Chapter Text
Matt doesn’t recognise the heartbeat of the man standing a few buildings away from him. He can tell that the guy is well trained from his stance, body poised and lean muscles tensed, constantly on edge. Ready for a fight. He’s carrying something long and narrow - like a stick, but synthetic - with a thin cord connecting each end. A bow. A wider object that must be a quiver is strung across his back, arrows knocking into each other in their hold.
A faint electric buzz emanates from around his ears, which Matt guesses is the result of some kind of comm system or a high-tech hearing aid. Considering who this person is, it’s probably both.
He knows that he is being watched, can hear the displacement of the air as the archer tracks his movements. Reputation tells him that Hawkeye’s eyesight is unmatched, so he does his best to sink even further into the shadows as he heads home.
Whatever business an Avenger has in Hell’s Kitchen, Matt suspects he doesn’t want to get involved. So he leaves without interjecting. An attempt to trust the hero against his own intrinsic suspicion, to reason that Matt was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
-
Hawkeye is there the next night, too. There goes the benefit of the doubt.
This time he follows from the rooftops, movement not quite as graceful and practised as Matt’s own, but practical and near-silent nonetheless. A man with lesser senses would be none the wiser.
He’s being spied on. By an Avenger. And yet, somehow, that isn’t the problem.
When Matt is backed into a corner by 10 wanna-be gangsters, Hawkeye doesn’t do a thing. Matt makes it out just fine on his own - the men aren’t highly trained and they reak of alcohol, there wasn’t much of a challenge - but Hawkeye had no way to know that. No matter what reputation proceeds Daredevil, fighting 10 people at once is no mean feat.
Hawkeye didn’t help.
Realistically, Matt knows why. Hawkeye is a spy. He doesn’t want to compromise his position unless it’s an emergency. He’s been watching Matt all night, he knows he can handle himself.
It’s when Matt hears a scream from the alley right next to the building that Hawkeye is crouched on that it becomes a problem.
He’s only a couple of streets over when he hears it, and he moves towards it without thinking. He can hear a woman’s rapid heartbeat, can hear the faint scraping of a metal pendant against a necklace chain as she flinches back against the wall of the alley.
There’s someone approaching her, a man who smells of sweat and ash and dust, with a sharp shard of thick glass in his left hand. The man’s heartbeat is as fast and unrhythmic as the woman’s and fear radiates off of him in waves. He’s new to this, inexperienced. His movements seem hesitant, his steps short and unsure even as he hisses threats through his teeth.
The man is tall, probably has an inch or two on Matt, though his body is thin and wiry. It’s not difficult to knock the glass out of his hand, nor to hold him against the wall while Matt instructs the woman to run. After she’s gone, Matt knocks him out with a well-placed punch. It’s not difficult. But that’s not the point.
Hawkeye was there, right above, a bow clutched in the hands of a dangerous marksman. He saw a woman being cornered, hunted like prey, and did nothing about it. Just sat, silently, watching.
Matt doubts that the man would’ve raped or killed her, doubts he would’ve done anything more than taunt. It’d felt more like a power play, to get a kick from someone else’s fear. But that’s not the point.
There’s an old fire-escape leading up to the rooftop.
Hawkeye is facing him when he makes it up. Matt doesn’t bother to act surprised by this.
“Hawkeye.” He states, lowering the pitch of his voice to a gravelly tone that grates at his ears slightly.
“Daredevil!” Hawkeye’s eagerness puts Matt on edge. His voice is animated and slightly childish, though his heart beats the same steady rhythm, indicating that his excitement is not entirely legitimate.
“Why have you been trailing me?”
Hawkeye hesitates, the shock from the realisation that he’d been made conveyed in the skip of his heart.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He’s good; his voice is stable and the muscles in his face remain relaxed. However, Matt is no fool.
“You do.”
Hawkeye sighs. “Look. I’m on a mission, okay? Shield, you know? They want a report on you.”
He sounds less sure of himself now, even with the good excuse. So much so that Matt doesn’t need to hear heartbeats to know it’s a lie.
“Try again.” He slips a threatening note into his voice, and the corner of his lip twitches up slightly when Hawkeye’s heart rate increases. An avenger is scared of him.
“Curiosity.” He states, and it’s the truth. “Saw reports on the news of you flipping around and all that shit, wanted to know more. The files on you are shockingly empty.”
“I’d like it to stay that way, Hawkeye.”
Hawkeye holds his hands up in surrender.
“Whatever you say, devil man.”
Matt says nothing.
Hawkeye clears his throat. “I guess I’ll be going, then.”
“Don’t follow me again, Hawkeye. I’ll know.”
“…Noted. And you know it’s Clint, right?”
Matt didn’t.
“I don’t care.” He says instead. “Get out of my city.”
Hawkeye sprints down the fire escape, leaving Matt alone on the rooftop.
A scream cuts through the night, then the rooftop is empty.
-
Matt wakes up late. The talking alarm-clock on his bedside table has been faulty lately, and it clearly took Matt’s 8am meeting as a cue to stop working entirely.
He’s woken to his phone chanting Foggy’s name over and over. He answers.
“Hey buddy. Just calling to make sure you aren’t, you know… bleeding out somewhere.”
“Not as far as I know,” Matt yawns, stretching and hearing an assortment of clicks and cracks from his joints. Vigilantism isn’t exactly easy on the body.
“Then where the hell are you, dude? I was this close to telling Mr Jhonstone that you’d ran off to the circus to become a blind tightrope walker!”
Matt laughs. “Please say you didn’t.”
“Of course I didn’t! We have a reputation to uphold.”
“What reputation would that be, exactly?”
“Only the best, cheap law firm, where the lights don’t work half the time and there’s rats in the ceiling! We’d only accept fire-eaters, here.”
Matt laughs again, replying “naturally,” before what Foggy said clicks in his still drowsy brain.
“I missed the meeting? What time is it?”
“9:30. Matt, are you okay? You sure you’re not bleeding out?”
“Shit.”
“…Matt? That isn’t exactly reassuring.”
“I’m fine, promise. I’ll be there in a bit. I have a story to tell you.”
Foggy makes an exited noise.
“I didn’t say it was a good story.”
“It better be, Matt, or you’re paying for our lunch all this week. Making up excuses as to why ½ of the firm is always missing is difficult.”
A guilty feeling picks at his brain. “Sorry.”
“Prove it by hurrrying the fuck up, Murdock.”
“Hurrying.” He replies, then hangs up.
Foggy’s gonna hate him for this.