moodshifter | Alice Cullen | Natasha Romanova

The only reaction that she can give him is a little nod paired with a passive tone. "And I suppose we're both lucky for that."

By the time she's done eating Natasha is exhausted, and she drags herself to the bedroom after glancing at him to see if he's going to protest. She doesn't know if he's been using the bedroom but it doesn't look like it; the bed is still made the way that she makes it, the way that she learned as a child. A part of her knows that she should be unsettled, sleeping with a stranger in the house, but what does she truly have to lose? She wasn't bluffing when she asked him if he was going to kill her. Natasha has little to wake up for now, save for the stranger currently in her living room.

The next morning she's up before the sun, and she goes through the morning process of making coffee and sitting outside to watch the sun rise through the trees. She's thinking about breakfast when she sees it, a squirrel scurrying around at the base of a large tree a few yards away, and the idea hits her suddenly. She sips her coffee before setting it down on the small table beside her chair, and she gets up to walk to the small shed beside the house outside.

She returns to the porch with a small hunting crossbow, and she waits for the critter to come back down before she has it loaded, aimed, and released within mere seconds. She hits it directly at the neck so it doesn't suffer, and she sets the crossbow down on her chair before going to retrieve the thing and bring it into the house.

Half an hour later she has a plate of eggs and a coffee mug filled with something that definitely isn't coffee.

The eggs are for her, and she calls out to him to see if he's around. "Jasper? I have something for you." If he is, she'll give him the drained blood now before eating, assuming that he prefers it still warm; it isn't glamorous but a boys gotta eat, and she's seen what happens when he hunts. She doesn't feel like moping.

He spends the evening in the dwindling light from the fire until the ashes are cold, then slips outside and up to the roof, and that's where he stays, on watch until he hears her stirring. Then he stands and takes a standing leap into the trees, supposedly to hunt, but mainly because every scrap of last night's conversation is still fresh in his mind, and he doesn't know anything more what he should be thinking of it. He still can't figure her, and in a way he wishes Edward was around to clue him in a little.

He's still near enough to smell the little splash of blood, but he isn't near hungry enough to need to investigate it. Hearing his name, however, is enough to bring him sprinting back through the branches to land lightly on the ground outside, though he walks inside at an ordinary speed. The blood scent is stronger here, almost enough to mask her, and he frowns inquisitively as he steps into the kitchen.

Is that...he sniffs once, sharply, eyes fixed on the table. Is that squirrel blood in a coffee mug? Had she gone and hunted something for him? "What's all this?"

Natasha glances his way when she hears him approach, and there's a spark of annoyance when he moves into the kitchen with ease. Does he know how he looks? It's actually a bit obnoxious, how pretty he is, and Natasha is a full grown woman who can have any man she desires. She shouldn't feel that silly little flutter of attraction over someone who can't even cut his hair properly.

It passes quickly enough for her to move into the conversation without fault. "Well, this is a mug," she begins slowly as she approaches him, showing no hesitance in getting close as she holds it up between them. "And in it is squirrel. Not the whole squirrel. The important part." She gives a little facial shrug that's paired with a tilt of her head as she looks down at the mug herself. "You seem to only go out to hunt when you're starving and you end up draining a huge animal or setting yourself on edge while in the presence of a living person. Seems a bit more logical to feed a bit every day so that your larger meals aren't so erratic and hunger doesn't hit you so violently, no?"

She actually looks a little sheepish as she gives it to him, her own plate on the table and her coffee mug in her other hand. She holds it between both when she can, chewing on her bottom lip nervously. "I don't know much about this but I thought that it just seemed a bit easier? To keep you satisfied longer? You don't have to drink it." She tacks it on hastily. "It wasn't hard for me to get, I just thought that if I was going to give it to you I should do it now. I'm assuming that cold blood isn't exactly... appetizing..."

Unsure what else to do, thoroughly unused to a gesture like this, he takes the mug she hands to him and stares down at it, tilting it a little to watch the thick slide of blood against the ceramic. It's strange to see it like this, still warm but not body-warm, not a body in sight in fact. It's almost as though blood for breakfast is as ordinary as the eggs she's ignoring in favor of waiting on him.

After a few moments the corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile and he pulls out the chair opposite her and sits, wrapping both hands around the mug to mirror her position. "I wouldn't know," he says with a one-shouldered shrug, suddenly more at ease now that he's seeing she can relax enough to feel a little uncertain herself. "Never tried it like that. I can't imagine I'd enjoy it much though, you're right. Very thoughtful."

He lifts the mug in a little toast, still half-smiling, and if he could linger over it, he would, but that isn't how the thirst works. He's been feeling the craving, a low-key dry scratch in his throat, ever since that first little tang had come to him on the wind, and now that it's on his tongue, he can't help but drain the mug in a few long swallows.

"We've never done it this way," he says when he's finally finished, idly sweeping a finger through the leftover blood clinging to the inside of the mug and licking it off, "a little taste a day just to keep the thirst down. Hunting expeditions were always that, family excursions. High in the mountains to make sure carrion birds got our kills before anyone else stumbled on them. There's an...instinct, to our hunting. More than just feeding. We're predators. A rabbit a day...it's enough, I'd figure, but not exactly as satisfying as bringing down an elk, or a cougar."

But if he's meant to be sharing quarters with a human, however resourceful she might be, it's probably for the best he doesn't let himself get thirsty, he decides as he sets the empty mug down and swipes a little fleck of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Thank you, ma'am. That was very thoughtful."

She seems to relax a little when he actually sits down, but her eyes don't move away from him until he actually tries it. She waits somewhat impatiently for his verdict, but the way that he drains the mug like a man dying of thirst is enough for her. Apparently it's still good enough to drink, and that's all she wanted; she finally pulls her plate of eggs closer.

"Don't get comfortable, we're still going to need you to bring down big game. Or at least, carry it back home after I bring it down, I just thought it would be easier if you weren't always starving." She gives a shy shrug as she starts to eat, her eyes falling to her plate as a little wave of satisfaction moves through her. If anybody told her that she could find a way to make herself useful in this situation, she might actually doubt them; he can hunt, he doesn't need to cook... based off of what she knows of last night, he doesn't even need to sleep. So, this - innovation - that can be where she proves her worth.

Her eyes flicker up to watch him as he cleans the corner of his mouth, but it's only until he calls her that again that she actually winces. "Natasha," she corrects, voice pained with a hint of amusement. "I'm a lot of things. Ma'am isn't one of them." She stops eating for a moment and reaches for her coffee, sipping it slowly before looking back at him after setting it down. "I thought that maybe we should talk if we're going to be living in the same space." Her eyes move from her mug and back to him, both curious and a little uncertain as to whether he'd be willing to stick around long enough for a chat.

"There's one bedroom but from what I've gathered so far you don't really sleep. We should still go into town together at some point to pick up more supplies, probably on Sunday morning. the majority of them will be in church which means less of a risk of being recognized because I'm sure my face is everywhere, if yours isn't as well." She sips her coffee slowly, holding her intense gaze on him. "I die if I get too cold and it's going to get colder. So if we can use the firewood sparingly, that would be great. When my skin gets pale I don't sparkle." She gives a teasing smirk around the rim of her mug. "Just decay, sadly."

"My apologies, Natasha," he says immediately, dipping his head a little. "Force of habit for a lady I'm not particularly acquainted with." But he falls silent again and lets her finish, listening with some interest to the plans she's already made. The experiments they'd performed on him had mostly revolved around his thirst, and they'd only just been starting to test the hardness of his skin when he'd been let loose. They hadn't gotten around to anything else. Even if she knows the results of those tests, she might not know much else.

She likely doesn't know his range of movement extends hundreds of miles. Or that he could run halfway across the country and be back in the same day. Near-starving from the energy he'd expend doing it, admittedly, but it's still doable. Needs must, after all, when you spend your life trying to stay hidden from millions of people. "I don't sleep. Don't need to. But firewood won't be a problem. There's a few downed trees, birches, some miles from here. Easy enough to collect them up, after that little pick-me-up of yours."

He sets the empty mug aside and folds his hands on the table, shoulders still straight, as he considers his next words. "You're right. I do have some measure of self control. But not as much as the rest in my family. I spent a lot of years living like any vampire does, in addition to fighting in the wars. Being...sated...like this, that's a help, but my years as a vegetarian vampire still don't top my years spent otherwise." He glances up then, meeting her eyes as steadily as she can meet his. "I know for a fact you're not afraid of me, and I'm not questioning that. But there will be times when I cannot be around you. Even times when I up and vanish in the middle of a sentence. I'll need to apologize in advance for that, there will not be time in the moment."

He looks down again at his neatly-folded fingers, stone-pale against the dark, scarred wood of the table, and half-smiles. "Being the cause of your decay is not something I want."

"Some miles?" She repeats to him with a raised eyebrow, as if uncertain whether or not he had misspoken, because she doesn't remember him ever being away long enough to travel for miles. Her eyes move down to her food as she finishes it, listening carefully as he continues, an she can't help but crack a small smile as he speaks. Vegetarian vampire. She supposes there's a trend for everything.

She looks back at him when he apologizes ahead of time for leaving abruptly, and she gives a single nod of understanding to convey that he doesn't have to convey beyond that. "I have no reason to be scared of you." She hesitates for a moment, and when she puts her fork down she pushes her plate to the side before leaning back in her chair to look at him directly. "You're far from the scariest thing I've been in the same room with. I've seen mindless monstrosity, that's not you." She pauses for a moment, as if uncertain whether or not she wants to continue, but he's here because of her. Separated from his family, Alice, because of her. She owes him at least some honesty.

"The invasion in New York City, the woman people saw fighting with the Avengers, that was me. I used to have an anonymous public presence but that's not necessarily the case, anymore." She gives a little tilt of her head, as if dismissing it. Dismissing that everything she's built for herself is gone. "Once you fight monsters coming through a portal in the sky and get cornered in a helicarrier with Hulk, your definition of dangerous shifts a little. And that's good to hear." She offers him a half-smile in return before she stands to grab her plate, and then his mug. "You're part of a small group, if that's true. A lot of people want to see me dead, more than usual right now, I'm assuming."

She moves to the sink to clean up, glancing at him over her shoulder. "You've given me no reason to fear you, Jasper. If anything, it's the other way around." She isn't able to say it without a pang of guilt cracking through her wall, and she pushes it back down quickly as she looks back down into the sink. "If I go into town for food, would you prefer to stay here? Is there anything I can get you, books or... something?"

It impresses him a little every time she can meet his gaze so unflinchingly. Even if there were any humans who knew what they were and that they meant no harm...well, it's one thing to say it, another thing entirely to turn off thousands of years of instinct. And yet, here she is, sitting there telling him she's not afraid of him, and meaning it. Really meaning it.

There's a little stirring in him at that, and after a moment he recognizes it as a strengthening of his resolve. He will not, not do anything to bring her to harm. She doesn't fear him, and he doesn't fear her. He's started with less of a footing than that.

He lets her speak and doesn't interrupt, not until she's finished and asked a question. "I'll stay. I'll spend that time fetching those birches back here for you. They're not more'n ten miles out. Won't take long. But I wouldn't say no to something to read." He turns in his seat to keep facing her as she does the washing up. "Pick things you'd enjoy. I have an...eclectic array of interests, after this long. That was you?"

Now she gets an admiring smile as he shifts to sit backward on the chair, resting his crossed arms against the back. "I remember that fight, Emmett wanted to pitch in but it would've taken us too long to get there." It's a shame it would be too dangerous for them to spar, he can still remember admiring that redheaded spitfire in the flashes of news footage that had actually shown her. Naturally most of the coverage had been of Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, Thor.

"Oh, I don't know if you want to read what I want to read," she manages to respond with a rare, almost self depreciating tease in her voice. She's getting more comfortable around him and that's strange; she hasn't spent enough time around him to justify that, but it seems that it's a little easier to be comfortable when someone is openly capable of killing her. He can end her, and he hasn't. The way she sees it, they're good.

"And yeah, that was me. Don't worry about it, we had it under control." Barely. She smiles a little down at her dish as she dries it. "So you can imagine that I'm not a stranger to being in the same room with someone stronger than me. ...I'd say that you'd be a great ally in something like that but there's a lot of bloodshed. The smell is thick, even I can pick it up when things get really dirty. Or maybe that's just because I'm the one who's usually bleeding at the end of the day... I'm not a giant suit of armor type of girl." She finishes with a sigh, putting her plate away before turning to lean back against the counter. Instead of approaching the table again Natasha instead folds her arms, watching Jasper with an inquisitive tilt of her head.

"You would know what to do though, wouldn't you, soldier?" It's a nickname she usually reserves for Steve, but it's fitting for him. She can see that. "You've got a touch of military in you. It's buried in there, under all of that proper southern gentleman mess." Another tease in a smile. Genuine this time; pretty, and not in the usual artificial way with her. "You haven't served in a while though, have you?"

Another grin as he dips his head in a nod. "Guilty as charged, ma'am," he says, slipping it in once more as a tease this time as he sits up again, shoulders straight, a military bearing even sitting backward in a chair. "I was a major in the Texas cavalry. I was never formally discharged that I know of, but as the Confederacy lost the war..." A little one-shouldered shrug. He's never been ashamed of his service, and he doesn't plan on starting now.

"Whitlock was my name then, Major Jasper Whitlock. I took the name 'Hale' when Alice and I joined the family in 1950. My adopted sister Rosalie's surname." He smiles wryly, nostalgic for those first fraught months with the family. It had taken him a long time to adjust to being around so many other vampires who had no ill intentions, and even longer for him to stop feeling overprotective of Alice being around so many other vampires who had no ill intentions. "She wasn't too keen to share it at first, but eventually she admitted it would help us blend in if she and I could pose as twins. You didn't meet her, I don't believe, but we have very similar coloring."

Natasha gives him a narrow-eyed smirk, acknowledging the little tease but letting it go for now. There's an undeniable amount of surprise there when he says that he had served in the Confederacy, because she knew he was old but she didn't think he was that old. "Well. If it makes you feel better, I don't think I'd ever been discharged from the KGB." Although it's because she had killed the man who could officially discharge her. Semantics.

"Major Jasper Whitlock," she repeats back to him with playful air, looking both impressed and amused all at once. She takes a few steps forward to grab the other chair, mimicking him in the way that she turns it and sits down to face him. "That's got a nice ring to it, I'll admit." She pauses for a moment before she shrugs a single shoulder, as if having just convinced herself of something silently. "Natalia Romanova." She gives him an almost sheepish smile, brushing her hair behind her ear nervously. "Natasha Romanoff is more Americanized, they said that I would fit in better that way." The smile fades, and her gaze falls for a moment before returning. "I changed it when I joined SHIELD after switching sides. At least, that was the intention."

"Vy russkiy?" he asks immediately, the Texan drawl coming through even thicker in Russian than in English. "I'd wondered a little, hearing that last name of yours when I really learned it, but you never know where people are from these days." He'd taught himself Russian a little later, once he'd moved onto the Russian philosophers sometime in the Seventies. Learning languages was commonplace in the family, but Jasper had always focused on the languages most prominent in philosophy: German, French, Italian, Greek, Latin, Russian.

She isn't making too great an effort to hide what she's feeling from him now. She's opened up, or relaxed herself, and it's easy to look beyond the surface layers. It's been a challenge to reveal that detail, he thinks, it's a vulnerability she's handed him. "Natalia," he says thoughtfully, experimentally, like he's tasting the name. "That actually kinda suits you. Maybe it reminds you of where you're from though." He wouldn't want to start using it if she didn't want it to be used. That would be ungentlemanly.

For a second it looks like Natasha has to comprehend what he'd just done, but that was certainly Russian despite his thick accent, which she certainly did not enjoy more than she should. There's an undeniable little light that brightens her eyes, and her smile only exemplifies it. "Da. Posmotrite na vas, polnyy syurprizov." She sounds just as impressed as she is, and the words come to her with an obvious fluency that's only evident when it's clear how much faster she speaks in Russian than she does in English, to this day. "Again. Working for an American secret agency is a lot harder if you sound like a Russian, it took me months to get rid of my accent." She sounds as if she's speaking of an impossible struggle, as if it's normal for it to take months, and not an entire lifetime.

The way that he says her name catches her off guard an it shows in small ways; a slight twitch at the corner of her eyebrow, a little part of her lips. People don't call her that; in fact, she can't remember the last time she was called Natalia. It sounds nice, though, the way that it flows from his tongue in that lazy drawl, and her sheepish smile returns as she shakes her head slightly. "No," she begins, "Natalia is fine. You can call me that." He doesn't know it's strange that she's allowing it, and nobody else is here to tell him as much. What harm can it do? "You don't have to worry about reminding me where I'm from." She tilts her head. "I don't run from it." Not anymore.

"Did you ever serve, again?" She's surprising herself by asking it, because she isn't doing so to get on his good side. She's asking because she actually wants to know, and isn't that a strange thing? "After the Confederacy dissolved?"

Definitely a natural speaker, that's easy to see, but there isn't a trace of accent when she flips back to English, and that's impressive on its own. Now that they've both slowed down a little, taken a chance to really look at each other, it's almost surprising how much they have in common.

"Natalia, then," he says with a firm little nod. It's better for him anyway, it sits better with him, the little extra layer of formality. It's a part of his nature. And he can certainly identify with running from where you're from, and trying like hell to stop doing it.

He looks thoughtful as he considers how to answer her question. Her genuine interest feels comfortable already. Maybe they will be able to coexist without anything...unfortunate...occurring.

"Not in any human army, but plenty in the Southern Vampire Wars. It was commonplace in the South during the War Between the States and after, armies of newborns created only to fight each other and win territory for their masters. A newborn is much more dangerous than a full grown vampire," and as he speaks, his voice takes on the cadence of a military lecture, "in their first year of existence a newborn vampire is much stronger, until their human blood is leached out of their tissues entirely, but their thirst is almost uncontrollable. Maria turned me so I could use my abilities to control her army. I was her second in command, in charge of training them after she turned them."

His eyes slant away from her in sharp memory of the bewildered fear, over and over, before the hard crack of death. "Training them, and killing them off when she'd decided they'd served their purpose. She could always make more."

She feels an annoyingly pleasant little flutter when he says it again, simply because she likes the way that it sounds on his tongue. She never thought she'd get to enjoy the sound of her own name.

When he begins to educate her he obviously has Natasha's full attention, her arms crossed over the back of the chair and her chin resting on them comfortably as she looks up at him through her lashes. Eyes widen when he uses the phrase 'vampire army' seriously, and she seems wrapped up in his story until he looks away from her suddenly. She knows that look, and although she's admittedly fascinated by exactly what he is and what he's capable of, Natasha doesn't want to push him too far to speak of something that brings him discomfort. Especially one that, it seems, she can understand on a deeper level.

The empathy that she feels for him isn't shielded this time, she's much too wrapped in their conversation with genuine interest for that to happen, but she slowly sits up from where her chin was resting on her hands before giving him a soft frown. "That sounds terrible." She looks away from him as well, and it's with more hesitance this time that she starts speaking. She doesn't know how far she's willing to go with this just yet, but its a bit freeing, not having to worry about who you're speaking to and who they know. Who they report back to.

"I was my own army." Her eyes flicker to his face once more. "Every assassination you heard about in the news before six years ago, that was me back to about '99." When she was fifteen. "And those were the ones that were reported. I didn't know who I was or who was pulling my strings, I just... did as I was told until a Shield agent pulled me to the other side. Clint, he's still - ...he's my best friend now, after what he did for me." She frowns a little, sighing quietly. "It doesn't take away from what happened but I thought that maybe if I did a little bit of good after everything... it doesn't matter now." She shakes her head suddenly, pushing the thought out of her head, and she moves just as abruptly to stand. "Enough." She speaks as if she's speaking for both of them, and she places a kind hand on his shoulder as she passes him to move to her kettle.

"I'm sure we both think about the things that we've done whenever we have a silent moment. It's not necessary to do it while we have the opportunity not to."

He looks back at her when she starts talking, that too-attentive stare. Even going to high school ever day, he doesn't spend enough time truly around humans to remember all the little tells that come so naturally to Carlisle, blinking three times a minute, moving his shoulders as if he's breathing, shifting in his seat. He's a statue, listening to her words and to the flavor of her mood as it shifts from a decidedly acute empathy—she knows the feeling of what he's done somehow, and isn't that curious?—to the hard shell she grows around herself when she's hiding, but it doesn't last this time. It's almost as though she's taken it down herself instead of letting it fully form.

He straightens just a little when she stands, and swallows when she walks close to him. Her hand on his shoulder burns through the jacket. He can't breathe with her so close, doesn't want to risk that, but his head turns to look up at her as if drawn up to her face. "It matters," he says simply, and then he's gone, only a sharp breeze marking his disappearance. The chair hasn't even moved.

It isn't even the fresh air, although that helps cool the burn in his throat. He'd gotten the distinct sense earlier that she'd been a mite skeptical of the location of those birch trees, and he speeds his way through the trees now, to the edge of the creek where he'd found them, uprooted by the erosion of soil until they'd fallen to form a natural bridge over the water. He may not be as strong as Emmett, but he's easily strong enough to rip one tree away from its clinging roots and carry it back through the woods, a little slower now but still back at the house within ten minutes.

He slows when he's almost within sight of it, just for the satisfaction of walking out of the woods with a full-sized birch tree balanced on one shoulder like a rolled up carpet.

The way that he looks at her, without moving or breathing or... anything, it's a little unsettling. It's hard to find a tell on someone who can shut off completely when they decide that it's their turn to listen, but it's something that she can work past. She's going to have to, especially if they're going to be stuck together in this tiny house.

She's actually surprised at how cold his shoulder is when she places her hand on it, as if he's radiating cold instead of simply lacking heat, and her mind immediately goes to inappropriate places about how that must be unpleasant in certain situations which is remarkably unlike her. She chalks it up to the fact that she's stuck in the woods with nothing but a pretty, dead boy and a pretty dead boy to look at, and once she pushes the thought out of her mind she turns to ask him if he wants tea before... he's gone. He did warn her ahead of time, she supposes, so she makes him some anyway, uncertain as to how long it'll take for him to get it whatever chased him off out of his system.

Barely ten minutes passes before she can see him coming closer through the window, and her hands freeze over her tea as her eyes narrow. Is that - is he carrying a tree? "Really?" She isn't asking anybody in particular but she sighs as she moves to the front door, leaving the house so she can see him outside with two mugs in her hands, both filled with tea.

As he approaches she approaches him as well, meeting him half way and staring at the giant tree on his shoulder. Alright. "Fine." She says aloud, eyes narrowing a little as a smile ghosts her lips. It's slight, almost flirtatious in a way where she just naturally is. "I'm almost impressed, Jasper Whitlock. Almost." she hands him the mug in his free hand since he only needs one to carry the tree, and when she continues her voice starts to match the smile she wears. "Except you still have to break it down so it'll fit into the fireplace." Her eyes move to the tree once more, searching it for a moment, and when she looks back at him it's with a playful grin that's almost mischievous. "And, that's an Aspen." She taps his nose with the tip of her finger. "Not a Birch."

Natasha finds herself biting on her bottom lip to try and reel back her smile, and she takes two steps back with her mug in both hands before she turns to head back inside. "You should break that down soon, we're going to want to bring it all inside before tonight." She calls out to him over her shoulder, amusement in her voice. "It's going to get cold, that matters to some of us."

When he takes the mug, he twists his hand carefully to keep from touching her skin. It makes him far too aware of her. It's dangerous, an unnecessary danger. The tea isn't as hot as it could be, she must have made it just after he'd disappeared on her. He's glad now that he'd mentioned sometimes needing to do that before he'd started doing it, because it had needed doing in that moment. She'd been so open to him, hardly a layer of anything separating him from her true emotions, and between that and the unexpected hand on his shoulder...

Well. He'd been planning on fetching back one of these trees anyway.

"Sorry to fall short, in that case," he begins, and then she taps his nose, and everything he'd been lining up in his head disappears.

It most certainly isn't an aspen, it's a paper birch, probably sprung up after a wildfire swept that riverbank clean a decade or so ago, but he doesn't correct her. He isn't certain he can trust himself.

After she's disappeared into the house, he lets the tree fall with a sudden ground-shaking thud and blurs to the porch to carefully set the mug down, then blurs back to the tree and sets on it like it's an enemy. There's a perfectly good axe hanging on the side of the house, above the sparse wood pile, but he doesn't even look at it. Even if it wasn't a soft wood, he'd prefer to do it this way. He isn't sure how long it takes, but the sun is visibly angled by the time he's stacking the torn-apart firewood-sized chunks of birch along the side of the porch.

She's going to keep touching him, and he doesn't know why he isn't warning her off from it.

He turns to go back to the woods, then hesitates. Almost unwillingly, his feet take him to the door and he opens it and leans inside. "How much time would you say you need for something a little bigger than rabbits?"

She waits, wondering if he'll take the bait, but he's a smart boy and he doesn't correct her, either because he knows that she's trying to get a rise out of him or because he still can't get too close to her. He's going to have to get used to it though, isn't he? A part of Natasha knows that he will, and she reminds herself how foolish that is; she doesn't know him. Yet, she's certain that she's safe. After this long, she has a sense in her gut that tells her when she's in danger. This isn't one of those times.

She's sitting on the couch, curled up with a smutty romance novel when he pokes his head in, and she glances up at him before she looks out the window to see the time. "...If we're talking a deer I might be able to get the thing properly skinned before sundown, but that's the biggest. Anything smaller will work."

She spends the day concentrating on their food and keeping the fire going, and by the time night comes Natasha practically collapses into bed. No matter how occupied she keeps herself, though, it doesn't feel right being here. She's kept her body somewhat busy but her mind has gone dull already, she's used to constantly moving, constantly thinking and constantly surviving. It isn't necessary to do that here, she's waiting for the rush of action or the fear of failing a mission and nothing comes. It's just him. Him, their little cabin, and that goddamn owl outside that's keeping her awake.

It's not really the owl's fault. She's restless, she's barely made it a week without being directed by someone else and five of those days were dedicated to making her way to the safe house in the first place. She doesn't like this, floating without a purpose, and it wasn't until her conversation with Jasper earlier that she realized how pointless everything she'd done for Shield really was. Had she ever taken an order based solely on helping people? Was there always an ulterior motive? Will that owl ever shut the hell up?

Not even ten more minutes pass before she's out of bed, and Natasha throws her door open before walking out into the house in her underwear and the thin t shirt that she sleeps in. She ignores Jasper, heading directly for the closet where she keeps her rifle, and the process of loading it and cocking it with a shake of one arm barely takes her a few seconds. "I'm going to kill that owl." She doesn't explain why but she says it with absolute certainty, and Natasha walks out of the house barefoot into the night.

She's back a few seconds later without the sound of a gunshot, and instead she unloads the gun and tosses the rifle back into the closet as the owl continues to hoot, happy to ruin her night. Killing the owl won't help. She can't sleep.

So instead she walks over to the couch and collapses down onto it with a look of frustration, glaring at the table before she finally looks up enough to see him. "What do you even do all night, if you can't sleep?"

The windowsill has already become his usual perch in the house, close enough to the couch to make for easy conversation, far enough away to prevent 'accidental' contact. There's little enough for him to do here, plenty of time to think. Too much time, sometimes, but he's had worse. The sounds of the forest at night are just as arresting as any busy city, fascinating in themselves, and enough of a distraction for now.

He's still sated from the small doe he'd brought down earlier, now skinned and hanging from a tree behind the house thanks to Natasha's handiwork, and for once he isn't tracking a herd or planning a hunt, he can just listen intently, eyes closed. The chittering of small animals, little silences of predators stalking, it all layers up. He's listening, and he's thinking about Alice, a cycle of worrying and reassuring himself that she'd said they'll meet again and he has to trust that, and worrying again that someone's decision might have changed and her vision might have changed and he wouldn't know it, he should find them, but he can't put them in danger again, it's too soon. He doesn't get tired, but it's exhausting, and now he's just putting it as far out of his mind as he can. Unfortunately not very far, but it'll have to do.

Lost as he is in the rhythms of the forest, he's still aware of her in the other room, tossing and turning, huffing a breath, and his eyes open as she stands up, before she even appears. He blinks in surprise but doesn't comment as she loads a gun and disappears outside. He can see her in the darkness, and she doesn't even take aim before turning right back around.

"I take it you're not much of an outdoorsy type," he says dryly, not moving from his comfortable spot at the window. "Back home, we did plenty. Read things, all sorts of things. Wrote, sometimes. Edward writes music. Carlisle writes about medical research. I wrote a paper or two on philosophy, a few years ago. Sometimes we travel, day trips." He shrugs easily. "Whatever you'd do with all the time in the world, that's what we do. ...out here, I've mostly been thinking. And listening."

"The last time I was forced outdoors it was in the frozen Tundra with five other girls and enough supplies for one of us, so no, you can say I'm not a fan." Her reply is more snappish than she means for it to be but she's tired, and she's unsettled. She isn't used to not having a goal or a purpose, the reasons that she has for opening up to Jasper so candidly are the same ones that are tearing her apart inside. She feels useless here. Pathetic. Pointless, as if she's simply wasting space. Despite all of that she still manages to give him an apologetic look, and instead of pushing on she moves to stand and disappear back into her room.

It's the mention of his family that reminds her of it, and when she comes back it's with a cuff that holds a strange crest on it, one that she personally isn't familiar with and that's saying something. "This is yours." She moves to him and holds it out, keeping a decent distance between the two of them because, not only is she stranded in the middle of nowhere, she's stranded with a man who can't stand being around her when she gets too close. These moments with Jasper are the most intimate that Natasha has ever had, just two people with no connection to the outside world. Yet she's certain she's never felt loneliness like this.

"I found it in the lab I got you out of, I forgot to give it to you, I'm sorry." She sets it down on his window sill before she returns to her couch, pulling her bare legs up and hugging her knees close to her chest. Natasha wets her lips, uncertain as to whether she should just leave him be and lie awake in her own room, but before she can think too deeply about it she speaks again. "It's your family, right? The crest?" She searches his face. "I can tell that you wore it a lot."

He makes that connection almost immediately. It isn't a difficult conclusion to make: six girls, supplies enough for one. She's still here. The tundra may have taken the other five, but he knows it didn't.

When she brings him the cuff, he notices how carefully she chooses her distance away from him, forcing him to lean forward with outstretched arm to take it from her, without brushing her fingers. "Thank you kindly," he says automatically, looking at it, rubbing a thumb along the twisting metal edge of the crest. He doesn't put it on again quite yet, isn't sure he ought to, but it's been a part of him for a long time. Even in his thirst, he'd noticed when they'd taken it from him.

He doesn't speak again until it's securely around his right wrist again. It's a promise, he tells himself, a promise to go back home. When it's safe, even if it takes him years, he'll go back to them.

"Carlisle's design," he says with a nod, thumb still tracing along the edge. "Every bit of it. He has quite a knowledge of heraldry. Quite a knowledge of most things, in fact." He smiles, remembering when he and Alice had first shown up at the house. Edward and Emmett had been hunting, it had been only Carlisle and Esme and Rosalie at home. "At first, I didn't know how to relate to him, but he was patient. He's always been patient. Now I consider him as much a father and Esme as much a mother as the others are my siblings."

The enamel is still smooth when he runs a finger over it and finally lets go. "We all have one, somewhere. Carlisle wanted us to be a family, not just a coven. I wore one every day until they took it." He looks over at her, curled up on the couch, still crystal clear to him in the dark. "Thank you, Natalia. It means a lot. To have this again."

She watches him carefully as he puts the cuff back on, and although she can't see in the dark as clearly as he can it's almost hard to notice. Her eyes move with his wrist, watching the way that he stares at the crest like it means something to him, and that stab of envy returns to her under a layer of disheartened despondency. What the hell is he doing here, with her? He has a family to get back to. Carlisle and Esme, Rosalie and Emmett. People that he mentions so easily in conversation that he probably doesn't even realize it. They're a part of him. He doesn't belong here with her.

"You should go back to them." She says it before she can stop herself, and it's only the that she realizes she hasn't wanted him to leave since she's arrived. She likes being around someone that isn't an agent... Natasha likes having a friend that isn't a teammate. She likes the way he says her name, and the way he speaks. She enjoys playing with that little fire in him, but that's no reason to keep him here. Not when he actually has something to go back to, what kind of person would trap someone in a cabin just so they aren't alone? Natasha doesn't want to be that.

"You shouldn't be here, you should just go back to your family." She says it with more purpose now, her throat moving with a hard swallow and her jaw flexing with tension. Her walls are halfway up but nowhere near as well constructed as usual, her dejection seeping through the cracks she leaves, probably because she's too tired. Her eyes move back up to him and her arms tighten around herself, chin resting on her knees.

"You're fast, you all are. They won't find you as long as they don't have me to track you down, and that's obviously not going to happen so. You should go to them."

Does she know, he wonders, how clear she's being with what she's feeling? They're not hitting him with the thunderbolt-suddenness of that first burst of envy that had almost sent him running, but they're right there, swimming through the room, almost visible in their twining intensity. Envy again, and a heavy something that weighs her down, drags down the walls she's half-heartedly reconstructing.

Her loneliness is a tide that catches him and sweeps him out to a sea of it. His fingers tighten dangerously on the wood of the window until it creaks audibly.

"I will," he says slowly, after several moments debating his words. He's watching her too closely again, he can see when she looks at him and he can meet her eyes even in this near-darkness. She hates being seen like this, but she doesn't hate that it's him seeing her like this, and isn't that curious? "But I think it's an inaccuracy to say I shouldn't be here. I can't risk leading anyone back in their direction, and I'll wait as long as I need, to keep that from happening." He lets go of the window and shifts to sit upright, staying where he is for now but more politely, as it were, for conversation.

"I know you're gonna argue," he continues quietly. "I know you think that bringing your organization down the way you have, there's minimal risk in my slipping off, going under the radar. You may well be right." He runs a thumb along the edge of the crest again and folds his fingers and looks up. "But the things I've seen in this...existence...of mine. Are not things I'll allow anywhere near Alice. I can wait."

She hears the creak of wood and her eyes move to his hand, but she can't see it well enough in the dark to tell whether or not he's responsible. Perhaps she's making him uncomfortable again, she can't tell that either when she can't see clearly enough to see his tells, and that's another layer of unsettling that she doesn't want to think about. Speaking to him in the dark like this forces her to have a conversation with Jasper and not with Jasper's reactions. Those are two very different things in Natasha Romanoff's mind.

"I won't argue," she corrects him, eyes moving away to instead stare out of a window on an opposite wall. "You would know better than I would, what the proper reaction is to find your family." It's simply not something she can relate to. The mention of Alice brings another pang of muted longing but it's not as strong this time. She can't really miss something that she never had, and that's what she tells herself. Maybe she's not missing out when it comes to having someone that important. Maybe it's overrated. "Alice." She says her name again aloud, settling into the corner of the couch to half lean/half lie against the arm of it.

"What is she like?" Her eyes move back to Jasper after a moment. "You mentioned her before."

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