[ she's on edge - there's no telling what she might find when she finally steps out of her run down, dirty motel space. anything of value beyond her car is on her person, the highest value the gun in her hand and the phone in her pocket. she's exhausted, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from how steady her hand is around the pistol, the slow steps she takes making her way down the hall.
there was never going to be a world where Karen wasn't here when the woman started screaming, wasn't going to be a world where she wouldn't come for help. she knows that she might be walking into a trap, maybe a crowd of people, a mugging, a robbery, but night after night she's heard too much shit and it's keeping her up, anyway. she had to look. she has to make sure.
what she doesn't expect is the figure of a man right around that corner, a familiar set of shoulders, the tilt of his neck. his hands are out, placating, trying to hold off an unsteady trigger finger despite the rifle hanging from his shoulder, but he knows how to diffuse a situation. knows how to calm someone who might be a little in out of their league.
the last time she saw frank castle, he'd been covered in blood - his arm has been wrecked, his jaw tight from the pain, and he'd been looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered. and she'd let him go - right up into the elevator shaft, out of harm's way, as she waited to be found. interrogated. to go on with her life.
karen? he asks, and she lowers the barrel of her gun, her mouth falling a little open. no matter how much she might have been telling herself to expect the unexpected, to be ready for anything, this, somehow, was never part of it. ]
no it did not. c:
there was never going to be a world where Karen wasn't here when the woman started screaming, wasn't going to be a world where she wouldn't come for help. she knows that she might be walking into a trap, maybe a crowd of people, a mugging, a robbery, but night after night she's heard too much shit and it's keeping her up, anyway. she had to look. she has to make sure.
what she doesn't expect is the figure of a man right around that corner, a familiar set of shoulders, the tilt of his neck. his hands are out, placating, trying to hold off an unsteady trigger finger despite the rifle hanging from his shoulder, but he knows how to diffuse a situation. knows how to calm someone who might be a little in out of their league.
the last time she saw frank castle, he'd been covered in blood - his arm has been wrecked, his jaw tight from the pain, and he'd been looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered. and she'd let him go - right up into the elevator shaft, out of harm's way, as she waited to be found. interrogated. to go on with her life.
karen? he asks, and she lowers the barrel of her gun, her mouth falling a little open. no matter how much she might have been telling herself to expect the unexpected, to be ready for anything, this, somehow, was never part of it. ]
Frank?