pennysheets | Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

"You were willing to spare my life, even knowing you'd be hurt for it," she says. "Seems like I should at least know your name."

And it would give her something to track once she's back on home ground - not in the present, but in the past, something that might make it easier to track the origin of binding. Not the only starting point, but one of the easier ones to work from.

His choice in literature, too, is notable. She commits the title to memory. Any little scrap of clue.

He makes an actual annoyed noise, and stares down at his book instead of at her. "I don't know. Okay?" He sounds frustrated and a little lost and very human. "I forgot it somewhere in. I don't know, the forties or fifties maybe. It's been a long time. These guys just call me their instrument, and no one's called me anything else that I can remember."

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. It's entirely inadequate. It's the only thing she can really think of to say in the face of that. Erosion of identity is nothing new. Erosion of identity to that degree...

She steps back towards the door, accepting the dismissal. For now.

"Make it up to me by getting out of here," he says, dragging the flippant tone back into place. It's easier to see, now, that it's a complete facade and there's something much more brittle underneath. He opens his book back up and pointedly ignores her retreat.

She is gone come morning, in all appearance of haste, of a woman who'd gotten in too deep, too fast, and had panicked upon facing the reality of what she'd gotten herself into and had it gnaw on her arm. There are traces left behind, a digital trail that tracks south then veers abruptly eastward. It ends in Rome, with Snakeroot - Nora Ross - being swallowed by the holy city.

Meanwhile, Natasha Romanoff goes to work. She has connections, and favors to call upon, and just enough pieces, between what she'd heard and what she'd seen and the metaphysical connections that can be forged with blood spilled or shared, to dump into the laps of a pair of sorcerers who no doubt wish they'd never heard her name to find a solution. It isn't a great solution. It is months in the making, and when Stephen Strange presents it to her, there's enough worry beneath the caustic sarcasm that she half expects him to chain her up until he can magic some sense into her.

She is fairly certain that only the knowledge that if it isn't her, it will be some other SHIELD agent, less well-connected and less adaptable, that stops him.

What he has for her is a liquid spell, triggered by blood, that is active on the host, and transfer it to a leaden orb in his possession. What she has is a plan to pass it to a creature with inhuman strength and speed and durability. That it requires her to inject herself daily with magic potions containing "trust me, you don't want to know", requires that the cult send one particular vampire hunting once they get a trace of her, and relies for her survival on the hope that he will stop once the binding breaks are much discussed weak points.

In the end, it's a little over five months before a trace Nora Ross appears on the radar again, in New York. There is a sister, a death, a funeral, the sort of thing that might lure a foolish young woman with ideals that outstrip her conviction out of hiding.

And Natasha Romanoff waits, in a shabby hotel, for death to come a-calling.

Oh, they are definitely sending the vampire she wants-- as much to punish him as to deal with her. He disobeyed, and his disobedience put their whole operation in danger, because no one believed Nora Ross ran because she was afraid.

He was punished, but clearly not enough, and Raven in particular was firm that he be the one to finish the job he botched before. He's wrapped in their strongest chains and magical tethers, more than usual, enough to keep him focused on the job despite his seething hatred of everything about it. His certainty that this is his fault and now he's bringing that down on someone who will most certainly fight him, and most certainly not want to.

He can't even do it through a sniper rifle, safe and quick and clean, his preference. No, they want him to bring her in. They want her freshly drained and waiting until the next moonrise to rise again, so they can bind her, too, and find out who sent her. Who she told about them. They probably won't even keep her, after they've got what they want. (He hopes they don't keep her. He's managed to sabotage every turning they've sent him on, before, but he's bound too tight this time. He doesn't want anyone else to experience this hell.)

When he finds her hotel, he watches for half the night, circles like a wary cat, perches high in a neighboring building. He looks for the trap, because he trusts that she has one. She never even presents him a shot he could take had he been looking for one, which is impressive, but he still can't see the trap. Maybe she just has stakes in her bedside table doused in holy water.

Maybe he'll try to let her do it, if she does.

Finally he has to admit he just has to do it, the binding closing tight enough that he can't wait any longer, and he scales the side of the hotel, towards her window, aiming to slide a bit of metal from one clockwork finger through to flip the lock and slip inside that way.

It's not an easy climb. It's not an impossible one, either - the hotel is old enough that the brick face has worn in places, forming natural footholds for the determined. At the window itself, there is faint resistance - a wire to break, or to cut, and a circuit that will likely be tripped either way. From the outside, there's no way to tell if it's merely an alarm, or something rigged to shock an intruder or fire a projectile or something equally unpleasant.

(It is, in the end, the first - something that can be dismantled without harming anyone, should this go badly and Natasha not be present to dismantle it herself in the morning.)

This is one reason he has a metal arm, to begin with. It's not like he needs the strength and durability, and at times it can even be a liability. But it comes with a variety of tools in the fingers.

He slips the lock open, slides the window up a finger's breadth, and finds the wire. Traces it to one side, then the other, weighs his options for a split second, then flips the flat blade tool back in to instead pop out a scissor tool. If it zaps his metal arm, it won't affect the rest of him; if it fires a projectile, there really isn't room for it to hit him through that tiny inch of open window; if it sets an alarm he can be inside and on Snakeroot before she can react, anyway.

He snips the wire, listens for a single second, then shoves the window open the rest of the way and eels swiftly inside when nothing terrible triggers on him.

The alarm is a high, sharp whine, painful and almost certainly above the range of normal human hearing. The air in the room is thick with perfume, sweet and cloying. There is a shape on the bed, bundled beneath the covers, and the play of shadows through the window makes it difficult to tell if it's still or breathing.

There are two doors - one out into the hallway, and the other, half-shut, lies past the bed and almost certainly leads to the bathroom.

Ow. Jesus Christ, that's an awful noise. Worse, between the alarm and the perfume, she's effectively put a lid on his enhances senses. He can't smell or hear if that's her in the bed or a pile of pillows, but he holds still for another second, waiting to see if the alarm wakes the supposed body...

Only a second, though. He has to get this over with. If it's not her, then she'll be in the bathroom, or possibly under the bed. It's awfully low to the ground, though, he's not sure she'd fit.

He grabs the blankets and yanks them back with the metal hand, reaching for whatever is under it with the cold flesh one. Sloppy and rushed, but that's what you get when you bind him too tight. If the thing under the blankets isn't her, it'll be a shield against whatever attack she has planned; if it's her, he can deal with that as necessary.

There is a hint of resistance when he yanks back the blankets, and a flash of light, painfully bright in the dim interior of the hotel room. A few embers from the flash paper sizzle against the sheets, already worn threadbare, but mercifully, nothing catches.

There's a stir of motion, a shift of air, as Natasha darts from the bathroom, but the angle of her attack is not the thrust of a stake, as might be suspected. It's the swing of a shock baton on a lower arc, meant to hamper, meant to slow him down, meant to give her a chance to shift tactics if the assassin sent isn't the one she's expecting.

Ugh ow Jesus. This is why he prefers sniper rifles, dammit. There's none of this painful trap shit to deal with. Then again, most targets aren't this smart, either, or know what's coming for them.

He swings the blanket in a wide arc to catch the attack, aiming to smack her right in the face with the edge of it, at the very least fowling the weapon. It sparks and hisses against the wool, likely to start a real fire if Natasha doesn't shut the electricity off quickly. He follows it up by straight-up leaping at her, grabbing for whatever part of her he can reach. He just needs a little exposed flesh, he doesn't even care where at this point. He just wants it over with.

She jerks her head back enough that the corner of the blanket catches her across the cheek, hard enough to sting, but not smothering her, not fouling her vision. The blanket smokes, and she curses, killing the current to the baton as the weight of fabric drags her arm downward.

And then he's lunging, and she'd almost forgotten just how fast he is, how hard his grip is. While the arm he catches is caged in the swung blanket, the other is free, bare from just above the crook of her elbow, and she brings it up on instinct to ward him off - a futile gesture if ever there's been one.

The weight of him will send her crashing to the wall behind her, unless she manages to twist in time to wind up on the floor instead. His hand and then his teeth close on her arm either way.

There's no pain. He does that, at least. It feels like a cold numbness spreads up from the wound, instead, taking away all sensation. Not pleasure, because like hell is he going to make her like this, he's not that sick-- but no pain.

Her back collides with the wall hard enough to bruise, and with both her hands fouled - one with the blanket, the other imprisoned in his grip - her head impacts too, washing her vision red and leaving it sparking fireworks when that recedes. That is, somehow, less disconcerting than the numbness radiating along her arm, sending her fingers to sleep, and for a heart-stopping moment, she wonders if Strange's spell had failed, before she reasons that a vampire's bite must be as much biology as magic.

It does nothing to calm the uptick in her traitor pulse.

The spell doesn't fire immediately. It requires a certain volume - slightly over a pint - for her blood to carry enough of it, diluted as it is. When it does trigger, there's no mercy in it - it rips at the bindings imprisoning him, sudden and aggressive and with no thought to how much having them torn up by their roots might hurt. There's no room for that.

He doesn't notice the first tendrils of the magic reaching for the bindings. He's not a mage, and he rarely has to go up against them. He's only sensitive to the magic on him from long familiarity. So he keeps drinking. The aim, after all, is to drain her dry so she'll rise starving and weak tomorrow night.

Until it digs in. Until it grabs hold. He binding is so old and has been laid down so many times that it's reshaped the very essence of who he is, by now, and pulling it out is not easy. Or painless. It's active, tightened more than usual to enforce strict obedience for this specific mission, and tries to resist like a living thing. Strange's spell is good, though, and fights back.

He lets her go with a sudden startled whine in the back of his throat, tearing back away from her and grabbing his head. The feeling is like fire, almost, with each root word and rhyme being torn free, but in his brain. Fire on ice, with the cracking and melting and the heat to go with it. He staggers back another step, curling in on himself.

Good thing she's not actually here to kill him, because he's not paying her any attention anymore.

She sags against the wall when he releases her, fighting to keep her feet against a wave of lightheadedness. Her heart is pounding, and the back of her head throbs in time with it, and for a moment she thinks she might be violently sick.

She watches him curl in on himself, wincing a little in sympathy. The spell had not been nearly as vicious when Strange had tested it on her - but the magic used to test it had been new, had been familiar, and he had warned her that absent any familiarity with either the binding or the victim, the disenchantment would be rough. She suspects, though she isn't entirely certain, that even he hadn't known how rough.

Not that she would have chosen a different path, or that she would have been able to give a warning. The chances that the binding didn't include some order to preserve it seem slim at best.

She disentangles herself from the blanket, and clips her shock baton back at her waist, rendered awkward by the lingering lack of sensation in one hand. That is a little worrisome, given that her arm's still bleeding. She considers her options, and grimaces. There's a fully stocked emergency kit in the bathroom, but she doesn't know how long the spell will take to unlock the vampire's binding, and doesn't want to leave him alone until it's through, not knowing what state it will leave him in, or how he will react once he realizes he's free. And so she makes do with what she has, pulling a towel off of the nearby dresser and wrapping it tightly around her arm, most of her attention still fixed on her would-be killer.

By then he's sunk to the floor, head in his hands and pressed against his knees. He's not panting, because he doesn't breathe, but there are little tremors running over his body, the pieces of the metal arm shifting and whirring.

"What did you do," he asks, sounding like it's gritted out through his fangs. "What is this."

The burning sensation is slowing, rooting out the last of the binding, but it's left behind an empty kind of ache. He hasn't quite put together the fact that he's no longer driven to attack her with the feeling, yet. He will. In a minute.

She picks the blanket up, and crosses carefully over to where he's huddled on the floor, kneeling down beside him to tuck it gently around his shoulders. She doesn't know if it will help - if vampires experience physical shock the way humans do - but it's a bit of human kindness, something she doubts he has much experience with.

"Emancipation," she says. "Hold on. You should be okay in a couple minutes."

She doesn't quite feel the easy confidence conveyed in her words - this is uncharted territory - but projecting it is second nature.

Almost as an afterthought, she dips a hand into her pocket, clicking a button on the small remote there to kill the alarm. It cuts off immediately, leaving the room quiet save for the click of his arm and the rattle of the ancient air conditioner and the distant sound of sirens.

The silence is a background relief; at least now his ears aren't trying to assault him as well as his brain. He takes a second more to process what she just said, half because he is running slower than usual, and half because it makes no sense. He can't be freed. He will never be freed.

And yet. Here he is. Not actually attacking her, even though she's kneeling close to him, close enough to grab and bite and kill. He doesn't even feel the twinge of an urge. No more than he might at the sensation of any random living person next to him.

He looks up sharply at the realization. "How," he asks hoarsely, eyes wide.

"Bloodborne countermagic," she says, and taps her damaged arm lightly. "The bindings are gone, and it will protect you from any new magic cast on you for twenty-four hours. After that, if they can rebind you from a distance, you'll need another dose. My contacts are working on a more permanent countermeasure, but it's going to take some time."

"No," he says slowly, staring at her. "No, I have to be... in that room. With the coffins. Or it. It doesn't." He stalls out, feeling at the edges of his own awareness. Nothing. No feeling but shock, lingering pain, and a slowly growing amazement.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," he breathes after a moment. "I think. I think you really did it."

"My people do good work," Natasha says, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a slight smile, though she doesn't even try to mask her relief. The trouble with magic - the thing she likes least about it - is that it's never an entirely sure thing. There are too many variables, too many things that could go wrong.

"How do you feel? I wasn't expecting it to hit you quite that hard."

Another variable - people bound with century-old spells are few and far between.

"My head hurts, but. Whatever. Worth it, even if it hurts forever." He's starting to grin, now, fangs bright and bared. He doubts it's going to hurt forever. There are dozens of paths he could take from here. Some of them smarter than others. Some of them more tempting than others.

He fixes her with a stare, still smiling. "Who are you? Really? That you're going around freeing bound vampires who you know nothing about?"

"I know you hate the people who bound you, and that you don't kill for pleasure," she replies. "That was enough to gamble on. Who I am is a longer story. I have a safehouse not too far outside the city. If you're willing to give me a little trust, I need to get this cleaned up."

She lifts her towel-wrapped arm slightly.

"And then I'll explain on the way."

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