Dude, I'm actually going to die. Like, literally. I'm dead."

"So dead. Grave-dead."

Not what he wanted to hear.

"Okay, no. Wait. Ned, you're supposed to tell me I'm not dead. Like, you're supposed to say I'll be okay and that everything will be fine, so say it quickly before I start panicking. Say it!" he whispered harshly. "Say it. Please. Make us turn back time to like, a month ago."

Ned seemed like he was already panicking.

"I can't say that, man. That's just a lie. You don't want me to lie. What happened to you?" he cried. "I thought you were weeks ahead of the material?"

"I was! School is, um, it's usually fine for me, like you," he said. "I've just been so busy with the other guy, and some stuff that came up with him, and the internship. You know. The suit was destroyed, and we had to repair it. Buddy is still being built. I want to have a prototype in time for the science fair. And then I haven't been sleeping-"

"Still?" Ned said, gaping. "But wouldn't you just finish all the assignments if you weren't sleeping? Wasn't the deal with your aunt that you had to get good grades to keep, uh, our friend out at night?"

"Yeah," he groaned. That was true, and more.

"I've not been able to focus on anything. It's complicated. And my scholarship also depends on my scores. So I really, really need to be able to figure out a way to catch up on assignments."

Ned cocked his head, all trusting and confused. Remorse filled Peter like a hose in a barrel. There was so much that had changed in such a short amount of time, it was hard to put words to it. Explain it.

It was hard to explain hating someone so much your bones tremble, and then letting that same murderer cover up your mistakes and make you food. Peter knew that.

Frank Castle was still weird. From the very short time since he showed up to the school, to now.

"I still don't get it," Ned said.

"I know. Sorry, man. Congrats on your scores, though."

"Can - can we talk about this?" he said then, and Peter shifted in his seat uncomfortably. The teams on stage were still firing questions at one another, high-fiving, the buzzers sharp and drilling.

If Peter came back to May showing off his lower grades, which had plummeted significantly enough to have a teacher pull him aside the other day to 'talk' to him about it - she was going to be so mad at him. He wouldn't be able to hide it. Mr. Stark will probably tell her as soon as possible, Peter thought to himself grimly.

End of social life. No more sleep, infinitely. No more Spider-Man, whether he was back in the groove of it or not. Peter needed to save this. But how?

The truth was, he was spending far too much time trying to keep up with The Punisher and make sure he didn't kill anyone without Peter being able to stop him. Those nights, even if he did sleep sometimes - well, more than sometimes - took a lot out of him. And then there was the worry over his eyesight, and his future, and...yeah

There was no saving this one. Ever since Frank Castle massacred all those people, it had haunted him. Led him here.

All of his ships were sinking one by one, and this was just the next in line. 

It was funny. In a stupid, high-school way, the Punisher was killing him slowly. 

"I forgot to tell you. I said I would update you after the weekend ended, and I didn't," Peter swallowed. "And then you covered for me with the new phone. Which I'm very grateful for! But maybe, I'm out of my depth with something. Every since I got that injury. Which I need to reveal some stuff to you about. And - and we need to re-hack the new suit."

Suddenly, his phone went off. The wrong one.

Peter looked at Ned with a grimace, and took it out of his pocket.

It could have been urgent. A text, for a stakeout location. A plan to kill.

An invite that meant sitting out on a rooftop or loitering around Frank's base kicking crates and complaining.

"Just trust me for now. I'll explain it all when, uh, I figure it out."

Ned frowned, and Peter could tell he was messing up, but not how or why.

Predictably, Peter checked the messages and found a new one from Frank on the phone. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ned go back to his own report card now that his attention had been fully seized.

Frank. Peter’s last known texts with the man had been about poking fun at the recent news stories, and then talking about the Midtown Science Fair he was excited for coming up in June. If he could still go. And, in other texts, they had also been talking briefly about getting Mr. Curt’s number, since the man had said wanted to meet with Peter again and go through more situational problems for field medicine. 

Which was good, he supposed. Good for Spider-Man. And Peter had, against his own morals for taking handouts from Frank, thoroughly enjoyed himself that day.

Mr. Curt had said that just a quick-stop tour of what he knew was probably ‘lacking’ or whatever, after they had met. To Frank’s obvious and smug triumph over him.

Frank was making Peter now delete their messages every few days because of the additional contact. For safety. For whose safety, Peter didn’t know. Mr. Curt had been happily put into his burner phone under the letter C, and Peter planned to keep it empty unless he was in real serious trouble and needed a doctor that wasn’t at the Tower. But that was really unlikely. Unless the world started to end. Or something like it. What he was really looking forward too was learning more about medicine.

Peter went to check his notifications.

Simply. the message read two words.

You’re dead, it said.  

Oh.

Um. Great, he thought. 

Peter experienced three heart attacks simultaneously before he did a double-take in surprise, read it once more, resigned to his fate, and then crumpled over the top of his desk with a long-drawn out groan, catching Ned's attention again.

“What did I even do now?” he whined into the wood grain. “Are you kidding me?”

Was everyone out to get him, teachers and guardians and vigilantes alike, ticking him off as the target of their ire and annoyance for the week? Would everyone turn on him by the end of the day like a zombie apocalypse?

Suddenly, Peter Parker was being hunted by the world. He might have been dramatic - but his grades were a fresh wound.

Ned looked at the burner phone that was gripped his hand and reached out to pat his back softly in sympathy, still frowning. He'd seen that the phone was for Spider-Man before, but didn't know why and Peter was grateful that he had yet to ask properly. He wasn't pushing him on it. That was his best friend for him. The phone buzzed again. Peter blearily raised his head to squint at the small screen.

Wise up, Parker. You're better than this, it followed up. Peter let out another groan, and dropped his head back down with a thunk. Cindy threw a paper airplane at his head, that he caught in his hand without looking at it. Not raising his head, he tossed it back in her direction.

Impersonal, and vengeful it was this morning, it seemed. 'Parker'. With a degree of choler. Like the doctor ordered.

“Hey man, it’s alright,” Ned said jovially and fully unawares. His eyebrows were furrowed. “Whatever it is with the other guy, it can’t be that bad…?” 

But Peter was already texting back angrily, biting his lip and pressing the keys a little too hard and fully primed to make a stand against this. Did u get out on the wrong side of the bed this morning? he asked. What did fucking I do?? Regards, P.

You know. Own up. Stop cussing.

I will continue to say fuck to spite you, he replied. You said you hate when I text you, and you are texting me. Looks like the tables have turned. I hate you. Best Regards, P.

Frank texted him back straight away. 

You keyed my van. 

Then,

Do you think this is funny.

Best regards, F.

Peter let the shock wash passed him when he realised actually, he was not in trouble at all. Hallelujah.

It’s not your van, he typed smugly. And that wasn’t me. I wouldn’t do that!! Remember the other day when we were above the takeout place that stunk real bad and YOU said it was a sketchy area you were checking out. Did you drive the van there?

No response. Peter grinned.

Hello? Still there? Did you drive your van there and park it?

Are you reading these?

Sometimes, it felt good to be right about things.

I didn't touch it when you left me alone at the base. That would be horrible. I know how much paint jobs cost!!!! May had to get it done once. Sorry about the hassle. 

He could at least sympathise. But did Frank even care about cosmetic things like that, or was he just feeling moody and annoying Peter about it?

Do I get an apology now that I explained myself?

A message came through straight away.

No, said Frank.

He exhaled through his nose, and threw the phone back into his bag, zipping it up. He can't deal with this.

“I might just leave early,” he then said wearily, thinking of how badly he had wanted to jump out of his seat like a rocket and skip back home all day. There was so much he needed to do. 

Ned shot a glance over to the group on the stage, as if Peter was breaking a vital rule and they were being overheard. It was no secret that him leaving Decathalon early would be his usual flakiness. “I’m super behind on assignments right now. I need to speedrun every single subject except Chemistry if I want to catch up.”

"But we'll be switching out with Flash and Abe in a minute," Ned stressed, but Peter had already eyed the clock, the door, and the route out. Flash had two palms hovered over his buzzer, tense and looking at M.J with his tongue out as if he was locked in to the extreme on her questions about the Economics category. 

"Sorry, man. You've seen how bad it is. If I can't concentrate on doing my assignments when I'm out at night, then I just have to cut into the day. See you!"

"Out at night?" Ned said, whipping his head around. "Dude, are you going out to fight crime without the suit-"

But Peter was already slipping out the back door of the school hall, hoping M.J didn't notice him run across the floor with his slip of pink paper crumpled in his hand.

He wouldn't tell May.

Hopefully, by the same time next month, his grades would be back up, and he'd show her those instead.

As long as he didn't mess up with anything else.

.

.

.

Frank was waiting.

He'd been there for three hours and twenty-two minutes. 

"Whatever you did to get the Punisher on your ass - I, I don't want to be part of it," said the first nobody.

"He's not! This is just a coincidence-"

"Coincidences don't work like that, Johnny, for fuck's sake!"

Frank was also listening.

He'd been listening for three hours and twenty-two - now, twenty-three minutes.

Do you want another update?  texted Pete.

Earpiece in his ear, linked into their safehouse. Wired. Or what they assumed, like fools, was a safehouse. Nothing was safe from rats. Holes in the system, tunnels in the narrative, running secrets through a goddamn cheese grater, that's right. If criminals work with a group, and all of them are in it for the money, it's just too easy to find the weak link. Desire and greed is what breaks them down into little game pieces.

Frank couldn't fucking care less about these criminals goals or desires, though. Not his scene that night.

"I say fuck this," said the third nobody, and their tinny voices crackled in his ear. Frank was in the same position he had been poised in for the last hour, elbows up. "I say we go out there - and, and beat his ass. He's just one man. Get the buddies over on 6th street together and spread out, and we find where he's at instead of jawin and moanin' about him-"

"We should be afraid. He's a monster-"

"He's a man. He's just a washed-up soldier and he's messed with the wrong crew, I'll tell you that."

"It wasn't him. Stop playin' with me. It was, uh, bad luck, is'all."

"But we're not playing man-"

Frank barely knew their names. This wasn't his main goal. He was supposed to continue his stint with The Elysian, tracking down someone from the Irish to finally get some answers, but plans changed sometimes. Even his.

Not much has been happening, said the kid. But surprise! I might have made a mistake as Spider-Man. Again.

This was something he needed to do. Something the kid-hero would try stop him from doing. Instead of continuing his surveillance, he'd been pulled in by noticing some ladies excursion at a nightclub that went south. And the ladies didn't need that shit.

It was just scum creating more scum, hurting more innocent people. And he was there to reap. The only one he cared about was Bingo, the dumbass nickname they gave the little perve of a pimp that was beating on his girls. A stain of a man.

Oh, he'd be only a stain soon enough. Frank guaranteed it. Smear him across the sidewalk. The fact was, his operation was so small, so insignificant to New York and the criminal underbelly that lay there, Bingo had assumed no one would come for him and his shitty brothel. No one would notice. Frank had nearly not noticed the pimp shorting and hurting his way through women.

But he did in the end. 

"I don't like this," Bingo said into his earpiece with a trembling voice, shaking in his boots. Frank had yet to get a good sightline to a window. The door was free-game.  "I think we should leave."

"Let's bounce. Can't be-"

"Oh come on! What if he's out there?"

He waited prone on the rooftop of a high-rise a few blocks down, shrouded in darkness. Waiting for target acquisition.

This time, his pick was the .338 Lapua precision rifle, his old trusty saviour from Iraq and Afghanistan. Mounted. Bottlenecked.  Named after the Finnish town Lapua, and that was some fact that stuck in his head to tell the kid about. If he ever got around to teaching him some shit. Perfect for long-range shooting, low-drag. Record with it was 2700 yards, but this one had some serious bullet drop he'd have to account for with it. Twenty-two feet per 1000 yards. 

Mild weather and no wind made Frank a happy shooter, that was for sure. Barometrics were looking good. He grinned, baring his teeth into his optics.

ATACR reticle with reliable tracking. A custom bolt-action he made on the side to lock the breech and load his cartridges much faster, which were in his pack beside his legs next to his empty cup of coffee.

And assuming he'd need to lead them, Frank thought, and he'd be firing two metres per second from the muzzle, and they run  - he'd say the trajectory would need to be a good eight-second lead. 3-4 seconds to target. Back on tour, he used to overcomplicate things. Have a spotter by his side for shot placement. Now, he does it himself - all he needs to do is line up that fucker's shoulders with the horizontal notch on his scope, and shoot.

Clear conditions. Lucky day.

He'd hit. If he wanted to hit them clean through.

But Frank had something else in mind for good ole Bingo. He deserved to die surrounded by his legacy. Surrounded by his own filth he curated. He needed them to head home.

"Screw this," one of them finally said, and he could hear rustling and curses, before he could see the door flinging open.

"Ah, shit-"

Eyes. Frank had eyes on targets. He prepared himself.

The door hit the wall of the brick building, slimy with gunge and disrepair. Out stumbled one. He was pushed the rest of the way by another, much shorter. Fell to the ground. A third jogged out, with a golden chain around his neck and a suit too big for him. Then a forth, and they were all swaying there, all wondering who was going to take off first, who was going to sprint and to where, bumbling idiots in a basket knocking elbows against one another.

"You're all pussies," another jeered, clearly lowering his guard, and Frank could barely hear them now that they had gone away from the audio bug indoors. 

Time was up.

"One batch," he fired. "Two batch." He was counting his bullets, and they aimed true.

The first whipped across the city and shot straight through Bingo's leg, and he collapsed to the ground with a shout of agony, wailing. The next hit the chest of one of the nobodies. He flung backwards. The other nobodies dispersed with a shout, blood pouring out of their friend leaving them in in terror. 

He fired two more shots. One hit.

The other wedged itself into the brick. But the ones who lived were fleeing now, on the move. 

"Penny and dime."

Bingo was dragged to his feet, his chain swinging around his neck.

"Go, go go!"

 - and all of them hobbled away down the street in something resembling a run, even dragging their friends who were bleeding, cursing the Punisher, hoping he didn't fire at their backs. Unless he had the common sense to drop the injured one at the hospital, Frank knew he wasn't living through the night.

Bingo was running back to his digs with the rest of his crew. Idiot. He should have stayed in the safehouse.

His whorehouse wasn't safe either, but he didn't know that. Frank had already rigged the dirty brothel to blow. There were no women there. Frank had sent the girls away with a wad of cash and a threat to shoot them in the head if they didn't go running.

Easy shit. Bingo and friends coming to a safehouse here in the first place was the one thing that gave Frank enough time to waltz inside, clear it, and set up. Now, he'd burn among his own mistakes. And Frank wouldn't give him a second thought by morning.

He'd forget he ever existed.

Didn't break any arms this time in a bar. Ur prob gonna laugh at me when you hear about it, texted Pete. 

Frank sighed. Checked the phone. Read the messages.

He packed up and went down to his van, strolled passed the big long scratch along the side from some asshole, and then loaded up his stuff in the back, case by case.

U there, F?

.

.

.

Peter messed up. 

The one thing he said he couldn't do while his grades were so bad and May and Mr. Stark were watching him like a hawk as if he was going to fall apart - he did. Whole-heartedly. 

Goodbye everything.

On a television channel that ploughed ahead to the evening news at nine o’ clock, but remained full of loyal and local viewers happily finishing the climax of their soap operas and their drama shows, ran a headline that grabbed some, but not much - attention. 

Local attention. It was about New York. About him.

There, digitized above the title news and the time and date in bold on the old CRT television behind the counter in Mr. Delmar's bodega, while he served a small line of people, showed the aftermath of a small house-fire blazing in Queens on re-run from earlier that day.

“How much?” said a customer over the racket.

“Twenty and four,” he heard Mr. Delmar reply, and the man took the cash between his fingers with a grin, bumping open the register with a fist, “thank-you.”

Peter couldn’t believe that even here, he had to watch it again. All he wanted was some comfort snacks.

He stood there, mouth in a frown, hair half-burnt and singed, petting Murph a bit too heavily with one hand and squeezing the gummy-worms he had come to buy in the other like a stress-ball. Realising just what was playing on the little screen behind Mr. Delmar, and dreading it.

Partially because it was ultra-embarrassing. Partially, because he had seen it so many times already since he was dragged home, as May had replayed it over and over and over again to drive home how reckless and stupid he had been.

There, in Delmar's deli-grocery, he was inevitably glued to the tiny screen that rattled on in a newscaster's drone beside the toast oven. Amid the bustle of noise as people shuffled through the door with their plastic bags and sandwiches, buying groceries and the best sandwiches in Queens, he squinted.

In the midst of the flames that covered a family home, Spider-Man swung into frame.

“Oh my god,” said a woman’s voice in the recording, caught in the background. No one in the bodega paid the low-volume news any attention. “He went in!”

The camera recording shook.

It had been his second ‘trial run’ back as a vigilante. Yeah. Another trial run.

A really, unbearably short patrol according to May and Mr. Stark’s rules, but it had been a quiet night with little for him to actually do before he had smelled the smoke. He couldn’t help but hop from rooftop to rooftop towards it at the time, webless, but energetic to help.

Still not at his best. Not anymore. Squinting at everything.

He watched himself now, smashing through the glowing top-story window in a blur of red and entering against the calls of strangers on the street, disappearing from view into the plume of smoke. Cries of anguish and fear were heard calling out in the background on the camera as firefighters were recorded skidding onto the scene. 

The camera pulled towards the group of men pulling the hose down from their truck, sheathed in high-vis and helmets. Scouring the building for signs of the hero who had just entered. A family of four lived in that suburban home.

The camera went dark. Lowered for a moment.

Then seconds later it was back out, as Spider-Man appeared again to a cheer. The camera frantically zoomed closer to catch him at speed from the distance. The headline read; ‘Hero Rescues Four’.

“Thank you, come again!” said Mr. Delmar, interrupting the scene, and Peter quickly shuffled over to the fridge of cold drinks so he could keep watching the screen unbothered by customers. His senses were still giving him a bit of trouble after the overload.

Spider-Man had emerged at a different, lower window. A woman with dirty golden hair clung weakly to his back as he climbed down to the street and placed her gently on the ground. Soot-covered and blackened, she lay there unmoving. Zoomed in, she looked - gone. Weak.

And Peter had felt terrible. The swell of misery came up to him now, even re-watching the scene between aisles of groceries and chips.

Peter really, really hoped he did exactly what Mr. Curt had told him to in this situation, but he was halfway shattered with adrenaline and bruised and burnt from a collapsing wall. Trying to remember how not to mess up first-aid in that situation was a lot of pressure.

And he had also been trying not to apply exactly that - too much pressure, but his strength was unpredictable at times, at least in recent times.

On camera, he watched himself as Spider-Man lowered the woman’s head and checked her airways, and Peter recalled her trembling heartbeat under his fingers slowing to a halt. 

The crowd gasped as caught on camera, as the figure of Spider-Man began to pump her chest up and down. Down, down, down. So fragile, under his gloved hands. Until she coughed and choked, and couldn’t even hold herself upright, and then he turned her on her side. The relief he had felt. 

He felt it now.

“How many are still-?” said a voice on screen.

“I don’t know - they said they were supposed to be out today, John went to dinner with his-”

And then he watched the blur of blue-and red, pixelated, plummet back inside the smoke to rescue the others, as the woman was carried away by the firemen and the ambulance services arrived in flashing lights. He climbed upwards and back into the roaring flames, lit by a sickly orange glow.

He had Mr. Curt to thank for that. 

He was ultimately grateful he had time to practice CPR and first-aid before that incident. That his hands could heal. Do more good.

Save that woman.

The medic hadn’t covered smoke inhalation with Peter, however, which would have been helpful. He instead had seemed more concerned about explosions and burns. Peter knew it was because he was one of Frank’s people from the military, but wow. IEDS? Casualties from booby traps? He thought that no amount of training would help him not panic if someone was blown up by a landmine, and lost a limb or an eye.

That seemed, well, slightly out of his league. 

He had asked Mr. Curt about carrying his supplies, before he had left the garage and they had wrapped up everything from bullet wounds to parachuting in a quick-stop tour. He had been curious - would Peter need to carry a combat medic bag with him too? 

The man had pursed his lips. Said he had no clue. Said that if Frank thought Peter needed one, then he definitely needed one.

Which was super annoying. 

Peter hadn’t glanced at Frank after that comment, but knew the man had been glaring daggers into his head. Peter had yet to add medical supplies to his suit. He only had his webbing. But he now had Curt's number. He could always ask him again. See if he got a better answer.

“Wait, is that Tony Stark?” said the voice on the television. 

Ah. The worst moment of the clip that everyone was replaying. His cheeks flushed, and he shuffled in place.

The part where he messed up. It hadn't been a smooth rescue.

Peter knew the struggle it took in those few moments to find the blonde woman, and he had been knocking into every object in his way with half of his vision, smoke obscuring it further, and cursing himself for coming without his webs. And then he had been about to rescue the rest of the family despite the weight of his limbs and the frustrating struggle to hear them out over the crackle of embers, when more and more notifications had popped up on his hud display.

He had paused in the carpet hallway, picture-frames smashed and stairs collapsed, listening to the cries for help. The smoke. His impaired vision.

It made his senses go haywire.

What drove it crazy, Peter knew, were those notifications from Mr. Stark.

Phone calls. Alerts from Karen. Alarms in his ears. And notices to turn back because he was breaking the rules, which covered the lenses and blocked his vision further, blinding him where usually he would be able to dismiss them.

He had tried to shut it down using his normal override code that he had installed into Karen, cover his ears with his hands, but of course, Mr. Stark had changed the protocols.

Peter, in that moment, had no control.

He wondered what it had sounded like. He had probably been saying something, his vocal cords trying to drown it out with cries of pain, but he had no idea what Mr. Stark had heard over the other end of the line. Thankfully, his little break-down hadn't been caught on camera indoors. All he had to remember it by were those alarms that had screamed at him, telling him to turn around.

Protective measures, but they only hindered him. They didn't feel very protective.

And then Mr. Stark showed up.

Iron Man flew in, something glorious, and emerged with the family and Peter by his side. On the recording, he watched them exit the building and it looked planned and co-ordinated. The crowd went wild. But at the time, he remembered him bursting into the hallway and dragging him down the hall to continue grabbing the family, as they worked together, and Peter was still confused and the room had been spinning circles around him - oh it was bad.

It was really bad.

On screen and framed heroically in front of the flames, Iron Man placed a metal hand on Spider-Man’s shoulder, saying something intelligible. The rescue was complete. The camera zoomed back out to catch the firemen begin washing down the building. Paramedics rushed towards the family huddled at their feet.

“Iron Man and Spider-Man, this is insane-”

“Aren’t they teaming up, like, a lot? I’ve never been more happy to see a ri-”

The voices praised them both on the recording. 

But Peter was the only one who knew Mr. Stark, looking down on him - had been in fact scolding him for ignoring his calls, ignoring Karen’s warning not to go inside. Not praising him, like the cameras and news probably thought.

But Peter also knew if he had waited any longer, someone could have died. Mr. Stark's voice had been robotic, and short.

Peter's senses had still being going crazy. And when the man finally realised Peter hadn't been responding to him, hadn't been apologising or able to form any words at all to his questions, he back away and grabbed him. They moved out of sight from the camera.

Mr. Stark had flown him back Aunt Mays. He had spent the evening curled up in his room in the dark, while she spoke about how worried they both had been, and Mr. Stark had loitered in the kitchen pacing back and forth. Peter didn’t know where to place the feelings that battled inside him about that moment, other than embarrassment that it had to happen. He could let it live there. At the surface.

Never deeper.

Peter hissed a curse. Cringing. Again.

“You good?” said Mr. Delmar, as the story finally ended, switched to another story about building new bus lanes in the centre of the city. He had a cloth in his hand, and was looking at Peter with a ghost of a smile. “You’re next in line.”

The last customer had fled out the door with a jingle. Peter jogged up to the counter, ignoring the remnants of his headache. If he had to watch his own failure to comply with Mr. Stark’s rules for being back in the Spider-Man suit one more time, the shame of it would just kill him.

“Hey, Mr. Delmar,” he said. “Sorry, I, um. I was watching the fire,” He nodded his head towards the television and placed the oversized mega-packet gummy worms on the counter. “It looked bad. The one on the news, I mean.”

Peter didn't want him to mention the big burnt sections of hair at the front of his face.

“The one with Iron Man?” he asked. “Could have been worse, all things considered. Two dollars.”

“Worse?” said Peter incredulously. “Like, even with it burning to the ground?”

“Three dollars,” he said, and Peter placed two dollars in his waiting hand. “Yes, worse. You didn’t hear? Nothing else to do in this place but hear. There was another one - a whorehouse that burnt just earlier tonight-”

“Earlier tonight?”

Mr. Delmar looked at him exasperatedly. A grin crawled over Peter’s face, and he put his elbows on the counter.

“Sorry, no, no. You speak,” Peter said cheekily, but tiredly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. No - don’t charge me anymore. I swear I’ll let you, um, finish. Please. Two dollars.”

After a pause, Mr. Delmar pushed the gummy worms towards him and started wiping down the surface, rolling up his sleeves. Murph sauntered over, paws treading smoothly around the stand of scratch cards with a purr. 

“Earlier tonight,” he said slowly, “there was another fire. In Brooklyn. Some unlucky pimps got caught up in it - think they were lighting up one too many, uh, spiffs and the place went up. They prefer to show Iron Man and our Spidey saving lives on the news, than showing a brothel with burned victims. It was only an hour or two ago. But hey. I don’t know. That’s life.”

Huh.

“I didn’t know about that,” said Peter. “That - like, that sucks. Even if, if that is life. Two fires in one week. It will be worse in the summer, won’t it?” 

Peter wondered if he would have done any better in that situation. It would have probably been the same outcome. Him, having to be rescued by Mr. Stark again. But he still wished, inside, that he had been in two places at once. It didn’t matter if they were pimps or criminals, like Mr. Delmar thought. They didn't deserve to burn to death.

Hopefully, none of the innocent women, the prostitutes, were victims, too. He bit his lip.

“What a way with words,” said Mr. Delmar haughtily. “Yes, it ‘sucks’. Sucks. Now, shoo. Get out.”

“Wait, wait, you don’t like my company? Not even for an extra dollar?”

“No, no, get out and get your aunt. You have what you came for. Bring her here. Get out, I said!” 

He flicked the cloth, and Peter bounced back with a laugh. Mr. Delmar always raised his spirits. “Come back and buy some food with her, and then we will chat. But she should be here. Forget about fires. Not romantic enough.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Peter laughing, putting his hands in the air.  “No more. See you later."

"Get lost, kid!"

Peter left with a wave over his shoulder, cheery and upbeat. He checked his messages on his way out, the door jingling overhead. 

There was still no reply from Frank.

You were right about the news, he texted off-handily, loitering outside the door. Scratched his head.

He'd probably have to go back and study, he thought sadly. He was still so, so behind. Hit the books. 

They always choose what to show to make you keep watching.

Chapter Text

Tony sighed.

He stood by the open metal latches of the Mark 50 suit he was now testing, rolling his neck and looking out onto the New York skyline. Whatever way he had slept on it, rolled into Pepper like dead log across the king bed or hunched in a meeting pretending to absorb whatever financial references she had copied out for him to look like he cared deeply about - it had been irritating him from sunrise to now. A true pin in his butt. In his neck, to be accurate. Felt more stitched together by miracle doctors and Pep every day.

He always thinks it's a one-off, but getting older now, it keeps coming back. Every day.

But hey, that was showbiz. 

"Sir, Spider-Man is on the move," echoed out from the suit, the one he had left for a little break in the sunshine and a good stretch.

And that was Pete going on ahead again.

Tony felt like he was responsible for a wind-up toy with unlimited energy. He shimmied his tracksuit back into the Iron Man suit with a little hop, the hatch shutting behind him. Software turned on, and he could see everything. Heartrate, field of view, potential enemies or worse, potential falls that the kid could take. He was really looking forward to getting home in time for Sunday dinner with Pepper. 

Maybe the kid would come along.

"Hey, hey Underoos, let me catch up!" he called over his voice connected line, and set his thrusters to a low-burn to follow the path Friday had laid out on the display, a flashing blue line across his vision that traced a path over buildings. It was slightly easier now that Pete wasn't webbing and flipping everywhere Tony couldn't find him, but it wasn't easy to track him, either.

It had been a difficult few days. Tony hated that word. Difficult. Tony Stark never used the term difficult. Didn't dig it. Wasn't his style.

He preferred the term challenging, intricate - complicate but overall, foreseeable. 

After Peter had leaped headfirst into a housefire, which Tony had remembered explicitly forbidding him from until he had reached full recovery, it had only been challenge after challenge. The next patrol, Tony had decided to increase the distance he had to stay for the kid to go on his rounds, and turned down some of the settings for his Warning The Kid system. That was a heart-attack and a half to discover the boy unresponsive and burned to a crisp. He lowered them to an acceptable level after that.

The kid was supposed to listen to them before he stepped into bad situations. Not after.

He wasn't helicoptering, like Pepper said religiously to him every morning. No.

The last time he had taken a step back, didn't Peter somehow get himself shot? And that was on him.

That was all on him.

And then, that next patrol ended with him catching the boy mid-air after a nasty fall, when he thought he was clever enough to sneak his web-fluid back into the web-shooters before he was ready. That shook both of them up - Tony couldn't sleep that night, tempted to break open a bottle of red again. Cue a longer conversation with Aunt Hottie and a determined boy who refused to let common sense enter into one ear and stay there. Talking about trial runs, and safety nets, and healthcare. 

Now, they were here.

Tony thought he'd pretend he wasn't there, but got even closer. Keep the system up at all times.

Sue him, he was too old for this. Told him that Spider-Man needed to stay on the main streets, do some paparazzi shots, at least then he'd still be out and about while Tony was waiting for more optical experts to fly in from Europe and take the kid through some exercises. That was a tough pill for the boy to swallow, but he seemed happy enough to do it. 

He thought that after nearly plummeting to his death, it was well-deserved.

But of course, he just had to go on ahead.

Tony flew in to the location, and found the exact sight he had been both predicting and dreading. 

"Fri, tell me I'm hallucinating." He triple-checked his camera feed. 

"You are not hallucinating, sir. Spider-Man witnessed a pickpocketing, and followed two gentlemen in order to retrieve the stolen wallets."

There was Spider-Man, pointedly as far from a main street as possible with zero paparazzi.

He was ducking and rolling away from the lid of a trash can that was thrown at him from a criminal, trying to escape, which rolled along the asphalt. Another was brandishing a knife, weaving it from side to side, a large tattoo of a snake down the side of his wrinkled face, bouncing back and forth on his heels. Debating whether to rush the kid. Someone was looking out there window at the scene, and occasionally, glancing up and Iron Man where he hovered far above the ruckus. 

Nope. Nuh-huh. Not on the agenda for today. No fighting, no swinging, and certainly no playing with knives. 

Peter just couldn't keep doing this in his condition.

Tony, descending from the sky, lowered himself slowly in front of Spider-Man when the knife-guy finally decided to sprint forward. Tony relished in the fact that his heels skidded against the ground as he slid to a stop in front of him, like clockwork. Glanced up with a face curled in fear, sweat on his brow. The man who had thrown the trash-can lid, a baggy jumper and hat on his head, exclaimed loudly.

"Fuck!" he said.

"Hello, criminals," said Tony sweetly. "I believe you have something that doesn't belong to you?"

Cue the wallets. The first slowly tugged at his cargo pants and pulled out two purses, two wallets, and a slip full of cash, before putting his hands into the air. That was fun. It was nicer when criminals knew when they were outplayed. The second did the same, albeit less gracefully. He struggled to find the wallet tucked in his pants, and tossed it underhandedly towards Tony's feet.

Feeling satisfied, but still incredibly furious that Pete kept placing himself in these situations, he grinned maliciously. Let him reign fury upon those who deserve it, so it didn't get to the kid.

"Now, shoo!"

And he watched as they sprinted off.

He landed his metal feet on the ground. Hopefully, no traffic would be coming this way soon, because he had a kid to speak to, and it was definitely going to be a lecture. Two lectures. Three.

He spun around, and tried to be as responsible and polite about this as possible. He wasn't his own father. Tony was different from him - Tony could actually hold a conversation without giving into frustration and rage, turns out. At least, that's what he tried to tell himself. He cleared his throat, and folded his arms.

Spider-Man stood in front of him, frozen. He didn't say anything.

Huh.

Tony preferred if he would take off the mask, but they were in a public place, and he had no idea who could be watching.

"What did I tell you, Spider-Man?"

No response.

The kid rolled his shoulders, and looked at the pile of wallets on the ground.

"Hello? Earth to kid?"

Was he trying to knock some common sense into a brick wall here?

That got something to start rolling. He shrugged, and scratched the back of his head.  "I'm sorry, Mr. Stark, but you told me to stay away from danger. Which I did. I was talking to them and dodging, I wasn't going to swing a single punch, and I only-"

"Zip it, kid. Do you know how much leeway I've been giving you?"

"I know, I'm sorry, okay?" he said, and his voice sounded wet. Tony hesitated.  "But I saw the group they had stolen from. Tourists. I didn't want their trip to be ruined. It was only going to be-"

"You know that you're hurt-" he continued, swallowing the fear that welled up his throat at the thought of losing a kid like this to a gun, a house-fire, a criminal with a knife - "and that you need to take it easy for a while. We agreed to that. We agreed to trial patrols. Then, tell me Pete - why in God's name are you doing the exact opposite of taking it easy?"

"Mr. Stark, I have to help people!"

He took a step forward, and Tony matched him, trying not to get heated.

"Not at the cost of this!" Tony said, and he meant it. He would never take away the suit again, yes. But something needed to be done. The trial runs weren't working. Peter just didn't have a button to slow down. "Me and your Aunt have been taking it slowly with you, trying to help, and you keep-"

"No you haven't!"

Woah. Where was this coming from?

Tony reeled backwards. He was glad he had the helmet on, because his face crumpled at the sound. It stung at his heart. He could see the kid's shoulders shrink back at the sound of his own voice crying out like that, harshly and sarcastically. 

"Excuse me?"

"I'm - I'm, I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry. But listen, Mr. Stark, I could have finished this one before you even caught up to me, if you turned off those alarms. This is just a trial, but they hinder me more than anything. I - I told you that already. They distract me so - so much, I can't focus with them-"

He went on ahead.

"You're supposed to listen to them before you get involved. Not after. Not during. I know you're having a really tough time at the minute-"

"And you told me you turned them down, but they are still super loud, and - and I miss my webbing. I know, I can't swing well with it, but I'm not as good at my hand-to-hand without it. I'm used to webbing criminals, Mr. Stark, not getting in a fistfight with them-"

"You are injured, Spider-Man! Injured! You need to stop," he tried again, pleading, trying to give him one last chance to back down.

"Kid, you can't keep doing this!"

"Well, I will!" he shouted back, panting. Raising his voice. Against Tony.

He couldn't believe it. 

"I will keep doing this! I want - I want to be able to choose whether I can use my webbing or not, and I want to add some stuff to the suit myself, instead of you adding - adding alarms and protocols that I never agreed to. I want a lot of things, Mr. Stark, and I want to keep doing this. I'm so sorry. If I see someone in danger, I can't just turn around and ignore it!"

Somehow, Tony felt like he had just stepped on a landmine. But he was right. He knew he was right, as much as it tore at his heart to say the next sentence. This couldn't keep happening. 

"Roo-"

"I tried, okay? I tried. I tried to ignore it. But I can't ignore it," he said, and raised his chin. Tony didn't know what to think. "I know I'm not at my best. But I can't ignore it when I'm out here, Mr. Stark. Please. I'm sorry."

He braced himself.

"Then you'll just have to take another break, won't you? You're grounded. Patrol is over. You can get spend your time getting your grades back up, as per Aunt Hotties rules for Spider-Manning. I won't tell her if you fix them over your break. Capische?"

It had only been forty minutes since the patrol started, but Tony wasn't going to endanger his life anymore if he was in a mood like this. And he regretted the words immediately after they had left his mouth, when he realised he had revealed one too many cards up his sleeve. The kid had frozen again. Tony stopped himself from cursing.

"You-" the boy said, and his voice was shaky. Disappointed. Aghast.

He started backing away. "You - you hacked into my school records?"

Tony felt his heart jump out of his chest.

"I did," he settled on. Shifted in place.

He knew the kid was so close to failing his classes. Losing his scholarship - the one he'd pay for anyway if he did lose it, but he wasn't going to tell him that. But he was having a tough time. He was injured, he was struggling in classes. He needed a break from Spider-Man. Tony only wanted to watch over him, look out for him. He didn't want to miss anything.

Three times was the limit. Three times was the limit of his mistakes. Tony's decision was final. He wouldn't hesitate. Not here, and certainly not over the safety of him for his aunt.

"You're grounded, Spider-Man," he said sternly, like a finality. "You're going home."

And he turned around and starting flying away at once, calling Happy and waiting for him to hop on the line, to pick up the kid from where he was standing and drive him home instead of going with the kid. He just couldn't do it. Pick up the wallets, the purses, and return them to the rightful owners. Jet boots drowned out any other thoughts. He couldn't stay to see the look on his face, under the mask. He knew it would be upset. Dismayed.

He knew it would be heartbroken, especially in front of his aunt, and Tony?

Tony couldn't handle that emotion. So he ran.

He ran before he could even feel the fallout coming.

.

.

.

.

Frank knew that he was dreaming. 

Now, half of the time, he caught on real nimble to dreams. Could pull them between his fingers and roll the differences in circles like a round or a good piece of gum. Chew it up. Take it apart like a logistics dossier they used to give him, overcomplicating shit instead of telling it straight. The distinction between his reality, and the reality of when he really used to live.

It was an effortless instinct to recognise a dream.

Reacting like that to the chalk-white door trims, that perky little lampshade she could never decide on that was replaced every time Frank came home, the glossy walls - he did it quick.

Hell, he had painted them.

Handy-work bred attention to his own details and he was glad he whitewashed them smooth before that stupid yellow paint went on - and he had to white-wash them all over again when Frank Jr. took to making murals of Marines and abusing paints like a newborn Banksy, and then Lis thought it wasn’t fair and she wanted paint a wall of her own - oh, he remembered. Remembered giving out shit to him over it.

But he’d paint them over and over again if he could now. 

Make them a blank canvas. The house, in the end, never mattered. Fuck that place. 

It was just a house. Empty rooms. Empty chairs.

“Hey, sleepy-head,” she said to him. 

Maria. The boss, the love of his goddamn life. Who waited for him through everything.

He knew he was dreaming. 

That didn’t mean anything to the words coming out. He said the same thing, right, the same lines like it was a show and he was in the front-row seat and he knew the ending. Every goddamn time. 

“What time is it?” he asked her, kissing her nose like it was prayer and he was long buried, and he was on the bed taking in American-grown sunlight through their windowpanes for the first time in a long time, and she was here already, dressed in her sun-dress waiting for him to wake.

Happiness on a platter. It was her favourite blue. 

It was almost ten-thirty.

The sheets were white. The walls were yellow. Her lips were pink. His world was just beginning again.

There he was, splayed out in bed with a goddess above him talking about breakfast, toast and running to the store, and time, and shit that they didn’t have, because she had yet to find out what would happen to her and her beautiful, perfect babes.

Brushed the stray hairs from her cheeks. Kiss her gently, delicately like paper. She broke easily. 

Wished that she would undress, and get back into bed with him for a few more minutes.

She would break. They all would.

“It’s almost ten-thirty,” she whispered, biting her lip to hide those teeth of hers behind lips that were all his. “There’s plenty of time. Now that you’re home,” and she laughed, and Frank chuckled, too. Couldn’t help himself. It was like a tidal wave.

She turned away to make breakfast.

“No!” he roared.

And then he got blood in his eyes when her brains were blown out, and her insides were fucked onto the sheets, and there was a mangled body that used to be his woman on his useless, pathetic lap. 

She broke, and he was still breathing. Just like that. 

No eyes. No face. No neck. 

Just like that.

Frank writhed awake. It crashed into him.

He was on their bed. She was dead.

His throat tore through a scream of abuse and curses, ready to beg on his goddamn knees for something else to happen, to use his nails to scrape the blood splatter off of his face - if he really had to. But it was a dream.

No blood of Maria’s to wash off. Not since that day.

He jerked to the side and tried to catch his breath. Slammed a fist against something.

Then, he came to his senses. Saw it was the mattress, the garage surrounding him, him shirtless and far more scarred than he used to be. Broke the narrative.

He was tangled in his thin sheets, sweat sticking his chest to them, adams-apple bobbing up and down and burying his feelings.

But the garage wasn’t silent.

There was a rhythm, and it wasn’t the dripping pipes.

A clunking, metallic knock occasionally reached his ears - thumping and hitting and ricocheting around the space like a frigid sound. Unwelcome.

He raised his head. Shit. 

Frank stayed there frozen, unable to see ten-feet ahead of his own legs but still seeing Maria dying in front of him, but hey, threats didn’t sleep. It didn’t sound like any vermin he knew.

He lifted his back off the mattress springs like it was a hot fire and peered into spotty darkness across the pillars and crates and towards the elevator shaft. 

It was coming from there. 

His bare feet swung over to the floor and flattened slowly onto the frigid ground, preparing to rise.

Then, he swiftly reached, fingers treading up and down, achingly docile, false, to the rip in the mattress seam that was jammed with a machete handle. They brushed the grip. Teased at it. It molded to his hand like it was waiting for someone to swing it. Their little secret.

It was nature. Man builds his tools for use. Men build useful tools out of a man like Frank.

He heard it again. A thump. Closer. Unknown contact, elevator shaft at his eleven o'clock. 

Had Frank been compromised?

Fuck it. Didn't matter. Not yet. Situation needed to be solved first. Neutralise, then get the go-bag in the van.

He rose and creeped across the floor. Knew his path through the black with a steady aim.

Stayed low. Passed by the couch, the racks of shit that weren’t loaded, that he didn’t need right now. He waited adjacent to the elevator shaft and flexed his grip, sniffing. Shifting his weight from toes to his heels every so slightly. Easy game. 

Bend his elbow right, he thought to himself sharply, and he catches the side on the way out. Disarm.

Interrogate.

The thump. There it was again, and the first thing they'd see if they try and winch it open is the white pillar ahead. Frank had the advantage, tucked behind the scenes.

Whatever it was, who it was, they had reached the bottom. Fumbling. Maybe trying to be quiet. Frank hadn't heard the belay scrape against the rope, which was the one downside to rappelling downwards, so perhaps he was dealing with a trained expert here.

He prepared himself.

Then, a knock. Which threw Frank for a loop.

A controlled knock hit against the door, three times.

“Frank?” said the muffled high-voice. “I know you’re there. It’s - it’s Peter.”

Frank didn’t believe it. Pill of doubt.

But then he knocked again, but with what Frank heard as a tinny fingernail, tapping the door. He straightened. It did a little rhythm along to the beat of a song he couldn’t recognise, like some pop tune.

“I can hear you standing there,” Pete said. “Please let me in. It’s gross and oily. I've put my feet in a little divot right now so I'm not, like, completely in it, and my shoes-”

Frank went for the winch along the side and yanked it open, and there slid aside the metal, and then finally the grating layer, and Pete stood in front of him, although he seemed to hold himself wedged slightly above the ground between the two sides.

Alone. Surrounded by three cramped walls intricate with cables, and by a boxy operational panel.

He looked filthy.

“Emergency?” Frank thought he must have asked him, reeling. 

“No - no, I’m okay-”

“Then what the fuck is it?” he barked. “Who is it? What? What happened?”

“Calm down. It’s okay. I’m sorry.”

Give him information, and he knew where to shoot. Give him nothing, out of nowhere and in the middle of the night, and Frank had no idea how to move forward. But he was ready to spring.

“I am calm. Who in Gods -” he laughed sharply, “Who are you to tell me to calm down, huh?”

“You’re not calm, asshole” he said, and Pete pointed at his machete he had forgotten in his grip.

It was trembling.

Frank grabbed the wrist that held it with his other hand to steady the stupid thing, and then gave up. His firing fingers on his right hand acted up. Acted up, sometimes.

“Be, um, be easy, okay?”

"Shut your trap," he growled. "Shut it."

There was the hero in him coming out. Looking for something to pity, something to control. To save.

Well, that wasn't who Frank was. That wasn't happening. Frank was doing the dirty work for the saving - saving him from the puppeteers that seemed to have decided to control him and his hero fight. Frank was calm enough to know that.

Damn. Taking a moment, Frank realised he probably frightened him. 

He looked back at Pete, but he was revealing nothing on his face. Blank.

Not scared.

It wasn't an emergency.

What the fuck did he come all the way down here for?

He tossed the machete down. It bounced, clattered harshly and settled to the side.

Pete lowered himself to the ground fully, his boots toeing a puddle of dark unknown.

Frank swept an eye over the dusty clothes, the boots that used to be grey now blackened and brown. Brown hair that had been brushed back within an inch of its life. But - where the long front used to be, there were jagged sections that were short and unruly, and completely frizzed out of proportion. Dusty. 

Wide eyes, those wide brown eyes. Always.

His fingers were black. Covered in oil. He must have climbed all the way down. Frank hadn't heard the belay. Course not.

“You look like shit,” Frank said, and then remembered he was talking to a sixteen-year old, and they all tended to try and look awful and older than they were. “Is this some, uh, fashion statement?”

“No,” he said, and shifted in place. 

The kid's neutral expression was replaced with a thrust-out chin and tight-lipped smile, and his shoulders were jittering and moving as if he needed something to do with them. He was looking past Frank, and not at him. On his toes.

“Why are you here, kid,” he asked eventually, tiredly.

The kid ignored him.

“I said - stop that,” he interrupted, moving to block him from walking inside, “Think you’re a big man, huh? Stop it. I said, yeah, show up if there’s an emergency. This is not an emergency. Why are you here.”

“You weren’t texting me back,” Pete muttered. “I was worried that you were hurting someone, or planning something. You didn’t text me back, Frank. But I, um, the good news is that I found the elevator entrance?”

“That-”

Pete, quick as lightning, already ducked under the arm Frank had barred off the elevator with and skipped inside.

“Don’t-”

Frank resisted the urge to grab him by the goddamn neckline and tug him backwards like a flagpole, and instead watched his back move further into Frank’s base. 

It would only get him flipped on his ass. Kid was that strong.

“That’s not, ah, shit,” he relented. “You’re such a little asshole.”

He let his clenched fingers fall by his side and ran a hand over his scowling face when he found the way to turn on the lights, muddy and oily footprints sliding across the floor. 

“Me? Sorry.”

“This is not a youth hostel. Get out.”

“Feels like one. You’re not actually forcing me to leave, which means this is an invite. See, I can tell, Frank. I can see it. I’m getting better at my predictions. Now you just need those little, uh, those little baby soaps. You know what I mean. The ones from hotels you collect. Like, mini shampoo and conditioner and the caps that cover your hair. I love those!”

Even Frankie, little Frankie, knew to wipe his goddamn feet before he came inside after soccer practice. 

It was too early for this bullshit.

And this was not what Frank signed up for. This was manic. This wasn't normal. Showing up like this, uninvited and impolitely, was the last thing he knew a kid like this would normally do. 

Unless he had nowhere else to go.

“Sorry for waking you up. I’m serious. I would have called you, but then you’d hang up on me, and then I’d be showing up without permission which just seemed rude. Well, I’ve predicted that you’d - you'd hang up on me. So, yeah. Never am I using the elevator again, though. Uh, can I turn on the radio please?”

Frank glared at him. Folded his arms. 

“I’m turning on the radio. Sorry. But really quietly. I don’t want to wake up your neighbours.”

And then the kid had the audacity to walk to the van. Hop into Frank’s van himself, sit in the seat. The fucking seat was probably covered in shit now, too.  Keys in the ignition. Prepped. Pete knew that already. 

It was there for a quick getaway. Not so he could play music whenever he felt like it. When Frank saw him hop back out, he had a smile that reached his eyes.

Humming along to the Beatles. 

The sixties. What a decade for music.

Crackling through the speakers. All the good songs were from the sixties and the seventies, Frank thought. Anything after the turn of the century, and he couldn’t give two shits. At least he chose a good station.

Pete left the door open and started walking in loops around the garage, looking at everything as if he hadn’t seen it before - but Frank knew he had.

“Leave,” he repeated through bared teeth. “You’re all talk tonight.”

He waited a minute. Two.

Kid didn’t give in. Starting singing along about how he better hide his love away. 

“Everywhere, people stare-” he sang under his breath. 

He didn’t want to grab the kid, starting something physical. Tried to show he wouldn’t hurt him, that he was the temporary ally here. And he'd get his ass handed to him with just a machete. As fucked as this situation was.

He sighed. Cursed under his breath.

After a moment, he decided to close off the elevator doors again, set the winch back in place, and went to put the machete back into the mattress. He limped over to it - his leg was screwed from an ambitious roll out of a line of fire, and now that his adrenaline from waking had left, it had seeped back into his bones. To think he was ready to chop a machete into the kid.

Nobody understood that if they tried to sneak up on him, friend or foe, it would be a close thing.

Frank needed to put on a shirt.

“Solid song,” he said, his voice still gravelly from sleeping. Couldn’t help himself. “But you’ve still pissed me the fuck off.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You’re leaving soon.”

“I will.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Christ.”

Frank gave up. 

Let him at it, he thought grimly.  Nothing to do with him, if the kid wants to wander around.

Why not. 

Hell, fuck it. Could be worse. Could be better. 

At least he knew if the kid was here, he wasn’t out there. And he wasn’t following Stark’s orders.

“Hey! You’ve got to hide your love away,” the kid sang again, and then scratched his head. Particles of dust floated to the floor from his cropped and jagged scalp. The radio played away.

Frank shook his head.

“You know, I think the music they play late at night is always better, ‘cause, like, there’s only one person in the radio office. Probably. And less listeners. So there is more freedom for creative expression, which is great. You can do what you love, and play the music you like. You know?”

Walking back over to Frank from the van, he watched the kid stop. Looked at the photograph he had scored a few days ago, across with red marker on the wall. Bingo’s face. His latest hit.

Frank could see his adams-apple bobbing. 

“Hey-”

“Don’t look,” he said, grabbing the kid by the head and pulling him away under his armpit, then shoving him over to the couch. Pete stumbled but righted himself gracefully, like a dancer.  “Do something else.”

“Mm-hm,” he said again. “Like what?”

Not normal. This was definitely not normal.

“Clean my boots. Shine ‘em. Polish, too.”

“Where are they?”

He spun in ridiculous circles to find them. Frank snorted.

He nodded towards the pair of boots he had left by one of the pillars, his tacticals. Pulled on a shirt over his head, and cracked his back. His shoulder too, which felt like a mallet had hit it. Which some sort of impact must have done.

Wiped the sleep from his eyes. He could work with this. 

Early morning. Work to do. What time was it? Frank didn't know.

“Maybe. I’ll think about it,” said the kid eventually.

The two of them stood around, aimlessly, for a few moments. Frank was still eyeing the kid. 

“Greasy-ass,” he decided to throw out. For the hell of it. He really was filthy, and was tracking it wherever he went around the garage like a damn animal.

Pete took it to heart. His mouth fell open as Frank decidedly moved over to make himself a good cup of coffee.

“Dude,” he answered. “I can barely see out of one eye. I’m slightly behind on classes, which has never happened. I think I’m slowly ruining the trust my best friend has in me. Don’t call me greasy. I know I look greasy right now,  but I’m not. It is, like, literally the last thing I need right now.”

Not his problem. 

“Cut the bull,” he cut, deadpanning. “I ain't 'dude'. You’re here 'cause you had a nightmare. Can’t sleep. Greasy."

That left Pete gaping like a fish. Got him there. 

He came over and watched over his shoulder as Frank heated the water to almost boiling in his pot. He had a set-up going, see, with a gas burner and camping stove onto a makeshift table made of crates. Worked fine for him.

Didn't care if it caught fire.

“What - the fuck?” he said.

“Ain’t predicting shit, are you. Didn’t see that one. Get out of my face.”

“But do you believe in magic, Frank?” he asked randomly. “Sorcerers? Carrie magic? Foresight, people who can predict or see the future-”

“Get out of my face. Move.”

He pushed him aside.

“-like, telekinesis. Houdini. Or the strength humans get when they-”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t seriously fucking ask me that. No, I do not. Stop - will you fucking stop getting so goddamn close to me! Yea, it’s a jar of coffee. Smell it. Bam. There, see. Christ, I’m trying to -”

“Why?” 

“Because it isn’t real, Pete. Fuck off."

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t call me greasy. So. There’s that.”

“Greasy,” he said. Twisted around. Hit his limit.

This had gone past skittish. This was - whatever it was, it was new for the kid. It was like annoying at it's max. All barriers down. 

Unless it was a barrier in itself.

"Stop pissing me off. What the hell is wrong with you tonight? I could have swung into you again, chopped you up. Did you even think about that? I could have killed-"

"Because I'm reckless?" the boy quipped. "Useless?"

Frank scowled. 

"Bug," he ended up saying, without a true response.

There was something deeper here. Hiding out, as usual. Ten feet deep. But the kid was smiling and laughing as if he wasn't hiding something bubbling, something about to explode under the surface.

“It's arachnid, Frank. You walked into a bar-”

“Nah, nah you’re trying to swing it back around on me. That ain’t how this works," he flicked his fingers in front of the kids face as his eyes strayed everywhere but straight at him. His head whipped back around. 

“Let me finish it, Frank,” he giggled, but it was weak. “Let me finish the joke.” And it was so open, so different from the first time Frank had met Pete that it moved him. "Please."

When did they get here?

It chimed, just like his little guy - so goddamn much he was digging to hear it again, even if it was fake. He felt like he was off his rocker. Threw him a rope.

Frank found himself throwing the kid a rope. Despite everything. It was fucking pathetic.

He let it go. Turned away.

"No."

"Oh, come on!"

"I think I know what's wrong with you," he said, squinting, tilting his head from side to side. Lightening him up. 

He had this thing, this little soldier hanging around making him laugh and mess around like a fool and he hated himself for it. "Yeah, yeah. You had coffee already, didn't you?"

Pete gasped. Frank started stirring his coffee with a smirk.

“Maybe you’re the one who is Houdini here, Frank.”

"It's obvious. You're hyper. That's what's going on."

"Maybe," he said. "But I didn't have coffee. Wrong answer. Although, I wouldn't mind a mug."

"It will be a fine day in hell before that."

"Whatever. Don't need it," said the kid, and then he fell onto the couch with a huff. Frank hoped that was the last he would hear from him. He took a long slug from his coffee and slouched against the crates. He'd sit here in silence for as long as he could.

He listened to the kids breathing for a few minutes.

Sometimes, it would hitch. He pretended he didn't hear it.

Then, he remembered the kit.

“Curt left you a little something,” he said off-handily, sniffing. "In the back."

Curt didn’t leave shit. Curt left the idea. Frank made the kit himself.

Would he take hand-outs from Frank?

Never.

“Me?” he said, and Frank saw his head pop back up again from behind the back of the couch. His cheery façade was crumbling, then. His eyes were hazy. Tired. Frank could see it.

“No, for the President,” he bit. “Yes, you.”

Putting down his coffee, he limped across the room and rooted for what he had made earlier that day. It wasn't much. Shit, whatever he could get together. Supply and demand dictated as much. 

Half of it was stolen. He put some of his other shit in - needles for suturing, trauma packs, stims, but he doubted how they would work. He'd packed it into a red bag. 

Threw it to him. Kid caught it in a raised arm without looking and then brought it to his chest. Held it.

“You said he left it for me,” he said slowly, carefully. “If I use this, does it still belong to him?”

Frank huffed.

“What sort of question is that?”

Peter shrugged. Frank analysed him under his gaze. Went back to his coffee.

“No,” he said plainly. Maybe that was the right answer.

“You can throw it away and he’ll never know. Replace parts of it, change it, flip it up like the ship of Theseus. It’s yours. Does not matter. There are no ties. Although, if you fuckin' throw it out and waste that shit instead of buildin' on it, improving it - it would be the stupidest thing you'd ever done."

"Okay. That's um -" he said, "That's good. It will look ugly,” he continued quietly. “Over the suit.”

“Nah, a handbag? Suits you.”

“Stop.”

“Real style. And we can get you, uh, a little tophat to go with-"

"Fuck you!"

Frank whistled. Mouth on this kid was only getting worse by the day. So much for manners.

He chugged the rest of his coffee. Threw the mug down on top of something, went over to put on his boots. Wouldn't help if there was a real emergency and he couldn't run out the place without getting shrapnel in the soles of his feet. He saw the kid sitting there on the couch. Curled up, again. Going through the med-kit. Little monster. 

Took the boots over and sat down on the far opposite end. Starting lacing them up. Could feel the kid staring. All he did was stare. 

Frank loved the Marines. Loved them while he was in them. Some days, he loved it more than his own kids, and yeah, he had to live with that. Burn with it. But if there was something he never took away from camp, it was blousing his trousers, and tucking his laces. Now, it was a waste of time. He just let the side-zip do the work, and let the laces go free. Didn't blouse shit. 

No-one was going to tell him what to do. Never again.

He sat there, finishing the ties and zipping up one boot, then another, when the kid leaned closer. Tentatively. Frank could feel the eyes boring into the side of his face, the tension in the air. 

Wasn't going to let that stand.

"Spit it out," he said lowly, looking at the ground. Clasped his hands. 

"Say what you wanna say, instead of starin'."

"Um,” the kid said. “Nothing."

Frank looked at him. He could see the haze, the commitment wavering. Whatever it was.

“Alright.”

Pete broke eye contact first.

He fiddled with the strap on the med-kit while Frank waited, scratched at a tear in the couch. Until he took a deep breath, and looked back at Frank who was dreading a spill of a lifetime.

His eyes were dimmer, hazier. This was worse than the tired he had seen earlier. Slowly, this kid was getting worse. It was as if life was seeping out of him. This hero bullshit was draining it out of him, Frank knew that. His shoulders went back instinctively. 

"You don't have to-" he ended up saying, like a coward.

"I want to know," he said shakily, "-um, some stuff. What you said to me a long time ago."

Frank sniffed. "That right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, um," he swallowed. "You were talking about weapons."

"Huh. What kind of weapons, kid."

"You - you told me that, um."

"What?"

"You were, um," the kid said, gesturing with his hands and swallowing. "You were talking about how - how I'd never know where the weapons were hidden. Because people can hide weapons anywhere. And that's how I'd get killed."

Surely not. He wasn’t getting this gift-wrapped, at early hours of the morning. All because of Curt being nice and friendly. All because of, what, a med-kit Frank made? 

That convinced him?

"I'd never know how many bullets were left in the gun," and now the kid was whispering, and Frank was caught, hook, line and sinker, reeled in - "or - or how quickly I could be leaving Aunt May behind, because I never learned. That's what you said. Something like that, at least."

Damn. 

Kid was hunched over on the couch. Trying to find a distraction, something, anything but him. Curled inward. Ashamed.  Or was it fear? 

No, no, it wasn't fear. Frank didn’t see the fear. He was too close, too blank for fear. His eyes were shaky, flickering. He was still a filthy mess. He looked as if he crawled out of hell, and then came to sit on Frank's couch, all the opposite of cocky, yet marching down here was all cocky in itself.

It was shame. It was embarrassment.

It was a teenager, sitting on his couch, finally listening to him. Goddamnit.

Frank felt the swell of victory, turning in his chest, but also of surprise. Lucky day. Hell, he didn't think it would be this easy. Easy. Thought he would have to ease him into it, go slow.

He coughed.

"You changed your mind," he said eventually, cutting to the chase. “Took your damn time to see reason.”

The kid didn't say anything, but shook his head slowly.

“Yea, yea, don’t lie, you have,” he rasped. Frank wasn't having that. “You have. Because you know, see, you ain’t no fool, Pete. I haven’t been spoutin’ nonsense at you. Curt was right to help you out, and you saw that. It worked. I am right. You need training, or your Aunt will be in her nice black dress for your damn funeral-”

“Stop manipulating me, Frank!” He leaped to his feet. “Stop it!”

Frank rose with him so they were side by side.

“What? Manipulating?” he asked sarcastically. “You think - no, not a chance Pete.”

Frank loomed over him, looking down on the little man who thought he was big.

The kid took a step back. Only came up to his chin. They were locked. Then, breaching into his space, Frank reached forward, grabbed his shoulder before he could pull back. Bent down to him, eye to eye. Firm grip.

“Manipulating is different,” he muttered, squeezing at it, making sure he didn’t move, didn’t brush it off. “Manipulating is the heart,” he said, and then pushed a fist against the kid's heart like he used to do with his brothers in the Marines. After a long trek, a bad day, a good day - a thump to the heart with the fucking dust everywhere and blood and nightmares of Iraqi soil.

Thumped at it. Heart to heart. Solid.

For some reason, Frank didn’t know why or how - the action made the kid pale rapidly. Turn sallow. Didn’t know what it meant.

He ignored it. 

“Now, influence? Influence is logic. Mind to mind. Yea, shit, I’m influencin’ you. But you already know that. Because I’m only tellin’ the truth. It ain’t no fantasy situation, death. Death is everywhere. Comes for us all,” he said, and then thought of all the shit the kid had seen, too. 

“You know that as much as I do,” he said quietly. “You know that.”

Pete's eyes welled up. He wiped them before Frank could see them really get rolling. It made him feel sour. Soldier, trying to be brave in front of the evil man telling him evil things.

Then, after a minute of silence, of patience, he shrugged. Didn't speak again.

Could be a yes, or a no. Could be a maybe. 

Frank heaved a sigh, slid his hand away. Decided to answer the damn question.

"Okay. Fine. Holsters for firearms are the standard for law enforcement, or anyone trained to carry. It's, uh,  safer. No negligent discharge. Easy to retrieve. Usually at the, uh, the back of the hip," he said quietly, lowly. Coughed, again. It was too early for this bullshit, but he wasn't going to miss this chance. "Depends on their firing hand, which side."

Kid was hooked. Brown eyes, back on him.

"You, uh," he said, and then wondered why he was struggling so much. Buried it. Whatever it was.

"If the criminal is into shady shit, they don't bother. If you need to ditch it quickly, throw it into the river, it's a lot faster than removin' a holster. The holster is one more thing to clean prints from, right?  Caught with a weapon and a holster for it? Bumps up charges to sentencing, demonstrating intent, see. See, that's why they keep it in the waistband on its own."

Frank went to reach for his own, but shit, he had just woken up. It was still racked. He forgoed it for showing the conceal-carry spots with his hands, instead.

“I prefer the IWB. Inside-waistline holster. Keep it tucked in the back at 5 o’ clock, or  appendix-position, at the front. Appendix-position is the most protected. If I’m on the ground, I can draw with both hands. I can also protect it from being taken better than other positions. Criminals tend to be fuckin’ stupid, like I said, and tuck it straight into the waistband itself. Hell, I’ve done it sometimes when I’ve stopped giving a shit, but usually it's not chambered. I’ve done it to look like an idiot with a gun."

The radio was still droning on, and Frank wished it would just shut the fuck up.

He continued. "Remember that - anyone trained with a firearm will underestimate those who look like fools with it.  If it has a light trigger, let’s say a modern polymer pistol, you’re one movement away from an involuntary vasectomy in the front. If it becomes dislodged, it’s fallin’ on the ground. Are you following?”

Kid nodded frantically. Frank was doing a quick-stop tour. He pulled up his jeans and displayed his boots.

“Tactical boots usually have a spot for your knives. Knives are holy, sacred. You need one, kid. Stick it in the side of your boot if there’s no placement. Remember that if you see someone reaching low, too low. Leg-holsters, uh, can also hold knives. Shit, you can have criminals with ankle-holsters for handguns. There are holsters for any spot of the body. Holsters can be home-made. Duct-tape and wire clothing-hanger. Keep that in mind. If it’s not on the waist, weapons can be concealed in the vest-pocket, the shoulders.”

He straightened, and gestured to his arms.

“The armpits, the sleeves, the wrist if we’re talking blades. OWB holsters are attached to the belt itself, or close to the back. You should know, if you have a run-in with a cop, they go through four positions in training. The first is safety retention, taking it out of the holster. The second is close to the chest. I prefer to stay there.”

He pulled his elbows up. Mimicked his shooting stance. Then, stretched outwards.

“The third is extended. Arms straight. Looking down at the sights, down-range. Cops always straighten their arms out before they shoot. The fourth is re-holstering.” 

“Okay, well, I don't think I have to worry-"

“But even if you’ve got all that, you’re, uh, you're not in the clear,” he said finally. 

“Kid, there’s - there’s a lot you just have to get an instinct for where they’re grabbing from. Cop or criminal. And if you’re dealing with someone trained to always find a way out of a bad spot, think about it. Where’s the safest place to hide a weapon when you’re going to be frisked?”

“Up-”

“No,” he said. “Yea, yea, if you’re crazy, sure. Under your skin is also an answer.”

“Under - under your skin?”

“Razor blade,” said Frank.

“Woah,” the boy said. “And that’s not crazier?”

“Got it all?”

“No. No way, Frank. How am I supposed to remember all that?”

“You won’t,” he said. “That’s nothing. That’s tip of the iceberg. That’s just a small part of what I can teach you-”

“There’s still no solution if I can’t aim or-”

Frank already had a plan for that. Wasn't it obvious, every time Frank threw him something, and he caught it like it was no big deal?

“Dumbass,” he said in a clipped voice, interrupting him. “It’s right in front of you. You’ve been solving it the whole time, kid, without knowing it. And I can fix it. I have a contact who can help. if you just - you just need to listen to me. Open your damn ears to me. Don’t trust me. Hey. Trust my judgement.”

Pete looked at him with a squint, and then put his head in his hands.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” he said. Frank digressed. “Your judgement is - is killing people, Frank. I shouldn’t have asked. ”

“Yes, you should have. You're smart like that.”

"No - no, stop doing that. I just," he said, through his palms, and then sighed. "I don't know what I want. I didn’t come here to ask you that. I don’t know why I asked. Not really. I came because, um. You - you weren't answering the messages, and I got scared. Not of you. But of - of things in general."

Ah. Frank inhaled through his nose. 

"Jesus,” he said. “Talk to your aunt. Talk to your tin-can hero."

"No," he said under his breath, older than his years. "Not - not with things like this."

And that was the fucking problem Frank kept noticing.

"Sometimes," he began, "even though I know Mr. Stark is looking out for me, and Aunt May protects and loves me, and I, I care for them both-"

Frank's face twitched.

"-I always feel like I am at a distance. Away, from everybody and everything." He ran a finger over the palm of his hand, engrossed in the lines and curves, ignoring the music that was still playing from the van, the fact that it was maybe Frank in front of him here as he said these things. Frank, standing here like an idiot.

"As if the spider-bite just emphasised what was already there. To spite me. And, and in my sleep, my nightmares, I see the same thing happening over and over again. Aunt May falling away into some pit of darkness. Mr. Stark, uh, hating me in some way. Preferring Spider-Man over me. Uncle Ben dying. It will all be my fault. And that eventually, I will lose everybody and be stuck," he said grimly. "Alone, by myself."

Buoy on the water. Alone but surrounded by ships. Can't rely fully on any of them.

Frank buried that fucking nail of guilt, guilt that chased him down, deep under his thoughts. Even though he shouldn't have any. Even if it wasn't him who created this situation for the kid, it felt as if meeting him for the first time meant things were only going to get worse.

"And sometimes, I feel like no matter how much I try to be human Peter Parker, I will always fail. Yes, I can be Peter, but-" he swallowed. "I don't feel very human. I feel like some being who plays Spider-Man and just fails, over and over again. I can't - I can't even be honest with my best friend. As much as I want to save people, I always end up doing the wrong way, and even on my last patrol, Mr. Stark kept being -"

He cut himself off.

Frank wondered what that steel asshole had done now.

"You're supposed to fail," he decided to say lowly, treading with a wince and a half-shot. "Real bad. That - that good stuff makes us human."

Tears welled up the kids his eyes, and this time, he couldn't stop Frank from seeing them. They fell.

"I know, but I didn't even realise there was a wrong way to help people!" he cried, raising his hands in disbelief. "And I’m not allowed to fail at what I do, can I?"

That was true. Lives hung in the balance. That was the reason teenagers weren't out at night. doing the shit he did.

“You’re not,” he said grimly.

Frank would tell him to quit. He knew the answer was no.

"I'm trying to be good, Frank! I am! But turns out, Peter screws the pooch on that one, too! Helping the Punisher was a really bad call, apparently, but also, not helping you would have been bad, too."

Frank clenched his jaw.

"Everyone deserves a chance and yet-" he said wetly. "-when I commit to what I say, that I want to go out there and save as much as New York as possible with this power I possess, it's - it's like they don't believe me, or don't trust me to follow through, or - or hold me back. Hold me back from the stuff I actually can do. It sucks. I’m just confused. It sucks real bad."

Damn. He didn’t realise tonight would be the night the straw broke the camels back.

"Sorry. Why am I even talking about this, to - to you of all people? I can't do right by a murderer. I can't do right by a hero. I can't do right by my own friends, my own family - I - I don't know why-"

"I don’t know either," he said plainly. "Let it out."

Pete shut his mouth and glared at him like an irritable, tearful puppy. "Fuck you, asshole.”

Frank raised an eyebrow, but his face twitched again.

Shit, he was losing it. This kid.

"You're supposed to tell me a lie," he continued, seething. "Another lie."

"You don't - I'm not going to be singing your praises or patting your back at night," he tried to say smoothly, but he was wrestling with the reins. It came out like gravel. Steel against asphalt. "That's a waste. That's not my job. I do not give a shit about that. I'm just making sure you ain't being used, and that you live 'till you're eighteen. Shit -you should be talking to your damn guardian or, hey, since she seems to be lacking, a fuckin', uh, what are those school counsellors?-"

"I want you to tell me it's going to be okay. Clearly, you won't."

"Jesus, is that what you came here tonight for?" he laughed, a sharp, scathing laugh, "If that's what you're after, you're in the wrong fuckin' place. I can't tell you that," he said. "I can help you. I can teach you some shit. But I'm not a liar, Pete."

Peter Parker was an end to a means. Peter Parker was a curious itch he had to scratch. Peter Parker was the kid he was making sure didn't kill himself.

That was all.

"Well, that's fine. Maybe from now on, I prefer the truth. Maybe, I’ll listen.”

Frank tightened his lips. 

"Everyone else lies to me," he said. "That I'm too young to hear the truth, or keeping me out of conversations about me, or placating about things that I know won't be fixed. I knew my eye was damaged, and Mr. Stark even said everything would be okay, and what happened? Nothing! He didn't do anything. He said oh, we'll be okay, we'll fix it, we'll help you - not one thing. He's only made it - it worse."

Frank stayed silent, as the kid started pacing. Lost in his head. More tracks on the floor, but his arms had dried up. It was now caked oil, dusty and fragmented into cracks.

"At least - at least you're saying you want to help me, and-" he gasped, "you called Mr. Curt. You actually seem to be doing it."

"The truth is ugly," Frank drawled. "Real ugly on the eyes."

Pete laughed, and then wiped his eyes.

"Yeah, well," he said, and there was a bitter joy in his voice. "I'm starting to prefer ugly truths over false promises."

"You're too young for ugly truths."

"I'm either old enough or too young, apparently. You said that. Brave enough, or too reckless," he said, and met his eyes. Stopped in place. They were dark. They were emptier than the first time they had met. Cavernous. "Can't I just be Peter?"

Ah, shit.

Frank had asked the same thing. Once.

Wanted to stop getting labels and rules put on him, expectations that he was better or worse than he was. He asked that Curt and Madani let him do his own thing. Be his own force of nature. Let him be wild, be ruthless, do the things they can't do.

Let him burn up in his own atmosphere and bring every shit-stain with him. But did he give the kid the same answer - the boy who still had a life ahead of him where Frank didn't, who was glued stuck surrounded by people giving him orders, who was still good and prickly and annoying, and righteous, so righteous that he thought of Red? 

One of them had to break the silence. It would be Frank.

"You can be Peter."

And he didn't know if this conversation would have consequences. Consequences, or not. But hell. See, it got him closer to keeping the kid safe. That was what mattered.

No more dead kids.

He gave Pete a few minutes to himself. Peeled away from the locked interaction, walked around, tidied some shit he had left out from the night before. Didn't think of consequences, of influence, of manipulation like the kid said. Fact was fact. Frank only worked with fact.

"Okay. Okay. You have more ideas," Pete finally said questioningly, after recovering, after wiping his face dry and collapsing back on the couch again, and Frank finally turned off that stupid radio.

Victory in the silence.

He slammed the van door harder than he needed to. Energy in him. Restless. Pete's restlessness, rubbing off on him, thinking of the future, of plans, of action he could take. Oh, he was hyped now. He was awake, now.

Plans were running through his head, now.

"Like Mr. Curt?" the kid pushed, when Frank didn't reply. "You said the answer was right in front of me. Like that?”

"Some, yeah. Yeah."

“Okay,” Pete said. “Yeah. Um. Okay."

Then, the kid asked, all teasing and sheepish and like nothing ever happened -

"Do you actually have those little hotel soaps? Do you have soap at all? Because I, um, well man, I think I need a shower."

Frank chuckled.

"Nah. You don't wanna keep up the fashion trend? You look like a mop used to clean up an oil spill. 'Specially with that head of hair."

“You already said that, asshole,” the kid grumbled, but he got a wobbly smile out of the comment. “I don't want that that kind of truth. Thanks."

Frank watched Pete tug at the nest of hair on his head. Pulling it over his damaged eye.

“It’s too long, I know. My hair. And it got burned and turned out like this. Aunt May usually cuts it, but, um, she said I have to put up with it for a week as punishment. She thinks that going to school like this, um, will teach me not to run into burning buildings on a whim. I probably should have covered it with my hat before I came down the elevator.”

It did look terrible.

They both knew he would run straight back into that building.

Frank had a thought, then. He looked up at the ceiling, regretting it immediately.

He was caught in a tidal wave of ideas, see, and that brought bad ones, too. He didn't need to follow through on it. Wasn't his problem. Didn't matter. But it would be convenient. 

For the kid. Convenience, that's all. Make it easier for the boy to listen to him.

Get that mop of hair out of his face.

He debated it while clenching and unclenching his jaw, leaning against the crates, boots tapping against the ground, wondering if he should make another coffee. Wondering how late he was going to be up, talking to the kid. If it was worth it. Wondering if he should abandon ship now, and stop now before he started looking like a headcase.

He wasn't a headcase. Frank wasn't a headcase for following one bad idea. He was only doing a favour.

"Let me at it," he said, gravelled, wasteful, idiotically. "I'll fix it."

"Um. What?"

"You got school tomorrow?"

"Yea?"

If his guardian won't do that shit, Frank would. Prevent the kid from stewing in his problems.

"Yeah," he said, brushing it aside as another job, another task. Another hole to dig.

"Then let me at it."

.

.

.

Peter didn't know what he was doing.

Stupid. It was all stupid, silly Parker luck. One little slip, one upset day and he was running to the Punisher. He regretted it the instant he ended up looking for a distraction, sitting on that couch.

The man was a murderer, a bad person. An enemy. Yet, when he felt his frustration and confusion with Mr. Stark reach his limit, and he woke up again from another nightmare to hide from Aunt May, all he could think of was if Frank was out on a rooftop, looking to kill.

And if Peter could sit there in the cool night air, thinking, by his side.

He just wanted to help people. Save people. Bring them a smile.

Why was it becoming more difficult as time went on? Shouldn't it have become easier, natural - shouldn't Mr. Stark have followed through with helping him instead of placing more rules, more protocols, more surveillance, and especially, continuing to ground him, even though Peter was going to go out and patrol anyway? 

And after another patrol had gone bad because Mr. Stark just wouldn't let him be, he had made this mistake. 

Was it a mistake? 

Peter didn't blame Mr. Stark. He was only trying to help - Peter could still believe in that. But he was confused.

The niggling of doubt that had begun even before Peter had a run in with Frank had grown, and grown, and now he was just confused all the time. He didn't know what to think. Maybe, he just needed a little bit of help. Mr. Stark could still help in other ways.

His head was too fried to think about it. Too tired. He felt wrung out.

Mr. Curt had been nice. Peter had to assume, then, that whatever Frank had in mind, as corrupt and scathing to his soul it felt, it would follow through the same. Just for now.

Yeah. It was just for now. It didn't hurt anyone.

It didn't hurt anyone.

He was still against this. He was still against Frank Castle, and his ways. 

He shivered as he felt Frank place a hand on his shoulder, and immediately felt like he had to stand and get away.

No danger sense. Quiet. It was the lack of the danger sense that gave him that feeling. It was creepy.

He could see his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, but like the cracks that ran across it, it was shattered. The lights made it look like a circus mirror with his haggard face, his nest of hair on his head. Fragmented. Dirty. Peter averted his eyes. Instead, he glanced at Frank's reflection who stood tense behind him, hands in the air. Face in a disgruntled scowl, lip curled.

Typical, Peter thought. 

"No, no, that is too weird," he finally said, and shuddered. "My danger sense is too quiet around you when you're armed. I don't like it."

Frank huffed at him, waving with a knife. And not a kitchen knife, not his machete - no, it had a weird thingy on the handle for grip, like Frank was going to kill someone with it. The razor was in the sink bowl. His own razor. The guy shaved his own head regularly. Apparently, the man didn't keep kitchen scissors hanging around like May did, so Peter was stuck with a madman and a knife. "Sit."

"Don't - don't ruin it," he begged out of sheer embarrassment. 

"It's already ruined, bug. I ain't even touched it yet."

And tentatively, Peter tugged the chair back under himself and sat back down. Crossed his ankles. Kept his hands by his side so he didn't try and grab the knife out of the man's hand. 

May was the only one who had ever cut his hair. That's what he could remember, at least. He never even went to a barber before. It was just cheaper for her to make sure it didn't get too long and too crazy, and she'd trim it with their scissors and make him sit in front of a mirror like this. Hopefully, she wouldn't be mad if he told her he went to a barber or a hairdresser to get it cut. It kind of defeated her point of adding something onto the 'grounded' punishment her and Mr. Stark had going on.

"Cool. Super duper cool," he croaked.

"Okay?" Frank asked. "No more kicking and shouting?"

"Please don't mess it up. Please. Don't shave it all off."

"You've burned more than you think you have. Some of it needs shaving. No question about it."

"Not all of it?"

"No."

Thank God.

Peter swallowed his nerves.

Why was he much more nervous about this than he had been earlier, telling this man more than he had ever told May or Mr. Stark, or even his Uncle Ben? Or, if he wanted to think about Ned, how little he had told Ned?

Frank moved the knife closer to his scalp, but Peter didn't look at him while he did it. They weren't there. It was easier to pretend at the end of those moments of anger and fear and so much confusion and honesty - that they were both different people. 

"I can talk, if it helps distract you."

"Yes, please," Peter said back straight away. Anything for a distraction. He came here in the first place for a distraction from all this confusion after all. "Tell me about this contact. The one you mentioned. The way you say contact is, like, super creepy by the way. Who is it? Are they like Mr. Curt - are they from the military?"

"No. They aren't," he said. "And you'll have to jump through some hoops to get to them. You like jumpin' through hoops?"

Peter had no idea what that meant. Guess the man couldn't just call them on the phone like he did with Mr. Curt.

"Not particularly. I'm no circus animal, Frank."

"Really? You look like one."

He rolled his eyes at the comment.

And there and then, although wouldn't learn it until much, much later -

Peter made a deal to meet the Devil.

Chapter Text

"Rough night?"

Matt swiftly went to pat down the wrinkles and creases of his shirt with his thumb. A crooked grin spread across his face at Karen's remark. 

Well. There went that secret.

Secrets didn't last long in Nelson, Murdock and Page.

He had thought he could get away with it for a half-day where they weren't even heading to the courthouse, but of course, Karen would be as quick as ever to spot any discrepancies to his morning routine. She was leaning against his desk. All sweet perfume and printed paper and safe tones- clearing at a vantage point to see his less than pristine shirt. The scent of her lipstick - faint and creamy. The base of her palms pressed firmly into the mahogany wood, keeping her upright.

Matt hadn't realise he was being kept to such a high-standard at the workplace.

"Foggy came in this morning without a tie," he said, knowing the man had shoved it into his laptop bag a few days ago, and had yet to remember which pocket he had left it in. He wasn't being petty - he was delivering due justice. "Now, I'd say that's practically criminal."

He himself had come in wearing a suit jacket, smooth and velvety and without the need for ironing.

Unfortunately, that did little to hide his shirt after Foggy had cranked the heating in the firm. When it was already warm enough this Spring to start using the air conditioning.

Hey, he didn't want to try understand that, couldn't understand that, but well, that was Foggy. The suit-jacket had been reluctantly draped over the back of his office chair, and the walls were lined with their newly built bookshelf courtesy of a client and the framed photographs and documents from their previous cases. The mountain of tea-cakes a client had left them, piled in a gift basket on a table by the flower vase. The main room.

Gathered there with his colleagues, his friends, he was eager to return to to private desk inside with distractions he could bury himself in.

Cases to analyse.

"Ties are opt-in, Mattie," hollered the man in question.

Foggy was shutting the door behind their first pro-bono client of the morning, a woman who had needed help with a restraining order that was not being followed. One that Matt might follow up on in his own time. A docket of information was tucked under his arm. "But now that you say it Karen - yes, have a good day. We'll be in touch!" 

The latch clicked. He listened to the client take the stairs on step at a time, heels pattering away. Foggy walked over and threw the docket onto his desk. "What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I see the wrinkles in that shirt, Matt. Rolling up your sleeves won't hide the creases on the arms. Minus ten points for formality."

"If we're doing a point system," Matt replied, "-you need to find your tie, or you have less points than me"

"You know where it is?"

"That defeats the point of you looking for it, doesn't it?"

Karen's hair shifted against her shoulder. She glanced at the clock. They had an hour to write up a report for the restraining order, investigate her current lawyer, and present a plan of action before their next client. Thankfully, not pro-bono, Matt thought. He had enough time to avoid this, escape to a coffee shop and bring back sympathy gifts. 

"Are we getting convincingly distracted from your big night out, Matt? You're changing the subject."

"Yeah. that's right," Foggy said. "Let's make it a treasure hunt system for the tie, as if we're not up to our eyes in work and busy enough already. Great idea. Not! Tell me where it is. But you need to tell me and Karen first - was it a rough night for you?"

"The only excitement for the day," said Karen. "Any comment?"

"You're like vultures," Matt huffed. He couldn't go anywhere with these people. "Can't we just agree that sometimes, I don't have time to iron my shirts in the morning?"

There was a pregnant pause in the air, one Matt waited on. Karen eventually tutted, tilting her chin. Matt felt that she could read his mind sometimes. She saw more than normal people saw into people, into their souls. Into Matt. Ever since they had officially included Page into the title of the law firm, the three of them worked more synonymously than ever towards helping Hell's Kitchen and New York - like a well-oiled machine. It was like she had always been there. 

"So, it was a rough night," she said. "Being more secretive than usual, don't'cha think?"

"Not exactly."

"Oh. Ha. A good night, then. Nice one," joked Foggy, and Matt knew he had said the wrong thing.

He sighed as he reached for his cane, pulling the suit-jacket back over his shoulders.

He was going to get coffee. Decided. They had an hour to spare before he needed to be back in the office, which was plenty of time. Anything to end this line of questioning. One would think that Matt could withstand questioning as a lawyer who enjoyed questioning clients himself, but he refused to participate in this when there was so much work to be done. 

"Not like that. Aren't you being unprofessional in the workplace?"

He scooped up his keys and adjusted the wire-frame glasses that covered his eyes. "Two points from you. I'm going to pick up an order from GoGo's, Foggy. Is that good enough? We have a long day ahead of us. Same orders?"

"You're turning red, Mattie."

"And you're lying to my face, Fogs. Same order?"

"You know it."

Karen lifted herself off the desk the same moment he moved away from it, striding over to her own mountain of work to be done to pull her handbag over her shoulder. He knew the gun was still in there, loaded. He could hear the cartridge rolling in the chamber. If she was put off by the conversation, Matt couldn't pick up on it. Karen was too familiar with them now. Forgoing her coat, she crossed the office space to him.

"I'm coming with you," she said, and Matt relented. "It's my treat this time. You hold the fort, Foggy. We'll pick up what we can when we're back."

"Good. Might as well start something. I'll fly through this report. I might even be done when you get back."

"That would be a dream."

Foggy threw a victorious thumbs-up into the air, and disappeared into the storage room.

"Fine by me," he said. He felt her come up to his shoulder. A ten-minute break from work was better than no break at all, questioning over or not.

"Escort me to GoGo's, Miss Page?" 

He reached out his arm.

"Certainly, Mr. Murdock," she said graciously, with a smidge of mockery, and hooked her own arm into his.

And Matt felt happy. He knew that things were good at the minute.

Well. That was a lie.

They could always get better. Unfortunately, that was the thought always whispering at him, chewing away even as they left the firm and starting tapping down West 44th street.

Karen guided him around a coned section for roadworks, and it was still niggling away at his thoughts. Better than this - even better than the sun on his face and the deep breathes of the city and Karen beside him.

Him finally putting away all the criminals as Matt Murdock, and defeating the rest as Daredevil for good. That would be better.

Or putting them in a position where they can be locked up in prison for the sins they committed. Then, Matt wouldn't have to fight anymore. He would then be able to give up his other identity. The side of himself that can complete what he cannot do with the law in his hands. He would open a larger firm, be paid more than just pro-bono work and free Foggy and Karen to advance their own careers without him. Find the success they truly deserved without him.

Better than this.

If he ever found the strength to do so. God willing.

Sometimes, Matt thought about what would happen if New York was fixed.

If it was healed. Stitched together by ragtag groups like their law firm, like the Devil he lets out at night, like the common folk. Oh, he liked to think that he would stop. He liked to think he would finally be able to rest. It would be freedom. He could let his soul be free and let the Devil die, he thought.

But his work was far from finished.

And that meant he didn't have time to think about where he would search for absolvement after the war, like a rabid addict  who couldn't get a hit from his old stash.

But where Matt was right now was better than where he was before. That was something to be proud of.

That was something Karen and Foggy were trying to drill into him, one day at a time.

Matt tapped his cane rhythmically down the sidewalk as Karen pulled him along, and they moved down through 51st's busiest sidewalk.

He tried to put a lock on the sights and smells of the city, his usual controls to blocking out an overwhelming amount of information he could recieve. It was not the time to hear the tour group exclaiming that they were to return from their lunch break, nor the escalator jammed in the mall in a neater, nicer part of the city.

He would confine himself to smelling the trash of Hell's Kitchen, and that trash alone. Keep it local. They strolled down two blocks, pausing momentarily at a pedestrian crossing in the street for the traffic lights to turn red. Matt rested his cane by his hip. 

He could hear her biting the inside of her cheek.

"Well, Miss Page," he decided to say. Bite the bullet. "Any more questions for me?"

And he was right. She leaned closer to his side, talked lower. As if someone was listening. 

"It's not just the shirt, Matt. I don't know if you think you've washed it off fully or not, but there is a mark on your arm - some ink from a stamp. If it's related to last night, and you were out as-" she paused, and exhaled, "if you were out last night, you need to wipe it more to remove it. Keep your sleeves down."

"Ah," he said, thankful that he had put the suit-jacket back on, after all. It was too close.

He'd have to be more careful if he went back.

"Thanks for telling me. No. I wasn't out as our friend last night."

The Devil of Hell's Kitchen had not been patrolling. But he would be in the shadows of Hell's Kitchen tomorrow.

Matt guaranteed it. He had a continue his duty, after all.

"Alright. Then, were you out clubbing?"

Matt laughed. "I'd be sure to keep it quiet if I was. Without Foggy?"

Karen said nothing. The light changed.

The crowd moved as one, quickly pacing across the street. Matt and Karen followed the masses. There were countless phone conversations, music in headphones, mutterings to the self. To loved ones. Matt tried to ignore anything that was too private, too personal.

"I hate when you do this," she whispered seriously. "It makes me worry, Matt. I want a straight answer."

He sighed. Adjusted the grip on his cane. It slide back and forth across the pavement, barely avoiding the ankles of those who tried to step a little too close. He tried to keep his grin, but it may have morphed into some sort of grimace as they turned down to the avenue for 'Coffee A Go Go'.

How could he not tell her, now? 

"Last night, was an attempt to gather info," he eventually forced out. It made him sound reluctant. He didn't want to sound reluctant, he wanted to tell her anyway, but he was worried. Keeping his two lives separate was important. "Our friend - he wasn't there. Just me. And a neat early-hour trip to a casino."

"A casino?" she huffed. "Matt don't tell me-"

"I didn't get very far inside, Karen. Tried to play the gambling-man show and came 'drunk' in a taxi. I spent about, let's say fifteen minutes inside before they kicked me out," he said, chuckling darkly. "Thought they would be sleezy enough to take everyone and anyone. Seemed the type. To let me sneak away into the back. Guess I was wrong."

"Where was this?" she said quietly. "Why?"

He hesitated.

Information may lead to a situation where she might try to investigate on her own. Dragging her into his mess. But then again, he was hard pressed to hide anything from her and Foggy. 

His own investigation was a failure.

The Elysian Casino was a mystery in itself- somewhere he would write off as a place financially unstable, corrupt, and most definitely shady. But not exorbitantly targeted by the criminal underworld, not a strong asset for meets, and certainly existing for the false and poor to pretend with one another that they had made it to the big leagues.  It had all but gone under his radar until all of a sudden, the world and it's mother seemed to talk about it, yet say nothing at all.

The quiet was worse, Matt thought. Those he found to interrogate knew nothing but rumours. Those who did know something were staying far out of his way. It was wrong. It was big. 

Never had he seen such a widespread agreement within the criminal underworld for silence. Not since under the hand of Fisk. 

"Matt. I might be able to help. Please. "

"It's called The Elysian," he muttered after a pause. "A play on the Greek mythology. Elysian fields. Some sort of, uh, afterlife. Part of the underworld. Indulgence, green fields, and peace. The casino is named after that. Or so I learned."

He hadn't gotten far. Not at all. He had thought that if he couldn't enter as The Devil without stirring a shitstorm bigger than he was prepared for, the best way was through the front doors themselves. Stumbled inside and onto the plush carpets like a blind man who had lost everything, stamped on the arm by security and ready for admittance. But there had been nothing for him to detect in the lobby. 

Nothing, but a normal casino. Full of the Irish.

"But everything seemed normal, Karen - except there were no Italians" he continued. That was the problem. "You and I know the kind of things a crime family can get up to when you take your hands off the wheel for even a second. The Italians went quiet. I learned it was because of the owner of this casino's death. A man named Steve Barrucci. Italian."

They paused for a moment when a group of people stepped too close. She didn't reply until they had turned down a quieter street. 

I've never heard of that name, Matt," she said. "If I were to give any opinion, I would say the quiet makes sense. I understand why you'd look into it, though. I'm not surprised, especially if he was a prominent figure in the community. They're probably mourning the loss. As for no Italians in the casino, perhaps it was sold?"

Matt huffed.

"The thing is, nobody cared for Steve Barrucci. His son has far more influence than him. His name never spread around gang circles. He's probably the furthest down the hierarchy you can think of, apart from owning that same casino. He was a nobody. He was a member, not a leader."

"What?"

"And perhaps they did sell the casino. In spirit. Sold it out. But the deed is still under the name of Laurence Barrucci. His successor, his son. Unusual, right?"

"So, it wasn't sold..." she said under her breathe. "That doesn't make any sense."

"The Italians didn't care for Steve Barrucci. I know that much. His funeral - get this - was held by the Irish. And his successor, Laurence Barruci hasn't been seen by anyone in the last month, but his name is still on the deed. Last night, the place was full of Irish. Seem suspicious to you?"

"Yes," she replied. "Definitely. You're saying the son, or Barrucci himself, was a traitor?"

"No. Not that. Well, maybe. I'm saying that - that the Irish probably snatched up a weakness in the Italian crime network. Found it through the casino. One nobody cared about. And something around that casino has scared the population into some sort of adjacent obedience? I don't know. Really, I'm clutching at straws here Karen. These are the only facts I have. I don't have the knowledge or the combination to put them together."

Matt was clueless. All of this theories could be wrong. Really, he had no idea, and nobody was speaking out about any of it.

He had reached a dead end. 

Karen hummed.

"Strange. Maybe - maybe a call to war? Are they moving into Italian territory, after eliminating Laurence, because this, uh, Steve Barrucci is dead? Maybe they removed the son as a power play. But then you said he was influential. Why wouldn't the Italians go after the Irish for taking out Laurence? They - well, the Irish think they can take over the gang with an advantage."

"I told you, Karen. I don't know," he strained. "The Italians are silent. But I do know there are plenty of places more industrious to take over the gang than that casino. One, run-down casino. It's a weakness, yes,  but not a powerful one. It doesn't make sense. Why start there, with two no-name casino owners? It's not exactly the height of wealth and luxury."

"No one is speaking about this?"

"They're either afraid to speak out, or know nothing," he said plainly. "My question is this - why the Elysian?"

Why that place? What was special about that very casino?

Karen adjusted her handbag, and Matt knew he had set her on a path of curiosity as strong as his own. Maybe a mistake. Maybe not. As long as it was only desk research. He could use the help.

"Unless it really is the afterlife hiding in there, Matt, and we're all missing out." She nudged his shoulder. "How about that?"

Matt wiped an eye under his glasses with a grin. "Maybe the criminals are onto something, after all." 

They continued to theorise until they had reached GoGo's, and decided to bury the topic for the day.

While Karen waited in line by the cramped pastry shelf in front of the barista, he slipped off to the public restroom. Squeezing into the only place he could assume was the singular toilet, he swiftly compacted his cane and tucked it under his armpit.

The water in the sink ran cold, and he rolled up his sleeve to feel where the stamp had been placed the night before so he could enter the building. Matt himself had no idea what it looked like. For good measure, he rinsed the whole arm twice and hand, and scrubbed with his nails some weak hand-soap down the arm to avoid any unnecessary conflict down the line for why someone like Matt had ended up at a dodgy place like the Elysian. Grounded himself.

When he had finished, Karen was waiting by window with the tray of takeaway coffee. He weaved through the plastic tables and curved counter to reach her and they set off into the city again to return to the firm.

She stayed by his arm as they made their way back. Matt was secretly hoping Foggy had gotten a good head-start on the day, because otherwise his head may as well be as distracted as any other day. Trying to commit to his clients, but his thoughts being a world away. On the enigma it presented him.

Him and Karen chatted about the day ahead, crossing the street again, but only then did Matt realize something.

Realize was a stronger word. He heard something.

A heartbeat on the rooftops. A moving, following heartbeat.

One that should have fallen behind far, far earlier. 

Matt thanked God he had stayed alert as he had - or else he may have given himself up to a stalker before he knew it.

They were being followed.

He narrowed in his focus, listening to the scuff of shoes, the light breathes.

Picking up their pace slightly past the hotel at a junction near 10th Avenue, he tried to act natural. Normal. Pedestrians passed them by, some entering the rotating door. He debated hiding inside and dragging Karen with him - then thought it was a stupid idea. Better to outmanoeuvre the stranger.

His phone was tucked safely into his pocket - he had time to warn Foggy if needed. If he chose to. Part of him, the one always bobbing and weaving, wondered if it was already too late, however. Wondered if he had caught onto the punch too late. 

But he was awake. And he was ready.

"We've picked up a tail," he breathed out, finally telling Karen. "They're still far away. Rooftops. Turn right."

She had only a slight misstep in rhythm, quickly corrected.

Instead of continuing the route they came, she instantly twisted to bring them down another street, lined with trees. They walked passed a delivery van, packing boxes into the back. Her nails suddenly dug deeper into his forearm. Firmer. Wary.

She risked a glance behind. Matt knew their stalker was too far to be seen.

"Are you sure?" she said, but her voice betrayed none of the panic he could hear rising in her own heartbeat.

"Positive."

He could shrug off a coincidence if it was street-level stalking. That was true.

But the rooftops were his own game, and the game of the dirty crowd that played in the dark. He heard the scattering of footsteps, far above him and far, far behind.

But who was it, and why now?

He monitored the situation closely while Karen lead them away. They tried to lose the tail, attempting to shake him for the next twenty minutes, but there was no luck. The coffee was dumped in the process. Matt knew then that the heartbeat was definitely moving via the rooftops. What's more - it was moving quick. With ease.

Choking down any sort of tide that threatened to overwhelm him, swirling in the pit of his stomach, they walked on. Cut through three streets, circled the block, crossed an open plaza and began to breach into the Manhattan. The tail stayed. Nearing 49th, the blocks were tall enough for hanging advertisements and offices that needed more than one elevator to cope. Under the shadow of an occasional skyscraper, albeit small, anyone would find it difficult to gain ground via the rooftops. But Matt found even then that their tail never let up. 

He nearly made his frustration audible after his patience began to wear thin, but swallowed it down. He pushed it into his heavy strides, instead.

Controlled. Their breathes were controlled. And getting closer.

How? 

He couldn't solve it. He had prepared for that moment, and he was fearful that he hadn't prepared nearly enough. The moment where someone would come after him in his civilian life, and he wouldn't be able to slip away easily. About to cut into small park, Karen stopped them suddenly at the iron gate and manoeuvred across the girding towards a singular bus stop, under a shelter of trees that swayed from where they escaped in height away from the greenery. She turned him to face her. 

It was the first time they had stayed still in a long time.

"They're young," she whispered. "I saw them! Above. They look young. He's a teenager, Matt."

Well. That didn't change much. 

"No mask?" he asked, but he already knew the answer.

"No. They didn't look very cautious, either. Only a hood."

"The Hand have used children before," he muttered back. "On their lowest hierarchies. It could be a messenger carrying a threat, or means to accost me in my public identity. Which is in poor taste, considering I'm not going to let anything like that happen without a fight. Child or not. I think whoever our guest is, they certainly aren't searching for advice on state legislature or rent increases."

"You never know. It's been a tough year," she said with a huff. "And we've had some interesting clients."

"Travelling on rooftops? They've definitely found me another way."

"You think we can rule out potential clients then, or someone against the firm?"

It could even be because of his risky behaviour at the casino the night before. He didn't want to consider that option.

"No," he said grimly. "But I don't want to stick around and find out. Stay by me."

And they quickly took off again, entering the park. Pigeons flew from the worn path at their haste. They crossed through it and out the other side, doubling back on themselves, and then finally, out to another avenue full of much louder, bustling traffic.

"If they're following you now, they probably already know where you work, Matt. We should head back and plan."

"I'm not taking that risk."

He didn't want to go back to the firm. He would find a way, he knew, to send Karen off safely and then lead their stalker away.

And then, all of a sudden, Matt found his thoughts stuttering to a halt.

Turns out, he didn't have a choice in the matter. Even after all that evasion.

The heartbeat was in front of him, coming down the avenue and footsteps blending with the array of tourists and pedestrians and street-goers who faced them. 

Matt wondered how - how had that happened? He didn't - he didn't even have time to -

Heart in his throat, he spun on his heels and turned again back the way they came. Tried to put one foot in front of the other. This was bad - bad, how had he not picked up on -

He was tempted to run from Karen then and there, to protect her if it meant -

And then he could hear those shoes breaking out into a jog, pushing past people, his head shot upright - 

"Ms. Page!" the young voice called, and Matt could finally pin an age on their tail that Karen had clearly seen earlier.

"Hey, Ms. Page!"

The woman in question suddenly slammed into him.

They stopped in place, like a car pulling an emergency brake. He licked his lips nervously, unable to keep his head steady, his body steady. The voice was young. Teenager. Definitely a teenager. Karen turned around, held her head high. He tried to spin as casually as he could, but it was a close thing.

"Wait - Ms. Page, hey -"

And then, all of a sudden, it felt like the strangest thing to Matt. There he was, flighty and ready to take off at a moments notice. Yet, the image it made to the people filtering through the crowds could appear to be anything. Friends or family, or strangers that perhaps encountered each other occasionally in their neighbourhood. Locals. He didn't like it. Should it look like danger?

The kid finally reached a few meters ahead, and slowed to walk as he approached. Matt knew, and he hated it - that he was waving. For some reason, he was waving.

To the crowds, it probably looked casual. To Matt, deception could lie everywhere. He knew that in his heart.

How had this kid gotten so close?

That took skill. And certainly, it meant danger would follow.

"Pardon?" said Karen. "I'm sorry. I don't know who you are."

She moved to leave. Good choice, he felt.

Matt turned with her, his thoughts running a mile a minute - but the boy twitched a finger like he was going to come towards them. Reach out. Maybe even grab her. He was definitely under 5"10, maybe 5"9. Nothing unusual about the way he was dressed apart from that hood over his head. And the fact that he had tracked above him with only a pair of sneakers or soft shoes that Matt could hear squeaking.

Changing plans, Matt took a step forward before he could consider it, and coughed casually. The crowd continued to swell around them. He placed his cane carefully next to the boys ankle, and it hit the ground with a snapping thwack. On his left side. 

If they were going to do this there - well, they would be doing this right there. He rolled his shoulders.

The kid finally looked up at him. Slowly. And then, down at the cane.

"Oh! Sorry, sir," he said with a airy laugh. "I didn't mean to get so close."

And then Matt was ignored. 

The boy tilted until he was leaning past Matt's shoulder. "Ms. Page. I really, really need to speak with you," he said firmly, pressingly. "It's important. Do you have a few minutes spare so that we can talk? Um - preferably somewhere quieter?"

Oh.

The boy moved from side to side, like he was excited, or frightened, although Matt heard his heartbeat and it was slow and relaxed. Occasionally, he scratched under his hood as if it was giving him an itch. And then, he pulled it down, like he was trying to cover his face.

Was it a trick?

"You want to speak to my colleague?" he asked carefully, trying to bring the attention, the danger, back to himself.

"It's fine, Matt," said Karen wobbly, clutching her bag tightly. Although, the speed at which her heartbeat was thundering seemed to have slowed. But Matt knew the danger may not have passed. Just because - what, he was a young? She moved some stray hairs out from her face. "No, it's okay. You want to speak with me?"

"It's not fine," Matt bit. "Do you always approach strangers on the street with strange requests? Who are you - what do you want?"

"Um. Sorry."

"I asked who you are," he continued. "You seemed very intent on speaking with us."

There was a pause. The boy shuffled in place.

And then, in a scathing tone -

"Actually, sir," the boy said, to his face, no less. "I couldn't care less about - about speaking with you. I have no idea who you are, frankly. I'd really love if you moved to the side. Please. So I could speak to Ms. Page about something important. And Ms. Page, I'm sorry for approaching you like this, but I thought it would be safer than coming into - uh, like, into your office space."

Hold on. Wait a second.

"I would have emailed, but I was kind of impatient. Sorry. And I didn't know if you'd answer, or believe me-"

Wait.

Matt's brain blue-screened, and refreshed. He blinked rapidly.

Carefully, he moved his cane away from the boy's ankle. It slid across the sidewalk. He pulled it under his armpit, and tried to steady himself. He bumped into a stranger who had been weaving passed, and grimaced.

But then, the boy moved under the shade of the building and out of the centre of the sidewalk. Away from the crowd... and Karen moved to follow him, so Matt, of course, moved to maintain his position between them.

Was - was this boy really stalking them to speak to Karen?

Not him?

"Safer?" Karen asked seriously, empathy leeching into her voice, and Matt knew he had lost her on being cautious. Her eyebrows furrowed. "You need help?"

"Huh? No, it's not that serious."

"Karen," he warned, but didn't know if it made any impact.

"You said safer."

"Oh, yeah! Yeah, don't worry. I, huh, I'm just a little bit grounded, is'all," the boy replied, but he tugged at his hood again. 

Her heartbeat jumped, and then returned to rhythm. Her fingernail scraped the leather of her handbag handle, completing a circle. Matt titled his head. He was so, utterly confused. If this was an enemy, a member of the Hand - someone to unveil his identity, they were doing terribly. 

"So, let me get this straight. You just happened to run into me. Or, did you look for me?"

"Mm-hmm. The first one."

Lie. That was just a bold-faced lie. He didn't need to listen to heartbeats to know that.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" he said, and Matt frowned. Maybe there was something wrong here. "I just need to speak with you. Privately. About something. It can be public! Whatever you want. I just have questions."

Karen exhaled.

"The thing is, well - you just seem to be awfully concerned about the cameras," she stressed, and Matt felt her reaching forward for his forearm and squeezing. A chill then ran through him, inside and out. As if it had come from her. He knew that no kid - correction, no sane kid who was just grounded by their parents would find themselves concerned about closed-circuit footage.

Or leaping across rooftops. Following them. Hence, the suspicion. 

Matt's own childhood was off the table. He was the anomaly who was being carved into piece by piece to be a tad rougher, a bit stronger - and far less soft than other boys his age. Not that Stick succeeded. But that was then - this was now. Matt pondered over his previous cases, the latest he'd seen in news and criminal justice circle. Child trafficking was rampant. So was grifting.

The boy could be in the bad books with any sort of gang violence or home violence - or law enforcement. That is, if he wasn't an enemy. Which, as this conversation went on, Matt was less and less inclined to believe he was.

Had he been mistaken? Was this actually a kid that needed their help?

No. No way.

If that was the case, Matt would be the first to try and help them.

And that made all the difference.

"I, hah - that is the second time now you've looked up at the camera on the side of the bank. Just now. And I saw you on a rooftop earlier, looking down on us from afar. Or, perhaps I saw wrong, I don't know. I don't want to imply-"

Oh, Matt would imply. This was strung through wider scope than it seemed. It put him on edge.

"- but maybe I don't know a lot about parenting teenagers in these days. If it's safer to meet with me like this. Care to enlighten us?"

The boy laughed, and there was a tremor in his voice.

Matt heard him reach for his hood again, the soft fabric brushing against his forehead as he tugged it lower. Wavered in place. He could sense it now, nerves greater than just a grounding would relay. The twitches in his neck, as he fought the reaction to check the camera Matt could hear chirring and stuttering on a loosely secured base-plate over the ATM machine, the brick loosening as the years had gone by.

That was a problem. But it nailed the lid of the coffin in place. He straightened. 

If this kid was there to cause harm, he wasn't doing it of his own free will. That was all Matt needed to know.

He could still be cautious - yet extend his own aid.

"Yeah," the boy said, and chuckled darkly. "You'd be surprised. I actually am, um, doing it because I'm grounded."

And Matt didn't detect a lie. Which was another bag of worms. 

What did that mean? What did any of it mean?

"It does seem sketchy," Matt interrupted, dragging their attention back towards him. "But I believe you."

The kid jolted. Remembered he was here, more than likely. Looked back at him. 

"Oh. Yeah? Well, it's true, so..."

"If you need to speak to Karen, I'd suggest back at the firm, or say it here," he said. "Are you in danger?"

"I'm just grounded," he said plainly, like he was bored of him. "Ms. Page, can we please talk?"

"Okay. We can talk," she said, and folded her arms. "We can speak here, if that's okay with you? I don't entirely trust someone I meet on the street. Especially if they know who I am, even if they do need my help. What is it?

"I need to speak with you privately."

"Whatever you need to say, you can say it in front of the two of us."

"You, hah, you might regret it."

"As far as I know," Matt interrupted again, "You haven't even introduced yourself. Given us a name. If you need to speak to Karen because of her work, than I am more than willing to lend an ear. You don't have to be wary of me. I'm an attorney, at the same firm. We can either go back there, or you say it here like Karen wants. You choose."

"Fine," the boy said. "But you might regret it," he told her directly. Matt tilted his head.

"I won't. I'm certain of that much."

"I'm - well, you might."

"I won't. Whatever you found me to ask, you can ask it in front of the two of us. Right now."

Matt was proud to hear that. It was warm, and comforting in his chest.

The kid took a deep inhale. Looked around again. Then, exhaled slowly. 

"I'm looking for someone. Someone you know. To help."

"Who?"

That sent the kid stuttering like wildfire.

"You know their identity," he said, and then - oh, then that sent alarm bells. "It's alright if you can't tell me, but, um, I really need to speak to them as well."

Matt was - he didn't know what he was thinking. The city around him went silent, engulfed in a perfect, spherical bubble somewhere far away. He forgot he was on the sidewalk, out in the open. 

"They don't answer their phone - yeah, I tried their phone number, too, well not me, a f- a, uh, not a friend, a guy. Of mine? I guess. He didn't pick up. And he said to ask you, to ask him, because he can't ask permission if he won't talk to him - it's a whole thing. He has this code. I don't know. I think answering your phone should be part of your code, if you have one. Sent me on a wild goose chase, for one. Not to say anything about this guy! But it, um, - you see-"

He was speechless.

"I'm looking for a man called Red," the kid said, all firm and unlike a boy his age. "You know him, Ms. Page. And I want - I want you to send him a message for me."

....Red?

Then, as the two of them gaped, and Matt felt the blood drain from his face, and could only think of one person who used that name, that insult, that simplified nickname, he quipped -

"Sorry if that was, like, a huge secret. Did I just blow it?"