“Okay, so tell me again why you can’t just call this person?” she asks him, toes tucked around her chair, her knee bouncing. Her fingernails tap on the table but keep catching in the grooves of the outdoor furniture. She brings a thumb to her lip to chew on a hangnail - tasting sugar - and watches him grab a newspaper from the dispensers nearby. “Or tell me their name?”
Frank sits down across from her and eyes the bright pink frappuccino in front of her, whipped cream slowly making its way out of the plastic cover, down to soak the stickers receipt. He’s already opening the paper, scanning through the contents panel before looking back at her with a stiff expression. “Drink your dessert, Amy,” he mutters quietly.
She dips a new finger across the top of his cinnamon roll on her plate instead and squints back at his rushed scan of the Bulletin newspaper. His brow furrows with confusion, and he takes a gulp of coffee from his cup. She does not miss the way his trigger finger begins to move, tap tap tap against the newsprint. Her eyes roll. Oh, jees.
“Is it Curtis?” she wonders aloud, knowing instantly his continued silence and clench of his jaw means no. Frank is folding the paper back up and tossing it onto the empty chair beside them, sighing. Amy shoves the plate towards him, licking her fingers again. He pulls the roll apart, wiping it across the porcelain to pick up any melted icing, throwing it in his mouth before rubbing his hands together. Satisfied, she drinks the berry whipped frozen treat through a straw and settles her back against the seat.
They’d been driving for a few hours. Frank got it in his head to get back to New York once the van and the trailer had been packed up, and he had refused to stop until they got in to Hell’s Kitchen. Gotta check in with someone, he told her. She had an inkling.
Curtis had been keeping tabs on them once Amy ran into the fiasco that was Frank Castle and never left. He had her number, and she sent him memes when he would ask after them. But, she noted suspiciously, Curtis was in Queens. And they were decidedly not. She took a glance at the folded Bulletin and took her own piece of the lemon loaf she nicked from the pick-up counter.
“Mm, is this about your uh, your buddy,” she’s careful going about this now, only because Curtis told her before to back off. “Yah know, the one with the face?” Her hand crosses a few times over her nose, eyes focused on the cut on his cheek from his last scuffle in a New Jersey gas station. “I read online he woke up.”
Frank looks at her through narrow eyes and the butt of his coffee cup, and grunts when he sets it down. He leans in close, “No.” His head darts around, tracking something behind her and she turns to look as well before he flicks the hardened lemon glaze chunk off the plate and into her hair. Hey, she’s exclaiming, brushing it from her curls, nabbing it before it fell to the ground. It’s melting on her tongue when she can see him hesitate.
Chickenshit, she thinks. Her arms cross her chest and she sips the frappuccino slowly. They watch each other for a moment. “Sure.” He hums his acknowledgement, but she rolls her eyes again, tired. He knows she can keep a secret. “Look, we’re here, all right? You might as well tell me.”
His trigger finger spouts another surge into his thigh and he clasps his hands together on the table top to avoid it, ducking his head low. “Karen Page,” he tells her. Oh, she thinks, inkling confirmed. He waves his hand at the newsprint flapping against the chill of March air. “She’s a reporter.”
Her phone is in her hands in a flash, her thumbs typing the name into the search engine widget. “Is she, this the uh, the someone, the something-someone?” Her mouth lifts conspiratorially, catching his gaze turning hard. The page loads while she takes a bite sized piece of lemon loaf and throws it at him. Lighten up, huh? he tells her. Frank swipes a hand and smacks it midair. The crumbs bounce off his boots.
“Nelson, Murdock ampersand Page,” she recites to him, a local Hell’s Kitchen attorney link the first to pop in view. “Not a reporter anymore,” she says, noting the private investigator mention in the header. A few Bulletin press photos follow and she notes the shine of blonde hair, the way her smile brightens her whole face. Amy hears his tongue click against his teeth, his head swaying to look down the sidewalk, his eyes rolling quick. She keeps scrolling, as the name triggers a few iconic news articles written by her. There had been something even about her recently in several news sites. Dang, girl, Amy thinks. She flags a few of them to read later, her words in her throat to speak when Frank’s looking at her with a question in the lines of his forehead. “What?”
“Where are they?”
-
“Lieberman sent me the article last night,” he admits to her a couple hours later, leaning against a foreclosed business window across the street from the makeshift law office and pointing at her screen. They had walked 10 blocks instead of losing a parking spot for the van. Amy’s feet protested, her good boots back in her bag in the trailer. “I’m gonna kill him,” he relays simply, like he’s rejecting the offer of milk in his coffee. “It’s a few weeks old - but I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
She is reading the Wilson Fisk apprehension news attached to Karen’s name, remembering the way Frank quickly ushered her in the seat and they were off without another word, shitty fast food their dinner course for the road. Looking at the Nelson’s Meats sign only makes her stomach grumble.
“We had shitty service in West Virginia,” she tries. His head lowers to his chest, but she sees him nod. She wonders for a second. “You didn’t let her know you were coming back though,” she accuses him then, and she puts her phone back into her jacket pocket after scrolling through some more articles.
“She knew I would be,” he whispers with that gravely tone he used when he told her they needed to go. Amy knows he didn’t call her, but the small collection of postcards she’s seen him drop in mailboxes is all she needs to figure that is true.
“Did you also know she’s an absolute shit magnet?” Amy smiles wide up at him as she bends forward against the brick to stretch her arms, using his own terms for when she started to tag along with him.
Frank exhales heavily, closing his eyes and shaking his head in resignation, a small smile turning his lip up. He tries to bring it down quick enough, mouth twitching before she straightens to point at him, caught. “Yeah,” he agrees, a small laugh in his throat, “well.”
The bell on the inside of the butcher shop - whose idea was it to stick an attorney office in there, anyway - echoes in her ears as they both turn to look at who opened the door. Three bodies step out into the mid afternoon sun, a series of chuckles from each as the stocky blond in a suit tells the other two - a blind man and Karen - a story.
“Oh,” Amy mutters back, watching the way his face lines ease, his mouth parting at the sight, “but she’s your shit magnet, right, amiright?”
He gives her a brief glare and sighs in response before turning to see she’s rooted to the spot when she sees them. Frank pushes away from the wall with a kick of his boot when they watch Karen Page tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, mouth moving softly, as if exhaling. His hand lifts in a wave before she slowly steps away from the two men with her to get a better look. One of the men - the blind one - freezes in their conversation at her action, his head turning sharply in their direction, his laughter disappearing.
Karen smiles with her teeth, her eyes crinkling. “I’m right,” Amy smugly states.
The tall blonde is already edging towards the road, towards them, her hair whipping in the breeze as she turned and looked both ways. The blind man says something hurriedly, his arm extending to reach hers before she touches the pavement. Amy watches as the cane in his grip bounces around on his wrist as his mouth moves just as fast. The stocky blond beside him lifts his gaze across the street at them, a bit squinty in the face before his eyes widen in recognition of Frank. He hesitates with his hands in his pockets and then says something to the blind man, shaking his head.
Whatever it is only makes him grip Karen tighter. Frank shuffles from foot to foot, his head bobbing side to side. He’s radiating anger. “Goddamnit, Red,” he says, his voice low, a warning Amy is quickly getting familiar with. His jaw clenches tight as the blind man reacts as if he’s heard him.
She rests her chin on a fist, kicking her foot back to the brick, curious to the way the man moves as if he didn’t need the cane. “He looks like an asshole,” she tells him factually, hearing Frank bristle back a laugh with a harsh grunt as Red - she adopts the nickname - turns his face again at her words. Karen’s glaring at the arm still on her elbow, her mouth seething, her head shaking at Red. Amy can nearly taste her shout, Let me go.
Her arm rips out of his hold and Amy sees the way his jaw clicks, the hand brushing down his tie to seemingly act casual as Karen looks into the street again. “Attagirl,” Frank gently whispers. She’s readjusted her purse on her shoulder, her heels clack clack-ing quickly as she makes her way over. The lawyer boys stay behind near the shop. Red grips his cane with two fists.
Frank meets her on their edge of the sidewalk.
Karen’s arms lift and wrap him in close around his neck, eyelashes fluttering closed. Oh my god, she breathes out, Frank. She can hear the raw relief in her throat. Her knuckles are bone white as she holds him. Amy spots when his nose buries into her neck, the tight grip of his hands on her blue coat. “Hey,” he tells her, his voice now soft and quiet. They sway together in their steps for a moment, just breathing. “I woulda got here sooner,” he starts. The sound is muffled by her skin, but Karen releases her arms to slide them down his shoulders, and Frank stops to take her in again. He keeps his hands on her waist and instead of complaining she arches to stare him in the eye.
Amy tracks the way her thumbs lift up to stroke his jaw, a worry rub bruising on her mouth as she looks over the scratches on his face. Frank brings a hand up to reset a blown-around strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers tracing her cheek. She can’t help the way her eyes light up with relishing anticipation when she spots Karen lingering her own on the cut in his lip. “Are you okay?”
“Jesus Christ, Karen,” he says. It’s a real, true laugh now, bubbling up from deep in his chest. The anger from before is a distant memory now. He rests his mouth at her forehead when she lowers her gaze and pets his jaw again, careful to avoid the bruises creeping beneath her fingers. One of her hands settle against his collarbone. Oh, he’s never living this down.
“You go toe to toe with Wilson Fisk and nearly get killed by that crazy dude in the devil outfit, and you’re asking him if he’s okay?” Amy finally butts in, pointing at the gruff mess in combat boots in their company. He’s trying to keep the grimace off his face at the mention of the ex-FBI agent. “Him?” She sweeps her hair to the side and watches as Karen Page’s face widens in another smile, this time in her direction. Dear god, she’s pretty.
“Someone needs to,” she joked. Frank lets her go, one hand sliding lazily across her hip as Karen came closer. “Amy, right?”
It takes her a second to unlock her shoulders from panic at the recognition. Frank wouldn’t put her in harm’s way. “Yeah, that’s me.”
Karen’s eyes dart to and from each of them before turning a heel abruptly around to see the lawyer boys are still hovering on the other side, watching. “It’s my lunch hour,” she says slow and clear, with an edge of exasperation. “We’ll - go,” and Frank pulls at his bottom lip with teeth to stop the smile rising, some kind of secret split between them.
Her fist grabs at Frank’s black jacket by the wrist when she continues, dropping her voice back to friendly. “Catch up. Tell me what’s going on. The diner down here’s got a great turkey club.” Amy brings her foot down to the concrete and steps away from the wall. Yes, please.
Red takes the blond guy’s arm and they make their move slowly down the opposite end of the street.
Frank slips his fingers into Karen’s and she leads them further away.
His shoulders relaxed and he let out a deep breath of air. "Oh, you weren't in the car? I guess that's a little better," he admitted but still not liking the idea, scowling at Dally.
“Yeah. Relax, okay?” I said before pecking him on the cheek. “Are there any more plans for tonight? Where are the residence of this house anyway?”
