Pilot
"It was always just clothes and cars and women with you," Frank twitched his fingers. "It the only thing that ever mattered."
Billy bet Frank was just itching to find a way out of that chair. "It's what those things represent, Frank."
"What's that?"
"How far I've come." "It's about...," Billy licked his lips. "-who I see when I look in the mirror," he slowly stood up with his back straight, towering over his old friend. "I know who you see," he nodded, thinking of how Frank never really had what it takes.
He never could keep all his ducks in a row.
Billy stepped forward. Almost catlike, easy on his heels. “You see a man who lost. Lost his family, lost his faith," he rounded the chair. "About to lose his life,” he crouched down, showing how he wasn't scared. He wasn't scared of someone like Frank, someone who cared too much, someone who couldn't own what he was; that he was just. As bad. As he was.
That's why Billy was the one looking him in the eye and why Frank was the one bound to the chair.
And he made sure Frank could hear him. Every last word. Clearly.
“That ain’t never gonna be me.”
"No?" Frank eyed him and shook his head. "Pshhh," he scoffed. "You're wrong, Bill."
Billy pinned Frank under his cold gaze, almost grinding his teeth. Really now?
“What about your wife, Bill?”
Billy’s face dropped.
“Does she know about this?” Frank let out a small laugh, almost shaking in the kick he was giving. This was one for the history books. The look on his face alone was almost satisfying enough for all the shit he's been through the last year. Almost.
“Does she know you became everything you hate?”
He really made The Billy Russo...lose his cool.
Billy was looking down at him now, suddenly not on his level anymore, and giving Frank a dark look in the face. The only sign Frank could tell Billy was listening to him was the slight twitch in his nose.
“Not much of a little while back I made a little visit to a house in the suburbs, very in your face house too!"
Billy gritted his teeth.
"Knocked on the door, being a Good Samaritan and telling her someone had spray-painted the side of her house. Old," he clicked his teeth and winked. "-move I learned from working with Lieberman." Frank huffed a brisk laugh. "She invited me in, gave me some hot cocoa and I just couldn’t help but notice how her rings didn’t match."
"Usually...the wedding ring is more simple, but at least they still match. Somewhat," he chuckled to himself. "Now I know that one from Maria. But I'm sure you knew that."
"Frank--"
"One was a big lug of rock I tell you, I almost said congratulations. White gold too?" Frank whistled. "Phew."
"Frank--"
"But you knew that,” Frank gave Billy a stone cold look and twitched his nose. “Then I looked at the band and clocked how it was black and then BOOM. I realized I saw the same ring before…around your neck."
"Frank!"
Frank never really gave too much thought to the ring, or how happy Bill looked when he asked if he had any plans for when he got back home. Any other time he caught it, it was on home soil and Frank figured it was just a fashion statement. And most of the time Bill wore hoodies or jerseys, so he barely saw it. "Trying to tuck it with your dog tags too.”
Billy yanked his gun out of its holster.
“Awe come on…,” Frank clicked his tongue, watching him step away and eye the woman clacking on the keyboard in the back. “I thought we were friends, Bill. All that shit I was talking about you settling down in Kandahar and you were already married.”
Billy turned back to Frank. Almost seeming out of breath, he sucked air through his nose and gritted his teeth.
"Low and behold, Billy the Beaut has a wife," Frank let out a breathy laugh and shook his head again. He's never seen Billy so worked up. Especially over a woman. "I had to be sure, you know, so I asked just to make sure I wasn't intruding in some widow's home or asking about a random man she was married to instead, but no. Lieberman was right."
Billy drew the gun to Frank's head.
"She's honest, too. Says whatever's on her mind."
"Keep talking and I'm going to put a bullet in you."
"Does she know that you gave my baby girl a death sentence?" Frank sniffed with glassy eyes. "Hm?" He watched his former friend's nose twitch. "Please don't tell me she wants to have kids with that big house of hers cause that'd be some kinda sick irony ther—"
"I said!" Billy's voice reverberated so loud that the entire hideout could hear. "-keep talking and I'm gonna put a bullet in you, Frank!"
"Beautiful woman you got there, I would've loved if you brought her home for dinner, hell, she's so sweet, Maria and her would've made fast friends."
Billy clenched the gun in his hand.
"Every man breaks, Bill," Frank gave a slight shake to his head, itching for him to do it. "Every man breaks."
"I swear to God Frank," he tightened his grip on the gun so hard Frank could hear it. "-if you hurt her—"
"What? What are you going to do, Russo? You still need me right?"
"You sick bastard--"
"That ache in your chest? The one like the walls are closing in, yeah?" Frank flinched his chin. "The one when you can't do nothing about it? Helplessness?" he laughed. "You don't know the half of it," he switched into a cough. "Right Rawlins!" he called out, making Billy whip his head with a crazy look in his eye. "This dog of yours is losing his leash!"
Rawlins emerged from his left with dark gloves in his hands and a couple of more of Billy's ANVIL guys behind him. Ooo, he must've been in for a treat.
"I was wondering when you were going to show up," Frank trained his eye on Billy. "I was just having fun here."
"Stand down, Lieutenant," Rawlins told him, which made Billy step back and hold his gun up, as if to say "alright, alright."
He could try to school his features but Frank knew. He got him.
"We can't kill him just yet, Billy," Rawlins rounded the corner while expertly slipping his gloves on. "I know you want to call it a day." Sick bastard. "But we still need those passwords."
"Tug on your little doggy's leash and he listens, huh? I'm disappointed, Bill," he calls out as Billy reluctantly steps aside. "He throws you a bone and you do a little trick for him, huh!" Frank peered over as Rawlins started blocking his view. Wasn't looking him in the eye now, was he?
And Rawlins smiled, flexing his hand in his gloves like a gutter-rat.
"You trust this piece of shit, Bill?" Frank leaned over again. "How about Morty Bennett? You think Morty Bennett trusted him?"
"Billy and I have mutual interest, Frank," Rawlins flexed his fingers with that cruel, condescending look in his eye. "What benefits him benefits me."
"Yeah, and how about when it doesn't, asshole? What happens, then?"
Rawlins smiled to himself again.
Those gloves.
"Your stupid-ass gloves. You...Are those the same ones, or did you get yourself a new pair?"
"These are special," he pointed. "Just for you, Castle," Rawlins drew closer.
Right in front of him.
"You gonna do something with 'em?" Frank grout out, ready as ever.
Frank grunted with the first hit. And the second. And the next couple.
Rawlins wasn't done yet. Panting, Frank spit out the tooth that had wretched loose from his mouth before he ended up swallowing it from panting. He could take this.
Frank laughed. He started laughing. From the back of his throat, too. Rawlins was literally salivating at the mouth. A sadist's mission, huh?
And another's reward.
"Come on, William," he chuckled at a thought. "What you got?"
"Rawlins Lieutanent," he said with a smile before planting another blow. He pulled back with a tired huff.
Already?
"Rank still applies!"
"Oh I wasn't talking to you," Frank leaned over again. "I was talking to your other grunt over there."
Frank's never heard anyone beside Bill call him by his full name besides Bill himself. And that was only when he was made to state his legal name.
Frank laughed again, "You hit like bitch, Rawlins." He gurgled as Rawlins readied another hard fist, "You hit like a bitch," one that would definitely send him into the abyss.
But not before Frank saw the look on Billy's face. The jab at his wife made every hit worth it, even if Frank's nose was broken, even if he did end up dead by the end of this.
Lights out.
Billy suddenly remembers why he used to prefer to travel light.
He'd never thought there'd be a day where he would be stuck wiping Frank Castle's blood for some pass-codes. But then again, he'd thought he'd never betray Frank, and yet, here they were.
Frank's blood dripping on the floor from his busted jaw and Rawlins getting ready for another round.
"This is some bullshit." Billy said to himself, for the most part. But he could feel that Frank was pulling himself back awake.
Awake enough to think of jacking the gun out his holster.
"It's not gonna happen, Frank."
Billy stayed there crouched on his knees and watched intently as Frank tried to raise his head with difficulty, regaining some of his senses no doubt.
Who knew that keeping his three lives separate would be so hard.
"The mission ended, Frank. That's the part you just...you don't understand."
Frank groaned as his eyelids fluttered, striving to remain at full consciousness.
"Who are you protecting? Hm?" Billy kept an eye on him as he dipped the rag and wiped Frank's bloody mouth again. "I know who I'm protecting," he eyed Frank with a faraway look as a big splotch of red dirtied the rag. "But what about you?"
"Maria? The kids?" He wiped again. "They're gone. Gunner, Lieberman...There's nobody left. They're dead."
Billy looked up at him with a watchful gaze. "They're all dead because of you."
"And that isn't gonna be me." And he'll be damned if he let the same thing happen to him.
Frank twitched the corner of his mouth.
"I get it. That's a...burden," he blinked at a thought before tilting his head. "A heavy, heavy burden...to live with," Billy sniffed and wiped his nose. "It's time to put it down."
More blood disappeared into the pool under his knees.
"You're a dead man walking, Frankie. I don't want to see you like this. It's depressing."
Almost pathetic, even. Like a parasite. One that couldn't do what it needed to do to keep all its ducks in a row.
Frank groaned, which he ignored.
"Give up the codes, Frank. Give them up and I'll make it clean and fast. Go out like a soldier."
All he got in response was a hard side-eye and some heavy breathing.
Guess this is how they were playing it.
He wiped the rag over Frank's face some more after looking back and finding him with a faraway look in his eye. Disoriented.
Frank started mumbling and, surprisingly, slurred together a cut of coherent words.
"Wait. No, wait. No, Maria," he said to himself weakly in a daze.
"Frank."
"No, Maria."
"Frank?" Billy asked, softer this time while gauging his former friend's current state while watching the indistinct mumbles carefully. Hm. He wasn't in his right head or he would be talking a lot more shit now. Now more than he expected with that little home-visit stunt he pulled.
There was no way he was going to let Frank walk out alive after that.
"Frank," he uttered again, watching him take a deep breath.
"Bill?"
"Yeah," he answered. "Yeah, it's me. I'm here."
I'm here, Billy thought as a memory popped in his head, but he soon pushed it away to focus.
"I'm ready, Bill." Frank let out before a deep sigh.
"Okay," he answered simply.
"It's gotta be you," Frank sniffled with a break in his voice. "It's gotta be clean."
Always am.
"Just don't let him take me, Bill. Promise me that--"
"I won't," Billy kept Frank under his watchful eye. "I promise."
"Bill..."
"Hey. Hey," Billy made Frank meet his eyes. Frank knew he didn't take unnecessary detours and risks. And how he didn't like loose ends. How else would he have gotten this far. "I promise."
"Okay," Frank hung his head in silent relief. "Okay," he sighed.
"Okay."
"It's over there."
Billy signaled to his guys.
"It's a retinal scanner and a keystroke. My...my eye, my right hand," Frank quickly let out a sharp breath. "It's gotta be you, Bill," he breathed with a heavy chest.
"Let's get him up." Billy headed over to the computers with the guys lifting Frank's chair behind him. "Move," he called to the hacker he had hired years back.
"What's happening?" Rawlins called coming up from the rear.
"He saw sense." Billy crouched down and paused, before carefully cutting the zip ties binding Frank's wrist. Frank was regaining some of his senses in a couple minutes. He wondered how much.
Billy straightened up and walked to the side, still careful to keep Frank under his watchful eye. "Just so you know," he scratched his nose and eyed the timer. Three hours. "--we found the gun you had stashed under there."
Frank didn't respond. He was too busy doing what he said he would. Keystrokes...retinal scan...
And the second bar on the computer cut to green and Frank was relaxing in the chair like his work was done for the day. "That's it."
Billy eyed the computer at his shoulder.
"Identity Authenticated."
Something had to give here.
"It's done," Frank emotionlessly stated before sinking his head.
Then Rawlins had to open his goddamn mouth.
"You know, I'm actually a little disappointed in you, Castle." Agent Orange rested a hand on Frank's shoulder.
Next thing Billy heard was a war cry and the sound of his superior's neck getting bitten into.
Billy somehow pried Rawlins away from him, but it wasn't long after before Frank was spitting a chunk of flesh out with a smile on his face.
And laughing his sprawled sorry ass off on the floor.
Billy was about to knock him out with the grip of his gun but Frank stopped him with a low whisper.
"I'll cut you a deal."
Fuck.
"You let me go and let me do what I need to do and you and the Misses get to leave the country, heh?"
Billy's eyes widened. "What did you do, Frank?"
"You like the sound of that, Bill?" Frank held his voice a little louder so Rawlins could hear, ignoring his concern entirely.
"Frank!" Billy raised his voice and clicked the safety off his gun.
"Stand down Lieutenant!" Rawlins kicked Frank in the head and swiftly knocked him out.
Fuck.
"This country needs me Frank. I was the bulwark against our enemies," Rawlins spieled on as Billy stepped down from checking that the hacker did her job and cleared everything out. "What I did was greater than you could ever measure!"
What kool-aid was he on?
Billy wasn't a good person, he can't change that, but he never deluded himself that he was doing this shit for some greater "mission" or to make some change in the world. He didn't need the world.
He just needed enough.
"Do you know what you've done!" Rawlins gripped Frank from under his clavicle.
Just a few more minutes, and Billy could wipe his hands of this. Forever.
"Did they take your pension away? Did you...," Frank yelled as Rawlins landed another blow. "--Oh, God!" Frank yelled.
Always the instigator.
Frank the instigator, Billy the opportunist, and Curtis the escapist. How nice.
Billy watched with his arms folded as Rawlins seethed in Frank's ear, watching his superior's veins bulge in his neck. His blood pressure must be high, the way he was so interested in making Frank suffer.
That's why Billy tried his best not to take things personally, or else he'd end up an old, bitter man past his prime like the one in front of him.
But he had his fair share of watching Frank squirm when he started hyperventilating. A promise is a promise.
"All right," Billy cut in. "That's enough." He stepped down the last step. "We wipe everything and we're done. Then we put him down."
"No." Rawlins huffed harshly, out of breath from being the one providing the torture. "He's taken things from me. For that he does not die easy."
He took your eye so you took his kids?
"Well, I made him a promise."
"I don't care about your promise."
"You said he brought you down. Taken things from you," Billy stepped forward, now miffed at the disrespect. "What exactly?"
Anyone can do a lot more than take a fucking eye. And anyone can do a lot less than killing an entire family.
But regardless of what he thought, Rawlins didn't have an answer. He just kept pummeling Frank to the point his face was more bloody and swollen, even almost unrecognizable.
Now he was digging a finger into a wound on Franks head and chanting for him not to leave him.
Billy inwardly sighed. This would be so much easier if he wasn't too stubborn to die. And if Rawlins wasn't a sadist.
This was the third time he had to yank one of them away from each other and he just wanted to go home.
"This doesn't service me!"
"You serve me! You're just a tool, you understand? Just like he was."
He's lost his goddamn mind. "You've lost your mind," Billy towered over Rawlins with a careful eye. He was serious.
He didn't spend years playing the long game just to be disrespected by a man that almost got his lights knocked out with one punch.
"I was out of Afghanistan clean," he sniffed and towered closer. "And none of this would have happened if you hadn't gone after him. You. Pulled me back into the mud."
"I pulled you out of the mud, gutter rat! Billy, don't get confused. Men like me make the plans. Men like you shed the blood."
Billy's face hardened.
"You think you're clean? Who killed Homeland agents, huh? Not me. No, I...I have everything. I have your doctored discharge papers, the money transfers. You're only as clean as I let you be, because when it's all said and done, you're just a stupid grunt, too!"
“I should’ve let him kill you in that tent.”
"But you didn't."
Then Frank decided to put his two cents in.
"Ahhh, don't worry Rawlins. He couldn't have anyway. You were the only way he was gonna bring money home to the misses."
Billy whipped his head back to Frank. How was he awake?
"Misses?" Rawlins inquired intently. "Misses?" he said a little louder, this time with a laugh in his voice. "Have you been holding out on me, Billy?" He laughed while putting his hands behind his head like he just realized something.
Time for him to go.
Billy swiftly stepped behind Frank with the barrel of the gun poking into the back of his hostage's head.
He so hated that he had to be smart about this, while guys like Rawlins could do whatever based on whatever emotion and live on. Like cockroaches.
And all he could hear was Frank being beside himself with Rawlins' gun being aimed at Billy's chest.
"You will stand down, Lieutenant! I am not repeating myself again! Stand down!" Rawlins breathed shakily with his gun raised. "You will not deny me this! The Castle Family Tragedy can become the Russo one just as easily, gutterat!"
Billy, with masked shaky breathes of his own reached from his pocket and leaned down.
"Don't ever come find us," he whispered. He clipped Frank's zip ties. Not completely, but enough.
It had to be as though he was never here, and if shit hits the fan, he'd rather the two of them kill each other.
But Billy put his hands up in compliance. "You're a sick, sick man."
"He owes me an eye," Rawlins hands shook as he undoubtedly simmered with a form of rage.
And Billy stepped away, and let things play out as the fates decide.
Long game, brother.
You groggily rubbed your eye under your reading glasses as you sat down at the kitchen counter. Long day.
You sighed as you opened your laptop and flipped through the papers that needed your signature. Normal life, normal problems. You sighed again and looked to your right.
Email website? you thought.
Your screen had an open tab already, one with an envelope icon with a large padlock to the side. I thought I closed all those out.
You reached and skimmed your finger over the touch-pad and turned up the brightness.
MP19752? You read off the top bar, next with your eye coming to the side of the tab. The web's most secure email?
The screen already had a saved username and password filling the bars. You knitted your eyebrows in confusion. Why was this on your computer? Billy doesn't use your laptop. You read the bullet points trailing across the sign-in page.
Metadata encryption? Time zone spoofing? Encrypted set up? Username with a..."micro"? What the hell was this?
It couldn't be spam. You kept the upkeep on your shit too good for that. Still looked sketchy, though. You pushed your glasses up your nose and leaned closer. Dark web?
But you clicked the login tab against your better judgement anyway.
There was a loading icon on the screen you caught, but it quickly turned into a long list of files running down the tab. Mp4 files? Videos? You would be happy you weren't getting a virus right now if you weren't more concerned about this not making sense.
You clicked on a random file and a new tab suddenly attacked the screen. There was no exit tab anymore.
It was a video.
A bad one.
Your eyes softened sadly.
"Billy..."