Punisher: Last Call

Frank had been hunting this man for days, the one they called Bullseye. He found him waiting to take down a crew of dealers that had been skimming from Kingpin. Frank was patient, waited for the shooting to stop. Six shots for six men, Frank almost respected the precision. Every bullet was an instant kill.

Everything would have gone off without a hitch if not for the Spider. Frank had a clear shot, all he had to do was pull the trigger but before he had the chance Spider-Man burst through a skylight causing Bullseye to look in Frank's direction.

Bullseye turned his rifle on Frank but a web line jerked it away a second before it did Frank's. Bullseye pulled a pistol and shot for Spider-Man's head. Spider-Man dodged as Bullseye knew he would allowing a bullet to tear through his knee. Spider-Man dropped to the floor in pain as Bullseye put another in his shoulder.

He looked down and noticed a shotgun one of the dealers had dropped and picked it up, "Damn, I must have hit the lotto. Frank moved to stop him but a blast sent Frank back for cover, "I'll get to you in a minute, got a bug to squash."

As Bullseye stepped over to Spider-Man, Frank growled, "Goddamn it, Spider."

He then charged at Bullseye. The assassin turned his gun but Frank was already on him. Frank put his side arm under Bullseye's chin as he shoved the shotgun into Frank's gut. Spider-Man heard two shots as blood splattered across his chest.

Bullseye hit the ground missing a large chunk of skull and brain. Frank then coughed up some blood before dropping to his knees. Spider-Man pulled himself up and attempted to make bandages over the wounds in Frank's chest and back as he sat him down.

He looked down on the Punisher, "I'm gonna get you to a hospital."

Frank gave him a wary look, "You've been around long enough to know better."

Spider-Man looked helpless as Frank pulled himself up a bit, grunting in pain, "I'd be dead by the time you got me to the door, as is I probably only got a few minutes at best."

He looked over and noticed a few bottles of beer sitting on a crate, "Mind grabbing me one of those?"

Spider-Man looked over, "You sure that's a good idea?"

Frank nodded, "Best I've had all day."

Spider-Man grabbed one and carried it over. He opened the bottle and handed it to Frank. He looked up with a smirk, "Thanks, Pete."

Spider-Man was stunned, "You Know?"

Frank spat a bit of blood and replied, "Found out way back when Jackal had me trying to take you out, had a gut feeling I should keep it to myself though, didn't want that aunt of yours getting mixed up in that."

"But you were okay killing me?"

Frank gave a chuckle that ended in another pained grunt, "Plan was to change your clothes so at least she didn't have to think her nephew died a criminal."

Spider-Man shrugged, "I guess that's as nice a gesture as you're capable of."

Frank looked to Bullseye's body, "You know I ain't sorry about that, I know I should be, Hell, I wish I could be.Truth is, I went numb years ago. Don't even care about doing this anymore I just couldn't stop."

Spider-man gritted his teeth and tried not to react to the quiet horror of that statement and the cold way he said it. Frank could tell even with the mask he was uncomfortable. He sighed, "I know I'm every bit the monster he is. Maybe I had a better reason to start but at this point it hardly matters. I can't count the orphans I made."

Peter sighed,"At least you're going to a better place."

Frank burst out laughing but stopped to cough up some more blood. He then wiped his mouth and took a sip of beer, "We both know I'm going to hell, probably got an army just waitin' to give me a proper welcome."

Spider-Man didn't know why he was still sitting there, he knew this man was a cold blooded killer but he just couldn't bring himself to let him die alone. As he was staring off into space Frank patted his shoulder, "You're a good guy Pete, better than me by a long shot. Before I go, there's a van about two blocks over."

He pulled a set of keys from a pouch on his belt and handed them over, "In it there's a box of notebooks I want you to take. My war journals."

Spider-Man nodded, "What am I supposed to do with them?"

"You can burn'em if you want, but I think maybe its better if you gave it to the police, or shield. Bound to be someone in there with a family wanting closure."

Spider-Man gripped the keys,"I'll take care of it."

"See, always the responsible......"

Spider-man's heart sank when he heard the half empty bottle hit the ground. He heard the sirens from the ambulance he'd called in the distance then looked over. He closed the Punisher's eyes with a sigh,"Bye, Frank."

He then stood up and limped toward the door, his shoulder was too sore for web swinging but he felt like walking anyway.

The End.

@batkevin74@impurestcheese@time_phantom@dngn4774@guardiandevil83@tommythehitman@wildvine

Very nice~

~MiB

Cool.

Damn... This was really sad.

@guardiandevil83: Frank Castle just ain't getting a happy end.

@joshmightbe: Very nice piece,but you started to lose me around the

"You know I ain't sorry about that, I know I should be, Hell, I wish I could be.Truth is, I went numb years ago. Don't even care about doing this anymore I just couldn't stop."

I felt it was a tad too expository for Franks and his final moments.

@joshmightbe: Well. It was kinda happy. He made peace with himself: and that's all one can hope for. Excepting who and what we are.

Frank realized that he was the ill intent.

@stardustcrusader: Spider-Man tends to bring out the expository death speeches out in people. Seriously go look at any death scene in a Spider-Man comic where Spidey is there to hear their last words. 9 times out of 10 they end up passing an awful lot of information to Peter.

He's always kind of known he was a bad guy, maybe not always on a conscious level but the notion has always been there.

@joshmightbe: Always like Punisher V Bullseye and today we have an ending.

Adios Frank!

And seeing this made me write my chapter of Wild Dog, honestly.

@batkevin74: Well, I honestly put Bullseye in because I originally intended to have Daredevil be the guy Frank ended up with at the end but it just felt more right to have Spider-Man be the guy.

Not bad. Still not sure why he needed to charge him, but I like the ending enough not to dwell on a technicality.

Pretty much everything I wanted to say has already been said.

Bit sad over Frank's death. I think it would have been cooler if it was Daredevil instead of Spidey but ah well.

@joshmightbe: It seems right that the guy who never misses and the guy who wings everything once the action starts should kill each other. My only quibble was a minor one: I'd think Pete would have snagged the beer with a webline from where he was standing, rather than walking over to get it. :)

@tommythehitman: I don't entirely disagree with you on the Daredevil thing, Spidey just felt right to me.

@joshmightbe: Frank doesn't seem to be AS antagonistic with Spidey as he is with Matt.

@tommythehitman: From a real world perspective the Punisher got started by going up against Spider-Man so I figured there'd be kind of a full circle thing here, also, and I say this with no disrespect to Daredevil because I love that character but Spidey has always been the more compassionate of the 2 of them and at least in my head it makes a bit more sense that he'd feel compelled to make sure even someone he viewed as a bad guy didn't have to die alone.

I guess Cap could've worked too but I doubt Frank would be able to look past the ideal of Cap enough to have a legitimately honest conversation with him.