Girl, You Taste Like Sugar

Chapter Five

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DAY 5

CONTINUED

“For the record! I said this was a bad idea!” Dani yells as she tightens her grip around Frank’s wrist. It’s the same one she bruised when he woke her up, and she’s trying to be careful and not accidentally break any bones.

“You want a gold star, princess?!” Frank yells up at her. Her other hand is gripping the edge of the building, fingers starting to crack the concrete, and she can hear footsteps pounding across the roof and getting closer to where she’s hanging and holding Frank up.

“You’re not gonna like this!” She looks down as Frank scowls up at her, and she grins as she releases her hold on the roof’s edge.

NINE HOURS EARLIER

“That’s the target? That guy?” Dani asks before taking a long sip of her milkshake. Her and Frank are sitting outside of a small little shop, she’s drinking a milkshake and enjoying the heat, and Frank looks almost normal. He’s wearing jeans and a black tee shirt, and the baseball cap on his head shadows most of his face and hides the bruises. Whenever someone glances their way, Dani makes eye contact with them and grins until they become uncomfortable and look away.

“Lower your voice,” Frank grunts and slumps in his chair a little more. There’s people all around them. Elderly people, families, couples…it’s a whole mixture of people enjoying the sunshine and the shops, and she doesn’t feel any kind of alarm so she knows that no one can overhear them.

“I’m just sayin’, he looks like he’s gonna fall over dead any minute. What’re you killin’ him for?” she asks before turning back to her chocolate milkshake. Frank looks all around them before his eyes settle on a man across the street, and the man looks mostly ordinary. Khaki pants, white shirt open at the throat, skinny, thin brown hair, and a long nose. That’s what stands out the most to her.

“How’s he feel?” Dani cuts her eyes over at him, but Frank is still looking across the street. So she huffs and focuses her attention on the man, until she can only pick his emotions out of the ocean of emotions surrounding her. Pun fully intended.

“Dark. Some people just feel…wrong, inside. I don’t really know how to describe it. His emotions taste bitter, acrid. He’s hateful. He’s done some bad shit, huh?” she asks as she looks back over at Frank. He’s still looking across the street, but she keeps her attention on him. Moves her eyes over the busted shape of his nose and the strong bruised line of his jaw.

“Dealer and a user. Puts out bad shit on purpose to kill the competition. He likes to watch them as they overdose,” Frank says quietly. No one is paying any attention to them, but she understands why he’s being so cautious. Normal people don’t talk about this kind of stuff while sipping on milkshakes.

“So he’s a scumbag that kills other scumbags?” She thought Frank only killed people that did really bad things, like killing innocent people.

“Most users are scumbags, but not all. He’s killed a lot of kids with his tampered products too, and he’s just the first name on the list.” Frank’s dark eyes finally dart over towards her, but it only lasts for a second before he’s looking across the street again.

“Ooh, there’s a list? Can I see it?” Frank huffs out something that sounds like a laugh as he shakes his head, and Dani definitely does not pout before finishing off her milkshake. “Can I come along this time? You can think of it as a team bonding experience.”

“If I say yes, will you shut up?”

“Possibly. If you say no, you’ll never hear the end of it.” Frank sighs like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Dani bites down on her smile as he looks over at her. Really looks over at her. She can tell by the resigned look on his face that she’s already won, but she still wants to hear him say it.

“Fine. You can tag along.” She has to stop herself from doing a little fist pump, but her face must show her excitement because Frank rolls his eyes before looking across the street at the target again.

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“You can count on me, boss.”

.xXx.

“Oh! So sorry! You okay?” She is ahead of him at the top of the stairs, and Frank looks around her body to see a guy sprawled on the floor. He must have been about to come around the railing and start down the stairs when he ran into her, and Frank fights back a sigh as they both continue to apologize to each other.

“Everything alright?” he asks after a moment. She makes a noise of surprise and then finishes moving up the stairs, and Frank realizes that it’s the same guy from yesterday. The one who was talking to her when Frank walked back to his truck after renting the apartment.

“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir! Ma’am,” the young guy stutters out.

“Please, we’re just Dani and Frank.” She must be looking expectantly at the guy, because he ducks his head and quietly mumbles out his name.

“Dave, ma—Dani. Nice to see you again.” The guy smiles nervously up at Frank before hurrying down the stairs, and he turns to say something to her but she’s already taken off. Frank doesn’t catch up to her until he’s in their new apartment with the front door closed behind him, and he slowly walks around where she’s standing.

She’s standing in the living room, in front of the couch, with her arms wrapped tight around her middle. She’s bent over a little, and Frank can tell that she’s breathing heavily by the way her shoulders move. Up and down, faster and faster. Her face is all twisted up, like someone’s got a knife buried in her stomach, but she isn’t crying. Her eyes are clenched shut as she tries to slow down her breathing, Frank can see her lips moving as she tries to count, and he sits down on the couch to watch her.

“You alright?” he asks as her breathing gradually slows. Her eyes open, but she stays in the same hunched over position.

“He touched me,” she says from between clenched teeth. So this is what it looks like when someone touches her. All day, she was careful to stick close to him because most people gave him a wide enough berth. He paid for everything so she never had to worry about touching cashiers, and he noticed the way her body carefully shifted as she walked through crowds so that no one would accidentally touch her bare skin.

“Razor blades?” Her fingers slowly unclench from her sides as she straightens up, and she takes in a long inhale through her nose before breathing out through her mouth.

“Needles. Tiny little needles digging in deep.” She shakes her arms out after the statement, as if she can actually shake the feeling away, and then cracks her neck to get rid of the built-up tension. “Now! Enough about my weirdness. What’s the plan for tonight?”

“We’re gonna blow up a warehouse.” Her face doesn’t change, not even a flinch or a flicker.

“That’s it?” Oh, now she looks unimpressed.

“With Eddie Gnucci and whoever shows up for tonight’s drug deal inside.” Her eyes widen as her mouth parts in surprise, and she lets out a quiet oh.

“That sounds like it has the potential to go very bad, very fast. Just sayin’.” Her fists are propped on her hips as she looks down at him, and the look in her eyes is off. For just a moment, he can see how old she is. She looks young, looks barely twenty, but her eyes are old. Why didn’t he notice that sooner?

“You in or out, princess?” he asks as she just keeps staring at him. She smiles at him, with her fists still propped on her hips like she’s miming some kind of goddamn cartoon superhero, and he can feel tension coiling in his arms as he waits for her to say something.

“I’m in. Can’t let you die on your first Miami mission, can I? Let’s suit up!” she cheers and stalks off towards the bedroom.

.xXx.

“I thought being a vigilante would be fun. This is boring,” Dani mutters. Frank doesn’t say anything next to her, but she’s got a feeling that he’s making some kind of disapproving face. Mostly because she can feel the annoyance coming off of him in waves. Oh yeah, no one annoys people like Dani Montgomery!

“What? You wanna go in with guns blazing?” Frank asks after a moment. They’re sitting in the truck, parked a good ways away from the warehouse but with some visibility, and Dani sighs as she stretches in the passenger seat.

“I dunno, maybe? There were a lot of guns’-a-blazin’ in Hell’s Kitchen,” she points out. They watched Eddie Gnucci and a few other unsavory looking characters walk into the warehouse about two hours ago, and a few others have trickled in since then. How long do drug deals take anyway?

“Patience.” Frank never says her name. She calls him Castle out loud, but she thinks of him as Frank. She has ever since that night in the graveyard, but Frank never calls her anything. He called her Dani when he woke her up, she’s got a hazy memory of that, but that’s it. She can’t remember him ever calling her anything. Besides princess, of course, but she’s sure he only uses that name because he knows she hates it.

“I’m patient,” she huffs and sits forward in her seat a little. The warehouse looks quiet. She’d probably think it was vacant if she hadn’t watched people walk inside of it with her own two eyes. “So what do we do next?”

“I blow up the warehouse, and you watch.” Well, that sounds completely unfair. She doesn’t get to do anything?

She was wrong about not getting to do anything. While Frank creeps around the warehouse and sets up his little homemade bombs, she gets to be the lookout. Which means that she stands next to the warehouse with her arms crossed and grumbles under her breath as Frank does his thing. He probably only told her to be the lookout to keep her quiet, but it’s better than waiting in the truck. She’s rocking back and forth on her heels when voices start to reach her, but the voices aren’t coming from inside. They’re coming from somewhere farther down the block, because this area is lined with warehouses. Lined with metal and concrete and quiet…until now.

“Yo, Castle! We got company!” she whispers as loudly as she dares. The voices she can hear are farther out, but there’s still people inside the warehouse right next to her.

“You wanna try not announcin’ my presence to the whole goddamn state?” Frank grumbles as he walks up behind her.

“Any chance those bombs aren’t going to go off in the next couple of minutes?” she asks as she cocks her head to the side. The voices are more distinct now, and she can pick up words. Sentences strung together.

“Why?” he asks as he walks around her.

“One of Eddie’s competitors is headed this way. He’ll probably be happy about Eddie getting blown to high heaven, but I don’t think him and his friends are going to be happy to see you.” Frank’s eyes narrow down at her before cutting to the left, where the group of men are coming from, and Dani locks her jaw.

“Can we make it to the truck without them seeing us?” he asks. We. Dani could make it. She could push strength into her legs and make it there in seconds, but Frank? Frank’s only human. He’d never make it.

“Nope. So…guns blazing?” Frank looks almost disappointed as he looks down at her, but she can see his mind working behind his dark eyes.

“How many?” All of the emotions are blurring together, so are the voices and echoing footsteps, so it’s hard to get an accurate count.

“Fifteen? Maybe more. Some of them are excited, nearly giddy. Some of the others are worried, scared. They’re definitely planning something,” she answers and looks up at him. She’s sure that she’ll survive whatever is about to happen, no matter what Frank decides, so she’s curious about how he’s going to proceed.

“This place is going up in less than a minute. We’ll have to run.” This warehouse is at the end of the line, next to water, so the only place to run is either towards the truck or towards the (probably heavily armed) men. If they run towards the truck, they’ll be left exposed in the open. She’ll be fine…Frank probably won’t be.

“After you,” she says and holds an arm out. Frank is the strategic one. Her only goal is to keep him alive.

Frank looks down at her for a second, maybe not even that long, but she can’t read the look in his eyes. She can barely even feel his emotions. Everything is buried under layers of calm and rage, which is an odd combination that she’s not used to, and then Frank takes off. It takes her a moment to start running after him, but she catches up to him easily despite their differences in height. She grins over at him as she catches up, and that’s about the time that the warehouse behind them explodes. Heat pushes at her back as the ground shakes under her feet, and she stumbles a little and notes that Frank never wavers. It’s impressive.

“Hey!”

“Turn!” Frank barks at her. They hook a hard right and disappear between two warehouses, but Dani can hear the men running after them now. Honestly? A building explodes and they come chasing after them? Wouldn’t the smart thing be to retreat? Do criminals ever think at all?

Dani’s running next to Frank, and she looks next to her as Frank fires over his shoulder. She hears it when the first man chasing them hits the ground, quickly followed by two more, and then they turn another corner. Frank grabs her as they’re still running, gun stowed back under his jacket so that both hands can grip her hips, and she yelps a little as she’s thrown into the air. She knows what Frank is aiming for though, because her hands instinctually reach up to grab the ladder attached to the side of a warehouse. She quickly pulls herself up and looks down to see Frank right behind her, and they both quickly scurry up the ladder just as some of the men turn a corner and spot them.

The first shot is fired just as Frank heaves himself over the edge, missing him completely, and Dani can’t help her smile as Frank gets to his feet and glares at her. That’s not fair. He’s not really glaring at her. That’s just his face, in this moment, in this situation. She’s still grinning as she hears the ladder rattling, which means that someone is coming up towards them. It won’t take them long. Frank and Dani both stumble across the width of the roof until they’re on the other side, and Dani looks over her shoulder. She can see the truck, but it’s just a tiny dot from where they’re standing.

“Do you trust me?”

“You stalked me.” His tone isn’t accusatory, so Dani doesn’t take offense. She shouldn’t have asked him that anyway. There’s a good chance that Frank will never trust anyone, ever again, and she gets that. She really does.

“Fair point. Sorry in advance.” His look turns slightly curious at her words, and she presses one hand against his chest and gives a firm push. Dark eyes widen as he tips over the edge of the roof, and she reaches out to grab his wrist before following him over. Her free hand grabs the edge of the roof before they can plummet to the ground, and she looks down at Frank as she hears footsteps against the rooftop. He looks pissed, she can feel even more anger than usual, but she doesn’t feel any pain from where her bare hand is gripping his bare wrist. She looks back up as more footsteps sound on the rooftop, and she can hear the men yelling as they look for them. As they look for her and Frank.

“Find them!” One of the voices is louder than the others, but they’re all yelling at each other. Very disorganized, in Dani’s opinion.

“For the record! I said this was a bad idea!” Dani yells as she tightens her grip around Frank’s wrist. It’s the same one she bruised when he woke her up, and she’s trying to be careful and not accidentally break any bones.

“You want a gold star, princess?!” Frank yells up at her. Her other hand is gripping the edge of the building, fingers starting to crack the concrete, and she can hear footsteps pounding across the roof and getting closer to where she’s hanging and holding Frank up.

“You’re not gonna like this!” She looks down as Frank scowls up at her, and she grins as she releases her hold on the roof’s edge.

It’s not easy, but she manages to pull Frank up as they fall downwards. She gets an arm locked around his back and another one behind his knees, and she tightens the hold right before her feet hit the ground. Since she didn’t bend her knees or roll into the fall, the smaller bones in her feet and her fibulas break as she lands. Maybe her right tibia too. She grits her teeth as the bones quickly heal and then she immediately takes off running, with Frank still held in her arms.

“Put me down!” he yells as she forces her legs to go as fast as they can.

“I’m a faster runner!” she replies and just keeps going. She can feel the heat of Frank’s glare, but she can’t slow down now. There’s gunfire popping behind her, thankfully nowhere close to her, and she knows her feet are cracking the concrete in some places as she runs because she’s not really restraining herself at the moment.

It takes a minute, maybe less, for her to reach the truck. Her feet slide as she tries to come to a stop, and she twists around so that her back hits just behind the driver door and listens as the truck groans as it rocks against the force. The thing doesn’t tip over though, which is good enough for her. She has the driver door opened and Frank pushed into the driver’s seat in record time, and she grips the lining of the bed of the truck so that she can force herself into the air and vault over the truck. Then she’s opening the passenger door and jumping into her seat, and Frank already has the truck in drive and is pulling off by the time she slams the door shut.

Dani falls back against the seat with a sigh as she stretches her legs out in front of her, and she can still feel a slight ache in her legs as she starts laughing. She knows that Frank keeps looking over at her, can feel the weight of his eyes as she laughs like a lunatic, but she doesn’t care. Frank feels like he always does. A confusing mixture of calm, anger, and a little bit of emptiness. She can feel that, can feel him, but she can also feel herself. What they just did, the being shot at and running, that was exhilarating. In the most terrifying way imaginable, but still. Dani’s wild laughter has died down into occasional giggles by the time she rolls her head against the seat to look at Frank, and he glances at her before focusing on the road again.

“You been holdin’ out on me.” He still doesn’t sound accusatory, so she still doesn’t take offense.

“I told you I was above average.”

“You said you were no Captain America. I don’t think he could’ve pulled off what you just did.” Dani shrugs, because maybe she held back a little. It’s hard to explain her abilities and make them sound believable, and it’s hard to demonstrate.

“I might have down played myself a bit. I don’t like to brag,” she shrugs. Frank doesn’t ask her any questions. Doesn’t ask her just how much she really can do, and she appreciates that. She openly admitted to using him, but Frank doesn’t want to use her for her abilities. If anything, that just makes her respect him even more. That respect doesn’t stop her from teasing him a little though. “I straight up damsel’d you. How’d it feel?”

“You what?” he asks and looks away from the road to glance at her for a second.

“I damsel’d you. Held you all bridal style and carried you in my arms. I’m totally a knight in shining armor!” she declares and grins over at him. It’s hard to tell, the emotion is buried down so deep, but she thinks that Frank is a little amused by her.

“Don’t let it go to your head, princess.”

.xXx.

“Since I am tonight’s hero, I’m claiming the first shower. Because I feel gross and sweaty after heroically saving our lives,” she announces after the front door closes behind them. Frank stays by the door as he watches her walk into the bedroom on her toes, and she’s humming and still walking with a skip in her step as she walks back out with clothes held in her arms. She winks at him before disappearing into the bathroom, and Frank walks over to the couch on heavy legs.

“You’re not gonna like this!”

He watched her shoot herself in the head and saw the way that she healed instantly, but he didn’t know how much her body could take. Could she only handle one fatal shot at a time? Did she heal based off the chronology of wounds or the severity? He hadn’t known how much she could take, so he couldn’t chance it. So instead of facing down the unexpected gang, he ran. He threw her onto the ladder first, because he wasn’t going to have her death on his hands. So he let her go first and then he climbed up after her, and he’d felt trapped on that roof. If he’d been alone, he knew exactly what to do. He hadn’t been alone though. He’d had to think about her.

She pushed him off a fucking roof. Pushed him and caught him all in one move, and she easily held them both up with just one arm. Grinned at him before letting go, because she knew she’d be able to catch them. He saw her face when they hit the ground, saw the brief flash of pain before she took off running. Heard the concrete under her feet cracking as she ran faster than any human was capable of, and there’s dents in his truck from her. From her body smashing into the driver’s side because she couldn’t stop herself from running in time. From her hand gripping the side of the truck so that she could toss her body over the side of it.

She is strong. Possibly stronger than he truly understands. He worried about her, all night, for no reason. She is stronger than him, he knows that much for sure. Her strength is tempting, but he won’t ask her to help him. She’s not a killer, and he respects that. Rule number three. They don’t try to change each other. If she keeps insisting on tagging along with him though, he doesn’t have to worry about her. Not like he did tonight. All the other shit he might not understand, but he understands that. He doesn’t have to worry about her. She can take care of herself. He’ll be damned if he lets her carry him off like that again though.

“Ooh, someone’s thinkin’ mighty hard. That looks like it hurts, Castle.”

“You gotta stop callin’ me that,” he says before even registering her presence in front of him. She’s wearing pants and a tee shirt, not a sweatshirt, and wet hair is clinging to her cheeks and neck.

“What? Your name?” she asks and tilts her head to the side.

“That ain’t my name here, so you gotta stop using it. Just call me Frank.” His first name is common and they’re a long way from Hell’s Kitchen. No one should give Frank a second look. If someone happens to hear his first and last name in quick succession, he might get more than just a second look.

“Okay, Frank.” She says his name slowly, drawls it out as she sits down on the couch next to him, and she pulls her legs up to cross them under her. “So, Frank, since I saved your life tonight, can I ask you for a favor?”

He starts to point out that he would have been just fine tonight, but he stops himself. Because he’s turned to look at her and can see the nervous look in her eyes. He’s not an empath, but he’s pretty damned good at reading people. She’s tapping her fingers against her knees, restlessly, and he can tell that she’s chewing on the inside of her lip. Can tell by the way her jaw is working and the way her bottom lip is pulled inwards. She’s nervous, so Frank holds back the sarcastic comment. Maybe he would have been just fine on his own, but she did step up and carry his ass out of there. He understands some of what she can do now. He can hear her out.

“What?” he asks as her eyes dance all across his face.

“Can I…just for a minute?” Her hand hovers in the empty space between them, and what she’s asking clicks instantly. It’s been thirty years since someone touched her, without violence or ill intent, until him. He doesn’t understand why he’s different, and he’s not going to waste time wondering about it.

“One minute,” he says and points a finger right at her face. Color blooms in her pale cheeks as she smiles, a real smile, and her pale eyes look a little brighter as he just holds his hand out. Her fingers are shaking when they slip across his knuckles and then slot between his, and he twists his bruised wrist so that their palms brush. She sighs as she falls back against the couch and her eyes fall closed, but he keeps looking at their hands.

His hands are bigger, darker, bruised and scarred. Her fingers are slim, pale, soft and smooth. He’s holding her left hand, but she’s not wearing the cheap wedding ring. Did she plan for this and take it off beforehand? The shaking in her hand dies down after a few seconds, and Frank makes a point of not looking at the tears that drip off her chin. He has his own shit. The emptiness and the anger, the guilt and the determination. That doesn’t mean he understands what she’s been through. They survived completely different wars.

“Thank you, Frank.” Her one minute was closer to three, and she’s the one that pulls away. Gently untangles their fingers and lets the rough skin of his palm slide against her softness before returning her hand to her lap. When he looks over, her eyes are still closed and there’s fresh tear tracks on her cheeks.

“I ain’t a good guy. You get that?” he asks her. Her eyes slowly open, and new tears slip over her cheeks and fall off her chin.

“Who said you’re not a good guy? I’mma go punch them. Softly. Because of my no killing philosophy,” she says and smiles. It’s a trembling smile, but she actually means the words. “My definition of good is a bit different than most people. You kill people. So what? You only kill the ones that the world is better off without. In the days of old, they’d have revered you. Built statues in your honor. Sang songs about you.”

She stops talking as he laughs, and he can still see her despite the way his eyes crinkle up. He’s not laughing loudly or wildly like she does, but there’s a few deep chuckles from somewhere deep in his belly. Her smile firms a little as he laughs, and she reaches up to brush at her cheeks with her fingertips as he shakes his head. She’s still smiling as he stops laughing and just looks at her, and she looks so ordinary. But he knows better.

“You gonna write me a song?”

“Mhmm. Write it, record it, put it on a mixtape, and play it on a boombox under your window.”

“Wrong decade, princess.”

“I do get confused in my old age sometimes.”

He keeps thinking of her as someone younger, weaker, because of the way she looks. He looks at her and sees someone that should be protected, but she’s older and stronger than him. She can take care of herself. He doesn’t have to protect her, except for maybe from herself. He glances at the couch, sees the quilt folded over the back of it, but doesn’t see her ridiculously colored pillow. She must have stashed it somewhere while he was taking a shower this morn—afternoon.

“Why don’t you take the bed tonight?” he asks and glances in the direction of the bedroom.

“Because me and this couch are going steady, and we would like to be alone now. Take a hike, Frank.” He could argue with her, he might even win, but it’d be a waste of time. So he just shakes his head and forces himself to his feet. She stays still as he walks around the couch, and he stops right behind her. He holds one hand out and then stops, and he watches the way that his trigger finger twitches. After another second, he drops his hand onto the top of her head and ruffles her wet hair.

“Night.”

“Goodnight.” He barely hears her as he opens the bedroom door, but she’d raised her voice just loud enough for him to hear.
♠ ♠ ♠
Okay, before I talk about anything story-relevant, can you please picture tiny little Dani (who looks like Ashley Benson in my mind) running away from explosions and gunfire while carrying Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) bridal style? Because I’ve had that image stuck in my head pretty much since the beginning of this story, and I just love that visual so much.

Moving on! There was some actual action in this chapter! So, as you can see, there is an actual plot to this story. Frank is on a mission, and Dani’s there to tag along. I’m not sure what they’re going to do with the Netflix Punisher series, so this story will probably be completely AU. I’m not going to give up on it though, because I love writing for Frank and Dani. I feel like they complement each other. Writing their dynamics is fun for me and hopefully fun for you to read!