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“You… you— ah, remind me of someone, a little bit.” Frank nods, tearing his back off the chair and sitting forward with a small, dopey smile; gaze still locked onto Peter, studying him as if he’d disappear (or die) at any moment.
Peter tilts his head questioningly as they lock eyes, before Frank turns away and drops his gaze to his lap. The duo fall still and silent, although the outside noise eases most of the awkwardness. Frank rubs a palm against the armrest of the chair, avoiding Peter’s insistent gaze that screams at him to tell him more.
“…What— um, what’s their name?” Of course it’s Peter who breaks the silence first. Frank chuckles, letting it trail to a stop as he gets lost in thought.
Peter waits patiently for Frank to start talking, letting himself lie back into the hospital bed and catch his breath for the first time in what seemed like forever. He takes a few slow, deep breaths, savouring the calm wakefulness that steadily drips into his system.
He absently observes that the look Frank has on his face is… different. It’s pretty rare in general for Frank to wear anything other than a scowl, but Peter’s known him long enough to see a lot more than that. He thinks he knows Frank well enough to be able to translate what certain expressions on his face mean.
Peter’s occasionally granted the privilege to listen to some stories about his past, ones about his family. The look Frank gets when he talks — or even thinks about them is an odd mixture of helplessness and longing, distant and bittersweet.
This look? It’s new. Not entirely unfamiliar, but Peter is nowhere near acquainted with that expression. Now, Frank’s probably had that same demeanor once or twice while they were together, Peter’s not inspecting every interaction they’ve ever had; that would be weird and creepy. But, Peter does know that this look is rare enough for himself to categorize it under ‘new Frank expression’.
It’s the same genre of distance that he gets when he thinks about his family, but there’s an odd hunger in the yearning.
“Red.” Frank blurts out, head swaying as his gaze darts from place to place around the room, lingering slightly on the various art pieces stacked against all over. He bounces a leg unconsciously, letting a hand slip down to his knee. “‘s not his name, but I called him that. Called him Red ‘cause it was the colour of his.. costume. It was kind of like yours, actually.” He waves his hand in an odd gesture to show Peter, who only somewhat gets the gist, but pretends he understands anyway.
Peter nods, lips curling as he silently beckons him to go on.
Frank chuckles, eyes curving as he meets Peter’s eyes again. “You remind me of him— with that no killin’ stuff. But you’re also different.”
“How so?”
Frank grumbles something under his breath before he speaks up, shaking his head and scratching his neck. “See, the thing about Red is that he’s a nutcase. A goddamn shitshow with a pretty face and a nice voice.” Peter cannot stop his head from snapping to Frank’s and his eyebrows leaping to his hairline.
Luckily, Frank offers no sign of noticing the way bells just rang inside Peter’s head, and continues. “He's a self-righteous prick, I’ll give you that. He thinks he’s better than me for not killing. Saying some—“ Frank leans forward and his usual timbre switches into a soft spoken, mocking tone, “‘Frank, your family wouldn’t have wanted you to be like this, your family wouldn’t approve, what would your family think—‘” he interrupts himself with a forced laugh, “—your family this, your family that. Always tryna guilt trip his way into making me do the ‘right thing’. Always getting up and personal in your business an’ preaching about how it’s not our place to judge who gets to live and die—blah blah, this and that.” Annoyance drips from his voice, yet there’s no real anger behind it. “This guy, he saddles people with a lifetime’s worth of medical debt and permanent injuries and then gets prissy at me for killing… Like what’s the point? God, he was so full of shit.”
He exhales sharply, shedding his previous irritation like taking off a coat before meeting Peter’s eyes again. “You, kid? You’re different. You don’t kill because you care— and I respect that. I understand that.” Frank sounds fond, proud even. He looks like it too, nodding approvingly. Peter really hopes he’s not imagining that and ignores the way his lip quivers. “You live by your own morals and mind your own business. I appreciate that. No judgment, no questions asked— I like it.”
Frank pauses momentarily, tearing his eyes away from Peter once again before continuing. “You wanna know one of the first things he said to me was? He asked me if I’d lost anyone that I loved, and you wanna know what he said after? He told me ‘well boohoo’.” He snorts and lets it dissolve into a laugh as he sees Peter’s expression in response.
“And that's the crazy thing, you see. ‘Cos even though we hated eachother's guts, we still respected eachother. We even worked together a few times, yeah. Got along like a house on fire. No matter what though, it was always ‘no killing, Frank’—” Frank’s voice once again dips into that soft spoken cadence, yet this time it’s gentle, patient almost. Peter tries to imagine how it would actually sound — how he would sound like. “— it’s almost just like how you say it. So everytime you tell me ‘no killing’, I see a bit of him in ya. Just a little bit.”
Peter nods slowly, his mind flitting back to that conversation they had back at the boatyard. He can’t help but take notice of every past tense, but he knows it's not his place to ask. Perhaps another day, he can; or, Frank will tell Peter himself.
“Red was still a good guy. Doing what he thought was right, protecting the people he cared about.” Frank adds after a beat of silence. “He was a good fighter too, could pack one hell of a punch.” He laughs at that, taking his hand off his knee to rub at his jaw.
“You know, I think Red would’ve liked you a lot, kid. He— he would’ve loved you.” A grin creeps onto Frank’s face at the memory, prompting Peter to smile as well.
“He would?”
“..Yeah. Damn right he would.”