Chapter Text
Natasha watched the tape over and over again, a keen eye dissecting every twitch and fluid movement. The devil either pirouetted like a snake suspended in water or jabbed like a boxer on the ropes. He was trained, but not as much as Natasha. No, what impressed her was his uncanny ability to sense movement all around him. Someone could be sending a fist towards his occipital bone and he’d dodge without even turning his head. Natasha could sometimes manage that, just from having performed the dance often enough to know when the next beat would land. She didn’t think the devil had that sort of experience, though. He couldn’t always anticipate a move, but he was quick enough to counter it the second his enemy twitched. Then again, she only had two minutes of grainy security camera footage as a reference, and she was wise enough to know that that wasn’t enough time to get a full handle on anyone, let alone this devil.
(Full disclaimer: she didn’t believe in a devil or god, only actions and intentions, but the names people gave each other were important. Sometimes she was called the nightmare of men, people whispered that Bucky was a ghost, and the citizens of Hell’s Kitchen thought the devil was alive and among them. She had fought against people more skilled than this masked vigilante, but she thought that if she could see his eyes they would be alight with a fiery purpose rarely seen. And people with that kind of purpose, well-intentioned or not, were as devil-like as anyone she’s met.)
She had been following the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’s progress somewhat closely. She liked to keep her ear to the ground, especially after SHIELD’s demise, so it seemed prudent to watch for new developments in the city she was currently living in. As a rule, she didn’t pay much attention to local crime. It was everywhere and it was a fact of life. There was always going to be a mob or a pimp or a drug lord, and she would be foolish to think she could fix it all. So she figured it was better to concentrate on things that would create a large change.
Daredevil apparently didn’t feel the same way. In fact, he was rather capable of taking down local crime. Hell’s Kitchen, Natasha had recently learned, was a dark and seedy place, filled with corruption and victims. Many of the cops were dirty, businessmen were paid off, and she even saw a senator arrested on the news. It was all quite a feather under the devil’s horns and he could have faded back into the shadows, content with the knowledge that he had taken down a criminal enterprise. Instead, he was out in the city almost every night, taking care of your average abusers and thieves. It was admirable, but foolish. At the rate he was going, the devil was not long for this world. Fighting like that every night was exhausting – Natasha knew that too well – and someone was bound to get a lucky hit on the guy. She got the feeling that that was a risk the devil was willing to take.
Perhaps the most interesting thing was that this devil didn’t kill. He didn’t use a gun or knife or anything but his fists and some billy clubs. It reminded her eerily of Steve, and how his weapon of choice was a shield instead of something more effective. And, yet, even Steve had killed. The devil must make a concentrated effort not to kill, which would only slow him down in the end. Natasha understood the value of a bullet to the head or a quick snap of the neck. Beating your enemy into submission was time consuming and tiring. Another tick in the ‘admirably foolish’ column.
So, Natasha was intrigued. It was something interesting to keep her occupied between Avenger business. She had JARVIS looking for Daredevil on security cams in the city, and he would compile them for her to view later. Despite the ridiculous amount of cameras everywhere, there was very little footage of the devil, leading her to believe he moved largely atop the roofs. She hadn’t yet found a rhyme or reason to his movements. He didn’t seem to run a standard patrol – instead he just appeared wherever he was needed. That was another unexplained trick.
“Is that your Daredevil guy?” Clint asked, walking up to where Natasha sat on the couch with a tablet on her lap. Without looking at him Natasha could hear the crinkle of a chip bag and smell the chips on his breath. Cool Ranch.
“Yes,” she said simply, not bothering to say that the devil wasn’t her guy. On loop, her tablet showed Daredevil’s spinning kick to the man in front of him, followed by a jab to the man behind him.
“He’s good,” said Clint, munching obnoxiously on his snack. “Is he some radioactive, super-serumed dude or a mundane like us?”
An uncharacteristic burst of pride compelled her to say that they weren’t mundane, but she squashed the urge. In comparison to the rest of the Avengers, it was difficult not to feel mundane. Even as incredibly skilled spies, they weren’t alien gods or super soldiers. Then again, she and Clint had their own skills that were useful to the group. She shouldn’t let herself forget that.
“I think he’s just a man. He bleeds like you and me,” she answered, thinking back to last week’s footage that showed the devil taking a knife across his chest. He had staggered but kept moving. He didn’t brush it off like Thor or Steve might have.
“Hmm. Is it weird that I want to meet the guy?” Clint asked, head tiling to the side. “I appreciate someone who takes the law into their own hands. Hell’s Kitchen’s been a shithole for a while now. ‘Bout time someone took care of it.” He crumpled up his empty bag and tossed it over his shoulder without looking. It landed neatly into a wastebasket. Showoff.
“I’ve considered reaching out to him – maybe offer him some resources – but I wanted to figure out who he was first,” Natasha said, frowning down at the devil. She wondered if she could identify someone just by their mouth and chin. JARVIS apparently couldn’t.
“Any luck?” Clint asked, collapsing onto the couch cushion next to her like a ragdoll. He clutched a throw pillow to his chest like an endearing child.
“Very little. He’s obviously a Hell’s Kitchen native, seeing as all of his work is down there. He almost never leaves that area. But finding a white male of average height in all of Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t really narrow it down.” She hesitated for a moment, not comfortable airing speculation she hadn’t confirmed. “I think he might have heightened hearing. He tilts his head sometimes like he’s listening.”
Clint shrugged. “We’ve seen weirder things. Can you identify the fighting style?”
Natasha shook her head. “It’s vaguely familiar, but it’s a butchered version of what it might once have been. It’s like jujutsu meets boxing. He’s been trained, but I get the sense he’s rusty. I don’t think he was active before showing up as the devil.”
“So you don’t think he ever worked for anyone? He’s just a dude who took up a mask and said ‘I think today I’ll fight crime’? Someone had to train him, and I doubt it was the karate studio down the block or else he’d be dead by now.” Clint slashed two fingers across his throat as if she didn’t understand what ‘dead’ meant. He talked with his hands when he was tired, sometimes in fully articulate sign language if he was really out of it.
“I think he’s working autonomously,” she said confidently. If she was a betting man, she’d put money on it. “And I think he has a day job, because you almost never see him out and about past four in the morning. He must go home and sleep before the day begins.”
Clint clapped his hands together, a wolfish smirk marring his features. “Alright. I’m intrigued times three. Let’s recruit him.”
Natasha rolled her eyes with a small smirk of her own. “How ‘bout we meet him first? He might not be trustworthy.”
“C’mon! A masked vigilante who fights for the little guy, leaving his victims alive, and then goes to work during the day? It’s like the best kind of movie - action, drama, intrigue.” He hugged his pillow a little tighter. “And anyway, it’d be nice to have some relatively normal people around here.”
She nodded, not necessarily in agreement, but at least in acknowledgment. “I like a good mystery,” she said in answer.
Two days later, Natasha and Clint found themselves in a Hell’s Kitchen alleyway with a wary devil across from them. They were both wearing street clothes in the hopes of coming across as unintimidating, but Daredevil appeared standoffish nonetheless. He had one hand pressed to his side, the other clutched around a billy club, and his body was turned half away from them, as if to run away or make himself a smaller target. Still, his voice was strong when he said, “You’ve been following me.”
He wasn’t wrong. Natasha and Clint had hung around in a Hell’s Kitchen diner until JARVIS called with the latest security cam appearance of the devil and his location. From there, they followed Daredevil as he leapt from roof to roof, crime to crime. Natasha had thought that she and Clint were doing a great job at being discrete (it was kind of her thing), but still the devil had found them out. How? They were out of the devil’s line of sight nearly the entire time. Was his hearing so good that he could make out their footsteps from so far away?
Their plan had been to follow the devil to his home, or lair, or whatever vigilantes had these days. After figuring out his address, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out his identity, and from there they could vet him and see if he was worth making an alliance with. So much for that.
“Yeah, we thought we’d come say hi,” Clint answered, cheerfully. If anything, after watching Daredevil take care of would-be-rapists and muggers, Clint was even more enamored with the vigilante. Clint had a way with people, Natasha thought. He could recognize almost immediately if he liked someone, if they were a kindred spirit, if they needed help he could provide. Natasha wasn’t like that; people couldn’t be trusted because everyone had ulterior motives. Still, somehow Clint always attached himself to the good ones. It was real gift. Natasha envied it. “My name’s Clint. This is Natasha,” Clint continued, genially. He had already attached himself to the vigilante. That said a lot for the devil’s character; he had the Clint Seal of Approval.
The devil slowly rocked backwards on firmly planted feet. He was injured, blood seeping slowly through the fingers on his side, but he was also exhausted. Natasha recognized the look of someone who worked relentlessly through bone-melting weariness as if it were her own reflection. “I know who you are,” he said flatly, sounding unimpressed. So he recognized them – that was sometimes hit-and-miss when it came to the two more unmemorable faces of the Avengers. “What to do you want?” The devil had pouty, expressive lips, and a jaw that ticked in defiance. She was vaguely surprised he could convey so much emotion without the use of his eyes.
Natasha would let Clint handle this one. She was very skilled at manipulating people, but creating real relationships was a much harder task. And she wasn’t looking to pull the wool over the devil’s eyes. She was curious about the man, and felt compelled to help him out, but he wasn’t a mission. There was no need to try her tricks on him, and without her tricks she was unsure what to say.
“Like I said,” Clint began patiently, “we just want to talk. No ulterior motives. We’ve just heard about all the work you’ve done and wanted to meet the guy responsible.” Clint gave a small but sincere smile, eyes kinder and more open than usual. He was treating the devil as if he were a wounded child in need of a gentle hand. Natasha only hoped Clint’s instincts were as right as they usually were, because Natasha still saw the devil as a not-entirely-realized variable. She had instincts of her own, and, more importantly, facts (the devil was violent but not malicious, he didn’t kill, he didn’t do this for fun but out of a perceived sense of duty, he was trying to do the right thing), but she had learned the hard way that suspicion is a person’s greatest tool.
The devil’s head tilted like an interested puppy, or a man listening for something, or maybe it was just a tic, but Natasha was adding footnotes to her enhanced hearing theory. Daredevil’s shoulder slumped minutely, and he pressed his palm more tightly against his wound. He swung his billy club out in a half-aborted gesture. “Well, now you’ve met me. Was it everything you hoped and more?” he said, almost flippantly, his upper body still turned half away like he wanted to leave the conversation behind.
Natasha considered being annoyed at the devil’s tone of voice, but she recognized deflection when she saw it. Clint, however, grinned brightly, amused and excited by the devil’s wit. He shrugged and said, “I dunno yet. We’ve only just begun.” That sounded vaguely ominous, and Natasha realized that, fuck, Clint was going to be like a dog with a bone with this guy. Clint had found a lost puppy to take care of and he wasn’t going to give up easy.
The devil’s face scrunched in either disquiet, pain, or confusion, or maybe all three. “I…” he began, hesitating for only a moment before straightening his shoulders. “I need to get going. Maybe without the tail this time.”
Clint took a step forward and the devil stepped backwards instantly, like a well-rehearsed dance move. Clint held up a placating hand. “At least let us help with that,” he said, pointing to the wound on the devil’s side, still covered by a blood soaked glove.
“It’s fine. I got it,” Daredevil said obstinately, looking as if he were a trapped wolf, unsure but willing to defend himself. Natasha has seen the confidence with which the devil took down entire groups of people, so she was surprised by the wariness he was showing now. Was it pain and exhaustion that kept him afraid of a confrontation? Did he recognize that Clint and Natasha were professional fighters? Or was it because they weren’t bad guys? “I’m not looking to make any friends,” the devil finished.
Too bad, Natasha thought, because Clint is.
Clint rebutted, “But it never hurts to have allies. Seriously, we’re good guys, you’re a good guy. There’s no reason for us to butt heads. We’re just trying to lend a friendly hand.”
The devil scoffed, a bitter smile twisting his lips. “Why would the Avengers care about a vigilante in Hell’s Kitchen? Don’t you read the news? I killed all those cops, remember?”
Natasha made a ‘seriously?’ face, and said, “We know you didn’t kill those cops or plant those bombs. Give us a little credit.”
“And, also,” Clint began, “this isn’t Avenger business – this is Clint and Natasha business.” Clint paused, uncharacteristically. He seemed to deliberate for a moment before saying, “Nat and I spend our days with billionaires, gods, and super soldiers, so we appreciate when the underdog goes out and saves other underdogs.”
The devil didn’t answer, but he also didn’t leave the alley. He seemed rooted to the spot, shoulders twitching with each breath. Natasha thought they were lucky they caught Daredevil on a night when he was tired and hurt, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have been as receptive.
“Just let us help with your stab wound,” Clint continued. “I know how much it sucks to stich something up at that angle.” He still had a hand out in front of him in a pacifying gesture.
The devil shook his head. “I won’t tell you who I am,” he said with finality. Natasha knew he meant that he wouldn’t allow them to figure it out, and if that bothered them then they should just give up now.
Clint grinned beautifully. “That’s a hundred percent a-okay. I’m just trying to make an alliance of bros here, not unearth your every secret. Can we take care of your side now, before you bleed out and render this whole conversation moot?”
The devil grimaced, but finally took a step forward. “Fine,” he said, sounding resigned and vaguely uncomfortable.
Clint’s grin widened and Natasha shook her head in exasperation.
Boys.