15960/Hello Fresh

Hello Fresh
Date of Scene:	27 September 2023
Location:	Quiet's Van
Synopsis:	Quiet picks the Punisher up from a punishing job! She then takes him to a quiet place to quietly explain to him all the quiet details of how Quiet quiets. Puff puff.
Cast of Characters:	Quiet, Frank Castle

---

Quiet has posed:
Late evening in Brooklyn.

Frank had sent Quiet a series of texts that indicated he was in need of a pickup at a specific place, and a specific time. Being that you couldn't really ask for a more reliable partner, Quiet's van was exactly where he'd asked it to be, at the exact right time.

Inside it, Stef sat behind the wheel, with a black ballcap on her head, her ponytail sticking out of the back of it, and the rest of her form clad in a black sleeveless bodysuit that was made from special materials that gave her a wealth of airflow through the suit, while not exposing as much of her as she may have once upon a time been forced to dress in. The miracles of modern material science!

She'd sent a text to him when she'd arrived, but not having been told to do anything other than be here, she's not on alert... well, not exactly. She's always on some measure of alert on jobs like this, as it just comes with the territory over the past several decades of merc employment.

Quiet's eyes scan out of the windshield, watching any signs of life beyond the van that is parked beside a computer repair store in some unremarkable Brooklyn street.

Frank Castle has posed:
    The other side of the street opposite of the store was a derelict building complete with loose plastic over the windows and scaffolding indicating it was in the process of continues repair. The street lights either didn't work or had been purposefully shut off. Any passer-bys crossed onto the other side of the street in order to move by-the building, giving it a wide birth. There was gang related graffiti all over the place.

    Not long after Stef had arrived with her Van, the building... exploded. Flames leaped from the windows and continued to engulf the rest of the building. The front door slammed open and out stumbled a young hooligan. Stepping out just after was Frank, trench-coat swaying, silhouetted by the glow of the burning inferno behind him. The young man put up his hands but it did nothing as Frank shot him, bullet going clean through his head.

    Frank looked up, caught site of Quiet's Van, then moved towards it. Without hesitation, he opened it and got in. "Thank's for the lift. Took my Van to the shop in West Chester. Found some other things wrong with it so it's over nighting."

    Frank didn't seem to react to the switch blade that was stuck in his upper arm, blood bubbling up and out in the cut of his coat.

Quiet has posed:
Needless to say that when a building blows up a mere matter of meters away from your location, you react with a bit of surprise. Quiet's eyes widened as she looked over at the building get engulfed in flames. Some part of her wanted to floor it then and there, fight or flight, while another told her to reach for her gun in her center console.. but when Frank appeared, the young looking woman just shot him a look through the window before she had the van rumbled to life by the time he climbed inside it.

She looked him over, and saw the knife pretty quickly, but obviously didn't say anything. Instead she just got them moving, the van lumbering to life and speed off to the southeast.

They'd taken two turns before Quiet had looked over at him with a bit of a quizzical glare, having not gotten more info from him about explosions. But she soon let it go, and her eyes went to his arm and the knife.

She reached her right hand over to point toward it, before her stare went ahead again.

While driving, however, Stef does raise her right hand up to the GPS hanging from her windshield, she taps on a location they're headed toward, an old parking garage another few turns away.

Frank Castle has posed:
    "I get it don't worry." Frank says as she gives him that look. "I'm Sorry. I should have been more specific... Honestly I didn't even know I was going to blow the place up. Too many drugs not to get rid of them in a quick fashion."

    A look to the knife as she points to it. His brows narrow. "Huh... One of them bust have tried to stab me." He reaches over with his free hand, grabs it, then yanks it out. Frank simply winces at the pain. Blue eyes inspect the blade, which he twirls around expertly. There's a shrug, he closes it, then pockets it.

    If Stef studied him close enough she'd notice that he wore her little doll that she gave him, the blond kid with the cammo pants. On a key-chain attached to one of his trouser's belt loops.

Quiet has posed:
Quiet gives him a double-take when he just yanks the knife out of his arm. She seems mildly perturbed by this, but soon lets it go as they arrive at the parking garage. Her van pulls inside it, sweeping around to the ramp to take them up to the second level of it. The garage is under renovation on the top floor, with an elevator being added to the access to help bring it up to code for modern standards of public needs. Why is it open to drive right on inside of? Well she may have stopped by before heading over. Her assumption was Frank might need some first aid work, and it turns out she may have been right about that!

Once parked, she looks over at him, eyeing him up and down before she smirks openly at the man. Rising up, she slips in to the back of her van's cargo area, where she soon is rifling through some of the crates back there. Gathering up a first aid kit, she returns to his side, and starts to tug at his jacket to indicate for him to remove it. She sits sideways on her own chair then with the kit open on her lap, and elements of it being pulled out to tend to his various scratches, or knife wounds!

She does see the little troll doll on his pantleg which has her show a faint smile toward him before she will set to work on his injuries with the various tools pulled from the kit.

She's gentle, but well trained, and even still there is likely some pain that comes with the territory of the work... pain Frank is all too familiar with.

Frank Castle has posed:
    Frank seems a bit distracted as she stops the van inside the vacant parking garage. His mind elsewhere as she moves into the back to gather her first-aid supplies. When she returns, her tugging at his coat brings him back to reality. He nods and leans forward, the first bit of pain from the wound now hitting him.

    Quiet likely knew how it was to be injured and not realize it until later. Especially in the heat of combat. Now, as the adrenaline left him, the pain started to seep in. Frank winced and managed to get his arm out of the sleeve revealing a rather good and deep laceration that was still very much bleeding. "Yup, he got me pretty good."

    He in hales sharply as she applies her skills to the wound, wincing a bit as she cleans in. "I got rusty in my time away it seems."

    He watches her work, moving from the diligent work of her hands, up to her eyes. Eventually he just looks there for the time being, watching her intently. There is a soft smile on his lips.

Quiet has posed:
Quiet is mostly lost in her work up to the point where she notices him watching her. She smiles at him, her black ballcap mostly shielding her face from view when she was looking downward, but when eyeing his wound she just worked with a practiced precision.

When he seemed to show some pain, she'd pause her work then to reach behind her seat where she flipped open another small black box. Pulling forth a bottle of unopened whiskey, she handed it to him, giving him a little grin to go with it.

Returning to what she was doing, she had him bandaged up within minutes, and began to clean up her kit refuse. while her eyes looked him over for any other obvious wounds.

Having seen nothing, the Sniper puts the kit away at her feet, then reaches for her phone off the dash. She is soon to speak in to it with that same silent movement of her lips, and her phone speaks for her.

"You're a very lucky man, doing this kind of thing all alone." She tells him, now getting a much clearer image of what it is that Frank Castle does 'for a living.'

Frank Castle has posed:
    The offered Whiskey is gladly accepted, brows raising in slight surprise. Then his lips morph into a sly grin "Oh, hey. Thank you." Frank pops the top open and takes a healthy swig before offering it to Quiet if she wants any. Only polite after all.

    With his wound bandaged up, she would see no other wounds readily evident. None physical anyways. Frank sat there in her passenger seat watching her as she grabbed her phone and spoke to it without any voice. He has to think on her comment a minute before answering.

    "I am, but I think it's my determination and my training that keeps me going." He pauses, "But I'm surprised my ticket hasn't been punched yet. Lucky too because I met you so now I'm not so alone now huh?" He raises the bottle to her and takes another swig.

Quiet has posed:
With him breaking the seal on the whiskey, which she'd brought specifically for him for this reason, she smirks softly and accepts it for a sip. It's a dainty sip, quite feminine, but that is her style even if she's otherwise immersed in such a traditionally masculin world.

When she hands it back to him, she uses her phone again. "Less lonely, but still volunteering for grave danger." She lets the device say, chasing its somewhat monotone female voice with a smirk on her lips.

She stares at him for a moment of silence before she speaks up again through the device.

"I can help more than just be a driver. I have a long history with this type of thing, even if it all mostly took place far away from this crazy city."

Frank Castle has posed:
    Frank chuckles to response through the phone. He hasn't his own quip for her, just another sip of whiskey. "Hey this is good. Thank you."

    As the moment of silence falls, Frank keeps a soft eye on her, studying her before she speaks once again. He's quick to listen, leaning forward to show his interest and attention on her.

    "Well I would certainly hope so. This thing I'm working on now. It's a lot bigger than just that place I vaporized. I'm going to need someone I trust with me." A pause, "And I trust you." He reaches a hand over and places it on hers, giving a light squeeze. "You'll be the first person I call when there's a job to get done. I promise you that. I don't ever want you not there, to be honest." A smirk as he takes his hand away and sits back in the chair again.

Quiet has posed:
While he responds, she stares at him with her bottom lip between her teeth. She lets it pop free again, and shows him a amused expression at what he says, silently enjoying the words before she glances toward her dashboard GPS again. Outside there are the sounds of sirens, likely gathering up around the burning building that Frank had vacated of all its drugs, and more-so.

Stefanie regards him again then, and uses her phone once more.

"We should hang here for a bit. Let the emergency responders deal with all of that before we head back for your Foxhole." She suggests to him as she remains seated on the side of her driver's seat with her legs facing his chair.

She lowers her phone down to her lap once more, before she reaches for the whiskey bottle again to take another swig from its contents. This sip is a little bigger, and it does earn a visible grimace expression gracing her facial features for a moment before she offers it back. Her free hand comes up to press the back of it to her nose and lips, likely making it even more clear that she's not much of a whiskey person, but when the hand falls away again, she flutters her eyelashes and shows him another faint smirk.

The sounds of the sirens in the background providing a 'nice' bit of ambience to the otherwise quiet garage setting around them.

Frank Castle has posed:
    Frank returns that amused smile, looking out the window towards the sirens and lights flashing. His attention returns to her as she speaks through her phone once more. "Not a bad idea..." He offers with a nod, slouching into the passenger's seat as the warmth of the booze starts to dull any residual pain and calm any nerves he might have had.

    As she takes the bottle once again, Frank watches with interest. He smiles, amused at her reaction, perhaps snickering slightly at the result.

    A flutter of her eye lashes causes Frank looks out the window, then back to her. His hand reaches out for one of hers, takes it, thumb rubbing over one of her more feminine knuckles. He nods towards the back of her Van. "Let's do something better than drinking huh?"

    Frank Castle was not a suave man, but he knew at least a few good line for very specific moments.

Quiet has posed:
The military man mindset. It is something that the lady in black has been all too familiar with for a long time now. His bravado and blunt bashing through of the subject there at the end just has her smirking openly at him as she casts a glance back inside her van's cargo area. When she looks back to him again, her phone comes up, and within moments it is talking for her again.

"Actually. I can show you something." She states before she smirks again at him, then turns to sweep herself back in to the van's interior.

Should he look, or even pursue her, he'll find her pulling a few items from the van's cargo containers. He'll notice what it is within moments though, and see that it is indeed some kind of weed in a jar. She holds it up, then sets a pipe down beside it.

Her eyes go back to him then, and she studies his reaction. She points at it then before the phone is raised up to her lips once more.

"This is a Navajo strain of marijuana. I can use it, and can then speak safely for as long as the smoke is in the air around me." She explains to him. "Though I take it you're not a fan of drugs..."

The phone speaks these words, and the young looking woman just flashes him a grin before she moves her lips again in front of the phone.

"This is something SHIELD helped me learn about my situation, if you can believe it. A friend in the agency has hooked me up ever since."

Frank Castle has posed:
    Frank lets her hand go as she stands, interest peaking as she moves into the Van's interior. He watches her, eyes roaming over her body as it moves with fluid grace. He stands as well, hunches really. It was a Van after all. Then moves to follow her.

    His brows narrow as she presents the jar with weed in it. Frank had seen things like this before, more so when he was a kid. The pipe gets a blink. His eyes find her as she explains. A look of intrigue coming to his features as she explains what it is. "Well... I've never killed anyone for smoking week or selling it. It's the other junk really." Was he making an exception for her? Perhaps. Either way, his rationalization process had already begun.

    "Wait..." He asked after a moment, "Why isn't it safe for you to speak?" During their last time together he noticed she could make noises, hum, other things but not speak words which is why she used her phone.

Quiet has posed:
Quiet kneels beside the stack of cargo containers inside the interior of her van. She looks up at the bulky man before her who is starting to catch on to her meaning, and with a small grin she reaches a hand up to adjust the hat atop her head before she exhales softly. Her phone is reached for again, and once more she speaks in to it without actually uttering a audible word.

"I died. A long time ago." She tells him through the device in her right hand. "I was brought back by a nefarious group, at a cost. The cost was my voice. The people who did this to me manufactured a virus that was designed to attack specific vocal cord vibrations. It was a virus meant to wipe out specific populations, and the strain that was put inside of me would there-by propogate and spread, if I spoke English." The phone explains in that moderately monotone fashion that makes it a bit lifeless, and potentially a little more unsettling considering the current conversational topic.

"The virus is inert, and has been since the 1980s, but I fear it will mutate and return if I give-in to my desires to speak. Thus, I continue not to for the safety of those around me." The phone says as she held it close to her pink lips. She took a moment then to take in a breath before she shakes her head softly, and added a little further.

"I can speak other languages, Navajo, Spanish, a little bit of French and Russian. But I fear it will mutate to those too, if I speak them too often. Thus, I restrain my voice." The device says for her, as she raises her green eyes up again to look toward his own in the dark of her van.

Frank Castle has posed:
    Quiet's story was a lot to take in. Painful like his own but in a different way. Frank thought of it like this. Imagine, instead of his wife and kids weren't killed in ultra-violent fashion, then instead those responsible injecting him with some type of biological warfare product then him inadvertently releasing it on his family and killing them.

    His stomach sank and he frowned. At a loss for words, he simply knelt down next to her and listened to the rest of what she had to say.

    When she was finished, the large man that he was, simply looked into her eyes and let the silence linger a moment. He was searching, for what? Who knew. "You did understand me the other night then." He smirks just a bit, chuckling. Perhaps attempting to lighten the mood.

    However, then with an air of seriousness, Frank speaks his peace. "Then you should smoke it. Because you deserve to speak and believe it or not I like to hear your voice. Can't let this damn thing win. You gota fight it, and if this is the way." He picks up the pipe and hands it to her. "This is the way."

    His large hand goes to the small of her back and rubs it reassuringly.

Quiet has posed:
While he speaks, she just kneels there with her hands atop her thighs in her black bodysuit. She shows him a warm smile at his reaction to all of this, and just gently nods two small times when he reassures her. She sets her phone aside, and begins to set it all up. Within just a minute or two, she has it lit, and puffs a few times before exhaling to disperse the smoke around her in the dark of the van's interior. She flutters her eyelashes again, before she reaches a hand up to remove her hat. She tilts her head to the side to pull the hat all the way down her ponytail before she tosses it off to the side to land atop one of the containers to her right.

Another puff of the pipe is had, followed by another exhale of the white smoke. It has a pungent odor, one Frank might be familiar with from his own military days, let alone elsewhere.. but this strain has a sweetness to its scent.

After a third take on the pipe, her right hand comes up to her forehead and she sweeps some of her dark hair out of her forehead, and her eyes return to him, seated just beside and before him. She smiles.

"Hello, Frank." She says softly in her Dutch accented voice. "I will understand if you have to blow my van up now..." She adds, her voice soft and warm like her smiles have been for him as well.

Frank Castle has posed:
    Frank watches with interest, wondering the steps and procedures to this taking of medicine. He scoots a bit closer to her as she removes her hat. He sniffs, brows curling downward in curiosity regarding the smell. "Smells like the Afghan stuff they liked." He mentions, of course reminded of some of his military brothers in the regular service partaking in such things. He had normally stayed away.

    He watches her intently as she moves some of the hair from her forehead, looking the skin there over as if he might see something change. Yet, his eyes find her lips as she speaks. He blinks, a look of surprise on his face. He wasn't expecting the accent. His eyes find hers again. Then he starts to laugh. A hearty real laugh. "I can't blow this thing up. It's a classic." He leans forwards and plants a kiss on her lips. A soft one, but a present one. "And its got you in it. Hello Stef." He smiled, pleased with the sound of her actual voice. Soothing, really.

Quiet has posed:
The reaction that she got from him seemed to please her, and a smile showed it moments before he leaned in to kiss her. She'd return it, her soft lips brushing over his before she'd pull back a few seconds later, and once more indulge in the pipe to add a bit more of the tangy smoke to the air around them. "It is not precisely something I can do very often, in many places. But, I will take it when I can get it... especially after all of this time." She says, with a momentary glance around the van's darkened interior. She looks back at him, and offers him a playful grin.

"I wasn't sure if you'd be very anti-this," she says noting the pipe of course. "But I'm glad to share if you'd like?" She asks, offering him the pipe next then.

It has her grinning quite mischievously. "I'm not a whiskey person though, and I imagine you're not much of a connoisseur of the ganja."

Her free hand goes up to his shoulder then, squeezing gently before she places her hand against the side of his face. "Welcome to my van though. My rules." She teases him softly.

Frank Castle has posed:
    Frank couldn't help but feel a bit like a teenager doing something he shouldn't be doing. He was conflicted. He really hadn't 'smoked' since he was a teenage. There was the whole morality thing regarding it. Then again, weed wasn't like the really hard stuff all these people were getting in trouble with. Especially not the kind he currently was dealing with.

    Stef made a point though. Her Van, her rules. She drank with him at the Foxhole. Kept booze in her Van specifically for him. Etiquette said he had to. Frank gives her a careful look before taking the pipe. He clears his throat, inhales, and then proceeds to cough. It was obvious, frank really didn't do this much. She got to grimace at the Whiskey... He coughed at her weed. What a pair they were.

    It didn't take him long to start feeling the effects. Time seeming to slow down without actually slowing down. Hypersensative hearing... Hyperfocusing. He decided his best course of action was to keep his focus on Stef. So he did, droopy eyed stares and all.

Quiet has posed:
Quiet just sat there on her knees watching him reacting to the smoke now. It has her just grinning from ear to ear at him before she reaches a hand out to gently rest it over his chest. She'd take the pipe back from him then before she would indulge it once more.

"Once a month, SHIELD scientists test my vocal chords to see the state of the virus. There has been no signs of it returning, but I feel it best to stay prudent with my choices. Like a cancer in remission, the fear is always there... lingering on the back of my mind..." She trails off there for a moment before she turns to the back of her van where she pulls at a rather expensive looking bedroll. She unravels it, and pulls a few pillows out of her hanging hammock near the back.

When she turns back to Frank, she's exhaling another puff of the smoke while her free hand is reaching out to wrap fingers around his chest and pull him down in to the bedroll with her.

"I'll promise not to make you an addict." She says, her voice lyrical and ever playful.

"I have a lot more to tell you though, so come and get comfortable with me." Her feminine voice idly orders of the Punisher.