A Crazier Than Average Year, A Matt/Nat Story

Let's be Crass and Fall Together, 1

Matt, 2012

It's early still. More to do. Always more to do.

Matt lands on the roof of the six-story walk-up where he and Foggy still share a one-bedroom apartment. He's sore from three consecutive nights of beatdowns. No one's been able to give him a lead on the burglar who assaulted his client. She's hell-bent on suing the NYPD for mishandling her case and Matt's not sure how to tell her you can't lose evidence that never existed in the first place.

He's mulling over the faint scent of potting soil he picked up in the victim's apartment when traces of bergamot and vanilla cloud his senses.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" He asks, rewarded with a huff of breath from Natasha.

"I'll get you, one day."

"We'll see."

She scoffs, "One of us will."

"So what are you doing here, Natasha? You don't call, you don't write..." Having inspected the list of contacts in his burner phone, she hadn't even left her number. Matt suspects she has his, but that only makes the long silence between them harder to bear.

Her catsuit creaks as she bends her elbows, folding her arms across her chest. "Just in town for a few days. Leaving tomorrow. Care for another tour?"

Should say no. He's sore and his muscles scream. His arms ache from repetitive exertion. Still feels a twinge of betrayal that it's been several months and she didn't even call to say she was in town. But this, their dance, is a wanted distraction.

Their bodies leap and twist across rooftops, between fire escapes, reflecting between surfaces like parallel beams of light. She occasionally pulls the trick with the grappling hook, but Matt's prepared. He leads them with confidence to the buildings he knows, paths he's travelled time and again. Of course, he occasionally loses himself. His focus is divided between his own trajectory and the sensations of her body in line with his. The sounds of her clothes, her clipped, precise movements, her inhale and exhale. It takes him a while to figure out that her hair is tied back. He only hears it when she's flying sideways, the air whips her ponytail against her face, sticking to her lip gloss — a strawberry-scented smile.

Matt's senses plummet back into his own body. He's headed for a wider street than would be ideal. Hasn't made this jump before. Already in the air. Stretching his body out long and lithe, pointing every muscle in the direction he wants to go. He unlocks his elbows to prepare for a hard landing and then a roll. Makes it, barely, and has to stop and breathe on the other side. Natasha lands beside him and her voice is light, "Did you know you could make that?"

He grins, "I do now."

The sound of Natasha's chuckle is swept under a tide of sensations that make the hair stand up on the back of Matt's neck. The sound of flesh against flesh and vibrations through bone. A gasp of pain and a terrified, muffled shriek. He's on his feet in an instant, holding a breath he doesn't remember drawing. His concentration slips between buildings and follows the cold metallic tang of a fire escape into a musty, garbage-strewn alley. Five heartbeats, three of them elevated. Natasha's hand hovers over his shoulder. "Matt?"

"Three assailants, two victims. A man and a woman. They've subdued the man, one of them is holding the woman at gunpoint and..."

"No time to waste." Natasha slips in front of him, "ladies first." She jogs casually to the front of the building, Matt understands the plan without having to be told. He drops as quietly as he can from the edge of the roof to the railing on the top level of the fire escape. Hand over hand lowers himself down the railing and then drops to level four, willing the metal structure not to give away his location with a groan or creak. He can hear Natasha's grappling hook in the distance, she lands on the sidewalk near the mouth of the alley.