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It started small. One random morning, after another night that was supposed to be their last, Matt found a small cluster of bullets arranged with almost ritualistic precision on his kitchen counter. Seven small-calibre rounds lined up neatly beside the salt and pepper shakers like tiny, lethal ornaments. Each one meticulously engraved with a miniature skull, the craftsmanship so precise it bordered on obsessive devotion. Frank wasn’t the kind of man who left things behind by accident. He treated his arsenal with the reverence of sacred relics, each piece an extension of his own unforgiving will. Matt knew that. So he gathered them into his palm, felt the etched skulls with his thumb, and put them in a drawer in the gear room instead of throwing them out. He kept one in his pocket for reasons he refused to examine too closely.
Then came the KA-BAR.
Matt had just returned from a night class, radar sweeping the familiar contours of his apartment, when the blade’s distinct metallic signature registered. It lay nestled among his Tojiro knives as if it belonged there. Frank had even gone to the trouble of making sure the blade carried none of the night’s work. The steel was pristine, not a trace of blood or violence left on its edge. How considerate, Matt thought, the word tasting like sin.
That night he took the knife to bed, pressed the flat of the cold steel against his bare chest, and jerked off so hard he came with his back arched off the mattress.
Fuck.
The guns arrived next, also without so much as a warning: two handguns and a rifle propped casually against the fridge like Frank had just stepped out for milk.
This is no longer subtle.
Matt stood in front of them for a long minute, then called the number he almost never used unless he needed Frank to come wreck him in every way that mattered.
Frank didn’t pick up. Matt left a message, voice low and edged with something that wasn’t quite anger: “Castle. Forty-eight hours to come get your shit or I’m taking it to the junkyard.”
Silence followed. Frank didn’t even call him back let alone show up to collect his stuff.
Then the vest appeared.
Matt came home to find it laid out on his mattress like a claim; occupying one side of the bed, as if staking permanent territory. He should have felt violated, he should have broken the damn thing in two, but of course he didn’t. Instead he picked up the kevlar, traced the cracked white skull with reverent fingers, and brought it to his nose: gunpowder, woodsy aftershave, clean sweat. Frank. He stood there burying his face in the fabric like a lunatic, breathing in deep, cock already thickening in his slacks.
The scent clung to him, thick and addictive, curling low in his gut like smoke. Matt’s breath hitched. His pulse kicked up a heavy, insistent drumbeat between his legs. He laid the vest down on the bed with deliberate care, then knelt on the edge right in front of it. His radar swept the empty apartment one final time—confirming he had indeed locked the door—before his fingers moved to his belt.
Slowly, deliberately, he unzipped his slacks. The rasp of the zipper cut through the quiet.
Matt reached in and freed his cock, already half-hard and flushing hot against his palm. For a moment he simply held it, feeling its growing weight, the way it twitched with anticipation. Then he spat into his hand—once, twice—coating his palm and fingers until they glistened. He closed his fist around the shaft, tighter this time, and gave one long, experimental stroke from root to tip.
Pleasure licked up his spine like fire. His head tipped back, lips parting on a shaky exhale. Infuriating bastard. He began to move his hand in earnest—slow, dragging pulls that made his thighs tense and his breath deepen. He thought of Frank showing up at his door at 3 a.m., bruised and bleeding and reeking of death, only to fuck him against the nearest wall like he was trying to crawl inside his skin. The way Frank would pin him down with all that brute strength and barely-leashed violence, growling filthy, unexpectedly tender words into his ear while Matt’s Catholic guilt warred with raw, desperate need.
Another stroke. Firmer. Wetter. Matt’s thumb swept over the swollen head, spreading the bead of precome that had gathered there. His breathing grew ragged.
He remembered their last so-called one-night stand—the one that was never supposed to be the last. Frank’s teeth scraping down his throat. The burning stretch of that thick cock pushing inside him. The way Frank had spoken afterward, guarded and almost tender, before pulling away like staying would cost him something he wasn’t ready to lose. Matt had hated how much he wanted him to stay. Hated the emptiness that always followed.
His hand sped up, the slick, obscene sounds filling the room. He bowed his head, pressing his face into the vest again. That intoxicating scent flooded his senses and dragged a low moan from his throat.
“Fuck you, Castle,” Matt whispered hoarsely, hips rolling up into his fist. The words carried no real heat, only aching want. “Coming in here… marking my space… making me need this.”
The fantasy sharpened. He imagined Frank’s rough hands replacing his own. That gravel voice in his ear telling him exactly who he belonged to. The heavy weight of that powerful body pressing him into the mattress. Matt’s strokes turned punishing—twisting on the upstroke, squeezing at the head—while his free hand clutched the vest like a lifeline. His balls drew up tight. Heat coiled vicious and low in his gut.
A broken groan tore from his throat as the orgasm crashed over him. His cock pulsed hard in his grip, thick ropes of come spilling over his fingers and onto the vest—splattering across the cracked white skull. Matt kept stroking through it, wringing out every last shudder, every last drop, until he was trembling and oversensitive and utterly spent.
For a long moment he simply sat there, chest heaving, forehead pressed to the ruined fabric. The scent of his own release now mingled with Frank’s—a claiming of his own.
This is deranged, Matt thought, a faint, self-deprecating smile tugging at his lips. After a long, steadying breath, he rose on slightly unsteady legs and carried the marked vest into the bathroom. With slow, almost tender strokes, he began to clean it—wiping away the thick splatters of his own release from the cracked white skull, the faint stains soaking into the worn material. The scent of his come mingled with gunpowder and Frank’s skin before gradually fading under the gentle pressure of the cloth.
What the hell are we doing here, Frank?
The thought settled deep as Matt worked. What had started as stolen nights—bruised bodies colliding in the dark, desperate fucks that left him raw and aching—had quietly shifted into something far more dangerous. Frank leaving pieces of his life behind wasn’t just habit anymore. It was intention. A slow, deliberate claiming that Matt had allowed, even encouraged, with every bullet he kept, every time he took the knife to bed, every time he didn’t throw the man out.
He traced the cleaned skull with his thumb, feeling the raised texture beneath the damp fabric. Frank Castle, the Punisher, the man who burned everything he touched, was carving out space in Matt’s apartment. In Matt’s bed. In Matt’s life. And the terrifying part wasn’t how wrong it felt. It was how right he wanted it to be. How the constant push and pull between them mhad somehow forged something deeper. Trust, in its most fractured form. Want, sharp enough to cut. A partnership neither of them would ever name aloud.
Matt’s chest tightened with the weight of it. He wanted to be furious. He wanted to tear the vest apart and end this slow surrender. Instead, he handled the cleaned fabric with care, breathing in the lingering trace of Frank beneath the faint dampness, and carried it back to the bedroom.
He placed it exactly where it had been—on Frank’s side of the bed. Matt had never had sides before. Now, it seemed, he did.
Peter ended up in his apartment two days later, swinging in through the window with that easy grace, smelling like pizza and ozone. They ended up talking more than just about the city’s latest villain when Peter noticed Frank’s ridiculous war gear in his kitchen.
Matt was half-listening to Peter’s running commentary when the words hit him like a freight train.
“Maybe guns are his love language.” Peter was laughing, gesturing at the Predator-like contraption—Frank’s latest overkill—saying something about “love bombing with literal bombs.”
Matt’s mouth twitched, but inside his chest something cracked open and bled heat.
The bullets. The knife. The guns. The vest. All of it. Frank had been methodically moving his arsenal into Matt’s apartment like a wolf marking territory. Not because he needed storage. Because he was courting him. In the most perfectly Frank way imaginable: a slow, violent claiming disguised as practicality. And Matt had let him.
It was insane. It was tender in the most fucked-up way imaginable. And God help him, it was unbearably hot that Matt had to shift his stance so Peter wouldn’t notice the sudden problem in his suit.
He let out a slow breath, smiling despite himself. “You have no idea, Pete.”
Matt was in the shower when the window near the fire escape creaked open.
He didn’t move. Just tilted his head, senses stretching out. Frank. A comically large duffel bag slung over one shoulder—heavy with metal and explosives, but also softer things: fabric, paper, the faint plastic click of toiletries. Matt’s lips curved.
Frank moved like he owned the place. First to the gear room—Matt heard the lock disengage with embarrassing ease (we’re going to talk about how you know that code, Castle)—and the careful clatter of guns and ammo being stored. Then to the bedroom. Drawers opening. Clothes being rearranged. Matt’s shirts nudged aside to make room for black tactical tees and worn jeans. The soft thud of boots, the rustle of fabric hitting the floor. The sound of Frank stripping.
Matt was already half-hard when the bathroom door opened.
A large, warm body stepped under the spray behind him. Lips brushed his shoulder blade, right over the scar from last month’s rooftop brawl. Frank’s mouth lingered there like a promise.
Matt chuckled, low and rough. “You’re staying around this time, Frank?”
Frank’s arms slid around his waist, pulling Matt back against a solid chest. Water cascaded over them both. “Got a problem with that, Red?”
Matt turned in his arms, hands finding Frank’s face, thumbs stroking over the stubble and the raised scar on his cheek. He could feel Frank’s heartbeat, steady and sure, thrumming against his own.
“Yeah,” Matt murmured, smiling as their foreheads touched. “My landlord was under the impression I signed up for a single-tenant unit only.”
Then he kissed him, deep and filthy and relieved, while Frank’s hands mapped every inch of him like he was memorizing territory he’d already claimed.
The vest was still on Frank’s side of the bed when they finally made it there. Matt didn’t move it. He just pulled Frank down on top of him, skin to skin, and let the weight of everything Frank had brought settle over them both.
This was never going to be normal.
But it was theirs.