∆ {2¹⁰} {AND SMILE} ∆
THE NUMBNESS THAT Roxi felt as she sat there, curled against the wall, was worse than any other emotion that she could think of. Even nothing would be a blessing in that moment. Words were still jumbling through the comms, from various people, but Roxi couldn't make out any of them. The broken electrical systems showered the corridor in sparks, lighting up her eyes slightly as she started blankly at the floor. Her head was pounding, her body was aching and her hands were shaking fiercely. Thoughts buzzed through her head, but much more quietly than normal. Quiet whispers haunted the back of her mind in the semi-darkness, the lights that were still on just down the hall casting long, twisted shadows that seemed to beckon her closer. Doubts peppered her mind, and the voices through the comms - which were becoming louder and more insistent - were making her head hurt more, so she pulled it out of her ear. It took her a moment, with fingers trembling and hands sweating, but she managed it, and immediately, everything seemed calmer, even if it was ever so slightly. The crashing waves became slightly smaller, but the storm still raged on inside her skull.
It was Sam who found her, hunched in the metal corridor, shaking and looking at the floor, but as if she wasn't seeing anything. The man hurried to her side and bent down next to her, glancing from the woman to the caved in corridor. After a second of staring and figuring out what was going on, he knelt down in front of her and tried to catch her eye, but she didn't seem to register it.
"Hey, Ryder?" He asked, softly, trying to get her to focus on him. It didn't work. He tried again, this time, more loudly. Something in her eyes flickered, as if she'd heard this time, but hadn't really recognised what he was saying.
"Hey, scary lady," Sam asked more forcefully, putting one of his hands on her shoulder. The effect was almost instant. Her eyes, flashed up to his face so fast that he barely registered it, and at the same time she pushed herself off the floor and twisted Sam's arm around behind his back, her quarterstaff extending in front of his throat with a quiet whoosh. It happened so quickly that Sam couldn't fight it, and was now in a rather difficult position.
"Okay, scary lady is back, scary lady is back," Sam rushed his words, but it was enough for Roxi to recognise his voice. Almost immediately, she let go of Sam's arm and took a swift step back, retracting the quarterstaff again. She cleared her throat awkwardly.
"Uh, sorry."
"It's alright," Sam said, rolling his shoulder slightly and shaking out his arm, "Just glad you're back again."
"Yeah, they might not be though," Roxi replied, waving her arm at a couple of the HYDRA men's bodies that still lay on the floor. Sam looked at them for a second before turning back to her.
"Remind me not to get on you bad side."
"Sure thing," she agreed, her grip on the handle of her quarterstaff tightening. She picked up her comms device, which was whining because it hadn't been turned off, until she pushed it back into her ear. It took her a moment to realise what people were saying with the overload of sound.
"Hey, he did it. Steve did it," Sam told her as she shook out her hands and then fixed her icy eyes on his face.
"Well. He may be old, but he certainly doesn't fight like it," Roxi commented, a flicker of amusement flashing through her eyes. It vanished a split-second later, so fast that Sam wasn't sure he'd seen it. He smiled at her for a moment before he realised why he was there.
"The carriers are falling," Roxi's stomach twisted at the word; she still hadn't gotten over the idea of it, "we've got to get out of the building." It took her a moment to realise what Sam had omitted. The helicarriers were falling onto the Triskelion, and if they stayed in here, they'd be crushed or burned alive by the explosion. Any moment, three highly armed helicarriers would smash into the building below. It would be practically impossible to survive. So, they ran. A staggering Rumlow wasn't far behind, and with her fast-paced sprint, Roxi began to outpace both of the men. She waited until she as sure she was far enough in front, before whipping round and bringing her hand up swiftly, causing a huge bump in the metal of the floor that Rumlow tripped over before she continued running. She heard the HYDRA Agent let out a yell, and smirked to herself as she started to gain on Sam again.
She heard it before she saw it. A huge rumbling and loud, low bangs trailed through the air, the engines of the jets whining as they strained to right the huge aircrafts. A moment later, the ships fell onto view. The huge carcasses were so intimidating that Roxi missed an important detail. They were smoking and blazing as they fell through the air, and the sheer size of them was so intimidating that Roxi was very close to stopping where she stood. But there were only two. She could only see two falling. So where was the third? Her question was answered when she glanced over her shoulder to see the grey metal of the last helicarrier smash through the glass of the corridor they were in with so much force that the floor shook.
Pure terror washed over any other emotion that Roxi would've felt, and she sprinted as fast as she could. She didn't really know where she was going; just away. Away from the huge ship smashing into a building that was the headquarters of the world's biggest government shadow organisation. Just a week ago, S.H.I.E.L.D and Nick Fury had seemed untouchable to Roxi, but now, here they were, at the destruction of S.H.I.E.L.D, and they were about to go down with the ship.
"Please tell me you got that chopper in the air!" Sam yelled into the comms as he raced just in front of the cloud of soot, dust and destruction. Roxi was about ten paces in front, her distance gaining slightly with every second.
"Sam, where are you?" Natasha asked urgently through the comms.
"41st floor, Northwest corner!"
"What about Ryder?" She asked again.
"I'm with him," Roxi said back through the comms, arms pumping as she ran and leapt over various obstacles.
"We're on it, stay where you are!"
"Not an option!" Sam parried as the ceiling crashed in behind them. Slightly distracted by the conversation being screamed in her ear, Roxi tripped over a piece of rubble that'd somehow appeared in her path when she wasn't looking, and fell hard to the ground onto thousands of shards of crystalline glass, scattered over the ground like the sand from an hourglass. Their time was running out. Fast. She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could and ran as fast as she could. She knew that the shards had dug into her arm and side, but she didn't have time to think on it as she hurried after Sam, who was only a few paces in front of her, and had run past as she was getting up, with full confidence that she'd be fine. A moment later, they reached the end of the corridor, Roxi still just behind him as the metal tiles were ripped up from under their feet. Sam was the first one to crash through the window into the air and into the freefall. Roxi, a moment behind, was thrown forward, even as she jumped, just a moment after Sam. For a short while, Roxi was falling. There was that word again. The motion created a strange feeling in her stomach, as if it'd been flipped upside down.
A moment later, she saw the helicopter flip onto its side so that Sam fell straight through before Natasha caught him by the hand as he knocked out the door. Roxi carefully positioned herself as she realised that Natasha wouldn't be able to catch her too, and ended up so that when she fell through the helicopter, her stomach and face were facing the floor, and she flung a hand out, pulling a handle from the metal that looped around her fingers safely. It took a moment, but she pulled herself up just as the chopper flipped back into level flight, off of its side.
"41st Floor! 41st!" Sam yelled at Fury, who was piloting. Roxi didn't know how many floors they'd fallen before they reached the aircraft, but it was quite a few. She slammed her back against the leather seat as she sat down, her legs practically giving out form underneath her as she panted for breath.
"It's not like they put the floor numbers on the outside of the building!" Fury called back, taking his eye off the sky. Natasha's eyes slammed onto one of the helicarriers from Roxi, who she'd been watching carefully since the woman entered the helicopter, and asked loudly down the comms
"Hill, where's Steve? You got a location on Rogers?" Roxi's head was still pounding as loud as the propellers above them, and her thoughts had only grown louder from their initial quiet buzz. Blood trickled down her right side from the shards of glass and that whole side of her body seemed numb, but at the same time, a strange kind of buzz made purely of pain that seemed to dumb down everything else she was feeling. That strange, spiking pain lanced through her head again, and she flinched at the feel of it. It wasn't any stronger than the other two had been, but coupled with the already existing pain, exhaustion, and the adrenaline leaving her body, it felt ten times worse. Natasha's eyes fixed on her again as she leant her head back into the leather seats, grabbed a pair of the sound-cancelling headphones and let the the buzzing feelings envelop her body like static - a plain sheet of nothing, and drifted into the depths of her mind.
And for the first time in a while, she relaxed.
{~}
THEY FOUND STEVE a few hours later by the river. He'd been drenched and cold, and he had been shot a few times. Once in the back of his thigh and once in his abdomen. He'd been taken to the hospital, but it left Roxi wondering who'd pulled him out of the river. He was still in the hospital, but Roxi found herself in a room with Nick Fury. They were in a hotel room that Fury had managed to book for the hour somehow. She wasn't looking forwards to the talk the talk they were about to have, but she had to have it with the man. The hotel room was pretty normal for a three star hotel, with a relatively comfy bed, a small desk and a window overlooking the edge of D.C.
"So," He began, sitting down at the desk with his new sunglasses while Roxi sat on the bed behind him, "when exactly did you gain your.. abilities?" Despite the fact that Fury now held no official power over her -a fact that made Roxi slightly uneasy because she wasn't used to it - she couldn't help but feel like she was being interrogated by a superior officer.
"New York," Roxi answered shortly, her hands stuffed in the pockets of Natasha's jacket; she still hadn't given it back. She'd taken her keyring out of her pocket before she threw away her old leather jacket, and in that moment, she was glad that she did, as her fingers found it and traced the worn wood. Fury twisted around in his chair to look at her, his face giving away nothing.
"The battle of?" He checked, and when Roxi nodded, his eyes flashed with an emotion she couldn't decipher.
"And what is it exactly that you can do?" He continued with another question, as if nothing had happened at all.
"I can move and control things, but only if they're made of metal," She answered in short. In all honesty, Roxi wasn't sure what the extent of her powers were, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know. Fury seemed to take a moment to consider the notion for a second, before he asked his final question, leaning forward and looking Roxi straight in the eyes.
"Who else knows?" And for the first time in a while, Roxi wanted to look away.
{~}
NATASHA, WHO'D BEEN at a meeting with the council just a few hours earlier, wasn't there yet. Roxi stood next to Steve and Sam, a hood pulled over her head as her hair, still black from the dye, flowed down to her shoulders. It was getting longer; she'd have to get it cut. She'd started to play with the ends of it. Her icy blue gaze was fixed on a certain spot on the ground, still wearing a familiar leather jacket, coupled with black jeans and a pastel blue top. She still had her gun on her, and the new quarterstaff was strapped into her waistband, which was hidden by her jacket as it hung open. The leaves around them rustled softly, whispering soft secrets to each other that no-one else but them could hear. The green of spring rustled with life around them, which seemed to taunt them strangely as they stood in the graveyard. Fury walked up to them and stood beside them, looking down at the gravestone strangely.
"So, you've experienced this sort of thing before," he commented. The grave was laid with roses and a couple of American flags, sticking hopelessly out of the soil. Both Steve and Sam looked up at the man, but Roxi found herself unable to take her gaze off of it. This situation was so familiar. The name was different, but everything else was virtually the same. The flowers, the trees, the fresh spring breeze that blew on her face; it was too similar. A mixture of emotions flickered across Roxi's face, something that none of them missed but didn't comment on.
"You get used to it," Steve said to Fury as he read the name on the grave. Roxi's face flashed with emotion again before she seemed to refocus on the stone and the name written on it.
'Col. Nicholas J. Fury.' It was strange to see his name set in stone with such formality and finality and yet to see him standing here beside her, and it messed with her head. She frowned slightly as the conversation continued.
"We've been data mining HYDRA's files, looks like a lot of rats didn't go down with the ship," Fury reported, looking at Steve with his hood up and sunglasses lowered onto his face. Steve looked so defeated in that moment, that Roxi felt a twinge of sympathy spike up through the confusing mist that filled her head for the man. Zola was right, in his view. He had died fighting for nothing; he could've spent a life with whoever he wanted, but he didn't get to, because HYDRA happened. And they were still here, still invading his life and messing it up.
"Wanted to ask if you'd come," Fury continued. Roxi assumed he meant come and hunt down the last members of HYDRA and put an end to the organisation once and for all.
"There's something I've gotta do first." Steve denied his offer, and Roxi had little doubt that the 'something' had to do with Bucky.
"How about you, Wilson? We could use a man with your abilities," Nick suggested, showing no surprise at the rejection.
"I'm more of a soldier than a spy," Sam replied. For a moment, Roxi wished that she knew what that felt like. Not being a soldier specifically, but being sure who you were. And then she reminded herself that she didn't need to know who she was, as long as she knew who the people around her were.
"Alright then. And you, Ryder?" All three men's gaze shifted to Roxi, who still had her eyes fixed on the grave. She slid her eyes up to Fury's face and looked him straight back in the eyes.
"I don't think it would be the best idea." Her voice was softer than normal, and so quiet that the wind nearly snatched it away. It surprised Steve how raw her voice sounded, and being able to see the emotions swirling in the woman's icy eyes. Fury seemed to get the hidden message and simply nodded at her. He set a hand on Roxi's shoulder and held his hand out to Sam, who took it, before he repeated the action with Steve, who did the same as Sam. Fury didn't let go straight away, but began to speak, keeping the soldier listening to him.
"If anyone asks, tell them they can find me right here," he instructed, gesturing his head towards the grave. He let go of Steve's hand and turned to Roxi, simply nodding at her once more with a small smile before walking off.
"You should be honoured, that's about as close as he gets to saying thank you." Natasha's voice cut through the slightly chilly air as she strolled towards them through the dappled light. Roxi hung back slightly as Steve went to talk to the redhead, who was dressed in a rather tight-fitting suit, that made the butterflies, which had settled for a little while, leap higher than they ever had before.
"Not going with him?" Steve asked casually, his 6'2 frame making Natasha's 5'5 look tiny. Roxi herself was a few inches taller than the redhead, but Steve still dwarfed her.
"No." Natasha's eyes flickered quickly to Roxi in the background as she answered, her voice so much stronger than it had been a few days ago in Sam's house after the explosion in the secret army bunker.
"Not staying here?" The redhead's gaze moved from one thing to another a fair few times in the space of a couple of sentences as she tried to displace some of the guilt she felt.
"I blew all my covers. I've got to figure out a new one." She explained more calmly. Some guilt about her decision danced in the pit of Natasha's stomach as she watched Roxi over Steve's shoulder. She didn't know how the other woman was making her have so many doubts and worried - this had never happened before. Why was it starting to happen now? An idea struck the redhead, but she dismissed as fast as she thought of it. After all; how was it possible that she liked Roxi?
"That might take a while," Steve reminded her.
"I'm counting on it." More time away meant more time to think over why this was happening and try to put a stop to it.
"That thing you asked for, I called in a few favours from Kiev." She presented the supersoldier with the file he'd asked for, a Russian word printed on the front. Steve took it slowly and looked down at it carefully.
"Will you do me a favour?" Natasha asked, her eyes once again trailing to the woman standing next to Sam, who was now staring at Fury's grave again.
"Look after her," she said in a quieter voice, protection flashing through her eyes before she continued, this time louder, "and Call that nurse." Steve gave her a slightly knowing look and a small nod before responding to the redhead's second statement.
"She's not a nurse."
"And you're not a S.H.I.E.L.D Agent," Natasha countered, smirking slightly.
"What was her name again?" Steve asked with a small smirk of his own and a teasing look in his eye.
"Sharon," she replied, giving him a look that read 'you should know that'.
"She's nice," Natasha continued, contemplating if she was really talking about Sharon. The two looked at each other for a couple of moments, before Natasha stepped forwards and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before starting to walk away.
"Be careful, Steve, you might not want to pull on that thread." She turned her back and began to walk away again, until she realised that she could feel Roxi's gaze on her back, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket in response, turned around one last time and held it up, making eye contact. Ice blue met forest green in a moment of pure understanding, and Roxi nodded as a smile spread over Natasha's lips. And as the redhead turned once again and began her new journey, Roxi felt the lightest she had in months as the butterflies danced inside her. And for the first time in a while, Roxi Ryder smiled.
{A/N:} To be honest, I can't believe I've already finished writing Winter Solider. I'm quite excited to move onto Age of Ultron (It's my favourite Avengers film) to see what I end up doing with it. I'm quite happy with chapter, and it's quite a bit longer than I thought it would be but I'm pretty pleased with it, so let me know what you think. At the moment, I'm thinking of Carbon Knight as the call sign so please let me know what you think. Also thanks to all of you who looked at Point Blank, new chapter will be up on Monday. Have a good weekend,
JabberJay_011
3625 Words
Written: 15 / 10 / 2020
Published: 17 / 10 / 2020