Bring Me to Life- Chapter 2- Stronger
Frank Castle x mom! fem OC (series)
summary: it was never supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a long and healthy marriage like it always was. That was until your husband lost his temper on date night and a certain ex-marine stepped in.
warnings/tags: 18+; this series contains a lot of sensitive content, including violence (domestic as well), angst, grief, fluff, and eventual smut.
"One night where I don't have to clean up after you."
The words slid between her ribs like a blade. Elena froze.
The storm had finally arrived. Elena lowered her eyes immediately.
"I'm sorry." The words left her mouth on instinct. Years of practice. Years of learning which version of an apology bought her the most time. Daniel leaned back in the booth. Still smiling. Still charming. Still the man everyone else saw. His friends shifted awkwardly as the server blotted at the tablecloth.
"It's really no big deal," the young waitress said. Daniel chuckled. "Of course it isn't." The waitress visibly relaxed.
Elena didn't. Because she knew that tone. Daniel picked up his bourbon and took a slow drink. One of his friends laughed nervously.
"Come on, man. It's just wine."
The table laughed. Daniel didn't. The silence stretched half a second too long. Then a full second. Then Daniel looked at Elena.
His voice remained pleasant. Dangerously pleasant. "But it's always something, isn't it?" Elena felt her chest tighten.
He waved a hand. "Spilled drinks. Forgotten appointments. Lost sleep." Another sip. Another smile.
"I swear, if I didn't keep this family organized, we'd all be living under a bridge."
Nobody laughed as the air shifted.
The men exchanged glances, and Elena couldn't help but stare at the tablecloth. Heat crawled up her neck because she knew what came next.
Across the room, a chair scraped against hardwood. Heavy and deliberate.
Daniel looked up along with everyone else. The stranger from the bar stood with a beer still in hand. His expression was unreadable as he glanced at the stain spreading across the table. Then at Elena. Then at Daniel.
The words weren't loud. They didn't need to be. Every conversation within ten feet died anyway.
Not completely, but just enough.
The tiny crack in the performance was so brief Elena wondered if anyone else saw it. Which she did, because she'd spent seventeen years learning every version of Daniel Moretti's anger. Daniel set his glass down with deliberate care and suddenly the room felt smaller.
The stranger didn't move, didn't sit back down, and didn't look intimidated.
"Wasn't her fault," he repeated. The words landed harder the second time. One of Daniel's friends laughed nervously.
Nobody listened as Daniel turned slightly in his seat.
Not enough to face the man completely, but enough to acknowledge him.
"I don't believe I was talking to you."
The stranger took a sip from his beer.
"You were talking to her."
Elena's pulse hammered against her ribs. Oh God.
Daniel's jaw flexed and his friends looked everywhere except at him now.
The waitress had disappeared entirely. Smart girl. Daniel laughed. The sound carried no warmth.
The stranger's eyes shifted toward Elena, only briefly.
"Then maybe mind your business."
For a second Elena thought that would be it and the stranger would leave.
Daniel would let it go, they would go home, and the consequences would come tomorrow instead of tonight. However, the stranger spoke again.
"Looks like my business."
The air left Elena's lungs. Across the table, Daniel's friend muttered a quiet curse.
Because everyone understood it now, this wasn't about wine anymore. Daniel stood. Slowly, carefully, and in that movement drew every eye in the room. He wasn't a small man; he was tall, well-dressed, successful, the kind of man people listened to. The kind of man who expected to be listened to. But when he stood, the stranger didn't move an inch. And for the first time all night, Elena noticed something she hadn't before.
The stranger was dangerous.
There was a difference, a very big difference.
For a long moment, nobody moved. The music still played overhead, and the glasses still clinked somewhere near the back of the bar. But around their table, everything felt suspended. Daniel stared at the stranger, and the stranger stared right back. Neither blinked. Neither looked away. Elena wished one of them would.
"Daniel," she said quietly.
His hand appeared on the back of the booth, but not touching her. Not yet.
Still, her stomach dropped. He wasn't looking at her, which somehow made it worse.
One of his friends cleared his throat.
"Come on, man," he said. "Let's just drop it."
Daniel ignored him, focusing his attention directly on the stranger.
The stranger looked exhausted more than angry, and that was what unsettled Elena. There was no performance in him. No attempt to impress anyone, not even an attempt to win. Just a man standing there like he had already decided something.
"What exactly is your problem?" Daniel asked.
The question came out smooth.
Polished as the voice of a businessman. The voice of a man who sat on charity boards and shook hands at fundraisers.
The stranger took another sip of beer. Then he looked directly at Elena, not at her dress, not at her body but at her face. As though he was trying to read something there. The attention made her nervous. Yet somehow it felt different from the way Daniel looked at her. Daniel looked to possess. This man looked to understand, and that realization unsettled her even more.
She lowered her eyes immediately. When she looked up again, the stranger's gaze had shifted back to Daniel.
"You seem real upset over an accident."
Daniel's smile returned. Except now it looked sharp. Artificial, like something stretched over a wound.
"You're making assumptions."
The stranger set his beer on a nearby table. The movement was small and casual. Yet Elena noticed something change in the room. Several people nearby subtly moved away. Not because they knew him. Because instinct told them to. Daniel noticed it too.
His smile faltered for half a second.
There. For the first time, a crack.
But Elena saw it. Daniel was beginning to realize he wasn't the most dangerous man in the room. Unfortunately, realizing it didn't make him smarter. It made him angry.
"You know," Daniel said, straightening his jacket, "most people learn not to interrupt conversations that don't involve them."
The stranger nodded once.
"Most people learn not to blame their wife for spilling a drink."
Silence. Daniel's friends visibly winced.
One of them muttered, "Jesus Christ."
Elena wanted the floor to swallow her whole. Every second this continued was another second Daniel was being embarrassed. Another second his friends were watching. Another second his mask slipped. She knew exactly who would pay for that later.
"Daniel," she whispered again.
This time his eyes snapped toward her and luckily the look lasted less than a second. No one else would have noticed it, but Elena felt cold all over. Because she knew that look. She had seen it before bruises, before broken picture frames, and before the apologies delivered through clenched teeth.
It was a warning, a promise. His expression softened immediately afterward. The mask sliding back into place.
"Why don't we head home?"
Fear flooded her chest. Not because she wanted to stay. Because she knew what waited for her if they left now. Across the room, the stranger seemed to notice the change too. His eyes narrowed slightly, and the exhaustion vanished.
Something harder replaced it.
And for the first time all night, Elena had the horrible feeling that the stranger wasn't going to let this go.
For a moment, nobody moved, and Daniel's hand settled against the back of the booth. Possessive, protective to anyone watching, but most of all a warning, to Elena.
The stranger noticed it too because Frank Castle had spent most of his life around violent men.
The difference between them was usually smaller than people liked to believe. Most violence didn't start with fists. It started with ownership, the way a man looked at another person, the way he spoke to them, and the way he expected obedience without ever having to ask for it. Frank had seen it in war, on city streets, and seen it in interrogation rooms.
And he was seeing it now. The woman hadn't done anything wrong.
Hell, she'd spilled half a glass of wine.
That was it, yet she'd apologized before it even sunk into the table cloth. Not once, but three times. Every apology had come automatically. Fast, practiced, and like breathing. Instinct.
Because people only learned that kind of apology one way. The same way dogs learned not to bark, and the same way soldiers learned to flinch at artillery.
Across the room, Daniel smiled at his wife. Frank almost laughed at the sight.
The smile never reached the man's eyes, it never had. Frank noticed it the second he walked through the door.
The husband was all performance. Perfect suit, perfect watch, perfect smile, and the perfect family man. Frank had known men like that before.
Men who needed witnesses, men who cared more about appearances than people, the type of men who became different the second the audience disappeared.
His beer sat untouched in front of him. Shit, he wasn't even sure why he was still standing there. This wasn't his problem, that was the truth. He wasn't the Punisher anymore, well at least that was what he kept telling himself.
The war was over, Maria was gone, Lisa was gone, and Frankie was gone. Everyone who mattered was gone and the men responsible were dead. Fuck, most days he woke up wondering why he was still here at all. The world kept spinning, people kept dying, and that was never going to change.
So why was he standing in some shitty bar in Rye, New York, staring at a stranger's marriage like it mattered?
Daniel's hand remained on Elena's shoulder. The gesture looked affectionate, but Frank knew better. He'd watched her shrink the second he touched her. Nobody else had noticed, nobody ever noticed. People only ever saw what they wanted to see.
Successful husband. Pretty wife. Nice clothes, nice watches, and nice smiles. The American dream wrapped up in a neat little package.
Frank had spent too many years looking behind curtains, so he knew what lived there.
Daniel finally stood from the booth.
His voice was gentle, perfectly practiced.
Elena hesitated just for a second, but Frank saw that too. But not the fear of staying. it was the fear of leaving.
A knot twisted low in his stomach as Daniel's friends immediately began collecting jackets and settling tabs. Conversation restarted throughout the bar, the tension finally dissolving.
People were already moving on, like it never fucking happened. Like they hadn't just watched a woman apologize for spilling a drink as if she'd committed a crime.
Frank hated how easy it was, hated the way people looked away because looking was uncomfortable. Maybe she's sensitive. Maybe he's stressed. Maybe we're reading too much into it. The whole damn world ran on maybes. Frank hated maybes.
Frank looked down at his untouched beer.
Maybe was how people got hurt, those "maybes" were how people ended up dead.
Daniel guided Elena toward the exit with a hand at her back. Again. Possessive and controlling but not enough for anyone to question. Yet it was too much for Frank to ignore. The woman paused near the door.
The movement was small enough that nobody else cared enough to have noticed. She glanced back. Not at Daniel. At the room, the bar, and the people. Like someone memorizing a place before stepping into something worse.
And then her eyes found Frank, for a brief second.
A heartbeat, maybe even two.
Frank expected fear. Instead, he found exhaustion.
Pure exhaustion, the kind that settled into a person's bones, the kind that came from carrying something too heavy for too long.
Then she looked away, as Daniel opened the door.
The cold night air swept inside and just like that she was gone. The door closed behind them and silence enveloped the room. Frank stared at the entrance long after they were gone, that unpleasant ache crawled through his chest.
The memory of Maria standing in the kitchen. Tired but smiling anyways. His baby boy balanced on her hip. Lisa laughing from the living room asking for her toy. Frankie running circles around the couch.
The memory hit harder than it should have.
He shut his eyes, silently begging for it to disappear.
Not now. Not them. Not again.
But the ghosts never listened.
"Stay home, Frank." Maria's voice rang clear as day.
"Just stay home." His jaw tightened, and the beer suddenly tasted like nothing. He stood, quickly throwing cash onto the bar. And before he could process it, he was headed for the door.
Because the worst part wasn't that he thought Elena Moretti was being abused. The worst part was that he knew.
If he knew and then just walked away—
Then whatever happened next would follow him. Just like everything else. Outside, taillights disappeared into the darkness and Frank watched them go.
Then he turned toward his truck and told himself the same lie he'd been telling himself for years.
Just this once, just make sure she gets home.
Frank climbed into the truck and slammed the door harder than he meant to. And as the engine groaned to life beneath him, he just sat there. His hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield. The Moretti's' SUV was already halfway down the street and the red taillights glowing against the darkness.
It was that simple, just drive away and forget about it. The whole damn situation wasn't his problem.
He'd spent years making everyone else's problems his own, and look where that got him. Frank exhaled sharply through his nose. He then shifted into gear. The truck rolled forward, slowly. Keeping several cars between them not many but just enough. Not following, observing. There was a difference.
At least that's what he told himself.
The roads grew quieter the farther they got from the bar, the storefronts disappeared, and the streetlights spread farther apart. Large homes emerged behind iron gates and stone walls. Money.
Old money. The kind that bought privacy, the kind that hid things.
Frank wasn't surprised, Daniel Moretti looked exactly like the type.
A man who wore expensive watches and smiled for photographs, a man who probably donated to charities, a man who probably shook hands with politicians, a man who probably had neighbors who'd swear he was a great husband. What a fucking joke.
The SUV turned into a long driveway.
The house appeared a moment later. A large perfect white trimmed home with dark shutter. The type of million dollar home that belonged on a Christmas card. Frank felt something bitter settle in his stomach. He fucking knew it, because houses like that were always the same. Beautiful from the street, and rotting from the inside. The large garage door opened and the SUV disappeared inside.
A few seconds later the lights shut off.
The house stood silent. Still, like any normal home. Anybody driving past would see a family settling in for the night. Nothing more. Frank couldn't help but stare at it for a long moment. His hand quickly reached for the gearshift because this was where he left. This is where he drove away, mission complete. She got home, that's what he told himself he was doing. Just making sure she got home.
His hand remained on the gearshift, but the truck never moved. Because somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Maria whispered the one thing he didn't want to hear.
"You know she's not safe."
Frank's jaw tightened, because her voice sounded just as stern as if he had just come home. The voice she used to warn in about going back to the Corps. Her voice echoed as the house remained quiet in the dark.
And somehow that felt worse.
Frank checked the clock on the dashboard.
The house remained dark. No shouting. No broken glass. Nothing. Just silence, completely normal.
Anybody else would've seen that silence and driven away.
But Frank stayed, just five more minutes. That was all. Five minutes and then he was done.
The truck idled quietly beneath him.
Frank rubbed a hand across his face. This was stupid. Hell, if Micro had been alive, he'd have spent twenty minutes explaining exactly how stupid it was.
You saw a couple arguing in a bar. That's it. People argue all the time and marriages can be messy. None of this proved anything. Yet every time Frank reached for the gearshift, he saw the woman flinch.
The apology. The wine. The fear when her husband suggested going home.
Frank's jaw tightened as the clock ticked over again.
He was still there. The realization settled over him slowly, heavy and unavoidable.
The thought arrived without permission. Without argument. Without a plan. Frank leaned back against the seat and stared at the dark house across the street.
The war was over. The Punisher was gone. He'd spent years telling himself that.
Tonight was the first time he wasn't sure he believed it.
