∆ {6⁸} {TEAR IN COMPLACENCY} ∆
Seven Months Later
ROXI, FOR WHAT felt like the thousandth time in the last hour, traced the lines inked into the skin of her forearm. The image of an emerald sky and that network of stars was beginning to fade, though it was nowhere near gone. Once she'd explained to Natasha why she'd done what she'd done, the woman had dug up photos of Wanda and Pietro somewhere.
She had claimed it didn't bother her, that she was glad that it gave her something to do.
How much of that Roxi claimed to believe was rather more than what she actually did, but she had decided that if Natasha could put up with the things she'd been doing, then the least she could do was not to confront Natasha about these sorts of things. It was only fair.
Instead of worrying about that, she supposed, she should probably be more worried about the fist swinging for her stomach. She didn't try to catch it, but did manage to step just out of distance.
Mara's tattooed hand hit thin air, and she let out a growl of annoyance, because never once had she found her mark and actually touched her opponent. Roxi had her hair pulled back sloppily, and gave the other Spanish woman a teasing smile, raising her eyebrow to add to the effect.
"Can't you take a punch?" Mara's laboured breaths interspaced her words, though there was an element of a snarl to them. Roxi wasn't sure she'd ever met someone quite so competitive. It was probably more fun than it should've been, winding her up. But Mara had asked to be trained, so Roxi had obliged.
When she'd first found out who Roxi really was, she hadn't cared to say much other than 'So you know Black Widow personally?' Roxi had simply rolled her eyes at Mara's shit-eating grin. After realising that she probably knew how to fight, Mara had asked for her help, so she'd given it to her. She'd never said it was going to be easy though, and a large part of her was delighting in the frustration it caused the woman - to an extent. Another blow swung at her, wide and predictable, though it packed a lot of force behind it. This one, she let hit, just to see how powerful it was. It winded her for a few seconds, and caused the pain to begin to tickle her temples. It was the beginning of a headache, but she would ignore it for now.
The pains had far too much control over her life already, and she wouldn't let them have anymore. Mara's face twisted in annoyance, into a nasty sneer that told Roxi she wasn't happy that she'd let her land the blow. Roxi rolled her shoulders, and started her own assault. Simply dodging wasn't much of a workout, after all. Punch after punch, kick after kick, fluid movement after harsh movement. She certainly landed a few blows, though Mara was far better at dodging than she was hitting, because that was what Roxi had taught her first. She wouldn't risk losing another person through her own faults.
Once Mara landed on the floor for something like the eleventh time, Roxi helped her up and decided that they had trained enough for the day. The woman was much better than she had been at the beginning, but she wasn't there quite yet. The same went for her dependence on alcohol, for the sharp words that she spoke too freely. More than once she'd accidentally commented something that had made Roxi slightly uncomfortable, but everyone had to start somewhere, right?
She could tell that Mara's patience had begun to wear thin anyway. The woman grinned at her, and Roxi returned it with her cold, sharp smile. She was wearing short sleeves, for once, and her tattoo, as large as it was, was on full display.
However, so was her weight - she was still far too light - though her muscles, which she had so particularly maintained, looked particularly good today. Or so Roxi had thought to herself after a glance in the mirror this morning.
It was a bright day, as they went. The sun was hot, dry, and too strong, though the spattering of grey clouds and the damp breeze moderated it to near perfection. A glance at the watch that Natasha had bought her for one of her birthdays these past years told her that it was half two, and reminded her of her next meeting with Tony, which happened to be due tomorrow. A part of her didn't want to go anymore, not when she knew that he would once again bring up the idea of telling Natasha. The idea made her stomach churn nastily. A larger part of her wanted to see Tony, though.
She still missed him, even though they saw each other often. Those days at the beginning of all these years - the feeling of not having him around - still hung over her sometimes. She wanted to make sure he was safe. Not only because he was the only one who could help her, but because he was her friend, and he had a family.
"You two look like you've been having fun." Came Natasha's soft comment from a doorway they'd been about to pass. Roxi smiled as genuinely as she could, and glanced to her side to see how Mara would react. The two women had somehow never actually met, had managed to avoid each other in a delicate sort of dance of isolation that seemed to come with being caught up in the shared experience of surviving the Snap.
Mara was gaping like a fish. She didn't seem to know what to say in the presence of Natasha, and sent a pleading glance sideways to Roxi. The woman in question was simply standing quietly, a small, smug smile settled onto her features.
Natasha held out her hand, a subtle smile accompanying the satisfaction that Roxi knew that she was feeling.
"I'm Natasha."
"I know," came Mara's near-squealed reply as she gingerly took Natasha's hand and shook it, her eyes lighting up with a sort of childish excitement that Roxi had received upon first telling Mara who she was. Any thoughts of Roxi's affliction were driven from her mind as she enjoyed the scene that began to play out before her.
"You're Mara, right?" The sparking pain in her temples surged suddenly, undeniably, and awfully. Her smile became more fixed on her face; more forced. She changed her position slightly, braced her feet slightly wider so that they were at shoulder width, to steady herself, and prayed that Natasha hadn't noticed.
If she had, she showed no sign of it, though a large part of Roxi doubted she hadn't seen her adjustments.
Roxi could've sworn the modern light set into the white ceiling of the hallway burned to a new intensity, and that she could hear them buzzing. The black and white spangles were back, swelling, and eddying, and ebbing like a roiling sea. Seething, never stopping, always moving. Her vision began to warp with the shapes; writhing, never settling. Her head became crowded, and blurred, as though the gaudy stripes had sunk into the dark ocean that her mind had always been and lit it up with flashing lights and a dazzling darkness.
This time when she stumbled, Mara must've noticed too. Roxi assumed she must've been talking, because when her head snapped to look at Roxi, her mouth seemed to be tailing off of a sentence.
It occurred to Roxi at that moment that she hadn't actually heard any of what Mara had said in reply to Natasha, and it was then that her balance seemed to disappear and she found herself careening fairly forcefully into the wall.
Natasha's calm, relaxed disposition evaporated in an instant, her forest green eyes shining with worry as she carefully moved over to Roxi and took her face in her hands. Mara's expression became painted with similar anxieties, though she seemed a little more hesitant to encroach on the womens' space.
Natasha was saying something.
Roxi tried to focus on her lips, to see what she was saying, but at this point, she could barely see at all.
The world was swaying, and another lancing pain worse than any she'd felt before shot through her, leaving her breathless and agape.
In a matter of seconds, her eyes rolled backwards in her head, and she fell forwards into an emerald sky full of made-up constellations.
~
MARA HAD NO clue what was happening. Roxi had invited her over to spar, as she often did. It had even become quite common for Mara to spend the night in one of the spare rooms. They'd done their usual training, in which she got overly annoyed at the fact that she couldn't land a blow on an Avenger unless they wanted her to, even though she was untrained.
Then, of all things, she'd met Black Widow, and had tried her hardest not to seem too much like a fangirl. Roxi had been standing complacently to one side watching them interact - which she had only initially noted so that she could use the fact that she'd let Mara suffer as bribery at some later point - and then something had gone wrong.
The atmosphere around Roxi had changed in the space of half a second, and before they could do anything, she'd stumbled into the wall and passed out.
Mara and Natasha had had to awkwardly catch her before she hit the floor, exchanged swift glances, and sidled to the medical ward, setting Roxi down on one of the beds. When her shirt fell against her form, it became even more evident just how much her bones protruded from her skin. Her tattoo looked as if it almost glowed against her skin; a sprawl of foreign stars staining a familiar body.
They'd taken a seat either side of her, concern dwelling around them. Captain America had arrived in that time - though he'd introduced himself as Steve - and had found them after seemingly traipsing through the entire compound. His face crumpled into worry as soon as he came through the doorway
Natasha had given her a quick look, before quietly going to one side with 'Steve'. Mara had assumed it was to explain what had happened, and minded her own business.
When Roxi came to, maybe twenty minutes or so later, she almost melted into relief and gently hugged her friend.
Roxi sat up slowly, her icy eyes taking in her location carefully. Her fingers suddenly scrunched on the bed sheet, gathering it up into her fist as if she were gripping something in agony. Her face screwed up too, as if to block the near-fluorescent lights of the room they were in. When she spoke, it was strained and quiet.
"Natasha." Mara mimicked her, calling out the woman's name more loudly. She and 'Steve' were back in the room in a matter of seconds, and Mara took a few steps back so that she stood next to the man she'd never met before, and quietly watched the two women. Natasha linked her fingers with those of the hand that Roxi's tattoo lay, and gently, ever so carefully, rested her forehead against her partner's. They seemed to be whispering a few, careful words to one another, and Mara found herself becoming both uncomfortable and slightly bored by watching the scene in front of her, instead turning to the man beside her.
"Hi, I'm Mara."
~
"HOW ARE YOU feeling?" Natasha's voice was the only thing that Roxi really wanted to hear in that moment, and feeling the woman with her let her relax back into the bed again from where she'd tensed up.
"Like my skull was split open." She wasn't sure if there was any other way to describe it. What was surprising, though, was that she hadn't released a surge of power. It meant that she hadn't hurt anyone else, and for that, she was infinitely glad.
A few moments of silence.
"What happened?"
"Everything just.. flared. I already had a headache, but it just got worse than it's ever been."
"Is there anything you need?"
"You."
Another forty minutes later, when Mara and Steve had begun to occupy themselves with lunch, Natasha lay down next to her on the bed. It was cramped, but neither of them minded.
"You're going to go and see Tony tomorrow, right?" The question sent Roxi's mind reeling forwards, to the prospect of having to explain to the man what had happened, and have him look at her with so much concern it almost seemed like pity.
"I guess I am, yeah." Natasha quietened again, and Roxi could tell that she'd been dying to say, something that had probably been on her mind for a long time, but had become more urgent, what with the day's developments.
"Roxi, what's wrong with you?" The question came out quickly, and left Roxi's mouth dry. It sounded rude, though she knew Natasha meant nothing of the sort, and simply lay in silence, stunned by the question. It didn't last long, before she started asking questions again.
"You're visiting Tony about this, aren't you? How bad is it? What's happening?" Each inquiry was answered by a stretch of quiet, before Natasha asked the next. Eventually, Roxi breathed in as deeply as she could, for as long as she could, until her lungs began to ache, and slowly released her breath, before trying to figure out how to form words.
In the quiet of the hospital room, her head still pounding in agony, the feeling of Natasha next to her spurring her on, she began to talk.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Well, would you look at the time. I know it's been ages and this isn't a very good chapter and I'm sorry. I'm hoping to get back into this even though I need to start revising for my end-of-years right about now (even though they're months away). Plus, we almost there. Man, MoM was mental, Moon Knight was good. What else to say. Pls vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,
JABBERJAY_011
WORDS [2375]
WRITTEN [14.05.2022]
PUBLISHED [14.05.2022]