Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Consciousness crawled back in short bursts, then all at once. Her head hurt. Her ribs hurt. Her chest hurt. Her legs hurt. Everything hurt.

Eyes peeling open one by one, Parker realized that her face was pressed against the side of the moving train, her palms sticking her to the cool metal. She pulled her face back, but a nauseating dizzy spell had her pressing her forehead against the metal and squeezing her eyes shut.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been stuck to the train, riding it through New York, but she knew she was safe from the guy who had been sicced on her. For now, at least. 

The rumbling of the tracks and screeches of metal sent icy stabs through her brain. She waited it out, clenching her teeth through the pain, until the train came to a halt. 

A groan ripped through her vocal chords as she peeled herself off and fell to her knees in the gravel. She had no idea where she was and had no concept of what time it was. It was dark, and the blinding city lights were swirling together.

Parker pulled herself up and trudged forward, hand on her abdomen just below her ribs and her head hung. Her feet dragged against the concrete.

Definite concussion. 100%. God, she was hit by a train , she was lucky she wasn’t in bloody pieces along the tracks. She was still bloody, but at least she was whole and alive. It hurt to breathe, but she could breathe. It hurt to walk, but she could walk. It hurt to think, but she could think. Right now, she was thinking about a nice warm bath to soak all the blood from her clothes, skin, and hair.

She blinked, and then she was standing in the alley by her apartment, staring straight at the bricks she had to climb to reach her apartment on the fourth floor. Time didn’t make sense. The concussion was taking a toll. Resting a shoulder against the building, she gathered her strength and caught her breath. The hand on her side was wet and warm. The blood had soaked completely through her suit and was like a second glove inside her actual gloves that glued the material to her fingers. Her mask was sticking to her face, too, which was probably from the injury that gave her the concussion that made her mind feel like mush and her vision swim.

With one last shuddering breath that made her ribs ache, Parker started up the bricks. She had to blink away stars every five seconds, but once she narrowed in on her window, she was able to block most of the pain and dizziness out.

She didn’t remember locking the window—it was normally left unlocked in case of emergencies just like this one—but it didn’t pose an obstacle as she was able to push it open regardless. The lock quickly gave way with a click and a crack.

She pulled herself in and rolled over the windowsill onto the floor where she collapsed into a bloody heap. With a grunt, she pushed herself up, yanked the mask off her face, tossed it aside, and started for the bathroom to get that warm bath she had her heart set on.

She caught herself on the wall, then the doorway, then tripped over the edge of the bathtub. The cool tub cradled her. As soon as she tilted her head back against the wall, consciousness floated away again.

_

2 HOURS AGO

There were three things that Parker hid beneath the red Spider-Man mask she donned every time she went out to knock crime on its ass. The first and most important thing was her identity, of course. Not only did it keep people from knowing who Spider-Man was, it kept people from knowing that she was a “she” at all. Given the lack of curves her mother graciously passed down to her—mixed with a healthy amount of malnutrition growing up in a broke drug addict’s care—Parker probably didn’t even need the hoodie she threw over her skin-tight suit to hide the fact that she was indeed of the female variety. 

Without the mask, however, her soft features were a dead giveaway. The media tended to be sexist and gross towards the women vigilantes, so Parker wasn’t keen on correcting the world for their mistake when they dubbed her Spider- Man two summers ago.

The second thing was her expressions. She’s always been easier to read than a picture book. With her face covered, there was no way for the bad guys she faced to see the panic or fear she felt on a daily basis. As far as they knew, she was as cool as a cucumber even when a flamethrower sets her on fire, or when she’s dangling off the torch of the Statue of Liberty with smashed webshooters. 

The third thing was her knock-off airpods that played a constant stream of kickass music. As she dodged a hammer aimed at her face, James Brown’s "Get Up Off of That Thing” pulsed through her ears. 

The hammer shattered the glass of the passenger window of the van he and his goonies were packing full of stolen electronics. 

Fighting was a style of dance. Parker moved to the beat of the funky song, timing everything according to the rhythm of the song and of her dance partners who, unfortunately for them, decided to be criminals in her city of all places. 

Duck, block, punch, kick, flip. Her body was a fuckin’ machine and the music pouring through her ear canals was her fuel. Her top-notch sixth sense that alerted her of threats enabled her to fight deaf and blind if need be. She’d

She caught a fist and sent the goon flying into the dumpster, head bopping. If she could sing without outing herself or losing all her street cred, she would. Alas, she was a serious vigilante—she mustn’t sing to herself mid-fight. 

Once all five men were webbed up in a circle with their backs together, Parker helped bring every laptop and gaming console back into the Best Buy alongside the young workers in their cute little blue polos. She gave a few high-fives and posed with a peace sign as they took turns taking selfies with her. 

After that, she swung off into the evening with the intention to bring the next asshole to justice just as swiftly as the last. High above the streets and out of earshot, Parker let herself sing the lyrics to the next song on her playlist. 

“So here's to the future 'cause we got through the past, I finally found somebody that can make me laugh.” Parker kicked off the side of the Empire State Building and did a backflip before catching another well-aimed web and flinging herself down 5th Avenue. Salt-N-Pepa’s “Whatta Man” was always a vibe. “You so crazy, I think I wanna have your baby.” 

Before she could join in on the chorus, a tingle at the base of her neck accompanied by her muscles moving on their own accord had her swinging east until she was standing at the edge of a roof overlooking the East River. Her eyes narrowed-in on a pier where two guys in dark jackets and hats were talking in front of a large metal cargo container. Parker poked her airpod with a gloved finger over her masked ear to pause the tunes so she could eavesdrop and find out why she was drawn to the sketchy pair.

“—the deal, no one has to know.”

“Get the fuck over it, Michael. We’re doing this the boss’s way, and he said no one touches ‘em.”

“I’m gettin’ real tired of you actin’ like you can boss me around. In case you forgot, I don’t answer to you.”

“In case you forgot, the guy you do answer to will chop both our balls off if he finds out either of us messed with ‘em. I’m not taking the fall for your stupid ass.”

One of the guys, Not-Michael, turned and strode towards a parked Jeep. Before he could get far, Michael grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. The dim streetlights glinted against his sick grin glinted in the darkening night. 

“Come on, man. Don’t you want to have a little fun? Play with the girls?”

Parker’s stomach dropped. Human trafficking? Fuck these guys.

Not-Michael shoved him off. “Did you just assign guns a gender?”

Oh. Arms trafficking. Still bad, but not as bad as finding a container full of scared underaged girls. No problemo , she thought as she stealthily made her way down to the pier.

Not-Michael reached the Jeep. Parker shot a web at his hand just as it made contact with the handle.

“What the—?”

She slammed his head against the door, effectively knocking him out. One down, one to go. 

She felt the gun being aimed at her back before she heard it. The bullet dug into the side of the Jeep as she leapt to the right and landed in a somersault into a crouch where she pelted a random loose rock at Michael’s hand. The gun clattered to the ground. She shot a web that attached him to the side of the container. 

“What the hell is this stuff?!” Michael tried—but failed, obviously—to pull against the ingenious webbing Parker concocted and perfected over the past couple years. 

Parker ducked before she realized what she was ducking from, but she was glad she did because a millisecond later a bullet cut through the air where she once was. She turned. Five more guys, all armed, came running from all directions.

Where the hell were they hiding!? 

Parker tapped her airpod and the chorus of “Whatta Man” started back up. Come at me, bitches .

More bullets, more knives, more fists. It was the same old, same old, only the amount of assailants was a bit of a challenge. As soon as she turned to incapacitate one guy, two more were right there, ready to strike. Her attention was split like a pie. 

A blade slit the suit on her side a few inches below her armpit. With a hiss, Parker spun, punched the guy’s lights out, and stumbled to the right when a loose fist got her right in the ear. “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls cut out in that airpod.

Grunting, Parker double-tapped her webshooters on each wrist with two fingers and shot out web grenades: another ingenious design by yours truly. Four guys incapacitated at once, one still armed. Parker swiped the gun from his hand and turned, pointing it at the man who was about to attack her from behind. He froze and lifted his hands in surrender. 

Just kidding . Parker yeeted the gun over the pier into the river and gave the guy a nice roundhouse kick to get him to the ground where she proceeded to web him down. 

Parker had a pretty strict no-killing rule. Shooting people point-blank was included in that. Obviously. 

With everyone webbed up or out cold, Parker leaned her hip against the railing at the end of the pier and caught her breath. She slipped a finger under the hem of the mask and dug around for the broken airpod. 

Yep, it’s fried. She tucked it into her sweatshirt pocket to fix later that night.

Tapping into her hyper-hearing, Parker picked up the sound of fast footsteps. Someone was running away. 

Parker tapped 9-1-1 in morse code against the airpod and listened to the ring as she jogged to catch up with the runner. With her hearing, she was able to tell how far she was from him and about where he was, so she didn’t worry too much about catching up. Besides, she had a suspicion that he was running back to their home base where the big boss could be hiding out. 

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“South pier of the East River off 5th Avenue,” Parker said, taking on a low, gravelly voice with a hint of a Southern accent. “There’s a large cargo container of illegal weapons. Bring enough handcuffs for about two dozen guys.”

She abruptly ended the call with a tap. Police would be there to handle the guns and bad guys; Parker wanted to see where this runner was taking her. 

She scaled a few buildings and hid behind billboards to keep out of sight in case the guy threw a paranoid look over his shoulder as he sprinted through the streets. Parker had to hand it to him—he had some serious stamina for a non-enhanced fella. He must’ve run track back in high school. 

After a few minutes, Parker’s webs ran out and she had to rely on running and jumping from building to building. It wasn’t all that surprising; she’d been out all day, and those web grenades used more webs than they needed to. It was a kink she still needed to smooth out.

Finally, after another ten or so minutes and the guy was starting to show some signs of wearing himself out, he slowed to a stop at an old pawn shop. Parker silently landed on the roof of the neighboring building and looked down from her perch. A bigger guy than the runner with a badass mustache was hanging around the back door. His arms were crossed, and his bald head reflected the dim light of the streetlamp on the corner. 

Security? Lookout? Parker wasn’t sure, but he must be protecting something or someone. He let the runner inside after a silent glare, then returned to his wide, stoic stance. 

Parker tossed a piece of gravel down the alley. With his head turned, she leapt across the gap between the buildings and gracefully landed on the pawn shop’s roof, silently rolling to her feet in a crouch. Closer, she could hear two heartbeats within the building, both steady. There wasn’t much talking, just shuffling, something metallic clanging against more metal. 

After a few more minutes of just listening to nothing, a phone rang. 

Parker closed her eyes and imagined the scene taking place below her: A man looked at the caller ID, said, “Lincoln” in a low, gravelly voice. Parker waited for them to answer the phone and speak so she could listen in on their conversation and gain some intel. They let it go to voicemail. Why couldn’t they just let this be easy?

A gun cocked. Her eyes snapped open. Crawling to the lip of the roof, she peered down and watched a man come out of the door the bald guy was surveilling. This man was thinner and taller than the runner, and his hair was slicked back in a dark, sleek style that matched his sharp suit and tinted sunglasses.

Carefully, Parker fished her phone from her pocket and made sure the flash and the sound were off. She let the man take a few steps down the alley so she could get a better angle. Then, she snapped a quick picture. She ducked behind the edge and looked at it. You could barely see his face past the shadows and sunglasses.

With a steadying breath, she grabbed a piece of gravel from the roof, tossed it down the road, then jumped to the other building once more. When she spared a quick glance on the other building, the security guy and the man with the gun were both looking to where the gravel had landed. Parker took the chance and snapped another photo, this one getting a better angle of both of their faces. 

When she lowered the phone, a chill shot down her spine. The new guy paused, then looked up. Directly where Parker would have been, had she not ducked under the brick barrier. 

There was no way he saw her—no possible way—but the man spoke in a low tone, “Find him.”

The security man started for the ladder to the fire escape. Parker jetted off, sprinting and leaping onto the next building with her heart in her throat. 

“How the hell did you see me?” she muttered under her breath, throwing a glance over her shoulder. The security man was on the other roof now. He unholstered a handgun from under his shirt. 

An alarm rang in her ears, and she lunged to the right. A silenced bullet sailed past her ear. Stumbling but keeping on her feet, Parker cursed under her breath and leapt onto a shorter building and then onto the ground, landing in a roll that kept her momentum to keep running. More bullets from a silenced gun cut past her from above. She heard each quiet gunshot, each time the metal bullet hit the sidewalk. Normally it wasn’t a huge issue that she had run out of web fluid because she was faster and more agile than the average criminal, but this guy was relentless. Skilled. Professional. She was just an eighteen-year-old girl parading in glorified pajamas after being bitten by a weird spider. 

The sound of screeching metal-on-metal and rumbling in the near distance alerted Parker. A train . She took a sharp left and scaled the bridge to reach the tracks. It left her exposed, and she could hear the man nearby, but the train was right there.

She stood at the side of the rails and waited, ducking from a bullet, and as soon as the train got close enough for her to reach out and stick to, it blared its horn. Her mind scrambled at the sheer volume. 

A sharp tear in her side threw her in front of the train. A flash of white-hot pain. Then, nothing. 

_

PRESENT

The first thing Parker registered was the pain in her side. It was hot, itchy, and deep. The second thing was the smell of canned ravioli. The third, a heartbeat, only a foot or two away.

It took a moment for everything to come back to her: the pier, the guys with guns, the train, the bathtub. It didn’t explain why she felt like she was on a couch—something she didn’t own—or why there was someone else in the room.

“I know you’re awake, kid.”

Parker steeled herself and opened her eyes. Her neighbor—a forty-something-year-old man she only caught glimpses of when he slipped in and out of his apartment at odd hours—stared back at her. She looked between him, the can of Chef Boyardee in his left hand, the fork in his right hand, her mask on the ground, the bloody trail she left to the bathroom, the open window, the dimly lit apartment that definitely wasn’t hers, and back to him.

“Hey.” Her tongue was dry.

He set the fork inside the can and placed it on the table beside him. Setting his elbows on his knees, he locked eyes with Parker and didn’t let them go. There was something hard in his gaze—something scary and cold—that concealed something gentler. “You had a bullet in your side.”

“That’s a common symptom of getting shot.” Parker sat up on her elbows and looked down at herself, noting that her hoodie was gone, leaving her in the black compression long-sleeve. She pulled it up and winced at the bandages over the bullet wound beneath her ribs. He must’ve taken it out. Hence, had a bullet in your side, not have . Parker pulled her shirt back down, noted the bloody bullet and bloodied tweezers on a napkin on the table, and returned her gaze to her neighbor. Sized him up. “Are you a doctor or something?”

He was still staring at her. Well, less staring, more observing. Probably wondering to himself how the hell this girl was Spider-Man and why she was bleeding in his bathtub. “Marine.”

Figures. Parker pushed herself upright, but a pain in her ribs on the other side of her torso stopped her short. She sucked in a sharp breath and lay back, face screwed up.

He frowned and nodded towards her. “What’s wrong with your ribs?”

Parker shook her head. “I’m good, they’re just sore.” She pressed her hand over them, feeling for any fractures, but she wasn’t a doctor or a marine, so it was just pain without any insights to what was wrong.

“Let me take a look,” he said, sitting forward.

Parker shook her head again. “I’m fine.” As nice as this guy was for digging a bullet out of her and not immediately calling the cops when he saw the blood and mask on his floor, there was a line. Having him feel her up crossed it.

He stood. Parker pressed herself against the couch. “I’m fine .”

“You’re not.”

He reached for her. Parker jerked back. “Don’t even think about touching me.”

Their eyes met. She raised her chin. His eyes narrowed, but after a few tense moments of silence, he sat back down. “Have it your way.”

“Yeah, I will.” She eased herself up to a sitting position. Her lips were chapped. Smeared blood stuck her baby hairs to her forehead.

The man leaned back. “So. Spider-Man.” Parker’s eyes flickered to him. He looked unimpressed. “You’re a little girl.”

“Surprise,” Parker said. She tried to stand. As soon as she put weight on her legs, her head spun, and her ribs and bullet wound screamed.

“Take it easy.” The man’s hands were on her arms, steadying her as she sat again. “Who did this to you, anyway?”

“I’m fine.”

 “That’s not what I asked.”

“Does it matter? I’m fine ,” Parker emphasized. He was still close. Too close. Their apartments shared a wall, but that was about as much as she knew about this guy; for all she knew, he could’ve been a serial killer. “I need to—what time is it? I need to go home.”

She went to stand again, and this time she was able to stay upright. The man stood, too, and stepped in front of the door. Parker itched for the mask. Without it, she was sure he could see the panic in her eyes that she tried to hide with indignation.

His brow furrowed. “How old are you?”

“You sure have a lot of questions, don’t you?” Parker’s head was still spinning. She stuck a hand out and grasped onto the wall for balance.

The action didn’t go unnoticed by the man, but he didn’t mention it. “You were the one who broke into my place. I think that warrants my questioning.”

Parker didn’t reply. Partially because she didn’t have a good response to that, and partially because she felt like she was going to faceplant into the ground at any second.

“Your folks know?”

Parker gave him a searching look. Then, she said, “No, of course not. I’m an adult—they don’t need to know.”

His eyebrows raised and he crossed his arms. “Don’t need to know,” he echoed.

“That’s right.”

“Right.” He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, then sighed. “Take a seat, kid, before you pass out.”

“I’m—”

“Fine. Yeah, I know. Just do it.”

Parker wanted to challenge him, but the weight of her body standing was getting too much to bear for her middle and her head. She lowered. Hid a wince. Poorly, evidentially, because he was watching her with the same cold-yet-gentle expression from before.

“My name’s Parker,” she said. “You don’t need to call me ‘kid.’ ”

He remained standing but nodded. “Frank.”

He looked like a Frank. Which didn’t strike her as particularly significant at first, but the longer she looked at him with the name stewing in her mind, it started to all piece together.

What are the fucking odds.

“Frank Castle,” she said. “The Punisher.”

He looked away and rubbed his hands together. 

They were both vigilantes, technically criminals in the eyes of the law, except her vigilantism didn’t involve murdering people. He was a literal serial killer, for fucks sake. And he was supposed to be dead. The panic that was rising in Parker’s chest was replaced by confusion and shock. 

“I thought you died?”

“Only legally. I go by Pete now.”

“Huh.” She tilted her head. “Okay.” What a fucking night. First she got shot, then she got hit by a train, and then none other than Frank Castle fixed her up. Knowing that her neighbor was a murderer should’ve scared her more than it did.

Frank took a few steps into the kitchen. Parker watched him take a glass from a cabinet and fill it with sink water. He wordlessly handed it to her. She took it and offered a thin-lipped smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said after she took a few gulps. “Who did this to you?”

Parker sighed. She, like most, knew the basics of Frank Castle’s past: a marine-turned-killer who took down a whole floor of prisoners while incarcerated for, you know, murder. He was most likely trained in interrogation tactics. Avoiding his questions would just waste time.

“I don’t know.”

“Would you just cut the bullshit and tell me—”

“I honestly don’t know who the guy who shot me was,” Parker insisted. She had his picture, but she wouldn’t be sharing that information with the class. “I followed a suspicious guy, and the boss guy saw me somehow, so he sicced his henchman on me.”

“He beat your face bloody?”

Parker took another drink of the water. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she said, “No, he just shot me.”

“So what caused all this?” Frank motioned to his own face. Parker wasn’t sure what her face looked like, but she had a good guess. Her left temple felt raw, and there was a faint stinging on her left cheek. Although her nose was healed from having her septum piercing ripped out the other day—long story—it felt torn again, so it was probably bleeding at one point. Frank added, “And your injured ribs?”

“Got hit by a train.”

He laughed humorlessly.

Parker rolled her eyes. “Why do you want to know, anyways?”

He squinted and cocked his head to the side. He looked at the open window. The blood on the wall and floor. “If I had come home to this scene and there was a man in my bathroom, I would’ve pulled him out, tied him up, questioned him, and kicked him out to fix himself because his shit is none of my business.” 

Frank turned back to Parker. The moonlight from the window cast sharp shadows over his rugged face.

“But, instead, I came home to a teenage girl in my bathroom, and she’s covered in blood, looks like she got beat on real bad, and she has a bullet in her. So, I carried her to my couch, took out the bullet, made sure she ain’t gonna bleed out, and patiently waited ‘til she was awake to know why the hell a baby girl has been fighting thugs at night while her poor parents are sleeping safe and sound.”

Parker pursed her lips. “So you’re a misogynist.”

“Christ.” He ran a hand through his short dark hair. “I’m old fashioned, alright? Point is, now that I know, I can’t ignore it.”

“ It , meaning me?” Parker clarified.

He nodded once. “Meaning you, a little girl taking on New York’s low-lives and sneaking home with bullets in her gut.”

“Would you stop calling me a little girl?” Parker snapped. “I’m eighteen.”

Something in Frank’s eyes shifted. He looked away and cracked his knuckles in his palm.

Parker sighed. She set the water glass on the table and threaded her fingers together. There was something intense about Frank—other than the figurative blood on his hands and Parker’s literal blood on his hands—that felt dangerous, but not threatening. Like he was a loaded gun, but it was aimed somewhere else, not at her, and there was constantly a finger on the trigger. Ready. Waiting for a target.

“Tell me, kid,” he said. “Your folks love you?”

Parker rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. He was obviously going for the good 'ole "your poor parents, what would they think if they found out?" tactic. When Aunt May was alive, she didn’t necessarily not love her, but she also never explicitly told her that she did. May died when Parker was eleven. She died doing the only thing Parker was sure that she loved: drugs. Ben was probably a close second, then maybe Parker ranked somewhere after that. Her parents weren’t ever in the picture.

She hesitated too long. Frank noticed. She cleared her throat and decided to forgo the lying and verbal gymnastics. “I don’t have anyone.” 

He pursed his lips. He wasn’t expecting that, apparently. What can I say , Parker thought, running her tongue over her top teeth, I’m just full of surprises.

“The game you’re playing is dangerous,” Frank eventually said. Parker stared up at the ceiling and thought about where her airpods were. And where was her sweatshirt? “It don’t end in retirement with a 401k, it ends with an early grave.”

“I’m not gonna die.” Was he seriously giving her a lecture? She needed her shit so she could go home and sleep off this concussion.

Frank raised a brow. “You came pretty close to dying tonight, before I stepped in.”

Parker raised her brow, too. “I’ve slept off bullet wounds before, I would’ve been fine.”

Frank shook his head and crossed his arms. “You keep saying fine. You’re fine, it’s fine. What does fine mean to you?”

Parker looked him in the eye. “Alive.”

“What was your plan, exactly?” Frank scratched the stubble on his jaw. “If you hadn’t broken into my place?”

What was this, twenty-one questions? Although he didn’t seem to be a threat to her well-being, she was wary of giving him too much of the attitude she got backhanded for while in the foster system. Not that she thought Frank would backhand her, just that he was a serial killer and all.

“Like I said, I’ve slept off bullet wounds before. And before you give me that look, just listen, okay? I can take care of myself, have been for a while.” Frank frowned. Before he could get a word in, Parker continued, “Plus, I’ve got a…an enhanced healing…thing. I heal fast. This bullet wound—” She gestured to her side. “—will be halfway to healed by tomorrow. I usually just sleep while I let my healing do its thang and stitch me back up itself.”

Frank didn’t seem sold. “Do you live alone?” Parker gave him a what’s-it-to-you look. He sat on the other end of the couch and leaned his elbows on his knees. 

Parker rubbed the headache from her forehead. It was getting late. “Look, man, I really don’t have time for this interrogation.”

“Interrogation?” He laughed breathlessly. “This ain’t an interrogation, sweetheart.”

“Then can I please just go to bed?”

He leveled his gaze with hers. “How do you know that guy that shot you won’t be back to finish the job?”

“Because I have a secret identity,” Parker cockily replied. “And he thinks I’m dead.”

“Because he shot you? People survive bullets every day.”

“Because he watched me get hit by a train after he shot me.”

Frank didn’t blink. After a moment of searching her face, he sunk back against the couch and ran a hand down his tired face. “You got hit by a train.”

“I told you that already.”

“Are you made of rubber or some shit?” Frank asked incredulously.

“Okay, this was nice, but I’m leaving.” Parker stood, only slightly weakened and woozy. After a peanut butter sandwich, she’d wake up hunky-dory tomorrow. Frank moved to stand in front of the door again, but Parker wasn’t headed that way. She scooped up her mask and made a bee-line to the window. 

Frank grabbed her arm. She elbowed him in the face, catching him by surprise and earning a grunt. He went for her again, but she twisted and jumped to the ceiling. Although he was clearly shocked, it was overshadowed by the glare. 

“I’m grabbing my shit and leaving,” she said, eyes narrowed, challenging Frank to protest. His jaw clicked but he said nothing. His nose where her elbow caught him was sluggishly bleeding. Wary eyes lingering on the man that looked shorter upside down, Parker crawled to where her hoodie was, snatched that up, pulled her mask over her head, and crawled out the window to access her own. 

Once she was in her apartment—for real, this time—Parker tore the mask off again and collapsed on her bed. She needed to take stock of her injuries, but checking her tech felt more pressing. Pushing past the discomfort and her body’s desire to just sit still, Parker sat on her mattress with her back against the wall as she dug her shattered phone and airpods out of the hoodie pocket. 

The broken phone was whatever—the SD card was fine, and that's what she really needed. She could go without a phone for a while; once the pictures are uploaded to her junky little laptop, she’ll be able to figure out who those bastards at the pawn shop were. Thankfully one of the airpods still seemed intact. The other one was also a whatever situation—she could fix that by Friday. 

Stiffly and with one hand over her bullet wound, Parker teetered over to her desk and deposited the devices. It was a multi-purpose desk used for anything: eating, coding, fixing her tech, stitching herself up, patching holes in the suit. Speaking of which, she had a lot to mend. Parker looked down at herself and could count at least four spots that needed some TLC.

Tomorrow , Parker promised herself. She’d deal with all that tomorrow. For now, all she had to do was get some calories in her and then get some well-deserved sleep.

Chapter Text

As far as origin stories went, Parker had a pretty decent one, she’d say. It was small potatoes compared to Deadpool’s, who was raised by a violent, handsy drunkard of an uncle after his folks died and then joined the United States Army to flee his rough home life only to be kicked out. Wade got double-whammied by a late stage cancer diagnosis and a murdered girlfriend. The cancer diagnosis was what led him to volunteer for the Weapon X program that gave him his sick regenerative abilities, which helped him rake in more money from the mercenary gig.

And then there was Daredevil, whose story Parker only knew the bare bones of: dead parents (go figure), rough upbringing, some sort of disability, and, according to Deadpool, crippling Catholic guilt.

Even all the Avengers who lived in harmony singing kumbaya in their ivory tower had some dramatic backstories: grew up in the KGB, raised by a cutthroat circus, treated as a science experiment, abusive superiors. Almost every single one was an orphan. Parker was in good company, then.

All these backgrounds were publicly available on wikipedia other than Deadpool’s and Daredevil’s, though Wade was enthusiastic to supply some insider information. She wasn’t close with anyone, she only occasionally came across a vigilante while on patrol, and they all seemed pretty chill. Even Deadpool, who was originally trying to kill her before he realized she was on the younger side. 

“I can’t kill a baby ,” he had gasped, throwing the katana aside. Parker wasn’t even sure exactly how he came to that conclusion since she had a strict no-talking rule (it was right up there with the no-killing rule), but somehow he knew.

Spider-Man’s origin story didn’t stick out amongst the mountain of abuse and the countless dead friends and family the whole group of superhero-slash-vigilantes had compiled. But when she read the others’ stories online along with the public’s loud opinions, she wondered if they’d paint her as a monster or as a victim. Neither was appealing. 

It was for the best that no one knew so there was nothing to judge her by. All anyone knew was that Spider-Man was friendly to children, patient with the elderly, and didn’t tolerate violence. Of the vigilantes, Spider-Man was the one who pulled punches and doodled on sticky notes left for the police. He was the hero who would help you track down your lost cat, walk you home at night, sit next to you and lend an ear when you’re standing at the edge of a tall building, or beat up your abusive boyfriend. They didn’t know what his voice sounded like, how old he was, what his face looked like, what his name was, or how he got his powers. 

Parker was keen to keep it that way. 

_

Equipped with a name and an address, Spider-Man swung confidently towards a bar in East Harlem that was no doubt a front for whatever sketchy business was going on. Thanks to the facial recognition tech she swiped from Tony Stark when she was a junior intern at Stark Industries—long story—Parker knew the name of one of the baddies she was able to snap a picture of: Domenico Carbone. He was the buff security guy, the one who shot her. He was apparently also employed by this dive bar after serving time for a drive-by shooting. If they were willing to employ murderers, who knew what kind of person ran the joint.

The other guy’s picture didn’t turn up any names in the system. With everything she got on Domenico, Parker wasn’t too hung up on it.

It was a brisk rainy evening. Parker watched the alley door from beneath a sixth-floor balcony to stay out of the rain. It might’ve been early October, but shivers racked through her body where she perched behind a trellis with dead vines and shriveled leaves. 

Hopefully this doesn’t take all night , she thought, already dreading the idea of staying out late in a wet suit. 

Bar patrons entered and exited. The darker it got, the more foot traffic the bar had. Parker kept her eyes set on the door to the alley. 

Finally, about an hour into her stake out, the door opened and out walked a guy with a large trash bag that concealed his face. Parker straightened. He tossed it into the dumpster, then turned his back to Parker as he lit a cigarette. Once lit, he capped the lighter, shoved it into his pocket, took a drag of the cigarette, and turned to breathe out the cloud.

Parker’s shoulders sagged. Not Domenico. 

Lights drew her attention to the street. A large white van pulled into the alley. The trash guy waved at whoever was driving. 

Okay, here we go. Parker shook out the pins and needles in her feet as she watched the van park and the guy flick his cigarette to the ground as he walked over. The driver stepped out. Parker read the license plate and repeated it enough to have it ingrained in her memory.

“Weather’s shit,” one of them muttered in greeting.

“You could say that again.”

They rounded the van and unlatched the back. Once open, they made quick work to grab the duffel bags and haul them through the alley door. 

More illegal weapons? Parker tilted her head. She didn’t hear any clanking, or any other hard sounds that would indicate the bags containing guns. But they didn’t seem light, either. Drugs, maybe? 

When the pair came back to get the last of the bags, the driver zipped one open, reached a hand in, and tossed a wad of cash at the other who barely caught it.

“A little off the top.” The driver gave a wink.

“No.” The other guy tossed it back. “You know what he’ll do when he notices he’s short?”

“He’ll go after Rick, not you.”

Rick , Parker echoed in her mind. Rick, Rick, Rick. 

“I’m not getting shot over a few hundred dollars. I’ve got kids, man.”

“Hey, fair enough.” The driver tucked the wad into his jacket pocket. “Snitch and you’re dead, yeah?”

“Whatever, man. Let’s just get the rest of this inside.”

Parker buried her hands in her pockets as her teeth chattered. The wind was picking up. As much as she’d like to call it a productive night and crawl into her warm bed, she wasn’t done yet. If she could follow the van back to where it came from, then maybe she’d find the big boss? Or maybe she’d find the scary guy from the other night, or even this mysterious “Lincoln” guy.

So, when the driver climbed back into the van and back into the street, Parker steeled herself before entering the rain once again. With the low traffic, Parker had to rely on her webs to keep up. It was a good thing she packed extra cartridges this time; she really didn’t feel like catching another train to make a quick getaway.

The commute’s songs were from the 1984 Footloose movie. By the time the van slowed and entered a deserted parking garage in Harlem, Parker made it through “Holding Out for a Hero,” “Let’s Hear it for the Boy,” and halfway through “Almost Paradise.” 

The parking garage was a welcomed reprieve from the cold rain. Parker landed a few levels above where there were lights. Headlights, she assumed. It was one of those parking garages that had a space in the middle where you could see all the way down to the first floor. Parker found a nice spot by that edge where she could peer down and see a woman with a black bob two levels below. The woman was accompanied by someone else, though Parker couldn’t see them from where she stood; she could only hear their heartbeats. Likewise, she picked up on a few more heartbeats nearby, but she figured those were just civilians.

The white van screeched to a halt. A door slam. The driver walked into view. His forehead looked massive from her vantage point.

“Just delivered to the Carbones. Where you sending me next, Doc?”

The woman crossed her arms. A tingle of danger shot down Parker’s spine, but she stayed put, unsure of the threat. 

“I just got off the phone with Dom.”

Domenico? 

The driver set his hands on his hips. “Yeah? What’s up? Don’t tell me I gotta drive all the way back, I’ve been all over this damn city.”

“He said he’s short.”

The driver made a noise in the back of his throat. “That’s weird.” He stroked his beard. “Rick’s known for his sticky fingers. Once a thief, always a thief, I guess.”

The woman hummed. “Empty your pockets.”

“What? I didn’t take nothing.”

The woman didn’t ask again. She nodded to the guy out of Parker’s view, and he strode forward with a sense of strength and power that would’ve shivered Parker’s timbers. He aggressively frisked the driver, almost immediately finding the wad of cash he had tucked in there fifteen minutes ago. 

What kind of idiot—

The man pulled a gun from his coat. A web got him right at the wrist just as he was pulling the trigger. Parker hadn’t even realized she’d intervened until the bullet struck the driver’s thigh instead of his skull and he crumpled to the ground screaming. 

The man, whose hand was now stuck to the gun, whirled around and located Parker two floors up. He aimed. Parker ducked as a gun went off. A body hit the ground with a thud. 

In a jerky movement, Parker looked over the edge. He was lying on the ground. Blood pooled around his head. 

The woman with the bob pulled her own firearm and unloaded the chamber to the right, out of Parker’s line of sight. A bullet caught her in the shoulder. She went down, but her gun didn’t. She kept firing as if she was never hit. Every bullet pinged as they hit metal.

An engine revved, then tires wailed. A sleek black car—filled with at least five people, if Parker was getting an accurate reading—raced up the ramp to get to the higher levels. To get to where Parker was.

The metal door to the staircase banged open. Parker shot a web and stuck the bad guy’s hand to the wall and went to dip, but the guy shouted, “HEY!”

And, shit . That was Frank Castle. His nose was still bruised from when she had elbowed him.

What the hell are you doing! was what she wanted to say, but under her no-talking rule while masked, all she could do was wave her hands around like she was insane as she sprinted to him.

Frank glanced down the stairway as he tugged at the webs holding him in place. Fast and heavy footsteps ascending the stairs were thunderous. Four, eight, twelve—Parker couldn’t count. Too many. 

Parker gave the webshooter on her left wrist four quick taps, the last heavier than the rest. She sprayed the webs with the clear mixture. Before her eyes, the webs dissolved. They didn’t have time to wait for it to finish, so Parker grabbed Frank’s hand and yanked it. Hard.

“God damn,” he muttered, stumbling. He rubbed his now free hand. 

The armed guys were almost at their level. The car speeding towards them doused them with its bright LED headlights. 

Frank grabbed a pistol from his utility belt and cocked it. He fired a shot at the windshield of the car racing towards them. The car didn’t slow.

Parker grabbed the collar of Frank’s shirt. If she were a regular teenager, her grip wouldn’t have done anything. As a super-powered teenager, she dragged him along as if he were a ragdoll as she ran towards the elevator. And probably choked him a little, too. 

His glare was sharp when he turned. Before he could complain, Parker ripped the elevator’s doors apart as if they were merely curtains and nodded for Frank to get in.

“You go,” he said. His face was stony. “I’m finishing the job.”

Not on my watch . Parker took his shoulder and threw him down the elevator shaft milliseconds before a bullet soared towards him. She sensed the next bullet, but she was too focused on catching Frank with a web so he didn’t shatter his spine to fully dodge it. 

She gasped in pain as the bullet grazed her bicep but held onto the web tight until Frank safely reached the bottom. Once she heard his boots hit the ground, she jumped up, kicked off the ceiling, and propelled herself to land on the roof of the car. She punched through the roof and grabbed the gun of the man who was above to shoot through the ceiling and crushed it in her fist.

A car door opened. She kicked the guy who got out, then slammed the door and webbed it and the others shut.

The windshield shattered. Parker hopped off the car and dove down the elevator shaft.

As soon as she landed Frank was pulling her up and pushing her towards the door, which she also pried open. 

“Run,” he barked. 

She tapped her thumb with her index finger together with her middle finger to say “no” in sign language, but all that got in response was a confused frown. 

The guys with guns made it to the open shaft and opened fire. Frank pointed his gun up at them, but Parker tackled him through the open doors before he could pull the trigger. 

They wrestled for Frank’s gun. He landed a knee to her gut, but she landed an even harder knee to his crotch that elicited a groan. His grip loosened. Parker grabbed it, smashed it, and flung it aside. 

Screw the masked no-talking rule, no one was around. “No more killing, Frank.” She was on top of him, their faces inches apart. She let him shove her off.

He pushed himself to his feet. “How else are we supposed to get out of this?” 

“We run.”

“I don’t run away from fights.”

Parker sighed. She figured he’d say that. “Okay, fine—do whatever you gotta do, but I’m getting out of here.”

“Good.”

Parker turned, and Frank did too, pulling another gun from his belt. With his back to her, Parker was able to snatch the gun from him with ease.

“What the—”

She knocked him out with a single punch.  

“Sorry,” she whispered, catching him before he could hit the ground. The armed assailants were getting closer. A bullet hit the asphalt beside her.

She made quick work of throwing him over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. It must’ve looked odd: a slender 5’5” figure in tights holding a grown man over her shoulders as if he were merely a pillow. 

Tires squealed. Bullets rained. Sirens in the distance wailed. Parker glanced over her shoulder. The pursuers were dropping down the elevator shaft.

Okay, time to go.

She was able to run just fine, but with Frank starting to stir awake and the car exiting the garage, there was only one good option: hide. 

Her eyes locked onto a green dumpster tucked away in an alley. It was the last place she wanted to hide, but it’d have to do.

“Hey,” Frank slurred. His eyes blinked heavily. “Hey, what…?”

She took a sharp turn into the alley and ran up to the dumpster, throwing open its lid. “Sorry.” She—gently—tossed Frank in. Trash bags caught his body. 

After jumping in after him, Parker closed the lid above them with a web, plunging them in pitch black nothingness.

The stench hit Parker like a bus. It was rotten, rancid, sour. Milk left in a hot car. Cat vomit in dirty gym socks. Burnt plastic and sewage. It was the kind of smell that clung to you—a cloud of death and decay. It was probably foul even without the enhanced senses. With all her senses dialled to eleven, she could taste the smell.

“I’m going to puke.” 

“Hold your breath,” Frank muttered gruffly.

From the way his eyes were unfocused and constantly shifting in her general direction, she could tell he had zero vision in the darkness. That, or her punch gave him brain damage.

“What are you even doing here?”

Frank squeezed his eyes shut and pressed two fingers below his left eye socket, feeling around the bruising tissue. “You’ve got a hell of a right hook.”

“Did you follow me?” The Punisher didn’t just take punches; Parker watched him, expecting him to retaliate. To pull a gun on her. To get revenge.

“I needed to make sure you weren’t doing anything stupid.”

“You needed to, huh?” Parker pinched her nose and willed the bile rising in the back of her throat to disappear. Was he seriously just going to take getting scolded by the person who just knocked his lights out? “Just like how you needed to kill those people?”

“Hey,” he gritted out, pushing himself to sit up. “I saved your ass.”

She shook her head. Listened as the car drove past. “If saving my ass involves ending the life of someone else, then just let me die.” 

“Don’t be sayin’ that shit,” he spat.

Parker rolled her eyes. “Whatever, dude. You don’t even know me.” Before he could retort, she flipped the lid open. Parker reveled in the fresh air and didn’t hesitate to climb out. Frank, on the other hand, blinked at the light and warily scanned the alley when he hauled himself to his feet.

He didn’t come after her. Why wasn’t he attacking?

Checking her webshooters to make sure she’s doing good on webs, Parker said, “Coast is clear, Rambo.”

Frank hefted himself out and landed on heavy feet. The rain plastered his dark hair to his forehead. “Are you even old enough to understand that reference?”

Instead of answering, Parker tapped 9-1-1 into her airpod and turned. “Fourth level of the parking garage on 123rd and Park. Gonna need a bus—shots fired, at least three hit.”

“The hell are you doing?”

Parker ended the call and turned back to Frank, who was giving her a critical look. “Reporting the incident to the police.”

“What’s the point?”

Seriously? Parker crossed her arms and hugged herself for warmth. “There’s at least one person in that garage bleeding out as we speak. No one else needs to die tonight.” No one needed to die at all, but that was a little too late.

Frank shook his head like he disapproved, but Parker didn’t particularly care about his opinion. In fact, if he disapproved of something she was doing, then she was probably doing the right thing. 

His eyes flickered from her masked face to her bicep where she was grazed. “When’d you get hit?”

“Fuck you, man,” Parker snapped, and Frank looked genuinely taken aback by the outburst. “Do you not care that you just killed somebody five minutes ago?” 

He sniffed. “City’s better off without him.”

“How can you say that?” Parker took a step closer to the murderer and shoved him hard against the brick wall. Why wasn’t he attacking her? “You don’t even know him. He could’ve had kids, a wife, dreams. Maybe tomorrow he would’ve woken up and decided to turn his life around, but now he can’t all because you—”

Frank shoved her back. Not as hard as she shoved him, but enough to get her to back off. “That son of a bitch I shot was Victor Graves.”

Parker paused.

“Last time I saw him, we were both in orange jumpsuits. You know how he landed there? He cut the head off of a guy who owed the Russians money. That’s the kind of man I put down.”

The Russians. Like, the Russian mob? “But he—he’s not still working for them, right? Because he just delivered a bunch of cash to the Carbones, and that sounds Italian, not Russian.” The gears in Parker’s mind spun. “Carbones—like Domenico Carbone, the guy who was guarding the pawn shop and who shot me the other day.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. His brain seemed to lag as he tried to catch up. “I thought you didn’t know who shot you?”

“I ran his picture through Tony Stark's facial recognition system and got the name earlier today. I was trying to track him down to get some more information on the weapons trafficking.” She was talking fast—a result of being really freaking cold and trying to piece together the jumbled mess of information she knew. “If he was working for the Russians, then maybe he’s working as a liaison between them and the Italians? Do different mobs usually team up?”

Frank’s face was set in a deep frown. He glanced at the mouth of the alley, then back at Parker and the way she was shivering in the cold rain. 

“We’re going back to my place. I’m going to get an ice pack on this,” he said, gesturing to his face, “and you’re going to tell me everything you know.”

_

Parker sat on the ground next to the baseboard radiator as Frank grabbed an ice pack and beer bottle from the fridge. He popped the cap off with his teeth and spit it into the trash.

“Let me see your arm. And none of that deflecting shit, please.”

She watched him shut the fridge with his foot and walk past her to sit at the edge of the chair. The ring around his eye was dark and slightly swollen—she almost felt bad, but then she remembered oh, yeah, he’s a mass murderer . 

He did say please, though. That was a start. 

She had made a quick pit stop at her own apartment to exchange her wet, freezing suit for the sweatpants and sweater that now hung loosely over her frame. It was easier to wrangle her one arm out of the sleeve and half-way take it off than to try to bunch it up.

Frank set the beer and the ice pack on the coffee table and leaned in to get a better look at the graze. “Son of a bitch.” 

Parker glanced at the graze. It looked a day old, not an hour. It hadn’t bled much to begin with—the heat of the bullet had cauterized it instantly. “I told you, I heal fast.” She tucked her arm back into her sweater.

Frank took a swig of the beer. Placing the ice pack against his face, he asked, “How’d you get mixed up with these people, anyway? Don’t you usually stick to saving cats from trees?”

She didn’t take the bait. She was tempted to—she pulled the elderly from house fires, stopped full school buses from nose diving off the Brooklyn Bridge—but it felt like all she and Frank did was argue. It sounded like he knew at least some information about the guys from the pier, so she’d better steer clear of the bickering to hold a productive conversation. 

“I ran into some sketchy guys who were guarding a big cargo container. I overheard some of their conversation, and it sounded like they were importing some illegal weapons. I busted the operation and the cops arrested everyone, except for this one guy that got away. I followed him to the pawn shop where I thought the boss of the whole thing would be. Taking out the outer-circle guys wouldn’t stop the root of the problem, you know? But instead of cracking the case, I ran into some guy who caught me lurking and he sicced Domenico Carbone on me. 

“I managed to snap a quick picture of both of them before they came after me, so I was able to get some info on Domenico. The program I plugged the picture into listed his place of work as some bar, so I went to check it out and found them unloading duffel bags full of cash. Suspicious, right? I followed the driver to the parking garage to gain some more intel. You know the rest of the story.”

Frank’s brow was drawn as he listened. “Get a name for the other guy in the picture?”

“Nope.” Parker shrugged. “Nothing.”

Frank grunted. After a beat, he lowered the ice pack and said, “Show me.”

Since she lived right next door, it only took a minute for her to crawl out Frank’s window, enter her apartment, grab her laptop, and crawl back. She pulled up the file and zoomed in on the unnamed guy’s face.

Frank squinted but didn’t show any signs of recognition. “Where was this at?”

“I think the pawn shop was somewhere in Brooklyn.”

He exhaled slowly and sat back, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. “That don’t add up.”

“What?”

He was shaking his head. “Odds are, that shop cleans money for the Russians. They’ve been operating out of Brooklyn for a while. And I don’t know how much you know about the Carbones, but they’ve got big dog gangsters and mobsters, too. Haven’t heard much out of ‘em since I made my rounds a couple years back. Vigilantes have been keeping things quiet.”

Despite fighting crime everyday in New York, she had to admit—she was severely uneducated in the organized crime sector. Maybe Frank had some merit in downplaying her efforts. Not that she’d admit that. “What isn’t adding up?” 

Frank gestured towards the laptop screen where Domenico and the other guy’s picture was. “The Italians and the Russians don’t play nice with each other. Just doesn’t make sense why they’d both be involved in whatever you’re chasing.” He scratched at the stubble on his jaw and continued staring at the picture.

Parker perched her chin in her hand, deep in thought. Why would Domenico, a member of the Carbone crime family, be with the Russians at their shop? Who was the driver who was about to be shot point-blank for skimming some cash? And who was that woman with the bob, the one they called “Doc”? It could have been short for something—like how “Dom” was likely short for Domenico—or was she an actual doctor?

Something about the whole situation felt off. Her sixth sense, which was never wrong, hummed beneath her chest as if her ribcage were a beehive and there were a bunch of bees buzzing around under her skin. 

There were too many unanswered questions rattling around in her brain to soothe her nerves. The driver Doc shot was either in the hospital or taken into NYPD custody, so he was out. She could always go back to either the pawn shop or the bar, but she’d already tried those once. She needed to try a new direction.

“I need to track down whoever Rick is,” Parker said, nodding to herself. “He sounds like a liability. He’ll be easy to crack.”

Frank leaned back, his chair creaking. His eyes narrowed as they flickered between the laptop and Parker. “I can take it from here,” he finally said, voice firm. “You’re done.”

Parker’s hand holding her chin dropped. “Excuse me?”

“Mobsters are above your pay grade, kid. You’ve got Russians, traffickers, and God knows what else mixed up in it. You don’t need to get anywhere closer to this shit.”

Her jaw dropped. Are you fucking kidding me? “Did I hit you too hard? In case you’re forgetting, I laid you out— you , the big bad Punisher. That has to count for something.”

“If I wanted to take you out, you’d be out in a second.” The sharpness in his voice was as unmistakable as the grim set of his jaw. “But to these guys, you’re not special; you’re just another body.”

“Frank—”

“Don’t argue with me,” he cut in. “I know their kind. I kill their kind. You don’t want to be anywhere near this.”

“Funny, I don’t recall God appointing you as my keeper.” The air in the room was heavy with tension as Parker glared at him.

“You’re not listening, kid,” Frank said, his voice low and unyielding. “I don’t give a damn about your powers, or whatever the hell else you think makes you untouchable.”

A muscle in Parker’s jaw clicked. She stood abruptly. “You don’t get to dictate my life, Frank. I don’t care how much you’ve seen or how much you think you know about me,” she said, her voice shaking slightly but resolute. “I’m not backing off. And you better not intervene again like you did tonight.” 

His hard gaze didn’t waver. “You’re not going to go poking around this anymore.”

Parker threw her hands up with a humorless laugh. “Oh my god , it’s like talking to a brick wall.” 

“I’m not letting this go.”

“Neither am I.”

“Tough shit,” he shot back. 

Why am I even here? Parker slammed her laptop shut, tucked it under her arm, and stormed towards the window. She gave Frank her middle finger as she climbed out. 

He shot up from the chair. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

“Away from the psycho mass murderer who thinks he can tell me what to do.” She slammed the window, then webbed it shut. Threw him another middle finger for good measure when he called out, “I have a door, you know.”

And to think, she thought they might have actually had a productive conversation. 

_

Parker’s eyes shot open. She stared up at the same cracked popcorn ceiling that greeted her every day and blinked through the fogginess of her sleep as she tried to pinpoint what had woken her up.

Down the hall, a door closed. She sat up. Since her apartment was a studio, she was able to get a clear look at her front door from her rickety twin bed. Her eyes narrowed in on a scrap of paper on the floor by the door.

Her feet softly padded against the floor as she crossed the room. Her senses weren’t going off, so she peeled the ripped paper off the ground with slight annoyance and mild curiosity.

A phone number was hastily scrawled across the note. On the back: If things go south.

She flipped it back over and ran her eyes across the ten numbers to memorize them. Then, she crumbled it up, tossed it into the trash, and face-planted back in bed. 

_

Here’s the thing with Parker’s origin story: she didn’t know when it started, or when it ended. Or if it had even ended yet. A common catalyst in most origins was death—of both parents, of a lover, of innocence. The death of Parker’s parents when she was young certainly had a hand in her decision to become a vigilante even if she still wasn’t able to fully understand the connection. Growing up with junkies who only cared about their next high was formative, too. The violence she witnessed living in run-down neighborhoods showed her the fault lines that needed bandaging in the city she called home. Getting bullied for being the poor kid who always had lice or didn’t bathe regularly in elementary school built her character. So did the constant moving between foster homes. The worst of the homes filled her with contempt and general distrust towards the world. Seeing the goodness in humanity in her last placement gave her hope. 

Some would argue her origin started at her parents’ deaths, or when she was bitten by a radioactive spider. To Parker, there was no clear beginning or end. An origin story was filled with obstacles, grief, self-discovery. An unfulfilled need to be better. To Parker, it seemed as though her origin story started before her first breath in that little Queens hospital room. She wasn’t sure when, exactly, but she thought that maybe it was when her mother Mary Fitzpatrick and her father Richard Parker conceived her in the back alley behind a strip mall. Mary refused to give up substances during the pregnancy.

From birth, Parker was tiny, feeble, desperate for air, and starving .

_

Rick wasn’t that hard to track down. His name popped up in a few places and articles enough times for Parker to piece together a rough outline of his life. The man was a ghost, slipping through the cracks between law and lawlessness, but people like him always left a trail. A scuff on the floor, a whisper behind a closed door—it didn’t take long for Parker to narrow down his location.

His house wasn’t unlike her own apartment: small, dank, falling apart at the seams, neglected. The land it sat on was more valuable than the structure itself or anything in it. It was noon-ish when Parker arrived. Yesterday’s rain left the tiny front yard muddy and dark, so she stuck to the cracked sidewalk. It was a small duplex on the outskirts of East Brooklyn with a broken window in the screen door. Too easy . She reached in, unlocked the door, and let herself inside the house.

Her senses were on high alert; she was tuned into everything from the soft buzz of electricity to a leaky faucet somewhere in the west side of the house. A bathroom, probably. 

Parker silently closed the door behind her. She was in a small entryway cut off from the rest of the house by a wood paneled wall. When she turned the corner, she found Rick seated at a small round kitchen table with a stained gingham tablecloth. There was a laptop and a mess of papers strewn haphazardly in front of him.

He hadn’t noticed her presence yet. Whatever he was doing as he went back and forth from the laptop to a sheet of paper filled with numbers, it captured his full attention. His eyes were bloodshot, and a cigarette dangled from his lips. 

Rick was pretty much exactly what Parker expected: a man, mid-thirties, thin and scrappy-looking. Dark tendrils of tattoo ink crawled up his neck out of the collar of his faded red flannel.

She cleared her throat.

Rick’s shoulders jumped to his ears. He spun around and the cigarette in his mouth almost fell from his lips. When his eyes landed on Parker, he did a double-take, then scrambled to his feet.

His mind seemed to process the situation in slow motion, his hand instinctively reaching for something—anything—on the table to defend himself, but there was nothing but scattered papers and an empty bottle of bourbon.

Parker crossed her arms and slightly inclined her head. At first, the whole no-talking thing was a huge pain in the ass when she needed information. Over the last two years, though, she had learned how to prompt people with only body language.

She tilted her head toward the papers scattered on the table, her gloved fingers pointing toward the sheet of numbers that had drawn Rick’s attention earlier. The motion was slow, deliberate—enough to show she was serious, but not so aggressive as to provoke him. She needed him talking, but she needed to keep him off balance, too.

Rick eyed her uncertainly, his hand still hovering by the papers. Then, slowly, his gaze shifted from the table to her eyes, confusion deepening in his features. He wiped a shaky hand across his forehead, eyes darting from the numbers back to Parker’s silent form.

Parker gave a subtle nod, her posture unyielding. She was ready to push this further if she had to, but she needed him to understand she wasn’t there to play around.

Rick’s eyes flickered to the papers again, and after a long, uncomfortable beat, he let out a long sigh and a “fuck my life.”

He snubbed out the cigarette in a crystal ashtray. Behind the mask, Parker’s nose was scrunched up in disgust. Her eyes followed his every movement. His left hand was wrapped up in bandages.

“Just tell me what you want, man.” His voice wavered anxiously.

Parker’s eyes didn’t leave his as she reached behind him for a pen and paper. Then, she wrote: Why are the Russians and Carbones working together?

“I don’t know anything about that.”

Parker’s fingers twitched beneath her gloves, but she didn’t break her posture. She made another gesture toward the paper, insistent. 

Rick swallowed hard, his hand trembling as he rubbed his jaw. “Seriously. On my ma, I don’t know nothing.”

Parker rolled her eyes at the double negative and took a step closer. She wasn’t going to do anything, but Rick’s eyes widened and his pulse quickened—this close, Parker could hear his blood pumping through his veins.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he stammered, hands up and moving animatedly in the space between them. “I’m just... just a guy who moves things around for them. I just hold onto stuff when they need someone to lay low. That’s it, I don’t know about any plans or anything.”

Parker paused. That…made sense. She couldn’t imagine a guy like him playing a major role in whatever was going on. She wrote out another question: What do you move?

“The usual shit—money, guns, drugs. I don’t ask questions.” He was telling the truth, but he was holding back. She could see it in the tightness of his shoulders, the darting of his eyes, like a cornered animal.

He looked around the room, as if trying to make a decision. His eyes eventually landed back on her, and his face softened, as if he realized there was no way out of this. “Look, I really don’t know a lot, okay?” he said, his voice now resigned. “I only work for The Black Hand as, like, a side gig. My real bread and butter is working the finance stuff for the local businesses who can’t afford official accountants and shit.” He glanced at the scattered papers. Now that she was looking closely, Parker realized that they were all bank statements and tax forms.

But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about what he just said. She quickly scribbled: The Black Hand??? 

His eyes went wide. “What?” He laughed nervously and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Don’t know what that is.”

She slammed her fist against the table. He jolted. “Fuck! I don’t know, okay? Stop asking. I can’t—I don’t know.”

There was something there, and if she kept digging, she knew she could get some real information from him. She was about to smack the table again, but her body froze. Her head snapped to the kitchen window. 

Parker was already moving when it shattered. She tackled Rick to the carpet as the room was engulfed in flames and a blistering heat exploded, throwing shards of glass and scattering the papers on the table. 

Her ears rang. “Nnnngh,” she groaned, rolling off of Rick and onto her back. He was coughing. She squeezed her eyes shut and dragged a deep breath into her sore lungs. 

A tingle at the base of her neck. Her eyes cracked open just in time to see the bottom of a boot before it collided with her face.

Chapter Text

Parker woke to an orchestral throbbing in her skull. Colors pulsed behind her eyelids like a bruise. 

Her eyelids were too heavy to open, so she let her attention drift to other pressing matters as her body came back to her in pieces, such as the fact that her face felt bare. And her feet. And there was her danger sense, which was blaring like a fire alarm.

She tried to move, but every muscle felt heavy as lead. Focusing every ounce of energy into the movement, she pried her eyes open and lulled her neck to the side. She was met with a blank wall with a one-way mirror. It was supposed to be a one-way mirror, at least—Parker could see right through it. Some guy with a pig nose stood on the other side, messing with something out of view. 

Details floated back to her: Rick, the explosion—a molotov cocktail?—and then someone kicking her face in. Speaking of which, ow . No wonder her head was pounding. 

Her eyes trailed the mirror to the ceiling, then down to herself, strapped in a chair you’d see at the dentist. Her usual Spider-Man suit was pretty much gone—the red hoodie and the skin tight long-sleeve were nowhere in sight, leaving her in a sports bra and leggings. And where the hell were her shoes?

Metal clamps held her wrists in place. She tried to rip through them, but her brain felt disconnected with the rest of her body. Her hands merely twitched. 

Don’t freak out, don’t freak out.

“You’re awake earlier than expected.”

Parker’s eyes flickered to the left. It took great effort to roll her head to the other shoulder to see who was speaking.

Doc—the lady with the bob from the garage. She was wearing a white lab coat over black jeans and a dark purple turtleneck. Her left arm was in a sling. 

Parker tried to speak, but her tongue just rolled around in her mouth uselessly. Doc smiled as she stepped closer, hands going out of Parker’s view. She had to tilt her head to see the metal tray holding a full syringe and some equipment Parker recognized as blood-drawing equipment: a needle, gauze, antiseptic, an empty bag where—supposedly—her blood would go.

Nothing made sense. Her sixth sense was doing backflips against her skull. Mustering all of her strength, she fought to move her arms. This time, her wrists lifted from the armrests, but the metal clamps held them down. 

Doc poured some antiseptic on a cotton ball and peered at the girl as she struggled against restraints she would have normally torn through like wet paper. 

“Succinylcholine.”

Parker stopped struggling. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. This time when she tried to speak, it came out coherent. Slurred, but still coherent. “What?”

“It’s a neuromuscular blocker.” Her green eyes involuntarily flickered to the full syringe as she spoke before she turned and wiped the cold cotton ball on Parker’s exposed forearm. With a smug smirk, she explained, “In other words, you’re mostly paralyzed.”

No shit, she wanted to say. Parker wasn’t in kindergarten; she knew what a neuromuscular blocker was. 

“I knew I wouldn’t be able to restrain you by brute force,” she was saying. Parker only half-listened, her attention darting to the mirror again. A large albino man stepped into view. His presence was powerful, commanding. He had to have been at least six foot five. His face was built so geometric it reminded Parker of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. 

Her blood went cold as the man turned his head and stared right back at her. Like he knew she could see him.

Doc was still talking. “...used to being overpowered. This stuff was hard to come by, but the more accessible drugs like carisoprodol or cyclobenzaprine wouldn’t have been as effective…”

Parker clenched her fist. She felt her power slowly coming back. As smart as Doc thought she was, she obviously didn’t account for Parker’s enhanced metabolism; she was burning through this muscle relaxant like a lit sparkler.

Inconspicuously, Parker carefully tested the restraints again. She could feel them giving, could hear their strain.

Parker shot a quick glance to the mirror. The albino man was gone.

Doc leaned in close and inserted the needle. The second it punctured her vein, Parker headbutted the woman. 

“Gah!” She stumbled back, palm against her forehead, and immediately went for the full syringe.

Parker ripped the needle out—probably a little too roughly, because blood trickled down her arm like the Nile River—and caught the wrist of the hand holding the syringe Doc thrusted towards her. 

With a quick crack and a sharp cry of pain, Doc’s wrist bone broke in Parker’s grip. She caught the dropped syringe and jammed it into the older woman’s thigh. 

The door slammed open. Parker’s legs gave out at just the right time. As soon as the guard swung a baton, she was going down. She crashed against the tiles and rolled to avoid a second strike. Doc’s hand reached to grab her foot, but she was weakening by the second until, finally, she couldn’t move.

The guard tackled Parker around the middle and slammed her into the wall, knocking the breath out of her lungs. She retaliated with a sharp jab to his spleen and leapt to attach her fingers to the ceiling. Dangling, she delivered a solid kick to his jaw.

Another guard ran in. He got one of those kicks, too. 

Easy peasy. She crawled out of the room and booked it.

She sprinted down the ceiling of the narrow corridor, her legs shaking beneath her as the effects of the neuromuscular blocker wore off in fits and starts. The world was a haze, a blur of distorted edges, and her head swam with dizziness. She pushed on, occasionally clutching the wall for balance.

She hit the corner and froze. Another guard appeared in front of her. She dropped onto his shoulders, pulled him to the ground, and elbowed him in the back of the neck. He crumpled to the floor with a muffled grunt.

Parker didn’t wait to see if he’d get back up.

At the far end of the hall, the exit sign blinked weakly in the dim light. Part of her urged her to dig around for answers, but the smarter part of her told her to get the hell out while she still had the upper hand, before the huge guy from the other side of the mirror got involved. Whatever her danger sense picked up about him was far from good.

Her mind went to the one place she could get some help. Her mind flashed the number Frank slipped under her door last night.

She reached the door, kicked it open, and stumbled outside. The brisk afternoon air hit her like a slap, crisp and biting. She was in some rundown alleyway— again —filled with dumpsters and the sound of distant traffic. She saw the payphone across the street.

She crossed the deserted road in a quick, unsteady pace, feeling the concussion squeezing her head like a rubberband. She grabbed the receiver and slammed against her ear, eyes scouring the ground in the off chance a good samaritan left some change. 

None.

“Come on,” she muttered, eyes darting to the building she just escaped. It was an unsuspecting office building with a cupcake storefront next door. She jimmied her fingers into the slot and froze when she felt something smooth and metal. 

Two quarters. “Thank you, Jesus.” Her fingers were still uncooperative, her hands shaking as she slipped them in and dialed the number.

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. Four. 

On the fifth, Parker hung up the phone with a slam. Fine, whatever. Give a girl your number and don’t pick up when she calls. What a gentleman. 

She stood there for a second, trying to steady her breath, trying to keep herself from collapsing. But as her fingers slid down the phone’s receiver, she saw movement in her peripheral. A jolt shot down her spine. Someone was approaching.

Parker bursted through the payphone door and ran. Her bare feet slapped painfully against the sidewalks she zig-zagged through. The sound of fast footsteps behind her alerted her to pursuers.

She passed an alley but backtracked. On the other end, the street was full of people walking around. A kid holding his mom’s hand skipped past as he ate some sort of street food on a stick. It smelled vaguely cheesy.

She shot a quick look over her shoulder—yep, definitely being chased—and ran down the alley. Her feet splashed in puddles left over from last night’s downpour. 

Once on the other side, she was enveloped in crowds of tourists. 

“Excuse me, sorry,” she said as she squeezed through some groups and broke out into another sprint. If anyone looked her way, nothing would seem out of the ordinary; in her sports bra and leggings, she just looked like a girl on a run. If they looked down and saw her bare feet, and if they looked close enough and saw the blood running down her arm, maybe they’d raise an eyebrow. But she was moving too fast for anyone to get a good look at her. 

Webs would’ve sped things along. Unfortunately, she literally had none of her tech. She had backup webshooters—they broke far too often—so at least she wouldn’t have to start from scratch with those. Still, it would’ve been much faster to swing through the streets than to run through them. 

Her sixth sense quieted down the farther she ran. After a while, she slowed to a light jog. Her legs felt like jelly as she collapsed to a city bus bench. 

“What is my life,” she murmured into her hands, elbows on her knees. She ran her hands over her hair, calming her choppy locks, and leaned against the back of the bench. First course of action: Go back to the apartment and get suited up in a backup suit. She had a ton of information to work with now, but there was no way she could bring down both mobs—and some group called The Black Hand if Rick’s word was to be trusted—without her webshooters, shoes, shirt, or her mask.

Doing this all by herself felt impossibly huge, but what were her other options? She could try to track down Daredevil, but he was extremely elusive and barely even patrolled these days; he probably had an actual life and career outside of crime-fighting. The same went for most vigilantes: Deadpool sightings had been extremely low recently, Jessica Jones was in rehab (if rumors spread by the Daily Bugle were accurate), and Parker didn’t know enough about the other vigilantes to find a way to contact them. Frank was an obvious answer, but then again, was he? His solution to the issue would probably be to just murder anyone who had a hand in the operation.

Parker slumped. She could figure the rest out later. For now, she needed to get home and put some clothes on before the sun disappeared and took all its warmth with it.

_

By the time she reached the apartment building, Parker’s skin was dimpled with goosebumps and she was far too tired to climb all the way up the side of the brick to her window. Instead, she waltzed inside, ignoring the way her feet stung, and stepped into the elevator and rode it to her floor. 

As soon as the doors opened, something felt off. It didn’t feel like an immediate threat, so Parker carefully walked to her front door. She didn’t have her key on her, so she gripped the doorknob with the intention to just break in. 

When it pushed open without even needing to be turned, she paused. 

The doorframe was splintered by the latch. 

Someone already broke in. 

Whoever was there was gone, she was confident of that much. Parker toed the door wider and side-stepped in. Her stomach dropped.

It wasn’t the way her bed was flipped over, or the way all her kitchen cabinets were opened, or how all her clothes were strewn across the room that got her. It was the desk—the one she had left her laptop on. 

Her laptop that was now gone. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Parker took three quick steps to the desk and frantically looked through its drawers as if she forgot she had stashed it away. Nothing. She slammed the drawer shut, but with the force she used it broke.

Parker stepped over her pillow on the ground and swept up her empty backpack and a random t-shirt that was draped over the bed to pull over her head as she made her way to the bathroom. The medicine cabinet was ransacked, too; the first aid kit laid on the edge of the tub, splayed open. Even her box of tampons was torn into. 

On her knees, Parker ran her fingers over the grout between tiles. When one gave, she lifted the square tile up and released a sigh of relief at the sight of her untouched stash. 

She went for the six vials of web solution and the backup webshooters first. Once those were on, Parker tucked the rest of the contents into the backpack: fifty bucks in ten- and five-dollar bills, four extra vials of web solution, and the emergency mask. It was slightly different from the mask she normally wore—whereas the last one was a red spandex mask with tinted sunglasses lenses for the eyes and black webbing, this one was far more simple in design with its black spandex and polarized lenses that weren’t quite as intensely tinted. It was the mask she first started wearing two years ago, but she quickly realized that a black mask made her seem like a bank robber and not a superhero, so she made swift adjustments. This one would do for now.

Once out of the bathroom, Parker made quick work with finding some socks to pull over her sore, blistered feet. Her only other shoes were her civilian shoes: beat-up converses that were held together by duct tape and gorilla glue. 

The only thing Parker needed now was a hoodie, but the one she was wearing when she was kidnapped was the only one she had. Buying a new one was out of the question—she had to be conservative with the fifty bucks she had. Necessities only.

Next order of business: get the hell out of dodge.

Parker slipped out the front door with her backpack strung over one shoulder. She turned to head to the elevator again, but something stopped her in her tracks. She turned back around and headed to Frank’s door instead.

She knocked. “Frank. It’s me.” She knocked again, but when she did, the door cracked open. Her eyes zeroed-in on the broken hinge. Without hesitation, Parker threw the door open, letting it smack the wall, and barged in. “Frank!”

His apartment was in even worse shape than hers. Drawers were pulled open and stuff was thrown around, but this didn’t just show signs of ransacking. The window was shattered. There was a hole in the drywall. A lampshade on the ground was caved in. The couch cushion was sliced open. A trail of blood led from the bathroom.

Her heart jumped to her throat. 

“Hello? Frank?” She peered into the bathroom. The mirror was cracked, and half of the porcelain sink was on the ground. Water spurted from a broken pipe. Blood splattered both the mirror and the sink. 

Odds were, it wasn’t her neighbor's blood. But the sinking feeling in her gut told her otherwise.

She went from the bathroom to the bedroom, where there were still no signs of Frank. The open closet grabbed her attention, though, and she reached in and nabbed a hoodie before heading back out. 

She needed a new plan. But as she left the apartment building and sped-walked through the street with no set destination, just the knowledge that she can’t go back home, she couldn’t think of the next move. Her muscles still felt weak, and her head—it still throbbed with every slight sound. And even with Frank’s hoodie, the night was cold. The cherry on top was her growling stomach.

A whistle brought Parker out of her head. She winced and turned, glancing at the college-aged man eyeing her from where he stood at the entrance of a pub.

“Hey, got plans tonight?”

She kept walking. What about her demeanor made it seem like she wanted to be approached? Parker was pretty sure she was the embodiment of “leave me alone” right now. 

“Come on, I had to shoot my shot. You’re beautiful.” 

She kept walking. He took a few steps after her. 

“What? No smile?”

Parker turned. The grin playing on his lips faltered at her sharp glare. 

“Look—” She clamped her mouth shut and squinted. “Sorry. It’s been a rough day. Can I borrow your phone for a second?”

The grin was back full-force. He dug around in his pocket and offered the device. “Sure thing, baby. After you’re done, can I buy you a drink?”

Parker quickly dialed Frank’s number and held the phone to her ear. She offered the guy a tight-lipped smile. “I’m not twenty-one, but thanks.”

“I can get you in,” he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder towards the pub. “They don’t card everyone.”

The line rang. Parker sighed. Answer, damn it.  

“Or we can skip the drink and head back to my place? It’s just around—”

Voicemail. Parker huffed in frustration and pushed the phone back into the guy’s hands. “I’m fifteen.” A lie, but whatever. She could pass.

He immediately stepped back with his palms out. “My bad, I didn’t mean—”

“You’re good.” Parker turned on her heel and continued down the street, hands buried in her pockets as her mind whirled. Obviously Frank wasn’t answering the phone because something happened. But he couldn’t have been dead, right? You can’t just kill the Punisher. 

The grumbling in Parker’s stomach steered her into a warm corner diner with neon signs on the outside and black and white checkered floors on the inside. There were only a handful of customers, most of which were sitting at the bar on tall stools with upholstered red leather seats. Savory smells of juicy burgers, fresh tomatoes, toasted buns, and crispy fries made her mouth water.

She could spare a few dollars on a cheeseburger. 

Parker slid into a booth that faced the large rectangular cut-out in the wall that opened to the kitchen. A cook—a bald man who looked to be in his fifties with neck tattoos and permanent crow’s feet stamped by both eyes—placed a plated sandwich on the metallic counter and dinged the bell before disappearing behind the wall. A waitress with jet black hair and thin ruby red lips delivered the plate to a guy on a barstool. Popping her gum, the woman’s eyes landed on Parker. She plucked a laminated  menu from under the bar and made her way over.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, slapping the menu down. Her name tag over her left breast read “Jennifer.”

Parker offered a polite smile. “Just water, please.”

When the young woman left, Parker flipped through the short menu until landing on the burgers. The options intensified the growling in her stomach: Double bacon, chipotle BBQ, garlic-three cheese. The prices listed on the right shut down every mouth-watering fantasy that bubbled to her mind. 

Right. She was on a budget. Parker guided her eyes to the cheapest option, the classic American cheeseburger: a single patty on a white bun, a slice of American cheese, a tomato slice, a leaf of lettuce, and ketchup. That’ll do.

The waitress—Jennifer—set the water glass on Parker’s table and got a pen and pad of paper ready. “Ready to order?”

Parker folded the menu, handed it over as she asked for the burger, and watched her walk back to the kitchen to pin up the ticket. 

While her food was being prepared, Parker headed back to the diner’s three-stall bathroom with her backpack over her shoulder. There was a single light in the ceiling that flickered when the door closed. She met her reflection’s eyes as she washed her hands under the scalding water and had to do a double-take.

She looked like shit. Her slightly curly, above-the-shoulder hair was unkempt and wild. The dark circles were deeper than usual, her face pale, and there was a flowering bruise a gnarly shade of purple along her cheekbone, eye socket, and temple where she was stomped. The hoodie she had grabbed from Frank’s apartment was too big for her, the sleeves swallowed her hands, and the damp fabric clung to her back, leaving her with a cold, clammy feeling. She barely recognized the reflection staring back at her.

Parker exhaled sharply, leaning her hands on the sink, eyes fixed on the mirror as she tried to breathe through the frustration and confusion that seemed to weigh heavier by the minute.

Frank was missing. Her apartment had been ransacked. It most definitely had something to do with the Carbones, the Russians, or The Black Hand. The whole situation was a headache, and she felt alone and in the dark. 

She tugged at the strings of her hoodie, trying to steady her hands. "Get it together," she muttered under her breath. Her stomach rumbled again, louder this time.

After a few more seconds, Parker wiped her hands on the front of her jeans and took one last look in the mirror before walking out.

Back at her booth, her burger was waiting. She quickly discarded the backpack onto the seat and dug in with two hands. 

About halfway through the delicacy, Jennifer walked by with a stack of dirty plates. Parker wiped away the ketchup on her cheek with a thumb and said, “Excuse me, do you guys have a phone I can use?”

“It’s not open to the public.”

So there was a phone. “It won’t take long, I promise.”

“I just said it’s not open to the public.” Her winged eyes narrowed in challenge. 

Parker pressed her lips together, then tried, “I can—I can pay? Really, it won’t take long. How much to—”

Jennifer rolled her eyes and stomped away before she could finish. Damn, okay.  

There was a prickle at the back of her neck. Parker looked up and saw the cook watching her from the kitchen window. Leaning his elbows on the counter, he said, “We got a payphone in the back you can use.”

Parker glanced where the cook gestured. Must’ve been just past the bathrooms. “Thanks, but I don’t have any coins.”

“Got a dollar bill?” Parker nodded. “Jen, get some change for a dollar from the register, will ya?”

Jennifer stepped behind the counter and fished out the coins. Parker flashed her and the cook a smile when they traded. “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Uh-huh,” she said before returning behind the counter. 

Four quarters. That was two phone calls. If Frank didn’t answer this time, then maybe she could try again sometime tomorrow at a different payphone. The idea of tomorrow was daunting: where would she stay? Her apartment was out of the question. Maybe she could find a covered rooftop somewhere. 

Parker tucked herself against the wall as she dialed Frank’s number again. 

Again, no answer. 

“Fuck,” she whispered, eyebrows drawn. 

What if he gave me the wrong number? her mind supplied on the walk back to the booth. She set her elbows on the table and frowned at the half-eaten burger she was salivating over just minutes before. 

Frank might’ve been a murderer and a pain in her ass the past few days, but he didn’t deserve to die. There was still good in him, she was sure. Why else would he have helped her that night when she passed out in his bathtub? He didn’t need to dig the bullet out or stitch her up. And why else would he have followed her the other day?

If he was dead, it was on Parker. She knew that. She carried the weight on her shoulders.

The cook was studying her from behind the counter again. Parker cleared her throat and straightened, trying to appear less haggard and distressed than she felt. She wondered how long she could stay at the diner to take advantage of the heater before they kicked her out.

As she was polishing off the rest of the burger, a voice called, “Little lady?”

She glanced up. The cook—standing at the far end of the diner by the payphone, the phone’s speaker pressed against his chest—waved her down. Parker glanced over her shoulder before returning the gaze. He waved the phone. 

“It’s for you.”

Her heart leapt in her chest and she hurried across the restaurant. Her cold fingers grasped the handle and held it closed to her face. “Frank?”

“Kid.” His voice was rough and low.

“Shit. Shit , Frank, I saw your apartment, I thought…” 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I tried calling you,” she said, which was a stupid and redundant thing to say, but she was just so glad to hear his voice.

“Did they go after you too?”

“Yeah. I was…” Parker shot a quick glance around the restaurant and lowered her voice, cupping her hand around the receiver. “They took me, but I got out. Are you okay? Where are you?”

She listened carefully and picked up sounds from wind and cars in the background. Frank coughed—it sounded painful. “I’m headed to a friend’s, but only for a pitstop so they don’t get any bright ideas and go after her, too. How close are you to Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Not close at all,” Parker admitted. “But I can get over there soon.”

It sounded like Frank was walking up some creaky wooden stairs. “Can you make it to Pier 88 in an hour?”

“I can make it in forty-five minutes.”

“Good. I’ll be there. Don’t take any detours.”

The line went dead before Parker could say anything else. She stood there, phone pressed to her ear for a moment longer, staring at the receiver as if it might somehow give her more answers.

She gripped the phone tightly and hung it up, turning back toward her booth. She grabbed her backpack, fished out ten dollars for the table, and left the warmth of the diner. 

_

Parker’s legs swung back and forth from where she sat on top of a wooden crate. She had no way to check the time, but it had definitely been over an hour since their phone call. 

Despite the late hour, the city was alive; Parker had to focus to tune out the sounds of drunk New Yorkers, sirens, cars, and the constant buzzing of electricity pumping through every building. She also had to hug herself to fight off the cold that seeped through her clothes.

A footstep. Parker perked and turned. A figure in the shadows neared, his stature wide and solid. The dim moonlight revealed his face as he stepped out of the shadows. It also revealed how awful he looked, half-limping, forehead sliced open, dried blood crusted along his temple all the way down his neck, a tight, bloody bandage over one hand. 

Parker hopped down from the crate and met him halfway. “I see they didn’t go easy on you.”

His eyes looked her up and down. “They go easy on you?” 

“Different set of circumstances.” Circumstances which Parker still didn’t understand. 

Frank’s brow furrowed and his head cocked to the side. “Is that mine?” He pointed to the hoodie Parker wore.

She opened her mouth to answer, then shut it. She shrugged sheepishly. “I was cold.”

“What, you don’t have your own clothes?”

“They took mine.” Shoving her hands deeper into her pockets, Parker rocked back and forth on her heels. “What now? Why’d we come here?” 

Frank looked out across the Hudson, but it seemed like he was looking past the river and past New Jersey. He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue before returning his gaze to Parker, his eyes searching hers. 

Parker lifted her shoulders. “What?”

He shook his head. “I’ve got a safehouse. You’re going to stay there until I take out everyone involved in whatever the hell you’ve gotten yourself mixed in with.”

“By ‘take out,’ you mean kill?”

“We ain’t fighting over this again. Come on.” Frank started towards an old brick industrial building. 

He walked like a stocky bulldog. Parker followed, arms crossed. She kicked a loose piece of gravel that went skittering across the asphalt. “Exitus acta probat.”

He threw a questioning glance over his shoulder. 

“The outcome justifies the deed,” she translated, reaching his side and matching his pace. 

He shoved a door open. “Yeah, it does.” His voice was gruff and echoed slightly as he led the way inside the dank building. “You think your way is the right way? You think wearing a mask and taking down a few goons is gonna change anything? You’re wrong.”

Parker rolled her eyes behind his back. This guy sure did like to lecture. 

“They’ll just keep coming,” he continued, turning to face Parker. She looked past him and observed the room they were in: dimly lit, some barred areas that were once walls of windows but, with each window pane broken, now resembled cages, a car to the left, and some computers in the center. The far end had a kitchenette not unlike the one from her own apartment. Frank moved to block Parker’s view. They made eye-contact. “One day, you won’t be fast enough. You won’t be strong enough.”

“Doubtful,” Parker argued. “I can lift literal tons.” 

Frank shook his head and turned away. As he sat at the computer chair, he muttered, “Christ, you’re just like Red.” He pulled the bottom of his shirt up to inspect what looked like a stab wound. It was cleaned and stitched, though. Parker wondered if the friend he saw earlier was some sort of nurse or if he fixed himself up. 

There were only two people ‘Red’ would refer to, and only one of them had been publicly linked to the Punisher. “Daredevil?”

“You know him?”

“Know of him.” Parker leaned a hip against the desk and scanned all the computers. “What is this place? Your secret nerd lair?”

Frank raised a brow. “No.”

“And what’s with the cages?”

He twisted his torso, then let the shirt fall back down. Dragging his attention back to the girl beside him, he said, “A friend of mine used to live here when he was hiding from the Feds.”

“Did he kill people, too?”

The breathy laugh that escaped Frank’s lips caught Parker off guard. “Hell no. He was a coder, used to work for the NSA before some shit went down. He leaked information powerful people wanted to bury.”

She nodded. Frank didn’t really seem the type to befriend a nerdy coder, but looks could be deceiving. She of all people knew that. 

“You know, this place doesn’t exactly scream safehouse,” Parker remarked, her eyes drifting back to the bars in the corner. “Kinda gives off...I don’t know...hostage vibes?”

Frank stood and strode over to the kitchenette. “You’ll be safe here.” 

She shot a look at a twin bed in one of the “rooms.” The blanket was ratty, and the pillow was stained. “Right.” She pursed her lips. “Are you staying here, too?”

“Planning on it.” He opened a cabinet and sorted through some cans.

Great. She went from being neighbors to the Punisher to being his roommate in a garage-like building with no solid walls. It beat sleeping outside, though. Parker walked around the bars and tossed her backpack onto the bed before depositing herself on it, too. The mattress’s springs creaked under her weight. That won’t get annoying at all. 

“Hungry?”

From where she lay, flat on her back with her hands interlocked behind her head, Parker replied, “I’m good.” She could smell the canned green beans he was tucking into and was thankful for the cheeseburger from earlier. Now that she was lying down, all the stress her body took that day crashed over her like a tsunami wave. Getting kidnapped really took it out of you. Yawning, Parker turned to lay on her side. “It’s been a long day, I’m going to crash. Don’t kill anyone while I’m asleep.”

There was a soft clink as Frank set the can of green beans on the metal table. “Hold on.”

Ugh . She turned. Frank strode across the room and leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. Or, well, the metal bars that were kind of a door frame. His expression was unreadable. “Tell me what happened today.”

She sat up and leaned back on her hands. “Look, it’s kind of a long story, and I’d really just like to crash out for a few hours.”

“Give me the short version.”

CliffsNotes, got it. “I talked to Rick at his house, and it was actually going well until a molotov cocktail interrupted our conversation just as it was getting juicy. Some prick kicked me and knocked me out cold.” Parker gestured to the bruise on the right side of her face. “I woke up strapped to a chair, almost completely paralyzed. I could barely even open my eyes at first.”

Frank’s brow was drawn. He had this intense look in his eyes as he listened. “Then what?”

“Doc—that lady from the parking garage—she showed up and tried to take my blood for some reason, I don’t know. I burned through the paralyzing drug pretty quickly and broke free before they could get any blood. The end.”

He nodded. “Why’d they take your clothes?”

She shrugged. “I was wearing my Spider-Man suit. They probably figured it was easier to just take it off than to roll my sleeves up. And I’m not even sure how long I was out; they could’ve done some medical examinations on me for all I know.” She tucked the hair framing her face behind her ear. Frank still watched her, waiting. For what? An apology? “I can find another sweatshirt, I’m sorry I borrowed yours without asking first.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” He looked away for a couple beats, then back. His eyes narrowed slightly as he asked, “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He nodded. Released a deep breath. “Get some sleep, kid.” He turned, leaving her with the silence of the room. 

As he moved back toward the makeshift kitchen area, Parker lay back down, her mind not quite at ease; she wasn’t sure it ever was. But there was a warm sensation that enveloped her unexpectedly: a sense of safety. 

It might’ve been a dingy industrial garage with a thin mattress, bars for walls, and a bathroom she could smell from where she lay, and she might’ve been on a crime syndicate’s shit list, but she had a feeling the man across the room would kill anyone who tried to touch her. Half of her resented it and was confused by it. The other half—the half that recognized she’d never once been protected by someone older than her in her life—was selfishly grateful.

Chapter Text

The safehouse was eerily quiet when she stirred awake. Outside, a gentle rainfall pitter-pattered against the city streets, cleansing it. Parker imagined it was a baptism in her sleep-tipsy mind: God sprinkling holy water over every shadowed alley, every crooked heart, every dark soul lurking in the bowels of New York. 

Her nose was smashed against the pillow, so when she inhaled the aroma of mildew and dust greeted her. When was the last time the pillowcase was cleaned? 

Bones and muscles stiff, Parker pushed herself up and out of bed. A single yellow-tinted light on the wall illuminated the space. There were no windows, so there was no telling what time it was or how long she’d been asleep. All she knew was that she hadn’t gotten a full, peaceful sleep like that in a while.

Parker pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail, avoiding her muted reflection in a glass pane across the room. It didn’t take much to know what she looked like—disheveled, running on fumes. At least her bruise would be significantly healed by now. 

She couldn’t tell exactly what this space was used for before Frank’s friend turned it into his safehouse, so she wasn’t sure what the barred rooms were for. Or why all the glass was punched out. Some sort of mechanic shop, maybe? It did have a large garage door on the west wall for cars to drive in and out. 

As Parker walked through the doorway, she spotted Frank’s sleeping form on the ground in another room. If she had known there was only one bed, she wouldn’t have immediately taken it—Frank was likely twice her age, he’d probably have old man back pains when he woke up.

Her eyes trailed over his still face. Even asleep, he looked troubled and tense, haunted by unspoken afflictions. She wondered if his dreams were filled with demons from his past just as Parker’s were. But what did Frank have to fear, other than the ghosts of all the lives he had claimed?

His mouth twitched. Parker averted her eyes and stepped away before he could wake up and catch her staring. 

The computers were all dated, but not inconveniently so. She knew her way around a computer well enough to navigate unfamiliar tech. There were some security cameras monitoring the street, some impressive custom PCs, and a ton of encryption software. Parker hummed her approval.

Parker retrieved her backpack from beside the bed. Sending Frank a quick glance, she left. 

_

She wasn’t proud to be a dumpster diver, but when push came to shove—and when you’re an eighteen-year-old vigilante without a solid job, there was a lot of shoving—you had to get resourceful. Dumpsters happened to be full of resources. 

Parker was proud of using tech she was able to build completely from other people’s scraps and trash. There was something entrepreneurial and badass about it. The airpods she used to listen to music and to dial 911 using only morse code taps? Yeah, she made that using a pair of Apple’s simplistic airpods covered in earwax she found in a storm gutter. They didn’t work at first—water must’ve gotten to them—but with her intelligence and a drawer full of random scraps, she was able to not only repair them but drastically improve them and adapt them to her needs. Same with her webshooters; if you looked close enough, you’d recognize parts from an electric toothbrush or the spring of a pen.

By mid-morning, Parker had collected enough parts to make a pair of her high-tech airpods. The only other thing on her to-do list was to head over to Stark Tower. The original Stark Tower in the Upper East Side was repurposed and renamed to the Avengers Tower so the government-approved heroes could live in one central location to train, live, and work together. The new Stark Tower where Stark Industries operated from was now located in Midtown near the Empire State Building. From Hell’s Kitchen, it was about a ten-minute swing.

Her movements were practiced and smooth as she tucked her mask into her backpack and strode up to a back entrance. Something she kept in the front pocket of her backpack at all times was her old internship swipe card. Back before she disappeared off the face of the earth and actually attended the internship, the card only granted her access to the junior labs and cafeteria. It only took a few minutes of hacking to access and alter her permissions, allowing her to get into any door with a swipe of a card that should’ve been deactivated years ago.

Here’s the thing: Parker wasn’t proud of stealing from Stark Industries. It was just convenient, and besides, it wasn’t like the company would notice a few lab supplies going missing every now and then. It was pennies from their billions. A grain of sand from a desert. She’d been doing it for two years, and they never once raised a brow at her actions. If anything, it was on them for not noticing an inactive intern’s card was accessing restricted rooms and levels.

With her hearing alerting her of employee and security’s movements, Parker was able to navigate the maze of hallways and the back stairwells without being seen. 

The lab she swiped chemicals and other materials from to build her webs was on the seventh floor: the senior intern labs. These were grad students or recent grads who actually contributed to SI’s research and development. As a junior intern, Parker was among a team of nine other high school students who basically worked on projects that aimed to sharpen their skills for a duration of three months. Parker lasted four weeks before dropping out. 

Not that she wanted to. It was just how things unfolded.

There were three senior interns in the lab when Parker swiped in. One had earbuds in and was listening to music—hip hop—as they worked, and the second was engrossed in explaining something related to polymers to the third. 

In and out . She knew where everything she needed was. The interns didn’t spare her a single glance as she moved around the lab, opening drawers and dropping things into her backpack. Only after she left and let the door click shut behind her did she hear someone say, “Did someone just leave?”

“It’s only us in here, who would’ve left?”

“...True. I’m probably just hearing things.”

Parker left the way she came in without detection. Too easy .

_

She smelled the coffee before she even opened the door to the safehouse. Surprisingly, though, when she walked in, Frank wasn’t in the kitchenette as she suspected. All there was was a mug with damp coffee grounds at the bottom on the counter.

“You came back.”

Parker’s head turned to the open bathroom. Frank was standing at the mirror, shaving cream on half of his jaw. He ran a razor under the faucet, then tapped it against the sink, flicking off shaving cream. 

“Where’d you go?” 

“Here and there. I had some errands to run.” Parker deposited the backpack onto the computer chair and leaned against the desk, tilting her head as she watched Frank run the razor over his jaw and down his neck. She was surprised he wasn’t blowing up on her—for leaving and for being vague.

Frank tapped the razor against the sink again and dried his face off with a towel. He shut the light off in the bathroom and entered the main room with Parker. He eyed her, like he was determining if she was full of shit. “Did you have breakfast?”

“Not yet, I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“You should’ve, I slept too long.” 

She wasn’t the only one who got some good sleep, then. Something told her he needed it just as badly as she did, if not more. 

As Frank rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, Parker emptied her backpack of her dumpster finds and stolen web ingredients. She felt his eyes on her as she sat and got to work. 

The first thing she did was clean the airpods she found, then she started actually fixing those up. It’d take another few hours to get them to the point where they could read morse code and connect to phone service, and that was only if these computers had the same programming and coding capabilities as her laptop did. 

Frank pulled up the other chair and tossed a protein bar onto the desk beside Parker’s backpack. “What’s all this?” He gestured to the disorganized array of scraps and wires. 

“I need new equipment,” Parker replied, not looking up from her busy hands. “My stuff’s either broken or gone.” He picked up a small glass vial of ethyl acetate. Parker glanced up. “That’s for my web fluid.”

“You make it yourself?”

“Yeah.” Obviously . Who else would manufacture it for her? Tony Stark himself?

Frank put it back. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”

“Here and there.” She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t admit to stealing from Stark, especially when stealing was much less criminal than murder. Frank had no room to raise a brow at her morality. Before he could press, Parker said, “I’m making one for you.”

“Making one what?”

She held up the earpiece. “Earpiece. Well, improved airpod. I trick them out so they can be used for communication and stuff without having to be connected to an iPhone.”

He made a hum at the back of his throat. He almost sounded impressed. “You learn this stuff in high school?”

“Ha. I wish.” She set the earpiece to the side and took the other one. Opened it up and pulled at its wires. “I didn’t really do the whole high school thing.”

“You didn’t finish school?” he asked incredulously. 

She shrugged. “Didn’t need to. You don’t need a diploma to be a vigilante.”

Frank’s silence lingered for a beat as he processed her words. Parker didn’t meet his gaze, focused on the intricate task of reassembling the airpod, her fingers deftly stripping wires and reconnecting circuits. She didn’t mind the quiet; it gave her time to focus on what needed to be done. Still, she could feel his scrutiny. 

“So you just threw it all away—any chance at a normal life?” he finally said, breaking the stillness. There was a note of disapproval in his voice, but it was mixed with some level of curiosity. “You didn’t want to be a normal kid and go to college, chase your dreams?”

College wasn’t exactly a reality for Parker, even before getting bit. Maybe if she were born into a different family that wasn’t riddled with addiction and neglect she would’ve aspired to be a writer, a dancer, a teacher, or even a mom. When you grow up like she did, you’re too focused on survival to look ahead to your future. In a way, getting bit by that spider was a mercy—it gave her purpose when she had none. A new identity. 

“Spider-Man was the only option,” Parker eventually said. Her eyes flickered to Frank. “You were a marine, right? You did that instead of school?”

“Didn’t have the smarts for college.” He sat back. “I was your age when I enlisted.”

“How long did you serve?”

“About a decade. Four tours.”

Parker made a noise of acknowledgement. She wasn’t going to pretend to know much about serving in the military, or what Frank did or where he went during his service. She did know that sometime after his service, he went off the rails and started using his military training to take out people he deemed deserving of punishment—it was why he was dubbed the Punisher . To his credit, from what Parker had heard in the news during his first killing spree, the people he eliminated were no were near innocent.

But, as a result, neither was Frank. The blood on his hands wasn’t just going to wash away.

Parker asked, “Was it the same for you?” When he sent her a questioning glance, she clarified, “Was the Punisher the only option?”

Frank’s fingers brushed the edge of the desk. He didn’t answer right away, but his gaze turned distant. Parker wondered what he saw when he stared beyond the blank wall.

After a few seconds, whatever was clouding his vision cleared and he dragged his eyes to Parker’s. “Yeah.” 

She wanted to ask why, to ask what the catalyst was, but she held back. She had a feeling he’d close himself off as soon as the question left her mouth. 

Frank evidently felt the same compulsion to hold back. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested in knowing more about her decision to don the mask. A somewhat awkward silence fell over them.

It was weird; it seemed like their first full conversation that wasn’t some type of argument. 

“Wanna know something?” Parker offered, trying to lighten the mood. Frank jutted his chin. “My name’s Penny.”

An amused smirk tugged at his lips. “You gave me a fake name?” His voice was light with disbelief.

“I actually do go by Parker now,” she explained, smiling too. “ Penelope Beatrice Parker . Everyone called me Penny.”

Frank raised an eyebrow, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “Penny,” he echoed, shaking his head. “Nah, Parker suits you better. Penny’s too soft.”

Parker matched his grin. “And I’m not soft?”

“You get yourself in too many scraps. You’ve got some edge.”

Was that a compliment? Parker’s heart warmed. Frank’s expression softened—just a little—and for a moment, the walls between them seemed to thin. 

But it didn’t last. 

Frank sat back and nodded to the protein bar he’d tossed onto the desk. “Eat up. We’ve got work to do.”

Don’t I know it. Parker unwrapped the bar and bit into it. It was dry and crumbled on her tongue. “Tastes like cardboard.” 

She checked the wrapper and found the expiry date: APRL 2019. With the amount of preservatives and chemicals in the ingredients list, though, it was probably fine. Calories were calories, and there was no way she was going to turn them down. 

“It ain’t a warm home-cooked meal, that’s for sure.” Frank stood and made his way back to the kitchenette where he poured the rest of the coffee in the pot into the empty mug. 

Parker didn’t have the pleasure of eating enough home-cooked meals to miss them. “So I was thinking,” she said, not looking up, “since we basically don’t have any other choice than to work together, having our own line of communication would be nice. I don’t normally talk when I’m in the mask for obvious reasons, but if I talk quietly the earpieces should still be able to pick it up. Or I can just communicate via morse code.” She shot him a quick glance. “I assume you know morse code, but to make it easier, I’ve got it set up to translate.”

He gave a single nod as he sipped his coffee.

“Right. So once I’ve got these tricked out, I’ll just need to whip up some more web fluid and then I’ll be all set to go after these guys. When do you think you’ll be good?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, with your side?” She gestured to where he’d been stabbed the day before. Although light stabbings were nothing to her, especially all stitched up and with a full night’s sleep to heal, Frank was a normal, unenhanced man. No one—except for maybe Captain America or something—could bounce back from being stabbed like she could.

“My side’s just fine.”

“O-kay. Whatever you say, tough guy.” He was a grown man; if he said he was good, then he was good. And if he was just trying to be stubborn, then Parker had no qualms saving him in the middle of a fight. It would do wonders for her ego—and it’d definitely put a wrinkle in Frank’s to have to be carried out of a fight in a teenage girl’s arms. 

Parker was itching to draw up a game plan, but there was a step that came before plotting: establishing all of their information, otherwise known as crossing t’s and dotting i’s. A little less exciting, but important all the same. They needed to be on the same page.

“I got some new information from Rick before everything blew up,” she said. Frank was elbow-deep in a crate against the wall and didn’t make any move to acknowledge her words. She continued anyway. “Ever hear of the Black Hand?”

Frank pulled a semi-automatic from the crate. Parker’s eyes locked onto it before they flickered up to his face. 

“Can’t say I have.”

He set the gun on the counter, then pulled a box of bullets from his back pocket as if it were something as pedestrian as a cellphone or wallet. 

Parker watched him load the magazine for a few beats, then she turned her attention back to her work. “I don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they’re probably what’s making the Italians and Russians work together. And they’d have to be powerful to be pulling all those strings. But why? What’s the point of bringing the two mobs together?” Frank didn’t answer, which was fine; Parker was mainly talking to herself at that point. “And why did they want my blood?”

What purpose would harvesting her blood have? Her mind immediately went to selling bags of blood on the black market, then she thought of vampires, then it clicked: they probably wanted her blood because she’s enhanced. 

Doc must’ve been impressed by the strength and agility Parker displayed the other night in the parking garage. A mad scientist like herself—at least, Parker assumed that’s what she was—couldn’t possibly resist getting their grubby little hands on her blood for research or experimentation. Both, probably.

And now they knew what she looked like and where she lived, so it was safe to say they definitely knew her identity. The way she saw it, she’d have to leave New York and start over to get off their radar, though even that wasn’t guaranteed.

Also, what was the deal with that albino man on the other side of the mirror? Just his presence made her sixth sense go haywire. And he was just standing there.

“What’re you thinking?”

Parker’s attention flickered to Frank behind the counter. “When I was taken, there was this guy who just…He was just standing there, watching, but I knew… ” She pursed her lips. “Okay, so I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve got this sixth sense that tells me when shit’s about to go down or when someone’s bad news. It’s a built-in threat detector, basically. And it was going nuts when I saw him.”

Frank nodded, brows drawn. “You think he’s enhanced?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe. “He was built like a football player with these huge, bulky shoulders, and he had to have been, like, nearly seven foot. I think he was albino, too, which was interesting.”

Something sharp shifted in Frank’s gaze. He stared at Parker with a look that said he was deciding whether or not to tell her something. 

Parker was nothing if not curious. “What? You know who I’m talking about?”

“Kid—”

“Who is it?”

Frank exhaled slowly. “Alonzo Lincoln.” His voice was grim.

Lincoln. Lincoln? “Who’s that?” Her mind raced—she’d been trying to figure out who “Lincoln” was from that night at the pawn shop. Only, with everything else that had popped up since then, she mostly forgot about it.

“No one good.”

Obviously . “That doesn’t really help me much, Frank.”

“He goes by Tombstone, if that tells you anything. Word is he got a knock-off version of the super-soldier serum.”

Fantastic. Parker rolled this information over in her mind. The pieces were falling into place, but it didn’t make the situation any clearer. A super-soldier serum, a crime syndicate pulling the strings—what did they want with her blood? To replicate whatever enhancements the spider gave her? 

Something was dripping. It was a slow, rhythmic dripping, like a leaky faucet. She had noticed it yesterday, but now, in the thoughtful silence that stretched between the two, it became louder. 

She glanced over at him, meeting his eyes for a second longer than she usually would. He had another gun out and was loading that one up, too. 

“I know where they held me,” she said, slowly. She wasn’t totally sure if she ought to be telling this to a man who was literally gearing up to shoot someone. “I can call the police and send them over there to raid the building.”

Frank shook his head. The bullets clinked against each other as he thumbed them into the magazine. “Nah, the cops won’t get the job done.”

“Well, they’re trained for this kind of stuff, right? And if these people are behind bars, then we can go back home.”

“The cops?” Frank set down the mag. “They’ll show up, wave their badges around, maybe arrest a few guys, and then go home. But nothing changes. They’re underfunded, corrupt, and half the time, they’re working for the same people we’re trying to take down.”

Parker shifted in her seat. She wasn’t exactly a fan of the police either—growing up in Queens, she’d seen enough to know not every officer had their heart in the right place. But the way Frank was speaking, it was like he wasn’t even considering the possibility that the law might help. A part of her wondered if he was just itching to kill again—that he would use this as an excuse to shed blood—but he didn’t seem like a hobby murderer who shot people for kicks. Parker had been his neighbor for at least six months before actually meeting him and realizing that he was the Punisher, and she never once overheard him doing evil things next door or even coming home smelling like gunpowder. 

“What’s your plan, then?” she asked. “We can’t just walk in there and take them all on by ourselves, Frank. They…” She paused, realizing that her memory was spotty. She got away fairly unscathed, she knew that much, but Tombstone wasn’t there, and they were probably banking on the fact that the paralyzing drug would last longer than it did, so they must not have had much security at the time. Something tells her they’re much more heavily guarded after her escape. “It just doesn’t sound smart. It’ll be, like, twenty against two.”

Frank didn’t appear swayed. “It won’t be twenty against two, because you’re not going.”

Oh. My. God. “If it’s because I’m a girl, you’ve got some serious misogyny to address.”

Frank gave her a deadpan look. “It’s not because you’re a girl. If you show up on their doorstep, you’d just be giving them exactly what they want.”

Parker opened her mouth to argue, but the words died in her throat as she processed what he said. It was true. They were looking for her. She’d already been the target once, and stepping back into their territory would put her right back into the crosshairs.

But that didn’t sit well with her. She wasn’t helpless; she wasn’t some damsel in distress. “I can’t just sit on my hands, Frank,” she finally said, her voice tight with frustration. “And you sure as hell can’t do it on your own, not with your side. You need me, man. I’ve got super powers . Why would you bench your star player?” 

She was right, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And as stubborn as Frank was, Parker was equally so. 

Sensing this, Frank pushed off the counter and said, “You’re not going in, and you’re not calling the cops. You want them to come in, they’ll just get in the way.” He shot her a stern look. “We do it my way.”

His way, meaning killing everyone on sight? Hell no. But with Parker there, she’d be able to minimize his damage.

“Sure.”

Frank’s eyes didn’t soften, but he nodded once, sharply. “And no reckless shit. You push too far, I’ll drag you out of it myself. Understood?”

Parker could see the weight in his eyes—the genuine concern buried beneath the layers of hardened military and past trauma. Despite what he said earlier, she could tell part of him was bothered by the fact that she was a girl and she was involved in this mess. She’d have to prove herself, then. 

“Understood.”

_

It didn’t take long for Parker to retrace her steps with Frank in tow to the building where Doc had her restrained and drugged. It was just after noon, and the gray blanket of clouds blocked any warmth from shining down on the pair. Parker was glad for her mask and for the hoodie, though she eyed Frank’s black jacket with envy. He didn’t appear affected by the harsh wind or brisk autumn temperature at all. 

They each had an earpiece in. When Parker finished them earlier that morning, she held both up to Frank with pride and said, “Left or right?” The left earpiece was tucked into Frank’s ear as they approached the building; Parker had the right. 

They were at the back door. The plan was for Frank to enter through the roof entrance and for Parker to head by the door to catch anyone trying to escape, but as Frank pulled at the fire escape ladder, Parker paused and frowned. 

“Wait.”

Frank squinted at her. “What?”

Parker leaned an ear against the brick and closed her eyes. Straining her ears, she focused on blocking out the sounds of the city surrounding them and narrowed-in on only the sounds from the building. Water in pipes. Hum of electricity. 

No heartbeats, no drags of breath. It was empty. 

Parker ripped the back door open, breaking the lock, and strode inside. 

“ Hey , what are you—”

Parker tuned Frank’s protests out and made quick work of scanning the hallways. She broke each locked door to peer inside. When she made it to the room she was kept in, the one with the one-way mirror and dentist chair, she stilled. Where is everyone?

All the rooms were gutted of anything not nailed down: medical equipment, the dentist chair, any other furniture. It was as if they were never even there. As if it were the wrong building. But it was the right place, because Parker was literally there yesterday. The mirror was the same, and there was a mark in the tiles where the chair must’ve scraped the floor as they were moving everything out.

A heartbeat behind her alerted Frank’s lingering presence at the door.

“Welp,” Parker said, turning around and throwing her hands up. “Looks like they cleared out.”

“You’re sure this is the right place?” Frank asked. 

“One hundred percent.” Parker turned in a slow circle. She nodded to the mirror. “Our Tombstone guy watched from the other side of the glass. There was a chair here—” She made a sweeping motion to where the scratches in the floor were. “—and a little cart here.”

Frank scanned the room as if he were visualizing her descriptions. “They probably stay moving. Keeps them off the grid, makes them harder to find.” It was probably why neither Frank or Parker had heard of The Black Hand before.

“Great.” Parker was stumped. “Now what?” 

Frank, still in the doorway, glanced down each end of the hall before returning his gaze to the girl standing in the middle of the empty room. “Who was the weasel you talked to before? Nick?”

“Rick?”

He lifted his chin. The overhead lighting highlighted the shadows of his scarred face. “He talked once, he’ll talk again.” He pushed off the doorframe. “Let’s go.”

There was no room for argument. With one last glance at the room, Parker turned and followed. 

“We’re not killing Rick,” she said when she matched his pace. 

Frank gave her a subdued look. “We?”

“Whether you like it or not, we’re a team—” Frank scoffed and shook his head. Parker ignored his reaction. “—so your actions reflect back on me. One dead body, and my reputation is ruined forever.”

“You agreed to doing things my way.”

Parker crossed her arms. “I’m not going to kill anyone.”

“Hell, kid, I don’t expect you to. I don’t want you to.” Frank gave her a look she couldn’t decipher as he pushed the door open and they stepped outside. “What makes you think I’m going to kill Rick? He’s wrapped up in this shit, sure, but he ain’t nothing more than a lowlife.”

Parker shrugged. That was reassuring, at some level.

“Where’s Rick live, anyway?”

“East Brooklyn,” Parker replied. It took her a moment to realize Frank had stopped walking alongside her, and when she did, she stopped as well and turned.

Frank was squinting at the sky. “Wasting daylight getting over there.”

Not that the thick clouds allowed much daylight to shine through anyways. She set her hands on her hips and shrugged. “I can swing us over. It’ll take fifteen minutes tops.” Frank uttered a “Hell no” before she even finished. “Why not? It’s so much faster.”

“I’m not hanging onto you like a sloth.”

“It’ll only be for a little bit.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I promise I won’t drop you, I’m sticky!”

Frank leveled Parker with a hard stare.

Five minutes later, they were sitting side-by-side, knees knocking into each other, as they rode the crowded subway in silence. Parker’s mask was hiding under her hoodie—”leaving incognito mode,” she announced when she had slipped it off—and Frank’s gun was tucked away in his jacket. 

Parker always enjoyed the subway, though she rarely took it anymore since it was much more convenient to swing above the streets rather than to pass below them. One thing she missed from the bumpy rides, though, was the people watching. A baby sitting in his mom’s lap across the aisle grinned at Parker and giggled at the faces she pulled. Frank watched silently, face as stony and unreadable as always.

“Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers flowed through the earpiece in her right ear. An added bonus to fixing up another set of airpods: getting to listen to music again. She offered the tunes to Frank, but he declined. It was probably a good thing, because Parker wasn’t sure he’d be into any of her music. What kind of music did the Punisher listen to, anyways? She gave him a sideways glance. Rock for sure. And maybe also some classic country. 

Parker and Frank got off the subway in East Brooklyn. As they stepped off, Parker wiggled her fingers and said, “bye bye” to the smiley baby. He bounced and cooed happily. 

Once on the surface, Parker commented, “Babies are cute, but I don’t think I could handle one 24/7.” She started towards Rick’s place. Frank followed quietly. Conversationally, Parker asked, “Did you ever have any kids?”

Frank followed her question with a long silence. She had to glance beside her to make sure he was still there. His face was set in a hard stare, like he was reinforcing his walls. “How far?” he gritted out.

Hm. Touchy subject. “Not too far, just a few blocks this way.” She’d let it go—for now.

_

Rick wasn’t home, but they were able to slip inside through the broken window without trouble. Well, Parker was; she had to open the front door to let Frank in so he didn’t submit himself to the humiliation of being a grown man climbing through a window. 

As Frank cleared the house, Parker rustled through the papers strewn across the table. Her eyes landed in a pale yellow sticky note crumpled up in the trash. Plucking it from the top of the pile, she carefully unfolded it. 

“Cha-ching.” She flashed it to Frank as he looked over from the bedroom he was checking out. “Why are criminals so predictable?”

“Makes our job easier.”

“Hell yeah it does.” Parker ran her eyes over the messy handwriting. 2870 Linden Blvd, Brooklyn, NY, it read, with a time scrawled beside it: 1:00. It was noon now. And the address wasn’t too far. There was a chance it wasn’t for today, or that it was 1:00 am and not pm, but it was sitting on top of the trash—chances were, it was recent. What was the harm in trying? 

“Wanna swing over?”

Frank strode over and took the note. Turning to the front door, he said, “Ask me that again, see what happens.”

“Wanna—”

He shot her a glare over his shoulder. But Parker could tell—his tough exterior was breaking.

“Come on.” He nodded out the door after opening it. Parker followed like a duckling. 

As they walked, Parker continued her playlist and subtly bobbed her head to the beat pulsing through the earpiece. The current song was Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy,” one of Parker’s favorites.

Frank cast her a sidelong look when she started mouthing the lyrics. She pointed to her ear. “Music. Do you want to sync up?”

“I’m good.”

She shoved her hands back into her pocket. With her mask still tucked inside, her hands were crowded, but in a good, warm way. 

Frank’s eyes scanned every corner, every alleyway as they walked in silence, his hand never far from the weapon under his jacket. It seemed like a natural pose for him. Like it was comfortable.

There was a lot about Frank that Parker didn’t vibe with, but there was also something about him that made her feel safe. It was a strange thing to admit, especially after witnessing him shoot someone in person, but Frank’s presence, even in silence, had a steadiness to it. He was all business, but there was a layer of protection she hadn’t known she needed until she’d felt it last night. Of all the homes she lived in over the past decade—and there were a lot —that garage was the one she felt the most secure in. And that was even with the squeaky bedsprings, dirty pillow, and lack of solid walls. 

It was Frank that made it feel safe. Again—strange thing to admit. But she couldn’t fathom sleeping soundly with her old foster brother Steven twenty feet away from her in a room without walls, much less a door without a lock. Nothing between them. 

Parker kicked an aluminum can to snap herself from her thoughts. She watched as it skittered across the sidewalk, and as she came up on it again, instead of kicking it, she picked it up and tossed it into a recycling bin an impressive distance away. Or, it would’ve been impressive if she didn’t have crazy enhancements. 

Her thoughts crawled back to the garage. She couldn’t stop replacing Frank’s sleeping form with Steven’s. Suddenly, Mariah Carey’s angelic high notes sounded too shrill in her ears. She paused the song with a tap. 

Focus . She needed to stay on track if she wanted her head to be in the right place when she and Frank found Rick. 

“What?”

Parker’s eyes darted to Frank’s. He was watching her with that sidelong look again. 

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, I know.” He glanced around. The street was fairly empty. His eyes landed back on her. “You sense danger or something?”

“No? I was just thinking.” This was why she wore a mask—she was far too easy to read. 

“About?”

“Nothing.” She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “It’s irrelevant.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed slightly, but then he tore his eyes away and didn’t press. Parker was glad; she was a shit liar. And even if she wasn’t she had a feeling Frank had a good bullshit detector. 

A silence fell over them as they walked. Finally, ten minutes later, they reached their destination: a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant. 

“Huh,” Parker uttered as they stood outside on the street. They were positioned behind an Amazon truck parked illegally in the bike lane. (Parking violations were the only crimes where Parker looked the other way.) “Is there a Thai mob?”

“It doesn’t have to be an Italian restaurant for them to be cleaning money for the Italians.” 

Parker considered this. “Or maybe our guy’s just on a date.”

“Nah.”

Whatever. Parker stood on the tips of her toes for a better look through the large front windows. It was a quarter ‘til one, so they likely wouldn’t see Rick for a while. The restaurant was busy with the lunch rush; people came and went constantly, the bell above the door jingling more often than not. 

She really hoped this went smoothly—there were way too many civilians in the vicinity. Frank wouldn’t put innocent people’s lives at risk, but there was no doubt in her mind that he’d probably be okay with causing a scene if it meant they could get this whole thing over and done with as fast as possible. There was no telling who was waiting here for Rick, either. For all they knew, it could be a whole army of mobsters. Frank didn’t seem to have a problem with things going sideways. In fact, she got the feeling that if everything went perfectly smooth, he’d be disappointed. 

Parker eyed Frank beside her. The hand over his weapon. 

“Idea,” she blurted. “Let’s watch him go in, wait for his date to get over, then follow him until he’s somewhere less public before we make our move.”

“Sounds like a waste of time.”

“There’s a ton of families in there. What if, when we approach him, there’s some undercover bodyguards or whatever that jump out and start shooting at us? Someone could accidentally get hit in the crossfire.”

Frank grunted, brow furrowed. “We’ll pull him before he goes in.”

“What if—”

“I’m not wasting my whole day stalking this guy.” 

“It wouldn’t take all day.”

“You don’t know that, he could be in there for hours.”

Before she could retort, she caught a glimpse of a man in the corner of her eyes that made her turn. Bingo . 

Rick was walking briskly towards the door. The puffy coat he wore swallowed his frame and made his denim-clad legs look like little toothpicks. He was hugging a manilla folder to his chest.

“There’s our guy,” she said, nodding towards him.

Frank’s body went still, and his eyes locked onto the man like a hawk spotting its prey. Just when he was about to move—to pounce—Parker webbed his feet in place. 

“Parker, I swear to god.”

“We’re waiting.”

His face was almost comical. His wide, tough gait reminded her of a bulldog, and now the deep, angry lines in his face made him look like one, too.

“Can’t keep pulling shit like this with me, kid.”

“Or what?” It wasn’t a challenge; Parker was genuinely curious what Frank would do. He’d never hit a woman unless she was straight-up evil. Even then, some part of his strange moral code would probably cringe. Parker literally couldn’t think of anything Frank would do to her to cause her direct harm other than, like, hurting her feelings.

He shook his head, jaw clenching. “You’re lucky I don’t strangle you.”

Parker couldn’t help the grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

Rick, oblivious to the two of them standing just out of sight, entered the restaurant without a glance over his shoulder. As soon as the door shut behind him, Frank sighed. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

“Can’t say I haven’t heard that before.” She watched through the window as Rick was approached by a guy in a dark polo and khakis. They were both grinning as they shook hands. She tried to focus on sifting through all the input her brain was receiving, narrowing in on Rick and the conversation he was having with the polo guy. 

With the jingling door bell, the mingling customers, and the grumbling of her stomach (a natural reaction to smelling Thai cuisine), it was hard to isolate his voice. All she got was their polite greetings, a “thank you,” and some laughing. The guy he was talking to had a thick accent that only made it harder to decipher. 

Rick handed the manilla folder over, they shook hands again, laughed again, and then Rick was leaving. 

“That was fast.” Parker turned to Frank, who was cutting his shoes free from the webs. “Aren’t you glad we waited? He’s done already.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He wiped the blade of the knife against his thigh before pocketing it. He started down the street in the direction Rick was headed.  “Come on, before we lose ‘em.”

“Yessir.”

_

Rick was washing his hands in the gross subway bathroom when Parker—masked up, so technically Spider-Man—and Frank walked in. Parker confirmed before they pushed the door open that it was empty. 

Rick’s eyes flickered to Frank and Parker, then shot back to them in a double-take when he processed who had followed him in. 

“Woah, woah, what is this?” He dried his wet hands off on his coat before holding them up innocently as he looked between the two approaching him. His eyes focused on Spider-Man. “Hey, Spidey—good to see you, man. I thought they nabbed you.”

Aw. That was actually nice.

Frank, evidently, did not feel as touched. He took two steps forward and grabbed Rick by the throat to slam him into the wall. Parker rolled her eyes but let him do his thing. 

Rick squeaked at the impact. “What do you want?!”

“Where’s Lincoln?”

“Lincoln who?”

“You know who.”

“I am literally so confused right now.” Rick spoke quickly, words running into each other. His wide eyes darted to Parker standing behind Frank. “Can you call off your attack dog?”

Frank added pressure to his neck. Parker knew this because Rick let out another squeak. 

“Okay, okay, okay. Just chill, bro. Lincoln who ?”

“Tombstone,” Frank replied, and realization washed over Rick’s face. “Ringing bells now?”

“I have nothing to do with that psychopath.” 

“Bullshit,” Frank said matter-of-factly. “You work for the Black Hand.”

“Barely. I told him”—Rick nodded to Parker—”that I only do the small stuff, like moving shit around. The only reason I’m wrapped up in this shit is because my idiot cousin owed the wrong guy money and—look, it’s a long story. I seriously don’t know anything important.”

Frank pulled his fist back, ready to punch. Parker decided it was time to step in.

She caught his fist and lowered it. Frank didn’t take his razor-sharp eyes off Rick. 

In morse code, Parker quickly tapped “Ask restaurant” into her earpiece.  She watched Frank’s focus shift slightly as he listened to the translation in his ear, but his edge never softened. “What were you doing at the restaurant?”

“Like I told him , I help small businesses out with their finances when they can’t afford fancy accountants or financial advisors. Mr. Aromdee has been a client for years.”

That checked out. Whatever was in that manilla folder was probably whatever financial mumbo jumbo was on his laptop when Parker ambushed him in his home yesterday.

“He clean money for the Italians? The Russians?”

“Absolutely not. He’s a respectable man making an honest living.”

This was going nowhere. Frank must’ve felt it, too, because he switched gears. “You don’t know where to find Lincoln?”

“No.”

“Then tell me who does.” 

Rick sighed. “I’m going to miss my train—”

Frank pressed harder against his throat. 

His voice was thin and shrill as he exclaimed, “I don’t know! I swear!”

Just as Parker was about to intervene again, a phone went off. Parker's eyes zeroed-in on the lit-up screen showing through the front pocket of his pants. 

Frank dug the phone out himself, one hand still keeping Rick in place. Parker felt it was unnecessary; there was no way he’d be stupid enough to attempt to run. 

With a glance at the screen, Frank hit the green answer button and put it on speaker. His intense, steady eyes stared directly into Rick’s soul. Challenging him. 

“Hey, Dom. What’s up?” Rick’s voice cracked nervously.

Parker perked up at the name. 

“Where’s the van?” came the gruff demand from the speaker. No time for pleasantries. 

“ Shit ,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and craning his neck to the ceiling. “I’ll have it back in time for—” He paused and looked between Frank and Parker. “I’ll have it back in a couple hours.”

“ Where is it?”

“My girlfriend’s car got impounded and she Doordashes, she needed something to drive.”

A pause. Then: “What the fuck, Rick?”

Frank and Parker exchanged a look. Rick, still pressed against the wall, looked simultaneously exhausted, scared, and defeated. “I swear I’ll have it back by tonight.”

“You have two hours.”

The call ended. Rick leaned his head against the gross tile of the wall and muttered curses under his breath. “What am I doing with my life.”

Frank moved so his hand was only gripping the man’s shirt in his fist. He turned to Parker behind him and said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

If he meant riding in the back of the van while Rick drove them straight to whatever was going down that night, then, yeah, she was thinking what he was thinking. 

Chapter Text

The ride was bumpy in the back of the van. She and Frank sat on the floor opposite of each other, their shoes centimeters apart, as they both chowed down on a bucket of KFC drumsticks courtesy of Rick’s girlfriend. She had bought the bucket for Rick and her to share, but neither Parker or Frank had lunch yet, so Frank took it upon himself to confiscate it. Parker normally wouldn’t lift her mask to her nose to eat in the presence of a civilian, but Rick’s eyes were razor-focused on the road as he drove them to the drop point, so she wasn’t too worried. 

As Rick drove, he filled them in on the situation. He was supposed to have dropped the van off at a garage that morning to be picked up by Dom to use for “transporting something, probably” that night, as Rick speculated. Dom needed it sooner than expected. When he saw it wasn’t at the location, he flipped his shit and called Rick. 

Parker felt at ease knowing they weren’t about to drive into a situation she couldn’t easily punch or web her way out of. It was only Dom; they could take him. 

Parker nudged Frank’s boot with her sneaker. He wiped his greasy hands against a discarded jacket on the floor and inclined his head. 

Radio , she tapped into her earpiece. Frank scoffed and said, “No.”

Parker frowned. She kicked his boot and cocked her head towards the front, silently urging him. 

He glared in response. 

Ugh. What an asshat. 

Parker stood and leaned over the center console, startling Rick. His grip on the wheel tightened and he glanced back and forth from the road to Parker as she messed with the radio. Smooth jazz filled the van.

“Turn that off, would you?”

Parker changed the station, giving Frank the middle finger behind her back as she did. Plucky country tunes crackled out of the speaker. Then some guy shouting bible verses. Then a pop song Parker vaguely recognized. She settled on a classic rock station and sat back down.

Rick shot them a look in the rearview mirror. "So, uh,” he started, curiosity in his voice, “what’s the deal with you two? You, like, a team or something?”

Parker and Frank exchanged a glance. Frank didn't answer immediately, taking a deliberate bite from another chicken drumstick. She leaned back against the cool metal of the van, letting Frank answer—or not.

When the silence stretched on, Rick cleared his throat uncomfortably. He gave Frank another look in the mirror. “This might be  a weird question, but do I know you? You look kinda familiar.”

“Nope.”

Parker was surprised more people didn’t connect his face with his name and crimes. She could understand if someone from, say, Montana didn’t recognize Frank, but a New Yorker? They ought to be familiar enough with his face to point him out on the street. His mug was only posted everywhere for a year straight following his murders and infamous trial. Maybe the rumor that he was dead was what kept people from connecting the dots. Or maybe most people were too worried about themselves to notice. 

The van jostled the vigilantes in the back as Rick turned into a pothole-ridden parking lot. The lights of the garage flickered into view, and Parker shifted and ducked behind Rick’s seat, ensuring she was out of view. Frank did the same. 

Rick swerved the van to a stop in front of the garage. Parker picked up on four heartbeats: her own, Frank’s, Rick’s, and someone else’s. Dom’s, supposedly. 

Rick put the van in park and got out, slamming the door shut behind him. His heart thudded rapidly in his chest. “Hey, sorry about—”

A thud, like skin on skin. Parker flinched. Did Dom just punch Rick? 

Frank’s arm brushed against hers. She glanced at him. Her eyes met his. “You ready, kid?”

“I was born ready.” She was actually born premature and unable to breathe on her own, but he didn’t have to know that. Her adrenaline was kicking in, making her body feel light and energized. 

The driver side door opened again. This time, Dom got in. His eyes caught Frank a split second before his face was smashed against the steering wheel. 

Here we go. Parker opened the back doors and jumped out, quickly making her way around the van. She took note of Rick sitting miserably against the garage, nursing a bloody nose, as she reached the open door.

Dom pulled a knife from his waistband. Before he could shank Frank, Parker grabbed his elbow and yanked him onto the asphalt. The knife clattered to the ground. She kicked it away and kept an eye on him as he staggered to his feet. Blood streamed from his eyebrow and nose, dripping down his chin. When he bared his teeth, they were stained red.

He spat at her, but she saw it coming and sidestepped. Dom, however, didn’t see Frank coming from behind. Frank grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, slamming him up against the side of the van with his arm twisted behind his back. Blood smeared across the window.

“What the fuck, Rick!” Dom shouted, voice muffled by his cheek pressed against the glass. 

Rick looked like he was going to either shit his pants or run away. Both, probably. He pushed himself to his feet. “They made me bring them here! I had no choice, they were going to kill Cindy!”

Parker whirled around with an arched brow, not that he could see. But still. What the hell. 

“You’re messing with very powerful people,” Dom growled. His eyes were wide, but not with fear. “This isn’t a game.”

Frank slipped a knife from his belt, flicked it open, and pressed the tip to Dom’s throat. A bead of blood formed. Parker stepped forward, but Frank shot her a look, keeping her back—for now.

“Where’s Tombstone?”

Dom just chuckled and spat more blood from his mouth. 

Parker tapped the letters d-o-c into her earpiece. Frank didn’t outwardly acknowledge the message, but the next question he asked was, “Where’s the doc?” No answer. Frank pressed the knife deeper. The bead turned into a drip. It took everything in Parker to stay put. 

She trusted him— wanted to trust him. A little scratch wasn’t the end of the world; Parker had inflicted more damage than that before. 

"You’re awful quiet for someone who’s about to get his throat slit,” Frank said. “Start talking. What do you want with Spider-Man?” 

“What do you think?” Red drool dripped from his bottom lip.

Frank shifted on his feet, looking testy. “I think you have a death wish.”

“I think you do as well.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Parker spotted Rick moving. She shot a quick web at a foot just as he was about to take off running. Letting out a grunt, Rick tripped over the stuck foot and crashed to the asphalt. 

Parker turned back to watch Frank throw Dom onto the ground and kneel over him. After the first solid punch that made even Parker wince, she decided it was probably time to step in. 

Stop . Frank landed another punch. She knew he heard the message—she could hear it being relayed through his earpiece—and, yet, he punched again. And again.

Frustrated, Parker stepped forward, ready to yank Frank off the poor guy, but then Dom said between wheezed breaths, “They won’t stop.”

Frank’s raised fist lingered above him. His other fist took the front of his shirt and lifted him from the ground, getting into his face. “Why not?”

“Power…” He coughed. Tiny blood droplets sprayed Frank’s face. “Power is a precious commodity. More precious than money.” His eyes locked onto Parker hovering behind. “And she’s drowning in it.”

It took her a moment to catch it, but once she did, Parker's breath caught in her throat. She . 

Frank let go of his shirt and let his head fall back against the ground, but Dom didn’t react with anything other than a twitch of a wince.

Her mind flashed back to when she was strapped to the chair. Doc knew she was a girl—Tombstone knew, too. Who else knows?

She stood there, her pulse hammering in her ears, barely registering the tension around her. Frank was still on top of Dom, his expression unreadable, but Parker could see the tightness in his jaw.

Welp. Now that the jig was up, there was no reason not to talk directly to the guy. 

“You guys already got a little of my blood,” she said, recalling how the needle struck her vein and how she bled all over the floor. Surely they didn’t let that go to waste. “Isn’t that enough?” 

“Wait, Spider-Man’s a gir —”

Parker webbed Rick’s mouth shut without looking away from the battered man on the ground.

Dom’s eyes slid shut, but he was still conscious. She could almost hear the throb of his concussion in the silence. “Doc has more plans for you,” he murmured, a sick grin tugging at his swollen lips. “She was delighted to discover what… what you were hiding beneath your s-suit.”

Parker’s blood ran cold, and she felt Frank stiffen beside her. His eyes darted to her for a brief moment—guarded, cautious—before returning to Dom. What the hell did that mean?

Dom’s eyelids cracked open, just enough for her to see the cruel glint in his eyes as he turned them toward her. A chill raced down her spine.

“What plans?” Parker managed, her voice strained as she fought the tight coil of fear in her chest.

A laugh, low and manic, bubbled up from his throat.

Frank grabbed Dom by the collar and jerked him closer. “ What plans?”

Dom’s laugh sputtered into a cough, blood spitting from his lips as his swollen face twisted with pain. He met Frank’s stare, his grin widening. 

Frank’s grip tightened, his knuckles white against Dom’s filthy shirt. Just when Parker thought he was going to snap and slam his fists into his face again, he let go and straightened. Despite the calm on his face, Parker felt a prick of danger at the base of her neck. 

She quickly glanced at Rick, just to make sure he hadn’t somehow freed himself. The second her gaze shifted, Frank pulled out his gun, cocked it, and leveled it at Dom’s head, all in one fluid motion.

“No!”

Her ears rang, the sharp, metallic scent of gunpowder and blood thick in the air. It took a beat for her to process that Dom wasn’t dead. Her body moved on instinct; her arm was already outstretched, wrist face-up, middle and ring fingers on the webshooter.

The webbing had struck his elbow, jolting his arm as he fired, the shot veering wide. Frank was undeterred and fired again. This time, Parker shoved him, a quick, powerful push that sent him to the ground. The bullet hit the asphalt beside Dom’s ear. 

The gun clattered to the ground. Parker shot a web at it, yanking it back to her hand before crushing it in a fist.

A muffled choking sound tore her attention away from Frank and Dom. Laying on the ground where Parker webbed him, Rick’s body shuddered and convulsed, his hands pressing against his stomach as red slipped between his fingers. 

Parker jolted to action. Sliding to her knees, she dropped the crushed gun. Her hands pressed over his, applying more pressure. His eyes were wide and he was doubled over as if he were vomiting. The web over his mouth suffocated him.

Fuck . She tapped a sequence into the webshooter and sprayed the dissolving solution. Once it was wet enough, she quickly pried the rest off. Bloody vomit spilled from his mouth like a waterfall. She could hear some rattling around in his lungs. She went ahead and dissolved the webs around his feet, too.

Every alarm in her head was blaring. “Rick,” she said, her voice shaky, as she tried to get his attention. “Rick, hey, hey, look at me. You’re okay. You’re okay.” 

He coughed out more blood. Parker wasn't sure if it was the same blood he had just inhaled or if it was new. 

Frank was a marine—he’d know what to do. He’d known what to do with her bullet wound. “Help me!” she shouted over her shoulder, not taking her attention off Rick. Her fingers were slick and slippery as she applied more pressure to the wound. “Frank!”

She glanced behind her. Both Frank and Dom were gone. 

Keeping one hand on the bullet wound, she lifted the other to her earpiece and dialed 911. 

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“He got shot in the stomach, I need paramedics over here now.” Parker didn’t even bother altering her voice. “He’s—it’s bad, he’s losing a lot of blood really fast. We’re… I don’t know where we are.” How long were they in the van for? Couldn’t have been longer than an hour. “I think we’re in Brooklyn.” Her eyes landed on a street sign. “Quincy Street.”

“I’m sending help your way. Is the shooter still there?”

Parker hung up with a quick tap and resumed pressing down with both hands. Rick let out a pain-filled gurgle amidst his hyperventilating. 

“Help is coming, you’re going to be okay. Just keep looking at me, yeah?”

His eyes fluttered shut. Parker tapped his cheek, but it did little to stir him. 

Tearing her mask off her face, his eyes found hers again, this time latching on. 

“That’s it, keep those eyes open.” She grinned, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It felt too toothy. “They’re almost here, you’re doing so good.”

She could see the life slipping out of him with every passing second; she could hear it, too, as his pulse weakened and his breaths got raspier. Her mind flashed with images of a girl’s face—her curly hair matted with blood, her eyes wide and frantic as she sputtered for air.

Parker blinked the ghost away. “ Fuck ,” she choked out, tapping her earpiece again, this time trying to get ahold of Frank but only being met with radio silence. What was the point of the comms if he wasn’t going to use them?

Finally, above Rick’s groans and the city sounds, sirens broke through. 

“Hold on for a little longer. You hear me?” Parker tilted Rick’s face, locking eyes. “You have to stay alive.”

“ Hnnng .”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes, ma’am.’ ” 

The sirens got closer. Parker waited with Rick until the very last second. Once they rounded the block and their lights flashed the garage with red and blue, she took off and tugged her mask back down, ducking behind the building. 

She waited there as the paramedics transported him into the back of the ambulance. The cops fanned out to find the shooter. By the time they checked behind the building, Parker was already gone.

_

The safehouse was empty when Parker burst in. Which was a good thing; if Frank had been there, she would’ve punched his nose through his skull. When she first left the scene, she thought she’d go track down Frank to stop him from killing Dom. Then, when she realized she was probably too late, she thought she’d just run away and skip town so the Black Hand forgot about her. It was tempting, to run. But she knew too much to just leave the group be. And, besides, if what Dom said was true—that Doc had more plans for her—there was no way they’d stop going after her once she left New York. 

Once that was established, Parker thought that she’d handle them by herself. No Punisher needed. But she was tired, hungry, covered in Rick’s blood, and absolutely wrecked. 

She hadn’t realized she had made her way back to the safehouse until her trembling hand was on the cool door handle. Once inside, she dragged her feet to the bathroom where she scrubbed her hands clean. There were flakes under her fingernails that wouldn’t go away, but after several minutes of scrubbing, she gave up and turned the faucet off. 

The water-spotted mirror above the sink taunted her. The last person she wanted to see—other than Frank—was herself. Because, as much as Rick’s blood was on Frank’s hands, it was also on hers, and not just literally. If she hadn’t webbed him in place, he would’ve been able to dodge the bullet. Or if she hadn’t webbed his mouth up, he wouldn’t have choked on his own blood, would’ve been able to cry out as soon as the bullet made impact. 

She sunk into the dirty mattress and stared at the discolored ceiling. She shouldn’t have let Frank take it that far. Should’ve paid better attention to him. Should’ve acted sooner. Should’ve—should’ve jumped in front of the bullet, or something. Anything.

The silence of the safehouse was suffocating. She could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator, the shuffle of her own breath, and whatever was making that faint whirring noise, but there was nothing else. No one to talk to. No one to comfort her. The pain was hers to carry, and it only compounded on the years and years of pain she already carried. 

The images of the girl’s face plagued her. She thought she had finally buried it along with the rest of her traumas, but all it took was another person dying in her arms to bring it all back.

She knew she should’ve been doing something productive, but all her human body knew to do at that moment was shut down before it could break down. 

_

Parker’s eyes snapped open. A door creaked. Even breaths, footsteps, the smell of copper.

She jolted upright and zeroed-in on Frank stepping inside as he let the door fall shut behind him. His face and neck were splattered with blood, and the front of his shirt was soaked in it. For a brief moment she worried it was his own, but the way he strode inside didn’t allude to any injuries. 

Her stomach swung low, though she was expecting this. 

Their eyes met and Frank paused. The hardness in his stare didn’t waver. It was all the confirmation she needed. 

Say something , she challenged silently through her own glare. He tore his eyes away and headed towards the bathroom. 

Parker pushed herself out of bed and stormed towards him. She stopped at the open doorway and seethed, “Do you feel good about yourself? Did killing him fix all your problems, Frank?”

He didn’t flinch. His gaze stayed fixed on the sink, the water running over his hands in a steady stream. The blood rinsed off, but it didn’t seem to matter to him as he continued scrubbing.

Parker’s fists clenched at her sides. She wasn’t going to stand there, silently watching him clean himself up like he hadn’t just slaughtered someone—someone she should’ve protected, whose blood was still crusted under her nails. She was Spider-Man, for fucksake—she was supposed to protect people from people like Frank. 

The anger in her chest grew like a wildfire. “Say something, asshole!”

She startled when he turned, his broad frame blocking the doorway. He towered over her, but it wasn’t just his size that made her freeze, it was his own fiery anger in his face. His jaw was tight, and it looked like he was holding himself back. From what, Parker wasn’t sure.

“He was a bad man . Did you not hear the shit he was saying? About what they wanted to do to you?”

“You don’t know what their plans—”

“The motherfucker told me,” Frank interrupted sharply.

Parker scoffed. “What, while you were torturing him? I bet he said a lot of things.”

“Yeah, while I was torturing him.” Frank shouldered past Parker out of the tiny bathroom. “I shouldn’t have killed him so soon. Should’ve let him suffer a little more, let him choke on his own blood, you know?” His voice was steadily rising. 

“You’re a monster,” she spat at his back.

“ I’m a monster?” Frank whirled around. “You want to know what they want to do with you? Tombstone wants to rape you so he can have a fuckin’ enhanced baby.” Parker’s anger died in her throat. It tasted like ash. Her mind tried to make sense of his words, but he plowed on. “He was going on and on about power. Apparently you’ve got the power he wants, and your blood ain’t cutting it. But I’m the monster, right?”

A tense silence fell over them, Frank seething and Parker frozen. She blinked back tears that had been steadily building since the incident with Rick. His eyes studied her face and, after a beat, he looked away. Parker silently watched him retreat to the kitchen.

Her brain felt like it was stuck in gum, the stretchy pink kind. So they had salvaged what little blood they had of hers, but it didn’t yield the results they wanted? What did they even do with it? But those thoughts weren’t even the ones that made her throat tight—they were just the ones she dared to consider. The other thoughts, the ones about what Tombstone wanted to do with her body, made every inch of her skin crawl.

Frank took a can of ravioli from a cupboard and slammed it shut. Lost in her head, Parker’s shoulders jumped to her ears. 

He avoided looking at her, his eyes narrowed on anything else: the floor, his food. After a bite, he said, “I had my hands around his throat as he told me, with a fucking smile on his face.”

Parker cleared her throat. “Do you believe him?” 

“Why would he lie?”

“Because you had your hands around his throat.” 

Frank ate another forkful and shook his head. “He was dying no matter what he told me.”

“Maybe he knew that, and he wanted to say anything that would piss you off.”

Frank set the can down on the counter and poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, deep in thought. The angry lines in his forehead were less intense, but still there. “It checks out, doesn’t it?” 

It did. That was why Parker was grappling for an excuse. She sniffed and looked away, unsure what that hell she was supposed to do with that information. For some reason, all her mind could give her were vivid flashes of a memory she’d worked hard to suppress. 

Squeezing her eyes shut, Parker turned and blinked hard. The bed beckoned to her, but her head was far too tangled to rest. She started towards the door. 

“Where are you going?”

“I need some air.” She wrenched the door open. He didn’t stop her as she walked out, but she could feel his eyes boring into her back. 

_

There was no sure way to know what time it was, but Parker wasn’t all that interested in knowing anyway. It was dark—that was all she needed to know. 

The cemetery was empty, if you didn’t count the hundreds of buried bodies marked with gravestones. She’d only visited the grave once, and that was years ago, so it took a few minutes of perusing the aisles for her eyes to land on the name she was looking for: Michelle Jones-Watson. 

Parker’s feet froze on the path. It had bothered her then, and it still bothered her now that they didn’t write “MJ”; she always hated being called Michelle. 

Her gaze lowered to the engraved dates below the full name. June 10, 2001-May 5, 2017 . 

A month shy of sixteen. MJ wasn’t the type to want a huge sweet sixteen party; she had told Parker that all she wanted to do was watch some bad movies and slip some of her moms’ alcohol for a quick sip. Parker had told her that alcohol tasted awful and burned your throat, but MJ was adamant on trying it. 

She never got to. She never got to do a lot of things. 

Guilt pulled Parker to her knees. She crawled across the grass above the grave and lay down on her back next to it. When she closed her eyes, she imagined they were in MJ’s room, lying side-by-side in her queen bed listening to music. 

“Your music taste is so random,” MJ had said, nose crinkled. 

Parker smiled and shrugged. Her arms were folded behind her head. “I don’t limit myself to specific genres.”

“You transcend genre.” MJ’s voice was light, teasing. It was an inside joke Parker couldn’t remember the origin of, but it always made her smile. 

“ You transcend genre.”

The Jones-Watsons were foster family number five, six years after entering the system when CPS took Parker out of Aunt May’s custody when she was nine. Parker was the kid who was always getting lice, who always had a weird smell, who wheezed in gym class, who fell asleep at her desk. Teachers got suspicious. The other students avoided her like a disease. 

MJ was her foster sister before she was her friend, but it didn’t take long for their friendship to bloom. MJ and Parker were only a couple months apart in age, but Parker was held back a year in first grade. Even if she wasn’t, MJ went to a fancy, private STEM school in Midtown while Parker was handed to the nearest public school, so they wouldn’t have seen each other much if they were in the same grade. MJ also had a slew of nerdy clubs, so they didn’t get to hang out until the evening. Even when they did see each other, MJ was usually swamped with academics. Parker—bored with her own school work—helped MJ study flashcards most nights. One evening, when Parker was helping MJ study for a chem quiz, she realized that the material was far more interesting than the basic stuff she was learning in her public school. MJ caught on and roped Parker into working on her homework together. 

After only a few weeks of going through the flashcards MJ struggled with, Parker didn’t even have to look at the back for answers anymore. 

“How does the electrolyte concentration affect the conductivity of a solution?” 

MJ blew a raspberry. “It makes the solution less conductive because it makes the solution thicker.”

Parker made a buzzer noise. “ Errr . Not even close, try again.”

“The conductivity decreases with more electrolytes..." MJ squinted at the ceiling. “...because they just block the current or something?”

Parker set the flashcard in the wrong pile to shuffle through again later. “The conductivity of a solution increases with the concentration of electrolytes because there are more ions present to carry the electrical current.”

“You didn’t even read the back!” MJ plucked the card from the pile. Her shoulders deflated when she read the answer, but then her head shot up as she looked at Parker with a weird stare. 

Parker shifted. “What?”

“You should take the Midtown entrance exam.”

“Why?”

In a duh voice, MJ replied, “Because you’re smart.” 

“No, I’m not.” Her nose crinkled. “I only know this stuff because I’ve been helping you study.” 

Parker picked up the next flashcard. Before she could read it off, MJ said, “You’re catching on much quicker than I am, and I’m the one who sits in these classes all day.” She leaned back with her palms on the bed, her head lolling to one shoulder. Her voluminous curls fell from her shoulder and swiped at her shoulder blades. “Come on, I’ll help you study for it.”

“Isn’t Midtown, like, crazy expensive?”

“If you get a high enough score, they’ll give you a scholarship. Plus, you’ve got, like, the best sob story. The board of admissions will eat that shit up.”

As it turned out, MJ was right about all of it: the exam, the scholarship, the sob story working on the board of admissions. Parker was pretty sure the principal’s assistant wiped a tear from her eye during the entrance meeting. When she relayed this back to MJ that evening, the girl had slugged her shoulder and said, “Told you so.”

Parker’s life was as near perfect as it would ever get when she attended Midtown with MJ. Her teachers actually cared about her, her school lunches didn’t taste like cardboard pizza with plastic pepperonis, she started to make some actual friends, and she scored a fancy schmancy junior internship at Stark Industries. It was ripped away just as she was getting a taste of a good, normal life.

Maybe that was when Parker’s origin story began: the night MJ was shot.

Approaching footsteps brought Parker back to her body. Her hands grabbed a fistful of the dry grass and she pushed herself to sit. Frank stood on the path, hands in his pockets, hood pulled over his head. His face was slightly more open than it normally was. He looked...cautious. The anger from before was completely gone. 

So was Parker’s. In its place was bone-deep exhaustion. 

She brought her fingertips to her cheek to brush off any grass or crumpled leaf bits, and she was numbly surprised to find that it was wet. She didn’t remember crying. 

Frank silently watched her as she wiped both cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie. His hoodie, technically, but whatever. With a sniff, she said, “How did you find me?”

He looked over his shoulder, then back. “I followed you,” he admitted. “You shouldn’t be alone.” Right, the Tombstone-baby thing. She probably shouldn’t have even left the safehouse; if she didn’t pick up on Frank following her, she sure as hell wouldn’t have noticed someone from the Black Hand on her trail. She waited for him to say as much—to scold her and to make her feel like a stupid child—but, instead, his eyes flickered to the gravestone behind her. She watched him read it. 

Unexpectedly, he didn’t ask. He didn’t say anything. Parker wondered if he was trying to figure out what to say, or if he was giving her some space.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Parker randomly asked, “Do you regret becoming the Punisher?”

He took his time, inhaling deeply and slowly exhaling as he scanned the empty graveyard. “It’s just a name they gave me. I didn’t become anything.”

Parker considered this. “Do you regret what you’ve done?”

Their eyes locked. Something intense brewed behind his. After a moment, Frank broke the barrier between the path and the lawn and lowered himself beside Parker. His elbows hinged on his knees as he laid his fist in his palm. 

“I regret some things.” He pursed his lips. “But the people I’ve put down—I don’t regret that. I don’t.”

Parker nodded, feeling the sincerity of his words. She didn’t—couldn’t—understand taking someone’s life without remorse. Maybe before she met MJ she could’ve. She was pessimistic and running out of her faith in humanity, but then MJ and her moms proved there was still good in the world. It was hard to believe in forgiveness and redemption back then. It still is. But MJ was adamant that everyone was born with a seed of good in them. Some got water and sunlight; others dried up. After the night MJ died, Parker made a silent vow to nurture the good in everyone, no matter how shriveled up it might’ve been or how many times the world tried to kill it. She gave petty criminals ultimatums. She played pickup with the neighborhood kids who used to beat the crap out of each other. She sat and listened to the man on edge of the Brooklyn Bridge cry. She scolded cops that were too rough with the thieves she caught.

It was funny—Frank killed people he deemed unfit for society and slept just fine; Parker tried so hard to be good, yet she spent most nights restless and guilt-ridden.

Speaking of guilt, her words from earlier echoed in her mind. She’d lashed out at Frank—understandably, in her opinion—but he was just protecting her. She wiped under her nose with her sleeve and turned to the man beside her. “I’m sorry I called you a monster.”

His shoulders lifted. “I’ve been called worse.”

Parker bit her lip, fingers toying with the fabric of her jacket. The nonchalance in Frank’s voice was comforting, at least; he wasn’t offended by her words.

"Maybe you're right.” The confession slipped out before she could stop it. "Maybe some people just don’t change. Maybe they don’t deserve to." She paused, her voice barely above a whisper. "But I don’t know how to live with that."

The silence stretched out again, but this time, it didn’t feel as heavy. Frank said, “It’s ‘cuz you’ve got a good heart. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

She agreed that there was nothing wrong with having a good heart, but she wasn’t so sure hers was spotless. Hugging her knees closer to her chest and resting her chin on them, she asked, “What time is it?”

“Too goddam early.”

Go figure. 

Frank wrung his hands together, his eyes flickering between the ground and Parker as if weighing something. Eventually, he spoke. “I’ve got a location.”

Parker raised a brow, silently saying, Go on. She might’ve been exhausted, but the idea of getting the whole Black Hand situation over and done with was enticing. 

“Took Dom's phone. There was a text with an address and time. It’s a pier over in Red Hook. Figure it’s a shipment of some kind—weapons, drugs. Not sure who all is going to be there, but it’s another step towards getting this shit dead and buried.” Parker moved to stand, but Frank took her arm. Not tight, but firm. His eyes looked tired. “Slow down, kid. It ain’t til tomorrow.”

Parker sat back down. Frank retracted his hand but kept his eyes steady with hers. “Listen to me, and don’t argue, okay? You’re sitting this one out.”

Like hell , she wanted to say, and almost did, but two things stopped her. Frank was giving her the most serious stare she’d seen on him. It wasn’t hard and cold, not frustrated or annoyed. Just serious. And the other thing—he was right. It wasn’t smart to willingly show up to a place she knew the Black Hand would be when they were actively planning on kidnapping her letting Tombstone do whatever with her body. Yeah, no thanks. 

Parker rested her cheek against her knees, exhaling deeply. It didn’t feel in character to give in so easily, so she muttered, “So bossy.” 

Frank cracked a small smile. “And you’re more stubborn than a mule.”

“Bossy and stubborn don’t really go together.”

“Nah, they don’t,” he agreed. He nudged her shoulder with his. “But we’ll make it work, yeah?”

Her eyes softened as they flickered to meet his again. In that moment, she mentally zoomed out and saw the pair as an outsider: a young woman sitting by a grave, mourning, regretful, exhausted. The man sitting beside her had just been called an asshole and a monster, and yet, he still cared for her safety—for whatever reason—and followed her. She had ignored him, insulted him, even punched him in the face (multiple times), and yet, there he was. Sitting beside her in the grass by MJ’s grave. Maybe he wasn’t a complete fuckhead; somewhere in his chest, hidden behind military training, ego, and a thirst for vengeance, was a beating heart.

Yeah , she thought. We’ll make it work .

Chapter Text

When they returned to the safehouse, Parker dragged herself to the cramped bathroom to shower for the first time in days. She wasn’t sure how many, but a shower was long overdue. The water pressure was overly strong, but the way the lukewarm water shot out, it felt like a massage against her tense shoulders and back. Besides, a shower was a shower. She wasn’t going to complain. 

There wasn’t any soap—or shampoo, either—so water would have to do, even though setting herself on fire didn’t even feel like enough to cleanse her. It was partially because she’d gone so long without a shower, but also because the whole idea of what Tombstone wanted with her made her skin crawl. She turned her body around in the little stall, angling certain ways for the blast of water to hose off the sweat and dirt. When she ducked her head under the spray, she also shut her eyes and slotted a finger in each ear, plugging them. 

It was something she did since she was little. She could still hear the water pounding against her bare skin, but it was muted. If she ignored the divots of tile beneath her feet and the low hum of the exhaust fan, it was as if she were standing out in the middle of a rainstorm. If she dissociated enough, she’d hear thunder rumbling in the distance. 

A knock on the door. Parker’s eyes opened, and she was face-to-face with the grimey shower wall speckled with water droplets.

“You good, kid?” Frank’s gruff voice came from the other side of the door. 

Parker ran her fingers through her short wet hair. Even though the water wasn’t hot, the mirror above the sink was foggy. How long had she been just standing under the water?

“Parker?” 

“Almost done,” she called, waited for a beat, then listened as his footsteps retreated. Just as she was wrapping up, she heard the heavy safehouse door open and close. Brow furrowed, Parker turned the water off and poked her head out the bathroom door. 

Frank had left, then. Parker frowned and closed the door. He was under no obligation to fill her in on his whereabouts, obviously, but she wondered where he’d gone. 

After a quick dry, Parker pulled on her dirty clothes from before—underwear, sports bra, t-shirt, leggings, socks, and Frank’s hoodie. It felt wrong to put the dirty clothes on her clean body, but she had no other choice. 

Speaking of no other choice, the food in the cupboards was all she had readily available to satiate her deep hunger that cramped up her midsection. Canned pastas, beans, soups. She grabbed a can of chicken and noodle soup, shook it, and popped the lid open with a knife. After realizing there weren’t any spoons in the kitchenette—why would someone stock up on soup and not have at least one spoon?—she tipped her head back to drink the salty broth.

“Damn, what’s the sodium content of this thing?” Parker squinted at the faded label, then shrugged and tipped it back again, ignoring how slimy the room temperature noodles were. 

As Parker drank down the last of the lukewarm soup, she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of Frank's hoodie, a half-hearted attempt at wiping away both the mess and the taste. The hunger in her gut still gnawed at her, but it wasn’t just the food that had her feeling off-kilter. Frank’s absence was eating at her—the safehouse didn’t feel as safe without him. (Again: weird, considering her past with men and the fact that Frank was a serial killer.) 

With no telling how long Frank would be gone, Parker lay back down and attempted to get some rest. She wound up just staring at the ceiling, counting. At six hundred thirty-seven, she picked up on footsteps outside. Then, the door opened. 

Parker pushed herself out of bed just as Frank was walking in with a takeout bag in hand. Something sweet and tangy hit her nose. 

“Teriyaki chicken and broccoli?”

“What are you, a fuckin’ bloodhound?” Frank shot her a look that was a cross between amused and disturbed. “Yeah. Wasn’t sure what you liked, but I figured it was a safe option. Plus, you need a vegetable every now and then, you know?” He set the takeout bag on the kitchenette counter and took a box out.

Parker stepped up to the counter as he slid the box her way. She took it and said, “To grow big and strong?”

“That’s right.” He grabbed his own box, took out the plastic silverware, tossed one Parker’s way, and balled up the plastic bag to discard. If she didn’t know him better, she wouldn’t have realized that he was joking along behind the flat tone.

“I think I’ve got enough strength,” Parker pointed out as she dug in. It took everything in her to not let out an embarrassing moan. If her stomach could speak, it’d be saying hell yeah .

“Focus on getting big, then.”

“ Hey .” 

“Just saying.” Frank’s shoulders lifted innocently, but there was a hint of mischief in his eyes. It was hard to believe that he had just ended a man’s life not even three hours before. 

The reminder twisted Parker’s stomach. Ugh . Murder and teriyaki chicken didn’t mix. 

“How was the shower?” Frank asked as he chewed. He was leaning over his box, elbows on the counter.

Parker shrugged and stabbed a piece of chicken. “Water pressure was jank and the temperature didn’t get above lukewarm, but it was nice to hose off.” She slowly worked the chicken in her mouth, savoring the flavor but also mulling over everything that had happened, and everything that could happen. She needed to turn her brain off for five minutes to actually enjoy her food.

She glanced up at Frank across from her. He kept things pretty close to the chest, but she needed something to take her mind off the whole Black Hand and Tombstone thing. “So. You watch any good movies lately?”

Frank looked up with a question in his eyes. “What?”

“See any good movies recently?” Parker tilted her head with a squint. Her tongue was working on getting a piece of chicken unstuck between her back molars. “You seem like an action movie kind of guy—Tarantino, Christopher Nolan.”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Don’t have the time.”

Fair. She herself hadn’t sat down and watched a movie in… years, probably. She let out a soft sigh and took another bite of chicken, her teeth working over the meat mechanically, still lost in her own thoughts. “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Bullshit,” she said, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You’re telling me you’ve never once sat down and watched something that made you go ‘Yeah, that was it’?” 

She paused, waiting for him to offer an answer, but he just continued to eat silently with his eyes focused on his food.

“Okay,” she said, giving him a teasing look. “Mine’s Surf’s Up . Ever seen it?”

Frank’s eyebrows furrowed. “The one with the penguins?”

“Yep.” Honestly, Parker didn’t expect him to have even heard of it. “Surfing penguins and a surfing chicken, shot like a documentary, full of interviews, breaking the fourth wall—it’s genius.” She took another bite. Mouth full, she added, “It’s revolutionary.” 

Frank raised an eyebrow, skeptical, but didn’t question her taste in movies. Another silence fell over them. Parker asked, “Do you have any cool war stories?”

He set his fork in the box and clasped his fist in his palm, eyes narrowing. “What’s goin’ on? What’re you doing?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Just making conversation.”

Frank eyed her suspiciously. “I don’t do war stories.”

“What do you do? I’m sure childhood stories are out—something tells me yours wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.” Projection, maybe, but look at the statistics; most vigilantes weren’t born into a peaceful life. There’s the origin story stereotype for a reason.

He picked his fork back up and resumed eating, and Parker was about to give up on the idea of distracting herself with conversation, but then Frank started talking. 

“You know, you remind me of someone.”

Parker straightened and smirked. “Is she super cool and funny?”

“She has attitude problems,” Frank said, “an inflated ego, never listens.” A smile threatened the corner of his lips.

Parker scoffed. “Says you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Pot,” she says, lifting a hand and gesturing to Frank, “meet kettle.”

“See?” He pointed his fork at her. “There’s that attitude coming through. Now, are you going to let me finish?”

By all means . Parker mimed zipping her mouth shut.

“Amy.” The name came out gruff, but simultaneously fond. Something shone in Frank’s eyes. “She’s just a couple years older than you now. Same as you, the way to her heart was food. She once stole a credit card from a Homeland Security officer and bought a shitload of clothes. I was going to give her shit, but I saw that she also bought Lombardi's.”

Parker took this in. “Is Amy your daughter?”

“Nah, just another brat like you.” Finished with his food, Frank wiped his hands together before resting his palms against the counter, leaning on them with his elbows straight. “She got mixed up with the wrong people, got in trouble; I helped her out.”

“Oh, so this is normal for you.”

Frank released a long, heavy sigh. “Unfortunately.” 

It felt weird, knowing that Parker wasn’t the only exception to Frank’s lone wolf ways. She recalled what Frank had said the first night they met about not getting himself involved if she were a man.

“If I had come home to this scene and there was a man in my bathroom,” Frank had said, “I would’ve pulled him out, tied him up, questioned him, and kicked him out to fix himself because his shit is none of my business. But, instead, I came home to a teenage girl.”

Parker’s heart twisted as the memory solidified in her mind. And then there was the fact that Frank was going to guilt her into quitting Spider-Man because of how devastated her parents would be if something happened to her.

She remembered the way his face had hardened when she’d asked if he had kids. That brief, flickering sadness.

Her stomach tightened as the realization hit her like a punch to the gut. Frank had a daughter. The pieces clicked into place with a clarity that stunned her—odds were, she wasn’t alive anymore. Frank wasn’t just helping Parker because he was a misogynist who believed she couldn’t handle herself. He was trying to atone for something. Or, maybe, it was purely instinctual. 

A heavy silence filled the room again, but this time it wasn’t just the quiet that pressed in on Parker. It was the weight of understanding.

Frank cleared his throat and nodded to Parker. “Okay, your turn.” Her softened eyes lifted from the ground and met his. Oblivious to her revelation, he pressed, “I told you something about me. Your turn.”

Parker cleared her throat and tried on a teasing smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “No, you told me something about Amy.” Though, it did inadvertently tell her something about him, not that she was going to admit that.

“Fine. Then tell me about someone in your life.”

The heaviness was getting overbearing. It was charged with something too close to vulnerability for her comfort. While some of her yearned to open up and let somebody in for the first time in years, most of her rejected the idea outright.

“Like I told you before, I don’t have anyone.” Her voice wasn’t cold, exactly, but Frank seemed to notice the shift in tone. 

He could’ve pointed out the fact that he had just found her at a grave a couple hours before, obviously mourning someone. He looked like he wanted to mention it. Instead, clearly noticing Parker shutting down, he just nodded. 

Eventually, he straightened and said, “You should get some rest.”

“And you should shower.” Parker watched him gather the trash from their dinner—breakfast?—and jam it into the bin. “I could smell you a mile away without my enhanced senses.”

It was a poor attempt to lighten the mood, but it worked. Frank scoffed and tossed a wadded up napkin at her. “Brat.”

“Stinky.”

_

Parker was never good at doing nothing, especially when she could be doing something. Having to watch Frank gear up and leave to scope out the location he got from Dom’s phone without her felt like the equivalent of a dog watching their owner leave for work from the window. 

Even though staying behind was the logical thing to do, she still felt pathetically useless. She was the one who dragged Frank into this mess, and now she had to sit the bench while he fought her battle. Not very girlboss of her, but what was she supposed to do? Show up and risk getting kidnapped by a guy who wanted to impregnate her? Yeah, no thanks. 

As soon as Frank left, Parker ventured back to the computers and did some poking around. They were somewhat outdated, but that didn't bother her. She ran a couple of basic commands to check for any leftover files or unusual processes, her fingers tapping rhythmically as she scanned the system logs for anything that looked mildly interesting. 

Parker leaned back in the creaky chair, her hazel eyes flicking between the dull glow of the monitor and the worn-out keyboard in front of her. After a few minutes of staring at files that didn’t belong to her and processes that seemed about as exciting as a paperclip, her mind wandered.

She sighed, then muttered to herself, “Whatever.” She rolled her chair forward and click-clacked away at the computer to close the systems, then opened a browser window and opened good ‘ole Google.

Parker searched for recent news and clicked through the feed, skimming headlines about random stuff—celebrity gossip, political chaos, Tony Stark’s latest fuckup, the usual. None of it held her attention for more than a few seconds. She clicked over to the weather and shivered at the below freezing temperatures that popped up. An unexpected pro of staying at the safe house instead of her drafty apartment: it was pretty warm. She wondered who paid to keep the electricity on. 

She typed “Spider-Man” into the search bar, then scrolled through results ranging from news reports where she had intervened to blog posts from fans. There were a few YouTube links of sightings, too. She’d combed through a lot of those when she first started out a couple years back, and her favorite was a compilation of her fails—falls, slips, clumsy moments, getting decked in the face. 

There weren’t any new videos or reports, which made sense considering she hadn’t been patrolling regularly the past couple days. There was a new wikipedia page dedicated to Spider-Man, though, which was cool as hell. 

Did Frank have his own wikipedia page? Curious, she typed Frank Castle into the search bar. Sure enough, there it was: Frank’s own page. It had much more information than Parker’s did.

She snorted. “Francis David Castle.” She was definitely going to bring that up later. 

Her amused smile faltered as she read on. “Castle was arrested in 2016 and charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder for a killing spree targeting Hell’s Kitchen gangs, earning him the title ‘the Punisher.’ During People of the State of New York v. Frank Castle, his defense team argued an insanity plea, citing PTSD as a result of his family's murder earlier that year in a gang-related drug deal. His wife, Maria, fifteen-year-old daughter Lisa, and twelve-year-old son Frank Jr. were killed. The court denied the insanity plea…”

Parker blinked, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. She leaned back and released a long, heavy breath. “Jesus, Frank.” Her hands went to her head. She knew he had a past, but this ? He lost everything. No wonder he snapped.

There was a picture at the bottom of a smiling family of four. She almost didn’t recognize Frank in it; he was smiling. Glowing, really. And he looked about a decade younger even though the caption only dated it five years ago.

Her eyes trailed from face to face, starting from Frank’s, then to his wife’s, his son’s, and then his daughter’s. They looked normal .

Parker was standing before she knew what she was doing. Her skin buzzed. With a frown, she turned to the door, but she didn’t see or hear anyone approaching. 

The sense of danger wasn’t intense, it was a soft, persistent hum at the back of her skull. Her sixth sense was something she had a hard time trying to describe to herself—there are different levels, it seemed. This tingling was telling her “there’s a slight possibility of danger,” not “OMG take cover!” It was like a tornado warning versus a tornado watch—the conditions were right, but the danger hadn’t been spotted. Like, there’s a gun in someone’s purse versus there’s a gun pointed at me. 

Bottom line, there was danger brewing. There was a good chance it had something to do with Frank.

Parker grabbed her mask from the bed. She was just going to check up on him—just to make sure everything’s A-okay. He wouldn’t even know she left. 

The tingling under her skin didn’t ease as she stealthily made her way towards Frank, but it didn’t intensify, either. Maybe it was nothing. 

Still, she had to make sure. 

The sun had yet to breach the horizon, but the sky was lightening from inky black to deep navy in preparation. It took a few minutes, but she eventually reached Red Hook. She didn’t have the exact location, so she relied on her instincts and other senses to lead her in the right direction. Besides, there were only so many piers in the neighborhood.

The scent of gunpowder led her to a pier on the southern end of Red Hook. She scaled a tall building a good distance away—far enough not to get noticed, but close enough that she could still decipher what blobs were shadows and which were tangible objects—and zeroed-in on a figure crouched over a body lying on the ground. There were at least half a dozen other bodies lying on the ground, still, but this one’s chest was still pumping.

The figure’s back was to her, but she knew it was Frank. He stood, aimed a gun at the figure he was looming over, and fired.

Parker flinched. The body jerked with the force and fell limp. Unfazed, Frank turned from the body and meandered over to a shipping container with slow, easy steps. If Parker focused, she could pick up a faint vinegar-like smell of heroin. Drug shipment, then. 

Frank struggled with the lock—Parker fought the urge to swing over and break it with her bare hands—before stepping back and shooting it.

He tossed the hunk of metal aside. As he was easing the door open, however, a phone pinged. Parker watched him pause before digging a phone—Dom’s?—out of his pocket. The screen illuminated his face in harsh angles. 

Somewhere, an engine revved. Parker’s back straightened; the quiet alarms in the back of her head were now on full-blast and banged against her skull like a drum.

Frank had turned his back to the shipping container and was standing, feet set, shoulders squared, staring at the road with a hard countenance. His index finger brushed the trigger of his firearm.

For a moment, she stood there, watching in confusion, trying to make sense of what was unfolding. Then, it hit her—Frank was trying to end it. Tombstone had been just out of reach up until now. But what better way to provoke the boss than by sending taunting texts from his dead right-hand man’s phone? She wouldn't be surprised if Frank had snapped a quick picture of the bodies as a clear "come and get me.”

Parker gripped the brick ledge until her knuckles were white. Don’t intervene, don’t intervene . 

A pillar of light sliced through the darkness, washing Frank and the container behind him in a blinding white. It screeched to a stop about six yards from where he stood firm.

The passenger door opened and a massive figure emerged. Rising high above six feet, his presence was undeniable—broad-shouldered, built like a tank, and exuding an aura of danger. Parker’s breath caught in her throat as she was instantly back in that sterile room, strapped down as he watched from behind the glass. His pale skin and stark white hair shaved close to his scalp was almost ashy in the dim morning.

Parker lowered herself behind the ledge. Fuck this guy. He wants me to have his babies? Fuck. Him.

Frank lifted his chin, appraising Tombstone as he shut the car door. His eyes were dancing all over him as he studied the man who was behind all the shit he’d been through the past few days. 

He unceremoniously lifted the gun and fired. The bullet met its target, implanting itself in Tombstone’s chest. But he didn’t go down; if anything, he straightened to his full height, a smirk tugging at his lips.

Definitely enhanced, then. 

Frank fired again, but the guy dodged the bullet with reflexes similar to Parker’s. Whatever juice Doc pumped him with, there was a good chance it had a drop of Parker’s blood mixed in. 

“Straight to business, eh?” His voice was nasally but deep, and rough like a patch of gravel. Tombstone took large strides forward. Frank didn’t budge, his gun steadily trained on the center of his chest. “What do you think is going to happen here?”

Frank glanced around at the dead bodies littering the ground before returning his gaze to the towering man. “I’m going to kill you.”

Tombstone’s smirk twitched. “You and your little bug keep coming up. Just small inconveniences.” He sniffed, rubbing his nose with a ringed finger. “But when my men try to squash you, you just won’t die.” His mouth hung open for a moment, then closed, like he interrupted himself. He scanned the yard; Parker ducked when his eyes flickered in her direction. “Where is she?”

Parker’s heart squeezed.

“This is between you and me.”

“No, it isn’t.” 

Parker peered over the ledge just as Frank charged. He pulled a long dagger from his waistband and aimed for Tombstone’s head but was shoved into the container before it could meet its mark.

As tough, badass, and ruthless as Frank was, he had one flaw: he was merely human. 

Parker felt like she was watching the scene from behind a screen. Her brain was telling her body to move, to intervene, to save Frank, but her bones were locked in place as she watched Tombstone punch Frank square across the face with the force of a freaking bus. His head snapped to the side with blood spewing from his nose. 

Frank’s hands found purchase on Tombstone’s jacket. He fisted the material and let out a roar before delivering his own punches. If his opponent wasn’t enhanced, he’d surely have killed him. As it was, Tombstone barely bled. 

They took turns delivering blows: Tombstone threw Frank into a pile of metal scraps. Frank fired a round into his chest. Tombstone punched him in the gut. Frank broke his nose. Only after a few back-and-forths, though, Parker noticed Frank wasn’t striking with the same energy or fervor. His eyes still held a fiery anger, but his movements were slower. Tombstone landed a hit that knocked Frank flat on his ass. He didn’t get up. 

It wasn’t until Tombstone scraped Frank’s battered body off the concrete and hurled him into the river that Parker’s body unfroze. 

Her limbs felt simultaneously too light and too heavy as she propelled herself off the roof towards the water. Tombstone had turned–-the driver opened his car door for him—and was casually limping back to the car he arrived in. It was the perfect opportunity for her to strike.

She didn’t. She ignored Tombstone entirely and scrambled towards the splash Frank’s limp body made. 

Parker reached the pier just as the car was peeling away and ripped her mask off. Her eyes locked onto his dark shadow under the surface, and she jumped.

The world exploded into freezing cold. It felt like a thousand needles stabbing into her skin all over, all at once. Parker’s chest tightened and threatened to pull in a sharp gasp, but she kept her composure and swam like hell towards Frank’s limp form. 

The water stung her eyes as she kicked her way towards him with an arm outstretched. Her numb fingers wrapped around his arm.

Her chest was getting tighter. Keeping an iron grip on Frank, Parker fought to bring them both to the surface before time ran out. 

The harder she swam, the further away the surface seemed to stretch. It took everything in her not to inhale, but, like Frank, she was only human at her core.

She gasped. The cold wrapped around her like an icy grip. Her mind went momentarily blank, the world reduced to nothing but the brutal sensation of freezing water filling her lungs.

Her legs kicked, instinct taking over as she fought to rise to the surface, her one arm flailing until she broke through and the other still grasping tightly under Frank’s arm. 

Parker coughed and sputtered desperately. The cold air burned her lungs as much as the water had. She gasped again, blinking hard, her skin tingling and stinging from the sudden exposure.

Fucking hell. Remind her to never go swimming in the East River in October ever again.

Struggling to keep both Frank’s and her own head above the water, Parker lifted an arm and shot a web at a building to pull herself out of the river. 

The shivering was instant as the brisk morning air hit her. The only coherent thought she could muster was a string of fuck, fuck, fuck.

Frank’s body dropped onto the pier with a wet squelch. Parker leaned over him, still coughing and gasping, and tried to figure out what the hell she needed to do. She set her ear against his chest, heard water in there somewhere. His heartbeat was silent. He wasn’t breathing. 

Her hands shook as she placed them on his chest, one over the other, and started compressions. 

“C’mon, Frank,” she croaked in a whisper. Her wet hair fell over her eyes, so she wiped her face against her shoulder without ceasing her movements. Frank’s eyes stayed closed. “Come on , Frank!”

Parker lifted his chin, pinched his swollen nose shut, and breathed into his mouth, ignoring the taste of blood. She’d only done this once before—CPR and mouth-to-mouth. She prayed she was doing it right. 

When a few breaths didn’t bring Frank to consciousness, Parker went back to compressions. 

The chest beneath her hands resisted at first, but then—thank God—there was a faint rise. She paused and listened, but still, no heartbeat. Parker continued, pushing, breathing, fighting the terror of failure building in her throat.

Then, something—a weak cough, a gurgling breath. Frank’s body trembled beneath her.

Parker’s own breath hitched, and she nearly collapsed in relief as Frank’s swollen eyes fluttered open, dazed and confused. His lips parted, gasping for air, his body arching with a desperate, choking cough.

Parker laughed with relief and sat back on her heels. Frank, disoriented, leaned over and threw up water.

“You’re okay,” Parker said, mostly to reassure herself. “You’re okay.”

The world around them began to come into focus again—distant sounds of traffic, mourning doves, shallow waves—but there wasn’t time to rest. A prickle at the base of her neck, while only barely there, was enough to prompt her to get them the hell out of Dodge before Tombstone came back.

Frank’s eyes slipped shut and he lay back against the ground. Something rattled in his chest every time he inhaled, his face was cut up and bruising, his ankle was twisted at an odd angle, and who knew what else was wrong with him. Semi-conscious was better than unconscious, at least. 

Parker wiped her stray hairs out of her face again before positioning herself to heft Frank off the ground. A low groan slipped past his lips as she lifted. She winced, whispered, “sorry,” and shot a web to swing them back towards the safehouse. 

The wind whipped through her wet clothes like a bolt of freezing lightning. In her arms, Frank’s temperature was dropping fast. His lips were blue and his face—where it wasn’t battered—was ghostly pale.

By the time they reached the warehouse, Parker couldn’t feel her toes, fingers, or face. Or anything, really. It was a miracle she was able to keep her grip on Frank. 

She laid him down on the mattress and moved on autopilot. First she wrestled his soaked shirt off in an attempt to dry and warm him up, but then she saw the mess of cuts and bruising beneath and instead went for whatever medical supplies she could find under the bathroom sink. 

It took a while to open the antiseptic with her numb fingers, but once she did, she cleaned out any open wounds she could find. Frank would groan or jerk every now and then as she worked but otherwise didn’t show any signs of consciousness. It was nice at first, since Parker was sure he’d protest against her treating his wounds if he were awake, but it got more concerning the longer he was out.

After treating and dressing the wounds on his face and torso, Parker grazed her fingers over his chest and ribs, pressing down ever so softly to check if there were any fractures. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, but when she pressed over a swollen area that felt misshapen, she figured it was as good of a sign as she was going to get. 

Parker gently rolled him to his side, treated the long, deep gash on his back, then tended to his swollen ankle that needed to be popped back in place (This, she knew how to deal with—dislocated joints were almost common for her from all the one-arm swinging and rough landings from tall heights.)

When she was confident he wasn’t going to bleed out, Parker layered all the blankets over him. She considered lying next to him—body heat—but there wasn’t much room on the twin mattress, and she wasn’t confident she’d be able to share the bed with him without having a panic attack. Besides, what would he think if he woke up to find her snuggled up against him?

Parker rested her back against the metal bars and lowered herself to the ground, arms going around her knees. Despite being indoors, her body still shivered and shuddered. She needed to get warm—a hot shower would do the trick—but she needed to stay with Frank to make sure he didn’t stop breathing again. 

So, she stayed. 

_

Frank was in and out of unconsciousness for the next twelve or so hours. During that time, Parker stayed on autopilot, changing a bloodied bandage, checking his pulse, tipping water into his mouth when he was coming to, making sure he was comfortable when he was fading back out.

She wasn’t a doctor; she had no idea, exactly, what was wrong with him, or if it was normal for someone to take so long to be out from his injuries since she was used to her skin stitching together before her eyes. It was as she was watching Frank’s chest rise and fall that she realized that he needed her protection as much as she needed his. 

Watching the slow, uneven rise of Frank’s chest, the realization hit her—he needed her protection as much as she needed his.

She should’ve intervened sooner. 

It was driving her mad. Tombstone bashing Frank’s head in and throwing him into the river flashed across her mind every time she paused for a breath. She let him hurt Frank, and then she let him get away. She was damn sure that, if their situations were switched, he wouldn’t have hesitated to step in as soon as Tombstone pulled up. Hell, he wouldn’t have ever let her go alone.

Parker’s clothes were finally dry but felt stiff when she moved. Not for the first time, she missed her apartment: its warm bed, its closet that held her clothes. The closet was filled to the brim with abundant outfit options, but at least she had enough to be able to climb out of the clothes she’d been wearing the past couple days that now smelled like armpit, sweat, river water, and gunpowder.

She lifted an arm and sniffed. Yeesh . She couldn’t tell if it was the clothes or herself that stank, but if it was the clothes it’d seep into her skin anyways. Either way, the river bath didn’t do her any favors.

The silence cracked with a cough. Parker whipped around—Frank was moving, trying to sit up. She shot over faster than her feet could keep up and stumbled. 

“Christ, kid,” Frank croaked between coughs as he watched her scramble back to her feet. He leaned his head back against the pillow and released a long breath. He squeezed his eyes shut then forced them open. Looked around the room, then down at himself. He met her concerned owlish eyes. “What happened?”

Parker squatted by the bed with worry creasing her brow. “You don’t remember?”

“Would I be askin’ if I remembered?”

At least he was feeling well enough to give her lip. “Tombstone beat the shit outta you and threw you in the river.” Parker’s eyes narrowed. “You seriously don’t remember? Do you have a concussion?”

“It’ll come back to me,” he said, then immediately winced as soon as he tried to sit up again. Parker eased him back down and ignored his protest.

“Your back’s all messed up, and I’m pretty sure you’ve got at least one broken rib.”

Frank gave a short hum in response to that, and she couldn’t tell whether it was in surprise or in a that checks out kind of way. He cupped a hand over the left side of his ribcage and turned to give Parker a once-over. “You hurt?”

She looked away, cheeks blazing red. “No.” There wasn’t a single scratch on her. That fact only made her feel that much more guilty as she sat beside the man who likely would’ve torn Tombstone apart limb by limb if he’d touched her.

“Tell me the truth.”

She forced herself to meet his gaze. His eyes, though a bit dazed and glossy still, were razor-sharp on her. “I’m okay, Frank. I didn’t intervene until they drove away,” she admitted. She couldn’t help it; her eyes darted away again. “I pulled you out of the water, and you were…” A sniff. “I should’ve stepped in sooner. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“You could’ve died .”

“Didn’t.” His eyes were closed again. Parker watched him steadily, waiting for him to say something else, but then his breaths evened out and he was still again. 

Parker blew a hard breath out of her nostrils. At least he was alive. Concussed and low on blood, but alive. 

She could work with that.