#slowfic!

It’s not often that you look out your break room window and see the Avengers getting their super-asses kicked by an army of robots in the street below. Right by your favourite convenience store, too. How inconsiderate.

You’re not exactly the avenging, famous, skintight-suit hero type. Which is exactly what’s going through your mind as you tug your mask on and slip out the window onto the fire escape. You’re a vigilante, and not one with a fantastic set of morals.

“This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid,” you mutter, stomping up the fire escape stairs with a set of sonorous clangs. Fifty metres below you, Captain America goes sprawling, ripping up chunks of road and slamming headfirst into a car, denting the hood substantially. You grimace. He doesn’t get up.

Somewhere above you as you climb onto the roof, in a cloud of ozone and dust, you can hear Iron Man getting thrown about like a toy in a dog’s mouth, clangs of metal, the blast of repulsors. 

“I’m gonna die,” you say, as you draw your baton from your belt. You take a deep breath. Surely this is Spider-Man’s job, right? There’s a clump of robots converging on Captain America’s prone body, moving fast with their gross little legs skittering over the uneven ground. “This is stupid,” you breathe once more, under your breath.

You feel the static in the air around you, the faint dregs of electricity leftover from a thunderstorm a couple of nights ago. You draw on it and sparks gather at your fingertips, in your hair beneath your hood, racing down your legs to your feet. You channel it until you can feel the heat and crackle racing down your arms, until you can feel your feet leave the surface of the roof and your baton begin to flash. You’ve done this a million times before.

Except for this time, there’s only a couple of feet between those robots and Captain America’s head, and you’re tired because you couldn’t sleep last night and a hundred other things– You narrow your eyes, fling your arms forward, and fire a stream of electricity right towards the crowd of robots. The energy hits the ground in front of them and the impact sends them all flying backwards. You shield your eyes from the bright flash and when you can see again, they’re all lying crispy and fried on the floor, some legs weakly twitching in the air. You step to the edge of the building and hover there for a second, scanning the ground for Captain America.

He’s gone.

An idiot panic grips your throat for a second as you wheel through possibilities – you vaporised him. Oh, God, you vaporised Captain America – nope. He’s right there, starfished out on the hood of the car. Your blast must have thrown him up.

You drop off the edge of the building and fall, hands by your sides, the air stripping past your masked face. You catch yourself with a cloud of energy a foot from the concrete sidewalk, almost tipping forwards onto your face. You catch yourself with one hand against the ground and get to your feet.

You advance on the car, checking left and right for any more robots. As you pass the puddle of crackling, overworked robots, you step carefully around them.

You’re almost to the car when Captain America raises his head. You stop dead. Well, alright then. Job done.

He raises a bloodied hand to his ear, eyes narrowing as he takes you in.

“We have a hostile in the field,” he says. “Enhanced. Engage on sight.” You open your mouth to correct him, but of course, he can’t see it beneath the mask: and that’s when he launches his shield full force at your face.

You’re not nearly fast enough. It hits you just as you turn to the side and crashes right into your cheekbone.

You’re not sure what happens next. You’re sure of a blinding, colossal pain in your face, of the ruined concrete road harsh against your side and your temple. Not much else. For a second, you panic vaguely, utterly sure that you’ve lost all sight in your left eye, your vision black and grey.

You can hear yourself making little terrified grunts through heaving breaths. Your head would be delightfully, dizzily light and airy were it not for that immense pain. There’s something warm and damp beneath your nose.

Footsteps are hitting the ground, slow, almost drunken. Unsteady and hard, and you can feel them through your face. Oh, God, your face. Oh, Jesus, it hurts.

The footsteps are getting closer, closer. You’ve got to get up: there’s a certainty that you have to move, making itself known in the back of your mind. But you’d like to just lay here forever - if you move, the pain will intensify until it’s too much to bear.

No. No, you have to get up. You curl one hand into a fist and punch it into the ground, levering yourself up, your head hanging down.

“Ow, ow, ow,” you whimper to yourself. “That was so not fair.” Your face gives a particularly painful twinge and you groan. You get to your knees, to one knee. 

Captain America looms out of nowhere and you have nothing, no baton in your hand, no energy to throw. You launch yourself sideways with a yell as his fist comes soaring towards you. He misses. You crash to the ground and roll away like a fish on a boat deck.

You swallow blood: wouldn’t do to have to wash your mask for the billionth time. You were only trying to help, dammit. Maybe if you fry a couple more robots, he’ll stop trying to kill you. 

You struggle to your feet, hands on your thighs. You can see him staggering towards you out of the corner of your eye, in his stupid dusty blue suit that’s probably bulletproof, with his shield slung back onto his arm. You hold up your hands, palms up.

“I come…in peace,” you wheeze. Your face stings with the words. “Didn’t mean to electrify you.”

“Kinda gave me the wrong impression,” Captain America says. His hands curl into fists.

“Please don’t kill me.”

“Converge on 2nd Avenue,” Captain America says, into his wrist.

“I’m trying to help,” you say desperately. You can hear the click of robot legs, the whir of robot wings.

“Got ‘em,” someone says, directly above you, a mechanical voice. A shadow sluices over you. You fling yourself into a sideways roll just as Iron Man slams right into the spot you’d just been standing. You skid along the gritty ground, palms skidding on the concrete. Oh, you’re gonna feel that later. “Not got ‘em,” says Iron Man, standing up and brushing himself off with a scrape of metal on metal. He turns to you and starts to walk. You hear his repulsors build up. “C’mere, let me finish you off.”

“No thanks,” you say, getting to your feet. You try to walk, dizzy, your feet out of time, ankles crossing over each other. You almost trip and right yourself. “Jesus Christ, you guys pack a big punch, huh?” You back away as Iron Man advances, the sunlight gleaming off his dusty metal shoulders. Maybe you should run now. You should definitely run now.

“Tony, robot!” Captain America says, and you turn to see one of those damn metal bastards leaping for your face. Without thinking, you drop into a crouch and it flies over your head right into Iron Man’s chest. He grabs it by a leg and flings it at you like a frisbee: you raise both hands and blast it, hard as you can. 

When the light fades, Captain America has his hands over his eyes and the robot is nothing more than a sad, crispy bit of circuit board on the floor.

You turn and bolt before they have time to get their shit together. You leap over a ripped-up section of concrete, the ground tilting nauseatingly beneath you, and it’s a second before you’re aware that your feet haven’t touched the floor. Your jacket is pinched around your ribs, tight, and you look up to see one of those goddamn robots gripping you by the back of your suit, bearing you up into the sky like a bird of prey.

You choke on curses and swipe at it, wishing for your baton. It’s too dangerous to try pulling a gun on this thing, swinging precariously up in the air. The two of you fly higher and higher, windows and balconies flashing past. It’s probably going to get you high enough that when it drops you, you’ll hit the ground dead. What a lovely way to go. You take another swing at it, fingers crackling with energy, and the electricity must throw off its circuits or something because it lists dramatically to the left, throwing you hard against the edge of the roof of your building. The air rushes out of you like you’ve taken a punch to the sternum: you fold, hands flying out to grab at the rooftop. 

The robot, drunken and swaying, releases you and tumbles down onto the rooftop, its little legs whirring beneath it. You start to slide backwards, off the edge of the roof, and you grab at the ledge, your feet slithering against the wall, trying to find purchase.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

You look down and suck in a painful breath, squeeze your eyes shut. The ground is very very very far away, Captain America impossibly tiny beneath your hanging feet. You’ve been on so many rooftops: maybe it’s the broken face and possible broken ribs and definitely sprained shoulder that makes it a little scarier.

You haul yourself up, inch by torturous inch, teeth gritted so hard they creak like they might crack. Wouldn’t make much of a difference. You’re pretty sure that shield took half of them out anyway. You get your belly on the ledge and shove yourself harshly forwards, squirming onto the roof with your knees and bleeding palms. 

Bad day. Just a bad day.

You don’t think Daredevil ever got punched by Captain America. You flop onto your back, breathing shallow to alleviate the pain in your ribs. “Is it the mask?” you ask the sky. “Should I add some colour?”

“Not sure you should be lamenting your design choices right now,” someone says, and you scramble upwards into a sitting position. More blood pools in your mouth. There’s an arrow aimed at your face: an arrow, for Christ’s sake. Someone needs to get these superheroes some better tech. Hawkeye raises an eyebrow at you.

“Nice tights,” you say. The side of Hawkeye’s mouth twitches up. “You can shoot me if you want. Not sure I’ve got it in me to kick your ass, too.” You sway to the side: the robot is upside down, an arrow sticking out from its belly. It’s not moving. “Damn,” you say. “Kinda liked that little guy.”

“Get facedown,” he says. “Arms out to the sides, cross your ankles over.”

“I’m not really in the mood to get arrested,” you say. You can feel the blood on your lips now. You crack your knuckles, and Hawkeye’s draw arm twitches threateningly. “Bye,” you say, and you fling your arms out in front of you, drawing energy from your last reserves. The stream catches Hawkeye right in the chest and blasts both of you backwards. You cut it off before he tumbles over the edge of the roof, but then your foot catches on the ledge and you trip, staggering backwards into nothing.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You drag yourself into your apartment through the window, the one above a sheer drop of wall that you leave unlocked so that your neighbours don’t see you staggering in through your front door dressed like a shitty Comic-Con version of Batman.

It’s always a challenge, but with broken ribs and the way your power is sputtering in your palms, it’s even worse – you have to haul yourself up to the windowsill with your fingertips. You’re going to get a lot of questions at work tomorrow.

You pull your boots off sitting on the windowsill, and brush the mud out of the grooves in the sole, holding them over the street below. Then you set your feet down on the floor inside and pull the sash down. Finally, home.

“You look rough,” says the dark interior of your tiny living room. Unthinking, instinctively, you draw your gun and point it in the vague direction of the voice. Your heart thunders in your ears. God, not today. Not right now.

“What the fuck do you want?” you ask. You fumble for the light switch and flick it on, and the room floods a dim yellow. There’s a woman in your armchair.

Normally, you’d be thrilled.

She’s got one leg crossed over the other, hands flat on the armrests, and she’s dressed down a little. Jacket over a hoodie. Jeans and combat boots. She looks tired, and you wonder where you’ve seen her before. Red hair, back in a braid. She gives you the slightest of smiles.

“For fuck’s sake,” you say. You didn’t mean to. Just slipped out. It’s been a long day, and suddenly it’s getting even longer. You weren’t exactly expecting to come home and find the Black Widow of all people sitting in your armchair. You don’t lower the gun, but you do correct yourself. “Sorry.” Your mother would kick your ass if she heard you speak like that. “What do you want? Did I kill your best friend? Totally an accident.”

“I don’t have a best friend,” she replies. “And if you did kill him, you’d already be dead.”

“We’re talking about the same person, right?” you ask, incredulously. “Hawkeye?”

“Regrettably. He’s fine. Complains of a concussion, but that’s nothing new.”

“Okay,” you say. You hadn’t exactly asked for his medical history. “So is there a reason you were lurking in my apartment in the dark? The dramatic flair? You scared the sh- you scared me.”

“You’re the one holding me at gunpoint. Where’d you even get that?” She sounds annoyingly patronising. It’s also super weird that she’s talking to you like you’ve met before. But you’ve heard stories about her – you know she likes to play with her food. Your grip tightens on the gun. If it comes down to it, and you fight, she’ll win: the only reason you’re still alive after eight months of blasting muggers into next week is that you can shoot electricity from your hands and you can run pretty fast. 

“A Target in South Carolina,” you say. “Don’t worry, I have a permit. You’re not a cop, right?” 

If you didn’t know better, you’d say she was holding back a smile. To be honest, you don’t really know better, in any sense of the words.

“No.” She shifts in her seat and raises an eyebrow at you. “But I am about to hurt you if you don’t stop wisecracking and start talking.” Her tone has flipped from teasing to ice-cold in half a second. You swallow the iron taste of blood.

“I was trying to help,” you say. “Not my fault you’re all so damn reactive.”

“You almost killed Captain America.”

“Did not,” you snort. “He’s fine. He was about to be eaten by those robots, or whatever the hell they were trying to accomplish. I fried them into next week.” You pause. She doesn’t look particularly impressed. “You’re welcome.”

“Well,” she says. “You’re certainly not the criminal mastermind type.” You stiffen with indignance at the stress she puts on those words, then wince in pain.

“I could be,” you say. She gives a gentle, aggravating little snort.

“How’d you break your ribs?”

“A robot hit me with a building,” you say. “Also some guy punched me in the stomach like…an hour ago.”

She tilts her head. “Why?”

“I tried to pull him off this girl. I think he was trying to stab her. Messy dynamics,” you say earnestly. 

“How heroic of you,” says the Black Widow, her voice utterly dry.

“I do my best,” you say. “Anyway, not to be rude or anything, but you’ve kinda overstayed your welcome.” Your gaze drifts downwards. “Also, this is a no-shoes apartment.” She looks down at her feet, then back up at you.

“My bad,” she says, not sounding particularly sorry. “Why’d you…” she gives a vague wave of her hand, “...step in? With the robots.”

“You guys were getting your asses handed to you.”

“You didn’t exactly help much.”

“Yeah, I figure it’s more Spider-Man’s area of expertise, but apparently he’s on vacation. Maybe he went to lay some eggs, I don’t know. Never can tell with superheroes.” You shrug.

“Says the girl who can shoot electricity out of her hands,” Black Widow says. 

“Um,” you say, searching for a clever response and finding none. You scowl at her accusingly, knowing she can’t see it. “How’d you find out where I live? You have a habit of breaking and entering?”

“It’s my job,” she says coolly. “To answer both your questions.”

“Does that mean you know everything about me?”

“Can you please put the gun down?” she asks, wearily, as if she’s talking to an idiot. You hadn’t even realised you were still holding it, and your arms are beginning to ache. You lower it, but you don’t holster it.

“Wasn’t planning on putting holes in my furniture anyways,” you reply. You pause. “God, are you still here?”

“I’m not done evaluating the threat,” she says, in such a casual tone. A chill hovers guardedly at the back of your neck and for a second you wonder if you shut the window properly.

“D’you want to hurry up about it?” you ask. You shift a little too suddenly and your ribs twinge. Your hand shoots up to cradle your side. Black Widow’s eyes follow it.

“Why? You want to go lick your wounds?” She licks her bottom lip, and it’s distracting. Annoyingly. “You don’t look too good.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” you reply, sourly. “I got hit in the face with twelve pounds of vibranium, what d’you expect?”

“What do you expect when you go charging in on a fight that has nothing to do with you?” she answers. Her voice has returned to that cool, vicious tone. “Have you ever even had any training?”

“I do kickboxing,” you say, attempting to keep the injured tone from your voice.

“You’re out of your league,” she replies. Her gaze is sharp, her words cutting.

“Could you have got to that point ten minutes ago?” you snap back. You shove the gun back into its holster and stalk away from her, into the kitchen. Maybe not the smartest move, turning your back on the Black Widow, but you’re pissed now. You don’t break into someone’s apartment, threaten them with violence and then lecture them for no good reason after they’ve just saved Captain America’s life.

You yank open the fridge door and grab a bottle without bothering to look at the label. You flick the cap off on the scratched-up counter, lift your mask to shove the bottle under and take a long, cool sip. Beer, bitter and stale, floods your mouth. It tastes like shit, but it’s something, at least. Maybe paired with aspirin it’ll help.

“Are you in a frat?” Black Widow asks, and you spin around to see her leaning against your kitchen counter, a thin smile on her face as she surveys your empty fridge shelves.

“No,” you say. You kick the fridge door shut. “I’m just broke. Stop following me.” You long to take your mask off and breathe heavy breaths and chug the entire bottle in one go, but that’s not happening in front of her. Even if she already knows where you live. 

How the hell did she find out where you live? You were so careful.

“You know,” she says, after a short period of silence wherein you gulp your single sip of beer down and glare at her over the lip of the bottle, “I’m letting you off easy right now.”

You snort with derisive laughter: you can’t help it. “Saintly of you,” you say. She raises one eyebrow.

“I’m being serious. You want me to knock you out and drag you down to Manhattan? That’s what I’m supposed to be doing here.”

“Oh, so you’re putting your neck on the line for me?” you drawl. “That’s so sweet. I don’t care.”

“You’re aggravating,” she says, utterly calmly.

“You’re the one who broke into my apartment!” you reply. You manage to keep your voice down, but only just. She just tilts her head again, a tiny frown appearing between her eyebrows.

“I did not break anything,” she replies. She nods to your ribs. “You should really see a doctor.”

“A doctor?” you exclaim. “What is this, Sweden?”

She plants her palms on the counter and leans forwards, her face falling to seriousness. “They’re not happy, kid. Rogers especially. They think you’re some new villain on the scene, and you bet your ass you don’t want them coming after you.” 

You wish she’d stop jumping topics. Her constant switch of tone is giving you emotional whiplash: maybe that’s one of her tactics. Her Black Widow Tactics.

You honestly can’t believe this is happening. How did this happen to you, of all people? “I’m not a kid,” you tell her. “I’m twenty-five.”

“I’m eighty-eight,” she replies, with not even a hint of sarcasm. “I don’t care how old you are, you’re nothing compared to me. And you’d better hope you’re listening to me right now because this is the only grace you’re going to get.” Her voice is tight and angry now. You wonder if you’ve actually pissed her off, and you blink at her, wide-eyed.

“That’s pretty old,” you manage, weakly.

“Hm.”

“What’s your skincare routine like–” She moves faster than you can see and has you by the throat in a second, shoving you hard up against the counter. You make a choked sound as your ribs stitch with pain, one palm sliding against the edge of the sink, the other hand gripping the neck of your bottle so tight you think the glass might crack. “Ow,” you gasp.

Her face is close to yours, carved with anger, half-flooded with light from your living room, half in shadow. “Do not test me more than this,” she says. Her voice is utterly, terrifyingly calm, like a frozen moment in a hurricane. You feel her breath on your neck, hot and slow. Her fingers dig into your pulse point, and you know she can feel your heartbeat thundering under your skin.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m…sorry. Please let me go.”

She releases you. You fall back against the counter, gasping, blinking hard as your vision swims.

“Jesus Christ,” you splutter, wiping your lips free of saliva.

“I’ll get them off your back this time,” Black Widow says. She wipes her hand on her jacket, and you’re indignant until you see that some of your blood has rubbed off onto her skin. “But you’d better stay in your lane from now on. Friendly neighbourhood–” she gestures vaguely at you– “whatever. Alright?”

“Uh-huh,” you say, massaging your bruised throat. “Thanks for dropping by. Really appreciate it.” For a moment, she looks like she wants to throttle you again. Then she turns her back on you and leaves.

You hear your front door open and close, and you sag against the sink, tug your mask off and press the cool, damp beer bottle to your aching face.

What a day.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You’ve been different ever since you got your powers. Everything seems to thrum with colour and vibrancy. You’re stronger, not much, but noticeably. You heal faster, you can hear high tones wavering in frequencies normal people can’t reach, and your bruises fade quickly. 

So your rib bones knit back together in mere days once you’ve set them properly, and the ache in your face recedes with time. Luckily, you hadn’t lost any teeth, and the road rash all down your side is gone soon enough. 

You suppose it’s a blessing: no awkward questions or gentle, understanding tones in aside conversations, but at the same time, there’s no recognition either. No one realises you’re out every night attempting to bust the drug trade or wipe the floor with drunk idiots who can’t keep their hands to themselves. No one will ever know you saved Captain America’s life.

It’s better this way. 

You run through that thought in your head over and over as you squat at the edge of a roof in the dark, a twenty-four story building stuffed full of offices. Below you, red tail lights swim through the blackened imprint of the road, storefront neons flicker and shut off, and sparse pedestrians make their way home, shoulders hunched beneath coats. 

The wind is chilly up here. No one can see you.

You sit there the rest of the night, shivering. You break out the hand warmers at about a quarter to two. You know if you go home you won’t sleep: you’ll ruminate about being unwanted and you’ll glare at the dark ceiling blindly until the sun comes up.

Nothing happens. Of course it doesn’t, because you deserve some luck after such a shitty day.

Well. Nothing happens until the first rosy fingers of sunlight are beginning to creep up over the harbour and the first pigeons begin to wake and the first trains begin to go, rattling like earthquakes under the ground. That’s when a truck backs out of a tiny alley off 8th Avenue, with no reversing lights and no beeper. 

You watch it progress with narrowed eyes, scanning for a number plate: none. Suspicious.

You drop to the street level and catch yourself with a crackle of energy just behind a dumpster. One of the truck’s headlights winks and flickers in the shift in electric fields, but the man waving the truck back is too preoccupied to notice and the driver looks utterly bored. You creep along the wall until you’re sliding into the tiny gap between the truck and the dirty brick wall of the building, in a half-crouch. You slip under the carriage, flat on your back, and think about the charges and forces around you. Magnetism’s gotten pretty easy over time. 

With a flick of your wrists, you shift the fields around your fingertips and toes and instantly you shoot upwards, sticking to the undercarriage of the truck with a clang. You wince, but neither of the men appears to hear you.

Suddenly it strikes you just how much of an idiot move this is: where might the truck be going? How long can you hold magnetism for at two in the morning with healing ribs and the road spinning out beneath you? But it’s too late, the truck is doing a one point turn and the big wide concrete street is now below you. You can’t drop now or you’ll be seen. You just have to hang on.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The journey is torturous. Twice now, you’ve accidentally fallen asleep stuck to the undercarriage, and woken in a rush of terror with one hand hanging down and your shoulder and knuckles grazing the fast-moving ground, burning through your suit. 

You see the sun come up on either side of the truck’s shadow, lighting the road a bright golden grey. The wind chills you head to toe, slipping like ice down the back of your neck, and the engine fumes choke you like gas. Your muscles tremble and sear, your mind a vague whirl of survival instincts and keep hold, keep hold, keep hold.

The truck tires grind to a stop over gravel, and the undercarriage jolts to a halt with them. For a second, you can hardly believe it. The driver’s door opens and boots thump onto the grit, past your head. You release one trembling hand from the undercarriage, and you plan to go down limb by limb, but that’s when your powers give out, sensing your body’s exhaustion, and you drop to the ground, spine first. 

The wind rushes out of you and you try not to gasp and splutter, you try to keep as still as possible. The ground cuts into you from all angles. You hear the end gate of the truck swing down and hit the floor with careless force, scattering dust and pebbles. Another set of footsteps.

“That’s what we got,” says the driver. He scuffs the ground with his shoe. There’s a heavy thump as someone steps up into the body of the truck, the carriage shaking with their weight, wheels sinking against the ground. You keep every muscle locked still, listening. 

A heavy shift, like a large wooden box being shuffled to the side.

“Good,” says the person in the truck. “I’ll have them unload it. Then you get back behind the wheel and drive away, understand?”

“I get paid,” the driver corrects. “Then I drive away.” The person in the truck makes a dismissive sound. They jump, and their boots hit the ground with a plume of stones.

What the hell are you going to do? You don’t even know where you are. And you sure as hell can’t survive the journey back to New York, clinging like a spider to the underneath of the truck. The driver will move off and you’ll be left lying there in bright daylight.

You’re going to have to do something.

The second person turns sharply and begins to walk away. You wait until you hear their footsteps fade to nothing and the driver sits down on the edge of the truck gate with a hefty sigh. You might have mere minutes before the second guy returns with back-up.

You roll out from under the truck, wincing as the grit presses into your road rash. You get dizzily to your feet and the driver turns, a frown ready on his face. He sees you, clocks you, suit and mask and all. His eyes widen.

“Fuck–” he says, and you dash forward and punch him right on the jaw. Knockout button. His eyes roll up into his head and he slumps sideways. You catch him before he can hit the ground headfirst, prop him up against the wall of the truck. It’ll look like he’s having a bit of shut-eye from a distance, maybe that will throw them off. You dig quickly through his pockets and extract a wallet, a packet of candy, and the keys to the truck: you tuck it all into your pockets.

You climb into the truck, ducking under the canvas covering: it brushes your head even when you’re bent practically double. The truck is stuffed full of wooden crates with solid walls and nailed-down lids. Their sides are blank, the wood new. You pry a few nails out of one of the crate lids and rip it up, peer inside.

“Well, shit,” you say to yourself, just because you can’t help it. The contents of the crate are glowing, a very familiar purple. It looks like all that alien shit from a couple of years ago, when the sky split open above New York like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft book and started raining lizards. Lizards with glowing purple sticks that blew stuff up. You know because you almost got one to the kisser.

What to do, what to do, what to do? You fumble for your phone, conscious that any second a bunch of probably very large men are going to come climbing into the truck and you’re going to be crouched in the corner looking threatening. You don’t like your odds, and you barely even know them.

Whose number do you have that you can call? You could probably find Tony Stark’s number somewhere on the internet with a laptop and some wifi and half an hour of time. 

The crunch of footsteps outside on the gravel sounds, and you panic, panic, panic. “Hey, the driver’s down!” someone says. Deep voice. 

“There’s someone here,” says another guy. “Look in the truck, quick.” Okay, time to do something incredibly stupid. You back up against the far wall of the truck, squinting at the bright square of daylight open at the end. A big, looming shadow of a guy steps up to the gate, and you push off the wall, launch forwards, and spear-tackle him right in the gut. The two of you go flying and you’re thrown off him, into the ground, your head smacking hard against the gravel. He gets to his feet before you do and pulls a knife from nowhere, a big sharp chunk of metal – this is going badly. You stand and shake yourself off, dizzily. 

“Careful with that,” you say, nodding to the knife as the big guy advances on you. There’s another guy checking the cab of the truck, two more standing by, waiting to get in on the fight. “Might take someone’s eye out–” He stabs at you, faster than you’d expected, and you twist sideways on instinct. Too late. The blade slashes through your suit and into your skin. You feel it scrape your ribs.

He pulls it back and stabs again. This time you move, crumpling to the floor to duck, and the knife whistles over your head. You gasp and clamp your hand to your side, feel blood hot and wet through your glove. It stings, the pain muffled by a cloak of shock. You’re gonna feel it later.

The guy bears down on you again and you lunge for his legs, wrapping both your arms around his knees. In desperation, you feel a wave of electricity surge through your arms and he stiffens as he hits the ground, muscles spasming. You get wearily to your feet again as he writhes in the dust, eyes rolling back in his head.

The other two men back away from you. You turn the energy up, letting it spark and crackle in your hands, making a show of it: you don’t have the reserves to blast them right now. They turn and take off across the gravel parking lot, towards a building in the distance.

You drop your hands, and turn to slam the gate closed. There’s still a guy poking around in the cab, oblivious to the fact that his friends have left him alone. You creep up behind him and slam the door into his head when he turns. He crumples and slides out of the cab. You jump aside as he hits the ground. Nice.

You heave yourself into the driver’s seat, leaving smears of blood all over the covering. Tug the door closed, stick the keys in the ignition, start the engine. It all takes too much effort. Lucky the truck’s an automatic. You put it in drive and stomp on the accelerator.

It takes you five hours to drive back to New York, and by that time the sun is low on the horizon, hot through the windscreen and the driver’s candy has left your mouth dry. You’re still bleeding, finding it hard to stay awake with one hand on the wheel and one pressed to your side. You manage to back the truck into a grimy little parking lot a block away from your apartment, and you tumble out of the cab and lock the door behind you. You lean against the wall of the truck for a good long minute, trying to get back breath that won’t return, gasping and panting. The wound in your side is burning like someone’s taken a match to your flesh, and your entire side and half your thigh is drenched with blood.

You don’t have the capacity to plan out whatever the hell you’re going to do with the truck or think about who might be really really angry that you’ve stolen it. You stumble back to your apartment as the evening comes on, hiding in the dusk and down the backs of tiny streets where people don’t look up from their feet when they walk. You go in through your front door and collapse on the floor just inside. With the last of your energy, you kick the door closed and hear it clicks as it locks. Then you rest your head on the floor and close your eyes. Just a few minutes, you tell yourself.

You wake under a bright light, your vision swimming. You make an incoherent sound of panic, one that was probably meant to be a curse, and you try to sit up only to discover that you’re already propped up against the bathtub. You lean forwards far too quickly and smack heads with someone. Reeling, you slump backwards, blinking hard.

“Ow!” says the person. “Fuck!” Your vision clears from a smear of white and grey. Black Widow is crouched in front of you, a hand over her nose, eyes watering. She scowls at you.

“Hnng,” you say. 

“That really hurt,” she growls. 

“Don’t kill me,” you stammer, wanting to raise your hands in front of you. Your arms don’t respond and you panic further, imagining that she’s done something awful like chopped them off. Then you look down and there they are, limp by your sides. You’re in the bathroom, sitting on the cool tiles in your underwear. In your underwear. In your underwear. Black Widow undressed you in your bathroom. Your mask is still on. The bright fluorescent light is on, blindingly bright and the sky outside the window is a deep navy, lit with the glow of the city.

“I’m not trying to kill you,” Black Widow gripes. “Jesus Christ.”

“What are you– what are you doing?” you gasp. You’re lightheaded, the world rocking like a pendulum as you try to cling to reality.

“Stitching you up,” she says. She rubs her nose one more time, then reaches for something to her left: a square dressing and a roll of tape.

“Huh?” you say cleverly.

“Yeah, you were half-dead when I found you so I figured it was only polite,” she says dryly.

“How’d– why were you in my house?” you ask. She slaps the dressing onto your side and doesn’t look at you. “Have you been following me?” 

“Let’s not make accusations,” she replies, light and casual.

“You have been following me!” you say. “Could you not have been there when that idiot twice my size decided to stab me?”

“You can make better decisions, you know,” she says. She rips a length of tape off with her teeth. “Like calling the police.”

“Spider-Man doesn’t call the police,” you say.

“Is he like your idol or something?” she asks, almost explosively. “You’re not Spider-Man! You’re an idiot with a death wish.”

“That’s rude,” you say. She just huffs. 

She finishes taping your side up and squats back on her heels. “Done,” she says. She stands and flicks the sink faucet on with her elbow, sticks her bloodied hands under the stream. “That’s some road rash you got.” You look down at your shoulder, which is stinging in the cool air. It appears to have been washed. Your knuckles are bruised. 

“It’s nothing,” you say, wary of the sudden calm tone she’s using. “You should see the road.” She snorts at the mirror, then turns back to you and sits on the closed toilet lid. Rests her elbows on her knees.

“Tell me what happened,” she says. You frown at her. She raises one red eyebrow at you, elegantly. 

“I got stabbed,” you say.

“That’s not a stab. It’s barely a scratch.”

“I almost died!”

“You did not. Tell me what happened.” Her voice is straying dangerously into annoyance. You don’t want her to throttle you again, not in this state, anyway.

You sigh, heavily, then regret it when you feel your wound twinge. “There was this truck.”

“Hm,” she says. She sounds unimpressed.

“I hitchhiked. Ended up five hours away in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Bunch of alien shit in the back. So I stole it and brought it back.” There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. To avoid looking at what you’re sure is a glare hot enough to melt steel, you poke the dressing on your side and inspect your purple knuckles.

“What were you planning to do?” she asks. It sounds like a rageful rhetorical question.

“I don’t know,” you say. “Hand it over to the Avengers?”

“The same Avengers who believe you tried to kill Captain America not even a week ago? Those Avengers?”

“Pretty sure there’s only one set of Avengers,” you supply helpfully. 

“You’re making this very hard for me,” Black Widow says.

“Okay, so you’d rather some massive maniacs had control of a truck full of alien gear?” you prompt. “I think I did America a favour, actually. And I’m not usually inclined to do that.”

“Where’s the truck?” Black Widow asks shortly. “I’m at the end of my rope here.”

“You’re always at the end of your fucking rope,” you say. “A block over. Parking lot next to the basketball court that no one ever uses.”

“Hm,” she says again, and she gets to her feet. She looks down at you. Nods to your dressing. “Take that off and replace it tomorrow morning,” she says.

“Thanks,” you say, injecting as much sarcasm as you can muster.

“Take an Advil,” she says, and she walks out, leaving you sitting there half-naked on your bathroom floor.

You tug your mask off and glare at the tiled wall.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You don’t really expect to see her again. You don’t even really think about it, besides a half-hearted Google search for her name. But then barely a week later, you’re lying on someone’s balcony with a sprained ankle and a nosebleed from some asshole who’d tried to rob a tiny little convenience store down in Queens, and you’re so far from home and you’re miserable and any moment the owner of the apartment might look out the balcony door–

“You look awful,” she says, stepping into your line of sight. She’s dressed all in black, a hood up over her hair. You can see a tuft of red hair at her collar. Natasha Romanoff.

“Where you going, a goth rave?” you ask, still out of breath. She grins at you, disarmingly.

“Do you need a hand?”

“Yes I need a fucking hand,” you grumble, and you hold out your arm. She considers you for a second. Then she reaches down, yanks you half off the ground and lifts you across her shoulders. You let out an oof as her shoulder sinks into your solar plexus. “What the hell?” you ask, grabbing at her arm, feeling horribly off-balance. “Put me down!”

“You wanna walk?” she asks you, tipping back to look up at the building.

“No,” you snarl, fingers fisted in her jacket.

“Hang on, then,” she says. She raises her hand: there’s a hiss, a clang, and the next thing you know you’re being jerked upwards, the balcony vanishing below you. It’s just half a second of nauseating vertigo, and then Natasha lands on the roof with a thump and a stumble. You groan into her ear. She kneels and sets you down on the roof. It’s damp and the wetness soaks through the ass of your suit.

“Warn a girl,” you say, shaking out your hands, which have cramped from holding on to her so tightly. 

“I wanted to get you out of sight before I assessed the situation,” she says airily. “What happened? Is it dealt with?”

“I tripped,” you say, attempting to keep the sulk out of your voice. Natasha offers you an unsympathetic look.

“How?”

“A guy punched me in the face.”

“I’m not following the chain of events,” she says blankly. You roll your eyes.

“You don’t need to. I knocked him out and called the police, alright?” You cross your arms. It’s hard to be above-it-all when you’re sitting in a dirty puddle and she’s standing above you, chin tilted up so her eyes catch the last of the evening light, hands in fists by her sides. You notice then that her knuckles are smeared in blood. “What’d you do with the truck?” you ask.

“I turned it in to SHIELD,” she says. “They were more than happy to receive it.” She looks down at you. “You know the others would have attacked you if you’d turned up with it.” It sounds almost like an apology.

“Yeah,” you say heavily.

“And if they see you anywhere around…they won’t hesitate to engage.”

“I know,” you say. You pick at a loose thread on your pants in frustration. “I just don’t know what I can do to convince them that I’m…” you trail off vaguely and shrug.

“Save some lives,” Natasha replies. She takes a seat next to you and brushes her palms off on her jacket. “You’re not above that, are you?”

You throw her a look. “Don’t be an asshole. I save lives all the time.”

“Save the President’s life.”

“Don’t like the President,” you say. “And he’s all the way in Washington, anyway.” You tip backwards and lie down, the roof cold through your jacket. “Maybe I should just give up.”

Natasha scoffs. “Right. As if you would.”

“You don’t know me,” you say, to the greying sky.

“I know more than you think I do.”

“Creepy. Are you gonna help me home, or what?” you say. You push yourself up onto your elbows. She’s looking at you intently.

“You can fly,” she says, after a second.

“I’m tired. Don’t you have a car?” You give her your best expression of desperation. When she doesn’t cave, you widen your eyes very gradually until you’re sure you look like a kid denied dessert.

She leans in close, her face impressively blank, and says, “You are a very annoying person.”

“No,” you say, “you’re mistaking annoyance for attraction.”

“Oh, baby, sweetheart, I can’t keep my eyes off you,” she says, her voice completely flat of affect. She’s very close to your face, her hand planted on the roof barely an inch from your thigh.

“Knew it,” you say, grinning up at her. “Give me a hand up.”

She helps you (drags you) down the fire escape on the opposite side of the building and bundles you into a car like she’s staging a kidnapping. You complain the whole way down, so maybe that’s why.

“This is a nice car,” you say. She slams the door closed on you and gets in on the other side. the car starts with a happy growl when she turns the key in the ignition. The seats feel like real leather, the dash inlaid with hundreds of buttons like jewels. “Je-sus,” you say. “I might be getting your seats a little damp.”

“Hmph,” Natasha says, checking her rearview mirror. She puts the car in gear - it’s a fucking manual, of course she drives a manual, she probably likes feeling above everyone else even though she’s already got a car that costs four times your apartment lease and she doesn’t need another goddamn ego boost - and backs out of her parking space. 

She drives you home in silence. At one point, you consider switching on the radio and playing some menial pop song just to piss her off, but she gives you a look like she knows exactly what you’re about to do and so you slump back into your seat with the most innocent expression you can muster. 

“Don’t try and look all cute,” Natasha says. She smoothly turns a corner. “I know you’re the devil incarnate.”

“You can’t even see my face!” you protest. “Asshole. You’re so rude.” She pulls the car into a jerky brake against the kerb, throwing you forwards against the dash.

“Oops,” she says casually, as she kills the engine. “Should’ve put a seatbelt on, hm?”

Credit where credit is due, she does at least help you up the stairs, graciously ignoring the scowls you’re shooting at her over your shoulder. The fact that she’s extraordinarily gentle with one hand on your spine to keep you balanced doesn’t help the fact that you’re attempting to be annoyed with her at all. You unlock your door, balancing on one foot with the other ankle throbbing like mad, and swear loudly when the damn key won’t stick in the damn lock. Eventually, Natasha shunts you aside and opens it herself, with one smooth twist of the key.

The door swings inwards. Your own apartment is betraying you for her.

“Get inside,” Natasha orders, checking up and down your hall. You obey, hopping forward and feeling incredibly pathetic. To your surprise, Natasha follows you inside and pulls the door closed behind her. She throws your keys at you and you catch them one-handed against your chest, and then she’s walking towards you with purpose and you try to stumble backwards, but you forget that you only have the use of one foot and you go floundering down into your couch. She stands above you, eyebrows raised. “Are you scared of me?” she asks, after a long silence. She sounds casual again, as if this is a question she asks every day. As if she expects a casual answer.

“Little bit,” you say, and you congratulate yourself internally on how unbothered you sound.

“Huh,” she snorts, and she sinks to her knees in front of you. Your brain short-circuits. She pulls a roll of tape from her pocket and you feel stupid, instantly. 

You hate how she can pluck your emotions like harp strings. 

“Take your shoe off and put your foot up on this,” she says, grabbing one of your throw cushions and laying flat on the opposite end of the couch. 

“Yes, sir,” you mutter insolently, reaching down to tug at your laces. Your head swims, throbs violently and you tip forward, losing balance. Your hands go out to catch yourself and land on Natasha’s shoulders, pushing her back: you try to let go, but you can barely find the strength to sit back up again, a headache pounding in your ears. She grabs you by the waist and shoves you, depositing you against the back of the couch. “You’re strong,” you say drunkenly, because you’re not thinking, your thoughts are moving like sludge in your head and spilling stupidly out of your mouth.

She smiles very slightly. “You’re useless,” she counters. She tugs at your laces herself and works your boot off your foot. She squints up at you and you frown, wondering what the problem is. “Nice socks,” she says. “They really flatter me.” You tip your head against the back of the couch and groan, and you can hear her start to grin. 

“You’re the worst,” is all you say. Of course today had to be the day that you wore your Avengers socks out on a mission. 

“It’s okay, I’m not judging you.” She is totally judging you. 

She grabs your leg and swings it up onto the pillow, ignoring your wince of pain, then produces her roll of tape and binds your foot to the cushion. You look down at her.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” you ask. “I can’t go to work with a pillow on my foot.”

“Then take a day off,” Natasha replies. She rolls her eyes at you. “It needs rest. If you go running about on it, you’ll never heal.” She gets to her feet with her hands splayed on her thighs, and looks down at you. You glare back up at her, arms crossed. 

“Get me an ice pack,” you say.

“Your fridge is barren,” she replies. “There’s no way you have an ice pack of all things in there.”

You heave a huge sigh. “Please,” you say. “I have a bag of peas in the freezer draw.”

“Hm,” Natasha says. “Fine.” She walks around the back of the couch. The instant she’s out of your line of sight, you feel her swat you on the back of the head. Enraged, you twist and try to hit her, but she’s damn fast and she’s in the kitchen before your hand’s even finished its arc. You settle back against the arm of the couch.

She opens the fridge, pulls open the draw with a crunch of ice, and you wait until she’s surely grabbed the bag of peas before you say, “Oh, by the way, it’s open.” There’s a filthy curseword spat out and the sound of frozen peas rattling across the floor and you grin to yourself. She slams the fridge door shut. “Did you find it okay?”

“You’re going to be finding moldy peas everywhere for the next two years,” she calls back at you. “And you’ll deserve it!” You hoist yourself up on the back of the couch and crane for the open door of the kitchen to see her crouched on the floor, sweeping peas into her hand.

You snort and sit back down again.

She enters holding the bag of peas gingerly in two hands like it’s a bomb about to go off, and dumps it in your lap. Thankfully, she’s tied the top closed. A single pea bounces off your thigh and disappears under the TV stand.

“Thanks,” you say, grinning up at her. Natasha throws herself into your other chair with a discontented grunt.

She makes a lot of those little sounds.

“Aren’t you gonna go home?” you ask, slapping the peas over your ankle. The pain begins to fade almost immediately with the cold and you groan, eyes closing, and rest your head back against the armrest in relief. There’s a short silence before she replies.

“I’m resting. Making sure you don’t pass out and choke on your own vomit.”

“Charming,” you say, cracking one eye open to look at her. She’s observing you intently. “What?”

“What what?” she shoots back, in an instant. You shrug helplessly.

“I don’t know,” you say. “Can you take my other shoe off?”

With a huge sigh, she unfolds herself from the armchair, grabs your uninjured foot, and yanks your boot off without untying the laces. 

You wiggle your toes in her face. “Thanks.” She slaps your foot away from her face and tosses your boot over her shoulder.

“You’re bleeding,” she says astutely, studying you from below. You panic for a second, hands going to your ribs, your legs, checking for wounds. “From your face, idiot. It’s soaking through your mask.” You tug one glove off and press your fingers to the lower half of your mask: it’s only a dollar store masquerade mask over a bandana, but it usually stays on well enough. And soaks up all your blood. The amount of times you’ve had to wash it is honestly insane. 

Sure enough, the fabric is wet, a little crusty with blood. You probe gently at your nose, teeth gritted against the pain. It doesn’t appear to be broken, thank god.

“I’ll get you a tissue,” Natasha says unprompted, and she gets to her feet and moves off. She’s back before long, and she stuffs a length of toilet roll into your hands, before collapsing in the armchair again, facing the window away from you.

You stick the tissue up under your mask, against the flow of blood. “Thangks,” you say, slightly muffled. She looks around at you, and you stick two bloodied thumbs up at her. “I’ll be fine. You can go.”

Natasha looks a little torn for a second, only a second before it’s gone again and she shrugs, climbing out of her seat and brushing her pants off. “You’d better not go comatose,” she says warningly. She stops by the amrest where your head is and looks down at you, her face indecipherable.

“Sure won’t,” you say. You try to pretend like your headache isn’t building with every second, like you don’t wish that she’d put cool hands on your bare forehead and talk you to sleep: you know her voice could send you to sleep if she wanted it to. 

Natasha reaches out and taps your mask on the hard curved bridge of your nose with one finger. “Get some rest,” she says, inexplicably gentle. Then she cocks her head to the side. “And remember, if you stick your nose in where you’re not wanted again-”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, rolling your eyes with difficulty. “You don’t have to say that everytime we see each other. I’ve got the message now.”

“Uh-huh,” she says dryly. 

“Leave.” You point sternly to the door. 

“Leaving,” she says, hands raised in mock surrender. She gives you one last smile, and walks out. Through your door this time. How kind of her.

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