1073/Street Justice

Street Justice
Date of Scene:	09 April 2020
Location:	Hell's Kitchen
Synopsis:	Spider-Man has to deal with both Silk and steel when they run across the Punisher for the first time.
Cast of Characters:	Frank Castle, Peter Parker, Cindy Moon

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Frank Castle has posed:
It's a typical day in the Kitchen. People going about their lives. Couples taking walks, dates taking place in restaurants, local arms dealers making shady deals in back alleys. The usual.

Two men stand behind a late model car, the trunk open and money exchanging hands. A duffel bag is dug out from the trunk and handed over to a gentleman who slings it over his shoulder with a grin before heading back to his car to vacate the scene. The car slowly begins to pull out of the alley. Echoing between the tall buildings on the cross street comes the roar of an engine and the screeching of tires. Suddenly the sound of shattering glass and twisting metal as an all-black van slams into the engine block of the car leaving the alley, driving it back into the alley a dozen feet. The arms dealer stands, still behind his car smoking a cigarette in shock.

A moment passes before the van's driver's side door is flung open and a man steps out, a trickle of blood running down his forehead from the impact of the collision. He takes a moment to crack his neck and then he's trudging around the front of the van towards the car, a shotgun resting over his shoulder.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man can't stop. Even with his life going in ten different directions, with the science fair and the repairs to the lab and the suit and Supergirl and everything else, there are still people out there who need help, and now it is the right thing to do, the BEST thing to do.

Hell's Kitchen hasn't been part of his nightly patrols in days, so he has to follow up. The new webfluid design is working better after a couple of mishaps. So he is traveling through Hell's Kitchen and heading south, but alert for the local wildlife. And not the rats big enough to roust old ladies for their Social Security checks.

Bigger, two-legged rats.

A sudden crash alerts him even as the alert goes over the 911 app on his phone. He pauses, then pushes off from the apartment building towards the site for the crash. Maybe someone needs help.

Frank Castle has posed:
The driver of the van? Frank Castle. A black leather duster hugs his body and conceals everything aside from the black body armor on his torso that sports a white spray-painted skull. He slings the shotgun barrel from his shoulder as he steps up to the crashed car's passenger window (miraculously not broken) and taps on the glass, the blood caressing his cheek and a grimace swelling the bottom half of his face. The window slowly rolls down and a confused and hurting man looks up at The Punisher, "Wh.. the f!"

The man's words are cut short as the stock of the shotgun smashes into his jaw. The brutal crunch suggests that his jaw is dislocated and broken as he slumps over unconcious. The driver is already passed out from not wearing his seat belt so the duffel of firearms is ripe for Frank's taking.

Reaching into the floorboard, he snatches up the bag and hoists it over his shoulder, turning his gaze over his shoulder towards the man who provided the weapons. The dealer utters a curse under his breath and hurriedly turns to slam his trunk shut so he can make his escape. Not having it, Frank draws the shotgun and levels it towards the man, firing off a slug that rips into the metal of the trunk while the dealer dives through the driver's window and fumbles for his keys. In his panic, he looks into his rearview mirror to see a very angry ex-marine aiming a shotgun in his direction just in time for another slug to explode through the back window and rip the rearview mirror from its mount.

Peter Parker has posed:
Hoo boy, the gunfire has begun!

SPider-Man picks up the pace as he spots the vehicles, and it doesn't take a genius to see the trap. Two men down, two men up.

The one man he knows, a mid-level gun runner named DeMarco. Someone quite a few groups use. Nothing like guaranteed job security.

The other guy he doesn't recognize, but when he sees the emblem, his blood seems to ice over. He was spotted at a drug deal between three gangs a month ago. The only survivor described the skull on his chest. The NEW YORK POST had titled the article GUTS ON THE CEILING. And provided photoggraphic proof.

The word on the street had no name. Only a title.

PUNISHER.
And it looked like punishment was about to commence.

Spider-Man landed on the hood of DeMarco's car. "Buddy, you choose. Arrested, or SHOT?"

Frank Castle has posed:
At the mouth of the alley, pedestrians either see what's going on and take off running or stop to peer around the corner. Most get the hell right out of there.

Frank cocks the shotgun, a spent shell springing up, spinning rapidly until it hits the pavement and goes bouncing off into a pile of garbage. He's about to fire off another round into the back of the driver's head rest when a figure seemingly appears out of nowhere on the hood of the car.

Frank stops and lifts his head. It takes him a second to realize what he's looking at. He's read the papers. The 'menace' known as Spider-Man. Can't always believe what you read in the paper. "You mind, uh.." he says, lowering the shotgun so the barrel is pointing at the ground as he begins to step forward to close the distance between himself and the car, carrying on with his plan, "steppin' outta the way there, pal?" His eyes shift from the masked hero to the side mirror of the car as he hears DeMarco still fumbling through his keys. Seems like the guy found his car key finally. He shoves the key into the ignition and begins to fire up the engine, immediately stomping on the gas. He's forgotten to shift into drive, however, and the engine begins to roar as he goes nowhere.

Seeing that he's about to miss his opportunity to get even more weapons, Frank sighs and shoulders the shotgun again, moving to flank the left side of the car to he can either disable the car or its driver. He wearily looks towards Spider-Man to see how this is going to play out.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man punches through the glass. Which is cracked, so a set of bruised knuckles is all he has to worry about.

The shower of tempered glass causes DeMarco to shield his face from the incoming glass. In the next moment, a red-gloved hand grabs the gun-runner's shirt and yanks him out through the now-open gap.
When DeMarco grabs the wrist of Spider-Man's outstretched arm, that opens up his face for a straight cross Ali or Foreman would approve of, hard enough to send him to dreamland.
And if Spider-Man didn't weaken or fail, the guy would wake up in a cell.

He looks to Frank, then said, "See? Out cold. No threat."

Frank Castle has posed:
Frank stops and straightens his posture, watching as DeMarco gets his lights knocked out. His eyebrows raise and his lips purse in an expression that suggests he's not necessarily bothered by the outcome. Of course killing or subduing DeMarco wasn't his real intention anyway. What's in DeMarco's trunk it what he's really after. Getting the guns off the streets? Check. Outfitting himself to keep the fight going another day? Check.

"Not bad, kid," he says, one corner of his mouth tugging into the slightest of grins. He nods to himself and slings the shotgun back onto his shoulder and out of harm's way.

The thick rubber soles of his boots clap against the pavement as he steps around to the back of the car where he reaches down and tugs open the trunk to reveal three more duffel bags. All presumably loaded to bursting with various firearms and ammunition. There's also a small lockbox tucked away to one side. Probably stuffed with cash from the sales. "Don't mind if I do," he says out loud to himself as he hooks his arm into the strap dangling from his shotgun seo he can swing it around to rest against his back. He looks up at Spider-Man as he shifts one of the bags around in the trunk. "The Spider-Man." The lopsided grin persists as he watches Spidey. A statement? A greeting? Both? The hell knows.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man webs DeMarco to the hood of the car. "That's me, your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. And I've heard of you, too." He looked at the shotgun. "I heard you crashed the Chin Soong's drug party a week ago. The POST was very colorful, as usual. They said you killed thirty people at that shindig."

He sounds young. Strong, confident, and maybe even relaxed, but still young. And the suit he wears is too patched-up and ratty to have any kind of padding, so the build is pretty impressive. And Frank noticed the rigs he wore under the wrists when he webbed the guy to the car.

Frank Castle has posed:
The Punisher keeps his eyes on the kid as he tugs one of the bags out of the bar and tosses it onto the ground to one side. He's reaching into the trunk again, shifting a second bag around and pulling the zipper open to double check the contents. His eyes fall to the bag for a moment and, satisfied, he looks back up at Peter and zips up the bag. "Thirty three," he comments flatly as he yanks the second bag out and tosses it to the ground. Before checking out the third bag, he grabs the lockbox and smashes it against the wheel well inside the trunk, breaking the lock. The lid flips open to reveal a few stacks of cash which he immediately grabs and stuffs into a pocket on the shirt protected by his body armor. If this is something Spidey doesn't approve of, it doesn't seem to be of any concern to him. He's simply going about his business as usual.

He does eye the web slingers around Peter's wrists, though. He's seen the clips on the news of criminals webbed up to street lights and walls, unable to get free. Effective tools to subdue people. His eyes move from the slingers to the massive white eyes on the kid's mask. "No more drug parties."

Peter Parker has posed:
Spidey's eyes narrow. "Buddy, I know what I THINK happened and what I can PROVE are two different things. But if you take all the evidence, that means this guy is going to get out of jail an hour from now with a halfway-decent lawyer. And that I *can't* have. So, leave one of the bags...or I have to make you leave ALL the bags, and MAYBE detain you for the police to have a little CHAT with you about that party you crashed. And I do mean LITERALLY crashed. With a custom Hummer one of them parked outside."

Cindy Moon has posed:
If there's one thing Silk can always count on her Silk Sense for, is that it'll totally change the makeup of her day. Sometimes it helps her be heroic, other times, it puts her in awkward situations. At the moment...? She's not quite sure, as Silk swings from a distance, fast approaching on Spider-Man and the Punisher, before releasing her last webline to flippy-flip 360 a few times over, before coming to a perfect 10-worthy gymnastic landing. The red buff pulled over the lower half of her face provides cover, while her somewhat Spider-Man derivative costume points out to a likely similar power-set. "Okay! Who's the baddie!?" Silk demands, looking between Punisher and Spider-Man, remarkably uncertain which of them triggered her Silk Sense in this instance.

Frank Castle has posed:
When the tone in Spider-Man's voice changes, Frank straightens once again. The third bag in the trunk remains there. For now. The grin is gone and has been replaced by the half-grimace that usually lives there. Seems the professional courtesy dried up quick.

The shotgun swings around his shoulder and slides down his arm to be caught in his hand, although it isn't raised. He opens his mouth to respond to Spider-Man's threat when suddenly some other spider-like person lands on the scene. His gaze shifts to Cindy, the juxtaposition of her bright personality next to Frank's probably humorous to someone somewhere, were someone somewhere watching.

He looks back to Spider-Man, "Nice. You're multiplying." He turns and looks back to the end of the alley at his van that's pushed up into a crumpled Oldsmobile. "Can I get my van or are you two gonna flip out?" Before waiting for an answer, he kneels down and grabs one of the duffel bags and slings it over one shoulder.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man goes from confident to flustered in almost no time flat. SHE is here. She goes by the name of Silk, but when SHE is here, he can only think of her as some...force of nature, triggering some primal imperative.

Ergo, he has a little trouble maintaining his demeanor.
He suddenly realizes that the Punisher was talking to him about leaving. He glanced down to see he is leaving at least one of the duffels with the guns here. It's not perfect...but it is enough evidence, and the sooner he can get the Punisher away from them...

Away from DeMarco. So he won't shoot him. That's what he meant. That's his story and he's sticking to it.

"...Yeah. Go on. No one's going to chase you, not with what's going on here. But I'm warning you, Punisher...if I see you shoot someone, any leeway you have with me is GONE."

Cindy Moon has posed:
"Flip out on you? Are you the baddie then...?" Silk who is still new and the scene and entirely clueless asks, confused, not eager to confront Punisher, but also very much wanting to be the hero here. But then it finally dawns on her who else is around, as she turns to look towards Spider-Man, and immediately adopts a chill, pose, like she doesn't care. It's all good...here she is, leaning on a random car. "Hey, you're Spider-Man," she states as if it wasn't the most obvious thing in the world. "The Bugle writes nasty stuff about you, but I think I get the idea that you're not the baddie..."

Frank Castle has posed:
Spidey's warning is met with a raise of the fist by Punisher. Holding it up over his head in a pseudo sign of solidarity, Frank doesn't bother looking back at the duet of spiders behind him. His heavy footfalls carry him to his van. He pulls the door open and tosses the duffel over onto the passenger seat and climbs in, firing the engine up. Thankfully the front brush guards kept the old busted up thing from taking too much damage from the collision. He shifts it into gear and smashes the gas, causing the wheels to spin in place and squeel before they grip and pull the van away from the car. He yanks the wheel and swings the van around in a J turn and begins to reverse down the alley back towards the duffel bag he left on the ground next to DeMarco's car. Seems he's coming back for it. Not carelessly fast, but he's not driving at a careful clip either.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man is distracted by Silk, enough so that the window to actually do something has come and gone by the time the vehicle starts. For a long moment, he is struggling to say something.

Then he blinks, and looks to Silk. "Yes...yes, I am. I need to call the cops, if they aren't...oh." He turned slightly as he saw red-and-blue flashing lights. "Right...here they come. Listen...I need to talk to you. Not here, but somewhere...high..."

He glanced around, then saw a ten-story apartment building and pointed up to the roof. "I need to talk to you...up there..."

His brain is still doing its best to function logically. So far, so good...

Cindy Moon has posed:
"I don't do cops, so...sounds like a plan," Silk readily agrees, as she shoots up a webline and gets started on getting herself up there. She imagines the Punisher wasn't the baddie after all, seeing how Spider-Man seemed quite alright with letting him go.

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man crawls up over the edge of the roof a few seconds later as the cops arrive. There should be enough to put DeMarco behind bars for a good chunk of time.

Now...onto the other thing. The thing that has been plaguing his sleep with thoughts he has no business having. He walks to the middle of the roof, waiting almost patiently for Cindy...

Frank Castle has posed:
Slamming on the brakes to bring the van to a halt beside DeMarco's car, Frank tosses Spider-Man and Cindy a glance as he pushes the door open and steps down. He looks down the alley to see the red and blue flashing of police lights. Shit. Not the best time for their response time to be lower than average.

He steps over to the duffel bag on the ground and tosses it over the driver's seat and into the passenger's on top of the other one. He looks back to Cindy as she starts to make her way up high to have a chat with Spider-Man. His eyes drift from the duo to the open trunk with the last bag of firearms and for a moment considers waiting to see if the web slinger is distracted enough to just swing off without securing it so he can just grab it and go. But the sirens are getting a little too loud for his comfort.

With an audible grunt, Frank looks back up at the two and almost growls, "Next time." He raises a finger and fingerguns the kid before hopping back intot he van, slamming the door, and burning rubber all the way down the alley until he's around the corner and hauling ass away from the scene.

Cindy Moon has posed:
Silk lands on the roof top with a flourish, maintaining a crouched position as she looks over at Spider-Man. She tries to look non-chalant. Good thing her buff covers the lower part of her face. Maybe she should have considered a full face mask like Ghost Spider has. "So....you...erm...talk, right? What about?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man is too distracted. Frank could have blown up the car and Spidey wouldn't have noticed right now.
He looks at Silk and suppresses a sound that has no business being made.

"Look...Silk...I'm trying to figure something out. I have to ask...when I'm around, do you feel anything...weird...strange?"

He can't say the word "aroused." That would make him Creep #1 with a bullet.

Cindy Moon has posed:
"Erm...you mean...my 'Silk Sense'...?" Silk makes a guess, albeit the uncomfortable tone of her voice might suggest there's more to it than just a 'spider sense' dertivative. She seems quite flustered holding this conversation. "I felt weird the first time I saw you...so I kinda escaped, and well, the second time. It was just as weird, if not weirder. Did Ghost Spider ever mention you make her feel funny...? Ever at all? She knows you, doesn't she?"

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man nods. "We...jangle each other's Spider-Sense, a little. Nothing like this. It's...powerful. I...have trouble with it. It..."

Well, here he goes. He's going to sound like the creeper of all creepers.

"It makes me...want you. Like, REALLY want you. I can't explain it..."

Cindy Moon has posed:
"Yes! YES! Yes..." Silk is more than willing to buy this explanation over all others, because some of the other thoughts she had in her mind are downright disturbing to her. "That must be it, a spider sense crossing jingle jangle kinda thing, nothing out of the ordinary...right? Right!" She answers her own question, already taking a few steps to the edge of the roof. "N-n-NO! You don't want me...you're dating Supergirl for crying out loud!" Silk is absolutely concerned that Supergirl might be looking to have some WORDS with her. There's no way something like that would ever go well. "Yeah, so, you want Supergirl and not me at all, not even a teeny bit...it's just a spider sense thing. I'm sure!" But she proves herself wrong, when she starts to really flush, and eventually lets out a squeaked out, choking, "...gottagokbye..." and jumps off the edge of the roof. Eager to get herself out of there, she really needs to have a talk with Ghost Spider on how to properly approach Spider-Man because this is hard!

Peter Parker has posed:
Spider-Man ran to the roof, but by the time he got there, she was gone, off and webslinging away. He opened his mouth to say something...then closed it.

He had to figure SOMETHING out with her. Some kind of...CHEMICAL inhibitor. But if she kept running off every time he tired to speak to her, they were never going to get ANYWHERE.

He HAD to get the Spider-Comm system up and running. Like, NOW. He had to set up some way to speak to her without...

...well, WITHOUT.

...Talk about punishment.