he doesnāt move in his sleep as much as she expected, but heās not still either.
frank breathes slowly, deeply, his fingers twitching where his hand rests on her hip even while he dreams, and karen finds it more soothing than distracting. maybe it was just because he was here, safe and sound after fighting his demons for so long.
not that she had any illusions about the fact he would fight them every day until he died. her own certainly had never given up.
heād shown up at her door, soaked through from the rain with the thunder and lightning from a summer storm framing him so perfectly that she almost laughed until she could see his face, so full of longing and loneliness that all she could was hold her arms open wordlessly and let him fall into them, his knees hitting the ground as he wrapped his own around her waist, head pressed to her stomach, shoulders shaking. even over the storm, she could make out what he whispered.
āboth hands. both hands.ā
she put on a pot of coffee while he showered (she made him, his lips were blue), a pair of old sweats and a georgetown hoodie waiting for him when he got out. frank looked a little sheepish, but karen instead just put the cup in his hand and listened to him pour everything out, what the past months had done to him since theyād parted ways in the hospital. about the hits. the violence. the darkness.
āi was wrong.ā he said softly at the end. āwhat i said to you that day, about my family. i was afraid to lose them, like somehow i could, you know? but i wonāt, not really. every day takes a little memory but theyāre never gonna be fully gone. no, all i managed to lose was me.ā
she leaned over at that, abruptly, pressing her lips against his temple, wrapping one arm around his shoulders as if she could protect him from these thoughts, from the world that seemed to only want to take and take from him.
āitās okay, frank. itās going to be okay. you havenāt lost anything you canāt find again.ā
karen page held frank castle in her arms as the storm raged outside, and maybe a little inside too. maybe it was right that their first kiss was heralded by a flash of lightning and distant thunder. maybe it was right that when they made love the rain was pounding against the fire escape, that their gasps were accompanied by the drops hitting the windows.
that he slept so peacefully in her arms afterward, sighing her name softly as he drifted off.
karen stayed up, watching him, the storm clearing and the sun streaming in through the windows. watching his eyes open slowly with that little crooked smile she loved so much following quickly. she leaned in, pressing another kiss to his temple, sweet and soft like a benediction.
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she shows up late, bags under her eyes and obviously a little red from crying, but foggy doesnāt point either out, because he fucking knows better. besides, unlike his other partner, karen was at least showing up for work before noon and not dipping out early, pretending like everyone didnāt know that elektra had shown back up and their firm was going to suffer for it.
foggy didnāt really care about that either. he wasnāt the same man heād been before.
see, franklin percy nelson had fallen hard for a terrifying blonde lawyer who had for whatever reason put up with his shit all these years and loved him right back. love made you kind of stupid. made you take risks you probably shouldnāt because keeping that person safe, happy, the whole damn bag of bullshit mattered more than your safety.
heād always loved matt too, and come to love karen, but it was just different with marci and it made him understand some of the stupid, inexplicable crap that matt had gotten up to over the past years. it had tempered some of his frustration with his best friend (not all, he wasnāt a saint) and made him understand what karen didnāt think he could see, like it wasnāt written large and in charge on her face every time she read the wrong headline, when she heard about some murder.
when sheād magically disappeared yesterday morning, and come back in a few days later like her world was quite literally upside down.
so foggy brought her black coffee, a maple bar, and an understanding expression as he sat next to karenās desk, tilting his head a little. āso, brett sent me a text to inform me that he was absolutely going to kill me. guessing you had a fun week.ā
karen glared, but she did not turn down the maple bar, so foggy figured he was safe to continue. probably.
āguessing heās safe? wonāt be needing actual legal council any time soon?ā foggy wouldnāt lie; frank castle still scared the living shit out of him, and foggy thought that was more than fair. the man wasnāt evil, he knew that, but he was a force of nature and you just couldnāt control or predict those.
the fact that one of his best friends was always caught up in the mess didnāt help either.
but he tried to understand, and sometimes came close until one day it had all clicked, the day heād gone to assure marci that he was safe and theyād -- uh -- had a hell of an afternoon. what heād never quite figured out about karenās reaction to frank castle.
youād do anything for the person that you love.
karen nodded, distracted, obviously discontent and silent, so foggy did what foggy did best which was talk.
āand iām guessing by the fact that you look sad, heās gone off to do his thing again, huh?ā his thing being murder, but foggy didnāt figure it would really do much good to point it out. the truth was, he still upheld the law, and he always would, but what frank did wasnāt any more alien to him than what matt did, just with a net result that was at least final.
fisk sitting in prison had happened before, after all.
so foggy was trying to meet karen (and thus frank) halfway on this. no judgment because it just wasnāt needed right then. karen didnāt need a lawyer, she needed a friend.
and unfortunately, that friend had just made her cry, so foggy panicked a little, backpedaling as karenās impossibly blue eyes filled with tears. he scrambled over to her side, earnest if a little terrified that heād just made the punisherās girl cry.
it really didnāt matter if either of them hadnāt admitted it. the label applied whether they liked it or not.
ākaren, hey just --- look, iām not saying that i get it. i mean, not the particulars of how this all works for you, or what happened, or anything else really. shit, it took me years to see what was right under my nose, getting shot at several times actually so just,ā he pulled himself up short, because foggy was very aware he was being peak foggy nelson right now, rambling and missing the point. he sucked in a breath, reframing his thoughts.
āiām saying that i get it. he matters to you, and you matter to him. hell, he basically blew his cover last year to protect you from that bomber, and probably a half a dozen other things that i definitely donāt want to know about.ā foggy laughed, roughly, shaking his head. āyou care for him. he cares for you. and i know that i am violating like, half of established legal ethos by saying this, but when you love someone, you just --- you hang on. you donāt let go, even if itās not rational or makes sense. i want you to be careful. i want you to be safe. but i also want you to be happy, karen. and god knows i canāt figure it out, but i know that he does. so uh.ā
karen was smiling at him through the tears in that indulgent way that clearly said she knew he was being a dork but she appreciated it, reaching out a hand to squeeze his.
āthereās a lot going on, foggy. i wish it was just a question of ---ā she pulled up short, her phone buzzing on her desk, the number blocked. foggy watched her eyes light up, even before she held up a finger to answer.
he could hear the voice. whatās more, he could hear the tone of the voice, and that said everything long before karenās eyes went impossibly soft and foggy felt really weird being there.
ā --- let me give you lovebirds some privacy.ā but foggy was smiling as he all but dragged her into mattās office and shut the door behind her.
love was weird. love in hellās kitchen seemed to insist on being weirder. but foggy finally understood it, so as far as he was concerned, this all made perfect sense to him.
they find a rhythm faster than he would have expected.
he needs to go slow, and karen respects that. heās grateful, because he had tried to throw himself back into ānormalā too quickly and he wouldnāt risk that this time, now that it mattered. they go on dates in quiet places, dark and intimate. he learns her favorite foods, her favorite music, all of it like theyāre normal people in spite of being anything but. frank can be both punisher and boyfriend, it turns out, although that word seems too childish so they never use it.
he learns about her family, her childhood, and he holds her while she cries after telling him. about her motherās death, her fatherās slide into delusion really, little details about how her mother played lotto, the dear, sentimental things her father had pawned to keep the diner going, as if that mattered more than the two kids he seemed to forget about that still needed him. thatās the part that truly enrages him, that after losing his two children to find that paxton page had done everything in his power to throw his own away. he promises to not go and talk to her father even though heād sorely like to. for certain values of ātalkā.
they get back to winter, and the first night of hanukkah is approaching. christmas had gone unrecognized last year for him, but it was different this time. it was one of those little healing things he hadnāt realized that he needed, being able to give someone a gift. multiple someones, as sheād helped him pick out gifts for david, sarah, and their (now three) children who insisted they come out to visit soon.
but for karen, heās genuinely excited, sitting on her couch comfortably enough, pretending heās not as eager as any kid for her to open the first present. itās the best one, so he probably should have saved it for a different day but for all his normal patience with planning itās just not in him this time. heād broken up a trafficking gang out of the bronx last week, and heās got a few extra cuts on his mug that sheād patched up, bruises slowly turning to green but karen smiles at him anyway like heād personally put the stars in the sky for her, and frank finds that holiday spirit people talked about so much.
āopen it,ā he rumbles softly, suddenly nervous, like there was a chance this might wrong, it might backfire or something. but karenās fingers make quick work of the lousy wrapping job he did, the little box holding a necklace that heād tracked from a vermont pawnshop to a crappy jeweler in queens.
ā... is that it?ā heās looking at the tears in her eyes, wishing he was a little more gentle, a man who wouldnāt catch her on his ragged edges, who wouldnāt come to her with so many wounds to be cared for, but suddenly sheās launched herself into his arms, and his own go around her again with that same quiet wonder that a woman like this could love a man like him. āi tracked it back to that shop you told me about. where he pawned stuff. is that the right one? i mean --ā itās as close as frank castle had ever come to babbling, and she shuts him up with a firm kiss, laughing against his mouth as he finds himself smiling too.
ādo i want to know what you did to find it?ā she says, but he knows itās teasing, heād never get blood on her memories like that, and he squeezes her waist playfully.
āeh. wouldnāt believe me if i told you,ā he teased right back, because thatās where they were at now. teasing. laughing. loving. the box fell to the floor as he put it around her neck carefully, pressing a kiss to her cheek, the gold of the necklace almost as bright as her smile.
it would soon be the new year for frank castle. for once, it actually felt it might be a good one.
Karen is the only one who can hurt The Punisher. The only one who can make him feel it again. Tear his heart out and throw it to the dogs. She's ruthless--just like his wife.
