Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Marvel and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: Frank hasn't seen white torture since he was overseas. Now, he's found Red curled up in a hole in the wall, sense-deprived, and he killed the guys who did it too quickly for him to truly be known as the Punisher.
Warnings: this story includes extreme sensory deprivation and isolation used for torture.
Author's Notes: In the comics, Punisher's dog is named Max. I kept the name here for the pitbull Frank rescues from the Irish.
To say that I was overwhelmed by the response to the previous chapter is an understatement. I am so, so grateful for all the interest and support! I really appreciated the comments about characterization, given how new Frank is to the series and to my writing. I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter; I hope you enjoy this one and the conclusion!
Part Two: White
Gasoline shoots up his nose and ignites the embers in his skull to a raging inferno.
Matt's skeleton leaps, straining against his skin to get out, get away, get anywhere else, but there's fire out there too. Fury of sound and stagnant, summer air, of gun powder and lead. He is being fed to the sun by a pair of callused, murderer's hands.
"Rise and shine, Red," Frank's voice is a splay burn on Matt's chin, neck, and upper chest. Whatever he says next gets lost in the cacophony of city noise that follow: neighbours fighting, sirens wailing, people chatting, screaming; hearts pounding; phones ringing. All so near and very far away. No depth, just there. Everywhere.
Frank, though, Matt picks up through the din, and he chokeholds that bastard's form in his perception. He lunges at him, Frank, the murderer. There are half-remembered screams of, "MY EYES!" resonating through the fire that deserve reckoning. Matt doesn't make a swing though. He changes course at the last minute, shoving his palms against his ears, cutting off one sense only to be overwhelmed by the others. He smells their sweat, their breath, their dinners; exhaust fumes and street meat and bullets. Dog. Kevlar. Explosives. Frank, Frank, Frank, who yanks his ears open and Matt is drowning in it, all of it. So much, so soon, too fast, too loud, too much, too much. He's actually repeating it like a prayer in his post-captivity rasp: too much.
Frank's hand snaps against his damp cheeks, "Need you to focus, Red. C'mon. Tell me you hear me. Yes or no. You fucking hear me, Red?"
"I fucking hear you," Matt stammers, wrestling his hands away from Frank back to his ears. "I hear everything," and he's trying, he's trying so hard to remember his training. Remember focusing on one sense at a time, one stimulus. There is so much fear in that though, in the terrifying vastness of his senses. It's worse than the first time; it's worse than the worst time. He's forgotten how much of the world he can experience without dying.
(And how little of it.)
The darkness outside his eyes is alarming too, menacing. Matt waits for the next spark, for the light in his head to become the light in front of his eyes. For the monster with his father's face and Foggy's voice to materialize. He breaks down into guttural cries and moans, warding off the phantoms, and the added sound causes the fire in his skull to burn hotter and hotter, whiter and whiter. The eye of a nuclear explosion inside him, around him, in all his senses.
"RED," slapping this time, quick jabs Matt doesn't sense through the corona of sounds, smells, and fire. Frank tugs his hands down and restrains them from going back. Matt dry heaves from the pain, and Frank claps him some more as he does. "Stay with me, Red."
Matt wishes he could puke the whole world on fire into Frank. All the clamouring inferno. Instead, he struggles to find the words he's been asked for amidst a cabbie yelling about his fare and heady smells of street meat and the tang of explosives in his mouth, "I'm with you."
"Say it again."
"I'm with you."
"You're not," Frank shoves Matt's hands into his chest. "Crying about how loud and much everything is. Quit plugging your ears. Adjust."
"It's not like that."
"It's exactly that. Hurts for a while, Red, but you can't get out of the box if you stay in the box."
Easy for Frank to say when he's not currently immolating, so Matt is loathe to admit that he has a point. But God, it hurts. It hurts so much. Matt tosses his head against the torpor of sensations, assailed at every turn. His scream, a smoky whisper ripped out of his charred lungs. Then crying, lots of that.
Frank grumbles, releasing Matt's hands - giving up, and it's all the incentive Matt needs to lock his arms and keep from grabbing his ears. He grits his teeth, better than this. Stronger than this. Stuff of Spartans, that's him, and hell if he's going to let the Punisher think differently.
…but God, it hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. The city, his city, diving in and out of his skin like a ricocheting bullet. Matt chokes his next breath and the next and the next. Diaphragm drops, fire slips in; diaphragm rises, smoke comes out.
Repeat.
He fixes his ears on a scuffle that smells nearest, one that prickles his brain with familiarity. He has stood on these rotting floorboards, tamed that dog, run his fingers over that arsenal. He's in Frank's apartment again, lying on the floor on a mattress made of Frank's coat and an old fleece blanket. His shirt's off, coveralls gone, replaced with a pair of sweats made for a man twice his bulk. Fresh bandages circle with his forearms; sutures pull at the wounds. A fresh burn in his right bicep when his muscles tense.
Meanwhile, the onslaught teems around him. Matt hovers on the brink of another breakdown. He distracts himself. "How did you find me?" When Frank doesn't answer, he tries again, working his voice above a whisper. "How did you find me?"
"Found the guys who were holding you. Better question: how did they find you? Can't you turn invisible or something?"
Matt shakes his head, focusing. The big bad world screams at him with the voice of God, but he retraces his steps through the blackness to the last thing he remembers. Which is more blackness. "I don't remember."
"They drug you?"
"Yeah," he woke in the box with a splitting headache, nauseated as hell, but he can't remember what came before. Being in the mask, obviously. Chasing a scream through Hell's Kitchen.
"Didn't think they could get a needle through that costume of yours."
"No, no, it was gas. They locked me inside a storage container and…and pumped it in."
And if memory serves – which it doesn't, not well, cluttered and disjointed from Matt's time spent in darkness – there was someone else in the storage container with him. Another heartbeat. Screaming. Adult? Child? Bait. He tosses his head, distracted by the city again. The apartment falls out of focus. His memories too.
Frank resorts to shaking him, "Red? Red."
"I'm here," Matt mutters.
"You remember what day that was?"
"Wednesday," he replies, then clarifies, "Late Wednesday, early Thursday…it was night. What day is it?"
"Late Friday, early Saturday. Night," Frank parrots him dryly.
Matt shivers despite the heat. Two days. He was in the dark for two days. Silence for two days. He was out of time for two days. "I have to leave," he finds his feet under him and rises, mind ablaze with a white inferno from all the stuff he forgot he was blocking out. And it returns, stronger than before, Hell's Kitchen in all its glory, to say nothing of the fierce pain rollicking up through his legs from stretching. Matt cries out, grabbing his ears, his face, before he's back on the floor in writhing agony. Throughout it all, he's aware of Frank kneeling nearby, disappointed.
"I thought you said you were leaving."
"I hate you," is the best comeback Matt has.
"Yeah, yeah," I hate you too, Red. "Two days on your knees in a dark hole, no food, no water. You got dosed again while you were in there, needle this time. Found a piece of it in your arm, so you must have given 'em a fight. Explains why you didn't piss or shit yourself in the hole."
"I don't remember."
Frank doesn't care: it's irrelevant, "You have any idea why they wanted you?"
"I can think of a few reasons," he mutters, turning onto his side to better interact with Frank. He's pretty sure he has the right direction, but Frank's pulse picks up for a beat or two before falling back into freight train consistency. Matt keeps them on-topic. He is not about to talk about his eyes, "Who did they work for?"
"Not sure yet. Have to do some digging. Meantime, probably best for you to get your beauty sleep. You look like shit, Red."
Matt barks a laugh, "I usually do."
"No, you don't. Who the hell are you, Red? Outside the mask?"
"Thought you said you didn't care."
"Figured you for some dumbass with a few martial arts classes under his belt, but look at you. You part your hair. All your scars fit under a suit. You secretly a shrink, Red?"
"No."
Frank sounds like he doesn't believe him. He nudges Matt in the ribs with his toe. "Get some rest, Red. And don't fucking try to get up and walk again till you're ready. 'm not redoing those stitches."
Matt nods in surrender, no intention of getting up again. He forces himself to allow Frank to disappear into the noisy torpor, smelly torpor of the apartment. To let go to what he can't control. Remember the training. Remember the training. Remember his heartbeat in his skull and ice in his veins and if he's not here, he's back there. Two days of true darkness.
He hears it suddenly: relief. The sounds and smells and tastes washed aside. A rattling hum overtakes him, drowning out the burn.
Matt throws his head back to catch the breeze, and when that's not enough, he rolls onto his back. The tears on his face cool into a salve; his ears ring from the disappearance of sound. The star in his head folds into a mushroom cloud. He hurts, but when he tries his best to focus, he finds he can on the little things. The cheap air conditioner rattling in the window battling the inferno around him. Frank at the desk, the police scanner on low, dog trotting up to lick the devil's blood off his fingers.
"Hey, there," Frank mutters, ruffling the dog behind the ears.
Matt lets it go. Closes his eyes. Focuses.
The firestorm rages on.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Frank opens his eyes. Max nips the cuff of his sleeve and tugs, whining. He shoots a concerned look at the wall vibrating across from Frank.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Slide.
"Red?" Frank pats Max out of his way, rounds the corner to his dilapidated bathroom. Flicks the light to reveal the kid curled up in front of the toilet, knock-knock-knocking his head against the wall.
"Christ, you're quiet," Frank rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Not many people can get the jump on him, and Red was working blind in a stranger's apartment. Made it all the way to the little boy's room, dry-heaved some more by the looks of it, and started doing…whatever the hell he's doing. Head-bashing. Muttering. "Not bad, Red: not bad. You wanna stop bashing your brains in?"
Red does but only so he can rub his moppy brown hair against the crumbling tiles, mumbling lowly to the point of incoherence.
Frank takes a knee. Kid whined his way into a fitful sleep because the city was too loud. Now he's unresponsive and dragging his head against the wall some more. Reciting articles of the New York Penal Code from memory. Jesus. This is his two days in the box, isn't it? Frank sighs, getting a look at his face, and unsurprisingly, the kid's flushed, sweaty. Blind eyes red-rimmed and fever bright, half-lidded in delirium.
Stress burn, Frank recognizes. Body's natural response to not being in hell is to throw itself right back into the fire. He tugs Red's wrist just enough to detach him from the wall. "C'mon," Frank's careful not to wake him up. You're not supposed to wake them up. Frank Jr. used to do this when he was sick. Folded himself under the piano bench and scared the ever-living shit out of Maria when he rolled out, pale and shaking, at about three in the morning…
Or was that Lisa? In the middle of the afternoon? Frank shakes his head, catching Red's firey face when it tries to hit the wall again. Doesn't matter which of his kids it was; Red isn't his kid. Aspirin, water, sleep: that's all he needs. Frank takes him by the arm and leads him into a standing position, then gives him a push towards the door.
Red clips the doorframe with his foot. Because he's blind. Because he's asleep. Because Frank's an idiot who let him go. "Kay, Red," Frank puts a hand on his shoulder and walks him back towards the blanket and bed roll in the middle of the room. Red's feet scuffle across the floorboards lazily. He's barely lifting them and seems only too content to take a load off on the tangled mess that passes for a bed. Frank has to catch him on the way down to keep him from hurting himself.
He had to do the same thing with Lisa when she-
Stop.
Max comes over and licks the kid's face like a mother who's been worried sick. Don't you ever do that to me again, you hear me? Red responds in kind. He hangs his head apologetically, his recitation of marijuana laws cut short with a moan. He drags a hand over Max's coat and leans, bringing his cheek to rest against the dog's chest. Max sits stoically, chin on Red's broiling scalp. He casts a sideways glance at Frank, begging with his eyes, "Can we keep him?"
Frank scoffs, patting Max a stern, "NO," before retreating. God damn it, Red's only been here for two hours and he's already softened a rescue pit bull from a dog-fighting ring.
Aspirin is easy. Finding a cup is hard. He doesn't own dishes, and he's not about to have the kid choke by taking pills dry. At a loss, Frank rinses out one of his Styrofoam coffee cups as best he can and fills it with water. Max is back at his sleeve before he finishes, nipping and tugging.
"What? What?" Frank steps out of the bathroom to find Red gone again. Disappeared into thin air, apparently. Frank puts down the water and the Aspirin, checks under the desk, behind his arsenal, in the kitchen. Red can't have gone through the front door without him noticing; he's not that quiet or quick in his current state. So where the fuck is he?
Max calls to him from the open window. Frank storms over, half-expecting to see a body on the sidewalk. What he hears instead is a scuffle above him, and when he looks, Frank swears a couple of oaths in rapid succession. There's Red, completely blind, sleep-scaling the wall of the building to the roof.
"The fuck are you, Red?" Frank has half a mind to fucking leave him. He climbed up there without falling, he can sure as hell climb back down or go home or anything. But Max is at the front door scratching to be let out, threatening to bark, wake the neighbours, have them discover the half-naked blind man on the roof and call the cops.
Frank grabs his jacket off the floor and heads out, Max in tow.
Happy reading!