"Stay out of the way, who do you—" Leah barely moves forward at all before Seth rounds on his sister with an exasperated growl, the first really wolfy thing he's done.
"Leah, go back to the pack," he orders, scowling and pointing. "Just, go on, it's just Jazz, I'm fine, I don't need backup, go tell Sam what's happening."
Leah gets in Seth's face immediately, and Jasper doesn't move a muscle, attuned carefully to the emotional state of both wolves. Seth's irritation and embarrassment comes on more than one level, likely as a little brother and as a leader, and Leah's anger is resentment too, and he doesn't think it's just the old usual resentment aimed at him and his kind. That's something to keep an eye on.
Seth matches his sister toe to toe, though, unblinking, and almost before the conflict becomes a conflict at all Leah takes a step back, darts an angry look at Natasha and a look of loathing at Jasper, and turns to sprint for the woods. She's a wolf before she makes the trees, and the rustling of leaves is finished only a few seconds later. Seth sighs a little and turns back to Jasper, but he shakes his head.
"Don't worry. We're still what we are. But now that it's just you, there is something else you should know." Jasper glances at Natasha, and back to Seth. "The Volturi are coming, sometime soon, and before they get here, she'll be changed. At her own request."
Before Seth can react more than his gaping stare, Jasper tips his head toward Natasha, leaving the floor to her for the explanation, however much she wants to give. It's not exactly the same situation as Bella's had been, but if this is going to be a problem for the pack, they need to know now.
Natasha doesn't move when Leah begins to lash out and instead stands calm, hands still folded before her as she watches the woman with interest before Seth steps in. The woman obviously doesn't like her and Natasha isn't particularly sure why, nor does she find herself concerned over it. It's not the first time she's been considered as unfavorable before meeting someone properly, and with the way the news has been reporting her she can only imagine the image that's being painted of her out there right now.
She watches as Leah finally backs down and sprints away, and only then does her attention turn back to Seth to find him gaping at her at Jasper's announcement. "If you know who I am then I think that you know the Volturi are only a fraction of my worries right now." She cracks a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "This is one of the only paths of safety for me, and it's being done at my request. I might not be around much longer unless I take action. And it'll be easier for me to hold my own when a portal opens in the sky to unleash unholy hell on Manhattan next time. Last time I think I just got really lucky."
Her attention then moves to Jasper, and she reaches out to place a hand on his arm with a gentle touch before it slips down to lace her fingers between his own. "Those were the important factors that we wanted to update you on. The family is returning and we should be getting back to Alice, they're still briefing me on what I should expect with everybody's abilities." She gives Seth a subtle wink. "I like to be prepared."
"You want to be one of those bloodsuckers?" Seth blurts, and his ears turn bright red immediately and he darts a glance at Jasper's face, but he still has the same quiet, patient smile. It's understandable. For all he knows, the insults may even be an instinct. Jasper knows perfectly well that vampires and werewolves are meant to be enemies. Their own situation is...decidedly unique.
He opens his fingers when Natasha's hand slides down his arm, and gives her hand a careful, firm squeeze. "Carlisle will change her when they arrive," he says steadily, "we'll watch over her during her transformation, we'll take her hunting when she opens her eyes again. Alice and Natasha and myself have an understanding."
This new announcement, coming so hard on the heels of the news that the Black Widow is going to be a vampire soon because she wants to be, is clearly just a little too much for Seth to handle gracefully. He's still gaping, and his emotions are seesawing a little wildly between concern and disgust and disbelief and the exhilaration he's still riding on from getting to meet Natasha Romanoff in the first place. Even Jasper can't really tell them apart anymore. "That's all we had to say," he says with a respectful nod. "We won't keep you. Pleasure to see you again, Seth. Please give my regards to Sam and the rest of the pack, whatever they'd like to do with them."
The wry well-wishes are enough for Seth to collect himself a little more, and he nods back jerkily before taking a step back. "Um, nice to see you too. Nice to meet you. I guess we'll, um. Come talk to us when the, the other bloodsuckers get close enough to start making trouble and we'll see what we can do, I guess."
"That's kind of you, I'll do that," Jasper says, still unmoving, Natasha's palm warm in his hand. She's the one who reached for him first, and Jasper knows that hadn't passed Seth's notice. He looks down at their joined hands for a long moment, then takes another step back before turning and trotting for the bushes. Jasper doesn't move until he hears the transformation and the gallop of paws heading away from them, back toward the shore. "I think that went decidedly well, considering all we had for them was bad news."
Despite the instant urge to give Seth a look at the immediate protest Natasha manages to bite her tongue, and she allows Jasper to take control of the conversation once more. It's easier to take the back seat when she trusts the person she's with, and that's a rare opportunity for Natasha. Might as well take advantage of it.
"It was nice to meet you as well Seth." Another polite smile and then the boy is off, and she waits silently for Jasper to speak before giving a single nod. Her eyes linger on the spot where the boy disappeared into the woods, and it takes her a few moments to finally respond.
"Just once I want to wake up and find out that the most complicated thing going on about my day is that I forgot to go grocery shopping. But, no. Werewolves. That's fine too." She sighs, turning to lean up and kiss Jasper on the cheek before she starts to head back to the jeep. "Come on, I need to shower. Seth was nice but I need to get the residue of Leah's glare off of me."
Once they get back to the house she showers, and the day goes by somewhat painlessly. She spends the day distracted though, the look on Jasper's face at the mention of her code name one that she can't seem to wipe from her minds eye, and although a part of her knows that he'd never press, another part of her is more than aware that the rest of the family could have watched the news while they were all separated. Jasper and Alice are going to find out about her past at some point, and by the time night comes she decides that she rather it come from her than anyone else.
So after she changes into sleep sleep shorts Natasha walks downstairs, and this time she doesn't hesitate to drape herself across both Jasper and Alice, her head in Alice's lap and her legs stretched across Jasper's. "What are the chances that your family watches television or reads the paper?" She does her best to sound casual, but she's nervous. Whether it shows or not, she's unsure. "...They might not like me very much."
"What, you thought immortality brought with it some kind of peace?" Jasper teases, but he leaves it at that as they go back to the house. He'd gotten further in that conversation than he'd really expected, especially with Leah there. It's encouraging. It goes against their natures a little to even have a civil conversation with a vampire, he knows it, but that they're willing to do so and come away from that conversation with both sides having gained something, that's progress. Carlisle will likely be proud when he hears.
He fills Alice in on their wolfy conversation while Natasha showers, every last detail, including Leah's input and letting Seth know about Natasha's upcoming change. They talk about the family returning, what they'll need to do before they arrive, airing out the house, figuring out a time and a place for Natasha to be comfortable. As comfortable as anyone can be with the venom in them. Jasper admits that he doesn't like the idea of causing her that kind of pain, and Alice curls up into him and nods, her fragile face a picture of misery for a moment, before she reminds him with false cheer that she knows Natasha will be fine. They leave it at that, it's all they can do.
When Natasha comes back down and joins them, Alice's fingers card through her hair and Jasper rubs a hand along her calf slowly. "They'll love you," Alice says and drops a kiss onto Natasha's forehead. "Why on earth wouldn't they?"
She smiles up at Alice once she kiss is planted but it doesn't reach her eyes, and she glances at Jasper anxiously before sighing and letting her eyes close. The comfort that comes with being close to both of them is still so foreign, and it's almost annoying how much she can feel herself relaxing beneath gentle touches despite the fact that she'd very much like to be on edge right then.
"Seth recognized me today." She lets it linger in the air for a moment although she knows that the significance of that won't be recognized by either of them, considering that they don't watch the news at all. It's something Natasha had been grateful for.
"I'm not just hiding here because I leaked all of those files, there were things in the files that people might not be comfortable seeing." And if their family saw them then... well, Natasha wouldn't be surprised if she has quite the uphill battle ahead of her. Her eyes open as she stares up at Alice only to turn her head and tuck it against the woman's lap and look at Jasper instead. "I was raised in Russia, in a place called the Red Room." Because if they're going to find out, she wants it to be from her and not from a media source.
She tells them what she feels to be necessary, everything that would be in her file. She doesn't mention the young women she had to dispose of in the Red Room, because although there may be speculation about that nobody can prove that Natasha had to partake in it and it's not something she readily speaks about. She doesn't mention the trials that they put her through or the number of men she'd killed, but she does inform them that she was formerly an agent of the KGB. She tells them how Clint had brought her over to SHIELD, and how she always worked in the shadows, so her face being exposed so publicly is, effectively, the end of an era.
"My code name was Black Widow, which is what Seth called me when we met with him and his rabid dog." She looks up at Alice again. "If they released that then they probably released a lot more and I don't know how much of it your family knows. Or if they'll have a problem with it all." With a sigh Natasha runs her fingers through her hair before moving to sit up, suddenly restless. "I need to be changed, there are going to be people after me that may actually be able to hurt me if I stay like this, and I don't want Carlisle to decide that I'm too dangerous to be around his family."
Listening to Natasha almost perfectly echo what Jasper had said to her the night before they'd first met the Cullens—too long ago for Natasha to possibly know, she's a good spy but Natasha hadn't even been born yet—Alice can't help it, she giggles. Jasper has taken a breath to answer, but he glances at her and gives her a little nod. She knows what he was going to say, she thinks, and it should come from her.
Their girl has been through far too much, enough that Alice's heart aches for the little girl in Russia and the woman she's become, and Alice laces her fingers through Natasha's. "That's exactly what Jasper said," she says with a fond smile, slowly carding the fingers of her other hand through Natasha's hair. "Jasper killed for a long time. To survive, but that doesn't make it...any easier to bear. For either of us. But the way he looks...you can't tell as much while you're human, but when you're changed and you see him, you'll understand. Vampires are afraid of him instinctively. He thought Carlisle would decide that he was too dangerous to be around his family. That he'd been on the violent path for too long. But I told him that wouldn't happen, and that's not what happened."
She shifts to rest her cool chin against Natasha's forehead. "Carlisle won't decide that this time either," she says, with that quiet certainty that her family has grown so familiar with over the years. "I know he won't, I've seen it and once he meets you, he wants you to be a part of the family. But," she meets Jasper's eyes, "I know that isn't enough." She falls silent, forgetting to breathe while she pieces together the wording for what she's trying to say.
"Carlisle spent years with the Volturi," she says at last, deciding that head-on is the best angle after all. "He didn't approve of the way they lived, but he still spent a long time with them, and lived like they did. He doesn't know how many people he killed before choosing to live a different life. Jasper doesn't know how many, but it must be thousands. Edward went off on his own after Carlisle changed him. Rosalie killed her murderers. Emmett had trouble adjusting." She sighs a little. "Even I couldn't resist sometimes. We live the way we do because of what we've done, because we want to be better." Then she smiles, that bright smile with a hint of mischief in it. "I'm afraid you're just going to fit right in."
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moodshifter) wrote2017-02-16 01:26 pm
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"Leah, go back to the pack," he orders, scowling and pointing. "Just, go on, it's just Jazz, I'm fine, I don't need backup, go tell Sam what's happening."
Leah gets in Seth's face immediately, and Jasper doesn't move a muscle, attuned carefully to the emotional state of both wolves. Seth's irritation and embarrassment comes on more than one level, likely as a little brother and as a leader, and Leah's anger is resentment too, and he doesn't think it's just the old usual resentment aimed at him and his kind. That's something to keep an eye on.
Seth matches his sister toe to toe, though, unblinking, and almost before the conflict becomes a conflict at all Leah takes a step back, darts an angry look at Natasha and a look of loathing at Jasper, and turns to sprint for the woods. She's a wolf before she makes the trees, and the rustling of leaves is finished only a few seconds later. Seth sighs a little and turns back to Jasper, but he shakes his head.
"Don't worry. We're still what we are. But now that it's just you, there is something else you should know." Jasper glances at Natasha, and back to Seth. "The Volturi are coming, sometime soon, and before they get here, she'll be changed. At her own request."
Before Seth can react more than his gaping stare, Jasper tips his head toward Natasha, leaving the floor to her for the explanation, however much she wants to give. It's not exactly the same situation as Bella's had been, but if this is going to be a problem for the pack, they need to know now.
no subject
She watches as Leah finally backs down and sprints away, and only then does her attention turn back to Seth to find him gaping at her at Jasper's announcement. "If you know who I am then I think that you know the Volturi are only a fraction of my worries right now." She cracks a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "This is one of the only paths of safety for me, and it's being done at my request. I might not be around much longer unless I take action. And it'll be easier for me to hold my own when a portal opens in the sky to unleash unholy hell on Manhattan next time. Last time I think I just got really lucky."
Her attention then moves to Jasper, and she reaches out to place a hand on his arm with a gentle touch before it slips down to lace her fingers between his own. "Those were the important factors that we wanted to update you on. The family is returning and we should be getting back to Alice, they're still briefing me on what I should expect with everybody's abilities." She gives Seth a subtle wink. "I like to be prepared."
no subject
He opens his fingers when Natasha's hand slides down his arm, and gives her hand a careful, firm squeeze. "Carlisle will change her when they arrive," he says steadily, "we'll watch over her during her transformation, we'll take her hunting when she opens her eyes again. Alice and Natasha and myself have an understanding."
This new announcement, coming so hard on the heels of the news that the Black Widow is going to be a vampire soon because she wants to be, is clearly just a little too much for Seth to handle gracefully. He's still gaping, and his emotions are seesawing a little wildly between concern and disgust and disbelief and the exhilaration he's still riding on from getting to meet Natasha Romanoff in the first place. Even Jasper can't really tell them apart anymore. "That's all we had to say," he says with a respectful nod. "We won't keep you. Pleasure to see you again, Seth. Please give my regards to Sam and the rest of the pack, whatever they'd like to do with them."
The wry well-wishes are enough for Seth to collect himself a little more, and he nods back jerkily before taking a step back. "Um, nice to see you too. Nice to meet you. I guess we'll, um. Come talk to us when the, the other bloodsuckers get close enough to start making trouble and we'll see what we can do, I guess."
"That's kind of you, I'll do that," Jasper says, still unmoving, Natasha's palm warm in his hand. She's the one who reached for him first, and Jasper knows that hadn't passed Seth's notice. He looks down at their joined hands for a long moment, then takes another step back before turning and trotting for the bushes. Jasper doesn't move until he hears the transformation and the gallop of paws heading away from them, back toward the shore. "I think that went decidedly well, considering all we had for them was bad news."
no subject
"It was nice to meet you as well Seth." Another polite smile and then the boy is off, and she waits silently for Jasper to speak before giving a single nod. Her eyes linger on the spot where the boy disappeared into the woods, and it takes her a few moments to finally respond.
"Just once I want to wake up and find out that the most complicated thing going on about my day is that I forgot to go grocery shopping. But, no. Werewolves. That's fine too." She sighs, turning to lean up and kiss Jasper on the cheek before she starts to head back to the jeep. "Come on, I need to shower. Seth was nice but I need to get the residue of Leah's glare off of me."
Once they get back to the house she showers, and the day goes by somewhat painlessly. She spends the day distracted though, the look on Jasper's face at the mention of her code name one that she can't seem to wipe from her minds eye, and although a part of her knows that he'd never press, another part of her is more than aware that the rest of the family could have watched the news while they were all separated. Jasper and Alice are going to find out about her past at some point, and by the time night comes she decides that she rather it come from her than anyone else.
So after she changes into sleep sleep shorts Natasha walks downstairs, and this time she doesn't hesitate to drape herself across both Jasper and Alice, her head in Alice's lap and her legs stretched across Jasper's. "What are the chances that your family watches television or reads the paper?" She does her best to sound casual, but she's nervous. Whether it shows or not, she's unsure. "...They might not like me very much."
no subject
He fills Alice in on their wolfy conversation while Natasha showers, every last detail, including Leah's input and letting Seth know about Natasha's upcoming change. They talk about the family returning, what they'll need to do before they arrive, airing out the house, figuring out a time and a place for Natasha to be comfortable. As comfortable as anyone can be with the venom in them. Jasper admits that he doesn't like the idea of causing her that kind of pain, and Alice curls up into him and nods, her fragile face a picture of misery for a moment, before she reminds him with false cheer that she knows Natasha will be fine. They leave it at that, it's all they can do.
When Natasha comes back down and joins them, Alice's fingers card through her hair and Jasper rubs a hand along her calf slowly. "They'll love you," Alice says and drops a kiss onto Natasha's forehead. "Why on earth wouldn't they?"
no subject
"Seth recognized me today." She lets it linger in the air for a moment although she knows that the significance of that won't be recognized by either of them, considering that they don't watch the news at all. It's something Natasha had been grateful for.
"I'm not just hiding here because I leaked all of those files, there were things in the files that people might not be comfortable seeing." And if their family saw them then... well, Natasha wouldn't be surprised if she has quite the uphill battle ahead of her. Her eyes open as she stares up at Alice only to turn her head and tuck it against the woman's lap and look at Jasper instead. "I was raised in Russia, in a place called the Red Room." Because if they're going to find out, she wants it to be from her and not from a media source.
She tells them what she feels to be necessary, everything that would be in her file. She doesn't mention the young women she had to dispose of in the Red Room, because although there may be speculation about that nobody can prove that Natasha had to partake in it and it's not something she readily speaks about. She doesn't mention the trials that they put her through or the number of men she'd killed, but she does inform them that she was formerly an agent of the KGB. She tells them how Clint had brought her over to SHIELD, and how she always worked in the shadows, so her face being exposed so publicly is, effectively, the end of an era.
"My code name was Black Widow, which is what Seth called me when we met with him and his rabid dog." She looks up at Alice again. "If they released that then they probably released a lot more and I don't know how much of it your family knows. Or if they'll have a problem with it all." With a sigh Natasha runs her fingers through her hair before moving to sit up, suddenly restless. "I need to be changed, there are going to be people after me that may actually be able to hurt me if I stay like this, and I don't want Carlisle to decide that I'm too dangerous to be around his family."
no subject
Their girl has been through far too much, enough that Alice's heart aches for the little girl in Russia and the woman she's become, and Alice laces her fingers through Natasha's. "That's exactly what Jasper said," she says with a fond smile, slowly carding the fingers of her other hand through Natasha's hair. "Jasper killed for a long time. To survive, but that doesn't make it...any easier to bear. For either of us. But the way he looks...you can't tell as much while you're human, but when you're changed and you see him, you'll understand. Vampires are afraid of him instinctively. He thought Carlisle would decide that he was too dangerous to be around his family. That he'd been on the violent path for too long. But I told him that wouldn't happen, and that's not what happened."
She shifts to rest her cool chin against Natasha's forehead. "Carlisle won't decide that this time either," she says, with that quiet certainty that her family has grown so familiar with over the years. "I know he won't, I've seen it and once he meets you, he wants you to be a part of the family. But," she meets Jasper's eyes, "I know that isn't enough." She falls silent, forgetting to breathe while she pieces together the wording for what she's trying to say.
"Carlisle spent years with the Volturi," she says at last, deciding that head-on is the best angle after all. "He didn't approve of the way they lived, but he still spent a long time with them, and lived like they did. He doesn't know how many people he killed before choosing to live a different life. Jasper doesn't know how many, but it must be thousands. Edward went off on his own after Carlisle changed him. Rosalie killed her murderers. Emmett had trouble adjusting." She sighs a little. "Even I couldn't resist sometimes. We live the way we do because of what we've done, because we want to be better." Then she smiles, that bright smile with a hint of mischief in it. "I'm afraid you're just going to fit right in."