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.
Author's Notes: Apologies for the delay between updates. I do most of my writing on weekends, and my past couple weekends have been busy! Not to mention I struggled with everything that needed to go into this chapter and who, exactly, the narration needed to follow. I eventually stuck with Frank, but I have the final scene written from Matt's perspective too. I may post that snippet on my Tumblr; I may not. There are certain things in it that I really liked writing, though I have to admit that sticking with Frank was far more dramatic.
I must also apologize to those of you eagerly awaiting the return of Foggy, Karen, and Lantom. I'm sorry: there was so much I wanted to do with this chapter, that it is entirely Matt and Frank again. But I promise they're coming, and they're coming soon! And I'm so sorry!
I mentioned the song for this chapter back in "Exploration B". The "5 ½ Minute Hallway" is a reference to Mark Danielewski's novel House of Leaves (a novel I highly recommend).
Readers, you are the best. I can't express how much I appreciate hearing from you. I hope you are all having a wonderful day! Until next time – cheers!
"When you're living in a hallway that keeps on growing,
I think to myself
5 more minutes, and I'll be there
…But there's more to this story
Than I've been letting on.
…I'm in your hallway, standing on a cliff,
And just when I think I've found the trick,
I'm tumbling like an echo
'Cause there's only so far I can go."
~Poe, "5 ½ Minute Hallway"
Chapter Thirty-One
Frank gets a parking spot at the front and waits, passenger window rolled down so the kid can find him. The car gives him some cover against the milling passersby. They're not looking him in the eye: this is New York after all. But his luck is going to run out eventually with the kid drawing him out in daylight like this. Only so much shadows and a hood can do. Maybe he oughta start wearing a beard, grow his hair out, get a fucking mask like Red.
He hates that, putting distance between himself and who he is. His fugitive status is a sign he's doing it right. He isn't looking to get caught again, sent back up shit creek to the Fat Man, but disguising himself feels wrong.
The door on the shop swings open. A rail of a dame steps out, pale as Rina, her hair the same shade of maroon as her lipstick. She holds the door for Red, who's looking like his old damn self again. His hair's neatly cut and styled. Less a sick ten-year-old, more a straight-talking public defender. The woman swipes a hand through his shorter locks, appraising her own handiwork with a comment and a smile.
Red chuckles uneasily from the contact. The back of his neck lives up to his nickname, going the colour of his devil suit. It might not be so noticeable if he hadn't been cultivating an unruly mop on his head for the past couple weeks.
He's still flushed when he takes a seat on the passenger side. The woman who held the door stays on the sidewalk, lighting a long, black cigarette. She raises her lighter to Frank without really looking at him; he nods back and rolls up the passenger window.
The kid breathes a sigh. The colour disappears from his neck. He runs a hand along the right side of his head, testing the length. Grimacing a little with uncertainty. His hair's shorter than Frank remembers from court. But Red seems a lot more himself with it cut, even if he is worried about it. He finally looks like a God damn grown-up.
"Say it, Frank," Red urges somewhat defeatedly.
Frank pulls out of the parking space. "Should've just let me shave it," he teases.
The back of Red's neck flushes pink. He shifts in his seat, quietly admitting, "It is shorter…"
"Long, short," Frank shrugs, "Still look like an idiot, Red."
The kid laughs lightly. He stops reaching for his hair.
Now that that's settled: "Anywhere else you need to go?"
"Yeah," Red replies confidently, "A record store."
Frank doesn't have to ask what for.
There's a hole in the wall place that sells used LPs and CDs. It's in a basement, no security cameras. Just a guy behind the counter pouring through a stock to be shelved.
Red handles the stairs with his crutches like a pro now that he's got a job to do. Once inside, he stands and waits. Frank's turn to the take the lead.
Frank doesn't have to be told what section: "Classical's this way." He keeps his footsteps loud and measured across the chipped hardwood floor. Red follows. He comes to stand beside the shelf, giving Frank full view of the small selection. Dusty plastic bags cloak the fraying covers of well-loved LPs.
"What are you looking for?" he asks.
"What do they have?"
About three rows of names Frank can't pronounce. "Bunch of old guys with orchestras."
The kid scoffs: helpful. "See any Vivaldi? Debussy?"
Frank flips through the titles. He finds the Vivaldi but, "No Debussy."
"What about Chopin?"
"No."
"Chopin is spelled with a ch-."
"I know how to spell Chopin, smartass." Frank glances from where he's digging in the S-s to tug the record out of its spot on the shelf from under the Cs. "They put it in the wrong spot."
Red barely conceals his smirk. "What's the track listing?"
Fifteen titles, most of them nondescript. "Tell me which one you want."
"One of the nocturnes. Rina's copy skips."
"Nocturne No. 2. That one?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know," Frank parrots, shoving the record under his arm with the Debussy. "Can list off a bunch of dead guys but not their songs. Not much for classical, are you?"
"Not as much as Rina," Red replies. "More than you, I take it."
Frank shrugs. "I don't mind classical. Given the choice, I'd probably pick a different kind of classic though."
He searches for rock, funk, R&B, bluegrass; his eyes lock on the adjacent Folk section and he scans it, letting the names jog his memory. John Denver, Joni Mitchell, Don McLean: Maria's favourites. Her singing voice comes back to him, all smoke and throat. He tabs through some of the records, scrolling through the radio in his head. "Annie's Song" from the first dance at their wedding; "Yellow Taxi Cab" when she was soothing one of the babies back to sleep; "American Pie" on road trips. By heart. Acapella. Every verse in the right order.
He stops on one, unable to continue. Brain flooding with a voice, higher pitched this time.
"What'd you find?"
Frank flicks at the corner of one of the records. "Bob Dylan. 'Blood on the Tracks.'"
"Good album."
"Lisa used to like Bob Dylan." He used to like Bob Dylan. And that about sums it up; it has to. He doesn't know how to describe the way she took to his music. A little girl singing "Tangled Up In Blue" as she ran a brush through her hair in the morning or "The Times They Are A-Changing" while she was doing her homework.
Frank taps the record some more, trying to stop her voice from fading away. "Knew the songs better than I did, she…she did this impersonation sometimes? Started doing it for every song she heard. Singing like Bob Dylan. Made me…" He freezes on the next word, not sure he wants to give this world the pleasure of knowing how much he fucking misses his baby girl. Frank lowers his voice then. For the kid's freakish ears only: "Made me laugh. Sounded too damn much like the real thing."
The voice in his head continues after Frank releases the record. He doesn't have the words, only the pictures, the sounds, the feeling. They all resist naming. Lisa elbowing him at the breakfast table; Lisa tugging on his arm as she's about to go to bed at night. He glances back at Red, trying not to notice the kid's face, the small, sad smile there. Grateful, almost, for the memory. Frank finds he doesn't mind the look. Not anymore.
He pulls his hand from the record. "Anything else?"
"No." Red's expression gradually recedes. It eventually hardens into that battle-ready face he wore in the mask, in court. He holds out his hand. "Guy at the counter is looking at you."
"How can you tell?"
"His pulse keeps spiking. You should probably go."
Frank nods. He passes off the records and a couple of bills before leaving.
He checks to make sure, when Red gets to the car, that the kid didn't do something stupid like buy the Bob Dylan. Seems like something he would do to be nice. But Red arrives with the two records for Rina and nothing more. He already gave Frank enough back in the shop.
Back at the apartment. Frank grabs the plastic bag of stuff from the backseat; Red takes the records. Now it's just a matter of getting Rina to accept them. Leave 'em in the hallway or bring 'em by when she's home, Rina won't touch them. But once they're in her apartment…
Red heads towards her unit once he's up the stairs, the records clamped tightly in one hand against his crutch. Frank watches him slide them, one by one, under the crack in her door.
Can't figure out his own shit to save his life, but the kid's a fucking mind reader sometimes.
Frank tosses his bag onto the desk on his way into the flat; Red locks the door behind them. They head in opposite directions to defuse the place. Frank starts at the far window, detaching the tripwire there. Red makes quick work of the window beside his cot and the bathroom. Nothing's rigged to bring the building down, but it's enough to slow an undead ninja trying to get into the place. It doesn't seem like they've had company. Red wouldn't sink onto the cot the way he does, looking remarkably at ease, if there'd be an intrusion.
The kid's lost in thought for a while, long enough for his calm to leave him. For his hand to go back to the back of his neck, testing the length of his hair some more. Frank rolls his eyes: not this shit again. When he's sick it's one thing, but Christ, at this point, Red's looking to beat himself up. Spend the next twenty-four hours worrying about being back in Hell's Kitchen before he takes even one step in that direction.
Frank grabs the bag off the desk and chucks it at Red before that pained expression crosses his face.
"What's this?" Red shoves a hand into the bag.
"Shit for you to wear tomorrow." Frank catches a flash of blue in his periphery. Red's got the contents of the bag in his hands. Frank scrubs at his head, whipping towards the kitchen as he does. "Not sending you back to your priest in a tee and sweats." The old man can judge the mission all he wants, but Frank's done a world of right by him and the kid both.
Red's lips are pulling at the corners, and his eyebrows are rising. Frank can see it so clearly in his head now, that look. Knowing where it comes tears him up between leaving the room and standing his ground. There's so many ghosts between them, but leaving would dishonour the memory.
Hell if it's not twisting Frank up though. The usual firestorm of bullets in his head replaced with the certainty that it's no wonder the kid's all pleases and thank you-s for the slightest courtesy. It's no wonder he clings to such a dumbass faith in the common good. He's got a bullet in his head from that froze him at ten-years-old, and yet there's no hard feelings when he's rooming with the guy who popped another one in that direction decades later.
"I have clothes at my place," Red says.
Frank comes back to reality. "Your girlfriend know about your place?"
The kid hates to admit it: "Yeah."
They can both fill in the blanks. Red's apartment is fair game in a way that the church isn't.
"It's blue." Frank doubles back, wandering towards the bathroom dismissively. "The shirt."
"You guessed my size?"
Had to. Sweats and tees aren't exactly telling for sizes on button-down, collared shirts. But instead of that, Frank says, "Kids' clothing only comes in three sizes."
Red laughs. He puts the clothing back in the bag. Frank prepares to shut the bathroom door on the kid's thanks, but none is forthcoming.
Instead, he gets: "We can't all be built like brick shithouses. What are you – part-tank?"
Frank shakes his head. "Just a guy, Red." He doubles back, ruffling the kid's too-short hair a little and earning a small hit in response. Red glares through his sunglasses; he's getting formidable again. Frank backhands the kid's scalp lightly as a warning. "But I guess everything seems bigger when you're so damn small."
Red fixes his hair. "Wasn't too small to haul you away from the Dogs of Hell."
"I blacked out. Could've hauled my own ass into that elevator."
The kid gets defensive: "I knocked you out. Twice."
"The wall knocked me out," Frank scoffs.
"Because I put you into it. Tiny-me got the jump on the big, bad Punisher." Red pauses for effect. Then he stays paused, likely because it returns to him, the reason why they were fighting. The air gets pulled out of his chest in one big gust. He twists his head away from the conversation, expression flattening.
"Twice," he says in a tone struggling between anger and acceptance. His shoulders broaden in anticipation of throwing a punch. The motion leaves him grasping at the bag of clothing in his lap defensively. Torn between the extremes.
But then the fight slowly drains out of his shoulders for another time. Red nods in resolution, having made his decision. He draws the clothing a little tighter to his chest. No twisting or turning for Red. There's here, now, this choice, this chance.
It's no wonder. No fucking wonder.
They're on the fire escape poking at more of Rina's reheated cooking when she gets home. Red's listening; he tilts his ear to catch the sounds of her return. "What's she doing?" Frank asks. "What'cha hear?"
"She's at her door." Red inches a little closer to the bathroom window. "Lock's giving her a bit of trouble. Hinges squeak." A smile starts to form on his lips. "She's…just standing there. I think she's…" He pushes himself closer to the open window. The smile fades. "Oh, she's scared."
He goes quiet. Guilty? Jesus, better not be. This whole thing was his idea. Frank shoves another bite into his mouth. "She's not still standing there," he says in dismay.
Red shushes him, brow furrowing in confusion. Sounds aren't making sense. "She…picked them up. But the door just closed and opened a couple times. I think she's…" he jumps a little in surprise, then settles back against the wall.
"What?"
"She slammed her door."
"Oh."
A few minutes of eating and Red perks up again. Frank stares at him. "She coming over here or-"
The fucking kid shushes him again.
Frank throws down his fork into the container. "Christ Jesus," he mutters in a near whisper. "That fucking quiet enough for you?"
Red rolls his eyes. He turns until his sunglasses are on Frank in the illusion of a stare. He doesn't say a word; he doesn't have to. The silence is quickly filled with music radiating from Rina's apartment. A track Frank hasn't heard her play before. A somber piece for violins.
"I thought I heard the needle on the turntable," Red snarks. "Would have known for sure, if I was able to focus."
Frank hisses for him to shut up.
Red shoots him another glare with his glasses. "Why? Are you having a hard time focusing, Frank?"
"Having a hard time doing anything with your bitching." Frank pokes a little more at his food. "Which is this? This the Vivaldi?"
"Yeah."
Frank considers it for a while. "It's good," he finally says.
Red nods, at peace. Listening.
Neither of them say anything more.
The kid springs up in his sleep and shoves himself into the corner at the head of his cot.
Frank wraps his hand around the .45 at the head of his mattress and waits. He peers through the darkened apartment for shadows, shapes, the suggestion of movement. The only thing he sees is Red, slinging breaths in and out of his lungs like a dying man. Skin blue and glistening with sweat from the moonlight coming through his window.
He falls back on his pillow to get his breathing back under control. Frank loosens his grip on the weapon. Nighttime dulls and blunts again before his eyes, the apartment spiralling back into a doze.
"Frank?"
Oh, Jesus, he's done it: spend one day reassuring a sick kid the ninjas aren't out to get him, and Frank's now on-call at all hours of the night to do it some more. He breathes slowly, feigning sleep.
"I know you're awake," Red tells him.
A sigh. Frank's earned that much. "Stop listening to my heart."
"What's it like to die?"
Frank opens his eyes. The apartment comes back into harsh focus. Sharper edges, shinier gunmetal; the skull on his vest stares back at him from where it's slung over the back of the desk chair. "Go back to sleep," he says.
"Not tired." Of course not. "What's it like?"
The lumps in his pillow jut into his skull at odd angles. Frank punches at them a little to flatten them. "I wouldn't know."
"Your medical file said-"
"Lotta things." Injuries from the line of duty, from an enemy's fuck you to the Geneva Conventions, that drill to his foot from the Irish.
But the kid presses. "You flatlined. What did you see?"
He shuts his eyes, grits his teeth, and tugs himself loose from the snarl of bullets erupting inside his head, the ones that land him in a hospital room gripping a nurse's scrubs begging that he wants to go home. "Was dead, Red," he declares forcefully. "Didn't see shit."
Red shuffles on his cot under his bedding. He's starting to curl up against the wall again. "You think…" he puts himself back into a straight line. "You think that's all there would have been? If you didn't wake up?"
Frank's recollections are blackness bookended by bullets and that nurse, that terrified nurse. Take me home, take me home. But there's no home and no Lisa, no Frank and no Maria. "I think that's all there was."
"You think that's what it was for your wife and kids?"
Anger rolls through him like an approaching storm. It better fucking not have been. "Big guy in the sky isn't rolling out the red carpet at the pearly gates for someone like me, Red. The shit I'd done…the shit I didn't do…" So much shit he didn't do. Didn't read to Lisa, didn't make love to Maria, didn't save them. Didn't. "There being nothing was better than I deserved. Don't want to think that's the last thing…that's what was waiting for my family when they died. But let's say your God's real. All-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, merciful God. That God kills my wife, kills my kids-" Red says something. It sounds like Blacksmith. Frank doesn't care. His rage stampedes out of him. "-and then let a piece of shit like me live to kill more people. Doesn't even give me a glimpse of the fire and brimstone He has waiting for me. He sends me back. Talk about second chances. This is my second chance, Red. And if there is a God, He had to know this is what I would do." "
Red has gone very quiet. The only sound he makes is to curl a little closer to the wall. Good. That's settled. Frank tucks himself back in for the rest of the night, trying to ignore the swell of the dead between them. Maria, the kids, Red's old man: all sentenced to an eternity of darkness and silence. No real justice, no real judgment, not for them or the bastards that took them. Death being the absolute end.
"Tell you one thing," Frank growls, "that bastard better have carried my wife and kids in the palm of His fucking hand up to the pearly gates." Or else. He settles back onto his pillow, anger disintegrating as Frank takes himself back to his kitchen. The plates, the chairs, the light from the windows; family in his periphery. The illusion lasts for a while; Red doesn't interrupt with anymore of his questions.
Frank opens his eyes. The kid has gone very still on the cot, curled up in a half-moon towards the wall, but the way he breathes signals that he's still awake. "You ask your girl what she saw?"
The answer comes quickly. "Yeah."
"You wake her up at three o'clock in the fucking morning to do it?"
"No."
Frank scoffs: lucky me. "What'd she say?"
Red shakes his head. "She didn't say anything."
"Nothing?"
The word sends a shiver through Red. "No, she didn't...she didn't get a chance to finish. You showed up."
Frank settles back onto his pillow. Guess that means Red's only answer to the question is his. God damn it, the kid asked. What the hell was he supposed to say?
"Well, she would know better than me," he offers tiredly.
There's something in Red's tone, something defeated and twisting, but that's them lately in a nutshell. He swallows. Hard. "Yeah."
"Maybe it's not…" Frank sighs, forcing himself to go back to sleep. End this conversation quick. "Maybe it's not shit you get to take with you, Red. You only get to keep it when you're gone."
It's an answer they can both abide for now. For the sake of all the ghosts in the room. Red gradually stretches out one leg and then the other, uncoiling himself from the wall. "Yeah." He returns to his meditative breathing. "Yeah, maybe."
Frank is so close to sleep when Red asks, "What's the last thing you saw?" The kid's voice nothing more than a whisper, as if he knows he's intruding.
The image comes, but it's not what he expects. Not the carnage from the carousel. He sees, for a second, this record of his life beyond the bullets and the bloodshed. Beyond the theatre of war. He barely recognizes himself amidst all the light, all the joy. But there he is putting a ring on Maria's finger in the church at their wedding; and there he is getting handed a pink bundle of baby Lisa in the hospital the day she was born; and there he is shaking Frank Jr.'s little toddler hand when he met him from the first time.
It's probably imagined. Probably his brain's way of padding the nothing. But it's true for the moment, so Frank tells Red, "I saw my family." And he realizes, when he hears Red huddling up against the wall again, that he isn't just speaking for himself. He's speaking for Red's Dad too.
Happy reading!