The slow descent into vigilantism.
She doesn't see Frank for two months after his short stay at her apartment. She knows he is still alive when every so often there are news stories of gangsters and criminals killed – at least she thinks it is Frank.
Life is too busy to think much of him. Karen writes for the Bulletin, exposes and well researched pieces that quickly make her fairly well known among the journalist crowd of New York. She focused on crime, petty and organized – using her experiences at Nelson&Murdock to back her research with legal facts – and by her third article Mitchell swears hers are their most popular.
She keeps her gun close, after her third encounter with a criminal she had exposed in her articles. After that Karen does not leave her house without her gun. She had rarely before, but now it is religious. She checks her purse and the bullet count every morning like a prayer and dimly she wonders when violence – when a gun – had became so common place it barely even registered.
Of that she is thankful now, as an angry domestic abuser waves a gun in her face. She holds her own gun up – her hand does not shake – and her heart beats steadily in her chest.
"Fuck off!"
The guy – Marco R. from Hell's Kitchen – who had beat his wife into the hospital and had gotten away "for lack of concrete evidence" - snarls at her. "You ruined my life, bitch!"
"Yes." Karen says calmly. "And you ruined your wife's and your children's. Now fuck off, or I'll shoot you!"
He looks skeptical, so Karen cocks her gun and aims it at his junk. She can see the blood drain from Marco R.'s face. All bullys are cowards after all. "Fuck off." She tells him again and he scampers off.
The woman who had been standing on the opposite side of the street watching calls over. "You alright, girl?"
"Yeah." Karen tells her.
"Alright."
She wakes up the morning after with the news of Marco R.'s death. Mitchell has called her phone 6 times, leaving longer messages each time.
"What do you want?" She asks him as she calls him back.
"Have you seen the pictures yet?" Mitchell asks. "That domestic abuser you wrote about was shot in the genitals six times. They are saying some vigilante got to him. His wife has a solid alibi."
"Huh." Karen says, thinking of her own threat to him. "What do you want me to do about it?"
Mitchell stays silent on the other end of the line for a few moments. "That's all, Karen?"
"What else am I supposed to say?" Karen asks, genuinely confused. It isn't as though she cannot understand the appeal of vigilantism. After all the law had failed her, the law had failed Frank and the law had failed Marco R.'s wife Betty. If self justice was the only way to get justice then Karen would not be opposed to it.
"Should I ask for your alibi last night?"
"Working." Karen says, after a moment. "Well, and pointing a gun at Marco R."
Mitchell stays silent. "Excuse me?"
"I am joking, Ellison." Karen says, with a roll of her eyes. "He ambushed me on the streets, but I did not kill him. I promise."
"Uh, sure." Mitchell says. He pauses. "You scare me sometimes, Karen."
Karen looks at herself in the mirror as Mitchell says so. She understands that sentiment. Sometimes she scares herself as well. "I know, Mitch. Should I come in later?"
"No. We'll have Rosie write something gently negative about taking the law into her own hand." Mitchell scoffs. "No one would believe it of you anyways."
"Ah come on, Mitch." Karen says. "Don't be mean."
"I agree with you, Karen. I am just not as vocal about it as you are."
"Alright." Karen runs a brush through her hair, tangled from not brushing through it the night before, and sighs. "Listen Mitch. I gotta go. See you tomorrow."
"Yeah. See you tomorrow, Page." Mitch says and hangs up.
Karen sets her phone down and closes her eyes for a brief moment.
She cannot even pretend for Mitch or for herself that she is sad about Marco R.'s death. She just isn't. Of course she would have liked it more if the law had worked properly and Marco R would suffer in jail for a long time, but when the law failed, perhaps there was another law he had to answer to.
Karen, thankful for a day where she does not have to work, settles in to read on her bed, a nice fluffy fantasy novel that does not remind her at all of her life. There is no murder, no vigilantes, no horribleness she has to deal with.
Two hours later there is a knock at her door at Karen frowns. She is not expecting anyone, and since she lost contact with Matt and Foggy there is no one who would show up unannounced as well.
Brett stands in front of her door, looking apologetic as he takes in her disheveled appearance. "Hey Karen."
"Brett." Karen says, apprehensive. She knows Brett well enough from her time at Nelson&Murdock, but he was never her social friend, always Foggy's. "What can I do for you?"
On the side, just left of Brett, Karen sees Brett's partner, a young pretty cop who looks slightly scared. So this is not a social call, Karen realizes. Brett would have never brought a partner.
"My boss wants to speak with you at the police station, Miss Page. Ask you a few questions, if you don't mind." Brett announces quickly, as if trying to get it out. "I am sorry Karen."
"May I ask what about?"
"A lot of dead bodies have been connected to you, Miss Page." Brett says. "To you and your articles. We just want to ask you a few questions."
"Can I change first?" Karen asks, motioning down at her beautiful combo of baggy sweatpants she nabbed from her brother a while back and a stained t-shirt.
"Sure." Brett nods. He follows her into the apartment and waits just outside the modesty blinds that separate her dining table from her bed.
Karen changes quickly, mind racing. She is not sure if she is actually a suspect in the murders, or just a person of interest in the case. Brett and his partner do not seem overly aggressive or suspicious, but knowing law enforcement in Hell's Kitchen Karen isn't sure what to think.
They leave her stewing in the interrogation room for nearly an hour before a detective – not Brett – comes in, holding two cups of coffee.
"Hello, Miss Page. I am Detective James, I'll be conducting this interview." The detective smiles brightly at her and she eyes him as she takes a seat opposite of her. "Black with a bit of sugar, right?"
"Yeah." Karen says, accepting the coffee Detective James holds out.
"Great!" Detective James beams and Karen understands why they sent him in. If Karen weren't so used to cops and their bullshit, she would be relaxing immediately under his sunny personality. "Now, we have a questions for you and if all goes well you'll be out of here in an hour, tops."
"Alright." Karen agrees. She takes a sip of her coffee and grimaces as she burns her tongue.
"So to start off, just some basics. You wrote the articles on Marco Rossini, Karoline Gunsen and John Mark, correct?"
"Yeah." Karen nods.
Detective James makes a few notes in his pad, she cannot see what it is. He looks up and watches her for a few moments, before pushing a few pictures over towards her.
They are crime scene pictures. Gory, but nothing she hasn't seen before. Clearly she recognizes Marco Rossini, Karoline Gunsen and John Mark. Each have been killed and lie in a puddle of their own blood. Her eyes are drawn to Marco Rossini immediately and she sees the six gunshots to his genitals Mitchell had told her about.
"I recognize them." Karen says preemptively, not waiting for Detective James to ask. She points to each, calling them by name. "I researched them for weeks, Detective. And I have a good recollection."
"Alright. Do you know what happened to them?"
Karen frowns at the Detective. "Killed, obviously." She sighs. "Sorry. No. I don't what happened to them."
"Can you tell me what you were last night?" The Detective asks.
Oh so they do suspect her, Karen thinks. This is an interrogation. "Nothing worth an alibi, I am afraid." She says. "I was at home, asleep in bed. I left work at about 11 last night, and pretty much fell straight asleep. I think one of my neighbors saw me get in, but I am not sure. Mrs. Rogers if you want to ask her."
"Alright, Miss Page." Detective James makes a motion at the one-way glass and Karen presumes sent one of the officers to check it out. "How about last Monday night and Thursday the 18th at about noon?"
"God." Karen sighs under her breath, closing her eyes. She has problems remembering what she had for breakfast. How is she supposed to remember this? "Monday last I worked through the night, I think, at the Bulletin. Mitchell Ellison was there. I was finishing up the Rossini Report. We went over a few last minute details and talked about the article itself."
"Alright, we'll check that out. And the Thursday?"
"I am sorry. I just cannot remember. May I look at phone for a moment, I have a calendar in there." Karen asks.
Detective James looks apprehensive for a moment before nodding. He slides her her phone and Karen quickly scrolls through the app.
"Ah right." She smiles. "I was meeting an informant at the Cafe near Morbollos Hotel. We were there from about 11 AM till 4 in the afternoon."
"Alright, Miss Page." Detective James smiles at her. "I'll be back in a moment. Hang tight and call for me, if you need anything."
"Sure thing." Karen says. It makes no sense to make a fuss now. Karen didn't kill any of those three, so there is no way her alibi's will not check out. She should be back home by the afternoon.
Karen was not wrong at the police station. She can tell Detective James is reluctant to let her go, but he cannot hold her with anything and so Karen is back home by 7 PM and the gentle reminder to stay in New York.
She opens the door to her apartment, exhausted. She had not expected an Inquisition for her free day. If anything she had rather wanted a quiet and calm day with relaxing and reading her favorite book.
"Careful, Miss Page. Who knows what strange men could be hiding in your apartment."
Karen shrieks and jumps back against the door. Her gun is in her hands – she hadn't even consciously picked it up – and it points firmly at the intruder.
Frank looks too amused for the situation and Karen tries to slow her racing heart.
"Fuck!" She spits. "You gotta stop doing that, Frank. One of these days I will probably shoot you."
"I still don't know why you haven't before."
Karen sinks down her gun reluctantly and Frank watches her with a smile. He is not wearing shoes or a coat and Karen marvels for a moment how comfortable he looks in her apartment.
"You are very stupid, by the way, coming to my apartment when I have just been questioned by the police." She tells him firmly as she takes off her shoes and coat.
"Oh sorry about that." Frank says. "I probably shouldn't have killed him."
Karen stares at him for a couple of moments, before, emphatically, saying. "Fuck" loudly and with emphasis. "Jesus, Frank. Rossini was a shitty as hell guy, but that does not mean you had to kill him."
"He threatened you."
Karen waits, thinks, and decides she had heard him right. "You killed him for me?"
"Yeah."
"Jesus, Frank." She repeats. "I had it under control."
"I know."
"You can't just go around killing everyone I come in contact with-"
"No."
"-not even if they are misogynistic fucking shitpricks." Karen stops, pauses and registers what Frank said. "Wait what?"
"I don't kill everyone you come in contact with Karen, that would be insane, even for my standard." Frank explains. He smirks at her. "Only the ones that are planning to murder you in your sleep."
"Huh." Karen sighs. This day has been too strange to deal with Frank on top of it. She moves into her living room, brushing past Frank as she goes. "Do you want something? I am gonna order Takeout."
"Do you ever cook?" Frank asks.
"How should I have the time?" Karen asks, wryly. "Between being interrogated, harboring vigilantes and being an accessory to murder?"
Karen looks at Frank over the table later, with a comfortably full belly and a slight buzz of the beer they were drinking.
He looks as exhausted as Karen feels, with dark rings under his eyes that for once are not bruises. He is, she registers in a small corner of her mind, attractive when he is not beaten to a pulp and drenched in other people's blood.
He looks, she realizes, like the Frank she saw in the pictures at his house. Like the Frank before his family was killed and before the Punisher. He looks softer than she had ever seen him.
"How do you do it?" She asks him, the questions forming on her tongue without her permission. She wishes she could take back the question the moment he looks up at her.
"Do what?" He asks, caution straining his voice.
Karen takes a deep breath. "Kill someone so easily?"
Frank shrugs, takes a sip of his water, looks up at her and down immediately. "I don't know. Never had problems with it."
"I threw up the entire night." Karen says easily, as if dropping James Wesley into the conversation was something she had done a thousand times before and this was not something deep and dark and secret inside her.
"What?" Frank looks strangely like a puppy when he tilts his head to the side, with a frown on his face.
"After I killed someone."
"What?"
"A year ago." Karen says and she watches him carefully, noting every reaction on his unusually expressive face. "When we were going after Fisk."
"What?" Frank looks completely poleaxed and his eyes are wide as he stares at her. His hand, the right one holding his glass, is shaking and Karen wonders if this was a mistake. After all Frank did kill people for similar things.
"I had nightmares for weeks."
"Who did you-? What? Why?"
"James Wesley, Fisk's right hand – I killed him." Karen takes a deep breath. It feels liberating telling someone, even if that someone is Frank. "Six times in the chest."
Frank stays silent and there is nothing more Karen wants, or needs, to say, so they sit in the silence of her apartment for minutes.
"I'm gonna go to bed." She announces after a while. "You can stay if you'd like."
She finishes her bedtime routine as if there was not a frozen vigilante in her apartment and slips under her covers, still ignoring her presence.
Before she can fall asleep she hears Frank move and feels the dip of the bed as he carefully lies beside her, careful to not touch her at all.
"Have you told anyone?" He asks softly after a few minutes of laying in silence. The words vertebrate loudly in the silence and Karen flinches at their sound.
"No." She confesses.
"Not even Red?"
"No."
"I wouldn't have either." Frank says with a small laugh. Karen feels him turning around and she works hard not to tense as she feels his breath brush against the back of her neck. "I am sorry."
"For what?" She breathes back, not able to speak any louder.
"That you had to kill him." He says, softly. "And that you couldn't tell anyone."
"Yeah." Karen says and she turns around, looking at him. His face is no five inches from hers and she refuses to look away. "Thanks."
He laughs and settles back down onto the bed. "Sleep Karen."
She hums in response, though the soft and low timber of Frank's voice has nearly sent her to sleep completely. She rolls to her side, facing Frank and keeps her eyes open as long as she could, watching him as he lies almost motionlessly beside her, face also turned towards hers.
They stare at each other until Karen feels her eyes droop and she closes them reluctantly. And maybe she dreamed them, but just before falling asleep Karen swears she sees tears forming in his eyes. He closes them before she can think on it further, but they were there – she knows they were.