The Phantom (Black Widow x Male Reader)

Recruitment

2012 SHIELD Helicarrier 

Natasha POV

I entered the debreifing room around a minute late. The debriefing room was always slightly seperated from the main areas of the Helicarrier for privacy. Along with this it had heavy metal doors, soundproof walls and concrete all around with metal plates drilled on top for security, the screws still visible even now. Inside the decoration was sparse. A single wall held a flatscreen tv but that was the only luxury. Beside that, there was a thin metal table, a small set of chairs, a jug of water and a few cups.

This meeting could only be one thing. There had been a royally huge fuck up surrounding the Tesseract with an unknown hostile seizing it for themselves and taking mental control over Clint and a few other notable scientists in the facility. As usual, when SHIELD had a mess, Fury sent me to clean it.

The director looked me in the eyes and started. "Have you been briefed about the current issue surrounding the Tesseract?" I simply nodded in reply while he continued. "We need some people to help track down the tesseract." As he said this I sat down in one of the chairs and placed my feet upon the counter top.

Raising an eyebrow at my behaviour he continued. "We need a team who can both fight and track it down so I am initiating the Avengers Initiative."

I was well aware of the Avengers initiative, hoping to combine together the most skilled and powerful individuals on the planet to defend it in times of need. A pipe dream really because everyone who had been sugested was either recovering from time spent underneath the ice, was isolating themself from society or had outright rejected him. Still, I looked at him unfazed and asked the next obvious question "Who do you need me to convince?" As I said this I poured myself  glass of water from the jug on the table. Assuming it was going to be Stark and that I would have to deal with him once again.

"The Phantom." He replied. 

I choked on my water.

"You expect me to recruit SHIELD's most wanted?" I questioned, sarcasm dripping from every word.

"I think we've found him. After the day of the death of an american cocaine smuggler, a motel nearby didn't have its customer return. After scanning over we found a person by the same name getting some crappy apartment just one state over. Around the same time, just under $30,000,000 was transferred to a local homeless sheltering network in the same state." Fury looked very pleased with himself as he said this. "I'm sending you inside to investigate since you are my only asset left after that shitshow with the tesseract."

As the idea of meeting a fairytale crossed my mind, I smiled. "Well, where is he?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One hour later in New york

Natasha POV

It was late at night when I arrived at the address. I had been given my own choice about how to approach the aparment and I decided upon a quite straight forward method of walking on the door. If I were on the run, then I would be constantly on edge about people trying to sneak in and I would have set up traps to assure that no-one would be able to get in through the windows or get onto the roof. No operativewould be stupid enough to knock on the door.

Except for me aparently.

I was dressed in semi-casual clothes but had hidden on me a handgun as well as a twin pair of knives and a hidden communicator in my ear. I walked up the stairway and admired how shabby the entire apartment block was. The paint was barely hugging the walls and graffiti covered nearly all of the building in some manner or another.