line up your soldiers one final time

[usavatar]

WHO: Steve Rogers and Others/Open.
WHERE: Various.
WHEN: The past week and a half or so.
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: STEVE DOES THINGS AND PEOPLE HAPPEN.
FORMAT: Any.



See below for threadstarters, and feel free to add anything you'd like - I'm totally open to CR.

Comments

[fronttowardenemy]

That's what you're calling it.

[ It is very much a statement rather than a question. The smile is unexpected too, and Frank keeps his frown. Rogers must have spoken to the Avengers by now, and apparently still hasn't deemed it necessary to put him behind bars.

Frank can't imagine why. ]

[usavatar]

That's what I'm calling it.

[He accepts his coffee from the returning waitress and glances at Frank with a question in the look.] You want a menu?

[fronttowardenemy]

No. [ Frank debates declining altogether, to imply he doesn't expect to stay here long enough for any of that. Instead, belatedly, he addresses the waitress: ] Coffee.

[usavatar]

Thank you. [It's directed at the waitress, and Steve waits to speak again until she comes back with Frank's own cup. He savors the coffee like it's a rare gift instead of the midnight dregs from a diner.]

I asked about you. You knew I would, didn't you.

[fronttowardenemy]

[ Frank studies him for a moment, glancing at him over the rim of his cup as he takes a drink of it. ]

Would be stupid not to ask. [ it's not an insult; just a statement. ] What do you think?

[ Obviously it's not outrage, or else they wouldn't be sitting so civilly like this. ]

[usavatar]

What do I think of what? [For all intents and purposes, Steve's focus is on the other patrons when he asks that question.] Of the coffee or what they said?

[fronttowardenemy]

[ Frank pauses. The casual air Rogers shows is the last thing he expects. ]

What they said. [ then, after a beat ] Coffee's fine.

[usavatar]

That you used lethal force. That you usually weren't on the Avengers' side. That you probably had a system for the choices you make, and that you aren't a maniac.

[He studies the shapes reflected in the surface of his coffee.] You aren't well-liked.

[fronttowardenemy]

[ He 'probably' had a system.

Why was he not surprised. ]

That's their opinion. [ Not stated to dismiss it, but to draw attention to the fact that Rogers' hasn't stated his own.

[usavatar]

One interaction and hearsay isn't a lot to go off. [He shrugs.] You didn't try to kill me and you didn't start a fight, so you've still got one up on aliens and Hawkeye.

[fronttowardenemy]

It's not hearsay.

[ He isn't sure why Rogers -- this version of him -- is so stubbornly curious, so actively seeking something else in him. With the man he knew, there hadn't been time to wonder; Rogers knew who the Punisher was long before they ever met. He doubts it would have even been like this if they found each other sooner.

So why? ]

Don't get the wrong idea.

[usavatar]

What's the wrong idea? Are you going to try and kill me after all? [He leans back as the waitress reappears with his three-course dinner of proteins and carbohydrates - it takes a lot to satisfy his metabolism. Once he's thanked her and she's out of earshot again, he goes on.] If you think I'm going to pass judgement on you for using lethal force, you're going to be waiting a long time. From where I'm standing, the War was on not even a year ago. I came here from a battlefield I helped fill with dead invaders. I don't have a leg to stand on if I want to pretend I have a higher moral code.

[fronttowardenemy]

No. [ Rogers already has the wrong idea, and Frank won't indulge it. ] That isn't it.

[ Frank Castle brought his war home with him, but the comparison still is not just. ]

What I do isn't in the name of saving anyone.

[usavatar]

[ Ah. The Punisher. Suddenly the name makes sense. Steve cuts his diner-style ham "steak" into bite size pieces, carefully squared.] Why not?

[fronttowardenemy]

[ The response gives Frank more pause than usual. He isn't used to explaining himself to anyone anymore. After so many years, the Punisher is known by everyone around him. He doesn't care to clarify any incorrect assumptions or go about justifying himself. The situation of someone entirely blind to him hasn't arisen in quite some time.

That someone being Steve Rogers also hinders him quite a bit. ]

That isn't the mission.

[usavatar]

[He's getting used to it - the odd halts, the lapses in conversation. He's started to take note of them and their context, make a private catalogue of all the things he's expected to somehow know or understand. It's interesting. Informative, in its own way.]

What is your mission?

[fronttowardenemy]

[ It's too soon after Cole-Alves. He had a conversation with her, just like this, in some run-down little diner at an ungodly hour. He asked her objective and she responded: ]

To destroy the enemy. Sir.

[ Her words; they're good ones and worth repeating. ]

[usavatar]

[He sets his utensils down, reminded unexpectedly of Erskine.

You want to go overseas? Kill some Nazis?

So this is what the affirmative answer to that question looks like.]

Who are your enemies, Mr. Castle?

[fronttowardenemy]

[ The address gives Frank pause. This isn't the same man, of course, but the difference is a significant one. The Steve Rogers that Frank is familiar with never used such formality -- he addressed him as a soldier.

Maybe that meant this man didn't consider him one.

It wouldn't be the first time. ]

Same as yours; the ones you send to prison.

But I send them to hell.

[usavatar]

That assumes I know who my enemies are. [He goes back to his meal, feeling oddly comfortable in Castle's company. There's no pretense of casualness, no feeling like there's a hidden expectation behind the man's words.] The Avengers. Others like them. If they disagree so severely with what you're doing and the way you do it, have they ever tried to stop you? Send you to prison?

[fronttowardenemy]

More than once. Tends not to stick.

[ He considers leaving it at that, but it is too incomplete to abandon. ]

You did.