Work Text:
Matt can hear him coming from almost a mile away. It’s really quiet out here, very few noises to bounce off of surfaces, so feet dragging through the mud are more than enough to announce his presence. He’s not being stealthy either, huffing and groaning with pain as he approaches, the coppery scent of fresh blood keeping pace with him.
“Hey, Red.”
“What are you doing here, Frank?”
“Came to see her,” he says and throws a gun at Matt’s feet, its magazine empty.
“Karen?”
With the gun squelching against the wet earth, his form weaves into a clearer view, revealing the unmistakable shape of a switchblade sticking out below his ribcage. Frank is acting like the weapon is precisely where it belongs, flopping on the ground and closing his eyes, his heartbeat quickening for a moment before slackening again.
“You’re bleeding,” says Matt, like the fact would have gone unnoticed unless he pointed it out.
“Really?” he mocks. “You mean this ain’t ketchup?”
“Maybe your little heart-to-heart with Karen can wait until we’ve gotten you some help.” He slides towards him, tries to lift his arm and gather him up.
“Eh, don’t bother.” Frank pushes him away. “Don’t have much time left as it is and the clock will start ticking faster as soon as I pull that blade out.”
“Then don’t.”
“Can’t do that, Red,” he touches the back of his head gently to the gravestone, right under Karen’s name and laughs, a wet, bitter sound that chills Matt to his soul. “I owe her blood.”
There was always something between Karen and Frank that he couldn’t understand, couldn’t have explained if he had to, but it went even deeper than he thought apparently, if the Punisher has come to lay his last breath at her grave. Because he is the Punisher right now, the stench of revenge and carnage clinging to him.
“Fisk’s dead, by the way. I saw to it,” he says, lungs gurgling with every breath. “His little helper too, Poindexter? You’re welcome.”
Honestly, he’s not all that surprised to hear it but he can’t help judging him, just for the sake of it. Doesn’t matter if he was planning on handling the situation in the exact same way. “Damn it, Frank, you shouldn’t have gotten involved in this.”
“After what they did to her?” His pulse spikes, breath hitches. It only makes the blood flow faster out of him. “I should’ve made it last longer. If anything, I was too kind, went easy on them.”
“That’s what you regret?”
Frank laughs again, laughs harder, ends up coughing up a spray of crimson into the cold darkness. “It’s pretty high on my list, yeah.”
“What’s done is done,” Matt sighs. “Let me help you, you don’t have to die here.”
“This is exactly where I have to die. There’s nowhere else for me.” He pats the ground next to him almost tenderly, as though he’s afraid he might disturb her sleep. “I should’ve been here, kept her safe. That’s the one thing I needed to do. But I let her down, Red. I let her down.”
It felt like more than a failure when Karen died in that church, felt like he wasn’t worth much, since he couldn’t save her. But no matter how tiny and useless and miserable Matt felt, no matter how many different ways he would have died in her place, he would never die in her name. He’ll find means to cope with her absence, that terrible, haunting absence, and then he’ll move on, keep doing what he’s doing. Frank, however—
Frank is already pulling the knife out of the wound, hissing through his teeth as the edge of the blade scrapes across a rib, then tosses it away. A sound like a sob dribbles out of his mouth. “You think she’ll forgive me now?”
The Punisher has never struck him as someone who gave a damn about forgiveness, but the Punisher is gone, abandoning Frank Castle to deal with his grief all by himself. Did Karen love the two sides of him equally, the killer as well as the victim, or was her affection reserved only for the latter? It makes no difference. They will both die tonight. They will both die loving her.
Matt puts a comforting palm on his shoulder. “She wouldn’t think there’s anything to forgive.”
“She wouldn’t, would she?” His head sways from side to side as his mouth skews into a faltering smile. He’s fading fast. The soil under him soaks up the blood, just how he wants it. “Go on, Red, get outta here.”
“I can’t leave you alone.”
“I’m not alone,” Frank mumbles, “I got my girl.”
He isn’t quite sure what Frank deserves, but one final moment of privacy is the least Matt can give him. Slowly walking away, he notes how the vibration of his heart scales down, a beat less, a beat closer to Karen. It’s very difficult not to turn around and apply pressure to the wound, even knowing that the effort will amount to absolutely nothing. And he doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it’s like Frank’s voice means to follow him all the way out of the cemetery.
“If you had— I would’ve come running. I-I would’ve… You know I, you know… I always come for you, Karen…”
Then his heart gives up.
Somebody’s going to find him slumped against her grave in the morning, an odd sight, a known criminal, evading arrest for so long only to be caught dead like this, the dawn dew glittering across the dried blood on his skin. They will find him and scratch their head and to them, it won’t mean anything.
But it meant something.