When Frank pulls up to apartment complex and begin rifling through his bag for his phone again, the kid stirs awake. He'd slumped to lean his head on the door in a position he had thought would surely put stress on his back, but when the kid awoke and opened his eyes, no discomfort reflected in them.
He glanced around, peering into the now sunny morning streets of Hells Kitchen, blinking slowly at it all.
"You awake, kid?" Frank questioned, popping the locks and stepping out. He didn't answer, just simply exited the vehicle and rounded it to Frank's side, not taking the opportunity to run or cry for help, just silently drifting to his side like a ghost, tugging the coat to his chin in what was clearly a self conscious manner.
"She lives here. Came back from work just so she could take a look at you." Claire was just about to kick him to the curb before he had mentioned he wasn't the one hurt, but a kid. It was then that she had, albeit reluctantly taken the rest of her shift off to take a glance at the kid.
"Hm. Maybe we shouldn't have bothered her." He hummed dryly, following Frank into the building and up the stairs, wincing a tad as he moved up the steps.
"No, she won't mind too much." Silence reigned once more till they reached the door, where Frank knocked, calling out and stating his name through the door.
An exasperated Latina woman opened the door, ushering them inside a rather nice, lived in apartment. Homey and warm.
"You don't have to yell through the door, I have a peephole." She chided lightly, turning and analyzing the boy who stood stiffly and silently behind him.
"Hey, you the kid Frank was talking about?" She addressed him, taking on a much kinder and softer tone, smiling slightly.
"Unless there is another kid popping up... yes, that would be me." It wasn't said particularly meanly, his face was flat and inexpressive, voice just as inflection-less, and she looked perhaps a little put off by it for a second, but recovered quick enough.
"You got a name?" She gestured him to sit on her couch, him awkwardly following her instructions, turning away from her when she asked.
"Maybe. But names are only really useful when you want someone to acknowledge you, right?" She gave Frank an odd look over his shoulder, to which he simply shrugged in response.
"Well, Mr Nameless, I need you to take that coat off so I can lift your shirt." He took it off carefully, folding it and placing it over the arm of the couch, eyeing the item with an odd look in his eyes. Frank couldn't quite place it.
To Claire's unending credit, her expression didn't change when she caught sight of the back of his mangled neck, however when she lifted the back of his shirt, her features strained.
"Yeah, that's some nasty bruising..." She gently pressed her fingertips along his his spine, slowing moving down his back until he winced. "Does that hurt right there?"
"It's not particularly pleasant." His hands were hovering, awkwardly trying to cover any of his stomach now shown from the lifted shirt.
"You should be in a hospital," the kid tensed minutely, but she continued on. "But I doubt you'd do that, so I can go get you a special brace. I keep a lot of medical stuff around my apartment incase one of the vigilante idiots go and get themselves beat to a pulp." She drops the shirt and heads to the other room, away for a few moments as she looks for the brace. The tugs the shirt down carefully wraps his arms around his stomach.
She returns with a medical corset, something the kid clearly is familiar with from the annoyed look on his face.
"How long is he supposed to keep that thing on?" Claire pokes both his arms and they lift, allowing her to get the brace around his waist, carefully pulling the velcro sinches into place, fitting it snuggly, forcing his back into a more upright position.
"Ideally? About twelve weeks. But with him running along with you, who knows how long he'll be wearing it." He pulls the jacket back on, grimacing at the brace.
"You may have to help him put it back on everytime he changes clothes." Claire states, but the kid shakes his head.
"I've worn these before, I know how to use them." She nods lightly before thinking for a moment.
"Hey, how about you take a nap in my room? Frank mentioned you haven't been sleeping. Might as well get a few hours in." He gave them an odd look.
"It would be rude of me to take your bed." Bemusedly, Frank sighs.
"Kid, the lady says go take a nap. Don't pass up a nice bed to sleep in." It's not really an option when Frank says it, clearly she's sending him into another room for a reason and he's not going to let him finagle his way into staying so whatever is discussed can't be discussed. He's a sneaky kid.
He stands warily, and Claire shows him to her room.
After a moment, a door shuts and she returns, sighing wearily.
"He doesn't have super hearing or anything, right?" She questions tiredly, running her hands through her hair, stooping down to sit on the couch, Frank following just after.
"I don't think he's a super." She nods.
"It's bad, Frank. I've never seen anything like it." She breathes wearily, and Frank nods his agreement.
"Never in my life time have I seen self harm like that." He agrees, but she shakes her head, drawing his curiosity.
"It's not just self harm."
"What is it?" His eyes narrow.
"Surgical scars. As clean as some of those self harm scars are, when a professional is doing it, it's very obvious." She shakes her head and stands, moving to the kitchen.
"Want a drink?" She loosely waves a liquor bottle in his direction. Frank quirks a brow at that.
"Liquor? This early in the morning?" She posts him a glass either way, and he accepts it from her when she returns, sipping at it lightly.
"I'm assuming you weren't implying he's just had surgery before?" She shakes her head.
"No. None of the are anywhere that makes any sense, medically. It just looks like a doctor to a scalpel to him, for shits and giggles." The dark liquor sloshes and leaves dark residue on the sides of the glass.
"He was with those Mafia guys. Apart of them. From the way people are turning up, I'm guessing there's lots of fucked up sadists with them. Probably willing to go after their own." He stated. He did his best to keep his voice down to avoid alerting the kid to their topic of discussion.
"He won't even tell you his name... has he told you anything at all?" Frank huffed a laugh, leaning forward and gently placing the cup on the table.
"He's told me jack shit. I think he's probably fifteen or sixteen, but I'm not sure. I don't know what he did for the Mafia or who the one running this shitshow here in New York." He could smell the neighbors breakfast of pancakes through the walls.
"It isn't the boss of the organization?" Frank shook his head.
"I'm sure he has control of what's going on here, but from what everyone I've come across says that an executive of the group is running the operation for him." She finishes her cup and places on the table as well, pulling her legs onto the cushions and wrapping her arms around them.
"The executive wasn't there? At the warehouse?" Word must have traveled of the warehouse burning down, and she likely put two and two together considering the proximity between the corpses washing up and the building itself.
"Only five people total were there, four guards and the kid." Claire looks deep in thought.
"Was it a trap? Did they intentionally leave the place open to be attacked to draw you out?" Frank had thought of this plenty before, and it was what he was thinking was most likely the case. Them suddenly just being absent while every other day there were filled to the brim with armed guards and burly men loading crates of illegal materials? A likely story. That's why he needed something out of the kid, because while he may not have been told his life was at risk in a set up... maybe he did. And if he did, than he he would informed on the executives plan.
"Pretty sure it was, I don't really know what it was for. The kid won't budge, he's stubborn as all hell and only talks to me when he wants to be an ass." Claire snorted. Frank dropped his head onto the back of the couch exasperatedly at her amusement.
"That's teenagers, for you. We get them all the time at the hospital and they never cease to am absolute delight to deal with." Claire remarked sarcastically, and Frank chuckled.
Quiet befell the room around them. Neither spoke for a while, just simply existing in the same space as one another, quietly listening for any movement in the other room, any sign the kid was up to no good. Thankfully, they heard nothing.
"Do you think they'll come looking for him?"
"Probably, either to bring him back or to kill him before he can say anything." Claire leaned her head back against the couch as well, peering up at the ceiling sullenly.
"Ever since I've gotten involved with all... this, I've seen and heard a lot of different fucked up situations are being put into. And it bothers me, of course, but seeing kids put through that... it's different than what I'd usually see in the hospital, I think. The gangs on the streets are one thing, but these groups like Fisks and the Hand... they take cruelty to a different level." It's true, gangs are most certainly violent and cruel, but organized groups like these, the special ones, tend to take things to a different level. In his days, he's seen horrible things done to one another by cartels like the Port Mafia, skinning, castration by dogs, having ones head lopped off by a chainsaw... he's come across each of these situations before, either intervening or arriving after the deed is done. While the murders committed by the Port Mafia have been grim so far, they have yet to comfortably set up enough to be torturing, or at least that what he thinks. At any moment the corpse and a person tortured to death could pop up, or one of the corpses of the children who have been whisked away could surface.
It could get worse, and frankly, he thinks it will. Soon.
That bothers Frank, because right now, with the kid hurt and most likely the target of this group next due to him being compromised, he's a sitting duck.
"Not a lot pisses me off more than putting kids in danger, and that kid in there looks like a living testament to how fucked up those bastards are. I'm going to deal with them, and then I'm going to find someone who can handle the kid." Claire quirked a brow.
"Like?" She prompted, and Frank sighed, not having really gotten to that part of the plan yet.
"There's that, bald, telepathic guy, right? He takes in the dangerous kids?"
"Charles Xavier? And that boy is dangerous? He looks a little too... brittle to be dangerous, at the moment." Claire mused.
"Never underestimate someone. That kid got one of my guns the other day and pulled it on, and he has a real mean streak. That's why I want it to be someone who won't get their ass beat by a teenager." Claire hummed lightly.
"You're pretty worried about him." She commented.
"I just want the kid to have some sort of chance to have a real, normal life after this." He thought of Russo, how irreparably fucked he had turned out, and while Frank hated him for what he did, he understood that his need for stability after a childhood of abuse had led to the decisions he later made. That didn't excise it nor make it right, but it was an explanation, in a way, and he'd hate for the kid to turn out like Russo, self-destructing any personal relationships in the name of financial security.
So he'd do his best to put the kid somewhere safe, if not for the kid sake, than for everyone else's.
"It's nice your trying so hard. Most kids, when they get into the slightest bit of trouble tend to have their lives ruined. Too many kids have no one in their corner. That boy doesn't seem like he had someone routing for him, at least until now." Frank did not really know what to say to that, because it felt like a bit much for how little he'd done. The Port Mafia is still a threat to the kid, he's not in safe hands yet, and he kind of fractured a vertebrae in the kids back... Which wasn't his fault, he knew that, but he'd also hurt his wrist pretty badly, though that thankfully did not seem to be causing the kid any issues, and it was no longer swollen. It couldn't be broken or too badly injured if the swelling went down so quickly... This is not necessary information for him to be lingering on.
He did not leave Claire alone with the kid incase something were to occur. He simply sat himself on the chesterfield, occasionally making idle chatter with the woman as she went about her day.
A few hours later, she peaked into her bedroom at the teenage boy, and found that he had indeed fallen asleep.
He prepared to go back out that evening.