undergrounds | I Know What You Did Last Century (closed to Natasha)

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I Know What You Did Last Century (closed to Natasha)

It had all been a surprising coincidence. Cesare had merely been chatting about the political climate as he always did, when he mentioned Natasha in passing. Someone happened to know about Natasha. Know a lot, in fact. And eventually, as more drinks were poured and they had some discussions, so did Cesare.

Now, part of Cesare thinks he should keep this information to himself. After all, he might need it at some point. But another part of him, the more persuasive part, is too tempted to watch Natasha squirm. She's always been so composed and stoic. Cesare is curious to find out if, all in good fun, he can make that facade crack.

He invites her to afternoon drinks, as he's grown accustomed to doing. (After all, it's always helpful to keep the door to fellow vampires open when they've chosen to sit on the wrong side). For Natasha at least, it seems like any other day.

"How have you been?" he asks politely, standing when she enters because he's a gentleman like that. And also because he's old as sin.

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It's not unusual for Cesare to invite Natasha over. Usually it meant he was hoping she'd changed her mind about joining the nest, though she suspected he also wanted to keep their connection open in case she had any more intelligence for him—though it's been a while since she had news for him, it was always good to keep those contacts fresh.

She smiles, sitting across from him so he can join her.

"No complaints. The last couple of months have been going pretty well for me." She assumes he already knows about Evie. "And you?"

Cesare does know about Natasha and Evie. When it comes to information about who's friends with who, Cesare likes to stay on top of it and know everything that they can. The vampire community is not in London and they like to talk.

"Oh, fairly well," he says casually, absent mindedly turning his beer on its coaster. "Caught up with some friends. Had a good gossip between just us girls. You really should get in on these chats sometime. You learn a lot."

That answer disillusions Natasha instantly. So this isn't a pleasant social invitation. He learned something. And he wants her to know it, whether to gloat or for a more specific purpose remains to be seen.

She leans back slightly in her chair.

"I try to avoid gossip. Notoriously unreliable."

Cesare notices the shift but remains undeterred. This is a normal reaction for someone to have once they've noticed that they've been caught. Cesare isn't surprised.

He smiles at her, laughing slightly as he looks down at his drink.

"I'm not sure. Maybe you could clarify for me. There are all these rumours going around about a young woman in Russia. You were in Russia, weren't you? Maybe you knew her..."

"I'm sure I'd be shocked by the things they say about her." Natasha deadpans her response. She's been here before, and she knows she doesn't like it. People thinking they know her because they know her reputation. Whatever he's heard, about her time with the KGB, her time as an attack dog for the Red Room, her political rivalries.

"Oh, I certainly was. I don't know if she's trying to be on the straight and narrow now, but back then she certainly wasn't. Ruthless stuff. She has a savage history with political prisoners." He pretends to be unnerved, as if he can't even fully comprehend it, but it's definitely clear that he's putting on a show.

"But I want to know, really, is how much she's actually changed since then. If at all."

"Does it matter?" Natasha says. Her expression remains stoic, but there's a tension in her posture, behind her eyes, that belies the front. She's not sure where he's going with this. If he's just toying with her, or if he intends to try to leverage this information to some end he hasn't yet revealed. "Some woman you don't even know? Maybe she has. Maybe she hasn't. All you can really really know is what she's done and what she's doing now."

"Some woman I don't know?" he repeats, echoing her words and shifting is seat to lean forwards. "That's exactly what I want to know. Do I know her or should I watch my back whenever she's around?"

The two of them have figured out a sort of system with each other. Perhaps some of that resembles trust. But Cesare wants to make it very clear to her that if she does anything remotely suspicious, he won't take kindly to it.

Is that what they're doing? That's what he wants to play? Natasha's expression changes subtly, but the effect is chilly. If he thinks he will invite her here to needle her, then try to shame her because her past gives him trust issues, then he has another thing coming.

Natasha might be at a disadvantage here in most respects, but she will not scrape and reassure in response to his attempt to lord his new intel over her.

"You should always watch your back, Signore. That's just a good habit to get into."

Cesare doesn't find Natasha's response heartening and his eyes narrow a little.

"Of course, but that's not my question. My question is about her specifically," he says as he sighs and takes a sip of his drink. He's trying to give her another chance, give her an opportunity to say she's harmless before he takes her answer as something hostile.

"You'd never ruin our friendship, would you?" he smiles as if the answer is an obvious one. They have too decent a relationship. It would be a shame if something happened to that. Pals don't betray pals, ok. And he's trying to be friendly about it.

Natasha tilts her head, her her eyes assessing behind a stoic face. She would never for a moment entertain the notion that Cesare doesn't know exactly what he's doing, and it's a dominance play that she finds she has less patience for than she expected. This kind of game is common within nests, but outside of them, and with Jean-Claude now in power, she finds her stamina on short supply.

It's not that she can't see the reasons to play along.

It's that he called her here to specifically to put her off balance, to make her uncomfortable by alluding to the fact he'd learned about her past and saw it as shameful, and now he postures as though he is the injured party. As though he is in need of reassurance. As though she's a puppy who will rush to show her belly and lick his fingers if she's scolded.

After a brief moment, she leans toward him slightly, the angle of her chin just short of defiant.

"If you know about me, you ought to know that I never betray my friends," she says it evenly and with a cold certainty that dares him to contradict her. "As long as we're friends, you don't have anything to worry about. So you tell me, does this conversation seem friendly to you?"

Despite himself, Cesare's impressed. His lips curl into a smirk and he smiles at her, leaning back, hands on the arms of his chair. She's smart. Very smart. If only it weren't wasted by her being on the wrong side.

"Apologies. That's entirely my fault. You've barely sat down and I'm already interrogating you. What did you want to drink?" he says, shifting his tone completely. He's made his point and she's made hers. He sees no need to push it further for now. She knows he has the information he needs on her and she's made it clear that she's unperturbed by it.

He gestures for a waiter to come and collect Natasha's drink order.

It would be a mistake to believe that his pivot puts Natasha at ease, or that the change in her posture meant that she was relaxed. She does ease back a little, letting the moment of confrontation pass. She doesn't want a fight out of this.

She would much rather continue a civil relationship with Cesare, if she can.

Though he makes it hard.

"Wine. The Malbec, thank you." To the waiter, but her attention stays on him.

Cesare doesn't want a fight either. They can agree on that. They've both shown their hands and Natasha might still be useful to him.

Once Natasha is settled with her wine, he peers at him over his glass in thought.

"This whole business of Sylvia's retirement. What do you think of it? Think she might retire from the institute as well? She's getting old," he says with a smirk, acknowledging the irony. He's curious to see what Natasha thinks of Sylvia at this point. Obviously they must be on reasonably civil terms, but he's curious to find out what else he can glean from it.

"Not that she's told me," Natasha says, both an honest answer and one that commits to very little. Sylvia hasn't confided any more in her than that, and it casts anything Natasha says after it as based on little more than her own casual observation.

"I think her role is changing, but she's not the type to give up all her work for... I don't know, crochet? Baking pies?"

Whatever it was women were supposed to do when they inevitably retired from public life.

"That doesn't sound so bad," Cesare replies with a shrug and a smirk. "If I could bake, I might give that a go at some point. For a couple of years at least. I have no interest in crochet though." He's deliberately trying to play nice at this point, show some good will, keep her with him.

"You haven't had much news for me lately. It certainly seems like she's winding down to me."

"Winding down," Natasha repeats as though tasting the words, settling into the conversation. She weighs her response to that carefully. "That might be. I think she wants to give Samantha space to take on her role without the old Mother of Witches breathing down her neck."

"Maybe once you've reached the peak of power, you just get bored and need to switch it up?" He ponders, a slight bitterness in his tone. How Sylvia managed to acquire so much power at such a young age is a frustrating mystery to him.

He leans back in his seat, rocking the edge of his glass back and forth on the the table as he thinks.

"Things are changing though. You can see that, right? Now that Sylvia's stepped down, we're on the cusp of a big shift, if you ask me." It's not a warning of his own plans. At this point in time, he has barely tried to put them into action. Has hardly considered it. But instead it's an acknowledgement of the opportunity that's there. If he does not use it, someone else will.

"Things are always changing." She doesn't say it to be dismissive. It's a fact of reality, in their world as much as any other. She's not nearly as old as him, but she's lived long enough for most human careers to have become short. And she's grown used to the idea that as long as she can manage not to die, she'll outlive most regimes. "Sometimes they change faster than others, but..."

She shrugs. "I do wonder if you're not overestimating the depth of Sylvia's control. She had a lot of influence. Still has some. But she's not quite the boogieman some people make her sound like. She's still just human."

Cesare thinks Natasha has a reasonable head on her shoulders but he also thinks her youth is showing. She can't tell the difference yet between the little, inevitable shifts and the larger ones. She can't predict it yet. She will eventually.

"A human who gained three factions, including the presidency, within a few years. That is almost unprecedented." He leans back and takes a sip of his drink, shrugging.

"I can understand you wanting to protect her, though, talk her down as if she's not as strong as everyone thinks." After everything, Natasha is still a part of Redbright Institute. Cesare tried to sway her, but he knows where her allegience lies.

"Not so surprising, given the context. It's not what you'd call a normal situation." Natasha shrugs it off, as though Sylvia's influence doesn't impress her much. If Cesare thinks that's her naivete showing, that doesn't hurt her much.

"Where else could that even happen?"

"Oh, I don't know. The concept of one ruler holding control over all parties does seem familiar for some reason... I feel like there might be a word for that..." He falsely ponders, clearly searching for the word dictator. Natasha can try to make Sylvia look better and less threatening all she likes. Cesare will still abhor her.

"Maybe it's happened a few times in history, perhaps?" He gives her a look before rolling his eyes.

Natasha blinks slowly, not rising to this bait. She's recovered her composure enough to be ready for this, and while he may be older than her, Natasha has experience in this area. She remembers Stalin. Sylvia Redbright is no Stalin.

"Don't you think you're being a little over-dramatic about this? She never had control of all parties, and she's already abdicated her position with Daybreak. Peaceful exchange of power and all."

"What makes you so sure she's given up her power willingly? Or even done so at all? She nominated Samantha, after all, didn't she? I'm sure you're familiar with puppet governments..."

He knows that's not the case. There's no puppet here, at least not from Samantha. But Natasha doesn't need to know that. The more doubt he casts on to everyone else, the trickier it is to track his allegiances.

"I'm sure plenty of people were called dramatic before they were proven right." He sips his drink a little smugly.

"If Sylvia were pulling Samantha's strings, I wouldn't expect her policies to be such a sharp departure. Would you?" Natasha keeps the tone light, her skepticism rooted in no special information.

If he wants to stir suspicion, he'll need something more than suggestions.

"But I suppose you're right about that." Softening her push back.

Cesare shrugs. She does have a point, even he has to admit that.

"Unless one of them is keeping their true goals quiet," he says as he sips his drink.

"But enough of politics. Tell me how you're doing. I hear that you and Ms. Frye have been getting along rather well..." He says it with a smile. News travels pretty easily in this city, especially when you're old enough to know a lot of people with loose tongues. "She's a lovely young woman."

"I would say we are." If Natasha were in a relationship with anyone else, this might feel like a veiled threat. Evie is very capable of taking care of herself, though, and she doesn't think Cesare would be that brazen with another member of the nest. "I'm very lucky."

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I Know What You Did Last Century (closed to Natasha)

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