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It was a cool Spring evening in NYC. The city was just starting to come alive again beneath Spider-Man as he swung from building to building.
Peter had picked up a couple sandwiches at Delmar’s and was headed to Frank’s boat. He was wearing his back up suit, but wanted to get the remains of the shredded Spidey-suit to scrap for parts. It had been about a month since the incident at DDC, and Peter was finally starting to feel like himself again.
When he arrived, Frank greeted him with a grunt, standing on the starboard side in his thick bathrobe and holding an assault rifle. Upon entry into the tugboat, he saw that all of Frank’s clothes were in a huge bucket of water with the handle of a broom sticking out. The water was murky with soap and dirt.
“I’m doin’ laundry!” Frank said defensively. Peter held up his hands. No judgement, man.
“Guess you don’t have a laundromat on the block,” Peter gestured out towards the abandoned docks. He placed the bag of sandwiches down on the table and took off his mask. “I brought food.”
“Delmar’s, nice,” Frank said appreciatively, peaking into the bag. He sat down at the small kitchen table across from Peter and put some plates down before them. “Laundromat would just shrink my shit anyway.”
They had arrived at some uneasy truce after the incident at DDC.
Two days after being shot, Peter had come down with a horrific fever. The events that followed were blurry, but at some point late in the afternoon, he heard the faint sound of tools attempting to take the door knob off his apartment door. Maybe it was his new enhanced Spidey senses, or maybe it was just a quick deduction, but he knew instantly that it was Frank Castle on the other side of the door.
He moved to get out of bed but instead toppled over in a heap. Hot pain coursed through his chest, constricting his breath. He passed out, kneeling on the floor, half slumped over on the bed. When he came to, he was worried he had urinated on himself, because his clothes were totally soaked through. Peter groaned on the floor, everything aching. He felt a large hand grip his shoulder.
Standing over him in a fairly convincing Con Ed uniform was Frank, brows furrowed.
“Didn’t I tell you to take your goddamn medicine?” Frank growled. Peter blinked up at him.
“I’m hallucinating right now, aren’t I?” Peter asked. Frank gingerly helped him to his feet and sat him back down on the bed.
“Michelle called, she’s worried sick about you,” Frank grunted. “Said you stopped answering texts in the group chat.”
“MJ has your number?” This was definitely a dream, Peter thought, maybe he was dying and this was the last neurons of his brain firing off.
Although Peter had not yet told Ned the truth, MJ had added him and Ned into a group chat after the events of the DDC. It was a small step towards normalcy, and one he was grateful for now. His phone was dead on the floor next to his bed.
“Take this,” Frank had reappeared with a glass of water and some pills. “Wasn’t the nurse clear enough for you? You got a death wish? Is that what this is about?”
“I have superpowers,” Peter responded, affronted. He swallowed the pills. Frank looked like he was at the end of a long rope, closing his eyes in frustration.
“Rest,” Frank ordered. Peter settled back against his pillows.
The older man pulled out an old looking cell phone from his pocket and dialed. “Hey MJ. Yeah, I’m here. He’s, yknow, okay.” He reached down, picked up Peter’s phone, and plugged it into the charger on his desk. “Yeah, yeah. I will.”
He hung up.
“I can’t believe you just called my– just called MJ,” Peter carefully corrected. It felt wrong somehow to refer to MJ as his ex girlfriend, not because of the grief, but because she didn’t see him as an ex.
Peter watches as Frank briefly took in his apartment, and then started collecting cups and plates, and trash, bringing them over to his tiny sink.
“Yeah, well, somebody’s got to keep an eye on you since you are the most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever met,” Frank seemed to be briefly weighing something in his mind. “One of the most stubborn.”
Ever since he had reconnected with MJ and Ned, he had become apprehensive at the prospect of his two old friends coming over to see his place- something they had asked to do in multiple concerned texts, offering to come keep Spider-Man company while he was recovering. He wasn’t sure if his hesitation was about their safety or his shame at the grungy apartment.
But for some reason, seeing Frank Castle rifling around, bringing cups from his desk to the sink, picking up clothes off the floor, didn’t make Peter feel bad. Maybe because he had seen Frank’s humble digs, or maybe it was because Frank refrained from commenting negatively on anything and instead took it all in, in that quiet careful way he got sometimes.
It was odd to see Frank so.. domestic. Peter had to remind himself that Frank was a husband and a father of two, in a past life.
“You find all this stuff in the garbage, Pete?” Frank had said, looking around at his studio– not with disgust but with appreciation.
“I’m really good at dumpster diving,” Peter replied proudly, slightly loopy from the codeine. “I practically furnished this whole place on NYU move out day. They just put everything on the curb! Perfectly good tv!”
Frank snorted a bit at that.
He watched as the Punisher shook out an old NYU blanket that was on the couch, laying it back down, and then jerked his head over indicating Peter should come over. Peter, starting to feel better, wobbled over to the couch.
Frank immediately went to Peter’s bed and started stripping the sheets. “That fever must have been somethin’ nasty, you’ve sweat through your sheets twice over.”
Peter realizes that his sheets must stink, but Frank didn’t comment on the smell. Possibly the whole apartment stunk. Frank put everything, including clothes he picked up off the floor, into Peter’s old washing machine and then went to crack some windows.
“Fresh air’ll fix you right up,” he muttered to himself. It was dusk outside. Spring air and the sounds of the street traffic filled the apartment. Peter must have had a weird expression on his face, because Frank suddenly looked at him sharply. “What?”
“Nothing,” Peter said, smiling, shaking his head. “Just feel like I might still be asleep.”
Frank snorted. “Let’s take a look at those bandages, huh?”
Peter sat on the couch as Frank came over with his bag of medic supplies. He kneeled beside Peter on the couch and started rummaging around in his bag, pulling out gauze and tape.
“You qualified to do this?” Peter looked warily at the supplies.
“Qualified? First of all, I’m a goddamn Marine. ‘Course I’m qualified for something as basic as this,” Peter frowned doubtfully. “Plus my buddy Curtis hooked me up with the good stuff— he was a corpsman in the war.”
Punisher lore drop.
Peter went quiet at that, the way he always did if Frank volunteered something new, even though he was bursting with questions that would surely irritate the older man.
“Let’s take a look,” Frank urged.
Peter gingerly took his shirt off and turned his head away. He only caught sight of his injury once since hospital discharge and he didn’t want to see it again. Not for a while.
Frank had gone quiet, and when Peter glanced at him, his jaw had tightened in rage and self-disgust. Despite the waves of emotion coming off the older man, his hands were gentle when he removed the old bandages and placed them to the side. He started to get out something to clean the wounds.
Peter hissed when the liquid flushed the wound and leaned his head back on the couch, looking up at the ceiling.
“Atta boy, Pete.” Frank muttered. “Worst is over.” He carefully laid fresh bandages on his chest and on his back. The bullet went clean through Peter, after all.
The pain seared through his chest, overwhelming his senses. His throat closed up. In that moment, he missed Aunt May, and he sort of wanted to cry. Peter was determined not to look like a wimp in front of the Punisher, so he just nodded. Frank cleaned up the old bandages and put them into the trash.
“You get anything on that piece of crap?” Frank gestured over to the TV.
“Kinda,” Peter replied, finding his voice again. If Frank had asked Peter a week ago, the answer would be no. Peter only had movies he had pirated and could screen cast from his computer, which suited him just fine. But Ned had hooked him up with some passwords and he got some basic channels, so he could watch stuff while he was recovering. I can’t believe I’m giving Spider-Man my Hulu log in. This is so cool. Do you wanna join my Discord server? We’re gonna screen Dune tomorrow.
“Mets are playing tonight, first game of the season.”
“You’re staying?” Peter asked, surprised.
“Someone’s gotta put that laundry in the dryer and fix up the bed. You are not to be lifting anything or moving around right now, ya hear me?” Frank said menacingly. “You took a 20mm AMR to the chest, damn thing coulda blown you clean in half. I don’t want you lifting anything heavier than toilet paper until I say.”
Peter groaned at the lecture and gestured over to the remote, which was held together with duct tape. Frank grabbed it and turned on the game. The TV itself was propped up on some crates he had found.
Frank went over to his backpack and retrieved a bag of Chinese take out. The smell was heavenly. He started setting out the containers on the makeshift coffee table before them, putting a spoon in a container of chicken rice soup and handing it to Peter, who accepted it gratefully. He sat down heavily next to Peter on the couch and kicked off his boots.
“Ya gotta eat with these pills, start with the soup-- it’s normal to feel a little nauseous.” Frank swore at the first strike out. He pulled out an egg roll.
“Yeah, yeah,” Peter mumbled, and started on a spoonful of soup.
“Those your folks over there?” Frank gestured with his chin at Peter’s desk where a single picture of himself with Aunt May and Uncle Ben sat propped up against one of his monitors.
“My aunt and uncle, they raised me after my parents died,” Peter said, dropping the spoon back into the container of soup. Spider-Man lore drop. “They’re both gone now, too.”
“You fuckin’ with me kid?” Frank shook his head in disbelief. “You’re telling me I almost killed not just the golden boy of New York City but you’re a god damn orphan too?”
Peter found himself laughing at that, and reached for some fried rice. Frank opened a can of ginger ale and put it in front of Peter.
"It's a beautiful Spring evening at Citi Field," the announcer was saying. There was something very calming about baseball. Peter had quickly confessed that, besides going with Ben to a few games when he was a kid, he was completely clueless about the game. Frank explained some things to Peter, but mostly he grunted and cursed at the TV.
Drowsy from the painkillers, Peter fell asleep sometime in the 5th inning. When he woke, Frank was sleeping next to him, his feet propped up on the coffee table, head back, snoring. The food had been cleaned up and put away. The game was over and the post-game commentary was going at a quiet volume. The Mets had lost. The apartment had gone dark except for the TV glow and the light from the city illuminating the windows.
Peter looked over and saw that his bed was made and his laundry folded neatly on his desk chair. He briefly considered waking Frank up and sending him home, but instead he shrugged, crossed the room, crawled into his own bed and passed out.
Frank was gone when Peter woke in the morning. He left a note on Peter’s desk, a threatening promise:
“KID-
DON’T LIFT ANYTHING. TAKE YOUR PILLS WITH FOOD. SEE YOU AT 1600 HOURS.
There was a rough sketch of a skull at the bottom of the note.
—--
Back in the present, Peter and Frank tore into their sandwiches. Peter found himself launching into details of his week– he busted up an illegal gambling ring in Flushing, stopped an armored vehicle robbery, caught up with MJ and Ned at MJ’s boyfriend’s birthday party.
Frank mostly grunted, content to listen. When he mentioned MJ’s new boyfriend and the birthday party, he rolled his eyes.
“Paul is, like, a good guy,” Peter insisted, picking at a pickle that had fallen out of his sandwich.
“I didn’t say nothin’ about Paul,” Frank said too-innocently.
“And I stopped by Dr. Banner’s office hours. He’s back to work.”
“Got himself sorted out?” Frank asked somewhat cautiously. Peter nodded.
“Yeah and he -uh- well.. He says I have a job at his lab, if I want it. And he thinks I should enroll.” Peter dropped his eyes down to his sandwich, blushing. “At Empire State.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Frank said, pointing at Peter. “Hang up the tights, go back to school. You should consider that.”
“No, no,” Peter shook his head. “I’ll do Spiderman.. and school.. and a job. Easy.”
“Yeah, real easy.” Frank grunted. “Well, less time you have to get in my way on these streets the better.”
“Dr. Banner thinks, with my um, my situation…” Peter hesitated to say exactly what that situation was, but the fact that he was an orphan living in an asbestos filled attic on the last dollars his Aunt left him hung in the air. “And my SAT and ACT scores, I’ve got a good chance at a full ride.”
Frank crumbled the sandwich wrapper into a ball. “You do seem like the smart type– I mean MJ, y'know, that girl’s somethin’ else, she’s got brains, man, and she was into you. So you must be smart.”
Peter said nothing. Frank didn’t want to let the situation with MJ go, but Peter tried to avoid any traps as best he can. He was just happy to have her back in his life at all— even as a friend.
Frank stood up and tossed the sandwich wrapper into a trash bin. Then he went over to a safe and opened it, rummaging around, muttering to himself.
When Frank stood again his arms were full of wads of cash. He started separating the money into piles, one that was clean bundles and the other pile was for bills covered in blood. Finally he picked up the clean pile and dumped it on the table next to Peter, who looked up, confused.
“What’s this for?”
“For school. Get some breathing room until your job kicks in. Buy some text books for the fall, I know those things are expensive. New shoes,” Frank listed. “Your sneakers are busted.”
“Frank… I can’t accept this. This is like, 5 grand!”
“You should start getting smart like me, kid,” Frank put the other pile of money back in the safe. “Confiscating contraband from criminals is light work for someone like you.”
“You don’t have to do this, just because you shot me,” Peter said, shaking his head.
“Take it or don’t, I don’t give a shit,” Frank said, waving his hand in the air dismissively. Frank had a way of leaving no room for discussion, and if they started arguing about this, it would devolve quickly.
“Thanks Frank,” Peter said finally, scooping the money into his backpack.
“Yeah, yeah,” Frank cleared his throat and stood. “Let me get your tights, or what’s left of ‘em.”
Frank walked deeper into the boat, leaving Peter alone. Peter glanced over at the pictures of Frank’s family. The Punisher never got to go back to school shopping again, see his kids graduate, move them into their freshman dorms. Maybe taking care of Peter went beyond penance.
He looked down at his lap. One month ago Peter would go a whole day without using his voice to speak to anyone. Now he had MJ and Ned, Dr. Banner, and the Punisher in his corner. He was overwhelmed with a mix of grief and gratitude, and fear.
But there was one person he didn’t have to worry about, one person who could take care of himself. One guy who would resent Peter even thinking about his wellbeing. Frank Castle came back into the kitchen and put the scraps of Spidey Suit over the back of a chair.
“I’m makin’ coffee, want some?” Frank turned his stove on.
“Frank, it’s 11pm!” Peter objected.
“Oh so you’re tellin’ me it’s bedtime, Spidey?” Frank shot back.
Peter geared up to argue but instead leaned back in the chair and laughed.
END