Work Text:
Frank’s vision narrows, and for a long moment, all he can do is stare.
He can feel her inside his head, even though she’s not there anymore. What it would feel like if he could remember it. Something digging. Picking him apart like the quacks want to.
But he didn’t hit her.
He hit the kid. He hit the kid.
He stutters to his feet, swaying like he’s six gins in, but he doesn’t have time for that goddamn shit right now. He starts to move, and his vision is still narrowed, a horse close to spooking. Except he’s spooked. He’s goddamn spooked. His heart is bleeding out his ears.
Frank knows he has to get there, and he starts climbing down, and what he wouldn’t give for that parkouring asshole to be here right now, so he could get to the island in seconds instead of the unearthly amount of time it’s gonna take him. He hates this congested city, and all the fucking people everywhere, and he’s moving faster than he has in a long time.
Everyone is running and crying and recovering, and he slams through the emergency door in the station and sets off the alarm. It bangs around in his head and sets his thoughts on fire worse than they already were.
He watches him drop. Over and over again, like a doll hitting the floor.
The subway car is silent, and Frank clutches at his head, pounding, pounding, and he grunts and hits the pole with a quick, messy punch. His knuckles strain with it, and he wants to hit something again, wants to thrash the fucking metal until he can’t feel anything anymore.
What he really wants to do is speed this fucking thing up.
What’s he gonna walk into? A dead body? Dead Spider-Man? Dead because of him. Because of his insistence. His goddamn mistakes. Everything is bright, in his head, a lookout tower. A helicopter spotlight. They’ve found their man. The fucking culprit. It’s him. He did this. He killed the city’s real bonafide hero, because he couldn’t fucking listen. Frank didn’t listen to him. His own way, always, plowing forward. Don’t kill her, and there he was taking aim.
An innocent. Spider-Man was innocent.
“No fucking was,” he says to himself, probably terrifying these people further. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look at them. “Come on, come on, speed up, Jesus Christ, come on.”
A doll, dropping. Collapsing to the ground.
Pick him up, daddy.
Frank nearly busts the doors down getting off at his stop, and then he’s running. His legs burn with it, and he’s getting too old for this shit, but the way he’s running now is like he’s back next to Billy, racing under the early morning light a world away, a lifetime ago.
He grunts that away, blinking in the face of the way it still hurts.
He races through broken glass and abandoned cars, slices his arm open on a twisted chain link of a fence. He sees the kid drop, over and over, each one like a gunshot in itself.
What has he done? What has he done?
There aren’t as many people here, for good fucking reason, and he’s able to find his way into the destroyed compound without any roadblocks he has to mow down. The shot rattles around in his brain, a booming thing, and it’s all he hears until the world goes silent altogether.
The wall is blown out. He sees the girl, Jean, leaning over Spider-Man, clutching at his shoulders. Close to his face.
Frank runs, skids down next to her, next to him.
His face. He hasn’t seen this kid’s face, not in the year he’s known him, and here he is. Eyes closed, bleeding. Young, and hurt, but not dead. Not dead.
“He’s alive,” Frank blurts out, louder than he’d intended, and he doesn’t look at the girl. “He’s—kid, open your eyes. Christ, open your eyes.”
“Take him to the hospital,” she says, and she grabs his arm and shakes him. Surprisingly strong.
Frank flinches at the contact, immediately defensive, but his eyes are drawn back to the kid. So much goddamn blood. His face is slack. Frank has seen this before. He grabs his shoulder, touches his face. His fingers tremble.
“They’re too fucking far away,” Frank breathes, and he hardly recognizes his own voice. He maps this godforsaken city in his mind—Bellevue, it makes the most sense, but it’s still so goddamn far. “Kid, kid, hey. Hey, open your eyes.”
“I’m helping him,” Jean says, and she pushes Frank again.
“You’re helping him?” Frank roars, flaring up at her, pulling his gaze away from Peter to face her head on.
She’s staring right back, unmoved. “I’m helping him! But if you don’t, he’ll die. Take him now, get him out of here—”
There’s so much darkness in his eyes, but he can see the way she’s struggling, struggling to concentrate, the tears cutting through the dirt and grime on her face. He looks at her and his fucking mistakes hit him twofold, like a knockout punch and one more for good measure. He snatches the kid’s mask and stuffs it into his pocket, and then he’s gathering him up in his arms.
Pick him up, pick him up! Make him better!
“Keep helping him,” Frank says, like a fucking moron, but he looks at her hard so she’s sure he means it. She glares, too much wisdom in those eyes, but she nods all the same.
He’s running again now. Jostling him, and the kid’s head falls onto Frank’s shoulder. His curly hair is matted with blood.
“Hang on,” Frank says, his voice breaking. “Hang on, Spidey, hang on.”
He knows this city like the back of his hand, and he wishes he didn’t. But he does, and he sees a whole hoard of people heading for the train station when he runs across it, and some instinct takes him in the other direction.
“You ever rode the tram, huh?” Frank asks, like a moron. “I feel like you told me you’ve gotten into some shit on the tram. Sounds like something you’d do, kid, you’re always getting into something.”
Now you’ve gotten him into something. It’s his own voice. It’s Karen’s voice. It’s Maria’s, it’s goddamn Matt’s, worse yet, it’s Billy’s. Holding court in his head even after everything. Frank lets out the angry rumble in his throat, and he starts running towards the fucking tram station.
“Nobody here,” he breathes, climbing up the stairs two at a time, marveling at it. “All the goddamn tourists are usually—Christ, okay, okay.” He’s breathing hard, and he readjusts the kid in his arms as he climbs onto the waiting tram. He looks around, frantic, and he sees the operator staring at him like his eyes are about to bug out of his head.
“Fast as you can, slick!” Frank yells, and the guy nods, fear in the way he moves.
The doors close before anybody else can show up, and Frank lowers the kid to the ground, propping him up on his arm.
“Like we’re in a fucking Shakespeare play, huh?” Frank laughs, and it’s false in its levity. His eyes are burning again, with tears unshed, and the kid doesn’t move, doesn’t wake. His breathing looks fake, manufactured, and Frank knows that has to be Jean’s doing. The way she’s helping him.
What does that mean? He can’t breathe on his own? That he’s all but dead, that he’d be gone already if she wasn’t doing her part?
That was who you tried to kill, you asshole
Whose voice is that? A conglomeration. His own, mostly. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head and looks up as they move higher into the sky, crossing the river. He shakes his head again, sucking in a big breath, and he tugs the kid to him before he can think too much about it.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, into the kid’s shoulder. So much blood, the stink of it all over him, the stink of Frank’s goddamn fucking choice. His choice. He did this. He clutches him tighter, the first hug they’ve ever shared, if he can even call it that. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
He pulls back, and he knows the tram is moving faster than it normally does, so at least one thing is working in his favor. He tries to stop fucking crying, and he grabs the Spider-Man mask out of his pocket, gently pulling it back on the kid’s head.
“Keep breathing,” he says. To the kid, to Jean, to whoever else is listening. He’s been through enough hell to know that there isn’t anybody out there watching, or helping, nobody to hope to or pray to. But he asks, anyway.
~
Once he’s back in Manhattan, it doesn’t take long to get to his truck, and it takes even less time to get to the hospital. He carries the kid inside and yells until his throat is raw with it, and then they take him away from him and the emptiness in Frank’s arms nearly topples him over.
He sits and begins his vigil. He feels like Matt, but he doesn’t care, probably for the first time. A few cops come into the waiting room where he is and they eye him up, but he holds their gaze and they retreat almost as quickly as they appeared.
Frank didn’t have this with Maria and the kids. There was no hope, in that scenario, there was no waiting. They were gone in an instant and that was all there was to it. He’s been here before, with other people, but this one stings in a way that’s foreign to him.
He hears the kid’s laughter in his ears. The way he gives him hell. He can see him swinging towards a burning building like it’s playing out on a movie screen in front of him. This kid is good. He’s good. He’s kind and he’s upstanding and he’s clearly been through some shit, shit he won’t say, but still, he keeps working. He keeps saving these people. He keeps believing they’re worth saving.
He saved Frank, too. Frank rolls his eyes almost on instinct, almost like the kid is in front of him and bringing it up for the fiftieth time, but he knows it’s true. He saved him, he didn’t have to, and he’d do it again without even skipping a beat.
He thinks Frank is worth saving. He thinks Frank is worth being around. Aren’t those the type of people he likes to keep at arm's length? Aren’t those the type of people he goes to war for?
Frank can hear Karen’s voice, lilting and lyrical, the angry edges of it making it that much more beautiful.
She’d hate him for this. He hates himself for this. He believes in the way he does things, but he’s sitting here because he moved too quickly. Thought too little. He almost killed one of the best fucking people in his life. He still might. The kid still might die.
Frank braces his elbows on his knees and sinks his head into his hands. He wants to scream and destroy the whole goddamn room and rip his fucking hair out.
He hates himself harder instead.
~
“I don’t do NDAs,” Frank says, staring at the doctor.
“Mr. Castle, I understand.”
“I don’t know if you do understand,” Frank says, and he’s squaring up in front of him like they’re about to throw hands. “You don’t think about his face. You don’t describe his face. You erase his face from your head, you get that? Nobody comes in here but you and that other one, uh, Nurse Ratched—”
“Nurse Stein—”
“Stein, whatever, nobody but you two, and the two of you don’t say shit about it to anybody,” Frank says. He thinks about making threats, I know where you live, but he leaves it at that. With the look on his face and the reputation that precedes him.
“We love Spider-Man,” the doctor says, nodding. “I promise. He’s safe.”
Frank just grunts, because he knows this is important to the kid, but he nods and hopes it’s enough. If he was Tony Stark, he’d be pulling out NDAs. He’d be pulling out fancy threats about losing jobs or whatever the hell, or even bribes for new hospital wings. But Frank hardly has enough money to get pizza on Fridays.
How many times are you going to choose meat lovers? What if I want some mushrooms or something? Why don’t we try arugula?
The kid talks just to talk, half the time. Because he doesn’t have anyone to talk to. It hits Frank like a ton of bricks, and he hears all the things he said to him, with that slight desperation, and the laughter. He laughed a lot. But there was sadness in it. Even when he was droning on about pizza toppings.
Frank sits down next to the bed and watches him. He wonders what he would think, knowing his face has finally been revealed. It feels like Frank has seen this kid’s chin more than most people’s eyes. He looks just like Frank imagined, somehow. Kindness clings to him.
He seems even younger with the oxygen mask on his face. His breathing still looks like it did, which means Jean is still doing her thing. Which also means that he’s not out of the woods. How does she know? How can she tell? Frank doesn’t ever wish he had superpowers, fuck that shit, but he does wonder how the hell it all works.
What power would you want, dad, for real?
None, Lis, no power. The power to never hear that question again.
He can hear her laughing at him, poking him.
Come on!
He remembers that conversation. He’d rolled his eyes, like he always did, but she could soften him up. She was an expert at that.
How about flying? he’d said. I’d fly.
Frank stares at the kid. He’d asked him too, near the beginning, the first time he brought him to the boat. He’d gotten hit in the head so hard with a piece of rebar that Frank was afraid he’d die right there and then. But he was still up, still walking and talking. Probably talking more.
I love that your superpower is guns.
What a dumbass thing to say. And yet, it made Frank smile. It even made him laugh. And the kid laughed too and they ate chili and the kid said it was the worst thing he’d ever had. But he kept eating it. He asked what power he’d actually want, and Frank had scoffed and ignored him. But he thought about his little girl and what he’d told her and the way he flew her around the living room that night, her brother swatting at her heels. And it didn’t hurt. For a single minute, it didn’t hurt.
~
“I need you to relax.”
It’s been a week, and Peter needs him to relax. It’s been a goddamn week since he got shot, since Frank nearly killed him, and now he’s swinging around and doing flips and shit and he’s telling Frank to relax.
“I’m completely relaxed,” Frank lies. He drums his fingers on the window anxiously. “I’m just sitting here, you’re the one—you’re the one talking about not relaxed.”
Peter laughs stupidly in his ear, and the connection crackles for a second. “Your heart rate is skyrocketing and you’re sitting in the van waiting for me.”
“It’s not.” Frank narrows his eyes. “Why do you know anything about my heart rate? Haven’t we discussed—do you know anything about privacy, kid? Did anyone teach you anything?”
He laughs again, and Frank hears a window breaking. “Yeah, but I think it’s more important to keep track of my friends,” he says, and he’s whispering now. “Just breathe! It’s all good. I’m okay.”
“I know you’re okay,” Frank mutters, and he starts looking around for whatever tech Peter left in here. He looks at his wrist, feels around on his neck and his inner arm. “Don’t tell me you made me secretly ingest some shit that’s gonna—track my vitals and whatever the hell else you want it to do. Because I’ll shit it out and give it right back to you.”
“Gross, Frank, nobody wants to hear about that,” Peter whispers.
“Uh huh, so keep your mitts to yourself,” Frank says, crossing his arms over his chest. He clicks his tongue, listening to the sounds of whatever the hell Peter’s doing in this goddamn drug den. “Come on, Spidey, I did my part, why are you taking your sweet time with your part? Tick tock, come on.”
“You were just freaking out about me swinging over here and now—”
“I was not freaking out,” Frank almost yells, because he was and he doesn’t like being called out on it. He rolls his eyes again, and he opens the door. “I’m coming in there. I’m coming in, we’re speeding this up.”
“Okay,” Peter says, “but just, you know, I’m the one in the red and blue costume, okay, so aim elsewhere—actually, you know what, don’t aim at all—”
Frank starts heading over there, gritting his teeth. “What did I say about ribbing me? I feel bad enough about it, Christ—”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the kid says. “It’s just a reminder. A friendly reminder from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”
“Yeah, friendly,” Frank says, shaking his head. “You’re the worst.”
But he can’t help it, he finds himself smiling. He checks the gun, makes sure it’s the stupid fucking tranq gun that the kid insisted he use in these lower-level stings.
“There goes your heart rate again, Frank, maybe you should have stayed home—”
“If you don’t stop,” Frank says, and Peter starts laughing again.
“Uh oh,” Peter says, as Frank is about twenty steps away from the back fence. “Spotted. Whoops! Laughed too loud.”
Frank narrows his eyes. “Look what your dumbass jokes get you,” he says. “On my way.”