Chapter Text
The back room of Josie’s was dim, lit only by a single bare bulb that buzzed faintly overhead. The sounds of the fight—groans of the wounded, the shuffle of Brett and the surviving cops—faded into a muffled echo beyond the door.
Frank Castle sat slumped in a chair, his body barely holding together. Blood soaked through his shirt, cuts marked his arms and face, bruises already darkening across his ribs. His breaths came shallow, uneven. His knuckles were raw, split open.
He looked like a man carved out of war. But his eyes… his eyes wouldn’t stop searching for her.
Karen knelt silently in front of him, her hands steady even as her heart raced. She dipped a rag into a bowl of water, wrung it out, and pressed it gently against the wound on his temple. He flinched, not from the pain but from the intimacy of her touch.
“Easy,” she whispered. Her voice trembled, but she steadied it. “Just… let me.”
He let his eyes fall shut. For once, he didn’t resist. The fight drained out of him, leaving only the hollow, aching weight of exhaustion—and something sharper, something he couldn’t name as her hand brushed across his face.
The rage and blood blurred at the edges. All that remained was her. Karen Page. The one light he couldn’t burn out, no matter how deep he buried himself in violence.
Her hand lingered on his cheek, thumb brushing dirt and dried blood away. His jaw tightened. He wanted to say something—everything—but the words stuck in his throat.
Karen’s voice broke the silence. “Frank… talk to me.” She dabbed at the gash on his brow, careful, tender despite the mess of his wounds. “Tell me what happened. How did you get here?”
Her blue eyes searched his, pleading—not for answers to the fight, or even Fisk’s men, but for him.
Frank’s chest heaved. He clenched his fists on his knees, veins rising in his arms, jaw locked tight. He tried to hold it in—the fear, the fury, the desperate pull toward her. But her presence broke something loose.
His lips parted, then closed again. He dragged in a shuddering breath, eyes fixed on hers like he was drowning and she was the only solid ground.
The rag slipped from her fingers, forgotten, as she pressed her palm against his cheek again. He leaned into it, just barely, almost ashamed of needing it, of needing her.
For a fleeting moment, the Punisher vanished, and all that remained was Frank Castle—a man haunted, terrified of what he could still lose.
Frank’s eyes opened again, bloodshot and restless. He shook his head slowly, like the weight pressing down on him was too heavy to lift. His voice, when it came, was rough, torn from somewhere deep and wounded.
“They had me, Karen. Fisk’s men. Dragged me straight to him.” His fists tightened on his knees, knuckles splitting open all over again. “He sat me down… said he wanted me to lead his army. His damn army. Like I was gonna be his dog.”
His breath caught, trembling with anger, with shame. “I laughed at him. Told him I wasn’t him. Told him I’d never be him. And he… he knew I’d say that. He—”He dropped his gaze, voice lowering to almost a whisper. “He brought you up. He said he could break me through you.”
Karen froze, her hands tightening around the damp cloth.
Frank lifted his head again, eyes wet, hollowed by fear. “He had your face in a folder. Pictures. Articles. Things you wrote. A photo of you… from my trial. He laid it all out, slow, just so I’d know he’d been watching. He knew... what you are to me.”
His voice cracked, raw as broken glass. “Karen… you were right. All these years, you were right. I—” His throat tightened, words barely pushing through. “I care. I care about you. More than I should. More than I’ve ever said. I never stopped.”
He leaned forward, shaking, his forehead almost brushing hers but stopping short, caught between confession and collapse. “That’s why I stayed away. Why I pushed you toward Murdock like a fucking asshole, toward anyone who wasn’t me. Because I thought distance would keep you safe. But it didn’t. Fisk still found you. And if I’d been closer—if I’d let myself—he’d have put a bullet in your head just to watch me bleed. Like Maria. Like the kids.”
His hands clawed at the chair, trembling. “I left you out there. And still, I damn near got you killed.”
Karen’s breath came sharp, but she didn’t let him finish. She dropped the cloth and caught his face in both hands, firm, urgent, her eyes locked onto his.
“Shhh. Shhh. Frank, listen to me. Please.” Her thumbs brushed the blood from his cheeks, anchoring him.
His breath shook against her palms, his whole body tight as a coiled spring.
“You’re not responsible for this,” she said, steady, clear, refusing to let him look away. “Fisk wants me dead for a thousand reasons that have nothing to do with you. I’ve been on his list for years. You didn’t put me there.”
He shook his head, but she pressed her hands harder to his face, forcing his eyes back to hers.
“You saved me tonight,” Karen whispered. “Do you hear me? You saved me. Being close to me didn’t get me killed. It saved me. You saved me. Do you understand?”
His lips parted, breath ragged, eyes locked on hers like a drowning man caught on a lifeline.
Karen leaned in, her voice softer now, but no less firm. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Frank. Nothing. Not tonight. Not with me.”
Her words hung heavy in the small room. Frank rocked slightly in the chair, shoulders trembling, too close to her, too raw to hide behind silence anymore.
Frank’s breath rattled against her palms, uneven, breaking like waves against rock. For a moment he stayed suspended there, on the edge of collapse, forehead trembling against her hands. Then, slowly, his chest began to steady—not calm, not whole, but steadier.
Karen’s fingers slipped down from his cheeks, softer now, brushing his jaw, tracing the line of bruises blooming there. She swallowed hard, trying to stay focused, not to let the tremor in her hands betray her own fear.
“Alright,” she murmured. “Let me look at you.”
She dipped the rag back into the bowl, wrung it out, and pressed it gently against the cut on his brow again. He hissed through his teeth but didn’t move away.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Frank shook his head, barely. His eyes stayed locked on hers, like if he blinked too long she might vanish.
She moved carefully—wiping blood from his temple, pressing cloth to the gash on his arm, trying to clean what she could. He sat there, rigid, battered, letting her touch him. Letting her see him, stripped of every wall he had built.
When she reached for his hand—those wrecked, bloodied knuckles—he tensed. She took it anyway, cradling it in both of hers as though it were something fragile.
“You’ll scar worse if I don’t clean it,” she said softly, trying for lightness.
Frank huffed a faint sound—half breath, half laugh, so small it hurt to hear. “Don’t matter. Already ruined.”
Karen’s throat tightened. She set the rag aside and, without thinking, lifted his hand to her lips, brushing a kiss across his bruised knuckles. “Not ruined.” Her voice cracked. “Not to me.”
His eyes snapped to hers, wide, vulnerable, like she’d just torn open something he’d spent years burying.
Karen squeezed his hand, firm. “You’re here. That’s what matters. So let me take care of you, Frank. Just for tonight. Please.”
Finally, he nodded. A small, heavy nod. His shoulders sagged, the tension slipping out of him inch by inch.
And as Karen bent back to tend his wounds, Frank let himself feel her touch—gentle, patient, real—and anchored himself to it, to her.
Brett moved between the overturned chairs in the main room, barking orders quietly—patch together the perimeter, get medkits, check the alleyways. He was all business now, the veteran trying to corral the chaos into something that looked like control.
Frank watched him with one narrowed, bloodshot eye. “Where’s Murdock?” he asked, voice rough as gravel.
Karen looked up from where she’d just finished wiping a smear of blood from Frank’s temple. She set the rag aside and, for a second, the exhausted steel in her face softened into clarity. “He went with Jessica,” she said. “They’re trying to raise people. Build… an army. For now he’s out there recruiting—trying to get enough people who’ll stand up to Fisk.”
Frank let out a bitter, incredulous sound. “Really? Right now? This is the time to build an army?” He swore under his breath. “Christ—this guy’s a walking disaster. I’m going to—”
“You won’t do anything.” Karen cut him off, not with heat but with a calm that made him stop. She met his anger with a look frankness that steadied the raw edges of him. “I don’t need a babysitter, Frank. I’m here to fight Fisk with my own tools.”
“You found something?” Frank asked, forcing his voice steady, though his hands still trembled with the aftershock of the fight.
She nodded. “Vanessa Fisk. I’ve got records—ledgers from Red Hook, travel records, wire transfers. And… I found evidence that links her to Foggy’s murder.” Her fingers twitched; the confession was both triumph and a fresh, raw thing. “If I can make it public—if I can touch her where it hurts—Fisk falls with her. She’s his weak spot.”
Frank’s gaze dropped. For a moment he said nothing, the wordless thing between them gathering into a new shape. Then he looked up slowly, locking his eyes onto hers. “Sounds like Fisk and I share a problem,” he murmured. His voice was tired and surprisingly small. “We both got something to lose.”
Karen’s face betrayed a brief, embarrassed lightness—she turned her head quickly to hide it. He’d come back after years of being a ghost, that stupid, impossible man who’d shown up only in the worst of nights. She should have shoved him out—sent his damn cup of coffee into his face and slammed the door. But he stood there, earnest and raw, beyond the hell he lived in every day, and he had come for her.
“Frank,” she said quietly, folding a hand into his. “My life doesn’t need saving. I don’t want to be boxed up where no one can touch me. I have to act. With my head and whatever courage I’ve got left.”
He swallowed hard. The lines around his eyes deepened. “Then act,” he said. His voice snapped with iron. “But don’t ever count on me to stand by and watch you die in this war, Karen. Never. You get that?”
She stared at him a long moment—really stared—and somewhere in the way his breath hitched when she looked back, she felt the old truth land: Matt had been right about the one thing that mattered. Frank Castle cared for her. Deeply. Dangerous, implacable, and hopelessly.
She let out a thin laugh that was mostly a breath. “Adrenaline,” she murmured, half-smiling. “I’m sure.”
On impulse, she folded herself into him. It was sudden and fierce—no ceremony, no careful restraint—an embrace that held the years of distance and the nights of fear and the simple, stupid need to be near someone who had once been all she wanted to have. He smelled of blood and sweat and something like regret; she breathed him in like air. For a time the scratches and the bruises faded at the edges and they existed only in that tight, impossible loop—two people clinging to the fact that they still mattered to one another.
They stood like that a long while, time hanging loose and suspended, until Brett’s voice cut through the small, warm world they’d made.
“Okay—enough.” He was back at the door, ragged and urgent. “I don’t know what you two are or what this means, but it’s not time for feelings. They’re back. And there are too many of them.”
The words landed like ice. Karen stiffened against Frank. He straightened immediately, every spent muscle snapping to attention.
From somewhere beyond Josie’s walls—down the alley, from the street—the sound rolled in: the distant crunch of boots on gravel, the crack of orders barked low and controlled, the metallic clink of too many weapons. It was the sound of men moving in formation, the sound of Fisk’s machine reengaging.
“Damn it,” Brett swore. He moved like the man who had to make things happen: “Check the back. Get the files. Karen—your evidence—pockets, bag, whatever. Castle—what do you need? Guns? Cover?”
Frank’s eyes flicked to the ruined front door, to the back alley map he’d made with his head while running: one route out through the kitchen, another up the fire escape, one brutal straight run to the car that had to be waiting three blocks over.
“We need to move fast,” he said. His voice was gravel and a soldier’s calm. “We don’t get sentimental. We get out. We get the proof where people can see it. Vanessa Fisk goes down. And if they come for us—they’ll get what they deserve.”
“No.” Karen said, voice flat and certain.
The room hushed. Even the buzz of the overhead bulb seemed to lean in. “Brett—take the files. Get moving. Find Matt and Jessica. Warn them. Tell them what’s coming.”
Brett blinked, mouth already forming the protest, but Karen put up one hand. “Listen to me. They’ll slaughter everyone in their path if we try to run. No more blood. Not tonight.” She met Frank’s eyes—hard, steady. “Let them come get me. I’m not afraid of Fisk.”
Frank’s reaction was instant, raw. He lurched upright as if she’d shoved him. “What? Are you kidding me? Do you even hear yourself? Do you understand what Fisk will do if he gets you? Do you have any idea what he’ll do?” Rage and a more primitive thing—fear—bubbled in his chest. “Damn it, Karen, you can’t do this. You can’t just—don’t even think about it. I won't let you do that.”
“This is the only way,” Karen said quietly, the conviction in her voice colder than the blood on his hands. “They outnumber us. One life for the rest in this room—if that’s the price to protect them, to bring Vanessa down and expose Fisk, then I’ll pay it. You have to let me take that risk. Matt will come—he’ll help.”
Frank laughed, a short, brutal sound. “Red won’t do anything—” The name came out like a curse. “He isn’t here. He’s out recruiting. He can’t be here now. You can’t ask for that.”
Brett’s face tightened. He reached for the folder, fingers closing around the thick packet of papers as if they might be the only thing standing between them and a longer, truer catastrophe. “We’ll do everything we can,” he said quietly, not promising the impossible. “I’ll take this to Murdock and the others. We’ll try to get backup. I can’t promise—”
“Don’t you dare do that,” Frank rasped, taking a step back as if Brett had betrayed them. “Don’t you even think of letting her go alone. Don’t even—”
Karen’s eyes softened for a second; she knew what the line in his voice meant. It was the same old terror that had driven him away for years—the memory of loss, the inability to let the few people who might love him be hurt. Her voice dropped to something gentler, threaded with pity and steel. “Frank, please. You don’t have to—”
He reached for her then, sudden and desperate, grabbing her by the shoulders. For a heartbeat the bar smelled of bleach and copper and spilled beer; for a heartbeat the world narrowed to the two of them. “You want to go play martyr? Fine. Don’t you dare go alone. I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Karen breathed, the word a small, shaking thing. “No, Frank. He won’t spare you twice. If he can use me to hurt you, he will. He won’t hesitate.”
Frank’s face twisted with something like a laugh that broke and went ugly. “I don’t give a damn what he does to me. You hear me?” His voice rose, raw and ragged. “I can’t— I can’t let you go out that door alone. I’m not letting that happen. I’m already dead if I watch you walk into that.”
Karen’s hands closed on his wrists, firm, pleading. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to take this on. If something goes wrong—Frank, you don’t have to live through that again.”
He bent his head, the motion sudden and slow. Up close he ached: the thin skin of a man who had been sharpened into a blade. His hands cupped her face with a rough tenderness that left the bruises on his knuckles against her cheek. “I told you,” he said, low and absolute. “I won’t let you go. Not without me. End of discussion.”
For a long second she only looked at him—eyes luminous, wet with the fear she could never entirely hide. Then, with a single, exhausted breath, she let the edge of her resistance fall. She let her forehead find his for the briefest of seconds, and the room felt like it held its breath with them.
Brett cleared his throat, a sound like gravel being swept. “Alright,” he said, hoarse. “I’ll get Murdock and Jessica. I’ll try to pull everyone I can. Karen—if you’re sure… we’ll come back for you.” He folded the folder under his arm, the paper rustling like a promise or a threat. “Everybody. Be ready to move the second I give the word.”
Karen nodded once, small and fierce. “Be careful,” she told him. “Don’t come unless you can. Don’t bring more people to die.”
Brett squared his shoulders and headed for the front door. He glanced back only once—eyes meeting Frank’s—and there was a look between men who had seen too much death to pretend bravery was anything but choosing the next necessary thing. “We’ll try,” he said.
Frank moved silently to gather what he could—an old hunting knife from under the counter, the stolen keys that still hung heavy in his pocket.
Karen sat on a stack of boxes, eyes steady on the front door, even as her hands trembled. She had chosen this; she had accepted the consequence.
There was a terrible courage in that acceptance that made him want to break the world.
Frank sat across from her, took her hand, and folded their fingers together—a small, silent chain. “We leave that door together. I’m not watching from the sidelines.”
She closed her eyes for a breath, the weight of the decision settling over her like a physical thing. “Okay,” she whispered.
They sat like that for a while—hands entwined, breathing matched, waiting for the sound of boots that would tell them the next act had begun.
Outside, unseen, men were already moving in Fisk’s orders; radios whispered in the dark as teams assembled. The quiet before the storm had a smell to it: concrete, oil, blood, and that metallic sharpness of reckoning.
Karen leaned her head against his shoulder in an odd, quick surrender. “Frank,” she said softly, “Stay safe.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “You too.” he said, and neither of them pretended the word carried any certainty other than the force with which they intended to make it true.
“Let’s move,” Frank said.