personal
pairing: frank castle x fem!reader
summary: lately frank has been acting suspicious, and you've decided to finally confront him about it.
warnings: swearing, lots of angst
word count: 3.4k
a/n: i hope y'all have been enjoying things being nice & light & sexy & fun bc these last few chapters aren't holding back any punches. shit is about to get real. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
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Not even five minutes after Frank walked through the threshold of his apartment, the rumble of an incessant banging sounded on his front door. His dark brows instantly furrowed with irritation at the sound. Slipping his right hand behind his back to grab the handle of the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans, he turned the knob and swung the door open with just as much ferocity as the person knocking on the other side.Â
The creases of annoyance on his sharp features suddenly smoothed into recognition at the sight of you standing in front of him, but not long after, his warm brown eyes widened in complete bewilderment seeing the raw fury that was burning in your eyes.Â
âHey-â
Before he could utter another word, you forced your way inside his apartment, causing him to quickly retreat backwards, wincing when you swiftly slammed the front door shut behind yourself.
âYou need to tell me what the fuck is going on with you, right now.â
Frank was utterly caught off guard by your aggressive behavior. The last time he had seen you this angry with him was when he showed up at your place after Cavella and Walker had attacked you. He was so distracted by your incensed entrance, he almost missed what you said. But when his brain finally caught up with his ears, your words only fueled his convoluted confusion.
âThere nothinâ goinâ on-â
âBullshit! Donât you dare fucking lie to me, Frank.â
âSweetheart, Iâm not lyinâ-â
âYouâve lied to me three times in the past month.â
Creases of puzzlement settled between Frankâs thick brows hearing that. Had he really lied to you three times? He couldnât even remember what heâd lied about, or how you caught onto the fact that he was. Frank admittedly had been a bit out of it when it came to you lately, but he wasnât doing it on purpose to hurt you. He just happened to be caught in the middle of something he was trying to keep you as far away from as possible.
Taking his silence as evidence of guilt, you stared up into his eyes, wanting him to see the proof of grief in your reflection that his actions had caused. You wanted him to hear the severity in the words that lacerated your tongue as they slipped past your lips that had been bitten raw from your tortured anxiety.
âYou never once lied to me before Frank, ever. I donât know why youâre choosing to start now, but if I hear one more lie come out of your mouth, I am done. I will walk out that door and I will have nothing to do with you ever again, that's it. Do you hear me?â
That caught Frankâs attention. There was no waver in your voice, no threat in your tone, just raw emotion and sincerity.Â
For the past month, Frank had been acting strange. Youâd caught him in three white lies, and while they may have seemed small and trivial to someone else, they were anything but that to you. Because youâd been stuck with a pathological liar before, and there was no such thing as harmless lies. A lie was a lie, and it was a crack in the foundation of trust and integrity that youâd built with Frank, and a crack could turn into a rift, and a rift could divide you and make it all come crumbling down.
Since yours and Frankâs schedules didnât always line up, youâd both done everything you could to make every moment count since your first date. But lately, it felt like you were the only one putting in the effort. Frank was chronically distracted these last few weeks. He was late to meet you for dates, he didnât call when he said he was going to, and sometimes you didnât hear from him at all until the day was practically over. And when he was with you, Frank was physically present, but mentally he seemed to be somewhere you couldnât follow. Even sitting right beside one another, it felt like there were oceans of distance separating you subconsciously.Â
At first, youâd tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was one little white lie. One missed call after a long day. Just fifteen minutes of waiting at the restaurant. This was Frank, the man who had saved your life more times than you could count. He was different. This was real. You had nothing to be concerned about.
But then one white lie turned to three, and one missed call turned into not hearing from him until an excuse appeared across your screen at half past midnight, and fifteen minutes late turned into not showing up at all. His behavior planted a seed of suspicion in your mind that grew like wild ivy, coveting the sense of security you had in him with leaves of doubt, sprouting spirals of diabolical hypotheticals that canvassed your brain with catastrophe.Â
Every knot of faith Frank had woven into your heart with his actions over the last nine months were steadily being unraveled by his own hand in a matter of weeks. The confidence you had in him was now frayed in shreds and left you in a fit of mania, scrutinizing his every intent under a microscope.Â
You had been here before. Youâd been lied to, manipulated, cheated on, pushed to the brink of insanity, and eventually left behind. You recognized all the signs of duplicity and betrayal, but youâd covered your own eyes so you wouldnât have to acknowledge them, because it was Frank.Â
Blunt-and-brutally-honest, jump-in-front-of-a-bullet, remembers-every-little-detail, got-his-knuckles-bloody-for-you, killed-for-you, Frank.
And thatâs why this hurt so much. Thatâs why this dagger of deceit tore clean right through your chest, leaving you standing in the middle of Frankâs living room, hysterical and furious for an elixir of truth that could make this pain go away and heal your belief in him once again. Heâd been so MIA lately that you had spent hours camped out in front of his apartment building tonight, waiting to see his truck pull up just so you could follow him inside and finally have this conversation face to face.
Frank could hear in your voice that heâd hurt you, and even worse, he could see the evidence of it shining in your eyes. The pieces of yourself youâd lent him to patch up his own heart were suddenly bleeding at the seams seeing how his unintentionally selfish preoccupation had left you marooned. Shame didnât begin to cover the way he felt. He knew he needed to be honest, but he couldnât tell you everything.
Not yet.
âYouâre right, Iâm sorry. But it ainât what you think, sweetheart.â
âThen what is it? Explain it to me.â
Frank took a seat on the couch and gently patted the space next to him, looking up at you with diligent patience while you internally debated between standing stubbornly or giving into his request to sit with him. After a moment you finally sat down, but you intentionally put space between the two of you and folded your arms across your chest in a silent gesture of defensiveness. Resting his forearms on the tops of his thighs, Frank clasped his right hand over his left wrist, staring down at his worn boots while deciding his next words carefully.
âI got a new assignment.â
The quiet tone of Frankâs voice and the lack of eye contact while he spoke immediately caused a spark in your nervous system.Â
âWhere?â
âI donât know yet.â
Frank let a moment of silence pass before turning his head to look at you with an apologetic gleam in his warm brown eyes.
âIâve been helpinâ Madani with somethinâ.â
Pinching at the bridge of your nose, you let out a slow exhale of irritation. Frank had already strained your patience with his behavior this past month, and his obscure responses were only making it worse.
âWhy are you being so secretive about this?â
âItâs complicated-â
âComplicated how? You didnât have to hide the last job from me-â
âThis one is different-â
âDifferent how? That doesnât make any sense-â
âYou gonna let me talk? Or you gonna keep yellinâ at me?â
The way you clenched your jaw and narrowed your gaze at his quip made Frank regret letting his own frustration get the best of him. You were already pissed off, now was not the time for him to snap back at you like he normally did when the two of you argued about something. A wave of annoyance quickly crested within you. The second you stood up from the couch, Frankâs large hand reached out to grab your wrist.
âHey, câmon. Donât do that.â
âDonât do what?â
âWalk away from this conversation-â
âWhat conversation, Frank? Youâre not doing anything but giving me vague excuses. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?â
Frank gave your wrist a gentle tug to get you to sit back down next to him on the couch. He once again waited calmly as you stood defiantly for a moment before reluctantly sitting back down. He let his large hand glide across your wrist to take your hand into his own, holding it firmly in his lap while cocking his head to the side to try and catch your gaze.
âLook at me, sweetheart.â
When he gave your hand a gentle squeeze, the prolonged pause of silence caused you to eventually shift your attention back to Frank, and you could see that his brown eyes were a deep shade of contrition.
âIâm sorry. I know Iâve been distracted lately, and I havenât been âround like I shoulda been. And youâre right, I did lie to ya, and Iâm sorry âbout that. Iâm not tryinâ to keep things from ya, sweetheart. Itâs justâŠthis one isâŠitâs different.âÂ
âWhy? What makes this one so different that you have to lie to me about it?â
âItâs personal.â
Now it was your turn to be perplexed. You thought Frank was long past holding you at arms length and keeping up a fortified impenetrable steel wall around his heart and mind. Heâd opened up to you before, talked about his life in the Marines, told you about the family heâd loved and lost, even spoke about them more comfortably and freely now without the shadow of grief looming over his words. Why was he back to shielding his vulnerability?
âPersonal?â
Frank knew you wanted more of an explanation. You needed more. And he hated that he couldnât give it to you right now. He hated that there was still so much that he was holding back from you, and that it was his own fault you were even doubting him in the first place.
âListen, I canât explain it right now, alright? But I will. When itâs all said and done, IâmâŠIâm gonnaâŠIâll have to tell ya some things first, some things you may not wanna hear and probably wonât like hearinâ. But I promise, Iâm gonna tell you everythinâ, alright? I just need you to trust me right now.â
Every word Frank spoke hid another piece of the puzzle he was crafting, and you were left with misshapen gaps of confusion. You didnât know what he meant by saying there were things he had to explain that you might not want to hear, or how that factored into the job he was currently working. Nothing he was saying made any sense to you, and it only left you with more crucial questions than justifiable answers. Pulling your hand away from his, you got up from the couch and started to stressfully pace back and forth.
âSo the reason youâve been a shitty boyfriend lately is because of this new assignment, that you canât tell me anything about, other than itâs personal, but you canât explain why that is. And itâs going to take you somewhere eventually, but you canât tell me where, because you donât even know yet, and even if you did, you still wouldnât tell me. And Iâm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you have no idea how long this is going to last, but you expect me to sit here and act like everything is fine between us and trust you even though I have no fucking idea where youâre going or what youâre doing. Did I miss anything?â
Frank could hear the barely concealed hostility in your tone. He couldnât combat a single thing you said. When you finally stopped pacing and turned to face him, staring at him expectantly, a ring of treachery was blazing around your irises. He could see it right then in your eyes. If he didnât fix this, he would lose you.
Slowly rising from the couch, Frank stood there with a dispirited weight resting on his shoulders, a look of pleading softening his warm brown eyes.Â
âIâm gonna handle this as soon as I can, I promise.â
âI canât do another month of this, Frank.â
âThen it wonât be another month. Iâll figure it out before then.â
âHow?â
The resentment you felt towards Frank was rapidly fading into pure desperation. All you wanted was an answer, a real answer. Something of substance that you could understand, something tangible to hold onto during this period of uncertainty. Frank could feel the despair radiating off of you in thick sorrowful waves, and the fact that you were close to forfeiting this argument had him instantly tensing as the chill of dread straightened his spine. He had to give you something.
âListen, Madani gave me some intel, alright? Iâve been followinâ it, tryinâ to find proof sheâs right, or if sheâs just seeinâ what she wants to see.â
âBut why did she give it to you? What can you do that Homeland Security canât?â
Frank stared at you silently for a moment, and you could see a look of hesitation flash in his eyes. There was something there, something you couldnât figure out. But you could tell by the expression on his face that there was a lot more to this than it being a top secret assignment from Homeland. Whatever it was, it had everything to do with Frank. You just couldnât figure out why. After a terse minute of silence, Frank stood up a little straighter while subtly clenching his jaw, and there was a hardened look in his eyes.
âCause itâs connected to someone I know.â
The way he spoke that sentence with an ominous undertone sent an icy torrent down your spine. Sensing your trepidation, Frank let out a deep sigh and glanced around his apartment for a moment while lost in thought before eventually looking at you again, this time with a softer gaze.
âLook, I canât explain it all right now, sweetheart. All I can tell ya is that Madani needed someone she could trust on this, and I owe her a debt.â
Letting those words sink in, you tried to put your biased emotions aside for a moment and think logically about what Frank was saying. Dinah had asked him for a favor. Part of you found it surprising that she came to Frank and Billy, considering the way she acted towards Billy the day Steven was arrested. But maybe that look of distrust and disdain had everything to do with the complicated relationship theyâd had that Billy mentioned.Â
If Frank was working for Dinah, then he was working for Homeland, which meant he probably didnât have a choice but to keep everything from you. And yet, here he was still trying to give you crumbs of explanations, and promising to tell you everything once this new assignment was over. At least you could lay the fear to rest that he was seeing someone else. Standing here now, you felt ridiculous that youâd restlessly jumped to the conclusion of an illicit affair. But in your own defense, it had been difficult to think clearly when Frankâs covert behavior mirrored that of past boyfriends' unfaithful performances.
As your shoulders physically deflated from your own conspiracies unraveling just to get tangled in a new set of ambiguities, you let out a deep exhale and rubbed both of your palms tiredly down your face, grasping onto the back of your neck for a moment. When you first showed up at Frankâs apartment, you had felt completely warranted in your anger. Now, you werenât sure if you had overreacted in your manic state, or if you still had a right to be upset with Frank. At this point, you just felt drained from trying to balance on that tightrope of your own conflicting emotions.
Frank had saved your life several times over, and Dinah personally made sure that Steven would spend the rest of his life in prison. You owed them both everything. The least you could do was show them a little patience.Â
âAlright. Fine.â
In the nine months that Frank had known you, never once had you conceded in an argument. Even when you were in the wrong, you struggled with admitting that you had been erroneous. Frankâs blood ran cold with the thought that he might have pushed you too far healing the casual defeat in your voice. He didnât want you to give up on him like this. Frank quickly took a step towards you the second you took a step towards the door, reaching out to gently grab your arm.
âHey, hey câmon. Donât go.â
âFrank, Iâm tired-â
âThen stay. Just stay here, câmon. Itâs late, yeah? Stay.â
Frank wasnât giving you any room to decline the offer disguised as a command. One of his strong arms slipped around your waist, pulling you firmly into his chest while his large hand gently cradled the back of your head. He pressed his lips in a soft, lingering kiss to the crown of your head, hugging onto you tightly while resting his cheek against the side of your head. The rigid tension in your body lethargically began to melt, and Frankâs deep gravelly voice whispering into your ear dismantled the last of your defensiveness.
âJust stay with me, baby. Please stay.â
Frank knew that he didnât deserve you. He didnât feel that heâd earned this second chance at life he was getting. But he would be damned if heâd let anything ruin this now that he had you. He wouldâve told Madani to go to hell if heâd known the favor was going to cause such a big disruption to the peace heâd found within you.
But not only did he owe his second shot to her, he desperately needed to know the truth himself.
âWhen will you leave?â
Frank hugged onto you even tighter, rubbing his hand along your lower back in soothing slow circles.
âMânot sure yet. But Iâll tell ya as soon as I know, I promise. And Iâll make sure youâre taken care of while Iâm gone, yeah? Iâll be back before ya know it, baby.â
Hearing the soft sigh that sounded from you, Frank nuzzled his nose into your hair and whispered gently to you.
âListen, I wonât take no more jobs like this, alright? Iâm gonna handle this for Madani, and thatâs it. I wonât do anythinâ else thatâll take me too far from you, yeah? Iâm not gonna leave ya, sweetheart. I told ya Iâm always gonna be here. I meant that then, and I mean it now. You ainât ever gotta worry âbout that.â
You tried to find comfort in those words, but you werenât in the mental state to accept any vows. You couldnât get past the glaring truth that Frank was hiding something from you, and until you knew what it was, that crack of dishonesty would continue to slowly spread. You had a sneaking suspicion in the pit of your stomach that whatever verity Frank was concealing had the potential to shatter everything; unveiling the illusion that your relationship hadnât been formed out of the impervious stone that youâd believed in, but rather of futile glass.
tags: @thyme-in-a-bubble @day-dreaming-goddess @messymissy @itwasthereaminuteago @strawberry1042 @queenofthenoobs @wanda2themax @xcastawayherosx @avengerstower-houseplant @stevenknightmarc @ponyosmom35 @babygal-babygal @wellwwhynot @oldermenaremyreligion @combustiblemeow @tired-night-owl @fairykiss32 @danzer8705 @calkissed @fxckahs-blog @lemon-world1 @polskiperson @imperihoe @v4leoftears @harperdoodle @spideyvibez @joalslibrary @cherry-berry-ollie @sorrowfulfragmentation @kdogreads @sumo-b98 @blackhawkfanatic @gloryekaterina @whistle1whistle @starbritestarlite @callmebrooklynbabes @hallway5 @scarletfvckingwitch @bifuriouslatina @soupyspence @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @wonwoosthetic @linguist-breakaribecca @nerdytreeflower @mrs-bellingham @smhnxdiii @s3riou2 @slavic-empress
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Somehow, More Boyfriend!Frank Headcanons
Cliche as it is, Frank's gonna kill all the bugs in the apartment. When you encounter a colossal winged something in the kitchen and start screeching and grabbing for the closest thing (a frying pan) to smash it but dancing around it because you're too afraid to get close, Frank comes charging in thinking you're being attacked and instead gives you a look like "really sweetheart?" and then literally scoops you by the waist with one hand so you're nearly dangling by his side while he smashes the gross thing with a bare palm and then flicks it out the window.
Few things make Frank Castle cry but after a day of babysitting your niece together and watching endless episodes of Bluey, you catch him with his eyes all watery, absolutely hooked to the TV. It's quite a sight-- your one year old niece happily babbling away with her toys but Frank is the one glued to the TV, the giant tearing up while he's still got scraped knuckles and a healing black eye from a recent encounter. You ask, "Frank... are you.. crying?" and he makes to wipe his eye quick saying, "Course I am! You see this shit sweetheart? That'll tear your heart out."
Frank is super tuned into your little routines, knowing you get crabby or stressed when things don't run just so and now he's become a routine-tracker, gently lifting you from the couch when you've fallen asleep at night saying "Come on honey, I know you don't wanna sleep with your makeup on. Gotta get your lotions and stuff on baby" and helping you to the bathroom.
After Frank was at the gym or just with a bunch of guys in general he'd come home and beeline right to you, plant a kiss on your lips and then plant his nose on the top of your head and inhale all deep, has hands landing right on your ass, claiming he just needed the soft clean feel of you. Frank wasn't going soft per se, he could still hold his own in any situation, but he came to appreciate the comfort of your soft skin and the smell of your shampoo after he'd been with a a bunch of stinky, loud, scratchy, hideous guys too long.
Frank is DEFINITELY a morning sex kind of guy. He's already pressed against you all night, the big spoon to your little, and its more often than not that your feel the growing press of him as your stir awake, his hand snaking around to cup your tit and play gently with your nipples. Instantly you're whining and Frank is murmuring "shhh shhh honey, gonna make it feel better," as he tugs down your sleep shorts and fucks you slow and lazy from behind. As a result, he's begun convincing you to just sleep nude from the get-go since you're gonna end up that way.
Speaking of sex, Frank loved to make you work juuuust a bit before he'd ultimately take over. You're in his lap, already full of him, slowing down from the effort, and he's all "ah ah, come on sweetheart, I know you can do it," with his hands on your hips, helping you rock back and forth. When the pinkness starts to hit your cheeks and you're huffing in effort, Frank is quick to take over and he's doing ALL the work from there on out.
Frank is adorably inept at technology, often grumpily tossing his phone aside and mumbling "piece of shit" when he can't figure something out. He only keeps the damn thing because he wants to check in on you otherwise he'd have ditched it long ago. One time you sent him a meme and he's like "the fuck is that sweetheart?" and you're just like "don't worry about it Frankie"
Frank loved you wearing quite literally everything, and nothing, but the site of you in a cottagecore dress?? He was FERAL. Like a caged animal. He claimed they always made your boobs look fantastic and he was like a teenager when you had them on-- just constantly battling the bugle in his pants and bending you over a table the MOMENT you got back home.
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