Later, when Peter makes his way back for the next top-secret mission Daredevil has in store, he can't help but wonder what it might be. Maybe he needs help with an international drug cartel? Maybe the mayor's been taken hostage and he needs Peter's help to solve the riddles that'll lead them to his location?
Wrapped up in daydreaming, by the time he lands on the roof of the abandoned warehouse where he sees Matt, he isn't really paying attention.
"Hey Daredevil, what's on the menu tonight?" Peter greets cheerfully, standing close enough to Matt that their height difference is obvious, especially with the totally kick-ass boots Matt rocks as Daredevil.
"What the fuck, Red? Is that a kid?" a deep voice asks from the edge of the roof behind him.
Peter squeaks and whips his head around only to be confronted by the sight of an absolutely terrifying man in head to toe black, strapped up with guns, and rocking a very nicely painted skull on the front of his Kevlar vest that's mostly hidden beneath the long black coat he's wearing over top.
"Oh—uh hi Mr. Punisher sir. That's a really nice vest," Peter blurts out because 1) chronic word vomit and 2) the Spidey sense did not even warn him in the slightest that the mother effing Punisher who is clearly packing enough firepower to perforate him like a sheet of notebook paper has been lurking in the dark of the rooftop.
The Punisher looks at Matt incredulously, his mouth open slightly, and his arms spread in an extremely intimidating 'what the fuck?' gesture while Matt just gives him a smile that Peter can only describe as the epitome of the word catty.
Peter's emotional state is doing the exact same gesture because last he heard, Daredevil and the Punisher were legitimately trying to kill each other in the wild, wild west of Manhattan. 'This town ain't big enough for the two of us crazy, violent, costumed folk' and all that.
"He's here to help us, Frank. He's pretty new to the whole vigilante scene, but he's definitely mastered the art of incapacitating people without killing them," Matt says bitchily, with the most suburban white mom at the PTA bake sale talking to the single mom who brought store-bought cookies look on his face imaginable.
"Fuck off, altar boy. I can do this shit without killing, but I just don't think these shitstains deserve the effort it takes to keep 'em breathing. Besides, don't act all high and mighty. I might kill 'em, but turnin' 'em into vegetables and crippling 'em isn't a hell of a lot more humane than puttin' 'em down." The Punisher rolls his eyes and returns to checking the scary-ass Beretta he's been holding since Peter landed on the roof.
Matt exhales deliberately, his head tilted back slightly to the sky as is he's praying for the strength to get through this argument with Frank one more time.
"It's not—"
"Not up to us to determine whether someone lives or dies, yada yada yada, bleeding heart bullshit. How many times you given me the talk now, Red?" Frank interrupts, earning himself a downright venomous look from Daredevil.
"These are kids, Frank. I thought you didn't kill kids."
"They're eighteen and it's a fuckin' gang initiation. You know how this gang initiates members, Red?"
Daredevil mutters something inaudible, his arms crossed over his chest irritably.
"What was that? I couldn't quite hear ya."
"I said, they kidnap a homeless person and take turns beating them until they finally die," Matt growls back.
"Ex-fuckin'-actly," Frank replies, gesturing absently with his gun. "And I don't know about you, but I sure as shit can't stand for some poor bastard gettin' tortured to death just so these kids ," Frank sneers that word deliberately, "can join their goddamn local murder club."
"They haven't killed anyone yet. And they aren't going to kill anyone, because we're going to stop them," Daredevil snaps. "By giving them a good look at what's going to happen if they try to go down this road." Peter was watching this exchange trying not to grin and definitely not thinking about what they were going to be stopping.
"The only way people like that learn is with a bullet through the skull!" the Punisher snaps right back.
"Woah, woah guys, calm down," Peter interjects, getting between the two, despite what little common sense he has telling him that's a horrible idea. "Let's just chill out a little. These people haven't murdered anyone yet, right? And I'm sure you guys both know that in low-income areas the pressure for teenagers to join gangs is super high. And maybe they're being strong-armed into it. Maybe they're joining because it'll protect their mom's business or something. I'm not saying that what they're gonna do is at all okay, and we should totally stop them. Just… maybe not stop them with a bullet in the skull, Mr. Castle. I don't have any problem with getting these guys locked up, yeah? But how about we do that with at the very worst some broken bones and mild concussions?"
Frank Castle doesn't interrupt Peter which he's grateful for, but that doesn't mean that the man stops sneering at any point. He's pretty damn feral.
"Oh, so we can get 'em arrested and then what? They're back out on the streets getting' ready for their initiation again in a week? Two weeks? A month? Tell me, Red, how many of those guys are you gonna personally help get back on the streets?"
That comment makes Peter's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline because uh, the Punisher knowing Daredevil's secret identity? That's big effing news.
"I defended a piece of shit like you, didn't I?" Matt growls back, his fists clenched at his sides.
"Fuckin' barely! You missed like half of my trial! I got thrown in jail and got the shit knocked out of me by Fisk, and you know what? I'm still kinda blaming you for that part."
"What the—" Matt makes a sound Peter can only compare to the 'Lipstick? In my Valentino white bag?!' vine and gestures wildly at Frank. "How the actual fuck is that my fault?!"
Frank smirks extra smugly at Matt and crosses his arms over his chest, the gun still in his hand. "You're the one who put him in jail instead of finishing the job, aren't you?"
Matt looks like he's about to throw his no killing rule to the wind and just straight up rip Frank Castle's throat out with his teeth. Peter's always seen Matt as collected and together, but clearly that's just because he's never been around someone who really knows how to thoroughly push his buttons.
As fascinating as it was to read about the Daredevil-Punisher throw-downs in the news when they'd been going on, Peter would really, really prefer not to witness one first hand because he's not sure the crumbly old building they're standing on could survive that.
"Hey! Both of you, stop fighting for, like, two seconds and listen!" Peter snaps, and oh God, he just yelled at the mother effing Punisher. "Look, I get that you kill people Mr. Castle, and that's your prerogative or whatever, but Double D and I don't kill people. Now you can either be a damn team player for once in your scary, tragic life and just shoot out some kneecaps, or I will web you to this roof and leave you here for some poor fucker to find you, so help me God," he hisses, pointing at Frank Castle extra menacingly. Hopefully the swearing helped him sound a lot more scary than he feels.
Matt opens his mouth to piggyback onto Peter's rant, but before he can get a word out Peter's waving his hand angrily at him. "Uh-uh, no. You're gonna shut up too. Stop trying to rile him up and start making nice before I end up webbing you two up here together and make you talk about your feelings or some shit. You're both gonna put aside whatever moral philosophy debate you wanna have with each other's fists until after we deal with this. You can get back to being catty once a civilian's life isn't on the line anymore. Got it?!"
Matt and Frank both look very surprised and maybe even a little intimidated for a fraction of a second before they look back to each other.
"Alright, fine. I'll play nice if you will, choirboy," the Punisher drawls, uncrossing his arms and putting the gun back in its holster for the moment at least.
"Deal, psycho" Matt replies, and the tension that had been filling the air between the two dissipates almost immediately. It's disturbing how quick they go from 'about to rip each other's faces off' to 'calling one another by our weird big, tough vigilante pet names'.
Matt tilts his head slightly in the direction of the street that leads down to the pier.
"What is it, boy? You hear something?" Frank taunts. He must do it pretty often because Matt just gives him a scornful glance over his shoulder.
"A shitty sedan and two new SUVs are coming. Four people in the sedan, lightly armed. Five in each of SUVs, and they're packing more serious firepower." Matt tilts his head again slightly for a few more seconds before shaking it. "No, sorry; five in the sedan. Someone's in the trunk. Homeless by the smell of it," he adds, wrinkling up his nose a little.
Peter is very much not jealous of Matt's ability to smell a homeless person in a car trunk from multiple blocks away. If he had that ability, then he'd definitely be walking around with teabags shoved in each nostril and a mask over the top.
"He hurt at all?" Frank asks, pulling his gun back out of the holster.
"No; he's passed out drunk. They're going to that building." Matt walks to the edge of the roof and points at a much less decrepit warehouse across the street.
Frank and Matt both simultaneously crack their necks as they turn to the building across the way, and Peter kind of wishes he had his phone on him to film it because he thinks Karen would appreciate that more than the picture of Matt with the cats. Actually, now that he's thinking about it he's almost sure some of the articles about vigilante justice in New York that he'd read had been written by a woman named Karen Page. Huh. Wonder where she got that interest.
Matt and Peter both walk up to the ledge of the roof before jumping down, Matt using handholds in the brick and the metal bars of the windows that had been bent outward to assist him while Peter just walks down the side of the building.
" Circus freaks," Frank mutters under his breath, and Matt flips him off from where he and Peter are waiting on the sidewalk for Frank to join them via the fire escape on the other side of the building.
Once they've grouped back up at street level, Matt leads them towards a back entrance of the gang's initiation building. It's a large, open space that the gang uses as a hangout too, if they're judging by the couches and beer cans and syringes strewn about, along with the half-done drywall attempting to separate the large area into different rooms. Peter doesn't know much about gangs (he hasn't gotten elbow deep in the organized crime of Queens like Matt and Frank have done with Hell's Kitchen) but he's pretty sure it isn't a good idea to murder folks where you chill. That thought is confirmed when Frank speaks up after Matt assures them that there's no one else in the building.
"Hey kid, you seem smart, but here's a pro tip for ya: don't beat people to death in a place you frequent. Do it somewhere remote and easy to clean. Bleach don't really get rid of blood. If you need to get blood outta a carpet, or some shit, and make sure the cops won't find it with whatever that forensic shit is, use Oxyclean—yeah, the one with the terrible commercials."
"Spider-Man isn't going to beat anyone to death," Matt says, scandalized, as they reach the room that definitely looks like it's been set up for a murder. The crappy walls don't reach up to the ceiling of the warehouse, so the catwalks above are a great vantage point for Peter to swing from and Frank to shoot from, but they figure Matt would be best on the other side of the 'wall' right behind a weak point that'll be hilariously easy to break through. Matt gives him a firm reminder that he's not shooting to kill, just to maim and Frank calls him an altar boy again.
Peter blanches a bit under the mask at Frank's nickname for Matt, and somehow through his weird powers of observation Matt knows that Peter's embarrassed. There's a look of confusion on his face for a second before he realizes what it was that got Peter's cheeks flushed. That causes Matt to roll his eyes and groan.
"Being an altar boy isn't—it's not a sex thing," Matt clarifies poorly, getting himself a stranger look from Peter and a highly amused one from Frank.
"Fuck you both," Matt mutters before wandering off to his hiding place, a good indication that Peter and Frank should be getting to theirs.
Sure enough, just a minute after they've slipped into the cover of the dark catwalks there's the sound of a door opening and all fourteen of the gangsters along with their victim enter the building. Two of the inductees are dragging the now-conscious man along, and he's kicking and shouting the whole way. They throw the man down on the floor and proceed to drag him back up by his hair and tie him to the cheap metal folding chair in the middle of the room. Peter feels a bit sick watching it, but he has to keep staring and waiting for the opportunity to strike.
Once the man is tied down and struggling against the zip ties on his wrists and ankles despite the fact that it's completely futile, the men who are clearly just there to watch the initiation start cracking open 40's and a couple are even passing around a baggie of what Peter assumes is cocaine and snorting it. It might be heroin though, because he just recently learned from one of Aunt May's ER stories that no, snorting heroin doesn't always insta-kill you like in Pulp Fiction.
One of the inductees steps forward and lands the first blow on the guy's midsection, forcing all the air out of the poor guy's lungs. Peter winces as the guy throws two more punches before stepping back and pushing one of the other guys forward as an encouragement. The full-fledged gangsters are whooping and hollering as the new guy's punch meets its mark hard enough to make the man's nose bleed. That seems to be all Frank can stand, because he's adjusting the hold on his gun after that.
"On three," he whispers. "Red, take the four on the left. Kid, you get the three beatin' on the guy. I'll get the other six."
Peter nods in acknowledgment as the Punisher starts his countdown and aims his gun.
"One… two… now!" he hisses, punctuating the countdown with four shots in rapid succession.
Peter webs up the two men that he can from the rafters before swinging down into the fray to get the third guy stuck to his compatriots. Unfortunately, he has to miss that shot, thanks to the gunfire that starts raining down on his location once the men see him.
Daredevil burst through the wall on the Punisher's cue, and is in the middle of fighting three guys, avoiding the hail of bullets being directed at him as well. He even manages to take Peter's last target down for him with a well-aimed kick, before he has to flip out of the way. That gives the Punisher a clear shot to take down their eighth baddie in total. Matt's pretty well surrounded, but he's staying close enough that he can knock the guns out of people's hands until they're all unarmed and he can beat them down. One of the gangsters lands a hard hit on Matt's head and that throws him off his rhythm for long enough that two other guys can grab his arms and slam him down onto the floor. Peter and Frank simultaneously take out the two guys who aren't beating on Daredevil, though the Punisher's mark goes down with a lot more blood and screaming than Peter's. It seems like the guys hadn't accounted for Daredevil being as flexible as he is, so he's able to hook his unrestrained leg over the guy holding his right arm down. Peter can't track the movement because it's so quick, but Matt punches the guy on his left with his now freed arm hard enough to knock him out while doing… some fancy jiu-jitsu looking move in order to break the other man's arm in a nasty compound fracture. One more bullet from the Punisher takes the last guy down before Frank hops down to the floor to join them.
Frank cuts the zip ties off the homeless man with a very scary looking combat knife before he goes to stand over Matt, reaching down to offer his hand in helping him up.
"Not bad, Red," Frank says with a smile, ignoring the cacophony of groans from the unconscious or seriously injured men around them as Matt takes his offered hand and gets to his feet.
Matt smiles and wipes the blood from his split lip off with the back of his hand. "Aw, Frank. I'm proud of you for not killing anyone."
That earns him a shove and Matt laughs before turning his head to Peter. "You did goo—shit!"
Before either Peter or Frank can comprehend what's happening, Matt essentially tackles Peter to the ground at the same time a gunshot rings off from one of the men who Frank had knee-capped when the fight initially started. Frank fires back immediately and makes a headshot out of habit. That's one casualty.
When there isn't immediate shouting and disgust from Matt at the fact that there are brains splattered over the warehouse floor, Frank must realize something is very, very wrong because he falls to his knees on the floor next to Matt and presses a hand to Matt's side. There's a muttered "shit" from the Punisher when he pulls his hand back and it's covered in blood.