Am kinda sad to see that there isn't more Wonder Man love on this app. The series is literally a love letter to cinema, theater, and pop culture, and it's absolutely beautiful to see. Not only that but its the first (MCU) series to show us exactly how un-glamorous it is to be a mutant in the Marvelverse. Simon was discriminated against and hunted by the government throughout most of the series even though he hadn't done anything wrong yet. All he was trying to do was make a living.
And the way that plot parallels the Black Civil Rights movement is fucking genius. It's absolutely fucking genius.
summary — frank castle had not meant to kill you. well, he'd meant to kill you, but he hadn't meant to hook up with you first. then he hadn't meant to kill you. now he's not quite sure if you're haunting him, or if you're just trying to piss him off.
pairings — frank castle x fem!reader
pronouns — she/her (reader is referred to as being a girl)
word count — 3692
note — torturing frank castle is my favourite pastime. minors dni warnings include light choking (not enough to do harm or anything), borderline/allusions to gun play, and suggestive content :)
SITTING IN A BAR in hell's kitchen with a hood up didn't faze anyone anymore. frank castle had been getting away with being hidden in plain sight since before his face was being plastered all over every news channel. last week it was for the dogs of hell, yesterday it was for the mexican cartel, and tomorrow night it would be for the kitchen irish.
and that was all thanks to you. if you decided to show.
you were twenty-four minutes late. the only reason he hadn't left yet was because he promised to wait twenty-five minutes. he knew exactly the kind of trouble he was in for when you showed up with three seconds until his watch struck the next minute.
frank didn't choke at the jawdropping sight of you. you were the only lively thing in this dingy, dimly lit bar and all he could do was raise his eyebrows in . . . was it shock? interest? all of the above?
how was a pretty girl like you with a guy like ciaran?
you were all class and diamonds and ciaran was all blood, sweat and gunpowder. not that frank was any different ( god no, he was probably worse than ciaran ) but he at least had enough decency to know that you deserved better. better than ciaran and certainly better than himself. he shouldn't have even been thinking about you like that at all.
your perfume was overpowering the second you sat down. something expensive, he thought, notes of jasmine and orange blossom infiltrating all of his senses. so unlike maria — not that he could ever compare them — and therefore so unlike everything he had ever experienced. he'd met rich women before, those who exuded power through special forces and government agencies, but none like you.
you had information that he needed. frank had a contact that said that ciaran o'connor's girl was willing to talk for the right price. he didn't know the price yet but you clearly had enough riches to your name that money didn't even compute.
his hood was still up. you clocked that the hooded figure was him without even having to look at his face. the undertones of crisp citrus bit at his tongue as he gulped down the last bit of his lager. your perfume was stronger as you sat down, the lemon too bitter on his tongue. not a bad bitter, but one that left a lasting taste in his mouth. he assumed that was the point.
"frank castle," you mused, voice a sultry sweet tango of lavishly lush design. he set the bottle of stella back down on the counter. the bartender swept it up smoothly and replaced it with another.
"you got my message," frank's reply was curt, a gruff edge to his voice as he barely lifted his head to look at you. "good."
your nails tapped on the countertop. they were sharp, a dark crimson staining them a colour that pissed frank off. if he were in a better mood he would consider it to be the blood of the people that ciaran had murdered for breathing in your direction. good moods were hard to come by now, and with daredevil breathing down his neck, the colour red was a bad omen. meeting with you was bad enough, he didn't need the devil of hell's kitchen fucking his life up any further. not until he got his revenge first.
“i don’t talk unless you pay up,” your nails tapped a pattern that was hypnotising. it didn’t affect frank, but the man on the other side of you turned to look your way at the sound. "'cause that's what you're after, right, frank castle?" there was something to your tone that bordered elegant tease. "you wanna take down the irish."
it wasn't a question. the statement was hearty but you remained collected, as if this wasn't some elaborate scheme of his to take down your boyfriend and his gang. your eyelashes were long and fluttered as you blinked, unbothered.
"yep," the condensation off the beer soaked through the bruises on frank's hand as he picked it up. "just need to know their movements. that's why you're here."
your nails tapped in that same pattern again, this time in reverse. it soothingly scratched the jumble in his head. "and i'm still short payment."
FRANK CASTLE wasn't a desperate man. he wasn't sure what came over him in the bar, but it was so much so that he'd given into your charms and dug deep into the feelings that had been shoved down since he lost maria.
he was so desperate that he couldn't find it in him to feel guilty.
not when your hands carded through the short fluff of his hair as your lipstick tracked down from his nose to his tongue. not when your hands fiddled with his belt, fluidly unbuckling it as his fingers pulled down the straps of your dress. and certainly not when you collapsed on top of him on the motel room bed, your nails tracing the scars under his shirt as your thighs pinned him down.
"where are they tomorrow?" frank asked for the sixth time. he found an opening in your momentary distraction of bliss and flipped you so that your back was pressed to the mattress. his hand found a home around your throat, not tight enough to do any harm, but there was just enough pressure to seem threatening. he didn't miss the way your eyes rolled.
your eyes fluttered back open, piercing through him in a way that no one else had done before. "we both know you can work that out for yourself."
his grip tightened. you squirmed against him, your skin flush against his rough jeans. your smile didn't falter for a second, your lips carving into delicate shapes that spouted dainty sounds. "you're o'connor's girl, no?" frank's voice was deeper. you melted unintentionally, sinking further into the lumpy mattress. "i know you got very important information up in that pretty little head o' yours."
ciaran was a bad boyfriend. he stood you up, used you as a human shield when guns were drawn, and offered you up as a peace solution from time to time when things got out of hand. you hadn't been harmed notably yet ( except that one time you had caught fragments of shrapnel in the shoulder from a poorly made explosive ), so you couldn't complain too hard.
sometimes, however, ciaran wasn't a terrible boyfriend. there was a certain safety associated with being ciaran's girl — no one fucked with you and if they did they were taken care of so well that they didn't even show up as a missing person on the news the following day. blood money paid for everything you wanted and needed. there wasn't a day where you went without. that alone was worth staying for — ciaran loved you, treated you like a trophy on his shelf, and provided for you more than anyone ever had before. you were spoilt. you loved every second of it.
how could he be a bad boyfriend when he knew you didn't love him? when he knew that you weren't loyal? there was no possible way he could be the world's worst boyfriend when he accepted you back with open arms every single time you betrayed him.
"i've got everything you'd ever need," you drawled, eyes falling shut. the double entendre wasn't lost on frank. his eyes grew darker. frank castle was a soft lover, one that left the evil out on the battlefield and came home to worship his wife like a starving man at the altar of a goddess.
but you weren't his wife. and though you had the looks of a goddess, he wouldn't sink to his knees at your altar. you were temptation in a little black dress, delicacy be damned.
this was the enemy.
frank reached to the bedside table and picked up the one thing he never went anywhere without. you didn't even flinch at the safety clicking off, nor did you when the cool metal pressed against your skull. a giggle tumbled out. then another. the final round of giggles was silenced by the soft sound of his finger tightening on the trigger.
"oh, so you're a freak?" you said casually, your throat pressing against the palm of his hand. you could feel the dents in his fingers against every syllable. "i was already gonna tell you everything . . . but now i might keep quiet."
"keep quiet and i'll put a bullet in your brain, find your boyfriend myself," it wasn't really a threat though it came off that way. he spoke in his usual deep voice, gravel splintering his tongue. it was dark but it warmed your chest in a way that no one else had done before. it was lucifer's lullaby in the form of fractured words. "start talkin'."
you had already gotten what you wanted. frank castle, dark and menacing, loomed over you in a way that excited every nerve with crackled electricity. you had already planned to fork over whatever information he wanted because ciaran had put you in a bad mood this morning and you wanted to watch frank castle fuck him up. who knows? maybe you would get lucky and the role of trophy girlfriend would land you with enough money to get the fuck out of new york and find something new. the beaches of sicily sounded awfully inviting this time of year.
so you spoke. "everyone'll be at the burren club tomorrow night," you said, and frank's grip on your throat loosened ever so slightly. his grip on the gun didn't. "they're discussing what's gonna happen now that fisk's behind bars. if you wanna take 'em all out . . . that'll be where to do it."
frank hardly nodded. his eyes did it for him, listening to every word with an intensity unheard of. "you'll be there?"
you shrugged the best you could in your current position. "shouldn't be. ciaran usually doesn't want me sitting in."
pausing, frank mulled over the thoughts in his head, the cages rattling against each other mind-numbingly loud. he wanted them all to silence for just tonight, and that started with the gun in his hand. he didn't put the safety back on, just set the gun down closer on the bedside table. in reach of you and him. if you wanted to you could, but why would you do that when he was heaven masquerading as hell?
so instead, you rolled your hips upwards, every ridge of his body pressing into yours. his hand contracted around your throat once more. the gun laid forgotten, his gunpowder-stained hands laying rough claim across your soft skin.
THE AIR TASTED OF metal and smoke.
it was an absolute massacre within the walls of the burren club. the blood dripped from the ceiling like a hellish waterfall of red decay. bodies were littered with bullet holes, each of them sporting more than one piece of lead, all rendering dead on impact.
and then there was you.
frank stepped over ciaran o'connor's leg, his attention entirely on you. unrushed, in no hurry whatsoever, frank knelt down and pushed your hair out of your face.
still so angelic even with so much blood splattered across you, frank couldn't help but stare. you wore a short white dress, the same style as the one he had ripped off you last night, but it had torn from bullet holes and stained scarlet as blood pooled out from the numerous wounds his ammunition caused. it was easy to tell that you had died from the very first bullet fired off, the one that hit you square in the forehead, blood smudging through your dark eyeliner and causing it to run.
and it was exceptionally easy to tell that you had been thrown in front of ciaran like a shield. your body covered most of his, limbs spread enough to cover as much of his body as you could. either you had died and he had picked you up as the closest to shelter behind or you had died because ciaran had pulled you in front of a bullet meant for him, frank could never be sure, but his jaw ticked at the thought.
not because you were dead. he didn't care for that, even if his intention hadn't been to kill you originally. it had happened now and that was that. no, it was because ciaran's leg twitched and bumped into frank's. it was because his eyes blinked to life, his breath uneven with pain as he pushed your body off him. you slumped to the floor, face pressed into someone else's puddle of blood.
frank had his glock 19 out of his waistband and pressed harshly into ciaran's cheek in a matter of seconds. "what's the matter?" he asked gruffly, his voice so close to a growl that ciaran winced. "so much of a fuckin' pussy that you hide behind your girl?"
ciaran spat out a laugh. blood freckled across frank's face. he dug the metal harsher into ciaran's skin. "she was a whore, anyway. what good was she?"
frank smiled, one of those dark ones that are so ominously bone-chilling it's hard to breathe. "oh, pretty good," it was almost a taunt. he could still taste the jasmine of your perfume; was still pretty sure he had lipstick stains around his cock that the shower couldn't rid. it didn’t even feel wrong to talk about the dead girl — you — in this regard because he wanted to make ciaran’s last moments one that he would never forget, even long after death. "said no one had ever pleasured her better."
he buried a bullet between ciaran's eyes. more blood splattered up into his face. frank wiped it away with his sleeve, smearing the grime on an angle across his skin.
his eyes fell back on you. you looked ethereal, as fucked up as it was.
the skirt of your dress had ridden up your thighs when ciaran moved you. frank's bloody fingerprints left evidence on your once perfect white dress as he tugged it back down to cover you properly.
you were dead. frank left you there, face-down in a puddle of another man's blood, and moved through the rest of the restaurant. there was no saving you.
your life wasn't supposed to be entangled with his, anyway.
YOU WERE DEAD.
IF you weren't dead, you wouldn't have been choking in the blood that your mouth and nose were shoved down into. if you weren't dead, you wouldn't have been full of bullets and, if you weren't dead, your chest would have been rising and falling in that same pattern that it had when frank slept with you.
you were dead.
frank wasn't crazy. sure, he had seen and done things that the average person couldn't handle, but that didn't make him crazy.
he figured it was a figment of his imagination when you appeared in his shoebox bedroom.
sleepless nights merged together when the nightmares began. waking up in the middle of the night and seeing the ghosts of his maria, lisa and frank jr. wasn't uncommon, but them lasting longer than a blink of drowsiness was sadly something he didn't get to experience.
but here you were, standing by the window with your back to him, still there after he blinked six times. those six blinks cleared the fog from his eyes. squinting through the dark, he could make out even darker stains littered all across your back, and holes where the fabric had ripped in the centre of each splotch.
you were dead. why were you here?
turning on the spot, your every move was haunting as you locked eyes with him through the dark. your face wasn't bloodied but the bullet wound still lay embedded in your skull. frank had never dreamed of those he had murdered before, not even back when he first joined the marines. yet here you were, footsteps so soft he couldn't hear them, closing the distance to where he lay drenched in sweat on his bed.
"hi, frank castle," your voice was like silk, soft and sweet as if there weren't dozens of bullets piercing through every inch of your body. "the stars are pretty tonight, don't you think?"
he remembered latching his fingers into the necklace you wore around your neck — the one with the star pendant, but one glance at you now and that skin was bare. there was a faint tanline of its outline, but the necklace was gone now, whisked away like he had whisked you away from this world.
or so he thought. frank didn't know what to think.
"you're dead," he had to clear his throat to get the heavy words out, voice rough from hours of unuse.
"mhm?" you hummed, staring down at your hands with wide, glassy eyes. the eyes of the innocent. he knew that was bullshit. "i don't look dead."
frank's tongue went dry. "i killed you."
you tsked like this was all some kind of joke. "now that's not very nice."
silence. he watched as you stopped at the edge of his mattress, fingers brushing his twisted sheets. "i wasn't supposed to be there, y'know," you mentioned softly, uncharacteristically so. "ciaran dragged me to that meeting and made me sit there for appearances."
frank scoffed. he felt silly entertaining the idea of talking to a ghost, but you were in his room and it seemed you weren't planning on leaving. "and you didn't run?"
there was something haunting in your smile. or maybe your eyes. it wasn't the same smile you flashed him the other night. it was so far from the one that lured him into the depths of your cunning irises, wrapping around his soul like thorned vines.
"why would i do that?" you responded to his question with another one. "the irish were awful people . . . i wanted them gone."
"you were willing to die for that?"
you shrugged. "i hated them a lot more than i liked living."
you were dead. that explained the somberness in your speech and the air of suicidal ideation on the tongue. frank didn't remember you this way when you spent the night together; then you had been all prim, proper, and seductive, confidence and self-esteem at an all time high. the depression of death had to be controlling your mouth, clawing at your gums until broke through bone, all to draw this darkness out.
"god," frank brought both of his hands up to rub at his eyes. constellations exploded behind his eyelids as he tried to rub away the tired daze blurring his vision. "you're not even there . . . fuckin' talkin' to nothin'."
he opened his eyes to your frown up a lot closer than you were previously. sitting on the edge of his mattress, there was barely any space between where you were situated and where frank had woken up in a panic. "i'm not here?" you asked, voice a velvety murmur. "are you sure?"
your fingers ghosted a trail up his arm, touch featherlight and cold against his skin. goosebumps scattered behind your fingers, leaving tiny indents in his scarred skin until you stopped just before his elbow. "if i'm not here . . ." you pinched his skin ever so slightly. he winced absently at the feeling. "could i do that?"
his eyes followed each of your movements. frank's wrist caught your hand before you could touch him again, and his shock at the fact that he could feel you outweighed every other emotion. "you're . . ." he breathed speechlessly, the words disappearing as his mind drew a blank.
"mhm," was all you hummed, words unnecessary. you moved fluidly, a swift movement and you were straddling his lap, your entire weight being supported by his muscular thighs. his hands gravitated up to your hips without a thought, a natural reaction he didn't fight. "could i do this?"
your lips ghosted along his ear. frank could still taste your perfume, but this time it had base notes of copper and iron. the smell of gunpowder soaked your hair with every breath he took.
one of his hands disappeared. you paid little mind to where it went, your bottom lip dragging against the light stubble across his jaw as you inched closer to his mouth. a nimble, piercing whisper broke through the sound barrier of frank's bedroom just before your lips could properly brush against his own.
sitting back, you took noticed of the gun that was sitting in frank's hand, the silencer aimed directly at your heart. he watched as you pulled away, eyes flashing with a mirth that should not have been the outcome of him firing another bullet through your delicate skin.
his surprise tripled when you giggled. not a lonesome one, but an entire fit of giggles as if he had made the world's funniest joke. blood poured out of the wound, soaking your ivory dress with an even darker shade of red than it had been before. "okay," you laughed, sitting back on his thighs, hands behind you on either side of him on the mattress. "now that was mean."
that should've killed you. as fucked up as it was, frank knew it was the perfect point-blank shot to have stopped your heart within a matter of seconds.
you should be dead. and here you were, giggling like nitrous oxide was spilling into your lungs.
he blinked and you were gone, giggles a haunted echo of a memory he wasn't sure was real, disappearing like the weight on his legs that felt like it had never been there to begin with. all frank could do was stare into the shadowy abyss of the night, eyes tracing the intricate swirls of water damage on the ceiling, sleep so far at the prospect of your possible return from either the living or the realm of the dead.
