Work Text:
Frank’s blood sings as the guard’s nose crumbles inward with the force. He plucks the key ring off the brutalised guard and unlocks his cage. A cage for rabid animals, not even tall enough to stand straight in. It was demeaning and dehumanising, but not nearly so as being trapped with his manicured ‘neighbours’ who figured they’d pass the time by complaining every damned minute. As if they couldn’t just buy their way out.
He arms himself with the guard’s kevlar, handgun and tactical knife. It’s less than he had going in, but he figures Fisk’s operation is too egotistical to believe they could be blown from the inside out.
Fully intent on paving a bloody path out of Fisk’s personal prison, Frank stalks down the rows of cages. Their hands reach out desperately. Above the pleas of the rich is an out of place voice. A kid’s a voice. A kid that looks more like a street dog than a peacock. More like Frank than the socialites.
“Mr Castle, could you get us out of here, please?”
Maybe it’s Red’s bad influence, maybe it’s the Frank Jr in his head that’s switched tracks from ‘kill ‘em Daddy’ to ‘save him, save me ’ , but Frank hesitates. Like a soldier fresh to battle.
“I’m just a photographer, promise. Nothing to do with the vigilantes or the attacks or any of Fisk’s work. I’m nobody, I just take photos,” the kid, barely past drinking age, rambles, bolstered by Frank’s pause.
Tonight’s been a night of bad, reckless, half-cocked decisions—so screw it to hell. One more wasn’t going to kill him.
He drops to a knee before the cage, one hand working the lock with the stolen key and the other aiming the gun at the kid. “You do exactly what I say. You stay behind me and you stay out of the way. You run when I say run and duck when I say duck. You hear me?”
“Sir, yessir,” the kid eagerly responds. If not for the gun and the cage, Frank was tempted to say that he heard cheek in the response. But no sane kid would dare it with the Punisher, gun trained on them.
The kid nimbly crawls out of the dog cage once his shackles are unlocked and obediently stays at Frank’s heel.
Frank continues the motions of his plan, checking around the corner of the stairs, listening out for more guards, and checking his equipment again. When he reaches the final, additional, step of checking for the kid, he finds him kneeled before one of the cages.
“Kid, time to go,” Frank snaps.
“It’s not right to leave them here,” he frowns, standing to face Frank.
“I don’t have time for this, kid,” growls the Punisher. Even now, Red and his morals follow him like a ghost. “Follow me or stay with them, I don’t fucking care. But Fisk ain’t gonna let you off so easy.”
The kid remains unflinching and doesn’t hesitate to extend his hand palm up. “Then give me the keys, at least.”
Frank gives him a hard stare.
The kid gives it right back.
Then he’s marching up to Frank. The warning growl he lets out does nothing to dissuade the young adult who swipes the key off Frank's belt while deftly avoiding Frank’s own grab for his wrist.
“Made your choice, kid,” Frank calls after the retreating back of the kid, who hands off the keys to one of the captives with a ridiculous moustache. Frank’s got problems enough and no patience for a kid with no brain. If he doesn’t want to get caught like he did going into this place then it’s for the best he doesn’t have extra baggage anyway. He heads upstairs, the whispered thanks of the captives trail behind him. Who knew they were capable of the words?
Frank reaches surface level and peers around the corner again, spotting two guards sat together by a storage crate. Both with those damned rip off skull symbols on their vests. As if what they are were the same as Frank. Like the men who swore an oath was the same as the Punisher who denounced it.
A third guard walks past on patrol, coming out from the blind spot behind the crates.
There’s likely more coming once he deals with these three and currently still no mode of escape.
Frank resolves himself to take them out stealthily in order to buy him time to find a vehicle. He keeps his gun trained as he comes up behind to cleanly slit the guard’s throat. His partner notices too late. Frank decks him with the butt of the gun, kicks out the knees and plunges the knife through the underside of his chin.
A third figure moves into his peripheral. Frank lunges at the figure—likely the last of the three guards he spotted—and goes to slash downwards but the figure rolls out of the way and dodges Frank’s follow through swipes, holding their hands up. In surrender.
“Mr Castle, I get you’re mad I couldn’t just leave them. Their freedom shouldn’t be the cost of mine. Especially not when I can do something about it,” rambles the kid. The kid who he almost killed because he didn’t follow orders and was only saved by some good luck or freakishly quick reaction time.
“What is it you’re not getting, pip-squeak? This is life or death. I could’ve killed you,” Frank waves the knife for emphasis, “these fuckers could’ve killed you. A stray bullet could’ve killed you.”
“Well maybe you shouldn’t be killing them,” the kid hisses back.
Frank opens his mouth to spout one of his rotating comebacks he’s practiced on Red, when the kid yanks him down to crouch behind the crates.
They stay silent as two guards walk in from the opposite side to change out the two posted at the exit.
“You’re a real hero-type, huh?”
“Not a hero,” the kid says sternly. “Just trying to help the little guys where I can.”
“And you think those filthy rich money bux characters back there are the ‘little guys’,” Frank echoes mockingly.
“I could help them so I did.” The kid is looking at him now with a frown.
“Well I couldn’t give a rat's ass about their freedom and we aren’t waiting around for them. So how’s it any better when they’re still stuck in Fisk’s basement surrounded by guards.”
“You underestimate them.”
“The socialite fuckers? Only way they’re getting outta here’s by giving Fisk the money he wants.”
“No, the vigilantes,” the kid fiercely retorts. The moustached man comes to mind—Frank thinks he’s heard a thing or two about a dumbass ‘vigilante’ running around with a sword like Zorro. “And some of them know better than to give in to Fisk. Kingpin’s new project is funding for something big. We don’t have the full picture yet. And if he’s going all this way, making it this public, he must be pretty confident that he’ll get his way legally.”
Frank checks the progress of the guard change. The old pair of guards walk back off to the other side of the compound. He gives it a few more seconds before they’ll be out of hearing range.
“How do you even know all this shit?”
“Told you, I’m a photographer,” he repeats dryly and with a smirk. “The investigative kind.”
“So what, you get good portraits of Fisk and sell them off to the highest buyer so they can write some ass-kissing article about his benevolence? A reminder that Mayor Wilson Fisk isn’t the same Kingpin that slaughtered New Yorkers with no ounce of shame.”
Kid snorts. “Even Jameson doesn’t want that crap in his papers. Spider-Man’s the one he wants and I happen to be a pretty good shot for that kind of scene.”
“Vigilantes,” Frank mutters.
“Was that a Jameson impression? If so I’d give that a solid 6 out of 10. Needs more volume, more passion, more vitriol ,” the kid crescendos with a dramatic shaking of his fist.
“If you can shut up for the next five seconds, I’ll hook you up to Red. Daredevil. Deal?”
“ The Double D?” the kid whispers in something dangerously close to awe. “Hell yeah! Mouth’s staying closed. Pinky promise. Not a peep.”
Frank grunts. Internally, though, he smirks at the terror this deal’s about to rain on Red.
Back to surveying the exit, he spots an armoured van parked in the corner, likely drove in just after the guard change. The driver’s in there and the two guards at the entrance to the cordoned off area. He needs to get the van quietly to keep the kid out of line of fire but the rest can be taken care of with his remaining bullets.
He clicks his tongue and flicks his fingers at the kid like ordering a dog to heel. The kid obeys with a roll of his eyes. Frank slinks to the van, avoiding the roaming floodlights and pulls the driver out. More blood drips from the knife and the body slumps.
“The hell?” A voice calls—unaccounted guard, on his six, knife throw’ll be quickest to dispatch.
But there’s no bullet to his flesh or raised alarm. Instead there’s a thud and a limp body. Behind him stands the kid, nervously caressing his fist that just decked a helmeted elite task force agent.
“You didn’t need to kill him,” spits the kid.
“Now’s not the time to get picky,” Frank grunts. Red’s gonna have a field day with this photographer. Investigative photographer. “Get in.”
The kid sways with hesitation, his eyes not leaving the crumpled cooling body. Eventually the kid obeys. But Frank catches the quick swipe of the radio and phone. Maybe the investigative bit had more credit than he thought.
At the wheel, he starts the engine.
“Here,” the kid flings a stolen balaclava and a helmet into his lap. “Put these on. And no killing,” he emphasises each word like he’s talking to a child and not Frank Castle, the Punisher.
He was beginning to understand with every passing minute why Fisk thought it necessary to lock up this kid.
“This ain’t going to do shit, kid.”
“Peter,” kid shoots back. “My name’s Peter, not kid. I’m not a kid. And I know what I’m doing, just suck it up and put the thing on.”
He waves the balaklava in his face again and Frank sighs but gives in. He’s still got multiple stab wounds and bullet fragments likely still in his wounds. He is not in the mood to argue morals with a kid.
They pull up to the makeshift gate and, surprise surprise, get questioned and asked for ID. Granted, the outfit does give them a small grace period before the guards spot the blood and question why the van’s going out for an unauthorised trip.
Once the jig’s up, Frank pulls out the gun. Just because he’s not in the mood to argue with the kid, doesn’t mean he promised to agree. He’s got a clear lineup for a headshot but the kid intervenes. Just like Red. And the bullet hits the guard’s shin instead.
Frank slams the door open, connecting with the man’s face, and follows up with a punch to take him down fully. He makes to shoot the guard on Peter’s side but the kid, miraculously, handles it on his own. Peter gets an almost impossible grip on the guy’s helmet through the open window and bashes it into the side of the door.
Frank doesn’t know physics, but he sure as hell knows combat. And he knows that the force of that impact wasn’t adding up for a kid as lanky as Peter who’s been stuck in Fisk’s cage for longer than Frank with equally heavy manacles.
“What kind of taxi service is this?” Peter snarks at Frank, snapping him out of disbelief. Peter clicks in his seatbelt, like a child. “Now hurry up and go. We need to make like a bad check and bounce!”
A hail of bullets follows them out as Frank hits the gas and hightails it straight for the city.