Work Text:
frank castle is a solitary man, for the most part.
not that he always was. there was a time he had a house. loud, full of people, bursting at the seams with love and hope and everything that he had ever wanted.
and then someone took that from him. of course they did - he was frank castle and that was just part of his miserable, doomed luck. so he'd picked himself up, got his life together [not really] and had decided to make something of himself and all his anger.
he has friends. more like acquaintances, maybe, but frank has people now. it isn't the same, but he has them. he can handle the loneliness, he knows the colour of misery and the shape of sadness and he knows how to keep them tucked close to his chest. it's one of his best traits, really, his ability to keep marching forwards.
and then another disruption to his life happens.
it's not a quiet thing, either. it's a man with a spider-suit, with brown hair and brown eyes and a tendency to get on his nerves and pick fights with him. it comes in swinging [hah] and it roots itself deep into the centre of frank's chest and starts to burrow there. and by fucking god, does this man bring his problems with him right to frank's door.
frank should turn him away. he tries, a few times. fights with him about it, tells him no. but he can recognize something there, too. in the way he moves, the breath he takes before he says please, the same colour of misery and sadness in his shape. so frank agrees. maybe out of curiosity, maybe for lack of nothing else to say to someone so similar to him, maybe…
maybe from a strange place, deep inside of himself. lonely.
the man's name is peter parker, and he is beautiful.
frank hates himself for the the thought the second he has it. his hair is brown, and it curls in a way that frank could find endearing, down around his ears and falling in to his face. he's constantly shaking his head, flicking it out of his eyes. and of course he has big brown eyes, that would be the universe taunting him, reminding him of something just outside of his reach. brown eyes that squint at him, brown eyes that roll when frank says something peter thinks is stupid.
he buries the thought the second he has it, and he lets the man drag him along.
they fight the hulk. they fight the god damn hulk. or they try, because some woman sticks her fingers in frank's mind and starts playing with it, and frank hates that. then - this is the fucking cherry on top, if you ask frank, he shoots peter. he shoots the man because he's cursed with astronomically ridiculously fucking bad luck and every cosmic power alive hates him.
well. in his defense, he was never aiming for peter. but the man is stupid and brave and selfless, and he puts himself between the woman and frank's bullet and he almost dies. the woman - and if frank could find her, could tell her anything, he would say thank you - the woman keeps him alive long enough for the doctors to put him back together, for peter to wake up. they talk a bit, and it's nice.
it's just that, nice. frank likes it. he likes peter. it doesn't have to be some big and complicated thing. so he goes home, he carries on with life, and he doesn't let it become some big thing.
he doesn't. peter does. or at least frank is blaming peter for it.
a voice in the back of his mind tells him to text peter. ask how he is, talk to him. frank ignores the voice, just in case it isn't his. better to be safe than sorry or whatever it is they say.
the first week is difficult. he finds things to keep his hands busy [they shake when he thinks to hard about brown eyes, blood, a bullet from his own gun] and his mind occupied [by himself, only himself, no one else is welcome in, got that?] and passes the time that way. he takes every single weapon he has apart, cleans it, puts it back together again. it works, for a little bit. a familiar repetition, an easy routine for his mind to follow. he swallows down the memories and the vicious thoughts his own brain sends after them and forces some sense of normalcy for himself.
he grows restless again. patrol does nothing. seeing his acquaintances [friends?] does nothing. so frank does the next best thing he can do, and he gives in to the the little voice in the back of his head and sends peter a text.
CASTLE
doing alright?
he ends up setting the phone down and walking away before he can overthink it. and he does overthink it - too formal? not formal enough? too friendly? is it weird if the guy who shot you and then took you to the hospital texts you unprompted during the middle of the week?
whatever. frank castle is not exactly the expert on human communication anymore these days.
PARKER
hey man!!
yeah im doing okay
mentally could be a bit better and i have a little pain physically but thats life ig
thought about you
and those three words are his undoing. three words, from the man frank put a bullet through. three words from peter parker and frank castle has to put his phone down and sit with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees for a few minutes to clear his head.
he doesn't respond that night.
peter parker comes back to his hideout. of course he does. frank starts to wonder if maybe part of the kid's brand new senses is some sort of alliance with the higher powers that want frank to suffer. he smiles at frank [a real smile, jesus christ, if he was beautiful before he's something else now] and blinks at him for a moment while frank finds his bearings.
"hey."
it's all parker says, and frank sighs. not an irritated sigh, and parker seems to catch on to this, brightening in that stupid way of his. and some part of frank is pleased with this, some part of frank wants to seek out more of the same brightness, not whatever misery frank can always see following parker around now he knows how to look.
instead, he ends up letting parker poke around his hideout while he goes back to cleaning a gun that doesn't really need it. parker seems to be enjoying his exploring, peering behind a stack of boxes before webbing up to the ceiling with a woah! and a laugh before he starts doing god knows what up there. frank tries to ignore him, especially when he breaks the silence and starts talking.
it's just anything that seems to come to mind, really - a stream of consciousness that frank is getting a front row seat to. a complaint about his apartment while he takes the lid off a crate and pokes around inside. something about a coffee shop and weird matcha flavours as he balances on a railing with one leg, swaying side to side in a way that seems more playful than about to fall. at some point he goes quiet for a moment, but when frank turns to look at him, he seems entranced by something he found.
the company is nice. he won't pretend otherwise. frank lets him crawl around to his heart's content until he finally settles onto the floor, sitting on his heels with his arms wrapped around his legs and his cheek pressed against his knees. quiet again, rocking back and forth with a strange look on his face.
"what?" frank says finally, and his voice comes out softer than he meant.
"i had a friend once." parker sounds nostalgic. "he had a really big workshop, and when i was younger i would go crawl around in it and look at all his stuff. he never really minded. mostly he would tell me to do my homework or come help him with some invention."
silence, for a moment. not uncomfortable, which frank is thankful for.
"it's quieter in here, too. still getting used to everything being dialed up to a ten all the time. it sucks, actually - i didn't… i didn't even realize how much i hate hearing everything. and it's not even really hearing, either, i'm just so fucking aware all the time, dude. of everything."
the last part sounds a bit desperate as he says it, and something inside of frank's chest aches. the silence settles around them again, and parker stops rocking, trading it for burying his face in his knees.
"you can come around more. if you want." the offer is the only thing frank has that he can give parker. it's another half-assed apology for shooting him, a plea to please come around again that he won't voice out loud. it's for that small, hidden part of frank that wants parker in his life selfishly, somehow, despite all the pain and suffering frank has caused him.
parker turns his head again. his eyes are red, and frank can see him blinking tears away for a moment before he sighs in some sort of attempt to compose himself.
"yeah. yeah. that would be, uh. that would be really nice."
they fall into a routine, and it helps a lot more than frank would ever admit. parker starts stopping by regularly. sometimes with food, sometimes in one of his chatterbox, nosy moods again. and sometimes he says nothing - finds somewhere and hides and when he emerges, frank pretends not to notice the red eyes and the way he sniffles or how his hands shake and a joke catches in his throat.
one night he tells frank about it. a man named tony who was his father. his aunt named may. an attack on earth - frank remembers it, vaguely - losing years from his life, the death of his father. a man named mysterio, a spell from a wizard, and then a rebirth of sorts. a brand new day, a sunrise after a long night.
sometimes frank does the talking. it's a strange thing to get used to again - talking like that. but it's nice. parker talks about old friends, hobbies, people he misses and places he used to go. frank talks about his family, once, during one of the quiet moments. tells him about remembering the feeling of someone else in his mind, his body, about waking up in a cold panic not himself sometimes. how his skin sits wrong every so often and frank has to remind himself that no one else is there.
and then it happens quietly, after parker has crawled out from one of his hiding places and is fiddling with something in his suit.
"i uh, i have nightmares about pulling that trigger sometimes." frank admits, and parker pauses. he can see the way the man inhales sharply, but he goes back to his suit, keeps moving. "i keep thinking about if it ended differently. if it - you know, if i had…"
"you didn't. you didn't kill me." parker's voice is firm. "and you shouldn't spend time thinking about what would have happened if i did. i don't like that. don't do that."
"okay." frank says after a long moment. "okay, i won't."
and that's not really true - it still comes in bursts behind his eyes, nightmares and visions that gut-punch him in the middle of the day when he's doing a job, doing something mundane, but he grits his teeth and remembers don't do that.
eventually, parker teases him about calling him parker.
"you know my name is peter, right?"
"yeah, i just…" frank shrugs, and park- peter laughs. a real laugh, the bright and happy one that frank has grown to love, to covet, to selfishly seek out whenever he can. and that's just how he feels about peter too, isn't it? maybe the word is love. complicated, messy, maybe a bit guilty. but peter fits in a way that frank didn't know he was missing.
or maybe he did know. maybe he did know this whole time and it was easier to ignore it. so frank just lets it sit this time, instead of shoving it down and ignoring it. it starts to weave into his bones, settling there with an old warmth that frank had completely forgotten about, had given up completely on feeling ever again.
things start to shift a bit. peter texts more often, sometimes things of importance, sometimes things that have no relevance to frank: a grocery list, a password to something, where he left a specific shirt. sometimes he texts frank little updates. one time he sends a string of nonsense that almost concerns frank until he follows up the text with
this months wordle answers
kinda got a winning streak going
im actually probably the best player right now ngl
and frank finds himself smiling at that.
items end up at his hide-out. blankets, clothes that aren't his, a toothbrush and toothpaste. books on physics, on robotics, one on psychology with passages about things like memory loops and post-traumatic disorders and anxiety highlighted. he sends the text on a whim, not really thinking about it.
CASTLE
you ever think about therapy?
just about everything.
PETER
yeah but who would take anything i had to say seriously without locking me up lol
like oh sorry this wizard cast a spell and the world forgot me and now i have anxiety and cry a lot and get stuck thinking about people i love who died
oh and before that i fought aliens and my dad died
seriously how fucking dumb would that be
CASTLE
not dumb at all. but i can see why you would be hesitant.
he wishes he could do more.
something changes again.
peter sits hip to hip with him sometimes now. he hooks a web to frank's knee and plucks at it like a guitar string. it seems to soothe him in some way, some deep instinct that frank will never understand, so he complains once with a half-assed effort and ignores it. it becomes more frequent, his elbow or his wrist, and one sleepless night wrapped around both of their fingers in the low light of the hide-out. this one seems to really please peter, and he exhales a breath and tips his head down.
all the way against frank's shoulder.
he says nothing. peter doesn't say anything, but he plucks the web and starts talking again.
but the actual words don't come from frank. they come from peter.
PETER
running late on patrol tonight
everyone ever has something going on
like i dont mind but let me catch my breath jeezus
CASTLE
want help?
PETER
nah i got it
might be swinging by later than i thought tho
ughhhhh
love you
it makes frank pause for a moment. the thing growing in his chest and creeping down his spine warms. he feels almost like a teenager with a crush, like a school kid with a note passed from hand to hand across the class. he feels a lot of things. warmth, happiness, the ever-present guilt in the back of his mind that he shoves away.
CASTLE
be safe.
PETER
i'm the safest guy alive
don't even worry about it
of course frank worries. but he doesn't tell him.
frank tries to be more communicative too. it's new for him. it's different and not the frank castle he's used to being, but by fucking god does he try. texts peter when he might not be there because he's out on a job. where he can find something frank bought for him, where he can grab a change of clothes from. frank's clothes, maybe, but the offer is still there. more recently a strange admittance that peter is allowed, welcomed, wanted even when frank is not there.
it is all new. the talking, the sharing his space. peter is new. but he's a puzzle piece slowly moving in to place and frank… frank needs it. likes it. wants it to stay that way forever, as long as it can. as long as the shitty, awful, frank castle luck will allow. as long as peter will allow.
he comes back to his hide-out one night after a long night, and peter is there. he's poking through one of his books, perched on a crate of something or other, wearing a too big shirt and boxers while he talks to himself in the quiet of the space. mostly nonsense, sometimes repeating a phrase from the book he reads, his hair is wet and his curls are drying in some sort of nonsensical way that will have him complaining about knots tomorrow, and he turns and grins at frank.
it does something to his heart.
"c'mere, look at this." peter says, and frank is moving forward before he can even think about it. peter is pointing things out, tugging him down by a handful of his shirt to read something in the book before directing his attention to another book [busy night, frank guesses, especially when he gets a glance at the notebook next to them] before he glances up at frank and oh.
they're nose to nose. peter is still smiling, now, something softer and a bit more hesitant. frank can see the trace of a bruise fading under his eye, something purple-blue-red. a scar on his lip, almost faint enough that frank could miss it if he wasn't looking so hard. long eyelashes, wide brown eyes that remind him of a deer - what was that old animated one, bambi? - and that hesitant, hopeful smile.
and maybe frank castle is a fucking idiot. maybe frank castle is cursed by some sort of cosmic force. maybe frank castle is throwing caution to the wind here. maybe he's making a stupid choice. maybe he's going to end up with another heartbreak and that will be one that truly does frank in once and for all.
so frank castle does the smart thing.
he leans down and kisses peter parker, and the puzzle piece clicks in to place.