Chapter Text
If you asked Karen Page why, exactly, she carried a .380 in her purse at all times, she would simply look up, smile at you blandly, and inform you it was for personal protection.
She would not tell you it was because she'd once shot a man seven times in cold blood as he sat across from her at a table. She wouldn't tell you about the horrors of Hell's Kitchen; the violence behind the closed doors of warehouses.
No, she'd let her fragile looking figure and pale coloring do all the speaking for you. I'm just a scared little pretty white woman in New York trying to get to work safely, says her demeanor to the general public. Big round blue eyes. Long blond hair, like cornsilk. It's so dangerous in the big city.
Karen Page would not tell you she was one of the dangers in Hell's Kitchen. Karen Page wouldn't tell you that, because she wasn't aware of it yet. But if you happened to lay a finger on Karen Page, said the whispers in the streets and the back alleys, you might get an unwelcome visit .
A very, very unwelcome and unpleasant visit, from the ghost of a dead man.
~
It was a cold and windy Thursday in December when Karen left her apartment and realized—immediately following the conclusion of her morning commute on foot to the Bulletin's office—that she had somehow walked out of the house without her gun.
"Shit," she said, too cold to bother with a more extensive expletive. Well, it wasn't like she could zip back for it, and besides, it was almost Christmas. One day without her gun shouldn't be a huge deal. Plus, after the mess in November, most of the crime had seemed to die down. She privately hoped it was because someone was getting to the crime before the police could, and not because someone was biding their time to unleash a nightmare yet again on the citizens of New York.
"Morning," said the security guard at the door. "Cold."
"Yep," she said, and stepped inside. Please, she thought absently to whatever might be listening, let this be a normal day.
At 3 PM, she was immersed in writing up a new article covering a drug bust in Brooklyn when the fire alarm went off.
She jumped so hard that her cold cup of coffee flew to the floor. "Christ," she said, and jumped up to peer out the door.
"Routine test," said her coworker Ellison, poking his head out from his own office. "Come on. You know the drill."
Karen turned back for her purse and coat before following the rest of her office down the stairs and into the frigid courtyard, where it seemed the entire population of the building was gathered. Several long, cold minutes passed. She crossed her arms in impatience. "So when's it getting shut off?" she said. "Shouldn't the fire department be here?"
"Who knows?" grumbled someone near her, and just like that, the alarms all went dead silent.
Karen instinctively reached into her purse for her gun, and froze when her hands grasped only the magazine she'd been absently reading that morning. Where the hell is the fire department?
"Page?" asked Ellison, and she realized she was quickly and instinctively backing away from the street, away from the white van that was pulled up to the curb in clear violation of the parking laws, because something wasn't right—
The van exploded.
Searing heat washed across her face as she toppled head over heels into the winter-dead laurels that ringed the courtyard. The wind was knocked out of her. She struggled, sucked in a desperate breath of ash and smoke, and jerked her head upright.
Someone was crying. People were staggering upright, covered in dust, but not bleeding. Nobody was lying on the ground unmoving . It wasn't a deadly explosion, then—
Karen saw two men in black across the street dart into an alley. She didn't even think. She staggered upright and bolted toward the street. The sirens blocked out the sounds of her coworkers yelling at her to stop. I have to find them, was her only thought as she limped across the street as fast as she could and into the alley.
They were waiting for her.
One of them grabbed her by the hair the second she stepped into the shadows and slammed her to the ground. The other dragged her upright and pinned her against the wall with a heavy forearm. "What the fuck do you think you're doin'?" he sneered behind his black ski mask.
"You bombed us," she wheezed out, and kicked him in the groin with a heeled foot. He grunted and dropped her. Karen barely had time to suck in a breath before the other one grabbed her by the arm, twisted it behind her back and marched her down to the back of the alley.
"Fuckin' reporters. You can bomb 'em and they'll still follow you like a fuckin' dog."
"Let go of me!" she snapped, and struggled in vain as they reached the chain link fence separating property lines.
"What, you don't like it?" said Goon One, recovering from his balls being kicked. "Should have thought of that before you followed us."
Goon Two slammed Karen's face against the chain link fence. "I just want to know why you set that bomb," she said frantically. "Please. You didn't kill anyone."
The grip tightened on her neck. "Why don't you ask my goddamn supervisor about the warning?" he snarled. "I didn't fuckin' make no executive decision to—"
A single small zip from somewhere, and Karen felt the jerk and shudder of Goon Two's body as he slackened and fell away from her and the fence. She whirled around and Goon One was shuffling down the alley, hands out, a pistol in one of them.
"Motherfucking—"
A man stepped out of the shadows, past the chain link fence. Karen had just enough time to register the white skull painted on his bulletproof vest before his right hand shot up, quick as a snake, and there was another zip and Goon One was down, writhing and shrieking and grabbing at his arm.
Karen watched as the man in black effortlessly climbed the fence and landed by her in a swirl of leather. "You all right?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, oddly queasy. "Probably going into shock, actually."
"Hold tight." He squatted by the still-living man and dragged him upright. "Quit bitching. That isn't fatal. I need you to take a message for me."
"Man—I didn't—please—"
"What, you don't like it? Should have thought about that before you bombed a crowd full of people, asshole," snapped Frank, and punched him in the shot arm. He screamed. "I said, you get up and you go find Falconetti, and you tell him if he ever runs another busload of runaway teenagers into a shipping crate again, the Punisher's gonna string him up by his dick and feed his balls to his wife. You got that?"
"Yeah, yeah, I got it, man, please—"
Karen shut her eyes as the guy stumbled off into the alley, gripping his arm. Something shifted, and she went sideways against the chain link, crashing into cold metal.
"Hey, hey, hey," said a warm and husky voice, and two arms grabbed her. "Don't faint on me, Page."
"Frank," she whispered. "Sorry."
"You get hurt? They hurt you?" He was touching her face, checking for injuries, running his hands over her arms. "You're a mess, Page."
"It's just dust from the explosion," she explained, and shut her eyes. "I didn't think you'd be back."
"Well, here I am," he said, and lifted her to her feet. "You got this?"
"Standing?" Karen took a deep breath and opened her eyes, making sure the ground wasn't rolling. "I think so."
"Your knees are all scraped up." Frank's brow furrowed.
"I took a dive into laurels." She tucked her hair behind her ear.
"Where the hell's your gun?"
Karen shut her eyes again. "I left it at home."
"You did what?"
She rubbed her forehead. "God damn it, Frank. I left it at home. It was a mistake, okay? I was reading a magazine and had my gun in the other hand and I accidentally put the magazine in my purse and left the gun on the coffee table."
"You could have been killed." He pressed his lips together in an expression of high disapproval. "If I hadn't been here—"
She dropped her purse and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him so tightly she didn't think she could let go. "Goddamn you," she gasped, tears filling her eyes. "I thought you were gone. Nobody knew where you were after the Central Park fiasco—I thought you were dead or worse—"
"Hey, hey, shh," he said, and curled one arm around her waist as he holstered his gun. "Hold on. Hold your horses." His right arm joined the other one in a much gentler embrace than the soul-squeezing hug she was bestowing on him. "Page. Karen. It's okay."
"You could have called," she said into his shoulder. "Anything."
"I had a new identity. Couldn't. It's complicated." Frank carefully broke the hug and looked down at her. "I'll come see you. Tomorrow night, okay? You gotta go talk to the police. You tell them—listen, okay? Tell them it was Benny Falconetti's thugs trying to shut up the story about human trafficking. Here." He unholstered the gun, wiped it clean, and put it in her hands. "You give them this. You tell them you shot one of the guys in self defense and his body is in the alley, and the other guy got away. You got it?"
"Yes. Yes, I got it."
Frank unscrewed the silencer and fired a shot into the ground as he tucked the piece back into his belt. "Go. You go and you tell them. I'll see you."
"Frank—"
He froze, leaned in and gave her an awkward and rushed kiss on the cheek through her hair, then jumped back over the fence.
Karen didn't watch him go. She was already stumbling toward the end of the alley and the open street.
~
After giving a statement to police and sitting in the back of an ambulance getting ointment applied to her scrapes, Karen called a taxi and had it take her straight home. She was not walking on the street, even if Frank was out there. It was past seven, and it was dark. No way.
She got home, let herself in, stripped off her clothes, dumped them into the laundry, and ran a bath. Everything hurt. She was tired down to her bones.
Easing herself into the hot water was a trial. She was so tired from the adrenaline rush that she didn't even bother soaping up. She laid her head back and closed her eyes. Only a minute, she told herself, and the next thing she knew she was jerking upright, heart pounding.
The water was cool. She was sore. Something had bumped in her living room, she was sure of it. Her eyes went straight to the gun Frank had given her, resting comfortably on the sink.
There. A long scraping noise, and a thud. Someone was in her fucking apartment.
Karen slowly and silently lifted herself out of the water without splashing. Her bare wet feet hit the mat, and she grabbed a towel to tuck around her chest before picking up the gun. She knew it was loaded, because Frank kept every weapon he owned in meticulous condition.
These human trafficking thugs aren't gonna know what hit them, she thought, trying to amp herself up. Slowly, she slid out the door and into her bedroom, which was empty, The sliding door to the living area was ajar, and she stepped carefully and slowly up to the wall, listening, and peered around it.
There was a man in her fucking kitchen. He was standing with his back to her, clad in black, and holding a rifle, and even though it was shadowy, she was sure he had on a black ski mask.
Karen stepped out and fired a single shot directly at his head.
The bullet buried itself in her refrigerator with a thunk. Her target staggered, turned around just enough for her to see that he was not, in fact, wearing a ski mask, and said, "Karen?" before slumping to the kitchen floor.
It was Frank.
"Oh, fuck," said Karen.