It had taken some effort to find the little eavesdropper. The glimpse she got of him making a quiet exit from the meeting point did not give her much to work with, not even a hair colour. Just a grace of movement that, thankfully, was uniquely difficult to replicate. Attempting to follow him actually gave her more to work with when she tried to stake him out the following night. It seemed the brave little eavesdropper was searching for information on the Russian brother's death and her involvement in it. Not that he could be considered little when she finally got a proper look at him.

Her successful stake out had led to an even more rewarding day of scoping. She was marginally surprised to find he was a blind small time lawyer, with a funny man for a partner, a woman accused of murder for a secretary and that used a priest as a sounding board. She was sure there was more to him than that, but that could've been enough for some people.

She had already decided to meet with him when she first discovered that he was fishing for information. However, she was not overly fond of making noise and causing a scene, hence her stake out and the following scoping. Once she was reasonably sure she knew where he lived and had an idea of when he would be out, she did a little untraceable breaking and entering and left him an invitation. Vladimir would've called her brainless for giving away such valuable information like knowing an address, but she really didn't care who this man was or what he did with his life. Besides, it's not like she was silly enough to make it easy for him. He'd have to prove himself to find her and would inevitably give away more valuable information in the process. She only said she'd meet him on the rooftop in the evening. She didn't say which rooftop.

She had chosen a darkened corner between the roof access and a satellite mast, to sit and wait for the masked vigilante to come and find her. Had she been sitting in the street the same way she was on the rooftop, a number of pedestrians probably would've made a double take or two, due to the fact that she was floating a good two to three inches above the ground. There were a lot of weird and wonderful things in the world aside from her and she was kind of curious to see how he would react to them.

The soft sound of careful foot fall greeted her ears and she quirked her head to watch as a man of average height with a muscular build seemed to pad carefully into the open space of the rooftop, tilting his head this way and that as if trying to hear and see something that nobody else could, until finally he was looking in her direction and taking another tentative step towards her; as if not sure he could trust whether or not his senses were telling him the truth.

"I heard you were looking for me," she began, alleviating his doubt.

He paused to take in her voice, her position and a number of other things she probably hadn't considered, then responded evenly; "You're a hard woman to find."

"Not as hard as you," she smiled at his civility. It was nice to see that he was willing to talk, to think, rather than go in guns blazing.

"Considering you found me first, I'm not sure I believe you," he smiled at where he thought her to be, judging by her voice, and found that his smile wasn't as fixed as it usually was when he confronted an opponent that said something amusing. Depending on your point of view, it helped that her voice was rich and soothing, and her accent easily understandable if foreign to the States.

"Ah, but I've had more practise, and I have a bit of an advantage on my side, as I'm sure you've noticed," she teased and he chose not to comment. He had an idea of what she was speaking about, but after years of being underestimated because of his blindness, he just couldn't be sure.

"There's also the fact that I don't live here, to consider as well," she continued, her voice cheerfully optimistic and sincere, he was surprised she wasn't actually mocking him. "I'm just passing through; you, on the other hand, have a home here; one that can be easily monitored. I'd be careful of that if I were you."

"I'll keep that in mind," he agreed carefully, hearing the clear warning in her voice but unsure as to what she meant by it.

"Good."

A lull in the conversation allowed the masked man to gather his thoughts, but just as he moved to speak them the black haired girl beat him to it.

"How do you see through the mask? It looks quite thick."

Thrown off by the question, he answered without thinking; "I don't need to."

"You are blind" she stated softly with no inflection.

"There are other ways to see," he replied mechanically, kicking himself for not keeping his guard up. It was a well-used answer. It sounded as if he told himself that, as well as others.

"Oh yes, I know," her tone spoke of personal experience and he tilted his masked head in question. She continued, floating into the low light of the night and around his form on her crossed legs but keeping a respectable distance; "But you see without seeing better than most, don't you?"

"How are you doing that?" he asked in frustrated confusion, not only to dodge the question but honestly curious for her to not be making any vibrations in the ground or the air. It was as if she were a ghost.

"In a similar way to how you know I'm here, even though you can't see me," there was a smile in her voice, he could hear it; "A unique ability that I'm sure makes me special in the eyes of others."

She paused, her natural green eyes taking on a haunted look that he couldn't see; "It's the reason I was locked up, actually."

"Locked up?"

"Yes. In a prison in Russia," then she smiled bittersweet; "that's where I met the Ranskahov brothers. We escaped together."

"They were in there for a reason, you know?"

"So was I and it wasn't a moral one," she retorted with a sly look on her face. He shifted uncomfortably, having not heard a lie in her voice for the reason of her imprisonment but still unwilling to believe she was being entirely truthful. She chuckled softly; "I know what you're implying and yes, I'm sure there is a reason they were in there. I've never asked, but I assume it had something to do with murder, among other things."

"And you're okay with that?" it was more of a sarcastic statement than a question but the implication was there.

"No, I'm not but I don't think about it much. The same way they don't think about some of the things that I do to make them uneasy for one reason or another."

"How do you make Russian mobsters who traffic women and kill people for a living uneasy?" he asked with a smirk, though internally he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"By doing the right thing, of course," she giggled and he let out a little laugh of his own, more relieved than he was willing to let on. They fell silent for a comfortable moment after that.

"You still killed them though," he spoke quietly, reluctant to believe that this sincere, quiet, playful little woman could be of the same ilk he hunted at night.

"I killed the Russian crime lords, Vladimir and Anatoly Ranskahov, yes," she confirmed, but the phrasing of her answer would be something that would haunt the man's mind for months.

"Do you believe killing them was the right thing to do? The good, moral, just thing to do?" he asked quietly, becoming more intense by the end.

"Dear little Daredevil," she sighed fondly, "It has been a long time since I have seen the world in such solid tones of black and white."

"How do you see the world then?" he asked, ignoring her name for him for the moment.

"Well, that depends on the day doesn't it? Sometimes it's varying shades of grey. Sometimes the world is a technicolour canvas. And sometimes… Sometimes I don't see the world at all."

"And when you killed them? The Ranskahov brothers? What kind of a day was that?"

"One where I didn't see the world. Only the people in it, my people."

He wasn't sure he understood her answer, but he didn't have too long to think on it because her feet gently touched the ground sending out the slightest of vibrations and suddenly he could see her. In all her petite, fiery glory, he could see her reaching out a hand to him. He looked down at it as she snagged one of his in her grasp.

"My morals and views of the world are skewed since I went to that prison. I may once have been a good person who, like you, went out into the world and changed it for the better. But I can no longer be sure that, what is good is right or just and what is bad is wrong. I can't answer the question that is forming in your mind," she explained gently, and the masked man tightened the grip he had on her hand; because that was what he was looking for. He had been searching for her, to see who she was and to ask how she had killed those men, because he wasn't certain that he could afford to leave the men he was facing alive any more.

Though his face seemed to be made of stone, she knew of the turmoil going on underneath. Once upon a time, she had been there with the same question, even if she couldn't remember it that well.

"I can give you some advice though. If you'd like?" her suggestion was met with a raised head looking in her direction. "People like to turn their villains into monsters that just popped into existence. They like to forget that, these villains most likely have their own stories, their own problems and their own loved ones. I don't think you are one of those people, which is why you came looking for me for answers. Unfortunately, there is no 'off switch' to remove your feelings on the matter. At the end of the day, you have to decide what you can live with, because that's all that matters. You're the only one that you have to live with for the rest of your life, so you're the only one that can answer this question. Can you live with killing a man for the rest of your life, or can you not?"

Last chapter is in the works. Hope you enjoyed this!