Chapter Text
Two months after he moved into the apartment across the hall from her, she got a running buddy.
They were, up until then, mere acquaintances who kept their talk to the hallway. She knew he was a Marine, he knew she worked as a secretary.
One night, though, she was walking back home after a long day at the office with her boss, working on his promotion and, consequently, her raise, when he, the guy from across the hall, just might have saved her life.
Karen was thinking about how she and her boss had done everything they could to make sure he would get the promotion, and now it was all up to the big bosses on the board, when she saw them, on the other corner. Young, loud, definitely looking for trouble.
With a deep breath and a muttered curse, she tried to look normal and not call attention to herself.
Alas, they saw her. Three of them started towards her, the fourth one delayed by a trash can he thought it would be fun kicking. She was reaching inside her purse for her pepper spray when, suddenly, there was an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against a firm body, walking with her.
“Now what are you doing walking alone at this hour in this lovely place of a neighborhood?” he asked and she breathed out, relieved.
“Hi, Frank”, she greeted, trying to ease the nervous feeling away. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks, ma’am.”
They kept on the way towards their building, the trouble makers giving up on harassing her, probably thinking that it wasn’t worth meddling with a soldier’s date.
He took his arm from around her when they turned the corner to their street, and she asked if he had just gotten home. He was wearing his uniform, that big duffle bag slung over his shoulder.
They climbed the stairs and she thanked him for saving her from those guys, he said it was no trouble, she asked if he wanted some coffee, or something.
That was their usual topic on the hallways: coffee. Traded tips on the best spots, opinions on big chains and small businesses, secret spots, stuff like that.
When she mentioned it, he said he actually brought some amazing stuff with him from his time abroad. Apparently, he had been in Kenya for a month.
After doing a quick pit stop in his own place to leave his stuff, he came back with the bag of beans and she brewed them each a cup.
“Oh yeah”, she said after taking a sip. “That’s amazing.”
“Didn’t I say.”
He ended up giving her that bag, assuring her he had brought more than one.
.:.
A week later, she was stretching before her daily morning run, the air that lovely shade of pale blue typical of the minutes before sunrise , the street silent and quiet. Karen was not a fan of waking up early, but once she was out of bed and outside, it was worth it. She loved it when the city was this quiet.
When she reached 12th Avenue and started running along the waterfront, he materialized by her side, making her jump.
“Oh my God, Frank, don’t do that!”
He laughed.
“Sorry. Mind if I join you?”
They ran along the waterfront until the sun started coming up, and then they ran some more towards a “good coffee cart”. It was American coffee, but it was honest. They made conversation with the young guy selling it.
On the way back, Karen watched, amused, as Frank stopped to play with the thirteen dogs leashed to one sleepy looking man, who said he didn’t mind.
“I’m a dog person”, he said, smiling, when he got back up to walk with her back to their building.
“Yeah”, Karen said, torn between laughing at how silly he looked, rolling on the grass with a bunch of dogs, and how sweet it was that he actually did it. “I kinda figured.”
When they climbed the stairs to their floor, she was sweaty and satisfied with her morning exercise.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asked.
Karen was a private person. It was kind of a surprise to herself when the thought of running with him again the next day didn’t annoy her.
“Sure thing.”
.:.
From what she could tell, he was climbing the Marines hierarchy, little by little. After a year, she sometimes heard him on the phone, giving orders and telling people to “keep him informed”.
“You’re super loud”, she told him when he walked into her apartment, as she was sure he would. The smell of the pot roast she had in the oven was good enough to have him knocking.
Not that he did knock.
“You cook, now?”
“I’m trying”, she said, looking inside the oven, inspecting the progress of her dish. “My parents are visiting in two weeks, I want to be able to cook something for them.”
“How come?”
He was opening her cabinets and taking plates, setting the small table.
“They were, you know, less than thrilled when I moved here, and the main argument, after ‘hooligans and rapists’, was ‘you can’t even take care of yourself, young lady!’”
“And a meal is gonna prove them wrong?”
She sat on the floor and rested her back on the counter by the oven while he handed her a beer.
“It’s gonna prevent the talk about going back, I hope.”
When she took the pot roast and set it on the table, it was looking and smelling good. She watched him with hawk eyes as he took a bite. But he was quiet.
“The meat is chewy isn’t it?”
Frank looked at her.
“Is it seasoned ok? Too much salt? Oh my God. Did I put sugar instead?”
He grinned and swallowed it.
“Relax, it’s fine.”
“Really?” Karen took a bite and breathed out, relieved. “Oh, thank God.”
Chuckling, he took another bite.
“It’s my grandmother’s recipe. She made me promise I’d only cook it for my husband.”
He laughed out loud and she followed.
“Sorry, grams”, he said.
“I’ll try for the fish with mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables tomorrow”, she said, looking at her grandmother’s recipe notebook while he dried the dishes after dinner.
“I like fish.”
“Let’s hope I don’t kill you.”
By the time her parents arrived, she had learned five dishes, her fridge was full of healthy stuff she never bought normally, virtually every inch of the apartment was scrubbed clean. There was even a cross hanging on the wall by the front door.
She saw the look on their faces when they climbed the stairs, and her father’s question about the neighborhood was expected.
In the end, the meals pleased. She was glad when they told her they were staying in a hotel near Times Square. She had been ready to give up her bed and sleep on her couch for those five days, but she knew they’d be more comfortable in a hotel. Plus, her couch was not that nice.
They met Frank by accident. She was waiting for them - they were going to a restaurant and then watch the least controversial musical she could find - when she heard her mother laughing outside the door.
Opening it, she found her parents laughing at something Frank had said. They made quick conversation and he said he had to run, but it was a pleasure to meet them. He kissed her mom’s hand and shook her dad’s, nodding and going “ma’am” and “sir”, and Karen gave him a look while her parents made their way inside. He only shruged and flashed her a smirk before they closed their doors.
Frank was not really mentioned until the last day. She went with them to the airport, and was waiting for Mrs. Page’s comment on him. Her mother would never leave without saying something.
“Honey”, she said while her dad checked their bags. “About that neighbor of yours.”
“Mrs. Martinelli?”
“No, silly. That nice one, across the hall from you.”
Karen took a discreet breath.
“Mr. Castle?”
“Yes, um… Frank, he said.”
She waited.
“What about him?”
“Well, he’s nice. Easy on the eyes, too.”
“He’s my neighbor, mom.”
“Oh, I know, I know, it’s just… The way he talked about you. He likes you a lot, baby.”
“He’s a Marine. The way they talk about people, I don’t know, it’s respectful, it doesn’t really mean anything.”
“He says you run together?”
She was gonna kill Frank.
“Sometimes.”
That know-it-all smile appeared on her mom’s face and Karen had the urge to bang her own head on the nearest wall.
“He seems like a good man.”
“He is.”
They left it at that. After Karen hugged them goodbye and her father said that they expected her to visit them for Thanksgiving, her parents went through the security line and settled in two seats by their gate.
“I’ll admit”, Mr. Page said. “It’s all much better than I thought.”
“Yeah”, his wife agreed, thinking about the ruggedly handsome, nice man that had a glint in his eye when he talked about her daughter. “I have a good feeling about this.”
.:.
Sometimes, she found herself in the middle or his crew, the only woman at the table, listening to their stories while they laughed and drank in one dingy bar after another. These guys had the talent of finding the sketchiest looking places in town, and making themselves at home there.
They loved to talk shit about each other and tell her, again and again, about the tough spots they found themselves during their missions. Most of the tales were heavily redacted, because, it seemed, everything was classified. Karen didn’t even understand half of their drunken stories, because all the information came in bits and pieces.
“It that how you got that bullet on your shoulder?” she asked him after hearing about Budapest.
She had seen the scar, how he winced sometimes, when he came back from that particular tour.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And the medal, too.”
“To Lieutenant Castle!” one of the men, Micro, she thought, said out loud, raising his glass, and Frank actually smiled. Karen raised her glass and clunk it against the men’s. “We love you, you crazy son of a bitch.”
After that, they went back to the funny parts. His impressions were hilarious, the pranks they had pulled on him were pretty good.
It was almost three in the morning when someone decided to crank up the jukebox, and Micro was suddenly standing, begging her to dance with him, just once.
They were, all of them, very respectful. Maybe Gosnell had something she didn’t really know how to classify, a certain quality that made her not really trust him, but the rest of them were ok.
Her feet were hurting when Shining Star came on and Frank, already drunk, got up and took her from Braxter.
“You had enough, go sit down”, he told the man, whose shoulders sagged.
Karen laughed at his singing. It wasn’t awful, but he sang it all wrong, changing words, spinning her around the floor.
When they came back to their table, he asked if she wanted another drink and she shook her head, giving him the rest of the one she’d been nursing, she didn’t want it anymore. He drank it happily, ordering another round and it was so loud, but it was also very fun.
Her favorite one was Micro. He sat at her right on the booth that covered the whole wall at the back of the place when Frank lied down in it, his head resting on her lap, and passed out. She laughed with his friends while he snoozed, making easy conversation with the one, she could tell, was Frank’s right hand.
The bartender announced last call and Karen figured it was time to go.
“Come on”, said Gosnell. “One more.”
“We’re gonna call it a night, actually.”
They all complained, but she rubbed Frank’s arm to wake him and he turned to lie on his back, opening his eyes to look at her.
“Time to go”, she said and he nodded, taking a deep breath, getting up slowly.
He gave her his wallet, asking her if she could take care of their tab, and she moved up to pay for their drinks.
When she came back, he got up and threw his arm around her shoulders, and she had to lock her knees not to fall under his weight. Micro went in front of them to hail them a cab and she placed a hand on Frank’s chest, another on his back, steadying him while they walked out.
He lied down on her lap again once the cab drove away, and Karen waved at Micro.
When he went back inside to pay for his own tab, he had a smirk on his face.
“I’m telling you”, he said, taking a sip of his last drink of the evening. “He’s gonna marry that one.”
.:.
After he met Maria, Karen made the mistake of breathing relieved, thinking that he’d stop pestering her about her romantic affairs.
He hated all of her dates and occasional boyfriends. Hated them. They were, all of them, punks, assholes, not trustworthy or just plain stupid. According to him.
When Maria became more than his usual month long fling, Karen thought that he would stop with the gratuitous hate.
She thought wrong.
At first, Maria would laugh at the way Frank would glare and tell Karen to dump one guy after the other. And Karen was thankful, at least, that his girlfriend wasn’t like the many others that didn’t like her, or saw their friendship as more than what it was. Maria was cool, Karen liked her a lot.
After six months, though, Frank started rubbing off on her. Their favorite thing was to barge in after Karen’s dates and ask for details. Maria was actually helpful, giving honest insights, unlike Frank, who would scoff and say “I don’t like him”, to every single one.
The one boyfriend Frank did like was Matt Murdock. But, Karen suspected, it was just because they both were pretty athletic guys, and Matt didn’t bow his head when Frank puffed up his chest and put his mean face on, like all the others did. It helped, maybe, that Matt couldn’t see his mean face, so there was that.
He never complimented Matt or anything, but he didn’t tell her to dump him. For about a year, Frank would actually engage him in conversation and, even if they had very different world views, their core was very similar.
Karen started getting worried when Frank started trading their morning runs to nights in the gym with Matt, where they’d punch each other to oblivion, but they both assured her they were just working out, that’s what boxing is, don’t worry.
Both her and Maria were worried when their injuries started becoming uglier. Both Matt and Frank shrugged them off, “it’s normal, we’re boxing, that’s all.”
Well. At the very least, they were getting along. Karen’s life was much easier when Frank was not pestering her about bad taste in men, and she was thankful Matt was not jealous.
.:.
She broke up with Matt at right about the same time things went to shit with Maria. It hurt a lot, she really, really did think Matt and her could be something special, but it was way worse for Frank.
Matt was caught up in a tangled, very messy web of things going on at the same time in his life. His law firm was not doing so great, he was caught up between wanting to help people and actually making a living, but what really affected their relationship was the sudden presence of one of his ex-girlfriends - which he had kept hidden from her.
It was messy, it was painful, it became ridiculous, even. So they broke things off. He had a lot of stuff to figure out, and as much as he denied it, his feelings for that woman were a big part of it. They were there, it was undeniable, and Karen was not in the business of fighting another woman for a man’s affection.
With Frank, though, it was a bitch of a situation.
Maria got pregnant after almost two years of being with Frank. When he found out, he could barely contain himself, so happy he was. Within a month, he got a ring. Within two months, they were engaged. Within three months, Karen was something called a Best Woman and Maria had a Man of Honor, they were all having fun putting a simple wedding together.
And then, at four months, she woke up feeling not so great. And then she had to rush to the hospital. By the time Frank got there, she had already lost the baby.
At first, they carried on, leaning on each other, and Karen had never seen two people so miserable.
After another month, they started, slowly, getting back to normal life, but that weight was too heavy, they couldn’t seem to go through it. Maria, especially.
And then, one day, eight days after she ended her relationship with Matt, he got home from work (he went to a base everyday, now, where he was some kind of big shot guy), opened her door and sat by her side on the couch.
“You can cancel the next dress thing.”
She looked at him, unshaven and looking angry and sad and tired.
“Wedding’s off. The whole shit is off. She’s moving to Chicago.”
For some reason, she wanted to cry. Between Maria and the baby and Matt and her joke of a job and her parents pressure and everything, it was, suddenly, too much. So she did. Quietly, she rested her head on his shoulder while they both looked at her TV, and shed more than a few silent tears.
When she sniffed, Frank moved his arm around her shoulder.
“The world’s fucking falling apart”, was all he said.
.:.
Karen decided it was time to go back to normal one week after that. With a heavy body and a puffy face from crying over Matt the night before, she dragged herself out of bed and forced herself to get ready for the run she had been neglecting since Maria lost the baby.
Downstairs, when she looked at Frank’s fire escape and saw no lights, she sighed and went back in.
She tried knocking. Not too loud the first time. A little louder the next. When she decided to use her key (the one with the little skull sticker, to differentiate it from hers), he opened the door.
He was in sweatpants, no shirt, with a duvet around his upper body, wearing it like a hobo would.
“Hey”, she greeted, worried. “Let’s go for a run.”
“Not today.”
He walked back inside, leaving the door open, so she walked in after him, closing it behind her.
“We should try and go back to normal, don’t you think?”
She followed him to his bedroom and saw him throwing himself on his bed.
“Do you even want to go?” he asked and she sighed.
“I think I have to.”
“Tell you what.” Sitting up, he reached for her hand and made her lie down on the empty space by his side, covering her with the blanket. “We’ll take today. And then tomorrow we go back to being people.”
It was exactly what she didn’t want to do, because, right on cue, she felt like crying again.
But it was warm and cozy and, as if on a schedule, it started raining. Wrapping himself further in his duvet, he sighed and closed his eyes.
“Tomorrow. Now sleep.”
The rain started getting heavier, and she remembered how Matt liked it when it rained. He liked it so much he woke her up once, dragged her to the roof of his building and stood there, shirtless, letting the rain fall on him, and then they had made out for almost an hour, while he told her how he had wanted her since the first time they met.
With a sigh, Karen kicked her running shoes off and cuddled further into Frank’s bed, closing her eyes, allowing herself one more day of mourning for the relationship that she thought was gonna be it.
.:.
Slowly, they went back to normal. She got there first, of course, since she didn’t have to get over a child and an almost wife. But they got there.
Max helped a lot.
Max being the pitbull Frank got them, out of nowhere.
“Listen, don’t be mad”, he said someday over the phone, that same week he talked her out of running. “But I did something.”
“What did you do?” she asked, already panicking, sitting in the middle of a bunch of newspapers of The New York Bulletin. She was doing some digging for her boss on a case.
“Nothing terrible. It’s pretty fucking awesome actually”, he said. “You’ll see when you get home.”
When she got home, she had actually forgotten about whatever it was he had done, because the editor of the newspaper had told her she had a knack for journalism, to give him a call if she ever considered changing careers.
She was already thinking about it - because she did not want to be a secretary forever - when she opened her door.
Frank’s own opened and he ran back inside after saying “good, you’re here.”
She was getting herself a glass of water in the kitchen when he walked in, holding a puppy in his arms. A pitbull puppy. Small and gray and adorable.
“Look what I got us.”
She felt her eyes bug out.
“What do you mean ‘us’?”
“Well”, he said, placing the small pup in her arms. “I travel a lot, so I can’t watch him all the time. He’ll have to spend a lot of time with you.”
“Oh my God, Frank-” she said, looking from him to the dog, who looked up at her curiously. “Where did you even get him?”
“I rescued him. Told the lady is was a gift for my wife.”
She looked at him.
“Am I supposed to be the wife in this scenario?”
“Your name’s on the form, so yeah. Come on, let’s keep him. He can even run with us, it’s gonna be awesome.”
Sighing, she scratched the dog’s little ear.
“I don’t know, Frank, this is a huge respons-”
“You can name him and everything.”
The puppy was pretty cute. She had never had a pet, aside from the family cat growing up and the school fish. When the little thing yawned, though, she thought “what the hell.”
“Fine.”
Frank smiled and reached for the dog again, talking to it.
“But don’t you even dream about making a habit out of this. One dog is enough.”
They shared custody of the pup, who lived in both their apartments. It was funny. He loved Karen more than anything, and would follow her around all the time, but he respected Frank more. When he said “off the couch”, Max would obey in a second. When Karen said it, he would whine and roll on his back or under her arm, asking to stay.
Once he was a little older, they ran with him every morning. Soon, he was big and strong and would keep Karen company when Frank was off on another tour.
(He got the “not liking her dates” thing from Frank. But, to be fair, he wasn’t very keen on letting the women Frank brought home pet him, either.)
.:.
Karen had been working as a reporter for The Bulletin for almost a year when Frank got home with news.
After three medals from the Marines and an honorable discharge, he had gotten a call from Shield.
“The Averngers agency?”
“…Sort of. Shield came up with the initiative for the Avengers, the organization is much older than them.”
“What did they want with you?”
“They offered me a job.”
It was a better paying job, too. He had more power than he had in the government, not to mention clearance for a whole other level of secrets.
Karen thought that his new job would mean an increase of the things he would answer with “that’s classified”, but it was the exact opposite. Thanks to her own new job, he would feed her a lot of information that, he said, was pertinent that the public knew, along with a lot of sources that she could use to contest a lot of politicians’ lies to the media.
After another year, Karen was a becoming a big name in journalism, famous for the articles filled with irrefutable evidence. Needless to say, she was not the government’s favorite person.
Frank grew inside Shield. Soon, he had a nickname: the Punisher. Word was he had no mercy when it came to criminals and “bad guys”. His method was simple: if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear. If you aren’t, you have.
He didn’t like that nickname, but she didn’t see him do anything to stop it being spread around the agency.
.:.
On his birthday, she gathered his friends for some drinks at a bar.
“I hate this”, he told her when the almost twenty people that had gathered moved on to a bigger spot, with music and flickering lights.
“Stop being so grumpy”, she told him as they walked in.
Throughout the night, a waitress kept bringing her drinks, from men she didn’t know. Frank drank them all, glaring every time.
“Come on, let’s be real”, Trish Walker said, her own drink in hand, when Frank walked out to go to the bathroom and was stopped by a group of women on his way back. “You can’t tell me that nothing ever happened between you two.”
Karen rolled her eyes, sighing.
“Honestly, why does everybody think that?”
“Because, Karen!” Trish said, gesticulating a lot. Karen made a mental note to start intercepting her drinks. “You guys act… I don’t know, married! He complains about shit, he asks your permission to do stuff, you have each other’s apartment keys, you share a freaking dog! Come on!”
“He’s my friend! He’s my best friend, we take care of each other. That’s it.”
“Oh, Karen!” Trish relaxed against the plush seat they were occupying, sitting right back up and pointing at him, who stood by the bar with a woman’s hand on his chest. “Look at him! That man is a beast. You never, not even once, thought about him in a slightly different way than your bff?”
Looking towards where Trish was pointing, Karen stared at him. She had, of course, years ago, right after he moved into the building and would climb the stairs with his shirt off. But they had fallen into such a good thing so quickly, she valued his friendship more than anything she had.
“Because let me tell you something”, Trish went on in her ear, like some sort of devil, and Frank’s eyes found hers. “He has thought about you.”
Shrugging slightly, he curved his mouth in that slight, almost not there grin, telling her he had been taken hostage by those women. She smiled back and raised her brows.
“No, he hasn’t.”
“Yes, he has! A man like him will not look at a woman like you? Please. I would bet anything that you’ve been the star of more than a few of his fantasies.”
“Oh my God, Trish, shut up!” she reacted, and her friend laughed. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true! Give me a break. You can’t have a man like that living right next to you and not entertain these kind of thoughts, Karen, not if you’re into men. And that right there, my friend, is all man, and you can trust me when I tell you, he thought about it.”
Sighing, Karen downed the rest of her drink and shook her head.
It had been very brief, the period of time she let herself think about Frank like that. Soon, they were too close, too intimate, too set in their ways.
“Frank, let me ask you a question”, Trish was saying, suddenly, and Karen was widening her eyes at her in warning while Frank pushed people around on the booth so he could resume his seat next to her. “Have you ever thought about Karen in a sexual way?”
“Yes”, he said, not even hesitating.
Trish straightened up in her seat and opened her arms in a “I rest my case” motion, and Karen turned around to look at him. He shrugged.
“Have you seen yourself in the mirror?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Trish started again.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. I had a few colorful dreams about you, for a good month there after I moved in.”
That, for some reason, made Trish laugh and Karen’s mouth drop open.
“You were wearing yoga pants every time I saw you, ma’am, it was not my fault.”
“You see me in yoga pants every morning!”
“And every morning I notice. It’s ok. We’re grown ups.”
He left it at that, ordering a beer for himself and Trish looked at her, smug and full of “I told you so”s, and Karen decided that it was his birthday, but it was her turn to get drunk.
She was vaguely aware that he carried her home when the sun was about to come up, taking her shoes off and putting her in bed.
“Hey”, she called when he stood back up to leave, reaching a hand for his. When he took it, she pulled him until he was sitting on the edge of the bed, upper body over hers. “Sorry I got drunk.”
He smiled (she thought).
“It’s ok. You had a good time.”
“Happy birthday, grandpa”, because he was turning 36.
And then she pulled his face until his mouth was against hers.
It was an innocent enough kiss. A press of lips that lasted about five seconds, and when he lifted his head from hers, he had one of those smiles on.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome”, she said, turning around, holding a pillow to her, ready to fall asleep. She also didn’t have her dress on, she realized.
Oh well. It was not the first time he had seen her in her underwear, anyway.