Another laugh, and this time one that's somewhat self depreciating. Honor... there's no honor in having Natasha's affection, that would suggest that it's something to be coveted and she knows for a fact that it isn't the case. He doesn't know enough about her yet to realize as much, but he will. Maybe they'll want to change their minds after that happens, but they're putting a lot of faith in her and Natasha isn't blind to that. She has to put faith in them as well.
"I don't think she will either," Natasha tilts her head into his touch as her eyes flutter shut with a soft smile on her lips. "I think," she turns her head to press a warm kiss to his palm, "knowing her," another to his fingertips, "she's going to wait until we're not wrapped around each other to come in, if she feels like she's interrupting something." The last kiss falls on the inside of his wrist before her eyes move back up to his face.
"Which means you should probably let go, handsome."
It's easy to know the perfect moment to walk in when you shamelessly eavesdrop. Laden with bags from several stores in Vancouver, Alice walks along the thick branch outside the living room window and leans down to peek in, beaming, at the two of them wrapped up in each other in the kitchen. It's astonishing how comfortable Jasper is, even to Alice, who's already seen how good they are together in the future. But it's not the same as seeing it happening before her very eyes.
"Hey you two," she says as she hops down, before Jasper's really acted on that suggestion to let Natasha go. She sets all the bags down and zips over to them both before they can separate and puts her arms around each of their shoulders, leaning up to peck Jasper's cheek, then leaning over—so nice to have someone her height—to peck Natasha's, and then rests her head on Jasper's shoulder, next to his half-open shirt, which makes her giggle.
"Looks like you had fun while I was gone. It took you long enough. I had to go all the way to Vancouver to make sure you had enough time." But her fingers play lightly at the nape of Jasper's neck, and Natasha's, and she's brimming with pride.
Her attention is caught before Alice speaks, the light rustle of leaves from the branch she's walking on inconstant with the soft breeze and making her look. She smiles warmly at Alice, as if to try and convey her own pride for Jasper in one look, and the kiss on her cheek brings a pleasant warmth to Nat's face that she's sure she enjoys a little too much. Jasper and Alice are unlike anybody who she's ever met before, and she's almost certain that it's one of the reasons she enjoys them so much.
"We're in no rush," she points out, smiling up at Jasper once more before giving Alice a little wink that silently says 'watch this'. Then Natasha leans up, kissing Jasper on the jaw with soft lips before finally unwrapping her arm around him and moving her other hand to rebutton his shirt. Her fingers pause before she does.
"It looks better this way." She decides aloud before leaving his shirt the way it is, and when she lets go of him she does so to take Alice's hands in both of her own. Jasper isn't the only one here that she's making an effort for, after all. "Come on, show me what you bought in Vancouver. Show off, by the way." She looks at Alice with accusing eyes before they move to Jasper. "Both of you are show offs. I just want to clarify that I see it, and I know, and I'm going to call you out on it. Come on." She grins, tugging Alice toward her a little so she can return the affectionate kiss to her cheek. She's trying. She truly is.
Alice's eyes widen a little in surprise as Natasha kisses Jasper's jaw and he doesn't tighten, he doesn't even go still, he doesn't even need to stop breathing. She knows Jasper can feel just how deep and how strong her swell of pride is, and she knows he knows there isn't even a drop of jealousy mixed into it. She's good for him. She'll be good for both of them, and they'll be good for her. Alice is certain of it, and how could she be angry about something like that?
Alice skates a finger along his cheek before she lets Natasha lead her away, leaning into the cheek-kiss she gets in return. Natasha still makes her a little nervous. Not afraid exactly, that isn't it, but Alice still doesn't know how they're going to get to the happy scenes she's seen in her visions. Natasha and Jasper have so much in common. They have a connection already, and she doesn't have that yet. She will, she trusts in that, but...nervous.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Jasper take a few silent steps back toward the window. He doesn't need to hunt, he isn't going far, but she catches a flash of him coming back as the sun is setting. He's picked up on that nervousness of hers, she thinks, and it's possible Natasha feels the same, he's giving them time together.
"I got you something," she says brightly, and almost skips to her pile of bags to dig through and find a very small one, a black bag with a black jewelry box inside it, and inside that, a pair of ruby and black diamond earrings. "I was walking past the window and they made me think of you."
She doesn't see Jasper leave, too wrapped up in her concentration on Alice to keep tabs on him. She's made strides with him, but Alice is a different story. They've just met, and although it feels as if she knows her already from all of the stories that Jasper has told Natasha, she knows full well that it isn't enough. There's a connection that needs to be formed between them, and connecting with people is something that Natasha is a master at unless it's in a true and personal level. It's hard for her to be who she is, instead of the person she thinks Alice wants her to be. But she'll try.
She takes the bag and gives Alice a curious glance before opening it, pulling out the box only to remove the lid and see the earrings inside. It's easy to notice that upon first glance they're real; Natasha knows her jewelry. The rubies alone probably cost a pretty penny, but it's the black diamond that makes her eyes widen and look up at Alice as if she isn't certain whether she had meant to hand her a different bag.
"You got these for me?" She needs confirmation. This isn't the time she's held expensive jewelry, but it is the first time it's been handed to Natasha, not Natalie or Sophia or any other mask she's had to put on. She can't help but give a shy smile, uncertain as to whether or not she should even accept them, but after a few moments she removes them from their box and she slips them into her ears before leaning forward and pressing another soft kiss to Alice's cheek, this time with a follow up one to the tip of her nose.
"These are beautiful. Thank you, Alice." She brushes the small woman's hair behind her ear with a tender touch, and she gives her a wink. "They're my colors. How did you know?"
After a few moments of hesitation and nervously chewing on the corner of her lip, Natasha turns to grab the cookware she's going to need. "Jasper and I were talking." She smiles to herself. "...We think that it's best to stay here. Let the family come to us instead, save some time for the three of us to be alone together, you were right."
"I had a hunch," Alice says with a secretive smile. She's seen the Black Widow in her, well, her work uniform? Is that what it's called? Red and black just seems to be a theme for her, and Alice just doesn't hesitate when it comes to appropriate gifts, she never has.
She can't blush, but Natasha makes her almost wish she could. She's like Jasper that way, Alice thinks with a happy smile as Natasha turns to start cooking and she moves to a counter out of the way and goes to hop onto it and stumbles with the force of the slew of images that suddenly slam through her—
—the crunch of frozen pine needles beneath boots, the swish of black red-lined cloaks, a row of hoods drifting too fast through the snowy forest, Aro's bared-teeth smile, the ice in Caius' eyes, Marcus' indifferent sigh, the rest of the family arrayed on either side of Alice and Natasha standing shoulder to shoulder to separate Jasper from Felix the executioner, Natasha's red eyes...red?—
"—oh," she gasps, gripping the counter so hard the granite nearly cracks. A thump outside is Jasper reappearing and blurring to her side, watching her with that sharp intensity. He doesn't even need to ask what she'd seen before she's reaching one hand for him, one hand out for Natasha. "The Volturi," she blurts, looking back to Jasper, horrified. "They're coming after...after you."
Natasha just barely notices the stumble before she's already hurrying to Alice's side, and before she can ask what's wrong Jasper is back in a blur of color. Her hands are on Alice's arm and shoulder as if she's catching her to keep her steady, and Natasha's wide-eyed stare flickers between Alice and Jasper when the woman finally speaks. She must have had a vision, but everything that she says...
"The what?" She looks at Alice before looking back up at Jasper, and her impatience seems to come through for the first time. Barely a second passes by before she's pushing again in annoyance. "What the hell are the Volturi, they're after who, him? Jasper?" She looks up at Jasper now, brow furrowed in concern. "Why is somebody after you?" She doesn't like being in the dark... Natasha is always the first to know something, that's her job. She's not working anymore, but it's become a part of her personality, now. "Somebody explain to me what that sentence means, that'd be great."
One hand goes onto Natasha's shoulder, and it takes more effort to avoid using his abilities to quell her impatience, but he knows that's not to be done, not to her. "The Volturi are as near to leaders as the vampire world has," he says softly, eyes still on Alice as she leans against the counter, recovering her equilibrium. Whatever she'd seen, it's rattled her badly. "They're enforcers of the few laws we have. Nearly all of them revolving around keeping the existence of vampires a secret. We've had...dealings...with them in the past. Come out alive, so far. It's been a decade since they last...Alice, what did you see?"
His eyes drop to Alice's pocket as her phone starts ringing. "That'll be Edward," he says absently as Alice pulls her hand from his to fumble for it. "He always picks up on it when Alice has a vision that strong. I don't know why the Volturi would be after me, but at one point they were awfully intent on Alice and Edward joining them. Aro likes collecting people with abilities. But they're, oddly enough, honorable in their way. We've broken no laws, not even bent any, so they've left us in peace."
The simple hand on her shoulder seems to calm her, and for a moment Natasha almost gets angry when she thinks that Jasper has purposefully forced her to calm herself. Then she realizes that, no, it's just because he's there and she finds that comforting, and how disgusting is that?
Alice looks shaken and Natasha moves before she really thinks, leaning further into the woman and sitting up on the counter with her to gently pull Alice into her and hold her steady for a moment, fingers running through her hair as Natasha's eyes are on Jasper. She only loosens her grip when Alice reaches for her phone, but she doesn't pull away.
"Keeping the existence of vampires a secret." Natasha says aloud, her heart leaping into her throat. "So a leaked video of one breaking out of his constraints in a top secret facility, that would probably put a damper on what they consider as 'secret', wouldn't it?" Vampire leaders... Natasha wouldn't even know where to begin when it comes to protecting him from something like that, and for the first time she feels horribly useless. That simply won't do.
"What do they do to people they feel have broken their law?"
Alice is talking rapidly to Edward, not so quickly that Natasha probably can't follow, but certainly faster than usual. She'd seen all three of the Volturi but only their four most trusted aides, Jane and Alec and Felix and Dmitri, no vast array of followers like they'd brought along ten years ago. It's winter in her vision, a thick crust of old snow. They're not coming this minute, and he relaxes visibly at that, able to turn more of his attention to Natasha.
"It would, at that," he says darkly. "And any research on that 'alternate species' that happened to be released, they wouldn't look too kindly on that either." He can hear Edward on the other end of the phone, and even Carlisle in the background, saying they'll wrap up their lives in Calgary and start back toward Forks as soon as they can.
"It's a capital crime," he says briskly, falling back into the reassurance of that military briefing they both find so comfortable. "To bring attention, to make a scene. We could argue until we ran out of air, and I'm sure Carlisle will, that I was held against my will and my escape was my only survival, but that won't change the letter of their law."
"Well fuck their law." She says it simply, eyes moving back to Alice as she barely hears voices on the other end of the phone, and Natasha's obviously deep in thought as her eyes move to the window. This is her fault for the leak in the first place, and even if Jasper or Alice won't blame her for that or say that they understood why it was necessary, she knows it to be the case.
Every decision that she's made in the past few weeks has been painfully reckless and Natasha knows it, but who can blame her? She's never made choices for herself before, perhaps she's getting a little high off of the simply ability to do so. Perhaps she doesn't consider her own mortality something to be coveted, or maybe Natasha has seen into a world where being just her will never truly be enough.
It's a world filled with gods and monsters, aliens and magic and it's all so far over her head that she feels as if she's drowning in it. Her choice to come here, it wasn't a choice to run. She's still going to make up for the bad of her past, but now she's going to do it on her terms, and why can't she have both? Why can't she have redemption and love? She doesn't deserve it, but since when has Natasha Romanoff let the world tell her exactly what she deserves.
"I'm useless like this." Her eyes move to Jasper suddenly as if she's made her mind, a toil of emotions twisting around within her until she finally settles on steel certainty, fortified with determination. "You'll have to change me before they get here." Simple. As if offering a forgotten umbrella in the rain.
Most of Jasper's attention is divided between watching Alice's emotional state carefully as it winds down from the spike of panic, and listening to Edward's side of the conversation and everyone in the background—Rose sounding irritated that they're uprooting themselves again, Emmett looking forward to getting back to familiar territory, not enough bears around Calgary it seems, Carlisle and Esme starting their plans—but at that, Jasper's head snaps around to stare at Natasha in undisguised shock.
She's a tangle of feelings, but there's a blue streak of certainty in her running through it all, and it takes him a moment to find his tongue. "Natalia, you know that's not something we'd insist upon," he says, and he can hear the helpless bewildered note in his own voice. She's making this decision based on so little, and she's so firm with it, he isn't certain there isn't anything he could say to dissuade her.
That said, he isn't certain he ought to, or even that he'd want to. Edward had agonized for more than a year over turning Bella, nearly lost her thanks to his reluctance, but neither Jasper nor Alice have any qualms about Natasha's human life being over too soon. They know something of what she's been through, Jasper's seen what she's capable of just as a human.
Instead of continuing on that line, he falls silent and wraps an arm around her waist. "We'll have time to prepare you for it," he murmurs, watching Alice again as she's wrapping up her conversation, then looking back down at Natasha. "I can't change you myself. It's up to Alice whether she wants to risk that."
"I didn't hear you insisting upon it," she counters, looking up at him with a simple shrug. "And if you did I would have told you to mind your own business, I think you know me well enough by now to know that. This has nothing to do with that. It's the right choice to make." In the grand scheme of things, at least. Her defensive exterior seems to soften when he wraps his arm around her waist, and Natasha can't help herself but let her head lean into him as her hand rests softly on his middle, holding him close with a soft touch that doesn't try to trap him there but instead shows that he's welcome.
She waits until Alice is off of the phone before she continues. "The things that you do, I'm not comfortable with them because I know them." She looks up at Jasper with a frown before glancing back at Alice. "I'm comfortable with them because I've seen worse. I've fought worse, I've fought things that aren't organic, things that are... horrifying. That could kill even you, after I've seen what they're capable of. I've seen what a real nightmare looks like, it doesn't have cold skin and super speed."
For only a moment Natasha's eyes close, the Chitauri monstrosities flashing behind her lids in hoards, Hulk chasing her through the tight confines of a helicarrier, a literal god trying to terrify her from behind a glass prison... they open again. "Just because I'm here and I want to-" she pauses, because for some reason saying it is harder than her demand for them to take her mortality away, "-I want to try, with you... with both of you, I still have a lot of red in my ledger. More than I thought, apparently." The last part comes out quietly, guilt twisting through her before she pushes it away. Not behind a wall, but away completely, because now isn't the time.
"I'm not going to stop trying to fix everything. There are people out there who need me and I'm not capable of solving all of the problems I should be able to solve the way that I am now. I won't live long enough." Another statement made as fact. "I want to be the person that I'm supposed to be, not the one that I'm made into. I can start here." She looks up at Jasper once more, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "And I'll be damned if I sit back and let you fight the first battle I've been here for without me. So you need to change me." She looks back at Alice now, and she shrugs. "I don't do useless."
The vision had become clearer as she'd talked it over with Edward, as sometimes happens—it helps when someone else is seeing what she's seeing—and when she hangs up, she's much calmer, thinking ahead to the plans they need to make, the preparations. It takes her a few moments to catch up to what Natasha is saying. She listens quietly as she sets her phone aside, and when Natasha looks at Alice, she reaches out to slip her fingers between Natasha's.
"I saw us," she says softly, eyes roving Natasha's face, taking in the human flush on her cheeks, her lovely deep eyes, the rise and fall of breath, all her micro-movements that will be frozen when she's turned. "I saw you, Tash, I saw us standing between Jasper and the Volturi. We're going to fight together." She tucks Natasha's hair behind her ear with her other hand. "I've seen you changed. You're so beautiful. I can't wait to meet you. ...but I'm not sure I..." She swallows, just thinking of how difficult it would be to bite Natasha, and she leans into Jasper's hand when he sets it on her shoulder.
"The Volturi won't be here for weeks," she says after a few moments of silence. "Carlisle and the others will come back next week. We don't need to do anything now. We still have time."
Natasha cracks a small smile at the nickname once more, and it only grows into a confident smirk as Alice continues. "Damn right we do. See?" She looks up at Jasper and grins, reaching up with the hand that Alice isn't holding so she can brush his hair out of his eyes. "We're standing between you and the Volturi. I may not know much about vampires but I'm pretty sure that Alice and I are a terrifying team, they'll probably, you know." She wrinkles her nose and looks back at Alice. "Just turn around and walk the other way again, if they know what's good for them. We'll be fine."
Her smile fades a little, and Natasha squeezes Alice's hand tightly in reassurance before she looks back up at Jasper. "YA ne dopushchu, chtoby s toboy chto-nibud' sluchilos', Dzhasper, obeshchayu. I ya ne dayu obeshchaniy, kotoryye ya ne mogu soblyudat'." She lets silence fall between them for a moment, her words settling, and she can feel the tension. The Volturi, whoever they are, are significant to both Jasper and Alice and their culture, and Natasha knows what it feels like to learn that you're being hunted. So she does the only thing she can think of. She tries to make it better.
"Enough of that then. We have time, we'll wait until your family gets here to make a solid plan." She reaches up once more to drag Jasper down so she can plant a soft kiss on his cheek, and then she turns to look at Alice, taking her face in both of Natasha's hands. "And you, little miss Prophet, you know I'm not going anywhere and we're going to handle this. So, right now, enough." She pulls Alice's head a little closer to plant a soft kiss on her forehead before she grabs her hand, and Natasha grabs Jasper's with the other before she drags them both to the stove.
"Now. Your human is freaking starving, and both of you have spent all day running off and hunting and I have to actually put out effort to make my meals. So you're both cooking me dinner." It's not a request, but at least she pairs it with a sweet smile and a flutter of lashes. "I'll teach you if you want."
As it had been about a century since Alice had attempted to cook anything, and even longer for Jasper, they both accept the offer, and the afternoon spent in the kitchen is warmly domestic. Eventually Alice puts music on, the CD of classics from the 30s and 40s still in the stereo, and there's a little dancing here and there in between cooking. They make far more food than Natasha could eat in one night, planning ahead for the rest of the week, and they both sit with her and talk while she eats.
It's a good time to tell her about their previous encounters with the Volturi: Edward's frantic attempts at suicide-by-rule-breaking, Victoria's newborn army that had come after them—Alice speaks sadly of Bree Tanner, the little sister they'd barely known but had already accepted—and finally the almost-clash when Aro had brought dozens of his followers to Forks because of a willful misunderstanding. Only Alice sharing her violent death-filled vision of the future had dissuaded Aro from following through immediately on his attempt to slaughter the family and all of their allies, giving them enough time to prove, lawfully, that Renesmee would not be a threat. They'd been forced to follow their own laws and had retreated, but Alice had always known Aro hadn't forgotten about her, or about Edward.
In between the stories, they tell her about the family and how they'd all come together, Edward first and then Esme, Rose and then Emmett, Alice and Jasper attaching themselves to the family several years later, no one new until Edward had met Bella, and everything that had followed. It's a long conversation, lasting through dinner, washing up, putting away the other food they'd made, and by the end of it, the three of them are curled together on the couch with the fireplace blazing softly against the chill of the house.
"...so this has sort of happened to us before," Alice says with a little shrug from her place curled on Natasha's lap with her legs draped over Jasper's. "Although I hope it will be a little less dramatic this time."
During the duration of dinner, Natasha does a lot of listening. She doesn't speak much other than asking appropriate questions as they arise, but other than that she simply absorbs all of the data they give her to file away important information she may need in the future. They've had quite a journey together it seems, but it's nothing more than what she would expect for them after knowing how long they've been together. It's another reason why she's so dedicated to giving this a chance; it can't be easy, letting a new person in on something that's so established and intimate. The fact that both Alice and Jasper are trying makes Natasha want to try, and she's particularly more attentive as they tell her everything because of it.
"I don't do dramatic," she promises with a small smile, one arm wrapped around Alice's middle as the other drapes across the back of the couch where her fingertips play at the hem of Jasper's sleeve. "The Volturi..." she sighs, rolling her eyes a little. "It's good to know that corrupt systems of power don't end with mortality, things would be far too boring." She looks between the two of them before her eyes move to the window, and Natasha wrestles with her own uncertainty before she finally gives a proper response.
"I've dealt with systems like that before. I've been part of them actually, on a more dramatic scale but still." She shakes her head. "Maybe if we're lucky this isn't going to end with violence. I've been a diplomat before, I've had extensive training in how to talk down a potentially hostile situation. I'm not saying that it'll help, but I'm hoping that there's a small chance it might. I was able to convince Tony Stark to be a team player and Hulk to come out of hiding, maybe I can convince a bunch of vampire royalty to set down their arms."
Alice and Jasper exchange a look, Jasper carefully neutral for now, Alice a little surprised at the idea of Natasha talking them down. It's a possibility, of course, and it had worked last time, barely. She hasn't seen Aro coming with nearly so many of the guard this time either. They aren't preparing for a battle. Maybe they think she'll come quietly.
"It's me they're after," she says after a few moments, glancing down with a sigh. Jasper's hand moves up to rest on her ankle, a gentle reassuring squeeze. "They're coming here because of Jasper, but that's just their excuse this time. Aro has wanted to get me to join him for years, ever since he first learned what I can do. The last time they came, it was under another excuse, it was really to try and kill everyone else so he could 'pardon' me and make me join them."
It's still chilling to think just how close they'd come, how close she'd come to losing everything, to losing Jasper, to never have this chance right now. Jasper's thumb moves along her skin and she can feel his influence, like a breath of cool air, soothing away the little hamster-wheel of panic that she hadn't even realized had begun running inside her. She reaches out to cup his cheek in a brief thank-you, then turns her head to look up at Natasha.
"I only saw a few of them. It doesn't look like they're coming to fight. But you'll need to be turned before they get here, they can't know about you."
"Ah." Natasha's eyes move to Jasper's face when she hears Alice's sigh, and she doesn't need any heightened abilities to see that he's calming her down in some way. The touch to his face with Alice's careful hand only confirms it, and Natasha starts to play with her hair, pulling it back and brushing her fingers through the short strands. "Well. Aro can take his excuses and politely shove them, because he's not getting you." She says it with certainty, and to seal her promise she presses a swift kiss to Alice's cheek. "Not after I've just managed to find you, I think I've had enough injustice for one life, hmm?"
When Alice looks up at her Natasha smiles, warm and what she hopes to be reassuring. "I'll be turned. I'd rather not fight but I'm not going to back down if one is necessary, it's not really my style." She looks at Jasper once more, eyes lingering on his face. "We're going to want to talk to Carlisle about it as soon as he gets here though, the sooner I turn and adjust the better." Natasha feels a twist of discomfort in her stomach, but it's directed at herself and nothing else.
She looks back at Alice, her smile restrained and almost sad this time. "I don't really know how I'm going to handle that much power, I have control but..." she trials off, her stare going through the woman for a second before her eyes flicker back into focus and her smile forcefully returns. "I just think it would be better to give myself time to adjust." She's already lethal and it hasn't gotten her memories that she wants to keep. Natasha isn't certain that her new decision will make that much better, but she knows that it's necessary. That's what matters.
"I told you. No more of that." She shifts, leaning back into the couch more comfortably and dragging Alice with her. "I'm not afraid of a little conflict, we'll handle it. For now," She nudges Jasper's leg with the tip of her foot, "distractions. Music, cards - no cards." She corrects suddenly with narrowed eyes at Alice. "You probably cheat."
Jasper watches the way Alice takes reassurance so easily from Natasha already, and although it's not easy to put aside thoughts that the Volturi will be coming after them again, this time they'll be facing them down with Natasha at their side. It's so strange, he thinks, that he and Alice had felt so complete before, and he feels completed in such a different way now. As if they hadn't needed anyone else until they did, and until Natasha did. As for helping her adjust, they've both been through it, everyone in the family has, and everyone in the family will help with whatever she needs. He's certain of that.
"We'll want to talk to the wolves as well," Jasper says quietly. "We owe them the news that we're staying in the area after all, I'm sure there wasn't time to tell them we were leaving. I can take Natasha," he says to Alice as just the mention of the wolves stirs a little thread of revulsion in her, "I know they disturb you. I'll be fine. I'll speak to Seth."
Obediently he rises at the pointed nudge from his girlfriend, slipping out from beneath his wife's legs to stand and blur across to the stereo. "We both cheat," he says, flashing a smile at them as he picks a CD of fast-moving big band songs, it's time for them all to dance. "Easy enough to pick up on someone feeling confident or uncertain. Considered taking a vacation to Las Vegas occasionally, but we're already fairly well-off. Ma'am?" This to Alice as he bends properly at the waist with a hand out in invitation.
She accepts, she's naturally putting her hand in his almost before he'd extended the invitation, and he spins her into a quick and easy dance to Benny Goodman.
"The wolves? Oh, right, werewolves. Because werewolves are a thing, of course. How could I have already forgotten." Natasha's eyes move between Jasper and Alice for a moment before she gives a half shrug with a small nod. "I can come with you. And don't worry. I cheat too." Her smile is slow and sly as she watches him move to the stereo, and Natasha leans back into the couch. "The trick to that is to always feel confident. It's all personal emotional manipulation, maybe I'll show you some time when I get the chance to properly beat you in a game of poker."
She watches as Alice takes his hand and she grins, settling back into the couch as she watches the two of them move, and Natasha gives an impressed little applause as they begin to move in sync. She can't remember the last time she danced for the sake of dancing, when it wasn't at a gala or charity ball that she was forced to sell her own charm at. Beyond that she really can't remember the last time she did any swing dancing. It had to have been with Clint at a family event, but the necessity for it is much less in demand than, say, a proper waltz.
She waits, studying the way that they both move in order to gain a sense of how skilled they both are, and only then does Natasha feel comfortable removing her shoes and getting off the couch to approach them in the middle of their song. She gives Jasper a little tap on the shoulder to catch his attention, giving him a playful "don't be greedy" when he turns to look at her, and once he steps back Natasha takes Alice's hand only to pull her into a quick spin.
She's rusty to her own standards but she can still deliver, and she can still lead as she moves with Alice to the sound of drums and saxophone. As the song progresses so does her movement until she's stepping rapidly with the beat, and despite the fact that Alice is taller Natasha has no problem lifting her off of her feet when the dance calls for it. By the end of it she's laughing, genuinely laughing before she spins, red hair a curtain behind her, to look up at Jasper. "Not bad," she decides, tilting her head to the side a little as she looks back at Alice with a playful smile. "I might just keep you two."
She reaches up run a finger under Jasper's chin, other hand reaching out and grabbing Alice's suddenly to spin her into Natasha's side and hold her properly. "When did you want to go talk to the wolves?"
Jasper had been half a step into taking Natasha's waist to swing her into the dance when she'd neatly sidestepped into his place and swept Alice up, and the surprise makes him laugh as he moves to one side, out of their way. He should have known, of course, Natasha would never be so obvious. He shouldn't be surprised either that she leads so well, but it does make him wonder where she'd learned to dance so well.
There's so much he doesn't know about her. The idea makes him frown a little, but he's learned enough to know just asking outright wouldn't be very welcome. She might tell him, but she wouldn't enjoy it much. He shakes it off, setting those thoughts aside as Alice's delight at being lifted comes through like the ringing of a crystal bell, and he's grinning again by the time the song ends and they come back his way. "We can only hope," he says, reaching out to tuck red hair behind her ear, as Alice links her fingers with his and squeezes briefly.
"We should talk to them soon," he continues more briskly. "Not today, but tomorrow at the latest. We've never made the new treaty conditions official with the new alpha, and I think if the Volturi are venturing back into our little corner, they ought to know. They were useful last time, or would've been, had it come to that. They might be obliged to do the same this time."
The sound of Jasper's laugh is almost musical, and Natasha realizes then that she doesn't get to hear it nearly as often as she'd like. She'll work on that, she decides; making him laugh, or at least smile, will be her new mission, and Natasha doesn't fail a mission.
"Alright," she nods when he says that they should go tomorrow, and Natasha squeezes Alice's side playfully as she listens to him. It's just an affectionate touch, to let her know that Natasha's attention is still on her, and that she doesn't want to let go. Moving with Alice is almost too easy, but she's already getting used to that; the fact that these two have somehow found a way to wriggle past her without any explanation as to how. "We'll go tomorrow then. And for now."
Natasha presses a swift kiss to Alice's cheek before releasing her, and as the next song begins she doesn't hesitate to grab Jasper's hand to spin beneath his arm and pull him a little closer. This is good, she thinks; the more time she can spend around him the better, because the more he'll adjust the safer he'll feel. She won't be turned for at least a week, and Natasha has no intention of giving up on their work together just because of it.
Dancing is a good way to go about it. The more she moves the faster her heart beats, the stronger her scent is, and it still keeps him distracted enough to keep that scent in the background so he can get used to the gradual climb. By the end she has no problem pressing against him, letting him take the lead without issue, and once the song finishes she leans up to press a swift kiss against his cheek before letting go of him and putting her hands up in surrender.
"Alright, that's enough. Your human still has a limit and she hasn't done this in a long, long time." She laughs as she says it, her eyes moving to the window to check the time. "I'm going to get in the shower and get all of this make up off of me." She turns to the stairs when she says it, glancing back at them with narrow eyes. "No peeking." She pauses, and when she looks at Alice she gives her a playful little wink. "Or at least, don't get caught."
It doesn't take her long to shower and clean herself up, and once she comes back downstairs she moves as if to walk into the living room with them before she suddenly stops. For a moment Natasha simply stands there, as if arguing with herself, but after coming to a firm decision she turns on her heel and moves into the garage instead, returning with the duffel bag that she's been living out of and all of her things.
"I'm going to -" she pauses, looking at the two of them, and she's a little nervous as her voice goes sheepish. "I can put all my things away right? Should I just... put them in your room for now?"
Alice isn't surprised, of course, when Natasha steps in to dance with her instead, but she is surprised at how it makes her feel, a little nervous and giddy like the first time Jasper had twirled her into a music-less dance on a mountain path somewhere in the Appalachians, sixty years ago. This is still so new, but it feels so familiar, it's hard to remember that being nervous would almost be expected.
As Natasha lets her go and draws Jasper in, Alice focuses past them for a moment, just a quick peek into the near future, and suddenly she's very glad she isn't able to blush. It's only a quick blip of emotion and she thinks Natasha and Jasper are too focused on each other to notice her little gasp, which she quickly covers with a bright smile, and applause when they manage a tricky little maneuver without any trouble. It's good to see them together, and a relief to see how well Jasper is doing with her, even if she won't be human for much longer.
"Take your time," she says cheerfully, winking back as she steps into Jasper's waiting arms and lets herself be swept into the next song. Her heart is in her throat when she starts whispering to him, telling him the vision she'd had when he'd been dancing with Natasha—she'd been right, he hadn't noticed the little shiver of nervousness before, but he must be noticing it now.
"...and it's, I don't know if it's going to be tonight, but it's...it will happen soon," she finishes, looking up at him anxiously, but to her relief, he just dips her deep with a faint smile. He'll need to step out, she's fairly sure, if Alice and Natasha are really going to, to do that, just being able to feel it might be too much, but they don't keep secrets. She won't keep this a secret.
By the time Natasha comes back, the music has finished and Jasper has his arms around Alice's waist at the window. She feels him give her a quick squeeze, probably in answer to the little spike of nervousness again, but she doesn't hesitate to slip away and join Natasha near the door to the garage. "Of course, if you'd like. Come on, I'll show you." It already feels like an instinct to reach for Natasha's hand as she starts for the stairs.
The fact that Alice's hand in her own doesn't even surprise her anymore is something that Natasha notices immediately; how comfortable this is, how unfairly enjoyable Alice's company has become. Natasha doesn't get attached to people let alone in such a short period of time... in reality she shouldn't even have feelings for Jasper, and yet here she is walking with Alice upstairs hand in hand because she simply wants to. Maybe they're right, she thinks. Maybe fate isn't something that she should have dismissed so quickly.
She follows Alice into her and Jasper's room, and Natasha looks over her shoulder to notice that Jasper himself hasn't come with them. She's oddly comfortable with that, finding peace in being with Alice alone, and she can't help but smile at the woman as she starts to help her unpack.
When was the last time she did this? Natasha settled in the cabin weeks ago but it was never something that she thought would last, there was always preparation to gather things again and throw them all in a bag. Everything close together and in plain sight, keep a list so you don't forget, it's a system by now and one that Natasha has gotten quite good at.
Yet now she's not trying to find the most convenient place for her things but the most accurate place. She takes the time to put her jewelry in Alice's jewelry box, sets her books up on the shelf in alphabetical order instead of shoving them with their faces out so everything can be accounted for. It's only one duffel bag worth of stuff, and yet for the first time Natasha feels as if she's moving in somewhere. It's an almost unsettling sensation, and yet liberating at the same time.
"I'll take care of those," she says aloud when they reach the bottom of the bag where way too many weapons reside. There are several guns, a cross bow, her Widow's Bite's and knives with holsters that look like they're meant to be strapped to various places. Natasha organizes them all and puts them in the closet, keeping them orderly with their corresponding ammo. She brought more weapons than clothes, probably because she uses them more. Or, at least, she did.
After she puts away her last weapon Natasha pauses, an she looks at Alice over her shoulder. "I don't think I've ever done this before," she admits finally, her voice small as she slowly moves to her feet and looks around at the progress. The room barely looks different, but to Natasha, it does. Her gaze settles on Alice. "Move in somewhere. Not... officially, anyway, I've always been ready to move again. It's never been like this."
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moodshifter) wrote2017-02-16 01:26 pm
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"I don't think she will either," Natasha tilts her head into his touch as her eyes flutter shut with a soft smile on her lips. "I think," she turns her head to press a warm kiss to his palm, "knowing her," another to his fingertips, "she's going to wait until we're not wrapped around each other to come in, if she feels like she's interrupting something." The last kiss falls on the inside of his wrist before her eyes move back up to his face.
"Which means you should probably let go, handsome."
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"Hey you two," she says as she hops down, before Jasper's really acted on that suggestion to let Natasha go. She sets all the bags down and zips over to them both before they can separate and puts her arms around each of their shoulders, leaning up to peck Jasper's cheek, then leaning over—so nice to have someone her height—to peck Natasha's, and then rests her head on Jasper's shoulder, next to his half-open shirt, which makes her giggle.
"Looks like you had fun while I was gone. It took you long enough. I had to go all the way to Vancouver to make sure you had enough time." But her fingers play lightly at the nape of Jasper's neck, and Natasha's, and she's brimming with pride.
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"We're in no rush," she points out, smiling up at Jasper once more before giving Alice a little wink that silently says 'watch this'. Then Natasha leans up, kissing Jasper on the jaw with soft lips before finally unwrapping her arm around him and moving her other hand to rebutton his shirt. Her fingers pause before she does.
"It looks better this way." She decides aloud before leaving his shirt the way it is, and when she lets go of him she does so to take Alice's hands in both of her own. Jasper isn't the only one here that she's making an effort for, after all. "Come on, show me what you bought in Vancouver. Show off, by the way." She looks at Alice with accusing eyes before they move to Jasper. "Both of you are show offs. I just want to clarify that I see it, and I know, and I'm going to call you out on it. Come on." She grins, tugging Alice toward her a little so she can return the affectionate kiss to her cheek. She's trying. She truly is.
"I'm going to make myself food, keep me company."
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Alice skates a finger along his cheek before she lets Natasha lead her away, leaning into the cheek-kiss she gets in return. Natasha still makes her a little nervous. Not afraid exactly, that isn't it, but Alice still doesn't know how they're going to get to the happy scenes she's seen in her visions. Natasha and Jasper have so much in common. They have a connection already, and she doesn't have that yet. She will, she trusts in that, but...nervous.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Jasper take a few silent steps back toward the window. He doesn't need to hunt, he isn't going far, but she catches a flash of him coming back as the sun is setting. He's picked up on that nervousness of hers, she thinks, and it's possible Natasha feels the same, he's giving them time together.
"I got you something," she says brightly, and almost skips to her pile of bags to dig through and find a very small one, a black bag with a black jewelry box inside it, and inside that, a pair of ruby and black diamond earrings. "I was walking past the window and they made me think of you."
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She takes the bag and gives Alice a curious glance before opening it, pulling out the box only to remove the lid and see the earrings inside. It's easy to notice that upon first glance they're real; Natasha knows her jewelry. The rubies alone probably cost a pretty penny, but it's the black diamond that makes her eyes widen and look up at Alice as if she isn't certain whether she had meant to hand her a different bag.
"You got these for me?" She needs confirmation. This isn't the time she's held expensive jewelry, but it is the first time it's been handed to Natasha, not Natalie or Sophia or any other mask she's had to put on. She can't help but give a shy smile, uncertain as to whether or not she should even accept them, but after a few moments she removes them from their box and she slips them into her ears before leaning forward and pressing another soft kiss to Alice's cheek, this time with a follow up one to the tip of her nose.
"These are beautiful. Thank you, Alice." She brushes the small woman's hair behind her ear with a tender touch, and she gives her a wink. "They're my colors. How did you know?"
After a few moments of hesitation and nervously chewing on the corner of her lip, Natasha turns to grab the cookware she's going to need. "Jasper and I were talking." She smiles to herself. "...We think that it's best to stay here. Let the family come to us instead, save some time for the three of us to be alone together, you were right."
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She can't blush, but Natasha makes her almost wish she could. She's like Jasper that way, Alice thinks with a happy smile as Natasha turns to start cooking and she moves to a counter out of the way and goes to hop onto it and stumbles with the force of the slew of images that suddenly slam through her—
—the crunch of frozen pine needles beneath boots, the swish of black red-lined cloaks, a row of hoods drifting too fast through the snowy forest, Aro's bared-teeth smile, the ice in Caius' eyes, Marcus' indifferent sigh, the rest of the family arrayed on either side of Alice and Natasha standing shoulder to shoulder to separate Jasper from Felix the executioner, Natasha's red eyes...red?—
"—oh," she gasps, gripping the counter so hard the granite nearly cracks. A thump outside is Jasper reappearing and blurring to her side, watching her with that sharp intensity. He doesn't even need to ask what she'd seen before she's reaching one hand for him, one hand out for Natasha. "The Volturi," she blurts, looking back to Jasper, horrified. "They're coming after...after you."
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"The what?" She looks at Alice before looking back up at Jasper, and her impatience seems to come through for the first time. Barely a second passes by before she's pushing again in annoyance. "What the hell are the Volturi, they're after who, him? Jasper?" She looks up at Jasper now, brow furrowed in concern. "Why is somebody after you?" She doesn't like being in the dark... Natasha is always the first to know something, that's her job. She's not working anymore, but it's become a part of her personality, now. "Somebody explain to me what that sentence means, that'd be great."
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His eyes drop to Alice's pocket as her phone starts ringing. "That'll be Edward," he says absently as Alice pulls her hand from his to fumble for it. "He always picks up on it when Alice has a vision that strong. I don't know why the Volturi would be after me, but at one point they were awfully intent on Alice and Edward joining them. Aro likes collecting people with abilities. But they're, oddly enough, honorable in their way. We've broken no laws, not even bent any, so they've left us in peace."
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Alice looks shaken and Natasha moves before she really thinks, leaning further into the woman and sitting up on the counter with her to gently pull Alice into her and hold her steady for a moment, fingers running through her hair as Natasha's eyes are on Jasper. She only loosens her grip when Alice reaches for her phone, but she doesn't pull away.
"Keeping the existence of vampires a secret." Natasha says aloud, her heart leaping into her throat. "So a leaked video of one breaking out of his constraints in a top secret facility, that would probably put a damper on what they consider as 'secret', wouldn't it?" Vampire leaders... Natasha wouldn't even know where to begin when it comes to protecting him from something like that, and for the first time she feels horribly useless. That simply won't do.
"What do they do to people they feel have broken their law?"
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"It would, at that," he says darkly. "And any research on that 'alternate species' that happened to be released, they wouldn't look too kindly on that either." He can hear Edward on the other end of the phone, and even Carlisle in the background, saying they'll wrap up their lives in Calgary and start back toward Forks as soon as they can.
"It's a capital crime," he says briskly, falling back into the reassurance of that military briefing they both find so comfortable. "To bring attention, to make a scene. We could argue until we ran out of air, and I'm sure Carlisle will, that I was held against my will and my escape was my only survival, but that won't change the letter of their law."
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Every decision that she's made in the past few weeks has been painfully reckless and Natasha knows it, but who can blame her? She's never made choices for herself before, perhaps she's getting a little high off of the simply ability to do so. Perhaps she doesn't consider her own mortality something to be coveted, or maybe Natasha has seen into a world where being just her will never truly be enough.
It's a world filled with gods and monsters, aliens and magic and it's all so far over her head that she feels as if she's drowning in it. Her choice to come here, it wasn't a choice to run. She's still going to make up for the bad of her past, but now she's going to do it on her terms, and why can't she have both? Why can't she have redemption and love? She doesn't deserve it, but since when has Natasha Romanoff let the world tell her exactly what she deserves.
"I'm useless like this." Her eyes move to Jasper suddenly as if she's made her mind, a toil of emotions twisting around within her until she finally settles on steel certainty, fortified with determination. "You'll have to change me before they get here." Simple. As if offering a forgotten umbrella in the rain.
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She's a tangle of feelings, but there's a blue streak of certainty in her running through it all, and it takes him a moment to find his tongue. "Natalia, you know that's not something we'd insist upon," he says, and he can hear the helpless bewildered note in his own voice. She's making this decision based on so little, and she's so firm with it, he isn't certain there isn't anything he could say to dissuade her.
That said, he isn't certain he ought to, or even that he'd want to. Edward had agonized for more than a year over turning Bella, nearly lost her thanks to his reluctance, but neither Jasper nor Alice have any qualms about Natasha's human life being over too soon. They know something of what she's been through, Jasper's seen what she's capable of just as a human.
Instead of continuing on that line, he falls silent and wraps an arm around her waist. "We'll have time to prepare you for it," he murmurs, watching Alice again as she's wrapping up her conversation, then looking back down at Natasha. "I can't change you myself. It's up to Alice whether she wants to risk that."
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She waits until Alice is off of the phone before she continues. "The things that you do, I'm not comfortable with them because I know them." She looks up at Jasper with a frown before glancing back at Alice. "I'm comfortable with them because I've seen worse. I've fought worse, I've fought things that aren't organic, things that are... horrifying. That could kill even you, after I've seen what they're capable of. I've seen what a real nightmare looks like, it doesn't have cold skin and super speed."
For only a moment Natasha's eyes close, the Chitauri monstrosities flashing behind her lids in hoards, Hulk chasing her through the tight confines of a helicarrier, a literal god trying to terrify her from behind a glass prison... they open again. "Just because I'm here and I want to-" she pauses, because for some reason saying it is harder than her demand for them to take her mortality away, "-I want to try, with you... with both of you, I still have a lot of red in my ledger. More than I thought, apparently." The last part comes out quietly, guilt twisting through her before she pushes it away. Not behind a wall, but away completely, because now isn't the time.
"I'm not going to stop trying to fix everything. There are people out there who need me and I'm not capable of solving all of the problems I should be able to solve the way that I am now. I won't live long enough." Another statement made as fact. "I want to be the person that I'm supposed to be, not the one that I'm made into. I can start here." She looks up at Jasper once more, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "And I'll be damned if I sit back and let you fight the first battle I've been here for without me. So you need to change me." She looks back at Alice now, and she shrugs. "I don't do useless."
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"I saw us," she says softly, eyes roving Natasha's face, taking in the human flush on her cheeks, her lovely deep eyes, the rise and fall of breath, all her micro-movements that will be frozen when she's turned. "I saw you, Tash, I saw us standing between Jasper and the Volturi. We're going to fight together." She tucks Natasha's hair behind her ear with her other hand. "I've seen you changed. You're so beautiful. I can't wait to meet you. ...but I'm not sure I..." She swallows, just thinking of how difficult it would be to bite Natasha, and she leans into Jasper's hand when he sets it on her shoulder.
"The Volturi won't be here for weeks," she says after a few moments of silence. "Carlisle and the others will come back next week. We don't need to do anything now. We still have time."
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Her smile fades a little, and Natasha squeezes Alice's hand tightly in reassurance before she looks back up at Jasper. "YA ne dopushchu, chtoby s toboy chto-nibud' sluchilos', Dzhasper, obeshchayu. I ya ne dayu obeshchaniy, kotoryye ya ne mogu soblyudat'." She lets silence fall between them for a moment, her words settling, and she can feel the tension. The Volturi, whoever they are, are significant to both Jasper and Alice and their culture, and Natasha knows what it feels like to learn that you're being hunted. So she does the only thing she can think of. She tries to make it better.
"Enough of that then. We have time, we'll wait until your family gets here to make a solid plan." She reaches up once more to drag Jasper down so she can plant a soft kiss on his cheek, and then she turns to look at Alice, taking her face in both of Natasha's hands. "And you, little miss Prophet, you know I'm not going anywhere and we're going to handle this. So, right now, enough." She pulls Alice's head a little closer to plant a soft kiss on her forehead before she grabs her hand, and Natasha grabs Jasper's with the other before she drags them both to the stove.
"Now. Your human is freaking starving, and both of you have spent all day running off and hunting and I have to actually put out effort to make my meals. So you're both cooking me dinner." It's not a request, but at least she pairs it with a sweet smile and a flutter of lashes. "I'll teach you if you want."
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It's a good time to tell her about their previous encounters with the Volturi: Edward's frantic attempts at suicide-by-rule-breaking, Victoria's newborn army that had come after them—Alice speaks sadly of Bree Tanner, the little sister they'd barely known but had already accepted—and finally the almost-clash when Aro had brought dozens of his followers to Forks because of a willful misunderstanding. Only Alice sharing her violent death-filled vision of the future had dissuaded Aro from following through immediately on his attempt to slaughter the family and all of their allies, giving them enough time to prove, lawfully, that Renesmee would not be a threat. They'd been forced to follow their own laws and had retreated, but Alice had always known Aro hadn't forgotten about her, or about Edward.
In between the stories, they tell her about the family and how they'd all come together, Edward first and then Esme, Rose and then Emmett, Alice and Jasper attaching themselves to the family several years later, no one new until Edward had met Bella, and everything that had followed. It's a long conversation, lasting through dinner, washing up, putting away the other food they'd made, and by the end of it, the three of them are curled together on the couch with the fireplace blazing softly against the chill of the house.
"...so this has sort of happened to us before," Alice says with a little shrug from her place curled on Natasha's lap with her legs draped over Jasper's. "Although I hope it will be a little less dramatic this time."
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"I don't do dramatic," she promises with a small smile, one arm wrapped around Alice's middle as the other drapes across the back of the couch where her fingertips play at the hem of Jasper's sleeve. "The Volturi..." she sighs, rolling her eyes a little. "It's good to know that corrupt systems of power don't end with mortality, things would be far too boring." She looks between the two of them before her eyes move to the window, and Natasha wrestles with her own uncertainty before she finally gives a proper response.
"I've dealt with systems like that before. I've been part of them actually, on a more dramatic scale but still." She shakes her head. "Maybe if we're lucky this isn't going to end with violence. I've been a diplomat before, I've had extensive training in how to talk down a potentially hostile situation. I'm not saying that it'll help, but I'm hoping that there's a small chance it might. I was able to convince Tony Stark to be a team player and Hulk to come out of hiding, maybe I can convince a bunch of vampire royalty to set down their arms."
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"It's me they're after," she says after a few moments, glancing down with a sigh. Jasper's hand moves up to rest on her ankle, a gentle reassuring squeeze. "They're coming here because of Jasper, but that's just their excuse this time. Aro has wanted to get me to join him for years, ever since he first learned what I can do. The last time they came, it was under another excuse, it was really to try and kill everyone else so he could 'pardon' me and make me join them."
It's still chilling to think just how close they'd come, how close she'd come to losing everything, to losing Jasper, to never have this chance right now. Jasper's thumb moves along her skin and she can feel his influence, like a breath of cool air, soothing away the little hamster-wheel of panic that she hadn't even realized had begun running inside her. She reaches out to cup his cheek in a brief thank-you, then turns her head to look up at Natasha.
"I only saw a few of them. It doesn't look like they're coming to fight. But you'll need to be turned before they get here, they can't know about you."
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When Alice looks up at her Natasha smiles, warm and what she hopes to be reassuring. "I'll be turned. I'd rather not fight but I'm not going to back down if one is necessary, it's not really my style." She looks at Jasper once more, eyes lingering on his face. "We're going to want to talk to Carlisle about it as soon as he gets here though, the sooner I turn and adjust the better." Natasha feels a twist of discomfort in her stomach, but it's directed at herself and nothing else.
She looks back at Alice, her smile restrained and almost sad this time. "I don't really know how I'm going to handle that much power, I have control but..." she trials off, her stare going through the woman for a second before her eyes flicker back into focus and her smile forcefully returns. "I just think it would be better to give myself time to adjust." She's already lethal and it hasn't gotten her memories that she wants to keep. Natasha isn't certain that her new decision will make that much better, but she knows that it's necessary. That's what matters.
"I told you. No more of that." She shifts, leaning back into the couch more comfortably and dragging Alice with her. "I'm not afraid of a little conflict, we'll handle it. For now," She nudges Jasper's leg with the tip of her foot, "distractions. Music, cards - no cards." She corrects suddenly with narrowed eyes at Alice. "You probably cheat."
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"We'll want to talk to the wolves as well," Jasper says quietly. "We owe them the news that we're staying in the area after all, I'm sure there wasn't time to tell them we were leaving. I can take Natasha," he says to Alice as just the mention of the wolves stirs a little thread of revulsion in her, "I know they disturb you. I'll be fine. I'll speak to Seth."
Obediently he rises at the pointed nudge from his girlfriend, slipping out from beneath his wife's legs to stand and blur across to the stereo. "We both cheat," he says, flashing a smile at them as he picks a CD of fast-moving big band songs, it's time for them all to dance. "Easy enough to pick up on someone feeling confident or uncertain. Considered taking a vacation to Las Vegas occasionally, but we're already fairly well-off. Ma'am?" This to Alice as he bends properly at the waist with a hand out in invitation.
She accepts, she's naturally putting her hand in his almost before he'd extended the invitation, and he spins her into a quick and easy dance to Benny Goodman.
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She watches as Alice takes his hand and she grins, settling back into the couch as she watches the two of them move, and Natasha gives an impressed little applause as they begin to move in sync. She can't remember the last time she danced for the sake of dancing, when it wasn't at a gala or charity ball that she was forced to sell her own charm at. Beyond that she really can't remember the last time she did any swing dancing. It had to have been with Clint at a family event, but the necessity for it is much less in demand than, say, a proper waltz.
She waits, studying the way that they both move in order to gain a sense of how skilled they both are, and only then does Natasha feel comfortable removing her shoes and getting off the couch to approach them in the middle of their song. She gives Jasper a little tap on the shoulder to catch his attention, giving him a playful "don't be greedy" when he turns to look at her, and once he steps back Natasha takes Alice's hand only to pull her into a quick spin.
She's rusty to her own standards but she can still deliver, and she can still lead as she moves with Alice to the sound of drums and saxophone. As the song progresses so does her movement until she's stepping rapidly with the beat, and despite the fact that Alice is taller Natasha has no problem lifting her off of her feet when the dance calls for it. By the end of it she's laughing, genuinely laughing before she spins, red hair a curtain behind her, to look up at Jasper. "Not bad," she decides, tilting her head to the side a little as she looks back at Alice with a playful smile. "I might just keep you two."
She reaches up run a finger under Jasper's chin, other hand reaching out and grabbing Alice's suddenly to spin her into Natasha's side and hold her properly. "When did you want to go talk to the wolves?"
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There's so much he doesn't know about her. The idea makes him frown a little, but he's learned enough to know just asking outright wouldn't be very welcome. She might tell him, but she wouldn't enjoy it much. He shakes it off, setting those thoughts aside as Alice's delight at being lifted comes through like the ringing of a crystal bell, and he's grinning again by the time the song ends and they come back his way. "We can only hope," he says, reaching out to tuck red hair behind her ear, as Alice links her fingers with his and squeezes briefly.
"We should talk to them soon," he continues more briskly. "Not today, but tomorrow at the latest. We've never made the new treaty conditions official with the new alpha, and I think if the Volturi are venturing back into our little corner, they ought to know. They were useful last time, or would've been, had it come to that. They might be obliged to do the same this time."
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"Alright," she nods when he says that they should go tomorrow, and Natasha squeezes Alice's side playfully as she listens to him. It's just an affectionate touch, to let her know that Natasha's attention is still on her, and that she doesn't want to let go. Moving with Alice is almost too easy, but she's already getting used to that; the fact that these two have somehow found a way to wriggle past her without any explanation as to how. "We'll go tomorrow then. And for now."
Natasha presses a swift kiss to Alice's cheek before releasing her, and as the next song begins she doesn't hesitate to grab Jasper's hand to spin beneath his arm and pull him a little closer. This is good, she thinks; the more time she can spend around him the better, because the more he'll adjust the safer he'll feel. She won't be turned for at least a week, and Natasha has no intention of giving up on their work together just because of it.
Dancing is a good way to go about it. The more she moves the faster her heart beats, the stronger her scent is, and it still keeps him distracted enough to keep that scent in the background so he can get used to the gradual climb. By the end she has no problem pressing against him, letting him take the lead without issue, and once the song finishes she leans up to press a swift kiss against his cheek before letting go of him and putting her hands up in surrender.
"Alright, that's enough. Your human still has a limit and she hasn't done this in a long, long time." She laughs as she says it, her eyes moving to the window to check the time. "I'm going to get in the shower and get all of this make up off of me." She turns to the stairs when she says it, glancing back at them with narrow eyes. "No peeking." She pauses, and when she looks at Alice she gives her a playful little wink. "Or at least, don't get caught."
It doesn't take her long to shower and clean herself up, and once she comes back downstairs she moves as if to walk into the living room with them before she suddenly stops. For a moment Natasha simply stands there, as if arguing with herself, but after coming to a firm decision she turns on her heel and moves into the garage instead, returning with the duffel bag that she's been living out of and all of her things.
"I'm going to -" she pauses, looking at the two of them, and she's a little nervous as her voice goes sheepish. "I can put all my things away right? Should I just... put them in your room for now?"
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As Natasha lets her go and draws Jasper in, Alice focuses past them for a moment, just a quick peek into the near future, and suddenly she's very glad she isn't able to blush. It's only a quick blip of emotion and she thinks Natasha and Jasper are too focused on each other to notice her little gasp, which she quickly covers with a bright smile, and applause when they manage a tricky little maneuver without any trouble. It's good to see them together, and a relief to see how well Jasper is doing with her, even if she won't be human for much longer.
"Take your time," she says cheerfully, winking back as she steps into Jasper's waiting arms and lets herself be swept into the next song. Her heart is in her throat when she starts whispering to him, telling him the vision she'd had when he'd been dancing with Natasha—she'd been right, he hadn't noticed the little shiver of nervousness before, but he must be noticing it now.
"...and it's, I don't know if it's going to be tonight, but it's...it will happen soon," she finishes, looking up at him anxiously, but to her relief, he just dips her deep with a faint smile. He'll need to step out, she's fairly sure, if Alice and Natasha are really going to, to do that, just being able to feel it might be too much, but they don't keep secrets. She won't keep this a secret.
By the time Natasha comes back, the music has finished and Jasper has his arms around Alice's waist at the window. She feels him give her a quick squeeze, probably in answer to the little spike of nervousness again, but she doesn't hesitate to slip away and join Natasha near the door to the garage. "Of course, if you'd like. Come on, I'll show you." It already feels like an instinct to reach for Natasha's hand as she starts for the stairs.
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She follows Alice into her and Jasper's room, and Natasha looks over her shoulder to notice that Jasper himself hasn't come with them. She's oddly comfortable with that, finding peace in being with Alice alone, and she can't help but smile at the woman as she starts to help her unpack.
When was the last time she did this? Natasha settled in the cabin weeks ago but it was never something that she thought would last, there was always preparation to gather things again and throw them all in a bag. Everything close together and in plain sight, keep a list so you don't forget, it's a system by now and one that Natasha has gotten quite good at.
Yet now she's not trying to find the most convenient place for her things but the most accurate place. She takes the time to put her jewelry in Alice's jewelry box, sets her books up on the shelf in alphabetical order instead of shoving them with their faces out so everything can be accounted for. It's only one duffel bag worth of stuff, and yet for the first time Natasha feels as if she's moving in somewhere. It's an almost unsettling sensation, and yet liberating at the same time.
"I'll take care of those," she says aloud when they reach the bottom of the bag where way too many weapons reside. There are several guns, a cross bow, her Widow's Bite's and knives with holsters that look like they're meant to be strapped to various places. Natasha organizes them all and puts them in the closet, keeping them orderly with their corresponding ammo. She brought more weapons than clothes, probably because she uses them more. Or, at least, she did.
After she puts away her last weapon Natasha pauses, an she looks at Alice over her shoulder. "I don't think I've ever done this before," she admits finally, her voice small as she slowly moves to her feet and looks around at the progress. The room barely looks different, but to Natasha, it does. Her gaze settles on Alice. "Move in somewhere. Not... officially, anyway, I've always been ready to move again. It's never been like this."
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