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“Shit.” Karen closed the door as quietly as she could while swearing under her breath.
She knew trying to meet up with BB on a late Saturday afternoon was risky, but it wasn’t the first time she had done it. But that day, there was the unexpected police roadblock on her route back to Josie’s, an AVTF agent who saw her face a little too clearly under the cheap brown wig she had grabbed, and then she was running in the opposite direction from her safe house. She cut through the side streets and alleys without thinking about where she was going, not stopping to look back to see if she was still being followed.
After it felt like she had been running for hours, she found herself back here, in the only place she felt safe, Frank’s hideout.
She had been back once or twice in the months since Fisk and his men had made him disappear- he had slipped her a key the last night she saw him, “just in case”- but it had been a few weeks since her last visit. It still smelled like him, of sweat, gunpowder and coffee. She rests her forehead on the door, catching her breath, when she hears a sound behind her.
“Karen?”
She whips around, her heart back in her throat as she sees the figure stepping out from the back of the room.
“Frank.”
Before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s taking long, quick strides across the floor and throwing her arms around him. She feels him hesitate before his arms slide around her waist, and he pulls her in just a little closer. He’s here and alive, his body solid and real under her hands, and she can feel his breath against her neck, his palm pressing against the middle of her back.
“You’re alive,” she says, and she hears him chuckle, low and quiet. He lets go of her, taking a step back before replying.
“It takes more than a few of Fisk’s so-called task force punks to take me down,” he says, his lips twitching in a smug half-smile before his brow furrows in confusion, “you change your hair?”
Karen’s hand shoots up to the ends of the brown wig she had put on before leaving the house, and she feels a slight flush creep up her cheeks. Quickly, she grabs the hairpiece and takes it off, her own pale strawberry hair unravelling underneath it. She holds the wig awkwardly while trying to explain about meeting BB and how she ended up here, and Frank’s face turns from confusion to mild amusement.
He looks so smug, and Karen is suddenly pissed off at him. “Why didn’t you call?” she asks, shoving the wig into the bag she’s had slung across her chest, “How long have you been out?”
Frank scoffs, taking a couple of steps away from her before turning around again, but he doesn’t speak, just watches her silently for a moment, and it just makes her even more annoyed.
His eyes dart down, and again, his face changes, this time to one of concern. “You’re bleeding,” he says, staring at Karen’s legs. She looks down, and he’s right, there’s a thick trail of blood running down the front of her right leg from her knee. The weather had been warm, and she had decided to wear a pair of shorts when she went out, thinking she’d blend in more, but also secretly just wanting to feel the sun on her skin.
“I must have cut it when I was climbing a fence to get here,” she says, and it’s not until he’s acknowledged the injury that she starts to feel a low throb of pain in her knee.
“Karen Page is climbing fences now?” Frank says, one eyebrow raised in a mix of surprise and pride, “Let me take a look.”
“No, Frank, it’s - I’m fine, it’s nothing.” But he’s not listening; instead, he’s guiding her to a chair near the desk, where he instructs her to sit. She pulls her bag off and drops it to the floor beside her before sitting down. Frank moves the counter, returning with a makeshift first aid kit: bandages, gauze, a few cotton balls, and a mostly empty bottle of rubbing alcohol.
When he comes back, he kneels in front of her to take a better look, and Karen’s breath catches for just a moment. Frank Castle, the Punisher, is on his knees between her legs.
“Stop it,” she thinks, giving her head a decisive but almost imperceptible shake, and she wants to laugh at the absurdity of the thought that had immediately jumped into her head. But there he is, his large hand on her bare leg, his thumb gently testing the skin around the cut to see how deep it is. She’s amazed by how gentle he is, this giant, violent man with his rough, calloused fingers. She feels the goosebumps move up her leg under his touch, and she mentally curses herself.
“Doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches,” Frank says, moving his hand off her knee to grab the rubbing alcohol and saturating the cotton balls.
She sucks air in through her teeth as the cold alcohol stings the open wound, but again, his touch is surprisingly gentle. The same hands that she has seen bring men to an early grave are now carefully wiping the blood trail off her leg.
“How’s Red?” Frank asks, dropping the used cotton swabs on the ground and moving to pick up the bandages.
Karen hesitates before responding. She and Matt were living together in Josie’s; their friendship had once again grown into something more, though Karen often wondered if this romance was based on love or stemmed more from a need for companionship and familiarity in a city that felt upside down.
“Oh, you know Matt,” Karen says, trying to keep her voice light. She sees Frank’s eyes look up at her, and she had forgotten how dark they are, how easy it was to fall into that void. All that pain and rage and sadness that he lives with every day stared back at her.
“Still trying to bring Fisk down, huh?” Frank says, turning his gaze back to Karen’s leg. She makes a sound of confirmation, hoping that he’ll drop the subject.
Why is she so afraid of Frank knowing that she and Matt are together? Her personal life is none of his concern, especially not who she’s sharing a bed with.
She remembers what Matt said a few months ago, the last time she had seen Frank. How he had heard their heartbeats, how she had blamed it on adrenaline because that’s what it was. Right? Just like it is now, when those huge, gentle hands smooth the bandage over the cut on her leg and linger for just a second on her bare flesh, a tiny current of electricity rushes up her leg, and it takes all her strength not to shiver.
Adrenaline.
She watches him as he finishes cleaning up the area around her wound. His hair has grown out; it’s starting to curl around his ears, and she wonders what he would do if she reached down and ran her hands through it. She feels her fingers twitch, but she resists the impulse.
Frank finishes cleaning the blood off her leg and stands up, walking back to the kitchenette to throw away the garbage and wash his hands.
“I’m going away for a while,” he says, his back to her, “I got some stuff to take care of.”
Karen feels her anger at him bubbling back up. “You’re running again?”
Maybe it’s easier this way, she thinks, better to be angry with him than the other thing.
“This isn’t my fight,” he says, turning around, “I did what you asked. I helped Red, and it got me thrown in a cage like a god damn animal.”
“So then fight back!” She’s on her feet now. “Fisk is out of control, and these task force assholes are walking around with your skull on their vests, acting out in your name, Frank! You’re going to just let them get away with that?”
He scoffs, looking away.
“So if I hadn’t shown up here today, would I have ever known if you were still alive?”
“Why are you here?” He turns his head back to her, glaring. Karen throws her hands up in frustration.
“Don’t be so full of yourself, Frank Castle, I didn’t come here looking for you, not this time.”
He doesn’t speak, just continues to stare at her with those dark, probing eyes, and she caves quicker than she wanted.
“You have been missing for months, Frank. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive or somewhere in between. So yeah, I came by now and then to see if you had been here, to see if there was any sign that you were ok. And now I know, so I guess have a nice life.”
She bends down to pick up her bag, angry at him and angry at herself for being so passive-aggressive. This isn’t how she wanted things to be with them, but then, how did she want things to be? This weird, unspoken tension between them had been simmering for years and rather than face it head-on, they just kept it under the surface, lashing out when things got too tense. Their own form of fucked up foreplay. But what was the other option? Tell the truth and face the consequences of that? Admit that for more years than she cares to count, she has harboured romantic feelings for the Punisher? And then what? She feels the sting of angry tears in her eyes, but turns her head quickly away so he can’t see.
“You want to talk about running away?” Frank says, chuckling, “Karen Page, who flew across the country to avoid her problems, wants to tell me about running away?”
Karen’s head whips back to face him, and she starts walking towards him, “Fuck you, Frank. You know I couldn’t stay here after…after Foggy. I needed space, I needed to -” She held her best friend as he died, felt the life drain out of him, and she still sees him in her sleep. The city was too heavy and empty without him, and Matt…he was impossible in those first few weeks after Foggy’s death.
“Right, so when you do it, it’s ok, it’s getting some space, but if I leave it’s runnin’, got it.”
“You didn’t want me around, Frank!” she finally yells.
They stand in silence, a stalemate, both of them too stubborn to back down. Finally, Frank steps toward her, the gap between them even smaller now, and she could reach out and slap him if she wanted to. And she really wants to. The tears that had threatened earlier had begun to escape; she feels them slide down her cheeks, but she keeps her head up, meeting his gaze. She sees something change in his face, so small that she thinks maybe she’s imagining it, but she can see a slight softening in his eyes, and he’s unclenched his jaw just a bit.
Karen lets out a soft laugh, breaking her eye contact to look up at the ceiling to try to keep the tears in, crossing her arms across her chest. When she looks back at him, he’s still watching her, those dark eyes trying to cut through all the walls she’s built up.
“I told you once that I actually cared what happened to you,” Karen finally says, “and I hope you know that that never changed. I’ve watched you come back from the brink of death more than once, whether you wanted to or not. God, you were gone for five years when the blip happened!” She would never get over the cruel twist that a simple snap of a finger would take out a man who survived a bullet to his head. She hated thinking about it. “We just got you back, now you’re going to leave? How do I know I’m not going to have to hear that you died? Again?”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Karen.” His voice is softer now, but there’s always that edge to it, like running your hands over a gravel road.
She takes a shaky breath, reaching a hand up to blot the tears that had landed on her cheeks.
“We need you, Frank. I need you.”
Frank moves even closer, chuckling under his breath.
“Karen Page, you haven’t needed a man to help you for a long time.” She can’t help but smile at that, another tear escaping, and she shakes her head in frustration. Frank reaches up, his thumb wiping the tear from her cheek, his fingers resting lightly on her jaw, and even she knows what their heart rates are doing right now.
Adrenaline.
She reaches her own hand up to rest on top of his. They stay like that for a moment, though when Karen looks back, she’ll swear up and down that it was hours. She was suddenly back in that elevator all those years ago, his forehead on hers, the words they couldn’t or wouldn’t say, the knowing that once again, she was going to watch him leave.
How did they get back here again? How do they always get back here?
This time, he doesn’t pull back; instead, he pulls her closer, his hand sliding around so his fingers are in her hair, his thumb under her ear. She should pull away, part of her brain is screaming at her that this is wrong, that she can’t betray Matt, but a more insistent, realistic part of her brain whispers, “What if this is your last chance?”
She tilts her head up slightly, and his face has gone deadly serious, his eyes moving from hers and to her mouth and back again, his jaw flexing.
“Frank,” she murmurs, not sure if it’s a protest, an invitation or something in between, but she moves the hand that was covering his up his arm, feeling his muscle tense under her touch. She feels the raised scars along his flesh, and the hint of goosebumps that have appeared under her touch.
His face is so close to hers now that she can feel his breath, hot and ragged, against her face. He bends his head, his lips lightly brushing hers, and a gasp escapes her lips, and she feels like her heart is going to explode out of her chest.
Adrenaline.
His fingers tangle into her hair, and she closes the gap between them, pressing her lips to his, and at first, they’re both tentative and unsure. This is unfamiliar territory for them, and she feels suddenly shy, like they’re two teenagers awkwardly bumping teeth at the back of a school dance.
And then he’s putting his free hand on her hip, the one in her hair pulling her head closer, and the apprehension is gone. His mouth is hot against hers, and there’s a desperation to the way he kisses her, and she knows he must feel the same thing from her. The dam that’s held back their years of longing and tension has broken, and they’re drowning in each other now. His hands are moving down her back, pushing her against him so hard she wonders if it’s possible to rearrange his atoms so she can live inside him. She clings to him, hoping he never lets go, that they can be here in this kiss for the rest of her life because it’s the only thing in the world right now that makes sense.
Right now, she isn’t thinking about Fisk and his anti-vigilante task force; she isn’t wondering when Dex might reappear; she forgets what it felt like when her best friend’s heart stopped. She forgets that Matt is waiting for her back at Josie’s. All she knows right now is Frank, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, and she bites down gently on his lower lip, causing him to make a noise deep in his throat she’s never heard before.
“Karen,” he murmurs, and this time it’s not a protest; it’s a promise. Now her hands find the back of his head, running along the soft hairs along the nape of his neck and up into where it’s grown out, running it through her fingers like she imagined so many times. She feels the back of her shirt move, and his palms are against her bare skin, skin that feels like it must be on fire now. He’s moving his hands up along her ribs, and just as his thumb brushes against the bottom of her bra, she feels something new.
It’s her phone, vibrating in the back pocket of her jeans.
“Fuck,” she breaks the kiss and turns her head away from Frank, his lips instead moving to her jaw and then the spot on her neck just below her ear. How does she know that’s her favourite spot? Her eyes close briefly, but the phone doesn’t stop buzzing. She knows it’s Matt; she knows she was supposed to be back at Josie’s a long time ago, and he’s going to be worried about where she is.
She doesn’t want to care. She wants to ignore it and stay here with Frank, pretend there’s no world outside of this room, fall into his bed with him and -
“That Red?” Frank asks, finally pulling his head away from her neck, his hands dropping down to her waist again. She reaches around to her back pocket, still wrapped in Frank’s arms, and brings the phone to her face. It’s stopped ringing, but she sees two missed calls from Matt on her screen.
Sweet, kind, loyal Matt, who is probably beside himself with worry, imagining every possible horrible thing that could be happening to her right now. She pictures him pacing around their room, waiting for his phone to announce her call to tell him she’s ok. Is kissing Frank one of the horrible things that he would imagine?
“Yeah,” she says, and presses her forehead into Frank’s chest, and the tears are back, leaking onto his shirt. He reaches up and holds the back of her head with one hand.
“He know you’re here?” he asks, and she knows without looking that his gaze has gone steely, that he is already shutting down again. She shakes her head, her hair falling down around her like a protective shield. Frank gently pushes her back so he can look at her face. If he felt the tears through his shirt, he didn’t say anything, just watched her in silence.
“Frank,” Karen starts, but she isn’t sure what she wants to say, or how to say everything that’s racing through her head. She knows that as soon as he lets go, this moment will be gone, and the darkness that’s been following her for months will slip into his place like an old friend.
Before she can say anything else, Frank squeezes her arms and just says, “I know.”
They stand there like that, her hands on his chest, his on her biceps, his forehead coming down to meet hers, and she wonders if she listens hard enough, would she be able to hear what he’s thinking? Could she transfer every thought and feeling to his mind just through the place where their heads meet?
Her phone buzzes again, and Frank’s hands fall from her arms, and he steps back. Karen wants to scream at him to come back, to never let her go, but instead she answers the phone.
As she expected, Matt is freaking out, asking if she’s ok, where she’s been, if something happened to her. She turns around so her back is to Frank, talking quietly and reassuring Matt that she’s safe, that she’ll be home soon, and that she’ll explain everything. When she finishes the call, she keeps her back to Frank, afraid that if she turns around, he won’t be there.
“You should go,” he says, “Murdock’s waiting for you.”
For a moment, Karen can see her life split into two possible timelines. In one, she throws caution to the wind and rushes back into Frank’s arms, spends the night with him, begs him to take her with him and away from this city that no longer feels like home. And the other is what she knows she will do, and she swears she can feel that first option version of herself splitting away from her. She wishes her well.
She wipes a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand, frustrated with herself for crying so much around Frank. She takes a deep, shaky breath, bracing herself to say goodbye to him. Again.
He’s leaning against his desk, arms crossed over his chest, and the softness she saw in his face earlier is gone. She doesn’t care; she walks up to him, putting her hand on his chest one more time.
“Promise me you’ll come back,” she says, but he doesn’t say anything in return. She feels his chest rise and fall under her hand, and faintly the drum of his heartbeat, steady and safe.
When he still doesn’t speak, she starts to back away, but he grabs her arm, pulling her back to him, his hands on both sides of her face now, his lips on hers. It isn’t the tentative kiss they first shared, or the fervent, desperate ones that came after. This one is decisive, firm, and a promise from him that this isn’t the end. His pulse thrums in his ears.
Adrenaline.
Karen pulls away, trying to catch her breath, and he presses his lips to her forehead, just below her hairline. She knows there is nothing else to say, so she doesn’t. He lets her go, his hands dropping in front of him, and he nods just once at her. The corner of his mouth turns up for just a second, and she returns it with a weak smile of her own. She pulls her bag over her head and turns towards the door.
She feels his eyes on her as she leaves, her hands shaking as she grips the strap of her bag across her chest to keep them steady. She hesitates briefly at the door, and against her better judgment, she glances back at him. He hasn’t moved, still leaning against the desk, one leg crossed over the other, palms on either side of him on the desktop. He’s beautiful in all the ways he shouldn’t be, and she tries to memorize this image of him, the Punisher in a moment of repose.
She smiles again, walking out the door, back towards the city. Back towards Josie’s. Back to Matt.