Chapter 4
The safehouse was eerily quiet when she stirred awake. Outside, a gentle rainfall pitter-pattered against the city streets, cleansing it. Parker imagined it was a baptism in her sleep-tipsy mind: God sprinkling holy water over every shadowed alley, every crooked heart, every dark soul lurking in the bowels of New York.
Her nose was smashed against the pillow, so when she inhaled the aroma of mildew and dust greeted her. When was the last time the pillowcase was cleaned?
Bones and muscles stiff, Parker pushed herself up and out of bed. A single yellow-tinted light on the wall illuminated the space. There were no windows, so there was no telling what time it was or how long she’d been asleep. All she knew was that she hadn’t gotten a full, peaceful sleep like that in a while.
Parker pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail, avoiding her muted reflection in a glass pane across the room. It didn’t take much to know what she looked like—disheveled, running on fumes. At least her bruise would be significantly healed by now.
She couldn’t tell exactly what this space was used for before Frank’s friend turned it into his safehouse, so she wasn’t sure what the barred rooms were for. Or why all the glass was punched out. Some sort of mechanic shop, maybe? It did have a large garage door on the west wall for cars to drive in and out.
As Parker walked through the doorway, she spotted Frank’s sleeping form on the ground in another room. If she had known there was only one bed, she wouldn’t have immediately taken it—Frank was likely twice her age, he’d probably have old man back pains when he woke up.
Her eyes trailed over his still face. Even asleep, he looked troubled and tense, haunted by unspoken afflictions. She wondered if his dreams were filled with demons from his past just as Parker’s were. But what did Frank have to fear, other than the ghosts of all the lives he had claimed?
His mouth twitched. Parker averted her eyes and stepped away before he could wake up and catch her staring.
The computers were all dated, but not inconveniently so. She knew her way around a computer well enough to navigate unfamiliar tech. There were some security cameras monitoring the street, some impressive custom PCs, and a ton of encryption software. Parker hummed her approval.
Parker retrieved her backpack from beside the bed. Sending Frank a quick glance, she left.
_
She wasn’t proud to be a dumpster diver, but when push came to shove—and when you’re an eighteen-year-old vigilante without a solid job, there was a lot of shoving—you had to get resourceful. Dumpsters happened to be full of resources.
Parker was proud of using tech she was able to build completely from other people’s scraps and trash. There was something entrepreneurial and badass about it. The airpods she used to listen to music and to dial 911 using only morse code taps? Yeah, she made that using a pair of Apple’s simplistic airpods covered in earwax she found in a storm gutter. They didn’t work at first—water must’ve gotten to them—but with her intelligence and a drawer full of random scraps, she was able to not only repair them but drastically improve them and adapt them to her needs. Same with her webshooters; if you looked close enough, you’d recognize parts from an electric toothbrush or the spring of a pen.
By mid-morning, Parker had collected enough parts to make a pair of her high-tech airpods. The only other thing on her to-do list was to head over to Stark Tower. The original Stark Tower in the Upper East Side was repurposed and renamed to the Avengers Tower so the government-approved heroes could live in one central location to train, live, and work together. The new Stark Tower where Stark Industries operated from was now located in Midtown near the Empire State Building. From Hell’s Kitchen, it was about a ten-minute swing.
Her movements were practiced and smooth as she tucked her mask into her backpack and strode up to a back entrance. Something she kept in the front pocket of her backpack at all times was her old internship swipe card. Back before she disappeared off the face of the earth and actually attended the internship, the card only granted her access to the junior labs and cafeteria. It only took a few minutes of hacking to access and alter her permissions, allowing her to get into any door with a swipe of a card that should’ve been deactivated years ago.
Here’s the thing: Parker wasn’t proud of stealing from Stark Industries. It was just convenient, and besides, it wasn’t like the company would notice a few lab supplies going missing every now and then. It was pennies from their billions. A grain of sand from a desert. She’d been doing it for two years, and they never once raised a brow at her actions. If anything, it was on them for not noticing an inactive intern’s card was accessing restricted rooms and levels.
With her hearing alerting her of employee and security’s movements, Parker was able to navigate the maze of hallways and the back stairwells without being seen.
The lab she swiped chemicals and other materials from to build her webs was on the seventh floor: the senior intern labs. These were grad students or recent grads who actually contributed to SI’s research and development. As a junior intern, Parker was among a team of nine other high school students who basically worked on projects that aimed to sharpen their skills for a duration of three months. Parker lasted four weeks before dropping out.
Not that she wanted to. It was just how things unfolded.
There were three senior interns in the lab when Parker swiped in. One had earbuds in and was listening to music—hip hop—as they worked, and the second was engrossed in explaining something related to polymers to the third.
In and out . She knew where everything she needed was. The interns didn’t spare her a single glance as she moved around the lab, opening drawers and dropping things into her backpack. Only after she left and let the door click shut behind her did she hear someone say, “Did someone just leave?”
“It’s only us in here, who would’ve left?”
“...True. I’m probably just hearing things.”
Parker left the way she came in without detection. Too easy .
_
She smelled the coffee before she even opened the door to the safehouse. Surprisingly, though, when she walked in, Frank wasn’t in the kitchenette as she suspected. All there was was a mug with damp coffee grounds at the bottom on the counter.
“You came back.”
Parker’s head turned to the open bathroom. Frank was standing at the mirror, shaving cream on half of his jaw. He ran a razor under the faucet, then tapped it against the sink, flicking off shaving cream.
“Where’d you go?”
“Here and there. I had some errands to run.” Parker deposited the backpack onto the computer chair and leaned against the desk, tilting her head as she watched Frank run the razor over his jaw and down his neck. She was surprised he wasn’t blowing up on her—for leaving and for being vague.
Frank tapped the razor against the sink again and dried his face off with a towel. He shut the light off in the bathroom and entered the main room with Parker. He eyed her, like he was determining if she was full of shit. “Did you have breakfast?”
“Not yet, I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“You should’ve, I slept too long.”
She wasn’t the only one who got some good sleep, then. Something told her he needed it just as badly as she did, if not more.
As Frank rummaged through the kitchen cupboards, Parker emptied her backpack of her dumpster finds and stolen web ingredients. She felt his eyes on her as she sat and got to work.
The first thing she did was clean the airpods she found, then she started actually fixing those up. It’d take another few hours to get them to the point where they could read morse code and connect to phone service, and that was only if these computers had the same programming and coding capabilities as her laptop did.
Frank pulled up the other chair and tossed a protein bar onto the desk beside Parker’s backpack. “What’s all this?” He gestured to the disorganized array of scraps and wires.
“I need new equipment,” Parker replied, not looking up from her busy hands. “My stuff’s either broken or gone.” He picked up a small glass vial of ethyl acetate. Parker glanced up. “That’s for my web fluid.”
“You make it yourself?”
“Yeah.” Obviously . Who else would manufacture it for her? Tony Stark himself?
Frank put it back. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”
“Here and there.” She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t admit to stealing from Stark, especially when stealing was much less criminal than murder. Frank had no room to raise a brow at her morality. Before he could press, Parker said, “I’m making one for you.”
“Making one what?”
She held up the earpiece. “Earpiece. Well, improved airpod. I trick them out so they can be used for communication and stuff without having to be connected to an iPhone.”
He made a hum at the back of his throat. He almost sounded impressed. “You learn this stuff in high school?”
“Ha. I wish.” She set the earpiece to the side and took the other one. Opened it up and pulled at its wires. “I didn’t really do the whole high school thing.”
“You didn’t finish school?” he asked incredulously.
She shrugged. “Didn’t need to. You don’t need a diploma to be a vigilante.”
Frank’s silence lingered for a beat as he processed her words. Parker didn’t meet his gaze, focused on the intricate task of reassembling the airpod, her fingers deftly stripping wires and reconnecting circuits. She didn’t mind the quiet; it gave her time to focus on what needed to be done. Still, she could feel his scrutiny.
“So you just threw it all away—any chance at a normal life?” he finally said, breaking the stillness. There was a note of disapproval in his voice, but it was mixed with some level of curiosity. “You didn’t want to be a normal kid and go to college, chase your dreams?”
College wasn’t exactly a reality for Parker, even before getting bit. Maybe if she were born into a different family that wasn’t riddled with addiction and neglect she would’ve aspired to be a writer, a dancer, a teacher, or even a mom. When you grow up like she did, you’re too focused on survival to look ahead to your future. In a way, getting bit by that spider was a mercy—it gave her purpose when she had none. A new identity.
“Spider-Man was the only option,” Parker eventually said. Her eyes flickered to Frank. “You were a marine, right? You did that instead of school?”
“Didn’t have the smarts for college.” He sat back. “I was your age when I enlisted.”
“How long did you serve?”
“About a decade. Four tours.”
Parker made a noise of acknowledgement. She wasn’t going to pretend to know much about serving in the military, or what Frank did or where he went during his service. She did know that sometime after his service, he went off the rails and started using his military training to take out people he deemed deserving of punishment—it was why he was dubbed the Punisher . To his credit, from what Parker had heard in the news during his first killing spree, the people he eliminated were no were near innocent.
But, as a result, neither was Frank. The blood on his hands wasn’t just going to wash away.
Parker asked, “Was it the same for you?” When he sent her a questioning glance, she clarified, “Was the Punisher the only option?”
Frank’s fingers brushed the edge of the desk. He didn’t answer right away, but his gaze turned distant. Parker wondered what he saw when he stared beyond the blank wall.
After a few seconds, whatever was clouding his vision cleared and he dragged his eyes to Parker’s. “Yeah.”
She wanted to ask why, to ask what the catalyst was, but she held back. She had a feeling he’d close himself off as soon as the question left her mouth.
Frank evidently felt the same compulsion to hold back. Or maybe he just wasn’t interested in knowing more about her decision to don the mask. A somewhat awkward silence fell over them.
It was weird; it seemed like their first full conversation that wasn’t some type of argument.
“Wanna know something?” Parker offered, trying to lighten the mood. Frank jutted his chin. “My name’s Penny.”
An amused smirk tugged at his lips. “You gave me a fake name?” His voice was light with disbelief.
“I actually do go by Parker now,” she explained, smiling too. “ Penelope Beatrice Parker . Everyone called me Penny.”
Frank raised an eyebrow, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “Penny,” he echoed, shaking his head. “Nah, Parker suits you better. Penny’s too soft.”
Parker matched his grin. “And I’m not soft?”
“You get yourself in too many scraps. You’ve got some edge.”
Was that a compliment? Parker’s heart warmed. Frank’s expression softened—just a little—and for a moment, the walls between them seemed to thin.
But it didn’t last.
Frank sat back and nodded to the protein bar he’d tossed onto the desk. “Eat up. We’ve got work to do.”
Don’t I know it. Parker unwrapped the bar and bit into it. It was dry and crumbled on her tongue. “Tastes like cardboard.”
She checked the wrapper and found the expiry date: APRL 2019. With the amount of preservatives and chemicals in the ingredients list, though, it was probably fine. Calories were calories, and there was no way she was going to turn them down.
“It ain’t a warm home-cooked meal, that’s for sure.” Frank stood and made his way back to the kitchenette where he poured the rest of the coffee in the pot into the empty mug.
Parker didn’t have the pleasure of eating enough home-cooked meals to miss them. “So I was thinking,” she said, not looking up, “since we basically don’t have any other choice than to work together, having our own line of communication would be nice. I don’t normally talk when I’m in the mask for obvious reasons, but if I talk quietly the earpieces should still be able to pick it up. Or I can just communicate via morse code.” She shot him a quick glance. “I assume you know morse code, but to make it easier, I’ve got it set up to translate.”
He gave a single nod as he sipped his coffee.
“Right. So once I’ve got these tricked out, I’ll just need to whip up some more web fluid and then I’ll be all set to go after these guys. When do you think you’ll be good?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, with your side?” She gestured to where he’d been stabbed the day before. Although light stabbings were nothing to her, especially all stitched up and with a full night’s sleep to heal, Frank was a normal, unenhanced man. No one—except for maybe Captain America or something—could bounce back from being stabbed like she could.
“My side’s just fine.”
“O-kay. Whatever you say, tough guy.” He was a grown man; if he said he was good, then he was good. And if he was just trying to be stubborn, then Parker had no qualms saving him in the middle of a fight. It would do wonders for her ego—and it’d definitely put a wrinkle in Frank’s to have to be carried out of a fight in a teenage girl’s arms.
Parker was itching to draw up a game plan, but there was a step that came before plotting: establishing all of their information, otherwise known as crossing t’s and dotting i’s. A little less exciting, but important all the same. They needed to be on the same page.
“I got some new information from Rick before everything blew up,” she said. Frank was elbow-deep in a crate against the wall and didn’t make any move to acknowledge her words. She continued anyway. “Ever hear of the Black Hand?”
Frank pulled a semi-automatic from the crate. Parker’s eyes locked onto it before they flickered up to his face.
“Can’t say I have.”
He set the gun on the counter, then pulled a box of bullets from his back pocket as if it were something as pedestrian as a cellphone or wallet.
Parker watched him load the magazine for a few beats, then she turned her attention back to her work. “I don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they’re probably what’s making the Italians and Russians work together. And they’d have to be powerful to be pulling all those strings. But why? What’s the point of bringing the two mobs together?” Frank didn’t answer, which was fine; Parker was mainly talking to herself at that point. “And why did they want my blood?”
What purpose would harvesting her blood have? Her mind immediately went to selling bags of blood on the black market, then she thought of vampires, then it clicked: they probably wanted her blood because she’s enhanced.
Doc must’ve been impressed by the strength and agility Parker displayed the other night in the parking garage. A mad scientist like herself—at least, Parker assumed that’s what she was—couldn’t possibly resist getting their grubby little hands on her blood for research or experimentation. Both, probably.
And now they knew what she looked like and where she lived, so it was safe to say they definitely knew her identity. The way she saw it, she’d have to leave New York and start over to get off their radar, though even that wasn’t guaranteed.
Also, what was the deal with that albino man on the other side of the mirror? Just his presence made her sixth sense go haywire. And he was just standing there.
“What’re you thinking?”
Parker’s attention flickered to Frank behind the counter. “When I was taken, there was this guy who just…He was just standing there, watching, but I knew… ” She pursed her lips. “Okay, so I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve got this sixth sense that tells me when shit’s about to go down or when someone’s bad news. It’s a built-in threat detector, basically. And it was going nuts when I saw him.”
Frank nodded, brows drawn. “You think he’s enhanced?”
“I don’t know.” Maybe. “He was built like a football player with these huge, bulky shoulders, and he had to have been, like, nearly seven foot. I think he was albino, too, which was interesting.”
Something sharp shifted in Frank’s gaze. He stared at Parker with a look that said he was deciding whether or not to tell her something.
Parker was nothing if not curious. “What? You know who I’m talking about?”
“Kid—”
“Who is it?”
Frank exhaled slowly. “Alonzo Lincoln.” His voice was grim.
Lincoln. Lincoln? “Who’s that?” Her mind raced—she’d been trying to figure out who “Lincoln” was from that night at the pawn shop. Only, with everything else that had popped up since then, she mostly forgot about it.
“No one good.”
Obviously . “That doesn’t really help me much, Frank.”
“He goes by Tombstone, if that tells you anything. Word is he got a knock-off version of the super-soldier serum.”
Fantastic. Parker rolled this information over in her mind. The pieces were falling into place, but it didn’t make the situation any clearer. A super-soldier serum, a crime syndicate pulling the strings—what did they want with her blood? To replicate whatever enhancements the spider gave her?
Something was dripping. It was a slow, rhythmic dripping, like a leaky faucet. She had noticed it yesterday, but now, in the thoughtful silence that stretched between the two, it became louder.
She glanced over at him, meeting his eyes for a second longer than she usually would. He had another gun out and was loading that one up, too.
“I know where they held me,” she said, slowly. She wasn’t totally sure if she ought to be telling this to a man who was literally gearing up to shoot someone. “I can call the police and send them over there to raid the building.”
Frank shook his head. The bullets clinked against each other as he thumbed them into the magazine. “Nah, the cops won’t get the job done.”
“Well, they’re trained for this kind of stuff, right? And if these people are behind bars, then we can go back home.”
“The cops?” Frank set down the mag. “They’ll show up, wave their badges around, maybe arrest a few guys, and then go home. But nothing changes. They’re underfunded, corrupt, and half the time, they’re working for the same people we’re trying to take down.”
Parker shifted in her seat. She wasn’t exactly a fan of the police either—growing up in Queens, she’d seen enough to know not every officer had their heart in the right place. But the way Frank was speaking, it was like he wasn’t even considering the possibility that the law might help. A part of her wondered if he was just itching to kill again—that he would use this as an excuse to shed blood—but he didn’t seem like a hobby murderer who shot people for kicks. Parker had been his neighbor for at least six months before actually meeting him and realizing that he was the Punisher, and she never once overheard him doing evil things next door or even coming home smelling like gunpowder.
“What’s your plan, then?” she asked. “We can’t just walk in there and take them all on by ourselves, Frank. They…” She paused, realizing that her memory was spotty. She got away fairly unscathed, she knew that much, but Tombstone wasn’t there, and they were probably banking on the fact that the paralyzing drug would last longer than it did, so they must not have had much security at the time. Something tells her they’re much more heavily guarded after her escape. “It just doesn’t sound smart. It’ll be, like, twenty against two.”
Frank didn’t appear swayed. “It won’t be twenty against two, because you’re not going.”
Oh. My. God. “If it’s because I’m a girl, you’ve got some serious misogyny to address.”
Frank gave her a deadpan look. “It’s not because you’re a girl. If you show up on their doorstep, you’d just be giving them exactly what they want.”
Parker opened her mouth to argue, but the words died in her throat as she processed what he said. It was true. They were looking for her. She’d already been the target once, and stepping back into their territory would put her right back into the crosshairs.
But that didn’t sit well with her. She wasn’t helpless; she wasn’t some damsel in distress. “I can’t just sit on my hands, Frank,” she finally said, her voice tight with frustration. “And you sure as hell can’t do it on your own, not with your side. You need me, man. I’ve got super powers . Why would you bench your star player?”
She was right, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And as stubborn as Frank was, Parker was equally so.
Sensing this, Frank pushed off the counter and said, “You’re not going in, and you’re not calling the cops. You want them to come in, they’ll just get in the way.” He shot her a stern look. “We do it my way.”
His way, meaning killing everyone on sight? Hell no. But with Parker there, she’d be able to minimize his damage.
“Sure.”
Frank’s eyes didn’t soften, but he nodded once, sharply. “And no reckless shit. You push too far, I’ll drag you out of it myself. Understood?”
Parker could see the weight in his eyes—the genuine concern buried beneath the layers of hardened military and past trauma. Despite what he said earlier, she could tell part of him was bothered by the fact that she was a girl and she was involved in this mess. She’d have to prove herself, then.
“Understood.”
_
It didn’t take long for Parker to retrace her steps with Frank in tow to the building where Doc had her restrained and drugged. It was just after noon, and the gray blanket of clouds blocked any warmth from shining down on the pair. Parker was glad for her mask and for the hoodie, though she eyed Frank’s black jacket with envy. He didn’t appear affected by the harsh wind or brisk autumn temperature at all.
They each had an earpiece in. When Parker finished them earlier that morning, she held both up to Frank with pride and said, “Left or right?” The left earpiece was tucked into Frank’s ear as they approached the building; Parker had the right.
They were at the back door. The plan was for Frank to enter through the roof entrance and for Parker to head by the door to catch anyone trying to escape, but as Frank pulled at the fire escape ladder, Parker paused and frowned.
“Wait.”
Frank squinted at her. “What?”
Parker leaned an ear against the brick and closed her eyes. Straining her ears, she focused on blocking out the sounds of the city surrounding them and narrowed-in on only the sounds from the building. Water in pipes. Hum of electricity.
No heartbeats, no drags of breath. It was empty.
Parker ripped the back door open, breaking the lock, and strode inside.
“ Hey , what are you—”
Parker tuned Frank’s protests out and made quick work of scanning the hallways. She broke each locked door to peer inside. When she made it to the room she was kept in, the one with the one-way mirror and dentist chair, she stilled. Where is everyone?
All the rooms were gutted of anything not nailed down: medical equipment, the dentist chair, any other furniture. It was as if they were never even there. As if it were the wrong building. But it was the right place, because Parker was literally there yesterday. The mirror was the same, and there was a mark in the tiles where the chair must’ve scraped the floor as they were moving everything out.
A heartbeat behind her alerted Frank’s lingering presence at the door.
“Welp,” Parker said, turning around and throwing her hands up. “Looks like they cleared out.”
“You’re sure this is the right place?” Frank asked.
“One hundred percent.” Parker turned in a slow circle. She nodded to the mirror. “Our Tombstone guy watched from the other side of the glass. There was a chair here—” She made a sweeping motion to where the scratches in the floor were. “—and a little cart here.”
Frank scanned the room as if he were visualizing her descriptions. “They probably stay moving. Keeps them off the grid, makes them harder to find.” It was probably why neither Frank or Parker had heard of The Black Hand before.
“Great.” Parker was stumped. “Now what?”
Frank, still in the doorway, glanced down each end of the hall before returning his gaze to the girl standing in the middle of the empty room. “Who was the weasel you talked to before? Nick?”
“Rick?”
He lifted his chin. The overhead lighting highlighted the shadows of his scarred face. “He talked once, he’ll talk again.” He pushed off the doorframe. “Let’s go.”
There was no room for argument. With one last glance at the room, Parker turned and followed.
“We’re not killing Rick,” she said when she matched his pace.
Frank gave her a subdued look. “We?”
“Whether you like it or not, we’re a team—” Frank scoffed and shook his head. Parker ignored his reaction. “—so your actions reflect back on me. One dead body, and my reputation is ruined forever.”
“You agreed to doing things my way.”
Parker crossed her arms. “I’m not going to kill anyone.”
“Hell, kid, I don’t expect you to. I don’t want you to.” Frank gave her a look she couldn’t decipher as he pushed the door open and they stepped outside. “What makes you think I’m going to kill Rick? He’s wrapped up in this shit, sure, but he ain’t nothing more than a lowlife.”
Parker shrugged. That was reassuring, at some level.
“Where’s Rick live, anyway?”
“East Brooklyn,” Parker replied. It took her a moment to realize Frank had stopped walking alongside her, and when she did, she stopped as well and turned.
Frank was squinting at the sky. “Wasting daylight getting over there.”
Not that the thick clouds allowed much daylight to shine through anyways. She set her hands on her hips and shrugged. “I can swing us over. It’ll take fifteen minutes tops.” Frank uttered a “Hell no” before she even finished. “Why not? It’s so much faster.”
“I’m not hanging onto you like a sloth.”
“It’ll only be for a little bit.”
“Absolutely not.”
“I promise I won’t drop you, I’m sticky!”
Frank leveled Parker with a hard stare.
Five minutes later, they were sitting side-by-side, knees knocking into each other, as they rode the crowded subway in silence. Parker’s mask was hiding under her hoodie—”leaving incognito mode,” she announced when she had slipped it off—and Frank’s gun was tucked away in his jacket.
Parker always enjoyed the subway, though she rarely took it anymore since it was much more convenient to swing above the streets rather than to pass below them. One thing she missed from the bumpy rides, though, was the people watching. A baby sitting in his mom’s lap across the aisle grinned at Parker and giggled at the faces she pulled. Frank watched silently, face as stony and unreadable as always.
“Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers flowed through the earpiece in her right ear. An added bonus to fixing up another set of airpods: getting to listen to music again. She offered the tunes to Frank, but he declined. It was probably a good thing, because Parker wasn’t sure he’d be into any of her music. What kind of music did the Punisher listen to, anyways? She gave him a sideways glance. Rock for sure. And maybe also some classic country.
Parker and Frank got off the subway in East Brooklyn. As they stepped off, Parker wiggled her fingers and said, “bye bye” to the smiley baby. He bounced and cooed happily.
Once on the surface, Parker commented, “Babies are cute, but I don’t think I could handle one 24/7.” She started towards Rick’s place. Frank followed quietly. Conversationally, Parker asked, “Did you ever have any kids?”
Frank followed her question with a long silence. She had to glance beside her to make sure he was still there. His face was set in a hard stare, like he was reinforcing his walls. “How far?” he gritted out.
Hm. Touchy subject. “Not too far, just a few blocks this way.” She’d let it go—for now.
_
Rick wasn’t home, but they were able to slip inside through the broken window without trouble. Well, Parker was; she had to open the front door to let Frank in so he didn’t submit himself to the humiliation of being a grown man climbing through a window.
As Frank cleared the house, Parker rustled through the papers strewn across the table. Her eyes landed in a pale yellow sticky note crumpled up in the trash. Plucking it from the top of the pile, she carefully unfolded it.
“Cha-ching.” She flashed it to Frank as he looked over from the bedroom he was checking out. “Why are criminals so predictable?”
“Makes our job easier.”
“Hell yeah it does.” Parker ran her eyes over the messy handwriting. 2870 Linden Blvd, Brooklyn, NY, it read, with a time scrawled beside it: 1:00. It was noon now. And the address wasn’t too far. There was a chance it wasn’t for today, or that it was 1:00 am and not pm, but it was sitting on top of the trash—chances were, it was recent. What was the harm in trying?
“Wanna swing over?”
Frank strode over and took the note. Turning to the front door, he said, “Ask me that again, see what happens.”
“Wanna—”
He shot her a glare over his shoulder. But Parker could tell—his tough exterior was breaking.
“Come on.” He nodded out the door after opening it. Parker followed like a duckling.
As they walked, Parker continued her playlist and subtly bobbed her head to the beat pulsing through the earpiece. The current song was Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy,” one of Parker’s favorites.
Frank cast her a sidelong look when she started mouthing the lyrics. She pointed to her ear. “Music. Do you want to sync up?”
“I’m good.”
She shoved her hands back into her pocket. With her mask still tucked inside, her hands were crowded, but in a good, warm way.
Frank’s eyes scanned every corner, every alleyway as they walked in silence, his hand never far from the weapon under his jacket. It seemed like a natural pose for him. Like it was comfortable.
There was a lot about Frank that Parker didn’t vibe with, but there was also something about him that made her feel safe. It was a strange thing to admit, especially after witnessing him shoot someone in person, but Frank’s presence, even in silence, had a steadiness to it. He was all business, but there was a layer of protection she hadn’t known she needed until she’d felt it last night. Of all the homes she lived in over the past decade—and there were a lot —that garage was the one she felt the most secure in. And that was even with the squeaky bedsprings, dirty pillow, and lack of solid walls.
It was Frank that made it feel safe. Again—strange thing to admit. But she couldn’t fathom sleeping soundly with her old foster brother Steven twenty feet away from her in a room without walls, much less a door without a lock. Nothing between them.
Parker kicked an aluminum can to snap herself from her thoughts. She watched as it skittered across the sidewalk, and as she came up on it again, instead of kicking it, she picked it up and tossed it into a recycling bin an impressive distance away. Or, it would’ve been impressive if she didn’t have crazy enhancements.
Her thoughts crawled back to the garage. She couldn’t stop replacing Frank’s sleeping form with Steven’s. Suddenly, Mariah Carey’s angelic high notes sounded too shrill in her ears. She paused the song with a tap.
Focus . She needed to stay on track if she wanted her head to be in the right place when she and Frank found Rick.
“What?”
Parker’s eyes darted to Frank’s. He was watching her with that sidelong look again.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah, I know.” He glanced around. The street was fairly empty. His eyes landed back on her. “You sense danger or something?”
“No? I was just thinking.” This was why she wore a mask—she was far too easy to read.
“About?”
“Nothing.” She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “It’s irrelevant.”
Frank’s eyes narrowed slightly, but then he tore his eyes away and didn’t press. Parker was glad; she was a shit liar. And even if she wasn’t she had a feeling Frank had a good bullshit detector.
A silence fell over them as they walked. Finally, ten minutes later, they reached their destination: a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant.
“Huh,” Parker uttered as they stood outside on the street. They were positioned behind an Amazon truck parked illegally in the bike lane. (Parking violations were the only crimes where Parker looked the other way.) “Is there a Thai mob?”
“It doesn’t have to be an Italian restaurant for them to be cleaning money for the Italians.”
Parker considered this. “Or maybe our guy’s just on a date.”
“Nah.”
Whatever. Parker stood on the tips of her toes for a better look through the large front windows. It was a quarter ‘til one, so they likely wouldn’t see Rick for a while. The restaurant was busy with the lunch rush; people came and went constantly, the bell above the door jingling more often than not.
She really hoped this went smoothly—there were way too many civilians in the vicinity. Frank wouldn’t put innocent people’s lives at risk, but there was no doubt in her mind that he’d probably be okay with causing a scene if it meant they could get this whole thing over and done with as fast as possible. There was no telling who was waiting here for Rick, either. For all they knew, it could be a whole army of mobsters. Frank didn’t seem to have a problem with things going sideways. In fact, she got the feeling that if everything went perfectly smooth, he’d be disappointed.
Parker eyed Frank beside her. The hand over his weapon.
“Idea,” she blurted. “Let’s watch him go in, wait for his date to get over, then follow him until he’s somewhere less public before we make our move.”
“Sounds like a waste of time.”
“There’s a ton of families in there. What if, when we approach him, there’s some undercover bodyguards or whatever that jump out and start shooting at us? Someone could accidentally get hit in the crossfire.”
Frank grunted, brow furrowed. “We’ll pull him before he goes in.”
“What if—”
“I’m not wasting my whole day stalking this guy.”
“It wouldn’t take all day.”
“You don’t know that, he could be in there for hours.”
Before she could retort, she caught a glimpse of a man in the corner of her eyes that made her turn. Bingo .
Rick was walking briskly towards the door. The puffy coat he wore swallowed his frame and made his denim-clad legs look like little toothpicks. He was hugging a manilla folder to his chest.
“There’s our guy,” she said, nodding towards him.
Frank’s body went still, and his eyes locked onto the man like a hawk spotting its prey. Just when he was about to move—to pounce—Parker webbed his feet in place.
“Parker, I swear to god.”
“We’re waiting.”
His face was almost comical. His wide, tough gait reminded her of a bulldog, and now the deep, angry lines in his face made him look like one, too.
“Can’t keep pulling shit like this with me, kid.”
“Or what?” It wasn’t a challenge; Parker was genuinely curious what Frank would do. He’d never hit a woman unless she was straight-up evil. Even then, some part of his strange moral code would probably cringe. Parker literally couldn’t think of anything Frank would do to her to cause her direct harm other than, like, hurting her feelings.
He shook his head, jaw clenching. “You’re lucky I don’t strangle you.”
Parker couldn’t help the grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Rick, oblivious to the two of them standing just out of sight, entered the restaurant without a glance over his shoulder. As soon as the door shut behind him, Frank sighed. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”
“Can’t say I haven’t heard that before.” She watched through the window as Rick was approached by a guy in a dark polo and khakis. They were both grinning as they shook hands. She tried to focus on sifting through all the input her brain was receiving, narrowing in on Rick and the conversation he was having with the polo guy.
With the jingling door bell, the mingling customers, and the grumbling of her stomach (a natural reaction to smelling Thai cuisine), it was hard to isolate his voice. All she got was their polite greetings, a “thank you,” and some laughing. The guy he was talking to had a thick accent that only made it harder to decipher.
Rick handed the manilla folder over, they shook hands again, laughed again, and then Rick was leaving.
“That was fast.” Parker turned to Frank, who was cutting his shoes free from the webs. “Aren’t you glad we waited? He’s done already.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He wiped the blade of the knife against his thigh before pocketing it. He started down the street in the direction Rick was headed. “Come on, before we lose ‘em.”
“Yessir.”
_
Rick was washing his hands in the gross subway bathroom when Parker—masked up, so technically Spider-Man—and Frank walked in. Parker confirmed before they pushed the door open that it was empty.
Rick’s eyes flickered to Frank and Parker, then shot back to them in a double-take when he processed who had followed him in.
“Woah, woah, what is this?” He dried his wet hands off on his coat before holding them up innocently as he looked between the two approaching him. His eyes focused on Spider-Man. “Hey, Spidey—good to see you, man. I thought they nabbed you.”
Aw. That was actually nice.
Frank, evidently, did not feel as touched. He took two steps forward and grabbed Rick by the throat to slam him into the wall. Parker rolled her eyes but let him do his thing.
Rick squeaked at the impact. “What do you want?!”
“Where’s Lincoln?”
“Lincoln who?”
“You know who.”
“I am literally so confused right now.” Rick spoke quickly, words running into each other. His wide eyes darted to Parker standing behind Frank. “Can you call off your attack dog?”
Frank added pressure to his neck. Parker knew this because Rick let out another squeak.
“Okay, okay, okay. Just chill, bro. Lincoln who ?”
“Tombstone,” Frank replied, and realization washed over Rick’s face. “Ringing bells now?”
“I have nothing to do with that psychopath.”
“Bullshit,” Frank said matter-of-factly. “You work for the Black Hand.”
“Barely. I told him”—Rick nodded to Parker—”that I only do the small stuff, like moving shit around. The only reason I’m wrapped up in this shit is because my idiot cousin owed the wrong guy money and—look, it’s a long story. I seriously don’t know anything important.”
Frank pulled his fist back, ready to punch. Parker decided it was time to step in.
She caught his fist and lowered it. Frank didn’t take his razor-sharp eyes off Rick.
In morse code, Parker quickly tapped “Ask restaurant” into her earpiece. She watched Frank’s focus shift slightly as he listened to the translation in his ear, but his edge never softened. “What were you doing at the restaurant?”
“Like I told him , I help small businesses out with their finances when they can’t afford fancy accountants or financial advisors. Mr. Aromdee has been a client for years.”
That checked out. Whatever was in that manilla folder was probably whatever financial mumbo jumbo was on his laptop when Parker ambushed him in his home yesterday.
“He clean money for the Italians? The Russians?”
“Absolutely not. He’s a respectable man making an honest living.”
This was going nowhere. Frank must’ve felt it, too, because he switched gears. “You don’t know where to find Lincoln?”
“No.”
“Then tell me who does.”
Rick sighed. “I’m going to miss my train—”
Frank pressed harder against his throat.
His voice was thin and shrill as he exclaimed, “I don’t know! I swear!”
Just as Parker was about to intervene again, a phone went off. Parker's eyes zeroed-in on the lit-up screen showing through the front pocket of his pants.
Frank dug the phone out himself, one hand still keeping Rick in place. Parker felt it was unnecessary; there was no way he’d be stupid enough to attempt to run.
With a glance at the screen, Frank hit the green answer button and put it on speaker. His intense, steady eyes stared directly into Rick’s soul. Challenging him.
“Hey, Dom. What’s up?” Rick’s voice cracked nervously.
Parker perked up at the name.
“Where’s the van?” came the gruff demand from the speaker. No time for pleasantries.
“ Shit ,” he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and craning his neck to the ceiling. “I’ll have it back in time for—” He paused and looked between Frank and Parker. “I’ll have it back in a couple hours.”
“ Where is it?”
“My girlfriend’s car got impounded and she Doordashes, she needed something to drive.”
A pause. Then: “What the fuck, Rick?”
Frank and Parker exchanged a look. Rick, still pressed against the wall, looked simultaneously exhausted, scared, and defeated. “I swear I’ll have it back by tonight.”
“You have two hours.”
The call ended. Rick leaned his head against the gross tile of the wall and muttered curses under his breath. “What am I doing with my life.”
Frank moved so his hand was only gripping the man’s shirt in his fist. He turned to Parker behind him and said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
If he meant riding in the back of the van while Rick drove them straight to whatever was going down that night, then, yeah, she was thinking what he was thinking.