Pain Power Punished Chapter 8- We Punish, a punisher fanfic

Hey everyone. I do apologise for the lengthy delay. Thank you to anyone who has commented or/or is following my work. My friend helped me with this chapters main drives so I got finally got it written. Please comment and tell me what you think. Thank you! - Red

CHAPTER 8- WE PUNISH

FRANK

Her blood was beginning to stain my skin and all I could do was watch it dry on my hands.

"Are you happy now? I fucking said that you'd get her killed but no… You liked how your ego was stroked, you took advantage of how she doesn't quit on people" Nelson screamed at me somewhere in the background, but I couldn't tear my eyes from the drying blood.

"Karen saved me" Toby said. I knew he was still here, but I'd lost him to the background as well. Everything but her, was background noise. Foggy knelt to talk into my ear as I sat there.

"She lost so much blood, her body went into shock. Her heart stopped. Funny, four minutes doesn't sound a long time until it's the time a person you love was dead. That with the swelling on her brain, they can't tell us how much of Karen will be left even if she does survive this"

My bloodied hands shifted until they were coiled around Nelson's throat. He squirmed, wide eyed as I throttled him up against the wall. "She's a stronger woman than you could ever understand"

I let him slouch to the floor, gasping for breath. Tears streamed down his face. "You couldn't just go could you" He relented. Toby helped him up.

"Karen was looking for me, no one made her. It wasn't his fault. I don't know her well, but I know she's not the kind of person who stand by when people suffer, if she can help it" Toby said. Foggy nodded his head and started pacing the hallway.

"Yes. Karen will always so that, but she was worse when you were around, Frank. You made her reckless, practically giving her a master class on it and then when she did need you…..you didn't get to her in time. You weren't fucking there"

There was silence. Toby was tense, waiting for me to respond but my eyes drifted to the glass window. Auburn hair tangled in wires and tubes. Bruises became her casing. Stitches were weaved into so much of her skin, the doctors attempt at putting her back together.

"I know"

The fourth day came slowly, just as the ones before. David had set up a camera to my phone, so I could keep an eye on Karen from the roof after visiting hours ended. It also came in handy when police started sniffing around and I needed to stay out sight but still be close. I sat in one seat that faced the window looking into her room, just watching as doctors and nurses fuss over her. Toby and his mother left flowers and an open card at her beside with 'thank you' on the cover. When they came out, Toby's mother said something.

"A card will never be enough but…nothing I could ever do would be enough….to say thank you, you know?"

Nelson came and went three times. Each time he took her hand and spoke to her. I wondered if the mess of his head would be sent through to Karen. I hoped that little asshole wasn't stressing her out if she could hear his thoughts. She never moved, she never even twitched. I waited for that flick of her fingers or flutter of her eye lids, but it never came.

The sun was going down and the hospital was getting quiet.

Footsteps trailed closer and then stopped. He took the seat next to me, both of us watched Karen silently.

"Hey Red"

Matt was busted up bad. He looked tired, not just his body but behind the eyes, something that wasn't as easily replenished. We sat silently for a while.

"Is she?"

"It's bad…but she's fighting"

He tipped his head to one side "Yea, that she is. Her heartbeat is strong"

"Where you been Red?" I asked. Her took his glasses off and folded up his stick.

"I…. was feeling sorry for myself somewhere. Then I heard" Karen room was getting darker and the lamp at her beside lit one side of her sleeping face.

"I didn't get there in time" My voice cracked. He turned his head to look at me, but I kept my eyes on her.

"You love her" He said. His voice was almost a whisper.

"She's sees the ugliest parts of me Red. Karen sees them all, every fucked-up speck and she still won't cut me out. What right does a man like me have, to be loved like that?" I said. I rubbed my head with both hands, trying to scrub the thoughts away. Could she hear thoughts still? Did she hear my last words to her?

"I will look out for her Frank. I know now, that I can't keep them safe by pushing them away" He said. So, this was it. Matt fucking Murdoch swans back in from the dead-beyond and I have to accept it. For her, I have to go. There's nothing I could give her that would ever be good.

"I won't leave until she's awake. She'll hunt me to the end of the earth if I don't say goodbye" It was easier to put it that way, than admit that I'm terrified she wouldn't live through this. Before I leave her, I needed to see her sit up and hear her shout her lungs at me for going again…. And it would be worse because it would be the last time we'd get to fight with eachother. Matt handed me a piece of paper, hesitantly. I looked at the address scribbled down there.

"Just this once…. I'm….I'm going to let you handle this one"

"What's this meant to be?"

"After catching up with the situation, I found those responsible for this. And the one that…..did this to Karen, he got out of the fire alive"

"What the fuck did you just say?" My feet hit the floor as I stood. Adrenaline began pumping life back into my sleep-deprived body and I couldn't stop moving around.

"He's burnt up pretty bad but alive. Just this once, for her. I find you killing after this Frank, I will deal with you myself"

"Yea, whatever you say Red" I went up to Karen's window.

"You have to go now, before they move on"

"I….I have to go and see her first. You leave her side and I swear I will shoot you in the head again" I said. He smirked at me, shaking his head.

"Five minutes with her Frank and then I will go sit with her" He said. I pulled down and handle and moved into the room.

"Oh, and Karen can read minds now, just so you know"

I sat next to her in the still room. She was pale, and it seemed wrong to have so many tubes dripping from one person. I took her hand in mine as gently as I could.

Karen. Now would be a good time to let me know if you can hear me. You know, the way only we can talk to eachother.

Nothing.

I'm here but I gotta go. I gotta make sure the people who hurt you are put down. Everything they are doing, has to be stopped- permanently. I will come back to you and then you will come back to me, do you hear me? I couldn't get to you in time, but I can do this Karen. I love you and I am sorry.

"I love nothing else" I whispered into her ear. I kissed her head. I smoothed back her hair and then I pulled myself away. Somehow, I pulled myself away.

KAREN

Frank! Frank! Is that you? Where am I? What's happening? Frank I can't see anything, it's dark. Frank? Why can't you hear me?

Fuck. Frank don't leave me. I don't know what's happening.

I knew I'd heard him in my mind and that I couldn't open my eyes no matter how hard I tried and that was all I understood. That was until I heard something, not in my own head but in my ear. It was Franks gravel whispering to me and I could even feel his warm breath on me. I felt like this meant I was returning to something more real and tangible, that I would soon find the control of my body in this darkness.

"I love nothing else" Frank Castle's declaration of love with own voice, not just a ghost in my head. Clearly, I must be dead.

A sense of dread hit me at what could what his confession could mean. I didn't know if I was dying but I knew I would follow him anywhere, anytime. I thought of his face, his voice, his lips. I thought of being inside him; his soul, his mind, his memories and every horror that haunted him was also mine. This was the place I wanted to be.

Brightness came into view, colours and light and moving, I'm moving but I can't feel my legs or anything else. I can see a long, white hallway. Then I hear Frank's voice.

"Remember…"

"Yes, I know. I won't leave her. Besides I've got time to make up" Matt was there, staring at me. He was there, broken and bruised but alive. He was here, talking to Frank. I lifted my arms to hug him and for a minute I did. At least, arms wrapped around him but they weren't mine.

"What the hell was that?" Matt asked. I felt so confused. Frank 's voice came again but I didn't know where from.

"Erm. I don't know. I'm gonna go" Frank said. I turned back to look through a pane of glass. A window, looking into a room full of flowers and a girl in a bed. It took me longer than it should have to recognise myself, I was more broken then Matt. I didn't look like the same woman. When my eyes focussed outward, I saw a reflection in the window. Frank's face echoed in the glass…

I was inside his head and he didn't know.

My first thought was panic, how do I get out of someone else's body! Frank would hate this, he didn't like it when I peaked in his thoughts unexpectedly, but this was difference. I was a part of him, looking through his eyes, feeling what he felt. Calm down Karen, it could be worse, you could still be in the darkness, not knowing if there was ever a way out. You could be blind or stuck in a battered body waiting for Frank to come back. This way, I was with him even if he couldn't know that.

He looked down at a scrap of paper, exiting the hospital and driving in a direction. Why couldn't I hear his thoughts if I was already swimming around in his head? I wanted to talk to him, but every attempt was ignored. I was just hear for the ride, whatever that was.

It wasn't until I saw the glint of copper I knew where he'd driven us. We were at the water tower, where everything changed. Frank climbed up the ladder and in through the hatch. It didn't take him long to assemble a mass of weapons and ammunition on his body. He wore his bullet proof vest and a fresh set of clothes under it. It was all frantic. He must be sparse on time. Just before he turned to leave with a duffle bag loaded with extra guns, he turned. I wanted to ask what he was doing because he just stood there.

He stepped over to the bed. He was thinking about that night, he must be, just like I was. He pressed a pillow to his face to inhale the scent. That was the one I slept on. If we get through this, I'm taking Frank back to this tower. I'm tired of snatched moments of affection between the fear and exhaustion.

I couldn't close my eyes because my eyes were his eyes and he stared straight into the gaze of the men he killed. The first guard he'd come across he'd hit him so hard I could hear the crack of his jaw. The second and third took bullets to the chest. The fourth tried to run but Frank shot out his knee and struck him with the end of his gun. If I was in my body, I was sure I would have puked by now. There was so much blood and screaming. How could do this all the time? Just seeing it was maddening. More then that, how could he take enjoyment from it?

We were in what seemed like a manor house and Frank left Carnage in his wake all the way to the roof where two men sat in a helicopter. One was wrapped in white bandages, burns scarring his face. Shock hit me like ice down my spine. Even disfigured, I'd never forget that face. It's the face in the darkness. It's the face that will taunt me if I do live. I know that much.

"You're not getting away" Frank said to himself. He took a grenade from his strap and pulled the pin. Before I could comprehend what he was doing, his arm mounted a full swing. The grenade nestles into the open helicopter. There were seconds of nothing, then two men throwing themselves from the air craft. Frank squatted behind the first solid thing he could find. Then fire and metal rained down on everything. The bulk of it and the poor pilot both descended over the side of the building and buried into the grass on the ground. The noise was the worst thing, it felt like it was cracking open Frank's skull. When he gained his senses, he dragged the two men into down to a lower floor.

Once they were bound, he did things to them that were scarily similar to what Vance subjected me to. He made them scream again and again. Just as I had screamed. And everything he did to them over minutes that stretched like hours, he hadn't asked a single question.

"It was a project. Dr Vance needed this experiment to work to get the funding to produce on a larger scale" The one said. He seemed to be an assistant to Vance and desperate for Frank to stop torturing him.

"Shut your mouth…" Vance spat to his assistant. Frank knocked the front row of Vance's teeth from his gums.

"Go on…." Frank pressed.

"Defence, against the alien invasion. We need to have their powers to defend ourselves"

"Inhumans?" Frank said. He nodded.

Vance spoke up again "Scum. We needed humans to compatible with their abilities. Terrigen crystals only ever killed humans and I was the one to isolate the components and make it compatible with human DNA- me. With this, we can wipe them out"

"By…becoming them?" Frank asked, almost amused.

"The effects will be temporary! Our human DNA will not be tainted. I will distribute it worldwide" Vance yelled.

"The people you experimented on, they will return to normal and the abilities will wear off?" Frank demanded. When Vance didn't answer, he put a blade in his thigh. Once Vance stopped shouting nonsense he calmed.

"Now I see…. You're sweet on the bitch that burned my face off. Tell me, is she dead? I hope it wasn't too fast, just slow enough that you saw the light slip out. You know that's the best part….Punisher" He grinned with a bloody smile. Frank lost it, he sliced off an ear from Vance as he screamed into the air.

I wanted to tell Frank that I was alright, I was there with him. To console him but I still couldn't connect.

"Will the abilities wear off!?" Frank demanded.

"They are experiments, not the final product. Their condition is highly unpredictable. They could lose their abilities like flicking a switch or they could have them forever. There was no chance to properly test" The assistant said. To properly dissect and analyse he means. I know, I still felt the cuts and the needles. Frank put a gun in the assistant's mouth.

"Your going to tell me who wanted to buy and fund this….twisted research and your going to do that now" Frank said. The assistant was sweating, and he gave one terrified nod. He cut the bonds and he scratched down a small paragraph of writing.

"That's everything we know about the organisation and the executive manager we were dealing with. I swear, I….that's everything"

I knew what was coming but this man didn't. He let one scream before Frank's bullet became acquainted with his bran. Then Frank picked up the paper and crumpled it into a pocket. He went face to face with Vance, looking into his bloodshot eyes.

"I've been trying to think of what would be enough for you. Of what I could do to you that she would approve of. She had this rule you see, don't kill them, not if they don't need to die….and this is the day I finally listen to her"

Listen to me? That's exactly what I wanted. I wanted Frank to ruin Vance's hands, to break them so badly he could never hurt anyone with them again.

"If my friend Billy taught me anything, it was that sometimes, death isn't always enough punishment" Frank strung out Vince's bound arms across a coffee table and proceeded to cut of each of his fingers one by one. Vince pleaded and begged just like…..

"Just like you made her cry for you to stop huh?" Frank finished the job, leaving bleeding stubs for Vance to scream and bellow at.

"Vance, she's alive and she's going to destroy you. She's going to expose your failed projects. You live because she gets to decide how you'll be punished"

Frank had left him unconscious and he was making his way out of the grounds.

I'm so proud of you Frank. I told him, knowing he couldn't hear me. There was a pause, Frank stood still.

"I know your there. I can feel you"

He can feel me.

"I could feel you ever since I kissed you at the hospital Karen. Like that night when we…we were one person…like that feeling"

I felt tears down my face, which meant I could now feel my face. Very slowly, but by bit, my body began to stir, back in the hospital room.

Find me now. It's time to come back to eachother Frank.

"You're waking up" He smiled, relief washed over him, lighting up his face. Even when we could use words, we knew exactly how to find eachother.

Yes Frank. Yes.

Frank started to run through the field. Smoke and sparks still lingered around the air as he ran. His heart pounded in his chest because he was coming back to me. There was a stabbing pain from behind. It wasn't me, it was Frank. Frank had been hit and was falling into the grass. As he looked up, he saw teams of uniformed people surround him. Frank tried with every bit of strength of his and mine we could gather but another shot rang out. Somewhere far away I was screaming in a hospital bed but here I was silent. I could do nothing. The last thing I saw through Frank's eyes was Foggy standing with a group of FBI agents, looking down at us.