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The cemetery was closed, which Peter ignored. He hopped the chain at the front gate and landed in a crouch, sneakers scraping concrete through soles hanging on by spite. The bouquet tucked under his arm smacked him in the face. “Yep. Deserved that.”
The sun was halfway down now, bleeding orange through the trees and throwing long shadows over the graves. The heat from the day still clung to the stone paths, thick and damp, carrying the smell of dirt, cut grass, old flowers.
“Great. Awesome,” he muttered. “Nothing says ‘I’ve got my life together, Aunt May’ like sneaking into a cemetery after hours.”
Peter adjusted the strap of his backpack and kept walking. Everything important he owned thumped lightly between his shoulder blades. He headed down the winding path toward May’s plot.
He made it maybe thirty feet before he noticed the blood.
A footprint. Dark red. Wet enough to shine.
Peter stopped dead. “…Ah, crap.”
Two more prints led away into the cemetery grass.
Big boots. Heavy tread. Whoever made them was limping hard, one side dragging unevenly through the dirt.
Peter looked up toward the heavens with genuine exhaustion. “You know what? Fine. Sure. Why would my night contain ONE normal grief-related activity?”
He shoved the flowers halfway into his backpack and followed the trail.
The blood got worse farther in.
Drops turned into smears. Somebody had caught themselves against a stone cross hard enough to leave a whole handprint behind. Peter touched two fingers to it automatically, then immediately regretted that choice.
Still wet.
“Hey!” Peter called ahead readjusting his mask to make sure it was still in place. “Friendly neighborhood first responder here! If you’re conscious, now would be a fantastic time to say literally anything!”
Nothing answered.
Peter vaulted a low fence, sneakers skidding slightly in damp grass as he followed the trail around a hill—
A man knelt in front of some graves, shoulders hunched inside a hoodie soaked almost black down one side. One sleeve was ripped open at the forearm. Blood covered both hands.
Peter slowed.
The guy looked huge even folded in on himself. Thick neck. Broad back.
“Hey,” he called, quieter now. “Uh… don’t move too fast, okay? You look pretty messed up.”
No response. The man stayed where he was, staring down at the graves.
Peter approached carefully, hands half-raised. “Look, I know the mask thing isn’t helping the trust exercises here, but I am trying to help. Unless you’re one of those ‘walk it off’ guys, which medically speaking is not a great personality trait.”
Then he got hit with the smell. Smoke. Blood. Gunpowder. Underneath it all, sweat and old rain soaked into fabric. The hoodie was shredded at the shoulder. There were bruises crawling up the side of the guy’s neck. His beard looked less grown and more abandoned. Full, dark, completely out of control. Like a family of birds had been paying rent in there for a couple months.
Peter frowned. Something about him felt familiar in a deeply concerning way.
“Okay, I’m gonna level with you,” Peter said. “You look like you fought a bear behind a gas station.”
The man shifted slightly.
Just enough for Peter to catch the profile.
Broken nose.
Bruised cheek.
And then Peter’s brain finally connected the dots.
“Oh, COME ON.”
The man looked up. Frank Castle’s eyes were bloodshot and hollowed out, sunk deep under heavy brows. He looked completely exhausted.
Peter actually recoiled a little. “Seriously?!” he burst out. “Why do you have to be murder Grizzly Adams?”
Frank said nothing.
Peter pointed at him immediately. “And don’t do that thing where you brood at me like a raccoon in a dumpster. You are leaving an amount of blood that feels medically fictional.”
Frank’s eyes drifted back toward the gravestones. Peter followed the look before he could stop himself.
Three names carved into stone.
Peter’s mouth snapped shut.
The smell of smoke on Frank’s clothes suddenly clicked into place with the distant sirens Peter had heard all the way from Queens earlier.
Peter looked back at Frank.
Oh.
At the split knuckles.
The ripped hoodie.
“…Jesus, man,” Peter muttered.
Frank wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ya done?”
“No,” Peter said instantly. “I have, like, SO many concerns.”