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: You know you've got problems when Frank Castle is lecturing you on the importance of friendship.
Or: how Matt's broken leg becomes the least of his concerns.
Warnings: Spoilers for season 2.
This chapter also contains some violence, references to torture, and gore.
Author's Notes: This chapter is shorter than my other posts for two reasons – one, I am in the middle of writing report cards, and my stamina is shot. Two, I wanted to contextualize the final scene of the previous chapter without cutting back to the church at the end. My plans for Matt went beyond the scope of this installment. I still feel the need to apologize, because Readers, kind Readers, lovely Readers, you're amazing. Thank you for your enthusiasm, for your insights, for your time and energy. It's truly a pleasure to write in this fandom with such wonderful people. I hope you are all doing well, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Cheers!
"Baby, you drive me so crazy.
Baby, you drive me so crazy.
Baby, you drive me so mad,
You got me runnin' round town
Like a woman on a warpath."
~Ingrid Michaelson, "Warpath"
Chapter Seventeen
Frank's first stop upon dropping off the kid is a water tower four blocks south. He perches against the rails, surveying Hell's Kitchen from above. He has other errands to run, people to see, but he needs to get his bearings. Being chased by ninjas on his last visit really threw him. Last thing he needs today is a tail. Actually, the last thing he needs is to get back to the kid's apartment and find Red grappling more of those ninja-bastards, broken bone hanging out of his cast, because that seems the more likely scenario.
Motion abounds. Frank filters through the inanimate stuff: the laundry flapping on the lines, the sway of shutters and power lines; steam and smoke billowing along the horizon; fans spinning slowly in rusty vents. There's an urban beekeeper harvesting on a nearby rooftop. A woman strings Christmas lights around the access door in preparation for a party, her left arm balancing a toddler against her hip. Red's roof, whether Frank spies through his scope or not, is empty. Nobody's watching the kid's apartment today.
Frank lowers his gaze. Checks his phone. Been up here for a half hour thinking somebody might show and nothing. No sign of 'em. Ninjas must work night shifts. Either that or the trail's gone cold, what with Red being gone for so long. Frank pops the scope back into his pocket. He casts one last glance at the city unfolding around him, staring Hell's Kitchen dead in the eye. Those ninja-bastards aren't gone; they're in hiding. Hard enough being a fugitive without a mask. Frank can't imagine wandering around in broad daylight, trying to be stealthy in robes and katanas.
Still, Frank can't be too careful. It's a big, bad world out there. He's got to look out for himself. Who the hell else would he be on the rooftops for?
The motel on 37th makes a shitty cup of coffee, but Frank buys one and takes a seat on the bench outside. There're other places to buy coffee, better places, but the servers at this one never look him in the eye. They hand him the cup, take his loose change, and get on with their day. No care for the fact that they were two feet away from Public Enemy Number One.
Rousseau comes when she comes and sits as far away from him as she can on the bench. She has a cell phone in one hand, a Starbucks in the other, and sunglasses covering what little of her face isn't obscured by the scarf she's wearing.
"Long night?" Frank asks the ground. The way her shoulder slouch away from him tells him as much. Rousseau doesn't give two fucks about subterfuge or secrecy; she reacts to the day she's having, not to him.
"When isn't it?" She laughs but there's no humour in it. Rarely is with Rousseau. Born and raised in Hell's Kitchen and almost half her life doing social work for sex workers. It's a miracle Rousseau knows what a laugh is let alone what it's for. "One of my girls got cut. I was watching her face get sewn back together at Metro General most of the night. She's resting up at my place, but she'll be hitting the streets again tonight."
Frank forces himself to take a sip of his coffee. To stay sitting on the bench. Fuck, he's been laying down on the job. Some of the girls in Rousseau's caseload are still in their teens. "She say who did it?
"No. Was scared I was gonna tell you."
"I don't go after working girls." The ones who have a place to go, Frank gives them bus fare. The ones who don't, he gives piece of mind. Usually. When he's not babysitting.
Rousseau nods curtly, gratefully. "Which is what I told her, but hell if you don't go after the ones who hire 'em."
"I go after the ones who cut 'em up," Frank tells his cup of coffee.
"I'm not the one with the problem," Rousseau sighs. "Up to me, I'd have a list for you every God damn day. But my girls are stuck in the shit. Forced into the business and can't leave, chose the business but can't stay, and either way, they end up getting hurt. By the johns you end up killing or the pimps pissed their girls aren't getting business with the Punisher around."
"You can stop giving me names."
"Like that would stop you," Rousseau's smirk slashes across the folds of her scarf. Some warmth returns to her voice. Always does where her girls are concerned. "Nah, the way I see it: least I know what you're aiming at so I can get my girls out of harm's way. Besides, some of them like you. Think you're a hero."
He tosses back another mouthful of coffee, relishing the burn in his throat. Takes his mind off his skin crawling away from that word. Hero. He's not a hero. Ain't no such thing as a God damn hero. He does what he can for those that need it. Plain and simple. No need to sugar coat it.
"The hell have you been anyways?" Rousseau hazards a look at Frank then, checking to see if he's been cut up too.
"Busy." Seems weird using that word though. Frank's had busy weeks in Hell's Kitchen, but almost two weeks stuck at home shouldn't feel as frantic as they do. All that time he's spent with Red – as nursemaid, babysitter, drill sergeant, roommate - play through his brain on fast forward. Lots of blood, sweat, and tears to get to this moment, sitting on a bench in Hell's Kitchen like it's any other Sunday. "Busy."
"Yeah, I hear that," Rousseau takes a sip of her coffee. "Heard you been on a tear."
Frank wishes. "Where'd you hear that?"
"The girls. They hear things. Heard that people were disappearing more than usual. People affiliated with Wilson Fisk." Certainly sounds like him, but Frank hasn't been this far out of the Bronx since dragging Red home. Somebody's been doing his job for him. Won't Red be thrilled. "I told them if it was you, they'd know it. And then this morning, one girl calls and tells me she does know it. Said she saw something at the docks that scared her absolutely shitless. A guy. Living. No hands, she tells me. Lips, nose, and eyelids gone too."
"You call the cops?" giving her no indication of whether it was him.
"I called you. No hands, no face, and from what my girl tells me, no trace? That's a mob move, a new one, and a scary one too." Rousseau's voice takes on a harsher quality, more defensive. "Besides, my girl's got two strikes, one for assaulting an officer. Last thing I need is her dragged in for questioning."
Frank finishes the rest of his coffee. He crumples the cup, tosses it into the trash. "Where?"
"Pier 90."
He rises, burying his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. He tugs a few bills from the bundle of cash he's carrying, hands them off to Rousseau. She glances at the money, grimacing. Surveys the street to make sure they're not being watched before snatching the cash slipping it into her sleeve. Frank tucks his hand into his pocket again. "Your girl who got cut – keep her off the street."
"Yep," Rousseau looks back at her phone.
"You call when she talks."
"I'll let you know," and she'll be only too happy to.
Pier 90 is surrounded by a chain-link fence that has seen better days. Frank is able to drive up through a gaping break in it and park next to the rusty warehouse. He's alone, but it feels like he shouldn't be. This place has seedy underbelly written all over it. During the day, this place probably hosts covert meetings between cops and their CIs, reporters and their sources; at night, arms dealers and traffickers set up shop, and working girls have the shit scared out of them by multiple amputees.
He makes sure he's armed before he goes into the warehouse.
Frank finds blood. Ground floor, barely hidden amidst the old shipping crates. Light cuts through the weather-worn slats of the wall to give him a decent view. The spatter's fresh, and it gives credence to the girl's claim that the guy was missing his hands. He lost something, what with this kind of mess. Frank catches a whiff of burnt flesh too: cauterization. The guy got cut and then burned to keep him from bleeding to death. Explains the trail on the floor. Droplets mainly, but drag marks appear about six paces into the shadows. The guy fell, caught himself on bloody stumps, got back up to fall again, left to survive with his wounds.
The floor shows little sign of the assailants. Rousseau's girl wasn't kidding about no trace. Frank finds scattered dust around the blood spatter, but the mob, they usually leave cigarette butts or cartridge casings or footsteps. Careless things, because it's not like they ever get prosecuted in this town. But there's none of that here. Swishes on the floor aren't mob tracks.
He turns. Light cuts across the top of the crates. Frank stops, examining the edge. There are breaks in the dust. Places that have been cleared by, what? A hand? He checks the top and finds the same smears as on the floor. Footprints. One of the attackers was standing up here. A larger point of impact suggests they dropped from the ceiling.
Frank checks the rafters colt-first. Then he scans the warehouse floor, moving slowly in anticipation of movement. Shadows leaping behind crates in his periphery or the swish of robes in the dark, that kind of thing. He's left disappointed. They're not here, the fuckers, and they have every reason to be. Bloody crime scene with no trail to follow: this isn't some mob hit. It's Red's fucking ninja friends come to play.
They're long gone now. Abandoned their game of reverse hangman before the fun could really begin. Before Rousseau's girl could interrupt, since they let her live too. They hell were they playing at, then?
He follows the trail of blood through the silent warehouse and finds his answer. The man they were carving is slumped in the corner. His mutilated face hangs in prayer over the bloody, burned stumps where his hands used to be. Frank can't tell if he's breathing; it's for the best that he isn't. Lot of slashed nerve endings in the wrists and face. Lot of time spent bleeding out, alone.
Frank approaches, kneeling. He holds a hand under the guy's exposed teeth and collects nothing but stagnant air. His fingers pick at the blood-crusted collar around the guy's neck. Shirt's open. Skin's cut underneath in long strokes. Frank opens the corpse's clothing to get a good look.
The guy's head shoots up. His lipless mouth peels open in a wretched, broken scream. Frank snatches his hand away just as the man grabs him by the collar of his jacket.
Frank pulls away, whipping his colt up, but the guy is on him, ploughing face-first into Frank's chest. The contours of his skull are easily measure without his nose or lips getting in the way. One strike to the shoulder dislodges him, but he's quick to strike again. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing. Frank has to pistol whip the guy to break free. One batch, two batch…Frank lets the bullet finish the line for him. The shot from the colt comes as a fucking mercy. The bullet hits between the guy's lidless eyes, one more bloody, gaping hole on a face of bloody, gaping holes. He hits the ground with a wet slap on the concrete.
Cold blood splatters everywhere. Frank absorbs the spray to his face and upper chest. The corpse is spread out on the floor below him, open and exposed. His shirt is open now, revealing a series of rakes across his chest. Frank tilts his head this way and that to make it out. The slats of light through the walls makes it difficult to read, and the thick cover of blood obscures what look to be letters. He holsters his colt, lowering, and scrapes the coagulated mess of blood and flesh away to read.
He finds one word carved through the pectorals: FISK.
The ninjas were sending a God damn message. That's why they left this guy alive to be found.
Frank shakes the human goop off his hands. "Fucking ninjas." Wilson Fisk is his prize. He fucking earned Fisk. They want a turf war in Hell's Kitchen; he'll give 'em one. Ninjas can withstand a lot of things – fire, stabbing – but far as Frank can tell, they don't come back from bullets.
He's about to rise when the guy's wallet catches his eye. It's hanging there on the edge of his pocket, waiting to be found. Guess the eyelids, nose, and lips were for torture, then. This guy's identity was as much a part of their message as the calling card they left in his chest. Frank tugs it free. Flips it open.
Shuts it again. Stares. Light cuts the floor into pieces. Frank peels his wet t-shirt off his chest, the skull impressing left by the man's face cool and drying. Smelling of tears and sweat and blood and snot. He swipes at the spatters of blood on his face and neck, making a bigger mess because there's more on his cuffs, his sleeves, his pants…
Fuck it.
Frank opens the wallet again, running a bloody finger over the face in the driver's licence. Hard to tell that it's the same guy – the wretch on the floor and the man in the photograph. But the hair matches, as does the build. Yes, sir, this is one Ian Foley lying on the ground. No doubt the same Foley that Frank was gunning for over a week ago. The same Foley that Red re-broke his leg trying to save.
He closes the wallet. Tosses it back to Foley. "Wouldn't have done it like this," Frank mutters, rising, feeling awfully stupid for trying to reassure a corpse. But it's true, it's fucking true: he wouldn't have done it like this. He would have worked over Foley and his boys last week but good and put their asses in the ground, sure, because that is what small-time shit like Foley and his boys deserve. They would reap what they sow. Not this. This psychopathic bullshit. This is what Fisk has coming to him.
Red should have let him go. Hell, he should've left Red bleeding to death on the fire escape. There's work that needs doing else the ninjas are gonna do it for him, and they're gonna do it wrong. Frank puts a hole in one of the crates as he storms past. The impact jars him out of his menace. This isn't Red's fault. He, Frank, should have gotten out of the way of that ceiling, freed himself up to take care of this mess instead of leaving the ninjas to make a bigger one.
Storm's coming in low and slow off the Hudson. The clouds are having a hard time saying goodbye to Jersey across the river. Frank ducks into the restroom by the foreman's office. He can't go around in broad daylight like this. People recognize him too quickly with a face full of blood. Not that washing up is going to do much against Red.
Fucking ninjas.
Frank throws on the tap. He stares at his bloody self in the cracked mirror.
The skull is heavy on his chest.
Happy reading!