csi_sanders1129 | Fic: Worlds Collide (Comfortember) (Reply)

Title: Worlds Collide
Chapters: 1/1
Author:

csi_sanders1129
Genre: AU. Drama.
Ratings: T
Word Count: 1356
Pairings/Characters: Frank Castle, Peter Parker; The Mute/Diarmuid
Synopsis: In which memories of another life allow Frank Castle to meet Peter Parker.
Comments: Written for Comfortember 2020, Prompt: Panic Attacks. Set between S1 and S2 of Punisher, set post Homecoming, pre-Infinity War for Spiderman. Probably gonna add to this. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

Frank is doing his best to keep his head down in the aftermath of taking down Rawlins and Anvil. He doesn't need any more trouble in his life. Just wants to move on from all the things Billy's betrayal took from him – his wife, his children, his life. He lets himself blend into the world around him, unnoticed but always vigilant of his surroundings, just in case. Those habits die hard.

He's walking to work – another construction gig, he's good at those, thrives on the mindless, tiring work that leaves him too exhausted to dream when he returns to his shitty apartment at the end of the day. No one there cares if he talks or doesn't, no one cares about him at all so long as he shows up and gets his work done, and he always does that.

Until someone shoulder checks him as they pass on the sidewalk. Frank fully intends to ignore it, doesn't need to get fired for some bullshit fight just off-site, doesn't need to deal with the cops, doesn't need to bug David again to hack him out of trouble.

The man who bumps into him whirls around to snap a sharp, "Watch it!" over his shoulder. Frank's eyes flick over the stranger briefly, notices a wicked scar over one eye and a scowl on the man's face. Their eyes meet for the briefest of seconds…

And, inexplicably, something snaps.

Suddenly Frank's flooded with images in his head of a life he never lived. He sees himself somewhere lush and green and quiet, trailing after a young man dressed in monks robes, who keeps glancing back at him. He sees himself squaring off with a man who looks remarkably like the one that just crashed into him and even in this weird hallucination, he doesn't like that the man is between him and the young monk. He sees himself fighting with swords instead of guns, sees the red haze of battle fall over him, sees the boy snap him out of it faster than anything else ever has, even when he's faced with the brunt of it. He sees himself standing on a beach, the monk in a boat behind him, screaming for him, and he sees the stranger in front of him, who seems, for some reason, utterly determined to kill him.

When he snaps back to reality he's on his knees in the middle of the sidewalk, trying desperately to suck in air as his heart tries valiantly to escape the cage of his chest. It's hardly the first panic attack he's ever had, and there's never a good place to have one, but here, now…

What the hell even was that?

His chest feels tight and no matter what techniques he tries – all the bullshit ways that are supposed to help: deep breathing, self-awareness, focus objects – nothing stops it. He knows it's happening, he knows he's hyperventilating and he knows he needs to stop it but something about those vivid memories? dreams? hallucinations? seems too real, too detailed, too familiar.

People dodge around him, averting their eyes to his crisis, crossing the street to avoid him.

He's not surprised. He knows how shitty people can be. Probably better they don't try to help, really, he's liable to lash out at anyone who touches him right now.

But, then, suddenly, a hand lands on his shoulder.

Immediately, he tenses, fully prepared to stop what he's sure has to be the beginnings of a confrontation. The panic attack has his adrenaline way too high to do anything else. A part of him expects it to be the scarred stranger, come back to finish whatever that nightmare vision started, but instead, there's a young man standing at his side. He's not dressed in monks robes now, but in a jeans and a hoodie, a backpack slung casually over one shoulder. His face is the same, though – his eyes are the same eyes that snapped him out of his own head in the woods long ago, that look of concern on his face is the same one he'd seen when the boy had realized he intended to challenge the stranger.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" There's worry in the boy's voice. For him. Like there was in the boy's voice before.

Frank takes a deep, steadying breath and grasps the hand on his shoulder. "Can you… just keep talking?"

"Sure," the not-monk easily agrees. He kneels down beside him, unconcerned by the waves of people forced to move around them on the crowded sidewalk. "That's easy. My name's Peter, by the way. You're having a panic attack, right? I've had them before – they're awful. But it's okay," he promises, "You're okay. Did you know…?"

He listens as the boy rambles on about the most obscure facts he's ever heard. Jumping randomly from topic to topic in a way that makes it so Frank has to concentrate on his voice if he wants to keep up with the rapid fire shifts in subject matter. It works – impressively quickly, Frank thinks – as focusing on that means he can't focus on the rapid fire beating of his heart.

When Frank's through the worst of it, Peter seems to know, because he slows down, too, trails off in the middle of some random piece of trivia about spiders. "Better?"

"Yes. Thank you," he manages, accepting the hand the young man offers and pulling himself to his feet. They move out of the way of the people around them, off to the edge of the sidewalk. "Frank," he offers, shaking Peter's hand.

"Just glad I could help," Peter smiles a truly amazing smile. "Hey, so, this is going to sound really weird, but I feel like we've met before?"

Frank refuses to think that Peter means what he thinks he means. Surely, the boy's seen him on the news, tied up in the Wilson Fisk stuff with the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, or the more recent situation with Anvil. It has to be that, Peter can't actually know him from some past life. "Yeah?"

Peter looks hesitant, but he goes on, "Only… would you believe me if I said it was in a dream?"

"You were a monk," Frank admits. Just enough to see if it's the same not-dream.

Peter nods, clearly astonished. "I think my name was Diarmuid, then. It wasn't a dream, was it?"

Frank shakes his head, doesn't think so. People don't share dreams. Not like that. "The man… the one who… kills me. I saw him." There's always some undercurrent of his mind that's on alert, but with the realization that this is really real, that awareness notches up. If those past lives really happened, if Peter really was Diarmuid the monk, if he really was the mute soldier determined to protect him, then it stands to reason (to whatever extent reason can still be applied to the situation, at least) that that man is real, too. And some part of him still thinks that the stranger is a threat to them both.

Peter is clearly suspicious, too. His eyes dart up and down the streets around them, searching the man out. "Do you think he remembers, too?"

He shrugs, there's no way to know unless the man makes a move. Frank decides that he can't let that happen. He'll have to figure out some way to stay close to Peter, keep him safe.

But, Peter takes care of that for him. "Look, there's this little coffee shop down the block that I've been meaning to try. Would you, uh… maybe to want to join me? We can talk about this some more."

Frank nods in acceptance of the offer. Much like his past self always followed Diarmuid, he feels compelled to follow Peter.

Unbeknownst to him, however, Peter is thinking the same thing – that he can't let Frank meet the same fate as his mute protector did in that other life. Diarmuid had nothing, Peter has Spiderman, has Tony Stark and the rest of the Avengers to back him up.

Raymond de Merville won't win this time.