FRANK CASTLE.

#belayadyavol. i've fought this fight my whole life. which is why i know this: we can't win. but it's never been about winning. just trying to keep from losing for as long as possible. that's all we've got; so that's what i fight for.

what happened to frank's family is a tragedy - even people who don't like or agree with frank will agree on as much. but it was brutal too.

there's a panel somewhere that i didn't save where he describes how he'd had to hold lisa's insides inside after she'd been shot. how he'd had to watch maria fall first, who was shot the most amount of times but miraculously had nothing vital hit that would give the mercy of killing her instantly. how frankie looked relatively okay injury wise as frank looks at him head on - but when his son turned to run away screaming as the shooting began, he was shot in the back of his head and the bullet went straight through his open mouth. so frank's last drop of hope is gone when it finally catches up to frankie and he collapses face first and frank can see the wound.

frank can't be with all of them. he can't keep lisa held together while she chokes on her own blood. he can't go and hold his son one last time. he can't check on his wife, riddled with bullet holes and bleeding out just feet away. and when lisa's choked sobs cut off abruptly, the adrenaline wears off and frank is left to lie in a puddle of blood formed by the people he loved most. all he can hear is the paramedics pronouncing his children dead and deeming his wife a lost cause and there's nothing he can do about.

and then there's the whole process after. the way no punishment is dished out because the judges and the police are all on the payroll of the mafia. how frank has to live with the fact that his suggestion to go to the park, where he and the wife he loved but couldn't be there for, discussed divorce. his suggestion, because he knew he wouldn't be able to stay away from war.

it boils frank's blood. not only that they got away with it, but because of the pain they caused. frankie's death was relatively quick, but lisa and maria died in agony. frank had to look his daughter in the eye, holding her guts inside her, and reassure her that it was all going to be okay even though he already knew it was futile. it was a gory, merciless slaughter against innocents. frank deems it necessary to give that same pain back. quick deaths aren't for those who don't grant them themselves. of course frank doesn't torture everyone, but the leaders and the kingpins? the ones who do cause pain and enjoy doing as much? frank likes to make it hurt. like it's revenge for all the people they hurt along the way. all the families they broke up. all the people they maimed for unnecessary reasons.

it's insinuated that he was chosen by death to execute her will. which, being death, is bringing more souls to her - and what better person to choose than the man who found more comfort in war than in his own home. who nearly killed a man at only ten years old because of his own sense of justice. who loved the battlefield more than he did his wife and children - who he did love dearly, but could never compare to the feeling that came with being on the battlefield. who passed on the leave offered to him to be there for both his mothers funeral and the birth of his son so he could remain in the fight.

who, later down the line after becoming the punisher, has brought her over a thousand souls - likely more. but micro admitted he'd helped frank kill over 800 people, and there's no doubt frank has killed hundreds more on his own. she knew, with the right incentive, he'd be capable of doing what she wanted.

while he doesn't remember it, due to her wiping his memory of the conversation, frank made a deal with her when he stood alone at firebase valley forge in the midst of an attack. equipment, ammunition and help practically nonexistent. she continues to goad him in his mind while he fights because she knows exactly what it is that makes him tick. she knows that the thing that keeps him going isn't family, or patriotism, but the fight itself.

frank doesn't care about the price. doesn't care what it might be. half because he's preoccupied with the fight, and half because the promise of a war that lasts forever is so tantalising he simply can't pass up on the opportunity. this is some time after his return, but before his family are killed his marriage begins forming cracks. despite claiming he won't be leaving to go to war again, maria never believes him because of how distant he always seems to be. like he's constantly dreaming of the war and the fighting. while he does love them, he doesn't love them as much as he should. doesn't love them as much as he does the fight or the killing. he wants to. he wishes he could. but it's no longer within his realm of capability.

his family dying was no freak accident, either. they were the price. the picnic was had because frank was breaking the news to maria that he was leaving again, with the potential intention of taking fury up on his offer, and that if she wanted a divorce he would give it to her. no matter how much he loved her, lisa and frankie, deep down this is always what he was going to be. that itch to do what the cops failed to do when the girls at his school were assaulted day after day by a man who had the connections that left him immune to consequence. frank was always bound to become the punisher.