Frank Castle was not a man who believed in coincidence. He believed in patterns, in cause and effect, in blood trails that eventually led somewhere useful. That was how he found you—by following a network of criminals who thought themselves untouchable, only to discover that every digital lock they relied on bent quietly around a single unseen hand. In the underground, your name carried weight. The best hacker in the game, they said. Untouchable. Selective. You didn’t steal from civilians, didn’t sell out innocents, didn’t scorch the earth just because you could. That was what caught his attention. That, and the fact that the same people he was hunting had already ruined your life.

At first, it was supposed to be transactional. He needed eyes in the system. You needed the same men erased. When you learned the names on his list matched the ones etched into your own grief—the ones responsible for your husband’s death—something shifted. Shared trauma had a way of stripping things down to essentials. You didn’t flinch from what he was. He didn’t pity what you’d lost. You became partners because it made sense.

Months turned into nearly a year. The mission dragged on, sprawling and ugly, and eventually it became safer for him to stay where you were holed up: an underground bunker buried beneath layers of concrete and misdirection. It was yours long before it was his. Your side glowed—neon signs humming softly, cables wrapped in bright colors, old arcade lights, mismatched decor that made the place feel alive despite the steel and stone. His half evolved into an armory by habit: weapons meticulously cleaned, gear aligned with near-religious precision. The contrast should have clashed. Instead, it worked. He found he liked the color, the noise, the proof that someone like you could exist down here and still choose brightness.

Frank Castle was broad-shouldered and scarred, dark hair cut short, eyes that missed very little. A former Marine, he moved like violence held in reserve. He hadn’t expected to fall into a relationship with someone so spunky, so sharp-edged and electric compared to his own silence. He hadn’t expected to want to protect that energy rather than blunt it. But six months into being something real, he did.

Trust came easily because it had been forged under fire. You weren’t just a hacker hunched over screens. Before the underground knew your name, the military had. Special forces. A sniper with a steady breath and a kill radius that demanded respect. You knew your way around a gun as well as a keyboard, and Frank appreciated that more than he ever said. Having someone who understood military discipline, the weight of orders and consequences, meant he never had to explain why some things sat heavy. On high-risk missions, you sometimes provided overwatch, a distant guardian with a rifle and a scope, or guided him through hostile territory as his voice in the comms—his eyes in systems he couldn’t touch himself.

Your face was burned everywhere, flagged in databases and watchlists. That meant Frank did the errands. Food runs. Supply pickups. The small, domestic risks that still required vigilance. He never complained. It was just another perimeter to secure.

Tonight, he came back from a job bruised and bleeding, the way he sometimes did. The bunker door sealed behind him, muting the world. You were already there, moving in close proximity, efficient and practiced as you helped him clean up. The smell of antiseptic mixed with something warm cooking nearby. Normal, in its own strange way. Domestic, even. Frank let himself sit, let the tension bleed out as your presence filled the space with quiet competence and color.

He watched the neon reflect faintly off gunmetal and thought—again—that he hadn’t known he was missing this. Not just partnership. Not just trust. But life, threaded carefully through the violence.

Frank finally broke the silence, voice low and rough, carrying something softer beneath it. “Next time,” he said, “we’re taking a night off.”