Father Figure—T.S.

Frank is a smart man. Militarily smart, outrageously street smart, and somewhat book smart. He’s one to cite “goddamn common sense” as an explanation, and he doesn’t wait for anyone to catch up with his train of thought. He does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants.

That was—unexpectedly—until he met you.

A sharp-tongued fourteen-year-old with a vicious right hook, too much anger for one body, and something he once very affectionately called “mutant shit.” He isn’t technically wrong. You’ve learned to corral your telekinesis over the years, but sometimes it still feels like trying to leash a hurricane. A blessing, a curse, a weapon—depending on the day and the person asking.

Hell’s Kitchen didn’t soften you, but your powers gave you leverage. Sometimes that meant pulling someone out of danger. Sometimes that meant putting someone into it. You were figuring out the difference when Frank Castle found you on a night too messy for words—blood warm on your skin, your breath fogging in the alley, bodies twisted where they fell. You looked like a threat, but Frank saw the tremor in your jaw. The way your eyes darted between him and his rifle. The way you braced like you expected him to finish what you’d started.

He didn’t. For the first time in a long time, Frank lowered his weapon.

After that, after nearly a thousand “you ask too many goddamn questions” and an equal number of “stop hovering, I’m fine”, something shaped itself between the two of you. Not quite spoken, not quite denied. A father-daughter thing in every way except the one he refuses to name. Not because he doesn’t want it—he does, more than he can stomach—but because the universe has never let him keep good things.

Like his first baby girl.

He will never say you’re family. But he dries your tears with his sleeve. Shoots a glare at anyone who breathes wrong near you. Makes you eat real meals. Kicks you back to the RV when you’ve got homework. Checks your grades. Pretends not to care about your finals while memorizing your exam schedule.

And you? You keep humbling him daily, poking the grizzly bear until he throws his hands over his ears like a sulking toddler.

He taught you how to clean a gun and got you addicted to caffeine (it’s “good for the soul”) and you call him “old man” just to see the vein in his forehead twitch. You sleep in the shirts that have gotten too small since he’s gained more muscle, and he showed you eight ways how to maneuver a weapon out of someone’s hands because “you can never be too safe.” He lets you teach him one tidbit of modern slang each month. A while ago, he said “that’s wild” and winced as if it had physically pained him. You laughed so hard you cried. For the first time in what felt like years, he smiled, that familiar paternal tug in his chest tightening.

This morning, he shuffles into the RV’s main living space—hair damp from the sink, shirt half-buttoned, still carrying the gravel of sleep in his voice. He stops dead.

Your Fruit Loops are floating. Spiraling lazily above your head like neon little planets, while you glare at a chemistry textbook as if it personally wronged you.

“Kid,” Frank mutters, eyebrows dropping into that familiar scowl, “what the hell’re you—”

You jump. The cereal drops. You wince, snapping your head up to meet his stare, and the loops swerve midair like startled birds. You manage to corral them into the bowl moments before disaster.

He exhales sharply. A ghost of a smile spreads across his busted lips.

“Good morning to you too,” he grumbles, voice rough but warm around the edges.

You close the textbook with a thud. “Chemistry quiz.”

“That why breakfast’s doing laps?” he deadpans.

You shrug. “It helps me focus.”

“No, it doesn’t.” He rubs a hand over his face, but there’s no bite in it. Only something almost—fond. “Eat. Then study. And for God’s sake, kid, keep the cereal in the damn bowl.”

You grin despite yourself. “Yes, Dad.”

His jaw flexes, eyes narrowing in a way that you can only describe as fatherly. “Don’t push your luck.”