𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3⁴} {CAVIAR AND CIGARETTES}

"Oh, he's flatlining, call it. Time?" Tony announced as he walked in, holding a tray of smoothies in his hands. The joke made Roxi's lips turn up at the corners (for once). She was more inclined to deal with him now that she'd had some time to refocus her head. 

"No, no, no," Clint protested, slurring his words slightly as he spoke, "I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna be made of plastic." He chuckled at his own joke, taking a smoothie from Tony afterwards. 

"Well ,as long as you don't end up in the ocean," Roxi jokingly speculated, acting as if she was considering the idea. Clint started slightly at her voice; he hadn't see her behind him.

"Ryder! When'd you show up?" He asked, making her smile slightly. 

"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton. Even your own girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference," Dr. Cho reassured him, a soft smile on her face. Roxi took a smoothie as Tony walked past, ignoring the look he sent her in favour of trying the drink. To her surprise, it wasn't that bad.

"Well, I don't have a girlfriend," Clint offered, leaning up slightly so that he could drink his own smoothie. Roxi smirked slightly into her straw. No, he didn't. But he did have a wife, kids and a huge house in the countryside that only a few people knew about. 

"Well, that I can't fix," Dr, Cho told him, before continuing, "This is the next thing, Tony. Your clunky metal suits are gonna be left in the dust."

"Well, that is, exactly the plan," Tony admitted, without a smoothie, seen as Roxi had nicked it. She hadn't known that he was planning to stop using his suits. Maybe he meant that he wouldn't have to use it again soon. She hoped he meant that; that would be nice.

"And Helen, I expect to see you at the party on Saturday," Tony added as Natasha took her drink and put the straw in her mouth in a slightly flirtatious way, looking directly at Roxi as she did so. Roxi's hands grew slightly sweaty, so she had another drink of her own smoothie as the conversation continued around them.

"Unlike you, I don't have a lot of time for parties," Dr. Cho reprimanded after a moment, before adding on a sentence, "Will.. Thor be there?" Roxi's choked on her smoothie, coughing for a few seconds before she regained her composure at set the drink down. 

"I'm going to train for a bit," she excused herself, leaving the room quite quickly. She didn't head to the training room though, going straight back to her room and sitting down on her bed as she waited for Natasha to appear. The other jacket had been removed from her bed, as she'd expected. The redhead walked in a few minutes later, and sat down beside her on the bed. Natasha didn't say anything, but just sat there, waiting for Roxi to explain. It took Roxi a few minutes to figure out how to phrase it.

"About two years before you joined S.H.I.E.L.D," she began eventually, causing Natasha's green eyes to flick up to the side of Roxi's face as she watched the other woman explain, "I was with a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. She didn't work in the field, though, she was in statistics." Her voice trailed off a little near the end, and Roxi found herself swimming in memories from past times as she spoke.

"She, uh, was great." It was the first time in a while that Roxi had been nervous about telling someone something.

"We were living together, and it was going well." Roxi remembered the smell of wood smoke fires.

"We were gonna get married in that September." She remembered gentle, brown eyes and blonde hair.

"And then one day, I got a call from the hospital, telling me that she had been in a serious car crash." She remembered the intense worry and fear she'd felt as she'd driven to the hospital.