Chapter Text
He really should probably keep his mouth shut. He's been told before that usually there isn't as much talking in a fight as he does, but he figures that translates to life outside of fighting too.
And yet Peter is here telling so much to the Punisher.
"I didn't know," Peter chokes out. "I couldn't sense it, for some reason that she-that she was bleeding so, s-so bad, but she-" he's never been able to stay quiet in fights or otherwise, and maybe it's the closeness or the fact that he just ate dinner with Frank Castle and is actually hanging out with him. In any case, Peter finds himself spilling his guts, talking about May.
And about losing her.
"-all she told me was, she only knew she got knocked on her ass, and I thought- which was, I was so STUPID, I thought that's all it was! She was standing; s-she she moved with me, she was holding on to my arm coming with me and then-"
"And then she wasn't," Frank speaks up, his voice rough and low, so soft that it's almost difficult for Peter to hear. Or it would be if he didn't have his impossible spider senses. Frank's eyes aren't focused on Peter now; he stares forward flatly and then it's as if a burst of agonizing pain strikes him. It fills his face so totally that seeing the pain in Frank's expression makes Peter feel as though he has just been hit with a vicious gut punch, or more like he has been struck by a battering ram at hundreds of miles an hour. He sucks air sharply and holds it in his chest as a lengthy breath. They are friends, he thinks, because at least on one hand they're one and the same in their amassed amounts of grief. Peter thinks on one of Frank's outbursts: "this is a sentence, kid!" Even as he comes barrelling into a fight guns blazing, only to be almost blown to hell by fighting the Hulk, gamma ray green and angry enough to break through half of a high-rise. And Peter might've taken inspiration from the Black Widow's fighting style, but his relationship with the big green guy is his own, as small as it is at this point at least.
Not fraught the way the big guy had seemed to feel about Black Widow. And yet - Hulk remembered him. When he was bloodied and beaten and the big guy was looking at him so closely, Peter saw his own reflection in Hulk's eyes.
"Spider" Hulk grunted. "Little spider. Peter Parker." He thought he'd hallucinated especially the second part, because-no, none of the Avengers still know him, or remember who he is! There's no way, at least it hadn't seemed possible for Hulk to still remember him.
Not even if somewhere deep inside himself, Peter wished so desperately to be remembered. There was a distinct separation between Professor Hulk and this Hulk, or at least there's as much of a separation as between Hulk and Banner. If Doctor Banner was around when Strange cast his second spell, he would've forgotten Peter. But Hulk... the guy always made an immense distinction between himself and Banner.
Maybe that distinction wasn't just a thought, or one of simple personality, but power. The Gamma Radiation was a shield for Hulk as well as a power source. Or maybe since Peter has been to enough lectures and spoken to the guy enough times for his name to permeate, he's always been a reference in the other guy's brain. Who knows? Peter is a science guy. He isn't all that into magic, even though he got pretty into the Harry Potter books for a bit in late elementary and middle school. His personal sense of humor ran much closer to Percy Jackson's, though; Harry was too serious a lot of the time. His sass was pretty great when he actually executed it, however. "There's no need to call me 'sir', Professor" is a banger line that Peter wishes he could use to this very day.
Professor Banner is too cool of a guy to use that on, though- whether or not he knows who Peter is. And hang on, did Peter ever actually meet Professor Hulk during that gigantic battle with Thanos?!
He can hardly think back through all of it, because doing that lands him in front of Tony on that tiny planet every time. Mister Stark, as he loses feeling in his legs and falls in a heap, turning to dust. And Peter feels his heart breaking all over again.
"I don't wanna go - I don't wanna go, sir, please. I'm sorry."
"Mister Stark? Hey hey, it's Peter. Can you hear me? We won. We won, Mister Stark. We won, Mister Stark. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,. Tony." And then he had been running to the other man, when he was crumpled. When he had been dying.
At least then he had known, unlike with May...
"May? Can you look at me? Please?"
She was always worried about him, she came back to protect him to keep him safe. She was his parent and it didn't matter how many superhero powers Peter had, even once she knew about them. He couldn't save her. Just like he wasn't close enough to save Tony. The only people he loved that he managed to save were MJ and Ned.
He doesn't think he's saved Frank, as such, it feels to Peter more like Frank might've saved HIM. He knows Frank won't see things that way, not in the least because he caused Peter's current injury.
And yeah, okay, he'd been aiming at the telekinetic girl INSTEAD OF Peter when kid's whole spider sense thing put him directly into the line of fire, but tomayto, tomahto; Frank still pulled the trigger. Felt awful for but still did it. And he's killed - bad fuckin guys, a lotta them, because they were, no denying that. All sortsa people got to seize the vacuum of power he'd left behind everybody who was even slightly responsible for his family's deaths. He could've put them all in body bags if the Red Devil hadn't showed up and pulled him back. Hell he pulled Frank back from ending that piece of scum Fisk when he could have. When he had an honest chance, but Red was dealing with the bullshit Frank had started.
Or finished.
And then Frank broke, Peter didn't know -he hadn't known him then; he only knew anything oblique about Frank since meeting Matt after Mysterio sent his doctored footage to that clickbait podcast guy J. Jonah Jameson and totally upended Peter's and his friends' lives, and even then, what's that saying? The devil's in the details.
But on that occasion he hadn't been.
Frank blurted in bursts about his lone existence being a sentence, not a choice; and it was a blurry series of flashes before Peter woke with pressure on his face, his nose and cheeks and chin, to say Frank's name upon seeing him before asking the guy what happened, only to hear him fumble all over his words trying to say how sorry he is for what he did, for what happened to Peter, because he shot him, and Peter had woken in pain and feeling sore because Frank shot him.
"Frank, what happened?"
"I'm sorry," Frank said, "Let me get this out, kid,"
"Frank, it's okay, you don't have to-"
"No, lemme say this- I shot you. I shot you!"
"Come on, Frank it's all right. You were trying to do the right thing."
""Nah, kid. I've seen bravery before, but that- that was something else."
Peter carefully turned his head "Are you crying?" He asked.
"What? No!" Frank blinked rapidly. Peer started to laugh, legitimately.
"I can't believe I just saw you cry."
"Bull shit, I ain't -" Frank responded. And then he had laughed too, before sobering up. "...you look exactly the way I thought you would. A nice kid" He shifts in his seat, already low voice dropping even quieter. "- I never had a friend like that."
"Oh." The kid's face, the look on it almost broke Frank's heart-or what remains of it. Especially when he asks in that sort of weak and almost desperate way "...Are we friends now?"
The look in Frank's eyes, still glistening from the tears he swore up and down that he hadn't been shedding, was open. Vulnerable. And it was clear he had been crying... it was abundantly clear to Peter that Frank cares, really cares about him. Enough to wear Peter's mask and gloves in order to make all of the people outside the hospital believe that they were seeing Spider-Man. So Peter got to hear the cheers of the neighborhood. He got to be seen, as much as he was able to be. So that he could see, could truly experience how much his doings as Spider Man mean to the citizens of New York City. And for Frank
"How'd it feel?" Peter asks him. "How did it feel to be treated like a hero, Frank?".
"Ahhh," Frenk waves him off the way he did when Peter had told him not to kill Jean. "Whaddya think? These people love you, kid. Not me."
"That isn't my point. You were wearing my mask, Frank. That made you Spider-Man for a minute, I just wondered if wearing it made ya think? I don't know if that makes sense."
"Think about what, kid? What if things were different? They'd hafta be pretty fucking different. Fisk couldn't be in power because'a all the bastards connected to the- well, y'know. And' to what happened to my family." Frank's voice is rough but it wobbles as he drops his chin against his chest for a moment. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly. "Sure," he mutters. "...sure it did." He doesn't move, but suddenly Peter has wrapped both arms around him. May be using a little bit of that spider strength to give Frank Castle a hug, but Frank takes it.
Mostly because he doesn't figure he has a choice. But eventually he puts his arms around Peter as well.
And if he holds on to the kid like he isn't planning on letting go anytime soon, well. That's his business.