Warnings: Frank Castle. He's his own warning label.
Status: Closed/Match-Up
~*~
Talking wasn't high on Frank Castle's list of pastimes. He'd always been more of a listener. Or maybe he'd become more of a listener after spending too much time behind a gun. Psychology was all a bunch of bullshit to him, too. Doctors wanted patients so they kept getting paid the big bucks and could buy their fancy cars and beach houses and whatever new gadget Bill Gates or whoever had released this week. As far as Frank was concerned, those doctors were creating illnesses when they ran out of genuinely sick patients.
Central Park made his skin fucking crawl because he'd watched his family die there. He'd failed there. As a man. As a soldier. As a father. Frank Castle had failed his family in Central Park. He didn't need no fucking shrink to tell him why he didn't go to Central Park anymore without a damn good reason.
The parks in Madison Valley were a long way from the rumbling jungle that was Central Park in New York City; Frank found he could walk the trails there without being turned off too far. His skin stayed fine in the modern parks with their open layouts and small gatherings of people. It was easier to list all the things different from Central Park than to list the things Madison's parks had in common with the famous landmark.
Frank settled onto a bench to let the sun sink into his skin as he listened to children playing, people laughing, a dog barked somewhere in the distance, and he closed his eyes to try to forget who he was in favor of appreciating where he was instead. He knew when someone passed in front of him because they blocked the sun. He couldn't tell if they were stopping for their own reasons or because they were curious as to why he was sitting with his eyes closed, face turned up to the sun like some dumbass.
Opening his eyes, Frank squinted against the glare, asking, "What? I know I look like an idiot. I got my reasons. You gotta have yours to be out in the park now, too, right?"