#1batch2batch

All had been going as well as it could be until another gang arrived to wage war. They hadn't been expecting to meet with an angry, injured Asgardian. Especially not one who could teleport, duplicate himself, and cut a man down before his next breath.

Even this event might have been so easily put in the past if it weren't for the surprise visitor upon all of them. A man allied to none, who didn't seem to care what side he took out.

Keeping himself concealed, Loki waited until the stranger in the threatening chestplate paused for cover. He let one of his intangible duplicates speak close by.

"Who are you?"

Until he learned to walk the timelines. 

For centuries it was only as an incorporeal duplicate, practically a ghost, seeing, watching, stealing conversations. His old tricks had never left him. Many a time he planted whispers to see what would happen. Some good, some bad. He toyed with the multiverse, a bored but caring God. When at last he felt a change in the Tree, felt it root and self-sustain, he started to venture out. Short bursts, building up until he could become an occasional tender. 

There were people he cared for, some he checked in on, others he had not yet dared to see, but now he wanted to make a connection, however fleeting. Amid the many recurring characters he had pored over, one in particular of late had fascinated him. Another somewhat tragic figure, different from him in many ways, perhaps even incompatible, and yet curiosity got the better of Loki. A human who had survived time and time again things he should not, who had chosen violence over peace, who did not know how to rest or be anything but a warrior.

Loki slid into the barstool alongside Frank Castle, shapeshifted into one of her female guises, long black hair down to her waist, thigh-high boots, clad in a dark green sweetheart dress. "Bourbon, please," she asked the bartender. "Neat." Kohl-lined eyes flicked idly to the man beside her, ignoring how many other men's eyes ogled her from the tables. "Have you ever had a drink that feels like the first in a million years?"

@grimmusings / @1batch2batch || truth serum || accepting

"Frank is violent, impulsive, ruthless, and brutal. So naturally, smash. I'm a glutton for punishment."

@1batch2batch liked for a starter based on the finale

"Why do you do that?" Boots pad softly on the floor of Frank's hideout, brows creasing ever so slightly as she sees the blood on his shoulder. "Huh? W-What good is it to shut everyone else out? What good is it to pretend like you don't care- about Matt, about this city...about me? Fisk and his wife...they've taken so much from so many people and they won't stop. There will always be more power they try to take hold of, there will always be more blood in the streets because of them. And I know- okay, I know- you have your own purpose, your own things to do, and reasons for you to be who you are...but you can't- you can't tell me that you don't care."

Head in his hands, Matt's senses focused on the sound of the rain on the bedroom window, the soft patter of each individual drop hitting the glass. It was cathartic in a way, allowing him to keep his mind off of that night. Foggy's last rasping breath and his heartbeat slowly fading into nothingness had haunted him ever since. In the past, he would have dawned the suit and gone into the night to have the grief beaten out of him. But he couldn't now. Not with Foggy dying in his attempt to keep him from going out as Daredevil to begin with. It would be an insult to his best friend's memory.

“Frank.” The name almost felt like a prayer on his lips. His head lifted with the comforting sound of Frank’s heartbeat in the doorway, not knowing when he showed up but he wasn’t going to complain about it. The man came and went like the tide and somehow it worked for them. It was probably the news reports on Foggy’s assassination that caught his attention and beckoned him to return to the city, or Matt at least thought.

"You might be proud of me." A deep sigh and Matt pushed himself to his feet, the movement alone leaving him feeling exhausted after how much weighed on his mind. "I pushed a killer off a roof. He survived the fall so don't get too excited." His tone was laced with sarcasm. For as grateful as he was for Frank to have come back for him, there was also anger.

"Did you come back to throw how I fucked up in my face? How it's my fault Foggy is dead?"

Wraith had long since learned he wasn't the only one removing the garbage from the city streets. There were multiple times he'd planned a hit, only to discover the corrupt scum's blood was already painting the walls before he set off to take care of business. He just hadn't expected his path to cross with this other mysterious assassin's. But, he wasn't about to begrudge this stranger his right to some target practice, either... two guns were better than one.

The flashing of gunfire illuminated the dimly lit corners of this grungy hideaway. Bodies met the floor, one after another, the smell of blood and gunpowder mingling into a stench he was disturbingly familiar with. And it wasn't until the final threat had been dealt with that Wraith finally turned fully toward his fellow hitman, and let his weapon lower toward the floor.