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youngster-monster · 5 years ago

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The color of the wheat fields

Out of all the books her mother used to read her, The Little Prince had always been Karen's favorite. Adventure called to her in the way it called to every child; she drew maps of the world, clumsy and colored, on which was carefully traced the itinerary from Vermont to The Desert — because surely there could only be one of them in the world.

She used to dream about the desert, about foxes and snakes and roses on faraway stars. She sat in her cardboard boxes-plane, with a wool hat and swimming goggles, pretending to be both a space princess and the daring pilot lost in the wild. She learned to draw the best sheep anyone had ever seen, and then roses and snakes and foxes too, so the sheep wouldn't be all alone.

She had grown up, eventually, and the cardboard plane and childish drawings were forgotten in the attic with all the rest of her (and, eventually, Kevin's) childhood. Teenagers don't have time for toys or play-pretend, college students even less so.

But the book had kept its place in her bookshelf, pages creased from being dogeared so many times, cover falling out and being stitched back on again. It was always the first book she put up after each move, and often the first one she read during her first night in a new place, the best cure to the bittersweet taste of homesickness. She carried it with her everywhere — in her suitcase during family holidays, to the hospital waiting room that one time Mary, her college roommate, broke her ankle and had to be driven to the ER, in her bag when she went to work. It was always there, in case she needed it.

Adulthood had yet to prove to be more than a succession of increasingly painful headaches, but it had yet to steal the fun from this book. If anything else it had enhanced it; Saint-Exupéry's personal brand of philosophy had meant much to her, in many different ways, for as long as she had known enough about the alphabet to decipher the story all by herself.

Wesley, on the other hand… Wesley had changed that.

It felt wrong to handle the book, which was nothing if not a tale of kindness in the face of life's everyday cruelty, with hands still heavy with the weight of a gun. She felt as if there was still dried blood stuck under her nails, despite the fact that his blood never even brushed the touch of her fingers, and she feared the marks she would leave on the pages. The bloody fingerprints of a murderer. Innocence had died with a full clip discharged in a monster's chest — innocence had died with blood not her own on her clothes and the empty-eyed stare of a dead body. This book, this story, was all there was left of it. She refused to be the one to taint it with the smell of gunpowder, the darkness of death which clung to her like a too-large coat.

She did not regret it. She only wished there had been another way out — a way to keep her hands clean and herself safe. A way that would not have disappointed small Karen quite so much.

So The Little Prince had been dropped at the bottom of a box, covered by the clothes she had worn that day, and hidden under her bed. Out of sight, out of mind — out of reach.

But then Frank Castle happened. Bloody, bruised, battered Frank, with his voice like a thunderstorm heard from far away, rumbling in his chest and unable to quite escape it.

She had grown fond of him, a man so dangerous yet so close to his breaking point, a glass sculpture balanced at the edge of a tall shelf. She had traded curiosity for understanding, had lost fear along the way and replaced it by an odd sort of care for him.

Had found it again, hidden like a forgotten bill between the pages of an old book, folded in a tight corner behind her ribs, when he had looked up at her — a wounded man at his feet, more fitting in that tableau than ever before — and told her he was already dead. Fear felt like an old, unwelcome friend, or an ember stuck in her throat, fire eating at her flesh and slowly smothering her with the smoke.

Fear had not come alone.

At first, yes, she had been scared. For the colonel, who was an asshole but who deserved justice all the same. For her. For him. For the path he was threading on, combat boots leaving bloody footprints in his tracks.

And then she had been angry, because how dare he makes her care? Her heart was wounded enough as it was, a mass of scar tissue and bruised and fresh paper cuts that still, stubbornly, refused to break. She didn't need his trauma, his blood lust, didn't need him to come by and throw a few glass shards in the mix.

But, in the end, all she had been left with was sadness. A sort of grief, perhaps, for the man he used to be, the man he could have been. A man she wanted to keep, to hold on to with two hands and never let go, until she realized she never had him to begin with.

Sadness, for Karen Page, had one simple cure, held between the pages of a downright antique hardcover edition of The Little Prince.

For the first time in months, in the first grey light of an insomnia-induced early morning, Karen rummaged through the cardboard box under her bed and dug out an old battered book. It had the worn corners and half-faded illustrations of a well-loved story carried from childhood to adulthood whole by sheer affection for it — and a few haphazard patch jobs. Her name was still written on the first blank page in red crayon; her favorite passages still underlined in pencil, careful straight lines under words she could still quote by heart.

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

She wondered, for a moment, if a murderer remained such after a foolish wannabe reporter had observed him and seen a good man in his place.

The Little Prince had always been her favorite way to deal with emotional turmoil. Nothing seemed to matter quite as much after reading the quest of a young boy through space and back again, and once she turned the last page, she found herself a little more settled, a little less likely to have a full blown panic attack.

It didn't mean she forgave Frank. That wasn't something she envisaged herself doing anytime soon, if ever. But she could accept his decision — it had, after all, basically nothing to do with her. What was she to him but a bait, an obstacle on his warpath? Not much, that was what. And she found that she was okay with that.

Karen, thrill-seeker extraordinaire, had been lost to student debts and soul-sucking jobs a long time ago. Her recent come back from the grave to haunt Karen, responsible if mildly traumatized adult, had only served to remind her that this was not the life for her.

She would gladly leave vigilante-chasing to bolder, braver people. She was quite fine as she was, not being shot and never seeing the blank hospital walls from the point of view of a patient.

Unfortunately it seemed that, even when Karen did not look for danger, danger still, against all odds, looked for Karen.

Fear came in many flavors, so to speak. It came as a burn, an all-consuming wildfire trapped behind wide, wild eyes; the survival instinct inherent to everyone who was not a vigilante. It came as the hot-blooded rush of adrenaline when your mind, thrown into its most basic fight-or-flight response, decided offense was the best defense, bloody knuckles and copper sharp on your tongue.

Karen found herself prey to one last kind of fear, one she had experience once before, in a warehouse empty of everything but a table, a monster, and a gun. A freezing kind of fear, frost climbing her spine and turning it to steel, the kind of fear that slowed down time into one moment of pure clarity.

In that second in the eye of the cyclone, two thoughts came to her.

The first was that no amount of whits and stalling would save her from this particular situation. An old man died from a bullet through his forehead for screaming too loud and Karen looks down, wondering if this fate was maybe not kinder than what is in store for the rest of them.

The second was, I wish Frank was there. It was genuine enough that she was briefly surprised, but not for long. It was, after all, completely true: of all the people she knew, Frank seemed like the best suited to rescuing people from blood-thirsty gangsters, and against her best judgment she had started to feel— safe, knowing he was out there, bringing hell right to the doorsteps of criminals.

Strange, how safety and danger could become twisted-entangled-unified, sometimes.

But Frank was not there. They were. Turk and her and all the nameless, innocent victims quivering behind her, voice breaking in useless supplications. People she had started to feel responsible for as soon as she had realized she was the most level-headed of them all — her, Karen Page, a human mess and a murderer.

Her, Karen Page, powerless to save any of them.

There was nothing to do to hide the blinking red light attached to Turk's ankle. Nothing that could be said that would placate their captors long enough for help to come.

Nothing that could be done to save him.

A blade was drawn from its sheath — it glinted in the low light, cold as iron, cold as steel. The man knelt in front of them, pinning Turk's ankle to the ground one handed and letting the knife rest on his skin, just a second before he started cutting.

Blood welled up under the sharp edge. Turk cried out, trying and failing to drag himself back.

Then, a gunshot — Karen wondered, for a second, if another of the screaming people at her back had been silenced by a bullet through the skull, before the knife fell from limp fingers and the gangster slumped forward with a single hole through his forehead.

Karen scrambled away from her kidnappers and looked back with them, shock and hope and terror fighting for the control of her mind, and as she lifted her eyes she saw—

Black boots, leaving bloody footprints—

Bullet casings, falling to the ground, all too loud despite the chaos around—

Dark clothing, as if the shadows themselves had decided to fight against the corruption—

A riffle, held between bruised fingers, bloody finger resting on the trigger—

A skull, white against a backdrop of darkness, the sight made all the more jarring by the blood splattered over it—

Frank.

A wave of relief washed over her, drowning all the fear and the anger and the regrets, only leaving behind it the knowledge that things were going to be alright, but first they were going to get a lot worse.

And then she yelled, “Get down!” and lunged to the ground herself, dragging Turk with her, seconds before bullets started flying from both side. Some ricocheted on the walls or the ground and briefly illuminated the Punisher in a shower of sparks, throwing hard shadows on his face. Each of his shots struck true; one shot, one kill.

Karen crawled on the floor, scrambling for cover from the firefight. She hid behind a pillar, curled on herself, closed her eyes, and counted in her head.

Shot, shot, reload. Shot, shot, reload. She could almost follow his path through the room by the echo of bullet casings falling, the screaming, the pounding of feet as gangsters tried to get away from the massacre. None went very far.

Silence fell and she kept counting. The sudden absence of sound, where they had just been so many of them, was not enough to make her open her eyes.

Step, step, step, stop. She could imagine him checking each of his victim for signs of life. A shot; agonized groaning stopped short. A mercy killing, if such thing could be said of anything a man like Frank Castle ever did.

Step, step, step, stop. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her bent neck. Could hear the shifting of clothes as he knelt in front of her, stretched his hand toward her and stopped short of her hair. The silence was deafening, barely broken by the occasional whimpering of the other victims.

His hand ever so slowly came to rest on the top of her head. Softly, Frank said, “Hey.”

She lifted her head, slightly, enough that she could look at him in all his blood-splattered glory. His eyes were large and dark, full of something much like fear — she had never known him to be afraid before. Except maybe once, lying on the floor of her apartment in the shaking seconds after shots were fired through her windows, his weight pinning her down — holding her down — and eyes scanning his surroundings, jumping from side to side like that of a wolf backed in a corner.

“Hey,” She replied, barely above a sigh. His expression softened, lost some of its manic edge. She wanted to tell him— something, but she couldn't, for the life of her, find what to say. She didn't want to tell him he was dead to her. Didn't want to tell her she forgave him.

He could apparently read this on her face, or in her eyes, or in the way she shifted, halfway through breaking away from his touch or leaning into it, she couldn't say. He gently pressed on her head until she was resting against his shoulder, one of his hand petting her hair reassuringly and the other rubbing her back. His leather jacket smelled like gun smoke and blood, but everything of his did, in the end, so she had a hard time bringing herself to care about it.

“You're okay, now, hear me?” He whispered into her ear, as soft as his voice ever got. “You're safe. You all are.”

She sighed, a quivering, wet thing, and wondered who he was trying to reassure: him or her. Maybe both.

She watched him kill people before, and still each time all she saw was a good man pushed to his breaking point. She started to wonder if, maybe, she had made him that way, with half-coherent pleas for mercy when there was place for none.

She started to wonder him maybe it simply took a killer to tame a killer. Maybe all it took was gunpowder fingers clutching his arms hard enough to leave bruises, tears shed on his jacket that's as most leather as it is blood and rust. A little show of foolish, fearless trust.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

Karen took one last deep breath of his awful-familiar scent, wiped her tears on her sleeves, and got to her feet.

“You have a job to do,” She said, sounding more sure than she felt. “And so do I.”

He looked at her, searching for something — answers, maybe — in her eyes. What he found there seemed to satisfy him because he nodded, once, said, “Ma'am,” and left as he came — in stride, combat boots leaving a trail of blood in his wake, rifle resting against his chest.

She couldn’t quite begrudge Frank for the deaths. It was, after all, as much her fault as his, for wishing him there.

She couldn't find it in herself to feel guilty about it, either.

Karen squared up her shoulders, looked around the room and said, “The way down is clear. Let's get out of there.”

#writing #the punisher #frank castle #karen page #kastle #the little prince

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helpinghanikan · 6 years ago

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Generation Gap

Avengers (and Matt Murdock) x reader

Sum: Everyone is of legal age

Steve Rogers:

Your situation was a difficult one; on one hand you were just a junior member of the Avenger’s legal defense (half step higher than an intern), and your clearance shouldn’t be more than the first floor and no deeper than the offices. On the other hand, you were the partner to one of the OG Avengers, a class that had no restrictions.

This was why you couldn’t really get mad at security when they would direct you towards the intern spaces. Nor could you yell at them when they’d refuse you entry to where your man had agreed to meet.

This also spread rumors throughout the office about your “relationship”. How else could someone your age get this far if you weren’t getting bruised knees from it? Very few would believe that it was your skills and work ethic that took you ahead of the pack. If it were high school you would be eating lunch in the bathroom stall instead of your office desk.

Tony Stark:

The word “cradle robber” was thrown around in magazines and gossip sites. Along side were things like “gold digger”, “silver fox” and even “pedophile”. A statement that was swiftly met with legal action.

It might have been better if you had just come out about your relationship. Speculation of the relationship started when some young woman started hanging around Stark business without reason. The same reaction started when Peter became an “intern”, but they didn’t have a leaked photo of a rooftop kiss.

“We should take this as a challenge,” You had said one evening. Another scandalous claim of your rise from broke waitress to the most successful sugar baby in North America. “All this crap, you know?”

“I don’t like challenges unless I get a big prize at the end.” Tony’s voice comes from somewhere under his desk. From your angle all you can see is the jean legs and white socks sticking out from under the metal.

“My happiness would be a big prize,” You say. “New bracelet would be a big prize.”

Thor:

It’s both a blessing and curse that Thor cared almost nothing about Midgard gossip.

On one hand, while you tried to teach him about computers, he’d never look anywhere but you. This huge man who looked to be over ten years your senior sitting at your desk, slowly typing and doing his best. Over his shoulder and there were your co-workers, pretending not to be watching him. Pretending not to whisper to each other.

First job a few months right out of college and you already had a new name.

“The newer model,” that was fine.

Or it was the “dumber version,” that one, yeah, that one hurt.

You were no Jane Foster, in truth, you would never be able to compete with her. These comments never went farther than your office. Whether it was that your co-workers didn’t bother to try or magazines didn’t care about what some office monkey’s had to say.

You’d rant and rave to your man, but he never seemed bothered.

Bucky Barnes:

It was Bucky’s choice to stay more on the down low, outright refusing anything even mildly promotional. He was as he was before the Avengers, a rumor.

Because of this it was up to you whether anyone knew about the relationship.

Nobody seemed to believe you about it: Family believing it was just to get them off your back (partly yes), friends just finding it an impossible idea that you’d even meet someone like Bucky.

Not wanting to ruin his privacy you never pushed the matter on those you knew. Even if your teeth would grind when they’d claim your pictures were photoshopped.

Natasha Romanoff:

Everyone at your college knew what Nat was the moment her car rolled up.

A rare, and elusive, sugar mama.

Although you were months into the relationship it was only then that you mentioned it to her. Natasha was a great liar, if she wanted you’d never know a true thing from her. But when you bring this up, with a little laugh, she immediately avoids eye contact. Her lips sucking in a tiny smile at the not-accusation.

It never occurred to you just how much income Nat actually had. From returned bounties to hush agreements, she had enough to never even look a price tag. Not that she ever gave an impression of caring about designer and overly expensive things, the most were some name brand make up and dresses hardly worn.

The rest went to you, without you ever really knowing. Although Nat wouldn’t lie about important things, there was never any truth to the prices of things. That shirt that just so happens to be your perfect size and favorite color? That was a friend’s who had left it and wouldn’t want it back. That restaurant where you had to wear a “borrowed” dress she’d never ask to give back? Nat had a coupon. Those earrings she hands you after getting in the car? She found them in the bottom of her purse, weren’t her style, and still in their little box but the price tag mysteriously gone.

Some wanted power over others to see the fear in their eyes. Nat wanted power over the joy in your eyes, to be able to say, “they’re just going to be thrown away” and see the awe you’re trying to hide while running your thumb over the jewels.

In the end she got a feeling of purpose and you got bed sheets that’d make angels cry.

Bruce Banner:

“Tell your daughter to slow on the caffeine.” The barista says.

Admittedly, you were drinking it a little fast. The few shots of expresso to make up for the long night both had with paperwork. The expensive drink threatened to spew right from your nose. Instead you coughed and coughed, trying to hide the laugh that’d cause Bruce to make that face.

It was too late for that. Bruce turned from the counter and walked quickly to the small corner table you had claimed. He had that face, the one where he was upset but still found it a little funny, but not wanting to admit it out loud.

“Stop it,” he says, taking a drink as though that’d stop your giggles.

“Yes, Dad,” You say.

“Please, don’t.”

“Yes, Daddy?”

“We should see other people.”

T’Challa:

You weren’t the first to be called into HR. Not the first to be called in because of an “inappropriate relationship”. And certainly not the first cute little (former) intern whose had relations with a foreign dignitary.

HR lady was not messing around with this. Waiting for you to take a seat before instructing you to shut the door. A power move that you allowed her to have.

“So, I don’t-I’m not big on office gossip,” She starts, hands in a prayer position. “but there has been talk about your relationship with the dignitaries from Wakanda.”

There it was, you were specifically assigned to the dignitaries as a small spy. None of your higher ups ever mentioned that the young woman in the corner knew everything they were saying, you weren’t that good of a spy, it would seem. More than once accidently making eye contact with the guards and even T’challa himself. That was what led to your situation now.

“I understand, you’re new, you wanna see the world and he’s, yeah, he’s something interesting. But don’t you think you’re taking your little crush a little too far?” She says this as if your age gap isn’t anymore than five years.

“Well, out of context I understand, how you see it that way.” You had to bite your tongue to keep from adding ‘but he started it’.

Work in foreign affairs had taught you how to say “you don’t know shit” in polite talk.

“So, what can we do about this?” She asks. This woman might have been a kindergarten teacher in a past life. Talking in that way where she already had an answer but wanted to watch her victim struggle.

You’re back in middle school. Just shrugging your shoulders in the hopes that this conversation with an authority figure would hurry up.

“This is your first warning,” she says, still ‘seeing things in the wrong context’. “If your little crush goes any farther, attention going to be taken.”

You were too valuable to cut right away. Calling you in for the second warning a week later.

Pietro Maximoff:

His long legs took up the entirety of your backseat. Back against the old seat, legs stretching towards the ceiling, feet almost flat. This was only done because you had yelled at him more than once about feet on the windows.

This was your tradition for the last semester of your Senior year. Bell rings and there stands Pietro at the gate. Relationship the result of a state-wide school meet with Avengers, and a friend’s dare to plant a kiss on Pietro’s cheek during the picture. That picture was still framed in in both your rooms.

You can still remember her eyebrow shooting up to her hair-line when Pietro had led you into the kitchen. You probably should have worn something more grown up; walking in there with your tennis-shoes and backpack on one shoulder.

In the end Wanda was the only one that seemed to approve of your relationship, who was she to judge anyway? Her partner was a robot younger than you. The rest though;

“Are you in class with Peter?” Steve asks. The nicer of the questions coming your way.

Peter Parker:

May’s interrogation happened the moment the door opened. Looking up and down at the woman here to pick up her nephew. Inviting you inside, sitting you on the couch and starting the questions. Whether Peter even knew you were there or not was up in the air.

You were a senior, a dumb senior. One that needed a freshman to help you with math, one that you got made fun of for it and for the crush on said freshman. Also, one that stopped caring when Peter would give you that look. The one he didn’t think you see, the one he makes when you’re staring down to the math problem or looking towards something away form him.

Now he looks from the crack of his door. Opened just enough that one eye looks into the room. You can see him trying to decide; Stay in room and hope Aunt May doesn’t kick you out or swing open the open, grab your hand and make a great escape.

He didn’t really get a choice in the matter. After being asked about your age, your grade, how long you’ve had your license and your “intentions” with Peter. You tilted so Peter would see your entire face. Getting your look of “help me” and finally opening the door.

The plan didn’t work as you thought it would. Peter being dragged into the interrogation right along side you. Aunt May turning your date twenty minutes late with advice about relationships, responsibility and even a touch of protection. That she didn’t pull out a power point and a ruler was a miracle.

Stephen Strange:

You met Dr. Handsome back when he was just handsome intern. Little baby surgeons making rounds through a learning hospital, one of their stops was your room.

It was doubtful that he remembers the first time you met. Barely in your freshman year and here comes in a crowd of men and women. Looking you over like an art piece, or an animal in a zoo, whichever sounds better. Laying back in your bed; leg in a sling and a story of jumping down the stairs you were sure to exaggerate later.

You were too young for there to be even a chance at a relationship. That didn’t stop you from referring to him as the “Dr. Handsome,” while high from painkillers. Mortification after hearing Stephen being mocked for it kept you from talking to him again during his visit.

Fast forward a few years and you’re back in a hospital. The designated biker chick showing up randomly to serve court papers. It became an art to avoid any questions from the nurse or people you pass, “visiting a sick Nan”, “My boyfriend got hurt, he’s in this wing”, “What do you mean I need a visitor’s pass?”

Dr. Handsome was in one of those wings. The recognition verified after you blurt out, “Dr. Handsome, haven’t seen you in a while.”

Matt Murdock:

Foggy’s face when you pecked Matt’s lips on the way out was something else.

Foggy knew you longer than Matt had, your parents were friends. He used to watch you when you were little, you would borrow money from him and promise to pay him back. You never did.

So, in the end, it was his fault you even met Matt.

Karen didn’t really care. Compared to his past relationships and his nightlife, a sweet little girl who just had her first drink would be something good for him. She was also your unofficial boss as the office manager. A few ignorant individuals referred to you as “the secretary’s secretary”, you couldn’t choreography how fast all four of you would correct them.

The several weeks you’ve been the new secretary it never occurred to you that the relationship even was a secret from Foggy. You’d arrive at different times but usually leave together. When you didn’t leave together you’d kiss him goodbye or he’d plant softly on your cheek. It just seemed that Foggy was never looking at you when this happened.

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Carol Danvers:

It’s easier to forget about the gap between you when it’s not always present.

It only sometimes leaking out when handed an iPhone or asked to look something up. Her eyebrows squinting together, staring at the screen like it may jump out at her. Looking at the silly cat onscreen, looking back up at you.

“Whose cat is that?” She asks, looking back down at it.

No matter how many times you explain to her that it’s not your cat, nor anyone you know’s cat, she will ask you again.

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