∆ {4²} {TEA AND PARANOIA} ∆
ROXI WASN'T SURE why she hadn't told anyone else. Perhaps it was that she was trying to figure out how to process what Tony had worked out, but the pair of them were the only ones who knew - or suspected - the origin of her powers, and the cause of the headaches, and it wasn't something that she wanted to think about any time soon.
Her friendship with Tony had developed steadily over the past year, to the point where they would sit in the living area of either one of their rooms and drink, either alcohol or tea and coffee, respectively. Roxi was still in complete control about how much she drunk, even if she did like having the alcohol to distract her. Her childhood had taught her what someone under the heavy influence of alcohol could do, and she'd told herself many times that she wouldn't allow herself to be like that. She'd promised herself many things over the years, and persuaded herself that she would stick to those ideals. Some of them, she had broken.
For one, that her loyalty would always lie within SHIELD, and with Fury. For another, that she wouldn't let herself open up, especially with co-workers. The largest one though, was that she wouldn't tell anyone her name. She had promised herself that the night that SHIELD had found her, and taken her off the streets. It had been a safety net, dictated by her fear of the man she had run from so shortly beforehand.
She had gotten over that, however slowly, during her 13 years with SHIELD. Natasha had been the final step in the process, and had been the first person who she had outright admitted it to. Even Ara, the woman who was buried in the graveyard that Fury was supposed to be in, had found it through her filing. Tony was the second person that she'd ever properly told, and that had been more through the fact that she knew she needed to open up to the team, and try and clear the tension that she'd put in the air between her and Tony. The two of them were relatively close now, and Roxi was proud that she'd managed to turn it around.
Wanda was another matter. The first couple of occasions that they found themselves in the room together, they hadn't said anything, and the air had been heavy between them. Wanda hadn't been sure how to act around her, and Roxi could tell that Wanda was weary of her, of the power she held. The only real display of it that the Maximoff had seen had been at the church in Sokovia, where Roxi had let them explode out of her, and run wild, shredding every robot it came into contact with. It had been pure and raw, and she hadn't tried to control it fully, because if she had, she was sure that it would feel like her body was being ripped apart from the inside out. Her bloody appearance and cold exterior after Seoul hadn't helped either, she was sure.
The nervousness seemed to be backed by curiosity though, and it had been the same look that rested in both Ultron and Vision's robotic eyes. That went back to the second time that they had met, at the shipyard. What Roxi had seen, how she had acted when she was out - that Clint had filled her in on at some point - it had both confused and intrigued Wanda, as far as she could tell. After a couple of days of tense interactions, Wanda had taken the step to speak to her, to ask her for advice about dealing with her brother's death. Roxi had found her resolve weakening when the Maximoff had asked her about it, and had helped the girl as much as she could with her experiences.
Roxi had helped Wanda as much as she could, but as she had told Wanda, she wasn't the best at giving advice in that area, but the girl had been persistent, so Roxi had done her best. Although it wasn't much, Wanda hadn't seemed to mind, and their brief chats in corridors had soon changed into long training and sparring sessions and hour-long talks where Roxi tried to help Wanda as best as she could and the younger of the two tried to get the elder to feel more comfortable and open up more.
And Natasha. Where to start. The past year had been filled with the two of them becoming far closer, and Roxi had even begun to allow herself to loosen, to relax, to flirt. She had settled into place here at the Compound, surrounded by the only people that she had left to love. Whether platonic or romantic, these people were her family, and she often found herself wondering how much worse off she would be if Fury hadn't recruited her for the Avengers back in 2012.
Probably dead. If not, still stuck with her solo missions in Spain. Yes, she had been good at them, and she had enjoyed them, but even when she finished a mission, it never would have brought the satisfaction of saving the world, the idea that she had helped save billions of people. She supposed that it was selfish, that she was saving these people, these lives because of the satisfaction that it brought her afterwards.
She had brought it up to Natasha at some point while the pair of them watched an episode of FRIENDS – a past-time they had adopted for when they just wanted to have a quiet couple of hours to relax in. The redhead had simply shaken her head as if to scold her, and had told her that while Roxi might feel that way, other people did too, and that it was impossible to complete something entirely selfless.
It had left Roxi mulling over the statement for a few days, but what Natasha had said stuck in her mind, and she found it popping up whenever she had doubts relating to the topic. It was one of the reasons that Roxi felt that the pair of them had become so much closer; they could offer each other advice that no-one else could, support each other in exactly the right way, and of course, make sarcastic comments back and forth longer than anyone that either of them knew, except maybe Sam and Tony.
They teased each other a lot, often letting mocking insults hang in the air before the other thought of something different to respond with. It was a playful kind of sarcasm that let a smile settle onto Roxi's face, that made both of them feel at home, and allowed them to relax. They weren't at home now, though.
The sunbeams heated Roxi's back as she sat half-under the shade of the parasol at the Nigerian café, trying to focus more on the conversation that was going on in her ear than the way that she could feel her leather jacket and top cling to her scarred back with heat. It was uncomfortable, and made her skin crawl as if the flames that had burned her still seared against her.
"All right, what do you see?" Despite the incredible heat beating down on her, Roxi had ordered a cup of tea to drink as they surveyed the situation, which, a few tables over, Wanda had joined her in. While Roxi was perfectly content with her tea plain, Wanda was mixing in several pouches of sugar, and Roxi rolled her eyes discreetly at the action.
"Standard beat cops. Small station, quiet street. It's a good target," Wanda answered. A few months ago, they'd started taking her on the smaller missions for training, to help her learn and improve. Roxi was quietly glad that the girl had something to keep her busy, to stop her mind from straying to her brother. There was only so much a person could do to keep memories of those they lost from their minds. Though, thankfully, Roxi had managed to stop her mind from going to Ara fairly well, and she didn't doubt that it was mostly to do with Natasha, who sat another few tables away from Roxi.
The redhead had changed her hair. It now fell to just below her shoulders, curling into thick waves near the ends, framing Natasha's face delicately. Roxi took a moment to admire her.. girlfriend? They hadn't put a label on it yet. Her eyes were hidden by the pair of sunglasses that she had picked up off of Roxi's dresser at some point in the past year, wearing a beige jacket that complemented her hair well. She held a drink too, her hands carefully clasped around the mug as she listened to Steve and Wanda discuss the situation.
"There's an ATM on the south corner, which means?" Steve trailed off, waiting for Wanda to answer the question as Roxi let her icy eyes sweep over the scene before her as subtly as she could. To someone else, it might have seemed like a normal Nigerian street, but she and Natasha specifically had been doing what they had for far too long to dismiss the scene as ordinary. It was anything but.
Roxi was wishing that she had taken similar actions to Wanda and Natasha at this point, and put on a pair of sunglasses or a baseball cap; anything to disguise her face. She had decided it wasn't needed before, because the public had seen her as an Avenger far less than they had the others, including her face on video. It could be because nobody knew her name, or because she wasn't a particularly public person. Should they ever be on a mission where they needed to pass unrecognised, for whatever amount of time, as they were now, then she would rather not have to go to extremes to avoid being pointed out as one of the Avengers.
But now that they were here, she had begun to feel unnerved about being so uncovered as she was. If she was recognised then things would begin to go wrong. So, she dipped her head as she drank her tea, pressing a phone that she had broken months ago to her ear, so that when she spoke to the others, it didn't draw attention.
"Cameras." Wanda kept her reply short, and Roxi found herself growing unnerved at the situation. Something was off, and she couldn't tell what. Normally, she'd put her hand into the pocket of whichever of Natasha's jackets that she had on and fiddle with her keyring, but she didn't have it on her today, and neither did she have a free hand, so she settled for drumming her fingers gently against the mug that she held, trying to prepare herself for whatever fight would come up. None of their missions ever ended without a fight of some kind, and Roxi was glad that she'd grown to anticipate violence. If she had been who she was all those years ago, in Spain, she would've tried to avoid as much confrontation as she could, skirt around the edges of conflict and find another, easier way to get her job done.
"Both cross streets are one-way," Steve offered, waiting for Wanda to finish his sentence.
"So, compromised escape routes." Pride inflated inside of Roxi at Wanda's words, the ice-eyed woman finding herself pleased with what they'd managed to teach her over the last year. Wanda had an incredible capacity for learning. At least, when she wanted to. Sometimes, it could be hard to gain the Maximoff's full attention, but Roxi had gained that over time, as well as her respect.
"Means our guy doesn't care about being seen and he isn't afraid to make a mess on the way out," Steve added, and Roxi finished her tea before noting something that she had seen when she looked over the scene.
"You see the red Range Rover half way up the block?" She inquired, directing the question towards Wanda as she set her empty mug down and leaned back in her chair slightly, attempting to seem relaxed, though she could feel all of her muscles tense every time something unnerved her.
"Yeah. It's cute," Wanda offered in reply, and Roxi caught her eyes flicking from the car to Wanda's tea to her, where she let the smallest hint of a smile onto her face, knowing that the Maximoff would catch the motion.
"It's also bulletproof; which means private security, which means more guns, which means more headaches for somebody, probably us." Natasha spoke up, taking a sip of her own drink as she turned slightly towards Wanda and Roxi, her sunglasses obstructing any eye contact the two of them might've made. Natasha and Wanda hadn't progressed past being acquaintances, possible vague friends at the best, despite how close to the pair of them that Roxi was. Natasha hadn't forgotten the state that Roxi had been in at Clint's farm, the night after they'd been to the shipyard, and it was for that reason that she hadn't tried to go on to friendship with Wanda, and why she hadn't held back during the training sessions she'd had with the Maximoff since she'd joined the team. Roxi knew that she would've been a lot harsher if they hadn't been newly on the same team. Natasha was one of the most loyal people that Roxi knew, and she doubted that anything would change that.
"You guys know I can move things with my mind, right?" Wanda asked, as if checking to see if they'd forgotten. Roxi rolled her eyes minutely, and countered it with her own statement.
"And I can control metal with my mind. Doesn't change the fact that you have to be cautious."
"Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature," Natasha agreed, and Roxi felt her smile widen to the point where it would've been cocky on anyone else, but on her, it showed only a tense pride and agreement.
"Anybody ever tell you you're a little paranoid?" Sam cut in, a smirk evident in his voice, which Roxi didn't reply to. People had told her that many, many times, and she had ignored the statement equally as many times.
"Not to my face. Why, did you hear something?" Natasha replied, and the smile curling on Roxi's face strengthened. She was glad that they'd been able to grow so close over the past year, and that they were all, including her, becoming comfortable enough to joke around, to throw sarcasm back and forth at each other.
"Not about you, but I heard whispers about Miss Ryder," Sam corrected happily, "Something to do with her name." Roxi knew that it was meant to be a joke, but her first name was a sensitive topic for her, and without really meaning to, she felt her smile drop, and she busied herself with sweeping her eyes over the street again, although she didn't really need to, knowing that both Natasha and Wanda's eyes would've gone directly to her so that they could gauge her reaction. She felt like she had taken in everything on the street far too many times for her own good, but she knew she needed to keep her mind focused. Sam's comment had only reminded her of that.
"Eyes on target, folks," Steve interrupted, which Roxi was glad for. Sometimes she needed this; the time where she could have her head in the zone, think only strategically until she carried out her objective. It reminded her of her SHIELD days; the ones that she sort-of missed.
"This is the best lead we've had on Rumlow in six months. I don't wanna lose him." Brock Rumlow. He was why they were here. He was one of the last loose ends that they had to tie up from the HYDRA mess in DC two years prior, and he was a particularly nasty one. He had given himself the alias 'Crossbones' at some point, and they'd received a tip-off that he'd be here. They couldn't afford to lose him this time; what any of them wanted was barely a factor.
"If he sees us coming, that won't be a problem; he kinda hates us." Sam replied with a scoff. He was right. The last time they'd seen him, they'd essentially brought the Triskelion down on him, and Roxi herself had made it ten times harder to get out, quite literally pulling up the floor behind she and Sam as they'd ran for an exit.
"Sam. See that garbage truck? Tag it." There were a few seconds of what could be considered silence as Sam did what was asked, while the honking of the Nigerian traffic seemed to grow louder and the voices coming from all around them seemed to amplify in the way things always did when you focused on them.
"That truck's loaded for max weight, and the driver's armed," Sam reported and Roxi immediately found herself tensing, one hand letting the broken phone she had been using as part of her feeble disguise fall to the table, the other slipping to her waist where it curled around the handle of her quarterstaff.
"It's a battering ram," Natasha said, voicing what all of them - possible with the exception of Wanda - were thinking.
"Go now." Steve's order was exactly that; a command, short and sharp, and Roxi didn't waste a second in standing up and making her way to the direction that the truck was going, fully ready to fight, with Natasha a few spaces behind her while Wanda floundered in her confusion.
"What?" She asked, and Roxi would've stopped to explain into her if adrenaline wasn't already beginning to trickle into her veins.
"He's not hitting the Police," Steve answered instead, moving away from his own post as the tension on the street skyrocketed. For a good few seconds, all Roxi could hear was the roaring of the truck's straining engine, all she could feel was her feet pounding below her on the hot pavement and the metal of her weapon's handle as she brought it from where it was hooked. But then the truck rammed into a building, and the fight began.
{A/N:} Uh hey. It's been three weeks I think. Very sorry about that and the fact that I cut the Lagos scene in half, but I still have eight minutes of it left to write and while that might not seem like much that could easily take me three or more hours to write, so I don't have enough time for that today. This chapter is a little longer though, so I hope that makes up for some of the time gap. Dedicated to SierraCara because I wrote the last 1300 words as an overemotional puddle because of the Vormir chapter in Forgotten Ghost and because they're a great writer. Anyway, I'm getting back into my schedule, I just need a break occasionally, but thank you for sticking with me. Also, thank you for the support on Gilded Nightmare, new chapter of that will be up Tuesday. Thanks :)
Pls let me know what you think, vote, comment, etc.,
3250 Words
Written: 10 / 04 / 2021
Published: 10 / 04 / 2021