Hell to Pay (Daredevil x fem!reader)

Chapter 28 - Long time no see

A/N: honestly i just write when i feel like it now, next chapter could be next couple of days, could be a couple of months. i became the author i sought to destroy, my sincerest apologies lol 🖤

You sit in a dimly lit bar in Marrakesh, the air thick with the mingling scents of intrigue and cigarette smoke. You swirl the tail-end of the drink in your glass, carefully listening to the many hushed conversations in different languages occurring at once. A Spanish couple is arguing over whether or not he cheated. He did. A couple of old Moroccan men are squabbling about whose drink of choice is better. Neither were any good in the first place. Many other little chats fill the bar, along with the sounds of glasses clinking and people laughing.

For a moment you feel a strange sense of uncertainty, of where you were, what you were doing, but you're snatched out of that thought by an uncontrollable force, and your focus re-centres itself. 

A redhead at your nine o'clock arouses your suspicion. You can tell that it's a wig from the tiniest millimetre of lace peeking out at the side near her ear, though it's believable to the untrained eye. Her eyebrows are a dark brown, telling you she's likely a natural brunette.

She's trying her best not to draw attention to herself as she sits at the bar, but you know exactly who she is and why she's here. Emilia Bonetti, an assassin for an extremely under-the-radar Italian mafia, and your target. And you are likely hers too, the reason she's here.

You usually do the chasing on these missions, so you decide to let her come after you this time, a little game of cat and mouse. After nursing your drink for the whole evening, you down the last of it and slip out the back entrance.

You wind down the streets, which you memorised before the mission, manoeuvring through small alleyways and glancing back to ensure she is following you.

You must have accidentally evaded her too well because, after a while of racing through the streets, you have shaken the tail, which you hadn't intended on doing.

After waiting for a moment, you climb onto a windowsill and jump from it to grab onto the roof of the building opposite it. You hoist yourself up onto the flat rooftop, using it as a vantage point to take a glance over the low-rise skyline. You thought maybe she was following you from above, but evidently not.

"Y/n."

You suddenly hear your name in the near distance, and slowly make your way across the rooftops towards it. Although there's something strange about the voice, it sounds vaguely familiar. You've never met Emilia Bonetti before, and unless her voice is extremely deep, it's safe to assume it's not her beckoning you.

You take your gun out of the holster on your hip and cock it, before saying, "раскрыть себя," which is followed by silence. You slowly turn around, not wanting to get caught off guard.

You try again in English, thinking maybe they didn't understand you, "Reveal yourself."

"Don't shoot, okay, just hear me out," the voice says again before a man reveals himself from behind a wall on the next rooftop over.

You raise a suspicious brow at him, awaiting his explanation, not lowering your gun as he comes towards you, his hands raised in surrender.

"As hard as you're going to find this to believe, we know each other -"

"I'm aware of who you are, Daredevil. What I am unsure of is why I shouldn't take you out now and save myself the effort of going on a separate mission to do so," you retort, having recognised him from the Red Room's hit list. You haven't been assigned him yet, but you're sure you will be soon, considering you're their best agent since Romanoff and Belova were compromised.

"Your mind isn't your own right now, you sacrificed yourself to let the rest of us go free. You don't want to be part of this, the Red Room is using you. I need you to trust me on this," he continues, and you narrow your gaze at him.

"Trust you?" you scoff. This guy sure has some gall.

"Well, you haven't killed me yet, which means something deep down inside of you isn't letting you," he says. 

Something about his voice sounds eerily familiar, a weird sense of deja vu washing over you. You shake your head swiftly, refocusing yourself. You inhaled deeply, lowering your weapon, before stating simply, "You're not my mission."

You notice his hand flinch by his side, he's giving a signal, he's not working alone. You swiftly turn back, sensing someone behind you, just catching their wrist in your hand as they were about to release something over your head, a red vial.

Your boss warned you about those vials, they fuck with your brain, and cause you to act differently. When you make eye contact with the owner of said wrist, your already harsh glare shifts to a death stare. "Traitor," you hiss, turning your body back into her, and flipping her over your back onto the hard brick under your feet.

The action causes her to drop the vial, rolling across the rooftop. You race Daredevil over towards it, getting there just before him and swiftly snatching it. You quickly raise your gun again, holding up it about a foot away from his head.

"Take one step, and I'll shoot," you threaten, and Matt senses the sincerity in your tone. It breaks his heart to see you like this, Yelena's too. After everything she had done to free you from the Red Room, you were right back where you started.

You take a few steps backwards, creating some distance between you and them. Wherever the White Widow is, the Black Widow isn't far behind, you have to get out of here. You'll have to leave Bonetti for now, your mission has been compromised.

"You don't want to go after her?" Yelena asks Matt as he pulls his mask down. "We'll only end up fighting her. And we won't be able to subdue her, not without her killing one of us." And he was right, though a three versus one seems like an easy bet, when one is fighting to stop the other, and one is fighting to kill, the odds change.

You abandon your mission and return to your jet, masked by reflective panels on a nearby rooftop, and take off. You dial in your boss's number, who answers instantly. "Termination failed, three unanticipated hostiles in the field."

"Three? That should be light work for you agent, especially after all of your additional training and serum increase."

"I am fully aware of that, except they weren't any regular hostiles. These were highly skilled operatives, exceeding that of Bonetti's expertise. Though I believe them to be an unrelated issue."

"Do you have any physical descriptors of said operatives, we need to identify and eliminate them as soon as possible, if they truly are bigger threats," he replies, and your gut has a strange tingling sensation. Everything in your being forces you against disclosing their identities, for whatever reason. What possible reason would you have to defend two rouge widows and a small-scale vigilante?

"Three males, tall statures, agile, intelligent. Barely got out of there alive. I'll require an extra agent to -"

"No, we will increase your dosage. This remains confidential, Red Widow. You must complete your original mission, and this additional one after this next dose. Is that understood?"

"Affirmative," you reply, before ending the call. You feel a sense of uncertainty, one that has been nagging at you since before this mission. You reach into your side pouch on your hip, taking out the small red vial. It's labelled, in bold; counteragent, meaning it's a reactive substance. You wonder why it would be labelled reactive if it is supposed to be a proactive toxin, according to what the Red Room has told you.

You're not quite sure why, but you decide to put the vial in a hidden compartment you added below the control panel of the jet, locking it securely.