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“You have a washing machine?” David looked up at the sound of Frank’s voice this late at night. Normally, he was either out doing sketchy things or sleeping in his bed by—David glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen he was sitting at—four in the morning.
"I don't have a washing machine, but there's a laundromat over on the corner of Royal Avenue and Main that I use sometimes," he answered. "Why?"
Frank cursed. "Think you could run this ski mask down?" He held up a grey mask that was splattered in blood and dirt and some kind of oil. David stared at him for a moment.
"You mean right now? Frank, it's four in the morning. I don't even know if the place is open 24/7."
"Find out."
"Jesus, man, can't this wait until at least seven?"
He shook his head. "Gotta clean it before the blood dries."
David's voice shot up a few pitches as he said, "That's fresh?"
"Yeah." Frank tossed the mask across the room, and David instinctively caught it. He immediately dropped it on the floor, then picked it up in a clean spot. He hoped it was a clean spot. Please let it be a clean spot.
Frank watched him with something like amusement hiding behind the mostly blank expression on his face. David could tell that the guy was laughing at him on the inside, because his mouth was doing the thing where the left corner was lifted a centimeter higher than the rest of the lips. That was the Frank equivalent of a smirk.
David sighed. How did this asshole manage to get what he wanted out of him, every time?
“Put it inside out first,” he told the other man, tossing the dirty mask back across the room. Frank turned the thing inside out with none of the squeamishness that David had shown, then threw it back to him.
He stood up. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t break anything.”
Frank almost smiled.
-
"You ruined it." Frank tossed the scraps of fabric that had been a mask twenty minutes ago aside. "You didn't see the tag that tells you how to wash it?"
"...No. Frank, I've got other ski masks, for god's sake! Let it go!"
"Fuck," the other man muttered to himself as he walked away from David. "Shit. Okay. Lemme see em." David sighed. What was with this guy tonight?
"They're under the sink in the kitchen. Go get em yourself."
Frank walked—no, Frank lumbered, he lumbered like a fucking moose all the time—over to said sink and looked inside. David heard him rummaging around in there for a minute, then he lumbered back to his bed and sat down with a pile of cloth on his lap. David watched him look through them for a little bit before turning back to his computer. As the minutes ticked by, the only sounds in the basement were the click-clack of David's keyboard and the soft thump of mask after discarded mask hitting the floor when Frank decided he didn't like them. David counted six unsuitable masks by the time the other man stood up again and headed back over to check under the sink for any that he might've missed.
"Got pretty high standards," the hacker quipped while Frank felt around for another mask. “What, were the other ones not dark enough for you?”
"Wrong texture," Frank grunted. He fell onto his back with a heavy sigh. "Guess I'll take this one," he said, holding up a run-of-the-mill ski mask that looked exactly like the other five. He flopped into a sleeping position and covered his face with his pillow.
"What's that mean, the wrong texture? Frank, you–" The other man turned over, probably trying to block David's voice out. "You don't mind catching a bullet to the head, but you won't wear ski masks because of the texture?" David shook his head. "You're being ridiculous, man."
"Well, y'know what they say. If it ain't sensory hell, it ain't doin' its job well." David was pretty sure that nobody said that.
"If you're gonna quote the wisdom of the ancient autism gods at me, could you at least make it actually make sense?" David asked with a smirk. He'd been waiting to drop that bombshell on Frank for a while. Damn, it felt good to know your ally's secrets. Remind him that David could be dangerous too.
The other man sat up and stared at him. "How...Where'd you learn I'm autistic, huh?"
He sounded angry. Well, he sounded like he was trying to sound angry. Mostly he sounded tired.
"Hospitals keep records, Frank," David drawled, typing away at his keyboard like Frank couldn't kill him in two seconds. He'd stopped being afraid of the guy a long time ago, for the most part. This situation qualified as the most part.
Frank sighed. "Yeah, guess they do." He lay back down. "You're gettin' off easy this time, Lieberman."
"I can live with that."
-
David rose with the sun, even despite the absence of the actual sky-fire-gas-death ball to help him wake up. He'd always been an early riser. Today, he was up earlier than even Frank. The other man was snoring lightly in his bed, still clutching the ski mask in his left hand. His right hand was free and curled loosely into a fist, just because that was how Frank Castle slept. His face was relaxed, but his body never was. Not completely.
David pulled on his bathrobe and logged into his computers. Nothing unusual had happened, no online activity concerning the two of them. That was reassuring, at least.
Frank woke up while David was making toast. Normally, toast made him sad because it reminded him of Sarah and he couldn't be with Sarah and everything about toast was sad, but if he smothered it in enough jam it would be all right. Frank liked toast, but he didn't like the sounds the toaster made, so David put in a slice for each of them.
Frank made so much noise during the process of waking up. He didn't snore (at least not loud enough to bother David), didn't yell when he had nightmares, didn't sleep talk, but each morning Frank Castle cracked every bone in his body at least three times. Then he got out of bed. David steeled himself for whatever this guy was gonna scold him about this time.
"You sure there's not a ski mask hiding somewhere in this dump?"
David groaned. Frank was still stuck on his fucking ski mask, despite the fact that there were absolutely zero (count em: zero, zilch, nada) masks lying around that he hadn't already deemed unacceptable.
"Yes, Frank, I am positive that you've criticized all the ski masks around here. Sit down, I made toast."
"I don't want any goddamn toast."
"Eat it, Frank." David slid a plate across the counter and tossed a piece onto it. Frank took one look at the food and shook his head.
"I don't want your toast."
"Oh, you don't want it 'cause it's my toast? Real mature, buddy, real mature."
"What I want is a mask that doesn't make me feel like my skin's about to fall off!"
He stood there, breathing hard. Okay, maybe David underestimated how important this issue was. Frank looked like he was about to start hitting things (read: David and his very valuable stuff) over it.
Frank started pacing, back and forth, back and forth, from the kitchen into the hallway and back again. He was muttering something but the words were so fast and quiet that David couldn't make anything out, and he probably wasn't trying to communicate with anybody either. This was bad, David noted for the umpteenth time that morning. Frank had never been this worked up before. At least, not when he wasn't fighting. He's in fight-mode but there isn't anything to fight and oh god Frank's gonna try to fight ME—
"Frank," David said softly, quietly, like he was trying to placate a feral dog, "I will get you a good mask, okay? A comfortable one. That sound good?"
Frank didn't seem to hear him. He was still pacing, twisting his hands against each other as he went.
Oh. This was probably a meltdown. Frank was autistic, and this was a meltdown. Bad sensory input coupled with things that he can't control leads to meltdown. Of course. Why couldn't David have seen it earlier, before it got this far?
Frank was still pacing. He was breathing like he was being chased by something that posed a serious threat, hard and frantic. Hyperventilating was bad, this whole situation was bad, and David had only the vaguest idea how to remedy it. Well, a vague idea was better than no idea.
"Frank, can you hear me?" Shit, that sounded too demanding and it would probably just piss him off more.
"Yeah," Frank grunted, forcing the word out in between harsh, panicky breaths. He reached out for David and grabbed the sleeve of his bathrobe. Clenching the fabric in his fist, he said, "Blanket. Now."
"There's a shock blanket somewhere, you want that or the one on your bed?"
"Shock blanket."
David nodded. "I'll get it. Sit down, I'll get the blanket, okay?" Frank sat down on the floor with a dull thud, letting go of David's sleeve just before he would've been dragged down too. He shook the cloth out and hurried over to the shelf he'd squirreled the blanket away on, thinking that he'd never have a use for the thing. Cans of old paint, a second bottle of scotch that he'd bought in case he ever drank the other dry, some mouse turds...and the blanket. He picked it up, feeling its weight. This would help, it had to help. David was going to write a strongly worded anonymous letter of complaint to the nearest hospital if it failed to help. He made his way back to Frank and put the blanket in his lap.
"You need anything else?"
"Leave." Right, Frank's a macho man and nobody should be around to see him vulnerable. David sighed and sat down at the computers, keeping one ear trained towards to kitchen in case Frank needed something. He couldn't see Frank, but he could hear him stimming.
Frank definitely liked pressure stims, no doubt about that. The weighted shock blanket and the backpack he sometimes wore for no particular reason were proof of that. David could hear him rocking back and forth as well. He was still muttering nonsense to someone David couldn't see, but it didn't seem like Frank was going to hurt himself or lash out at David. That was good.
It felt like an hour had passed when Frank stood up, which brought him into David's field of vision. The first detail David noticed was that the Punisher had been crying. A second later, he noted that Frank still had the blanket wrapped around himself. David felt like smiling, but he didn't. Frank was probably going to claim the thing for himself.
"Now do you wanna eat some toast?"