pennysheets | Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

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Vampire cult nonsense (PSL for Natasha)

It had taken her a while to get far enough into the ranks of this... organization. They have half a dozen names for themselves, depending on where one gains entrance, and most people don't ever go beyond those half-dozen entrance groups. Natasha is good, but these people are paranoid, and death cults are not a thing that you get access to immediately.

But because she is good, here she is finally, fresh from the ritual bath and dressed in undyed cotton, barefoot, ready for her first ritual. She's the only new one today, but there are other junior members walking in their two lines from the baths to the ritual room and its five sealed coffins. Natasha has yet to be told what's in them, only that they are very powerful.

"Which one is it today?" the young man who'd introduced himself as Stolen Moon (junior members tend to pick very pretentious ritual names) asks, quietly, of the senior member walking in front of him, who was known by the (slightly less pretentious) name Fox.

"You'll see when we get there," Fox says.

"Don't ask questions in front of the initiate," adds the senior at the head of the second column, an older woman called Hawk.

There are already three senior members waiting inside: Raven, Star, and Shimmer. Fox and Hawk motion for everyone to take their places, in an outward-facing ring inside the circle of coffins, and then join them, each standing between two of the coffins.

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"Maybe," she says. "Some of the early files have been declassified. I'm not a historian, but I can help you put in a request. In case anything rings a bell."

She draws her arm back, testing her range of motion and the strength of her grip before nodding in satisfaction. "You're surprisingly good at that. Medic?"

"Just a lot of experience. I've bitten a lot of people I don't necessarily want to kill, and not all of them were stupid cultist kids that had their own doctor to patch them up," he answers with a shrug.

He's already chewing on that "help you put in a request" comment, because that sounds like she's planning on drawing him into her organization. This SHIELD. He's not sure that's a thing he wants.

But he can break it to her later, after they've used her backup to take out the priests he knows are waiting for him. Or he'll just run.

Until they put their own bindings on him, anyway. He pushes up from the bathtub and rinses off the last of her blood in the sink. "Ready to go?"

"Dressed like this?" she asks, gesturing briefly to her light garb. "Turn around. You can tell me just what we're walking into while I slip into something a little more durable."

"Not too durable," he warns, though he does turn around obligingly, folding his arms across his chest with a whir of gears. "I'm not supposed to have given you time to gear up. Though I guess I could tell them you were ready for me and we had a vicious fight." He grins to himself. Half-true, anyway.

"Don't worry," she says. "I can do a lot with very little coverage."

"Stop flirting," says Clint's voice in her ear, and she snorts quietly.

She changes quickly and efficiently, and when she taps the vampire lightly on the shoulder to signal that she's decent, the light body armour is only barely detectable beneath the dark t-shirt and loose linen pants that make for credible sleepwear, and only then because he'd know to look.

He grins a little more to himself, hearing the warning. Flirting with him, a vampire, knowing what he is. Christ. Of course, it's probably fake, she is a spy after all, but it's still kind of fun to think about.

He shouldn't think about it. He knows nothing about these people except they didn't want him bound to a death cult, and they're more organized and better funded than said death cult. He's been effectively alone for a long time; he can stay that way a little longer.

He looks back when she taps him, looks her over, and nods. The priests won't be able to tell the difference. "Lookin' good. Let's get out of here. I'll tell you, and your backup, what to expect on the way."

"All right," she says, and heads for the door. Knowing Clint, there's already a cleanup team inbound to deal with the remnants of the traps and erase every trace of her presence.

She pauses to snag the keys to her current vehicle on the way out, and offers them over. "If I'm supposed to be recently exsanguinated, you should probably drive."

He deftly swipes them off her fingers. "Yep, I definitely should. Besides, I'm the one who knows where he's going," he adds, and motions for her to lead the way out of the hotel and to the car. That's the thing she knows: which one is hers. "So how long you been with this SHIELD?"

"Once we're through this, remind me to teach you about GPS," she says absently. She falls silent as they move down through the stairwell and into the hotel's subterranean parking, where she indicates the sort of nondescript car that graces suburban driveways everywhere.

Once they're inside the car, she finally answers, "Coming up on ten years. Long enough to call my own plays."

That sure is a boring-ass car. He clicks it open and drops easily into the driver's seat. He might be old as shit and never given his own car, but he knows how to drive them, clearly comfortable adjusting mirrors and seats. Though he swears once as the slider to move the seat back sticks on him. He is much taller than Natasha.

Then he's settled and staring the car up. "Ten years, wow. They must treat you okay, then."

She grins a little when he curses, with the ruthless lack of sympathy of the short for the very tall. The world is built more to his scale than to hers, and being amused when things line up the other way is her prerogative.

"Pretty well. Good pay, good benefits, interesting work." She shrugs slightly, and considers his profile in the dull yellow light of the parking garage. "It's a decent life, if you're suited to it. And good allies to have, if you aren't."

"Trying to recruit me right out the gate, huh," he comments with half a grin, and a fang poking out. He backs the car out of its parking spot and pulls onto the street. "Should I be worried?" The question is light, but there's something serious to it, too. He's not counting out the idea that this SHIELD won't feel comfortable letting him go free.

"Can't blame a girl for trying," she says with an answering grin. "But no. I might hope you'll join us, or at least work with us long enough to pull the cult apart completely, but I'm not going to conscript you. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't go well for me if I tried."

"You have me as long as it takes to take all of those fuckers out," is what he can promise. "After that, we'll see. I might have to take a few years to find out what being free really feels like." Which, now that he's said it, rings more seriously than he meant it to. He snaps his mouth shut and frowns at himself. He literally does not remember what being free feels like. Christ.

"I can live with that," Natasha says, her grin softening and skewing slightly wry. It's the only acknowledgment she makes of the gravity of his statement, giving him space to absorb it on his own.

"No, you can't, because the Colonel is going to kill you," says the voice in her ear, sounding resigned. "And then me for backing you."

"Ignore him. What are we walking into here?"

It's tempting to take her at her word, believe that she'll let him go against her superiors' wishes. But he just doesn't know whether she's really on his side, or just playing good cop to this Hawkeye's bad cop, to try and win him over. He's a powerful asset and they'd be idiots to let him go, really. He's dangerous and they'd be stupid to let him wander around eating people.

But he doesn't want to be owned again, either.

He'll just have to wait and see. "It's a two-story house. We'll be going straight into the basement, where the cultists will be waiting for me. I'll have to carry you in. There were two senior members and four novices there when they let me out. They might have brought in another one or two for interrogating you and then wrestling me back into a coffin."

"Weapons capability?" Natasha asks. "Any perimeter security our backup will need to worry about tripping?"

Much of the latter, she expects they'll be able to handle on their own, though given magic's in play here, a little forewarning will still be useful.

"No real weapons besides whatever spells they have on hand, no physical security. There will be wards, but I'll be tripping them when I bring you in, and they're not going to bother resetting them before we get inside. Just make sure nobody gets within thirty feet of the house until we get there," he answers.

He glances aside at her, aware that this sounds too easy, so he adds, "You gotta remember, they're just expecting me and you. They've got no way to tell I'm not under their control anymore. That's why we have to do this now. We won't get another chance like this."

"They'll hold back," she assures. 30 feet - not that much ground to cover if things go well and truly sideways.

"And I believe you. But they're going to figure it out pretty quickly. What kind of magic can they pull off without a ritual leading up to it? We're both protected against anything direct, but someone dropping a ceiling on us is still going to hurt."

She pauses, flashing a small, wry smile. "Well, it'll hurt me. You'll probably shake it off."

"If the ceiling caves in, I promise I'll make sure you don't get crushed by it," he says, only a little bit teasing. "It's all wood and carpet, though, I doubt it'd be that bad. I've never seen any of them pull off that kind of spell, though. The plan is to bind you like they bound me, so most likely the worst we'll have is variations on that. Confusion spells, wards, that kind of thing. Just how much does that magic blood of yours protect from?"

"My hero," she says, and that is definitely teasing, complete with an exaggerated flutter of her eyelashes.

"It will protect against anything that would directly affect us - mind or body. It was designed to break the binding and prevent it from being immediately reapplied, but since I couldn't give them the components, my contacts had to cast a wide net. If they target the natural world as a means to harm us, we're as vulnerable as anyone."

She hesitates a moment, then produces a small cloth bag that she sets in the well between them. The contents clink faintly, glass against glass.

"Good, because that's what we're most likely to be hit with, things that affect us. Confusion, illusions, compulsions. They might be able to throw up a quick ward against bullets, but I can punch through those without too much trouble."

He glances aside at the bag, frees up one hand from the wheel to pull the mouth of it open a little so he can see inside. "What's that?"

The contents glimmer faintly, sunset-orange glow illuminating the shape of the small vials.

"In case we get separated. I didn't know exactly how long it would take the cult to send you after me once I resurfaced. There's a week's worth left - longer, if you only use it when you're coming in direct contact with someone capable of compelling you. If there's a needle that can pierce your skin, you can inject it directly into your bloodstream. If not...just give it half an hour to circulate after injecting it into a living donor, and don't dose anything under 70 pounds that you want to survive the experience."

He freezes for a beat, actively keeping himself from snatching at the bag, but his fingers do clench on the mouth of it. He wants those. He wants to keep them close, just in case. He doesn't want to be bound ever again.

"Needles work," he says finally, voice a little lower, forcing his hand to come free and his attention back to the road. "Just usually what's in them doesn't. That'd be more efficient than getting traces from somebody's blood."

He swallows once and adds, "Thank you. Not sure if I said that yet."

"Good to know," she says, filing that away in case of future need. "It'll sting a little when you inject it, but it won't be anything like tonight, so you won't have to worry about compensating for that kind of vulnerability. And you're welcome."

She leans against the door, head tipping to rest against the window, and watches him in the glow of the streetlights.

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