∆ {4¹⁰} {CONSEQUENCES AND GUILT} ∆
BERLIN WAS PRETTY.
If Roxi ignored what she was there for, she could focus on the 60-year-old architecture mixed with the newer looking, gleaming skyscrapers with walls of glass, and the way that everything moved so well. She could hear chatter carried up on the wind through the open window she sat by, occasionally hearing a seagull or a songbird letting out a cry or a chirp. They communicated so well, even over different species.
The Avengers were all the same species - with the exception of Thor, who wasn't present, and Vision - and yet, they could never seem to get along without at least one of them creating some sort of issue. Whether it be to do with how people were acting, their plans on how to carry something out, even what somebody was wearing or how they were saying, one of them would always find something to argue about. The only time that they were able to work well together was when the world was ending, and that was most certainly not a healthy way to live with your co-workers. In fact, it might've been the worst way.
And now the Accords had come along, driving a wedge into the largest crack - the one between Steve and Tony - and had widened it further than Roxi had ever thought was possible, leaving half of them stranded on one side of a chasm, and one side on the other. It would make everything worse. All of the smaller cracks that had branched of from the largest would elongate and widen with it, and new ones would open up on ground that they'd previously thought to be perfectly steady.
This would affect them far more greatly than any of them had initially suspected, though Roxi assumed that the others were starting to see the damage that it would cause. After all, it had only taken a high-speed car chase, several grenades and near-murders from Bucky Barnes to show them how severe things might become, and Roxi still had a feeling that they wouldn't see the true consequences of their actions until they had been and passed. It was dangerous, and becoming akin to taking a shot in the dark without caring for where the bullet landed.
While Roxi agreed more with Tony's side of things, her priorities would be to keep Natasha alive, then keeping all of her team - not Tony's, not Steve's, hers - alive. Then would come Tony's side; the government, the Accords. Their lives were far more important than this internal warring that they would most likely all come to regret so harshly in a few years' time. Roxi didn't doubt that they would all do something that they would regret in years to come in the next few days. She knew she would, and that it would bug her day in and out for the next few years, and also that however hard she tried to prevent it, it would still happen.
She'd tried it before. Dealing with regret by trying not to have anything to cause it in the first place. She had learned, however, that there would always be things that they would regret, things that were in the past, ones that she wouldn't be able to change, and even if she'd known what her mistake was before going into the situation, she doubted she would've been able to do something to change the outcome. If she somehow did, she would simply find something else to regret, and the cycle would continue onwards; inevitably, insatiably.
Regret was always there, no matter what you did. Even the smallest things; something you had said that you wished you could take back, an action that would make you felt stupid. It was still regret, a guilt that ate away at the corner of your mind until you gave into it. That could happen in so many ways. You could quite literally give up, allow it to take over your mind. You could simply write over it in your brain, choosing to ignore the mistakes you had made in an ignorance that many people would hate. Or, you could learn from it, as so many people tried and failed to do. Roxi would do any; it depended completely on the circumstances. But with the Accords, and the level that things were already escalating at, made Roxi think that none of the above would be an option. She'd have to try and find a way to work through her guilt. A new way.
But that was what the Accords were all about. A new way to live, a new way to control the Avengers - because the government was so keen on: the idea of control. Control gave them power, and so many people allowed power to turn them into monsters, many in the government included. The idea of control blinded so many people of the realities of the world because al they searched for, constantly, was a new way to gain power; to become stronger, better, more dangerous. But no-one had ever become better with power. Yes, they could become stronger, more lethal, more deadly, but power had a way of turning the even the purest people bad. A person became better, by being strong enough within themselves to turn a blind eye to power.
Roxi couldn't claim to be someone who would immediately turn away power should she be offered it, because she knew she wouldn't. She'd like to think that she'd say she'd turn it down, even after consideration, and now, after four years of knowing the Natasha, of knowing the team, she might. Before, she wasn't so sure that she would've.
That was when the lights went out. Roxi found herself stiffening immediately at the darkness, even with the blaring red emergency lights that had lit up instantly, and she found herself standing up up, her quarterstaff extended in her hand as she marched to where she'd last seen Natasha. This was exactly what they didn't need in the moment, but it was exactly what they got. She found Natasha and Tony in the exact room that she had left them in, Sam and Steve running past her as she found herself scrambling for information, trying to figure out what was going on. This definitely wasn't normal. But then again, whenever they were involved, nothing turned out normal. They had never been normal people, so how could they expect anything around them to just continue as if they didn't exist, as they seemed to do sometimes? The Accords proved it; that they would never have a normal life, as long as they'd live, due to the legacies that they'd leave behind. Trouble would always follow them everywhere, because it was the hardest thing in the world to shake. From the moment chaos started erupting around you, to the point of your death, trouble would always follow you like a stray dog. Persistent, hungry, and so eager to force its way into your life, no matter how much you didn't want it to.
"Natasha, Stark, what's happening?" Her voice would've been lost if there hadn't been a small break in the clamour, and she before she got an answer, Natasha grabbed her hand and pulled her to the side, out of the way of the main room as she hurried next to Tony, her face breaking into a relieved expression as she caught sight of Roxi's weapon already in hand.
"It's Barnes," Natasha began, answering Roxi's question in the simplest of ways before her attention turned to Tony.
"Please tell me you brought a suit." Natasha's two words had been enough to sum up the severity of the situation in Roxi's mind. She knew exactly how much damage that Bucky Barnes could do, especially when he was in the Winter Soldier's mindset. He would be lethal, ruthless, and a hell of a target for them to try and take down, even with Natasha, Tony, Steve and Sam helping her.
"Sure did, it's a lovely Tom Ford, three-piece, two-button. I'm an active-duty, non-combatant." Roxi could barely process Tony's misplaced sarcasm, her grip tightening around her quarterstaff as she closed her eyes for a brief second and let herself feel every single metal around her, searching for the vibranium of T'Challa's suit, since Steve's shield had been taken from him. Because wherever they were, Bucky would be there too. It was taking her longer than normal. This building was filled with hundreds of kinds metal, all clamouring at Roxi's mind, trying to overwhelm her with such force that she feared that it might actually work; that she'd fall too her knees like she had in New York, and allow her mask to fall completely.
"Follow me." Sharon's voice barely reached her either, though she followed the rest of the group on a subconscious level as Natasha's words from the previous day in the back of the ambulance echoed through her mind. She couldn't keep using her powers so widely, not when it would exhaust her so terribly. So instead she narrowed her field so only Vibranium. It wouldn't extend anywhere far or as wide as her other radar, but it would conserve her power, and hopefully, they'd be able to find Bucky before things got too out of hand. And then she found him, and her senses opened up back to the world around her. It was odd. Almost as if she was pushing herself back through the surface of water, back into the air and the rest of the world, letting the remnants of what she had once been immersed in shatter and ripple below her as she moved on to the next course of action. Which was, preferably, to stop Bucky before he got out and wreaked more chaos that they would have to mop up. And they'd be blamed for letting him get away. It wouldn't be Sam or Steve, because they wouldn't be able to blame them. Pointing fingers required the subject of the blame to be there, receiving the judgement, and Roxi was sure that they wouldn't be.
She separated from the rest of the group as she drew closer to Bucky, circling around the back as the four of them boxed the supersoldier in as best as they could. Tony was the first to attack, quickly rebutted by Sharon and Natasha as Roxi waited for a better moment to enter. She deemed it that when he slammed Natasha down on the table and was about to place his metal hand around her throat, and quickly stepped forwards, not even needing to raise a hand as she pulled back on Bucky's metal arm, making sure that it couldn't do anything except remain at his side, her quarterstaff extended as she held it as if it were some form of spear. He had whipped around as soon as he realised he couldn't move his arm, only to find the metal of Roxi's weapon slamming into the side of his face and knocking him downwards. It didn't affect him much, which Roxi had been entirely expecting, though she hadn't quite been prepared for his to recover so quickly, swinging his right arm up at her and knocking her backwards, to the ground, where the impact made of her let go of her quarterstaff with a grunt at the contact.
She didn't register that he'd drawn his gun until he'd put a bullet in her left, shoulder either, but she gritted her teeth and stood up, even without her quarterstaff and one of her hands, she still had some form of advantage over him. Except that when she got up, Bucky had disappeared, and T'Challa had sprinted off in another direction, likely towards the Winter Soldier. Roxi let out a slight groan of relief as she made her way over to Natasha, who would have rolled her eyes at the sight of the gunshot wound in Roxi's shoulder had she not been so worried about it.
"You know, I'm starting to think that you have an extra power of getting hurt on these missions when the rest of us don't."
{A/N:} Eh. I'm not totally sure how I feel about this chapter. It's kinda just a chapter. And yh, Roxi got shot but she'll be fine dw. Now she and Natasha have matching scars :). I've only got two more chapters to go and then I'm done with my pre-writing. Then I can move onto the next book. Yay.
And yh, hi again. It's Tuesday :) I'm being nice to you guys (this is a surprising amount of work).
Anyway, thanks :)
Pls vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,
2225 Words
Written: 24 / 054 / 2021
Published: 25 / 05 / 2021