AN: I expanded this into a full fic because of course I did. This ship has eaten my brain, and I couldn't be happier for it. I, of course, don't own Karen Page or Frank Castle. They're owned by Marvel, Netflix, etc. I'm just playing in their sandbox for non-profit, entertainment purposes for a while.

One Worth Knowing

By: Wynn

The message arrives in an innocuous envelope, a plain white one marked only with her name and the address of The Bulletin, the two scrawled on the front in thick black ink. Karen doesn't even have to open it to know it's from him, from Frank, though almost eight months have passed since she last saw him. Eight months since ninjas besieged the city, since she saw Frank perched on the edge, literally and figuratively, his gun in hand.

Eight months since she told him he was dead to her if-

Karen closes her eyes and shakes away the thought. The thought, though, remains, lodged beside her others about him, with those about Matt and Wesley and her brother, too, all of them resistant to any and all forms of repression, no matter the amount of alcohol involved.

Ellison claims this is what makes her so damned good as a reporter. Her refusal to let things go.

Foggy says it's the source of the grey hair he's found sprouting from his head in recent months.

Karen- well, Karen just sighs and opens her eyes.

The envelope still lies on her desk. She picks it up and flips it over. No return address, of course. No postage of any kind. So it hadn't been mailed or delivered. Frank had brought it here himself. The thought of him entering the building without anyone seeing should make her afraid, she thinks, because who else could enter without detection, but her brain instead zeroes in on the fact that he brought it to her himself, that it hadn't been mailed or delivered, because if it had been mailed or or if it had been delivered, she could find him. Karen could track him those ways, and she could find more than the rumors she heard in her investigations or the careful evasions from Brett in their weekly coffee session.

But Frank hadn't delivered it. He hadn't mailed it.

Because he didn't want her to find him.

Karen drops the envelope at that and turns away. She shouldn't want to find him. Jesus, she still had nightmares about the diner. And any whiff of smoke still reminded her of his house, charred and crumbling still when she arrived with Ellison the next day. There hadn't been any witnesses to the fire, of course, so Karen doesn't know if it was the cartel or the military or the Irish or someone else Frank crossed in his crusade.

She refuses to entertain the possibility that he set the blaze himself, though he had told her, he told her as he shut the door to that shack, that he was already-

She pushes up from her chair and strides away from the desk.

A storm brewed over the city beyond her window. The weather wasn't as hot as it had been last year when they first met, but it was hot enough, hot enough that someone should have noticed the big man in the black coat, but no one wanted to notice, not anymore, not after the last few years. Looking meant knowing, and knowing meant death. But not knowing did, too. Karen had learned that the hard way. Fisk and the Hand operated in the shadows. So too had Reyes and the Colonel, all those that tried to sweep Frank and his family under the rug so they could continue to thrive.

Her jaw clenches then and her breath starts to come fast. Ellison claims this is the other thing that makes her so damned good as a reporter, her righteous rage, her refusal to cower to fear, even in the face of danger. And that was Frank. Danger. The gravest. He wore it like a brand on his chest, the spraypainted skull that haunted her dreams, superimposed on his face when she told him that he was dead to her if-

Karen turns from the window and eyes the envelope. He had pushed her away, told her to stay away from him, he shut the door to the shack and left her out in the cold, and for him to open it again... He wouldn't do that, not unless he had a reason. A good one, too. One worth knowing. This, more than anything, has her moving from the window back to her desk where she lifts and opens the envelope.

Inside she finds an index card, plain white like the envelope, this too bearing a scrawl of thick black ink. A look tells her it's an address; a quick search tells her it's for a diner in Queens. Her breath stops at the realization. The last time she sat in a diner with Frank… Karen drops the index card and runs her hands through her hair, tightening her fingers on the ends. He had seen her then, more than anyone else ever had, even more than Matt. And he had pushed. Frank cut to the quick, laid himself bare before her and demanded the same from her. And he would again, not from any malicious intent, or from any intent really, Frank just honest, as blunt as the bullets he dealt from his guns.

But then he'd shut the door on her again and he'd walk away, maybe for months once more, but maybe for good this time, burning away the memory of her as he had his family when-

Karen jerks her hands down and grabs the card from her desk, nearly crushing it in her grip. No. Knowing may mean death, but knowing meant life too, and she wouldn't be swept back into the shadows, not again. And she wouldn't let Frank be either. He thanked her for it before, for helping him remember. He might not this time, but she refused to cower, even to Frank.

Grabbing her purse, Karen strides from the room. He didn't want her to find him, but he wanted them to meet. He had brought the note to her himself. He had brought him to her himself. And whatever the reason, she would figure it out, death and closed doors be damned.

She spots him in the last booth, his back to the wall, every entrance and exit in view. The door closes with a jingle behind Karen, but she doesn't move from the entrance, not yet. Not until she settles. She had the entire drive to Queens to prepare for this, for seeing him again, but all of her efforts fade at the actual sight of him, alive, here, and breathing. As before, he wears black and a baseball cap pulled low, but even from this far and despite the shadows from his hat, she sees his face, free now from the bruises that mottled it eight months ago. Her shoulders relax at this only to tense again, the relaxation proof of her worry. Not for his actions, for the harm he might cause or the people he might kill, but for him.

Movement to her right drags her gaze away from Frank. Karen spots a waitress approach, an older woman with the nametag Barbara. Karen waves her off and points to Frank in the back. Barbara looks over at Frank, longer than a glance, long enough for Karen to turn as well. She sees the tail end of his nod, catches the reciprocated gesture from Barbara from the corners of her eyes. Whatever the danger posed to Frank in New York, the man still a fugitive, apparently here he was safe.

And so was she.

Karen starts forward then, her steps slow but thankfully steady. Frank tracks her as she approaches. He sits still, composed, save for the light tapping of one thumb against the handle of his mug. When her eyes drop to it, his do too and the movement stops. Up close, she sees faint scratches beneath one of his eyes. Other cuts mar his knuckles, along with a few bruises. Yet it's the dark swaths beneath his eyes that make her breath still in her chest, that speak to the life he's lived the past eight months, his nights spent as the Punisher.

"Wasn't sure you'd come," he says, breaking into her ruminations.

Karen stops before the booth. Her eyes flit away from his face, down to the table and then to the window, to the rain beginning to fall outside, but she feels the pull, the heavy weight of his gaze upon her, and she finds her eyes drifting back to him. "I wasn't sure either," she says after a beat. The words thankfully come as steady as her steps, though her pulse pounds in her ears.

Frank nods at that. His eyes search her face, slip lower down her body, perhaps to examine her as she examined him. Before she can decide though, he turns away, clearing his throat as he says, "Well, I'll get right to it then."

He reaches for something on the seat beside him. A second later a thick manila envelope pops into view. Karen frowns at it as she sits, as Frank places it on the table between them. Like the one he brought this morning, this one bears no markings. "What is it?" she asks, glancing up at him.

Frank glowers at the envelope, breathing fast. His hand tightens into a fist on the table, but he remains calm, blowing out a long breath as he says, "The truth."

Karen eyes the envelope again. "The truth?"

Frank nods. "About me. About why they wanted me dead. The military."

Karen inhales sharply. She looks up at Frank, finds him staring not at her but past her, his face softened by a smile. Karen can't resolve the discrepancy between the smile and his revelation until she hears Barbara approach. She tries to school her features into a similarly pleasant look and she must succeed for Barbara sends her a sweet smile before turning to Frank.

"Another refill, honey?"

Still smiling, Frank nods. He holds out his mug and Barbara fills it nearly to the brim, leaving no room for cream or sugar. Then she looks at Karen. "You want a menu or just coffee too?"

"Uh, coffee. Please. And thank you," she adds, trying to smile as Barbara nods.

They wait until she walks away before looking at each other again. Karen meant to interrogate Frank about the contents of the envelope, about the how of it and the why, but the questions fade at the way he regards her, his eyes fierce yet soft, and instead she says, "Why didn't you mail it to me?"

To that, Frank averts his gaze. He stares at the table a moment before taking a drink of his coffee. "It's the only copy I have," he says after swallowing. "Couldn't risk it getting lost."

Karen gives a short nod, less in acceptance of his response than in acknowledgement of it. Frank lowers his mug, but he doesn't meet her eyes again. He looks out the window instead, at the fat raindrops plopping onto the pavement. His thumb resumes its tattoo too, and the anger Karen felt as she paced in her office flames once again. She leans forward until she catches his eye and says to him, slowly, "Bullshit."

Something sparks in him at that, in his eyes. She doesn't know whether it's anger or amusement. He tilts his head back, peers at her a few seconds, then says, just as slowly, "Is that right?"

Karen nods. "You could have mailed this to me. Or had it delivered. Or you could have dropped it on my desk like you did the note." Frank breaks their stare then, but Karen refuses to let him evade, shifting back into his line of sight. "But you didn't do any of those. You asked me to come here instead. Why?"

Frank stays silent, though he doesn't drop her gaze this time. Karen's about to ask him why again when she hears Barbara approach. Leaning back, she smiles up at Barbara as the older woman sets a mug before her and fills it with fragrant coffee.

"You two let me know if you want anything else. Remember, on the house."

Frank nods and Karen does too. Barbara shuffles away, humming some indistinct melody. As she does, Karen reaches for two sugar packets. She rips them open, dumps them into her coffee, then grabs her napkin to unwind it from her silverware. Snatching up the spoon, she stirs in the sugar, her movements short and jerky.

"You're mad," Frank says after a moment.

Karen thwacks the spoon onto the table. "You're damned right I'm mad. Eight months, Frank." His jaw tightens then, but she plows on. The reckless center of her brain tells her it's because of, rather than despite, his irritation at her. "Eight months you're gone, you just disappear, nothing, and then you come back-"

"Are you mad that I left? Or that I didn't stay gone?"

Karen presses her lips together. The coffee's too hot to drink, but she drinks it anyway. Over the rim, she sees Frank smile, but it's one without humor.

"So you can dish out the questions, but you can't take 'em?"

Karen raises both brows. "I don't remember you answering mine."

There's a beat of silence and then his smile widens, turning genuine. Her angers fades at the sight of it; something else zips along her spine instead, something she eluded defining or confirming even as she pestered Brett for answers and pored through crime reports for information about the Punisher. Karen ducks her head and finds herself smiling in return. Her eyes lift back up to Frank's and linger; the moment stretches between them, the question of why answered, at least for her.

So she says, "It's the first."

Frank stills at that. The smile fades from his face, but his stare intensifies upon her rather than wavers. A second slides by, then two, before he speaks; when he does, his pitch matches hers, so soft for his hard boxer's face. "It should be the second."

Karen nods slowly. She looks away, out the window, at the cars passing by, at the rain puddled on the sidewalk. Lifting a hand, she pushes back her hair, lets the strands catch and slip between her fingers. She feels Frank watch her. Her pulse kicks up and she licks her lips, shifting her eyes back to Frank in time to see him jerks his from her mouth. "The second, huh?"

"Yes."

The terse response makes her smile, but it's a sharp one, that of a shark scenting blood. Or of a reporter scenting revelation. She lowers her hand and tilts her head to the side. "If that's the case, why'd you ask me here?"

Frank glares at her, but Karen arches a brow right back, not giving in. The staredown continues a couple seconds, then, abruptly, Frank lifts his mug. "How's the lawyer?"

The question snatches her breath. Karen gapes at Frank a moment before anger sets in, fisting her hands. "Don't."

"What?"

"Change the subject."

He takes a drink and swallows. "I'm not."

She reaches out then and grabs the mug from his hands, slapping it down so hard she spills a bit on the table. "Yes, you are. We're talking about you here. Not Matt."

Frank cocks a brow. "No?"

Karen reads the subtext beneath the question, in the sharp look of his eyes and quick draw of his breath. The question about her and Matt, about them together, her last talk with Frank occurring before, before Daredevil, before the revelations about Stick and his war.

Before Elektra, dead but not dead.

Before the sound of her heart pounding fast and hard at the edge of a burning dock.

Karen straightens her shoulders and shakes her head at Frank. "No."

Frank tries to stay composed in the face of her response, but his composure abandons him as had hers. He lets out a long breath and closes his eyes, trying to regain control.

"You seem… relieved," she says, watching him.

He snorts, but doesn't open his eyes. "I'm not."

Karen frowns at him. "Why not?"

Frank opens his eyes and looks at her. There's no trace of humor on his face anymore, nor of his prior softness. Just a fierce, hot stare. "Why not? Why not? How do you think this is gonna end, Karen? With a white-picket fence and a house in the suburbs?" He shakes his head at that. "I can't ever have that again. This path I'm on, it ends one way, and you know it."

"And yet here you are, giving me this," she says, jabbing a finger at the manila envelope, "sitting here with me and having coffee."

He jerks his gaze away from her and his jaw goes tight. "Yeah, well, I shouldn't be."

"I don't care if you should or shouldn't be. I care that you are."

This brings his attention back to her. He peers at her through narrowed eyes, so long that the look becomes tangible, a heady presence up against her skin. Karen breathes fast, faster when he eases forward, bringing himself closer to her, his voice a low rumble as he says, "You seem to care a lot for someone you said was dead to you."

Karen lifts her chin into the air. "And you seem to be pretty lively for a dead man."

They glare at each other, she on her side of the table, he on his, Karen out in the cold and Frank hovering broken in the door. And how had that ended? Karen stumbling alone down the road and Frank gone for eight months. The fight leaves her at the thought, at the possibility of history repeating, despite her initial vow. Karen slumps back in the booth and sighs, a shaky one that causes the expression Frank's face to flicker, to expose to both the want for her and the hate for that want, not at her, but at himself, for wanting.

The revelation shifts her forward again. Karen wants to reach out and touch him, to lay her hand on his, but the fear that he'll bolt holds her back. Instead, she says, her voice low, "I didn't come here to fight with you. I don't want to. I said what I said, okay? And you did what you did. But you're here now. And so am I. And that's what matters."

Frank works his jaw to the side, fighting for control. "Is it? Because I haven't stopped. I'm still-"

"I know." Karen runs her hand through her hair again. She props her face in the palm of her hand and peers at Frank. They stare at each other, on the edge of this, this unexpected connection, this impossible bond brewing between them. Because he was right. His path ended one way: with him dead, either on the street or in prison, likely at the hands of Fisk. But should the ending end the beginning, prevent this possibility from blossoming, from blooming into something, something good, maybe even great? Karen shakes her head before the thought finishes. She sets her hand back on the table, between the coffee and the envelope. "I don't want any of that, you know. What you said. The picket fence and the house in the suburbs. I left that behind, too, when I left Vermont."

The revelation hangs between them, waiting for his follow through, but Frank bypasses the hint of disclosure to stare down at her hand instead. His gaze remains fixed there for five seconds, for ten, nearly twenty before he locks eyes with her again. And the expression on his face leaves her breathless, the intensity the same as before but the want for her, his desire, laid bare. Frank sets his hands on the table, too, close to hers, close enough to touch if he wanted, his fingertips inches from hers. "What do you want?"

The husky tone shoots straight through Karen. She stares at the space between their hands, both a sliver and a swathe almost too wide to cross. But she does, placing light fingertips on the back of his hand. "I don't know," she says, voice breathless but sure. "Lunch, maybe, if you're hungry."

Frank shivers at her touch. "And after that?"

Karen shivers too, maybe from his tone, gravel and starlight, or from the freefall about to come. "Well, that depends on you." She lifts her gaze from their hands to his eyes. "On whether you hold on to this or let go."

The precipice teeters beneath them. Time slows, it almost stops, but it doesn't for her heartbeat tracks the seconds as Frank contemplates and decides. His hand twitches beneath hers and then it turns, slowly, so slowly, but coming to a rest palm to palm with hers. His fingers wrap around her hand, his grip callused and rough but gentle on her.

"And after?" he asks again, holding on, holding on so tight.

The dam bursts in Karen then. Shivering again, tears in her eyes, she runs her thumb along the back of Frank's hand. "Well, after I have to get back to work, but then…" She digs with her free hand into her bag, pulling out the index card that he left for her. Beneath the first address lies a second, this one written in loopy blue script. "Then," she says again, sliding the card across the table toward Frank, "you could come over. Maybe have a drink. Unless you have other plans."

Frank glances at the card, but he doesn't take it from her. He studies it then shakes his head at it and then he smiles, first at it and then at her, a slow one, one that sets her blood alight and makes her clutch at his hand.

"No, ma'am. I can't say that I do."