b u n i s h e r

- They drink coffee in shitty diners to earth wind and fire. They drink coffee at her place, and his, in coffeeshops, and over research and mugs fill every nook and cranny of their apartments, carry-out cups stacking three deep. It’s as black as tar and twice as strong. She uses it to spackle the bullet holes in her apartment but the refills keep on coming

- They don’t even really need to speak, anymore. Sometimes they’ll sit and just look at each other for hours on hours, looking at each others’ bruises, their hands, avoiding and catching eye contact. They’re never quite smiling. They’re never not smiling, either.

- The only thing that out-numbers the coffee mugs are the rose pots

- and their pet dogs

- so many dogs

- He’ll call her ma'am in the morning, Page on the phone, and Karen in the middle of the night, when he’s slumped half-dead on her fire escape, drenched and bleeding out into the pouring rain. She drags him in, patches him up, and makes him eggs in the morning. They do it again the next night. And the next night.

- His torso is more scar than skin, now. She’s gotten so good at it that she can needle messages into the stitchwork: take care (along his collarbone), softly (along his hip), the big bad punisher (…well)

- Curtis put ‘wallowing asshole’ on the curve of his ass

- When frank takes off his hoody and baseball cap he reveals another, smaller baseball cap underneath

- She runs her fingers through her hair and clasps her hands around her elbows. He scrunches his nose and ticks his trigger finger, like a staccato, like gunfire, and between them they have four of the movements taught to them by the OA that will allow them to open the door to-

- where do all these dogs come from. Seriously, Frank, you can’t just - there’s another one!

- you just pulled that one out of your coat! I saw you!!

- They argue. Frank leaves soon after, his expression a storm, and Karen doesn’t look back to watch him go. She never watches him go. She can never predict when he will appear next, he’s just there when she turns the corner, cut flowers in one hand, and apology in the other, and he never seems to use the door

- Karen tries to buy Frank clothing in colours other than shades of black, but when she sees him later, wearing them, they’ve mysteriously turned black themselves. He swears he has nothing to do with it.

- When things get too hot they escape the city. They pile into his van and take a roadtrip, trailing through motels, taking turns at the wheel and sleeping on the mattress at the back. They talk or they don’t and eventually they end up at The Cabin. Suddenly it’s snowing. There’s only one bed.

- They live on take-out and vodka.

- that’s literally all they have

- As she lives and breathes, she knows the smell of him. Leather and gun oil. Whenever she sees him, that’s what he’s doing - he’s working a cloth against gunmetal, he’s taking apart the glock, he’s counting bullets in a magazine he’d just checked five minutes ago and cans of oil clink around the footwells of the van, catching on the mugs. At the cabin he splits wood and she smells the pine on him when he brings it in, sticky with sap. She’s never seen him in leather.

- Karen gets a call, afterwards. In the after. The handset on her desk rings, but she only connected this line yesterday, nobody should have this number. The caller is unknown. The cell phone in her purse buzzes. So does another she has stashed under her desk, and she glances up to find Ellison walking in with another ringing phone. They’re all unknown numbers.

- They’re all Frank.

-

This was a glorious collaboration with @sarma and @ejunkiet WE REGRET NOTHING. We originally sent them to the @kastlenetwork but figured we should own up :x

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN | 1.09

But the Karen and Frank chemistry was an accident. They caught lightning in a bottle between two characters who never even interact in the comics, but the actors just go crazy in a room with each other.

And they assumed that the Punisher's audience skewed heavily male, that they'd refuse to watch anything not already established in the comics, and that they'd scorn any new plot where The Punisher feels love for anyone, so the writers/producers never fully went there. Even though they clearly know that Frank is made all the more interesting, all the more tragic, when he's not just wallowing in grief for a lost family- he's actively denying the potential of healing and love with a new person. He's consistently being offered a redemptive escape from the violent path he's chosen and he consistently denies it, even though it's clear as day how badly he wants it. That's a more interesting choice! It makes him more pathetic and self-denying, it shows him thinking that he doesn't deserve healing, it shows his conflicted awareness of his own morality, it makes him worse, it makes it clear that this character is tragic instead of aspirational.

So they gave as many hints as they could. The near kiss in the elevator, Karen's heartbeat, the dress Maria wears in his last vision of her (as he lets go of her hand) matching the fabric of the blouse Karen wore the first time he ever saw her, Karen insisting he try to love someone else instead of another war, Micro saying "that's my family that's my wife" and Frank responding "so is Karen." They made it as obvious as they could without actually saying it because they didn't want to piss off the fan base who wants Frank to be a static, stoic, one dimensional vengeance machine.

But now they're back after SEVEN YEARS and they're not fucking around. The first time they're on screen together it is Textually Acknowledged and Stated Out Loud that Frank Castle's heart does the fucking samba when he looks at Karen Page. Matt, the Human Polygraph Test, tells Karen that Frank loves her and that he knows how she feels about him too. (Not to even mention the way he looks at her and acts around her, because Jesus Christ, I have never seen anyone more obviously lovesick.)