Chapter Text
CHAPTER 17
Punisher
There were guards on the perimeter leading into December-- towards the place he still called home, even if it didn't want him-- helping guide the evacuees away, but for Livio, that wasn’t much of a problem. He just ignored them and powered through on his bike, speeding through the gate and shooting the lock off with one of his fangs as he went.
Things like those? They couldn’t keep him from where he most needed to be.
As he drove through familiar streets, caught sight of a familiar cliffside in the distance, his mind drifted to the past. Not that he didn’t think about it constantly, but…to be home. To be on his way home, even if he could never be a part of it again…
He remembered when he first arrived. He’d been eight, his parents’ blood still on his hands, unable to remember where the knife came from. Now he could look back and be glad they’re dead, after what they’d done to him, but at the time, it had been a twisted mess of feelings that had made him sick with crying, curled up alone and refusing to talk to anyone.
And then Nico had approached him. Cut right through his self-pity and reminded him that all the kids here felt the way Livio did, worthless and abandoned and unwanted. Had dragged him off to help wash dishes that day, and…that day had been the first day a spark of something that wasn’t hopelessness and despair had flickered.
And days followed after, little by little…and then came that day. The day Jasmine had tried to rescue her puppy and gotten stuck on an overhanging beam, terrified of falling. The day he’d rescued her without thinking, his small, skinny body moving before he could register it had.
That day-- that day had taught him how to love, for the first time.
And that day marked the beginning of the end.
The more he grew close to the other kids, to Auntie, to Nico-- the more he spent time with them, helping with chores, playing with the toma, learning and changing bit by bit, the more he spent time on the roof watching Nico sneak cigarettes and curled up napping together in the sun, finding a family that loved him at long last, a brother he adored more than he loved himself-- the more Razlo grew restless, angry, dissatisfied. Jealous. A wolf born of pain, unable to understand the lack of it, and unable to do anything with that but bare his fangs.
And that’s when Jasmine’s puppy had died, and he’d woken up with blood all over his hands and the other kids staring at him, whispering in fear and resentment, Jasmine fleeing from him whenever their eyes met.
He’d tried to run away that very night, sick and furious at himself-- but Nico had caught him. He’d been sitting there all night, waiting, the click of his lighter as he played with it in the dark echoing against the stone buildings. Don’t be a coward, Liv, he’d said. Facin’ stuff like-- whatever’s goin’ on with you is easier with others. I’ll take care of you, promise.
And then it had all fallen apart, bit by bit, and by the time he’d been there for three years, Nico had left them.
A blur of motion in front of him made him brake his bike suddenly, jerking a little at the motion before he realized-- he knew that kid.
“Hey, watch it,” his mouth moved before he thought about it. “I coulda hit you.”
The boy-- Claude, he thinks, the little guy who was always too scared to go to the bathroom by himself-- glared at him definitely. “Sorry…but no one stops when we call out,” he said. “Please, mister, we need help.”
His chest clenched, but he immediately stood from his bike, grabbing his Punisher off its perch behind him. “Had a feelin’,” he muttered, and then louder: “Where’s Miss Melanie? Is she at the orphanage?”
“H-how did you--?”
He swallowed. “I knew her from a while ago,” he lied, watching other children creep out from behind buildings. Oh, he knew half of them. Some of them must be newcomers, after the left, but some of them he remembered, and it made part of him want to start crying. “S’gonna be okay, guys. Tell me everything.”
They’d taken over the orphanage, he was told. The whole group had been packing to leave when they came-- twelve of them, and had taken some of the kids and Auntie prisoner. Weird men, he was told, with crosses like his. Five of them patrolling the grounds, five unseen. Scary.
That Nico was scary to them now, if he was there…he hated himself more and more by the moment for being the one to do this to the brother they’d actually missed.
“Hey, wait a minute--” One of the kids piped up as they were talking. “Where’d Cactus go?”
He froze, and turned to the group of them, looking around frantically. “He was just here! Where’d he--”
“He took the gun!” One of the girls yelped, indicating one of the big packs of supplies they’d managed to escape with.
“Shit!” Livio swore, jumping to his feet. “Idiot, what’d he go off on his own for! You guys all stay here, I’ll go get ‘im!”
Leaping back on the bike, he sped off, eyes fixed on the horizon, on the desert between him and the place he called home-- and on the orphanage, that distant star that had been the only thing that kept him going, the only thing that kept him human.
Hey…I was thinking…did we meet him before? He looked really familiar.
Yeah, that scar on his face…he looks a lot like-- but he wouldn’t be that old, would he?
Blood, explosions and fire. Death, as he sped across the desert, the cyborg mercenaries waiting for him no match for his fangs-- even just one of them, his other hand still on the handlebars of his bike.
This is what they’d made him into. This is what they’d torn the boy Livio apart and stitched him back together to create. Their perfect monster, their pride and joy. How many times had he heard that, even when he still thought himself too weak? His aptitude for the treatments had been beyond any of their reckoning. Razlo’s violence had been praised, admired. In another world, he would have slipped into the Eye of Michael and found a twisted home-- the first and only place he could exist as a wolf and be wanted for it, the only place where his bloodied fangs were accepted.
But for Nico-- for his home, for their sakes, for the sake of that part of him that had been born from love and family-- he hadn’t. He had held onto crybaby Livio...but even then.
Even then, he would always be made of violence. Always be good at it. Even then, he would dig graves and feel nothing as he did it, while his humanity gave him only the ability to cry over the deed afterwards. Cowardly, pathetic and weak, he supposed. No matter how strong he became, he wouldn't be strong enough. Even if he wanted to carry his sins for his own sake, no longer let anyone bare their fangs and bleed for him…
Don’t start that shit now, Liv. We got better things to do.
I know. You’re with me?
Always will be. Even if you think you ain’t strong enough…we’re the fuckin’ strongest together. Remember that.
Yeah.
He skidded to a halt and finally dismounted, ignoring the scattered bodies behind him-- or he tried to, until a mechanical whirr caught his attention and he spun around.
“Wait--”
The fallen cyborg cackled, its back opening to reveal a massive missile within it, pointing at-- no, fuck, no. “Feast your eyes on this!” He cackled. “War is a fickle bitch, though, killer, it’s a real damn shame you didn’t see this coming!”
“Stop!” Livio shouted, already tearing off towards him. “Damn you, stop!”
“Absolutely not! Not after this humiliation!” The cyborg yowled. “I don’t give a shit! Eat this!”
He was just that little bit too far away. “Damn it, no! Stop!” He cried out, even as the missile fired itself, even as-- as for a moment he was a kid again, not knowing what else to do. “Nico!”
Nico was there.
Silent, blindfolded, all in black, but there. There as he wordlessly caught that missile, throwing it back towards the cyborgs.
He landed silently, the explosion painting the sky behind him, and Livio swallowed thickly.
“Everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” Nico murmured, empty and hollow.
“Please, for the love of God, Nico, say something that isn’t scripture,” Livio begged. “It doesn’t suit you.”
If only Nico were here…
Yes…Nicholas would be able to help us. But Linda, he isn’t here. We have to take care of ourselves. We can’t rely on someone who isn’t here anymore.
Silence.
“Nico…” Livio sighed, pulling out his dented lighter-- Nico’s old lighter-- and flipping it in his hand, lighting a cigarette and breathing the smoke out in a cloud.
Did Nico’s head shift towards it? He hoped so. He hoped the smell, the sounds, would bring something back. “I wish we could talk like we used to. One more time, at least…oh, you’d hate this, wouldn’t you? What we’ve become? You always used to insist I was too soft, couldn’t hurt a fly…and you always wanted to protect us all so much. But now you’re here threatening the people you would’ve given anything to keep safe, and I’m covered in so much blood I can barely stand.”
He closed his eyes. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, is there? There’s no going back. Our hands are bloody, our fangs are sharpened. Our bodies are old before their time. There’s so much I want to tell you-- so much you need to know, Nico. About what happened, about Razlo.”
He let the cigarette fall from his mouth, stepping on it with his boot. “But the time for that’s long gone, isn’t it? So let’s dance, and when this is over…when this is over, we’ll have all the time in the world to catch up. I promise.”
Maybe he couldn’t keep that promise-- but he knew, that if one of them wasn’t making it out…it’d be him. Because Nico was the one everyone wanted. If he died to give him back to them…so be it. Maybe that would finally absolve him.
They both moved all at once, the moment words hit the air. Nico’s Punisher-- God, he used it so well, too well, almost better than him-- and his own fangs, his cross forgotten for the moment where he’d buried it in the sand.
But-- the difference in skill was obvious quickly.
He was far, far better than Nico. Maybe his brother could use his solo Punisher with that much more skill, given it was his only weapon, but in every other regard, Livio was the superior. Speed, reflexes, regenerative ability…he outclassed Nico in every way. He really was the Eye’s masterpiece, up against an inferior prototype.
But even so-- he was struggling. And it wasn’t like he didn’t know why.
It was because Nico was a prototype. Because he was weaker. Because he watched his brother stagger and slip a vial from his pocket, bullet holes fading in smoke.
He couldn’t kill his brother. And yet, he also couldn’t risk pushing him too hard-- he knew the price of that serum. If he made Nico have to take too many…
“Nico,” he begged again. “Please. Stop. You’ll die.”
Silence, as usual, and then, as if he truly could say nothing else-- “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.”
“For fuck’s sake, Nico, say something else!”
Gunfire sprayed from behind him, suddenly, and he leapt out of the way, skidding on the sand and spinning around, fury blazing through him-- he knew the only other person it might be, and he was right.
“You disappoint me,” Chapel said, the old man glaring at him, gun pointed directly at him-- though there were tears in his eyes, and the thing that Livio loathed most about the man was that they were genuine. “You, my most perfect creation, the one I put so much faith in, struggling like this? For what, unnecessary sentiment? He is your enemy-- you kill him. It should be as simple as that. And yet you have never been able to cut that out of you. It is on me, your mentor, for that oversight.”
“Fuck you,” Livio spat. “What did you do to Nico?”
Chapel laughed. “Why, whatever was necessary. He was such a desperate child when he arrived, and it was thanks to you, was it not? So desperate for forgiveness and absolution, he would do anything to earn it-- so we gave it to him, what he needed most. So long as he is our obedient soldier, he will be able to repent for his sins, just as he wishes. His devotion to it is truly admirable-- his talent for killing is almost as much as yours, and he has long since given up any of his weakness, unlike you.”
“You--!!”
He opened fire with a scream of outrage.
“Your body is strong, Livio, but your mind is weak!” Chapel cried over the gunfire, all three of them firing at once. “It is my greatest shame that I could never teach you better!”
“Shut up!”
He was right, though, wasn't he, Livio reflected as bullets tore through him. He might really lose this fight-- and not because he wasn’t strong enough; he was stronger than Nico, probably stronger than Chapel at this point now that he was wheelchair bound and on his last metaphorical legs. He could easily kill them both, and maybe he could take out Chapel if Nico didn’t get in the way, but--
Nico.
He wasn’t strong enough to fight Nico, to save Nico, to risk Nico’s life. Not after everything he’d been through to save him. He couldn’t-- not when people were waiting for Nico to come home.
“You have too much faith in others!” He heard Chapel say, distantly-- his ears were ringing, the blood in his mouth keeping him from words, his vision swimming at the amount of damage he was slowly accumulating. “You rely on your brother to wake up and save you, you rely on that man, on Knives the Reaper, to save the world, when he is a killer just as we are! Your sentiment will be your end!”
I--
Liv. I’ll take it from here.
…okay.
His body moved, flinging himself through the hail of bullets towards the martyr’s cross that still stood waiting for him-- would that he had all three, but not even Chapel had thought to be so charitable about it this day. The port welded to his back ached with disuse, but now wasn’t the time for that to change. Maybe it never would, from now on.
But that was immaterial.
Ripping the Punisher out of the ground and tearing the cloth off with one motion, Razlo spun on shaky, bleeding legs, eyes blazing.
“His sentiment is what ya should really be afraid of, old man!” Razlo snarled. “An’ you keep his name outta your fuckin’ mouth! That man-- Knives might be a killer jus’ like we are, but every fuckin’ day he chooses to be better’n that! Better’n us, more than this!”
Chapel-- not expecting to see him, perhaps-- was momentarily lost for words, and Razlo laughed. “You think Liv’s weak, ya think Knives can’t do shit-- yeah, right! The real strongest ones here are the ones that deny their nature, the ones that spit blood ta be human!”
He grinned viciously, spitting blood of his own as if in emphasis. “An’ no matter what he says, no matter how much has changed-- I’ll always be here ta bring the fangs for him so he can keep livin’ the way he wants! An’ now, Master C--” He spit the name with venom, the words he’d once used at first, when they’d just arrived. “--I’ll bury ‘em in your fuckin’ throat!”
He threw himself into the fight, then, towards Chapel and towards Nico-- if Livio couldn’t hack it, he would. He’d risk it, he’d risk their brother’s life to save him. He had faith in that man’s will to live. He had to.
He had to--
He had--
Chapel laughed, something in his voice that sent every enhanced sense of his ringing alarm bells through his battered body, and flipped his Punisher over. He’d never thought there was more than just a gun in his, what was he--
Fire.
A gout of flame spit from that weapon, casting an unsettling light on the old man’s face-- as if he were demon straight from hell. A flamethrower? When did he--
That was all Razlo could coherently process before his mind shut off.
The fire-- the flame, the heat, the crimson light--
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Help, Nico, help, it hurts, I’m sorry, it hurts it hurts it hurtsithurtsithurts! I’m sorry I’m sorry please put it out Nico please help me---
Screaming filled his mind, two terrified children on the day it all fell apart, screaming and fire and terror and pain, and he could no longer think or see in the midst of it. He knew, he’d known, he’d known about this about his weakness his fear and he-- and he--
“I will show you hell, Livio! Razlo! I will butcher those you clung onto sentiment for, one by one, and that is how I will get my revenge!” Chapel roared. “You, my most perfect disciple, my most beloved, betraying me so deeply, so thoroughly! I will not have it! Everything I did for you, for the both of you, and this is how you have repaid me?! You will suffer!”
When Razlo’s mind came back to him, he was on the ground. His body was-- burns covered it, flames having consumed half his poncho, his hat long since fallen somewhere. Flesh blackened and twisted, one of his arms and shoulders melted near to exposed bone. He couldn’t feel part of his face, his vision blurred.
Chapel’s Punisher, the long, pointed end, was buried into his once-again exposed guts, bullets having torn him open yet again. Nico stood beside him, looming there like a long dark and silent shadow, splattered in his own blood.
And in the edges of his vision-- in the edges of it, where he lay face up, head tilted back-- was Auntie. Auntie and the other kids.
Distantly, he heard Auntie shouting, defending the knot of kids, terror on their faces. He couldn’t make out words just yet, his ears still repairing themselves, the ringing so terribly loud like church bells.
“…care about them so much.” Chapel’s voice filtered in slowly, vicious and amused and terrible. “Perhaps that is why he refused to let you go, why he turned against even me in the end.”
No, Razlo thought frantically. No, no, don’t tell them! Don’t let them see him-- see them like this! He’s even more of a monster now! Look at him, a hideous creature, a bloodied horror, on top of the fear he’d already instilled in them before he left-- please, no, please--
A sob escaped him that sounded an awful lot like don’t.
“Don’t you recognize him?” Chapel taunted. “This man, begging me not to reveal him to you. This monster he’s become-- or perhaps he already was one, from what I have heard. The wolf you kept among your flock for so long, the demon who stole one of your own from you. What we’ve done to him changed his appearance greatly, but he cannot change what he has always been. Your cursed child.”
A foot slammed into his chin, tilting his head back fully, and his eyes met Auntie’s. His scar visible-- and unmistakable, he thought faintly-- as her eyes widened in horror.
“--Livio--?!”
He sobbed again. A tear ran down his ruined, healing face.
“No,” Chapel gloated, clearly delighted to be the one to do this to him, to torment him, to make him suffer in the worst way he could have chosen. “Meet the devil inside him, the creature who took away your precious Nicholas.”
“...please…” Razlo forced out, his charred throat finally healed enough to speak.
He squeezed his eyes shut, breath shuddering. Livio sobbed raggedly, gasping out apologies no one else but him could hear.
“...oh, Livio, look what you’ve done to yourself…”
His eyes snapped open. Auntie was looking at him-- not with hatred or fear, but sorrow. Maybe even sympathy. “No…I don’t know what you call yourself, but you’re the one who’s always taken care of Livio, aren’t you? He’s always tried so hard to carry his burdens alone, when you know his heart is too gentle for that, and you’ve always tried to look out for him in your own way, even when you didn’t know how. And now look where that’s gotten the two of you.”
A tear ran down her face. “But you came back for us,” she said. “You came to protect us. After everything you’ve been through, you still see us as home…”
No…she shouldn’t cry over them. Not them. Not when Nico was right there, unseeing, unhearing, because of him.
She was right-- Livio was too gentle, he never knew how not to hurt others, and…and they were just a mess. A hot mess, who wasn’t able to even protect them when he was the only one left who could.
Maybe he really would die here, unable to heal. Here in front of the only place they’d ever wanted to call home.
…
…why…was he thinking about him?
That man…that fellow wolf, who had offered to make his burden his own, too. Who knew what it was like to mourn a brother, wish to save a brother. Who tried so hard to keep his fangs from harming others…someone who might be-- his very first friend…
…maybe if he was here, then…
Chapel’s boot slammed into the dirt next to his head.
“I’ll spare you further pain,” he said. “I will take everything from you, piece by piece, Razlo. Livio. This is where it gets fun.”
His Punisher lifted from where it was buried in his guts, up, up towards Auntie and the kids-- “No!” He screamed it, body pushing itself to the limit to heal faster, faster, hands reaching out even as flesh and bone restructured itself to grab him, tackle him, keep him from firing--
Something’s shadow fell on them.
The sound of bullets ringing against steel; no, something more than steel.
A blade sliced past his cheek, digging into Chapel’s arm and making him recoil even as Razlo fell back, stunned, and--
His head turned behind him. His heart-- their heart-- skipped a beat.
Nai…?