August 3: Precious
Title: Precious
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Fandom: Black Widow, BtVS
Character(s): Willow, Xander, Wisdom the Vampire Slayer, Melina Vostokoff
Rating: PG/FR-13
Summary: Willow has to get her head wrapped around this situation that's landed on her doorstep before she, y'know, blows something up.
Length: ~965 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that’s probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: Spoilers for Black Widow. For BTVS, set after S7 and borrows random bits from the comics.
Notes2: Spoilers for Black Widow! Don't say I didn't warn you.
Notes3: Follows Rarified and Committed
Willow set down the sample in her hand for what had to be the for fourth time. Maybe it was the tenth. Yes, definitely the tenth if she counted all the times she'd simply stopped to breathe, holding the sample away from her body without actually letting it go. Those were the times her mind had simply whited.
At least twice she'd started off by holding the sample away from herself, but when she'd felt anger roll through her in a wave starting at her feet, she had scrambled to stick the sample vial back in the holder before the breath of her fury could fill the lab and destroy the sensitive equipment it contained.
She should have told Xander that she couldn't do this. Sure Willow had a reputation as their local genius where anything STEM-nerdy was concerned, but this might require the work of someone with a PhD. Maybe if hadn't all but specialized in magic and tech... No, this needed a real professional.
And then there was the story of the women themselves.
Prudence Komunyaka, the slayer in charge of monitoring all of Slayer Central's borders, had tracked the large helicopter as soon as it was on the outer edge of their radar, alerting Xander to it's unusual behavior. And it hadn't gotten any less strange. Her twin, Wisdom, had led the team to "greet" the chopper when it landed.
Like her sister, Wisdom was known as much for her ability to keep up with Andrew at his goofiest, as well steady and levelheadedness. If the Komunyaka sisters said the sky was falling, it was time to take cover.
So to see Wisdom visibly rein herself in as she described a transport helicopter full of "approximately twenty-five disoriented and apprehensive women in highly specialized tac gear, positively *bristling* with weapons who could hardly stand to be near us. D’you know that game where you clear the room by walking your character towards the crowd and they scatter? It was like that. I have never seen anything like it before. If we weren’t in the heli, I swear they would have all run for it. I’ve no idea how their leader managed to speak to us. She is an older women, yes, but she was much better than any of them."
"Like she was guilty and couldn't meet your eyes?" Andrew's question had somehow been both shrewd and overeager.
"No. Her face could not meet my face or any other part of my person. And not only myself, but also every slayer on my team. At one point I turned away to address Mizumi behind me. According to Mizumi, she could not look at me even then. None of them could. It was entirely too strange."
Only one person on the transport had been able to look at Wisdom and her team directly. "And not merely look at us. She stared, though I think she is blind in one eye."
"Then she came to the right place!" Xander's joke had fallen flat on its face but he hadn't seemed to mind. After a moment, he had added, "Think maybe they'll be able to talk to me? I'm only slayer-adjacent."
(There had also been a blustery older dad-guy who also had issues with the slayers, but it was sentimental and strange variety. Like he was both delighted and heartbroken to have run into the grown up versions of his kids' best friends though no one at Slayer Central had ever seen him before.)
Xander had tried talking to their leader. And it had been better. It was better still when Willow had shown up and suggested they move the discussion outside the castle entirely.
Seated around a table in the middle of the heather, they had learned that the woman’s name was Melina Vostokoff. She was older. She was, or had been, a KGB scientist and specialized assassin known as a Black Widow. The official Black Widow program had gone underground after the end of the USSR and the attempted assassination of the program's director and mastermind. Instead of dying, he'd stepped behind the curtain, dragging generations of girls with him into chemically induced slavery, including Melina's youngest. And starting with his own daughter.
"Not exactly a feminist," Willow had muttered darkly.
"He often claimed that he recycled the one thing the world had too much of. Girls."
Willow and Xander had simultaneously stood from the table and silently walked away, Xander letting her take the lead. And then she'd let Xander continue the discussion on his own when he suggested that it might be best for global safety.
Smirking, Willow had hugged her best friend. "What would I do without the Xan Man?"
"I wouldn't be in this lab," Willow said to herself from where she was crouched on the floor, her hands thrust into her hair. She wished for Tara. She wished for Oz. Their very presence had been calming. None of her other friends or lovers had ever had the same knack for knowing just what she needed even when she didn't.
For once, though, Willow thought she knew what she needed to be okay:
1. To not only recreate the chemical blocker that would free the captive Red Room assassins who where still at large, but also develop a way to deliver it to them all simultaneously around the world,
2. Help the slayer-assassin who had doggedly followed Wisdom and her team with her eyes until Mizumi had volunteered to accompany the scarred woman to the infirmary, and
3. Raise Dreykov from the dead so she could kill him again. Slowly. Apparently Melina's youngest had gotten to him first. Not that it mattered. Death was small potatoes.
Willow popped up from her crouch. She always operated better when she had a plan.
fin
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Fandom: Black Widow, BtVS
Character(s): Willow, Xander, Wisdom the Vampire Slayer, Melina Vostokoff
Rating: PG/FR-13
Summary: Willow has to get her head wrapped around this situation that's landed on her doorstep before she, y'know, blows something up.
Length: ~965 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that’s probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: Spoilers for Black Widow. For BTVS, set after S7 and borrows random bits from the comics.
Notes2: Spoilers for Black Widow! Don't say I didn't warn you.
Notes3: Follows Rarified and Committed
Willow set down the sample in her hand for what had to be the for fourth time. Maybe it was the tenth. Yes, definitely the tenth if she counted all the times she'd simply stopped to breathe, holding the sample away from her body without actually letting it go. Those were the times her mind had simply whited.
At least twice she'd started off by holding the sample away from herself, but when she'd felt anger roll through her in a wave starting at her feet, she had scrambled to stick the sample vial back in the holder before the breath of her fury could fill the lab and destroy the sensitive equipment it contained.
She should have told Xander that she couldn't do this. Sure Willow had a reputation as their local genius where anything STEM-nerdy was concerned, but this might require the work of someone with a PhD. Maybe if hadn't all but specialized in magic and tech... No, this needed a real professional.
And then there was the story of the women themselves.
Prudence Komunyaka, the slayer in charge of monitoring all of Slayer Central's borders, had tracked the large helicopter as soon as it was on the outer edge of their radar, alerting Xander to it's unusual behavior. And it hadn't gotten any less strange. Her twin, Wisdom, had led the team to "greet" the chopper when it landed.
Like her sister, Wisdom was known as much for her ability to keep up with Andrew at his goofiest, as well steady and levelheadedness. If the Komunyaka sisters said the sky was falling, it was time to take cover.
So to see Wisdom visibly rein herself in as she described a transport helicopter full of "approximately twenty-five disoriented and apprehensive women in highly specialized tac gear, positively *bristling* with weapons who could hardly stand to be near us. D’you know that game where you clear the room by walking your character towards the crowd and they scatter? It was like that. I have never seen anything like it before. If we weren’t in the heli, I swear they would have all run for it. I’ve no idea how their leader managed to speak to us. She is an older women, yes, but she was much better than any of them."
"Like she was guilty and couldn't meet your eyes?" Andrew's question had somehow been both shrewd and overeager.
"No. Her face could not meet my face or any other part of my person. And not only myself, but also every slayer on my team. At one point I turned away to address Mizumi behind me. According to Mizumi, she could not look at me even then. None of them could. It was entirely too strange."
Only one person on the transport had been able to look at Wisdom and her team directly. "And not merely look at us. She stared, though I think she is blind in one eye."
"Then she came to the right place!" Xander's joke had fallen flat on its face but he hadn't seemed to mind. After a moment, he had added, "Think maybe they'll be able to talk to me? I'm only slayer-adjacent."
(There had also been a blustery older dad-guy who also had issues with the slayers, but it was sentimental and strange variety. Like he was both delighted and heartbroken to have run into the grown up versions of his kids' best friends though no one at Slayer Central had ever seen him before.)
Xander had tried talking to their leader. And it had been better. It was better still when Willow had shown up and suggested they move the discussion outside the castle entirely.
Seated around a table in the middle of the heather, they had learned that the woman’s name was Melina Vostokoff. She was older. She was, or had been, a KGB scientist and specialized assassin known as a Black Widow. The official Black Widow program had gone underground after the end of the USSR and the attempted assassination of the program's director and mastermind. Instead of dying, he'd stepped behind the curtain, dragging generations of girls with him into chemically induced slavery, including Melina's youngest. And starting with his own daughter.
"Not exactly a feminist," Willow had muttered darkly.
"He often claimed that he recycled the one thing the world had too much of. Girls."
Willow and Xander had simultaneously stood from the table and silently walked away, Xander letting her take the lead. And then she'd let Xander continue the discussion on his own when he suggested that it might be best for global safety.
Smirking, Willow had hugged her best friend. "What would I do without the Xan Man?"
"I wouldn't be in this lab," Willow said to herself from where she was crouched on the floor, her hands thrust into her hair. She wished for Tara. She wished for Oz. Their very presence had been calming. None of her other friends or lovers had ever had the same knack for knowing just what she needed even when she didn't.
For once, though, Willow thought she knew what she needed to be okay:
1. To not only recreate the chemical blocker that would free the captive Red Room assassins who where still at large, but also develop a way to deliver it to them all simultaneously around the world,
2. Help the slayer-assassin who had doggedly followed Wisdom and her team with her eyes until Mizumi had volunteered to accompany the scarred woman to the infirmary, and
3. Raise Dreykov from the dead so she could kill him again. Slowly. Apparently Melina's youngest had gotten to him first. Not that it mattered. Death was small potatoes.
Willow popped up from her crouch. She always operated better when she had a plan.
fin