Chapter Text
Karen wakes up the following day with the need to follow a few more sources and check in with the people she does know who are not named Frank, or Matt. A brief stop at her work desk gives her a few messages, a few texts arrange some meetings for later in the day, and after a cup of coffee on the corner, Karen presses Foggy’s name on her phone screen.
After four rings, just before the call would roll into voicemail, Foggy answers, “Karen! Hey! Sorry, I was in an elevator.”
“One day cell phone companies will fix that issue,” Karen says.
“But until that day, so many missed calls,” Foggy says. “So how have you been? We haven’t talked in forever.”
Karen pauses briefly, trying to figure out how to answer that. “Oh, you know. Busy. Following leads.”
“Oh yeah? Working on anything exciting?” Foggy asks. The nice thing about talking to Foggy, or one of the nice things, is that when he asks questions, he’s always sincerely interested in hearing the answers, no matter how long they are. Karen has lost a half hour or so on more than one occasion, because Foggy won’t interrupt with anything other than an encouraging noise or a “go on.”
“Those missing girls, right now,” Karen says. “It’s a little sad, but interesting.”
“Oh right. I read your article about that. You found good leads?”
“Maybe too many good ones,” Karen admits.
“Uh oh. Dangerous ones?” Foggy asks. “Wait, this isn’t a ‘just in case it’s the last time I talk to you’ call, is it?”
“What? No. I don’t think so?”
“Because I’ve fielded calls like that before, and I don’t want to do it with you. I like you in one piece.”
“I’m fine, Foggy. I can take care of myself!”
“I know you can, but the city is full of weird crime right now,” Foggy says. “And think about how many times,” he lowers his voice, “Matt got stabbed or shot or hurt, and he has super senses.”
“I’m not going to take any foolish chances,” Karen promises.
“Okay. Good. I believe in you, you know that,” Foggy says.
“I know you do. How’s your work going?”
“Mostly boring, what with me being a small, but completely adorable, fish in a huge corporate pond,” Foggy says. “I don’t usually get the exciting cases.”
“Find your own exciting cases?” Karen suggests.
“Marci promised me a heads up the next time Jones needs somebody to go down to the station and bail her out. That apparently gets pretty exciting,” Foggy says.
“Well, we know exciting, at least.”
“It’s like that curse, may you live in exciting times.”
“Someone cursed us at birth, Foggy.”
“My money’s on a Shakespearian swamp witch,” Foggy says. “Always bet on the swamp witch.”
Karen laughs in spite of everything. “I’ll keep that in mind, Foggy. I’ll keep that in mind. For all of my betting days.”
“I’m full of sage wisdom, which you’d probably remember if you called me a little more often,” Foggy chides.
“Hint received,” Karen says wryly. “But you could initiate the call.”
“I am already intimately acquainted with your voice mail, thank you.”
“It’s a delightful voice mail that should not be maligned,” Karen says, “and it’s not my fault you call when I’m actively following up leads.”
“Are you ever not actively following up leads? Or ever even just passively following up leads?” Foggy asks.
“Some hours lend themselves more to observation than others?”
“So I should try during daylight hours?’
“But not too early.”
“So it’s a very limited window that I’m shooting for. Noted,” Foggy says. “I should probably get back to work. Marci’s standing in the doorway looking at me sternly.” Marci says something in the background. “Marci says I have used up my time allotted for personal calls. She also says to tell you hello and you still owe her a drink at someplace that, I quote, ‘doesn’t mix their cocktails using bilge pumps’.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Bye, Foggy.”
“Don’t be a stranger, Karen.”
Karen tucks her phone away and heads down the street. There’d been a message about someone with detailed information on the girls, including addresses and combination locks, and Karen hopes she looks non-threatening enough that the person will actually make contact with her. She’s deliberately picked a cafe with a large outdoor space that opened onto an alley, in hopes that the multitude of escape routes would appeal.
She arrives early, so that if the location is being watched, it’s clear she’s arriving alone. She orders a water, then waves the server away. Ten minutes after the scheduled time, a young man sits down across from her, breathing heavily and looking scared.
“You have some numbers for me?” Karen asks.
“You the, uh, newspaper lady?” the young man asks. “You got a badge or ID or something?”
“I am, and I do,” Karen says, flashing her ID briefly without letting him touch it or study it too long.
“So is there, uh, some kind of reward. Uh. For this information?”
Karen exhales, thinking rapidly. There currently isn’t, but without offering one, she doubts she’ll get the information they need. She needs. After another beat, she nods. “There is.”
“How much?” he asks.
“Fifty now,” Karen says, calculating the amount of cash in her bag. “More if it pans out.”
The young man nods his head. “A’ight. But listen, I never saw the guys in charge. They send these big dudes in to hire kids from the neighborhood. We only ever see the big dudes, and the big dudes only ever see their boss. I don’t know who the boss’s boss is.”
“Whatever you know that will help.”
“I know some addresses where the girls get brought,” the young man says. “They don’t keep them there long, though, and those places are locked up tight. Padlocks on the gates, shit like that.”
“I’ll take the addresses anyway,” Karen says. “That’s a big help, thank you.” She pushes her notebook across the table, pen on top. The young man takes the pad and scribbles down two addresses. He squints at what he’s written, scribbles out part of one address, and writes something else.
“Can I get that fifty?” he asks, pen still in hand. Karen pulls it out and sets it on the table. The young man puts his hand on it and pulls it towards himself, then scribbles a series of numbers down under the second address before pushing the pad towards Karen. “I only have the combination for that one.”
“It helps,” Karen says. “I’ll contact you about the rest of the reward after I look into these.”
The guy nods. “How much when the info’s good?”
“I have to talk to my boss to finalize the amount,” Karen says, though she has no intention of talking to anyone but Frank about it.
“And you’ll let me know?”
“I’ll let you know. I promise.”
“Cool,” the young man says standing up and shoving the fifty dollars into his pocket. He disappears down what Karen thinks of as her thoughtfully-chosen alley, and Karen counts mentally to one hundred-fifty before standing up and heading the opposite direction, towards Frank’s. Two addresses and a combination for a lock are a lot more than they had that morning.
Karen barely raps on the door to Frank’s hovel before pushing it out. “Frank, I got something.”
“Intel or take-out?” Frank asks.
“Addresses and a combination lock.”
“Well, that sounds too good to be true,” Frank says. “How’d you manage that?”
“Cash,” Karen says with a shrug.
“Fair enough. Gotta plan?”
“We have to move pretty fast, he says they don’t keep them there long. I’m thinking we let the girls escape, and then confront the perps.”
Frank grimaces. “I ain’t exactly fast right now.”
“I’ll go in. There’s a taller building near one of the addresses, if I’m thinking of the right intersection.” Karen shows Frank the paper.
“Uh-uh. No way you’re ready for that yet,” Frank says. “You think a couple days of firearms practice and you’re ready to storm in there like some kinda—”
“What else can we do?” Karen interrupts.
“We’ll figure out a way to get me in there,” Frank says.
“Frank, I’m not trying to be insensitive, but you can’t roll faster if things get bad!”
Frank scowls. “I can’t let you—”
“Let me?” Karen says. “You don’t let me do anything.”
“You’re damn right I don’t let you do anything! You’re a reporter, not a—I don’t know what I was even thinking with this, teaching you how to shoot,” Frank says, sounding angrier and angrier. “You got no business being out there doing this stuff. This isn’t you. Hell, you don’t even approve of my methods.”
“You were thinking that someone had to do something, and you were right!” Karen says. “Do you want to just let those girls get taken away to—I can’t even imagine what they’ll do to them!”
“Are you really ready to shoot someone? To kill someone?” Frank demands. “Not in self-defense, not in the heat of the moment, but to plan it out, carry it out.” He shakes his head violently. “I was a damn fool, doing this to you, bringing you into this. You don’t believe in what I do. You tolerate it.”
Karen narrows her eyes. “I can’t tolerate the idea of even one girl not being saved when we can do something, either. Most people don’t get the luxury of only doing things they believe in fully, Frank.”
Frank sighs. “Fine. Fine, then, yeah? We’ll do it your way, but you gotta have a plan before you go in. You need an idea of the layout, need to do surveillance, see how many people come in, how many go out, what they’re packing.”
“We can see if the building plans are online, for starters,” Karen says, then repeats to him everything that the young man had said before leaving. Frank nods as he listens, his expression distant, like he’s really thinking over everywhere she’s saying.
“Alright,” he finally says. “You know there’s a good chance you’re not getting close to the guy at the top if you go at it this way, yeah?”
“I didn’t start following the story to get the guy at the top, Frank. I wanted to find the girls.”
“Yeah, and finding them’ll disrupt his operation for a while, too, but you don’t know he won’t start over again in another city, or just wait a few months and be right back at it again here.”
Karen shrugs. “The commotion may result in some investigation from other parties.”
“So we’ve got two locations?”
“But only a combination for one of them.”
“So what’s your plan, then? Hit both? Recon, then decide which one?” Frank asks. “This is your show now, yeah? Tell me how it’s running.”
“Focusing on the one where we have more information, unless recon reveals it’s got other issues,” Karen says.
“Guess we’d better go over some surveillance protocols, then,” Frank says. “Roof?”
“You.”
“Am I gonna be able to help you inside the building from there?”
“Knowing you, probably, but unless you have any other people up your sleeve, you’re on the roof,” Karen says. “I’m not stupid enough to suggest we involve Matt.”
“What about the superhero doc? Think she knows someone who’d help?” Frank asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t—I don’t know if I’d trust someone we just met.”
Frank laughs. “‘Cause we know each other so well?”
“I did a little bit save your life, you know.”
“That an argument for you knowing me or for why you helped me?”
Karen shrugs. “Whichever is most convincing to you.”
“Yeah,” Frank says, shaking his head. “Want me to do up your hair before you put the uniform on?”
“The uniform? Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“What do want to call it?”
“Outfit?”
“Murderin’ suit?”
“That sounds like I’m putting on a fat suit or something, Frank!”
Frank shrugs and pats his knee so Karen-the-dog runs over. “Your stealth gear.” He scratches Karen-the-dog under the chin. “We should’ve worked on stealth. We should take tonight, work on stealth and tactics, go after the place tomorrow night.”
“What if they move them tonight?”
“I know you want to save ‘em. You know I do, too. But going in like this, no real recon, no real plan, me stuck in this,” he smacks the side of one wheel with the flat of a hand, startling Karen-the-dog, “damn chair. Don’t feel right. Too much that can go sideways.”
“The latter isn’t going to change, and too much else could, including the information I have,” Karen says with a sigh.
“Well, like you said, you’re nobody’s Girl Friday. You do whatever you gotta do, long as you get me up on that roof for cover fire,” Frank says, not looking at Karen as he speaks.
“I’ll get you on a roof,” Karen promises. “Maybe we should look at the building layout, make a tentative plan, and then nap.”
“Yeah. Sure, let’s do that.”
Karen smiles, not letting on she was going to insist. She’s pretty sure Frank needs the nap, maybe even needs two naps a day, given how recent his injury was, but if she acts like she needs the nap too, he seems to acquiesce better.
A Google search with a little refinement turns up the layout of the building, and with the help of aerial shots of the area, the two of them come up with a very barebones, tentative plan for the evening. Karen modifies a few of her ideas at Frank’s insistence, and then she looks pointedly at Frank and then the cot.
“Naptime.”
Frank looks at her dubiously, but says, “Yeah,” and rolls towards his pile of blankets on the floor. Karen rolls her eyes, but figures it’s a victory to get Frank to nap without an argument. The question of where to nap will have to be a different fight.
Karen isn’t sure that she can fall asleep, but after fifteen minutes or so of lying on the cot listening to Frank fall asleep, she does drift off. When she wakes up, she can tell by Frank’s breathing that he’s still sleeping, a fact that makes her feel a bit self-satisfied.
She stays on the cot until she hears Frank stir, because there’s no good reason not to continue the deception that she needed the nap. When Frank starts to haul himself off the floor, Karen stretches and sits up, reaching for her shoes before stopping.
“Where did you put my clothes?” she asks Frank. “I should go ahead and change.”
“On the shelf over there,” Frank says, gesturing at an only-somewhat-dilapidated bookshelf. “Cleared the middle one off for you. Couldn’t reach the top, but you can swap ‘em around if you want.”
Karen nods and walks over, picking up the stack of clothing and heading towards the cot to lay it out. She stops midway through the process.
“Frank!”
“What?” Frank asks, all too innocent-sounding.
“Why did you do this!”
“Do what?”
“This!” Karen says, holding up the vest and shaking it towards him. “You know what you did!”
Frank glances up at the vest, which now has a still-slightly-damp white skull sprayed on it, very similar to the one on Frank’s own body armor. “Looks normal to me.”
“It did not have a skull on it before, Frank!”
“Figure it made sense if it looked like mine,” Frank says.
“How, please tell me, does that make sense?”
“If people see it, they’ll know we work together,” Frank says, like that is somehow an important issue. “We don’t want ‘em to think you’re my competition or something, yeah?”
“Frank, you don’t have competition.”
“Exactly. I got you.”
“No one in Hell’s Kitchen thinks you would have competition!”
Frank shrugs. “You never can tell what people’re gonna get worked up about.”
Karen sighs. “Okay, that’s fair. And true.”
“Especially with all the, you know,” Frank waves his hand dismissively, “the gentrifying.”
“The gentrifiers are the ones who get worked up.”
Frank nods his agreement. “Besides, it’s not like like I put a bow on it or anything.”
“If you had, we’d be switching vests, and you know it.”
“Yeah.”
Karen finishes sorting out the clothes and then pivots back to Frank. “I’ll meet you in the hall.”
“I can just turn around, you know,” Frank says, but he starts wheeling towards the door anyway.
“You could, but I like it better this way!” Karen calls after him before quickly stripping down and getting dressed in the uniform. When she gets out into the hall, Frank has also changed. “Do we need to grab anything else?”
“The duffel, make sure we’ve got all the ammo.”
“All of the ammo?” Karen questions.
“You know how many guys they got there?” Frank asks.
“I know how many they had last night.”
“Always assume there’s at least two more than that,” Frank says. “You want to run out of ammo before the job’s done?”
“I think you think I shoot faster than I do,” Karen says, feeling amused.
“I think you’d better shoot faster than they do,” Frank says.
“That was my plan, yes,” Karen says dryly. “That’s my only plan.”
“Good to know you’re prepared.”
“I knew you’d be proud of my preparation.”
It takes less time than Karen expects to get to the location, but more time than she thought to get Frank up to the roof of the adjoining building and set up. She studies the gate with the combination lock on it through her binoculars, then turns to Frank.
“Any last minute changes necessary, you think?” she asks.
“I don’t like this,” Frank says, narrowing his eyes in the direction of the building. “Place this size, should be twice the number of guy on perimeter.”
“Maybe the guy at the top doesn’t trust people,” Karen says. “You wouldn’t, either.”
“Yeah, but I also wouldn’t have a warehouse full of little girls,” Frank says bitterly.
“Well, obviously. Alternatively, he’s split his goons up, and half are at this other address.”
“Maybe,” Frank says, looking dubious. “So you’re going in through the gate, and then what? Around there, back through the side bay?” He points along the side of the building.
“It looked like the best place for holding the girls was near there, so yeah,” Karen says. “My primary goal is to get them free and tell them where to go. ‘Run outside, turn left, turn right, and keep running.’” Karen pauses. “I may tell them that if they need help, they should yell for Daredevil. He’d like swooping in a few blocks away, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, he loves being the big hero, long as his hands don’t have to get too dirty,” Frank says.
“It suits our purposes for tonight,” Karen says.
“Well, this is your show. You tell me how we’re playing this.”
“If I’m able to get in and get out and get the girls out without shooting, I’m good with that,” Karen says. “The point is to make them safe. If I take out a few bad guys, I’m good with that, too.”
“And I’ll be up here,” Frank says. “I’d feel better if you had someone there with you, but I’ll still be up here.”
“We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got,” Karen says optimistically.
“This shouldn’t be on you,” Frank mutters as he shakes his head.
“This shouldn’t be on either of us, but for whatever reason, the police are looking away. Wonder why?” Karen says.
“It’s always the same reasons: money, power, or both,” Frank says. “Whoever the big boss is, he’s somebody with connections. They always are.”
“Exactly, and since the police are looking away, I’m thinking legal power,” Karen says. “Should we wait another thirty minutes for it to get darker and have foot traffic die down, or should we go?”
“Yeah. Lemme have the binoculars, and I’ll watch for a while, see if I can see a rotation pattern with the guards.” Karen hands them to Frank, then leans on the bricks herself, scanning the surrounding area silently. Eventually, Frank lowers the binoculars.
“Well?” Karen asks.
“Looks like fifteen minute rotations, two guys on the north side, two on the south,” Frank says. “Time it right and you can get through the gate after the first pair turns the corner, but before the second pair gets back ‘round to the front.”
“No time like the present, I guess,” Karen says, carefully checking her weapons and the spare ammo, like Frank insisted. “You’re set up?” Frank nods. “See you back here after,” she says, then pivots to leave.
Before she can start to walk away, though, Frank reaches out and grabs her hand. Karen stops and stares at their hands. Frank tugs her closer, looking up at her, and for a moment, Karen thinks he’s going to try to kiss her. In those brief seconds, Karen tries to decide how she feels about that, but she really isn’t sure.
Just as suddenly as Frank grabbed her hand, he lets go of it. He clears his throat and says, “Stay sharp,” in this weird ‘80s movie football coach voice, like he’s about to slap her on the back.
“Right,” Karen says, knowing her own voice sounds weird. “Sharp.”
After she reaches the street level, Karen stands inside the doorway for a few long minutes, waiting so that it will be closer to time for the guards to leave the gate unprotected for the brief window. The first part of the operation goes almost too smoothly. The guards disappear, the other guards don’t appear, and Karen has plenty of time to use her purchased combination on the lock. It works perfectly, and Karen pulls the gate closed enough to give the appearance that nothing is amiss.
From there, she goes to the shadows closest to the building, attempting to peer in the windows as she goes. She sees the occasional shadow moving, but most of the windows are dark. Twice, she drops to the ground when she thinks the guards might have spotted her, but both times, nothing else happens.
Karen had anticipated having to pick the lock on the building, but on a whim, she reaches out and slowly tries the knob. It yields soundlessly, which makes her almost squeak in surprise as she scrambles out of the way of the opening door. When the door is open, Karen looks around on the ground until she finds a rock that shoves under the door and keeps it open. The easier it is for the girls to leave, the better.
Three yards into the hallway, Karen hears what she thinks is one of Frank’s guns, followed by a thud directly behind her. She turns, and one of the guards is lying in the doorway. “Well, thanks?” Karen mutters, and she pops her head back out the door long enough to see that another guard is lying to the right of the door. “Gotta get you out of the way,” Karen tells the corpse in the doorway, and she drags him to the left side of the doorway before nodding once in the direction of Frank.
It’s a little disconcerting to think that she didn’t hear the guards behind her, but she’s also aware that she knew Frank was up there, watching her back, and she’s sure that’s part of it. She pauses in the hallway to make sure she doesn’t hear anyone else behind her, then exhales quietly and heads for the first intersection of hallways.
Karen pauses again and listens. There’s no noticeable sounds, but something makes her pull out one of the guns and turn towards the left, instead of the right. Her hunch pays off within a minute, when she sees one of the missing girls through a door’s window. She can’t remember her name, but she recognizes her from the pictures, and Karen immediately starts to pick the lock on the door.
The girl looks fearful, then startled. “Turn right, run out the door, and head out the gate, as quietly as you can,” Karen whispers. “If you need help after you’re more than a block or two away, yell once for Daredevil. Which way are the others?”
“I think they’re down there,” the girl says, pointing down the hallway Karen was already heading down. “I’ve seen them dragging girls down that hall. I’ve heard them screaming down there.”
“Thank you,” Karen says. “Go on. Run.”
The girl does exactly as Karen says and runs without looking back. She doesn’t say anything else, and Karen briefly considers that she didn’t say thanks. Karen proceeds down the hall and decides that in her position, she might not say thank you, either. After all, the real thanks would be if someone had prevented it in the first place.
Karen repeats the same process of picking the lock and giving the girls instructions at the next three doors, all three of them taking off running as soon as she nods for them to do so. She absently thinks about the other guards, then assumes Frank’s taken care of them. She assumes that if Matt’s around, he’s probably started finding the girls by then.
There are three more doors, two that look like the same kind of small room, and one set of double doors. Karen starts to push herself to work faster—the double door room is big, if she remembers the floor plan correctly, and so far the girls she’s seen didn’t look as if they would have been screaming the way the first girl described. Karen picks the lock on the first door, sends the girl away, then waits when she hears more footsteps just after starting to pick the next lock.
She squeezes herself into the doorframe, at the same time pulling her gun out and starting to aim it. If it’s not one of the girls returning—and Karen can’t imagine why it would be—she knows she has to shoot, and worry about who and why either later or not at all. The face that appears in her scope is pasty and pudgy, with at least a day’s worth of stubble growing on it, and that’s all she registers before pulling the trigger.
Her aim isn’t as true as she’d like, but the bullet hits the goon square on the nose. It’s a little appalling the way his face explodes, but Karen thinks it’s possibly more appalling that she’s amused by it, too. He falls over heavily, and the resulting sound makes Karen think she’ll need to work as fast as possible.
The last of the small rooms opens, and Karen repeats her instructions. “Just step over that guy,” she adds, and the girl nods. The double doors loom, and Karen moves to put her back to them, waiting to see if someone will come investigate the sound of the goon falling. Thirty seconds pass, then a minute, and Karen relaxes enough to turn to the task of picking the double doors.
When the doors open, Karen grimaces to herself. There are, in fact, multiple girls in the room, and the younger ones are being shielded by the older ones. Karen doesn’t want to consider how young some of the girls are, but she can’t afford time for that sentimentality.
“There’s one body in the hallway. Turn right at the intersection and run out of here,” Karen tells them. “If you run into anyone before you’re out of the building, scream, and I’ll come.” Now that she’s almost certain that she’s found most of the girls, the lack of investigating goons suggests either that Frank’s been busy or they could still run into trouble.
When the last two girls have left the room—what looks like the oldest assisting the youngest—Karen double-checks the empty room, then each room down the hallway. On the other side of the intersection of hallways are more empty rooms, until Karen surprises a goon sitting at a folding card table. He first is looking at the discarded card game somewhat disgustedly, then appears surprised to see her. He reaches for his weapon, but Karen already has hers up and out, and it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to squeeze off a round.
“Game over,” Karen tells him dryly. “Your friends weren’t coming back, anyway.”
The building cleared to her satisfaction, Karen heads back for the door she came in, preparing herself for more bodies courtesy of Frank. The fenced-in portion of the property is empty of all girls, thankfully, and she spots at least three more bodies lying on the ground that weren’t there before.
Despite that, another goon lurches into her field of vision, and a few seconds later, one of Frank’s bullets grazes the goon, but doesn’t make him go down. Karen almost gasps, but instead takes aim and puts two rounds in the middle of the goon’s chest.
“Much better than the nose,” Karen mutters to herself. She hurries out of the gate and back into the adjoining building, heading for the roof, her heart still racing. Most of her can’t believe that the plan actually worked. She went in, picked the locks, sent the girls away, and killed when necessary. All of that courses through her mind as she climbs the last flight of stairs, and when she sees Frank, she leans over and kisses him hard.
Frank seems startled, but he doesn’t exactly try to get away. He just goes with it in a very non-pushy, Frank-ish sort of way, not grabbing for her but not pushing her off him, either. They kiss for long enough that Karen starts to wonder how on earth she’s supposed to explain herself, and as she pulls away, she decides it might be easier to avoid attempting to explain it. Frank will probably understand anyway, she tells herself.
“We should get out of here,” Karen says quietly. “Someone’s probably called in the shots by now.”
“Yeah,” Frank says, nodding. “You got ‘em all out?”
“Even the little ones,” Karen confirms. “And I told them to call for Matt, so he’s probably shepherding them away.”
“Good for him,” Frank says.
“Good for us, too. It’ll distract people.” Karen scoops up the duffel bag. “Anything else I’m forgetting?”
Frank shakes his head. “Looks like I’m your Girl Friday.”
“Oh, Frank, you’d look so good in heels!”
“Well, since you’ve seen to’ve grown into the uniform, can’t say as I’m not considering that as a valid option.”
“Don’t forget the pencil skirt,” Karen says as they leave the roof. She pushes Frank down multiple alleys on the way back to his hovel, then sighs as they reach the lobby.
“I really hope you have power right now,” Karen tells Frank.
“I can crawl up the stairs under my own power if I have to,” Frank says.
“No, I want to watch the news,” Karen says. “I know you can do that.”
“Yeah, that, too.”
“I’m curious!” Karen says defensively as the elevator arrives. “Aren’t you?”
Frank shrugs. “I was watching it from the outside. Pretty sure you got the girls all out, and nobody else walked out of that building other than you.”
“I guess I just want to make sure we got most of the girls that are missing. Maybe hear that one of the dead ones led to something,” Karen admits.
“Yeah,” Frank says, his tone gentler. “Plus, you’ll have all the insider information for your story. Stuff they won’t have on the news, stuff you can get right.”
“I’ll tell my boss I have a really good inside source,” Karen says wryly. “He’d never suspect.”
“You’re your own inside source.”
“You know Matt wouldn’t suspect either,” Karen says. The elevator stops on Frank’s floor. “We should probably take you back to see Claire soon, now that this is less urgent.”
“We’ll worry about that tomorrow, yeah?” Frank says.
“I’m just giving you plenty of warning that you have to be civilized tomorrow, Frank,” Karen says teasingly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Frank says. “I’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”
“Okay, Scarlett,” Karen says. Karen-the-dog greets them happily at the door, and Frank starts to pet her. “There you go, you can be the Scarlett Punisher.”
“Maybe we’ll both just be the regular ol’ Punisher,” Frank suggests.
“You could have a red skull,” Karen says.
“No.”
“So committed to black and white,” Karen says with a mock sigh. “I’ll pull out my laptop.”
“I’m a simple man, Other Punisher. Black and white’s just how I see things,” Frank says.
Karen shakes her head as her laptop boots up. “If I’d said Violet, you’d be up for a purple skull, but now the moment’s passed.”
“Yeah. Just find your news.”
Karen avoids the newspapers, going straight for the television news and NY1. The story about the girls is suddenly the A story, above the fold, but when she reads the headline and the lede, she sighs.
“‘Two Punishers?’” she parrots. “‘Punisher One and Punisher Two.’” She sighs again. “Frank, we’re like Dr. Seuss.”
“Which one of us is One and which one’s Two?” Frank asks.
“Clearly you’re Two,” Karen says. “You even have an imitation Karen.”
“Woof!” Karen-the-dog says, excited to be included in the conversation.
“See?” Karen says. “Even she agrees.”
“Alright, alright, the both of you,” Frank says. “I’m fine with being Punisher Two, yeah? But this two Karens thing, now that’s just a step too far. Either you gotta change your name or she does.”
Karen shakes her head. “Frank, you have only yourself to blame.”