Karen had never thought that it would be so easy to run into people she knew in as big a city as New York. And here she was, waiting at the crosswalk on her way home from work, wishing she had worn flats instead of heels as the sweat made her feet start to slip out of her shoes, her glance caught by a figure in the alley. She turned to see the slow, exhausted steps of a man draped in a dark coat heading away from her. The haircut and the boots, along with the promise of some kind of injury, were unmistakably Frank Castle's.
Bodies began shuffling past her as the walk sign flashed ahead. No one else paid any attention to the alleyway. Karen waited until the crowd had passed her and started toward Frank. She caught him quickly despite the annoyance of her shoes, hearing his panting as she clicked up behind him.
"Frank," she said, not wanting to sneak up on the most dangerous man she had ever known. He stopped, but did not turn. She doubted herself for just a moment. What if it wasn't Frank, but some other freak in an alleyway, in a jacket in July, walking off a bad trip? She reached a tentative hand into the open zipper of her purse as she approached him. "Frank, is that you?"
He turned his face to look at her over his shoulder, his expression somewhere between a cringe and an embarrassed smile. "You always go after creeps in alleyways, Karen?"
She let out a sigh of relief and pulled her hand out of her purse as she walked around to face him. One of his hands was hidden inside his jacket, his arm reaching protectively across his chest, that shoulder drooping just a little. Otherwise, he seemed to be in one piece.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Never better. How've you been?"
"What's wrong with your ribs?" she asked. "Broken or bleeding?"
"Why not both?"
She rolled her eyes. "Do you need…"
"You know what Karen," he interrupted, his eyes on the brick wall beside them. "I think I need a cup of coffee. Yeah. And a place to sit and drink it for a couple minutes without someone calling the cops."
His smiled up at her then, wondering. Wondering how far he could push this. How much help he could ask for without overstepping, without her thinking it really was about needing help, without scaring her away.
"My apartment is on the next block," she said. When he didn't move, she added, "I have a Mr. Coffee now, so…" He nodded. She looked over her shoulder down the alley, then linked her arm through his. "It's not far."
…
"Do you want the coffee or the first aid kit first?" Karen asked when she had closed and locked her door behind them.
"I mean, if you've got a kit lying around…" Karen kicked her shoes off by the door and walked quickly to the bathroom and back with the blue box. "You can start the coffee while I do this," Frank said, taking the box and rifling through on her kitchen table. Karen got the filter ready and started spooning the grounds into it, glancing over to see the blood on Frank's hand as he finally pulled it away from his middle. He leaned on the table with the clean hand and picked through the bandages and gauze in the box as she absentmindedly worked on the coffeepot.
"Is that really how you do that?" Frank asked suddenly. Karen hadn't realized he was watching her too.
"What?" she asked, but when she looked down she realized she'd scooped grounds into the pot without the filter.
"Shit, Karen. You like grounds in your coffee?" He got up and walked over to the counter. "I'll make the coffee, if you find me a needle."
"You know you're in my house, right?" she asked, but walked over to the kit anyway. "Bossy," she added, and then made a point to keep her eyes on the first aid kit until she collected all the suturing materials and some gauze. The coffeepot started to gurgle, and she held out the small pile of items to Frank.
"Thanks," he said, and then headed into the bathroom. Karen leaned her butt against the table and watched him. He didn't close the door the whole way, so she could just see his right shoulder as he slipped off his coat and slowly pulled his Henley off with his left arm. As he threaded the needle, she watched his shoulder, allowing herself to indulge in that small view of him framed by the door. Now, with no one to catch her staring and nothing to busy herself with, she thought about that shoulder. Broad. Solid. She pressed her lips together involuntarily as she imagined pressing them to that shoulder.
Frank grunted, and bent over. Must've dropped the needle. "Son of a bitch," she barely heard him say as he stood up. He still hadn't gotten it threaded.
Karen reflected for a moment: how many times had she seen him vulnerable like this? Hurt, yes. But vulnerable? Accepting her invitation to her apartment. (Was he in her neighborhood on purpose or by luck?) Shirtless in her bathroom. (Not in a hospital gown, not surrounded by bad guys or cops, not fighting for his life.) Ready to stay and drink a cup of coffee with her when he was finished. (If she didn't scare him off first.)
(If he could ever get the damn needle threaded.)
She approached the bathroom. "Struggling?" she asked, poking her head into his view so that they made eye contact in the mirror as he looked up from the small needle in his large, somewhat bloody fingers. He turned, showing her the full extent of the gash over his ribs, and holding out the needle to her. He had already cleaned it well enough. She nodded, sobered a little by the sight of the blood, and took the needles. She smacked the other light switch to add more light to the room, and leaned against the sink. It took her maybe ten seconds to thread the needle.
"Hmmph," Frank said, holding out his hand to take it back. She wondered if she should just do it for him, but gave handed it over. He reached over with his left hand to try to start the stitches, but the gash was in an awkward position for his right hand to be any help at all. Reluctant to let that stop him, he stabbed himself haphazardly, making an uneven start.
"Is that really how you do that?" Karen asked. She shoved her hair behind her ears quickly and reached out for the needle again, taking it from him before he could protest, and got to work. He put his right hand on the back of his head to keep his arm out of the way.
"Where'd you learn this?" he asked.
"Girl Scouts."
He chuckled.
"Who did this to you?" Karen asked, keeping her eyes on her adept hands, trying not to think about the blood.
"Girl Scouts."
"Not funny."
"You didn't like that one?" Frank asked. Karen ignored him. "I stopped a knife fight between a drug dealer and a kid. I didn't kill him," he added before Karen could look up. "I was walking home with a quart of milk, minding my own business, but I heard the kid crying in the alleyway. So I stopped to check, and the guy had this blade, this big son-of-a-bitchin knife up to his ear. Some kind of hunting knife for big game."
"Over-compensating," Karen mumbled. Frank smiled at the wall, then continued.
"I let him take a swipe at me before I knocked him out and told the kid to call the cops."
"Let him?" Karen asked, clearly disbelieving as she tied the suture off. She straightened up then, having bent a bit to see what she was doing better.
"I figured I should make it a little more fair," he said, still smiling. Karen shook her head and turned to wash her hands.
"That should hold. I'm no nurse, so when it hurts like hell later you can blame yourself for not going to the emergency room." She left the water on, and he washed the blood off of his own hands. She grabbed the gauze then and began to tape it over the wound.
"I don't need that," he said, but held his arms up and out of the way as he dried his hands. "Doesn't even hurt."
"I bet." Karen straightened one last time and faced him. She looked up into his eyes for a moment and then at the air over his shoulder. She thought this would be the moment when she would kiss him—perfect, while he was thankful, not in a hurry—but the sight of the blood and the obvious lie put a sour taste in her mouth.
"Are you going to keep doing this?" she asked.
"Doing what?"
She smiled because she felt like she might cry, then swallowed and looked up at him. "I don't want to see you covered in blood anymore. Or limping. Or in a hospital bed."
A moment passed, he nodded and seemed to scan the room for something to say. When his eyes returned to hers and he opened his mouth, she spoke again.
"But I do want to see you," she said.
"Okay." His face softened somehow—the lines were still there, cheekbone, jaw, lips pressed together—but as his voice lowered to a whisper she could see the sadness all over him. "I don't think I can stop, Karen. I'm not looking for trouble anymore. But I can't just walk by when I know I could help somebody. I know you understand that. Because you're the same damn way, Karen. You're the same damn… you just do it with your brain, but I'm not smart enough. I'm not as smart as you Karen so I gotta do it this way. My body is all I got to do good in the world. If I could throw money at problems like these rich bastards do, then I'd do that. But God gave me these skills and this body and I have to do right with what I have."
Karen shook her head just barely, then nodded, her eyebrows scrunching together. She tried to look anywhere but him, but there was so much of him in front of her: his face, his arms hanging defeated at his sides, and she couldn't stand to look at his chest or his bandages, and she had to settle on his face.
"I understand," she said finally. "I wish things could be different." She took a step toward the door, and he just barely raised his arm, touching his fingers to her the crook of her elbow and then immediately dropping them.
"They could be," he said. She saw in his face then that he was scared. This giant man in her bathroom with the knife wound was scared, and the sour taste wasn't gone but it was different, and she closed her eyes and kissed him.