Sue Storm Goes Looking For The Punisher

The Invisible Woman had everything she'd gone into wherever she had been with. Including her phone. Her hands shook as she found and dialed a number normally only reserved for emergencies.

It rang. Once. Twice... Then, a man breathing on the other end.

"Fury," Sue Storm said. "Whatever favors you owe me, I'm calling them in. I need to contact Frank Castle. No questions."

The Freaki Tiki Hut was a dive bar. There was dust on the pufferfish lamps that hung from the ceiling, the ancient postcards of topless grass-skirted women from Tahiti were yellowed and faded from decades of nicotine, and the crusty bartender's Hawaiian shirt had faded to the point that Sue could barely make out the palm trees.

She waited in the back, near the bathrooms. The bartender had allowed her to buy a cranberry juice and tonic, with a little orange paper umbrella and a slice of lime to make it look more like the alcoholic drink she absolutely could not have in her condition. Her hands shook as she held the glass anyway.

Fifteen minutes after she sat down, a big man in a trenchcoat slipped into the booth opposite her. She looked up and saw a five o'clock shadow, scars on scars, and the coldest, darkest eyes that the Invisible Woman had ever seen on something human.

"A villain targeted me," Sue Storm said, her voice odd to her own ears. "They had a power, pheromones, something—they used me. Fucked me. Held me captive for a year."

She went on. About how she had been used, over and over. Until the test went positive. The roughness of it, the degradation, the way it had broken her down, and then when she was finally knocked up, they let her go. To let her life unravel.

Frank Castle listened. He watched as her hands stilled as she told the story. How exhaustion gave way to anger, not hot anger, but the cold burn of someone who was much more dangerous. Without her even asking, he knew what she wanted from him. The only help he could offer anyone.

"Who do you want me to kill?" The Punisher asked when she finished.

"His name is Porkum."

The gossip blogs picked up on Sue Storm's pregnancy first. The Fantastic Four had arrived back, and it wasn't many weeks before the Invisible Woman started to show—that slight, unmistakable bulge in her abdomen that wasn't just a little middle age spread. Reed and Sue hadn't been seen together in public either, and already there were questions about paternity as people did the math. Yet the Fantastic Four hadn't made any announcements. Not yet.

Porkum rubbed his palms together. They had plenty of footage from Sue's year-long breeding. A little video to the worst of the paparazzi and Sue wouldn't be able to deny what had really happened. He chuckled to himself.

Then his snout twitched. He took in a long sniff. Something was off, below the familiar stench of his own body odor, old takeout, booze, and dried cum. He rose to his feet with surprising grace, his dickhead trailing on the ground. The door to his lair was open—there hadn't seemed to be any point in keeping it closed—but now a shiver went through his huge pink body, every sense alert.

He tip-toed to the door, stepped through...

The trip-wire was invisible. So was the claymore mine. Ball-bearings exploded, shredding through pink flesh. Porkum was stronger and denser than a normal human, able to take a superhuman amount of punishment...but the **** of the blast still tossed him across the room, shredded every soft bit of skin and integument, burst eardrums and eyeballs.

Sue Storm allowed the invisibility to drop. She and the Punisher both wore full-face masks connected to small oxygen bottles. Her, to keep herself safe from Porkum's pheromones. Frank Castle, to reduce his scent, and because he needed to breathe through this next part. He stepped forward, and lit the pilot light on his flamethrower.

Porkum was on his hands and knees. Bleeding. Screaming. Leaking blood and cum, drooling, fangs bared. Sue Storm clutched her swollen stomach protectively.

Frank Castle saw the darkness inside of the pig-man. The flamethrower spat a line of liquid ****.

Flames consumed the room. Sprinklers came on, but there was nothing the water could do against the napalm that consumed the howling, dying ****. Sue **** herself to watch, to remember the scent of his roasting flesh as sweat dripped down her body.

The Punisher didn't stop, not until the tank was empty. By that point, Porkum had ceased moving. Just a lump of charred meat, quickly losing any semblance of human form. Flames licked the walls of the room, consuming anything flammable.

The shovel's edge had been sharpened. Frank approached the burning corpse warily. It didn't move as he placed the edge against what had been the neck. One steel-toed boot pressed against the edge, he leaned his wait into it—and the charred skull of Porkum rolled free.

They left as the flames consumed the building—and, with luck, most of the evidence of Sue Storm's terrible year of captivity. Outside, they could take off their masks, breathe. No snappy one-liners, no vitriol. She hadn't even stared Porkum in the eye. And even after everything she had suffered, Sue wasn't sure she could have pulled the trigger, as the Punisher had. As used and degraded as she had become, cold-blooded **** wasn't in her nature.

"Thank you," she said.

He looked at her. All hard eyes, eerily calm. As though he did this every day. Which he did.

"What will you do now?" he asked.

Sue touched her stomach. "It's not the baby's fault. I'm going to keep it. Reed said he understands, but I know it hurt him when I told him. We'll try to make it work. For the kid's sake."

Frank Castle nodded, and turned away from her.

They went their own way, and carried no guilt with them.

In the burning building, an armored figure stepped from a secret door. A **** field kept the flames from touching the hem of his green cloak as he walked fearlessly through the flames. Doom had faced hellfire; this was no danger to him. He knelt and retrieved the half-charred head of his erstwhile ally...and considered his uses for it. The pig-man had not, after all, entirely failed. There was a crack within the Fantastic Four now—which, with the right tool, might allow them to be shattered.