Title: Hallow's Eve
Synopsis: And so it happened that on one fateful night, a certain Avenger was discovered as being less superhuman and more supernatural.
Warning: If you're squeamish about blood why are you reading an All Hallow's Eve story? You have been thusly warned.
When Natasha came home after a nearly week long SHIELD mission that was only supposed to have lasted a few days, it was still pitch black outside. Well, about as pitch black as New York City can get at night anyways. It being the middle of the night, she wasn't completely surprised that no one was around when she got in.
This suited her just fine. She hadn't eaten in almost 87 hours because there had been a rumour going around that her mark tended to slip a truth serum into the foods and drinks of new employees that lasted more than 3 days. It was a paranoia-driven play, yes, but effective… except in Natasha's case. Her record of not consuming anything resembling sustenance was just past 90 hours. But even so, towards the end, she'd started to fade. As a result, she was ravenous and, as exhausted as she was, she really had to get some food into her system or else.
Dropping her belongings next to the island in the kitchen, she made her way to the fridge. The first thing that hit her was the smell: chicken parmesan. Courtesy of Mean Green's mild mannered counterpart, no doubt… It smelled divine; but it was too well cooked. There had to be something… She opened the freezer.
Bags of mixed vegetables and at least four kinds of ice cream stared back at her from their place next to her sought-after prize. The frozen packs of store-bought meat drew her attention, raw and frosty red. She took one out, a large cut of prime steak and briefly considered eating it cold before wrinkling her nose; that wasn't nearly as appetizing as hot, pulsing bl-
She shook her head and licked her lips to keep from salivating. Putting the slab of meat on a plate, she plopped it into the microwave and eagerly waited for it to defrost. When it was done, the red ice that covered it before had melted into luscious, delicious life-blood; not nearly as hot as she'd like it, but it would do.
Natasha took the plate out and elegantly lifted the steak with two perfectly manicured blood red nails. She tipped the blood on the plate into her mouth and eyed the steak with anticipation.
"Natasha…"
Natasha froze.
No. There was no way she'd missed someone still up, not with her training.
Except that when she'd got in, she'd simply assumed that everyone had already turned in to bed. And, what, with it being nearly three in the morning at the time, the assumption had seemed perfectly valid.
She hadn't taken into account that some of them couldn't sleep.
Slowly, she turned around to face the one that had interrupted her feeding. Her eyes met familiar brown bespectacled ones. She internally let out a sigh of relief. Out of all the Avengers, maybe she could convince this one not to tell her secret, maybe, out of all of them, he'd understand…
"I can explain…" she started.
He was fast, she'd give him that. She'd barely even blinked before the emergency alarms were blaring throughout the residential levels of the newly dubbed Avengers' Tower.
Natasha put the steak down and closed her eyes in defeat. She suddenly wasn't very hungry anymore.
"Go ahead—explain. You have three minutes before the others get here."
But the words wouldn't come. For three minutes, Natasha stood there, a lump stuck in her throat. And for the first time since she was a little girl being trained by the Red Room, she felt like crying for real.
And neither of them said a word.
It didn't last though, it was merely the calm before the storm, brief reprieve before:
"What is it? What's the emergency?"
"You better have a damn good reason for interrupting my beauty sleep, Jolly Green…"
The Hawk just narrowed his eyes, silently surveying the scene for any possible threats.
Natasha silently begged Bruce not to say a word with her eyes. Her efforts were in vain.
"She's a vampire."
And then, all Hell broke loose.
A/N: Now when I say sustenance, I mean of any kind. The average human can last about three weeks without food but only about three days without water. To vampires, blood is both food and drink. Which sucks for Natasha (completely unintentional pun, I swear)…
But luckily for her, she's not your average human. And while just under four days may seem a bit on the low side for a supernatural being, I wanted to make it so that if someone decided to take a closer look at her, they'd note that she was merely superhuman. Which is what everyone thinks to begin with…
But, of course, there's more to her than meets the eye… and more story to come.
'Til next time,
AncientCovenants
P.S. See? An author's note shorter than the chapter… you're welcome. :)