Merry Christmas!
This was supposed to be 6 chapters
Natasha finds him crouching at the corner of a dark rooftop in Hell's Kitchen.
She gets the sense that he probably let her find him. She'd normally be offended at the mere insinuation, but she appreciates the challenge. Ever since the aliens invaded New York last year, she's been itching for one. She isn't the type to stay still.
Daredevil tilts his head like he is wont to do. "Black Widow," he says in that low, gravelly voice of his that is obviously fake and probably only works when intimidating lowlifes. He hasn't even turned around to look at her, but to be fair, she hadn't really been trying to mask her presence.
"Daredevil," she greets, hands in her pockets. She's not looking for a fight. Not today, at least.
"Clint tell you where to find me?" he asks with a little humor in his voice. He turns around slightly so that she can see the edge of his smile. With the mask, it makes him look slightly unhinged, but she can recognize the difference between a warm and a cold smile, a real and a fake one.
This one's real, warm. She finds herself wanting to see more of it.
"No," she answers with a smirk. "He told me it's usually the other way around, with you two. He couldn't find you even if he tried."
"And many have tried," Daredevil says. He finally stands up from his crouch. "What do you want?"
Straight to the point. Natasha can appreciate that.
"I was serious, about wanting to spar," she says.
"I know," he says simply. Matter of fact.
Interesting.
"So how about it?" she asks.
He frowns. "And is gathering intel part of it?"
She shrugs, noncommittal. "Perhaps."
Natasha is prepared for his hands to curl into fists. They've been limp by his sides up until this point, but things can change quickly, and he is an unknown. At least to her, at least for now.
But his hands do not curl into fists. Maybe he's not looking for a fight tonight, either.
He stays relaxed and lets out a little chuckle. "Figure that's part of the deal when interacting with you spies."
She takes a step closer to him, and he does not step back. "You don't know the half of it," she murmurs.
"I don't," he says frankly. "So you have me at a disadvantage here, Ms. Romanoff."
You? Disadvantage? She's not one to underestimate people.
"I don't even know your name," she says lightly, with a small smile on her face. She says it like this is a game, and maybe it is, to her.
Something fun, separate from all the Avengers and SHIELD nonsense she gets sucked into on a weekly basis, something untouched from the world she comes from.
Something with no consequences, should she fail.
Fail at what exactly, she doesn't currently know, but she's sure she'll figure it out soon enough.
"Call me Mike," he says, and then he backflips off the building.
Natasha nods to herself, begrudgingly impressed. She's pretty sure she knows why he's called Daredevil, and it's not just because it's Hell's Kitchen.
Natasha Romanoff's job is to uncover secrets, to keep secrets. She's good at it, it's all she used to know, back in the Red Room.
She likes unraveling secrets, likes the adrenaline of it. Maybe she likes the chase more than the reward, even though the reward itself is all other people care about.
If she really, absolutely tried, she'd probably clock Daredevil real quick, figure out his identity, his ticks, his background, his motivations. But there's no use in wasting time and energy in finding out a vigilante's secret identity. He does good, and he hides his face for a reason. Not everyone can be in the public view like the Avengers.
Natasha is still intrigued, despite it all.
It's been an adjustment, learning to fight in a team, and learning to live in one place alongside other people.
Technically, she does have a whole floor to herself, but that's beside the point. The others are just a floor away, there's a common living area, and when she can't sleep at night, she knows she'll find company. None of them are good at sleeping through the night.
Natasha is used to being alone.
This wasn't always true. Yelena used to crawl into her bed all the time, dig her elbows into Natasha's ribs, ask her to tell a bedtime story. And Natasha had indulged her every single time.
She misses that feeling of belonging, of not feeling like an outcast. But she thinks she's slowly finding her way back to it.
"I think I'm scared of feeling safe," she says, cradling a mug of steaming green tea in her hands. Her voice is soft; she feels like she doesn't want to disturb whatever peace has settled between them.
Tony, nursing a mug of coffee and leaning heavily against the kitchen counter, blinks at her slowly and says, "Sorry, run that by me again?"
Natasha rolls her eyes, fond despite it all. "I fear being safe," she says.
Tony frowns, considers. "I guess I would too, if this weren't my place, if we weren't surrounded by my tech and security. It's more comforting if it's you protecting you, right? You're probably used to it, 'cause you can absolutely kick ass."
Natasha smirks. "I'm not disagreeing," she says, even though he hasn't quite reached the point she wants him to get. Maybe he won't. She doesn't expect him to, she doesn't expect many people to.
"I had to fight my way out of Afghanistan," Tony says suddenly, surprisingly. "I'm sure you've read the report. I had to do that, 'cause no one else was gonna do it for me. I'm still paranoid, a lot of the time, prone to not asking for help even when I need it, or so I've been told by both Bruce and Pepper."
"Congrats," Natasha says dryly, because she knows Tony hates the attention.
"Yeah, yeah." He takes a long sip of his coffee. "Can't believe you've got me looking back."
Natasha smiles, not unkindly. She doesn't tell him that it's not just that, about the security of having your own back. It's also about change, and how she's never ready for it. She wants to have control of every possible situation, and she can adapt easily during a mission but otherwise? Not so much. She doesn't tell him that she thinks nobody will ever understand her completely, truly. But the team comes close.
Steve walks in then with a bounce in his step, completely ready to face the day in a T-shirt and shorts. "Hey Tony, Nat!" he greets brightly. Tony groans in response, apparently too much positive energy for him. Steve takes an apple and bites into it, frowning at them. "Bad night?" he asks, concerned.
Natasha nods but doesn't elaborate. Steve doesn't push. She appreciates that.
Tony, on the other hand, says, "You really do wake up for a run at 5 am every day." He sounds resigned.
"Yeah?" Steve says. He narrows his eyes. "Did you stay up just to find out if I do? I thought you had security cameras for that."
"It's better to regretfully see with your own two eyes," Tony says, standing up and probably preparing to go to his lab. He holds his mug of coffee up towards Steve. "Cheers! Congrats on having the best sleep schedule outta all of us, Rogers."
Figuring out Daredevil had been a mere dalliance at first, but Natasha's beginning to think it'll become much more.
She doesn't know why she's diving headfirst into this change, but once she's started something, she's committed. She's not backing out of this.
Whatever this is.
She and Daredevil stand at opposite ends of an alleyway in Hell's Kitchen, breathing hard after a fight with a local gang. The moment he'd managed to knock her gun out of her hand, she'd known this wasn't going to be her usual fight.
"How's it going?" she asks, blowing a strand of hair out of her face.
Daredevil—Mike—shrugs. "It could be going better," he says. "I could've not run into you tonight, for one." He walks towards her, but pauses after a few steps to kick a gang member back to unconsciousness.
Natasha hadn't even noticed he'd been rousing. She's impressed, despite it all.
"Aww...you didn't miss me?" she asks with an exaggerated pout that smooths out into a smirk quickly.
They are now a foot apart. Mike sighs and says, "No."
Rude. Anyways, she should probably be glad they're facing each other like this now. She can't deny that she'd maybe taken a few glimpses of his ass during the fight.
"Still up for sparring, now that you've seen me fight more?" she asks.
He smirks. "Can't say I was looking at you during the fight."
She feels like she's missing out on some kind of joke.
Also rude, but warranted. She doesn't like being kept in the dark, but she's well aware that he has no reason to truly trust her as of yet.
It had taken Tony a few months to trust Natasha after her whole undercover deception, and Natasha herself doesn't trust a lot of people (some of them are dead). She doesn't expect trust to be quick.
Still, she trusts Mike when he tilts his head and says, "Police are coming. Let's move." He immediately scrambles up the side of an adjacent building using the fire escapes.
Natasha doesn't hear sirens at all. Enhanced hearing, maybe? She'll get it eventually.
She runs to pick up her gun, which she had seen slide under the dumpster but hadn't picked up after Daredevil had made it clear he isn't a fan. Then, she follows him up to the rooftop.
When she gets there, she looks around, but Mike is gone.
"You're a dramatic ass," she mutters, just as she hears the sound of sirens in the middle of the night.
They're on a stakeout. Natasha and Clint had planted bugs in the targets' hotel room, and now they are watching their targets from the building across the street.
Unfortunately, their targets started having sex, so Natasha lays down with her headset and stares at the dusty ceiling next to Clint, who's still staring through his rifle scope through the largely uncovered window.
She's got the audio. He's got the visual. Natasha is not sure which is worse.
"Are we really supposed to get anything from this?" Clint asks with a strained voice. He sounds like he wants to gag, despite the fact that he has two kids and has had sex with Laura at least that many times.
"Protocol says we have to observe them at all times, unless something occurs that is out of our control," Natasha mutters. The obsessive moaning is getting on her nerves. Are people really this loud during sex?
"I won't tell if you don't," Clint says immediately.
"Deal."
They both sigh in relief as Natasha takes off her headset and Clint moves to lay down on his back instead of his front.
The dusty ceiling is not an entertaining sight.
"So," she starts, "what made you decide to keep Daredevil off of SHIELD files?"
"He is most definitely in SHIELD's files," Clint says innocently. Natasha elbows him in the ribs, and he winces, rubbing at the spot, even though it shouldn't even be that sore.
"Well, you definitely know more than what is in those files."
The two of them diverge from mission parameters all the time. Comes with the unpredictability of missions.
But Clint has blatantly disregarded mission parameters for Daredevil.
Natasha doesn't say that he has only done that once before.
Clint seems to know anyways, because he rolls to the side and says, simply, "I saw good in him, still do. He doesn't need to be monitored like an enemy or an unknown. He needs help, and not the type of help that gets you in those files, causes people to think they know exactly who you are when they really don't."
He's not just talking about Daredevil, they both know.
She still doesn't know what exactly he saw in her, all those years ago.
Clint grins. "I also think we get along super well. We have the same shitty sense of humor."
"And you both fall into dumpsters far too much," Natasha comments.
"...I can't argue with that."
Clint trusts Daredevil. Daredevil trusts Clint.
Clint trusts Natasha. Natasha trusts Clint.
She thinks she can work with this.
I've finally finished this fic, so updates will be weekly. I would say it has less humorous vibes than Operation Red, but I still hope to bring all of you along for the ride!