Chapter 55: The Hellfire Gala

Chapter 55: The Hellfire Gala

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

I think I've been hyping this party up for like 40+ chapters now lmao.

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“Your Invitation, please.”

Even as the doorman takes the invitation from Thaddeus’ outstretched hand, his gaze lingers on Natasha for a moment. Not all that surprising, really. She knows how good she looks right now. Black is, and always will be, her color. On top of that, the strapless dress she’s wearing is designed to accentuate her already perfect curves even further.

Finally, the doorman’s eyes leave her and move to the invitation, before checking it against the tablet he’s holding in his other hand. After a moment, he simply nods and returns the invitation to Thaddeus.

“Welcome Chad Cummings, White Pawn. You may enter.”

Thaddeus tenses up at the use of his government name, but thankfully it’s not so fancy an event that everyone needs to be announced. In the end, the young man decides to let it slide and they make their way into the party from there, Natasha hanging off of his arm like the beautiful accessory she is.

They make for quite the matched set, really. Her in her tight black dress, him in his perfectly tailored all-white suit. He was a Pawn of the White Queen after all, so he had to look the part.

As they enter the Gala proper, Natasha flicks her gaze around minutely, taking in the sights and checking to see just how much... interest their entrance engenders. Fortunately, the answer seems to be ‘not much’. Some eyes turn their way of course, and some even linger for a moment. But those that linger only seem to be doing so because of Natasha’s looks. Very few pay Thaddeus himself much attention, and those that are staring don’t seem to recognize Natasha for who she is.

No, instead they study her like a piece of meat, and as she and Thaddeus make their way further into the party, she picks up more and more ‘admirers’ along the way. Hyenas one and all. No doubt they would already be lining up to approach her if she wasn’t hanging off of Thaddeus’ arm.

Not that his presence would keep all of them at bay. Oh, he was certainly physically imposing enough, being one of the tallest and most impressively built men in the large ballroom. Still as soon as they realized he was nobody special within the structure of the Hellfire Club itself, Natasha anticipated getting plenty of unwanted attention tonight.

But not yet. For now, they had a moment to themselves, each grabbing a champagne flute from a passing server and sipping from it gingerly as they made their way further in. Well, Thaddeus sipped from it. Natasha simply pretended to drink. Best not to let anything cloud her judgment on a night like this.

Part of her still bemoaned her failed manipulation from back when Thaddeus first told her his intentions of bringing her along tonight. While SHIELD was very happy to hear that Natasha had gotten close enough to Thaddeus to secure this invitation, and would no doubt be very interested in whatever she told them about tonight... Natasha would have preferred to use this opportunity to cut ties.

It wasn’t anything personal, at least on her end. It was simple pragmatism. Right now, she was torn between two loyalties. The first was to SHIELD, who she owed quite a bit for getting her away from the Red Room. And they aimed to squeeze every last ounce of that debt out of her. But the second was to Thaddeus, who might just have a shot of giving her a chance at motherhood, the one thing she’d secretly wanted longer than anything else.

She would betray SHIELD in a heartbeat for that opportunity... rather, she already HAD betrayed them. And the longer this whole charade went on, the greater the chance that they would find out about her change in allegiance. Natasha needed to be out from under SHIELD’s thumb before her womb was healed and she wound up pregnant... which she imagined would happen any day now, really.

Every time she and Thaddeus fucked, she got stronger, faster, better. At this point, Natasha could put her fist through a concrete wall, albeit with considerable effort. She was more than the Red Room had ever intended her to be at this point. But... surreptitious scans had showed she still wasn’t healed from the last procedure that they’d performed on her. She still hadn’t recovered the one thing she wanted most... the capacity for childbirth.

On the one hand, Natasha found herself chomping at the bit in a way she’d rarely done in her life. On the other hand, it was for the best really. After all, once she was confirmed pregnant, the clock would start. She would need to enact her plans to get away from... everyone basically.

Still, tonight could have been the catalyst for her cutting ties with SHIELD. If Thaddeus had taken the bait and gone with her suggestion, Natasha could have counted on him and Emma Frost to help her go to ground and hide from SHIELD. Then, when she was finally healed and confirmed pregnant, Natasha would only have had to escape from Thaddeus and Frost, a much easier set of circumstances.

The most irritating part was Thaddeus didn’t even know he’d stymied her. Even now, she could tell he didn’t realize her true desires. No, in the end he’d shut down her plans because he actually didn’t care all that much about the other parts of the Hellfire Club. He was happy to let her report to SHIELD on what she saw here tonight in order to keep up appearances with them.

Frustrating but not unsalvageable. Though, even as that thought passes through her head, Natasha sees the first of her many admirers finally beginning to approach out of the corner of her eye. It would seem that word of who Thaddeus actually is has spread through the party by this point. As a lowly Pawn in the Kingless side of the Hellfire Club’s Court, Thaddeus’ influence and power was practically nonexistent.

Natasha readies herself for whatever might come next. If need be, she would allow herself to be peeled away from Thaddeus’ side, both to protect her investment in him and to gather more information for the inevitable report to SHIELD.

But the strangest thing of all is the blond man’s hand, currently covering the face of the doorman. It’s not human at all... rather, it gleams in the artificial lightning, clearly made of metal. Sneering, the blond man begins to squeeze.

“I am Donald Pierce, White King of the Hellfire Club. I assure you, I certainly can.”

The doorman lets out a muffled scream and ineffectually claws at the metal hand, trying to pull away but to no avail. Finally, there’s a squelching noise as the skull gives way under Donald Pierce’s metal grasp. The doorman’s head is pulped in it’s entirety before the blond finally releases the corpse and allows the body to drop to the floor.

Nobody tries to stop him, likely in part because of the dozens of masked gunmen dressed in white that now line the party’s walls, all of them looking more than ready to shoot anyone who dares to make a move.

Flicking the gore off of his metal fingers, the self-proclaimed White King strides into the Gala, an arrogant smirk on his face as he eventually finds himself standing across from Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost. Natasha and Thaddeus have been completely forgotten by the Black King at this point in time. Instead, every ounce of Shaw’s attention is focused on this newcomer... on this challenger.

“Pierce. Ever the cockroach, I see.”

Shaw’s drawl draws a bark of laughter from Donald Pierce, even as the blond man sneers and clenches his hands... both of them metal, Natasha finally notices, into fists.

“Did you think I would let a filthy mutant kill me? Did you think that your vaunted power was enough to put down ME?! Your reckoning has come, Shaw. The White King has returned!”

Despite the boasting, despite the implicit threats, Shaw looks completely unperturbed.

“You are no longer the White King, Pierce. You were conspiring against the Hellfire Club, and for that I removed you from your post.”

Now, Pierce gets truly angry, stabbing a metal finger in Shaw’s direction.

“That is not your call to make, Shaw! The Black King does not have the power to remove the White King from his position! And I did not conspire against the Hellfire Club. I simply sought to purify it of the tainted rabble that had infected it over the years! YOU are the threat to the Hellfire Club here, not ME. And tonight... tonight, the infection will finally be excised.”

Shaw looks more amused than anything else as he gazes around at the forces Pierce has brought to bear against him for a brief moment. When he looks back to his counterpart, he doesn’t seem at all worried.

“You haven’t brought enough men.”

Gnashing his teeth, Pierce snarls.

“Them? They’re just insurance. I don’t need them to deal with you. No, they’re just here to make sure no one interferes. I’m going to deal with you myself, Shaw. Right here, right now. My exalted science against your filthy mutation for all to see. Once and for all, all will know you for the pathetic piece of scum you are!”

Oh wow. That was... well, it was better than being stuck in a kill box as Pierce ordered his gunmen to open fire. But not by much. They were still surrounded, and while Natasha was more confident of her capacity for tanking bullets than she’d ever been before... if Pierce knew he was dealing with mutants tonight, there was no telling what sort of ammunition those rifles held.

Still, this was between Shaw and Pierce. They didn’t have to involve themselves... right? Natasha glances to Thaddeus, just to make sure they’re on the same page.

-x-X-x- The Vote: [X] They're on the same page, Thaddeus isn't going to step in here - 91%

[ ] They're not on the same page, Thaddeus decides to make a splash by stepping in - 9%

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