Alright folks, I'm back. This is the sequel to "Not Ready To Die," and I recommend you read that first. Otherwise, you may be asking what the Punisher is doing in Age of Ultron. Enjoy.

Prolugue – Novi Grad, Sokovia

Frank Castle awoke from his unconsciousness and looked at his surroundings.

His armor was wreckage of the Pave Low helicopter he had been flying was a good fifty feet from him, along with what was left of most of the crew. He spotted one of the survivors and crawled towards him.

Then a hail of fire from the sky (how ironic, since Novi Grad was already several thousand feet in the air) and the survivor was no more.

"Frank!" The panicked voice of Maria Hill came in via his earpiece, which somehow escaped from the crash unscathed. "Ultron launched an ambush. Get the hell out of the killzone. Move!"

Frank spotted the Quinjet Ultron was manually piloting and rushed to the nearest cover building, which happened to be some sort of Sokovian café. "Barton's about ten meters to your right," said Maria. "Get him out of there!"

"Roger, will do," replied Frank. "Doesn't look good from here though."

Before he could do anything, a blur of blue spun past him and straight for Clint Barton.

Six days earlier, grounds surrounding Baron von Strucker's Castle, Sokovia

"What a lovely day."

Frank Castle, also known as the Punisher, was racing towards the jeep straight in front of him, careful not to take any of the various projectile weapons in his face. He stopped only to kick a HYDRA goon coming at him from one of those anti-gravity devices, and put two bullets in him for good measure. Once that was taken care of, he dispatched the driver and his two friends in quick succession.

"Barton's taking the rear. Castle, ride shotgun." Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, was getting in the driver's seat and rushing away at nearly ninety miles an hour. They had to in order to avoid the bad guys in all directions. They came from the back, front, and the air. Frank liked Natasha: like him, she was trained for special operations and didn't give away any shots.

"Taking the rear? Very funny, Tasha." Frank didn't know where Clint Barton developed his skills, or why he preferred archery to conventional firearms. What he did know, however, was that he was the joker of the pack, was just as deadly as the rest of the team, and that he was a good friend at heart. Barton shot an arrow at one of the flying men trying to get a clear shot at them, sending him crashing into a tree.

"Two more jeeps, one on each side," shouted Frank. "Barton, you get one, I'll get the other." Frank aimed the M203 grenade launcher attached to his M4 and fired at the enemy jeep to the right, disintegrating it in a fireball.

"I got him." Barton, code name Hawkeye, pulled out an explosive trick arrow and plunged it into the jeep coming at them from the left. A few seconds on a timer, and suddenly the jeep turned over on its side.

Several hundred feet later, a ravine approached, and the three of them would have to get out. Fortunately, Thor, Tony Stark in the Mark 44, the Hulk, and Steve Rogers on a motorbike all approached said ravine at the same time, and the dozen or so combatants waiting to take on the Avengers were quickly overwhelmed by a hail of repulsors, arrows, bullets, and lightning.

Enemy reinforcements were quickly closing in, however. A group of T-90 main battle tanks, armed with Chitauri powered technology, were rolling down from the north, along with more jeeps carrying troops. Thor swung Mjolnir at one of the tanks, causing it to tear itself apart in a matter of seconds.

"Loki's scepter must be here," said Thor as he retrieved Mjolnir to slam into a trio of HYDRA soldiers attempting to get a shot at him. "Strucker couldn't mount a defense without it. At long last."

"No shit, Sherlock," said Frank as he went prone and reloaded his grenade launcher. He'd picked out body armor that camouflaged him in the Sokovian forest landscape and snow. "At your 12 o'clock, Romanoff. I'm reloading."

"On it." The Black Widow tossed one of her grenades into the back of the jeep, which exploded and sent soldiers flying, with and without a heartbeat. Those that survived received incoming punches, kicks, and Widow Bites. " 'At long last' is lasting a little long boys."

Barely dodging an incoming ray from another tank, Barton took meager cover from some half-dead trees. "I think we lost the element of surprise," he said as he used another explosive arrow to destroy the attacking tank.

That, of course was the point, according to the self-proclaimed Punisher. Had this been one of his old SEAL operations, the procedure would have been anonymity above all: no mess, no footprints. In an all-out battle, however, disruption was everything. Baron von Strucker and his lackeys were, in a dramatic way, about to experience the laws of cause and effect.


"Who gave the order to attack?!" Baron Wolfgang von Strucker was not a happy man in normal circumstances. And in these, even less so.

One of Strucker's assistants, a timid young man plucked from graduate school at the University of Berlin, looked uneasily at a phone that showed real-time displays of the battle. "Herr Strucker, it's the Avengers."

The kid's awareness of the obvious was not appreciated by Strucker, who began rallying what was left of his army. First Serbia, then Greece, and now this mess. "Deploy the rest of the tanks! Can we hold them?"

"T-they're the Avengers…"

Strucker sighed and rolled his eyes, turning to not-so-distraught members of his staff. "We will not yield. The Americans send their circus freaks to test us. We will send them back in body bags. No surrender!"

Hopefully, the force field would hold them off long enough to evacuate everything Strucker needed. And if that failed… well, there were the twins.


Another tank came onto view. This time, it was the Hulk's turn to take it out. The raging green alter ego of Bruce Banner picked up the fifty ton tank with relative ease and tossed it to be shredded by scorch of lightning, courtesy of Thor.

"How many of these fucking things do they have-"

"Language, Castle!"

"We're fighting a war, and your first concern is language?" Of all the things Captain America would tell me, thought Frank.

"It slipped out."

"Who cares?" chipped in Hawkeye. "We've got more pressing concerns. Alright, I've got another bunker in my sights." He prepared to fire another arrow.

"You do that Barton, I'm going to see if I can get one of these tanks for ourselves." Frank moved towards what appeared to be a stalled tank, crouching to minimize enemy contact, and spotted two men attempting to get something fixed. After looking for any immediate threats and finding none, Frank made himself known to the men.

"Hands where I can see them," he ordered. The two looked confused at first, then the one on the left slowly raised his hands. The other followed suit. Frank guessed that the one on the left spoke English and was in no mood to fight.

"We're taking a ride in the tank. Tell your friend to-"

Before he could finish, a flash of blue spun past them, knocking all three of them off their feet. The two crew members were out. Frank got to his feet and saw a young blonde man who couldn't have been older than twenty five.

"You didn't see that coming?" Even with an Eastern European accent, there was no mistaking the arrogance and smug confidence in his voice.

Frank reached for the Glock 18 in his holster, as the M4 had been knocked out of his hands. However, by the time he let off any shots, the speedster zoomed off to catch one of Barton's arrows. Enhanced, he thought. He remembered Maria Hill telling him about that in the middle of their shower sex.

What a time to be alive.

"Heads up everyone, we've got superpowered company," he said on the team's radio comms as he shot at more infantry coming from the west.

"Tell me about it," said Barton, who'd been delayed in his offensive maneuvers by the same blonde man. "Son of a bitch."

"Language, Barton," said Rogers, throwing his motorbike at another HYDRA jeep. Safe to say the vehicle was no longer drivable. "Everyone stick to the plan. Stark's going to find a way to neutralize that force field. Natasha, keep Banner in check and focused on the enemies. Barton, Castle, find the secret passage."

The "secret passage" Steve was referring to was a massive garage door at the base of the mountain. Maria's intel reported that there were three main layers to Strucker's castle: the surface floor where the castle was situated on, a primary underground layer (where experiments via Loki's scepter took place), and a secondary underground layer where Chitauri powered tech was built.

"Got it," said Barton. "Rendezvous and- shit, I'm hit!" Barton had taken a shot to the thigh, leaving a nasty hole. While Natasha and Thor turned their attentions to protecting him and getting him to safety, Frank just sighed. Looks like I'll be doing all of the heavy lifting, he thought as he made his way towards the hangar bay and garage opening.

Frank's SEAL training and vigilante days both kicked it as a small army of SMGs and assault rifles began firing at it. HE slid for cover while throwing a flashbang grenade, defending himself while disorienting the enemy. While they attempted to recover Frank put in another grenade round and launched it a group of soldiers that was hiding behind a truck. The truck was obliterated, along with its occupants. Other survivors were mopped up by a fresh clip of 5.56 rounds from the M4.

"Hangar door clear," whispered Frank as he crouched and crawled towards the rows of empty tanks. "Mopping up, over."

"Roger that, Frank," said Steve as he kicked down a door leading to the castle, near where Von Strucker was. "Keep up the pressure on that side. I'll handle Strucker."

"Whatever you say." If he was in charge of battle plans, Frank would have a nice long talk with Strucker. However, the world didn't always go in his favor, and he was used to reshuffling the cards life dealt him. Suddenly he was grabbed from behind and slammed against one of the tanks.

Frank got a good look at his attacker. It was one of the goons that was using the flying technology. He must have flown in and taken Frank by surprise. As the anti-gravity tech powered off as the man struggled to get a hold on Frank, the vigilante got an idea. Frank's boots were designed to climb mountains, and had spikes on their undersides.

Frank slammed as hard as he could with his left foot against the HYDRA goon. The man screamed and cursed in German as he was taken aback by the swiftness of the kick. This gave Frank all the time he needed to get his Glock ready. He doubled tapped the man and continued on to the next wave of attackers, who were ill prepared for a head-on assault; most of the veterans were taken down already.

Captain Rogers radioed in again. "Castle, I've got Strucker. What's the situation like down there?"

"Plenty of fun. At least another fifty hired guns, but not much more than tanks and weapons." Frank began receiving static in his earpiece, and waited for Rogers to respond. In the meantime, he also laid down covering fire at the enemies on the other side of the hangar bay.

Finally Rogers came back on the radio. "Had a little problem here. We got a second enhanced. She shoots what appears to be red hexes. Tony, I think she's headed your way."

"Uh huh. This room is a freaking gold mine." He must have been in Strucker's science level. Stark would have quite a field day here. "I'm going after the scepter."

Bullets began pinging around the area Frank was using for cover. Screw this, we're using grenades again. Especially with the sheer number of enemies left. He loaded the M203 again and fired it. I didn't leave much of a dent in the tank he aimed it, but the dozen or so men around it were thrown in various directions.

Then the booming voice of Captain America came on a microphone: "Attention all HYDRA members: we have your leader, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, in custody. Surrender now and you will not be harmed. This will be your only warning."

A brief lull in the gunfire ensued. Then, at first a few, then the rest of the remaining soldiers dropped their weapons and came out with arms raised. Soon Rogers and Castle had about thirty disarmed combatants taken prisoner. They were soon joined by an unarmored Tony Stark, holding Loki's scepter in hand. "Sorry, had a delay. The girl tried to jinx me, and I have no idea where she went. Got the prize though. What's the score Cap?"

"That's the last of them," remarked Rogers, pointing to the prisoners. "Now we just need to separate the ones of value, and hand them over to NATO and Interpol and let them deal with the cleanup."

Frank, however, had different ideas.

A/N: Not too much more than the opening battle here, I know. We'll have more Frank/Maria moments down the line, and a look into Bruce/Natasha because I liked that (might be in the minority opinion though). Let me know what you thought, and be sure to review/favorite/follow!

-Jokerang