“As are we,” Natasha assures her, a strange kind of protectiveness emerging as Vesper’s arms tighten around her neck. Her own grip tightens for a moment on the other woman’s back, and while such reassurance is odd, it’s not unpleasant. “You’re in our protection now, whatever that entails.” She means it too - and Natasha isn’t loyal quickly. Her loyalty is hard won, yet she knows that she recognises a part of who she could have been in the woman in her arms. The laughter sends a small shiver down her spine, breath warm on her ear, but she suppresses it with hard won expertise. Nodding at the confession, her gaze darts to the men to check that they have stayed in place. “It’s not the worst of sins, however it feels,” she answers, matching Vesper’s tone. Her own keep her awake at night sometimes; so much so that she would almost be grateful to have preserved herself as well as this woman has. Her smile, however, is perfectly preserved, as she rests her cheek against the top of Vesper’s head.
Vesper nodded softly to her words. To anyone looking, she’d look like a mere woman accepting whatever ideas or words the other had said. “I don’t doubt it. You did find me”, she replied with a hint of a grin to her red lips. The following sentence, however, did make her confused to some extent, although she’d not show it on the outside. Vesper turned her head to the side, nose and lips brushing against the agent’s cheek. “Why would SHIELD want me?”, she asked, lips against Romanoff’s skin. For some reason Vesper could not quite point out why, She brought a hand up and moved a strand of hair from her face, as if she wanted to see Romanoff answer her. That and it was really not bad to look at her at all. “It feels like it”, she confessed. After all, her fear of Quantum had robbed her from a normal life for seven years, almost. As they danced, Vesper simply looked at Romanoff gently, almost lovingly for those who could not hear their words.
“They don’t tell me everything,” Natasha answers, starting slightly at the unexpected gesture. She’s unused to anyone making moves that she isn’t prepared for, and the intimacy of that one surprises her. Able to see unimpeded into the intelligent, curious eyes of the woman before her, Natasha has to acknowledge that perhaps sending her here was a bad idea. After all, Vesper got to one of MI6’s finest - who’s to say that one of SHIELD’s would be any more trouble? She finds her fingers smoothing over the back of Vesper’s dress, making soothing patterns through the thin material. “You’ll find a way back,” she murmurs. “SHIELD can help with that.” Pausing for a moment, she leans forward, making her admission under her breath, just loud enough for Vesper to hear. “They did it for me.”
