#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08
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Frank && Death.
They HAVE met, even if Frank is unaware of it. Oh, they flirted throughout his long-gone youth— when he was reckless with his vitality, utterly fearless and courting trouble for either fun or status; they brushed elbows at war, strange colleagues of a sort. And of course. . . he DID die the once.
Here was a man so promised to them, SO GUARANTEED, that they perhaps rested a little too comfortably on their laurels awaiting him after a bullet found his skull and a wrathful woman took control of his plug. They did not come for him in that sterile hospital room— AND SO HE ROSE AGAIN, only moments after his heart stopped it's beating. It was a mistake that did not bear repeating. His was a soul long overdue for Death's embrace. .
So Death itself goes to collect when yet again Life is bleeding sluggishly out of Frank Castle some months later. It waits in the wings and tries to soften the ultimate transition with pretty memories plucked right from the man's own head. Death takes Maria's face for it's own and embraces Frank; reminds him of the sweetness of wedding his wife and the pleasure of bedding her. They dance. They kiss. They fall into bed together and never once does it register or matter to that dying man that if he were truly in his memories proper the room would not be so bare and gray. And when his time is up? Death stretches out it's hand ever so gently and asks him to come HOME.
The problem is. . . they have not been left alone and interrupted. Frank is dying slowly of torture; not slipping away calmly in the warmth of his own bed, letting go a well-aged ghost. No. That was never going to be his end. Frank Castle is a soldier. He is a man still at WAR though his career days are done.
Death has been awaiting him in Maria's mask in that gray liminal space while Frank comes and goes— goes and comes back again. He wakes to pain, he slips away from it. He rises up. He falls under. Each time Death greets him and tries to keep him a little longer, waiting for that FINAL moment when they walk away together, hand in hand.
And Frank DOES take their hand. Terrible man that he is, he dares smear the blood of his war upon it; but he takes it. Outside, in his quickly fading reality, William Rawlins tells his body the truth of it all. ❝You're a dead man. Your heart just doesn't know it yet.❞
AND YET— HE RISES TO FIGHT AGAIN.
Rather than accept the truth he is told, Frank tells Death his own truth. He IS home. War is his home. He takes back the contrasting warmth of his hand. He turns his back. HE WALKS AWAY.
So what can Death do but let him go and turn it's own back in return?
A rejection like that can not be repeated. It is made once and never again— never even given the opportunity to be recanted. Frank may be sent to them; he may come seeking, but, he will NEVER be collected.
HE WILL ALWAYS RISE AGAIN.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍?
𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 ... jaw clenching, hands balling into fists, teeth grinding, yelling, going nonverbal, vocalizations, stuttering speech, rushed speech, slow concise speech, rambling, quiet, arms crossing, shaking head, curling lip upwards, baring teeth, tearing up, animated, expressionless, projects, internalizes, vents, withdraws, tighter movements, passive-aggressive, direct, physical outbursts, verbal outbursts, pacing, going still, anger boils over in the heat of the moment but cools down quickly afterward, anger brews slowly but lingers longer, will act out of impulse when angry, will stew on their anger and plot revenge, holds grudges, forgives easily, forgives but never forgets
𝐉𝐎𝐘 ... easy smiles, fighting back grins, suppressed laughter, loud laughter, giggles, chuckling, smirks, whole body laughs, covers mouth when laughing/giggling, throws head back when laughing, slaps leg, touches people around them when laughing, looks down when laughing, looks for eye contact when laughing, sparkling eyes, bubbly happiness, quiet subtle happiness, obnoxious happiness, wants to spread joy, quietly savors joy
𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 ... crying, bottling it up, seeking distractions, wallowing, meditating and processing, avoidance, seeking out comfort, withdrawing, swallowing thickly, talking it out, internalizing it, sad smiles, depression naps, using alcohol, using drugs, seeking out sources of joy, fidgets with sentimental item, sits in silence, broods, gets moody, wants someone to share the misery, tries to hide negative emotions, nurtures others to make themselves feel better
𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 / 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐄 ... blushing, looking away, rubbing at the back of the head, running a hand through hair, clearing throat, covering the face, laughing nervously, laughing it off, overthinking, letting it go, self-deprecating humor, deflecting, getting irritated, smiling, withdraws, crossing arms over the stomach, crossing arms over chest, hands in pockets, shoulders sinking, shrugs, falling into silence until comfortable again, talking a lot to compensate
𝐆𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐓 ... avoiding eye contact, shoulders sinking low, head hanging down, crying, chest aches, lashing out, internalizing, apologizing, deflecting, communicating, withdrawing, grand gestures for forgiveness, accepting fault easily, punishing themselves, martyrdom, victim complex, over-active guilt complex, healthy conscience, internalizes even after forgiveness, seeking redemption, moves on easily, denial, shuts off empathy to cope, lack of guilt/conscience, sorry they got caught more than caused harm, can’t handle knowing they hurt others
𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐑 / 𝐀𝐍𝐗𝐈𝐄𝐓𝐘 ... trembling, crying, sarcasm/sass to cope, humor to cope, rambles, going quiet, going nonverbal, getting angry, fidgeting, freezing up*, impatience, clenching jaw, picking at nails, chewing at the lip, pulling at clothes, adjusting jewelry/clothing/hair, pacing, swallowing thickly, eyes widening, over-reacts, under-reacts, calm, logical, panic, irrational, overthinks, carefully analyzes, talk to themselves, breathing exercises, flight, fight, withdraw, fawn
tagged by: @metalwingstagging: @prettytm & anyone else who wants to do it
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#ʜᴇʏ! ɪ'ʟʟ ᴅᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ. || ( ᴍᴇᴍᴇs ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀsʜ ɢᴀᴍᴇs )
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Frank Castle does not believe in vampires. In fact, given a chance, he will steadfastly and stubbornly scoff at and refute the existence of something so ridiculous to him.
This is a man of the belief that those mythical creatures of the night are confined to fiction in all it's many forms-- the silver screen, the written word, the drawn pages of comic books and graphic novels. They're the kind of thing you save for an evening of Netflix and chilling; all the better for wrapping an arm around your significant other and nibbling on their neck a little to get the evening going spicy.
The long and short of it is that he simply has no cause to believe in them as real beings that walk among us, in spite of the fact that he inhabits a very strange world that only seems to get stranger by the day.
Mind you, this is a man who has helped to bring two children into the world. That had to include all the usual appointments-- admittedly, because of his service, only some of which he was there for. Still, those check-ups and ultrasounds and blood-test filled days were bound to feature questions around his and his wife's medical history. Neither of them are carriers of the much discussed X-GENE-- something that is endlessly more real to him and easier to parse and accept. That's SCIENCE. It's in the vein of passing down hair and eye colors, bum tickers, and all kinds of other physical family baggage.
As far as he knows, you can't just pass down a case of the sparkles.
Hell-- he'd more seriously consider a case of demonic possession before he ever took seriously a flash of fangs and a confession of being beautifully undying. He's Catholic like that, even when it's been an eon since setting foot inside a church. Both cases would honestly make him suggest psychiatric help first, but the former. . . the former is close to home. He BELIEVES in the former. He KNOWS a thing or two about dark attachments of the soul.
But the Lord Ruthven shit? C'MOOON-- Polidori just had a bitter axe to grind against Byron. None of those dead guys are still prancing among us. Vampires make him think of Halloween, Hot Topic, eyeliner and My Chemical Romance band shirts with striped arm warmers. Scene kids and vampires are the same thing, right??
Now, from where does this bullheaded rejection spring? It's from the smallness of Frank's world. Truth be told, he's never been one for GRAND dreams. His were always local things-- even when they were as absurd as a child's glossy and romanticized desire to be a wiseguy in the style of Michael Corleone. Frank's world used to be Bayside, Queens to Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. He never really made plans to leave it-- not by further than getting out of his parents' house and someday into his own. Such small sights were never set on the rest of the world beyond or what lived in it. His was a world of old school by-the-slice shops, creeping bodegas, car-fixing garages where he might someday work for the legit side of things.
Enlistment and eventual deployment only narrowed his world even further, despite being responsible for sending him into the cradle of civilzation. In that place all that mattered was putting one foot in front of the next, checking his corners, doing the job and surviving the day and the incompetence of the United States Marine Corps.
There were no vampires for him to meet in Iran, Pakistan, or Afghanistan.
And afterwards? Afterwards there should only have been the smallness of HOME again. Of Maria tucked into his side, of Lisa held in his arms, of Junior at his knee.
Ain't that just the kicker though? After all that-- after all that happened to him, he could BE one of them. Maybe not beautiful, but definitely undying. Except he doesn't know that.
And still doesn't feel like he has any cause to BELIEVE.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#a study in bullheadedness#next you're gonna tell him you believe everything The Bugle prints
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(developed with help from @felinoir and inspired by Frank’s appearance and actions in his Thunderbolts run, as well NMCU events featuring cameos by @prettytm‘s Billy Russo and the unholy headcanon that Fratt is a thing that happens at least temporarily in all of Frank’s verses)
Frank’s bar for people he’d sleep with hit an all time low after he became a widower. Old enough to drink, sober enough to say yes covered most of it-- and that’s mostly because he’s not looking for a relationship or any kind of real connection with anyone. He does, after all, consider himself a dead man walking. Not to mention a plague upon the earth. One night stands are what he sticks to with strangers; though he has been known to go hitting the same sheets more than once if there’s any kind of a friendship there and an understanding that the exchange is just physical-- sex and nothing but.
And then a broad he was pretty sure he watched get killed starts taking out his marks for him-- Red’s girl, Elektra Natchios. And man, she does it with the kind of grace and panache that speaks to his Bayside Italian heart. I mean, what’s a guy to do if not ask her to dinner?
Even if she is/was Red’s girl.
Frank asks because as far as he’s concerned, it’s none of his business if she still is or isn’t anybody’s girl. She’s her own person-- she’ll decide for herself if she wants to get some chow and head back to his.
It doesn’t stop him or even give him pause that she may or may not belong to Matt Murdock. The same way it doesn’t stop him or give him pause that technically for a while there, he did too. Whether he and Matt are friends, enemies, exes, colleagues, or whatever else they might be to each other, the only thing that matters to Frank is what Elektra wants to do with his invitation. The only person’s opinion he cares about is hers. Whether or not he owes Red something like loyalty is probably debatable until the cows come home, but the only person’s consent he’s asking is Elektra’s. Whatever else she’s got going on, she’d be the one in charge of deciding what she does with it.
Or as Frank puts it, “It’s up to her whether I fuck her or not, not Murdock.”
He proceeds to later, while under contract to the Thunderbolts, fuck Red’s Girl on several different continents. Which interestingly enough, makes him a colleague of Flash Thompson’s-- Agent Venom. He’s too busy using his downtime to plow Elektra on every flat surface they can find, which fortunately for him means that he doesn’t ever sit around and end up listening to Thompson talk about his blonde ex in New York, or what she looks like.
It puts Flash on the list of people whose opinion Frank doesn’t give a fuck about when the Black Cat crashes his Maggia cleanup to liberate their shiny shit and any green she comes across-- taking Frank’s curious interest with her after they split the cash more amicably than expected. Yet again, when he shoots his shot with Felicia, her consent and thoughts on the matter is the only thing he cares about.
AKA
Frank Castle has NO sense of any kind of bro-code unless it comes to one Billy Russo.
See, Billy thinks Frank either doesn’t know or doesn’t remember-- but the slug in his head didn’t take her away. Five-foot-three, hazel eyes, pink hair-- couldn’t have weighed anything over 175 in spite of a generously full rack and ridiculous backside. His nose still smarts when he thinks of her and the suicide mission Billy had sent him on to “test” her. She’s the one dame in all the world he wouldn’t fuck with someone else’s dick, because she’s Billy’s girl and he respects that.
Everyone else is fair game.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#ʜᴏɴᴇʏ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴋɪʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪɢʜᴛs || .(ɴɪɢʜᴛ sᴏɴɢs ꜰᴏʀ ᴡᴇᴀᴋɴᴇss).#sunday funday for frank
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Rachel Cole-Alves (specific to @vengefulwidow)
Call her Cole, Miss Cole, or any version of her name that drops the hypen and her married surname, and Frank will remind you in an annoyed snap that it’s Alves. Her husband might have been killed on their wedding day, but not before he spoke his vows and took Rachel as his wife. Deny her his name intentionally and you will get some Castle Brand violence thrown your way about it.
That being said-- he gives himself special privileges when he’s being an asshole. Which... when is he NOT?
That’s when the Marine rivalry bullshit comes out. That’s when she stops being Alves, or even Rach, Rachel, and Marine, and instead becomes Hollywood. San Diego. Cali. California. West Coast. And a plethora of other coast/city related nicknames. All of them delivered dripping in faux-condescension. IE: “Ain’t takin’ suggestions from Hollywood Marines, but nice try.” and “Don’t you got a zoo to run, San-Diego?”, so on and so forth.
But that’s a Frank-Only privilege, so unless your name is Billy Russo don’t fuckin’ try it.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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“You do this and you are the monster that they say you are.” - Karen Page
“When Frank smashed Billy’s face into that mirror... he was looking at himself.” - Dinah Madani
“I didn’t care. You know what that means, right? Now I’m the monster.” - Frank Castle
Monster.
Sling the word at Frank and nine times out of ten, ten times out of ten, hell fucking twenty times out of ten you’ll get a cold unflinching NOTHING out of him.
Karen tries it. Uses it to try and stymie him from killing Colonel Bennett-- telling Frank that he will be the monster they say he is... but there are many and varied reasons why that very heartfelt plea didn’t work; why it fell on deaf ears.
Frank is NOT AFRAID of being the monster.
He already has been. What was he, if not a monster, when he got sheepdipped to the CIA and Agent Orange? He tells the man his squad is being called The American T.aliban– and you know that’s not something anyone said to his face. It’s something he overheard. Downtime, short leave, whatever; Frank moved among the people whose country it was his job to invade. Who was it? When did it happen? How long had he been there to pick up enough of the language to hear that mother clutch her son to her chest and whisper that about him and his ilk?
Frank has BEEN the monster.
Sometimes he thinks that’s all he’s ever been-- a monster forged of wrath and apathy; contradiction though it may be. He doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t pissed off about something. Like his old man being too old. Like his ma being the same. Like the both of them naming him something he got legally changed ten seconds after turning eighteen. It’s just always been there, the rage, the indignant feeling that his whole life was a string of grave injustices done to him for no reason. It poured out of him with no instruction-- no influence; just nature. Balled up fists swung hard and fast-- over and over until he was forcibly stopped by whoever could. It’s something that’s always been wrong with him; the way he’ll see red and nothing but-- a haze, an altered state... a turn to the kind of brutality that stuns and horrifies anyone who sees it.
What’s a hellion if not a monster? It’s got the HELL built right into it-- and he thinks, that must be where he comes from.
What does he care? What does he care? What’s he gonna care for? He makes himself not care-- the only shield he’ll ever hide behind from the cradle to enlistment; a forced stubbornness about how little it matters to him what they say about him.
He cares. Sometimes.
At war, among his newly found brothers, he takes PRIDE in being the monster. It’s not a curse anymore but a praise-- a GIFT! It’s part and parcel of what keeps him and his squad alive. It makes him the biggest bad-ass anyone’s ever seen-- him and his band of monster brothers. They howl victory like wolves and bellow rage and sorrow after loss, but at least.. at last.. he is among his people.
It never ends.
Truth is, he doesn’t know WHY he can do things that other people can’t-- why battle tactics bloom in his mind like weeds, without need of aid, or why his stomach doesn’t turn over blood and gore, why he can take and take and take the hits and the pain and the bullets and the stabbings and get back up each time.
He just is what he is; does what he does. He just needs to be let be.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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Frank Castle is a myth-- a legend; the ghost story of a man turned saint to some.
And that skull-painted vest anointed with his and Billy Russo’s blood? It’s a relic, an object of power. He keeps it when he can, and loses track of it the rest of the time-- sloppy and careless with numb and bitter grief. It’s one of precious few things you’ll ever find in one of his safehouses that isn’t kept pristine and in beautiful working condition. It lives on as-is, red and ruined with holes, bathed in the blood of brothers, lovers, enemies; two men who can not kill each other in spite of equally matched skill and ability.
In truth, it is a highly compromised piece of equipment, not worth anything but the blood and memories impregnated into it-- and yet, rumor has it that the vest still answers it’s calling, still does it’s job. The whispers pass down about it nearly as much as they do about HIM. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who heard the vest had been found, left behind under dust and cobwebs whenever The Punisher last rolled out... and they say, the vest will keep you free from harm. They say it’ll save your life if you’re wearing it-- that nothing can kill you if you’ve got it on...
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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Gumare, gumar, gumad, goomah, and a couple other variations by neighborhood and accent: An Italian-American man’s chief mistress. She’s not a one-night stand or even light-hearted affair, a gumare is a long-term mistress who is treated equally well as the wife, or sometimes even better-- as a reward for her discretion and the things she does and provides. It’s a bastardized take on the word comare, meaning second-mother or Godmother.
Welcome to a term a very young Frankie grew up around. He doesn’t really know why the Italians of Bayside (or anywhere else in New York, for that matter) speak this weird brand of Itanglish that they do-- but he’s one of them. It’s like calling marinara gravy, or complaining about your cugine, that fuckin’ scutch. It’s just what you do.
Gumars are what you do too-- literally! C’mon, what are you gonna do those nasty things you wanna do with a woman with the catholic MOTHER of your CHILDREN?! What kinda asshole would that make you? It neatly ties into that old idea that there are certain kinds of women that you marry, and certain kinds that you don’t. You marry a good girl and well, you can’t just swagger into the house drunk on a Friday night trying to get the same kind of action from her that you’d get from a fast girl. In that sense, women like the ones that make good gumars are a BLESSING! You don’t really spend a lot of time questioning why she doesn’t want a husband and five kids named for the saints-- you’re just grateful that all she wants is a roof over her head and the kind of adventurous sexual pleasures that other women are denied via Madonna complexes.
Ask him to pinpoint the first time he was introduced to such a concept, and Frank’ll just shrug because he’s got no answer. The truth is so far back in his formative years that it’s not a true memory. More than likely it was slowly pieced together being overheard here and again, playing with toy cars on the floor while his parents spoke in the background.
“I seen Johnny today, out in the city. He’s doin’ good.”
“Oh! Was he with his wife? Did you see that nice coat he got her?”
“No, ‘course not. He was in the city, doll, with his gumar.”
“Ugh, her.”
Now technically speaking, a gumar is supposed to be a secret-- but those are rarely well kept in Frankie’s neighborhood. At least... they’re poorly kept from friends and family. Roll up on the block like a stranger and you’ll quickly learn that no one there has ever seen or heard anything ever.
Part of the problem stems from the idea of these mistresses being treated as something expected. It’s normalized in a terrible but sometimes loving way. A mother who knows the truth of the world as it is instead of as it should be, might through repeatedly applied little comments raise her daughter to think nothing of men who cheat and keep side-wives. She doesn’t do it to excuse the future piece-of-shit who’ll break her daughter’s heart, but does it to harden that very heart and make it that much closer to shatterproof. You can’t be shocked by an infidelity that you’ve been told your whole life is coming. Another mother might whisper freedom in her daughter’s ear and look to spare her a miserable life as an under-appreciated wife and mother by encouraging that she be a free woman with all her bills paid and all the time in the world to do whatever she wants. Both these things are forms of love.
Of course the back-swing effect of this is that you normalize it for your sons as well, little Italian-American princes that they are. They hear these comments too and grow up knowing, without knowing why, that this is just the way of their world. They have their Saturday-night fun with one kind of girl, and bring home and marry another kind. At no point in their lives do so many of them consider either giving up the fun or introducing it to the wife, they just keep the wife as happy and cared for as they’ve been taught and do the same for the second. What they don’t do, at least what they’re not supposed to do, is rub the mistress in the wife’s face. You keep her in another neighborhood, you don’t bring her around your family or kids, and you don’t take her to the same date-night spots you take your wife for birthdays, anniversaries, and Valentine’s. These few rules are the grease that keeps the wheels turning.
In exchange a gumar always has her make-up perfectly applied, a figure to die for and a dress on that shows it off. She makes you feel nineteen again regardless of how close or far you are from that age and she does it with a smile.
The idea of expected infidelity is just plain and simple something that Frankie Castiglione grew up with and around. Stick him in a long-term relationship and nine times out of ten he’ll stray-- either when things get hard and he wants something easy, or when he’s hurting about something and doesn’t want to show it. Romantic partners that he feels actual love for are rarely considered shelters to him, as he instead considers them something precious and to be protected. A pretty thought that ends in ugly action whenever his pride is smarting after a fight, or when he just doesn’t feel understood. Strangely enough, one of the few things that won’t inspire him to cheat is the desire to do something adventurous or kinky in bed-- he’s got no qualms fulfilling fantasies or occasionally asking for one fulfilled and overall he’s just not that kinky.
TL;DR: Frank Castle cheats and thinks nothing or little of it..
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#long post cw#infidelity cw#cheating cw#unfaithful cw#stereotypes cw
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This is more of a retcon than a headcanon, I guess? But it’s still TERRIBLY important to my portrayal of Frank Castle, so here goes:
Things are never truly just said and done and over with-- that isn’t how this whole life thing works; but there do come moments of stillness when the dust settles and the road appears before him once again, ready for him to keep on walking it. Bill is in a prison custom-built just for him and only him-- Frank and Curtis and Dinah his only jailers. Pilgrim is... a decision that Frank still wrestles with. It shouldn’t be enough that he’s a father to just let him off the hook for all his crimes, but that’s a weakness for him. Frank just tries to ignite faith that Pilgrim will be too busy being a good dad to go back to any of his old ways. Besides, if or when he slips, he’ll be there to finish the job. Fact is a greater comfort than faith.
Just about the only other thing he has faith in is that there is a REASON why his heart still beats on. He is a man who can do what others can’t, even without the ability to fly, do magic, or summon thunder. Making the supposedly tough decisions with ease and pulling a trigger? That’s a PURPOSE. So as long as he lives he chooses to march on and fulfill it. He starts with that photographer Amy made him spare, because what she doesn’t hear about in Florida can’t disappoint her-- and even if it does? So what? He’s already done right by her. There’s no need to let live a scumbag who takes pictures of shit that would make good people blow chunks and want to die. Frank takes care of him and his brand new secret warehouse and doesn’t lose a drop of sleep about it.
As far as he figures going off the list of contacts in that particular dead man’s phone, he’s got at least a month’s work ahead of him. Plenty of names and numbers to keep him busy vetting degrees of involvement and doling out Punishment. He tells Madani as much when his phone rings with her offer to get back in the field and go to work with her.
There’s plenty of work for him to do right here on home soil.
But it does NOT involve being the latest gun-happy white guy to mow down youth of color for taking paths that have been planted in front of them from every side and baited with lures of easy wealth and all the things American capitalism denies them and their loved ones. Frank Castle is not a baby-killer and The Punisher does NOT involve himself in petty crimes, youthful mischief, or the tricky places where those two things intersect. He’s also not a hero, the skull vest he dons is not for chasing down muggers like Daredevil and perp-walking them to some precinct. The only gangs he troubles are the Cosa Nostra and Kitchen Irish kind, deeply organized criminal empires who do worse harm to a city than just banding together to survive racial prejudice and injustice in ways that are not ‘good’ but have been in part molded by necessity and an establishment that won’t take it’s cruel foot off of their necks.
He’s just not that guy and if you think that’s what he does, you don’t know or understand him at all.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#basically fuck that whole ending scene#it didn't happen#I banish it to the shadow realm
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When Frank Castle first started his war on the gangs of New York in retribution for their hand in his family’s murder, he saw the natural conclusion of any man picking up a weapon and discharging it so recklessly in the city---- jail time. He could have maybe been spared that, thanks to the tireless work of the firm defending him, except that Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime himself, managed to get out a message to him via an officer. He offered information on someone involved in Frank’s tragedy in exchange for him derailing his too-successful defense and getting himself incarcerated. Blinded by his need to know, Frank put on a show at his trial and plead guilty for all to hear.
His stay in prison was short, but it ended with a terrible promise between himself and the Kingpin. When the day came that Wilson Fisk was released from prison, Frank would be there waiting. What slimy transactions had gone on between them, Frank considered them a necessary evil-- one that he would course correct when next the two men met freely and on even ground.
Yet the day comes and goes without sight of The Punisher’s hide or hair. Once more the Kingpin rises and yet again he falls, but not from the bullet of Frank Castle’s gun. Why?
It’s the result of a tryst with Daredevil himself. What’s between them is little else but a multiple night stand, yet it’s enough that when Fisk is out The Punisher thinks to seek the Devil out and plan a team-up; a shared kill. He drives back into the city ready to compromise at least somewhat with Daredevil’s code of conduct, in spite of the fact that he very well could have shown up on his own and had the Kingpin in his cross-hairs before anyone was any the wiser about it. Unfortunately for his lofty dreams of a joint-mission, it’s a partnering that Daredevil is just not interested in.
And because of the way he frames what it is he needs to do, The Punisher backs off. Frank Castle knows what it’s like to be in the Devil’s shoes. Fortunately for Fisk, it means that he gets back in his blacked out van and makes for anywhere but New York-- lest he find himself unable to keep his word to stay out of it.
(credit to @hellsainted for their help in plotting this headcanon)
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#and that is the first half of why Frankie boy isn't there for DD S3
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April Fool's Day. (specific to @hellsainted)
Frank gets the impish urge to prank Red. Most of it stems from the challenge of trying to get one over on those keen senses of his, the rest is just left over from him being an impulsive youth once upon a time, and an asshole the rest of the time. He used to be the class clown, and in the service he was the squad funny-man when it wasn't time to work. Those memories feel distant most days, but sometimes, just sometimes, he feels life threatening to beat inside him yet again. Karen had had the same effect on him. He'd tried singing in her car before she shut that down. Matt-- he pulls it out of him less often, but it's there from time to time. So far it manifests in snapping him on the ass with a towel when they're both sharing the bathroom, or, suddenly dropping all of his considerable weight on him when the man is napping between work and night work.
The whole last week of March is spent plotting and planning, trying to come up with something funny but forgivable. There's plenty of ideas scribbled on one of his many note-pads, but none of them feel quite right. Trusting his gut, Frank scraps the plans and leaves himself open to still trying something on the day of, if the right idea strikes and an opportunity presents itself.
It's an idea that blows away like dandelion seeds when he sees Matt come wearily through the front door. He always looks like Atlas to Frank-- the whole weight of the world on his shoulders, but today is different. There's a different kind of tiredness to him that tugs at Frank's heart strings and makes him want to just pull the man into the safety of his arms. He does-- right when Matt turns towards him, sainthood shining in the way he forces up a smile from the depths, wan and wrong wrong wrong. His poor martyr. Frank nuzzles the side of his head and pulls him on to the couch, not squashing him this once but cocooning him in all the safety his body can possibly provide.
"What'sa matter, Red? Your friends pick on you today?" He was nearly one of them, but now he feels defensive of his lover. It doubles when said lover shrugs and writes it off, excusing the jokes and pranks of the knuckleheads he works with and loves. Frank only stays his protective emotion because at least some part of Matt seems sincerely amused with Foggy and Karen's antics.
The real problem is every other knucklehead from the office to his house, who thinks nothing of trying to trip a blind man for laughs, or pranking him in other ways-- the kind of teasing all those ninja senses wouldn't protect him from. Frank thinks of the young Matt he so often wonders about then, the one in the orphanage without any family left to him, disabled and angry and hurting-- struggling with the faith that today is so important to him. He wonders how long Matt's been silently suffering the jabs of a yearly date meant for laughs but too often cruel when people don't know how to measure the effect of their pranks.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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headcanons / canon divergence:
under a cut for Season 2 spoilers
I know that Frank can come off as a person who is incredibly abrupt in both speech and action, but as far as the way he handled Billy’s last moments on the show… that’s just a big fat NO from me. So here’s why: Billy’s amnesia had a profound effect on him once he saw it for himself. It struck a chord with him, Billy’s reaction to their confrontation after the heist. It’s all in what he tells Curtis about it. It wasn’t just that Billy looked betrayed, it was the he made Frank feel like he’d betrayed him.
So, no. He can’t just plug him twice mid-sentence when the man is already dying. Not when the man doesn’t even remember what brought them to this place. Basically it’ll be handled one of two ways on this blog.
v.1: In which Billy dies– his closest brother at his side, listening to all the things that dying men feel a need to say before they pass on. Rather than shoot him and leave, Frank sits on the floor right next to him and pulls him into the umbrage of his arm and shoulder. In his mind replay the memories of before that had already been haunting them. He imagines them back at the baseball field, watching the kids play, trading the secrets of their youth. He stays put until Billy’s all the way gone, then closes his eyes and makes the necessary calls.
v.2: In which ye grand old M.arvel tradition takes over and no one ever really meets their maker. Billy’s not quite as close to the brink of death as Frank had been lead to believe. The longer he goes on talking, trying to make futile amends, the more Frank realizes that Billy’s got time still– maybe enough to be saved. It’s not as though they’re holed up in the boondocks somewhere, they’re in the city, a county hospital never too far away. Rather than watch him go, Frank tosses Billy over a shoulder and takes him for help, narrowly saving his life. While Billy recovers, back in NYPD custody, Frank goes off on a mission to find the back-alley surgeon that robbed him and left him to die in a dumpster.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#tps spoilers#punisher spoilers#the punisher spoilers#tps2 spoilers#the punisher season 2 spoiler
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A young Frank started to resent his parents long before he was introspective enough to figure out the whys. They weren’t exactly the freshest faced couple on his first day of school, but he was too small then to be bothered by it– to notice it, even, since they were the only parents he’d ever known. It took that long at least for him to start comparing their lined faces with everyone else’s at drop-off and pick-up– and even then, mostly on account of a question from the first kid to sidle up next to him and speak. —————–“Is that your grandpa?”
Senior citizens, he’d later call them to Zach Lieberman. The way he’d started thinking of them somewhere around the tail-end of middle school, when the repetitive question about their relationship to him stopped being weird and started being irksome instead. They were always acting like it too, trotting out ancient words that’d probably been hieroglyphs somewhere. They had a tired old ‘sticks and stones’ type of line for every complaint he ever brought them– or had brought to them about him. They didn’t like his temper, they wanted him to learn patience, all these things that at his age had felt chafing and stupid. It was only too easy to blame it on their old age– it felt true enough at the time. Only old people like them could expect to keep taking hit after hit on the chin and just wanna smile about it. Or worse, turn the other cheek.
He’s gotta age before he sees it their way– his old folks long gone by the time he could finally drag his feet home and give ‘em the ‘you were right’ they deserved. It’s the kind of knowledge he could only access after a couple dozen bar brawls, after enlisting and training and service, after aches and pains from it all started lingering into the days after his reckless behavior– when he didn’t spring up in the morning ready to climb in life’s ring and do it all over again.
Before that– his opinion of them just never improved. It didn’t help that their go-to method for dealing with him was dragging him to church, sitting him down on the wooden pews of Sacred Heart of Jesus to go through the whole rigmarole of mass and confession. (They kept dragging him to church to calm him down, to show him better, to hope against hope that something there would rub off or stick– that maybe one of the parish’s fathers could counsel Frank away from the wrath fermenting in him. Sometimes… they took him there just for their own peace.) It lasted about as long as it took him to figure out that he could just walk out of school whenever he wanted and not go home– and there was nothing they could do about it. Once he figured that out, they really couldn’t control him anymore. There were only so many days off his old man was willing to take to drive around Queens, looking for his scoundrel son and whatever trouble he was getting himself into.
They passed before he found either God or Maria.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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“What if this is all I am now?” -- Frank Castle, to Karen Page. Daredevil Season 2.
The million dollar question he’d been wrestling with and avoiding in turns while still in the field, struggling to make eye-contact with the man in the mirror; the soldier that was beyond caring and the fuck-up of a husband and father that had let his family see it. It twisted up his guts when he was home-- the look on Frankie Jr.’s face when he’d snap out of a thousand yard stare he never meant to slip into. It made home uncomfortable in whole new ways, war stripping from him not just tolerance for the creature comforts of it but making the place feel stifling and w r o n g. It wasn’t just the bed being too soft anymore, the A/C too cold without his beanie, the longing for the comfortableness of his salty cammies... It was EVERYTHING, the fucking four walls and the people he loved inside them.
Shit was getting turned on its head. He was supposed to want to be here, not there. So when’d he become that guy? And was there even any uncrossing that line?
It’s the question he never got to answer. The closest he came to it was making the decision to try-- to come home and try to be a better dad, a better husband, a better human, with all the appropriate levels of caring about what he did. The decision that haunts him in his memory-dreams, coming home and staying home. Making home Bayside, Queens again instead of blood and war in Kandahar. He’d find out if the killer was all that he could be anymore or if there was yet hope for the man. At least, that was the plan...
(Of course, there’d never been a guarantee. He came home entertaining the notion that if he couldn’t cut it, he’d just take a job with Bill’s outfit. Cut and run back to the desert and send Maria and the kids the blood money he earned from it-- taking care of them the only way left to him.)
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#no one touch me...#when Frank tells Curtis that he was beyond caring and *they* knew it#it was them knowing it that was killing him
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A third generation American, Frank is the product of two parents who were fluently bilingual in Italian yet never quite managed to pass it on to him. It wasn’t really an intentional decision on their parts, though they did face some judgement in certain circles over their only son’s inability to speak Italian– it was more the result of them having few people around at the late hour of Frank’s entrance into their lives, with whom to converse in the old tongue. A baby Frank picked up English because it was the language of the television, the radio, and what his parents spoke to each other in; school ultimately being the final nail in the coffin of his speech.
It didn’t help matters that Luisa used Italian at home the way that other parents used spelling to have certain conversations around little ears without the little ones catching on. As a result, what little Italian Frank does know/recognize, is not only the bad bad words, but the terms most often used in scandalous gossiping. Beyond that, he knows the barely translatable terms of Italian-American life as lived in his neighborhood at the time--- words for mistresses as only they would understand them, slurs for women of every kind, insults, ableist terms, racist expressions, and the utterly ridiculous phrases belonging to knuckle-headed humor---- most of which he leaves behind as grows up and learns better.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
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Somewhere in the muddy waters between enlisting at eighteen-- hungry for a chance to scrap and prove himself, so fucking eager to get his hands on a piece and unload it on the one job that wouldn’t send him up the river for it-- and getting back from actual combat, Frank found God. Or maybe it was better said that he found enough evidence of the Almighty that he gave serious consideration to going to seminary and entering the Priesthood when his contract was up.
Press him at a moment when he’s feeling honest about it and he might even tell you that he felt a c a l l i n g. Something like what he thinks a man like Curtis must have felt to end up a Corpsman and a medic at a time of war. Underneath the beaming sun of a land not his own, wading through sand and blood and sand, Frank finally felt the Sunday lessons of old slide into place and make more sense than they ever had in childhood. God’s creation took on a whole new meaning so close to the cradle of civilization-- and penance never felt so appealing than during the come-down after a supposedly successful mission.
Not taking that path was due to a mix of things, namely not knowing where to start while still in, not feeling compelled enough to dodge the Marines’ retention efforts, and ultimately, the TKO of Maria’s teasing smile that fateful sunny day in the park.
[ Tell ‘em closed case. ]
#ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏ ʙɪᴛᴄʜ sᴘɪᴛ ɪᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs sɪɴᴄᴇ '08#. ( ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴs ) .#the show never says much about it#outside of Frank's answer to Matt that he was a Catholic once#but this is a short nod to the comics#if you go by those he trained for the priesthood for a while#before joining the Marines instead of in this order#you gotta love that he walked away from the seminary because he had an issue dispensing forgiveness#talk about foreshadowing
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