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"I am telling it straight," Frank said, tilting his beer bottle to the side slightly. "The Hulk is massive. He even transformed further—got even larger than he initially was after his mind got messed with again. A giant motherfucker with skin that made it fucking impossible to put the inhibitor on."
The room around him did not buy his story. Their heads and gaze turned to Matt, the human lie detector. Matt let out a noncommittal hum, neither approving or disproving Frank's story.
Their little room of vigilantes was summoned for one reason: catch up on what had transpired the past few months. However, instead of exchanging information on crime rings, their conversations ranged more toward gossip.
"Let me see if I understand this correctly." Jessica took a pause, her hand flayed out to gesture at him. "You went up against the Hulk and lived?" She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes as she lifted a cup of gin to her lips. "I'm not buying that shit."
"Well, fuck," Frank responded, unsure how to convince these fuckers. He popped off the cap of his next beer with his thumb. "I don't know what else to tell ya. It happened."
"There's no way you could have survived the Hulk," Jessica stated simply, sounding much too sober for how much she had drunk. She continued to gesture at him in her skepticism. "You were running around, yeah?"
"Yes," he confirmed with a sigh. He felt the urge to ask, what's not clicking? He blamed Peter for rotting his brain.
"See, that right there," Jessica said, taking her hand down so she could tap the tabletop with her finger instead. "That doesn't make any sense. What weapons could stand up against the Hulk other than a grenade or a bazooka?"
Frank shrugged casually, then admitted, "I had help from a grenade."
"You carry grenades with you?" Danny suddenly asked, as if they had never worked together before.
Luke scoffed quietly, "Come on, Danny. You know him. Frank carries grenades with him everywhere."
"Thank you." Frank tilted his bottle to Luke, though the grenade wasn't exactly on him that day.
Of course, that good feeling toward Luke ended the next moment. Luke shook his head, and said, "I just don't buy that a grenade could harm the Hulk for that long. It'd be like… a scrape, if that. The Hulk would brush it off."
"He hasn't lied so far," Matt said, finally adding some certainty to Frank's story.
Frank was pissed off, though. Matt never supported him—this was something else. He shifted his eyes to analyze Matt, and as soon as he saw the bastard's slight smile, Frank knew nothing good was going to come next.
"It's confirmed that Frank at some point fought the Hulk, but with how few details he's saying… Isn't it suspect? He's usually more blunt about it." Matt shouldn't be allowed in a courtroom. "He's avoiding saying something."
The table fell silent as the idea of it settled on them. Frank finished his beer and half-wondered if he should just leave. Clearly, this meeting wasn't what he thought it was. They hadn't talked about Manhattan much.
Frank's interactions with Spider-Man were the only topics being brought up. Frank, is it true? Did you work with him? Did he kick you out of your van? Do you know why he injured that cop? Why does Spider-Man not work with the DODC anymore? The Hulk rampaged; why were you there? Did you see how Spider-Man got injured? Why didn't you call us to watch over the hospital with you?
The night had started off well. The amount of bottles and cans, along with the small army of Chinese take-out containers, had made Frank sit down without expectation. They had barely began eating before Spider-Man was brought up.
Beer bottles and cans were stacked in heaps on top of the table and by their chair legs. It was an unsafe environment, but the pricey bottles of gin and whiskey made Frank continue on even though the others were acting strange.
Claire showed up with a container of brownies, citing that they would calm them down so they wouldn't fight unnecessarily, only to take one look at their 'buffet', and leave. She cited that this much alcohol spelled trouble, and that she would not heal any of them if they screwed around.
Seeing as they were all plastered and accusing him of being a poser, Frank supposed Claire was right to leave.
Claire took her brownies with her with no remorse. Frank wished he could have asked for one, just one, to have. He bet Peter could have convinced Claire to leave him a piece. The kid had that kind of charm.
"I told you all you need to know," Frank said, disliking how long the silence prolonged.
Danny, who was normally the most gullible of them, which was hard because being a vigilante was no joke, suddenly studied Frank's face. Danny's brow furrowed as he came to a conclusion. Frank disliked it.
The meditating oddball then theorized, "Spider-Man did all the work, didn't he? He fought the Hulk and you provided backup."
Frank's heart must have acted funny, because Matt's smile grew wide, like he could feel emotions other than disappointment or rage.
Frank's eyebrow twitched in annoyance, and that's when Frank knew he fucked up for good.
Danny cheered for himself, letting out a whoop! Jessica smiled and leaned back in her seat in a more relaxed position, enjoying the show immensely. Luke just looked at Frank knowingly, that motherfucker.
"I knew it," Danny muttered. "The Hulk is intimidating to even others like him. There's no way Frank of all people—"
"Shut your fuckin' trap." Frank couldn't believe this guy was underestimating him. Like, sure, Danny was right—but did he have to phrase it in that way?
Frank sat up, reached across the table, took the cheap whiskey, and poured more in his cup. He abandoned it earlier to drink beer, but now he knew that was dumb. He needed something stronger that could help him forget this conversation.
He drank it all, not savoring a single drop because there was nothing to be happy about in his life. Then he poured himself another cup.
"We should have come to this conclusion on our own," Luke said, smacking his lips after his last drink. "Not even I would fight the Hulk and live to tell the tale… Unless someone else was protecting me the entire time."
Jessica snorted so hard it made her hiccup. Matt's shifted in his seat, his head tilting toward her, so whatever fucked up sounds her body made must have been interesting. Matt didn't tilt toward people easily to get a better understanding of what was happening.
"I did fight the guy," Frank told them, because it was the truth. "Wasted at least 50 rounds on that bastard until—"
"Until you were told to hide because you're a fragile, little flower that needs to be protected?" Jessica asked, as if she had the right.
The thing that sucked was that she did. She probably would have done what he did too—choose to be protected from the Hulk. Everyone here kept to the situations they could handle with as little backup as possible, because reliable backup wasn't realistic. They all dealt with different areas and did better with specific crimes.
"You couldn't have done any better," Frank muttered, feeling a headache building in the back of his mind.
None of them chased down worldwide threats and lived to tell the tale. They kept down low in the streets because that's where they could make a difference. The Avengers, the new ones or not, they did what they did, and the Defenders, or whatever this group of idiots was being referred to as, handled what they did best.
Frank was the fucking normal one here, too. He had no mutations at all, but at least he didn't fall totally behind. No one here had enhanced healing, though Jessica was the closest to it.
Luke was built like a house, Matt was a dog, Jessica could jump, and Danny's fist glowed 'cause he was a freak.
Alright, so Frank was downplaying their abilities, but suffice to say: none of them could do what Spider-Man did. And honestly? None of them wanted to spend all their energy toward patrolling and being stalked on that Spidey Tracker app.
If there was ever an app tracking him, Frank would gun down the creators. However, since Spidey Tracker wasn't honed in on him, Frank used it when he needed to. Usually, it was to avoid Peter, but sometimes he purposely went to Spider-Man's location so he could find fights easier.
But damn, Frank knew he shouldn't have accepted this invitation. The free booze and take-out weren't enough to keep him around.
The timing of this get-together was off from the beginning. They didn't truly care about checking in on each person's territories and figuring out if any of their problems overlapped.
They were here to gossip about Spider-Man.
It should be stated that Frank hadn't meant to be the first of them to meet Spider-Man and establish a sort of camaraderie. The others had seen him before—Matt had even memorized Peter's scent, like he did with most freaks he met.
What made the latest incident different was that Frank actually helped Spider-Man on his own opp. Spider-Man had tagged along with some of their own shit before, but Spider-Man didn't ever ask for backup.
Not until Frank suddenly found himself hosting Peter's girlfriend—or not girlfriend, Frank gave up on understanding what was happening between the two of them. Frank was suddenly hosting the kid in his home. The cherry on top was that Frank then helped Peter with the DODC and all that came with it.
He understood why people were curious about it. The Punisher and Spider-Man weren't known for getting along. Spider-Man was a little shit about everything. Frank had multiple broken weapons and vehicles to prove that.
But Spider-Man dealt with big-wigs. He was acknowledged by Tony Stark, for fuck's sake. Peter was even supposed to be an Avenger at one point, but he turned it down like a fuckwad.
Frank purposely steered clear of any uppity heroes—the Defenders included—and if Staten Island never happened, he might have succeeded in avoiding Spider-Man for good.
Look, Frank didn't mean to be the first of them to get close to the web crawler. He didn't want to be saddled with that shit.
Spider-Man stayed close to the street-level types, but he didn't quite fit in with the rest of them. Their ships passed by each other, never quite meeting. The people sitting around this table knew where to stick to so they could help the most people they could.
Spider-Man didn't have the same boundaries they did.
If Queens—or any other borough of New York—was in trouble, then he was going to plant his ass firmly in the middle of it. Spider-Man didn't lay down and take punches. He kicked you in the face and hung you up from light poles while yapping your ear off.
Frank hated it, but after everything that had happened, he gave in. He had to salute the kid for all the bullshit he dealt with. Frank wouldn't have trusted the DODC, though. The kid was going to need to learn not to trust the government.
"You got me there," Jessica acknowledged. "The Hulk isn't someone I'd safely take on. He's a threat-level that no one would take on alone—aside from maybe Thor."
Danny murmured in curiosity, "Have the two of them ever officially fought? In a spar, would the Hulk win? Or would he hold back—"
"I think if Thor and the Hulk sparred, then New York would be nothing but ruins," Luke chimed in to say. "It's good that Banner is back to normal."
Jessica shrugged, and said, "It's a shame, though, don't you think, that Frank couldn't have fought the Hulk for real."
This woman was trying to bait him into murder. Frank met her eyes, and they were sparkling with mirth. Jessica wanted him to get upset and accidentally reveal more than he meant.
After a brief stalemate, Jessica peeled herself back into a sitting-up position, and smashed the bottle of gin she held—because apparently her cup wasn't enough anymore—and set it on the table.
"Tell me," Jessica said, smiling in a dangerous way, "is he as good looking as people think?"
Frank's thoughts paused, his mind blanking on him for a long, drawn-out moment. He looked at Jessica, and she looked straight back at him expectantly.
Frank slowly slid his gaze around the room. Jessica wasn't asking about the Hulk. She was asking about Spider-Man.
Luke suddenly found his abandoned lo mein in need of being finished, Danny was looking at Jessica as if she was the best person in the world, and Matt had perked up, his lips twisting into that god-awful grin he usually reserved for the moment before he beat a person unconscious.
"So he is," Jessica ascertained from Frank's silence.
There was no way to escape this. No matter how Frank answered, there was no winning.
He could tell the truth, or lie flat-out, but there wasn't a correct response. There were hundreds of theories on Spider-Man's secret identity, and Frank was one of the only people to learn of it—and probably the only person who the public was aware of that knew it.
Frank shouldn't have let Peter stay at his home. He should have let the kid deal with his arachnid hormones alone so that Frank could have some sanity remaining.
Jessica looked at him, a toothy grin across her face. She had trapped him on purpose. She didn't truly care if the rumors of Spider-Man being an eligible bachelor were real. Jessica was fishing for a different sort of information—the identity of New York's most well-known vigilante.
He yearned for death.
Frank's grip on his glass tightened. He cursed all of these fuckers in his head, then admitted in a hollow voice, "Yeah."
Matt didn't speak up against him, so it meant Frank was telling the truth. Frank couldn't lie when that bastard was here to sniff him out. Frank wasn't sure if it would be the truth, so good for Peter, huh?
This was an entire mess and a half.
Like an overexcited puppy, Danny asked, "You really saw his face?" He had probably drunk too much, he seemed to have more energy than normal.
Though… even Luke seemed intrigued, and that guy didn't care about looks. Luke focused on a person's character. If he didn't analyze that, then he looked to a person's physical abilities to see if they were a threat.
The worst thing was the guy in a collared shirt. Matt was utterly delighted at how fast Frank's heart was beating. Matt abandoned finishing his drink so he could focus on Frank's body freaking out over their questions.
Frank was trapped in hell, and he wished to freeze it over with all of the agony he felt in his heart.
"Does he have fangs?" Matt asked, goading Frank on. His tone wasn't his usual—this was a question meant to trip Frank up.
It was ironic. Frank hadn't even gotten to tell any of them about Spider-Man's newest powers. Was he allowed to? He was sure it would become common knowledge soon, with how frequently Peter was surveilled…
"I don't know about that," Frank said, going for nonchalant. "But he can create spider silk from his body, so there's a chance."
Luke's voice suddenly turned lower, coated in a mixture of awe and disgust, as he asked, "Does he have venom?"
"Fuck if I know." Frank was fairly certain Peter didn't, but maybe in a few months or years, Peter would go through another transformation.
As the others drank and ate more, having new things to think about concerning Spider-Man, Frank tried to relax.
He honestly didn't know how to break it to the group that Spider-Man was a kid—a kid who had been a vigilante since he was 14. Peter clearly held years of trauma, just like the rest of them, but it was almost worse because he was put on a stage to highlight his suffering.
Sighing in dismay, Frank admitted to himself that he wouldn't share more details about the kid even if he knew everything. He wouldn't betray the kid's trust. Peter wasn't even upset that Frank shot him—not really, at least.
Frank should be glad that he wasn't hunted down for critically injuring New York's guardian angel. There wasn't a person around who would let him live if they knew Frank was the reason Spider-Man nearly died.
"Is he like Danny—or Stark?" Luke asked, disrupting the silence. "Is he rich?"
"I'm not gonna tell you a thing," Frank declared, and then promptly drank the rest of the whiskey from his cup. "So change the fuckin' subject before I try out a new prototype."
"Aish, harsh." Jessica didn't look hurt. In fact, her eyes were lit with intrigue. "But fine. We can drop it. Spidey clearly gained your confidence."
Matt simply said, "We should go back to our original conversation." He tapped his hand on the table, which was never a good sign. He gestured to Frank with that hand, then asked in his lawyer voice, "Is it true you carried Spider-Man bridal style into the hospital?"
Fuckin' Christ, there was no escape from these idiots.
They were trying to kill him, weren't they? They wanted him hunted down in the streets and shot at for sport.
It was morning, fairly late all things considered. Frank stayed far longer than he thought he would, and he was feeling it now.
Frank shouldn't have drunk so much, but what could he say? It was nice drinking with company instead of alone. He didn't trust himself to drive in this condition, and he didn't trust those on-call drivers, so he began to walk home.
As he turned down Liberty Avenue, that's when he heard a small thwip-thwip. Frank could only think: Of course, his headache returned.
"Frank, what the hell are you doing?" Spider-Man had appeared, but he didn't look upset. He landed with a small thunk right next to Frank on the sidewalk. "It's freezing, why are you out?"
"Can't a guy go for a midnight stroll?"
"It's 4 A.M.," Peter said, like it meant something.
"Your point?"
Peter let out a sigh and shook his head. Frank would deny that he smiled at the kid's reaction. The Punisher didn't smile about mannerism, but, well, it was a good thing he wasn't in his vest right now.
Peter walked side by side Frank, going Frank's speed. He even zipped up the rest of his argyle vest. Fall was setting in well, with winter nipping in the air. Peter wore a small vest for extra heat, though Frank didn't know why. He thought Peter's suit had insulation or even heaters inside.
For once, Peter let the peacefulness reign. He didn't try to talk Frank's ear off, or start an argument that would leave them both heated for a while. Instead, they simply walked, passing under flickering street lights and slow-driving cars.
They walked in silence for a block before Frank's thoughts got the best of him. He stopped, turned on his heel, and positioned himself toward Peter.
Peter stopped too, his eyes looking confused through the white mesh of the suit.
"Why don't you spend time with the other vigilantes?" It had nagged at him all evening. "You'd do well with some of 'em. Why not help each other out?"
"Oh, uh…" Peter's voice went all weird. He admitted after a few seconds, "I don't have the greatest of excuses for that, honestly."
When the kid didn't continue, Frank probed, "And why's that?"
"It's just—" Peter lifted one hand to swipe in the air, "—Daredevil. DD. You know him, yeah? We met up a couple of times. It's bound to happen with what we do."
Frank grunted. Didn't he fucking know it. It was an unfortunate thing for Matt to run around Hell's Kitchen with such a possessive claim over it.
"But, well," Peter's voice turned nervous. "I went into Hell's Kitchen once because there was this sale on laundry detergent at a corner shop and I—" his voice grew in pitch, turning more anxious, "—was normal. Full-on civilian, kapeesh. And then you know what happened?"
Peter's gaze was perfectly aligned with Frank's as he said, "Daredevil just dropped down an alley and greeted me, 'Spider-Man, are you chasing a lead down here? How can I help?'"
Frank couldn't form any words as he processed Peter's story. The kid was a riot. He didn't know that Matt was—
"It was horrifying," Peter said, nothing but genuine truth spilling from his lips. "I never went back. I can't figure out how Daredevil knew my identity. I ran as fast as I could back home and steered clear of DD and all the vigilantes he worked with since."
Despite how terrified Peter was when he spoke, Frank couldn't help it.
He laughed in front of Peter's face, an uncontrollable thing Frank couldn't tamp down even if he wanted.
He could barely breathe as Peter then began to yell and hit him across the shoulder with weak-ass fists that did no harm. Frank's ribs ached, but it didn't matter. Matt was the reason why Spider-Man avoided vigilantes, and it wasn't on purpose. It was an honest mistake, and Frank was never going to let Matt live it down.