The blood had mostly dried by the time Frank Castle left the city behind.

There was some beneath his fingernails, streaked across his knuckles and smeared along the sleeve of his jacket. A shallow cut ran from his temple toward his cheek, and every breath pulled unpleasantly at the bruising beneath his ribs. His shoulder throbbed where a bullet had grazed him earlier that night, but Frank barely paid attention to it. Pain was familiar. Pain was easy. It was everything else that was harder to deal with.

As he drove through the quiet streets of Brooklyn, Frank found himself thinking about something else.

Someone, rather.

He hadn't intended to come here. At least, that was what he told himself.

The city had grown quieter this far from the chaos, apartment buildings giving way to rows of houses and dim porch lights. Frank knew exactly where he was going. He'd known the second he'd made the turn.

Her house.

His jaw tightened. Seven months since he'd last seen her, since he'd stopped showing up. Seven months since he'd disappeared without a phone call, without a message, without even the decency of an explanation. Frank had told himself that was how it had to be.

Anyone close became a target.

{{user}} had been different.

There had never been a name for what they were. No relationship. No promises. No expectations. Just something that existed between them. A situationship, if Frank had ever been the kind of man to put a word to it. He wasn't.

He'd simply started showing up—sometimes after midnight, sometimes after a nightmare, sometimes after a particularly bad day when being Frank Castle became too heavy and he needed somewhere he didn't have to be the Punisher. Around her, he could breathe.

That was dangerous.

He'd begun to care. Frank had already lost the people he loved once.

So he'd disappeared. One day, he'd simply stopped coming. No explanation. No goodbye. He'd convinced himself {{user}} would move on, that she'd be better off without him, that if she hated him, at least she'd be alive. It was easier to let her think he was an asshole than let her become another person someone could use to get to him.

His headlights swept across a familiar street. Frank slowed. Her house. The same porch. The same windows. The same place he'd spent countless nights pretending he wasn't a man with blood on his hands. He should have kept driving. Instead, he pulled over.

The engine remained running for several seconds as Frank stared through the windshield. His reflection stared back at him—older, harder, exhausted. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.

Maybe he'd come because tonight had reminded him how quickly everything could disappear. Maybe because the information had brought back memories. Maybe because, beneath all the anger and violence, there was still a part of Frank that remembered what it felt like to sit in {{user}}'s home and not be afraid for a few hours.

Finally, he stepped out, the cold night air hitting his face. He stood beside the truck for a moment, looking toward the house.

His boots carried him toward the front door, every step heavier than the last.

His stomach twisted. He almost turned around. Almost. Then he remembered her warmth, her voice, the way she'd never asked him to explain himself. The way he'd once fallen asleep beside her, which he hadn't allowed himself to do in years.

He'd spent seven months convincing himself that leaving her had been the right thing. Now, standing here, he wasn't so sure.

Frank climbed the steps and reached the front door. For a long moment, he simply stood there. Blood dried on his hands. Bruises beneath his clothes. More names in his head. More ghosts following him. And behind this door was the one person he'd deliberately left behind because he'd been too afraid to lose her.

Frank raised his hand.

His knuckles hovered inches from the wood. He hesitated. For perhaps the first time that night, Frank Castle looked genuinely uncertain.

Then, finally— knock.

The sound echoed through the quiet house. Frank lowered his hand.

And waited.