"Whispered On The Winds," Highlander/Marvel, part 3/5
Part 3 is on the AO3 here; the earlier parts are also on Dreamwidth, at part 1 and part 2.
Rated: R most likely. Some spoilers for several of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, particularly Iron Man. The Highlander elements come in via Killa and Lapilus' amazing Alternate Universe vid, "Opportunities." Written for an art prompt from Pentapus' Reverse Bigbang, and for Crossover100 prompt #79 -- desert.
Whispered On The Winds
1987, Bhutan border
The wind whipped snow across one cheek, biting at skin that wanted to go numb. Natasha's head was throbbing; her ribs burned steadily and felt almost trapped, which was better than stabbing pains. Almost everything ached, actually, but there was warmth along her chest and one cheek, a strong weight along the back of her thighs, pressure against her stomach.
Natasha summoned enough concentration to realize she was hanging over someone's shoulder, someone who was straining to carry her up through the biting cold. He grunted from his efforts occasionally but didn't say anything to tell her language, nationality, or where she was.
She tried to open her eyes to see where she was, if her hands were tied -- her feet were no help, numb in her boots -- and passed out again.
When Natasha woke a second time, the wind's howl had dulled and her hands and feet were prickling with pins and needles. The air smelled of burning dung with a very little wood in the mix; there was heat along her right arm and thigh. Someone was patiently trying to get her to drink something warm out of a metal cup. She had one hand around the cup, pressing it away; its warmth felt almost scalding against her skin.
Whoever her rescuer was, he had her braced in his lap, one arm still tight around her arms and torso. His voice was almost familiar although she didn't think she'd heard him speak Russian before. At least his accent was good.
"Tea, damn it, woman. It's just tea. It's warm, it's got sugar in it, and yak butter, and I don't care how it smells or tastes, it's warm and it has calories and you're going to drink it--"
She could smell the tea, now: trader's tea, strong and smoky. There was a faintly sweet note to it, yes, and that damn rancid butter, but she couldn't smell anything else. Which wasn't much comfort. If she had to bet on anyone coming up with a poison she'd never seen before, well, some of her money would go on Ben Marchand, Benigno Alfaro, or whatever his name was this year.
He was right, though. She was much too cold, even for the way she healed. Natasha took a tentative sip, her eyes barely open where her eyelashes had frozen together. After a moment, when she couldn't catalog any oddities to it (damn the yak butter), she drank more of it.
"About time," he said, sounding relieved. "So? Are you back with me now?"
"Now?" Natasha asked -- rasped, really. Her throat was rough, her voice hoarse. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there've been at least three of you who've talked to me on the trail. One insisted she was late and the chorus manager was going to take a cane to her. One of them said, 'Ah, you,' and tried to kill me."
Natasha didn't wince, but she did drink more of the tea to buy a moment of thought. It was hard. Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and what light she'd seen was rainbow-haloed. "I have a concussion, don't I?"
"If you're here and will hold still, I'll check," he said grimly. "I didn't dare before. You'd have tried to bite my face off."
"I'm here, Dr. Marchand." The name got a huff of a laugh before he cupped a hand over her eyes and began to exhale warm air onto her face. It felt hot to her skin, but she held still as her eyelashes thawed and dripped saltwater onto her cheeks.
Both his arms were around her now, with the edges of his coat wrapped up over the unzipped edges of hers. The two of them made up their own bundle of meager warmth, his back supported by the stone wall her feet were propped on. Like her feet, he was probably cold; the wind howling outside was leaching the heat from the stone.
He studied her eyes when she managed to get them open. "Your pupils are even in this light. I'm going to use a lighter, see how they react." Natasha appreciated the warning; she might have tried to jump off his lap at the clack and rasp of metal. Her headache spiked with the orange and blue flame but he nodded, relieved. "And they contracted evenly. No concussion now, anyway. How much pain are you in? Odd color effects when you look around, sharp or stabbing pains in your head, sounds, light, or touch painful?"
"Do you really think I'm going to admit to any of that?" Natasha held her voice even, but it really was a foolish set of questions.
"Not really," he said. "There's not much I can do for any of it either, other than shut up if you need quiet, so I probably should have saved my breath. Habit." He shrugged, careful not to dislodge their coats. "But the wind won't be quiet for you, so no point in my offering either."
"Where are we?" Natasha burrowed against him, but carefully; her ribs were still sore. Her entire left side was, really, with the dull ache of worse wounds only recently healed and not solidly healed yet at that. "How badly was I injured?"
"You've been unconscious most of the day. As cold as it's been, I'm not entirely surprised. We're over the Bhutan border," Marchand said. "Possibly even far enough over that the Chinese patrols won't bother us. I think we're in a shepherd's hut. Whatever it is, the walls are intact, there was a little wood for the fire, and I dug out pots and blankets."
Natasha focused on keeping her breathing even. "Bhutan? What are we doing here?"
"Well, I was on my way to Sri Lanka from Nepal," Marchand said dryly.
"By way of China, I assume? Don't they object to that?" Natasha asked, equally dry. She drank the last of the tea and forced herself not to complain when he moved, letting in a draft. The cup came back into her hand, warm with more tea, and she drank that too. If he'd drugged her, she already had it in her system at this point. And he was right; she needed the liquid.
"Of course they would. That's why I don't mention it to them and keep moving. Imagine my surprise when I found a downed Chinese army patrol and then you, halfway under a landslide." More seriously, he said, "I wrapped your ribs and the worst of the gashes, then I got us both out of there. Part of your headache may be from the fireman's carry up that goat or llama trail, by which I mean you hung upside-down most of the day. It was risk the blood to the head or blood in your lungs, and your ribs were cracked all down that left side."
"You needed your hands free," Natasha agreed, wincing a little as memories jostled loose -- fireman's carry, words in English, in Russian, a fire in a hospital, a nurse smiling at her as she stitched up Natasha's arm....
Fingers snapped in front of her nose. Focusing on them hurt momentarily, then the spike of pain was gone and Marchand was studying her, worried. "You're still sliding in and out on me."
"I will be fine." She looked at him, frowning. "You look the same age."
"Yes, although not the same way you still look twenty-some," Marchand said grimly. "What did the Soviets do, try that Super Soldier Serum on--" He cut himself off.
Natasha didn't even stiffen in his grip. "It's all right. You can say it."
Marchand curled around her more tightly. "You're still shivering. And I think I'll just stop speculating right there. You're probably going to think you have to kill me again anyway, aren't you?"
Oddly, he sounded both resigned and almost amused by it. How strange, he knew her well enough to know that carrying her to safety all day wouldn't sway her. It was almost... nice to have run into him again, into someone who understood the nuances under her words. She smiled despite herself, amused by his sense of humor.
What she said, however, was, "I quit." Natasha had to pause, momentarily startled by how much more real the decision was now that she'd said it aloud to someone. "Defected. Told them all which route to take to the devil. I don't know if they've sent the Chinese after me, or if I'm too good an opportunity for the Chinese to miss. It's even possible it's just bad luck."
Marchand looked at her, his gaze steady and evaluating. "You quit... what, KGB, GRU, something farther in than those?"
"Much deeper down than those," Natasha said softly. "I don't mind you wondering. It's nothing I haven't thought a time or six. I don't know what they did to me, but yes, it may have been some version of that serum. Any information on that project was always a high priority, sometimes higher than the rest of the mission. But you're right; I'm not aging. Not that I can tell. Many of the others I trained with died very young and very badly."
He pressed carefully at her ribs; the pain felt like a days-old bruise, not a crack or break. "Those are healing quickly. You don't seem worried one of those other three personalities might be stronger than you are." His voice suggested that he considered her possible instability a much more serious problem than her ribs or any brain injury.
"I've done a great deal of deep cover work. I may just have lost time." Natasha shook her head deliberately, for the spike of pain, wondering if he'd lied about a concussion or about drugs in the tea. "Why am I telling you any of this?"
"Because I'm not part of it?" he suggested sardonically. More seriously, Marchand went on, "You're saying it here and now because you need to say it out loud and you know I'd never dream of telling anyone. Not least because you've kept my secrets." He shrugged. "We both know that if I ever did give your secrets away, you'd return the favor."
Even concussed, that had the sound of truth to her. Truth, and pragmatism, and self-interests aligned where she needed to have them.
"Why did you rescue me?" Natasha finally asked, and suppressed a sigh of relief as her headache finally receded, clearing her vision as it faded.
Marchand watched her by the firelight, ignoring the winds still howling around the cottage. He finally said, "Because you might live a long time if I give you some help. It's nice running into you now and then." Natasha could hear something hidden under those truths, but Marchand distracted her by refilling her tea again. He stole a sip for himself on the way and admitted, "Then there's the part where I'd have hated not knowing what happened to you. And yes, I know, I'm too curious for my own good."
That was truth too -- he was both amused by it and resigned to the danger his curiosity put him in. Natasha laughed softly and slipped into English to tease him. "Well, it's a nice big nose to poke into other people's business."
"Always the nose," he complained, his voice mostly serious, but she could hear laughter dancing beneath his words. "No one's appreciated my nose properly in ages."
"I'm not sure who would appreciate that nose properly," she said and curled into him more thoroughly, ribs finally aching less under their wrappings. "Is there food?"
"You need fuel to heal, yes," he agreed. "I threw what I had together into a pot to heat. It won't taste wonderful, but it's food. We'll need to walk out tomorrow; I didn't bring food for two, especially one healing your wounds."
"'We'." Natasha wrapped her tattered coat more firmly around her; she pulled the brightly patterned, faintly sheep-scented blanket around her, too. "Why are you helping me?"
"I like your sense of humor," he said dryly.
"And I'll owe you another debt?" Natasha asked. So few people had ever seen her sense of humor that she ignored the rest of his explanation.
"It wouldn't change much. You already owe me one." He reached over and stirred the fire up a little more, careful not to lose them body heat -- or too worried about who'd wake up at a 'new' touch if he let go of her. "Don't look so grim. I rarely collect on them, as you may've noticed."
"That only means you're desperate when you do." Natasha watched him closely and was rewarded with a sudden smile.
"Well, yes. So are you when you call in favors, I imagine. No, I don't need one just now. I just killed off an identity -- quite successfully; avalanche, hiker, you know the routine, I'm sure --" and she nodded, because she did. "I probably should have expected you to show up, since I'm 'dead' again."
He inclined his head to her, a surprisingly graceful motion from a man who'd tried so hard to look gawky in the Pacific. "Adam Pierson, at your service. I start grad school in Europe this fall."
"Again?" Natasha asked, bemused. "Don't you get tired of studying?"
"Why? I have yet to make it through the sum of human knowledge. And it's not as if I'm easily bored." He swung over the pot full of rehydrated meat and vegetables. The stew was hot and had calories; that was more important than the taste. It tasted better than Russian army winter rations, anyway.
Now that she wasn't freezing, or starving, or aching, it was getting harder to stay awake. Natasha made herself ask, "How far into Bhutan are we?"
"Fifteen miles or so. We'd be farther but the storm was getting worse and there was shelter here."
Natasha asked, "Why do you keep saying 'we'?"
Adam shrugged and curled back into the coats with her, a mug full of mystery stew in his hand. "If they're still looking for me, it's for a lone hiker. If they're looking for you, it's by yourself. What I heard of your reputation doesn't often include a partner."
"No, not often." She considered him. "And on the rare times I repeated the partnership, he looked not much like you. His nose was less--"
"Distinguished?" Adam asked, smirking.
"Less," she left it at, deliberately dry. "Broader shoulders, too, and less height. And yes, I see your points."
"It's in both our interests to travel together a while," he agreed. "I'm headed to Paris, myself, but would anyone be looking for you in Belgium?"
She knew that deliberately casual air, had used it herself more than once. He'd better hope he'd used it as a courtesy, rather than thinking it would fool her. "Why Belgium?"
He studied her very seriously before he said, "Because you have at least four personalities in there at the moment, and you're extremely dangerous, to me and to others around you."
Natasha felt herself freeze. "Are you threatening me?"
"I'm offering to find you help that will keep your secrets." Adam matched her stillness, as close to unthreatening as he could manage.
Rather than say anything, she leaned forward, scooped the last of the stew into their mugs, and then ate her share. She finally looked up at him and said, "Your help has secrets of his or her own and is dangerous, too. Yes?"
"Yes," Adam agreed. "It would be another trade of secrets. You'd have to know some of his before you'd be willing to tell him enough of yours to do you any good." His mouth tightened and twisted. "And I'm not about to tell him this, but yes. I'd trust him."
"If you really had to," Natasha interpreted. "And not until then."
He shrugged. "He wasn't around when I really needed a confessor. I found one of my own. I can't take you to Paris; it has too many embassies for you to stay for long." He cocked his head as if to ask if he was wrong.
"Brussels isn't much better," Natasha warned.
That got her an incredulous look. "Of course I wouldn't take you to Brussels. Tell me yes or no as we travel. Try to give me at least a few hours' warning to convince him not to kill me for this, hmm?"
"I think I like him already."
Adam laughed at that, and after a moment, Natasha smiled too. She curled against him for warmth and decided not to chase off what help she had. There'd be time on the way through Bhutan and India to see if the other personalities had been the result of the concussion... or a 'present' left by the Red Room.
If they'd left traps in her mind then she'd go and meet this help of Adam's. He'd better not be a priest, however. Secrets of his own or not, she didn't think there was enough forgiveness for some of hers.
}{ }{ }{ }{
Comments, Commentary, & Miscellanea:
KGB was the Russian government intelligence agency. GRU was the Russian military intelligence.
For the Highlander fans, Black Widow's sometime partner was Winter Soldier. (He shows up in Mismatched Pieces, the next story in this loose series.)
Methos was thinking of taking Natasha to Sean Burns, who's working in Belgium that year. The priest in Paris isn't Darius, it's Emrys, the immortal whose quickening Darius took in the normal HL universe. Here, Darius never took a Light Quickening, although he has taken over a small chunk of Europe during WWII. (Doom has Latveria; first Darius and now -- officially -- Grayson have Lykaenia.) What can I say, Methos doesn't think Emrys is quite up Natasha's pragmatism. I'm not sure why; Emrys has coped with Death before.
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW
Given the new LJ 'design' decisions, please comment on DW if you can.
Rated: R most likely. Some spoilers for several of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, particularly Iron Man. The Highlander elements come in via Killa and Lapilus' amazing Alternate Universe vid, "Opportunities." Written for an art prompt from Pentapus' Reverse Bigbang, and for Crossover100 prompt #79 -- desert.
Whispered On The Winds
1987, Bhutan border
The wind whipped snow across one cheek, biting at skin that wanted to go numb. Natasha's head was throbbing; her ribs burned steadily and felt almost trapped, which was better than stabbing pains. Almost everything ached, actually, but there was warmth along her chest and one cheek, a strong weight along the back of her thighs, pressure against her stomach.
Natasha summoned enough concentration to realize she was hanging over someone's shoulder, someone who was straining to carry her up through the biting cold. He grunted from his efforts occasionally but didn't say anything to tell her language, nationality, or where she was.
She tried to open her eyes to see where she was, if her hands were tied -- her feet were no help, numb in her boots -- and passed out again.
When Natasha woke a second time, the wind's howl had dulled and her hands and feet were prickling with pins and needles. The air smelled of burning dung with a very little wood in the mix; there was heat along her right arm and thigh. Someone was patiently trying to get her to drink something warm out of a metal cup. She had one hand around the cup, pressing it away; its warmth felt almost scalding against her skin.
Whoever her rescuer was, he had her braced in his lap, one arm still tight around her arms and torso. His voice was almost familiar although she didn't think she'd heard him speak Russian before. At least his accent was good.
"Tea, damn it, woman. It's just tea. It's warm, it's got sugar in it, and yak butter, and I don't care how it smells or tastes, it's warm and it has calories and you're going to drink it--"
She could smell the tea, now: trader's tea, strong and smoky. There was a faintly sweet note to it, yes, and that damn rancid butter, but she couldn't smell anything else. Which wasn't much comfort. If she had to bet on anyone coming up with a poison she'd never seen before, well, some of her money would go on Ben Marchand, Benigno Alfaro, or whatever his name was this year.
He was right, though. She was much too cold, even for the way she healed. Natasha took a tentative sip, her eyes barely open where her eyelashes had frozen together. After a moment, when she couldn't catalog any oddities to it (damn the yak butter), she drank more of it.
"About time," he said, sounding relieved. "So? Are you back with me now?"
"Now?" Natasha asked -- rasped, really. Her throat was rough, her voice hoarse. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there've been at least three of you who've talked to me on the trail. One insisted she was late and the chorus manager was going to take a cane to her. One of them said, 'Ah, you,' and tried to kill me."
Natasha didn't wince, but she did drink more of the tea to buy a moment of thought. It was hard. Her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and what light she'd seen was rainbow-haloed. "I have a concussion, don't I?"
"If you're here and will hold still, I'll check," he said grimly. "I didn't dare before. You'd have tried to bite my face off."
"I'm here, Dr. Marchand." The name got a huff of a laugh before he cupped a hand over her eyes and began to exhale warm air onto her face. It felt hot to her skin, but she held still as her eyelashes thawed and dripped saltwater onto her cheeks.
Both his arms were around her now, with the edges of his coat wrapped up over the unzipped edges of hers. The two of them made up their own bundle of meager warmth, his back supported by the stone wall her feet were propped on. Like her feet, he was probably cold; the wind howling outside was leaching the heat from the stone.
He studied her eyes when she managed to get them open. "Your pupils are even in this light. I'm going to use a lighter, see how they react." Natasha appreciated the warning; she might have tried to jump off his lap at the clack and rasp of metal. Her headache spiked with the orange and blue flame but he nodded, relieved. "And they contracted evenly. No concussion now, anyway. How much pain are you in? Odd color effects when you look around, sharp or stabbing pains in your head, sounds, light, or touch painful?"
"Do you really think I'm going to admit to any of that?" Natasha held her voice even, but it really was a foolish set of questions.
"Not really," he said. "There's not much I can do for any of it either, other than shut up if you need quiet, so I probably should have saved my breath. Habit." He shrugged, careful not to dislodge their coats. "But the wind won't be quiet for you, so no point in my offering either."
"Where are we?" Natasha burrowed against him, but carefully; her ribs were still sore. Her entire left side was, really, with the dull ache of worse wounds only recently healed and not solidly healed yet at that. "How badly was I injured?"
"You've been unconscious most of the day. As cold as it's been, I'm not entirely surprised. We're over the Bhutan border," Marchand said. "Possibly even far enough over that the Chinese patrols won't bother us. I think we're in a shepherd's hut. Whatever it is, the walls are intact, there was a little wood for the fire, and I dug out pots and blankets."
Natasha focused on keeping her breathing even. "Bhutan? What are we doing here?"
"Well, I was on my way to Sri Lanka from Nepal," Marchand said dryly.
"By way of China, I assume? Don't they object to that?" Natasha asked, equally dry. She drank the last of the tea and forced herself not to complain when he moved, letting in a draft. The cup came back into her hand, warm with more tea, and she drank that too. If he'd drugged her, she already had it in her system at this point. And he was right; she needed the liquid.
"Of course they would. That's why I don't mention it to them and keep moving. Imagine my surprise when I found a downed Chinese army patrol and then you, halfway under a landslide." More seriously, he said, "I wrapped your ribs and the worst of the gashes, then I got us both out of there. Part of your headache may be from the fireman's carry up that goat or llama trail, by which I mean you hung upside-down most of the day. It was risk the blood to the head or blood in your lungs, and your ribs were cracked all down that left side."
"You needed your hands free," Natasha agreed, wincing a little as memories jostled loose -- fireman's carry, words in English, in Russian, a fire in a hospital, a nurse smiling at her as she stitched up Natasha's arm....
Fingers snapped in front of her nose. Focusing on them hurt momentarily, then the spike of pain was gone and Marchand was studying her, worried. "You're still sliding in and out on me."
"I will be fine." She looked at him, frowning. "You look the same age."
"Yes, although not the same way you still look twenty-some," Marchand said grimly. "What did the Soviets do, try that Super Soldier Serum on--" He cut himself off.
Natasha didn't even stiffen in his grip. "It's all right. You can say it."
Marchand curled around her more tightly. "You're still shivering. And I think I'll just stop speculating right there. You're probably going to think you have to kill me again anyway, aren't you?"
Oddly, he sounded both resigned and almost amused by it. How strange, he knew her well enough to know that carrying her to safety all day wouldn't sway her. It was almost... nice to have run into him again, into someone who understood the nuances under her words. She smiled despite herself, amused by his sense of humor.
What she said, however, was, "I quit." Natasha had to pause, momentarily startled by how much more real the decision was now that she'd said it aloud to someone. "Defected. Told them all which route to take to the devil. I don't know if they've sent the Chinese after me, or if I'm too good an opportunity for the Chinese to miss. It's even possible it's just bad luck."
Marchand looked at her, his gaze steady and evaluating. "You quit... what, KGB, GRU, something farther in than those?"
"Much deeper down than those," Natasha said softly. "I don't mind you wondering. It's nothing I haven't thought a time or six. I don't know what they did to me, but yes, it may have been some version of that serum. Any information on that project was always a high priority, sometimes higher than the rest of the mission. But you're right; I'm not aging. Not that I can tell. Many of the others I trained with died very young and very badly."
He pressed carefully at her ribs; the pain felt like a days-old bruise, not a crack or break. "Those are healing quickly. You don't seem worried one of those other three personalities might be stronger than you are." His voice suggested that he considered her possible instability a much more serious problem than her ribs or any brain injury.
"I've done a great deal of deep cover work. I may just have lost time." Natasha shook her head deliberately, for the spike of pain, wondering if he'd lied about a concussion or about drugs in the tea. "Why am I telling you any of this?"
"Because I'm not part of it?" he suggested sardonically. More seriously, Marchand went on, "You're saying it here and now because you need to say it out loud and you know I'd never dream of telling anyone. Not least because you've kept my secrets." He shrugged. "We both know that if I ever did give your secrets away, you'd return the favor."
Even concussed, that had the sound of truth to her. Truth, and pragmatism, and self-interests aligned where she needed to have them.
"Why did you rescue me?" Natasha finally asked, and suppressed a sigh of relief as her headache finally receded, clearing her vision as it faded.
Marchand watched her by the firelight, ignoring the winds still howling around the cottage. He finally said, "Because you might live a long time if I give you some help. It's nice running into you now and then." Natasha could hear something hidden under those truths, but Marchand distracted her by refilling her tea again. He stole a sip for himself on the way and admitted, "Then there's the part where I'd have hated not knowing what happened to you. And yes, I know, I'm too curious for my own good."
That was truth too -- he was both amused by it and resigned to the danger his curiosity put him in. Natasha laughed softly and slipped into English to tease him. "Well, it's a nice big nose to poke into other people's business."
"Always the nose," he complained, his voice mostly serious, but she could hear laughter dancing beneath his words. "No one's appreciated my nose properly in ages."
"I'm not sure who would appreciate that nose properly," she said and curled into him more thoroughly, ribs finally aching less under their wrappings. "Is there food?"
"You need fuel to heal, yes," he agreed. "I threw what I had together into a pot to heat. It won't taste wonderful, but it's food. We'll need to walk out tomorrow; I didn't bring food for two, especially one healing your wounds."
"'We'." Natasha wrapped her tattered coat more firmly around her; she pulled the brightly patterned, faintly sheep-scented blanket around her, too. "Why are you helping me?"
"I like your sense of humor," he said dryly.
"And I'll owe you another debt?" Natasha asked. So few people had ever seen her sense of humor that she ignored the rest of his explanation.
"It wouldn't change much. You already owe me one." He reached over and stirred the fire up a little more, careful not to lose them body heat -- or too worried about who'd wake up at a 'new' touch if he let go of her. "Don't look so grim. I rarely collect on them, as you may've noticed."
"That only means you're desperate when you do." Natasha watched him closely and was rewarded with a sudden smile.
"Well, yes. So are you when you call in favors, I imagine. No, I don't need one just now. I just killed off an identity -- quite successfully; avalanche, hiker, you know the routine, I'm sure --" and she nodded, because she did. "I probably should have expected you to show up, since I'm 'dead' again."
He inclined his head to her, a surprisingly graceful motion from a man who'd tried so hard to look gawky in the Pacific. "Adam Pierson, at your service. I start grad school in Europe this fall."
"Again?" Natasha asked, bemused. "Don't you get tired of studying?"
"Why? I have yet to make it through the sum of human knowledge. And it's not as if I'm easily bored." He swung over the pot full of rehydrated meat and vegetables. The stew was hot and had calories; that was more important than the taste. It tasted better than Russian army winter rations, anyway.
Now that she wasn't freezing, or starving, or aching, it was getting harder to stay awake. Natasha made herself ask, "How far into Bhutan are we?"
"Fifteen miles or so. We'd be farther but the storm was getting worse and there was shelter here."
Natasha asked, "Why do you keep saying 'we'?"
Adam shrugged and curled back into the coats with her, a mug full of mystery stew in his hand. "If they're still looking for me, it's for a lone hiker. If they're looking for you, it's by yourself. What I heard of your reputation doesn't often include a partner."
"No, not often." She considered him. "And on the rare times I repeated the partnership, he looked not much like you. His nose was less--"
"Distinguished?" Adam asked, smirking.
"Less," she left it at, deliberately dry. "Broader shoulders, too, and less height. And yes, I see your points."
"It's in both our interests to travel together a while," he agreed. "I'm headed to Paris, myself, but would anyone be looking for you in Belgium?"
She knew that deliberately casual air, had used it herself more than once. He'd better hope he'd used it as a courtesy, rather than thinking it would fool her. "Why Belgium?"
He studied her very seriously before he said, "Because you have at least four personalities in there at the moment, and you're extremely dangerous, to me and to others around you."
Natasha felt herself freeze. "Are you threatening me?"
"I'm offering to find you help that will keep your secrets." Adam matched her stillness, as close to unthreatening as he could manage.
Rather than say anything, she leaned forward, scooped the last of the stew into their mugs, and then ate her share. She finally looked up at him and said, "Your help has secrets of his or her own and is dangerous, too. Yes?"
"Yes," Adam agreed. "It would be another trade of secrets. You'd have to know some of his before you'd be willing to tell him enough of yours to do you any good." His mouth tightened and twisted. "And I'm not about to tell him this, but yes. I'd trust him."
"If you really had to," Natasha interpreted. "And not until then."
He shrugged. "He wasn't around when I really needed a confessor. I found one of my own. I can't take you to Paris; it has too many embassies for you to stay for long." He cocked his head as if to ask if he was wrong.
"Brussels isn't much better," Natasha warned.
That got her an incredulous look. "Of course I wouldn't take you to Brussels. Tell me yes or no as we travel. Try to give me at least a few hours' warning to convince him not to kill me for this, hmm?"
"I think I like him already."
Adam laughed at that, and after a moment, Natasha smiled too. She curled against him for warmth and decided not to chase off what help she had. There'd be time on the way through Bhutan and India to see if the other personalities had been the result of the concussion... or a 'present' left by the Red Room.
If they'd left traps in her mind then she'd go and meet this help of Adam's. He'd better not be a priest, however. Secrets of his own or not, she didn't think there was enough forgiveness for some of hers.
}{ }{ }{ }{
Comments, Commentary, & Miscellanea:
KGB was the Russian government intelligence agency. GRU was the Russian military intelligence.
For the Highlander fans, Black Widow's sometime partner was Winter Soldier. (He shows up in Mismatched Pieces, the next story in this loose series.)
Methos was thinking of taking Natasha to Sean Burns, who's working in Belgium that year. The priest in Paris isn't Darius, it's Emrys, the immortal whose quickening Darius took in the normal HL universe. Here, Darius never took a Light Quickening, although he has taken over a small chunk of Europe during WWII. (Doom has Latveria; first Darius and now -- officially -- Grayson have Lykaenia.) What can I say, Methos doesn't think Emrys is quite up Natasha's pragmatism. I'm not sure why; Emrys has coped with Death before.
Original post on Dreamwidth | Leave a comment on DW | Read
comments on DW
Given the new LJ 'design' decisions, please comment on DW if you can.