A few quick notes: This story is Frank/OC. Though they meet quite early in the story, it's very slowburn. Despite this being a 'romance' fiction, this story will mostly focus on how the characters interact with one another.

Warnings: Anything one would expect from the Daredevil series

Disclaimer: I have no rights to anything in this story other than my Original Character :'(

Enjoy.

CHAPTER 1

Jenny strolls down one of the many bustling, early morning streets. Workdays in Hell's Kitchen are always noisy, crowded, but she loves listening to the commotion of people on their rush to meet the day. The coffee house isn't far from her residence, and even though there is no need to leave the apartment today- like most days- Jenny follows her somewhat regular routine of rising early and heading out.

The news reporter had claimed that today should be one of the last in this week's temperature spike, leaving Jenny to silently thank her lucky stars. The heatwave is unpleasant for everyone, but with an abnormally high body temperature, for her it was even more so. So while the rays from the low sun lick at her exposed upper back and shoulders with an unappreciated ferociousness, Jenny passes the suit jackets and pencil skirts on her way to the shop, ignoring the pestering heat.

Upon arrival Jenny pushes the store's glass door open, earning the chime of a soft bell, and steps into the welcomed cool of the air conditioning. The coffee house is reasonably sized. The counter jutting out from the back wall is adorned with a till and a small glass display refrigerator filled with muffins and pastries. Mounted upon the wall above the counter is a blown-up menu of the drinks for sale. In front of the counter is an empty space for customers to line up, and along the walls on either side are metallic, two-seater tables.

Despite the busy hour of morning there are only a handful of people in the store, and it isn't long before Jenny is at the head of the line. She smiles at Suzy, the kind brunette worker behind the counter.

"The usual?" Suzy asks.

Jenny gives a polite nod. "Thanks."

She shifts off to the side as Suzy hands the order to another worker and starts with the next customer. As she begins to scribble the new order down, the bell on the door gives a ding and a blonde man saunters in. He cuts past the three people already in line, receiving a few grunts of disapproval, and throws some notes down in front of Suzy. The girl, in response, places the cash in the register and leans down, reaching for something under the bench. The blonde man turns to Jenny and smiles brightly through his short beard.

"Jenny, how you doin'?" He beams.

The woman smiles right back, clapping him on the arm in greeting. "I'm quite alright. Picking up for the boss-man, Rafe?" She asks.

Suzy slides two lidded coffee cups over to counter to Rafe and inclines her head briskly before resuming the order with the now-disgruntled customer. He snatches up the cups, one in each hand, and moves to Jenny's other side, away from the register. "Of course I am. You know how Mr. Nesbitt gets if he doesn't have his coffee."

"Can't argue with that. What is it about cranky Irishmen?" She ponders aloud playfully as she accepts a cup from a worker and takes a sip, placing her payment on the bench top.

"Why can't you just drink coffee like the rest of us normal people?" Rafe jokes.

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with chocolate frappes, thank you very much." Jenny defends. "Besides, drinking coffee makes me feel sick, no matter how much I like how it smells."

"Whatever, lady." Rafe rolls his eyes.

The two of them make their way to the front door, and Jenny opens it for Rafe who slides past her and out onto the street. They walk together, and though Jenny's apartment is the other way, she doesn't mind the extra time in the fresh air.

"Thanks for fixing up Thomas the other night." Rafe says, giving a side glance at her. "With a stab wound like that he probably wouldn't have made it."

Jenny holds up her free hand absentmindedly. "Don't mention it. It's not like I did it entirely out of the kindness of my heart, anyway. You guys pay me for my... err, services."

"Services?" He raises a blond brow. "You patch up mobsters and gang members with your weird, witchy, magic powers."

The woman laughs. "That's one way of looking at it."

"Speaking of mobsters and gang members," Rafe starts, halting in the pathway. "Mr Nesbitt's having a celebratory get together tonight with some of the boys. You wanna join?"

Jenny stops walking and gives a hesitant sigh. "I like the Irish mob, okay? They're nice fellas for the most part. But you know the deal: I lend my abilities and you don't pull me into any illegal business."

The blonde man chuckles and nudges her with his elbow. "I know the details of your arrangement with us, Jenny. It's only a few drinks, no illegal shit, I swear."

Jenny purses her lips. Dealing with the gangs of Hell's Kitchen is tricky business, she knows this. But the relationship between the two she affiliates with the most is very obviously friendly. The Kitchen Irish and the Dogs of Hell both treat her like one of their own, and respect her decision to stay out of their more private activities. Both groups know she works for the other, but since she stays out of anything important and therefore has no valuable information to sell off, neither gang minds her… two-way dealings, one could call it.

The truth is, Jenny has a very special gift. When she touches people through skin on skin contact, and if she concentrates a little, she can tell where every cut, scrape, or any other form of physical ailment is on a person. More than that, she has the ability to heal even the most fatal wounds in minutes. Albeit, the procedure is messy, has certain ritualistic-like procedures involved, and she and her patient feel like cow pat afterwards, but she still does is anyway.

Jenny got in with the Irish and the Dogs of Hell at around the same time, and because of this neither of them could claim dibs on her with the 'we knew her first' excuse. From there on, she worked as a healer for the men who needed attention, and in return was paid extremely modestly. The Irish nor the Dogs hurt her on the knowledge that she has made it abundantly clear she's on strictly mutual grounds. She's made plenty of acquaintances, few of them she'd even dare call friends, doing this. And so, a distant yet trustworthy relationship was born between her and the crime families.

So the question is: does she want to go for drinks with the Kitchen Irish?

"Well I'm not doing anything else tonight, so I guess I'll be there." Jenny replies, giving a nonchalant shrug and sipping her cold chocolate beverage.

"That's great!" Rafe exclaims loudly. "I'll tell Boss you're coming."

"You do that." Jenny chuckles lightly at his playful antics and looks back in the direction they came. "I should head back to the apartment and start on today's paperwork. I'll see you tonight, at the normal place?" At his affirmative nod she starts her journey home. She turns back around and calls to him "Make sure Nesbitt has at least one type of non-alcoholic drink for me!"

Rafe lifts one cup in the air as a sign of acknowledgement and continues on his way, rounding a corner and disappearing from view.

Jenny turns on her heel, sipping away, and swims in the noise of the city streets as she goes.

Damn, this heat sucks.

The folder of today's work is complete. Jenny shuts off her laptop, snapping it shut and moving it to the side. Work as an accountant has its perks, and working from home most of the time is one of them. Yes, it's odd for her someone in her occupation to be at home almost all of the time, but Jenny has worked for this company for almost eight years. Two and a half years ago she'd had it with sitting at a desk chair, and told her boss that she'd proven herself an excellent worker time and time again, then asked politely (demanded) to work from home.

Everything gets done on time and passes all expectations. She stops by the office every day or two to pick up and drop off her work and make sure there isn't anything else she can help with, and then goes home. The job pays well and Jenny, in all honesty, is great at what she does.

Some people have told her that she should try something new. You're 29, they say, don't you wanna get out and have a little fun? Don't you want to find love, have children? But Jenny loves her life. Jenny loves her boring job, her abundance of free time. She loves her average apartment, and she loves living alone. She doesn't even mind not having a furry or scale-y or feathery companion. She's perfectly content with her life, and content with whatever said life gives her.

Jenny stands and walks to the mirror by the door. Her face thankfully doesn't have any ink marks, nor do her hands and arms. She fixes the straps of her singlet, pulls the neckline higher over the swell of her breasts which seem adamant on trying to spring out, and adjusts the waistband of her jeggings until the clothing is centred. The night is cooler than the day, thankfully, so Jenny is completely justified to reach up and pull her ashy brown hair from its restraints atop her head. The soft, lengthy strands tumble over her shoulders before they come to rest, making themselves comfortable over the dip in her spine and either sides of her belly button. Jenny slips on a pair of simple flats and throws on her shoulder bag.

She locks the apartment door and ruffles her hair with both hands as she descends the single flight of stairs that lead to the lobby –if you could call the cold, empty room that- and then out into the streets.

She's almost there, no more than a block or two away. A surge of paranoia eats through her chest and she opens her bag to check everything it still in there as she walks. Phone, wallet, deodorant, water bottle, clean rags, switchblade (a gift from Doug, a friend in the Dogs of Hell), lighter, a thick and well-worn candle. Everything's there, just in case she might need them.

Jenny doesn't look up from her bag; the streets are empty and there's no need to watch out for numerous passers-by like she has to in the daylight. She's about to close her bag up when she rounds the corner and collides with a dark figure.

She stumbles a great deal, but manages to right herself before she falls to the concrete. Her bag strap had slipped from her shoulder during the crash, and though her hand still has a hold on the belt, the satchel itself is sideways and some of the contents have spilled out onto the walkway.

She bends to collect them, first the wallet, then the switchblade. She stashes them away before the stranger crouches and helps her. She picks up her water bottle, and the stranger reaches for the deodorant can and the candle.

Jenny notices first the hands wrapped around the cylindrical items; they are male, calloused, definitely, as though they have handled tools and machinery for a lifetime. The fingers have small nicks and scratches, as do the backs of both hands. The knuckles are bruised and scraped and Jenny has seen enough of these types of markings on mobsters to know they're from distributing repetitive and brutal assaults with a bare fist.

Her gaze is then drawn to the boots. Big, black, laced. With this type of footwear Jenny's surprised she didn't hear him stomping her way from a block's distance. The heels of the boots are lifted from the ground, and all the man's weight is precisely balanced on the balls of the feet with an unwavering steadiness.

She reaches for the objects, closing her hands around them, but also slightly overlapping them atop his. Curiously, she ranges out through their shared skin and feels for him. He is bruised in his shins, his arms. His hands have the worst of it, stinging and throbbing. There's also a sore spot on his right side where's he's undoubtedly been hit or kicked, and the skin on his forehead feels tender. Fascinatingly, there's a minute hole in his skull. Jenny is unsure why the hell it's there or what it is, but she thinks it's a bullet hole and, if so, wonders why this man was shot in the head.

She draws back into herself and slides the spray can and candle from his grasp. As she stand up her fingers guide them into her bag and then swipe some hair from her face before they zip up her satchel. The stranger didn't notice her probing around inside him. It only takes half a moment for her to assess someone and they can't feel it anyway.

"Better watch where you're goin', lady." The man says. Heck, he basically grunts it. Jenny would have found his statement rude but his tone, though gravelly, was light and the corner of his lip was tipped upwards just the slightest. "You might run into someone."

She watches him. His hair is cropped short around the sides, and most probably around the back, to a length that almost seems skin-shaven with a straight-razor. The hairs become gradually longer as her eyes trail upwards, and there is a section on the top that look like a patch of shortly mown grass. But the grass is black. And hair. Jenny figures it's a bad comparison and decides to refer to it as a crew cut.

The bridge of his nose is high and looks as if it has been broken more than once. His jawline is strong and stern and sharp. The man's lips appear soft and delicate; they are light pink and have a gentle curvature like rolling hills, which seem oddly feminine compared to his other features consisting of nothing but clean-cut edges and smart folds wrapped up in a blanket of standard masculinity.

Though he carries a somewhat playful tone and a possibly friendly face, his eyes are completely devoid of the responsive character he's trying to portray. They are small and dark, and the light from the street lamp bounces right off them. Jenny believes that he might be thinking of a far-away time or place, but she can't be certain.

"Thanks." She flexes the muscles around her mouth, pulling her lips into a small grin if only to help him believe she isn't seeing right through his fake pleasantries. He's trying to be polite, at least. "I'll try my best."

"'M kinda curious." The polite stranger starts. "Why d'ya got a candle in your purse?"

Jenny gives a light chuckle, thinking of a way to avoid the question. "Why wouldn't I?" She dares.

The man grunts and holds up his hands in mock surrender. "You got me there."

Her lips quirk up of their own accord this time and she clears her throat. "It was nice chatting with you, but I have somewhere to be." She goes to step past him.

"Careful out there tonight. I heard something's goin' down, you know. Look after yourself."

Being the tall woman she is, Jenny's only an inch or so shorter than him. She presses her lips together and smirks directly at him as she brings her fingers to her temple in a playful salute. "Yes sir."

She arrives at the Burren Club as Thomas, a golden-haired Irish mobster and her latest patient, drags a large dog from inside the garage. He nods in greeting to her as he passes, clearly too occupied to stay and talk. As he nears the open roller doors two men step around the corner. Mr Nesbitt has never been one for dogs, and it's clear in the way he looks down at the suddenly barking mutt.

Thomas apologises profusely for the dog's behaviour and Nesbitt is quick to account. The boy drags the dog outside and Nesbitt lifts his head up, spying Jenny there with her casual clothes and her satchel.

He smiles briefly, walking over and gripping her shoulder. "It's good to see you, child."

"I'm barely a handful of years younger than you." She responds as he leads her inside, his man following a pace behind. They enter the room, a single long table in the centre and a bar across the back.

"Place smells like dog shit." Nesbitt exclaims.

It really doesn't, maybe a little like wet dog, but it isn't all that bad. Jenny doesn't correct him though.

The men come and greet Mr Nesbitt, and Jenny shares some nods of hello with the few people she actually recognises here. Already at the table are Cullen, Johnny and Rafe. Rafe sits with a smile on his face and a beer in his hand beside Cullen Cooley, the Big Boss' son. Beside Cullen is Johnny, a large, tremendously tall middle-aged man in a blue t-shirt whom Jenny had once saved from a bullet wound to his upper thigh.

The three boys smile as she makes her way over to them, and Rafe pulls up a seat to his left. She plops down and places her bag in her lap.

"Jen, how've you been, old lady?" Cullen asks, smirking, and takes a pull of his beer.

Jenny reaches right over Rafe with an evil grin to mess up Cullen's hair and only stops when Rafe pulls her off. Johnny laughs his deep chuckle and Cullen repeatedly touches his hair, attempting to fix the damage that's been done.

A lot of the guys in this gang are hard ass pricks, but Jenny likes these three, choosing to ignore the fact that they've most likely done some serious law breaking in their time.

"This is a night for celebration." Nesbitt declares, raising his glass. The others round the table do so as well, raising their glasses and bottles. Jenny quickly shoves her hand into her bag and pulls out the bottle of water, unscrewing the lid and raising it like the rest. Nesbitt looks down his nose at her water bottle with smile. "That's some hard stuff you're hitting, child."

Jenny flushes, but grins back through her blush nonetheless. "Don't you know it, Nes."

He rolls his eyes and continues with his speech. Nesbitt speaks greatly of family and duty, and when George, the red-haired drunk, gives a sarcastic comment on being sober, Jenny discretely stands and heads for the bar. She doesn't think Nesbitt would ever snap and lose his temper over something as little as that, but George is known even by her for his disrespectful mouth when he is drinking, which is always, and she doesn't fancy herself being caught in the crossfire should anything happen.

She places her bag on the bar and glances at a man named Elliot, who watches her as she takes a swig from her bottle. Jenny twists the cap back onto the bottle and slides it into her bag before grabbing the tropical juice carton from the cool rack. Not exactly what she had in mind when she asked for non-alcoholic, but it's good enough. She pours a glass anyway and heads to the table now that the room isn't as tense. No one notices her, or at least no one pays attention to her, because they are focused too intently on Nesbitt. She's taking her bag off to slide into her chair as the first bullets rain down in quick succession. They embed themselves into Nesbitt, who falls to the ground, and all those at the table are quick to draw their firearms. From there on in it is chaos. Jenny presses herself against the right wall. She watches as the bullets hit their targets on the left side of the room, heading towards the centre, then towards them. Her arms reach out and grab Rafe, who is closest to her, by the scruff of his collar. She yanks with all her might and he is suddenly flat against the wall beside her.

The bullets pause for a jiffy and then resume on the left side of the room again, where there is arguably more men. Jenny takes this chance to crouch down; most of the bullets are aimed at chest height, so she flattens herself. She's belly down on the floor and she's about to pull Rafe's legs out from under him to get him down as well, but he's shooting again, his back coming off the wall. In the next moment a bullet pierces his face, directly underneath his left eye. He shoots twice more as the hard lines of worry and concentration begin to unwillingly unwind on his face. His muscles relax and suddenly he is falling. Down, down, down. He crashes and crumples, face to the ground. She brings a hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying out.

Cullen is next. She sees the spray of bullets heading his way but he's too far for her to move to in time. They hit him in the chest thrice, in the neck once. He's down too, on his back, though.

Jenny sees a shape move through the back of the room, behind the bar, but whoever it is moves out of sight before she recognise them.

The deafening boom of gunshots is slowly thinning out now. The Irish are being mowed down. The last man eventually falls and the bullets cease.

They're all dead.

Jenny waits a period of time much longer than necessary in the eerie silence before hauling herself to her feet. She's relatively clean as far as she can see: no blood beside a bright splash on her upper arm. She doesn't know who it belongs to, but it's not hers. She staggers out of the room, away from the death and the bloodshed.

Shit. Her open palm comes to her forehead. She scrapes the hair away from her face in a fit, trying to control the tears. Shit.

In and out she breathes, slowing her heartbeat, focusing on her breathing. She creeps into the nearest alley, making sure it's empty, and throws her back against the wall. There, she slides down the wall and onto the pavement. She holds her breath for as long as she possibly can, exhaling in a huff once she can't anymore.

Now as calm as she can bring herself to be, Jenny slips the satchel from her shoulder. In a state of carelessness, she empties her entire bag onto the cement in front of her. She then proceeds to line up the objects, standing them upright or turning them the correct way.

It's not the first time she's seen a dead body, or several. Heck, it's not even the first time she's witnessed a murder. But as always, she's shaken by what she's seen.

She snatches the water bottle up, downing nearly half of what's left, and placing it back in its position. She grabs the rags -cloths?- and folds them up, soaking them with a decent amount of water and wiping the sweat and tears and dirt from her face. Then she cleans he rag once more with water and uses it to wipe the large smear of blood decorating her arm. She gets to her feet, stuffs the now filthy rags in the nearest dumpster, and shoves her belongings back into her satchel.

The tears threaten to well up again and she scolds herself for it. There's nothing you could have done. Your powers don't work on the dead.

Jenny sighs. There're not many options now. She could go home, but that would result in her crying for hours to come and that isn't something she looks forward to. She could go to the Dogs of Hell for company, but they would ask questions and she doesn't want to be under anyone's gaze at the moment. Or she could walk around until she finds a crowd big enough to slip into and just relax for a while.

She likes the last idea.

Frank running into her had been an honest accident. He was too busy thinking of what he was about to do to the Irish to focus on what was around the corner. Then she ran right into him, her shoulder knocking his chest as she fumbled through her bag.

She was tall, almost as tall as him, and her hair was incredibly long. It fell all the way to her abdomen in waves of something between yellow and brown. Her eyes were dark like the wood of an old tree.

He had stooped down to help her gather her things. To the public eyes he is an immoral man, and though his night time activities do nothing but support that, even Frank knows he isn't rude. A wallet, a water bottle, body spray and… a candle? He isn't one to judge the items a person carries around on them, but of all the things… a candle?

Frank asks her why she'd carry a candle with her and she chuckles softly. "Why wouldn't I?" He recognises the deflection tactic. Smart girl.

She's polite, and he tries his best to equal her with his manners. Frank plays along with the long haired lady's jest, lifting his hands and yielding his argument. "You got me there."

Her next smile is wider than the first and she clears her throat, trying to pull her lips back into submission. "I have somewhere to be."

Right, Frank reminds himself, so do I. On a similar train of thought, Frank keeps talking despite himself as the long haired lady passes him. He can't help it; the girl's nice and he doesn't want an innocent civilian anywhere near where he's about to throw down. "Look after yourself."

She smirks and salutes him mockingly. "Yes sir."

Frank's nearly happy he ran into her, enjoying the idle chit chat where he doesn't need to be anyone other than himself.

But then she's there at the Burren Club. She's all friendly with a trio of Irishmen and Frank is confused. She's not supposed to be there. He knows the name of every single one of the men in the room and exactly what they've done to deserve what they're about to get, but her? He's got no idea.

He can't back down now. This is his one opportunity to hit the Irish in a way that will shake them. Though she is associating with the mobsters, he hasn't the slightest clue who she is or what she'd done and he can't justify killing her. So, Frank cocks his weapon and waits. He waits until she's out of the way. Of course, he could take them all down without hitting her, but he doesn't want to risk it with the knowledge that she could be innocent. She finally stands, and when she's coming back with a drink in her hand she's by the wall and mostly out of range.

One batch, two batch, penny and dime.

He takes his first shot, the butt of the firearm satisfyingly kicking against his shoulder. The speaker, Nesbitt, goes down and the Irishmen jumps to their feet with their weapons drawn. His shots dart across the room, aimed purposefully at the best, the sharpest shooters. The long haired lady is suddenly pressed to the wall. Smart girl. He takes down six more men, moving from left to right now that the main threats have been terminated. As he near her side of the room, she reaches for a blonde bearded man close to her and pulls him by his collar against the wall with her.

Shit. The man's behind her, and Frank can't get a clear shot. Instead, he moves back across the room, taking out another few men. When he aims at the blonde at the wall, the thug is moving forward, out from behind the long haired lady who's flat on the floor, and into the clear. Frank doesn't pause. He pulls the trigger when his sight is on the man's face. He topples and the long haired lady covers her mouth and presses herself harder into the floor.

Maybe the blonde's her man? Frank attempts to recall his name. Piper Rafe. 34. Five feet nine inches. No official spouse. So he isn't -wasn't- married, but she was protecting him when she pulled him to the wall and his death was the only one that seems to be affecting her. Perhaps that's the only reason she's affiliated with the Irish.

But then Cullen Cooley's down, and she seems rattled by that as well. Friend's with the son of Finn Cooley. Who is this person?

Through the back, he sees a man run out before he can shoot. Elliot Grote. He'll get to him later. The rest of the job is finished quickly now that the woman's out of the way.

Bam, bam, bam.

He waits long after the killing has finished, his sight trained on the woman. She's clever not to move until she thinks he's gone. He doesn't shoot, only watches. She's not his target tonight. The long haired lady pulls herself to her feet after a while, shoulders her bag, and leaves.

Frank lifts his eye from the scope of his gun, flicking on the safety and begins disassembling it.

He'll figure out who she is.

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