Natasha

It had been a rather long debate where they should have the battle.

And that was just Natasha arguing with herself.

The problem was that there were now two Natashas who had equal right to claim they existed. In her life she had taken on many roles. The trips she had made across Westeros and to Essos had seen her in secret take on many different personas. The shy girl who didn't know what a man looked like with his shirt off and got flustered by her own body's longings. The brazen whore who lusted after cock, addicted to cum like the Warlocks of Qarth longed for their Evenshade drinks. The scarred slave who hated the world and made clear that any that came near her would die. The friendly thief who would pass along information for a cheap price if it felt like she was making a connection with people.

All of these she had become for her missions. And all had been discarded easily.

No, the only true Natasha was Natasha of The Council. The woman that had been trained since she was a child to be a living weapon. Who could kill a man 15 different ways with just her left hand. Who had once choked a man by shoving her bare foot into his mouth while smothering another by pressing her ass against their face, the third who had been eating her out not even realizing his companions were dying until he'd pulled his juice-covered face away and she'd punched him so hard she drove half his nose into his brain. The woman who had done all that and washed up while the bodies cooled in the other room without a thought, not letting any of that bother her. Where others would have been traumatized she merely shrugged and continued on.

That Natasha had been the real her for a long time… until Iron Pointe.

Until Jon.

"You know," she had told him the night before, as they laid in their damp sheets, her red hair mingling with his dark locks, "I knew I was doomed the moment I met you."

"Did you?" Jon had said, making Natasha delight in the fact that there was no bitterness in his tone. She had never blamed him for being angry at her deception but that didn't mean she wasn't relieved that they were finally moving on. "I'm not sure it is very pleasing to hear that your wife's first thoughts when seeing you were 'I'm doomed'."

She'd chuckled at that, shifting against him. One hand had reached up and she began to play with one of her nipples, knowing how he loved it when they got stiff. "I was supposed to be getting close to you so the Council could learn about Tony's armor. It was a marriage of convenience… I was to make you happy, after all, as the Council still had plans for you-" She had paused when she felt him tense but then he had calmed and Natasha had continued on, "-but when I saw you standing there, looking so utterly stunned… I knew I was doomed because I wouldn't be able to do anything but give you my very best. It was what you deserved. And my very best meant loving you."

And she did.

Which was how she'd ended up split in two: the Natasha of the Council… and Jon's wife.

And it had been those two that feuded over where the battle should take place.

Natasha of the Council favored King's Landing. The Spiders were stronger there, as the close buildings allowed them to quickly move far better than the road with its open areas. That was why they'd failed so horribly during their last encounter with the Vulture King; the sea had given them only a small area to use their greatest assets. And their weakness was the Vulture King's strength, for he thrived in wide open spaces that allowed him to duck and weave. Honestly, hearing from Jon how the man fought she'd been utterly impressed at how he had come to understanding three dimensional thinking. One of the things that had been drilled into her head during her training was to understand she could do more than dart forward, back, and to the sides. Up was an option and with it came down. She'd made more kills than she could count by suddenly grabbing onto a ledge and getting that height advantage.

King's Landing would have eliminated that for the Vulture King while giving it to the Spiders. Even Jon would have been fine as while he fought better in open areas too his flight could be done in small corridors as well. The wings were a weakness , Natasha knew that. It was why she had thought about luring the man into Flea Bottom. With its tight alleys and crush of buildings it would have served as the perfect trap.

But Natasha, wife of Jon, had understood that if they did that… innocent people would die. And Jon would never be able to accept that. Even if it meant stopping a murderer… he wouldn't be able to handle letting someone who had committed no crime other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time suffer.

Try as she might Natasha hadn't been able to get Jon's face out of her mind as she came up with their battle plan.

And thus… the open road.

Petyr made a running leap, flipping in the air before he fired off a few strands of webbing that took hold of the Vulture King's wings. The man snarled and spun around only to find that Petyr hadn't kept hold of the strands but rather he'd quickly wrapped them around a bar that Gwen had tossed him from the wagon which, in turn, he had thrown to Jon.

"Not getting away that easily!" Jon shouted as he activated the sunstones in his boots. Twin beams burned in the darkness as Jon launched himself back and the Vulture King bobbled in the air as he tried to fight against the pull. "You've hurt enough people, Vulture! You aren't escaping this time!"

"Hurt? Who have I hurt?" The Vulture King growled as he struggled to break free of the web.

"Oh, I don't know," Miles said as he landed on a tree and fired off his one web line. The moment it attached he quickly swung down, still firing off the webbing, and slid under their wagon, quickly hopping to his feet and firing off the last glob so that it locked onto the heavy wooden frame. "I seem to remember a lot of headless bodies showing up whenever you attack someone!"

"Though I guess this is the point where you give us all your rational?" Gwen said as she joined the fray, appearing suddenly from the shadows and firing off several quick blasts of webbing at the Vulture King's mask and hands, trying to coat him in gray matter so that there was no way for him to escape. "That they don't matter or you are more important? Hate to break it to you but we don't care. You lost out on the right to have any of us actually listen to you when you became a killer."

The Vulture King let out a roar and suddenly decided rather than fight against their attacks he would go with the momentum. Jon had to let go of the webbing and thrust his hands out when he suddenly found no resistance holding him back, causing his flight to speed up and sending him rocketing towards the ground. Natasha sucked in a breath but he managed to correct himself in time, turning and firing off blasts at the Vulture King. But the winged man had, by that point, moved on to the wagon, swinging out one wing and easily chopping through the wood that made it up. Miles leapt back but the Vulture King flared out his wings, sending one half right into the way of Jon's sunstone blast while the other went at Gwen, nearly striking her.

"You children," the Vulture King said in a low growl, tearing the last of the webbing from his armor. "You go after me… have you looked at the rich fools you protect? You think Mace Tyrell is an innocent man? Do you realize how many people have died because of his word? The Reach isn't fertile because of the skill of our farmers… it is because the Tyrells fertilize the soil with their enemies' corpses!" He suddenly darted forward towards Petyr, the young man scrambling back only to fall on his back when the Vulture King slammed his wings together and created a gust that blew him right over. He got to his feet only for him to find the Vulture King right on top of him, swinging out a wing that collided with his body hard, sending him crashing to the ground. Again he tried to rise and once more the Vulture King was on him, striking once more with his wings, the appendages battering the young man. Miles moved to try and help but was batted right out of the air while Jon's sunstone blast was deflected with a flick of some ebony feathers.

Natasha, who had moved to the treeline to carefully watch the battle and wait for her chance to strike, rushed forward when it was clear that Petyr had been dazed by the blows; even his accelerated healing could only work so fast. Reaching into the pouch on her hip she pulled out a small orb, about the size of a walnut, and hurled it at the Vulture King. The moment it struck it exploded in a cloud of foul smelling fumes, the man coughing as the gas began to seep under his helmet and get into his nose. He began to wave his hands about, wings flaring and folding without any real motive. Natasha used that to her advantage, grabbing Petyr's hand and hauling him to his feet.

"Never let your-"

The Vulture King slammed into her, his fist striking the side of her head and sending her to the ground. Petyr cried out something but Natasha wasn't sure what it was as the next moment she was rolling, trying to avoid the ebony wings as they stabbed down into the hard packed road, easily burying themselves nearly a foot each time. That didn't even slow the Vulture King as he just kept coming at her, striking again and again.

"You think he's a fucking innocent?!" the Vulture King roared. "Mace Tyrell plays well at being a doddering fat fool but look at him! In less than 2 decades he went from the last hold out of the Mad King that remained in Westeros to his daughter marrying both of the Usurper's sons! You think he managed that thanks to bumbling about? Or his mother was the only one shifting the pieces on the board? Tyrell is a manipulative bastard!"

Natasha finally grabbed her tofas and brought them up in an X shape, catching the Vulture King's wing and stopping it from striking her. "And that gives you the right to kill people whose only crime was working for him?"

"No one that works for him is innocent. He's seen to that."

"Better than the killer who cares only for himself." Natasha never looked away from the Vulture King and thus he had no warning when Jon slammed into him, wrapping his arms around his middle as he drove him up and away from Natasha. The two blasted in the air for a moment before Jon suddenly flung him down, right into the path of Gwen who gave a solid kick to the man's middle before a recovered Petyr and Miles swung from opposite side of the road, arching up before dropping down and punching the Vulture in a 1-2 combo that had him hit the ground hard.

"People like you," Miles said, rolling his neck, "you drive people away with your narrow focus. That's why you're outnumbered."

"No… I'm never outnumbered," the Vulture King replied.

"…fuck," Natasha murmured just before a wave of energy shot out of the treeline, striking Gwen and sending her crashing into Jon, who barely managed to keep the both of them from falling to the ground. From the kingswood came the Vulture's men, led by the man that called himself The Shocker.

"Boys! Meet the annoying fucks that just robbed us of the Iron Bank gold!"

"Can it really be robbing if it didn't belong to you?" Miles asked only to yelp when the Shocker fired a blast his way, forcing him to twist to avoid being hit.

"Now, considering how many problems thee Spiders have been giving King's Landing… how much do you think King Tommen would pay for them?" the Vulture King rose in the air, holding out his arms. "And the Iron Man? I bet we'd get his weight in gold from Lord Tywin if we brought him back… or maybe not. How about instead whoever brings him down gets his armor? Who wants to be the Iron Man?!"

The mob of men tensed, Natasha able to see their dark desires dancing within their eyes at the thought of one of them getting Jon's armor.

"Uh," Petyr said, raising his hand, "technically he's the Centurion-"

One man let out a battle cry and rushed at him, swinging a heavy axe.

"Hey!" Petyr exclaimed as he began to duck the swipes. "Not my fault you used the wrong name! There is no need to be touchy about it, happens all the time!" Petyr ducked a slash. "Also, have you thought this through? If I don't have a head how will the King know you didn't just fine a very attractive man and put him in a costume?"

Natasha didn't get to hear his reply as the Shocker fired off another blast, sweeping it across the road. The line of trees across from him toppled and fell as great chunks of their trunks were ripped away, creating even more chaos for the fighters on both sides as they now had to deal with obstacles in the road. She snapped out her leg when one of the men came at her, kicking him hard in the chest and sending him to the ground. For many other fighters that would have been enough and they would have moved on to their next opponent. Natasha, instead, rushed at his fallen form, slamming a knee down into his throat, making the man twitch and gurgle before she took out a knife and drove it into his eye socket, silencing him with a quick kill. The moment she knew he was dead she swept her head around, taking in the madness of the battle, observing not only the fighters but the terrain as well.

The Shocker had clearly gotten more cunning after his last fight with the Spiders; they had told Natasha and Jon how he had pretty much stood in place and fired on them. But now he had taken a page out of Jon's book and used his gauntlets to launch himself up into the air. It wasn't as clean as Jon's flying but he had some manner of control over it, able to target onto Miles and slam into him, wrapping his legs around Mile's waist. The teen's reflexes the only thing that allowed him to duck the blasts that Shocker fired at him at such close range but Natasha knew that pretty soon he'd make a mistake and lose his head.

"Damn it," she muttered before rushing forward, spotting the tallest of the thieves and racing right at him. The man spotted her and grinned, fingering the sword he had, ready to cut her down, only to blink when she leapt up, landing lightly on his shoulders just as Miles, who was firing weblines at the trees just to keep himself from falling to the ground, moved past. Natasha easily vaulted off the tall thief's shoulders and grabbed the Shocker's right arm, her momentum causing him to twist in the air. She punched him hard in the side and his legs loosened their hold on Miles, allowing the Spider to finally wiggle free, leaving Natasha riding on the Shocker as they headed towards the ground.

One of her first lessons as a child had been to learn how to take a fall. "All can strike madly," her teacher had told her as he had held her out of a second story window. "And you will learn how to make your punches land so that they matter, your kicks strike only the most vital of spots. But before that you will learn what to do when you have not succeeded. When you are the one that has been struck. Who has failed. You will learn how to fall." Her teacher had paused at that. "Please don't die, I won't waste my time cleaning up the mess."

The fall had left her with a scar on the top of her head that she would still rub sometimes, a reminder of that lessoned. She'd dragged herself back to the room after falling, even with her shoulder feeling like it was shattered (it hadn't been) and her brain screaming at her that there had to be better ways to learn to fight. She had dragged herself back up to that room and managed to kneel so her teacher could tell her all she did wrong. And when he'd dropped her a second time a day later, after he had seen to her wound and allowed her time to knit back together, her roll had been sloppy and she'd sprained two fingers. But it was better.

Now, as she fell, Natasha called upon all those lessons. She waited till the last moment before pushing off of the Shocker, twisting her body in the air so that the counter movement helped slow her rapid descent and redistribute her momentum. She had managed to push them both towards one of the fallen trees and she reached out, grabbing one of the branches. A novice would have tried to halt their fall completely and only dislocated their shoulder for their troubles. Natasha was no novice and instead she instead used the branch to once more redirect herself, now swinging up before letting go and grabbing another branch, twisting her grip to spin herself horizontally before dropping down. She landed in a crouch, looking about for threats.

But Jon and the Vulture King were battling in the sky, attacking with wings and sunstones. The spiders were dealing with the Vulture King's men, several men webbed up but far more still coming at them. Seeing no one near by Natasha turned only to frown as she saw the Shocker had ended up impaled on a broken branch, his sightless eyes staring out at nothing, jaw hanging loose as if he were still screaming in surprise.

"Hmmm," Natasha murmured to herself, reaching over and grabbing one of his arms. The gauntlets he used were fastened well to his wrists but she was surprised to see that there was no other reinforcement; she had thought that he would need to have some sort of harness in order to deal with the blow back. Jon had mentioned that was why he couldn't just wear a Centurion gauntlet and fire a full powered shot: the blast with send him spinning around. He never confirmed it but Natasha was pretty sure that Tony had done that many times has he had developed the armor.

Stripping off the gauntlets from the corpse she fitted them onto herself, marveling at the engineering. If she had tried to put on Jon's gauntlets her hands would have been swimming in them. But while there were metal pieces upon the top and sides of the gauntlets they were, for the most part, just straps and gloves, the latter only there for comfort. It took only a minute or so for Natasha to get the gauntlets on and have them be comfortable. They weren't the heaviest thing she'd worn either.

Natasha flexed her fingers before she began to sneak along the trees, getting closer to the battle that was still raging. She spotted one of the Vulture King's men moving to try and catch Petyr from behind and raising her hand she tensed her arm and squeezed her fingers into a tight fist, activating the mechanism in the gauntlet.

A blast shot out around her hand, never touching her though it was close. It rocketed right in front of the man, causing him to stop short and turn in her direction.

"Damn it, watch where-

Natasha fired a second blast, this one right into the man's chest; if it weren't for the blast seeming to suck all sound around it away she was pretty sure she would have heard his chest buckling.

Petyr turned, staring at her in shock as she popped out from her hiding place.

"…tell me you are keeping those!" he exclaimed in giddy delight.

Natasha smirked behind her own black mask. "Yeah," she muttered as she looked at her hands, "I think I am."

"That's great because I think-"

"Hello Spider."

Natasha barely had a chance to throw herself to the side before the Vulture King swooped in, slamming into Petyr. The boy topped down, the winged warrior on top of him, and the Vulture King grabbed Petyr's head with one hand and began to punch him with the other, causing the boy to cry out. "At this point I think I only need ONE Spider with enough of their face remaining to prove I caught the whole set!"

"You need to have caught one first!" Gwen yelled, firing webbing at the Vulture King's wing. Miles did the same, the two crying out as they began to tug from opposite directions. Petyr squirming and wiggling until he got a hand up and fired right in the Vulture King's face.

"Hey!" Jon shouted, flying in low and offering Natasha his free hand. She grabbed it and flipped herself so she was riding on Jon's back, allowing him to focus on flying as the Vulture King kicked off and took to the air, Gwen and Miles still holding onto their weblines and being dragged along. Petyr, despite being dazed, fired a webline to Jon, latching onto his chest and following after. "He is not one to lay down and die?"

"Always annoying when someone doesn't do the decent thing," Natasha said, pressing her thighs to his armored sides so there was no risk of her falling. "Any ideas?"

"The trees," Jon said. "He had trouble when the Shocker blasted them and blocked up the road… he had to remain high, which is why I was the only one fighting him. I think if we drag this into the forest we'll have a better chance."

"Right. And it will cause problems for his men." She lifted her arm. "Let's see if I can make him agree to that change of arenas."

She fired and the concussive blast raced right above the Vulture King, forcing him to dive down a few feet. He twisted, Gwen and Miles yelping as they struggled to keep hold of their weblines. Petyr shouted something and they let go and after a moment Jon grunted and they bobbed a bit, Natasha realizing that Petyr must have grabbed hold of his friends and now Jon was flying all of them after the Vulture King.

Natasha wasn't quite sure what her teachers would think of that sight.

"Hmmm," the Vulture King said as he rolled onto his back to face them, still flying away from the main road. "Now if you only had Mace Tyrell sitting on your back all my enemies would be in one place-"

"You know I think you might be a bit obsessed with Mace Tyrell!" Petyr called out. "Listen, if you want to polish is sword just do it already, okay? I promise none of us will mind!"

"I honestly never understood people caring if a man wanted to lay with another man," Gwen commented. "After all men pay good money to see two women together."

"They do?" Miles asked. "How would they even do that? Do the… bumped their groins together? Or is it more grinding?"

"Mouths, stupid," Gwen said with a huff.

"…they kiss?"

Jon groaned. "Maybe you should have a talk with Miles after this."

"I am not his mother and I am not giving him the sex talk," Natasha complained.

"Nat, at this point we are basically their mom and dad. No use fighting it."

"Is this really a good use of our time?" Gwen complained as they five continued their chase.

"Oh, feel free to quip!" The Vulture King shouted out to them. "In fact if you want to fly off and leave me be while you settle your little tiff I won't mind at all!"

"I think I preferred fighting the Mountain," Jon commented.

Natasha fired a blast of shock energy towards the Vulture King when he began to try and swoop back towards the road, forcing him to continue on into the forest itself. Miles, for his part, let go and began to swing now that he actually had trees to latch onto. Gwen and Petyr leapt away as well, the three now in their element as they were able to use their weblines to quickly get around the forest, spreading out like hunting hounds. The Vulture King, realizing that he was going to be cornered, tried to rocket up and out of the trees but Natasha kept firing at him, forcing him to remain under the branches.

"We need to get him onto the forest floor," Jon stated, having slowed down a touch in order to get through the forest himself; while he could have just bashed his way through the trees without a problem he was worried about Natasha. Which she was grateful for as she had to keep ducking to avoid branches that came overhead. "Then we take out the wings."

A tree came crashing down in front of them, forcing Jon to flip onto his back in order to avoid smashing into it. Natasha held on tight as she was flipped upside down, looking about before spotting a sentinel oak nearby. She leapt onto it, bracing her boots on the hard bark and pressing a hand against the truck to steady herself. Beyond the fallen tree she heard grunts and cries as Miles and Gwen fought the Vulture King, though she couldn't actually see what they were doing.

"Not the ground," Petyr said, landing on the branch right above her and hanging upside down. "The trees are our answer."

"What do you mean?" Natasha asked.

Petyr looked at her for a moment. "For someone with the nickname 'The Black Widow of Dorne' you really don't know a thing about spiders, do you?" She could practically see the cocky smile forming on his lips despite his mask but before she could reply he fired off a webline. "J… Centurion, you and Natasha focus on keeping him distracted. I'm going to grab Gwen and Miles!" He began to swing off. "Oh, and just a preemptive sorry if you get caught up in things!"

"What is he getting at?" Jon asked.

"I have no idea," Natasha said with a shake of her head.

"Should we be concerned?" Jon asked. "Because I feel like we should be concerned."

"They are older than I was when I-" She paused, deciding rather quickly that now was NOT the time to tell Jon about how she'd made her first kill when she was only 6 years old… and that was only because the man she'd thought she'd killed when she was 5 had actually managed to somehow survive her poisoning attempt.

Always double your poison. A good lesson.

"They'll be fine," she finally said. "Come on."

With that she began to leap through the tree tops, Jon breaking away to help strike the Vulture King from the side. The man had ended up landing, using his wings to block Jon's blasts as well as Natasha's shocks, sending trees that had been around during the Dance of the Dragons toppling to the forest floor. That only served to help out Natasha as it gave her plenty of areas to duck behind and under, allowing her to slip away from the Vulture King's sights when he moved to finally confront her. It also gave her a moment or two to look up and see the Spiders occasionally swinging overhead, silent and quiet for once.

'What are they doing?' she wondered to herself as she leapt out from behind the half shattered trunk of a mighty elm and fired twin blasts of shock energy right at the Vulture King. He threw up both his wings, easily reflecting the blasts away from him, and began to slowly make his way towards her. Natasha grit her teeth and tried to will the shocks to become stronger but she was already pushing them to their full ability and the Vulture King was able to still walk towards her.

"My friend built those," he taunted as he grew closer. "You think I would have allowed him to make something that could actually hurt me? Come now… I'm smarter than that-"

Jon rocketed at him, only for the Vulture King to suddenly sidestep away, slamming his wing into him and sending him crashing to the ground while Natasha's shots went wide.

"Now… this has been fun… but I think it's time we finished this… don't you?"

"Couldn't agree more!" Miles said, suddenly appearing behind the Vulture King, dropping his invisibility. Natasha had to admit she was impressed; the boy had shown amazing restraint in not revealing that power during their fight, choosing to make his moment count. He fired off several weblines but these ones flickered and glowered like a sword put in a blacksmith's forge and when they struck the Vulture King he let out a cry of pain. "Shocking, ain't it?"

"I do the jokes, Miles!" Petyr called from above, swinging down and slamming himself feet first into the man.

"You call that a joke?" Miles taunted as he punched the Vulture King hard in the face. The man snarled and tried to lash out but Jon was on him, engaging his hidden shield and sword, blocking one strike before lashing out with his blade, cutting into the man's leathers. He jerked back and that allowed Petyr to snag his helm and rip it off, darting over to a tree before inspecting it.

"Hmmm… good craftsmanship. Think I should get one like it?"

"Might muffle your jokes," Miles said. "So yeah, you should."

"Give… that… back…" the Vulture King demanded, glaring at them.

"No threats about how we must die now that we've seen your face?" Petyr asked, tossing the helm between his hands.

"You were going to die here anyway," the Vulture King said, firing two of his feathers at Petyr. The boy though was nimble and dodged them both before he tossed the helm up to Gwen, who was sitting on a tree branch, lazily swinging her legs back and forth.

"That old cliché?" she asked. "Even the bad mummur troops don't use that one anyone."

The Vulture King rocketed up into the air, Gwen launching herself airborne, twisting through the branches as the man gave chase…

…only to suddenly teleport away.

"I keep forgetting she can do that," Jon commented as the Vulture King continued forward only to jerk back. Petyr, Miles, and Gwen launched themselves into the sky and began to fire off weblines, Natasha squinting before realizing just what the Spiders had been doing.

"A web," she said, shaking her head as she looked at the massive organic net they had made at the very top of the treeline. The Vulture King struggled and fought hard against his bonds but the Spiders kept pouring on more and more webbing until finally he was trussed up so good that he could hardly even wiggle, let along break out. What's more the Spiders had made sure to do his wings separate from his body and Petyr, with a chuckle, crawled along the web before reaching around the Vulture King and fiddled with a few things.

There was a snapping sound and the man suddenly dropped down, his wings left in the web while he fell in his gray cocoon, landing so his feet were only inches off the ground, his body dangling from a strong cord.

"…heh," Ser Adrian said with a bitter smile, "you fucking got me."

"No more threats or the like?" Jon asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"No… I'm beat." He looked at them and Natasha was struck by how beaten down the man seemed. His face was worn and his eyes just looked so utterly empty. Without his wings and wrapped up as he was there wasn't any more fight left in him. "I guess this is where you haul me back to the Tyrells for punishment?"

"I don't trust him," Miles said, landing beside Natasha and Jon. "No way does he go from spitting fire like he was to just calmly giving up." He took a step forward. "What's your plan? What do you have in that head of yours?"

Natasha had been thinking the same thing and had already begun scanning the forest, wondering if Adrian's men were going to come bursting out to attack them. She had her doubts though… their flight had taken them deep into the forest and with horses they might be able to get there within a half a hour… and that was only if they knew where to go. They hadn't taken any true direction and while Adrian had led them part of the way during the flight Natasha had gotten him off course several times.

And then there was his body language.

She had been trained to understand how people were feeling just by the way they held themselves. It was always rather interesting to see how people could act one way to the world yet be feeling something completely different. She had seen lords who projected themselves as pillars of strength yet by the twitch of their fingers she knew they were terrified of the battles to come. And she had watched men simper and whimper and meekly obey their master's orders… but the set of their jaw and the shifting of their feet screamed plotting and plans. It was how she knew that Maegery Tyrell was hiding many things and wasn't the sweet girl she tried to portray herself to be. It was how she had known Baelish was a sneak… or at least had that confirmed to her.

'And he's done,' she thought to herself, staring at Ser Adrian. 'He knows he's beaten and… he's tired.' The way he held his head, the lowering of his eyelids… it all told the same story of a man that had fought hard but realized that in the end that the war was done and he had no more battles left within him.

"Also," Petyr said, cutting through Natasha's thoughts, "I don't know how many times we have to bring this up but we are NOT working for the Tyrells."

"Everyone works for the Tyrells," Adrian said simply. "Even if you don't realize it. Mace Tyrell… he has done well to cultivate a persona of a bumbling fool. But that man… he is the true spider of Westeros. Sitting in his web, spinning his plots, and then doing nothing but waiting for threads to be plucked."

"And that has nothing to do with you just having a grudge?" Jon asked.

Adrian though shook his head. "You think he's only loyal to the Lannisters?" He dropped his voice. "He's met with the Blackfyres."

"The Blackfyres are dead," Gwen stated.

Natasha though pressed her lips together. "Which one?" she asked, needing to be sure.

"The one known as Magneto."

"…cut him loose."

"WHAT?!" Miles exclaimed, the other Spiders staring at her in shock. Jon flashed her a glance but she nodded and, after a moment, he did as she asked. "What are you doing?"

"You can't have the wings back," she said simply. "I keep those."

Adrian sighed, looking at the harness. "I figured as much."

"But we aren't sending you back to King's Landing. You're going to opposite way."

"What do you mean?"

Natasha stared right at him before pulling off her mask, much to Jon's shock.

"Lady Stark…" Ser Adrian said before glancing at Jon. "Heh… should have known. Iron…"

"I'm showing you this so that you understand what I say next is true. The Blackfyres are known about… and will have a role to play in what comes. The Tyrells may have a role as well. And… I have a role for you."

"And that is?"

"One that gets you forever away from The Tombs. And in exchange… I will personally take down the Tyrell family once everything is done. But they need to remain… for now."

"Why?" Ser Adrian demanded. "What could possibly be so important that they yet again get to weasel out of having to face consequences for their actions? For the lives they've ruined?"

She leaned in. "The Dead march on the Wall. The Others have returned. And I want you to join the Night's Watch… and I'll see you as its new Lord Commander."

Adrian considered that.

"…I'm listening."