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 another day or two," he shrugs. "Not much to keep me here." He tilts his head at her with a better smile, this time. "Though I could be persuaded to stay longer, if I had a good reason."

"Hmmm. Now that sounds like a challenge." She leans back in her seat, tracing one finger idly around the rim of her glass, lashes lowered slightly in teasing flirtation that isn't reflected in the beat of her pulse and the rhythm of her breath. It's an outward show: woman decides to take stranger home from a slightly seedy bar. Something to cement them as unremarkable, should anyone ask after them later.

The waitress comes to take his drink order; Natasha picks up again after she leaves. "Headed anywhere interesting?"

She's not expecting anything even approaching an honest answer. She's a means to an end, that's all. As long as she gets the intel she needs out of the bargain, that's fine.

It's going to be a lie only in that he has no real idea where he's going next. His tentative plans were completely derailed by the discovery that his goddamn cult has infiltrated SHIELD. He's hoping that this meeting gives him a little direction, or else he'll just... keep running, for now. Until he runs right into one of the nearby temples and tears everyone inside apart, or something.

So he says thoughtfully, "Maybe south. Soak up a little sun for once." Which is hilarious since he's never going to get any sun. He's a vampire. "Got any recommendations? If your work has you traveling, I'm sure you've seen a lot of places."

"Austin has an interesting nightlife," she says. "Or you could head west. All kinds of interesting places near the Rockies."

She smiles, a quick flicker of humour that isn't, in contrast to the flirtation, entirely feigned. "Depends a little on what you're interested in. Places with the best hiking aren't always the places with the best art, or the best clubs."

He actually gives this one a serious answer, after a moment of thought. "I want to see interesting things. Buildings, landmarks, even people. I wanna see shit I haven't seen before." Which isn't as hard as it sounds, despite his age. It's not like he got to do a ton of sight-seeing, as a bound slave for a death cult.

"Well, in that case..."

A rundown of some of the more interesting sights on the continent is, at least, a relatively harmless way to kill time for her to finish her drink, and for it to at least look plausible that he's finished his. She intersperses it with questions about places he's been, or read about. A couple more patrons trickle in, none of them seeming to pay any attention to the pair.

Eventually, she leans forward, offering him a slight, sly smile and a suggestion of, "Want to get out of here?"

He can give her a couple mostly-true stories, at least, in return for her maybe partly-true suggestions. It's a weird conversation, because he knows they're both being fake as hell, but at the same time, having a normal-ish conversation with someone who both knows what he is and isn't afraid of that. It's like a dance, rather than the battle of talking with strangers and acting like a real person.

Still, it's a relief when she thinks they've beaten around the bush enough. He draws up a smirk, one that doesn't quite display fang, and says, "Thought you'd never ask."

He pushes back from the table and lets her leave some cash behind for the drinks.

She tips high. Not enough to be incredibly memorable, but enough, in this sort of environment, to leave the waitress well-disposed to them, and all the more inclined to temporary amnesia if anyone does come looking.

And then she loops an arm around his waist, ignoring the complete lack of any body heat, and heads for the door and into the cool night air. "Motel's not far," she says quietly, trusting his hearing to pick up her words. "We'll have some privacy there."

He settles his arm over her shoulders in return. It's the metal one on that side, so it's even colder than the rest of him. Though he's pretty well fed right now, so he's not as cold as he could be.

"Mm," he agrees, and lets her lead, whether it's to the motel or somewhere else, in the end. "Bet it's nicer than my place," he adds with a more amused smirk, this time.

"How much?" she asks, with a wry smile that's a little more muted than her flirtation in the bar, but also a little more genuine.

The motel, in the end, is nicer than where he's holed up - it's shabby and run-down, and the furniture looks to be on its last legs, but the walls are solid, and it's the sort of place people still pay for the entire night.

They just don't pay very much.

"Have a seat," Natasha says as she shuts the door behind them, flipping the deadbolt into place - it may not be especially secure, but it will give them a few seconds warning of any trouble. She nods toward the bed, because it's the only piece of furniture she's entirely sure will take his weight. The single chair in the room had creaked ominously beneath hers, and even ignoring the metal arm, she's only a little better than half his size.

It's secure enough. He trusts that she knows she doesn't have any bugs in here, or on her person, and if anyone comes in, he's pretty sure between the two of them they can take anybody but more vampires. So he does sit, dropping onto the end of the bed with a little sigh. "Well, that was fun. I think I forgot I knew how to flirt."

"Could've fooled me," she says with a grin. It lingers long enough for her to retrieve a sleek silver tablet - not standard SHIELD issue, though he's not likely to be well enough versed in their equipment to know the difference.

"How did last night work out for you?"

"Refrigerated blood is gross," he answers readily. "It does the trick just fine but it's like drinking sludge." He pauses, then adds, "I left them the last of my cash. I don't know if that'll help them out any, but, fuck, I felt like shit just taking it."

At least when he finds actual people, they can grow their blood back. Or he can find somebody shitty.

"Worst case scenario, it's a weird little mystery for whoever had the early shift this morning," she says, head canting slightly as she studies him, expression faintly curious. "Good to know it'll work, if you're ever in dire straits, though."

The device chimes softly as she keys it on. "Ready for a mole hunt?"

"Sure." He pulls off his gloves, revealing the metal hand they'd been hiding. "Tell me a little bit about SHIELD?" Because he's prodded at his familiarity with the SSR from seventy years ago, apparently, but can't come up with anything tangible. He's found he's completely useless with the internet, and he keeps getting stared out of bookstores when he tries to find the history section after dark.

Natasha's gaze follows the motion of his hands - old, well-ingrained habit that she doesn't, this once, try to mask. He knows some of what she is. She doesn't need to play harmless, incautious.

"SHIELD grew out of what was left of the SSR in the early days of the Cold War," she says. "The US government didn't want to acknowledge that there was a supernatural element, but they still needed people to handle it. So, a small department, with a separate mandate from the more traditional security agencies."

He doesn't mind being watched. Honestly, he's used to it. He doesn't do anything remotely threatening, at least, leaving the gloves on the bed rather than reaching to put them in a pocket. "SSR. Yeah. Which I ain't had much luck piecing together how I know about it, but I know I do. I remember a. A dark-haired dame with red lipstick in an army uniform?"

Which is literally all he's worked out. That, and a really old-fashioned rifle, waiting in a tree with it snug against his arm. Apparently he'd been an assassin even then.

"That actually narrows things down a lot," Natasha says. "The SSR had a big impact, but they weren't actually around for very long. They were founded by Roosevelt in 1940, and transitioned into SHIELD by 1955. If you were involved with them in a military capacity, that means you were a soldier in World War II."

She pauses, head canting slightly as she studies him. "Or some kind of operative during the war. Do you remember if you were human when you encountered them?"

He hesitates, then shakes his head. "I don't know. Maybe?" He tries to focus on the scene around her, but all he's getting is: "It was somewhere with people. Some kinda, I don't know, field command center maybe? There was a map. I couldn't smell the people like I can now, couldn't tell they're alive and I'm not. So. Maybe I was human."

Christ, that does put a limit on how old he must be. That's... that's something. He wishes he could remember more details, but everything is so damn hazy.

"I'm still working on accessing the early SSR records," Natasha says, fingers flicking briefly over the tablet's surface - calling up an image, apparently, as a projection springs to life against the dingy yellow-grey of one wall - two man, both trim and dark-haired, one with a neat goatee and an expression of amused arrogance, the other clean-shaven and weary, and a woman, brunette, with a piercing stare even as a still image.

"But these were the founding members of SHIELD. Director Carter served with the SSR on the European front in World War II, and Stark was a civilian consultant. Tech, mostly. Director Souza served, but didn't join the SSR until after the war."

He taps at Carter's image with a metal finger, which thankfully does nothing since metal fingers don't work on phones or tablets. "Her. That's her. Director Carter. Except. It was Agent, not Director. Agent Carter." He remembers her in a red dress, suddenly, too, but he's not sure where that came from.

He shakes it away for now. "I don't know Souza. Stark is--" He peers at the image, and feels... guilt? A vague kind of sick dread? Maybe both. "He's familiar in a bad way. I don't know why or how, though."

"Stark's dead," she says. It's quiet, matter-of-fact, and not at all accusatory, though she watches him as she says it, in case that jars something loose. If he has a negative association with the man, then it's probably bound up in the cult, which means there's a good chance Stark was either a member or a target.

For his son's sake, she almost hopes it was the latter. Only the latter.

"About 25 years now. He and his wife - it was ruled a car accident. Souza's dead too. Natural causes."

All of which he'd be able to find out on his own, if he learned to navigate the internet.

Look he still has a lot of holes in his knowledge. He hasn't even been sure how to begin with the internet. His attempt in the library had gone... badly. This is easier, having something to guide him, something to give him a starting point.

He frowns further at the image of Stark. Howard Stark. A scratchy voice saying Sergeant. A less scratchy voice saying Well I did say in a couple years. "He was gonna make flying cars," he says after a moment. "And I think maybe I killed him."

It's not a criticism. It's information that's safe to give him, that she doesn't have to weigh against the possibility that he might be recaptured, might turn enemy on his own - it's out there, has been out there long enough that for most people, it's little more than background noise.

"Those never quite got off the ground," she says. "And I can't say I'm surprised. According to everything I've read, he was exactly the sort of person they'd want removed if they wanted to make any serious inroads infiltrating SHIELD. Maybe they thought his son would be more biddable. Or his partner."

He snorts a little at the pun, intentional or not, but the humor is short-lived, and he runs his hand over his hair unhappily. "I don't remember a lot of it. Which is dumb, why wouldn't I remember stuff from after I was turned?" It doesn't make sense why his memory is this bad. The guy died only a handful of decades ago.

Also, there's the worrying thought that: "I think he might've recognized me. When I did it."

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