𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{4¹⁴} {INSATIABLE NERVES}

Natasha had known that the government would be after her the moment she had shot at T'Challa with her widow bites, and had allowed Steve and Bucky to escape the airport. After they had finished whatever mess they'd created in Siberia, it hadn't been hard to find them. But now, here they stood, on one of the first rooms they'd been able to reach on the Raft. They were getting Steve's side out, and they were getting Roxi out. It was a simple plan, and with the force that they held, Natasha had doubted that much would be able to go wrong.

That was, until, they had reached the room that Steve's side were being held in. Clint, Sam, Scott, even Wanda were locked up in this room, though the latter with far harsher restrictions than the rest. But Natasha couldn't find Roxi anywhere in the room. Where was she?

So she had asked all of them, even Scott if they knew where she was. They'd all had the same answer; no, and were all tinted with a concern that Natasha had no doubt was streaming through her eyes like sunlight through windows. Eventually, she'd had to find one of the staff who was wearily hazy rather than knocked out, and had practically forced the information to leave his lips.

As soon as he'd told her, she'd taken off, uncaring how she might seem, unusually. In actual fact, the room hadn't been too hard to find. It was lined with a plastic bock on the outside, wrapped tightly around metal walls that could be nothing less than 50cm thick. Even with the width, which had most definitely been added as a precaution against Roxi's powers, Natasha could still make out faint lines in the edge of the metal, which had even dented the plastic. Roxi had been trying to get out, or at least to release everything built up within her.

Roxi nearly always did little things with her powers, even if they were as little as turning on the lights from across the room. She was used to using them daily, but now, they'd been forced to stay inside her, clamped down by a force that she couldn't manipulate. They were likely to show themselves in some way, and in violent bursts of shockwaves seemed to be the quickest way for Roxi to get it out of her system.

When Steve finally managed to get the door open, it was dark. Not the kind of dark that said it had always been, though. This was a conditional dark, produced by something Roxi had done. Besides, with the light from outside seeping into the penumbra, Natasha could make out the shape of hanging lights swaying slightly from the ceiling. They held no tint, nor buzz or shroud of warmth when she dared to put her hand close to it. They had been out for a while.

When Natasha's forest green eyes finally found Roxi, she found it hard enough to suppress a frown that it managed to twist the edge of her lips. The icy-eyed woman was not caught by a straightjacket like the one Wanda had been wearing moments ago, and while there was a slight redness around her neck, she did not hold one of the collars that the Maximoff had being wearing either. Upon further inspection, Natasha found the latter cast to another corner of the room, where it was almost impossible to see when the door opened as it had been.

What was nearly disturbing to Natasha was that she found none of the broken shards of everything that she had become so accustomed to seeing in the woman's beautiful, icy eyes. Instead, what she found was entirely resolute. An unnerved look, panic, dread; whatever you wanted to call it, it was what Natasha found in Roxi's eyes that day.

She didn't waste a second longer after that. She had found herself beside Roxi before she could quite comprehend what she had done, and had helped the woman up, taking in the rather harsh scent of what seemed like disinfectant instead of the pretty woman's normal scent of mint and lemon.

Roxi hadn't struggled on the way to the Quinjet. Hadn't protested about being able to walk by herself. Had barely acknowledged Natasha's dire concern with a weak smile and a few whispered words of reassurance, though she didn't seem to have the energy, or perhaps the stomach, to meet Wanda or Clint's eyes after what had happened in Leipzig. 

She knew that now, despite her best efforts, and her best reason for signing, she was now a criminal. A dangerous liability of a criminal. Yet, part of her mind couldn't rip itself from the dread of wondering about Rhodey, who she hadn't been able to save. She had been right. Everything had changed, and it would continue to. She had truly lost, and there was nothing that she could do about it. At this point, Roxi knew that the Avengers were no longer truly a team, but in her heart, in her mind, they were her family, even if some of them were new, or odd, or 15.

That was why, that first evening out of many to come spent on the run, that Roxi sat down and began to write.

{A/N:} This is quite short, and the next one will be too. Tbh was expecting it to be shorter, but here you go. How are you guys' weeks? Hope it's going well. Also, one more chapter, then we're onto Infinity War. How odd. Anyway, future me might wanna add something so yeah I'll leave some space.

Future me does not want to add something.

Anyway, please vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc., thanks :)

1710 Words

Written: 13 / 05 / 2021

Published:  29 / 05 / 2021

JABBERJAY_011