humanity (n): chapter one
humanity (n): a state of grace
story rating: eventually R
genre: paranormal AU
characters: Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff
story summary: There are the things that go bump in the night, and there are the people who hunt them. Natasha Romanoff is a vampire who's never been exposed. Clint Barton's the Slayer sent to destroy her. They'd kill each other, if only someone else wasn't trying to kill them first.
dedication: Happy birthday (according to LJ) to workerbee73, who deserves all of the cake and praise. :)
Chapters:
Prologue. One. Two.
author's note: I apologize for the delay in getting this up, but I was out sick for a week. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome!
Chapter One
The Appearances of Things are Deceptive
The cool Montana night was a far cry from the warmth of the day. The heat had long since seeped out of the ledge he was lying on, leaving his gear to insulate him from its chill. There was almost no breeze; fortunate, he thought, staring through the scope at the house below. It would make this a lot simpler. Now if only the star of the show would show up...
If the Scamp and his 'clues' were right, he should be dealing with a succubus. It wasn't that Clint didn't trust the overly eager kid - although he didn't - but if not for the tip they had gotten two day ago, he would have dismissed the supposed trail as more fiction than fact. There were monsters out there clever enough to hide their tracks, though... For a while, at least. When you killed long enough, you made mistakes, and in a world of hunters and Slayers, one mistake would get you killed.
It looked like this succubus had finally made hers.
He let out a slow breath, keeping the rifle trained on the bedroom hundreds of feet away. He'd been out here for hours already, and he'd be out here for hours more if the ghoul was a no-show tonight. That was fine by him; he was, among many things, patient. It wasn't a trait most Slayers appreciated; their profession was far too hack-and-slash for that. But if it bagged him the bitch feeding off of this executive - and, if the Scamp was right, several others - the nights he might spend waiting would pay off. Even if he'd rather be elsewhere, like chatting Talia up in the one bar the nearby town had. He wouldn't mind swinging back through Montana again...
C'mon, sweetheart...
As if his thoughts had summoned her, he caught movement in the corner of the scope. But it wasn't a succubus materializing over her victim, pulling herself to him through their mind link; it was the master bedroom door opening.
What do we have here?
For a second he wondered if it was Sheppard's daughter. Background had noted she had a history of night terrors; even if it meant scaring off the succubus, he wouldn't begrudge her the comfort of her father's arms. He had nightmares too. Being a Slayer meant doing things that haunted your dreams for a long time afterwards.
It was no young girl who walked into the room, however. The woman who entered certainly moved with the predatory grace of a succubus, but her comparative over abundance of clothing and her normal means of breaking and entering made two strikes against the case. Intrigued and annoyed, Clint followed her progress across the thick carpets. If this turned out to be Sheppard's mistress, and not an actual incident, he was going to make the freckle-faced hunter wannabe eat his words. Literally.
Even with the enhancements on his nightscope, it was hard to make out any details. There s something almost familiar about the way her hair was brushing her cheekbones...
Shit.
Talia?
His mind backtracked, trying to connect the amused woman in a diner with the clearly sensual one crossing to the king-sized bed. Her easy smile hadn’t hinted that she was sleeping with someone else, and her flirting certainly hadn't either. The second dinner must have been for her mark, this Mark Sheppard. He sorted through his surprise and confusion, tracking her through the scope. Maybe this really was nothing more than a man fucking his mistress - the way that she was straddling him now, leaning forward, certainly suggested that.
The fangs she revealed as she did so said otherwise.
Stay.
The compulsion rolled out from the woman a hundred and fifty yards away, catching him entirely by surprise. That was the terrible ingenuity of it, the silent snare evolved to take prey and hold them helpless: you never sensed it coming.
Clint tensed, or tried to. His body’s failure respond told him all he needed to know.
Vampire.
Shutting down his alarm, he tried to handle what his eyes were telling him. He was known as Hawkeye for more than his tattoo. If he couldn't trust his sight, he couldn't trust anything at all. So what did he see? The woman he had flirted with hours ago was a vampire. There were two things about that idea that made everything in him balk. Clint picked the easier of the two, the urge to pull the trigger warring with the compulsion’s order, and watched helplessly as Talia neatly tucked her hair behind an ear and bit into Sheppard’s exposed jugular.
Jesus Christ.
Daylight. How the fuck was she able to go out in daylight?
It hadn’t been a trick of his mind, seeing someone else’s face on this monster. She had used the exact same gesture in the diner, the muted light outlining her hair like a halo. Her infection shouldn’t have let her be up during the daylight, let alone out walking in it. Was she something else? Some new hybrid?
Was she immune?
No. He quashed the thought, ruthlessly rationalizing it. It had been late afternoon and fairly clouded at that. She had waited until the clouds had returned, he could see now. That was why she hadn’t stayed longer, chatted more.
Which brought him to the worst of the two issues he had with the impossible creature taking her sweet time drinking from Sheppard.
He had liked her. Jesus H. Christ, he had flirted with her. The monster in his crosshairs had been human - all vampires had been - but more importantly, she had retained some of that humanity, enough to get by with him. Enough to play his interest. Either she was a terrific actor, or…
Frozen on the hill ledge, watching a monster in human shape feed from a monstrous human, Clint wondered just how much of the woman she had been was left.
After several endless minutes, Talia lifted her head up and stilled, listening to some sound he didn’t have a prayer of catching. She rocked back onto her heels, leaving Sheppard propped up against his pillow, the covers eased back. That was when Clint caught the rise and fall of the executive’s chest and realized he was still alive.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Vampires could kill in seconds, maybe minutes, if they wanted to make it slow. But to leave a victim alive after all the time she had been feeding, Talia couldn’t have been doing more than sipping.
What the fuck are you doing? What are you?
What Clint would have given at that moment to have his talisman on and the freedom to move, the ability to stalk down there and catch her. Not kill her, not yet, but to put answers to his questions.
To put a rest to his nightmares.
Up until this point, he hadn’t blamed himself for leaving his talisman off. He had been hunting a succubus, not a vampire, and fending off compulsions wasn’t part of dealing with sex demons. But when he saw Sheppard’s daughter creeping through the doorway, tears on her face and a blanket in one hand, that changed.
Don’t make me watch her die. I don’t care what else happens, just don’t let her die. Please.
Clint didn’t know who he was praying to. Most days, he never did.
“Daddy?” He read her lips as she rubbed her eyes, sniffling. How had she broken the compulsion? What had she done that he couldn’t do?
Of all nights, why had she woken up on this one?
Talia had slipped off of the bed while he had been fighting the implacable command. Now she bent down and scooped the four-year-old up, Clint waiting with every heartbeat to see her tear Lily limb from limb. Waiting to see proof of how little humanity she had left.
“Daddy’s sleeping,” the vampire ‘said’, putting a finger to lips that had been slick with blood a minute ago. “What’s wrong?”
The girl replied, her face hidden from view as she hid her face against Talia’s shoulder and left her neck, her fluttering pulse, within inches of the vampire’s fangs.
Please. Please, I’m asking you…
“Oh, a bad dream? But you’re okay now, all right? You’re okay,” Talia murmured, closing the bedroom door behind her as she stepped out into the hall. Moments later, the signals Clint had been sending his body rushed through. Only his control kept his finger from pulling the trigger, his body tight as a wire and set to fire. One bullet, a bullet made for a succubus no less, wouldn’t slow a vampire down. And he wasn’t going to take the shot and possibly do what the monster hadn’t.
If the child died tonight, it wouldn’t be by his hand.
Clint took a deep breath, slowly relaxing the muscles that had been held immobile against his will. When he had regained control over his body, checking to see if the cold had stiffened his joints, he took one last moment before easing his way off of the ledge.
The game had changed, and so would he.
Clint leaned against the trunk of his car, eyes on the night sky as the dial tone rang in his ear. And rang. And rang.
Click.
“This is Phil Coulson, SHIELD, Oregon base. Leave a message after the tone.”
The Slayer found Andromeda in the myriad of stars and waited for the beep.
“Coulson, when you get this, drop everything and call me. I’ve got a Tuscon on my hands.”
Chapter Two
story rating: eventually R
genre: paranormal AU
characters: Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff
story summary: There are the things that go bump in the night, and there are the people who hunt them. Natasha Romanoff is a vampire who's never been exposed. Clint Barton's the Slayer sent to destroy her. They'd kill each other, if only someone else wasn't trying to kill them first.
dedication: Happy birthday (according to LJ) to workerbee73, who deserves all of the cake and praise. :)
Chapters:
Prologue. One. Two.
author's note: I apologize for the delay in getting this up, but I was out sick for a week. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome!
Chapter One
The Appearances of Things are Deceptive
The cool Montana night was a far cry from the warmth of the day. The heat had long since seeped out of the ledge he was lying on, leaving his gear to insulate him from its chill. There was almost no breeze; fortunate, he thought, staring through the scope at the house below. It would make this a lot simpler. Now if only the star of the show would show up...
If the Scamp and his 'clues' were right, he should be dealing with a succubus. It wasn't that Clint didn't trust the overly eager kid - although he didn't - but if not for the tip they had gotten two day ago, he would have dismissed the supposed trail as more fiction than fact. There were monsters out there clever enough to hide their tracks, though... For a while, at least. When you killed long enough, you made mistakes, and in a world of hunters and Slayers, one mistake would get you killed.
It looked like this succubus had finally made hers.
He let out a slow breath, keeping the rifle trained on the bedroom hundreds of feet away. He'd been out here for hours already, and he'd be out here for hours more if the ghoul was a no-show tonight. That was fine by him; he was, among many things, patient. It wasn't a trait most Slayers appreciated; their profession was far too hack-and-slash for that. But if it bagged him the bitch feeding off of this executive - and, if the Scamp was right, several others - the nights he might spend waiting would pay off. Even if he'd rather be elsewhere, like chatting Talia up in the one bar the nearby town had. He wouldn't mind swinging back through Montana again...
C'mon, sweetheart...
As if his thoughts had summoned her, he caught movement in the corner of the scope. But it wasn't a succubus materializing over her victim, pulling herself to him through their mind link; it was the master bedroom door opening.
What do we have here?
For a second he wondered if it was Sheppard's daughter. Background had noted she had a history of night terrors; even if it meant scaring off the succubus, he wouldn't begrudge her the comfort of her father's arms. He had nightmares too. Being a Slayer meant doing things that haunted your dreams for a long time afterwards.
It was no young girl who walked into the room, however. The woman who entered certainly moved with the predatory grace of a succubus, but her comparative over abundance of clothing and her normal means of breaking and entering made two strikes against the case. Intrigued and annoyed, Clint followed her progress across the thick carpets. If this turned out to be Sheppard's mistress, and not an actual incident, he was going to make the freckle-faced hunter wannabe eat his words. Literally.
Even with the enhancements on his nightscope, it was hard to make out any details. There s something almost familiar about the way her hair was brushing her cheekbones...
Shit.
Talia?
His mind backtracked, trying to connect the amused woman in a diner with the clearly sensual one crossing to the king-sized bed. Her easy smile hadn’t hinted that she was sleeping with someone else, and her flirting certainly hadn't either. The second dinner must have been for her mark, this Mark Sheppard. He sorted through his surprise and confusion, tracking her through the scope. Maybe this really was nothing more than a man fucking his mistress - the way that she was straddling him now, leaning forward, certainly suggested that.
The fangs she revealed as she did so said otherwise.
Stay.
The compulsion rolled out from the woman a hundred and fifty yards away, catching him entirely by surprise. That was the terrible ingenuity of it, the silent snare evolved to take prey and hold them helpless: you never sensed it coming.
Clint tensed, or tried to. His body’s failure respond told him all he needed to know.
Vampire.
Shutting down his alarm, he tried to handle what his eyes were telling him. He was known as Hawkeye for more than his tattoo. If he couldn't trust his sight, he couldn't trust anything at all. So what did he see? The woman he had flirted with hours ago was a vampire. There were two things about that idea that made everything in him balk. Clint picked the easier of the two, the urge to pull the trigger warring with the compulsion’s order, and watched helplessly as Talia neatly tucked her hair behind an ear and bit into Sheppard’s exposed jugular.
Jesus Christ.
Daylight. How the fuck was she able to go out in daylight?
It hadn’t been a trick of his mind, seeing someone else’s face on this monster. She had used the exact same gesture in the diner, the muted light outlining her hair like a halo. Her infection shouldn’t have let her be up during the daylight, let alone out walking in it. Was she something else? Some new hybrid?
Was she immune?
No. He quashed the thought, ruthlessly rationalizing it. It had been late afternoon and fairly clouded at that. She had waited until the clouds had returned, he could see now. That was why she hadn’t stayed longer, chatted more.
Which brought him to the worst of the two issues he had with the impossible creature taking her sweet time drinking from Sheppard.
He had liked her. Jesus H. Christ, he had flirted with her. The monster in his crosshairs had been human - all vampires had been - but more importantly, she had retained some of that humanity, enough to get by with him. Enough to play his interest. Either she was a terrific actor, or…
Frozen on the hill ledge, watching a monster in human shape feed from a monstrous human, Clint wondered just how much of the woman she had been was left.
After several endless minutes, Talia lifted her head up and stilled, listening to some sound he didn’t have a prayer of catching. She rocked back onto her heels, leaving Sheppard propped up against his pillow, the covers eased back. That was when Clint caught the rise and fall of the executive’s chest and realized he was still alive.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Vampires could kill in seconds, maybe minutes, if they wanted to make it slow. But to leave a victim alive after all the time she had been feeding, Talia couldn’t have been doing more than sipping.
What the fuck are you doing? What are you?
What Clint would have given at that moment to have his talisman on and the freedom to move, the ability to stalk down there and catch her. Not kill her, not yet, but to put answers to his questions.
To put a rest to his nightmares.
Up until this point, he hadn’t blamed himself for leaving his talisman off. He had been hunting a succubus, not a vampire, and fending off compulsions wasn’t part of dealing with sex demons. But when he saw Sheppard’s daughter creeping through the doorway, tears on her face and a blanket in one hand, that changed.
Don’t make me watch her die. I don’t care what else happens, just don’t let her die. Please.
Clint didn’t know who he was praying to. Most days, he never did.
“Daddy?” He read her lips as she rubbed her eyes, sniffling. How had she broken the compulsion? What had she done that he couldn’t do?
Of all nights, why had she woken up on this one?
Talia had slipped off of the bed while he had been fighting the implacable command. Now she bent down and scooped the four-year-old up, Clint waiting with every heartbeat to see her tear Lily limb from limb. Waiting to see proof of how little humanity she had left.
“Daddy’s sleeping,” the vampire ‘said’, putting a finger to lips that had been slick with blood a minute ago. “What’s wrong?”
The girl replied, her face hidden from view as she hid her face against Talia’s shoulder and left her neck, her fluttering pulse, within inches of the vampire’s fangs.
Please. Please, I’m asking you…
“Oh, a bad dream? But you’re okay now, all right? You’re okay,” Talia murmured, closing the bedroom door behind her as she stepped out into the hall. Moments later, the signals Clint had been sending his body rushed through. Only his control kept his finger from pulling the trigger, his body tight as a wire and set to fire. One bullet, a bullet made for a succubus no less, wouldn’t slow a vampire down. And he wasn’t going to take the shot and possibly do what the monster hadn’t.
If the child died tonight, it wouldn’t be by his hand.
Clint took a deep breath, slowly relaxing the muscles that had been held immobile against his will. When he had regained control over his body, checking to see if the cold had stiffened his joints, he took one last moment before easing his way off of the ledge.
The game had changed, and so would he.
Clint leaned against the trunk of his car, eyes on the night sky as the dial tone rang in his ear. And rang. And rang.
Click.
“This is Phil Coulson, SHIELD, Oregon base. Leave a message after the tone.”
The Slayer found Andromeda in the myriad of stars and waited for the beep.
“Coulson, when you get this, drop everything and call me. I’ve got a Tuscon on my hands.”
Chapter Two