"Miranda! You'll never believe it!"

Astrid bounded into the kitchen with a huge smile on her face. Before her friend could give a bewildered reply, Astrid cut in with, "I got hired! At The Daily Bugle. I'm their new photo editor!"

Miranda's blue eyes widened into saucers. Her hands were covered in flour due to the cookies that she'd been baking. The room erupted with her shrieks of joy. Miranda grabbed Astrid's hands and danced her around the room. White flour got all over them both.

"I knew it! I knew you'd get the job!" Miranda smirked knowingly. "I mean, how could they possibly resist your feminine charms?" She batted her lashes playfully.

Astrid laughed at her friend. She threw herself into a chair at the kitchen table.

"I think they must have been pretty desperate for a new editor." she said thoughtfully. "Apparently the old one had quit on them a couple days ago so I arrived just in time." What a relief too. When the girls had first moved to New York the one thing that had been on Astrid's mind was how in the world she was to get a job. And what kind of job to get too. Thankfully she had that behind her now.

Miranda shook her head wonderingly. "Wow. This is so great. We're here for little over a week and already we both have our dream jobs. And you get to see all those cool pictures too... Work some editing magic on them." she winked at Astrid from across the table.

Crossing her and uncrossing her legs, Miranda leaned forward confidentially. "So... What about your boss? Is he cute? What do you think of him? Do you like him? Does he work out?" Miranda's questions were getting more and more bizarre the longer she spoke. Astrid quickly cut in before Miranda said anything too crazy.

"My boss? Ugh. No he's not cute, not even a little bit so don't bother asking. His name's Jonah Jameson and the guy seems to be in a permanently crabby mood. He actually yelled at me to get out of his office when I asked about the job. Then he changed his mind when he realised he was out of luck what with no photo editor around." Astrid shrugged nonchalantly. "Other than a crappy boss I think I'll like my job a lot."

Miranda nodded. "Yeah. That's good, at least you like the job." She smiled encouragingly at Astrid.

Miranda already had employment. There was a bakery down the street that she worked at for five days a week. Without Miranda's hard work they might not have been able to make the move in the first place. Astrid's friend had dreams of someday owning her own establishment, but for now the 22 year olds contented themselves with sharing a cramped apartment in the city of heroes.


Astrid pulled herself back to the present. 9:22, the clock read. That meant night had fallen. When she thought about it though, it was never truly night in this city. The city never sleeps, or so she was told.

Pulling open her closet door she then knelt down, banging her knees on the scuffed floorboards. She shoved aside mismatched shoes, a dusty textbook, and a trashed CD player that she'd planned on getting fixed. Digging her fingers into the slim cracks in the floorboards on either side of the closet, she lifted up the board to reveal the hidden compartment beneath. Astrid set aside the board and pulled out the contents within. She removed a solid black outfit, a pair of combat boots, and last of all a pair of charcoal jeans with red and gold flame designs. This aspect of the costume was her favorite. The music playing from her Ipod provided a good background beat as she suited up.

"You cast a spell on me (spell on me), ya hit me like the sky fell on me (fell on me), and I decided you look well on me (well on me) so let's go somewhere no one else can see you and me,"

The rhythm of the Wanted flooded through her veins, making her want to dance. Her hips swayed to the beat as she shrugged on her bulletproof vest over the rest of the ensemble. After slipping on her combat boots Astrid once again knelt in front of the closet to retrieve her weapons. She strapped on a stun gun, tucked a pistol into the holster at her belt, and slipped a switchblade into an ankle sheath in her right boot. Last of all Astrid tied on the black face bandanna that served as her mask. She knew that criminals didn't take a vigilante seriously if they could see the person's face. Especially if that vigilante happened to be a girl.

Astrid slipped out her bedroom window, clinging tightly to the sill. The fire escape was only a few feet away. She'd done this a thousand times before. The lunge across open space seemed natural to her now.

For a brief moment she was freefalling, then her hands slapped down hard on the cold surface of the rungs. Her momentum crashed her against the fire escape, jarring her bones. The metal structure rattled from the impact.

A cool wind nipped at her neck as Astrid ascended the rungs to the roof of her building. Then she began traversing the lone rooftops of Manhattan in search of trouble.

Nightwatcher. That's what she was called. It didn't take long for word to get around about a new vigilante working the streets. The public saw her emergence as a threat, which wasn't too surprising. The criminals however, took her approach as a challenge.

Those first few years were some of the worst Astrid had ever experienced. Criminals got cocky. They liked to push the boundaries with superheroes as well as vigilantes, which meant the element of danger had been increased.

When Astrid first put on the mask, thus initiating herself into the vigilante world, she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

It was tough. A lot of the time she'd come home bruised, bloody, and beaten. She could have given up, She could have chosen a normal life, a safe life. The decision lay before her to fight or flee. She always chose to fight. Criminals learned pretty soon that she wasn't one to mess with. They learned that the name of Nightwatcher was to be taken seriously.

However, street thugs weren't the only ones that needed to learn that.

Other vigilantes got wind of her presence on the streets. A few were a little more than curious about her. On several occasions she had crossed paths with Daredevil, and each new meeting tested not only her strength but also her endurance. The man made it a point that the streets were no place for pansies. So she proved to him that she was just the opposite of that.

Astrid had a real run for her money though when she first encountered the Punisher.


Astrid was twelve years old when her parents bought her her first dog. They had decided that she was finally old enough to handle the responsibility of training a puppy. Astrid was in Cloud 9 when she first laid eyes on the fluffy golden Labrador Retriever. She loved him to pieces.

It didn't take long though for the pup to cause her trouble. Housetraining wasn't the worst of it. No, that was the easy part. When the puppy entered the teething phase he went around destroying anything he could get his paws on! Shoes and books, TVs and lamps, all suffered at the teeth of that little Lab. Astrid was exasperated with all the vexation he was causing her. She took responsibility for everything damaged or destroyed, which took a lot out of her pocket. She did everything she could to get the dog to stop. She used newspapers, she locked him outside, she changed his diet... EVERYTHING! She tried and tried until finally, one day she'd had enough and was considering getting rid of the dog. He was too much work and she'd simply run out of patience for him.

Astrid could sorely empathize with her dog now. When the Punisher found her he was none too pleased with her performance. And that's putting it nicely. Once the man with the guns got his hands on Astrid he aimed to set her straight.

So for a time she worked with the Punisher. Well more like she watched while he demonstrated the proper way to fight scum. He actually taught her a few valuable tricks and even gave her the loop on which weapons were best for what.

For the most part Frank was a patient teacher. There were times though when Astrid felt like a whipped puppy. Actually, she felt like that a lot. He got onto her about everything. It seemed that there was no perfect way to do something. It was frustrating beyond belief to have to deal with that man.

Fortunately her puppy grew out of that phase. Frank Castle, apparently, was still waiting for her to grow out of it.

She and Frank had differing views on how they should handle criminals. Frank was pro-choice, meaning he should have the right to kill the scum and then the world would be a better place. Astrid was pro-life, in that the criminals should be caught and sent to prison where they would have a long time to think about their decisions. The Punisher... Well he punished all right but Astrid didn't see the point of killing off criminals as retribution. Where was the lesson in that? A dead person can't learn from his mistakes. Astrid, personally, preferred not to kill. In her opinion murder should be a last resort. Frank argued that the scum should be disposed of before they could hurt anyone else. Which was a good argument, but Astrid liked to believe that given the chance, even a criminal could change for the better.

Given the chance...

Astrid's mind flew back to the present as she crouched on the rooftop of a nameless building. Miranda should have had a chance. Astrid gritted her teeth and launched herself across the open chasm that was an alleyway below. Her feet hit the roof of the next building.

Astrid took a deep breath then let it out. She needed to have a clear mind if she was going to find the sort of trouble she was looking for. Moving along at a sprint she traveled up the West Side, keeping her senses on full alert.


A/N: Read and review :)