Chapter One

Frank Castle stumbles through the smog filled air in a mostly deserted warehouse park in Hell's Kitchen. His leg wound is bleeding through his rudimentary bandaging. Only a few more blocks until he reaches the subsidized housing apartments that transition into rundown houses from the fifties, most of them abandoned like these warehouses. Home sweet home, Frank thinks bitterly.

The light flickers from the lone lamppost on this street. It's easy for Frank to believe that he's completely alone in the world: that the actions of those on top have come crashing down on all of them. It's not a far push from where Frank is standing; the abandoned buildings are nothing more than the skeletons of the people who were abandoned along with them. Not a soul in sight, just rotting garbage in the overwhelmed dumpsters and the occasional piece of trash floating softly across the pavement, stirred on by the soft breeze. He breathes, the stench making his breaths shallower than usual.

He had just disbanded a kidnap-and-ransom chain from a local rich neighbourhood. He rescued a couple and killed the thugs only to have the rich folk run away screaming- afraid of their saviour. He wonders why he even bothers helping people like that.

A scream rips through the still night air.

Frank has his 9mm out, safety off, and is prepared in a flash. Rooftops: clear. Windows: clear. Street: clear. He hears the faint sound of crunching cartilage followed by a distinctly juvenile male voice.

"Fuck you, bitch! You'll regret that." Frank steps lightly down a deserted alleyway following the sound. His gun is at the ready, placed in a safe direction.

A teen has a small girl shoved up against an old green dumpster; his nose is bleeding from where she shoved her palm up into his face crushing the cartilage into his skull. That'll never heal properly Frank observes with a slight satisfaction.

The kid doesn't notice Frank's approach, Frank is way too good to be heard or seen. The kid holds the girl back while he fumbles with the belt on his ripped jeans. The girl isn't more than 5'4" but she is putting up a good fight. He contemplates whether or not he should just shoot the punk in the head and be done with it. One shot, one kill. But the girl would be caught up in the splatter of blood.

Deciding after only a second of contemplation, Frank fires a shot into the kid's thigh. It explodes, his bullet probably shattered the bone, and the punk crumples in a pile of screeching sobs. Blood spills from the wound, and from this distance Frank estimates the damage to be even more extensive than he had hoped. This, kids, is what happens when the big bad Punisher decides he doesn't like you.

The girl, now free, runs. However, to Frank's surprise, she doesn't run screaming away from him but instead towards him. Her long black hair spills from its ponytail.

My God, Frank thinks, this girl is fifteen at the most.

She reaches him, her dark eyes livid, but doesn't look at him. Instead she stands beside him, only a few feet from her attacker. She turns on her heel to face the sack of shit that is now twitching on the ground and whining. Her brow is firm.

"Finish him," she commands. She doesn't even look at Frank when she says it, only at the punk.

The punk, with a facial tattoo nonetheless, looks up with pleading eyes at Frank. "No man, come on! Please, don't-" Frank shoots him perfectly between the eyes, stopping the kid's pleas for mercy mid-sentence.

The girl's reaction is somewhat understated. Her breath is released suddenly. She doesn't look like a sadist who would enjoy watching such a blatant murder, but she does look mildly relieved.

It was over so quickly, just how Frank likes it. He studies the victim for a moment, watching her silent tears. Was she repulsed? Afraid?

Frank realizes he doesn't have time for this. He intervened. It was quick, a little messy but that couldn't be helped, and effective. The orange of the streetlight at the end of the alley plays with the reflective quality of the puddle of blood now formed around the kid. It's a perfect still of what the city really is: gritty, rotten oatmeal topped with violent bloodshed, three meals a day.

Frank, not much for small talk, turns and begins walking away from the fresh corpse lying in the street: just another wonderful smell to add to the undefinable sensory allure of this fucking city. However, the girl decides to follow him.

She stands about a foot shorter than him, weighs about a hundred pounds less, and yet is about as unhinged as he. This, although singularly interesting to Frank (it's not every day that you meet someone as comfortable with death as you are), is none of his current concern. The stab wound to his thigh takes priority.

Her straight black eyebrows (that aren't arched like the other girls no matter how hard she tries), are knitted together. "Hey mister!" she calls out in her high and feminine voice. She doesn't look like her voice; it's too girly and high. She is all about black on black with some camo thrown on for effortless punk style. She kind of wishes she was an alto to match her exterior. "Hey Sir!"

She has to hurry after him to catch him; his strides are twice the length of hers. He just turns the corner when she is able to grab hold of the sleeve of his leather jacket. He looks down at her, his brown eyes harsh and his forehead in a frown. His hair is shaved on the sides and kept short on top, the marine style. He looks like a mean son of a bitch, but she's not afraid.

"Mr. Punisher, Sir, I wanted to talk to you," he blinks once at her.

"What'd you want to talk to me for?" his voice is gruff and deep.

She swallows the anxiety this voice evokes. "I just wanted to thank you for saving me, Sir."

He laughs once, his lips twist into a sarcastic smile. He doesn't reply but instead starts walking. However, she's not too keen to give up.

"You look like you're bleeding; I could sew that shut for you. For repayment," she adds at the end. Her appeasing tone is largely ignored by Frank. He keeps walking, favouring his other side. She nearly trips over a garbage bag.

"Look, I'm a pretty good seamstress. Cindy, my Mom, alters wedding dresses so I've learned about stitching pretty well." She holds out, still hopeful. Frank cannot understand why she's following him like a lost puppy. The only difference between the two is that he likes dogs.

Finally, after a moment of silence where she stares at him intently, does he decide to speak. "Patching up flesh is different from sewing poufy shit."

She smiles up at him, satisfied that he replied. "I can learn!" Her enthusiasm is cute, but grating on his nerves.

He stops. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Like calling the police?"

She contemplates this for a moment. "Well, I was thinking of doing that later. I'll even get some tears going for them. It'll be fun."

He just shakes his head. "Don't your parents want you home? It's not safe out here."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, I know that. I've already been attacked today."

"So then why not just go home?" he asks.

"Cindy and Leopold are just my foster parents and they know I can handle myself."

He shuts up, hoping that if he just ignores her she'll go away. He turns right at the subsidized housing where a few guys lay out on the lawn high as kites. She still follows him. He walks past the neighbourhood tabby cat and it runs under the nearest porch. She still is following him. He turns to the ancient Victorian style house with peeling white trim and faded blue siding; although in this light it's nearly impossible to tell anything more about the place. It has a habit of smelling like mothballs and burnt bread.

He unlatches the fence and walks through. Sadly, the girl follows him still; her black combat boot rip-offs are soft on the patchy brown grass. She latches the gate behind her.

"So this is your place? Why not go through the front door?" she asks as Frank walks around the sparse backyard and fishes for his key to the basement door.

"Because this isn't my place, I rent the basement from a blind old lady and she lives in the main house." He pushes the door open with his shoulder and flicks on one light. The girl enters after him, and although he's not overly happy about it he doesn't stop her either.

The Punisher's lodgings are about as personalized as a prison cell. To the left of the door is a futon that has a perfectly made bed on it, to the right is a small kitchen that looks like it hasn't been updated since the 70's. The kitchen is made up of the very basics: white fridge and stove, faded ivory cupboards and gold handles, a small set of dishes in a cabinet without a door, and a table that is loaded with artillery- that's all that lives in the kitchen space.

"Wow, a really classy place you got here Mr. Punisher." The girl walks over to the fridge as Frank unloads his guns and puts trigger locks on a few. She pulls on the worn white handles of the fridge and it opens to reveal the most basic food she's ever seen. Eggs, bread, hamburgers and leftover take-out food, he doesn't even have condiments, she remarks to herself.

"I would say help yourself, but you won't be staying." His voice is so low and scraping that she is almost freaked out by his intensity. Instead she plays it off.

"Welcoming too? Wow, the girls must really love you." She sees him flinch.

She frowns but decides not to pursue it. Instead she picks at the chipped black nail polish on her pinky finger. The light is harsh and white, like the lights in shitty office buildings, the only thing this basement has over those offices is the lack of sweat stains on cheap cotton button-downs. But this basement still isn't much better, she thinks.

Frank carefully checks the mag and then the barrel, comfortable that there's no ammunition in the gun he locks it and places it on the table. He runs his hands under the tap with some dish soap to clean off any traces of lead from his hands. Then, he gets to what he really wasn't looking forward to.

He brings the supplies and sits on slippery white tile of his kitchen.

"What're you doing?" she asks, suddenly suspicious.

"I'm sewing up my damn leg," he grunts his reply.

The wound has mostly stopped bleeding, but he still has to cut away the top part of his pants to get to it. The girl doesn't look away. She seems fascinated by the graze left behind by the kidnapper's knife on his leg. It wasn't super deep, but it'll still be a bitch to fix.

He cleans it while gritting his teeth, the girl just looks concerned.

Then: the sewing.

He picks up the appropriate needle and his favourite dissolvable stitches. He prepares the needle and himself. It's mind over pain. Nothing he hasn't done a thousand times before.

"Oh, Lord above, you're going to do that on yourself?! Are you actually crazy?"

"Be quiet," he responds evenly, "You'll wake Judith."

"You're talking about the old woman? The old, blind woman who you rent from? Doesn't she know you're the Punisher?" her voice is insistent but considerably more hushed compared to what it was before.

"No," is all he says in reply.

"Wow. Well that's really some kind of special."

He doesn't reply, but instead pierces his skin and starts threading the needle through.

"If you're gonna be sick, do it in the sink," he says through gritted teeth.

But, to his surprise, she isn't. Instead she sits down next to him. She hands him the glistening whiskey bottle he has on hand for such an occasion. "Drink up. I'll finish your stitches."

He gives her a long look, one where he considers throwing her sorry ass out of his place, but instead gives her the needle, but only after she finishes pulling latex gloves on. "Don't pull it too tight."

She smiles at him, and the gesture makes him look away. She begins her work and Frank sits back on his elbows. The floor is cold but being with another human warms the space.

"So, I had an older brother once. Your kind, tough and manly," she snorts, "But a wuss when it came to stuff like puppies and blood. I patched him up a few times, never this extreme but still. I never actually had to put in stitches." Frank doesn't say anything and she continues stitching. He's confused by her sudden change of tone, but reminds himself that he doesn't care. The light flickers. "I loved that marshmallow of a brother. He was nearly nine years older so he kind of raised me, you know?"

Her bittersweet smile is painful for Frank to watch.

"I loved having a big brother. I think siblings are the greatest teachers. He taught me how to ride a bike and how to write my name in cursive. I don't know what only children do, not having siblings to learn from or to teach."

She falls into silence.

Frank watches her work, her brow creased in concentration.

She finishes her stitching in silence before going and discarding her latex gloves and washing the powder off of her hands.

He watches her get ready to leave. He chides himself for being soft. He should've kicked her out, never let her follow him home. Somehow his efforts to scold himself feel half-assed.

"Well, anyways, I'll be heading back to that corpse in the street and call the police. Thanks for the whole saving me thing." Her humour from before has dwindled, and Frank can't help but miss it.

"Hey, kid," he calls after her. She turns and stands in the open doorway, looking at him. "What's your name?"

She smiles, a little happier now. "I'm Skylar, but everyone calls me Sky."